by Jake Logan
The cart stopped sooner than he’d anticipated. He waited a moment, then pushed back the tarp and sat up, his six-shooter swinging about as he sought a target. He was alone. Faint yellow light flickered a few yards back along the tracks. A guard beat at a miner with his fists, then added a kick to the man’s midriff as he sank to the floor.
“You don’t work, you don’t get fed.” The guard stalked away, leaving the miner doubled over, clutching his belly.
Before Slocum’s finger curled back far enough on the trigger to end the guard’s life, he disappeared in the darkness. Getting out of the ore cart proved more difficult than it should have. Slocum ached all over and some of his fresh wounds still oozed blood, plastering his shirt to his body. More than this, the roof was so low he had only a couple feet of room between the cart edge and overhanging rock.
He snaked his way over, lost some skin as he went, then fell hard to the ground. The miner moaned and looked in his direction, then held up a miner’s candle to better illuminate Slocum.
“You’re not a guard. You got a number on your forehead. I think.”
Slocum involuntarily touched the spot where he had written the number. He had forgotten about it until now.
“I’m looking for Linc Watson. Where is he?”
“Watson? Oh, yeah, Watson. I remember the name now. He’s working the next drift.”
Slocum went to the man and pulled him to his feet.
“You want out of here?”
“You touched in the head? Of course I do!”
“Help me find Watson, and I’ll get you out of those irons.”
“You do it first.”
Slocum understood why the miner had no reason to trust anyone. Considering the man’s sad condition, Slocum knew he could keep him from bolting and running.
“We work together and the three of us will be drinking whiskey under the night sky,” Slocum promised.
“You have to shoot them off? The chains? Or you got a drift pin? You can pry the shackles off that way. Ain’t nobody can pick the lock. Too many have tried.”
Slocum fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the key. He shoved it into the keyhole and twisted hard. For a heart-stopping instant, he thought it hadn’t opened the lock. Then a dull click signaled the lock giving way.
“You done it. You got me out of the chains.”
Slocum was almost bowled over when the man hugged him and began to cry.
“We can’t stand here lollygagging,” Slocum said. “We don’t get out of this hellhole without Watson.”
The freed miner pointed back down the tunnel, his hand shaking with emotion. Tears ran down his cheeks. Slocum thought he was going to hug him again.
“I’ll hunt for him. You stay here,” Slocum ordered. The man nodded and wiped his nose with his dusty sleeve. “Get the ore cart and push it to the branch in the tracks.”
“It’s not full,” the man said.
“It will be when it leaves the mine,” Slocum said.
The miner wasn’t beyond understanding Slocum’s plan. His head bobbed up and down as he went to push the cart. Even empty, the ore cart was almost more than the man could handle. Mackenzie didn’t feed his slaves well and treated them worse.
Slocum reached the branch. The one he had been sent down was virtually empty with all the activity where he had to free Linc Watson. He rubbed his forehead, hoping to obliterate the numeral there. Visitors to Wilson’s Creek weren’t allowed in the mines. Only slaves and guards. However much of the white number he removed had to do. He pulled his hat low on his forehead and walked boldly down the tracks.
Four miners fitfully used their picks on a vein of quartz. A guard sat on a keg of Giant blasting powder picking his teeth with a long, slender-bladed knife. He didn’t even look up as Slocum swept past. And he didn’t make a sound as Slocum got a step behind him, whipped out his pistol, and swung it hard. The barrel connected with the back of the guard’s head.
Slocum pushed the man to one side and looked around. The miners didn’t even notice. Fights between guards might be common or perhaps the workers’ wills had been completely sapped and they no longer cared. It didn’t matter to Slocum. He used their lethargy to his advantage to go deeper into the mine.
In a small niche hacked out of the rock, he found more blasting powder. The temptation to lay a few feet of black miner’s fuse and blow it, completely destroying the mine, passed quickly. Trapping Mackenzie’s unwilling miners would be as savage as the guards trying to do the same rather than letting their slaves help put out the fire in town.
