Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [22]
Or would she? They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and he had no idea what her brother and father had been up to. They had hightailed it from the house in a big hurry once José had returned.
Slocum slogged along, keeping up the pace the best he could. If he flagged, he suspected he would be dragged along and wasn’t sure Bernard would much care about that. The sheriff and two deputies rode some distance ahead, chattering like magpies.
Footsore and about ready to collapse after making it through a low pass and to a level spot where he could see the Pacific Ocean, Slocum considered trying to engage the deputy so intent on keeping him moving in some conversation. The more he found out, the more improved were his chances of getting away.
It would be better if he could talk his way out of whatever the sheriff thought he had done.
“What town’s that? Down on the coast?”
“Miramar,” the deputy answered before he realized he wasn’t supposed to talk to the prisoner. “Shut up. No yammering.”
“Whatever you think I did, I didn’t. Never been to Miramar. Didn’t even know the name.” Slocum slipped and slid down the steep road, pebbles causing him to stumble repeatedly.
“Shut up.”
Slocum found it almost impossible to talk and keep up when the rider put his heels to his horse’s flanks and picked up the pace. By the time they arrived at the tiny jail on the outskirts of town, Slocum was half past dead.
“Inside,” the deputy ordered. He jerked hard on the rope, and Slocum fell facedown in the dirt.
“None of that, Jess,” the sheriff warned. “We want him presentable when he goes up in front of the judge.”
“Damned stinkin’ bank robber.”
“Bank robber?” Slocum looked up in wonder. “I haven’t robbed any bank. Why do you think I have?”
“Witness. She saw you galloping like the wind, carrying the canvas bank bag filled with the gold coins.”
“She?” Slocum knew who this witness was.
“On the road not a couple miles from where we nabbed you. Right pretty young thing, she was.”
“If I was riding, where’s the horse? Where’s the money?”
“Now, those are matters we’re going to determine,” Bernard said. “Get him inside, boys.”
Strong hands dragged Slocum into the jail, his toes dragging in the dirt. They threw him into one of two cells before removing the shackles on his wrists. He rubbed where the iron had chafed the skin raw and bloody. He hardly winced when the sheriff slammed the cell door with a loud clang and turned the key in the lock.
“Find the money,” Bernard ordered his posse. “He musta hid it somewhere along the road. It wasn’t more ’n a mile or two between where we caught him and the spot where the girl saw him.”
“She was a real looker, even if she was a Mexican,” said a deputy.
“Git your worthless asses out there and find the money. Hez Galworthy’ll have a conniption fit if you don’t.”
“Think he’ll give us a reward if we find the money?”
“Hez is like most bankers. Tighter ’n a snake’s asshole when it comes to money, but he just might. Now git!”
The deputies left. The sheriff heaved a sigh and sank down behind his desk. It had been positioned so he could stare into the cells, leaving his back to the doorway.
“Tell me about the robbery,” Slocum said. “How many men robbed Galworthy?”
“You know, it might just be that something different ’n I thought happened out there on the road. There were two of you. Might be you had a falling-out. Your partner take the money and your horse? You might as well come clean, especially if he double-crossed you. What do you owe him anyway?”
Slocum considered his options. He might confess to being a bank robber just to implicate José Valenzuela. He had no doubt at all that José had been the robber, and that his sister had been the one who had put the posse on Slocum’s tail. But