by Jake Logan
He finally made a show of flopping sideways when the wagon rolled over a jarring washout. “Marybeth,” he said again, timing his hissing whisper with the noise of the grating steel-rimmed wheels against rock and grit.
He tried several more times, but received the same response—nothing. Ill with worry, Slocum feared the worst. He risked nudging his head into the pile of burlap. He thought he felt some sort of response, but it could well have been the jostling of the wagon.
Then the wagon slowed and Everett said, “Maybe you didn’t hear me before, Slocum, when I told Eli to keep his mouth shut. Same went for you. You should have listened, because now we are going to have to stop.” He nudged Clew in the upper arm. “Pull over. I aim to take a few rounds out of Eli there. Think about that next time you wanna open your mouth when you’ve been warned. And you will be next.”
“You want to punish anyone,” said Slocum, “you do that to me. I’m the one who brought it on. Otherwise, you’d do well to keep on my good side and we’ll get along just fine.”
Both men in the seat up front broke out in laughter. “That’s rich, coming from a man so tied up he looks like a human yarn ball.” Everett shook his head, smiling. “Ah hell, might as well keep rolling. A few more minutes and we’ll be there.”
That brought Slocum’s head around and looking forward. From what he could see, there was nothing ahead but a flat plain to all sides, not much green except where it was choked in spots with sage. He was starting to doubt Eli’s description of the place as a pit. But he knew that the very look of distance and terrain in high desert country such as this could be deceiving.
He might be able to get to the back of the cage, see more from there, and somehow land a few surprise kicks. But what good would that do? No, better just to wait it out.
Then, without warning, the prison wagon slowed. Clew urged the big horses left so that they were crosswise to the worn, rutted road they’d been following, and ground to a halt. He set the footbrake and hopped down. Everett leapt down on his side and dragged a flat bar of stock steel against the cage’s strapping. The racket grated loud and harsh in Slocum’s ears.
The next few minutes were a repeat of the procedure they’d undertaken in loading the two men into the rolling cage. They hauled Eli out first and dumped him on the ground, where he lay without expression on his swollen, beaten features. Slocum was next, but he had wormed his way to the back of the cage and wedged his boot heels into the rough squares made by the overlapping strap steel.
“You’d better kill me now because I’m not leaving without her.”
“Keep your boots on, cowboy. She’s going the same place you are. You’re both lucky we’re taking on whites at the present time. Elsewise you’d both be decorating a ditch somewhere miles from here.”
“Yes thir,” said Clew. “Coyoteth’ll be howling tonight for mithing thuch a fine, fine meal.”
Despite their words, Slocum didn’t give up easily. Everett had to clamber up into the cage and grab the chains wrapped around Slocum’s boots. It took him but a moment to drag the captive out of there. They dumped Slocum next to Eli, then Everett crawled back into the cage and scooped up the bundle of rags. A woman’s leg and arm slipped out as he carried her to the back of the wagon and handed her down to Clew.
“She make it?” said Everett as he leapt down.
“How do I know? I look like a doc to you?”
Marybeth Meecher chose that moment to push aside a flap of burlap sacking and thrust her head out, then spit in Clew’s face. At the same time, she flailed her untied limbs and screamed. Clew dropped her and fell backward onto Slocum and Eli, who did their best to rise to their knees and pin the man before he could draw his sidearm.
Everett lunged at the woman, who had managed to scramble to her feet.
Out of the corner of his eye, Slocum verified that it was indeed Marybeth Meecher, and that she had been badly treated, with welts and ugly bruises on her arms and legs. Her dress, still aproned from her kitchen duties, had been torn in several spots, but he was relieved beyond measure to see the hellcat in her rise, lashing, scratching, and howling.
Everett had his hands full. Miss Meecher ran full bore at him, was on him in a flash, and slashed at his face with her hands. She flailed and kicked her legs until Everett seemed to wilt under her attack, defending himself from her vicious parries and thrusts, and her howling oaths of pure rage.
