by Tony Masero
Black, who was obviously an outlaw tending a shade towards xenophobia and environmental concern, swallowed his drink and set down the glass hard on the bar in demonstration of his dismay at both modern intervention and Chinese immigration.
There was the rumble of approaching horses outside and Black perked up, his head turning slightly so he might hear better.
‘Now who is that, I wonder?’
‘You theenk ees trouble, Beel?’ asked Pablo nervously.
‘Nah, the boys outside would have said something if there was a problem.’
Right on cue, one of the men outside poked his head in the door, ‘We got riders coming, Bill.’
‘See, what’d I say?’ reassured Black, proud that his associates were on the ball. ‘What’s it look like, Jess?’ he asked the man at the door.
Jess curled his lip, ‘Party of workers, I’d say. Maybe it’s some of them jokers from the railroad.’
‘They white?’ asked Black.
‘They is.’
Black shrugged, ‘Then let ‘em come, I reckon old Pablo here could do with the business.’
There was the rumble of heavy boots on the wood porch steps outside followed by a few low-pitched mumbles and the door flew open as three men burst in.
‘Where is he?’ the first, a bearded bullock of a man, cried out, staring wildly around the room.
Black pushed himself away from the bar and stood tall, his jaw clenching and eyes going hard as black marbles.
‘You looking for me?’ he asked, staring directly at the man.
‘If you’re the little punk who put down Garby Mainwearing and his boys, then you is the one.’
He was a great thickset fellow with shoulders so big it was hard to find the neck that connected the broad body to the head. A fiery red-flushed face covered with a bushy beard and dense eyebrows that were furrowed in a deep V-shape on his forehead.
‘Garby who?’ asked Black, a little nonplussed, as he had been expecting a somewhat different introduction.
‘Mainwearing,’ the man repeated loudly. ‘You know who I mean you damned back-shooting scum. That was my cousin you shot down. A sweet child, who wouldn’t hurt nobody.’
‘Who’re you calling back-shooting scum?’ asked an offended Bill Black.
Diehard was beginning to put together the fact that these men were workers from the Mainwearing mine and that they were related to one of the deceased crew that had accompanied Garby back at the saloon. It appeared they had now mistakenly taken Bill Black for himself.
The mineworker bristled and his two companions spread out on either side of him, they were both as equally large and mean looking, one held a hardwood axe handle and the other a shotgun. Their fuming leader glowered spitefully at Black, his head hunching and shoulders bulging as he stared daggers at the outlaw.
‘Um, I think there’s been a mistake here,’ Diehard interrupted tentatively.
‘Ain’t no mistake,’ growled Black. ‘This tub of lard called me scum. Boys!’ he called to the men outside. ‘You hear that?’
The door behind the men opened and the whole team of Midnight Riders eased their way into the room, spreading out and surrounding the three burly miners.
‘Now, asshole,’ snarled Black. ‘You was saying something?’
The miner’s eyes flicked from side to side as he caught the encroaching movement of the surrounding men.
‘We got righteous contention,’ he said, in a somewhat modified tone at sight of the opposition.
‘That so?’ said Black. ‘Well you got a mighty big mouth for such a contentious numbnuts, just who are you?’
‘I’m Cole Rayde and these are my brothers, Ben and Reggie. That was our cousin was shot down in Marionville.’
‘And I should care?’ asked Black, still facing the man with his hand not far from the shooter at his hip.
‘Well you killed him, didn’t you?’
‘I killed a lot of men, friend, but I never heard of no Garby Whatshisname nor his cousin.’
‘No, wasn’t Mister Mainwearing’s cousin, it was ours.’
‘I don’t give a good goddamn who’s cousin he was, you just busted in here calling me all kinds of unsavory names and I take offense at that.’
‘Maybe we got the wrong fella, Cole?’ said Reggie, the most wiry of the three brothers, looking around cautiously at the surrounding gunmen.
Cole twisted his head from side to side as if easing his shoulders, ‘Maybe so, I ain’t so sure,’ he allowed.
