Hanging Valley

by Jack Ballas

  Shorty shook his head. “Boss, you ain’t gonna b’lieve what happened.”

  “Try me—an’ it better be good.”

  Gates started with the stage holdup, embellishing it all the way. “. . . an’ when they broke into our camp, don’t know how many they wuz—five or six at least—me an’ Bull killed three of ’em ’fore they got away with the girl. Then we went for our horses an’ they wuz gone. We walked to Durango, got more horses an’ tracked ’em down. Had a gunfight. I got hit. Bull took me back to Durango to see a doctor, then we saddled up an’ come here.”

  Bartow nodded, holding a tight rein on his fear and temper. “So you don’t know where the girl is now.”

  “Naw, we never got past that pinched-in pass over the mountain. I figgered you might give us a couple o’ men, an’ we could go back there an’ pick up their trail.”

  Bartow thought a moment. He’d kept the stealing of the girl down to four men in the beginning because the fewer who knew what happened the better chance no one else would ever know. The two who’d gotten killed at the pass saved him from having to rid himself of them later. He planned to get rid of Shorty and Bull also, but now he’d have to wait until they found the girl, or until she showed up here at the mine. Damn! Nothing was going right. The old man wouldn’t tell where the rich vein was located, these bumbling idiots messed up everything they touched, and he wasn’t ready to make an appearance in Durango with the news he’d bought the mine owned by old man Miles Colter. He’d already announced that he’d struck a rich vein, but no one knew it was on Colter’s claim—or that he still had to find where the old man had found the vein.

  He gave his two cohorts a look he hoped would throw the fear of God into them. “We’ll not try to find her at this time. She’ll show up out here, and when she does, I’ll take care of her personally.”

  By now, his anger had cooled, and he began to think clearly. “You didn’t see any of the men who attacked you and took the girl?” They shook their heads simultaneously. He said, “All right, we’ll have to play the cards dealt us. Sooner or later someone will bring her out here. We get rid of whoever that turns out to be, then we’ll use the girl to try to make the old man tell where the rich vein is.” He sighed. “I’m tired of messing with him, but we can’t do anything until we get the story out of him.”

  He stood, went to a cabinet, took a bottle from it, pulled three glasses out of a drawer, and poured them each a drink. He knocked back his drink, looked into the bottom of the empty glass, pushed the pepperbox back up his sleeve, then pinned them with a look. “I don’t want either o’ you goin’ anywhere without your gun and holster ’til I tell you it’s all right to put them aside—understand?”

  They nodded, and apparently having waited until he put his gun away, knocked back their drinks. He poured another, then changed his mind about looking for the girl. “We’ll wait a week; if she doesn’t show up here by then, we’ll go looking for her. Now stick around outside and make sure no one comes poking about.”

  When the door closed behind them, he stood and went to the back room. Colter lay there on a dirty mattress. He was as dirty as the mattress, and had a month’s growth of beard. “Old man, I want to know where that last strike of yours is located. Soon’s I know, you’re gonna sign over this mine to me, an’ once that’s done I’ll cut those ropes and you can go anywhere you damned well please.”

  Colter gave a dry, pain-filled chuckle. “You take me for a fool? I no sooner tell you what you want to know, then you kill me. I’ll wait you out. When Emily gets here, she’ll start a search for me. You kill me before that and neither you nor that woman you brought here will ever find that rich vein.”

  Hot blood surged to Bartow’s face. He backhanded Colter and stomped from the room. He’d already tried torture; burned Colter’s feet, starved him, deprived him of water; everything short of killing him. That he wouldn’t do until he got what he wanted.

  He walked past the table, noticed the bottle still sitting there, poured himself another drink, and sat. He stared into the amber fluid. He didn’t like the idea of Emily Colter running around loose in this country. She might talk to anyone, raise suspicions, start a manhunt, hell, anything; and those two dumb bastards he’d sent after her? He relished the idea of blowing them into the next world. He rubbed his hand across the little hideout gun in his shirt sleeve. And that woman he’d brought here, Maddie Brice, he’d keep her as long as she satisfied his needs; then when he could afford a first-class woman, he’d get rid of her, too.