She worked her hand down toward his holstered pistol and nearly had it a time or two, but he managed to push her away. And that’s when all hell broke loose.
The two draft animals, agitated by the unexpected ruckus behind them, stomped and lunged, tossing their heads and whinnying, and pretty soon they surged forward. The brake budged, slipped, popped free, and they were off, dragging that massive steel cage behind them. All five combatants paused at the thunderous clatter of the rolling steel contraption.
Everett ripped himself free of the crazy woman attacking him and took off after the prison wagon, howling a blue streak and shucking his pistol. He glanced back a time or two and raised the gun as if he was tempted to peel off a few shots in their direction, but by then Clew had regained his upper hand with the two bound men on the ground.
Before they could roll toward him, the distinctive sounds of rounds being levered into rifles and the hard shouts of angry men filled the air. Slocum looked up from their dusty struggle to see eight to ten men advancing on them from beyond where the wagon had come to a stop. They were all armed to the teeth—bandoliers of bullets, skinning knives sheathed at their sides, one- and double-gun sidearm rigs, and all carrying rifles and shotguns.
“Where in the hell did they come from?” he said to Eli.
“Them? Oh, they’d be the ravine’s rim guards.”
“You forgot to tell me about them.”
“Sorry ’bout that.”
“Any more surprises I should know about?” said Slocum as Clew turned on them and drew his gun.
“Yeah, this is about half of them. But don’t worry—you’ll get to see the others right soon.”
“How nice. I’m looking forward to it.”
One of the men prodded Miss Meecher in the back and said something to her. She balked and he raised his voice again. She lay down on the ground, her hands behind her back, and he tied them tight, ran a hand across her behind. Slocum wanted to kill the man right there and then. He marked the man’s face in his mind and vowed some form of revenge. When . . . he had no idea.
Clew bore down on them, thumbing back the hammer. “Gonna kill you firtht, Thlocum, ’cauth I hate everything about you. You thcrewed up my face, got me all dirty rolling around on the ground, ran off the team—now Everett’ll blame me for not thetting the brake!”
The man was screaming; blue veins throbbed on his temples and the skin around his mouth had grown tight as he shouted his anger at them. Slocum saw the broken teeth in his mouth, the split and bubbled lips cracking anew with the fresh blood his rage brought on.
“Clew! Back off with that damn gun before you do something that the colonel might just chuck you in the Pit for!” This came from a rifle-bearing man behind Clew.
The damaged, angry man stood above Slocum and Eli, his nostrils flexing with his breathing, his pistol’s snout glaring at them as if an extension of its owner’s rage.
“Clew! Back down, dammit. They ain’t worth a life in the Pit, are they? Besides, you’ll get your chance.”
A round of agreements and confident laughs rippled through the armed men. It worked, and a grim smile spread across Clew’s face. He nodded his head and said, “You bet I will.” He wagged the pistol in their faces in time with his words: “You bet I will.”
13
As Clew strode away from them, Slocum said to Eli, “What next?”
“You ain’t seen a thing yet.”
Several of the men passed their rifl
es to others nearby and dragged Slocum and Eli in a line beyond where the wagon had been parked. As far as Slocum could see, ahead lay more flat prairie, and a thrashing Marybeth Meecher being dragged none too gently by the man who’d prodded and groped her a few minutes before.
Slocum didn’t dare shout what he thought of the man, since he knew that any undue attention to any of them at the moment would probably do more harm than good. But where was this Pit? As far as he could tell, the plain stretched for a good long way before them.
When he shifted in the grip of the men dragging him, he was able to see dead ahead. And that’s when he saw the knot of yet more men clustered around a massive wooden-and-steel winching device. It bore cogs and handles meant to distribute the weight of hauling heavy loads up and down, such as those used at a mine shaft.
The men parted at their approach and revealed what looked to Slocum suspiciously like the gondola from a hot air balloon—without any colorful balloon attached. As he watched, the big basket swung slightly and he knew that it was suspended over open air.
