Gunpoint / Name on the Dodger, page 10
“What the hell kinda story is that?” Dallas asked as they chipped away.
“I’ve looked for them guns over the years. Ought to be worth a good deal by now. Drummer had to’ve hid ’em somewheres under the saloon, I reckon. The Golden Rose ... Just one part I ain’t got around to diggin’ up yet... back left corner.”
“Hell! They wouldn’t be in workin’ condition even if they were there.”
“Why not? This is mighty dry country, and they would be all greased up ...”
“This pick I’m usin’ is rusted,” Dallas pointed out.
Doyle was suddenly standing over them. He kicked the old man and swung his gun barrel at Dallas’s head, knocking both men sprawling.
“When I tell you to shut up, that’s what I mean!”
Both men got up slowly and went back to work. Doyle stood by, making sure they didn’t speak again. They worked solidly for another hour. The sun began to heel over, and the light changed slowly in the tunnel. Doyle turned and began to amble back to his resting spot, and Dallas swung his pick with all his might, driving the point deep into the earth behind the timber upright. He grunted with the effort as he threw his weight savagely against the handle.
There was a loud crack, and Baldwin reacted by pure instinct and jumped the other way. The beam split and gave way, and the roof started to tumble. Dallas hit Doyle squarely between the shoulders, driving the man against the rock face as dirt and stones cascaded down.
“Dallas! Over here, fast!” Baldwin yelled hoarsely, and Dallas threw himself towards the sound of the man’s voice.
Then the light went out, and the mountain fell in on him.
Chapter Eleven – Guns of the Past
WINTERS AND BESS both thought they heard a rumble, but if Winters associated it with the mine he gave no sign. The girl, however, tensed and lifted her head. Winters noticed that all right and he brought up his Colt quickly.
“What you up to?” the outlaw demanded.
Bess was staring at the back door. Her hands were white now where she gripped the chair. She began to get out of the chair.
“Don’t you try nothin’ stupid!” Winters snarled.
“I—think they might be in trouble at the mine.”
The outlaw frowned.
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear that rumble?” she said.
“Ah,” Winters shrugged, “that was just the wind.”
“Look out the window!” she said. “See? There’s hardly any breath of wind! Can we at least take a look at the mine ...”
Winters thought for a spell, and then he said, “Well, it’s time I gave Doyle a break anyway.”
The outlaw had to hurry to keep up with the girl. As they made their way up the arroyo, Winters grabbed her and stood still. He had his head cocked on one side. Bess was listening, too.
They both heard the hoarse voice calling for help.
Together, they scrabbled out of the arroyo and ran towards the mine. The dust hanging in the air around the entrance made Bess catch her breath. As she drew closer, she felt her stomach knotting. That wasn’t her father’s voice!
“Larry! Help! Help me!”
Winters overtook Bess going up the slope to the mine entrance. He coughed in the thick dust and went in cautiously.
“Doyle? Where the hell are you?”
“Here,” Doyle cried, “and I got—half the goddam mountain—on my legs ...”
The girl and the outlaw groped their way forward, and Bess squealed in fright as one of Doyle’s desperately grasping hands closed around her ankle.
He lay on his belly, with his lower legs under a heap of rubble. Stones and dirt still trickled from above. His gun was half-buried at the very edge of the pile. Winters spotted it first and rammed it into his belt.
“My father!” Bess asked Doyle. “Where is he?”
Doyle looked up through a mask of dirt and rolled his eyes.
“Still in there—him and Dallas.”
Bess put a hand to her mouth, gasping in horror. She strained to see through the thick dust cloud and saw that the rubble reached the roof.
“They—they’ve got to have air!” she gasped and began to crawl up the sloping pile. Doyle screamed as her movements loosened a small avalanche that stopped just short of his grimy face.
Winters dragged the girl back.
“Get hold of yourself... and go find some shovels. We’ve got to get Doyle out before we can do anythin’ else ...” He looked down at his companion. “You figure they’re still alive?”
