Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (Ss) (1999)

by L'amour, Louis

  Both were marked with still-damp red mud!

  It hit me like an ax. That red mud came from the wet place around the pump near the jail! Anybody getting water from that pump would get mud on their shoes. On a rainy day, it would be much worse.

  Soderman.

  Certainly it might not have been Soderman who killed Marshall. And yet it could have been.

  It was full dark when I opened my eyes. Groggily, soaked with perspiration, I climbed off the bed and passed a shaky hand over my face. My head ached and I felt tired.

  Fighting a desire to lie down again, I stripped off my clothes and had another bath. I dressed in fresh clothing and slid my gun back into my waistband. Then I walked along the hall and down the stairs.

  The usual gang was in the lobby. Four or five men loafed at the bar, and one of them was Soderman. He glanced up when I came down the steps, and he didn't look friendly. He looked as if he hated my innards. Several of the townspeople looked at me, but I didn't stop.

  Across the street was a small cafe, catering mostly to tourists. I walked over. I felt better, felt like eating.

  A tall teenager waited on me, a girl who had not yet grown into her lanky body or her large, interested eyes.

  When she put the glass of water on my table, she said, There was a woman in here looking for you. Very pretty, too.

  Yeah? I was surprised. Not Mrs. Marshall?

  The waitress made a face. No, much nicer!

  I said, I take it that you don't care for Donna Marshall?

  She's none of my business. I don't imagine she'll be here long, now that she has his money.

  This your home?

  Me and my mother, she owns this place.

  Father?

  Dead. He was killed in the mine.

  Cave-in?

  Yes. It happened about ten years ago. They had to open a new drift into the mine, and sink a new shaft. The old one was down in the canyon, east of the new entrance.

  The coffee was good. So was the steak.

  They never use that old entrance? I asked her.

  Oh, no! It's very dangerous! No one has been in that way in years. It was tried, but there's a hanging wall of stone that is all cracked and it might collapse. Nothing has ever been done about it as they never go that way, but Jerry Wilson was in partway, and he said he never saw a worse-looking place. A shout or a sharp sound might bring the whole thing down. Anyway, the new part of the mine is west of there and so it doesn't matter.

  That was interesting. Mines weren't new to me, especially hard rock mines. I'd run a stoper and a liner, those were drilling rigs, in more than one hole, and had done my share of timbering and mucking. I knew, too, that in a town of this size, in mining country, nearly everybody worked in the mines at one time or another.

  A woman was looking for me. That would probably be the Campbell girl, but whatever she wanted would have to wait. I had plans. This was going to be my busy night, and with luck I could wind this case up tighter than a drum.

  With luck.

  It was going to take the devil's own luck to help me, for I was going to stick my neck out, way out.

  Weber, the watchman at the mine, was the backbone of the case against Campbell. Weber had seen Tom Marshall go into the mine. He had seen Campbell go in, and nobody else had gone in at all. Campbell had motive and opportunity, and if others had motives, and none had been brought up, they hadn't had opportunity.

  When I thought of what lay ahead, I had a notion to chuck it. A good night's sleep, the morning bus, and back to Los Angeles in a matter of hours. Lew Marshall hadn't told me how long I should stay on the job, only that I look into it. Well, I had looked into it. I had interviewed Donna Marshall, talked with the deputy sheriff and the accused, and I'd examined the situation. Out of that I could make a tight, accurate report that would earn me my money and look all right to anyone.

  What it wouldn't do would be plenty. It would leave the murderer in the clear, for in my own mind I was morally certain that Campbell was not guilty. I've always thought there is no such thing as a perfect crime, there are just imperfect investigators. Contrary to what many believe, P. I.'s rarely get to solve crimes, but if I had a shot at it here, I didn't want myself listed with the imperfect.

  Marshall went into the mine. Campbell went in.

  Campbell came out, and Marshall was found dead. That would make sense to any jury.