And that was when he could see that what he’d thought was more of the same monotonous landscape was actually the rim of a hidden ravine. How deep and how wide he’d yet to determine. But he had a feeling he’d know soon enough. And all of a sudden he made a pretty good guess as to how they were getting down into the “Pit.”
Marybeth must have spied it, too, because he saw her kick up more of a fuss than she already had, but the man dragging her growled something and she ceased her thrashing.
Soon all three of them were dumped together on the ground before the large wicker basket.
“John, what’s this all about?”
Several of the men laughed openly at Marybeth, but most just stood there, somber looks on their faces, their weapons pointed at the three new . . . slaves, thought Slocum. Not at all sure he liked the sound of that word.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said the man who had dragged Marybeth. “You all are going into that basket, down over the edge, and to the bottom. Once you get down there, you will follow the others across the floor of the ravine to that cave in the rock face across the way. You see it down there? Well, that’s the mouth of the mother tunnel and it leads to smaller mine tunnels. Am I right, Eli?” The man winked and smiled at the big black man.
Eli nodded. “Yeah. When you’re right, you’re right.”
“Damn straight,” said the smiling guard. “Now you just do what all the others down there are doing—digging for gold ore.”
Marybeth shouted, “Like hell I will. I’m no slave!”
The man laughed. “You are now, you little dragon. Before I put you in that basket, I’ll untie and unchain you. Since Eli here’s been through this before, he’ll go in first. Remember the drill, Eli? Keep your back to me, and at the sign of the slightest swing around, you will be shot, got me?”
Eli smirked and nodded.
“I can’t hear you, boy.”
“Said I know the drill. And I ain’t no boy, nor no slave. Maybe once, but not now.”
The chatty guard poked his hat back on his head and smiled. “Eli, if you wasn’t so amusing, I’d swear we’d have killed you off by now.” He looked at Slocum and Marybeth. “Just ask Eli if we’re serious.”
“What about food and water?” said Slocum, trying to think of anything to delay the inevitable.
While he awaited an answer, he noted that all the men, the rim guards, as Eli had called them, were white. Not a Mexican, Indian, or Black among them. It was not a surprise, just more verification that the colonel was not an even-handed employer.
“Don’t you worry about that. You’ll get plenty to eat—as long as you send up plenty of ore, that is.” Another annoying round of guffaws bubbled up from the group.
“And to drink?” said Marybeth.
“Why, little lady, you like your whiskey, do you?” It was the same man who’d dragged her, and Slocum watched as he trailed a hand up her back, rested it on her shoulder. She shrugged it off as if it had been nothing more than an irksome fly.
The men laughed again and he shouted “Enough!” and gestured with his rifle for Eli to be brought over. They did and hefted him upright. One man bent down, sliced through the ropes wrapped around Eli’s ankles, then pushed him forward toward the basket. He waited there at the edge before stepping in, and thrust out his big ham-sized hands behind him. The man’s Bowie knife flashed in the sun as he made quick work of Eli’s wrist ropes.
The same man gave Eli another shove and the big black man, still unused to walking after having been trussed all night and into this day, tried to maintain his balance, but ended up dropping to one knee.
The entire woven structure crackled, sagged, and swung, suspended as it was over the rim of the hidden canyon they all called the Pit. He was next, and the men were rougher with him than they had been with Eli. As they manhandled the chains around his boots, chains that also trailed up to take a wrap around his wrists, Slocum wondered what Eli had done to get up and out of the Pit. Plenty of time to ask him. He hoped.
“To the basket, boy. Ain’t got all day.” With that, they shoved Slocum forward to the edge of the basket, toward Eli’s turned back. Slocum knew the big black man would help him if he could, but they’d been warned not to turn around once they were untied.
