Suddenly they came upon a huge gap where a boulder had been dislodged centuries before; it had come crashing down into the valley, leaving a steep but natural pocket. M’Candliss eased up to the rim of the pocket. “It’s the mine,” he whispered over his shoulder. “I can see the shack down a ways, and a trail going around to where there’s the shaft itself.”
“Any men?” Flynn asked.
“Two.”
Flynn and Meckleburg pushed up to where they could see over the edge of the pocket. In front of them was a gravelly slope which fell away gradually for some twenty-five or thirty yards to the small plank-board shack. Under the roof of the shack, shaded from the glaring sun, were two grizzled-looking men, their rifles leaning against the wall. One was rolling a cigarette and the other had a small pint bottle raised to his lips.
M’Candliss studied the two guards and the surrounding land for a long moment. “There’s no way we can get much closer than we are already. We’ll have to rush them.”
“But, Cap—”
Ignoring Flynn’s protest, M’Candliss gripped his Winchester repeater and leaped over the rim. He plummeted down the slope, risking a fall in his haste, but knowing this was the only way to get a drop on the guards short of shooting them from ambush, which could very well alert and attract their comrades.
“Freeze, you two!” he snapped, leveling his carbine.
Neither of the guards could reach their weapons fast enough, and wisely they didn’t try. They straightened, hands raising above their heads, astonishment plain upon their faces.
“Flynn, Meckleburg,” M’Candliss called over his shoulder. “Hustle down here and take their irons.”
The Rangers carefully slipped over the crest and started toward the guards, staying wide of M’Candliss in case there was trouble. There was, and of a sudden, but it didn’t come from the covered men.
Before Flynn or Meckleburg could reach the clearing by the shack, a body of armed men came from around the blind corner leading to the mine shaft itself. They opened fire immediately, a blanket of lead that swirled around M’Candliss and the others, leaving no time for reflection on who they were or why they were there—although, intuitively, M’Candliss knew the answers to both.
He threw himself to one side and returned the fire with his carbine, triggering and levering as fast as he could. On the slope, Flynn had crouched to one knee and Meckleburg had dodged behind an outcropping; both men were firing methodically. The group of outlaws scattered for cover, leaving three dead and a fourth wounded on the trail.
Another went down as M’Candliss squeezed off again, the last shot in his carbine. He drew his Colt and blasted two shots at a big, whiskered man who was taking aim at Flynn. The man buck-jumped backward and slid on his face as he curled forward again. The last of the men in the open darted toward the cover of a boulder, but the earth gave way before he got there and he slid off balance. M’Candliss drew a bead and fired; his bullet ricocheted off the man’s belt buckle and tore upward through his chest, sending him sprawling. The fusillade of bullets from Flynn and Meckleburg had the remaining outlaws pinned down. M’Candliss knew that if he was going to make a run for the mine shaft, this would have to be the time.
He scrambled up and made a zigzagging run toward the hill from which the boulder had been ripped. His idea was to go up and over and then to drop down to the shaft. “Cover me!” he shouted as he ran. “I’m going in!”
He reached the steep, dangerous slope. At his first step he sank into loose shale, treacherous as quicksand. He dropped his empty carbine, clawed at the rock with his free hand, and struggled upward even as he felt himself sinking deeper into the shale. His boots found a few solid places, but every inch was a battle which took all his concentration and left him at the mercy of the gunmen below. Bullets snapped around him; scattered fragments of rock stung his face and arms. A part of him expected to be shot with every slow, torturous step he took. But the continual firing of Flynn and Meckleburg helped keep the remaining outlaws pinned down.
Long minutes later, he reached the crest unharmed. He toppled forward on his belly and rolled away from sight. The top of the shale slide was open, windswept, and narrow, but it extended all the way to where he estimated the shaft to be. Cautiously he approached, making a circle above the area as he crawled over the rocky ground. He could see now the crumbling timbers of the supports and the mine shaft’s black entrance, near collapse and choked with debris.
