by Jake Logan
Slocum nodded. “If they don’t break on the way down, we’ll be lucky.”
“We got lucky once, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, but how often will lightning strike at the same place?”
“Aw, Slocum, you got to have a better attitude than that if you want to work with Elias Jones.”
“Okay, then, Mr. Jones, what’s this big secret you have down here?”
“A few more yards, up this way.” Eli bent low and stopped in front of a rock wall like all the rest of the passage had been. He held his candle close, and that’s when Slocum saw it, a vein of gold as thick as his leg and running straight back beyond where the tunnel ended—he just bet on it.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“You bet your ass it is. And no, Colonel Mulletson don’t know a thing about it. I was about to try to negotiate with him, use this as leverage somehow, then he started hitting me. That’s when you came in.”
Slocum nodded. “What about your fellow slaves?”
Eli’s eyes flashed anger in the dim flickering candlelight.
“Sorry, I meant to say prisoners.”
“That’s more like it. You grow up as the property of another man, you fight and claw and scratch your way to legitimate freedom, you never go back. First of all, not in your mind, ’cause if you go back in your mind, you have lost the struggle, the will to live. And that fire deep inside to keep on fighting will have gone out. And Elias Jones ain’t lost his fire, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Slocum smiled. “Now can we get back to the gold?”
The big man sighed. “Okay, okay. I get a little riled at times. But this gold is the key to getting us out of here. I have been trying to figure out a way to use it to make it all happen. And now that you’re here, I figure we can use it—and the guns—to get us on equal footing, you see?”
“I guess I do. What’s your big plan, then?”
17
Over the next day and a half, Eli and Slocum managed to deliver lead to two more rim guards, though neither one fell forward. Slocum was sure the one he shot had died or would soon die. From his sixty or so feet down, it looked to him like a head wound. He didn’t feel remorse in the least for taking the lives of these men. They were vicious hired killers keeping good people enslaved.
What he did feel was anger and frustration. Frustration for the fact that the man he shot hadn’t pitched forward into the Pit so they could strip his corpse clean, and anger because he could feel himself weakening in body. Slocum knew from personal experience that without proper food and water, no matter what the spirit’s intentions are, a man’s body wilts and curls inward under harsh conditions.
It takes a balance of all vital things—food, water, work, and willpower—each to feed the other so that they might nourish a man’s working mind. And a mind, Slocum knew, was the most useful tool a man had.
The man Eli shot looked to have been hit in the side, by the way he spun and clutched at himself. Slocum guessed that if the man were hit in the belly, he’d be a bleeder. If it was a gut wound, Slocum didn’t envy the man. That sort of shot could linger for days, infecting all sorts of things in there. He knew it was not a wound any town doctor would give a man two cents’ worth of hope for.
Though neither man dropped a weapon, Slocum and Eli had certainly sent a message to the colonel and his men. But it was apparent that the colonel was doing the same to them—the normally meager food rations had stopped altogether. Question was—who could hold out the longest?
The Pit slaves didn’t take much convincing from Slocum to get them to lay off digging ore for the greedy bigot who’d enslaved them, especially since he wasn’t sending food down to them.
But how long could the colonel hold out? If what Slocum suspected was true, then the man would need that constant flow of money brought in by the ore. He could ill afford to have the production from his mine come to a complete stop. How long before his guards would revolt? How long before he was in a position of having to negotiate terms with his captives? While Slocum wondered, he kept to the shadows just inside the mine entrance, waiting for a chance to pick off another guard and, thus, to stack the odds, however slightly, in their favor.
The saving grace in all this had been the unusual number of rattlesnakes living down in the Pit. It seemed to Slocum that the foul things must be feeding off each other, because he didn’t see any other way they might gain their own sustenance.
It also would account for the fact that they were unusually aggressive toward the slaves. Many of the slaves had been bitten by the creatures, but curiously, their bites hadn’t been fatal. Only one slave had died from a snakebite, and that had been a little girl months before Slocum arrived.
They had taken her body to the far western end of the Pit, the opposite end of where they lived and worked. And this was also what they did with the gunman who had fallen into their midst.
A stray head of beef had fallen into the Pit months before Slocum’s time, too, and the slaves had set upon it with vigor. The meat fed them for more than a week, and the green hide made useful footgear, clothing, and crude vessels for them to catch dripping water from a seeping spring far inside the mine. This slight source of water proved to be a real boon, since without it a body would not survive in such difficult conditions.
The snakes, as Eli had told them when they arrived, had been both a curse and a blessing. Slocum convinced them that a fire would be useful in cooking thin strips of snake meat, but they had to be cautious because fuel was in short supply in their rocky hole.
The rest of the meat they laid out on rocks in the sunlight. It dried, puckering and curling, and became a bit more palatable than its raw counterpart. They had to set it out and retrieve it with caution, as the guards had taken to shooting at them whenever they ventured out into the open.
Finally, on the third day after the first man’s drop, Slocum managed to wing another kneeling rim guard, whose rifle spun from his grasp, teetered on the ravine’s edge, then dropped down to them.
