by Logan, Jake
Slocum recognized it as the rusty cannon the man’s partner had carried. It might not be in good working condition, but if it spat out just one round, it was still dangerous.
“I helped you before. With Bertram.”
“Bert? He was my partner till some city slicker upped and kilt him.”
Slocum wondered if the miner meant him. He hardly thought of himself as a city slicker, but to a man living in such isolation, he might seem the height of sophistication. In any other situation he would have laughed, but not now.
“You see the men who shot you?”
“Damned marshal tried to gun me down. I ain’t done nuthin’!”
“From Grizzly Flats? Marshal Willingham?”
“He’s the one.”
“He been out here prowling around before? Or the two with him?”
“Surely have. And you ain’t gonna take me in on no trumped-up charges jist so you kin take my mine!”
Slocum saw the miner rise from the rock, then lose his balance. He let out a tiny cry as he slid forward over the ice-slick rock, heading straight for the ground. He landed in a heap not ten feet from Slocum.
“You’ve been shot up pretty good,” Slocum said. He saw at least three wounds. From the way they’d bled and stained his shabby coat, there might be another bullet or two in the miner’s chest.
“Won’t be took into town!”
“How about I take you to your mine and get you patched up?”
“You’d do that? You ain’t out to steal my claim?”
“You don’t have anything to lose. If I don’t get you out of the weather, you’ll die right where you’re lying.”
This small bit of logic made the miner groan out agreement.
“I have someone with me. A woman. She’s right good at patching wounds.” Slocum waved to Mirabelle across the canyon, motioning her to join him.
He went to see what he could do for the miner until she arrived. He tore back the coat, ripping open a wound that had clotted over. The miner winced but said nothing. The whole time Slocum examined him, he stared hard as if his gaze alone could keep away claim jumpers.
“What can you possibly do for him, John? He . . . he’s all shot up.”
“I want to find out more about the night your husband was killed. He can tell me.”
“How? He wasn’t one of the gang, was he?”
“Them folks what got their asses shot off out by the way into the hills?” The miner sagged back, eyes closed. For a moment Slocum thought he had died, but the miner twitched, opened his eyes, and said, “The marshal was one of ’em. Remember his bandy legs, but a lot o’ folks have those. Saw him good this time.” The miner leaned back and moaned, closing his eyes.
“We’ve got to go, John,” Mirabelle said forcefully. “He’s not gonna make it. Look at him!”
“He’s tough. We’ll take him to his mine.”
“They’ll get the gold before us! You heard him. The marshal is with them. That makes anything they do all legal.”
“Willingham has likely been with them from the start. And there’s not much chance they’ll stumble on the gold all of a sudden if they’ve been looking since they killed your husband and his friends.”
Mirabelle sputtered as Slocum got his arm around the miner’s shoulders and heaved him erect. The man sagged, forcing Slocum to dip down, get under him, and hoist the wounded man upward.
He turned with his burden and went to his horse, letting the miner flop belly down over the saddle.
“From his tracks, there’s a trail leading uphill,” Slocum said. “I remember this place from before, though the snow makes it look different.”
He didn’t wait to see if Mirabelle followed. He tugged on his horse’s reins and started up the trail marked by the miner’s footprints. He recognized the spot where he and Bertram had shot it out and the other man had died. He wasn’t going to poke through the snowbanks to see if the miner had buried his partner or just left him where the coyotes and buzzards could feast. It took less than a day for most of the flesh to be eaten away. After a week, the insects had finished their meal, leaving behind a picked clean skeleton. By now the coyotes would have made off with the bones to crack them open for the marrow.
“Don’t do this, John. It’s wrong. You don’t owe him anything.”
Slocum ignored the woman’s pleas and finally reached a level spot in front of the mine shaft. The miner’s cabin was around the outjutting of rock, if he remembered right. And he did. He got open the door and dropped the miner onto the nearest pallet. With his partner dead, he wasn’t likely to complain if Slocum had picked the wrong bed.
“Get a fire started,” he ordered. Mirabelle stood in the doorway, uncertain. “Now!” His temper was reaching the breaking point. For the time being, they were as safe here as on the trail. Safer. “And fix some victuals. He must have a larder somewhere.”
She went about her chore as Slocum pulled away more of the miner’s bloody clothing, peeling it away from skin. For all the lead the man had taken, he was in good shape.
“Any whiskey around?”
“A pint. That’s all,” she said, handing it to him. “I shoulda knowed you was a drinker.”
Slocum pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room, where it bounced off the far wall. He poured a goodly amount onto the worst of the miner’s wounds. The man shrieked in pain. Then he passed out when Slocum took out his knife and began digging for the bullets. The blade turned slippery with blood, but the first slug he found wasn’t buried too deep. The heavy coat, vest, canvas overalls, and union suit had all slowed it down. It took even less time to worry out the other two slugs. Slocum cleansed the wounds the best he could with what remained of the liquor, then held the bottle to the miner’s lips.
“Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
The man choked but managed to swallow a few drops. He sank back to his bed and began snoring.
“That’s a good sign. I told you he was tough. He’s going to live,” Slocum said.