M’Candliss eased down from his vantage point on the narrow shelf after first making sure the area was clear of men. He crouched by the mine tunnel to listen; there was no sound from within. He picked up a stone and tossed it inside, then waited a while longer. The rock had hit one wall and caused a dull echo—but that was all.
He gripped his Colt and moved around to step inside. Almost immediately, the tunnel made a turning—the result of the original miners having followed a particular seam of silver. He groped his way around the jog and found that the rest of the tunnel was lit at infrequent intervals by mesquite torches stuck in wall niches. The mesquite provided very poor, faint light, but it was sufficient for M’Candliss to see that the tunnel was nearly caved in, with earth and fallen timbers clogging the passage.
Easing forward, stepping as silently as he could, he picked his way over the solid floor as though it were more loose shale. There was an icy clamminess in the saddle of his back, for he had the distinct sensation that he was not alone in the tunnel. He hoped that the feeling was because he was close now to the kidnapped Clement Holmes; but a part of his mind kept repeating that if Holmes was inside the mine tunnel, there would no doubt be one or more guards present as well.
He crept along, feeling the walls on either side in the murkiness, his boots making small hollow sounds as he moved. Then, ahead, he saw that the tunnel widened into a grotto-like chamber, with still more mesquite torches ringing the enclosed room. He moved closer... and saw a length of rope curled in one corner, along with the flannel nightshirt and quilted bed jacket he’d last seen on Clement Holmes.
“What the hell,” he muttered. He hurried across the chamber, hunkered to check the abandoned clothing.
“Hold it right there,” a hard voice said behind him.
M’Candliss started to turn, to bring his Colt around, but the voice said, “Try it and you’re a dead man,” and he knew he had no chance to get off a shot before the other man shot him. He froze. And when the voice said, “Drop your gun,” he let the Colt slip out of his fingers to clatter on the rock floor.
He turned slowly to face the owner of the voice. In the meager torchlight he was able to make out a short, swarthy man whose black hair grew thick on his temples but became sparse above the eyebrows. A thin strand was brushed sideways across the top of a shiny skull. The man had a Smith & Wesson .44 trained dead center on M’Candliss’ chest, and he was mirthlessly smiling, showing white teeth set in very pink gums.
“Bruno Deney.” M’Candliss said it as a statement, not as a question.
“That’s right,” the mine owner acknowledged. He stepped out of the narrow tunnel at the other end of the grotto. “And you’d be one of the Rangers who came in with Holmes. Not that you or the other two outside are going to be any more help to him now than you were before.”
“Where is he?”
“Never mind. Get your hands up.”
Thin-lipped, M’Candliss did as he was told. “All right,” he said. “What’ve you done with Holmes?”
“Dressed him and sent him on his way.” Deney’s cold grin broadened. “On our way, that is, with a few of my men along to make sure the old boy doesn’t get lost.”
“What about Gueterma?”
“That Mexican politico?”
“You know who I mean. Did you kidnap him, too, bring him here along with Holmes?” That, for some reason, struck Deney as funny; he laughed. “Never mind about Gueterma. Or Holmes. You got plenty enough to worry about as it is.” He motioned with his revolver. “Enough palav
er. It’s time we were moving, unless you’d like to stay here permanently.”
“My men are still outside,” M’Candliss said. You can hear the gunfire as well as I can. They’ll cut you down as soon as you show yourself.”
“We won’t be going that way,” Deney said. This tunnel behind me leads clear through to the other side of the mountain. My horse, and some of the others’, are waiting back there.”
“Then what?”
“Then we ride out of here.”
“Where? The Galiuros, maybe?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
“Why do you need me?”
“Because you might come in handy,” Deney said. “There’s no telling what kind of trouble I might run into along the way, and a hostage like you is an ace in the hole. After we get to where we’re going...” He let the sentence trail off, shrugging again, but his meaning was obvious.
M’Candliss clenched his fists in helpless anger. There was nothing he could do, unarmed and facing a.44. To try to rush Deney would be suicidal. He would have to bide his time, wait for an opening of some kind.
