Gunpoint / Name on the Dodger, page 9
“They found it under your mattress,” she said. “I told you that wasn’t a good place ...”
“Too late now, ain’t it?” the prospector scowled.
Dallas had the impression it was something they had rehearsed between them, designed to throw any further searching off. Most men would have been satisfied, but not Winters and Doyle. And Dallas thought that if the poke was just a decoy, the main cache must be mighty rich for Baldwin to use so much gold as a way to throw robbers off the track.
Winters leaned against the wall, picking at his teeth with a splinter he had broken from the place where his bullet struck the door frame.
“We want the rest,” he said flatly.
“There ain’t no more,” Baldwin frowned. “I been grubbin’ for five years to get that poke full ... these here mines are worked out. I got plenty of time, an’ it don’t cost me nothin’ to look. I—don’t want to lose the little I got, but you can have it, just as long as you leave us be. No gold’s worth dyin’ for.”
“I’m glad you said that,” Winters chuckled as he stepped forward and took the girl by the arm. “Because I don’t believe you about not havin’ any more. I gotta tell you that you will die—or mebbe the gal here will—unless you tell us where your cache is!”
Baldwin was nervous now, but Dallas figured it was mainly concern for the girl’s safety. He shook his old head and dust fell from the grizzled hair.
“I tell you, I ain’t got no more …”
“We found your hidey-hole,” Doyle said. “Looked to me like somethin’ had been in there pretty recent.”
He winked and jerked his gun in Dallas’s direction.
“Mebbe you din’ trust Dallas here,” he said. “Is that why you moved your gold someplace else?”
Baldwin tried to cover, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. The shock showed on his face only for a second, but it was enough. Doyle had hit the nail on the head. Dallas knew that no matter how hard Baldwin tried now, he would never convince the outlaws he had no more gold.
Suddenly the girl screamed, and they all jumped. Winters had her down on one knee, and she was sobbing with the pain he had inflicted by twisting her arm in its socket. She slowly bent forward, her face going down almost to the floor.
Dallas started forward, but Doyle’s gun menaced him. He froze as the old man threw himself at Winters. The outlaw unhurriedly swept his gun arm up, and the weapon thudded into Baldwin’s belly sending him staggering. Winters made the girl scream again, and then he eased up the pressure and placed his boot on the back of the old man’s head and suddenly ground his face down hard against the floorboards. Bess sobbed. Her father managed to turn his head, and his eyes were trying to convey a message to her. She hesitated and then saw the desperate plea in his face. She closed her mouth, biting at her lower lip.
“Biggest mistake I ever made was not puttin’ a bullet in your head when I had the chance,” Dallas told Winters.
The outlaw grinned mirthlessly.
“You sure as hell will live to regret it, Dallas I can promise you that ...” He slammed Baldwin’s face against the floor again and then stood back, raising the girl to her full height. She cried out in pain and grabbed at her twisted arm.
“On your feet, old-timer,” Winters said coldly. “You can see the way it’s gonna be. I don’t have to work you over. I just go to work on the gal here. She’s the one to suffer. All you gotta do to stop it is tell me where you got that gold hid.”
“There ain’t no more, dammit!” grated Baldwin, swaying on his feet. “You found all I got...”
The girl screamed again and fell to her knees. This time Winters pressed her face down hard against the floor. He put one foot on the back of her head and looked at the old man.
“Now, you know just how it felt to get your face ground into the floor, mister. You wanna see what kinda mess I can make of this daughter of yours? Remember, she’s better lookin’ than you are so she’s got more to lose ... so far ...”
“Leave her be,” Dallas cut in. “I can take you to the mine he’s workin’ ... I followed him this mornin’ when the storm first started. I heard him. He’s workin’ a vein in the rockface, I’d say. I know enough about mining to recognize the sound of a hammer on a chisel head.”
“So?” Winters frowned.
“Well, if he was swingin’ a pick, he’d still be cutting through the overburdin. But if he’s usin’ a chisel, it means he’s onto somethin’ good.”
“You shut your mouth!” snarled Baldwin. “What right you got to follow me?”
“I was just curious, Art. Nothing more than that, but I’m right, aren’t I? You are workin’ a vein?”
