Slocum and the Hellfire Harem (9781101613382) by Jake Logan

up his way, and he fished his brass telescoping spyglass from his saddle bag. He’d bought it off an old Basque sheepherder not long before, and though he’d owned other such devices in the past, this one was of exceptional quality. He vowed to try to hang on to it. At least until he got bushwhacked and robbed again. The thought of the last time that had happened still rankled him.
    Within a minute of scanning the immediate countryside below him, then edging outward with each slow pass of the glass, he was rewarded with sign of what could well prove to be smoke from a campfire. A thin gray haze drizzled upward from a dense patch of trees to the northwest a good three miles below.
    Can’t be Mueller, he thought. Why wouldn’t he be farther ahead? Just because he hadn’t been here before didn’t mean lots of other folks didn’t travel through the region, or better yet, call it home. No, I am probably looking at someone’s stove smoke.
    But he couldn’t afford to ignore it. As he collapsed the brass tube down into itself and reached to stuff it into his saddlebag, he heard a slight sound, and paused. Not moving his head, but scanning the gradual slope behind him. Was someone tailing him? His eyes roved, then he saw it, a jerking, flitting brown-and-black thing—a ground squirrel poked its nose in the air. He smiled at it and at himself for thinking it was tracking him, and made secure the flap on the saddlebag.
    â€œCome on, horse. Enough foolishness.” They picked their way down the northern slope of the ridge, doing their best to keep to the shadows and trees for as long as he was able.
    The farther downslope he traveled, the more convinced Slocum became that he wouldn’t find too many settlers on this side of the ridge. As hospitable and green and promising as the valley to the south had been, this was arid land with only the high-summer promise of growth to offer. But he knew that never lasted long. These lush months soon passed and gave way to cold, blowing snows. And when it did rain, it came in short, harsh bursts that more often than not ran off the caked earth instead of staying and nourishing. So whose smoke had he spied? And was it smoke at all?
    The landscape that spread before him was hilled and pocked with tangles of wind-twisted thickets, stands of mixed-growth trees, and knobs of jagged rock upthrust from already-browned hummocks of sparse grasses gone wispy in the heat and wind.
    He managed to make his way down in relative concealment, and once in the trees, though he was still a long way from where he’d spied the smoke, the horse’s ears pricked forward and Slocum reined up and followed suit, canting his head to the side in an effort to better hear . . . nothing. But the horse’s muzzle quivered, its nostrils working the air. Slocum’s, too. And he was rewarded with the faint but unmistakable tang of wood smoke, carried to him, thankfully, on a light southward breeze.
    He doubted it was Tunk Mueller, but whoever it was might have had dealings with the outlaw, or at least seen him. And hopefully he’d left them unhurt and alive. He urged the Appaloosa forward at a faster walk. They were hidden by a slight rise—he’d take his advantages where he could get them. As he emerged from behind it, he saw a red blur moving behind trees. It looked like a shirt, someone who appeared to be moving in no hurry—puttering about a campsite maybe. He had to get up close without being seen, the red shirt all but convincing him that it was indeed a slow-traveling Mueller. But he had to be sure.
    He ground-tied the Appaloosa well away from his quarry, near a patch of stringy, somewhat green grass. The horse didn’t seem to mind. He set to it with a fervor Slocum himself usually reserved for large meals. Take it where you can, I guess. He shucked his rifle from its sheath and cat-footed around the gray, tumble-down boulders separating him