Deney stepped away from the tunnel opening and went on to say, “Take one of those torches and lead the way through the tunnel. I’ll be right behind; if you try anything, I’ll shoot you dead.”
M’Candliss stepped to the wall and pulled one of the flickering torches free of its niche. As he did so, he noticed that the sporadic gunfire outside had stopped altogether; the battle had evidently ended.
Deney noticed the silence too. “Hurry it up!” he snarled.
M’Candliss started into the tunnel, holding the torch high. It was some five feet wide, with shored rock walls and a low ceiling, so that they had to walk hunched over. Darkness fell away before the advancing torchlight, and the tunnel curved in a long arc through the center of the mountain; it had apparently been built either as an escape route in the event of a mine cave-in, or as a method of quick entrance for its owners approaching from Adobe Junction.
It seemed to M’Candliss that the walk through the tunnel was endless. Their steps echoed hollowly off the rock walls, and dust choked their lungs. And then, all at once, they came around a sharp bend and the oval, partially obstructed mouth of the exit appeared fifty yards distant. Shafts of bright sunlight penetrated the interior.
When they reached the mouth, Deney said, “Walk outside, ten paces. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”
M’Candliss wedged his body past a large boulder that had been rolled up to the mouth to help conceal it, then stepped out onto the rock-strewn mountainside. The hot glare of the desert sun almost blinded him after the dimness of the tunnel. He advanced the ten paces, still holding the burning torch, then turned to wait for Deney, who was just squeezing through the mine opening.
Deney straightened and approached. “The horses are in those outcroppings below.”
Blinking, squinting, M’Candliss looked about. “Where?”
“Down there, you blind fool,” Deney snapped, turning slightly to indicate the direction. And that was when M’Candliss flung the torch into the man’s face.
Deney screamed shrilly as the flaming mesquite seared his eyes, his hair, the flesh of his nose and cheeks. He pawed with his free hand, reflexively squeezing off two wild shots. And then M’Candliss, who had lunged forward the moment the torch left his grip, was on top of the mine owner. Savagely he punched Deney once in the softness of his belly, doubling him over; with his left hand he wrenched the revolver away.
“Stand straight,” M’Candliss ordered. He stepped back a number of paces. “You’re under arrest.”
Deney was gasping, eyebrows and hair singed, skin reddened from the heat of the torch. He was obviously in pain, and staggered while he tried to straighten—but when he came up out of his slouch, he was holding a four-barreled Sharps .32 “stingy gun.”
He cut loose with it in that same motion, but M’Candliss hadn’t been fooled; he leapt to his right as the little derringer-type pistol blasted at him. Its bullet ricocheted off a boulder inches from his head. He twisted around and returned the fire, but his first shot was too high. He triggered a second and again veered to one side, crouching, as another shot from Deney’s vest-pocket hideaway fanned the air near his head. M’Candliss fired a third time, and this one didn’t miss. Deney yelled in pain, stumbled back into a sparse growth of scrub, stumbled another few feet, then fell forward on his face.
Cautiously, M’Candliss approached the fallen mine owner. Deney groaned but didn’t move; he had dropped the Sharps. M’Candliss kicked the stingy gun away, then bent and used his free hand to turn Deney over. His bullet had struck the man just below the center of the ribcage, and Deney’s shirt was sodden with blood, its fabric shredded and blackened around the wound.
“Deney,” M’Candliss said, “where’s Clement Holmes?”
A crimson froth dribbled from the mine owner’s mouth. He wouldn’t—or couldn’t—speak.
“Damn it, where’d you send Holmes?”
Deney began quivering, arching his back, and gagging.
“Where, Deney? To the Galiuros? With Esteban?” M’Candliss was shouting now. “Is that it? Is Holmes with Esteban?”
Blood flowed out of Deney’s nostrils and from between his lips. He gazed at M’Candliss with waxy eyes, managed a tight, almost cynical grin, and then collapsed, dying with a long sigh.
