Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [32]
“You are so good,” she said in a shaky voice. “I knew it would be like this.”
Before Slocum could answer, he heard Murrieta outside arguing with someone. He quickly buttoned up and turned as the alcalde came back into the small house.
Murrieta looked at him and Maria curiously but did not show any displeasure. From his distracted expression, he might still be settling some dispute all the way across the village. Slocum was glad for that because he found Maria’s presence equally distracting.
She had spun about and landed on her feet on the opposite side of the table.
“They can never settle their own feuds,” Murrieta said in disgust. “I do not know why I do this, this judging so others can lead peaceful lives. All it brings to me is trouble.”
“But some trouble is worthwhile,” Maria said. Her response might have been to Murrieta’s woes, but Slocum knew she directed it to him.
“If it doesn’t get you killed,” Slocum said, “it might be worth it.”
“It won’t,” Maria mouthed.
Slocum wasn’t sure he believed her.
9
“The banker Galworthy is responsible for our woes,” Procipio Murrieta said. “I care little that Valenzuela stole from the bank. He only beat me to it!”
“You ought to care, and not because the vault is empty. If the banker gets his dander up, he’s likely to come after your property. You said you hadn’t made the mortgage payments for a spell,” Slocum pointed out.
“The crops are meager,” Murrieta said, shrugging in resignation. “We do what we can but must have more water. We survive—barely. The times I am sent to prison do not help either. The entire village suffers.”
Slocum looked from the man to Maria, who stood in the doorway. The afternoon sun lit her like an actress on a stage. Slocum listened to Murrieta with half an ear, his thoughts more on Maria and their brief time together. He thought he had learned his lesson with Conchita but now wasn’t so sure. Maria was different—except she wanted something from him, too. She had mentioned the man in San Quentin put there by the banker, who now would be coming after others in this sleepy town with no name.
Slocum had a horse, he had his freedom, and if he had half a brain, he would leave when Murrieta and the others went to sleep that night. From everything he had seen, the village was less a farming community than an armed camp. Somehow he had left the company of bank robbers and thieves and now found himself amid rebels with Murrieta the leader of a peasant revolt. This wasn’t his fight, no matter what payment Maria so willingly offered.
Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was gorgeous.
“. . . put into prison as a warning for us. Do not fight, that is the message.”
“Prison?” Slocum’s attention snapped back to what the alcalde was saying.
“Atencio is scheduled to be hanged. The banker railroaded him. Atencio is no more guilty than any of us, but Galworthy chose him as an example.”
“Galworthy’s the banker,” Slocum said, piecing together the snippets he remembered hearing. He had to leave before he got himself involved to the point where he could never dig out. “What is Atencio supposed to have done?”
“Horse stealing, robbery, many other things I do not understand.”
“He had a trial?”
Murrieta threw up his hands, then slammed them palms down on the table.
“If you call it a trial. The judge refused to let Atencio’s lawyer say a word.”
“So he had a lawyer? How’d you pay for him?”
“He took the case for nothing. Por nada. And that is what came of it.”
“Never heard of a lawyer doing such a thing,” Slocum said. His experience with lawyers showed them to be greedy bastards. Maybe this one was so inept he would take any case.
“He has political ambitions. He said so. He comes here to tell us how he fought for Atencio, how we need to change the laws and he is the one to do so if we vote for him.”
Slocum wondered if the lawyer had tried very hard to free his client. Not only wasn’t there money on the table, but a loss set him up to garner votes