Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (18 page)

Longarm started to observe that he thought Baxter was a cold fish. Then he decided that a man would have to be to stay with Sylvia, so he said, “When I rode down to Sacramento, I dropped by the ore mill to swap some ideas. They tell me you've never been by once. You don't seem to be a very curious cuss, Baxter.”

“Why on earth would I want to visit the refinery? I have no ore down there.”

“I just sort of wondered if you ever thought to assay MacLeod's ore at that end.”

Baxter laughed with characteristic unpleasantness. “Assay it? You must be joking. We all know the high-graders have been switching the shipments for worthless country rock. Are you suggesting that the refinery owners have been tricking MacLeod some way? It never occurred to me to question their assay.” He stopped talking and blinked a few times. “But see here,” he went on. “If they've been accepting good gold-bearing ore, but reporting it as worthless, that would explain everything!”

Longarm smiled thinly and said, “Well, not everything. We've still got some murders and a few nice tries to study on. The other day, I got shot at near here.”

He grimaced, having reminded himself of his sore rump, and added, “By the way, I hope you've still got your assay kit handy.”

Baxter said, “As a matter of fact, those scoundrels wrecked my old kit when they tore my room apart. I picked up more supplies in the capital, however.”

Longarm nodded. Before he could ask his next question, a gun went off outside and a loud voice cried, “Waaaaahooooo!”

The two of them got up and walked over to the doorway. Out in the street, two men were running around in circles slapping everyone they passed on the back and laughing fit to bust. Constable Lovejoy ran down the walk, calling out to them, and one of them fired his revolver in the air again and yelled, “We made it! Got MacLeod and his gold through slick as a whistle! We was just too much for them pesky high-graders, this time!”

Lovejoy danced a little jig and then, as he spotted Longarm, called out, “You hear that, big federal man? The boys got through, and Manzanita is back on the map as a gold camp!”

Longarm waved them over and said, “In that case, the drinks are on me. I want to hear all about it!”

As Lovejoy, his deputies, and half the town crowded in past him, he asked, “Where's MacLeod?”

One of the deputies said, “Rode fast for his mine, to tell the little missus. He was excited as hell. You know what we think? We think we owe it to them skulking Injuns up in the rimrock. The high-graders must have been camped out there in the woods someplace and likely got kilt or run off by Miwok!”

Longarm followed the crowd inside, tossed a twenty-dollar gold piece on the bar, and told the bartender to keep serving till it was all used up. Lovejoy slapped him on the back and said, “God damn it, I like a good loser! I reckon we've seen the last of them high-graders after all, and my men rate the credit!”

Longarm nodded and said, “Maybe. Ain't you interested in catching them for the killings?”

Lovejoy waved the question away expansively. “Aw, shit, who cares about a few greasers? The important thing is that we got through with the gold this time! MacLeod won't have to sell out and it'll mean jobs and boom times for us all again!”

Longarm noticed that Baxter had slipped out. He shrugged and worked his way to one of the celebrating deputies, saying, “I want to hear the whole tale, pilgrim. Start with leaving the Lost Chinaman.”

The deputy swallowed a shot of red-eye, neat, and slammed the glass down for more before he said, “Shucks, there's nothing to tell. We rode the ore cars down uneventful. Kept an eye peeled for Indians as well, but nobody never come near us. We rolled into the mill yards and they took a couple of samples to be tested. Come out to say the ore was medium-high grade, for once. Then they wrote out a check for MacLeod. Oh, the check was what they called an advance. They said they'd have to see exactly how much the stuff runs to the ton before they paid him in full. But he left with a couple thousand, so his troubles is likely over. If he gets another couple of shipments through, and it seems likely, he might be able to get rid of them no-account greasers and hire white men like we told him he should. He said he'd study on it.”

Longarm had heard enough. He went outside and mounted up. As he reached the Lost Chinaman, Ralph Baxter was tethering his own bay to the porch rail of the MacLeod cabin. Longarm rode in at a trot.