M’Candliss stood and holstered the .44. He studied the dead man with bleak frustration, then turned and started back toward the tunnel entrance. He was worried about Flynn and Meckleburg, and there was a lot of cleaning up and investigating yet to do before they could return to Adobe Junction. Maybe they’d find out something as to Holmes’ destination, but M’Candliss doubted it. Sometimes things worked out simple and straightforward, and other times they didn’t; and so far, this was turning out to be one of those times when things didn’t—with a vengeance.
“Shit,” M’Candliss said, and entered the mine.
Chapter Six
Oak M’Candliss was bone-weary as he entered his hotel room, which was directly across the hall from where Holmes had been abducted. He stripped off his soiled, sweaty shirt, filled the washbasin with water from the pitcher, and began a quick cat-wash, preparatory to meeting Flynn and Meckleburg downstairs for lunch. He would have preferred to stretch out on the bed and sleep the day away.
He felt not only physically tired, but mentally drained as well. As he’d feared, they’d found nothing to help them out at the Galleon mine; Bruno Deney had little except personal effects on him, and his henchmen were hardly more than border scum- working from order to order, with no knowledge of the whys or whens or wheres. While Meckleburg had remained at the mine to stand guard over the gun hands still alive—neither he nor Flynn had been hurt in the shooting—M’Candliss and Flynn had tried to trace the rest of Deney’s gang, the ones who had left earlier with Holmes. It too had proven fruitless; what few tracks there were soon became lost in the stony barrenness of Refloso Valley. Unequipped for any extended search, the Rangers had been forced to call it off temporarily, and they and their prisoners had returned to Adobe Junction.
Back in town, M’Candliss learned that Sheriff Tucker was still out with his posse. He had jailed Deney’s gunnies on his own authority and then notified the druggist to tend to their wounds. Now, as he washed, he dismissed them from his mind and tried to figure what best to do next. His choices were limited, and as far as he could see, the odds lay in gearing up and returning to the mine, where he and his men would start a concerted effort to follow Holmes’ trail. And at that, he thought, the odds were poor even if they had plenty of time. As it stood, it was a definite long shot.
M’Candliss took a clean flannel shirt from his bag and was starting to put it on when he heard a soft knocking on his door. “Just a minute,” he called, stuffing the shirttails into his pants as he walked to the door. He didn’t open it, but stood to one side, drawing his Colt and thumbing back the hammer. “
Who is it?”
“Capitan M’Candliss?” a tremulous feminine voice said from the hallway outside. “I must speak with you.”
M’Candliss frowned, more suspicious than ever. “What is it?”
“Not like this. Please let me in, Capitan, it is most urgent, and I have come far. I... I am Isabella Gueterma, Frederico Gueterma’s daughter. Please, Capitan M’Candliss, you must let me in, let me speak with you.”
M’Candliss unlatched the door and stepped back, holding his revolver waist-high. He was not about to take chances, especially not with begging young women using important names to gain entry.
The door opened inward a mere foot, and a tall, lithe girl in her early twenties slipped inside, closing the door swiftly behind her.
“Muchas gracias,” she said.
M’Candliss stared. He told himself he had never seen her before, yet a part of his mind kept insisting he had. And suddenly his thoughts were flooded with the bleak vision of finding his wife, Rachel, raped and butchered in their sod cabin. He had felt little inclination since then to think of women; but that was different, a man thinking of his wife one way, and of other women other ways—until, abruptly, he faces a woman who reminds him of his wife.
Isabella Gueterma’s slender body was as proud and symmetrically proportioned as Rachel’s had been. Her dark eyes seemed every bit as huge and dominant, though in a more Latin-featured face. And she wore men’s clothing, the way Rachel had; and had the same glistening blue-black hair as Rachel’s, worn in the same severely swept-back fashion, although hers was clasped by a beaded drawstring similar to the kind Indians wore. There were differences; there were distinctions. Yet in spite of them, M’Candliss stared at Isabella Gueterma and saw the reflection of Rachel, nightgown in tatters and soaked crimson with her blood.
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