by Jory Sherman
“Money makes men do terrible things sometimes.”
“I thought Wayne loved me. He did once, I think. We—when we got married I was only seventeen. I thought it was forever.”
“Greed is a terrible thing, Carol.”
She shuddered again. “I’m trying to understand what’s in that mind of his. I know he liked money, and I knew he was involved in something illegal. But he never talked about it. He never told me what he was going to do. When he brought me here, he made me think he’d be gone for only a few days. I haven’t seen him since. He—he gave me no warning.”
“Let’s go back inside. I’m sorry I had to do this to you, but I had to know. If McDermott was the man who got away, then he knows what you look like. If you go back to Leadville, he’ll be waiting for you.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Let me take care of it. Look, you get some sleep. I’ll bury these men in shallow graves, report their deaths. Tomorrow, we’ll ride out of here and I’ll take you to a safe place.”
“Oh, Lew,” she said as they walked back toward the cabin, “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”
“I expect,” he said, “you would have survived. You’re a hero, too.”
“What?”
“A hero isn’t always a man, you know. Many a strong woman has been a hero, in history, in literature.”
“Maybe I ought to read those books you talked about to the children.”
“They would do you no harm,” he said.
Lew found a shovel in the lean-to. He dragged the dead men well away from the cabin and dug shallow graves for them. He stripped them of guns and money, covered them with dirt and rocks. When he was finished, he stood off a ways and looked up at the starry sky. He heard a wolf howl somewhere up the mountain. It was a lonesome sound and sent shivers up his spine.
It sounded, he thought, like a lost soul. And maybe it was.
24
SENECA CALLED OUT TO HIM. HER VOICE WAS A FARAWAY whisper, so soft he could barely hear it, and then he saw her standing behind a waterfall, naked, her skin shimmering with the silvery sheen of cascading water. Behind her, a dark cave and the heady scent of lilacs floating on the air, a seductive perfume that lured him toward a rippling pool beneath a craggy mountain. Then, the muffled cough of a mountain lion, and he saw it wending its way along the gilded rimrock just above the waterfall, its hide as tawny as a field of wheat on a golden morning in summer, its muscles rippling with each careful step, its black-tipped tail twitching as it closed on its prey. Then, the cougar leaped from the ledge, dove down through the waterfall straight at Seneca. She looked up and called his name again softly; again and again she called his name, and he broke out of the dream in a cold sweat as the dark pool filled with flowers and their smothering scent came to him in a sudden rush of an airless wind.
“Lew, Lew,” Carol said. “Time to get up, I think.”
Lew opened his eyes and saw her kneeling next to his bedroll, her knee pushing through the fold of the dress that buttoned down the front. She had her hand on his shoulder and was rocking him. She smelled of lilac water and pine, of hyacinth and spruce, of fresh-cut fir and fragrant loam.
“Carol?”
“Yes, you silly. Who did you think it was? It’s morning and the sun is up. I have something to show you, you lazy boy.”
Lew sat up, rubbed his eyes. They were rimmed with the sand of sleep, gritty under his fingertips.
“Oh, boy, I really slept.”
“Yes, you did.”
She stood up and looked down at him. Lew looked around the room, seeing it for the first time in daylight. Sun streamed through the windows and he tasted the fresh mountain air as if she had opened the door to let the morning inside. He got to his feet and felt the stiffness in his muscles, his bones. There were tender spots on his shoulder blades from sleeping on the hard floor, and his feet seemed unaccustomed to being bootless. He wiggled his toes and picked up his boots, crabbed to the divan, sat down, and pulled them on. His gamy smell fought with the aroma of lilacs and pine, with all the other scents of a mountain morning.
“Is it late?” he asked her.
“No, not late, but you asked me to awaken you if we were up before you. And we were. I’ve made a sort of breakfast for us, biscuits with venison gravy and sliced deer meat and—.”
“And coffee,” he said. “I can smell it now.”