The door opened as he dismounted. Lottie MacLeod let them both in, but said her husband was up at the mine shaft. Ralph Baxter gave her an officious look and explained, “I have a bank draft for two million dollars here, Mrs. MacLeod. I know your husband got his ore to market this time, but it might have been a fluke. I seriously suggest that you sell before you're robbed again.”

Lottie looked excited, but said, “You'll have to talk to Kevin about that, sir. He's in the mine at the moment, but he should be back any minute.”

Baxter said, “I have to speak with him at once,” and marched for the door. He saw Longarm tagging along behind him and asked, “Where do you think you're going, my good fellow?”

“I ain't your good fellow, but I'm headed the same place. It ought to be interesting to see if he'll sell out now.”

They argued about it all the way up the slope and into the mine entrance. Baxter picked up a lantern near the entrance and lit it. As they started down the tracks, Longarm noticed that none of the workmen were on duty. The last shift must have just ended.

With Baxter leading the way, they rounded the turn at the bottom. Longarm noticed that someone had whitewashed the bloodstained standing wall where Tico Vallejo had died. They'd hung up a wreath and the cut-out picture of a saint, too.

Baxter led them to the ore face. But MacLeod wasn't there. The Bostonian looked puzzled as Longarm stared at the wet wall and said, “He must be in the other tunnel. It branches like a T down here.”

He stepped aside to let Baxter take the lead with the light. They came to the entrance slope, crossed it, and went down the other tunnel. They found Kevin MacLeod on his hands and knees against another rock face. The air was filled with the smell of chemicals. The mine owner had glass dishes and vials of acid spread out near his knees and he'd been hammering on a lump of ore. He turned to smile up at them.

MacLeod said, “The high-graders missed us this time. We got through with a whole load.”

Longarm said, “I figured you might.”

Baxter said, “See here, MacLeod. You still need working capital. Even if you
can
get your ore to market, I'm authorized to make you a damned fair offer.”

MacLeod shook his head and said, “You must be crazy! Didn't you hear me say I
delivered?
”

“Yes, but what of it? It will take you years to make two million clear profit, even if you have no more trouble with those outlaws.” He let that sink in before he added, “And that's not saying you won't! Deputy Long here tells me he still has no idea how they've been robbing you. Isn't that right, Longarm?”

Longarm nodded and said, “I've been shell-gamed pretty good, up till now. How come you're testing that rock, MacLeod? I thought they told you it was good in Sacramento.”

MacLeod said, “I have two good reasons. I'd be a fool to accept another man's assay, for one thing. For another, they said it was richer than what we've been digging. I think we may have struck through to another vein of bonanza, but, as you see, it all looks the same.”

Before Longarm could answer, the ground tingled under them and the air suddenly got heavier. MacLeod gasped, “Oh,
no!
” as the roar of cascading rock filled the mine!

They froze in place, all three holding their breaths as the roar grew louder still, then faded with a last few crashes of falling stones. MacLeod got up as Baxter raced back along the tunnel with the tall deputy following. Baxter stopped, holding the lantern high, and moaned, “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

Longarm joined him and said, “You can say that again.”

The leg of the T was filled with dusty rocks and earth, all the way to the ceiling.

Longarm sniffed the air and said, “Smell those nitro fumes?”

Baxter gasped. “You mean someone dynamited the tunnel, with the three of us down here?”

Longarm said, “Wouldn't have been much point to it if we weren't. You don't have a rear door to this mine, do you, MacLeod?”

MacLeod said, “Don't be ridiculous! We're a quarter of a mile under the fucking mountain!”

Baxter put down his lantern and fell to his hands and knees, grasping at a jagged rock. MacLeod said, “Don't do that, you idiot! You'll bring more of it down that way!”

Longarm nodded and said, “Timbers, tracks, and such are likely wedged crossways up the slope, holding back some of the rock. No way we're going to dig our way out from this side!”

Baxter started to argue. Then he brightened and gasped, “MacLeod! Your wife knows we're down here and must have heard the blast!”

Longarm said, “There you go. She's likely running for help right now. We'll just sit tight till they muck out the tunnel.” He turned to the ashen-faced MacLeod and asked, “How long do you figure it should take if Lottie doesn't waste time trying to do it herself?”

MacLeod frowned and said, “All night, if she's in town this very minute.”

