Clint approached the alcove and reached out to trace his hand along the blade of a shovel and the pointed head of a pick. On the ground, tucked in behind the half circle created by the digging tools, was a lantern. Clint picked it up, shook it, and heard there was still some oil left inside. He lit it with a match from his pocket and adjusted the wick until the flame was just high enough for him to move deeper into the mine.
He wasn’t looking forward to scraping around inside a series of tunnels, which was fortunate because Clint walked less than twenty paces before hitting a wall. The rocks that had fallen to block the mine shaft were wedged in good and tight. The ground was littered with smaller rocks and layers of chip-filled dust, which made him think some sort of rescue operation had been mounted. At the very least, someone had tried to dig a ways through the barricade.
Something about that didn’t set right with Clint. If there had been a rescue, then folks should have been saying Michael Howe was lost in the cave-in rather than simply missing. Turning away from the fallen rock, Clint studied the walls on either side of him.
“What have we here?” he whispered while leaning in for a closer look.
What had caught Clint’s attention was the glint of light from his lantern reflecting against several crooked lines etched into the stone. He wasn’t an expert in such things, but he was fairly certain he was looking at either silver or copper ore that was ripe for the picking. But that wasn’t what held his interest. Any man would expect to see ore inside a mine. He might even expect to see scorch marks on the walls. Finding scorch marks so close to a pile of fallen rocks, on the other hand, pointed to something other than simple blasting. Something had gone wrong.
Blasting accidents weren’t unusual. What seemed out of place in this one was that nobody seemed to have even mentioned blasting in all the talk Clint had heard of earthquakes and cave-ins.
Suspicion nagged in the back of Clint’s mind, but he didn’t know enough to put together anything more than that. Since there wasn’t much else to find in that collapsed tunnel, he climbed out and headed to the next one.
THIRTY-ONE
Clint arrived at the Vester claim about an hour later. It took him a short while to poke around on uneven terrain and meander along a creek that couldn’t flow for more than a couple of yards without a bend. There were signs poking out of the ground occasionally, marking spots claimed in much the same way that Howe had claimed his narrow hole in the ground. These signs, however, were much easier to read.
STAY BACK!! TRESSPASSERS WIL BE SHOT
SMITH AND CORBEN PROPERTY—KEEP OFF!!
LEGAL CLAIM FILED—JUMPERS WONT BE TOLERATED
Clint found a few others, but they all kept to that same theme. Barry had told him he could find the Vester claim on the north side of the trail Clint was riding, so he kept right on moving. Men with long beards and dirty faces poked their heads up like prairie dogs to watch him pass. A few of them hollered for him to stay away, which made them only slightly less helpful than the signs they’d posted. The rest glared angrily at Clint and then got back to their work once they saw he wasn’t going to stop at their claim.
He only had to ride over the next hill before he spotted more signs sprouting like a sporadic crop from parched, stony ground. Just as he was about to give up on sifting through all of those rude and misspelled proclamations, Clint found the one he’d been after. It was about twenty yards from the trail propped against a cave that could have easily been mistaken for a bear’s den. When he rode a little closer, Clint could see the jumble of rocks piled high enough to stop up the cave’s entrance like a cork.
“Something tells me that’s the one I’m looking for,” he grumbled.
Clint flicked his reins, rode close enough to read the sign, and then climbed down from his saddle. The cave was marked as belonging to S. VESTER. Apart from the name, there wasn’t much else written there. Clint couldn’t take a full step into the cave without being stopped by the barricade of rock. He was trying to get a look at the wall surrounding the rock when Eclipse let out a loud, huffing whinny.
Clint continued to prod at some of the rocks to see if they might be loose until he heard the scrape of boots against the ground. Once he had a good idea of where the other person was behind him, he spun around while drawing his Colt in one smooth motion.
The man who approached Clint was one of the prairie dogs who’d watched him ride past earlier. He was covered from head to toe in dirt and mud, carrying only a pick, which he wielded in a vaguely threatening manner. “What the hell you doin’ here, mister?” he asked.
“Just having a look at this mine,” Clint replied.
“Ain’t your mine. That is, unless you can prove your right to it.”
“I can’t.”
The filthy man obviously saw the gun in Clint’s hand, but wasn’t frightened by it in the slightest. “Then why you here?” he growled.
“Steven Vester is missing,” Clint said.
“Any damn fool knows as much.”
“I’m here to see what happened to him.”
The miner’s brow furrowed and he shifted his grip on the pick he carried. “That so?”
“It is.”
Clint could feel when he was being scrutinized. It made matters a whole lot easier when he didn’t have anything to hide. After coming to a conclusion that was favorable enough for him to lower his pick, the miner said, “You don’t look like a lawman.”
“That’s because I’m not a lawman. I was passing through Las Primas when I seemed to have run afoul of a man who lives there.”
“That man got a name?”
“Wilhelm Torquelan.”
Clint had barely spoken half of that name when the miner started to nod. “What’s that son of a bitch want with you?” the filthy man asked.
“Near as I can tell, he wants to kill me.”