“Come,” she said. “I want you to look outside, at the mountains on the other side of the canyon.”
Lew followed Carol to the front door. She opened it and stepped outside. Lew went out and stood beside her. They both stared at the mountain peaks beyond the canyon floor.
“Beautiful,” Lew said.
There was a fresh mantle of snow on the high peaks.
“It looks so pure,” she said.
“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The next snow could come at any time, Lew. If it snowed down here tonight, we could be stuck here all winter. I wonder if that’s what Wayne wanted to happen to us.”
“No, I think he wasn’t relying on snow to keep you up here. That’s why those men paid us a visit last night. Wayne wants something more permanent than a snowfall.”
“It’s still hard for me to believe he would do such a thing.”
“Even after last night?”
“Yes. Even after that.”
They ate breakfast, but Lew was nervous. He kept listening to every little sound, half-expecting Don McDermott to come riding up to the cabin, guns blazing. When they had finished eating and the dishes were washed and put away, Lew told Carol that it was time to leave.
“Just take with you what you really want and need, Carol. You and Lynnie can ride your father’s horse. I’ll take Keith with me. We probably won’t be able to carry all that you might want.”
“With the money you gave me, I can buy what we need. I just want to get away from this place.”
“We could run into McDermott on the way down the canyon, you know. You’ll have to carry your daddy’s rifle across your lap. That or the Greener.”
“The rifle,” she said. “I’ve shot it many times before back home.”
In less than an hour, Lew, Carol, and the children were saddled up and riding down the lane to the road. Lew led the way, his rifle across the pommel, a cartridge in the chamber, the hammer on half-cock. The kids and Carol kept looking up at the newly fallen snow, but Lew was reading tracks, watching the road ahead, looking for any signs of an ambush.
They had traveled the ten miles or so without incident when Lew turned into Jack Hardy’s cabin. He had been hearing distant blasts all morning on the ride down, and now the sounds were closer. It seemed to him that the ground shook every time someone touched off the dynamite to blast through the rock in search of silver.
“What is this place?” Carol asked as Lew reined to a halt.
“A man who might help us lives here. I hope he’s home.”
He looked across the canyon and up the slope. The open maw of Jack’s Little Nellie Mine looked vacant and quiet.
“Jack, you home?” Lew called.
The door of the shack opened and Jack stood there, shirt-less, his grizzled face covered in soapy lather.
“I see you found the gal and her kids, Lew. Light down. Got a lot to tell you. Come on and make yourselves to home. I’ll finish scraping my face out back and we can chew the fat.”
Carol hesitated when Lew swung down and hefted Keith to the ground.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I—I guess I’m a little scared. I don’t know that man.”
“He’s a friend. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m hoping he’ll know where I can hide you out, where you’ll be safe, until this business is over.”
“You mean McDermott?” she said.
“I mean McDermott and your husband.”
“But . . .”
“Or you can take your chances with
Wayne, Carol. Whatever you decide.”
Lew walked over and held out his arms for Lynn.
“It’s all right, Lynnie. We’ll stop here for a while.”
Lynn beamed and held out her arms. She fell into Lew’s arms, and he gave her a little swing in a half circle before he set her feet down.
“Was that fun?” he asked.
“Yes. Do it again, Mr. Lew.”
“Some other time,” he said, then helped Carol out of the saddle. They all walked to the shack and went inside.
Carol released a sigh of admiration when she saw the polished knotty-pine interior of the shack, the hardwood floors, the large table in the center of the room, surrounded by several well-made, high-backed chairs. Along the walls, there were comfortable sofas and chairs, footstools, small tables with huge clay ashtrays. There was a candle chandelier hanging from a ceiling beam and several Aladdin lamps sitting in wall inlays. There was a bookcase and a framed wall map of Pueblo, Salida, and Leadville. The room smelled of cherrywood and pine. The cedar-topped table gleamed with polish, its surface clean and free of dust.