Farther into the darkness, Slocum saw a guttering candle.
“Watson?”
The light shifted. The miner turned and looked in his direction.
“You came back,” Watson said in amazement. “I didn’t think you would.”
“After the guards dynamited you inside the mine, I thought you might be dead.”
“But you came back for me, even thinking that.” The man’s pick clattered to the floor as he shuffled toward Slocum. “Alicia must be really persuasive.”
“Yeah, she is,” Slocum said, not bothering to mention how he had helped Erika escape before coming to the mines. “You see my partner? Name’s Rawhide Rawlins.”
“Not heard that name. There haven’t been new miners for a couple weeks, not that I’ve seen.”
“Come on,” Slocum said. “I cold-cocked a guard. If another finds him, all hell’s going to be out for lunch.”
“There are a half dozen now,” Watson said.
Slocum hesitated. He hadn’t seen but the one guard.
“Are there other shafts?”
“One branches off to the left. And this one. It’s the main source of the ore now.”
Slocum stopped beside the powder magazine. He used the butt of his six-gun to smash in the top of one wooden cask, then spilled the blasting powder all around. He picked up the small cask and backed toward where he had slugged the guard.
“You can’t blow everything up,” protested Watson. “There are innocent men in here, unless you’re fixing to save them, too. Are you?”
“No,” Slocum said. Then he dropped the almost empty cask, fumbled for a lucifer, and remembered he had given the tin to Erika. Sudden commotion made him look over his shoulder in the direction that would take them to freedom.
“There he is! See? I told you!”
Slocum recognized immediately the voice of the miner he had freed. Whether he had been caught by the guards or had run to them begging for his freedom didn’t matter. Four gunmen blocked his way out of the mine.
“You don’t want me to light this,” Slocum said, thrusting out his six-shooter. The muzzle blast would send out enough sparks and hot lead to ignite the powder.
“The powder. Look at what he’s done. A trail of it runs back to the magazine!” Linc Watson cried.
The effect was what Slocum had hoped for. The guards began backing away.
“Keep going,” Slocum called. He held up his pistol. He could never win a shoot-out, but he threatened mass death with a single shot.
Three of the guards continued to retreat but one showed some gumption.
“You ain’t gonna blow us all up. You’d die along with us.” He lifted his rifle and aimed at Slocum.
Slocum had to push the bluff even farther. He cocked his six-gun, made a dramatic move, and shoved the muzzle down as if to apply it to the gunpowder. The last thing in the world he expected was Watson rushing forward, driving a bony shoulder into his gut, and knocking him backward away from the powder trail. Slocum landed hard on the floor, the six-shooter discharging with an ear-shattering roar. He tried to aim it toward the blasting powder for a second shot.
A boot crushed down on his wrist until he dropped the gun. Then the guard kicked the pistol away. In the flickering light from a few miners’ candle
s, Slocum looked up into the muzzle of the rifle held in unwavering hands.
17
“Lock shackles on him,” the guard said. Two others rushed over to clamp the irons on Slocum’s ankles and snap shut the locks.
“He got a key. He can get free, like he did me,” the prisoner said. He cackled when a guard found the key in Slocum’s pocket and held it up.
“Yup, that’s it,” the guard with the rifle trained on Slocum said. “You’re a slippery cuss. Now you got to do the work of two men.”
“That’s because they’re letting me go free. I won’t be working in the mines no more,” said the man who had betrayed Slocum.
“You’re right, old man,” the guard said. “He has to do the work of two men because we just lost one.”
“Lost me, lost me,” the man said. Then his eyes went wide and he held out his hands as if he could deflect the bullet that seared into his gut. “Why? Why’d you shoot me?”
“Nobody gets out of the mines, but you done us a favor, so we’re doin’ you one. You don’t have to dig ore now,” the guard said. He fired again. This round hit the man in the head. He died on the spot.