‘Either make your play or get the hell out,’ warned a tense Bill Black, the strands of muscle in his jaw working overtime.
‘You sure you weren’t in Marionville?’ pressed Cole.
‘I think you are so puffed up with fat you must be hard of hearing,’ spat Black. ‘Boys, get these pissant hillbilly’s out of here.’
As The Midnight Riders closed in, the three big men decided caution was the better part of valor and began to back away to the door.
‘That’s right,’ said Black. ‘Go on, get out of here. Disturbing a man at his leisure, I never heard the like.’
Cole stopped at the door, ‘I find out different and I’ll be back,’ he promised.
‘Any time, lunkhead.’
There was a rumble of discussion from The Riders as the three miners departed; the sound of their ponies beating a slow retreat out of the town.
‘Come on, boys,’ said Black, turning with a dismissive shrug back to the bar. ‘Old Pablo’s got a lot of liquor here needs demolishing. Let’s get to it.’
Diehard took the opportunity as the men crowded up to the bar and Pablo feverishly began pouring more of his demonic moonshine into a long row of empty glasses. The cowboy slipped backwards through the gang as they pressed forwards and slid out of the still open doorway.
‘Now where’s that little fella? Die-hard!’ cried Black from the front of the crowd. ‘Maybe he knows what them guys was on about.’
But Diehard was already gone, whipping up the mules and heading fast for the pass.
Chapter Six
It occurred to Diehard, as he headed over the whip-snap rubble road that zigzagged upwards into the mountains that he had now had more than one set of malcontents to contend with. Not only the two horse thieves in front but also the three Rayde brothers on his tail. It was a breaded sandwich and he was the meat in the middle. A fact that, in truth, gave Diehard little cause for concern at that time, the brothers obviously did not know what he looked like and Carter and Betterman did not yet know he was on their trail. All that concerned him was the return of his property or, failing that, proper recompense for its theft.
As he mused on these thoughts he climbed higher, following a wide wagon-supply trail that had been cut into the mountainside and overlooked a deep valley and chain of peaked ridges stretching off into the distance. The air was cool the higher he climbed and the sharp edges of gray stone rose in a steep wall that towered above the slow moving buckboard. High overhead an eagle keened mournfully as it circled its lonely path, riding the thermals rising into the clear sky.
There was a sudden thump that reverberated through the air. He felt the pressure wave wash over him and pulled up the mules. There was another muffled thud followed by a protracted silence and Diehard realized that he was hearing explosives at play and knew then that he was nearing the railroad workings.
A bend in the trail brought him in sight of a massive rough-edged hole cut into the side of the towering rock face ahead. Smoke and dust was issuing in clouds from the opening and Diehard could see small figures rushing about frantically through the mist. Cries and loud calls along with the stink of cordite came to him and he urged the mules on.
Rows of small men in coolie hats sat crouched alongside the track as he neared, their expressionless faces watching him dully as he passed by. They were covered from head to toe in dust and their disconsolate appearance showed their exhaustion plainly.
At the tunnel opening, a burly man with rolled shirtsl
eeves and a bowler hat was loudly issuing instructions and Diehard pulled up alongside.
‘What’s happened here?’ he asked.
The fellow looked around in a distracted manner. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Down in the valley,’ Diehard answered. ‘I’m looking for….’
‘We had an early blast,’ the man went on, overriding Diehard’s explanation. ‘These monkeys can’t handle the fuses; they always set them too short. Now look at it, I got about fifteen of them taken down by that rock fall over by the service area we got planned. Thank Christ the main tunnel held.’
Diehard peered into the dissipating smoke and could see teams of Chinese working feverishly clearing piles of fallen rock.
‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.
The man looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, ‘Maybe there is, that wagon of yours could come in useful,’ he said. ‘The dead Chinks we can leave here under the rock fall but you could haul some of the wounded down to the main camp. Not that it matters much, they can die down there just as easy as up here, we got plenty more where they came from. Just that it looks good for the others.’
