“Hold on there, partner. Why’d you all of a sudden change your mind about sellin’ me the map?”
Yarrow studied Cooley closely, then shook his head. “You have a mine already.” He hesitated. “Even if the Irish Lord is a richer one, you already have all the gold you need.”
“All I need?” Cooley hiccupped. The room swam about from so much whiskey downed so fast. “Not all I want. I got money to pay for the map. If you’re sellin’, that is. You might not want to share your bounty.”
“I told you my plans over in Santa Fe. I might keep the map and toss it into Maria’s dowry, but her old man’s already so rich, even this much gold might not mean anything to him.”
“You said it’s the biggest find in all Arizona. What man’s not yearnin’ for a piece of that?”
“When you own half of northern New Mexico Territory, gold doesn’t mean as much. You know ranchers. To them land is the real coin of the realm. No, this isn’t for you.”
“I got gold. Lemme see the map.” Cooley fumbled with the bag holding the pitiful few gold flecks and dropped it on the table.
Before he could pick it up, Yarrow snared it and had the drawstring open to inspect the contents. “This is a fair amount of gold. I like you, John. I do.”
“Then you’ll sell me the map?”
As if pulling teeth with pliers, Yarrow fingered the map, then pushed it across the table. Reluctance showed in his every move.
“Take it, old son. Take it and get so filthy rich, you’ll be able to buy me out when you’re done. The Irish Lord Mine’s that rich a strike.”
Greedily, Cooley pulled the map to get a better look at it.
“I can’t tell from this where the mine’s situated. There’s a dotted line and an X. But where do I start the hunt?”
“Those mountain peaks are the key.” Yarrow tapped a line of inverted Vs. “You know the Superstition Mountains. Finding them will be as easy as falling off a log.” He pushed the almost empty whiskey bottle toward Cooley. “Drink up. There’s a shot or two left.”
Cooley had trouble pouring. He spilled more on the table than he got in the glass. Closing one eye helped. He started to ask Yarrow a question about the lost mine, then swung around. The drifter had vanished.
But that was all right. Cooley had the map and wasn’t going to share it with Yarrow. The man had no idea how valuable this mine was. No idea.
Cooley held it up and stared at it through one blurred eye. He was going to be rich. Him. No need to share his good fortune with his partner. As he turned the map around to get a better perspective on it, he jumped a foot.
“Cooley! You infernal buffoon!”
England Dan Rutledge stormed over. Maybe he’d have to share after all.
CHAPTER THREE
ENGLAND DAN RUTLEDGE froze as he came out of the general store when a gunshot echoed down the street. He opened the box of cartridges and hastily loaded his Webley. It felt better knowing he had six rounds in the cylinder. Tucking away the partially empty box in the crate of supplies he carried, he looked up and down the main street. Other than the distant report, Oasis stood empty and unexcited.
The clerk came out and stood beside him. He carried a shotgun and looked more irritated than frightened.
“You heard it, too?” Dan thought he had turned a tad jumpy after everything that had happened up at his mine. Having the clerk with him made him feel better. He wasn’t imagining danger.
“Ever since the marshal left town, we’ve had to keep order ourselves. I complained to the mayor that he ought to hire a new lawman, but he’s a cheapskate and won’t spend the money.” The clerk snorted contemptuously. “If you ask me, he’s putting the money in his own pocket.”
“You need a vigilance committee.” England Dan had heard how effective they were out in San Francisco.
“Too much trouble for most of these do-nothings. I’m thinking on following Marshal Obregon over to Bisbee. That’s a lively town. Not like Oasis has become. My cousin says he sells more out of his bakery down the road from the copper mine in a week than I do with all my merchandise in a month.”
“Maybe his bread’s better quality.”
The clerk glared at England Dan and went back into the store, his finger stroking the twin triggers as if he wanted to discharge both barrels. Nobody had a sense of humor anymore, though England Dan hardly blamed the clerk if random shots rang out all the time. He edged out and looked around. The jailhouse looked deserted. Without a marshal there was no reason to keep it open.