“Hell, I dunno! It happened so damn fast... Dallas swung his pick, and next thing, there was a crack like a pistol shot and the roof was comin’ down ... He pushed me outta the way otherwise I’d’ve been under all that behind me ...”
Winters snarled at Bess again to go fetch some tools. He started scooping loose dirt away with his hands as she ran out, choking back a sob. Doyle tried to help but his squirming only started more dirt and stones sliding into the place Winters was clearing.
“Just lie still!” the outlaw snapped. “You wriggle like that and start it slidin’, and I’m gettin’ out, fast. And I won’t be back.”
Doyle froze, with his face in the dirt. He coughed several times. As Winters worked, he kept looking up at the roof of the tunnel. At least two of the support beams were bowed inwards by the weight they bore.
If it looked too risky after Doyle was free, Winters would call it quits. The girl could dig all she wanted, by herself.
Then Bess was back, struggling under the weight of shovels and a crow bar. She dropped them and began to dig at one side, working her way in towards Doyle. Winters could see that this was by far the safest way of doing it, and he took up a shovel and began digging from the other side.
“Hurry, please!” the girl sobbed, tears making tiny white rivers through the mask of dust on her face. “They won’t have much air!”
Winters glanced at her and kept digging without comment. He continued to watch the ceiling. At the first sign of anything going, he would be out of the tunnel and he wouldn’t go back, not for all the gold in the country.
To hell with the rest of them.
Dallas and Art Baldwin almost choked in the confined space between the workface and the cave-in.
Thick dust clogged their nostrils and lungs and blinded them. They were still deafened by the roar of the cave-in.
Baldwin had flattened himself against the tunnel wall, as far back as possible, but Dallas had been almost under the falling rock when it went. He had hurled himself forward as the roof came down, and falling debris had spun him like a corkscrew.
He landed hard in the total darkness, and his head filled with the thunder and the encroaching panic. Frantically, he began scrabbling with both hands, digging in his toes, getting his knees under him, heaving his body forward. For a terrible moment, he seemed to be caught. Then he was pulling his knees up to his chest and rolling.
He came up hard against the workface and felt Baldwin’s groping hands close on his arm. Baldwin yanked with all his strength, and Dallas kicked to help him. The two men went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs and lay there with the thunder gradually diminishing as they fought for breath.
The dust settled gradually. The noise stopped. There was awful silence and total darkness. Dallas had to consciously fight against the primeval fear. He clawed at his eyes and knew they were free of dirt, but there was nothing to see. His head was ringing so badly that when he spoke to ask if Baldwin was all right, he couldn’t even hear his own voice.
Slowly, his hearing returned to normal.
The old man was talking: “I … still feel the air through that shaft... Hell, you took a mighty big risk!”
“Had to do somethin’.” Dallas said. “Listen, there’s plenty of air comin’ in, like you said. I can even see a faint light in the shaft now. I’ll have to go, Art. If I don’t make it, Winters might not even try to dig you out.”
Baldwin coughed and spat. “I know,” he said. “Bess’ll try, though. I can last a long time here ...”
Dallas tore off the remains of his shirt.
“You could be here a long time,” he said quietly. “I didn’t have a chance to ask how you felt about this ...”
Baldwin’s hand touched his shoulder.
“You go find them guns and nail the bastards, that’s all I ask. Save Bess. Nothin’ else matters, Dallas.”
The rancher nodded grimly but didn’t know if Baldwin saw him. He used his shirt to rub his dirt-caked body down, while Baldwin told him where to find the old Golden Rose saloon.
“Thing is—I dunno for sure the story’s true about them guns. I just amused myself tryin’ for ’em. But if they’re anywhere, it has to be where I said ...”
“I’ll find ’em if they’re there,” Dallas promised. “If not, I’ll try to get the drop on Winters somehow. Doyle might be out of action now, with any luck...”
