Comstock Lode (1981)

by L'amour, Louis

  Any time now... just any time.

  His brow was beaded with perspiration. Keep cool, he told himself. Just keep cool.

  The waiter filled his glass. He watched the wine flow into the glass. Red, like blood.

  Blood? What was the matter with him, anyway? He had been through this before. It was nothing. They would come and--

  Somebody dropped a plate and some silver and he jumped as if shot. Then slowly, he settled back.

  God! It had to work! It must work!

  The sharp barking roar of the guns was almost anticlimatic. Three rapid shots, so close together they could scarcely be distinguished, then a single, final shot... and silence.

  LIII

  When Trevallion and Margrita reached the Solomon, it lay warm in the afternoon sun. The cluster of buildings huddled together on a miniature plateau where the road ended. A long building on the left housed three offices, designated by doorplates:Superintendent, Business Office, andAssayer.

  At the backside of the small plateau was the hoisting-engine house and in front of it the head-frame and the collar of the shaft.

  Facing the offices on the other edge of the flat surface were the blacksmith shop, toolshed, and the bins where the ore was dumped when hoisted. The Solomon was, as yet, a small operation and not to be compared with the Hale & Norcross, the Savage, Ophir, or many another along the lode. Will Crockett had listened too long to Albert Hesketh, and Hesketh had deliberately hindered development to gain control with less trouble.

  "If the mine is to be worked properly," Trevallion suggested, "you will need capital. You need to go deeper, drift into my claim-"

  "But it is your claim," she protested.

  He shrugged. "We can face that problem when we come to it. I filed it in my name and Will Crockett's, and as his heir you would own part of it, anyway."

  "But you did that for Will. I wouldn't hold you to that."

  "I don't welsh my bets," he said. "I'll retain my half but we can work it together."

  The door of the business office opened, and Santley stepped out. "How do you do?" he addressed Trevallion. "I know you by sight, but I don't believe we've met."

  "I'm Trevallion. Mr. Santley, this is Miss Redaway."

  "How do you do? I hope you are not thinking of going into the mine, Mr. Trevallion? The men are all off work now. If you could come back on Monday-"

  "If I want to go below," Trevallion said, "I'll climb down the man-way."

  "Well, but it is dangerous, you know, and we had a note from Mr. Hesketh particularly warning Miss Redaway not to go into Forty-Nine. It is a closed area."

  "Why?" Margrita asked. "Why is it closed?"

  "Because it is dangerous, I presume. Mr. Hesketh does not communicate with me. I mean he makes his own plans and keeps them to himself."

  "You've seen the assay reports?" Trevallion asked.

  "No, sir. They go directly to Mr. Hesketh. Mr. Shinmaker, he's the assayer, he has orders to talk to no one, and he won't. Not a word."

  Santley glanced around. "I shouldn't be saying this to you, ma'am, but Mr. Hesketh stopped work there very abruptly, in Forty-Nine, I mean. For no reason that I can think of. Just ordered the men out and closed it off with some timbers. A fencelike... but nothing one couldn't go past, if one wished."

  He paused again. "They may have had some trouble with mud, you know."

  "We'll just look around," Trevallion said. "Miss Redaway has never seen a mine."

  "Of course." Santley glanced at his watch. "I was just about to close up. Will you be needing a key?"

  "We will, thank you. No need for you to stay. We'll not be long."

  Trevallion showed her the offices, explained a little about assaying, and when they emerged the sun was going down.

  She turned on him suddenly. "Val? I want to go down!"

  "In the mine? At this hour?"

  "Well," she said, "it won't be any darker down there at night than in the day. Can't we take a pair of those lamps?" She indicated a row of them hanging on a small rail near the assay office. "We wouldn't be long."

  "Wait, come back in the daytime when somebody is around. One should never go into a mine unless someone else knows you're there."

  "Oh, come on, Val! We'd only be a few minutes. I want to see what's so strange about that Forty-Nine place."

  He hesitated. It was foolish. Yet he was curious, too. What was the mystery about Forty-Nine?