“If they beat us to the gold, I swear I—”
Slocum silenced the woman with a cold look.
“It’s mine. I deserve it, after what all I been through,” she said sullenly. “My husband, my friends, all slaughtered like pigs.”
“Seems a good comparison. If Sennick hadn’t shot off his mouth in town, you all might have found the gold and then squabbled over it. But he did and they ended up dead.”
“The marshal done this. Him and the man I recognized.”
“There’re a couple others,” Slocum said, his mind drifting in that direction. From accounts, Eckerly had just come to town. The others riding with Willingham might have also. Or they could be locals. It didn’t much matter since their ambition to get the stolen gold was the same, no matter who they were.
Slocum ate mechanically when Mirabelle put a plate of beans and grits in front of him. If the miner had any meat, she hadn’t bothered to put it out. They ate in silence, Mirabelle looking at him from the corner of her eye now and then. He hadn’t helped her mood bringing the miner back here to patch him up.
“I’m going to catch some sleep. Join me?”
He wasn’t surprised when she shook her head, sank in the corner of the cabin, and drew up her knees so she could rest her head there. Slocum rolled over and had just drifted off to sleep when a cold wind against his back brought him around, six-shooter clutched in his hand. The door stood wide open and the miner was gone.
“What’s going on?” Mirabelle rubbed her eyes and looked up.
“He lit out. He’s probably out of his head. I’d better go fetch him back.”
“Let him go. He’s not our concern, John. He’s . . . he’s an old man and gonna die anytime soon!”
Slocum pulled his coat tightly a
round him and went hunting for the miner. The tracks were easy to follow—into the mine.
He took a deep breath, touched the cold steel of his Colt, then started in after him. For a fleeting moment, he thought Mirabelle was right. Then he found himself bowled over and fighting for his life.
14
The miner drove the point of his sharpened rock hammer down toward Slocum’s face. Caught off guard, Slocum found it impossible to throw the man to either side and to gain the upper hand. He had to match strength against strength. To his surprise, the miner was stronger than he should have been after taking three bullets in his chest. Slocum felt his own power waning. He had ridden too far, been too badly banged up, and hadn’t eaten enough to whip even a newborn kitten.
The miner was considerably wirier than that. And being on top allowed him to use his weight to the best advantage. Both hands on the pick handle, he drove it down until it brushed Slocum’s forehead. The blade opened a small cut above his eye, but another inch would drive it into his brain.
With a mighty heave that used all his strength, Slocum kicked out and knocked the miner to the side, smashing him into the mine wall. For a moment, Slocum lay there on his back, gasping for breath. He wasn’t able to move but the miner did.
With a whoop like an attacking Apache, the miner got to his feet and ran deeper into the mine. His war cries echoed back to taunt Slocum.
“Are you all right?”
Slocum looked up to see Mirabelle standing in the mouth of the mine.
“I could have used some help.”
“He—I didn’t know what to do, John.”
It rang hollow in his ears. He swung about and levered himself up to lean against the wall. It took several seconds for him to stand. When he did, he was dizzy and a ringing in his ears warned he might have hit his head too hard. He blinked a couple times and got rid of the double vision.
“I’m going after him.”
“Why? Let him die in there!”
“He’s not in his right mind.”
“Neither are you!” Mirabelle called after him as he stumbled along.
The mine was pitch black. Slocum ran his hands along both walls, hunting for a rock shelf where miner’s candles might be kept. He remembered seeing the miner with a miner’s lamp and saying he didn’t have carbide pellets for it. That left only candles for him to work by since no one could possibly find the tiny seams of gold left in this mine by feel alone.
He stopped when his fingers brushed a slick patch on the rock. Slocum couldn’t see, so he lit one of his lucifers. In the bright flare, almost hidden by rising sulfur smoke, he saw two candles glued to the rock by melted wax. Prying one loose, he quickly applied the flame to the stubby, blackened wick. A sudden burst of light and then he saw how the mine shaft angled upward. The original miners had followed a sizable gold vein but now only a few sparkles remained to show where it had all been dug out.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, I patched you up,” Slocum shouted. His words vanished into the depths of the mountain and no reply drifted back to him.
He held the guttering candle high in his left hand, almost scraping along the roof, so he could keep his gun hand free. The tunnel walls were slick from so many picks being applied futilely over the years, but the floor was littered with rocks, some as big as his fist. The miner had brought these from deeper in the mine to examine. Why he hadn’t taken them out into sunlight was beyond Slocum.
Another thing that gave him pause was his motive in going after the miner. Let him rot in his own mine. Mirabelle was right. He had already done his duty by saving the miner from the gang roving the hills and digging out the slugs they had put into him.
Being alone too long might have driven the man loco, or he might have been that way before. He hadn’t taken the news of his partner’s death the way a sane person would have. Slocum wouldn’t pass judgment on that score, but he did when he realized his real reason for trying to be sure the miner was all right.
