Chapter Five

One hand holding a cup filled to the brim with coffee, the other hanging onto a cool rag, Rogue Ferris wasn't surprised which hand was emptied first. "I sent Gardner to fetch the Laramie law."

Coffee going down with a gulp, Jess nodded. "Thanks. And thanks for the hot cup, too. But what I really need is a horse."

"Got plenty in the barn, but I reckon you oughta wait 'til morning to ride."

"I can't. Slim could be out there somewhere, just as hurt as I am. Maybe worse."

Ferris gave his head a sorry shake. "You sure it's your friend you're worrying over, or getting after those hard cases?"

"Slim first, then the no-goods that did this."

Giving Jess' cup a refill, he smiled. "Still oughta wait 'til morning. Sheriff should be here by then if he rides all night. 'Sides, you ain't even sure if Sherman's coach was knocked over like yours was."

"No. But I reckon if I guess hard enough, I'll hit it right. Nobody's gonna take half when they could have it all."

"I suppose." Ferris shrugged, putting one more trickle in Jess' cup to top off what had just gone down his throat. "You should sleep, Harper. My missus is making up the extra bed for you."

"That's right kind of her. But I ain't likely to take it."

"Oh, you might as well. What with your head stove-in, you'll be better off under the covers than outta them. Besides, there's a wind coming up. Doubt it'll storm what with so many stars out, but the more it blows, the more it'll peel away your already scuffed up hide."

"I've already lost enough that some more blood draining out won't bother me none."

"That's no way to be, Harper. Come on, I'll show you to the room so you can sleep as soundly as I'm betting you will."

Sloshing another dose to the back of his throat, Jess caught the man's hard stare and narrowed his eyes right back at him. It was true he had just met Ferris, but something seemed off about him. His tongue getting a taste of what sat on his lips, Jess suddenly remembered a different cup of coffee that had been spiked with laudanum. Was it just his imagination, or was his mouth tingling with something stronger than the memory?

Eyelashes suddenly drooping, Jess spit whatever was in his mouth back in the cup. "What'd you do, put some venom in this stuff so I'd start to nod off? That's it, ain't it? That's why you won't stop looking at me, waiting for me to keel over. Well, mister, it ain't gonna happen!"

"I don't get it, Harper. I'm just inviting you for the night. Whatever'd make you think that I'm…?"

Ferris would never finish the question. Rearing his arm as if going for the hardest jaw in a barroom brawl, Jess flung the cup across the room and then with a wicked curl of his lips, Jess watched the dark liquid and glass cascade down the wall.

"There went drugging me to sleep, huh?"

Arms in a fold across his chest, Ferris slowly shook his head. "Geneva, need a mop."

If Jess ever needed a slap across his face, or a swift kick in his rear, whichever would be offered first to wake him up to the full light of day even while the darkness of night was all around him, it was now. Seeing Mrs. Ferris, fairly rounded at the middle with child and bent over his mess, Jess felt both top and bottom assault.

Face flushed, Jess quickly took the mop and soapy pail in hand. "I'll do it, Ma'am."

"It's no problem," she said, trying to smile.

"Yes it is. And since I made it, I'll clean it up." Mop running over the entire floor more than once, Jess then dropped the broken glass in a trashcan, ending his embarrassing cringe by wiping the bit of leftover liquid on the seat of his pants. "I'm sorry, Ferris. I shouldn't've gone off like that. I know you ain't gonna drug me. You might clop me over the head from how I acted, though. I reckon I deserve it right about now."

"You don't have to apologize, Harper. I understand why your mind's in such a fix. That was a mighty responsibility you and those other fella's were carrying. And now it's gone."

Jess shook his head. "The responsibility ain't gone, it's just changed courses a bit. Now, as long as you don't think I'm plumb loco after that display, I'd like one of those horses. I gotta go look for Slim and then depending on what I find, take off after the ones that did this."

His eyes did narrow, but not so much that he was trying to see if there was any lunacy underneath the caked blood around Jess' temple. "You sure your head's up to it?"

Jess gave it a tap. "I'm sure."

"All right. You'll find all the gear you need in the barn. Oh, and there'll be no need for you to look over every stall out there. Take the big black up front. He's my personal mount, strong and fast. Name's Hotshot. I reckon you two'll go good together."