  Lingo threaded his way across meadows, up the rocky sides of mountains, forded streams, and every time he came into a clearing took note of the sun, and picked another landmark to home in on. He chuckled to himself. Most people would think him slam out of his mind, roaming around these mountains with very little idea of the exact location of one mine shaft; perhaps only a small hole in the ground. He shrugged. He’d found things in miles upon miles of open prairie; he’d find Emily’s father’s mine, and he prayed he’d find her father at the same time.

  He bedded down the first night in a wind- and rain-cut hollow in the side of a mountain: no stream, no trees, only the protection of the cavelike hollow above the tree line.

  Hoping for a place like this, he’d collected enough firewood when in the trees below, and tied it to his packhorse to keep him warm during the night. And, when he found his place to camp, he’d put his horses into the hollow first. Again he glanced at the sky. A storm was building over the closer peaks. He could survive the rain, but lightning in these elevations was another story. All the while he worked, his mind kept going back to the small bundle of beautiful woman he’d rescued. She had more spunk than most men. She faced up to whatever the situation was and acted accordingly.

  Cold penetrated his sheepskin. He shivered, then again pushed his horses as far back in the cave as they could go and still stand. Then he unloaded the bundle of wood, stared at it a few moments, and finally nodded; it should last most of the night; the storm should pass, and he’d get himself and the horses back down below tree line. He went about building a fire, filled his coffeepot and put grounds in it, then glanced at the sky again. With his look, a blinding flash of lightning speared the mountainside. Thunder crashed, bounced, and rumbled around him. His neck tingled as though his hair stood on end. He swallowed the brassy taste of fear deep in his throat.

  He stood by the horses, his arms around their necks to soothe them. They trembled under his touch, then quieted. That lightning bolt was not the last he’d see this night. Then another spear tore at the mountain; then one after another they crashed about him, and with the noise and blinding light came rain. Rain like he’d seen on the Texas plains—in sheets, blocking out all around him. His visibility penetrated only a yard or so in front of the hollow; enough to see that the runoff was a fast-moving stream down the mountainside. At least one thing broke his way: His camp wouldn’t wash away. He picked up the bundle of wood and held it on his shoulder. If it got wet, he’d spend a much more miserable night than already seemed his fate.

  Lightning continued to burst about him and the sulphurous smells of brimstone burned his nostrils and throat—then the storm’s sounds drew on across the peaks, growing fainter by the minute. Rain slowed to a steady downpour slackened to a steady, gentle falling, and then stopped. He walked to the edge of his camp and looked down the mountainside. Even though the lightning had drawn away it continued to light the mountains and forests about him as though day had dawned. Far below, a ribbon of smoke pushed its way from the trees. Then an orange flare grew from the now increasing plume of smoke, and the orange light spread.

  Forest fire! A shiver ran up his spine. Thank God he wasn’t among the trees. He’d known fear many times, but never like that he’d felt once in a West Texas prairie fire.

  In the next flash of lightning he glanced down below. He was about a thousand feet above all vegetation. Surrounding him was only the slick, wet sides of cliffs, blackened from the water wh
ich had deepened their usual gray. Fear washed from him. He went about starting his fire, thankful that he could control it to his needs.

  While his supper cooked, he rubbed down the horses, thus quieting them even more; then he ate and crawled into his blankets. Throughout the night he wakened and put a little more wood on his fire. Occasionally he stepped to the front of his shelter and glanced at the valley below. The fire raged on.

  The dim light of morning pushed its way into the hollow, the horses snorted and nuzzled him from his blankets. He stepped to the front of the shelter and looked down upon desolation. What had only yesterday been a beautiful, green forest, now shoved blackened, denuded spikes of wood toward the sky. Still farther down the mountain a pall of smoke hung over all below it. Lingo mentally pictured the look of the entire valley below the smoke blanket. He wondered if Colter’s mine had been in the line of the fire. If so, he hoped he’d not find charred bodies among the ashes.

  About midmorning, thinking the fire had burned itself out in the valley upon which he looked, he packed his gear, saddled, and toed the stirrup. When he came upon the first of the scorched ground, he stepped from the saddle and with his bare hand tested the ground to see if it would burn the frog of his horse’s hooves. He gave a slight nod. He’d ride, but ever so often he’d test the ground again. He snorted, tried to clear his nostrils of the strong smell of burned wood, and shook his head. The smell would be in the air for months.