“We better get back to work,” Watson said.
“The two of you have to peck out twice the ore. If you don’t, you stay at work until you do.”
As Slocum and Watson shuffled back down the stope, Slocum asked, “Why’d you knock me down?”
“I didn’t want to die,” Watson said. “You would have killed us all.”
“It was a ruse to get the guards to run. The powder burns slow. There’d have been time to kick a gap in the trail.”
Watson shook his head, then said, “Sorry. I panicked and thought you were trying to kill everyone.”
“Should have,” Slocum groused.
“Shut up and get to work. There’re the picks.” A guard settled down across the small chamber where Slocum and Watson began work on the quartz vein flecked with gold.
Bit by bit, the ore dropped to the floor. Slocum worked steadily but not as hard as he might have. His body ached from all the wounds he had acquired, but he mustered his strength rather than trying to produce the ore for Mackenzie. It might take a spell, but he knew what would happen. And less than an hour after beginning to swing the pick, he saw the guard begin nodding off.
Slocum nudged Watson and said in a low voice, “Keep an eye on him.”
“Why? We can’t get close to him without rattling our chains. That’d wake him up before we got within five feet of him.”
“Might be I can throw my pick and skewer him,” Slocum said, enjoying the prospect.
“Men who tried that all ended up dead. There’s almost no chance of killing him outright.”
“Might be if I had a key to the locks.”
“You lost that,” Watson said with rising anger. “I never thought Tallman would betray us like that. You set him free?”
“He paid for his stupidity by trusting Mackenzie’s men,” Slocum said.
“They kept the key.”
“Not this one,” Slocum said, reaching down into his boot. The shackles restricted his reach but the key finally came free.
A quick look in the guard’s direction convinced him he had to act now. The lock opened with a click that sounded like the peal of doom. Slocum froze, worried it would bring the guard out of his stupor. The man stirred, swiped at his nose, then settled back. The rifle rested in the crook of his arm, but Slocum saw his Colt Navy jammed into the guard’s belt. That was the weapon he wanted more.
He unlocked the other leg, pulled off the shackles, and gingerly set them on the ground. With careful steps, he went to the guard. He rubbed his hands together to get the dirt off them, then moved like a striking rattler. Slocum grabbed his Colt from the guard’s belt; it almost jumped into his hand and felt all firm and secure. The guard snorted and opened his eyes. Then his eyes rolled up in his head as Slocum swung the barrel hard into the man’s temple.
“Bring the shackles,” Slocum said.
“Kill him. I’ll kill him if you don’t.”
“We’re doing this my way. It’s better to leave him alive to create a ruckus. The guards will fight and give us more time to get away. If he’s dead, they’ll come for us right away.”
“We can shoot our way out.” Watson handed over the shackles and grabbed for the guard’s rifle.
Slocum attached the irons to the guard’s ankles, then released Watson. He used those shackles to secure the unconscious man’s wrists to an ore cart. Only then did he step back. He worried that he was drenched in sweat. It was hot in the mine and he had been exerting himself, but attacking the guard had pushed him to his physical limit. Food, sleep—especially sleep!—would renew him, but not as much as being a free man again.
Without asking Watson to follow, he strode off down the tunnel, slowing only when he neared the larger chamber where Tallman had been cut down. As he expected, the four men listlessly swinging their picks had been left unguarded.
Slocum held up his finger to his lips, cautioning Watson to silence. He pointed to a half-filled mine cart. Rather than argue, Watson slipped past and climbed into the cart.
The nearest prisoner looked up. His eyes narrowed when Slocum held out the key to the man’s shackles. Using sign language to indicate what he wanted, Slocum handed over the key before climbing into the ore cart.
The miner started to remove his chains but Slocum whispered, “After we get out. If they see you aren’t shackled, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
“How?” the man mouthed.
