The E. Hoffmann Price Spice Adventure MEGAPACK ™

by Price, E. Hoffmann

  “Huh. He’s the gent that thinks he’ll marry you!”

  * * * *

  It was dawn when Anne said, “Simon, you better go back to your room, folks might start talking.”

  He wrote a letter, telling Elma he was not going to Skull Gulch; but he did not tell her what his destination was. No woman was going to herd him around.…

  When the following stage brought Grimes and Anne to Broken Axe, the town turned out. The marshal and half a dozen cowpunchers surrounded Grimes and Anne, demanding a first-hand account of the vain but valiant defense of the coach. Anne’s father, Jim Parsell, joined the crowd. He was a tall, ruddy man with a blond mustache. He wore boots and store clothes and a battered Stetson jammed down on shaggy white hair.

  “Simon,” he said, “I done heard all about it, and I’d sure like to have you be chief counsel for this here bank.”

  Grimes answered, “If it’s jest the same to you, suh, I’m plumb sick of law and I’d ruther work in the New Golconda mine.”

  Anne said, “Dad, why don’t you ask Brand, Simon was defending his interest, too. It was bank money.”

  “Well, I reckon I could, if Simon insists.”

  And then a dark man with a close-cropped mustache came up. His thumbs were hooked in his green satin vest; a good looking fellow, except for his gimlet eyes and too-hearty smile.

  Anne said, “Hello, Brand, Dad and I would like for you to give Simon a job in your mine.”

  Brand Thorman cocked his head and eyed Grimes from dusty boots to bullet-riddled hat. “So you’re Simon Bolivar Grimes, the Texas gunslick, eh? Nice work, smoking out two road agents.”

  “Huh? What’s that?” Grimes scowled; he didn’t like the man. “I ain’t no gunslick.”

  Thorman chuckled. “No offense, Simon, no offense. And I’m sorry, but I don’t need any more miners, I’ve got plenty.” He lifted his hat, “Goodbye, Anne.”

  Grimes watched him mount up the slim-legged palomino in front of the Thorman House Bar. Then Anne’s father said, “Simon, let’s liquor up a bit and see if I can talk you into working for me.”

  Anne cut in, “I wish you could persuade him, dad.”

  Though Grimes stepped into the Thorman House Bar, he was still determined not to have any woman herd him around.

  After two or three quick ones, he said, “Lookee here, Mistah Parsell, you got to get me into that mine, I’m plumb set on mining, I allus craved to learn the business.” He omitted any mention of his plans for pocketing nuggets; he sensed that rugged Jim Parsell would have the same childish ideas that Anne had. “Though mebbe I ought to help the sheriff run down them robbers that ruined my grandpappy’s watch.”

  Jim Parsell’s craggy face tightened. “I’d sure love to see them dancing on the business end of a riata. Forty thousand bucks, and if the news gets out how hard we’re hit, no telling what’ll happen.”

  * * * *

  The following morning, cattlemen came driving into Broken Axe, supposedly to buy groceries; but each one went to the bank and drew out cash. Grimes watched Jim Parsell through the fly-specked windows; the tall rancher was saying to each depositor, “Your dinero’s safe, neighbor. But if you drag it down, you might get held up, same as the stage.”

  Parsell was sweating. Some depositors did return most of the money they had drawn, but some got stubborn. It was touch and go, all day.

  Grimes was impatiently waiting for night. He and Anne were driving out on the mesa. She was bringing a lemon pie, some cushions, and a Navajo rug. Anne would pass by the hotel to pick him up.

  Brand Thorman drove down the street in a buckboard and pulled up in front of Cy Daley’s General Mercantile, Hay, Grain & Feed Store. He did not notice Grimes, and Grimes barely noticed him; the passengers sitting on boxes set on the wagon bed accounted for that last.

  There were two Mexican girls built like Percheron mares, three chemical blondes, and a redhead. They were painted up like a carnival parade, their perfume drowned the main street’s odor of stale beer and horses, and their low-cut dresses made Grimes gape.

  The redhead said, “See anything you ain’t seen before, dearie?”

  Grimes answered, “Not yet, m’am, but if that there wagon hits any bumps, there’s jest no telling.”