After taking the shot, Slocum still kept the rifle snugged tight to his cheek because the wounded man seemed to be having trouble getting to his feet. Slocum waited, hoping someone would come to his aid. And in the next instant, one of his fellow guards low-walked to the rim, and bent to help his comrade. It proved to be a fatal error in judgment, for Slocum triggered a round that caught the man in the upper arm, then appeared to travel straight on through into his chest.
The man jerked upright as if pulled to his feet by ropes from above, and a geyser of bloody spray plumed from his mouth. By the time it rained back down, the man had toppled forward, crumpling into a long fall that brought him to a stop in a heap at the bottom of the ravine.
His rifle followed him. His bandoliers, as with the first man they’d shot, were chock-full of bullets. As a bonus, this man also wore a double-gun rig, and was armed with a fine Bowie sheath knife. And his large boots were just right for Eli’s pitifully clad feet.
A good, if grim, day of hunting.
And then came the colonel.
18
“John. John Slocum, you wake up now.” It was Marybeth’s whispers that woke Slocum from a deeper sleep than he expected he’d get, given the rough conditions. The floor of the mine cave’s entrance, relatively free of rubble, hosted most of the slaves at night.
Slocum and Marybeth had learned early on in their days as Pit slaves that, because of the cold and the snakes, folks slept in shifts. Sleep itself was a fitful affair, punctuated by the occasional sounds of steel shovels, bars, and picks thudding into the rocky floor of the cave. It seemed that the slaves, though always exhausted, had become most adept at dispatching the wriggling rattlers with their tools at night.
Slocum and Marybeth had been assured they would be protected during their slumber. Though on waking for his shift, Slocum was not a little shocked to see the sloppy
pile of a half-dozen decent-sized rattlesnakes off to the side, each body hacked close to the head, the bloodied meat bulging out of the gashes in the sleek, puckered white bodies, some of which still twitched.
“For some reason, they like to come out at night, though it’s cooler then,” said Eli, seeing him eyeing the pile.
“Probably because they’re seeking warmth from the workers’ bodies.” Slocum tapped Marybeth’s shoulder, interrupting her staring at the dead snakes that she would soon have to help render into something edible. She’d made it clear to Slocum, though to no one else, that she didn’t like snakes in the least. So for her, this entire affair had taken on an extra degree of horror. One he was relieved though not surprised to learn she looked upon as a challenge and not an excuse to run screaming.
Good thing, as there was no place to run to. He was constantly reminded being in her presence just what a good-natured person she was. Kind and driven by an urge she was not even aware she possessed—an urge to be of use to others, an urge to serve those who struggled with something, be it life itself or a simple and menial task. She was not choosy, just good.
That she was also a handsome woman, strong and well muscled, without having lost a shred of her femininity, was a fine bonus for Slocum. And once they made it out of the Pit, he hoped they might well spend a good long time together.
But first, he vowed that he would save these people from the vicious fate Colonel Mulletson had in store for them.
And Eli’s secret vein of discovered gold was just the thing that could tip the scales in their favor and out of the hands of the colonel and his men. He’d spent a good deal of the earlier afternoon and much of the night mulling over Eli’s plan. Then he peeled off bits and pieces of the plan, added others of his own devising, until it all came up to a workable option that would either do the trick or leave them all stranded down in the hole. But he didn’t think that would happen. After all, he knew that the colonel was hard up for money and his only source of revenue evident to Slocum was the mine.
Slocum turned to Eli. “How did anyone ever discover gold down here in this hole anyway? I meant to ask you earlier, but with all the commotion with the rim guards, it slipped my mind.”
The big man sighed and looked down at his new boots, pleased as punch with them. “Well, seems a few years ago, back before the colonel owned the Triple T Ranch, there was an old half-assed prospector who used to roam the range hereabouts. In exchange for the chance to prospect on the ranch land—and a free meal now and again—he would lend a hand come castratin’ time, spend some time back at the ranch proper doing all manner of chores the cowboys didn’t want to touch. None of it bothered him much and he liked to eat, so it all worked out pretty well for him.”
“I’m sensing something that wasn’t entirely to his liking was about to happen to him.” Marybeth crossed her arms, her head canted to the side as she listened.
“And you’d guess right, Miss Meecher. First things first: He was out here one day, as I say, a few years back, when his burro got spooked by a snake—”
“No . . . A snake? In these parts?” Slocum tried to keep a straight face, but Marybeth jabbed him in the ribs.
“You ’bout done? ’Cause I have a story to tell and you two are just poking all manner of holes in it.” Eli tried to look annoyed, but he couldn’t pull it off and smiled as he continued his tale. “So the burro stiff-legged it away from him. He sees it running off at full tilt, and the old man starts bellowing for her to stop. Then, with no warning, she just disappears!”
A couple of the youngest slaves—children not much more than ten—stood close by, staring up at the big man, their eyes wide and jaws dropped wider. If they had heard the story before, Slocum wouldn’t have guessed it.
“So the old man stood there a minute scratching his thinker,” and Eli played up the part, running a couple long fingers across his big heard as if he, too, were scratching the thought process into being.
