Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [35]
Maria came in and demanded, “Go! You have no right!”
Slocum saw his boot prints in the center of the table. If the sheriff saw them, he would know in a flash where his escaped prisoner had gone.
“I want that son of a bitch back in the lockup. Excuse my language, ma’am.”
Maria moved and perched on the edge of the table to keep Bernard from seeing the betraying footprints.
“You must do your duty. But you will not find this man in our village,” she said hotly. “We are honest people.”
Bernard pursed his lips and nodded, turned, and left. He joined his posse searching the other houses. When he was finished, he mounted. Slocum had to press himself flat since the low roof was almost at the sheriff’s eye level.
“If you see any suspicious strangers, you let me know, you hear?”
“The only suspicious ones are in front of me now,” Murrieta said.
“Don’t get too cocky. Might just be Sergeant Wilkinson can find himself an escapee or two if he pokes around here.”
With that threat, Bernard led his posse from the town. Slocum waited until the sun sank lower and he wouldn’t be so obvious, then went to the edge of the roof and jumped to the ground. He landed hard and stayed in a crouch. At the far side of the bean field he caught sight of someone astride a horse, watching.
“It is nothing,” Murrieta said. “I do not know who that is. Some woman. Not one of the posse.”
As Slocum stood, the rider vanished. For a brief moment, she was caught in the dying sunlight. Conchita Valenzuela.
He picked up the crumpled sheet Murrieta had discarded, unwrinkled it the best he could, and read the carefully written words. He had seen such handwriting before. It was Conchita’s.
“If we’re going to free Atencio, we have to do it fast,” Slocum said. The longer he remained in this village, the more time Conchita and José had to think of ways to bring the law down on his head. Eventually Wilkinson or others from San Quentin would arrive. When that happened, Murrieta would be at risk, too.
Slocum looked down the road where Bernard had ridden off and shook his head. Bernard knew Murrieta was an escaped prisoner from San Quentin. But he cared only for the one man who had gotten away from his own jail in Miramar. How long this disregard for other lawmen could go on, Slocum didn’t know.
“We have to get Atencio out real fast.”
10
“He will rob us. He is that kind of man,” Procipio Murrieta said in disgust.
Slocum had no other plan.
“If the banker doesn’t drop the charges and fess up how he lied, Atencio doesn’t have much of a chance,” Slocum pointed out. “We ransom him. The banker is greedy, if you’ve read him a’right.”
“I have. Nothing makes his eyes glow more than the sight of gold. Bars, coins, he does not care. Even worthless paper money makes him pant like a rabid dog.”
Slocum had to laugh at that. It could have been the description of any banker. He sobered as he considered how he had to get the money stolen from the Miramar bank. He had to rob José, Conchita, and their father. For all he knew, they had spent the money quickly rather than hiding it, but somehow he didn’t think Conchita was the kind to let her brother or any other man squander a stack of coins.
“We might have to use the lawyer as a go-between. The banker is mighty intent on seeing me arrested for the theft, and he might think I’d had a change of heart.”
“It does not seem fair, stealing this money and then giving it back to a man like Galworthy,” Murrieta said. “But if it is the only way to free Atencio before his execution, then this is what we must do.”
Slocum understood the situation fully. Giving up money, if he recovered it from the Valenzuelas, rankled him as much as it did Murrieta. Maybe for a different reason. He would keep it for his trouble, for all Conchita and her family had put him through. The time in San Quentin had to be paid for somehow. But Murrieta undoubtedly thought it was a shame returning money to a man he loathed. Galworthy would foreclose on their farms in a heartbeat and cared little for how he got the stolen money back.
“What’s your lawyer