Diehard found his dismissive attitude callously indifferent but he knew that the teeming hordes of Chinese workers that had immigrated to the country were thought of as no more than cheap labor and given little more credibility than worker ants.
‘Be glad to help,’ he said.
The foreman turned away and bellowed some words in pigeon and a team of skinny fellows stripped to the waist and sweating profusely ran over bearing the wailing wounded. Diehard could see they had terrible wounds, their smashed limbs covered in blood.
‘You go long-side this fellow,’ the foreman said to an elderly Chinese man standing nearby. He wore a battered stovepipe hat with a long queue of braided hair reaching down his back and only a waistcoat over his skinny bare chest. The man was obviously some kind of leader as the other Chinese deferred respectfully to him. ‘You take-ee them fellas down line end,’ ordered the foreman.
‘Can I get through that tunnel?’ Diehard asked doubtfully, looking at the smoke cloud as the hurt Chinese workmen were being loaded into the bed of the wagon.
‘Sure,’ the foreman answered. ‘That’s clear all the way it’s only this end here that’s a problem.’
‘They got a doctor down there?’
The man chuckled, ‘They got a sawbones of sorts, whether he’ll get around to helping these poor beggars is another matter though.’
‘Why? He too busy or something?’
The foreman snorted a dismissive laugh, ‘He’s a lousy soak, if he’s got his head out of a whiskey barrel long enough then maybe he’ll do something about these boys.’
Diehard looked over his shoulder and counted five writhing bodies lying in the back of the buckboard, ‘That all of them?’ he asked in surprise.
‘All that’s living,’ the foreman answered offhandedly. ‘This here is Mister Chin; he’s some kind of work boss amongst the Chinese. He’ll go down with you and show you where to go.’
Without a word the top-hatted Chinaman climbed up and sat alongside Diehard on the driving seat. He was a wrinkled fellow, his face a mass of lines and weathered crinkles so deep that his eyes were lost amongst all the creases. Diehard looked across at him, ‘Howdy.’
The man sat impassively facing front and made no response, with a shrug, Diehard geed up the mules and the buckboard lurched forward towards the tunnel mouth.
‘Obliged to you,’ the foreman called after them, almost as an afterthought.
Diehard guided the mules past the workers at the tunnel mouth and through the heavy pall of dust still hanging there. They entered the cavernous opening and the sound of the mules’ hoof beats echoed with a clatter around the walls. There was a suddenly chill and darkness that surrounded them. Diehard could hear the men in the wagon bed whimpering in pain, the sound hollow and eerie in the sudden blackness.
‘How we going to find our way?’ Diehard asked the Chinaman. ‘It’s black as pitch in here.’
‘Go long straight, please,’ the little man said in a barely audible husky whisper.
‘You sure?’ asked Diehard; nervously aware that just beyond the tunnel walls there was a savage drop to the valley below.
‘I sure.’
One of the men in the back wailed something in a begging tone and Mister Chin barked something back at him abruptly in Chinese.
‘What’s the problem?’ Diehard asked.
‘Man want water. I tell no have.’
‘Under your feet, there’s a canteen. He can have that.’
‘Ah, so kind,’ said Mister Chin, fumbling under his feet. Finding the canteen, he unscrewed the lid and passed it back. Diehard heard the man glugging the water gratefully.
‘You like this kind of work?’ he asked the Chinaman.
‘It work,’ came the simple answer and Diehard almost felt the man’s shrug.
‘Hard, huh? What did you do before you came here then?’
‘I court official, work record papers for my lord in China.’
‘That’s different. Sounds like you’re an educated man, how come you’re slogging with a pick and shovel here?’
‘No find other work do,’ came the solemn answer out of the darkness.
‘That’s too bad,’ Diehard sympathized.
He could see a glimmer of light ahead now, the light shining and reflecting off the roughly hewn walls of the tunnel.
‘That it?’ he asked.
Mister Chin nodded. ‘Very grateful,’ he said.
‘T’ain’t nothing, I was coming here anyway.’
‘You work for railroad man?’
