The way Pa said it made a chill skitter down Mel’s spine. Mel loved her uncle and trusted him completely, but the truth was, Uncle Walt was known to be a hard man, a dangerous man. He only came to work for Pa about four years ago. She’d heard it whispered that it was because, after years of being a hired gun, he’d made his peace with God and wasn’t willing to earn a living that way anymore. Whether it was because of the rumors or the fact Uncle Walt could freeze you to death with a glare from his cold eyes, he wasn’t a man anyone pushed around.
Yet Pa was an excellent judge of character and he trusted his younger brother without hesitation. Pa loved him, and Uncle Walt loved them all right back. That was good enough for Mel. Pa agreeing to this and talking with Walt made her sure he knew everything he needed to about Walt. Even with brotherly love between them, Mel didn’t think Pa would trust or respect a professional killer.
Whatever Uncle Walt’s story, Mel was glad to have him at her side.
She rushed upstairs to pack. Knowing gold mining was a dirty business, she included several changes of clothes so she wouldn’t have to wash too often. Without telling Ma, three of those outfits included riding skirts. Mel just wasn’t going to put up with digging in the dirt while wearing a calico dress.
She hoped Uncle Walt wasn’t a tattletale.
8
“There were at least three men.” Heath rose from where he crouched by a clear footprint beside the spot a dynamite fuse had been lit. “I’ve found prints that are different on each level.”
Cole nodded. “We lease for the ground beneath the mines, as far down as they want to dig. They have clear possession of the land.” He looked down the slope, dotted with mine entrances. Three levels. Three bombers.
Heath had spotted a third man’s footprints, and Justin had gone following them. Now he’d come back. “Heath, I might be able to pick up this varmint if I’m careful, but he steps onto a trail a lot of men walk on. Once he does, I’ll only be able to figure him out if he turns off the trail alone. I could use your eyes on this.”
Heath glanced at the sun, now sunk behind the snowcap of Mount Kebbel. They were working on the east side of the mountain and already in deep shadow. “I doubt I can see much from here. And we need to head home if we plan on sleeping there tonight.”
Heath looked between them. “I could stay here. If the crew from the JB Ranch shows up, I’ll point out their cabins for them, and I can bunk in the cabin you keep here, Cole. Your pa’s will doesn’t say anything about a son-in-law sleeping away from the Cimarron Ranch.”
The idea bothered Cole so much, he had to face the cold fact that he didn’t want to leave until Mel came back. He wanted to have a serious word with her uncle Walt.
And there was nothing he could say to Walt that Heath couldn’t say and that Mel had no doubt already said. So what it came down to was, he wanted to see if he couldn’t talk her out of this madness . . . madness that he had to admit was a pretty good idea. He just plain wanted to see her again, but that wasn’t all. What he had tickling in the back of his mind was finding just a few moments to be alone with her, and that was a purely bad idea. Sure thing Uncle Walt wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. And he wasn’t going to stand quietly by while a man paid too much attention to his niece. So that left Cole telling her good night, which was no good reason to wait and ride home to the CR in the dark.
He was just getting ready to do the commonsense thing and leave Heath behind when a group of riders emerged from the woods at the base of the mountain, Mel riding in the lead along with her gunfighter uncle at her side.
Cole started down. “We’ll go as soon as I show them where their cabins are.”
“I can do that, Cole.” Heath’s voice followed him downhill, but as always there was a thread of humor in it. Cole wondered, if he looked back, if Heath wasn’t laughing and maybe Justin, too. Well, Cole didn’t want to know about that so he walked faster and reached the bottom about the same time Mel, Walt, and three other men pulled to a halt, all staring at him.
This was Cole’s mine. He ran it. He was the one who should welcome newcomers.
Justin and Heath came right behind him.
“Howdy, Cole. Justin, Heath,” Mel said. “I think we saw the cabins. We could tell which ones were empty. There are five of them with their doors open.”
Five cabins all together. Five men mining side by side. All five of those men dead by the same brutal, deliberate method. Cole’s mind kept circling back to these men, who knew one another for years, not showing much outward signs of a connection, yet all of them dying the same day.
He shook off his thoughts. He could do nothing about it now, and nobody from the JB needed his help.
Which didn’t make Cole head for home.
And then Mel spoke again, and he kind of wished he’d headed out.
“All of us,” Mel said, sweeping a pointing finger to include the men riding with her, “expect to sign leases, and we’re keeping any gold we dig up.”
“I hope you don’t all end up being miners instead of cowpokes. Jack’s gonna blame me.”
The men all chuckled, and even Mel’s face broke into a smile. “I might get gold fever. I might develop a taste for expensive silk dresses.”
That got another low rumble of laughter, especially since she was sitting astride a gray gelding, wearing a riding skirt and a Stetson, with a Colt Peacemaker strapped on her hip. Fancy dresses and Mel Blake. For a second, Cole found himself distracted by the image of Mel in silk. He thought she’d look pretty good . . . just like now.
Cole cleared his throat. “I’ll get the leases to you first thing in the morning.” He lowered his voice. “Do any of you know a blamed thing about mining?”
