Ambush at Shadow Valley (17 page)

‘‘Good, Dave,'' said Beck. ‘‘Meanwhile, the lady and I will wait here and get better acquainted.''

The woman appeared to grow tense upon hearing Beck's suggestion, so much so that when Dave Arken closed the door, Beck said to her, ‘‘Ma'am, I hope I didn't say something to offend—?''

‘‘No, you didn't,'' Clarimonde said quickly, almost cutting him off. She made a quick, nervous glance toward the barn. Beck noted the gesture. ‘‘It's just that it's been a long trip, and I'm still worn-out from it,'' she said. As she spoke, a nervous hand went to a strand of hair blown loose by a passing breeze. She brushed the hair aside with her fingertips. ‘‘I'll—I'll be fine in a day or two.''

‘‘Of course you will. I understand.'' Beck smiled faintly, wondering if she realized just how much more her actions and expression had told him about herself and her situation. The thought crossed his mind that she might very well be doing this purposefully, her words and demeanor speaking to him too subtly to be questioned if she were ever confronted about it.

He looked her up and down and asked, ‘‘I expect you and Suelo have been together a good while?''

She gave no response. She only looked away as if any answer she gave might be the wrong thing to say.

I see . . . ,
Beck conjectured to himself, deciding that she'd been warned not to reveal anything about the two of them.

Beck quickly filled the silent pause by saying, ‘‘I thought you might have known one another a long time, the way he trusts you to help with the explosives.''

Her eyes flashed onto his with a look of fear, then cut away. Still she gave no answer.

Beck picked up on her silence and pressed further, learning more as he went, in spite of her refusing to answer him. ‘‘That's quite a trade you have, mixing explosives. If you'll pardon my saying so, ma'am, I know of only a few men who can do it, let alone women.'' He studied her eyes from a side view as she looked off along the distant hill line, avoiding him. This woman knew nothing about explosives, and very little about Suelo Soto, Beck decided.
Shame on you, Soto, you tattoo-headed son of a bitch,
he thought.
You stole this woman somewhere along the way.

‘‘We had a devil of a time locating a man like Suelo Soto. Not to mention how much it cost us, breaking him out of prison to get him here.'' Now he paused, but only for a moment, weighing his next words. ‘‘Just think, had we known you were available, we could have gotten you instead, saved ourselves some time and trouble.''

Clarimonde's eyes snapped back from the distant hill line and riveted on his, as if she'd just been stricken by a great revelation. Beck could see she almost said something; but then she had caught herself and he felt her pull back from him. Her eyes moved away again, going back to the distant hills with resolve.

Beck started to say more, but before he could, the door opened and Arken stepped out carrying two canteens full of hot coffee and a wooden tray with two tin plates of steaming food. ‘‘Here we are, ma'am,'' Arken said.

‘‘Allow me, Miss Clair,'' Beck said, stepping in, looping the canteen straps over his forearm and taking the tray between his hands.

She walked along beside him, in tense silence until she stopped ten yards from the barn and said coolly, with what Beck could only consider a restrained double meaning, ‘‘Please, I'll handle things from here.'' For only a second her eyes met his squarely, then slipped away. There was nothing he could have said to Soto about her actions, her words or her meaning.

A clever gal . . . ?
Beck asked himself, handing the tray and canteens over to her.
Oh yes . . .
She knew what she was doing, he decided. She had to know. Tugging the tray just a little before turning it loose, he forced her to look back into his eyes for just another second. ‘‘I hope you will rest up, do some thinking for yourself. I've always found the world to look much better after some rest and quiet thought.''

Clarimonde ignored his words as if she hadn't heard them.

As she turned and walked on to the barn with the coffee and food, Beck touched his hat brim toward the barn door as if knowing that Soto stood there watching. It made no difference, he thought. There had been nothing said that either of them had to be concerned about.
I threw it out there, lady,
he told himself.
Let's see if you pick it up . . . see what you do with it.

When he turned and walked back to the porch, Arken stood in the open doorway and asked, ‘‘Well, what do you say? Does this woman really know how to mix explosives or not?''

‘‘She doesn't know anything about explosives,'' said Beck, looking back toward the barn. ‘‘But I've got a feeling she's about to learn.''