  "Well-"

  "Come on, Val! We'll only be gone a few minutes! You've been down in this mine, haven't you?"

  "It's been months. Will had me down to look it over just before he was dispossessed. No doubt there have been a lot of changes since then. It's deeper, I know, and they've run some drifts. Let's go back inside for a minute."

  He had noticed the layout of the mine-workings on Santley's desk and he went back, bending over it. He had no trouble locating Forty-Nine.

  He studied the situation with care, not liking it. Still, they would be down but a few minutes.

  "You will get very dirty," he warned, "it's wet and muddy down there."

  "I'll change at the hotel. I've been dirty before." She laughed. "Come on, Val! Show me!"

  "You'll have to climb ladders," he warned again.

  "I've climbed mountains in the Alps," she said, "and I've done a lot of rock climbing. You needn't worry about me."

  "We won't bother with the lamps," Trevallion suggested. "They drip oil and can be dangerous. We'll take candles. Three of them will last ten hours, but we'll take twice that many, just for luck." He hung his coat on a hook and took a miners jacket that hung nearby, dropping extra candles into the side pocket, and a spiked candleholder for fixing candles against a wall.

  It was dark and still in the mine. Margrita was excited and interested but a little frightened, too. There was no sound but the drip of water, and an occasional rattle of falling rocks. They picked their way along the narrow track on which the ore-cars ran, and at a fork in the drift, Trevallion picked up a shovel.

  He was thinking of the chart of the mine-workings he had seen in the office. They should be nearing Forty-Nine.

  When he had taken a few more steps, he paused so suddenly that she bumped him from behind.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  He stooped and picked up something from the floor.

  "That's odd. Santley said they weren't working in Forty-Nine any more but this is a piece of Bickford fuse, used in blasting."

  "They could be working close by," she suggested. "Let's hurry. It's awfully hot and I want to get back on top."

  He chuckled. "Whose idea was this, anyway? It should be right ahead, though."

  Forty-Nine, he recalled, was the beginning of a cross-cut between two tunnels, started to permit better circulation of air, something that must always be considered. Also, the cross-cut enabled them to sample rock from a wide triangle that lay between two tunnels.

  He paused at the opening, looking up the drift that lay before him. He gestured. "That's a deadend. Or so the chart showed. They ran into some barren ground. It might be just a 'horse' but there's no telling."

  "What's a 'horse'?"

  "The Comstock Lode lies in a fissure or crack that developed millions of years ago. Roughly, it's some four miles long, and after the crack occurred, gases bubbled up from below. There are hot springs all over this area, and they deposited the gold and silver. Occasionally great chunks of country rock would fall off into the crack, so you'd have what the miners call a horse-a stretch of barren rock dividing several mineralized areas.

  "When you come upon such a place underground you have a decision. You must decide whether to continue working, hoping for mineral on the other side, or to stop where you are, taking it for granted the barren ground will continue."

  He led the way into Forty-Nine, pausing occasionally to look around. "We're wasting our time," he said, after a bit. "There's nothing here."

  "Then why-"

  "Just what he said. It was bad ground
and no use working it. Hesketh wasn't telling an untruth. He was being honest for once."

  He gestured toward the ground at his feet. All along the wall there was a thick black and smooth stretch of mud at the foot of the wall, projecting almost to the track. "It's creep. At least, that's what some of us call it.

  "Sometimes there's layers of mud or earth between rock strata. Naturally, there's great pressure on it, and when you run a tunnel into it, the pressure squeezes it into the open space."

  "Then what?"

  He shrugged. "It just keeps squeezing. The mud keeps oozing, and in areas like that you usually have one or two men busy all the time cutting it out with shovels and carrying it away. Or else in tune it would fill the tunnel."

  "You mean it would fill all this space?"

  "Uh-huh. There's some water in it, of course. It just keeps creeping unless cut out and carried away. I have seen it hi only one place other than the Comstock, and that was an old mine in Oregon I was asked to check out. Mud had crept in, filling some of the old workings, even broke timbers and pushed them over."

  "Can nothing stop it?"

