Lost Banshee Mine

by Jackson Lowry

  Then he saw her tactic. She darted into the woods. Somehow the trees swallowed the mule with its rider.

  “Come on out, girlie. I don’t want to hurt you. All I want’s the map. Give me the map and you can ride that mule to Santa Fe for all I care.” He doubted she was dumb enough to believe him, but trying wasn’t going to cost him anything. One thing he was always good at was gulling people into believing him.

  He felt a surge of accomplishment. Calling out as he did flushed her like a dove from a bush. She wove in and out between the closely spaced trees. The low-hanging limbs didn’t bother her as they would him, seated on a taller horse. Jensen bent low to avoid a tree limb, then stopped and sat upright. Something felt wrong. He turned and looked around. Seeing nothing, he walked his horse back into the clearing.

  A bullet tore through the air above his head. Jensen whipped out his six-shooter, then hesitated. Sniffing at the air as if he could locate the shooter that way, he swung about to where he saw a silhouette across the clearing. A quick shot forced the would-be back shooter to retreat. Jensen fired a couple times to get rid of the annoyance, but he had lost his target. Wasting his ammo left him vulnerable. Sitting stock-still, he waited to see if the sniper would come after him again. A full minute passed, but no one showed himself.

  Jensen wondered if he had gotten in a lucky hit. He preferred to get close to the men he gunned down, to make sure. Like he had with the deputy. But riding across the clearing to find a body, either dead or sorely wounded, took time away from chasing down the fugitive woman. While he hadn’t seen if she carried a weapon, the notion that preserving his limited store of ammunition seemed a good idea. There was no telling what new trouble he might find.

  He ejected the spent cartridges and reloaded, all too aware how few rounds he had in reserve. Jensen slipped the six-gun into his holster and plunged into the woods to catch his quarry. She couldn’t have gotten too far, not on a mule.

  And he was right. Less than ten minutes later, he overtook her.

  “Missy, you stop right now, and I won’t hurt you none.”

  The fear on her face as she looked over her shoulder at him made him feel good. She tried to dodge, ducking down into a ravine and hurrying to reach a large creek.

  “You ride in water to hide your tracks. It’s no good now. I see you. Sloshing around like that only slows you down.”

  She bent forward and tried to turn the mule into a racehorse. Jensen thought she recognized him as the man who had shot up the house of ill repute back in Oasis.

  “You and the other one, are you sisters? Is that the way it is?” He shook his head as the only answer that made a speck of sense came to him. Poke had always said he was a slow thinker, but slow didn’t mean he wasn’t thorough with figuring everything out. “You look exactly like her. You won’t end up dead if you give me the map.”

  The girl let out a squeal and tried to get her mule up an embankment near the creek. The ground looked solid. It was mostly muddy. The surefooted mule slipped and slid and then began slewing back down the slope to where Jensen waited.

  She looked up, fear etched on her face. “You killed Mindy. You killed my sister.”

  “You look exactly like her. Twins, eh? I’m real sorry about shooting her and the john with her. The galoot wasn’t who I wanted.”

  Mandy jumped off the mule and tried to escape on foot. Jensen considered taking a shot or two at her. If he winged her, that’d stop her dead in her tracks. Then a better idea came to him. A quick grab brought his lariat to hand. Hemp slid on hemp and made a loop. He whirled it above his head and cast. The summer he’d spent with Poke rustling cattle came in handy now. The loop dropped over her. A yank on the rope tightened around her legs and sent her falling flat on her face.

  Jensen leaned back in the saddle. His horse remembered all it had been taught when he had worked at running brands on the West Texas herd. It dug in its front hooves, then began backing away to keep the rope taut. He pulled her along in the mud until she stopped fighting.

  “You going to behave, or do I have to hog-tie you?”

  “Don’t kill me, mister. I got no quarrel with you.”

  “And I don’t have a problem with you—if you hand over the map. You have it on your person?”