“Don’t you endanger Bess!” Baldwin said sharply, coughing.
Dallas was already easing himself into the air shaft. It was a natural fissure which had been enlarged and lengthened by the original miner, who drove it up and out through the side of the hill, beyond the arroyo where the mine entrance was.
If he jammed halfway—well, he would rot there and likely cause Baldwin’s death, too, for his body would block the flow of air into the mine.
Dallas began to force his body into the fissure.
The rough wall dug into his flesh and tore his skin. His wide shoulders were a hindrance, and he had to back up to a point where he could get one arm above his head.
His fingers tore on the rough sides. Once a rock twice the size of his fist broke free and his face was covered with a fall of dirt and stones that threatened to choke him. Somehow he shook his head free. Coughing rackingly, he worked knees and boot toes against the sides of the shaft and thrust himself upwards. The air coming down felt cool, but the sweat poured from his body with his exertions. When he reached a place where the rock was smooth, he slid through as if he was oiled.
Then he came to a spot which had been widened with a pick. The ribs between the gouge-marks cut his flesh like dull knives. Soon he couldn’t tell whether his body was slick with sweat or with blood.
The light didn’t seem to be getting all that much brighter, and he couldn’t understand it. Then he realized that it was late in the afternoon.
Baldwin’s voice echoed hollowly and dimly up the shaft.
“Keep goin’, boy! You’re doin’ fine. I can hear diggin’ from the other side, too. Someone’s comin’ for me. You might not have much time—good luck.”
Dallas didn’t have any breath to spare for a reply, but he forced himself to move faster. Suddenly his hand was groping in open air. He couldn’t believe it. He dug in his toes and pushed.
His head burst out into fresh air. He gulped and smothered the cough. He worked his way out of the hole and sprawled across the hillside, panting, trying to keep from coughing in case the sound carried back to the mine entrance.
Waiting just long enough to get his breathing under control, Dallas began to crawl up the slope on his hands and knees. He was tempted to look down to see if he could spot Winters, but he knew it was too risky. The best thing he could do now was to get those guns—if they existed—and hope that they would still work. Even if they wouldn’t, he might be able to use them as a bluff...
The sun was going down, but there was still more than an hour of light left, he estimated. He looked for the landmarks Baldwin had described: the old winch with the broken cylinder and one leg pointing at a forty-five degree angle; the boiler balanced right beside a vertical mine shaft; left into another gulch with mine entrances dotting only one side; left again through the mullock heaps and tailings; hard right by the tilted ore car at the end of its tracks; down a steep slope through rocks and parched brush to the west side of town.
He was quivering with exertion by the time he leaned against a sagging wall. He let his head hang down while he got his breath. Then he moved on, through the back alleys and weed-grown lots. He thought he had found the Golden Rose on his first try, but it turned out to be what was left of a rooming-house with the top floor sagging dangerously.
Looking for his bearings again, he made for a building he was certain was his goal. It was a saloon, all right, but a fading sign dangling above the entrance proclaimed it to be the Devil’s House.
Running through the deserted streets now, his nerves were so on edge that he jumped at every flap of a loose shutter or creak of an old plank. Dallas knew he had gone wrong someplace. He was too confused to turn back and retrace his steps. All he could do was blunder on and hope to come across the Golden Rose.
Gunpoint had been a big town in its day, with dozens of merchants cashing in on the high prices. Saloons and whorehouses had blossomed everywhere. Every street he came to had at least one saloon. Then he came to a street of several saloons, side by side. Because Baldwin hadn’t mentioned this fact, Dallas ran down the middle of the street in the fading light without paying too much attention to the buildings.
He almost missed it. It was the second-last saloon. The sign was still in place on the false front, but the paint was almost gone. He could just make out the name, Farrell’s Golden Rose. As Dallas staggered in, a rotting plank gave way beneath his foot on the porch. He bruised his shin but hardly noticed. Inside, the floor was rotten. Abandoned furniture lay at odd angles in the gloom.
