Lost Banshee Mine

by Jackson Lowry

  The giant grinned. Two front teeth had been broken, and the rest were blackened. He lifted his immense hands, each larger than a quart Mason jar. Balling them into fists, he raised them like a prizefighter.

  England Dan circled. His opponent remained seated. With a roar he lunged forward, using the long-bladed knife as if it were sword. A huge gash appeared on the claim jumper’s forearm. He hardly reacted. England Dan kicked hard with his back leg and lunged again. This sent the tip of the knife into the giant’s chest. For a moment, the man didn’t stir. Then he casually batted the weapon away. The bloody knife clattered a dozen feet away.

  “I will kill you!” The words came out amid bubbling pink froth on his lips and a deep rattle from his chest.

  The giant tried to stand, but his legs gave way under him. The bullets had worked their leaden death magic internally. The knife cut had to have been as close to fatal as possible without actually killing him instantly. England Dan dodged inside the man’s tree-trunk arms and began hammering away with his fists. Hitting a man on the jaw was a good way to break fingers. He had been in enough bar fights to know this. His target lay just under the giant’s chin. Three quick punches drove into the man’s Adam’s apple.

  That ended the fight. Gurgling and gasping for breath, the monstrous man grabbed for his throat. He turned red in the face as he choked to death. In seconds he toppled over. A few feeble kicks and then . . . nothing.

  England Dan stared at the body. His chest heaved, and his heart threatened to explode in his chest. For all his army training, he had lost his sangfroid, as his colonel used to call it. The threat of dying always robbed him of his composure. This time he had avoided injury or death. But the next time? He vowed to keep his calm.

  “They stole purt near everything, but they didn’t find our gold stash.”

  At the words, England Dan scooped up his knife and faced his partner. Cooley held a small leather sack in which they hid the product of all their hard work. It had been stashed away from the cabin.

  “But all our supplies are gone.”

  “You fixed that one real good. I never saw a man so big. How’d you do it?”

  “Where’d you get off to? The other claim jumper went into the mine after you, but he came out so fast, he could never have found you.”

  “Dan, old man, you’re plumb loco if you think I was going to do anything but hide. I had a pick. He had a rifle. Then there was gunfire from outside the mine.” Cooley shook his head. The few strands of brown hair remaining on his skull remained plastered in on his pate by a sheen of sweat. “You done good, though. You chased off his partner. And this one? Well . . .” Cooley poked the dead man with the square toe of his boot. “Those spots on his chest. You shot him four times?”

  “It took a knife thrust and a sound pummeling to stop him.”

  “This is gonna make one fine story when I tell it back in town. If I draw it out long enough, the boys’ll buy me a half dozen drinks.”

  England Dan snatched the bag with a tiny nugget and a few dozen gold flakes. He opened the drawstring and turned it to catch the sun’s rays. “At least we’re not entirely broke. We need to replace our food, though.”

  “You get anything from the hunt?” Cooley searched the giant and found a folding knife, which he tucked into his own pocket. “I hope so. I ain’t gettin’ anything off this one, and I worked up a powerful hunger.”

  “Two rabbits,” the Brit said. He cleaned his knife on the giant’s pant leg, replaced it in the sheath and went back downhill to find where he had dropped his kill.

  He grunted and fought to keep his temper in control. The rabbits had been devoured during the fight. From the tracks, the fox had snaked him out of his dinner.

  “It figures. Nothing else is going right,” he said to himself. Then he hiked back to the dilapidated cabin, hoping to find something, anything, overlooked by the claim jumpers. There wasn’t a scrap left. To work off his anger, he rehung the door. Dinner would have suited him better.

  CHAPTER TWO

  YES, SIRREE, IT surely was a good thing those owlhoots didn’t steal Mabel.” John Cooley bent over and patted the mule’s neck. The animal turned a large brown eye to him and let out a derisive snort, then devoted full attention to the rugged trail toward Oasis.

  “They’d still be trying to get her to move,” England Dan Rutledge said. He tramped along, leading the mule.