"That we will. I'm much obliged."

From the moment the horse was out of the barn, Jess rode hard for the relay station across the high country, stopping only long enough between hilltops for the black sides to stop heaving. At every pause, Jess' lungs worked in and out at the same speed, but he wouldn't even try to let his chest relax, not until he found what he was looking for.

"And it better be Slim, whole and upright," Jess said to the horse, giving the animal a pat when the waterhole was done being used.

Spurs in action, Jess let some of the leather increase their pace and then laid low over the horse's neck. The last ten miles seemed to go by in such a hurry that Jess didn't even notice their passing until he was on the ridge above Stony's place. The horse sensing a longer stop ahead, Jess didn't have to encourage Hotshot to kick up another round of dust as they hurried to the corral. Jess' legs would do their own churning of the ground beneath him as he raced toward the ivy-covered porch rails.

"Stony!" Jess shouted, making a lamp go bright a second later. "It's Jess Harper! Open up!"

A gun poking through the crack in the door, a nose barely did the same. "That really you, Jess? I was expecting Slim hours ago."

"Yeah it's me. And I reckon you just answered what I came for. Slim didn't make it here, did he?"

"No. I was gonna send my crew out in the morning."

"Morning's gonna be too late. I'm heading back out right now."

"Wait, Jess."

Foot stuck in the stirrup, Jess' head turned toward Stony's silhouette. "For what?"

"Did they get it?"

He swallowed the rock of dread, which also equaled the size and shape of truth, and then swung into the saddle. "I reckon by now, they've got all of it."

And maybe Slim's life went along with it.

.:.

Sunbeams hitting his back should have been a welcome feeling. Fear made the chills run even harder down Jess' spine than when the stars were his only light. He had yet to find Slim or even a sign of the stagecoach. Even the wheel marks were gone. He could blame the wind for that. Of all the times for a blamed northerly to stir up and it had to choose the hours between midnight and dawn to scrape the ground clean.

But if nature thought it was going to get Jess Harper to give up, it was wrong.

Giving a hard toss of the reins, Jess turned his mount to travel the same stretch of road again. He abruptly held Hotshot still.

"Jess!"

His heart should have given him an excited thump seeing Laramie's lawman approaching his position, but when there was another man riding with him, the only thump Jess' chest would receive was one of alarm. Mr. Winslow looked as if he had taken a bellyful of sour pickles. But then as he pulled up along Jess' mount, Winslow showed his real emotion as the green gills suddenly turned to beets.

"Jess," said Mort a second time, the volume changed, but just as serious. Maybe even more so.

"Glad you're here, Mort. You can help me look for Slim. I've been up and down the road twice and haven't seen a thing."

"Get off your horse, Harper."

Bristles appearing out of nowhere on his hide, Jess stared at the vice president. "What?"

The gun draw was his first response. The second was its quivering point to Jess' chest. "You heard me. Get down. And raise your hands while you're doing it."

Jess flicked his eyes to Mort. "What's going on?"

"Do what he says, Jess."

He hopped out of the saddle, but Jess' hands didn't raise one inch. "I don't understand. All we're doing standing here is wasting time. We gotta look for Slim."

"I'm sure you know where he is," Winslow said, the sneer so sharp, his tongue could have cut Jess up more than if he let every bullet fly. "And the money, too."

Jess felt like he only knew one word, but instead of keeping the repeat clamped behind closed lips, Jess had to release it at least one more time. "What?"

His rant taking him forward, Winslow would have gone all the way to expel the heat in Jess' face if Mort's arm didn't crash into his chest, holding him back. "Let me go, Cory!"

"If we're going to do this, we'll be doing it peaceable. Put your gun away."

"Whatever this is ain't gonna be peaceable at all if we don't head out and look for Slim."

"There you have it, Cory. A threat."

"Yeah, and I'll take it further if you don't tell me what this is all about!"

"As if you don't already know," Winslow answered, pounding his finger into Jess' chest. At least he let go of the gun, otherwise it might have been the tip of a pistol giving Jess a wallop. "I should've never trusted you. A man with a record, no less, and I put fifty thousand dollars underneath him!"

Both hands finally on the rise, Jess gave them a defensive wave. "Wait a dadgummed minute. You ain't blaming me for the robbery."