The other man smiled, exposing a set of teeth that were even more cracked and dirty than the rocks blocking the cave in front of Clint. “Well then,” he said. “I suppose that means you can’t be all that bad.”
Clint holstered the Colt, even though it hadn’t seemed to make a dent in the other man’s behavior anyway. “And who might you be?” he asked.
“Jeb Mattes. I work a claim on the other side of that hill out yonder.”
“I’m Clint Adams.”
“I’d shake yer hand, Clint, but you’d have to take a bath afterward.”
“Understood. What do you know about what happened to Mr. Vester?”
Jeb turned his head so he could spit onto the ground away from the cave. “Damn shame about what happened to him. He was a good man. A mite gullible for this line of work, but a good man.”
“Gullible?” Clint asked.
“Everyone in a suit is tryin’ to pull the wool over a miner’s eyes. Sellin’ false claims, stealing legal ones, paying too little for whatever we manage to scrape out of the ground, any number of ways for us to be cheated. A man in this line of work needs to keep a sensible head on his shoulders.”
“And Mr. Vester had some trouble in that regard?”
Shrugging, Jeb glanced toward the rocks piled in front of him as if he was being careful not to upset them. “Maybe he was just too optimistic for his own good,” he said while reaching out with one hand to pat the closest rock plugging up the cave’s entrance.
“I was told he might have been lost in a cave-in.”
“Could be.”
“You don’t believe that,” Clint noted.
Jeb gnawed on the inside of one cheek as if he meant to spit that out next.
Measuring every one of the other man’s movements, Clint said, “I was also told about a man named Dr. Lumier. He was supposed to have come around here with some sort of government experiment.”
“Yeah,” Jeb chuckled. “That character was here all right. And if’n he was
a doctor, then I’m a duck. Last I checked, I didn’t have no feathers sprouting from my ass.”
“Did Vester think any better of him?”
“Hard for anyone to think any worse of someone. Steven didn’t buy everything that so-called doctor was sellin’, but he was curious enough to let him into his mine. That French doctor fella brought some equipment with him. Looked like a bunch of nonsense and wires to me.”
“You saw it?” Clint asked.
“Oh, yeah. We all keep an eye out for anyone comin’ along to poke their nose where it don’t belong. Most of the men out here lose interest once they know their own claims are safe. I believe in having a bit more watchfulness where neighbors are concerned.”
“That’s an honorable code to live by.”
Scowling, Jeb spat on the ground before saying, “I wasn’t watchful enough. That doctor and a few others went down into this cave, and when they came out, Steven was all kinds of flustered. He went on about cave-ins and such, but ain’t none of us had any trouble of that sort. At least, not any of us that been takin’ proper precautions.”
“What does Torquelan have to do with all of this?”
“It was Torquelan’s boys that brought that doctor fella around. And it’s been Torquelan who’s been spreading the word about getting on that doctor’s good side so folks can use whatever that contraption is that he brought down into this here mine.”
Clint studied the rocks that lay piled directly in front of him. “So you think Vester was buried in the cave-in?”
“If there was a cave-in at all. Y’see, I was workin’ my claim the night this mine collapsed. There was a blast. It was muffled. Probably set underground, but I heard it. I saw Vester a few minutes later. He was workin’ out here as well and come runnin’ when that sound could be heard. There were others pokin’ around, too.”
“Who were they?” Clint asked. “More of Torquelan’s men?”
“I didn’t see for certain. At the time, I thought it was any one of these other men who might be workin’ their claims. It was gettin’ dark at the time, and it was hard to see much more than shapes and such.”
“What’s your gut tell you?”
Jeb paused, but not to think over his answer. He clearly knew what he wanted to say and only needed to decide if he wanted to say it to Clint. Finally, he told him, “My gut tells me that Steven is either buried in this mine or somewhere else. Either way, he ain’t missing. He’s dead.”
“Just like those other two that nobody’s been able to find,” Clint said.
“That’s right.”
“I’ve got my own problems with Torquelan, but won’t trouble you with them,” Clint explained. “All I want now is to figure out what Torquelan has in mind. After that, I have a feeling the rest will become clear enough.”
“In that case,” Jeb said, “you might like to know that French doctor has been spouting off a whole lot about the claim belonging to one of them other missing fellas.”
“You mean Michael Howe?”
“Nah,” Jeb replied with a shake of his head. “The Howe claim is already collapsed. Ain’t nobody was surprised about that, seein’ as Howe was lucky to stay alive as long as he did. The man was sloppy. That doctor may have claimed to know there was gonna be a cave-in in that shit hole of a mine, but we all knew something along them lines was comin’ anyways. I’m talkin’ about Chuck Ainsley.”
“What about him?”
“Accordin’ to that slick-talkin’ doctor, there’s supposed to be a cave-in on Chuck’s claim the day after tomorrow.”
THIRTY-TWO
Clint returned to town in a cloud of dust kicked up by Eclipse’s hooves. The Darley Arabian always relished a chance to cut loose and run at a full gallop, and after what he’d heard, Clint was more than happy to oblige. The perimeter of Las Primas was as calm as on the day Clint arrived. On the other side of the coin, the merchant district farther inside the town’s limits was just as chaotic.