It was obvious to Lew that Hardy was no ordinary miner. Lew could still smell the faint odor of cigar smoke and whiskey as he gazed at a cherrywood cabinet at the far end of the room, its doors slightly open, revealing bottles of expensive whiskey, rye and scotch.
“Be right out,” Hardy called from the back of the shack that was so homely outside, so elegant inside.
Carol put the children on a divan and sat in one of the easy chairs. Lew stood there, studying the map, tracing Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River near Pueblo with the tip of his finger. It was a relief map, showing the mountains and some of the prairie east of Pueblo. Arrows on the map pointed toward Denver to the north and Santa Fe to the south.
Hardy entered the room, dressed in clean clothes, shined boots, his hair combed, beard trimmed. He smelled of rose-water and he was smiling.
“Glad you got down here, Lew. We’ve made progress. And who do we have here?”
Lew introduced Carol and her children, Keith and Lynn. He told Hardy what had happened the night before, and that he suspected Don McDermott was the man who got away.
“I know McDermott,” Hardy said. “He’s one of the hardcases who have been accused of everything from claim jumping to public brawling. The two men you killed were probably Pete Mortimer and Willy Connelly, who have pasts shadier than McDermott’s. Good riddance.”
“I believe Carol is still in danger, Jack. I thought you might have some ideas on where she and her children could stay where they’d be safe.”
Hardy sat down in one of the chairs. He waved to an empty sofa as he looked at Lew. Lew sat down, leaned forward to hear what Jack had to say.
“We had a long meeting last night right here,” Hardy said. “Mine owners I respect and trust. No police, who have already proven to us that they take bribes and are probably in cahoots with the brigands and highwaymen we’ll face when we leave Leadville.”
Lew and Carol exchanged glances.
“Tomorrow, all of us are taking our ore down to Pueblo. Several wagons. Lots of armed men. We don’t believe anyone will attack us for the ore. But in a few weeks, we’ll all be going to Santa Fe to sell our silver, and that’s when we think Wayne Smith will try and rob us. We’re not going to wait for that to happen.”
“What are you going to do?” Lew asked.
“We’re going to display several strongboxes full of silver in Pueblo’s town square. We’re going to load those on several wagons and tell everyone we’re heading for Santa Fe. Then, before that wagon leaves, the strongboxes full of silver will be replaced with empty strongboxes.
“There will be two men sitting on the buckboards of each covered wagon. Inside each wagon will be more armed men, hidden from view. We think Smith and his men will attack us somewhere near Spanish Peaks. We’ll be ready for them. What do you think of this plan, Lew?”
Lew looked over at Carol, who seemed lost in thought. She had a dreamy look on her face, as if she had been drugged. There was a vacancy to her eyes.
“I don’t think much of your plan, Jack. I think Wayne Smith is probably too smart to think you’d show all that silver and then carry it out of town, no matter how many armed men you have with you.”
“Well, that’s what he’s done before, robbed some of us right around Spanish Peaks. Plenty of cover, a long way from help.”
Lew thought about Pope and Canby. If he had not gone after them, they would have gotten away with three murders.
“The best defense,” Lew said, “is a good offense.”
“What?” Jack said.
“If you know where a nest of snakes is, you don’t just walk by it with a big stick. You go into the nest with shot-guns and clean out the snakes. Then you can walk there anytime you want.”
“You think we ought to go after Smith and his men before they try anything?”
“You already said they got away with this before. Yes, go after them, like I’m going after Don McDermott. You don’t wait for snakes to strike, Jack. You kill them before they can sink their poisonous teeth into your leg.”
Carol smiled at Lew. It was a wan smile, but a smile of approval.
“I don’t think we can do that,” Jack said. “I don’t think the other mine owners will want to take the law into their own hands. Certainly not under the very eyes of the law in Pueblo.”
“Then, you’re going to lose, Jack. You’ll lose some men, surely, and you may wind up losing everything.”
Silence filled the room. Jack leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.
Lew took a breath and looked at Carol, then at her children.
