The High Graders

by Louis L'Amour

  At that very moment Brazos was seated in the kitchen of Dr. Clagg’s home with a shotgun across his knees, and close at hand, a Winchester .44. He had been recruited by Clagg as a guard for Laine Tennison.

  In Clagg’s office several patients had arrived for consultation. Billy Townsend, owner of the Blue Horn Saloon, James Martin Field, editor and publisher of the Rafter Blade, and Tom Hayes, who operated a general store, were all there. There were several others, chosen with care.

  Clagg was speaking to them.

  “We will waste no time arguing about the past.

  What remains is to see what possibilities are open to us now. If any of you have any doubts as to the purpose of our meeting, it is just this: to consider the state of affairs in Rafter as of this minute.

  “A young woman, a well-known and generally respected owner of a ranch, has been shot down on the streets of Rafter. Gib Gentry, a businessman of this town, has been murdered just outside it. A notorious killer, imported for what reason we do not know, has been slain in the hills nearby. These killings have all happened in the last few days.”

  Hayes shifted uncomfortably, and sweat began to bead his forehead.

  “We have a marshal with an excellent reputation,” Dr. Clagg went on, “but he is also a marshal who is willing to go along with what the townspeople accept, and within those limits, to keep the peace. That has been the customary practice in most western communities.

  It remains to be seen whether that is sufficient here.”

  The outer door opened and closed, then the door to the inner office opened, and Laine Tennison stood there. “Rupert,” she said abruptly, “I believe this meeting concerns me. I wish to join it.”

  “I was expecting you,” Clagg said. “I told Dottie to let you know what was happening. Will you sit down?”

  Tom Hayes started to get up, then sat down again. “Now look, Doc,” he protested, “I ain’t sure I want to get mixed up in this. Things have been going along pretty good, and—”

  “Hold your horses, Tom,” Billy Townsend said easily. “You just set still and listen to what the Doc has to say. He looks to me like a man with ideas.”

  Hayes glanced around uneasily, but sat back in his chair. “What about her?” he grumbled. “What’s that girl doin’ in here?”

  Laine turned on him coolly. “I am here because I have a bigger stake in this than any of you. I own the mines— both of them.”

  All eyes turned toward her and she colored a little, her chin lifting.

  “That’s right, gentlemen,” Clagg said. “Miss Tennison has another distinction. She is the niece of Eli Patterson, the man whose murder started all this.”

  Hayes started at the word “murder,” then he relaxed.

  “We are here to make a decision,” Clagg said. “Do we wish to continue to live upon the proceeds of crime and murder, to rear our families in an atmosphere of the acceptance of crime, getting in deeper and deeper each day; or are we going to make a break with the past and demand that this town be cleaned up?”

  Billy Townsend crossed one knee over the other, and said, “If we start cleaning up this town, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

  Laine Tennison spoke up sharply. “Gentlemen, let me tell you this: somebody is going to get hurt anyway. My attorneys have drafted a letter to the governor—I believe he is Jack Moorman’s son-in-law—asking that a special officer be appointed to bring law and order to Rafter. I have requested a complete investigation.”

  She paused, looking slowly around the room. “I have requested an investigation into the stealing of gold, and also as to the identity of those who have been receiving the stolen goods.” There was a stir of apprehension in the room, but she added, “However, I have no wish to bring trouble to anybody else if I can convict those responsible and recover my gold.”

  “That’s fair,” Townsend said.

  “Prosecutin’ is one thing,” Hayes said, “convictin’ is another. Anyway, who is goin’ to be the one to roust that outfit out of here?”

  “If he is told to do it by the townspeople, and if he has support, I think Wilson Hoyt will do it.”

  “He’ll try,” Townsend agreed.

  “He’s only one man,” Hayes said, “only one man against that bunch of fighters Ben Stowe has imported. Why, half of those miners are no more miners than you or me. They’re pistol-men from Texas or wherever.”

  “Gentlemen,” Clagg said dryly, “if we vote to act now, I shall myself walk beside Hoyt.”

