The Dark Sunrise

by Terrence McCauley

  In a single motion he had practiced countless times, Billy drew the big rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The fifty-caliber round obliterated the latch on the wooden door, causing it to swing open.

  The boom of the big-bore gun served to quiet all firing from the cabin, giving Mackey a chance to yell out, “You in the house. Stop firing. We’re United States Marshals. We’ve got a warrant to take in Brett Colburn for murder.”

  “That was a fair fight,” a man from inside the cabin called out. “Go away and leave us be.”

  “Can’t do that,” Mackey yelled back. “We’ve got paper on him. Colburn, if you’re in there, come out with your hands empty and walk into this barn. We won’t shoot, and none of your friends will get hurt.”

  Mackey ducked back inside as the men in the cabin opened up on them again, once more peppering the barn with bullets. A few rounds pierced the walls, sending beams of dusty daylight into the barn.

  Then the shooting stopped as quickly as it had started.

  They were reloading.

  Mackey did not need to tell Billy what to do next. The two men had been through enough dustups like this over the years to be able to read each other’s minds.

  Mackey fired into the cabin just below the windows where the men were likely to be taking cover.

  Billy slung the Sharps on his back and scrambled up the ladder, holding the Winchester in his free hand.

  Mackey stopped firing after six shots and waited for a target to present itself. He heard moaning coming from inside the cabin, so he knew he had hit at least one of them during the last volley. He judged the moaning to be coming from the left side of the house, so he shifted his aim to the right side.

  “Come out now,” Mackey called out again. “No one else needs to get hurt. I just want Colburn. The rest of you can go, even after all of this. You’ve got my word on that.”

  A burly man appeared in the doorway and brought up his shotgun to fire, no doubt running to aid his fallen friend. Mackey snapped off a shot and saw the fat man spin as he fell back from view. His shotgun went off as he fell. The blast went through the roof of the cabin. The walls of the cabin were thick, but the roof looked mighty thin.

  He had no doubt that Billy had seen it, too, and would use it to his advantage.

  “Last chance,” Mackey called out, “before we rain hell down on all of you.”

  He was answered by two rifles that poked through the shattered windows on the right side of the cabin. Mackey ducked back for cover as shots pounded the barn and barn floor. Their angle was getting better, and he had to hold himself flat against the wall as bullets zipped by him. It was only a matter of time before one shot got lucky and found him through the thin walls of the barn.

  Then Billy’s Sharps boomed from the hayloft. A second later, a man screamed.

  The firing let up, and Mackey chanced a look. He saw a large hole in the roof over the shooter’s positions.

  A man popped up in the window and brought his rifle up.

  One shot from Mackey’s Winchester struck him in the chest and put him down for good.

  Mackey waited for more shots to come from the cabin, but all he could hear was the broken door creaking on ancient hinges across the courtyard.

  Mackey reloaded the Winchester, finishing the last of the cartridges on his belt. He had plenty more ammunition in Adair’s saddlebags, but did not dare go back for it. He doubted he would need it anyway. “You in the cabin,” Mackey called out. “Is it over?”

  As he listened, Mackey was answered with groans and muffled cries of pain. He knew it was as over as it was going to get without taking a look inside the cabin for certain.

  He switched his rifle to his left hand and drew his Peacemaker, holding it against his leg as he moved. He did not have to tell Billy to cover him as he moved in. He knew what to do.

  Mackey walked slowly but steadily toward the cabin, listening and watching for any sudden movements. But the closer he got, the more agony he heard from the wounded men inside.

  He walked up on the porch and crouched when he heard the unmistakable cocking of a hammer from the left side of the cabin. A single shot rang out through the doorway.

  It was followed by Billy emptying his Winchester into the left side of the roof.

  Mackey remained still while he heard a roof beam strain and creak before it cracked and caved in.

  Mackey got to his feet and stood flat against the left side of the doorway. He saw the man he had shot in the chest was still alive, but lying flat on his back, struggling as if he was pinned to the floor.

  The second rifleman was slumped next to him. Half of his head was gone thanks to Billy’s round.