  Mandy sat up and kicked free of the rope. She made no effort to stand or get away. Jensen decided to see if she’d give him the map. She wasn’t bad looking. Maybe she was smart, too, and saw how futile it was to fight the inevitable.

  “Mister, you know what I did back in town. Me and my sister. Don’t kill me and I can make life a whole lot better for you.”

  “More enjoyable, you mean?”

  “Yes.” She batted her emerald green eyes. They took on a cunning he had seen many times before. Women always thought they could hoodwink him. Sometimes it was diverting to let them think they had, but mostly he enjoyed watching their expressions change to fear when they recognized what they really faced.

  “Me and you can have a high old time,” Jensen said, “after you hand over the map.”

  “Map, map, what are you talking about? I don’t have any map.” Her coquettish mask dropped for a moment. Then fright replaced it.

  He pointed his pistol straight at her. Shaking his head as if she had been naughty, he cocked the six-gun.

  “I’m a real good shot. At this range there’s no way I can miss.” He fired.

  Mandy jumped a foot. The bullet had kicked up a small tower of mud directly between her knees. She scooted back, not caring that her dress rode up or that she was wallowing in the mud.

  “Where do you want the next bullet to hit? It’d be a shame to scar up your face. That’s a hard shot, anyway. If I miss, it can shatter your cheekbone or take out an eye. Now, some gents get excited over a one-eyed whore. But they’re few and far between.” He leveled his gun again and sighted along the barrel.

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about any map. It . . . it must be something Cooley has.”

  “The man with you back at the whorehouse?”

  “Him, yes. We skedaddled and thought to hide out at his mine.”

  “The Trafalgar Mine?”

  “Yes, that’s the name. He said he was going to get rich. I thought he meant at that mine, but it looked all played out. I don’t know about such things, but he was dead certain sure of himself.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He ran out on me when you rode up. I took his mule to get away. I never saw him after you showed your face.”

  Jensen heard truth through her fear. His mind raced. She knew where to meet him, but getting that from her was going to take a fair amount of time. If it hadn’t been for Poke getting sprung from Yuma so soon, taking a week or two getting the girl to talk would have been a lot of fun. Considering that she worked as a soiled dove, she might even have shown him a few things. He was certain he would have taught her some, too.

  But time was short. And he tapped his trigger finger against the guard on his six-shooter. He needed ammo, he needed supplies and he needed the map.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “What?” Her eyes went wide.

  “All of it. Every stitch. You can stand up so I can see that you don’t have the map.” Even if he didn’t have a lot of time, there wasn’t any reason not to enjoy himself as much as possible in the time he did have.

  Mandy stood and stared daggers at him. Then she began unfastening all the ties and bows that plastered filthy clothing to her trim body. Jensen wasn’t blind. He saw that she wasn’t hiding a map anywhere, but he had a scheme to find Cooley and the map. He showed real appreciation as more and more naked skin showed.

  “Wash your clothes in that stream yonder.” He gestured with his pistol.

  He enjoyed the sight of her on her knees beating her clothing clean on a rock.

  “Go on. Get dressed.”


  “Everything’s still wet.”

  He grinned. This made her furious—and even prettier. She pulled on the clothes and ran her hands over the skirt to squeeze out as much of the water as possible. A quick gesture with his six-gun got her over to the mule. It had found a juicy patch of grass and contentedly chomped on it. One large brown eye turned up to glare at him for disturbing a perfectly fine meal.

  “You got saddlebags or anything like that?”

  “You can see that I don’t. There’s the saddle and nothing else.”

  He poked around, although he knew she was right. What came next had to be done just so or she wouldn’t believe it.

  “I’m going to tie you up. You wait here.” He backed toward his horse, gathered his lariat and fumbled about some to step into the lasso. A quick twist made it look as if the horse had backed up while the rope tangled around his feet. He fell heavily and yelled to the horse. Obediently, it began backing away, as if he had roped a calf again.