Then he saw the wall Baldwin had mentioned. A whole section had bowed outwards. Below it, neatly stacked, were the floorboards Baldwin had removed to get better access to the ground beneath. The drummer must have crawled in there in the dark the night he had lost his special guns to the gambler’s crooked cards ... Dallas shuddered. Damned if he would have fancied doing it. The place could have been crawling with snakes. They might be there now.
He lowered himself between the floor joists and felt the earth, soft under his boots. He grabbed a short length of board and began to dig. It was too slow. He remembered his belt knife and removed the belt so he could probe the ground, inch by inch.
He couldn’t believe it when the blade struck something solid that seemed to give back a hollow sound. He dug around and revealed the corner of a box. He dropped the knife and scrabbled with his hands. It was only an old cigar box. He knew that wasn’t large enough to hold a pair of pistols. Still, it felt heavy. He dug it up anyway and opened the lid. Inside, neatly laid out in rows on oiled felt, were twenty molded lead balls, about .44 caliber, he judged.
A hand seemed to grab his heart as he realized the meaning of this find. These were balls for old-fashioned percussion pistols. He had never asked Baldwin what kind of guns they were. When the man had said ‘Colts’, he had immediately assumed he meant cartridge pistols. The discovery of the balls seemed to point to the guns being cap-and-ball. If he found the pistols, he would also need powder and percussion caps and felt wads—and it would take him half an hour to load them! Even if they didn’t blow up in his face, he would have to go through the whole laborious loading procedure again, once he emptied the cylinder.
There was nothing to do but keep digging. Ten minutes later, he found the large, once-polished wooden box with Colt’s name let into the lid in yellowed ivory. He used his knife blade to break away the fancy brass lock.
The guns were beautiful. The pearl handles were discolored, but the desert air had preserved the metal. The copper powder flask resting in the felt-lined pocket was heavy and obviously contained black powder. When he shook it, he could tell that the grains were still dry. There was a round tin of percussion caps that hadn’t corroded and a brass capping device and powder measure.
With the cigar box of balls, all he had to do was load the old guns ... and hope that they wouldn’t blow his hand off when he pulled the triggers ...
Doyle’s legs were not badly injured, and when he was free, he joined Bess and Winters in trying to break into the chamber at the end of the mine shaft. Winters decided to give up at one stage, but when Doyle told him Dallas and Baldwin had been breaking gold out of the quartz, greed got the better of him and he started digging again. Bess didn’t care what his motive was, as long as he helped to reach her father.
While the men worked at the base of the pile, she crawled up near the roof and began burrowing in to let the air through, not realizing that her father had plenty of air. She was frantic with worry and anxiety.
Her long-handled spade suddenly sank into something that gave way abruptly and she grunted as she fell face-first into the dirt. The spade dropped out of reach.
Gulping and clawing dirt from her face, she choked, “Pa? Pa, can you hear me?”
Winters and Doyle immediately climbed up beside her and they found her crying as she turned her face towards them.
“He’s alive! Thank God—he’s alive!”
The outlaws began digging hard and fast. Winters pushed the girl roughly aside, and it seemed bare minutes before they had enlarged the original hole sufficiently to allow the passage of a body. The girl went to crawl through, but again Winters pushed her aside and drew his Colt.
“Dallas? Old man?”
“I’m okay,” Baldwin called back. “Dallas is—buried though …”
The girl gasped and Winters signed for Doyle to widen the hole. “And bring that lantern,” he added to Bess.
She clambered down the heap of loose dirt and brought back the oil lantern. Then she pushed past Winters and hurled herself into her father’s arms. The outlaws broke through seconds later and Winters held the lantern high, looking around.
“Where’s Dallas?” he growled, and Baldwin gestured to the ceiling-high wall of dirt and rock.