As soon as he saw the entrance to the wide alleyway that led to Gigi’s house, Clint pulled back on Eclipse’s reins and swung down from the saddle. Even though he hadn’t knocked into anyone along the way, he received enough angry shouts from nearby locals to make it seem as if he’d trampled half of them on his route into town.
Clint snapped his reins like a whip to wrap them around a hitching post in one motion. Knowing the stallion could kick any potential thief into a second-floor window, he left Eclipse to catch his breath without fear.
“You again?” the fish vendor grunted as Clint approached.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Clint replied. “Has anyone else been around?”
“Plenty! This look like an empty field to you, asshole?”
“What about Madame Giselle’s? Anyone been to see her?”
“I would imagine so. With an ass like she’s got, there’s always plenty of men lining up to have their turn.” Before the fish vendor could laugh at his own crude joke, he was fighting to take his next breath.
Clint had lunged at him to grab the fish vendor by the collar in a tight grip. Then, he pulled sharply down to mash the vendor’s face into a pile of stinking trout. “That’s for insulting the lady,” Clint said. “Should I get started on all the times you’ve insulted me?”
“Didn’t mean anything by it,” the vendor sputtered.
“I don’t like the way you look at me. And since nobody seems to be rushing to your rescue, I’d imagine you’re not any politer to anyone else around here.”
“Honestly. I didn’t mean no offense. Just . . . just keeping an eye out is all.”
“Like a watchdog,” Clint offered.
The fish vendor rose up to snap at the hook he’d been given almost immediately. “Yeah! That’s right. Like a watchdog!”
Clint had the gruff vendor pegged that way since the first time he’d laid eyes on him. If he wanted that watchdog to stop barking at him and obey his command, Clint needed to find a way to bring him over to his side. As with any other dog, stepping up and showing it who was the master was usually the best tactic.
“Since you’ve got your eyes open,” Clint said, “then maybe you’ve seen something useful.”
“I seen everything that comes up and down this alley. You can believe that.”
“What about any men who work for Wilhelm Torquelan?”
Before the vendor could answer, Madame Giselle herself emerged from her tent. “Clint!” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Having a talk with your neighbor,” Clint replied.
She approached them and put a hand on Clint’s chest to try and move him away from the fish cart. Clint wasn’t allowing himself to be moved, so she did her best to get between them. “Whatever fight you two are having, I’m sure it can be resolved some other way,” she said.
“No fight,” Clint said without taking his eyes off the man in front of him. “Not yet. He was going to tell me if Torquelan or any of his men were here recently.”
“They weren’t,” Gigi said. “Patrick or I would have—”
“About an hour ago,” the fish vendor said. “That crooked government man . . .”
“Dr. Lumier?” Clint asked.
“That’s the one. Him and the fancy-looking gunman who works with Mason from time to time. Darrow is his name.”
Clint let go of the vendor and turned to Gigi. “That’s it,” he said. “We’re getting away from here.”
She wasn’t about to argue.
THIRTY-THREE
After a fast and convoluted walk through town, Clint and Gigi wound up in a rented room on the upper floor of Sweet Caroline’s. Theirs was one of only three rooms up there and the only one that was occupied. It was sparsely furnished, relatively clean, and had a window overlooking the street.
“You drug me up and down nearly every alleyway in Las Primas just to wind up here?”
Gigi asked.
Clint stood at the narrow window, peeling back the curtain just enough to get a look outside. “Had to make sure we weren’t followed,” he said.
Settling on the bed, Gigi looked around the room. “I didn’t even know there were rooms to rent in here.”
“Most saloons have at least a few rooms for customers too drunk to get home.”
“Or for a place to take whores.”
Since there was nobody outside that seemed overly suspicious, Clint pulled the curtain back so it covered the entire window. “I know I dragged you away from your place pretty quickly and haven’t offered much in the way of an explanation, but there’s good reason.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think Torquelan will try to kill you.”
Gigi nodded.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Clint said.
“His gunmen keep lurking around. You keep getting attacked. It only makes sense.”
“Do you know why this is happening?”
“Other than what you’ve already told me? No.”
Clint believed her. “Torquelan is running some sort of scheme involving local miners and some government man. Actually, I doubt he’s really with the government at all. Anyway, he’s been blowing up mines and trying to pass them off as cave-ins.”
“So that’s why he got so upset when I told those men about their business dealings ending in fire?” she asked.
“I’d say so.”
A wide smile made its way onto her face. “That’s great!”
“Huh? Why is that great?”
“Because it means that I’m having more visions. Real visions. This is so exciting!”
“I’m glad one of us is so happy,” Clint grumbled.
“I know the rest isn’t so good,” she said as she approached him. “But I also know you’ll take care of me. Somehow I knew that from the first moment I saw you.” Gigi placed her hands on his back and slowly rubbed his shoulders. “I just knew to trust you.”
“Then perhaps you’ll listen to me when I tell you to stay here until I settle this matter with Torquelan.”
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