Chapter 14

Taking the train from Rusty Nail to Rock Springs, Bowen Flannery, Bill Cruzan and Billy Todd Carver made it a point not to sit close together. When they arrived at Rock Springs, they left the train separately and walked away in three different directions. Flannery stopped at the station ticket counter long enough to read the train schedule. Then he walked on.

Ten minutes later the three met behind the rail express station and looked out upon a large rail yard filled with crates, stock pens and empty freight cars. At the far end of the yard stood a large building where insulated cars stood with their doors open, their cargos of fresh produce being unloaded onto four-wheel express wagons pulled by mules.

‘‘I can't tell you how humiliating this is, stealing ice,'' said Flannery, bitterly, ‘‘after making a career of stealing cash and gold.''

‘‘Ice is almost the same as gold these days,'' Billy Todd said. ‘‘Leastwise, the railroads all treat it that way.''

‘‘Ice or gold, it makes no never-mind. If this is what it takes to get us to our big job, let's bite down and get it done,'' said Cruz, looking all around for a workman's handcar not in use along the rails. ‘‘Dang, this sure is a busy place. How does anybody find their way to jake and back?''

‘‘I don't know,'' said Flannery, ‘‘but I'm counting on all this ‘busy-ness' to get us out of here— riding in plain sight with a load of ice.''

Spotting a handcar first, Billy Todd nudged Cruz and gestured toward a four-man work crew who had just stepped down from one and walked away, their picks and shovels over their broad, sweat-stained shoulders.

‘‘Good show, Billy Todd,'' said Flannery, seeing the handcar, then looking back toward the insulated produce cars. Beside the produce cars stood a thick-looking stone building with no windows and only one large door. Above the door a sign read: WARNING—ICEHOUSE—KEEP DOOR LOCKED.

‘‘All right, let's get started,'' Flannery said, putting a plan together on the spot. ‘‘Cruz, do you still have that rail detective badge?''

‘‘Sure I do.'' Cruz grinned. ‘‘I wouldn't take nothing for it.''

‘‘Give it to me. We're going to put it to use,'' said Flannery. As he held out his hand for the badge, he looked from the icehouse to the workmen's handcar, searching out a track switch that would connect the two.

‘‘What's the plan?'' Cruz asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, seeing Flannery already had something worked out.

Badge in hand, Flannery said, ‘‘Short and simple. You two grab that handcar and meet me at the icehouse. I have some lock picks. I'll get us inside.'' With no more to say on the matter, he turned and walked away toward the icehouse.

‘‘Short and simple suits me,'' Cruz said. He and Billy Todd shrugged at one another and walked away in the opposite direction toward the handcar. . . .

Moments later, at the produce dock, the foreman of the freight handlers looked down the track from the insulated car door and watched the handcar roll along the track beside him. ‘‘What's this . . . ?'' He let his words trail, seeing a man in the dark suit standing at the front of the car, a rifle cradled in his arm, a shiny detective's badge on his lapel. ‘‘There's getting to be more detectives than there are freight hands these days,'' he growled under his breath. Seeing the man with the badge look up and stare him squarely in the face, the foreman gave a toss of his head and turned back to observing his crew. ‘‘Keep moving! There's nothing that concerns us out there.''

Billy Todd and Cruz stood pumping the car handle up and down, keeping the handcar rolling at a quick yet safe pace through the busy rail yard. Without turning to face the other two, Flannery asked over his shoulder as they rolled on, ‘‘Billy Todd, did you relock that door the way I told you to?''

‘‘I'm not going to dignify that with an answer,'' Billy Todd said, as if offended Flannery would even ask. Gazing at Cruz across the up-and-down pumping handle, he gave a wink. On both sides of the handcar sat large blocks of ice, wrapped in insulated covers. Even under the thick, quilted covers the ice dripped steadily.

As the handcar rolled on, out of the yard and along the rails out of Rock Springs, Flannery took a pocket watch from his vest and looked at it, calculating how long it would take them to get to Rusty Nail and how many times they would have to get off the tracks onto a siding to allow other trains to pass.

‘‘All right, it looks like we'll be in Rusty Nail before nightfall with any luck,'' he said, taking off his suit coat and rolling up his shirtsleeves. ‘‘We'll take turns on the handle and keep up a fast pace.''

