by Jake Logan
“I’m not so sure about that, Elias Jones. Seems to me we have a whole lot of traveling to do yet. And unless I’m wrong—and I don’t think I am . . .” Slocum held up a finger as if making a point.
“Nor are you very humble,” Marybeth said with a smile.
“Then I’d say our ticket out of here just walked up.” Slocum nodded toward the rim, and there, standing at the edge, hands perched on either side of his round belly, stood the unmistakable figure of Colonel Mulletson in his white suit, skylined against the early morning light.
“I’ll give him this much, the man ain’t too afraid of us shooting him, is he?”
“Nope,” said Slocum. “Doesn’t mean we can’t invite him to the dance, though.” He levered a round and took careful aim at the rim’s edge just before the colonel’s boots.
Slocum touched off the trigger and a dust cloud kicked up. The sound echoed and the fat man on the rim jumped straight into the air and high-stepped backward.
“You son of a bitch!” came the colonel’s voice.
“And a very good morning to you, too, Colonel!” Slocum was smiling as he said it. To his friends, he said, “Nothing like a little exercise to start the day off right.”
“What do you want?” came the voice from on high.
“I was about to ask you the same thing! Come on back to the rim, I won’t shoot.”
“Kiss my Confederate backside!”
“Now, now, Colonel—there are children down here. We wouldn’t want them to think you were . . . a bad person now, would we?”
“I repeat myself—what is it you are looking to get out of this deal, Mr. Slocum?”
Slocum let that hang in the air, said to his friends, “At an auction, never be the first to bid. Being a colonel, you’d think he’d know that.”
“You hear me?”
“Yep, just thinkin’ on it.”
“I’m prepared to offer favorable terms to you, Mr. Slocum.”
“You seem to forget I am not alone down here.”
“Ah yes, the woman, Miss Meecher. Such a pity she double-crossed me, isn’t it? But of course she will be taken into consideration, too.”
“Enough with the lies, Colonel! You are holding something we want and we have something you want—and very much need. Am I correct, sir?”
“You haven’t got a thing I need so desperately, Slocum. Keep that in mind. You are trying my patience and I am the very man—indeed the only man on earth—who can allow you to live or take your life!”
“I doubt that very much, Mulletson.”
“That’s Colonel to you, Slocum!”
“I’ve known colonels in my day, and you, sir, are no colonel.”
“What do you want, dammit!”
“I want freedom for everyone here, and in exchange, I won’t kill you.”
The laughter from the rim was most audible—the dozen or so guards, plus the colonel’s odd high-pitched laughter, seemed to go on and on. Behind Slocum, someone sliced the head off a snake, while others began gathering up their tools, dragging them with weak arms across the stone floor, ready for another day of grueling labor in the tunnels behind him.
“Eli, please tell them not to work today.”
“Even if they’d listen to me, they are so hungry that they think the colonel will give in and give them food.”
“Marybeth, try to keep them safe and not too far away. I’ll need all hands on deck if this plays out the way I want it to. But keep them well away from the mine entrance. I don’t trust this fat Southern jackrabbit or any of his men.”
“You got nothing to bargain with, Slocum! You are playing a hollow hand!”
Slocum winked at Eli and shouted, “I have a vein of pure gold down here—and a hunk for proof. It would be more than enough to save the ranch, keep the investors off your tail, and pay those men up there. Just how long are they willing to work for a man who has no money?”
This time, the pause from atop the rim was a long one, punctuated with low volleys of shouts, and then a long stretch of placating sounds from the colonel.
“Sounds like Mulletson is busy backpeddling.”
And then the man did something Slocum did not expect. The colonel shouted, “Kill them all!”
For a long moment Eli, Marybeth, and Slocum all looked at one another. Had they heard what they thought they had? And then all hell broke loose. Everything from burning brands from the rim guards’ campfire to head-size rocks to clods of grassy earth began raining down into the little canyon, intermingled with a volley of bullets that seemed to fill the very air around them.
“This is just a distraction!” shouted Slocum. “Keep everyone in the mine and we’ll be fine. They’ll run out of missiles soon enough. We still have the upper hand!”
“I wish I had your optimism, dammit!” Eli peeked out the entrance into the bright morning sky dotted with items that rained down on them and landed harmlessly nowhere near anyplace where they might cause harm. Even the bullets whistled and ricocheted harmlessly against rock.
“If they’re trying to draw us out, it’s not working.”
“What if they try to blast us out?” Marybeth was busy helping the others keep the curious kids away from the entrance.
“He wouldn’t dare,” said Slocum. “Too much value down here. He needs what we have. No, this’ll stop soon enough. It’s just him being angry because I called him on being broke and he didn’t want to look bad in front of his men.”
“Too late for that,” said Eli. Even as he said it, the volley of junk from on high slowed, then stopped. A last few random bullets zipped and pinged, then they, too, stopped.
“Either they ran out of things to throw or they’re gathering more missiles for a fresh assault. I don’t see what he hopes to gain out of it.” Slocum stood by the mouth of the mine, rifle at the ready, bandoliers strapped on.
“Hey, Slocum!” It was the colonel.