  From where he sat his horse, he studied the mountainsides and the valley below, looking for landmarks that only yesterday had stood out prominently. Most were gone, even the colors of rocks were hidden under scorched, blackened surfaces. The things he’d learned at the land office were now next to useless.

  He thought to head for Durango and see if he couldn’t get an idea about where Colter’s mine might be if he headed straight out of town toward it. He shook his head. He’d try to find it from here; then if he couldn’t find the right hole in the mountain, he’d go to town and start from there. Silverton should be around the shoulder of the mountain in front of him.

  The sun shone red through the pall of smoke when he finally looked at the lights of Silverton, but the town was too far away to try to get there by dark.

  The fire had stayed the other side of the ridges from the town, but heavy smoke lay over it like a blanket. Barnes stopped and made camp by a stream that, unmindful of the fire, still gurgled and sang its way toward some larger stream. Lingo knelt, cupped his hands and tasted. The water was cold, fresh off snowmelt in the mountains. His horses wouldn’t eat but they could drink their fill. He’d buy them grain when he reached town the next day.

  In his blankets that night, he studied long on how to go about finding a mine that he would be hesitant to ask about by its name or its owner’s name. He’d found out in town that Miles Colter had named the mine for his daughter: “The Emily Lou.” Lingo studied on that awhile and decided that to ask for it by name wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Tired of pondering the problem, he pulled his blanket to his chin and went to sleep.

  The next morning, he cooked bacon, beans, and fixed a pot of coffee. Em had packed him several biscuits. He ate them with his breakfast. While drinking his last cup of coffee, he studied the stream. A bath would be something he needed. He’d try to get the smoke smell off his face and body. When he took his last swallow, he shook his head. He’d wait until he could have bath water warmed at the hotel.

  That evening, walking to the hotel after taking his horse to the livery, he took a good look at the men standing about on the boardwalks on each side of the street. He didn’t see a person dressed as he was—a cowboy. These men were miners. Their heavy workboots, scuffed and worn, loose-fitting trousers and shirts, even their hats marked them as different from him. Most of the men he looked upon wore caps with earflaps.

  After his bath and shave, he tore the sheet from his bed in strips, dressed his wound, and wrapped his side as tight as he could, even though his rib felt much better.

  He ate supper, then went to the saloon closest to his hotel. Standing at the bar, alongside a brawny redhead, a miner by his dress, Barnes knocked back his drink, held his glass for another, then looked at the redhead. “Any of these mines needin’ workers?”

  Before answering, the miner swept Lingo’s tall frame with a searching gaze, smiled, and shook his head. “Mister, you ain’t no miner, you’re a cowboy. What you want to go down in one o’ them pits for?”

  Barnes grinned. “Tell you how it is: When a man gets near broke, an’ sometimes hungry, he can’t afford to be choosy.” He knocked back his drink and looked at the miner. “Man over in Durango said as how there was a mine over here might be lookin’ for workers; said the owner was a right nice man to work for.” He scratched his head. “Can’t remember the name of the man who owns it, but the name of the mine is The Emily Lou.”

  The redhead nodded and stuck out his hand. “Name’s Slagle, Sam Slagle. Yeah, that’d be a pretty good place to work but,” he shook his head, “I ain’t seen Miles Colter around here in a couple months—maybe more. Don’t know what happened to ’im.”

  Lingo ordered them both a drink, and when the bartender placed it on the bar in front of him, he picked it up, stared into the amber liquid a moment, then twisted to again look at Slagle. “You reckon when it gets daylight you could point me in the right direction to find it?” He shook his head and grimaced. “All these holes in the ground look the same to me.”

  Slagle grinned, then laughed. “Hell, I’ll go you one better’n that. I just set off a charge o’ dynamite in my mine an’ I ain’t anxious to go in there to start clearin’ it out. Them dynamite fumes give me one helluva headache. I’ll walk up there with you. We’ll see can we roust Colter outta his hole.”

