The Loner

by Geralyn Dawson

  Off to their right, a soft glow of light provided a beacon in the darkness, and she wanted to cheer when Logan headed that direction despite the fact that the cavern appeared to narrow to the space of a doorway. The cave lent her voice a hollow sound as she asked, "What's there, Logan?"

  "A surprise."

  "I can't say I've enjoyed the surprises I've had lately."

  "You'll like this one—though I have to say it's as prickly as a cactus."

  "A prickly surprise?" At the passage, he stopped, then motioned for her to go first. Caroline gave him a long look then said, "Only because I trust you..." She stepped through, then stopped abruptly in shock. "Oh my God."

  Behind her, Will gasped with pleasure. "Ben!"

  Ben Whitaker stood at the center of a lantern-lit area the size of a small church, his arms spread wide and a warm smile on his face. "Hello, squiggles."

  Caroline heard Logan murmur, "Squiggles?"

  She ran into Ben's arms and inhaled his comfortable, familiar scent. "You're safe. Oh, thank God, you're safe." She cried and blubbered in his embrace for a bit, then pulled back and stared up into his pale blue eyes. Anger pulsed in her veins. "I could kill you, Ben Whitaker, for running off like you did."

  "I'm sorry, sunshine."

  "Well, you should be. When I think of all that's happened since you left Artesia, it makes me a little crazy."

  Ben cleared his throat and repeated, "I'm sorry. I never thought you'd try to come after me. That was a damned fool thing to do. And to involve the Sum-beetch?" he said, using the name he'd settled on Logan years ago. "I can't believe you did that. What the hell were you thinking!"

  "Now wait a minute, Ben," Will said, his obvious relief transforming into a flash of anger. "This isn't about Logan. It's about you. You wouldn't believe what all my mama has been through because of you, Ben. It's been awful, just awful, for her."

  Unspoken, but understood by everyone were the words and for me.

  Regret rolled across the older man's face. "The Sum-beetch sketched it out for me. You're right. You all's being here is on my shoulders. I feel terrible about that, William. From the moment I realized just what was going on, I've been working hard to right the wrongs and make that woman pay."

  "What is going on, Ben?" Caroline asked. "What do you know? And what are you doing here?" With a glance around at the cavern's walls, she added, "Is it the gold mine? Have you found it?"

  "No. Jim and I haven't been looking for the gold mine."

  "Jim? Who is Jim?"

  "That's me." A voice spoke from out of the shadows and a figure Caroline hadn't previously noted moved into the light. He's not much older than Will. The young man continued, "I'm Jim White. Ben and I are partners."

  "Partners in what?" Will asked suspiciously.

  "That's not important," Ben declared simultaneously. "I want to hear about what happened to you, Caroline."

  Logan spoke up for the first time, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at the older man. "Whitaker, you need to answer their questions first. Start at the beginning and tell us what happened to bring you to this place at this time."

  Ben bristled at being told what to do by the "Sum-beetch," but when Caroline folded her arms, too, he acquiesced. Much of what he said at first, Caroline either knew or had surmised. He spoke of receiving the letter from Fanny Plunkett that suggested Suzanne had been killed by someone looking for the map to Shotgun Reese's gold mine.

  "I knew I had to come after the bastard," Ben explained. "I had to avenge my Suz's murder, even if it killed me. Hell, to be honest, I was hoping it would kill me."

  "Oh, Ben," Caroline murmured, her pique melting away.

  He continued. "You know, it was strange. It's been twenty years since I made this place my home, but as I traveled the old trail, it was like I slipped into my old skin. By the time I made my way to town and sauntered into the saloon, I felt mean as hell with the hide off. I tracked down Fanny Plunkett and her boy Ace, and he told me he'd already found both the man who'd killed Suzanne and Shotgun and the map to the lost mine."

  "Ace Plunkett?" Caroline asked, alarmed. "I thought his name was Deuce."

  Jim White popped up. "There's two of 'em. Twins."

  More Plunketts. Caroline could have done without this bit of news.

  Ben continued, "Ace told a detailed story about tracking the killer down and killing him to avenge the murders. I believed him until Fanny showed me the map and asked for my help deciphering it. See, it was more a puzzle than a map, written in a code of sorts that used incidents in our past as clues."