The men looked between each other, until finally Walt Blake spoke up. “I’ve spent some time in a mine.”
Every person there listened up when Walt spoke. It was just good sense. Walt’s eyes were a light brown just like Mel’s, though there was a darkness behind them. A man who’d seen too much and didn’t have much to smile about. Something about him sent a shiver down Cole’s spine. Not that he felt like the man was dangerous to him, for Cole had heard Walt was a decent sort of man. A gunman, yes, and tough as an old boot. But it was said he liked to defend the weak against the powerful. He was interested in justice more than money. He fought on the side of right.
And a lot of the time when Walt got into a fight, no one wanted to buy in, and the fight was over just from the mention of his name.
“Didn’t care for it much,” Walt said. “Never wanted to dig my way into the earth and go too far down, but I know the way of it and can give enough pointers that these men will look as good as any of your miners. I imagine some of them were new to it when they signed on, too.”
“Can’t deny that,” Cole said, nodding. “Do you need help getting settled?”
He meant to ask Mel, but he did his best to include everyone. “Justin, Heath, and I are done for the night so we’re free to lend a hand.” He paused and looked from one man to the other, ending when his eyes reached Mel’s. “We really appreciate that you’ve come. You’re fine neighbors and the Bodens will do the same for you if you’re ever in need. There’s some danger here. If any of you want to leave at some point, I’ll understand and you’ll leave with my respect.”
The men all nodded silently. Though Cole had spoken the promise out loud, every man there already knew it for a fact. The Blakes and the Bodens had been friends for a long time.
“We’ll settle in on our own, Cole,” Mel said, “but thank you for the offer of help. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Cole tugged on the brim of his Stetson to say goodbye, then watched them all ride away, Mel and Walt to the two closest cabins. Cole could see the cabins from where he stood.
When he reached his cabin, Walt dismounted and turned to look straight at Cole, and Cole couldn’t help but wonder why. He thought he’d behaved well, but that darkness in Walt’s eyes told a different story
.
After they reached the top of their climb, Cole said to the others, “I should go look through my files and see just when those men who died signed their leases for the first time.”
Heath nodded. “And how’d they end up side by side? What are the chances those five cabins opened up all at once?”
“If they did,” Justin added, “then you’d better check just why they opened up. Were the miners who leased them before driven off? Did they leave by their own choice or were they pushed out?”
“Murray might know the answers to all that.” Cole then remembered Gully’s expression after hearing Murray’s name, which still bothered him. He trusted both men. He was sure the distance between Murray and the miners was because Murray made himself out to be a different kind of man. For one thing, the man wore a suit. And he worked with contracts and payrolls and percentages while the miners gave the Bodens ten percent of their finds.
And yet Gully had asked Cole not to include Murray. Cole decided he’d better do what Gully wanted. Cole would handle the files himself and consult Gully only if he had any questions. Both men had been at the mine longer than Cole.
“You haven’t slept all day, Cole.” Justin patted him on the back in a way that was too gentle for his ham-handed brother. “You got your head sewn together, you worked all night and all day, and you’ve got a long day planned for tomorrow. Leave the files until tomorrow, when your head doesn’t ache. Everything will make more sense in the morning.”
It was the pure truth that Cole was feeling almost cross-eyed from fatigue and pain.
“You’re right. Let’s go home.” Cole turned toward the stable to fetch his horse. Justin was on one side while Heath came up on the other. Rather than head off to bed down in the office as Cole had expected, Heath stayed with them all the way to the stable. “I thought you were staying here.”
Heath flashed that reckless smile of his—honestly it didn’t go with him at all. Heath was a calm, dependable, steady man, but his smile and his eyes could take on a wild look on occasion. Which they did now.
“I took one look at Walt Blake,” he said, “and decided I’d be wasting my time. He looks like a man to take charge of a situation.”
So they all saddled up and rode for the CR.
“Yep, a man you don’t want as an enemy,” Justin said as they trotted along. Another mile eastward and they would ride out from under the shadows cast by Mount Kebbel, and they’d have a bit of sunlight before the late afternoon of a New Mexico February turned to dusk. They’d be home before full dark.
“But I’m thinking he’d be about the best kind of man you could have as a friend,” Heath said. “And he makes a fine chaperone, too.”
Before Cole could grab him, Heath kicked his horse into a gallop. Deciding they should stay together, Cole went after him. It had nothing to do with catching his brother-in-law and shoving his teeth down his throat.
Then he heard Heath laughing ahead and, worst of all, Justin laughing behind.
Cole decided he was riding at exactly the right pace, because he didn’t want to deal with either of them—not after being halfway blown up yesterday. Maybe in a few days, when the wound to his head had healed some, he’d find a way to make them stop their teasing.
In the meantime they were making tracks toward home that would soon let them put food in their bellies and let Cole sleep for the first time since he’d passed out. It’d been a long couple of days.
9
Cole was back at the mine before sunup.
Murray didn’t start this early, so Cole had the headquarters to himself. Stepping inside, he paused to light a lantern. He walked through an open doorway, as the door had been ripped from its hinges in the explosion.