‘No, I’m looking for some people. Maybe you’ve seen them, two fellows with a string of fine horses. They come through here.’
Mister Chin pondered a moment, ‘Not know,’ came the simple answer.
‘Okay, well I’ll ask around when we get to this camp.’
Diehard squinted into the bright sunlight as they broke free of the tunnel and made their way down a long incline, passing queues of men bearing heavy baskets full of debris as they headed towards the track-end below. Stacks of railroad ties stood in heaps and a great smoking black locomotive stood puffing steam on the tracks, the flat beds behind the engine loaded with piles of shining steel rails. Again there was an army of Chinese workers busily unloading the heavy rails. The ring of steel on steel rang out as others hammered and dug with almost chain gang discipline preparing and laying out the track. Beyond them stood a small township of wall-sided canvas tents where a group of men in long coats and tall hats conferred over plans and stood around, occasionally looking through a theodolite mounted on a tripod.
Smoke came in streams from narrow tin chimneys erected through the tent roofs and there was the crack of whips and the steady call of men’s voices as they guided teams of oxen pulling heavy sleds loaded with the wooden ties. The busy camp was a noisy hive of activity and seemed wholly out of place in the majestic calm of the surrounding mountains.
‘You go there,’ Mister Chin pointed towards a tent, slightly larger than the others that stood on the camp’s perimeter. Behind the tent was a temporary pole corral set up with many horses milling around a long box-shaped water trough and Diehard eagerly checked to see if his ponies were amongst the herd. The movement of the horses inside the corral made it difficult to tell at the distance and Diehard was soon distracted by guiding his mules through the crowds of workers as they made their way into the site.
‘How you called?’ asked Mister Chin as they drew up outside the medical tent.
‘Charlie Wexford.’
Mister Chin tried out the name, ‘Charry Wesfor’.’
‘Close enough,’ said Diehard. ‘You can try Diehard, if it’s easier. I go by both.’
‘Okay, I say Diehar’ that make better.’ He swung himself over the side of the wagon with surprising agility for one of his age.
�
�Hold on,’ said Diehard, tying off the reins. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
‘You good man, Mister Diehar’,’ Mister Chin muttered gratefully as he unfastened the rear gate on the flat bed.
‘Not so much you’d notice.’
The gate swung down and Diehard caught his first clear view of the terrible wounds some of the men stacked inside had suffered. One man’s leg was fractured at the ankle, the foot hanging on by skin and ligament alone and another had gashes down to the bone on his brow where the skin hung in a bloody flap over his eyes.
‘Holy Mother!’ breathed Diehard. ‘Let’s get these poor fellows into the doctor.’
As they carried the first man inside, Diehard called out, ‘Doc! You there? We got wounded men here.’
Camp beds stood in a row along both sides of the tent. Rumpled sheets lay on a few of the beds, they were dirty and some stained with rings of vomit and brown patches of dried blood. The floor was filthy and covered with used bandages and pots of human waste stood unattended in corners. Diehard wrinkled his nose at the stench.
‘This is the camp hospital?’ he said in disbelief. ‘God! What a stink hole.’
‘Doctor often discomposed,’ Mister Chin explained.
‘Where is the sucker?’ asked Diehard in disgust as they lay the wounded man down on one of the beds.
‘Maybe he be out back,’ supplied Mister Chin.
Diehard strode the length of the bestial hospital tent and pulled back the flap at the rear. The doctor lay on his side in the dust outside. He was a bulky, white haired elderly man dressed in a long and dirty white coat and, fearing the worst, Diehard knelt down beside the body. The rank odor of whiskey came off the man in a wave and Diehard then noticed the empty bottles lying scattered around.
Diehard sighed in dismay; he looked around and spotted a horse wrangler rolling up a lariat over by the corral.
‘Hey, buddy! Give me a hand will you?’
The wrangler, a small bowlegged man with a high-crowned, ten-gallon Stetson hat pulled down over a pair of large protruding ears looked over. He has the biggest nose Diehard has ever seen, it jutted out from under the brim of his Stetson like the prow of a sailing ship.