  She laughed and patted the deeply cut yoke of her dress, just by way of checking up. One of the Mexican girls said, “Señor, you are too fonny!”

  “Where you all ladies going, to a picnic or suthin?”

  “Picnic?” A blonde turned to her nearest neighbor. “Sure, and he thinks it’s a picnic, up there at the mine.”

  Then a little gray man with a blue apron came out of the store carrying a case of whiskey. Brand Thorman followed, a case on his shoulder. Grimes asked the girl nearest the tailgate, “Gosh, m’am, is that there liquor for the miners?”

  “Miners get thirsty, don’t they? Listen, dearie, come up to see me Friday night, I live right next to the post office.”

  Thorman took the reins and cracked the whip. The cargo of girls and whiskey rolled down the street. Grimes said to Cy Daley, “That gent sure treats his miners mighty nice.”

  The storekeeper said, “Finding nuggets the size of steers, he can damn well afford to! It beats all, bub, the luck of some folks. Mine’s been given up fer years, and Brand snoops around and finds the lost vein.”

  Grimes watched the dust cloud rising from the desert. As he went to the hotel to wait for Anne, he said to himself, “No dang wonder these gals holler when a fellow aims to work in the mines. Some of them ladies was right pert looking, too.”

  He ate a steak and four eggs and half a dried-apple pie. But thinking of Elma took the edge from his appetite.

  “After all,” he said to himself, “she’s got them two hosses, and I gave her half of my roll. No, I ain’t being herded around by no woman.”

  It was dark now, but he sat there, trying to devise an approach to the problem of getting a job from a man who did not want more employees. Finally he brightened up: “If Thorman don’t break all the likker out at once, which he wont, supposing I snuck in and opened a case? Them miners ain’t going to know their own names fo’ a week.”

  * * * *

  When Anne Parsell drove up in her father’s buggy, Grimes took the reins, and flicked the high-stepping bay’s rump. “Sure a scrumptious night, honey.”

  Anne sighed, leaned back against his shoulder.

  Well out on the mesa, Grimes pulled up at a tinaja whose slow ooze of water filled a small rocky basin just enough for the grass that covered the thin soil for a few yards about the basin. He spread out the Navajo rug, and Anne snuggled beside him, in the lee of the boulder that sheltered them from the cool wind.

  The silence finally made him look up from the girl in his arms, for all that she clung to him, lips eager and misty eyes veiled by drooping lashes. “Gosh, honey, I could almost grab them stars and put ’em in your hair.”

  She sighed ecstatically. “You’re so poetic, Simon.” And then, needing both arms, Grimes was unable to reach for the stars.…

  The way it ended, he forgot all about the chicken sandwiches and the lemon pie until Anne exclaimed, “Oh, it’s getting late, we ought to get back to town before everyone turns out for the westbound stage.”

  He helped her to her feet, sighed regretfully, and then became practical. “Better let me brush the burrs offen your skirt, honey.”

  There weren’t any to speak of, but it was nice work.

  On the way back to town, Grimes asked, “Why in tunket don’t Thorman put up gold brick and save your pappy’s bank?”

  “He’s offered to, if I’ll marry him.”

  “That old buzzard, I bet he’s dang near forty. Your pap can’t make you marry Thorman, can he?”

  “Oh, it’s not a case of forcing me
to, Simon. But dad’s worked so hard with that bank. He’s carried so many ranchers through bad years. I just can’t let him fail now. I’d be letting all our friends down.”

  Grimes flicked the whip. “Look here. Suppose you and me cut up so scandalous that Thorman’d not want to marry you, and then maybe your pappy could deal with him reasonable.”

  Her eyes brightened. “That would be fun, darling.” But the smile faded quickly, and she let go his hand. “Only Thorman’d kill you. No, that’s not the way—oh, hurry! Here comes the stage!”

  He plied the whip. The bay stretched his long legs. The buggy bounced and careened over the rough road; but for all his gallant effort, the stage beat Jim Parsell’s trotter. And when Grimes pulled up, all of Broken Axe had turned out.

  Grimes gave Anne the reins. “Shucks, mebbe we coulda made it through the arroyo instead of to town, I musta been absent-minded.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Anne said, “without going miles and miles around.”