  Mackey took a quick look around the doorframe. The fat man with the shotgun had been half buried beneath the rubble of the collapsed roof, his belly still bleeding from Mackey’s bullet. He risked a further look into the house and saw the entire left side of the roof had completely caved in, burying whoever had been over there beneath hundreds of pounds of wood. If anyone had survived it, they’d be hard pressed to get off a shot without Mackey hearing them first.

  His Peacemaker leading the way, Mackey stepped into the cabin and moved right. Now he could see that side of the cabin was empty except for the dead man and the dying man flat on his back.

  The dying man lifted his head and felt blindly for the rifle that was well out of reach. Mackey approached him slowly and took a knee beside him to get a better look at his wound. Mackey’s bullet had hit him dead center in the chest. The blood beginning to pool beneath the man told Mackey the bullet had gone straight through.

  “Can you talk?”

  The dying man’s breathing grew rapid. “Enough to tell you . . . to go to hell.”

  “Don’t waste your breath.” Mackey tapped the man’s side with the barrel of the Colt. “You’re dying. Could be a few minutes, could be the rest of the day. You might last more than that. No way to know for certain with a wound like that. You might even be alive when the coyotes get wind of the stench from your friends. Or the buzzards come in through that hole in the roof. If I was you, I wouldn’t want to live to see that.”

  The man shut his eyes and looked away. A tear streaked down his cheek.

  “Tell me if Colburn’s here and, if I believe you, I’ll end you now. If not, I’ll leave you here to take your chances. That might not sound like much of a deal, but it’s the only one you have.”

  The man slowly shook his head.

  “Is Colburn here?”

  The man kept shaking his head. “He’s up at the mine.”

  Mackey knew there were several mines in the area. He knew the one Colburn worked, but he needed to hear the dying man tell him so he knew he was telling the truth. “Which one? And remember, the truth or I walk away.”

  “The Lode Star.” The dying man coughed and a thin stream of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. “That’s his claim. Got a lot of men working it with him.” Another cough drowned out what he had said before, “All of them hardcases like us. Hate . . . lawmen.”

  Mackey believed him.

  He stood up and aimed the Colt down at the man’s head. “It didn’t have to end like this.”

  The man smiled, baring reddened teeth. “Sure, it did.”

  Mackey squeezed the trigger and kept his word.

  * * *

  When he got outside, Billy had already brought around the horses. Neither of the mounts fussed about the stench of blood and death from the cabin. Both animals had grown used to the smell long ago.

  “Any of them left alive?” Billy asked.

  “Not anymore.” Mackey fed fresh rounds from his saddlebags into his Winchester and stuck it in the saddle scabbard. He dumped the spent bullet from his Peacemaker and replaced it, too, before climbing into Adair’s saddle.

  He took the rein from Billy. “Last one said Colburn isn’t here. He’s up working the Lode Star mine.”

  As they rode away from the cabin, Billy said, “That’
s good news.”

  “Nothing good came out of what happened back there today.”

  Billy seemed to give that some thought before saying, “At least we don’t have to dig Colburn out from under all that rubble.”

  Mackey could not argue with him there. “There’s that, I guess.”

  * * *

  Mackey knew from reading the map back at his office in Helena that the Lode Star mine was set deep in a hillside just outside the town that bore its name.

  Mackey had been hoping Colburn would be in the cabin. Now, he and Billy would have to ride through town to reach the mine. Most of the townspeople probably would not welcome the men who had come to arrest the owner of the biggest mine in town, but that was a chance he and Billy would have to take.

  The town of Lode Star was made up of hastily built wooden buildings that had settled unevenly in the Montana mud. Mackey could not see a straight line in any structure along Main Street, where the ground had risen to buckle the sorry attempts at boardwalks that had been laid down long ago.

  A man could walk from the Lode Star to the main street if he wanted to and, given the number of tents and shanties he saw lining the thoroughfare, Mackey figured most of the miners did exactly that.