Baldwin’s lips clamped together, and Doyle and Winters grinned at each other. For the moment, their attention had been diverted from the girl. She sat up although Winters still held her left arm at the wrist.
“He went straight to the mine this mornin’?” Winters asked Dallas.
“I saw him comin’ outta the barn ...”
“So he could’ve taken his gold outa the hidey-hole an’ stashed it in the barn before he went to the mine,” mused Winters.
Baldwin cursed and shook his head. The outlaw hauled Bess to her feet and gestured with his six-gun towards the door.
“Okay,” he said, “then we go out to the barn ... and old man, you get just one chance to show us where that cache is. Then I break the gal’s arm. Just remember, she’s got another one, and two legs, and a couple ears and lots of other sweet an’ tender places I figure I’d enjoy workin’ on ...”
Baldwin was shaking so much that he could hardly walk now. Bess looked very pale. Although Dallas had tried to save her some pain, she glared at him.
Baldwin hesitated when they reached the barn, but then Winters started twisting Bess’s arm. It seemed that he really meant to break it this time. Baldwin cursed and went to a corner, heaving aside a pile of old riding gear. He prised up a loose board and brought out two small coffee sacks that sagged with the weight of their contents. He threw them at Winters’s feet, and Doyle lunged forward to pick them up. Winters’s boot pinned his hand to the floor and the six-gun came down and pressed against Doyle’s neck.
“Leave ’em!”
Doyle moved back reluctantly, and Winters threw the girl aside. Dallas reached out to steady her, but she shrank from him and went to her father. Winters opened one of the bags and whistled.
“Well,” he said, “that’s mighty nice. Now let’s go see if there’s some more in the mine.”
Bess and Art Baldwin looked coldly at Dallas.
“You really cleaned us out, you son of a bitch!” Baldwin hissed. “All of Bess’s future was in them bags ... I only aimed to work that vein I struck until it petered out. Then I was gonna take her to Colorado and buy her that ranch she wanted. Now you’ve finished all that! I hope it makes you feel good!”
Dallas said nothing, but as he dragged his feet along the path to the old man’s mine, he felt low enough to walk under a snake’s belly.
Chapter Ten – Slaves
RACE MAGUIRE AND Reno threw back the blankets they had been sheltering under and shrugged off the pounds of grit that had accumulated during the storm. They coughed as they stood and brushed themselves down, squinting against the hazy sun.
The badlands stretched away on all sides, losing themselves in the haze of the drifting dust cloud.
“Well, I guess that about does it,” Maguire said with a sneeze. “That damn storm’s wiped out any tracks there ever was.”
Reno frowned and demanded, “You ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ back?”
“What the hell else is there to do? And to be honest, Reno, I ain’t even sure which way is ‘back’.”
“Hell, that ain’t no problem. I can find our way outta here all right—but we don’t need to give up yet.”
“Just what do you figure on doin’? That dust has filled in every blessed track ever made out here.”
Reno nodded in agreement, but then he pointed to his left. “See that kinda dirty streak on the horizon yonder, just below the dust haze? No, more over this way. There ... got it?” When Race Maguire nodded, the buffalo hunter added, “Them’s the Regulations, the hills on the far side of the badlands. That’s the only high country there is hereabouts. My bet is our men made for there.”
“Why?” Maguire asked tiredly. “If I was Dallas, I’d make for Alkali Flats ...”
“Sure,” Reno said, “if the way was clear. But we seen enough of the outlaws’ trail to know they must’ve got between him and the trail to Alkali Flats. There’s no other place he could go except towards the Regulations. Look around you. Nothin’ but badlands otherwise, runnin’ for fifty, sixty miles in any direction. He just had to make for them hills.”
“I’ve heard about the Regulations. Ain’t nothin’ in there. They’re just about as ‘bad’ as the badlands.”
“Sure, but it’s high country, Maguire! He’d have the advantage on anyone ridin’ in from the badlands. Besides, if a man knows where to look, he can find water in them hills.”
“You know where?” Maguire asked doubtfully.
“I do.”