A drop of water ticked the brim of Longarm's hat. He asked if there was a drainage problem and MacLeod shook his head. “It would take a week for enough water to seep in to matter. But the air won't last that long.”

Longarm had been afraid he was going to say that.

Chapter 9

Longarm sat in the blackness with his back against the damp wall. He had no idea what time it was. He felt like they'd been trapped since the decline and fall of Rome.

The lanterns were out to save air, but as it was, the air they were breathing was getting sort of gamy. MacLeod was filled with cheerful observations and had explained that it wasn't lack of oxygen that killed men trapped underground. It was the poisonous fumes of their own breathing that did the job long before every bit of oxygen was used up. Longarm sure wished Baxter hadn't put on all that infernal bay rum the last time he washed up. He was stinking up the darkness something fearsome.

The Bostonian asked again who Longarm thought had set off the charge. Longarm hadn't bothered to answer the first few times; it was a stupid question, even for Baxter. To shut him up, Longarm said, “Old son, if I'd had any idea someone was fixing to drop a mountain on my head, I'd have never come down here with you.”

MacLeod said, “Listen! Do you hear that?”

Longarm answered, “Been hearing it for a while. It's either the biggest gopher in the world or somebody digging on the other side of that crud.”

Baxter started shouting, “Help!
Au secours!
We're down here!”

Longarm snorted and said, “Oh, shut up. They can't hear you for one thing, and if they didn't figure someone was down here, they wouldn't be digging us out!”

MacLeod said, “I just thought of something awful!”

Longarm said, “I figured you would. But go ahead.”

“What if that digging we hear isn't a rescue party? What if it's the high-graders?”

“Ain't likely,” Longarm answered. “We didn't hear much of a blast down here, with all that rock between us and the dynamite, but I
felt
the bump and it was a big one. The noise would have been louder on the other side, shooting out the side of the mountain like a big cannon shot. They'd have heard it in Manzanita and the town's already on the prod, between high-graders and Indians. Whoever set off that blast aimed to kill the three of us and light out.”

He put a cheroot between his teeth and chewed it, dying for a smoke, while Baxter went on about who might have done it and why. He suspected everyone from the other miners over at Sheep Ranch to the Chinese Tongs in San Francisco, but he didn't have anything really sensible to hang his worries from.

MacLeod said, “What I can't figure is why the
entrance
was blasted. Now that I think on it, anyone doing it should have known we were safe enough around a right-angle turn. You're right about the noise carrying, too. Hell, it makes no sense. As a matter of fact, it was a dumb way to try and kill us!”

Longarm nodded and said, “Might have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Might have been a right slick attempt to scare you into selling this mine quick.”

Baxter gasped. “See here! That's a ridiculous suggestion, even from you, Longarm. You may not have noticed it, but I was standing right beside the two of you when the blast went off!”

“I know. And you said Sylvia was in Sacramento, too. Maybe someone else is figuring to top your offer. Or maybe you ain't as upset as you let on. The digging sounds are getting louder. I know
I'd
sit still in the dark for a few hours for the commission on a two-million-dollar deal.”

Baxter made a gagging sound and said, “You're insane. Even if I went in for such dramatic methods of persuasion, how could Sylvia and I be sure I'd be safe down here? The blast might well have dropped the whole hanging wall!”

Longarm started to say Sylvia might not care, but he decided it wasn't right to talk about a lady with another man listening. The mention of wives seemed to jog something loose in MacLeod's brain and he suddenly blurted, “Oh, Jesus! I forgot all about Lottie!”

Longarm said, “I doubt if that's her I hear digging. It sounds more like six or eight men with picks and shovels. I can feel the rumble of ore cars with my poor sore behind. This wet, rocky floor leaves a lot to be desired as a place to sit all night.”

“You don't understand,” MacLeod insisted. “Lottie was up there alone when they hit us! My God, I'm such a selfish brute! I forgot all about her when it looked like we were done for!”

Longarm said, “That ain't as rare a feeling as it's supposed to be, old son. Most of us look out for our own hides when the chips are down.”

“Do you think they might have hurt her?” MacLeod asked anxiously.