He had killed the man’s partner for no reason. Being at the scene of the slaughter, being with Mirabelle and hearing her description, then seeing Bertram had forced him to come to the wrong conclusion. He hadn’t any reason to think there would be miners scavenging off the bones of old mines. The only reason he had understood at the time was someone spying on him and Mirabelle to kill them the same way the treasure hunting party had.
Slocum began climbing. A few fissures in the walls and roof showed daylight outside. The mine was crumbling and not too far underground at this point. Then the slope dropped as the mine shaft bored downward into the hillside at a steep angle that forced Slocum to brace himself on the wall to keep from sliding.
After skidding down twenty yards of sloping tunnel, he came to a small chamber where three other shafts went off at odd angles into the rock. The miner could have gone down any of them. Looking for tracks in the dust on the floor availed him nothing since the miner and his partner had tramped through here on a regular basis. Which footprints were recent and which were older would take too long to decipher.
He finally had to admit that Mirabelle was right. He chased a ghost in these mines, and for no good reason. Slocum started back up the incline when he heard the scrape of leather across rock. He threw himself forward and slid back a few feet—and the pickaxe crashed into the rock floor just inches above his head.
Twisting, he kicked out and caught the miner in the gut. The blow lacked any real power, but the wounded man was no match even for this light tap. He sat down heavily and lost his balance on the incline. Slocum heaved himself to his feet and dived forward so his weight crushed the miner to the floor. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but it also knocked out the miner.
A few hard gasps brought him back to regular breathing and good enough condition so he could crawl to the miner. The man looked pale, but he always had from spending most of his life underground. Slocum shook him until the man’s eyelids fluttered and came open.
“Who’re you?” The croaked question caused Slocum to wonder if the miner was completely around the bend.
“I pulled the slugs out of your chest.”
“Yeah, right, ’member that.” The miner fought to sit up but couldn’t. Slocum had to swing him around so he had his back to the wall. “Thanks,” the miner said. He spat out a gob that was black and bloody.
After retrieving the still burning candle, Slocum held it up.
“She told me not to come after you. Damned if I know why I did.”
“You get stray dogs followin’ you, too, I’d wager,” the miner said, grinning crookedly. “Name’s Smith, but then, whose ain’t?”
“The men who shot you got away,” Slocum said. “Why’d they want to ventilate you like that?” Slocum tapped the spots in the miner’s chest where the slugs had buried themselves.
“Claim jumpers,” Smith said firmly. He scowled when Slocum laughed. “Ain’t like that. I’m willin’ to let them varmints be, huntin’ fer the stole gold.”
“You know about that, eh?” Slocum shook his head ruefully. It was time for him to ride on.
“Hell’s bells, I know where it’s hid.”
Slocum held the candle closer to look into the miner’s face.
“You know or think you know?”
“Me and Bertram been in these here mountains for years. Never thought he’d up and abandon me.”
Slocum didn’t remind Smith who had killed his partner. At any given instant, the miner sounded rational, then showed lapses of memory and even outright craziness. Which behavior he showed came at random, and Slocum had no way of knowing what would trigger a new bout of running about wildly in this death trap of a mine.
“The stolen gold. Where is it?”
“Cain’t rightly say, but I kin show you. Hep me up, youngster.”
Slocum caught his gnar
led hand and pulled him to his feet. Smith was short enough that he didn’t have to duck because of the low ceiling. For Slocum, walking half bent over up the slope and back to the mine’s mouth was a chore. If it hadn’t been for his battered hat cushioning more than one whack against the low ceiling, he would have been scraped and bloody by the time they reached the mouth of the mine.
Smith took a deep breath of the fresh air when he stepped out of the mine, then choked. He spat more of the bloody gob. From the matter-of-fact way the miner hawked up those gobs, this wasn’t anything caused by the bullet wounds to his chest. He likely was dying of consumption. That might be why he was so loco.
Then again, Slocum reflected, some men—and many miners—were better off away from everyone else. They didn’t fit well into even the loose society of mountain men or drifters. When it came to the rigid structure enforced in towns these days, they’d go flying off the handle at the least thing.
“John, you found him,” Mirabelle said, edging closer from the direction of the cabin. She held Bertram’s rusty rifle in her hands.
Slocum took it from her and leaned it against the timbers shoring up the mine.
“Mr. Smith has something he’d like to share.”
“I do? Oh, the gold. Yup, I know ’bout that. Me and Bertram roamed all over these hills. I was out huntin’ when the posse came gallopin’ on the trail of them bank robbers.”
“Train robbers,” Mirabelle corrected mechanically. She shot Slocum a hot look.
“Whatever they was, they stole. And they hid the gold a couple canyons over in that direction.” Smith pointed to the northeast. “Let me show you.”
He hunkered down and began scratching what looked like meaningless lines in the dust with his stubby finger. Slocum moved around and began to make sense of the patterns. He jumped as if someone had stuck him with a pin when Smith used three fingers to make a particular mark.
The three needle peaks Slocum had seen when he’d gotten lost earlier were a marker to the gold.
“Here’s where they hid the gold.” Smith pointed to a line. “Canyon’s not too long, but that’s got to be where they hid it since they got nabbed real quick afterward and they wasn’t carryin’ it.”