  They looked at him in surprise, all but Townsend. “I run a saloon, and the money has been good. All the same, I’ve known it was the wrong way to run a town. Doc, when you walk out there with Hoyt, I’ll be right alongside of you.”

  “Good,” Clagg said. “I had an idea that’s where you’d be, Billy.”

  “And me too,” Fields said. “I haven’t shot a rifle since the War Between the States, but I’ve got a mighty good shotgun.”

  Tom Hayes got up quickly. “You’re a pack of fools!” he exclaimed angrily. “I’ll have nothing to do with this.”

  At the back of the room two others rose quickly and ducked out the door.

  Hayes hesitated, as if wanting to say something more. “You can’t ride the fence, Tom,” Townsend said quietly. “We called you in to give you your chance.”

  “Chance! Why you ain’t got no chance at all. The minute Ben Stowe hears about this you’ll all be riding for a slab on Boot Hill!”

  Billy Townsend was smiling a little. “Are you going to tell him, Tom?”

  Hayes flushed angrily. “No, I ain’t! And don’t come blamin’ me if he hears of it!” He went out the door and closed it quickly after him.

  For a moment there was silence, and then Pete Hillaby stood up. “You can count me in, Doc. I’ll stand with you.”

  In the end, there were nine men left. Doctor Rupert Clagg glanced from one to another. “All right, boys. From this moment we go armed, and no one of us is to be alone. You’ll get the word from Billy here, and we’ll all meet at his place. In the meantime I’ll have a talk with Wilson Hoyt.”

  When all of them had left, Dr. Clagg turned to Laine. “Well, we’ve made a start, and I believe we’ll carry it off.”

  “With only nine men?” Laine was frightened. “Rupert, we’ve got to get word to Mike Shevlin before anything happens.”

  “He’s a tough man—we could use him,” Clagg agreed. He hesitated. “I’ll ride out and get him.”

  “No,” Laine protested. “You stay here. If you ride out there everyone will know something is happening. I’ll go get him.”

  And at last he agreed, for there was much to do in Rafter, and very little time.

  Laine Tennison rode her dapple-gray mare out of town toward Parry’s claim, following only a few minutes behind Ben Stowe. She rode swiftly, keeping in mind the location of Parry’s claim, for the mining maps of the area that she had studied for hours were clearly fixed in her memory. The trail to the claim was round about, although the actual distance, as the crow flies, was quite short.

  Finally she turned into the narrow canyon. It was not hard to recognize the mountain in which the two mines were located, and she knew at once the mouth of the discovery tunnel when she saw it. Though the tunnel had not been used, it was clearly indicated on her maps.

  As she rode up to the claim, the first thing she saw was Ben Stowe’s horse. Stowe was nowhere in sight, and neither was Burt Parry or Mike Shevlin.

  Laine stood very still and looked across the canyon. There was the dump at the discovery claim. And then she suddenly knew where they were.

  She went to her saddlebag and got her pistol.

  Chapter 15

  WHEN HE was well within the tunnel, Mike Shevlin paused to light his candle, then placed it in the holder on his cap. Although he had worked underground, he had never cared much for it; and he hesitated now, knowing the traps that might lie before him.

  As he went forward, he counted his steps, and when he h
ad gone fifty paces into the tunnel he paused to listen, but there was no sound. He tilted his head back, letting the light play on the rock overhead. It looked solid. The chances were that if this place was in use at all, somebody was barring down to prevent loose rock from falling.

  He walked on a little further, and an ever so slight bend in the drift cut him off from the spot of light that was the mouth of the tunnel. Suddenly he saw the ladder of a manway, and beyond it the end of the drift. The ladder led upward into the darkness.

  Again he listened.

  There was no sound but the slow drip of water near the end of the drift. He turned and started up the ladder.