“But it didn’t help. Not one bit.” He shook his head “no” and the kids followed suit.
“So the old man walks forward, closer and closer to where he saw the burro disappear. The whole time he’s looking around, for a sign of something—anything—that might help explain the situation to him. But he saw nothing.” Eli looked around at his growing audience. “But he did hear something . . .”
“What?” said Marybeth, unable to contain her desire to hear the rest.
“Oh, just the long, drawn-out cries and moans of a burro dying.”
“How’s that?” said Slocum.
“Why, that crazy ol’ dumb burro had run straight off the rim up there and fell like a hairy, sad-looking stone with big ears, and dropped right to the bottom. But it didn’t die.”
“What did the old prospector do?”
“What could he do? Everything he needed in order to help save it was packed on the back of the dying beast. Plus, he hated to see his old friend in such pain. But there was no way he could get down there. I heard that he ran clear around this entire rim of this canyon”—Eli’s big fingers pointed along the rim above—“two whole times before he finally gave up, not finding a way down there. He shouted down to his burro that he’d be back as soon as he got help. The old man was in rough shape, his burro even worse, when he headed back to the ranch.
“So, he did get help from all his cowboy friends. They raced back to the spot, most of them unaware that the little canyon was even there. And those men were amazed to see it. They were also amazed to see how many racks of bones of beasts that had done just what the burro had done—fallen in—littered the ravine floor. You can still see them all kicked off to the far corners.”
“This is a great story, Eli. But it still doesn’t explain how the gold was found.”
“I am getting to that, Slocum, but I won’t be able to if you keep on interrupting me.”
The kids gave Slocum a hard stare—and so did Marybeth. He held up his hands as if someone had gotten the drop on him.
“So where was I? Oh yes, so the old prospector returned with the cowboys, and their plan was to lower someone down to the burro, see what they could see—though they all found they had to fight the old man for the position. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and so they lowered the old guy down here on a chair secured by all manner of ropes.
“But by the time he got to the burro’s side, the beast was dead—had to have been for a good few hours. So he did what any sane prospector would do. After he freed his worldly possessions from his dear friend, he decided to explore the rest of the little deadly canyon. And it wasn’t long before he made his discovery. After all, there was no mistaking the color—I suspect it was the earlier version of the ore-rich vein I showed to you.”
Slocum nodded, knowing about where the story was going, but intrigued enough to finish it out to the end.
“So the old man found all this promise of gold, but no way to get it out. So he chipped off a hunk of this ore, then shouted to his friends, who were up top, feeling bad that there wasn’t much they could do. They lowered ropes down to him and he tied all his gear on and they hoisted it up.”
Marybeth put a hand to her mouth. “They didn’t leave him down here, did they?” She looked to both sides of herself as if she expected to see an emaciated old prospector walk out of the shadows.
“What do you take his friends for?” said Eli, clearly miffed. “I happen to have been one of them there that day, and I can tell you that we all made damn sure the old man got up to the rim safe and sound. We even bought him a bottle and helped him with it, toasted his old dead friend, the burro, and everything.”
“I’m sorry, I just got caught up in the story.”
“It’s okay. If you was Slocum, it’d be a different story. But you’re a fine woman and I forgive you.”
Slocum cleared his throat. “I’ll let that one pass. So the ranch owner sent folks down
here to mine it?”
Eli looked back down to his boots. “Not exactly. He just let it go, said it was too hard to get to and the old man was probably addled anyway. Despite the rich hunk of ore he brought up from down here.”
“Seems like the ranch owner would have allowed the old man to continue prospecting down here.”
“Yeah, but he needed all his men to work the ranch, big drive coming up and all, so there was no one to help lower him down and haul his old skinny old ass back up again. The old man tried for weeks to get someone to lower him down. He even came out here a few times on his own tryin’ to figure out a way to get down here. But nothing came of it. Then he just up and went off. Last I heard he’d died somewheres, a drunk, penniless old prospector, like most of ’em seem to end up.”
“So that’s how you know so much about all this,” said Slocum.
Eli nodded. “Like I said, I was one of the men working the ranch. Come on up here after the war, looking for good, honest work. A bunch of us stayed on here when the spread sold. I was the only black man on the crew, and once the colonel took over, he made it plain he didn’t have no use for me. Case you hadn’t gathered it yet, he’s one of them types. Don’t like anybody who don’t look like him—and by that I mean white. No offense, ma’am.” He pretended to doff his cap to Marybeth.
“But someone had told him about the gold, eh?”
“Yeah, that’d be me. Let slip in a moment of weakness. He was saying as how he was going to have to let some of us go, since times were tough, all that. I could tell from day one he didn’t have no experience running a ranch. Brought in a bunch of men who did things for him but none of it was ranch work. Pretty soon the herd’s been all but sold off, buildings aren’t kept up, all that. Then he gets rabbity. So I up and told him about the potential for gold, but on condition that he’d keep me around, maybe let me oversee it or something.”
Eli looked at them. “Like the man says, ‘Careful what you wish for.’ Now look at me. I’m running things all right.” He raised a boot and winked to the kids. “All dressed up and no place to go.”