With a deft move, he hoisted the supply crate to his shoulder and went to the livery. The stable boy was nowhere to be seen. He dropped the crate and put his gear on top of it. Mabel had quite a nose and would pick through the food if he didn’t do something to keep the mule out. He added some grain to the trough in her stall, then stepped out. His belly grumbled, but the cotton bale in his mouth made him decide to get a drink first. The telegraph office had handed over two months’ worth of his remittance from his pa.
He felt a pang of guilt living off his family like this; then it evaporated. The earl paid him to stay out of England for a reason. He was the second son and something of a disgrace. Going to royal court in London required a certain amount of pomp. That dignity vanished if a duke or prince inquired after him. Dan resented his older brother, Syngin, who would someday inherit the vast estate and the title, but Syngin carried special animus for his younger brother. He fit in perfectly with polite society and was shown off like a prize heifer. Introducing a sibling who had been drummed out of the army was simply not done.
“Solicitors,” he grumbled as he walked to the Thirsty Camel Saloon. “If anyone deserved to be exiled . . .”
He forgot about his family when he entered the saloon and looked around. Only a few patrons used the bar to support themselves. The solitary drinker flopped across the table at the side of the room stirred and asked for another bottle. Before England Dan could move an inch, the barkeep called out to him, “You owe me three dollars.”
“I haven’t had a drop.” England Dan looked around and stared at his partner, who was sitting at a table off in the corner alone, peering over at something and swaying slightly.
“He said you’d pay.”
“He’s put away that much? In less than an hour?”
“Him and his sidekick, yup, they did.”
“I’m his partner and—” England Dan stopped talking and shook his head. Somebody had hit up Cooley for a drink or two and then left without paying his fair share. “What’d he look like? The one who was drinking with him?” He jerked his thumb in Cooley’s direction.
“Never saw him in town before. He had enough trail dust on him from a week or longer in the saddle. Tallish fellow, not as big as you, though. He wore a denim shirt and had a yellow bandanna. Don’t remember much more’n that. He wore his six-shooter slung low like a gunfighter, but he didn’t cause any trouble, so I left him alone.” The barkeep tapped his finger on the bar to get England Dan’s attention. “Three dollars.”
Dan found the money in his pocket and slammed it down on the bar. His remittance fee was decreasing faster than expected. Almost two months of money to keep them working at the Trafalgar had disappeared between buying the replacement supplies and Cooley’s wild bender.
“You want a drink?”
England Dan ignored the question and marched across the floor. “Cooley! You infernal buffoon!”
His partner jumped and looked around wildly, relaxing only when he saw England Dan.
“You got some explaining to do, Cooley. Why’d you get so drunk so fast? And who was it you were drinking with?” England Dan started to ask another question, then clamped his mouth shut. A terrible thought came to him. “Where’s the gold? Our take from the last month?”
“You won’t b-b-believe my good luck. I b-b-bought a map to our future. We’re gonn
a be filthy rich, old man. So rich we can set ourselves up in fancy houses with all the women we want.” Cooley hiccupped and wiped his mouth.
“What have you done?”
His partner leaned over. The reek of booze was almost enough to make England Dan drunk. Cooley carefully put the map on the table. A quick swipe smoothed out the wrinkles.
“I b-b-bought us a mine worth a fortune. As you’d say, a b-b-bloody fortune.”
“This?” England Dan spun the map around and stared at it. The penciled mountains and what might have been a river faded to almost invisibility. Only the groove cut in the paper showed what had been there originally. England Dan traced a trail of tiny dots to where an X rested beside what could have only represented a mine. “What is it?”
Cooley leaned over even farther and tried to whisper. His voice rang out loud and clear. “That’s where we find the Irish Lord Mine.”
The bartender and two drunks at the bar snickered. England Dan reached down and touched the butt of his Webley. That’d shut them up, but it wouldn’t relieve the embarrassment he felt because his partner had fallen for such a transparent confidence scheme.