Slocum nodded, expecting to hear from the man. “Yep?”
“You still have that sample of pure gold?”
“Yep!”
“Well, send her up in the basket and I’ll make my considerations.”
“You know my terms, Mulletson. You free all these folks and give us safe passage, no tricks, then you get your mine and all the gold in it. But you’ll have to find a better way of getting it out of here. Slavery isn’t legal anymore!”
After a long ten minutes that felt like forever, during which time Slocum pictured the colonel and his cronies popping a serious sweat up there under the hot morning sun, the colonel’s voice rang out once again. It filled the ravine, echoing down to them. “You bring up that sample and we’ll get it assayed, then we’ll talk. If it’s as good as you say, it shouldn’t be a problem. Then I’ll give in to all the demands you want.”
“No sir. I know you are going broke. You are desperate to keep your mine producing. You can’t afford to hire more men—hell, you can’t afford to pay the ones you have now. And you can’t go steal any more people to enslave because you’ve picked the area clean—and it was slim pickings to begin with!”
“You keep insulting me like that, and I’m liable to chuck in some dynamite, blow you all to hell and call it a good day’s work.”
“You won’t do that and we both know it—you need this mine open. Now what’s it going to be?”
Another quiet minute passed, then: “Okay, okay, dammit. You bring that rock on up here and we’ll talk man to man. No games.”
“Give us a few minutes, then you can lower the basket, hoist me up.”
Slocum turned back to Eli and Marybeth.
“You know he ain’t going to play fair, don’t you?” Eli stood there before him, massive arms folded, looking perturbed.
“I know it, but I have a few trick cards up my sleeves yet. First thing’s first—we need to use that
hunk of ore as the cheese to set the trap. Then we’ll get our rodent.”
Marybeth touched his sleeve. “That’s all well and good, John, just be careful that there isn’t a second mouse.”
“How’s that?”
“You never heard that old saw? It’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.”
“I don’t plan on seeing any mice. Just one big rat.”
As the two men headed back to Eli’s gold vein, the big man said, “How you going to keep him from coming down here and laying this all wide open, killing everybody down here?”
“Eli, I will do that any way I know how. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m making up a lot of this as I go along. The good news is that so is the colonel. And he’s desperate.”
Eli grunted. “Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re a bunch of desperate folks down here, too.”
“When I get up there, I’ll do my best to throw down more arms and food to you.”
“How are you going to do that, Slocum? The man gets a whiff of that sort of thing and you can kiss good-bye all your fancy negotiating.”
“Don’t worry. I have some ideas. My biggest concern is keeping you all safe and I’ll do that any way I know how. As I said, I’m making a lot of this up as we roll along. Now, chip off a hunk of that gold and let’s open this ball.”
In the candlelight, Slocum watched the big man run a callused hand over the rough surface of the gold-veined wall. “It sure is a pretty slice of heaven right here.” He spoke in a low voice, almost to himself. “Yessir, she’s something, is this gold. I think of all the things a man could do with this wonderful fine and pretty rock.”
“Eli, I need that rock. They need that rock.” Slocum pointed back toward the mouth of the mine. “Otherwise there won’t be freedom for any of them. They’re all depending on you. On me. We have to make this work.”
“Right, okay. I was just thinkin’, is all.” Eli cleared his throat and pulled in a deep breath before setting to work with a cold chisel and hammer. The ringing was a satisfying sound to Slocum. Soon, Eli had succeeded in dislodging a hunk of ore roughly the size of a human skull. Slocum put out his hands, but Eli shook his head. “Nah, I’ll carry her up to the entrance.”
“What’s the matter,” said Slocum, half-joking, “don’t trust me?”
From ahead of him as they moved up the dark tunnel, he heard Eli say, “Not with this.”
When they got back to the entrance, Marybeth was standing guard behind a jutting edge of rock, peering up at the rim.
“Any trouble?” said Slocum.
“I saw your rat a couple of times. He’s getting bolder, keeps coming over to the rim, looking down, shielding his eyes as he tries to see in here.”
“No harm in looking. Just no touching,” said Slocum. He lifted the last of the bandoliers of bullets from across his chest and handed them to Eli. “Trade?”
The big man looked in Slocum’s eyes and what Slocum saw there was a man of mixed temperament. It seemed as if the gold he’d found had caused some sort of change in Eli. And not one that Slocum understood or liked. He reached for the ore chunk and the big man’s hand reluctantly relinquished it.
Slocum quickly slid it to the opposite side of his body, held it against his waist, away from Eli’s grasp. “There’s not much I can offer by way of advice. You have an odd advantage in that you have enough ammo and guns now. If you place your shots carefully, you might well be able to pick them all off, one at a time. The man is running out of hired guns. And from the numbers we’ve seen around the rim, I bet he lost a few in the night, especially once they heard he’s broke. I’d send you, Marybeth, but I have a feeling he has bad things planned for the messenger and I couldn’t bear—”
“Ssshh.” She touched a finger to his lips. “No need to explain. My place is here. These people need me. They need us. So go and do whatever you have to do to buy their freedom. We’ll deal with the colonel later. I have no doubt that justice will catch up with him someday.”