  Even so, the late return might have been inconspicuous, but for one passenger who had stepped out of the stage. In another moment, she would have been in the hotel. As it was, she stood there under the lights at the door. Elma Austen had followed Grimes.

  She saw him, and she saw his blond companion. She dropped her carpetbag and darted toward the buggy. Grimes leaped to the street and said, “Anne, you hurry—”

  The crowd, however, blocked her way, but it did not block Elma. She said, “You jailbird, maybe you think I didn’t see this blonde bait get on the coach with you! Maybe you thought I’d not hear of that robbery and know where you’d gone?”

  She bounded to the step of the buggy and said to Anne, “If you think you can take advantage of this long-legged idiot, you’re crazy! Not after I got him out of jail.”

  Grimes caught Elma’s shoulder. “Look here,” he stuttered, “you can’t talk thattaway, this lady’s totally respectful, she’s a banker’s daughter.”

  That did not soothe Elma a bit. “Banker? Oh, you low-down coyote, you fortune hunter, after all I’ve done for you!”

  She smacked Anne. Grimes, trying to drag her from the buggy step, tore Elma’s red dress to the waist, and Elma turned out a good display. A crowd of cowpunchers cheered.

  Then Anne took a hand. Two hands, in fact: both full of brunette hair.

  Elma’s feet slipped. The buggy step was too narrow for footwork. That threw Grimes off balance. Anne could not let go in time, and Elma would not: the pair of lovelies landed between the buggy wheels and on top of Grimes.

  “Grab that there hoss!” he yelled, “and git these gals offen me!”

  He was submerged in a flurry of legs, skirts, tattered outer and under garments. But someone did grab the bridle, and the wheels did not mar either girl’s curves.

  Grimes dragged Anne clear. Elma came up clawing. Before he could shake her until her teeth rattled, Anne was driving away with a Navajo rug about her shoulders to keep the breeze from her bare spots. Her chin was in the air. She did not say good-night.

  “I barely get you loose from a judge’s daughter,” Elma stormed, “when you get tangled up with a banker’s high-nosed baggage!”

  “Her nose ain’t all that’s high,” Grimes retorted and stalked away. Broken Axe had become complicated. He would have left on that very stage, but no woman was going to herd him around.

  * * * *

  In the morning, be got a livery nag and rode out toward the buttes whose gold was making Brand Thorman rich. He reasoned, “Now that Anne ain’t got no use for me, Thorman won’t be refusing me a job outa spite.”

  Gold he had come for, and gold he was getting.

  Presently, he heard the wheeze of a steam engine, the pounding of the ten-stamp mill. But he could not see any miners. There were no ore cars coming out of the black tunnel to feed the mill; no ore cars took useless rock to the dump. All Grimes knew about mining could have been written on a postage stamp, but even so, he felt that there should have been more activity than that thump-thump-wheeze.

  He might never have thought of ore cars had he not seen three of them on the rusting rails, up there along the butte’s eroded side.

  Then there was activity aplenty. That puff of vapor from the engine house might have been steam, but just on the off chance, Grimes piled out of the saddle. Two seconds later, a slug buzzed past. He heard the rumble of the gun. As he clawed dirt, he muttered, “Either that coyote’s shooting a cannon, or they jest fired a blast in the mine.”

  A second shot kept Grimes from taking his horse to a sheltering dip. The animal toppled over, kicking. A third shot from the buffalo gun drove the rider scrambling for cover. He pitched and rolled. Then, minutes later, he took off his hat, held it well to one side, and cautiously crept toward the lip.

  A .55 caliber slug drilled the Stetson. He tried to crawl in the opposite direction to reach an arroyo that seamed the mesa. A slug fanned his ear. Grimes’ Colts were outranged by a good 600 yards. He was bottled up. He could not get at the canteen hooked on the saddle.

  The sun was beating down. Horn toads raced among the hot rocks. Grimes’ mouth became dry; his lips cracked in the searing wind. He began to doubt that anyone could get a job at the New Golconda.

  At hourly intervals during the blasting afternoon, Grimes tried to creep to the arroyo. The final attempt cured him. Another quarter inch, and he’d have had both lungs torn out by a 550 grain slug. Brand Thorman wanted to make sure that snoopers didn’t return with reports on the lay of the land.