  “You sound mighty sour, Dan, my man. Is it because I have to ride after bangin’ up my leg?” Cooley held it out and pointed to the torn pants leg. “If I hadn’t dived for cover when the claim jumper started shooting into the mine, I’d be pushin’ up daisies for certain sure.”

  “It’s a scratch. Hardly bled.”

  “I can walk if you want to ride, Dan. I’d be in some pain, but for my partner, I’d do that. Help me down, will you, so my leg doesn’t collapse under me?” Cooley held out his hands for support. His partner ignored him. A small smile crept onto Cooley’s lips. Dan thought he was so superior because he was some kind of royalty back in Britain. That kind of snootiness didn’t cut it in America and certainly not in Arizona Territory. John Jacob Cooley was as good as any son of an earl or count or whatever Dan’s pa was.

  “Too bad we don’t have Mabel staggering along under five hundred pounds of gold,” England Dan said. He patted the pocket of his decrepit military jacket where he carried their actual stash. If there was an ounce there, it’d surprise Cooley. He’d toiled for close to three weeks to scrape that much out of the failing mine.

  “If you wouldn’t go off on your weeklong hunting expeditions, like you did back in Britain, riding to the hounds and all, there’d be more. You can’t expect me to do all the work in the mine.” Cooley spat. “Since I do all the work in the mine, why can’t I rename it? What’s Trafalgar Mine mean, anyway? Trafalgar? That’s not a good American name, not like the Davy Crockett would be.”

  England Dan grumbled about starving without the game he shot, then lengthened his stride to get farther away.

  “What? You’re tryin’ to run off? There’s nothin’ wrong with the name Davy Crockett. He was an ancestor of mine. A famous one, but you wouldn’t know anything about our history, would you, you bein’ a furriner and all?”

  “You yammer on about him enough for me to know every instant of the man’s life. Because he got killed is no reason to change the mine’s name.”

  “Oh, but it’s just dandy to call the mine after a fight between some Brits and Frenchies?”

  “And the Spanish. Lord Nelson beat them all. It was a victory, not a massacre like what Davy Crockett got himself into.”

  “He died a hero.” Cooley began to stew. His partner had turned testy after the claim jumpers stole their victuals, but there was no call to badmouth Davy. None at all.

  “Finally,” England Dan said, pointing. “There’s town. I swear, it’s farther every time we come here.”

  “I’ve worked up quite a thirst. Join me in a tot of John Barleycorn?” Cooley tried to pacify his partner’s ire with some British talk.

  “I’ve got to see if my money’s come in. If it has, I’ll stand you a shot of whiskey rather than that popskull you usually swill.”

  “You do that,” Cooley said. “Life’s hard as a remittance man, ain’t it? All that waitin’ for money to arrive wears a man down.”

  Rutledge glared at him. “If it wasn’t for the money the earl sends me, we’d have lost the Trafalgar a long time back.”

  “Yeah, he pays you to stay away from England. My pa’s dead. Ma, too. All I have is knowing I’ve got Davy as an ancestor. That’s better than the few pennies your pa sends you every month.”

  “You don’t say that when you’re eating the food bought with my remittance.” England Dan jerked at the mule’s reins. Mabel balked and Cooley lost his seat. He tumbled to the ground. He stretched cramped legs, barely keeping his bal
ance. His partner tossed him the reins. “You see to Mabel while I go to the telegraph office.”

  “Let me have our poke so I can see to that chore.” Cooley waited until his partner pulled the leather bag with their meager gold from his pocket. He tossed it over. Cooley snared it deftly and tucked it into his own coat pocket.

  Without another word, England Dan stalked off.

  “You don’t have to go away mad. I swear, I don’t understand you, Dan. I don’t.” Cooley settled down when his partner ignored him. “Come on, Mabel. I’ll see to gettin’ you some grain. Maybe even an apple. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just remember which of us takes care of you.”

  Cooley stabled the mule and wandered Oasis’ main street. The town snuggled up close to the western slope of the Superstition Mountains and would have dried up and blown away if it hadn’t been for the dozens of marginally profitable gold mines in the nearby hills. He wished the Trafalgar Mine was more than eking out an existence. Stories of fabulous strikes abounded, but he never knew personally any of the prospectors who found the mines or the miners who worked them.