“Push us out, but be sure they aren’t watching when you unlock yourself.”
The miner tucked the key into his belt, covered Slocum and Watson with a tarp, then began pushing. The cart creaked and screeched as its wheels finally began turning. The tracks caused the cart to sway from side to side as they yielded, but the motion forward became constant.
“I’ll kill them all if I have to,” Watson said, clinging to his rifle.
“Better to get away without being seen,” Slocum said. “You’ll be with your wife and Alicia before dawn.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe,” Slocum said, then silenced the man. Voices coming from an ore cart would alert even the most slovenly guard.
The cart jostled them and then stopped. A gust of wind lifted the tarp. Slocum grabbed for it and pulled it back down. He looked at Watson and whispered, “We’re outside. Wait until we’re dumped out.”
“The guards will see us. The piles at the end of the tracks are sent to the ore crusher.”
“Then we shoot it out, but I think the guards are getting sloppy. They think they’ve done their jobs for the night.” Slocum wouldn’t have been too surprised to find the guards passing around a bottle of whiskey to celebrate being so good at their jobs.
He fell silent and gripped his six-shooter when he heard boots crunching on gravel around the tracks. Mumbled orders caused a louder argument. Slocum started to burst up to defend the man who had pushed them from the mine. He owed him more than the key to his shackles for risking his life. He peered out from under the tarp and saw the guard shoving the miner who had pushed them from the mine. The rattle of chains convinced Slocum he had been right demanding that the man wear his shackles. The miner—and they—would be found out if he had rid himself of the chains.
“What’s happening?” Watson whispered.
“Quiet,” Slocum warned. He couldn’t figure out what the argument was about. The miner refused to do something the guard wanted. That much was clear. But what else was there but dumping the ore cart onto the pile at the end of the tracks?
Slocum ducked down when the guard forced the miner back to the cart.
“What’s going on?” Watson asked.
“I don’t think Mackenzie’d want to waste an entire load of ore,”
the miner protested.
“Shut up,” the guard ordered him. “You’re not bein’ paid to think. Hell, you’re not bein’ paid!” The man laughed harshly.
Slocum lost his balance and fell onto Watson as the cart rattled on.
“You want the ore wasted?” The miner spoke so loudly that it had to be for Slocum’s benefit. What he meant confounded Slocum.
“Do it. Now.”
The ore cart slammed hard into a piece of wood nailed to the tracks to stop it for dumping. Slocum tumbled out from under the tarp before Watson. Instead of sliding onto a low hill of ore, they slid down a steep slope. Clawing at the loose gravel to check his fall, Slocum got a quick look below.
Linc Watson slid past and splashed into a noxious pond of waste from the amalgam plant. He screamed as the thick liquids spewed up into his face. Slocum tried to dig in his toes, to find purchase. He slid faster toward the poisonous pond after Watson.
18
“I’m blind!”
Linc Watson screeched as he splashed about in the waste from the amalgam plant, the slimy fluid drenching him and covering his face. He clawed at his eyes and then choked as more of the water got into his mouth.
Slocum slid down the slope, following the man into the pond. He grabbed futilely until a hard kick drove his toe into the slippery incline and slowed his descent. A kick with his other foot kept him from getting dunked in the pond.
“Quiet,” he called to Watson. “They’ll kill us if you keep up that commotion.”
“My eyes,” moaned Watson, but he quieted. An occasional whimper escaped his lips but otherwise he settled down. His feet were in the black water while he sat on the bank, body and head well above the surface.
Slocum edged over, careful to keep from joining the man in the poisonous liquid. When he got behind him, he reached out, grabbed Watson’s collar, and yanked hard. He pulled the struggling man from the water so he lay on his back facing the slowly lightening sky. Dawn was their enemy. If Slocum didn’t get them away soon, the guards would spot them.
“Don’t rub your eyes,” Slocum ordered. “Wipe the sludge away, then blink as hard as you can.”