  The only people on the street at that time of day were women. None of them wore fancy dresses or carried parasols like they did back in Helena or even Dover Station. These were hardworking women who lived with their men in the tents and shanties that comprised the mining town. They froze in the winters and broiled in the summers and did their best to keep a good home for their children and husbands, who could never quite scrub the grime of the mine from their clothes, no matter how hard they tried.

  They were women who did not see strangers much and were wary of them when they did. Mackey could not blame them. He had never been fond of strangers, either.

  Mackey had been surprised when Lynch had told him that Lode Star had itself a sheriff and a deputy. So, when he saw a faded hand-painted sign that read TOWN JAIL, he rode toward it. Billy followed.

  They tied off their mounts and walked up the crooked steps into the jail. The door was open, and they found two men with their feet up on their respective desks, dozing in their chairs.

  Mackey cleared his throat, snapping both men to consciousness. The older of the two, a thin red-boned man with a wild moustache, quickly got to his feet. “What the hell do you want?”

  Mackey and Billy stood silently as they waited for the sleep to clear from the sheriff ’s eyes enough for him to see the stars pinned to their dusters. “Marshals. I didn’t know you boys were coming.”

  “I’m Aaron Mackey, and this is Deputy Billy Sunday.”

  “Mackey?” the man repeated in a whisper. “Sunday? I’ve heard of you boys. You’re the new marshal out of Helena.”

  Mackey was beginning to lose patience. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sheriff Larry Sweazy,” the red-boned man said, “and that drowsy feller over there is my deputy, Mike Bray.”

  The thin deputy yawned as he stretched his limbs.

  Billy said, “Sorry to interrupt your nap, boys, but the marshal and I need your help.”

  Sheriff Sweazy flattened down his shirt. “Must be awfully important business to bring out the likes of you two.”

  Mackey walked over to the peg board where the wanted posters were pinned. Half the men up there were either captured or dead. He recognized one or two who had died from old age.

  “You get mail in this burg, don’t you? Where are the wanted posters you’ve been sent?”

  “Got ’em right here, Marshal.” Sweazy fumbled with the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. “Look at them every day, like a parson reads his Bible. I don’t bother posting them on account of me not wanting to let the bad guys know we’re on to them.”

  Billy took out the folded wanted poster he had in his back pocket for Brett Colburn and showed it to him. “This man in that Bible of yours?”

  Sweazy squinted as he peered at the poster Billy held. “That old Brett? Why no, I don’t believe he is. What would he be doing on a wanted poster anyway?”

  “He shot a deputy in Virginia City,” Mackey told him. “And gunned down two more in the posse that rode out after him.”

  “Brett?” Sweazy continued shuffling his sheaf of papers. “Not a chance. He’s a model citizen. Always has been, ain’t that right, Mike? Hardest-working man I know and as honest as the day is long. Him and his men work the Lode Star mine, the biggest concern we’ve got in these parts. Law-abiding men, the lot of them. Live outside of town in a nice cabin, too.”

  “We just came from there,” Mackey said.

  The marshal’s tone made Sweazy look up from his papers. “That so?” The papers in his hand began to rattle and he quickly set them back in the drawer. “Everything fine?”

  “It wasn’t a nice cabin before we got there,” Billy said. “Can’t say we left it in better condition.”

  Sweazy’s mouth quivered a bit while Deputy Bray gave an exaggerated yawn as he got up from his desk and shuffled toward the back.

  Mackey glared at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Usin’ the privy,” Bray said as he scratched his belly. “Always need to go after a nap.”

  “Or run down to the mine to warn Colburn we’re here,” Billy said. “You’d best stay where you are.”

  Deputy Bray turned and faced the marshals. Mackey noticed he wore a Remington ’75 too high on his belt. “I don’t have to take orders from the likes of you.”

  Mackey grew very still. “You’ll be taking a bullet from him if you take one more step toward that back door.” He pointed at the deputy’s desk. “Sit down. Now.”

  Deputy Bray found his chair without looking at it and sat back down.

  Sweazy slowly came out from behind his desk, hands raised. “Now hold on just a minute, boys. We’re all on the same side here.”