  For me, it wasn't enough. I was always a contrary sort of a cuss, and when I looked at that sultry babe who had done duty as Marshall's wife, I began to wonder. She was sexy, she was lazy, she was untidy, but she had a body that would have stirred excitement in the veins of a crutch-using octogenarian.

  Moreover, if I had ever looked into the eyes of a woman who was completely and entirely selfish, it was Donna Marshall.

  Add to that one young, rugged, and handsome deputy sheriff and you've got trouble. They could have Campbell. For me, I'd hang my case on the skirts of Donna Marshall. She was the kind who bred murder and violence. And unless I had made a serious mistake, she had Soderman in the palm of her hand.

  Or did she? Men like Soderman are not easy to handle. They live on a hair trigger and they backfire easily.

  Sitting over my coffee, thinking of that, I heard the screen door slam and glanced up to see Marian Campbell coming toward me. She must have been hot and tired, but she looked as neat and lovely as she had when I first saw her getting on the bus in L. A.

  She came right over to my table and sat down, and then the door opened again and the fat man I'd met on the bus came in. He glanced at me, then at Marian, and then he walked to another table and sat down. He ordered beer.

  What have you found out? Marian's gray eyes were wide and beautiful.

  Not much, yet. It pays to be cautious. After all, why give her hope when there was no evidence?

  I know he didn't do it! You've got to believe me. Is there any way I can help?

  Not yet, I said. Harbater was guzzling his beer. He looked at me, his sharp eyes probing.

  The poor fool wonders if I'm still carrying that gun, I thought. Busybody if I ever saw one.

  Marian Campbell sat there across the table from me, the picture of unhappiness. Me, I'm a sucker for an unhappy girl, and I looked up and stuck my neck out all the way.

  I don't want to raise any hopes, I said, but I know in my own mind your father is innocent. And if I can, I'll prove it.

  Her head came up sharply, and the look in her eyes was an excuse for anything. Oh, if you could save him, I'd do anything for you!

  Why are women so free with promises like that?

  The fat man was looking at me, then at the girl. I wondered what he was thinking, and if he had overheard.

  Suddenly, I was willing to bet a nickel he had.

  The door slammed open and Soderman came in. He looked around, then saw me talking to Marian. He came across the room and sat down at the table, jerking a chair out with a quick movement and sitting down hard. He rested those big forearms on the table and stared at me, his eyes ugly.

  Didn't I tell you to leave town? He spoke harshly, and it stirred something in me.

  I've never hunted trouble, but in a lifetime of knocking around in rough places, I've had more than my share. Big guys always aroused something in me. They made the hair along the back of my neck stiffen like a strange bulldog would.

  You've been watching too many movies, I answered.

  I told you I was staying, and I meant that. Until this case is busted wide open, I am staying.

  Now I followed it up by saying too much, and I knew it, but I was mad. Mad clear through. You've arrested an innocent man, and maybe you know he's innocent, but I'm going to free him, and brother, when I do, I'm going to hang a noose around the neck of the guilty parties!

  The veins in his forehead swelled and I thought he was coming right across the table at me. He glared for a moment or two, his big hands on the tabletop, and I sat there, tipped back a little in my chair, but my feet braced
for quick movement.

  Slowly, his face changed and it turned white around the eyes. He eased back into his chair, relaxing all his muscles. He was worried as well as mad. I knew then that I had him. If he had known nothing beyond what he was supposed to know, if he had been sure Campbell was guilty and not had some doubts of his own, he'd have slugged me.

  You're asking for trouble, he said, looking out from under his eyebrows at me, and you're biting off more than you can chew.

  That's possible, I agreed, but so has somebody else, and what they bit off is going to give them acute indigestion.

  I shoved my hands down in my pockets. Soderman, I said, you've been a miner. You know enough about mines to get around in one. Well, I've worked in a few myself. And, I added, I know something of the history of this one. Enough to know that Weber's evidence isn't worth a tinker's damn!

  His eyes flickered a little. If you're thinking about the old shaft, you're wrong. It can't be used.

