Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [39]
“You sure he’s headed this way?” Sheriff Bernard asked.
“I saw him,” Conchita Valenzuela said. “He is a dangerous man. You are sure you will be safe, Sheriff?”
“Got a couple boys riding with me,” Bernard said. “A gunshot and they’ll come running.”
“You would not want that shot to be through your heart. He is a robber and a killer. You can see it in his eyes.”
“Might be you can. I gotta go with what I read about him. This here Jasper Jarvis doesn’t look to be all that dangerous.”
They continued arguing over how dangerous he—Jarvis—was as Slocum veered away through the woods. Tracking the fleeing outlaws meant less to him right now than avoiding the law. He had no reason to shoot it out with the sheriff or his posse but would if it came to that. He wasn’t going to stand trial for a bank robbery he didn’t commit, and he sure as hell wasn’t going back to San Quentin.
He began curving in a wide arc to take him back toward the road but slowed when he heard horses behind him. Several horses. He didn’t think the sheriff was behind him but the rest of the posse still rattled around nearby.
“There he is! I see the varmint!”
Slocum put his head down and raked his horse’s flanks with his heels to rocket forward. Tree limbs slashed at him, and bloody scratches exploded on his arms, face, and body as he rode hard for daylight.
From their hoots and hollers, Slocum knew the riders were closing the gap and bearing down on him. He rode faster, cursing his bad luck—and that lying bitch Conchita Valenzuela.
11
“There he is, boys. Git ’im!”
Another branch lashed Slocum across the face, almost knocking him from his horse. He half turned and chanced a quick look behind. He saw the dun and paint coats of two horses flashing through the trees. He hugged his own horse’s neck and guided it at an angle away from the line where he had been riding so frantically. Gradually slowing his breakneck pace allowed him to hear the deputies in the woods complaining about having lost his trail. Slocum finally brought his horse to a halt. Its sides heaved as lather formed.
He had pushed the horse to its limit then realized how close he was to his own. Sweat drenched his shirt and vest. His coat clung fiercely to his body, glued in place by both sweat and blood. With deliberate slowness, he turned his horse along his back trail and waited to see if the posse would find him.
Their sounds faded away. They had kept riding toward the road—his original destination until he had realized how difficult it would have been to outrun them. Once he had burst from the trees, he would have been exposed for almost a quarter mile. Even the feckless deputies could have spotted him.
Once his horse had rested, he gingerly guided it back into the woods, cutting through on a path that should have taken him across the Valenzuelas’ tracks. He had gold to find. And maybe two outlaws to kill. Slocum had ridden less than a half mile when he heard voices again.
“. . . my men went tearing off like hounds after a rabbit. Since they haven’t returned, I’d better go find them,” Sheriff Bernard said.
“They are lost?” Conchita spoke with a mixture of caring undercut with derision. Slocum didn’t have to see her lovely face to know her lip was upturned in a sneer. She thought little of the deputies’ ability. For all that, Slocum wasn’t too impressed either. They had almost caught him, but it had been his own damn-fool eagerness to find José and his father that’d been responsible. Nothing the deputies had done counted as cleverness or skill on their part.
But Slocum had a modicum of respect for Sheriff Bernard. The man was astute enough to know he had to keep after Slocum, even if he thought his name was Jasper Jarvis. More than this, Slocum admired the way Bernard had stood up to Sergeant Wilkinson. The prison guard was a formidable opponent and an imposing figure. Bernard hadn’t batted an eye telling him when he caught Jarvis he’d stand trial for bank robbery. Only then could San Quentin claim his suspect.
Slocum came to the edge of a clearing. Not fifty feet away Conchita