  Jensen had to wiggle and thrash about on his own since the rope didn’t actually pull him along. A quick glance showed the woman took the chance and jumped onto the mule. Her heels raked at the mule’s flanks and got the animal running in nothing flat. When she got out of sight, Jensen stood and wiped off the mud. Taking a bath appealed to him, but letting the girl get too much of a head start wasn’t in the cards. He wanted her to find Cooley. Taking the two of them together would be as easy as pie.

  Jensen considered tying up Cooley and making him watch what he did to the girl. But only after he had the map safely tucked away. He stepped up and snapped the reins to get his horse walking slowly on the trail left by the fugitive.

  Letting her keep far enough ahead so she wouldn’t spot him was something of a chore since she rode so erratically. It was as if she thought that zigzagging through the forest confused her trail, but she had taken one thing he’d said to heart. When she found a creek, she splashed into it and headed away. Jensen got his bearings. The creek led back, more or less, to the direction of the cabin. That made him wonder if Cooley wasn’t waiting there. He decided to keep on this trail, if the whore and the miner had some prearranged rendezvous other than the cabin.

  They knew the mountains in these parts better than he did. Taking a risk that lost him the trail—and the map—wasn’t in the cards. For once, he played it close to the vest.

  He rode along the bank, keeping a sharp eye out for when Mandy left the creek to cut across the countryside. She kept the mule’s feet wet longer than he expected. Jensen thought on whether this was clever or if she rode like that because she was scared of him. He hoped it was building fear that drove her.

  Seeing that fright in a woman’s eyes excited him. Thinking that she still dreaded him was thrilling.

  Thinking on this and becoming inattentive almost cost him his carefully laid plans. He rode into the large meadow, on the side opposite where he had left Alberto Gonzales dead, and would have exposed himself to the fleeing girl. She rode the mule hard to a tight stand of trees a half mile off.

  If Cooley was going to meet up with her, that was the sort of place he’d have chosen. That was where Jensen would have picked. It gave shelter from prying eyes and was back in the direction of the cabin. He judged how long it’d take him to cross the meadow. Deciding he had a few minutes to spare, he dismounted and let his horse crop at the juicy grass while he built himself a smoke. Tying off the pouch of tobacco and sticking it back into his pocket gave him a sense of satisfaction. He expertly rolled the cigarette and lit it. The smoke billowed into his lungs and relaxed him. When he caught up with her and Cooley, that would be the time to let excitement build. Chasing after the two wore down his patience.

  He finished his cigarette and mounted. Before he trotted his horse across the meadow, he reared back. His six-shooter came into his fist, but he slid it back into the holster, cursing softly. Coming from the distant copse was the mule, but the soiled dove wasn’t riding it. Or any white man.

  Seated astride the mule was a wildly gesturing Indian. Flanking the mule were a half-dozen Indians on foot. Another came from the woods on a sturdy pony. From their dress, it wasn’t a war party.

  “Hunters,” Jensen whispered as he soothed his horse, patting its neck. “They got lucky and caught the whore.”

  Four more Indians followed the one on the mule. Shooting it out with so many was out of the question, especially when they hadn’t taken the girl captive. Somehow, they had stolen her mule. Her body might lie in the woods, or she might have escaped. That was unlikely, but her luck had been favorable so far.

  Lars Jensen frowned as he considered what trail to ride now. The girl didn’t have the map. Cooley had it, but she wasn’t meeting up with him. The Indians looked as if they had just played the winning card. And they had. They’d keep a mule, which was both useful and considered part of a brave’s status in the tribe.

  He watched the hunting party disappear into a different section of the forest. When they were out of sight, he turned toward the far side of the meadow, riding in the direction of the miner’s shack. The only place he was likely to find Cooley now was back at the mine. Somebody’s luck had to change—and Jensen intended it to be the miner’s.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOHN COOLEY GASPED for breath. He had run himself into the ground along the narrow mountain trail. Mandy had ridden the mule along here, but he wasn’t sure he saw any spoor. But where else could she have gone? Chest hurting, he stopped, put his hands on his knees and bent over. Every time he sucked in air, his lungs filled with fire. He had almost recovered when he heard someone on the trail behind him.

