The Dangerous Land

by Ralph Compton

  “That’s right. And if you don’t like those I showed you, just pick a direction and ride for a while. Follow your nose, listen for the noise, and you should find another Territorial claim real quick.”

  “Think you could spare four or five gun hands to go along with me?”

  “You don’t know how close I am to taking you up on that,” Teller said with a smile. “Truth of the matter is, and I’m ashamed to say, a man in my position needs to tread lightly around rich men and big companies who have the pull to make a lot of bad things happen through official channels. That probably don’t make a lot of sense, but it’s a roundabout way of saying . . .”

  “I’ve dealt with plenty of businesses and have seen enough to know how the world works,” Paul said. “What you said makes perfect sense. I was only joking about you lending me some of your deputies. I know you’ve got plenty to worry about in just doing your job here and keeping it. Thanks for all you’ve done on my behalf.”

  Teller’s eyes narrowed and he lowered his voice a bit when he asked, “You ever work in a factory?”

  Taken aback by the abrupt subject change, Paul said, “One or two.”

  “Territorial Mining is just like any other machine. The bigger it gets, the easier it is for something small to break loose and bring the whole thing crashing down. You can whack away at it all day long with a hammer, but toss a little stone into the wrong gears or take out the right spring and . . .”He held out one fist and then opened it like a blossoming explosion. He then closed that fist again to keep one finger pointed toward Paul. “You can do a hell of a lot more damage on your own than you could with me and all of my deputies riding alongside you. Just do me a favor and make sure to be far enough away when the machine starts to smoke.”

  “I’ll sure try.” With that, Paul tipped his hat and left the office.

  Outside, Hank was waiting with all three of their horses. “He give you any more grief?”

  “No. He gave me a map.”

  “I know where we’re headed.”

  “Do you?” Paul asked. “And now you’re an expert in where to find Territorial Mining sites?”

  “I do plenty of traveling in my line of work, and lots of that traveling takes me through these mountains. All I needed was some time to think things over so I could recall some good spots to check.”

  Holding out the map, Paul asked, “Are these any of the spots you were thinking about?”

  Hank leaned over to study the map. After taking just a bit too long to do so, he climbed into his saddle and said, “Yep. I can tell you exactly which one to go to first.”

  Paul mounted his horse and got himself situated before flicking his reins to head down Harrison Avenue. The reins to Red Feather’s horse were looped around his saddle horn, and that animal followed along without a lick of protest. “Is this just a way for you to seem more useful than a lawman?” Paul asked.

  “You think I would want to do something like that?”

  “I haven’t known you for very long and I’m already certain you would want to do something like that.”

  As they rode past the Monarch, a single figure stepped out of one of the small bunches of people gathered outside Mannie Hyman’s saloon next door. Having been stooped over just enough to blend in, Red Feather strode into the street and swung onto his horse’s back without breaking stride. “We are leaving?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Hank said. “By the way . . . that was some nice shooting back there.”

  Red Feather twisted around in his saddle to look behind him. “Back where?”

  “Back at that lawyer’s office the other night.”

  Growing more confused by the second, the Comanche gave up on Hank altogether and looked over at Paul.

  “That building where Prescott was being held,” Paul explained. “It was a lawyer’s office.”

  “Were any lawyers killed?” Red Feather asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Too bad.”

  For several seconds, neither of the other two men knew how to respond to that. Paul was the first to break out laughing and Hank quickly joined in. “I didn’t think you redskins had a sense of humor,” Hank said.

  “Call me that one more time and you’ll be laughing from a fresh hole in your face.”

  “All right, all right. Last time I use that phrase. What do you prefer instead? Injun or savage?”

  Now it was Red Feather’s turn to scowl before giving in to a chuckle that caused his shoulders to rumble slightly. “You are funny,” he said. “Or brave. Possibly foolish. Either way, you’re amusing to me.”

  “Oh, good,” Hank sighed. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “Where are we going now?” Red Feather asked. “Since you spent the night in jail, I will guess that it is far away from this place.”

  “It’s not too far,” Paul replied.

  “And when we get there?”

  “We’ll be tossing cogs into a real big machine.”

  Chapter 29

  It would have been a short ride if the three men could have gone as the crow flies. Since Paul, Hank, and Red Feather had not one set of wings between them, they needed to follow twisting mountain paths and trails that led to crumbled passes or washed-out ravines. Still, where their lack of wings failed them, sheer tenacity saw them through and they made a good amount of progress over the course of a grueling day. By late afternoon, they’d caught a taste of what they were after.

  Hank rode in the middle of the group with Red Feather up front and Paul bringing up the rear. The order changed throughout the day, depending on who needed to rest his eyes and who was so anxious that he couldn’t bear to be anywhere but at the tip of the spear. Grimacing and smacking his lips, Hank started shifting uncomfortably in his saddle. “What in blazes is that?” he groaned.

  “What are you talking about?” Paul asked.

  “You don’t smell that? Ugh, for that matter, you don’t taste it?”