  The sun was low, and Grimes was fairly perishing of thirst. Little whirlwinds blinded him with dust and burrs. The whole mesa danced crazily. He took some mesquite sticks, tore his shirt into strings; he peeled out of his coat and pants.

  “I’m getting into that mine if it takes till Judgement Day,” he mumbled as he set to work. “Mebbe I ain’t working there, but I’m getting a look, and I’m getting a nugget.”

  He made a dummy of mesquite branches tied together. He dressed it and put his hat on the dummy. Then, crawling on his belly, he caught a wooden “ankle” in each hand and made the scarecrow simulate cautious peeping.

  No one fired. He wondered if the watcher was looking. He tried again, making the dummy pop up once more, a little nearer the point where a man might make a dash for the arroyo’s protection. Grimes reasoned that a man who had baked in that deadly heat all day would not have patience to wait until dark; he might be too crazy with the heat. Indeed, Grimes was practically that, or he would have let well enough alone.

  Once more he managed to put his double up to spying.

  The dummy jerked. An ounce slug had smacked it between the shoulders. A big puff of dust rose. Grimes lay there, flat on his face, the scarecrow just ahead of him. From the mine, it must have looked like that final, perfect shot. Mirage and sunset haze had kept the sniper from seeing that he had plugged a dummy.

  * * * *

  Patiently, Grimes waited for darkness. Then he went to his dead horse to get his canteen. The hot water tasted better than any beer. Once in the arroyo, he headed upgrade, toward the now silent stamp mill. Lights gleamed in the buildings. As he came nearer, he could hear voices; there was laughter, some feminine, some masculine, and all drunken. A foghorn voice bawled.

  “Three gals came down from Canada,

  Drinking rum and wine,

  The subject of conversation was,

  Your hair ain’t as red as mine—”

  It was the chorus that shocked Grimes. He muttered, “They sure weren’t ladies,” and picked his way up the grade. Soon he was at the narrow-gauge line for ore cars.

  He got a look through a crack in the nearest shack. Four miners were paralyzed, one was nodding, and one was bawling another verse of the song. The second case of whiskey was open, and the half dozen girls had most of their garm
ents scattered all over the tangle of bottles and tin plates and pack saddles. One was doing a dance that fascinated Grimes.

  “Gosh, I never knowed a gal could wobble in so many places at once.”

  The nodding miner prodded her hip with a cigarette butt. She cried, “Chinga’o borrego!” and smacked his mustache. He toppled over. The song went on. So did Grimes. But the life of a miner sure did have its high spots.

  The other lighted shack was new. The lumber had not yet turned gray in the blistering sun. The narrow-gauge tracks ran right into the building; it had apparently been whacked up with no regard to ore cars. That was odd. But not half as odd as what went on in the large room.

  There were three-decked bunks, horse gear, a sheet iron stove. Three men sat on packing cases; Brand Thorman sat on a solid oaken chest with a shattered lock whose express company seals still hung from wires. The fifth man knelt before a little crucible under which there was a charcoal fire; sparks flew as he pumped goatskin bellows and sweated in the red glare.

  There was a box of black sand in which ingots cooled; there was a depression in the sand, ready for the next crucible of melted gold. The man with the bellows said, “Dump in a bit more, Brand.”

  Thorman straightened up, took a double handful of coins out of the chest, and dumped them into the crucible. By then Grimes understood the whole game. One of the gang was familiar; he had taken part in the stage robbery.

  No wonder Thorman kept his gang of miners dead drunk and did not want strangers prowling around! The miners and the stamp mill were to fool the natives of Broken Axe. The mine was a fake; a hideout for bandits to melt down stolen coin and palm it off as gold from a lost lode. Thorman was sinking the bank and then offering to ante in enough to save Jim Parsell, marry Anne, and also get control of the bank. Simple as pouring sand out of a boot!

  These men were sober and armed. Even for a surprise party, five to one was too much to bite off. Grimes retreated up the rusty tracks. Fifty yards upgrade, he came to an ore car. He released the brake and heaved to free the rusty axle. It squealed. The car began to roll. Grimes vaulted into the steel shell. Creaking and groaning, the car picked up speed.