Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [28]
Slocum rubbed his eyes. He was too tired to think straight. All this “what if” was giving him a headache. What he knew for a fact was he had at least a half mile of wide open meadowland to cross and sitting worrying what the sheriff might do accomplished nothing.
He put his heels to his horse and fell into a quick gait to get to the far side where he could disappear once more into the forested area. The deputy’s horse put up something of a fuss, but a constant pull on its reins kept it trailing along without much trouble, though Slocum knew the horse would rear and lash out with its hooves in an effort to break free the instant the pace slackened.
And that was exactly what happened. He slowed as he approached the trees and saw thick undergrowth. The thorny bushes would cut his horses’ legs if he pushed through them. Seeing no way around it, he trotted to the road. Where the road had been straight up to this point, it began winding about through the forest. That would give him a measure of cover—only he realized he had no time to gallop far enough to gain it. The sheriff and a deputy appeared a half mile back, just coming to the far edge of the meadow.
Horse at a dead gallop, he raced along the road, but he had tired out both animals. He released the reins on the deputy’s horse so it could follow its own head and leave a bogus trail. Slocum doubted the sheriff would be fooled. Worse, the sheriff probably knew Wilkinson had nothing to do with slugging the other deputy if he recognized Slocum. A half mile away, possibly taken by surprise, the sheriff might not have gotten a good look at his quarry.
Slocum had to believe he had. Trying to decoy the sheriff and make him believe Wilkinson had attacked the deputy was a spur-of-the-moment plan. He wasn’t any worse off if it didn’t work. But that did nothing to get him out of the sheriff’s tenacious clutches. The man probably considered an escaped prisoner to be a personal affront. If he recaptured Slocum, he could lord it over Wilkinson, too—if he didn’t throw the prison guard in jail for trying to break Slocum out of the Miramar jail.
He took a sharp curve in the road, bent low over his horse, trying to get as much speed as possible. The horse’s strength faded again. Slocum felt the energy leaving the legs even as the huge lungs began to strain for air.
The sudden gunshot caused Slocum to jerk around. His heart jumped when he thought Bernard was close enough to open fire on him. But he saw two men step from the forest, one on either side of the road, rifles to their shoulders. They fired at the pursuing lawmen, not Slocum.
His horse stumbled and almost fell, forcing him to regain control. As he slowed, he saw a man step out from the forest, a rifle in his hands. Slocum went for his six-shooter, then stopped.
“This way if you want to get away,” Procipio Murrieta said, motioning into the woods.
Slocum put heels to his tired horse’s flanks and rocketed in the indicated direction.
8
“You’re the last man I ever expected to see,” Slocum said, dismounting to stand beside Procipio Murrieta. “That’s twice you saved my bacon.”
“That is one dangerous man who follows you,” Murrieta said.
“You don’t have to tell me that. He’s sheriff up in Miramar and about as friendly as a wolf with its fangs stuck in my leg.”
“This I know. He will never stop. Does he know you as a prisoner from San Quentin?”
“Reckon he does,” Slocum said. “Sergeant Wilkinson came by to make sure he knew, but Bernard wouldn’t release me. Wilkinson tried to break me out, but I got away.”
“The sergeant is again returning to San Quentin,” Murrieta said. “The gossip is that he lost his gun and his horse but will not say how.”
“I had both. This filly?” Slocum said, patting the neck of the horse. “That’s his, and I left his pistol beside a third deputy.”
“The other horse you let go free in the woods?” Murrieta laughed heartily. “You are a horse thief, Jarvis.”
“Not my name,” Slocum said. He introduced himself.
“You hide from a bigger prison sentence?