  Then he thought he heard the sound of a single-jack, somewhere far off, but the sound ceased almost at once and he was not sure about it. He paused again, looking up the ladder, remembering how Laine’s investigator had been caught in just such a place by falling drills. The long steel shafts must have gone clear through him ... it was an unpleasant thought.

  Suddenly he saw the opening of a drift on his left. The ladder continued on upward, but he stepped off and stood on the platform at the lip of the manway. He listened, but could hear nothing; then, squatting on his heels, he studied the planks of the platform. The dust was thick, and undisturbed. Obviously this area was unworked, yet the flame of his candle indicated a slight movement of air. Somewhere down that tunnel there was an opening, either from the drift he was in, or from a connecting one.

  He felt nervous and jumpy. This was different from facing a man with a gun in the open air. Here it was dark and still, a place where a man without a light would be helpless. For anyone who had never worked underground it was always a shock to realize the complete absence of light, the utter blackness, deep in a mine or a cave. There is no such thing as the eyes growing accustomed to absolute darkness ... there one is completely blind.

  Anyone he might meet down here would have the advantage of knowing the mine—he would know every manway, every cross-cut, raise, or winze. He would know where to go and how to get there. Mike, a stranger to the mine, might find himself in an old stope or a waste-fill from which there was no escape.

  He turned back to the ladder and began climbing, but he paused after only a few steps. He was perspiring profusely, and he knew it was not from heat—it was from fear.

  Mike Shevlin had known fear before: only a man who was a fool could say that he had never been afraid. On that manway Shevlin would be almost helpless if someone decided to do to him what they had done to the other investigator. And nobody could prove it was anything but an accident.

  He had climbed only fifty feet when he heard voices, and far above him he saw a faint glimmer of light. Someone was coming toward him.

  To go back down was impossible in the time he had, but right above him, on his left, another drift opening showed, black and empty. With quick steps he was up the ladder and into the dark opening. He had an instant, no more, in which to see that he stood on a “station” about twenty feet across; opposite him the drift disappeared into the depths of the mountain.

  There was no time to hesitate, for already he could hear feet on the ladder. He took off his cap and pinched out the light. And then, in absolute blackness, he tip-toed across to the tunnel. He missed the opening by a few feet, but he found it and had only just got inside when he saw the glimmer of light nearing the station he had just abandoned.

  Feeling his way along the wall of the drift, he worked his way deeper into the mine, hoping for a cross-cut that would enable him to get out of sight. The men on the ladder might go on down, but if they stopped he was in trouble.

  They stopped.

  Flattened against the wall of the drift, he waited. He could hear the murmur of voices, and in another moment a man came into sight—a stocky, powerful-looking man lighting a pipe. The second man followed. Neither man seemed to be armed with anything but a pick-handle, though that was quite enough in case of a hand-to-hand fight in the mine.

  At first Shevlin could hear only snatches of their conversation. Obviously, they had stopped off on the station to have a smoke ... but what would they do when they finished that? Would they come along the drift toward him?

  …he’s jumpy. I tell you, Also, I don’t like the looks of it. You been down to the Nevada House since? Or the Blue Horn?”

  Shevlin could not distinguish the words of the other man, but the first one spoke again. “Well, I was down there, and there wasn’t nobody around. That’s a bad sign. I tell you, I can smell vigilantes. I seen this happen before. You can raise all the hell you want, rob a man, or even kill one, and nobody says much; but you bother a woman or do one any harm, and folks change.”

  There was another indistinguishable comment, and then:

  “You may not be worried, but I am. And I ain’t the only one. The boss is worried, too. You watched him lately? He’s jumpy as a cat.”

  Presently they returned to the manway and went on down. Shevlin waited for them to be well away, then he struck a match and lighted his cap-lamp.

  He walked on along the drift, passing several cross-cuts, and once a bank of four ore chutes, thick with dust and long unused.

  His uneasiness increased with every step. He knew he was walking into trouble, and the last thing he wanted was trouble underground. In such a place it was always risky to use a gun, for the concussion might bring down some rock, especially in a long-worked area.