  Cooley stopped in the door of the Thirsty Camel Saloon and looked around. Only a handful of men leaned against the bar. Only three cowboys played poker at the single green-baize-covered table in the rear. It was a slow day in Oasis.

  Pushing on into the smoky interior, he went to the bar and planted his elbows on the beer-stained wood. From the far end of the bar, the barkeep signaled he’d be right there. Cooley waited impatiently. The bartender owned the Thirsty Camel and most of the town. He claimed to have been in the French Foreign Legion and had named many of the town’s more important businesses after things he had seen down in Algeria. Cooley doubted Ray Hendrix had ever been out of Arizona, must less joined the foreign legion, but it made for a good story. Cooley appreciated a good tall tale now and then. He wished his partner did. Dan was such a moody stick in the mud.

  “Didn’t expect to see you so soon, John.” The bartender reached under the bar and dropped a shot glass in front of his new customer. With a smooth move, he drained an ounce from a half-filled whiskey bottle. He waited for his customer to pay up.

  Cooley ran his fingers up and down the sides of the glass, causing the amber fluid inside to ripple and reflect light. The sight and smell tormented him.

  “My partner’s on his way. He said he’d buy me the first drink.”

  “England Dan’s an honest bloke.” Ray Hendrix laughed. “If he said the drink’s on him, he’ll pay.”

  Cooley closed his hand around the glass and lifted it. All the way to his mouth he studied the liquor, savored it and then downed it fast. The potent brew burned the length of his swallow pipe to his belly. He choked and slammed the glass down.

  “What are you putting in that rotgut? It’s got the kick of a mule, and I don’t mean my old mule, Mabel.”

  “I added a few more drops of nitric acid to give it some body. Glad you appreciate it.”

  “Rusty nails for color, grain alcohol and now nitric acid. You know how to distill the good stuff, Hendrix.” He waited to see if the barkeep offered a second drink on Rutledge’s tab. When he didn’t, Cooley spoke sotto voce to sound as if he shared a secret but loud enough so the men on either side of him at the bar overheard. “It’s been a tough few days, what with killing a claim jumper and running off another one.”

  “How’s that?” The patron to his right sidled over. “Claim jumpers, you say? What happened?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I ought to be spillin’ any of this. Not until I go tell the marshal.”

  “Marshal Obregon left town last week. He got a better job over in Bisbee.” Hendrix shook his head sadly. “Leaves Oasis without a lawman.”

  “I heard Obie hung up his gun and went to work in the copper mine,” the customer said. He tapped his glass on the bar. Hendrix refilled without question. Cooley moved his glass over beside the other one. The barkeep hesitated, then filled it when the other man nodded curtly.

  “You sound like you knew him real good,” Cooley said. “How’s that?” He squinted as he studied the man who’d bought him another drink. “I don’t recollect seein’ you in town before.”

  “I travel around a lot and got to know some of the law. Obie Obregon’s a good man. A stickler for details, but a good man unless you cross him.”

  “Like you did?” Cooley read people well. This drifter rode close to crossing into the illegal, unless he missed a guess. He wasn’t one to judge, especially if he had enough free whiskey to wet his whistle.

  “Now, why’d you go and say a thing like that?” The man glanced at Ray Hendrix, but the barkeep had moved on to tend another customer. He was likely beyond earshot. “You have to excuse my lack of manners. I’ve been out in the desert so long, I’m not used to speaking with other human beings.” He thrust out his hand. “The name’s Yarrow.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I go by the moniker of John Cooley.” He shook the man’s hand and noticed how the trigger finger had a callus but the palm was a stranger to hard work. His own hand was more like rough horn than flesh from all his digging and toting and sorting through tons of ore.

  “Come on over and let’s set a spell.” Yarrow pointed to a table at the empty side of the saloon where they could talk without being overheard. Cooley wanted to know what the man’s pitch was.