"Why not? Of all the Overland employees, only you knew where the money was hidden ahead of time! You and Sherman, that is. And now it's gone. All one hundred thousand dollars. Gone!"

"I didn't have anything to do with this. Neither did Slim, and you're a fool if you think otherwise."

"Don't call me names, Harper. But if you really want to play that kind of game, I'll oblige. You're crazy if you think you're going to lie your way out of this. Now you start talking straight!"

"I have been. It's you that's been listening with crooked ears."

"Go ahead, Jess," Mort said, finally getting the blue sparks to pull away from Winslow and land on him. "Tell it out. I'm listening straight enough for the both of us."

"I dunno what happened to Slim's coach, but mine was hit by more than one rifle. We fought for it. I fought for it. I almost died for it."

"Oh, sure. Make yourself into a hero. Well, I know better!"

Jess' thumb swung toward his temple. "How do you think I got this knock on my head?"

"It's a trick, that's what I think. Likely you just took a dive off the coach to make it look like you got scraped up."

"That does it!" Left hand digging into the vice president's collar, Jess firmed his right for the punch.

"Hold it, Jess!" Grabbing Jess' arm, he held tight, but even Mort was surprised that Jess didn't immediately wrench it out of his clasp. He and his anger were definitely strong enough. "Back up a little, will you?"

Jess barely obliged with a short step backward. "Mort, you ain't gonna make him keep flapping his jaw over a bunch of nonsense, are you?"

"I have to hear him out, Jess. Same as I'll give you a chance to tell all that's on your side."

Face as scrunched as his shirt, Winslow brushed at his collar. "Well, Harper can tell you all about it in jail. Arrest him, Sheriff."

"But Mr. Winslow," Mort answered with a frown. "I don't think now's the time."

"You don't, huh? Well, let's see. When would've been a better time, when Harper was stuffing the money down his pants?"

"Easy, Jess," Mort said, feeling the heat of a seething bull against his neck. "And you too, Winslow. Ease off. This is a job for the law, not an outraged citizen."

"I'm not just a citizen, Cory, I'm a victim! And I accuse Harper one hundred percent, so you better arrest him. Right now!"

"I need to be presented with some solid evidence before I can make that call. As of this moment I don't see enough to make a case against Jess, or Slim for that matter."

"You don't? Well, I do. Here's the first and foremost. The money's gone. All of it. And here's the next piece, maybe even bigger than number one. Jess Harper has a record. But he isn't just a man with a past, he's best friends with Slim Sherman. That tells me they're in cahoots together. What says it even louder than my voice can carry is the fact that they were the only two that knew where the money was hidden! If that isn't evidence enough to get them locked away for good, I don't know what is!"

"But Mr. Winslow, I can't do that. Jess is my…"

"I don't care if he's your friend. He was also my employee, which brings us to a valid point, Harper. You were my employee. You're fired."

"I didn't figure on getting no Christmas bonus."

"Listen to him, Cory. Only an outlaw's tongue would sass like that. I want him jailed! Do you hear me? Jailed!"

Sighing, Mort gave his head a slow shake. "I'm sorry, Jess. But it looks like I have no other choice."

"You do have another choice! You can stop listening to this blamed nonsense and get back on your horse and help me find Slim."

"Jess, the complaint's been made. I have no other choice but to lock you up."

"Mort, you can't mean that!"

"Jess, I have to," he said, proving his words by pulling the silver bracelets away from his belt.

"Mort!"

"Turn around, Jess. I promise I won't put the handcuffs tight."

Holding his head high, Winslow fixed his face into a tight smug. "All right, Sheriff. Now that you have your prisoner, I'll be getting back to town. And if I don't see Harper and Sherman behind bars before nightfall, the territorial marshal will be hearing all about how incompetent the Laramie law is."

The sound of the horse's hooves couldn't drown out the whoosh of air through Mort's lips. "In all these years, I've never seen that side of him before."

"Likely he was just waiting for the right moment to blow up," Jess said, watching the man disappear around the bend. "Well, now that he's gone, I reckon we can have some real words instead of whatever hogwash he was serving."

Not yet willing to give them a lock, Mort let the handcuffs dangle from his thumb. "Not right now, Jess."

"You're right. We've wasted too much time as it is. Let's go, Mort. I've gotta sneaky suspicion I ain't been looking in the right place."