  It seemed obvious that the two men were guards following a regular patrol, and they might appear again at any time.

  He had never seen a working plan of the mine, and had no idea how extensive the workings were. There was now a continual drip of water, and here and there were shallow pools.

  Suddenly he came to a cross-cut. A few feet in, on one side, was a heavy plank door, which he found was locked.

  This could be a powder room, but he had never seen one built with such care. The heavy planks had been set back into the rock on either side and strengthened by huge twelve-by-twelve posts. He took hold of the handle of the door, but it was so solid that it could neither be moved nor shaken. And it was fitted so snugly that it offered no place for a bar or wedge. His guess was that the planks were three-by-twelves—and short of a battering ram or dynamite, such a door could not be forced. Half an hour’s work with a good axe might do the job—but even so, there might be a guard posted somewhere on the other side of the door.

  This then, had to be the opening into the area from which they were mining the high-grade ore.

  The cross-cut beyond the drift on the other side was half filled with waste. The main drift led on into the mountain, and he surmised he was almost halfway through to the side toward Rafter Crossing.

  Thoughtfully, Shevlin studied the rock in which the door was framed, but it appeared to be as solid as the mountain of which it was a part. He stood there a moment, reluctant to give up, and attempted to visualize his present position in terms of the two mine shafts. But a man’s movement underground can be deceptive, and he could not be sure.

  As he hesitated, he felt a growing sense of uneasiness, a disturbing feeling that he was watched. Was there a peekhole, somehow disguised, in the door itself? He shrugged and turned away, his cap-lamp throwing a feeble glow around him.

  He walked back to the main drift and stopped there, wondering if he dared go deeper into the mine. At the same time, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something that sent a chill through him.

  On top of the piled-up waste rock in the other side of the cross-cut was a rifle muzzle, and he had no doubt at all that somebody lay behind it, ready to shoot if necessary.

  An interesting gleam from the wall of the drift caught his eye, and he stepped over to it, making a pretense of studying the rock. He knocked off a corner with the prospector’s pick he carried in his belt and examined it in the light from his cap-lamp. As he studied it, he tried to think what it was best to do.

  The obvious thing to do was to turn and walk back down the drift the way he had come.
If he did so, his presence might be passed off as a harmless exploring of an old mine-working. Under the circumstances it was highly improbable, but it just might work. On the other hand, would the hidden watcher allow him to go? Might he not shoot at any moment?

  Shevlin started to turn away when he heard, from down the drift, along the way he himself had come, the sound of boots. Someone was coming toward him, someone who could be no great distance away. Quickly, Shevlin turned and went up the drift toward the main working of the mine, and he had gone no more than fifty feet before he came to another row of four ore chutes and a manway.

  There was only time to observe that the dust on the ladder was undisturbed, and then he was climbing, swiftly and silently. Not thirty feet above, he entered a stope where the ore had been mined out and shot down from overhead. Crawling over the heaped-up rock, he crouched down in a small hollow and waited, listening.

  The place where he had chosen to hide was right at the top of an empty chute where his slightest movement might be heard below, but where he himself could hear what went on down there. He heard the distant footsteps, then came a pause.

  Watching over the rim of the chute, his own light placed on the muck well behind him, he saw the faint movement of the walker’s light, but he heard no voices.

  What of the man behind the gun? Was he equally unknown to whoever had come along the tunnel?

  Suddenly, he heard a faint gasp, and then the rustle of clothing. Someone whose feet and legs he could see, scurried past the chute and stepped into the space between that chute and the next. Shevlin could hear again the rustle of denim against the framework of the chute. And then, very faintly, he heard still other steps.

  This was impossible, and yet it was happening. Three men were now in hiding in the old mine-working all within a few yards of the great plank door!

  The new steps came on, hesitated, then continued on again. They, too, paused when they faced that solidly framed door. Breathing ever so faintly, Shevlin watched over the edge of the chute, watched the reflection of distant light; in a moment whoever it was who held the light came on up the drift that ran past the chutes.