  “No, we’re not,” Mackey said. “You got Colburn’s wanted poster in the post and you chucked it. You knew Colburn was wanted and you turned a blind eye because he owns The Lode Star. We came here to ask for your help in going to the mine and arresting him. But we’re not asking anymore. Both of you get up. You’re coming with us.”

  Sweazy tried a smile. “I’ve got to say, Marshal, your tone ain’t exactly friendly.”

  “Neither am I. Don’t make me tell you again.” He nodded toward the back door. “We’ll go out that way. Past that privy you were going to use. Looks like the quickest way to the mine.”

  The sheriff and his deputy shuffled toward the back door and opened it. Mackey and Billy followed.

  When they stepped outside, they saw the footpath down to the Lode Star was in spitting distance.

  And there was no privy out back.

  Billy smiled. “Well look at that, Marshal? That mine’s real close. Don’t see a privy, though.”

  “Imagine that.” Mackey pulled Bray’s Remington from its holster and tossed it back into the jail. Sweazy didn’t have to be told to unbuckle his gun belt. He did it on his own and left it next to the back door of the jail.

  Mackey shoved him toward the footpath. “Get going.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The entrance to the Lode Star was down around the bend at the end of the footpath. Four miners black with dust were pitching rocks from a rail car into a flatbed wagon.

  They stopped what they were doing when they saw the four lawmen approaching. If they were intimidated, they did a good job of hiding it.

  One of the miners asked, “Who are your friends, Larry?”

  “They’re no friends of ours,” Deputy Bray said. “They’ve come for Brett.”

  One of the miners quit pitching rocks and walked toward them. “That so? Well, they may have come for him, but they’re not going to get him.”

  “Got paper on him,” Mackey said. “He’s wanted for three counts of murder in Virginia City.”

  Another miner stood next to t
he first. “Well, Brett’s down working the mine, boys. He’s not the kind who likes to be bothered while he’s working.”

  “Then you’re going to have to go down there and bother him for us.” He kept Sweazy and Bray in front of him and his hand on his buckle, within easy reach of the Peacemaker. “And you’re going to do it right now.”

  Billy had already walked well away from the group, giving the miners more than one angle to worry about.

  Sweazy said, “Now everyone just stay easy. There’s no reason for anyone to get their heads broken over this.” To the miners, he said, “They’re federal marshals out of Helena, boys. Their warrant is legal. I saw it.”

  “Legal’s got nothing to do with it,” a third miner said, joining the other two. “Brett owns this mine. If he’s not here to pay us, we don’t get paid, and our families don’t eat. It’s that simple.”

  “And not my concern,” Mackey said. “Go get him like I told you.”

  A fourth miner laughed. “Mister, if one of us goes down that mine, we’re not coming back alone. We’ll have twenty men with us. Every single man jack among them will be carrying pickaxes, shovels, and damned near anything else they can use to pound you boys into dirt.”

  The miner pointed at Mackey’s pistol. “Now, you and your friend over there might pick off some of us. I figure you’ll get maybe six of us with those peashooters of yours if you’re lucky. But you won’t get all of us, and when we catch you, God His own self won’t be able to save you.”

  “But you’ll be dead.” Mackey’s hand did not move from his buckle. “A job’s not much good if you’re dead.”

  “Best take your own advice, lawman,” said another miner. “This mine is our lives. You take Brett, we’ve got nothing to live on anyway. So, twenty against two are odds any of us are willing to take if it keeps us from starving to death.”

  “Maybe we can thin those odds down a bit.” Billy walked out of a wooden shed to the far left of the mine.

  And he was holding two sticks of dynamite.

  The miners backed away.

  Billy set both sticks against a rock outcropping and began building himself a cigarette. “I don’t know about all of you, but the marshal and me have had a real nasty day. Nothing relaxes me more after a trying time than a good smoke. So, either one of you gets real smart real fast and run down that mine and fetch Brett Colburn for us—alone—or I set one of these firecrackers alight and throw it in that shaft. Maybe it kills Brett and maybe it doesn’t. But it’ll seal up your livelihood for a long while. And those twenty men you say are in there with him won’t be much good to anyone, much less their families.”