  Paul pulled in a deep breath and quickly regretted it. The foul stench of burning metal mingled with sulfur, and when enough of it filled his nose, it seeped to the back of his throat to become a taste that quickly brought a sneer to his face. “Now I know what you’re talking about. Tastes like I licked the inside of a steam engine.”

  “Hey up there,” Hank said. “Don’t you smell it?”

  “Of course I do,” Red Feather replied. “I just do not bleat about it like a crying child.”

  “Or maybe you’re just more accustomed to horrible stenches than the rest of us.”

  “That could be,” the Comanche said. “After riding with you for this long, I have had to learn to live with many bad smells.”

  “And he just keeps getting funnier by the day.”

  “Stop, both of you,” Paul said.

  Hank groaned while tying a bandanna over his nose and mouth. “We were just having a bit of fun.”

  “No. I mean . . . stop!”

  Instead of stopping what they were saying, the other two pulled back on their reins to stop moving down the path that was about to lead them between two large boulders forming a natural gateway in front of them. Paul unfolded the map he’d been given so he could see every mark the sheriff had made. It wasn’t a detailed diagram, to be certain, but there was enough scrawled onto the paper to convince Paul of one thing.

  “The mining camp,” Paul announced. “It’s got to be right past those rocks.”

  “That is what we are smelling,” Red Feather said. “It is the blood of this land being spilled by men and their machines.”

  “It’s either that,” Hank said, “or the chemicals used to maintain those machines and test whatever ore that’s collected.”

  “I can scout ahead,” Red Feather offered.

  Paul folded the map up and stuck it into his pocket. “I’ll go as well,” h
e said. “After coming this far, I want to get a look at this place.”

  Red Feather nodded once and flicked his reins.

  After Paul had ridden past him, Hank said, “Yeah, well, I suppose I’ll just stay put right here.”

  As they rode between the boulders, the clatter of horses’ hooves became a loud banging of iron against stone. The echo rolled between Paul’s ears like a locomotive that scraped its stacks against every inch of a low tunnel. They emerged on the other side of the rocks, ready for a hostile reception. Instead Paul and Red Feather got a good look at a large mining operation stretched out below their position.

  There were half a dozen wooden shacks and plenty of tents scattered along the bottom of a mostly flat basin. Several covered wagons were lined up on opposite ends of the camp, enclosing it like a pair of half-moons curving toward each other. Two conveyor belts carried broken rock out of a large cave at the eleven o’clock position relative to where Paul and Red Feather were observing. At the three o’clock position was a tall crevice in a wall of rock that seemed to be a focal point for much of the activity within the camp.

  After dismounting, Paul grabbed his field glasses and made his way to the edge of the trail marking a sharp descent into the basin. Red Feather led the horses farther back along the path between the boulders where they could remain without being spotted from below. When he returned to Paul’s side, the Comanche moved in a low crouch that made him look like a predatory cat.

  “There’s something strange about that crevice,” Paul said while squinting through the field glasses.

  “It looks more like a wound.”

  “You’re right. The sides are too straight. I’m guessing it wasn’t there before this bunch showed up. Doesn’t exactly look like it was blasted out, though.”

  “Could have been stripped away by water,” Red Feather said. “Other mining companies use it to tear into the mountains and sift through what is left behind. It makes a rain that is filled with gravel that pelts all those below when it falls.”

  “Sounds delightful.”

  “It is not.”

  Slowly shifting his gaze through the camp, Paul eventually spotted a series of connected pipes. There were larger ones leading into the camp from one side, and the diameter of the connected pipes gradually decreased until they stretched into the straight crevice.

  “I think you’re right,” Paul said. “There must be a river just out of sight. I can see the pipes they’re using to bring water in and blast at that rock. Seems a bit close to the rest of the camp to be doing that sort of work, though.”

  “That camp is designed to be moved quickly. Much like ones used by my people when we are moving to richer hunting grounds.”

  Looking away from the crevice, Paul studied the perimeter of the camp. “Looks like there’s at least two paths big enough for wagons to come and go from there. Could be another somewhere below us.”

  “I will go and see. Stay here.” Without waiting for Paul to give his thoughts on the matter, Red Feather crept away. When Paul looked back to try to find him, all he saw was the Comanche scaling one of the boulders that formed the passage they’d used to get there like a giant lizard finding a good spot to sun its back. Paul could make out some of the hand- and footholds that Red Feather was using, but he didn’t fool himself for an instant into thinking he could follow in the Comanche’s steps.

  Settling into his spot near the edge of the drop-off, Paul studied more of the camp. Instead of looking through the field glasses, he took in the wider scope of things with his naked eyes. The mining camp wasn’t very busy at the moment. There were people walking in and out of the shacks and various tents that had been set up in the basin, but there didn’t seem to be nearly enough to justify a camp of that size. While the smell that had caught their attention earlier was stronger, Paul’s senses were slowly acclimating to it. His first guess as to the source of the stench was the three shacks on the outskirts of camp that spewed dark gray smoke through black pipe chimneys in the center of their roofs.