Maguire still seemed uncertain: “We-ell, I guess we better go take a look. But it’s a long strip of hills, ain’t it?”
“Not long enough that I can’t find a man in there,” Reno told his reluctant partner, “and I just now recollect that there’s an old ghost town in there, called Gunpoint. Might be a good place to start lookin’...”
Maguire was looking around. He thought now that he could pick out the direction they had come, although everything had a sameness about it since the dust storm. Back there somewhere would be the marshal and the rest of the posse. The schoolmarm surely had found them by now. There would be no ransom money to share if the posse arrived before Maguire and Reno found Dallas and the outlaws and killed them all.
“Okay. Let’s go,” Maguire said determinedly.
The quartz sparkled in the light of the lantern that old Art Baldwin held out in front of him as he was instructed by the outlaws. There was a coolness in the mine, and sunlight reflected in a soft glow from outside. A bend in the tunnel prevented the light from reaching as far back as the workface.
Winters whistled softly and touched a sparkling yellow line in the rock.
“So that’s what it looks like in the raw, huh?” he said softly. Baldwin said nothing, but his face showed his feelings.
“How much you figure is still in here, old-timer?” Winters asked. “And don’t you lie. I can take up where I left off with the gal, remember.”
Baldwin narrowed his eyes, threw Dallas a cold look and then said quietly, “Could be another ten thousand. That’s conservative.”
“What the hell’s ‘conservative’?” Doyle demanded.
“On the low side,” Dallas told him.
Doyle was grinning from ear to ear as he said, “Hey, Larry, you hear that?”
“Sure,” Winters said, “but it’s still in the rock, an’ I dunno as we’ve got the time to wait for it to be dug out.”
“Judas, we can risk a day, can’t we?” Doyle said in a wheedling voice. “Mebbe two? I mean, that storm’ll cover our tracks. The posse could spend a week—easy—lookin’ for us before they figure out to come here. They might not even know the place exists.”
Winters was wavering. Good sense told him to take what they had and run, but the thought of leaving all that gold in the ground was a little too much. He turned to Baldwin and Dallas.
“How long would it take you to get that gold out and crushed?” he demanded.
“Week at least,” Baldwin said immediately.
“You lyin’ ole packrat!” Doyle snarled and raised his six-gun threateningly.
Baldwin looked at him without flinching and said, “That’s what it’d take me, ’cause I was workin’ with hammer and chisel, careful so’s I din’ miss any ...”
“How long would it take with a pick?” Doyle prodded.
“Hell, I dunno. Couple days, I guess, but you wouldn’t get it all …”
Winters bent down and handed Baldwin a pick.
“Start swingin’, mister,” he said simply.
“Now wait a minute!” the old man protested.
Winters moved to the girl and grabbed her sore arm. “Get started!” he said, “and you too, Dallas. Get me as much of that gold as you can by sundown. And it better be plenty!”
“Let Bess go,” Baldwin gritted.
“Damn,” Winters said with a shake of his head. “You surely are a stubborn cuss! She stays with me, back at the house ... and if you don’t bring me plenty more gold by sundown, she’s gonna have a busted arm—for a start.”
Baldwin’s breath hissed through his nostrils, and his knuckles went white on the pick. Dallas stepped hastily between the old miner and Winters.
“They’re holdin’ the aces, Art,” he said over his shoulder.
Baldwin looked past him to Winters and said, “If you touch my girl—if you mess with her at all, I’ll kill you for it. I swear!”
“I do believe you’d try,” Winters said, and then he gave the girl a shake. “Just dig that gold, old man,” He turned his eyes to Dallas then and said, “You, too. Get goin’.”
Doyle was left to watch the men in the mine.
“If they try anythin’,” Winters told him, “just shoot ’em in the leg ... They’ll still be able to swing a pick sittin’ down.”
Dallas tried to catch Bess’s eye, but she turned away. Then Winters was dragging her back to daylight.
Dallas slowly unbuttoned his shirt and stooped to lift a rust-spotted pick from a heap of old tools lying against the workface. He hefted it and looked sidelong at Doyle.
The outlaw saw the expression on his face and stepped back swiftly, bringing up his six-gun.