“Nobody knows where the Irish Lord is, and the owner’s not been seen or heard from in a year.”
“This is where it is,” Cooley said positively. He tried to press his finger down on the map and missed.
“The mine played out, or the owner left for some other reason. Maybe he died from the plague, and anybody going into the mine’ll suffer the same fate. More likely, claim jumpers killed him, like they tried to do to us. The hills are filthy with those vermin.”
“Played out? The Irish Lord? But it’s the most valuable mine in the whole danged territory. We know where it is. We follow the map and dig around and we’re rich, Dan. Rich!”
The men at the bar outright laughed now. England Dan glared at them. They turned away and whispered among themselves, but he knew what they were saying. They knew he had a fool for a partner, too.
“He took all our gold? All of it?”
“It’s worth it, Dan. We’ll be rich when we find the mine.”
“Where is it?”
“In the mountains. It’s on the map! What’s wrong with you?” Cooley’s eyes went wide with surprise at his partner’s inability.
“Where do we start? Where’s the start of this trail? How do we find it? The Superstition Mountains cover a hundred fifty thousand acres. There’s nothing on this so-called map showing where it is in all that rock.”
“This. This here mark. That might be Weavers Needle.”
“Or it might be nothing. That looks more like a smudge.” England Dan held up the map and frowned. “It could be a drop of dried blood.”
“He got it off a dead prospector.”
“Don’t insult me. I don’t care what lies he fed you.”
“Lies!” Cooley sagged back. “You mean, this isn’t a map to the Irish Lord?”
England Dan knew it was a map to somewhere, but not a single feature on the map carried a legend. It made no sense that the owner of the Irish Lord had drawn a map to his own mine. The mine had been so rich, he had never recorded the deed for fear of claim jumpers, or so went the tale.
“What’s the name of the man who took our gold?”
“I know that hoity-toity, upper-class Brit tone. You’re not gonna start shootin’, now, are you?”
“I’ll get our gold back. Don’t worry. I’ll give him back this . . . map.” England Dan slammed his fist down on the paper. He controlled his anger and folded the map and put it into his vest pocket. Rising, he towered over his partner. With a single grab, he caught Cooley’s collar and pulled him to his feet.
His partner danced like a marionette for a moment, then got his balance. Even with most of a bottle of whiskey sloshing about in his gut, he walked on his own from the saloon.
“You gents come back real soon,” the barkeep called. This brought a new round of laughter from the others.
England Dan ignored them. Outside he grabbed Cooley by the shoulders and turned him this way and that.
“You see the thieving varmint anywhere?”
He shook his partner so hard, Cooley’s teeth chattered. This sobered him enough to brush England Dan’s hand off.
“If you think he rooked me, tell the marshal. You’re too mad. You’ll fill him full of holes when he was only helpin’ us out.”
“He stole our gold by giving you a fake map. And the law left town. This isn’t something I’d ever take to a marshal. They’d put him in jail and take the gold as evidence. It’d be a month before the circuit judge came by for a trial, if Oasis is even on a circuit anymore.” He muttered under his breath. With his luck, the trial would be held in Prescott or some other place so far off, it would take weeks, if not months, to get a verdict. The longer they strayed from the Trafalgar Mine, the less gold they mined.
“Let’s go hunting for him.” England Dan shoved Cooley down the street and made him look into every store they passed to search for the cowboy. He began to think they were on a snipe hunt. If too much time slipped by, finding the crook would be impossible. After going down one side of the street, they worked back up the other.
England Dan looked around when two shots rang out. Oasis was a real shooting gallery today. If he caught the confidence man who’d rooked his partner, there’d be even more gun smoke in the air.
England Dan pulled Cooley back to keep him from getting ridden down by a vaquero astride a big black stallion. The rider tipped his head down to give them the once-over. The huge sombrero he wore cast shadows on his face. All England Dan saw was a huge mustache with dancing tips. Then the vaquero rode on, studying everyone along the street, sizing them up.