  Tried it? I suggested.

  He could see where that led, and he let something come into his eyes that told me he was going to like taking a poke at me.

  No, he said. But it was abandoned because it was too dangerous. A man would be a fool to crawl into that hole. The hanging wall of that big stope needs only a jar and the whole blamed mountain would come down.

  It gives me the creeps even to look in there.

  Knowing what unmaintained tunnels were like, I could agree with him. It made me sweat to think of it, and yet I knew then that I was going to sweat some more, because I was going to try it. If I could get from the old workings into the new, to the place where Marshall was killed, then I could establish a reasonable doubt as to Campbell's guilt.

  Soderman shoved back from the table and got up.

  When he did, I happened to glance at Harbater sitting over his beer. His eyes were on Soderman, and in them was contempt . . . contempt and something more. The something more was hate.

  Why should a stranger hate Soderman?

  After a few more words I got up and left Marian, paid the check and went out.

  It was cool and dark in the street, and I turned toward the hotel, taking my time. Across the way, and on the side of the ravine, the gallows frame over the shaft of the Dunhill loomed against the sky. It was too early for that. I went back to the hotel, up to my room.

  Although I turned on the light, I didn't stay there.

  Stepping out into the hall, I took a quick gander each way, then moved down to the door of a room about twenty feet from my own. The lock was simple for my pick, and I went in, easing the door shut. The bag was locked, but a few moments with another pick and it opened. In the bag I found a pair of coveralls and a flashlight. Also, there was a small carbide miner's lamp, and a couple of letters that I glanced at, and some business cards.

  So? I muttered. It's like that, is it, my fat friend?

  There was no more time so I snapped the bag shut and slipped into the empty hall, locked the door, and returned to my own room. Ernie Harbater would have some things to explain, and it offered a new angle. I stretched out on the bed.

  When my eyes opened, I was wide awake. A quick glance at my watch told me it was after midnight. Easing out of bed, I dressed, checked over my gun, and then picked up a carbide lamp, a more modern model than the one my neighbor down the hall had with him. For luck, I dropped a pencil flashlight in my pocket, then another clip for the rod.

  The hall was like a tomb. I listened a moment, then slipped out and closed the door. At the end of the hall, I opened the back door and slipped out to the stairway. Cool air blew across my face. The door shut after me.

  Only one light showed. It was the watchman's shack at the Dunhill. I turned and started away toward the ravine and the old workings that the girl in the cafe had told me about. The trail was overgrown with coarse grass, and at one point a small slide had blocked it. I crawled over and went along the trail to the collar of the old inclined shaft. There was a vague light, reflected off the nearby rocks from the shack above. It was just enough to see where I was walking and the shape of things nearby.

  The abandoned hoist house was there, and beyond it I could see the shaft slanting steeply down. Rusted tracks were under my feet, and once I stubbed a toe on the end of a tie.

  When I got there, to the collar of the shaft, I stopped.

  It had seemed cool, but I was sweating now.

  Here, where I stood, there was a level place where waste rock from the mine had been dumped and smoothed off.

  Across the narrow canyon the opposite side loomed up black against the night, and above it there was a scattering of bright desert stars. It was still, so still a person might almost have heard the movement of a bat's wing.

  Breeze touched my face gently, drying the perspiration on my cheeks.

  To my left the mine opened, black as death. Nobody needed to tell me this might be my last look at the stars.

  Old mines were something I knew all too well. I knew the thick, loose dirt of the floor, gray and ancient, untouched by any breeze, undisturbed by any walking foot.

  I knew the pale gray dust that gathers on the side walls of the drifts and lays in a mantle over the chutes and the rusted ore cars.

  I knew how the ancient timbers crack and groan with the weight of a mountain on their shoulders, and I knew how the strain on those timbers grew, how the hanging walls of the drifts and stopes began to buckle.

  Water would seep through, finding cracks and private ways, weakening the vast weight above. The guts of the mountain lay there suspended, a gigantic trap for the unwary.