‘‘We had better travel fast,'' said Cruz, eyeing the large blocks of ice beneath the covers, ‘‘else, instead of ice, all we'll bring back is a bucket of cold water.''

They rolled on.

Ten miles out of Rock Springs as the handcar sped down a long, steep decline, on a ledge above the rails, Neil Deavers gazed down and adjusted his binoculars until he could recognize Flannery's face among the three. Taken aback for a moment, he pulled the binoculars away from his face, bat-ted his eyes and said, ‘‘I'll be damned.'' Then he raised the binoculars again and said to Davis Dinsmore, who sat atop his horse beside him, ‘‘All this time we've been looking everywhere for
Wallers
, there goes Bowen Flannery, right under our noses!''

‘‘Let me see!'' said Dinsmore. Reaching for the binoculars he added, ‘‘Let's go get him! You know those others are Hole-in-the-wallers too!''

‘‘Take it easy!'' said Deavers, giving up the binoculars and watching Dinsmore stare down eagerly, gritting his teeth as he did so. ‘‘We've got Flannery. But he's small coins. Play our cards right, keep him at arm's length and he'll lead us right to Memphis Beck and the rest of the gang.''

‘‘Play our cards how?'' Dinsmore asked, lowering the binoculars and handing them back to Deavers. ‘‘Every time we try keeping one of these slippery rats at arm's length, they slip through our fingers!''

‘‘You do want Beck, don't you?'' Deavers asked in a condescending tone. ‘‘After him kicking your nuts up into your belly?''

‘‘You know damn well I want him,'' Dinsmore said, his face reddening a little in shame. ‘‘I haven't forgotten what he did to me. You don't have to remind me.'' He raised a wrist that still had one of the handcuffs around it that Beck had put there. ‘‘Every time I look at this I remember what he did to me.''

‘‘Then you need to settle down,'' said Deavers. ‘‘We'll keep back and stay on Flannery's trail. Like all these men, every trail leads to Memphis Beck.'' He pulled his horse back and turned it toward the path leading away from the ledge. Looking back he asked, ‘‘Are you coming?''

‘‘Oh, yes,'' said Dinsmore, raising the single handcuff and adjusting in on his wrist, ‘‘you can bet I'm coming. I can taste Beck's blood so bad I can hardly stand it.''

On the handcar, Flannery said as they sped along downhill, ‘‘Don't look up, but I just caught a flash of something high up there on the hillside.''

Cruz almost looked up, but then he stopped himself and asked with a concerned expression, ‘‘A rifle, do you suppose?''

‘‘Awfully bright for gunmetal,'' Flannery said, his face slightly lowered, but his eyes tilted upward, searching the hillside from under his brow, scanning the small, rocky ledge protruding out of it. ‘‘Leastwise if it was a rifle, whoever was holding it sure missed their chance,'' he added as the handcar rolled around into a long curve and out of sight from the hillside. ‘‘We're safe for now.''

The three let out a tense breath. ‘‘Dang, I'd hate to get killed stealing a handcar load of ice,'' Billy Todd said.

‘‘I'd hate to get killed stealing anything,'' Cruzan added.

‘‘I'd hate to get killed playing checkers, far as that goes,'' Flannery said. He studied the long, tall hillsides above them as the handcar sped on. ‘‘Maybe it was nothing back there. But we're going to treat it like somebody's tailing us, just in case.''

‘‘I always move like there's somebody tailing me,'' said Billy Todd.

‘‘So you do, Billy Todd, and so do we all,'' said Flannery, still combing the hillside. ‘‘I say it only as a reminder. . . .''

In the darkest corner of the barn, Beck and the rest of the men had taken turns throughout the day digging a six-foot-deep hole and layering the bottom of it with clean straw. Suelo Soto had not helped with the digging. Instead he and Clarimonde had sorted through the supplies they'd brought in from the buggy the night before.

Opening the small wooden crates stuffed with packing straw, the two removed glass bottles of nitric acid, sulfuric acid and thick, pure glycerin, which Soto examined closely before closing them tightly. ‘‘Pure and perfect,'' he said with a smile, holding his thumb and finger out for Clarimonde to see as he rubbed them together. Clarimonde stared, expressionless, but at the same time she was paying close attention.