England Dan heaved a sigh. With the run of luck he was having, there wouldn’t be thieves come to steal their supplies but real claim jumpers. He had no desire to shoot it out with a half-dozen desperadoes digging in his blue dirt and stealing his pathetic gold.
“I don’t know where he’d go,” Cooley said. “To the bank? Or the mercantile?”
“To the livery stable to get his horse and get out of town,” England Dan said. He shoved Cooley in that direction. There had been a couple horses in stalls next to Mabel. Since the stranger was passing through town, one of them had to have been his.
He held his stride down to one that Cooley could match. His partner chattered incessantly, saying how England Dan didn’t know what an opportunity he was passing up.
“He’ll take the map back and return our gold. If you think it’ll make you rich, you ride out with him.”
“I don’t want a new partner. Dan, this is for us.”
England Dan knew a shortcut to the stables and veered off the main street down a debris-littered alley. Vermin paid him no attention as he passed. He posed no danger, but the rats squeaked and ran for their lives when a large black cat pounced from behind a rain barrel. England Dan vowed to emulate the cat. It had caught a victim by the neck. Powerful jaws closed and ended the rat’s miserable life. He’d do the same to the man who had swindled his partner.
He stormed on and left the alley before he realized Cooley wasn’t with him any longer. Impatiently gesturing, he called out, “Get a move on. He’ll leave town, and we’ll never find him.”
“Dan.” Cooley’s voice cracked with strain. “He ain’t gonna be leavin’ town anytime soon. Not ridin’ his horse.”
“What are you going on about?” He spun and saw his partner standing beside a pile of garbage where the cat had caught its meal. Cooley pointed with a shaky hand.
England Dan retraced his steps and saw a booted foot sticking out from under the pile. He kicked away some of the debris.
“Is that him?” England Dan asked, but he knew the answer. The barkeep said the sharper had worn a denim shirt and a yellow bandanna. Like the one the dead man lying in fron
t of him had tied around his neck.
“I didn’t do it, Dan. I didn’t!”
A quick search of the dead man’s pockets showed he had been robbed. The bag with their gold was nowhere to be found. England Dan had heard two shots as he left the saloon. The corpse had a pair of bullet holes in his chest.
Someone had beaten him to the draw by a few minutes. And someone had his gold.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT A LOUSY place to die.” Lars Jensen hooked his knee around the saddle horn as he looked down Oasis’ main street. A quick move pulled off his floppy-brimmed black felt hat and beat it against his thigh. A week’s worth of trail dust rose and turned to dancing diamonds in the sunlight. Swiping off the sweat from his forehead with his dirty sleeve didn’t make him feel any better.
Finding the son of a bitch who had stolen the map would.
Settling his hat again to keep the late-day sun out of his eyes, he dropped to the ground. His horse let out a relieved whinny. They had been on the trail since sunup, and resting for even a few minutes had been out of the question. If he didn’t retrieve the map stolen from Rusty Rivera, there’d be a much longer nap ahead. A permanent one looking at the wrong side of the sod. Poke wasn’t the kind to be charitable, even to his kid brother. Luckily there was some time to find what had happened to the map before Lars faced him.
Yuma Penitentiary was all the way across the state, and Poke wasn’t due to be released for another week. But after spending close to six months in that cesspit, he’d want a bath and a shave, some whiskey and a woman.
And the map his partner on the cavalry-payroll robbery had made so he could find where the loot had been hidden.
Jensen walked slowly down the middle of the street, taking in every detail. A cruel smile curled his lip when he saw how the townsfolk took one look at him and ducked inside. He knew he cut an imposing figure. He was half a head taller than most men and fifty pounds heavier, even the ones who worked the mines. His shock of blond hair was a perfect gold and set off eyes bluer than the Arizona sky. But his looks appealed to the ladies. It was the way he carried his six-gun slung low and tied down at his right hip that sent the men scurrying away like cockroaches. He had the look of a man who was used to shooting down anyone in his way. Truth was, he had lost track of how many men he’d gunned down, and that didn’t keep him from getting a good night’s sleep.
Lost Banshee Mine Page 3