  I walked into the mine entrance. When I had felt my way along for thirty feet, and the opening was gray light in back and above me, I put my hand over the reflector of the carbide lamp and struck sharply to light it, brushing the tiny wheel against the flint. Flame spurted from the burner, a long, knifelike jet of flame standing out at least six inches and hissing comfortably. I turned it down to a mere two inches and, drawing a deep breath, started down the steep incline that led into the old workings of the mine.

  When I had gone fifty yards or so, the floor became level and I passed the first ladder leading upward into a stope and, beside it, two chutes. Under one of them stood an ancient, rusted ore car.

  A little farther on there were more chutes, and I continued walking. So far the timbering was in fair shape.

  From my few careful inquiries and a study of the map Pd obtained, I thought I could tell where the troublesome area began, but when I had gone beyond the last of the chutes, I realized I need not have worried about that. I stopped and flashed my light farther ahead; then I knew what hell was like.

  When a vein of ore is discovered off of a mine tunnel, the miners follow it, hollowing out the richest rock to form what they call a stope. These man-made caverns are often too large to be supported by timbers and are the most dangerous areas in a mine . . . especially an older, unmaintained mine.

  The tunnel before me fell away into blackness and vanished. It was not hard to see what had happened. Evidently, there had been a stope below the level on which I stood, and the unreinforced ceiling, or hanging wall, had caved in. Dead ahead of me the floor of the drift broke sharply off, and it was a good ten feet to the heaped-up, broken rock below. I raised my eyes and looked across at least a hundred feet of open space, lighted weirdly by the flame, turned up to its highest now.

  The roof of the drift above me had been hollowed out, turning this section of tunnel into another stope, probably trying to follow the vein of ore from below.

  Flashing my light upward, I could vaguely see the hanging wall of the section ahead, and for the first time I could appreciate the term. The roof of upper stope was, literally, hanging.

  Great cracks showed, and the rock on either side of the cracks sagged ominously. Water dripped through and the whole roof of the huge chamber bulged downward, waiting, it seemed, for no more than a gesture or a sudden sound to give way with all the crushing power of the mountai
n above it.

  How long it had hung that way, I did not know. And I had to lower myself down to the rubble below and make my way across it to the tunnel beyond. I could not see that drift, nor did I know exactly where it was. I only knew it was there, and if I was to prove my theory, I had to cross this open stretch alive.

  For a moment I stood, listening. There is no soundlessness such as the silence far under the earth. There is no dark such as that absolute blackness where there is complete absence of light. Yet here, it was not quite soundless, for there was something, vague, yet ominously present. A drip of water so quiet as not to be identified?

  A distant trickling of sand? Whatever it was, at times the mountain seemed to sigh, the earth to move, ever so slightly, like a restless sleeper.

  Putting my lamp down on the lip of the cave-in at my feet, I lowered myself as far as I could, got my lamp in one hand, then let go. It was a short drop and I landed safely. Carefully, trying to forget the threatening bulges above my head, I began working my way over the heaped-up boulders and debris, mingled with a few timbers from smashed chutes, toward the opposite wall.

  When I was almost halfway across, something made me turn and look back. On the lip of the old drift where a few minutes ago I had stood, there was a light!

  Fear came up in my throat like a strangling hand.

  Backing away, I watched the light like a bird watches a snake. I am not a coward, nor yet a brave man. A fight I always liked, but one thing I knew-I wanted no fighting here.

  Then I saw the gun.

  The man, or woman, who held the light had a gun. I could see the shine of the barrel in the glow from the flame. I was not afraid of being shot, for a bullet would mean nothing here. If that pistol was fired in this stope, neither of us would ever live to tell the story. It would mean complete and sudden extinction.

  Moving back again, I saw the gun lift, and I spoke, trying to keep my voice low, for any sudden sound might be all that was needed.

  If you want to live, don't fire that gun. If you do, we'll both die. Look at the hanging wall.