The building was empty. All the men had been carried to their cabins. Two of them were married and had wives to care for them. Two more had decided they’d be fine, or at least could survive on their own. The fifth had a friend who’d agreed to look after him until he could care for himself, only that would also keep the worker away from the mine. All five were going to be laid up for a while, as well as a bunch of other men who’d been hurt in the explosions. Cole had already seen they had supplies to keep them going until the men could return to work, including a doctor to check on them regularly. He also told them they didn’t need to worry about their lease payments until they were back working.
The explosions were an attack on the Bodens, Cole had no doubt of that, even without solid evidence. Unless it was just a brutal cover-up to kill five men. Whichever it was, none of these miners was going to pay more of a price than they already had.
He studied the wreckage around him to try to imagine how to fix the place, to make the office like it once was. Tearing it down and starting again would probably be easiest.
But no. He decided it’d be faster to rebuild the roof. The corner of one wall had buckled, but it could be shored up. Cole hoped it would hold and his repairs wouldn’t leave him with an office that might cave in during the first heavy snow.
Rocks that’d come in through the roof were shoved aside, lined up by the wall, under Murray’s desk, and everywhere else an injured man hadn’t needed to lie. But getting rid of the rocks would involve just picking them up and carrying them outside.
The furniture was in bad shape. Murray’s desk had stood up to the blast, but his chair was smashed to pieces. He scanned the debris tossed into a corner, along with the two filing cabinets that always stood behind the desk. They’d fallen over and broken apart, the drawers in shambles. Cole was unconscious when they’d brought him in after they opened the mine, so he wasn’t sure why both of the filing cabinets were tipped over. There was no hole in the roof right above them.
Maybe they’d been pushed aside to make room for the injured and somehow toppled. It was a mess. Stacks of files were bunched together in such disarray Cole didn’t even bother to go look at them.
He headed for his own office instead. He closed himself in and let the dismay sweep over him. They’d spread the wounded out in here, too. There was blood splattered on the floor. The roof was intact, but the heavy shutters on two windows were gone. Stones looked as if they’d been scattered everywhere, then pushed aside to make room for the injured.
But compared to the front office, this room was in pristine order. His desk, chair, and files had all survived intact.
And this is where he kept all the leases, saved back from the beginning of when gold had been found in the mid-sixties and Pa had the notion to lease out claims rather than go into gold mining himself.
Cole began opening file drawers.
An hour later he had a disturbing picture of the men who’d been killed. It was curious more because of what he couldn’t find than what he could.
He needed to talk to Gully.
Mel stepped out of her cabin, stretching, trying to get her muscles to stop aching. She’d just spent the night sleeping on a bed about as soft as the board-walks of Skull Gulch. She paused for a moment and thought of all the times she’d slept on the trail with a blanket her only bed and her saddle for a pillow.
Good grief, she was getting soft.
Uncle Walt was already up and out, leading both their horses, which had been staked out to graze overnight.
“I’m going to have to figure out a corral for ’em.” Walt glanced up at her from where he was shoving a metal pike into the ground to hold the haltered horses. He’d picked a spot for them that had plenty of fresh grass. Her gelding had water dripping from its gray muzzle, so he’d taken them to the stream already.
Mel threw in and had her own horse staked out before Uncle Walt had to do it.
Left with nothing to do, he said, “I saw a light in Cole’s office.” Uncle Walt pointed up the mountain, and Mel turned, surprised that she could see the building from this distance.
“It was already lit when I got up and I’ve been going awhile, so he’s at it early.” Walt sounded as if he approved of early mornings and long hours, which any
good rancher did.
“I’ll get the men, and we can all go up to the office to claim our leases. Then we’ll see to a little mining.” Walt smiled in a way he rarely did. Mel wondered if he thought watching her dig for gold would be funny.
Mel finished with her horse and did a few morning chores. Uncle Walt appeared with the three Blake hands trailing him. Mel had known these men since she was a kid. They were the heart of the JB Ranch operation.
They all trooped up the big old mountain to get to Cole’s office. It was a long hike. She should’ve ridden her horse.
Cole met them at the door. “Good morning. I have your leases all ready. I’d have brought them down to you in a few minutes.”
“You’re real banged up, Cole.” Mel noticed the ugly bruise around his stitches, the scrapes all over his face. And she could tell he was favoring his belly some. He’d been shot not that long ago, which had brought on a fever that spent a week trying to kill him.
She’d’ve said he was all healed up from the gunshot, but it looked like he wasn’t quite healthy enough for a mountain to explode around him.
“Come on back to my office.” They followed him in and did the paper work in short order. Though the lease carried a charge with it, Cole said, “I’m not taking a cent from you. And whatever gold you find is yours. I know I’m causing a real short staff at the JB, and I thank you all for helping me.”
There were stacks of papers on his desk, so orderly Mel was sure he’d been working on them since early morning. It was way more paper than a man needed to rent a few mines . . . which meant Cole was investigating. He was thinking about the men who’d died in the explosion or had been helped along in such a way it appeared they’d died in the explosion.
Mel itched to ask him questions and figured the JB hands oughta know what was going on so they could be on the lookout.
Walt kicked the floor of the battered office building as if he wondered if that might bring it down. It distracted Mel from her questioning.
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