  Paul watched those shacks for a few minutes until he saw one of the doors open. Quickly bringing the field glasses to his eyes, he was able to get a good look at the spindly fellow who emerged wearing what looked like a butcher’s apron and heavy gloves stretching halfway up to his elbows. He wore a bandanna around his face, which he tugged down as soon as he took a few steps out of the shack. From this distance, it was impossible for Paul to tell how much of the discoloration on the spindly man’s face was filth from whatever smoke was being belched into the mountain air or how much had grown there from lack of a straight razor. The man took a few moments to stretch his back and rub his hands together before being approached by someone else.

  In the space of a few seconds, Paul could tell this other man was higher up the chain of command than anyone else he’d seen thus far. Although he wasn’t much bigger than the burly workers going about their assigned tasks, he carried himself with undeniable authority. The clothes he wore were just a bit cleaner and the cut of his jacket was that of a more expensive garment than those worn by the rest of the men. When this man got closer to the fellow in the butcher’s smock, he only needed to say a few words to get him to stand up straighter as if coming to attention.

  The man in the fine jacket spoke easily enough and wore a smile beneath a perfectly trimmed beard of thick black whiskers. His rounded face even seemed friendly at first glance, but the smaller man in the smock was obviously on his guard while near him. When the man in the jacket turned and walked away, the fellow in the smock waited a short while before exhaling and allowing his posture to return to the tired slouch it had been prior to the other man’s arrival.

  Paul was about to lower the field glasses again when he noticed the man in the jacket quickly stop and change course. Instead of walking back to the tent from which he’d emerged, he strode toward a wooden rack laden with lengths of pipe of various diameters. Glancing ahead to see what had caught the man’s eye, Paul saw a familiar face among the strangers.

  If Starkweather hadn’t been wearing a hat, his shaved head might have been easier to spot from a distance. As it was, the coldness of his stare and the vulturelike angle of his head were more than enough to catch Paul’s eye. While the man in the jacket didn’t defer to Starkweather, there was a noticeable change in his demeanor in comparison to how he’d been around the man in the smock. Both men exchanged a few words and when the conversation was over, Starkweather started walking toward the crevice.

  Suddenly Starkweather stopped and wheeled around to look toward the ridge overlooking the camp. Paul reflexively angled the field glasses downward and pressed himself flat against the rock. The cold seeping into his flesh from the stone was nothing compared to the frightened chill that ran down Paul’s spine as he waited for the killer to raise an alarm or fire a shot up at him.

  Paul worried that he’d been spotted.

  Then he worried that Red Feather had been spotted.

  If neither of those things had happened, there was always the chance that Hank had gotten tired of waiting, wandered somewhere to see the camp for himself, and skylined himself so he could be spotted.

  After a few moments, Paul shifted so he could once again see what was going on in the basin below. Starkweather was still in the same spot, staring up at the ridge. Every so often, Paul swore he could feel a ghostly presence sweep over him as if the killer’s gaze actually had a weight of its own.

  Paul even felt as if looking at Starkweather for too long was a mistake in itself. Every man had felt the sensation of being watched, and a man like that must have honed those instincts to a much sharper degree. Then again, if Paul moved too much, there was just as big a possibility that that would be enough to give him away.

  Finally Starkweather looked away from the ridge and continued walking toward the crevice.

  “Thank God,” Paul sighed.

  Less t
han a second after giving his heartfelt praise, Paul heard movement coming from the rocks above. Since it was the opposite direction that Red Feather had climbed, he drew his Schofield and prepared himself to fight for his life. Instead of a gunman, he saw the Comanche peering down at him. Red Feather must have been even fleeter of foot than Paul had thought and crossed from one side of the ridge to the other. As soon as Paul looked up at him, the Comanche pointed down to the side of the camp with the smoke-spewing shacks. Paul looked down there to see the man in the smock speaking to a small group of similarly dressed partners.

  The men who’d come to join the first were carrying large wooden trays that were roughly the size of a house’s windowpane. Through the field glasses, Paul saw rocks on the trays. He also saw the first man in the smock remove a vial from a pocket and pour a small amount of something onto one of the rocks. Smoke curled up from the rock, which was fanned aside so as not to obscure any of the men’s vision. Whatever the first man saw, it made him happy enough to hurry into the shack and motion for the others to follow.

  Paul looked up to Red Feather and was immediately shown three spots where men were posted at the camp’s perimeter. He didn’t need the field glasses to know those men were guards and most likely armed. Nodding up to the Comanche, Paul scooted back until it was safe to get to his feet and hurry back to his horse. By the time he’d climbed into his saddle, Red Feather had scaled down from the top of the boulder and jumped onto the back of his horse as well. The two of them rode out the way they’d come and found Hank waiting right where they’d left him.

  “You’re back!” Hank said.

  Paul slipped the field glasses back into his saddlebag while saying, “You sound surprised.”

  “I am. Considering how well things have been going lately, I thought one or both of you would have been killed or captured in the amount of time you were gone. Does that mean there’s no mining operation over there?”

  “Not at all. There’s a mining operation all right,” Paul replied. “A good-sized one, at that.”