  "What sort of incidents, Ben?" Will asked.

  "Ah..." The old man scratched his beard. "For instance, one of 'em said Wilbur's poker north two hundred yards. Only me and Suz and Shotgun would have known he meant the campsite where we played cards with Wilbur Burlington the night before he rode off to die trying to rob a stage. They were those sorts of clues."

  "So Fanny needed your frame of reference," Logan observed.

  Ben nodded. "I might have fallen for the whole story if she hadn't given the game away. She said all the right things, but the hard gleam in her eyes didn't match her words. Neither did her impatience to start the treasure hunt. She wouldn't allow me the time I needed to digest what had happened to my Suz and why. Made me suspicious and when I dragged my heels..."

  "She sent her son to kidnap Will in order to blackmail you into cooperating," Logan said.

  "Yep. She wants the gold and will stop at nothing to get it." Ben gazed apologetically at Caroline and Will. "I'm so sorry. I never dreamed you two would have to pay for my problems. Was it horrible for you?"

  Will looked to his mother to respond, so Caroline gave a censored synopsis of events up to the point that Will found her and Logan. However, Ben knew her well and his expression revealed that he knew she'd glossed over a lot. He turned a proud gaze toward Will and said, "I'm sorry you got dragged into this, son, but I'm not surprised you outsmarted Deuce Plunkett. He's cruel, but stupid."

  "He's dead," Will replied. "My pa shot him."

  Ben dropped his chin to his chest. Caroline took a step toward him, ready to assist, when he swayed and it appeared as if he might fall. "Ben?" she inquired.

  "Deuce was the one. He's the one who killed my Suzie." Lifting his head, he met Logan's gaze. "Goddammit, I am in your debt."

  "There is no debt. The bastard kidnapped my son."

  Ben acknowledged the sentiment with a reluctant nod.

  When the familiar brooding look settled onto Ben's features, Caroline knew he needed to be distracted from memories of Suzanne's death, so she asked, "What happened after Deuce left to get Will?"

  Ben grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I wasn't too happy for one thing. I came close to killing the bitch... Pardon my language, honey, but that's the cleanest word I can think of to describe her. First time in my life I've hit a female. Ace would have killed me, but Fanny wanted the gold more than she wanted revenge."

  "Thank goodness for that," Caroline observed.

  Ben shrugged his shoulders. "I came up with a plan to get away from the Plunketts and hide until Deuce showed up with Will. Jim, here, has been my secret weapon."

  The boy grinned like a coon on a trash can. Ben continued, "Shotgun's map indicated that the gold could be found in a cave, but I told Fanny I'd need help locating 'em because my eyes aren't so good and I'm not familiar with the canyon anymore. Fanny was rightfully wary of sharing word of the treasure with the men who call Black Shadow Canyon home, so she went outside the canyon to one of the nearby ranches where a young cowboy—" Ben hooked a thumb toward Jim "—spent all his spare time exploring a huge underground cavern north of here. It was a lucky day for us when she hired Jim."

  "Lucky for me," Jim offered. "I'm a rich man now."

  "You found the mine!" Will exclaimed.

  "Not a mine, but a stash. That's getting ahead of the story, though. Let me tell it my way."

  Will rolled his eyes. "You
're so slow!"

  Ben ignored him, saying, "The second day we followed the clues in earnest, the map led us to a cavern about a quarter mile from here. When I studied the next clue, I had a hunch we might be about to find the gold, so I called a halt for the day and spent the evening concocting a plan." As Ben continued, the gift of storytelling that made him such a good newspaperman took them into the cave with him.

  Jim, Ace and Ben arrived back at the eastern-facing entrance of the cavern around midmorning when the sun was in just the right direction to shine into the hole. In addition to their kerosene lanterns, Jim had several coils of rope looped over his shoulder while Ben toted wire and a hand ax. Plunkett carried only his light.

  "Where do we go now, old man?" Ace said, gesturing toward the map in Ben's hand.

  Ben had memorized the next clue. El Paso Run, twenty ticks, Bullet's mistake. Seventy-three paces. Beware. N—thirty-seven. Waiting for the Abilene score. "See that tunnel? We walk into it for twenty minutes."