  Yarrow took a bottle with him and put it in the middle of the table. Cooley helped himself again. Already feeling a bit woozy from the extra-potent tarantula juice, he leaned back and tried to get a better idea of the man he drank with. His brain spun all around. It didn’t matter. He was getting all the booze he could drink.

  “You have the look of a man who knows this part of the territory real good.” Yarrow scooted his chair around, poured Cooley another drink and waited for an answer.

  “I do. My partner and I been diggin’ in the ground in the Superstitions for nigh on three years now.”

  “Done good, too, less I miss a guess. You have the look of a successful gold miner.”

  “Well, now, I can’t say we’re the most successful, but we’ve done all right. Me and my partner work hard at our claim. We call it the Trafalgar Mine. That’s named after ’bout the most famous battle ever fought. The Brits whupped up on the French and Spanish, you know. We named it for successful fighting.”

  “I’m sure it’s yielding gold galore for you, but it’s not the best mine in the mountains.” Yarrow looked around and lowered his voice. “You ever hear of the Irish Lord?”

  Cooley stared at the man, focusing his eyes on him as best he could. “’Course I heard of it. They took tons of gold from that mine. More. But it’s like that Lost Dutchman. It’s . . . lost.” His breathing came a tad faster and his mouth turned to cotton as he thought about the reported riches from that mine. Some folks had all the luck, finding a claim that rich.

  “You do know the story. Nobody knows what happened to the owner. Fact is, he kept the location all secret-like, but I came across a gent who found the mine and drew a map to it.” Yarrow poured another drink. “Now, I’m not inclined to go hunting for it. I got business over in Santa Fe that’s more important.”

  “More important than tons of gold?” Cooley squinted. His head spun around, but he was thinking good enough to know there wasn’t anything to take a man away from the Irish Lord Mine. That nobody knew its location made it all the more valuable.

  “I got me a pretty señorita waiting for me. For too many years I’ve been on the trail, drifting hither and yon, letting the wind blow me to the next town. But Maria, now, Maria’s worth settling down for. Her pa’s a rich hacienda owner. Marrying into that family’d mean a lifetime of money. He’s got more head of cattle than you can count. And she’d surely keep a man warm on those long, cold Santa Fe winter nights.”

  “But the Irish Lord. The gold . . .”

  “It’d take me a lo
ng time to find it since I don’t know these hills, not like you. Lookee here.” Yarrow pulled a folded sheet from his vest pocket. He carefully opened it but put his hand over the center to keep Cooley from seeing the details. “I got this from an old prospector who was on his last legs. Now, I tried to save him. I did, but he was too far gone. I brung him into Oasis, but he was dead by the time I got him to the sawbones.”

  “He gave you this map?”

  Yarrow nodded sadly. “He did that very thing. It was his way of rewarding my charity in trying to aid him.”

  “How do you know it’s for real?”

  “Well, John, let’s just say the map wasn’t all he gave me for my kindness.”

  “Gold?”

  “There’s gold and there’s gold by the pound. That’s what’s in the Irish Lord.”

  “So you struck it rich?”

  “I did, but I need more. You see, Maria’s papa demands a big dowry. The gold I was given almost gets me there. A few dollars more and that’ll impress him enough to let a gringo like me marry into a Spanish family that’s had a land grant from the Spanish Crown for close to two hundred years.”

  “I see. So you’re sellin’ the map?” Cooley tried to look around the man’s hand that was still pressed down. Yarrow lifted it just enough for him to see an X mark.

  “It pains me. If I didn’t have such a purty filly waiting for me, I’d spend a month or two hunting for the mine. It’s reputed to be the richest ever found in these hills.”

  “I’ve heard tell that it’s the richest in all of Arizona,” Cooley said. “That’s why I can’t figger why the owner’d disappear. Nobody’s heard of him or the mine in almost a year. Most folks say the mine played out, and he moved on.”

  “There’s enough gold left in that mountainside to make a dozen men richer than Crocker or Standford. The railroad barons will seem like paupers compared to a clever man who—” Yarrow stopped in midsentence and folded the map. He started to tuck it into his pocket.