“Somebody will,” said Slocum. “Me or the law, I don’t much care who first. As long as it gets done.” He expected Eli to chime in with some sage words about avenging his loss of freedom, but the big man still stared at Slocum’s hand wrapped tight around the gold ore.
Slocum kissed Marybeth. She returned the parting kiss with a long, tender one, touched his cheek with the back of her hand, and then turned from him, hefting the rifle. He was grateful that she was there, bad as it was for her. But he couldn’t think of a better person to leave down here with all these oppressed innocents.
He nodded once to Eli, said the man’s name, and as he strode out into the open floor of the ravine, he half expected to be lunged at from behind by the big man, demanding that his precious rock be returned. He’d walked a few dozen feet when that big, rumbling voice called out from behind him. “Slocum, don’t waste that pretty rock. Don’t sell us too cheap, you hear?”
Slocum turned back. “You have my word on it, Elias Jones.” Slocum made it all the way to where the basket would land, trying not to let the pressure of what he had to do weigh on his mind. He needed a clear mind to make this work. He watched the basket slowly descend and wished they were all going to the top with him.
Marybeth touched Eli’s arm and the big man looked at her briefly, then resumed watching Slocum’s progress upward.
“Trust him, Eli. He’s a good man. What Slocum says he’ll do, he does.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. In fact, he’s the most trustworthy man I’ve ever met.” She watched Slocum in the basket, holding the rope supports with one hand, the gold ore chunk in the other.
“Then why did he leave you?” said Eli.
She watched a moment longer before responding. “Because he was protecting me.”
“Even though you both feel that way about each other?”
Marybeth looked at him, her face reddening. “What way?”
“I may be living in a hole in the ground, Miss Meecher, but I ain’t no fool.”
“Marybeth. Call me Marybeth. And no, I don’t expect you’re a fool. As far from one as I’ve ever known, Elias Jones.”
“So what was he protecting you from?”
She watched Slocum reach the top, the basket clunk into place, then he stepped out of the basket and disappeared from their sight. “John Slocum’s a wanted man.”
“What’s he wanted for?”
She smiled, shook her head. “That’s up to him to share with you. If he wants to. But it’s not my place.”
“I hear you.” Eli sighed. “And your word’s good enough for me. If that big ol’ chunk of gold don’t convince the colonel to play our way, then nothing will. Now how about we fry up some rattlesnake that I will pretend tastes like chicken. Or ham. Or anything but what it is.”
19
“Well, Colonel. Looks like you’re caught between a hard-rock mine and a hard place.” Slocum studied the man’s bloated face for signs of imminent chicanery. All he saw was a greedy man rubbing his hands over the surface of the glittering rock.
“We’ll see, Slocum. We’ll see.” He looked up, still clutching the rock. “Now, we’ll be taking a ride back to the ranch. We have a few things to discuss, after all, Mr. Slocum.”
“Nothing doing, Mulletson. I’m staying right here until that piece is assayed. And we’ll need food and supplies for those people.”
The ten or so men offered Slocum hard stares, little more. It wasn’t but a day or so ago, he mused, that they were laughing at all the little fat man’s jokes. Now they all looked to him as though they’d been sucking lemons in the sun. Ah, how the mighty have fallen.
The colonel snorted. “You didn’t honestly think that I was going to agree to any of that, did you?”
Slocum showed no emotion on his face, just stared at the little round, white-suited man long enough to unnerve h
im. Then when Slocum spoke, he did so in a raised voice so that all the men within earshot would hear every word.
“What I did assume was that you would value, if not human life, then at least the fortune waiting down there for you. It’s one of the biggest veins of gold I’ve ever seen. And my friend, Eli, and the others are now well armed, thanks to your men here—and a few that are no longer with us, sadly.” Slocum pulled an exaggerated frown and looked to the ground for a few seconds of silence. “And Eli has no intention of giving up that secret vein, which would take a whole slew of men a whole lot of time to find on their own, so deep and well has that vein been hidden.”
“Don’t listen to him, men,” the colonel said, but Slocum saw that he was licking his lips, in obvious anticipation of such riches.
Slocum walked over to the rim and pointed to the hundreds of feet of raw rock above the dark tunnel mouth far below. He noted a brief glint of sun on steel and knew he was being watched by his friends, knew they were holding their breath and counting on him to pull this off. He put that out of his mind for the present and focused on coming through for them.
“Eli’s not going to give up that mine without a fight. And if it comes to that, he’s not going to give it up at all. He has enough explosive down there to seal it up for a good, long time. Long enough for you to lose this ranch, for your unpaid ranch hands to turn on you, for your investors to come gunning for you. For all manner of bad things to happen to you, Colonel. How about that?”
“Men,” Mulletson called out, waving a fat hand at Slocum. “Put him in the wagon. And don’t be too careful about it either.”
For a few moments, none of the men made a move toward Slocum, but that changed, as he knew it would, when their thought processes recognized that no matter what the truth behind Slocum’s claims was, he was not their employer at the present, but the colonel was. And up until recently, they had little reason to doubt him. And wasn’t he, after all, the owner of that mine down there?