  Staring at the tight space where light went to near naught, Ace's eyes went wide and he broke out in a sweat. Jim smothered a smile as Ace exclaimed, "Twenty minutes! Hell, that's the middle of the mountain!"

  "Maybe the bottom of it, too," Jim piped up cheerfully. "Sometimes these caverns go straight down."

  "Shit." Ace rounded on Ben. "Let me see that clue. How do you know you're right?"

  "El Paso Run refers to the time ole Shotgun got belly sick after eating at a cantina just over the border. His gut got to rumbling and he ran for the John, but too late. Man left a trail behind him...just like that." Ben pointed toward a trail of bat guano. "We follow the shit twenty ticks of the clock."

  Ace's face went ashen. "Then what? What is Bullet's mistake?"

  "Bullet was Fanny's dog. Got his leg tangled in a trap. Bullet's mistake means we take a left dogleg turn." Actually, Bullet had caught his right leg in the trap, but Ace didn't need to know that. Ben was betting that he wouldn't make the first twenty minutes.

  Plunkett gritted his teeth, then said, "All right, let's go."

  "Jim, mark your watch."

  The beginning of their descent into the tunnel was smooth and relatively level, but once they left the sunshine completely behind, the going got steeper. Ben could hear Ace's nervous panting behind him and he grinned. After about five minutes, Jim launched the plan they had fashioned. "Ben, hold on. Do you smell that?"

  Ben made a show of sniffing the air. "Smell what? I don't smell anything."

  "It's a sulfur smell. Very faint. Not a good sign. Mr. Plunkett? How about you? Do you smell it?"

  Ace inhaled a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. What does it mean?"

  "Danger. I don't think we should go on. The flames in our lanterns could set the air afire. That happened to me once before and I barely got out alive."

  "Hmm..." Ben rubbed the back of his neck. "Guess we'll have to turn back then. Ace, you can tell Fanny that—"

  "No. You two go ahead. I'll stay here ready to help if you need me."

  That part of the plan worked like a charm. Once they left Ace behind, Ben and Jim made very good time. At the twenty-minute mark, they noted a tunnel to the right and took it for seventy-three paces. There, they stopped and held their lanterns high.

  They stood at the edge of a ledge. Beyond lay an empty darkness. Ben broke the tip off one of the jutting rocks beside him, tossed it into the dark and counted. At eight, he heard a faint splash. "Hmm..."

  "Look, Ben." Jim pointed to their right where the ledge disappeared into another opening. "What do you think? The clue is N-thirty-seven. Think that way is north? Maybe thirty-seven paces."

  Ben checked his compass and grinned. "You're a bright one, Jim."

  They took the path and counted their steps. At thirty-seven, Ben stopped and explained. "When we waited for the Abilene score we squeezed into this narrow passage and waited for a stage."

  "Like that?" Jim pointed toward a crack in the cavern wall.

  Ben nodded and led the way into a chamber. Against one wall sat a stack of trunks, bags and strongboxes.

  In another cave, on another day, Will exclaimed, "Geronimo's Treasure!"

  "Could be," Ben said. "Or, it could be that the richest strike in the West is still waiting to be found in the Guadalupes. Nevertheless, Shotgun's gold came in the form of coins, not nuggets. Tens of thousands of them. Papers inside one of the boxes dates 'em back to wartime. Since this was Apache land at the time and judging by some other items stored with the gold, I suspect what we have is a storage cave of items taken during stagecoach raids."

  Logan asked, "So, do the Plunketts have the gold now?"

  "Hell, no. We went back and handed Ace a 'clue' I said we found at the end of the tunnel. It was an Indian pipe I'd brought along with me, and then I spun a story that led us to another tunnel Jim had told me about and the search continued. The gold is waiting right where we found it."

  Caroline frowned. "Is that why you're here now, Ben? Please tell me Deuce Plunkett's brother isn't waiting right around a bend in a tunnel."

  "Don't worry, ma'am," Jim said. "Ace is in the saloon in town drowning his sorrows. His mama's not talking to him because he let Ben get killed."

  "I fell into a bottomless pit, don't you know."

  Jim nodded. "Ace heard the whole thing happen, so there wasn't any doubt."