  “I’ll sure be obliged to you. Meet me at the cafe; I’ll buy breakfast, then we’ll head up there.” He looked at Slagle’s drink, but the miner shook his head.

  “Naw, now, if you’re might nigh broke you got no business buyin’ me drinks—or breakfast. I’ll buy the breakfast, then we can head up that way.”

  They tossed their drinks down, shook hands, and when they parted at the door, Slagle said over his shoulder, “ ’Bout five o’clock at that there cafe ’cross the street.” Lingo nodded.

  In his room, Barnes thought about Sam Slagle: a friendly sort, and big and brawny as he was he’d be a mean one to tangle with, but he’d shown only the desire to make a friend. Lingo decided he liked him, but he’d hold back trusting him enough to tell him what he was here for.

  The next morning, Barnes sipped his second cup of coffee when Slagle came in. “Howdy, Sam, didn’t order yet. I notice these folks have eggs. Don’t find ’em in many towns out here. Reckon I’ll have ’bout a half dozen of ’em, biscuits, venison, fried potatoes, an’ I’ll pay.”

  Slagle nodded. “Sounds good to me. Go ahead an’ order for the both of us.”

  After their breakfast came, Sam chewed, swallowed, and pinned Lingo with a questioning gaze. “Know what, Barnes? After I left you last night I got to thinkin’. Miles Colter ain’t the kind o’ man to stay to himself for this long at a time; he’s a right friendly sort. ’Sides that, seems like he’d’a come in town for a drink. He likes his evenin’ toddy. An’ he sure would need supplies.” He took a forkful of potato, swabbed it in the runny egg yolk, put it in his mouth, and chewed. While obviously pondering the problem, he finally nodded. “Yep, he’d need supplies. ’Course he mighta gone over to Durango for ’em.”

  Lingo shook his head. “Don’t know the man, but I can’t figure many would go that far to stock up when he can get what he wants this close to home.”

  Slagle nodded. “Figger you’re right. We better nose around up there; see what we can see.”

  When they finished eating, Sam paid the bill, and to Lingo’s disgust, Sam said they’d walk, it was only a little over a mile. Hell, if it had been only across the street, Barnes would have ridden his horse, but he followed Slagle up the hill�
�afoot.

  When they got close, and Sam had pointed out the mine entrance, Lingo held his arm out to stop the miner. “Slagle, let’s don’t mess up any sign that might tell us somethin’.”

  Sam’s brow wrinkled. “You know anythin’ ’bout readin’ sign?”

  Lingo grinned. “Slagle, I grew up in Comanche country. I wouldn’t be part o’ this world if I hadn’t learned right young to pay attention to what’s around me.”

  Sam’s face reddened. “Sorry, young feller, you talk like you done seen the inside o’ a schoolhouse. I figgered you wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout them other things.”

  Barnes nodded. “Ma an’ Pa both had pretty good book learnin’, as they put it, so they insisted that I go to school.”

  While he talked, Lingo studied the ground. They stood about twenty-five or thirty feet from the mouth of the mine entrance, a heavy, thick-looking pine-slab door. After a few minutes, Lingo took a few steps closer, studied the ground, then closed in on the entrance a few more feet. The ground was soft, but not muddy. All around the area outside of the door footprints sank into the ground.

  One set was huge, another small, almost dainty, and another set about the size of his own footprints. Lingo frowned. He’d seen the huge set, and the dainty set before, and had memorized them while tracking them through the forest. They belonged to Shorty Gates and Bull Mayben; the other set he’d never seen before. What were Gates and Mayben doing around Colter’s claim? And from the prints, they’d spent quite a lot of time here. That was cause for worry.

  The third set was made by a low-quarter town shoe. He knew of no one who wore that kind of foot covering here in this country whether they were miner or cowboy. Of course, it could have been made by one of the townsfolk; some of them wore low-quarter shoes.

  “Sam, stay right here. I want a better look at two of those sets o’ prints.”

  Slagle looked from the prints to Lingo. “I know them two varmints who made the big and little tracks. Done had trouble with ’em both. They ain’t miners fer sure, an’ I reckon none o’ you who run cows would claim ’em neither. Don’t know who them low-quarter shoeprints b’long to.”