“Can't say, for sure. Every time I think I've got a line on the rascals, they pull something new on me. Let's eat the apple a bite at a time, though. Does Lottie know anything important enough for whoever's behind all this to want her out of the way?”

MacLeod thought silently as Baxter comforted him: “We left her in the cabin, so it's unlikely she saw anyone. These scoundrels have been almost impossibly clever, up till now. No one has ever so much as had a glimpse of the high-graders. Surely, if they were ready to come out in the open and simply start killing people, they'd have done so before now.”

Longarm said, “There you go, MacLeod. Once in a while this gent makes sense. Everything the murderous skunks have done has been done sneaky, I'd be surprised as anything if your pretty little gal isn't right as rain, even though she's likely worried sick right now.”

A rock rolled down the pile in the blackness and a hoarse voice called hollowly, “Anybody breathing in there?”

Longarm shouted back, “Is that you, Herc? We're all right.”

Romero called out, “We'll have you out in a minute. We rushed over as soon as we heard what'd happened. Found some half-assed Mexicans trying to get down to you with their bare hands, but I brought a crew of real hard-rockers. Somebody's sure as shit
mad
at you, Longarm!”

MacLeod crawled over to the pile and shouted up, “Is my wife all right?”

“I don't know. Who are you and who's your wife?”

“I'm Kevin MacLeod. My wife Lottie was up there in our cabin when the blast went off!”

There was a murmured consultation. Then Romero called down, “There's a Mexican lady up here. No other gals nearby. The Mex gal's vaqueros were helping your mine crew when we got here. Doing a piss-poor job, but I'll admit they were willing. We put them to work hauling and mucking while we dug.”

But MacLeod wasn't listening. He was on his knees hauling rocks from the pile when Longarm thumbnailed the head of a match and relit a lantern. MacLeod was growling and cursing as he dug with his hands. A stream of broken rock and sand cascaded down over his knees and buried him to the waist, but he paid it no mind. Longarm got up, moved over to him, and pulled him back, saying, “This would be a dumb time to bury yourself alive.”

“My wife! I have to find my wife!”

“Well, sure you do, MacLeod. But let's get out of here alive first.”

Some more boulders and shattered mining timbers slid down the pile. Then Herc Romero grinned down at them through a hole near the overhead and said, “There you go, boys. Just let me widen this a mite and you can crawl up over the shit.”

As the burly Italian crowbarred a slab of rock aside he observed, “The way I put it together, someone put a box of dynamite in an ore car, lit the fuse, and sent it down the tracks at you. Lucky for you, MacLeod, you run a shoestring operation here. The car jumped your crooked old tracks a third of the way down, hung up on a pit prop, and went off up the slope. If it had made it to the bottom the way it did when they killed Vallejo, we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

MacLeod suddenly scrambled up the slope and shoved past Romero. Baxter turned to Longarm and sniffed, “I'd say you owe me an apology, sir. As you see, it was certainly an attempt to murder all three of us!”

Longarm coughed some rock dust out of his lungs, and said, “No, Baxter, just two of us—me and MacLeod. I don't think they cared about
you
, one way or the other. Let's get out and study on these interesting new developments.”

*   *   *

Felicidad was waiting at the top of the tunnel. She sobbed as she threw herself in Longarm's arms. He hung on to her long enough to kiss her and comfort her a bit. But his mind was preoccupied and he untangled himself as soon as it seemed polite to do so.

The whole town seemed to be gathered around. Some fool was shooting a pistol off in the air as if it were the Fourth of July instead of the middle of August. All the mysterious doings of late had made the whole community skittish, but they'd somehow gotten a load of ore past the high-graders and now, when they saw that the murder attempt had gone sour, they were feeling good. Not a man in the valley had any idea who the high-graders were, or how they'd done their magic, but the spell was broken. The skunks didn't win
every
time, after all.

As Longarm untangled himself from Felicidad, Constable Lovejoy caught his sleeve. “God damn it, Longarm, for a man who thinks he's so all-fired smart, that was a dumb play you just made. Didn't you know the chance you were giving 'em by going down in that fool mine with nobody up here on guard?”