“Don’t you get any funny ideas, Dallas!”
Dallas gave him a measuring look and turned to the workface, driving the pick blade deep into the crumbling earth beneath the quartz vein. He prised out a large lump of dirt, laying bare the quartz. Baldwin looked at him with a frown.
“Ain’t the first time you’ve swung a pick,” the old man said with surprise.
“Tried my hand at prospectin’ a few times over the years ...”
“You take that side,” Baldwin said, “and I’ll start here. We can work towards the middle.”
“Shut your yap and get to work!” Doyle snapped as he leaned against the cool rock near the bend in the tunnel.
Dallas began swinging rhythmically, and Baldwin matched him, swing for swing. Pieces flew like bullets. Sparks showered. Dust hung thick in the still air. The timber shoring trembled, and once, Dallas thought he heard a crack. When he looked up, he saw that Doyle was staring up at the beam that ran the length of the work chamber.
“Is the shorin’ safe here?” Dallas asked Baldwin quietly.
“It’s old,” Baldwin answered with a shrug. “This was one of the original shafts.”
“You didn’t tell me if it’s safe,” Dallas insisted.
Baldwin stopped swinging the pick.
“I didn’t say because I don’t know,” he answered flatly. “I heard that crack before. There was a whole bunch of ’em the other day, in fact, and I figured I’d better grab an’ run, but nothin’ happened.”
Dallas smiled crookedly.
“The thought of gold makes a man take damn fool risks at times, don’t it?” he said.
“It was worth it,” the old prospector glared, “to give my Bess all that she ever wanted ... Now, thanks to you, she’ll have nothin’.”
“Don’t give up yet, old-timer,” Dallas said quietly out of the corner of his mouth and Doyle stirred.
“What’d you say, Dallas?” he growled.
“Me? Nothin’ at all,” the rancher said innocently. “After all, you told us to shut up.”
“Don’t get smart with me, mister! You said somethin’ to the old man.”
“I just wanted to know what part of the roof he figured was unsafe,” Dallas said as he straightened his back and gave Doyle a cold smile. “He said that end of the bracin’ near the bend where you’re standin’. I said not to tell you ...”
Doyle didn’t know if he should believe Dallas or not, but he moved away from his spot under the beam. Then he found that he was too close to the workface and had to dodge the picks. He went back and stood in the bend itself, wiping one sweaty palm down his trouser leg.
“You get smart with me, Dallas,” he said threateningly, “and I’ll blow your foot off! Then I’ll make you swing that pick on your knees—how would you like that?”
“Judas,” the rancher grinned, “can’t you take a little joke?”
“Don’t make them kinda jokes with me!” Doyle snarled. “Now get back to work.”
Dallas winked at the frowning old miner and started to swing his pick again. He moved a little to the side, landing the blows close to the upright holding the bracing beam. Baldwin looked surprised at first, but then he smiled faintly and began to place his blows closer to the upright on his side of the workface.
“We could get caught ourselves if it goes,” he whispered, coughing in an effort to cover his words.
“I feel cold air on my face. That means there’s another opening ... right?”
Baldwin nodded and darted his eyes to the left.
“Behind that pile of tailings ... just an airshaft. It’d be a tight squeeze for you. I’d never make it with my belly. Where’d you go anyway?”
“I was hopin’ you could tell me ... are there any other guns around?”
Baldwin’s face straightened, and he shook his head slightly.
“It ain’t worth riskin’ Bess. Forget it.”
“You figure any of us stand a chance of comin’ out of this alive?” Dallas whispered.
Baldwin frowned and Doyle yelled at them to shut up. Silently, the men swung their picks and gradually loosened a long piece of the gold-bearing quartz. They lifted it down and then carefully began to break away the quartz from the gold vein.
“There was a story years ago,” Baldwin said quietly, putting his head close to Dallas’s. “In the boom days—a drummer came here, a gun salesman. He was a gambler, too, and he hit a losin’ streak. Lost just about everythin’... Took one last hand and put up a sample pair of Colts he had. Mother-of-pearl grips, gold inlay on the barrels. He lost again, but he welshed on the bet. Hid the guns in their case and run off with somebody’s wife ...”