"Jess."

Hands on the pommel, Jess slowly turned his head. "What now?"

"I meant what I said to Winslow. You're under arrest."

Jess puffed his nose, a sure sign of the steam that was bottled up inside and ready to explode. "You ain't locking me anywhere until I know where Slim is."

"I have a posse out, Jess. They'll comb every trail ever made."

"That ain't good enough. I've gotta be the one going, Mort. Not a posse with pretend badges on their chests. Me!"

"Jess, what am I supposed to do? You heard Winslow's complaint."

"And do you believe it?"

Mort stared ahead of him to a group of trees that he really wasn't seeing. He did have an answer, but he was hoping silence would fit in its place for now. He should have known that Jess wouldn't have it that way.

"Well?" asked Jess as if he had ground it out through his teeth.

"No, Jess. I don't believe it. But I have to enforce the law, whether it's how I see it or not. Come on. Let's go."

Jess slapped the hand away from his arm, and as it was so close, the temptation was too strong to keep Jess' fingers from not going further, all the way to grabbing Mort's six-gun out of his holster. "I won't. Either you let me go look for Slim or I'll…"

Tongue going silent at the drop of the hammer, Mort narrowed his gaze to match the slits of the penetrating blue. "You'll what, Jess? If you shoot me, then you'll be just as guilty as Winslow says you are. You might as well put it up right now, because I know you won't pull the trigger. Even if all you're thinking about is to knick me in the arm or leg, you won't go through with it. You're too good of a friend. You're too good of a man."

"I ain't letting go," Jess said as he flexed his fingers around the gun handle. "I don't know how far I'll take this. But I'll do what I have to because I ain't getting hauled off to jail. Not until I find Slim."

"Jess, please…"

"No amount of begging's gonna make me change my mind. But I'll make you a promise. You can do whatever you want to my hide after, but we're finding Slim first. Got it?"

"All right, Jess. I'll relent. But you're still under arrest, so why don't you just give me the gun so I don't have to wonder about what you're going to do with it?"

He shook his head, but Jess also pushed the hammer back to its place of safety. "Sorry, Mort. But I'll be keeping it."

Mort sighed as he watched Jess tuck his pistol into his beltline. "Let's go."

Jess started to wonder if his method of attacking the road had been a mistake. With Mort's more level head alongside of him, they were taking every corner at a much easier pace. It was when they slowed even further to pass through a narrower stretch that the horse underneath Jess was given a full stop.

"Right there. I missed it last night while thundering through here in the dark. Looks like the wind played with the tracks quite a bit, but couldn't sweep out the marks through the ditch where it's softer. Tex musta pulled the coach off the road when they started shooting. Look, there's even a coupla shell casings beside that rock there."

"I think you're right, Jess. But what kind of ground is this? Definitely nothing to be taking a team and wheels over."

"When you've got several lives in your hands and a pile of loot in your care, you don't think about any ground other than the burying kind. Besides, there's a mine somewhere up there. Tex probably knew about it and was heading for its path."

Jess was right, except there was no way for him to know that it had been Slim giving the team his heaviest command to run the precarious race toward the road that swung toward the Grayline mine. And there was something else that Jess had no way of knowing. Who was buried there, and who wasn't.

The wreckage severe, Jess didn't know he had been holding his breath until the shock was forced through his teeth. "Dadgum."

"Looks as if someone survived."

Jess couldn't nod, couldn't do anything but stare at the mounds, all in an even row in front of the overturned stagecoach. "There's five graves."

"I wonder which one's left."

"Someone who ain't in very good shape himself. Look at all this blood here in the rocks. I know it's from the man that survived, 'cause I can see where he musta rolled over and then got up. No one about to chisel his tombstone's gonna be able rise like that."

"Might be lame, though. See the way the dirt's been dug in, like all his weight's on one foot."

"Well if he can't walk, how come he ain't here?"

"I don't know," Mort answered as he slowly turned around. "Where's this mine you were talking about?"

Jess gave a point. "Up there. I ain't right sure to pinpoint it, as I only rode past once. Got chased out by a feisty old fella's shotgun."

"Maybe that's part of our answer, Jess."

"What is?"

"The feisty old fellow. If he was home when the shooting started, maybe he came on down to investigate."