Longarm said, “If I had, I wouldn't have gone down there. Let go of my arm; I've got chores to attend to.”

He elbowed his way through the crowd to MacLeod's cabin. He noticed that Felicidad was trotting after him, so he held the door open for her and let her come in with him. Baxter and MacLeod were already inside.

The young mine owner was seated at his kitchen table, signing papers as Baxter stood over him, not bothering not to gloat. MacLeod saw Longarm and the girl and said wearily, “I'm cashing in my chips. I'm whipped. You haven't seen my wife, have you?”

Longarm shook his head and said, “No. She must've gotten scared and run off. Your buckboard was out front when we rode in before. It ain't there now.”

MacLeod said, “They must have kidnapped her. Baxter is paying us a lot for the claim. So if they ask for ransom, I'll have two million to pay them.”

Longarm whistled and said, “You must want her back a lot.”

“She's my
wife
, you idiot!”

Longarm nodded and said, “I doubt she's with the rascal who's been funning us. Kidnapping ain't his style.”

Baxter snorted and observed, “Longarm, you don't know who it is or what his style might be! You keep looking smug and acting like you know so much, but he's been making a fool of you from the beginning. How do you know it's a
he
, in fact? I'd say it's more like a
they!
”

Longarm explained, “There can't be more than one or two people involved. I've been shot at and dynamited, and those other boys were poisoned, but that's not the way a gang works. I'd say it's a small operation. As to desperadoes holding a mine owner's wife for ransom, it's a mite late in the game for that, ain't it? If they intended to play that way, why didn't they just start out by kidnapping Lottie and making MacLeod hand over his gold, instead of playing all those foxy grandpa tricks?”

MacLeod said angrily, “Will the two of you shut up and let me sign these infernal deeds? Whatever's happened, my wife is missing and I have to find her!”

Longarm said, “You got a check from the refinery in Sacramento earlier today. Do you have it on you?”

MacLeod looked surprised. He got up from the table and rushed over to a green tin box on the kitchen counter. He opened it and swore.

Longarm said, “There you go. She's likely on her way to the Crocker bank in Sacramento to cash her own chips in. You're supposed to be dead at the bottom of the mine.”

As MacLeod gaped at him in horror, Felicidad gasped, “
Querido
, what are you suggesting?”

Longarm finally lit the cheroot he'd been holding in his teeth, and said, “Ain't suggesting—saying. Lottie's a pretty little gal with her best years ahead of her. She's probably found living up here in this shack tedious as hell, but she knew sooner or later they'd sell out and she could be living higher on the hog, with someone else to do the laundry and rustle up the grub.”

Baxter looked thunderstruck as he asked, “Do you mean Lottie MacLeod sent that car filled with dynamite down the shaft at us?”

“Hell, it wasn't filled. Romero said it was only a box. Tonight you told her you were willing to give them two million dollars for this claim, but MacLeod here was being stubborn about the sale. I reckon that riled her some.”

MacLeod said, “I don't believe you! We've been married four years!”

“Longarm's voice was sympathetic as he answered, “You believe me; you just don't want to
say
you do. I'm as sentimental as the next gent, but if I was a lady, I'd have to like someone an awful lot to go on washing socks for him with two million dollars hanging over me and him acting like he
enjoyed
the rustic life.”

MacLeod stared at him in sick horror as Baxter asked, “Have you forgotten I was down there with the two of you? I could hardly sign a bank draft for any amount if I was dead, you know.”

Longarm said, “I know. But some other jasper could have. You ain't buying the mine personally, Baxter; you're only working for an Eastern syndicate. Lottie never tried to wipe
those
rascals out—just her husband. The two of them have a joint account at the Crocker Trust, so she has enough to live on from the ore sale till they send your replacement out with the two million for her mine. She figures it's her mine now. Herc Romero wasn't supposed to find us alive.”

Felicidad asked, “What are you waiting for, then,
querido
? Why are you not chasing the murderess?”

The deputy arched an eyebrow at her. “Forty miles in the dark, chasing a lady who's good at killing? It was her who killed Tico Vallejo and those other two, you know.”