He still didn’t know where they would be safe, and Jack had not offered any suggestions. But something Jack had said had given Lew an idea. It was risky, but it might work. At least his idea had a better chance of success than Jack’s, which involved a lot of armed men waiting to be attacked.
For the time being, though, Lew vowed to keep his thoughts to himself. Too many people already knew about Jack’s plan. Some might talk once they got some liquor inside them, drank some bravery, and began to brag.
No, he would not say anything to anyone. What he would do, he would do alone.
And if he failed, there would be no one to blame except himself.
25
LEW STOOD UP, LOOKED DIRECTLY AT JACK HARDY.
“Will you do me a favor, Jack?”
“If I can.”
“I’d like to leave Carol and the kids here while I ride into Leadville, look for a place where they can stay. I won’t be long. No more than two hours.”
Carol opened her mouth to protest, but Lew held up a hand, pushed it toward her.
“I have to meet some friends in town at noon,” Jack said. “I suppose they could stay here with me. But no more than two hours at the most.”
“All right,” Lew said. “Carol, I’ll be back for you and the children.”
“I just hate to impose on Mr. Hardy,” she said.
Hardy said nothing. Lew could see that he didn’t like to be saddled with a woman and two children. But he would sit still for it. That was good enough for Lew, who started for the door.
“I’ll be back in two hours,” he said before anyone could think too much about what he had done.
Leadville was teeming with activity as people started heading out of town with their wagons loaded. The air was crisp and the day sunny, but that snowfall on the high peaks the night before had spooked a lot of people who didn’t want to be trapped in Leadville for the winter.
Lew rode down Harrison Street and then turned on to a side street. He was looking for a particular kind of place and he knew he didn’t have much time. At the edge of town, he saw a small house with a wagon and two mules in front of it. It sat by itself at the edge of a small creek. A man and a woman were carrying out boxes and carpetbags, loading them into the open wagon. A small boy carried a sack of wooden toys out the door. Lew rode u
p to the man.
“A minute of your time, sir,” he said.
“Make it quick. I’m in a hurry.”
“Do you own this place?”
“Yeah, I own it, why?”
“You’re leaving, am I right?”
“What in hell does it look like? Winter’s a-comin’ and we’re heading for Santa Fe.”
“I’d like to rent your house from you. Just for a few days.”
The woman walked over. The little boy was trying to lift his sack up into the wagon. His arms were too short. He made little short hops to no avail. To Lew, he looked like a life-sized jumping jack.
“What’s this all about, Harvey?” the woman asked.
“Ruthie, it’s no concern of your’n. Help the boy with his sack yonder.”
“Did I hear this man say he wanted to pay us money to rent our place?”
“Yes, ma’am, I would like to rent your house for a few days.”
“It’s going to snow, you know,” Harvey said. “That’s why we’re leaving.”
“I know,” Lew said. “I’m leaving, too, but I’ve got a wife and kids and no place to stay until we’re ready to leave.”
“A wife and kids, you say? Harvey, listen to the man.” The woman, a red-haired, brown-eyed woman of Amazonian stature, stood eye-to-eye with Harvey, who was not a small man by any means.
“I’m listening, Ruthie. If you’d just leave us talk.”
“I’ll pay you for a week’s rent,” Lew said. “Whatever you’re asking. We’ll leave the place clean as we find it and lock it up tight when we go.”
The man moved his hat to one side and scratched his head as if he was actually pondering his decision. Lew figured he had already made up his mind.
“Well, now,” Harvey said. “A whole week. And what if you get snowed in and can’t get out until the spring?”
“Tell him about snowshoes, Harvey. They’s two sets hangin’ in the back storeroom.” Ruth Lee grabbed the sack from her son’s hands and heaved it onto the wagon. The little boy started to whimper.
“I’ll get out in a week,” Lew said. “One way or another. Might only need it for a couple of days, though.”
“Don’t bet on the weather up here, son,” Harvey said. “It’ll get you every time.”