"Could be. Whoever survived this wreck sure didn't make it to Stony's. The only other place for help's up there."

Mort nodded. "I sure hope we find him."

"Yeah," Jess answered, but it was almost too quiet to hear, for the other voice that remained inside of Jess' mind, the one screaming everything related to fear, was drowning everything else out.

What would Jess do if the survivor wasn't Slim?

It was as if Jess saw nothing but the row of graves until he came in sight of the dark hole in the mountainside. Maybe his blue could only create the real scene in front of him because there was a threat of its own sinister caliber right there. Although the threat back there could be even more significant, when Slim could belong to one of the graves.

Narrowing his eyes to see into the darkness, Jess tugged on the reins. "Hold it, Mort. There's a shotgun's nose right along the mine's opening."

"Let me have my gun."

"No."

"I'm wearing the badge."

"So? I'm wearing the gun."

Sighing, Mort dismounted and hurried for shelter lest a trigger was about to get squeezed. "Then you do the shooting and I'll do the talking. But talk comes first."

"Dadgum."

Peering around a boulder, Mort saw that the shotgun's eye had scurried right along with them. "What's feisty's name?"

"Dunno. Gray, maybe, for the Grayline mine?"

"I'll try it," Mort said, switching his whisper for a shout. "Gray! This is Mort Cory, Laramie sheriff. Let that gun swing down, I'd like to talk with you."

"Mort? That you?"

The sound of the familiar voice rushed so hard through Jess' ears that it immediately reached his veins, giving a burst in the middle of his chest. "Slim!"

"Jess?" Hobbling to the mine's opening, Slim slid his body alongside the support beams and then leaned against its solid frame. "Oh, Jess! It is you! Thank God that your stage wasn't wrecked too."

Seeing the miner's gun lose its aim for blood, Jess walked toward his partner's position. "But it was."

"You're alive, though."

"Yeah, so are you."

Wincing, Slim put his hand to his head. "Not by much. My ankle's broken, and likely a rib or two's just as beat up."

"Dadgum," Jess said, giving his partner's side a gentle squeeze. "You really got tossed about. Good to see you on this side of the grave, though."

"Same here, Pard. I admit I expected it, worrying throughout the night."

"I reckon I had a coupla worries of my own." Jess smiled, but its fade was so abrupt, no one there was certain the glimmer had ever existed. "Nine others ain't so lucky."

"Nine? But there was only five." Slim's eyelids suddenly took a hard crash. "Oh. Four of your men are gone, too."

"Yeah. Kelly's gonna make it. He's at Ferris' place to mend up awhile."

His sigh brought his lashes up, seeking the familiar sparks of blue. "See any of the ones who did it?"

"No. You?"

"No."

"It's all gone?"

"Every penny of it," Jess answered, suddenly unable to look at anything but the ground.

"What's the matter, Jess? Oh, I know, you feel like you failed. So do I, but there's no point going so low you're dragging your carcass through the dirt."

"But there is, Slim. Reason for me to be so low, that is."

He peeled his eyes away from Jess to look at Mort, and the severity that met him there, Slim had to immediately return his gaze to Jess. "What is it?"

His hand dropping, the natural reflex took his fingers to where Mort's gun sat. Knowing it needed to be surrendered, Jess squeezed the handle and then pulled it free. He had to give it up. And he had to tell Slim. He might as well play the part in unison.

Fingers around the barrel, Jess put the handle in Mort's open palm. "I'm under arrest, Slim. You can take me in now, Mort. I'll keep my word."

Broken ankle nearly forgotten, Slim pulled away from the mine's security. "What?"

"Mr. Winslow thinks I'm responsible for the crash, the money being gone, everything."

"That's loco talk!"

Jess spread his arms wide. "How about that? I said as much as the same to Winslow's deaf ears. But the locoweed goes farther than me, Slim. It ain't just me that he blames. He wants you behind the same set of bars."

Now Slim was beginning to understand the expression on the sheriff's face, a man that was almost as close a friend as Jess. Well, almost understand. "Mort?"

"It's true, Slim. I'm sorry, but I'll have to take you both in."

"For how long?"

"As short as I can make it."

"Not according to Winslow," Jess said, the solemn emotion hitting him in the chest, hitting everyone with the same force. "Then it'll be forever. The tombstone kind."