  Ben chuckled as he explained, "Jim knew of a section of caves that distorts voices. We staged a fall in one of them yesterday, then during the night, Jim led me to this section of caves. They connect to the cavern he's been exploring north of here. About a hundred yards to the east of here is a tunnel that leads up to a sheltered area on top of the cliff. It gives a perfect view of the desert below. We saw y'all coming hours ago."

  "You did? But we hugged the base of the mountains to avoid being noticed." Caroline whipped her head around and stared worriedly at Logan. "What about the sentries?"

  "If they'd seen us, we would never have made it this far," he replied.

  "He's right," Ben agreed. "I've counted the days since Deuce left the canyon and I knew you were due so we kept a close watch. We were ready to go down and intercept you, but once you started coming this way, we thought the safest thing was to watch and see where you were headed. Jim knew about this crack—he'd found it from the inside a few days ago. This entire mountain is just a maze of caves. He brought me here from the other chamber once we realized your intentions."

  "So, let me get this straight." Caroline reached for Logan's hand. "Will is safe. Ben is safe. Suzanne's murderer is dead. It's over. We can go home."

  Ben scratched the back of his head. "Well now, honey. I don't know about that. Deuce might have done the killing and the kidnapping, but Fanny was behind it all. It goes against my grain to let her get away with it."

  "She's not getting away with it," Logan said flatly. "She preyed upon my family. I'll see her in jail."

  "Or dead," Ben suggested. "She killed Caroline's mother."

  "Or dead," Logan agreed.

  Caroline's heart dropped to her toes. "Logan..." she warned.

  He squeezed her hand, then dropped it. "Jim, you know any sneaky ways into Devil's Rest?"

  Picking his way down the cliff by moonlight, dodging the needles and spines of cholla, prickly pear and Spanish dagger by luck alone, Logan waited for his trouble sense to quiver. He was very well aware that he might be about to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life, but two things propelled him toward the collection of buildings built originally by a rancher, then usurped by a loose-knit gang of outlaws and renamed Devil's Rest. First, the Plunketts deserved justice. Second, he'd spied the yellow bandanna tied to an agave stalk near the entrance to the canyon. While it could be a coincidence, Logan didn't believe that was the case. It was a signal, one that dated back to his childhood, the flag on their tree house in the Piney Woods.

  He'd bet his last bullet that Holt Driscoll had come to Black Shadow Canyon to help.

  The idea made
sense. After getting Cade to Fort Worth, where he would have medical help and the assistance of other friends such as Dair MacRae, Holt would have continued the mission. He easily could have arrived before Logan, considering the delays he and Caroline had experienced on the trail. If Holt had come to Devil's Rest to help him, Logan couldn't sneak his family out the back door, so to speak, and leave Holt behind to figure it out. He needed to find his friend or confirm that the signal wasn't a signal at all.

  So, while he might be making a huge mistake, he truly had no choice. He'd do anything to help his friend. Sort of like Caroline and her old ornery outlaw.

  Now that he'd met the man, seen the love in his eyes as he gazed at Caroline and Will, Logan had a hard time keeping an angry on for the fellow. Sure, with his quest for vengeance, Ben Whitaker had thrown Logan's life for a loop. But he'd been there for Caroline and Will when Logan wasn't around. For that and that alone, Logan owed him.

  Those thoughts hovered in Logan's mind as he made his way to the canyon floor at the point where desert conditions transitioned to a more fertile zone. Here, trees and shrubs offered concealment and he paused beneath the spreading branches of an alligator juniper to observe activity around the small settlement.

  They'd added two buildings since his last visit, bringing the total up to eight. In addition to the combination saloon and whorehouse, Devil's Rest boasted a bunk-house, a store of sorts, a mess hall and a stable and corral. The rest of the buildings were private residences, one of which served as the Plunkett family home.

  Logan studied the house Jim had indicated to be Fanny's. Lamplight burned in a single window. Someone was home. Probably Fanny, likely alone. He could slip inside and kill her and be done with it. Heaven knew she deserved it.

  Considering all the evil she'd wrought he probably was a fool to hesitate, but Logan had never killed a woman, and the thought of doing so left him feeling twitchy. Arresting her and dragging her off to jail without rising the residents of Black Shadow Canyon against him would take good planning and even better luck. First and foremost, Logan intended to keep his family safe. If he did have a Texas Ranger here to help, the situation got a whole lot easier.