  "Nothing, until it fills all the available space."

  She shuddered. Turning quickly, she said, "Let's get out of here!"

  They had taken no more than two steps when there was a dull thud somewhere ahead of them and a sudden puff of pushed air that put out their candles.

  Grita clutched his arm. "Val? Val? What is it?"

  She could smell dust, and something else, a vague smell, totally unfamiliar.

  "There has been an explosion, Grita," Trevallion said. "Stand perfectly still until I light up."

  "That smell, what is it?"

  "Powder smoke," he said. "I think we're in trouble, Grita."

  She could feel her heart pounding. She was afraid, deathly afraid.

  He fumbled for a match, struck it, and lighted his candle, then hers. "Let's see how bad it is," he said. He led the way back along the track to the opening of the crosscut. Only there was no opening. Where the opening into the tunnel had been, there was a pile of muck, broken rock, and splintered timbers.

  He lifted his candle. The charge had been so placed as to block both the cross-cut and the deadend tunnel. He studied it thoughtfully, trying to recall the formation he had glanced at as he entered the tunnel. How much had been shot down? How far were they from the other side?

  Too far, probably too far.

  "Grita," he said, "put out your candle. We'll need the air."

  "Are we trapped, Val?" She fought back .the fear in her voice.

  "Yes, we are. And that was the whole idea, Grita. That must have been the reason for the note. It was deliberately written to arouse our curiosity, to get us in here."

  "But they'll find us, Val! They'll find us when they come to work tomorrow!"

  "Tomorrow is Sunday," Trevallion said. "Nobody will be working. And of course," he could see it all clearly now, "Hesketh will dismiss the miners, saying we'd want to hire our own crew."

  "What about Mr. Santley?" She was grasping at any chance, any possibility.

  "He lives near Genoa. He won't be back before Monday at the earliest. If Hesketh doesn't find some reason to keep him away even then."

  He took her by the arms. "Grita, let's face it. Nobody is going to come looking for us. Nobody will even ask questions. Not for a while."

  "Then; then, this is all there is? We will die here?"

  His smile was grim. "Why no, Grita, it just means that we know where we stand. We just know nobody is going to come looking, so whatever is done we have to do ourselves."

  He gestured. "Sit down over there and think some good thoughts for us. I'm going to work."

  LIV

  Melissa was sitting at her back table when Jim Ledbetter came in. "Hello, Jim! Come and sit down."

  "Thanks." He removed his hat and ran fingers through his hair, then walked back and sat down across the table from her. "Seen Trevallion?"

  "He hasn't been in. Come to think of it, it's been days. I think he's in love, Jim."

  "Might be it. I'm worried, though. I figured he'd be around as soon as he heard about the shootin'. How's Teale? Have you heard?"

  "He's in bad shape. I don't see how he did it, but he killed both of them. They came in on him like the two sides of a triangle. One of them called out something and when he looked around, the other man shot him. Then they both opened fire. He killed one of them, fell on his side on the walk, then just raised up on his elbow and took careful aim and killed the other. Never seen anything like it."

  "You saw it?"

  "I did. I saw it comin' before Teale did, started to yell at him and was too late."

  "Jim, I've got to warn Trevallion."

  "Warn him? Of what?"

  "Jim, did you ever hear of the Clean-Cutter?"

  "The Ax? Sure. He killed a man up near the Oregon border when I was out there. What about him?"

  "He's here. He's in Virginia City."

  "They all come here sooner or later, Melissa. This is where it's happening."

  "That's not the point, Jim. I think he's come after Trevallion. I saw him talking to Waggoner, the big man who was asking about Trevallion? The one Trevallion believes got his gold? They greeted each other like old friends.

  "They were in here, and I am almost sure I heard Trevallion's name mentioned. They were talking about Rig and Les, whoever they are."

  Ledbetter looked up sharply. "They're the two that tried to kill Jacob Teale. They were batchin' up there with Waggoner."