  Mandy was ahead. The only one who’d be between him and the cabin was the blond killer from town. Lars Jensen. He looked around, suddenly frantic. Struggling uphill was out of the question. He’d kick loose rocks and slip and slide and never get out of sight before a man astride a horse trotted up.

  Going the other way looked like suicide, but he had no choice. Peering over the edge, he saw the loose rock extended only a few feet. Below that, a rocky ledge ran parallel to the trail he was on. He dug in his boot for the jump. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes and kicked out hard.

  He let out a scream as he launched himself into the air. With a frantic twist that hurt his ribs, he turned half around. Fingers clawing frantically, he caught at the rock. The loose rock. He had a double handful of loose stones that did nothing to keep him from plunging downward. He remembered the sheer cliff just beyond the lower ledge. That was his fate, to fall and fall and fall . . .

  Cooley slammed hard against the mountainside and somehow dug his toes in far enough to slow his descent. Grabbing wildly, he caught a rock in his left hand. The sudden stop almost yanked his arm from his shoulder joint. He hung with his face pressed into the rock and dirt. And he cried in joy for that. He hadn’t plunged to his death. With great deliberation, he moved his toes around until he found purchase. Then he sought handholds. Once he was secure, he inched downward to the rocky ledge.

  Unabashedly, he flopped face down and sobbed. Everything he had done in the past day or two had moved him ever closer to death, but this time, he had seen his own demise rushing up. The relief now was more than his overworked emotions could handle.

  He shook with emotion but had to stifle it when he heard a horse passing along the trail fifteen feet above. If Lars Jensen looked over the edge, he would see Cooley. Shooting fish in a rain barrel flashed through his head. A man as skilled with a six-shooter as Jensen must be couldn’t miss.

  The outlaw hadn’t missed when he had plugged Mindy and the man with her. Cooley fought back a new wave of blubbering. Jensen thought he’d killed Mandy and a penniless miner named John Cooley.

  It gnawed at Cooley that Jensen was going to catch up with Mandy. He wished there was something he could do about it. Cooley sat up and drew his six-shooter. He was no match for a stone-cold killer l
ike Jensen. The best he could hope for was the outlaw carelessly turning his back. Cooley had six shots, and that was it. He wasn’t a sharpshooter, not like his partner. He had watched Rutledge practicing. The man never missed with that Brit pistol he carried. Cooley almost believed the stories about Rutledge graduating from some fancy military school and being in the army. That heavy, faded, red wool cavalry jacket he wore, the one with the epaulets missing and the buttons ripped off, looked like something Cooley had seen in a book once about the British Army.

  He’d gladly hand over his six-shooter to his partner if England Dan would kill the outlaw. Cooley had no doubt Rutledge was capable of such slaughter, which was a good thing. Try as he might, Cooley failed to summon the courage ever to shoot anyone else. Even Lars Jensen. Even if it meant saving Mandy.

  Maybe even if it meant saving his own life.

  He carefully got to his feet. Jensen had ridden past. All Cooley had to do was climb back to the upper trail and return to the cabin. From there he could get back to Oasis in a day and tell somebody that a dangerous killer roamed the hills. As that idea crossed his mind, he almost laughed at its absurdity. Nobody in Oasis cared because there wasn’t a marshal there. Bisbee? They had law, but no marshal had jurisdiction out here. Getting back with his partner was his only hope of worming out of this predicament.

  Planning on getting to the cabin and doing it were different things. Nowhere along the narrow ledge offered a way up. He kept walking until the ledge petered out; then he took his life in his hands and slid down to a broader ledge. This led in the direction opposite to where he wanted to go, but Cooley had no choice. Nervous as a long-tailed cat beside a rocking chair, he kept walking when this trail opened onto a slope leading down into a wooded area. From previous scouting around, he knew a large meadow opened beyond the forest.

  Warily, since Jensen might pop up like a prairie dog at any turn, Cooley made his way through the trees, angling around to where the trail led back to the cabin. The cool, damp forest calmed him. His mind settled and worry ran away.