The last thing the rim guard did was slice through the ropes around Slocum’s wrists, then two guards shoved him forward, and into the basket he went. Like Eli, Slocum dropped to one knee and fought to gain his footing. Between the swaying, creaking basket and his concern for Marybeth, his nerves jangled like a stack of gold pieces in a gambler’s pocket.
“You’re next, sweet thing.” The same prodding fool half dragged her to the basket. Slocum risked turning his head, but he heard a hammer ratchet back and the man said, “You go ahead and spin that owl head of yours right back this way. Go ahead and I will make sure that three folks still make it down to the bottom of the Pit—but only two will be alive. You got me?”
“Yep,” said Slocum through gritted teeth.
Before he knew it, Marybeth Meecher was thrust into the basket, too, and despite their precarious predicament, he felt a relief at having her, if not safe, at least with him. How he could protect her, he had no idea, nor did he know just what to expect down in the Pit.
The edge of the basket was too far away for him to peer over. But he’d seen how far up they were and it surprised him that the ravine wasn’t deeper. He guessed the bottom was maybe sixty feet down. He looked straight ahead and saw the opposite side of the small ravine’s rim, a good three hundred feet across. To his left and right he noted that they were roughly in the middle of this side of the rim. He guessed the ends measured roughly four hundred feet apart. All told, it was not a sizable hole, as small canyons went, but apparently plenty big enough to contain a gold mine and an untold number of slaves.
Slocum noted that it was less like a ravine than a big, flat-bottomed hole in the ground, the floor of which hosted what looked like caves at the base of the rock walls. These he guessed were mine tunnel openings, though he gathered that now only the biggest, at the base of the east end of the ravine, was in use.
Slocum was pleased to note that the broad bottom of the ravine was well lit, as the afternoon sun rode high in the sky. He fancied that eons before, the little canyon may have once had a way in and out, perhaps at the now-sealed ends. Maybe a stream had run through the bottom, a verdant grassy place for wildlife, and not the stark, rocky hole it was now. And that was when he saw the inhabitants of this place, the “Pit,” moving slowly toward where he suspected they would land, slow figures clad in rags.
Without warning the basket trembled and lurched, then dropped ten feet before holding, swaying and rocking, creaking and spinning slightly in midair. From behind and above, he heard rounds of rough, mannish laughter.
“Funny fellas,
” mumbled Marybeth.
Down, down, down they were slowly lowered. Slocum moved a half step toward the edge of the basket and looked again across at the canyon walls.
They were craggy, but seemed nearly impossible to scale up from below, sloping inward as they did all the way around. He looked down and saw they had another thirty or so feet to go before they hit bottom.
“Judging from the scarring and repairs to this basket, Eli, I assume this is how they get the ore up to the rim?”
For the first time since they were all forced into the basket, they looked at one another.
“Of all the things a man might ask at a moment like this, you ask that, John Slocum?” Marybeth Meecher stood beside him with one hand on the rail, the other clamped tightly around his forearm.
“I’m just trying to see what we’re up against.”
“Figured you might,” said Eli. “I can answer any and all questions you got about this place. But seeing as how you two are now officially the first white-skinned slaves down here, and seeing as how it’s nigh on impossible to get out, I’d say we best start from the top.” He peered over the edge. “Better make that the bottom of the situation.”
Slocum nodded, and risked a look up at their captors. They were all still very much up there, and he was thankful to see there were many burly hands manning the crank wheel that raised and lowered the gondola. The rest of the guards stared back at him, rifles trained downward. And with each turn of the wheel at the top, his new predicament became more serious, more ominous, and more of a challenge than he’d experienced in a long, long time.
They were nearly all the way down when Slocum pulled his two companions into the center of the basket so that they were facing each other.
“Eli, I’d like you to meet Miss Marybeth Meecher. Marybeth Meecher, this is Elias Jones.”
“Pleasure, ma’am.” The big man offered a slight nod with his head. “Just so you know, them rim guards ain’t going to like us fraternizing like this,” said Eli, his perpetual grin spread wide on his bruised face.