  "The Ax knows Trevallion, Jim. Remember when we were first coming over the trail? It was back there at Dirty Mike's or Strawberry, I've forgotten which, but there was a handsome blond man rode by and he gave Trevallion a good, long look. I've seen him since, in California. It was the Clean-Cutter, Jim. It was the Ax."

  Jim Ledbetter drank his coffee. It was all surmise. Still, it could be. The Ax talking to Waggoner, and Waggoner batching with the two men who tried to kill Teale. It did all tie together.

  "I'll take a look around, Melissa. If Trevallion comes in, tell him what you've told me. Then no matter what he will be ready."

  When Jim closed the door behind him, Melissa went to the window and watched him walk away up the street. Trevallion had said that Jim was in love with her. It seemed preposterous, but it might be. He was a good man, a straight, honest, decent man. Why was it she was only attracted to the others?

  Christian Tapley was just leaving the mine when Ledbetter arrived. "Trevallion? I ain't seen him, Jim. Fact is, I was waitin' to see him. Figured we might go see how Teale is doing."

  "Nobody can see him. He's in bad shape and needs rest. The way the Doc sounds, I don't think he's holding the right cards."

  Ledbetter filled his pipe. "Tap, I don't like it. What's become of Trev? He hasn't been down to the bakery and he ain't here."

  Tapley chuckled. "Led, give it some thought. It's that play-actress woman. Don't you know he's sweet on her?"

  "Maybe. Come to think of it, I ain't seen her, neither."

  "See? What did I tell you?"

  "Well," Ledbetter said, "I'm going to turn in. If you see him, tell him to be careful. The Ax is in town. Maybe because of him."

  In the blackness of the cross-cut called Forty-Nine a candle flame flickered. The charge had been set off at the place where the cross-cut left the main tunnel, but the resulting rockfall had not closed off access to the tunnel. However, only a few yards further along the tunnel ended.

  The end of the cross-cut was only a few feet behind the rock where Grita Redaway sat. The air was still good. The candle burned with a steady flame.

  Trevallion was on his knees as high as he could get on the rockfall, tugging rock after rock from its place and letting them roll back behind him. The stuff was too large for a shovel to be of any use.

  His coat, vest, and shirt hung on the shovel which was standing against the wall.

  "Val? Can't I help? I'm strong."

 
; "Later. It's going to be a long job."

  Dust had fallen over his back and shoulders, sweat had run down his back and chest, leaving little trails in the dust. He chose another rock, worked it loose, and let it roll back behind him. It did not go far.

  "It's ten o'clock, Val. Hadn't you better rest?"

  "I'll rest when we get out."

  He worked steadily, carefully, with no unnecessary moves. He did not think, for there was no thinking to do now. He had known immediately what must be done and he went about it. He must open up a hole to let air come in before they exhausted what remained.

  They could expect no help. By now the guards Margrita had ordered would be on the job, and they would permit no one to approach the mine.

  Ten o'clock. He did not recall just what time it had been when they entered the mine, except that it had been late afternoon, say, four o'clock.

  Six hours, minus, say, the thirty minutes or so spent looking about before they became trapped. He came down off the muck pile and sat down on a rock.

  He was tired, but not as tired as he would be before this was over. Once before he had been briefly trapped in a mine cave-in, and some passing Indians had dug them out. He remembered how close the air had become, how the candle flames had burned lower, the struggle for breath as the air grew thinner.

  "You're quite a woman," he said, looking over at her. "No hysterics, no complaints, no crying. So I am going to lay it out for you.

  "There may have been more than one charge. Several small charges may have been placed at intervals along the drift. Remember that piece of fuse I found? Somebody was in a hurry and was careless."

  "You believe it was done purposely?"

  "Of course. Nobody leaves unexploded charges in a mine if it can be prevented, and if there was a missed hole it could not go off spontaneously. Somebody was watching, somebody who came into the mine and spitted a short fuse behind us."

  "If more than one charge was set off, there will be more piles like this?"

  "Yes. Or one continuous pile. More likely the first. In such a narrow drift it does not take much of a charge to block passage, and if they had several charges, which could have been exploded almost simultaneously, there may be fifty or sixty yards of rock to get through."