The Case of the Deadly Desperados

by Caroline Lawrence

  That was my fault. I had not been paying attention to their feet. I had been too caught up in their talk of my dead pa, who was apparently alive & well & living in Chicago.

  And now Jace had lost badly.

  I saw Jace looking at me. I could not read his expression.

  “What are you looking at?” said Walt. He turned his head & his gaze swept over me. I quickly lowered my head, but for a second our eyes had locked.

  “Hey, Dub,” said Walt. “Look at that filthy Blanket Injun begging over there. Since when does Almack’s Oyster & Liquor Saloon allow beggars?”

  “Since never,” said Extra Dub in his raspy voice. He took his foot off the bar rail. “I think that’s the kid we’re looking for.”

  “I think so, too,” said Boz. “Got them cold eyes.”

  I kept my head down & pretended not to understand.

  But the accordion player had stopped playing & the whole saloon had gone quiet. I could feel them all staring at me.

  “Hey you!” said Walt. “Hey, Digger Injun! Is your name Pinky?”

  I kept my head down & my eyes fixed on his feet. I heard Walt’s chair scrape against the polished floor & as he stood up I could see that his spurred boots were pointing towards me.

  Then I heard Jace’s drawl. “Stop right there or I’ll fill you with balls,” he said.

  I looked up to see that Jace was on his feet & was aiming a Colt’s Pocket Pistol right at Walt’s heart. It was a .32 caliber, bigger than mine but not as big as Walt’s. “Stop right there,” Jace repeated. He had stretched out his right arm to take careful aim. He had his side on to Walt but he was now facing the bar.

  Walt froze for a moment & then gave a kind of smile. He knew his back was covered. Extra Dub & Boz Burton were both pointing their pieces at Jace.

  “Watch out, Jace!” I cried, but it was too late. Dub’s gun went off at the same time as someone else’s. I saw Jace go down, hit in the chest. Then everything was confused & seemed to happen at once. I heard the deafening report of Stonewall’s Le Mat and guessed he was firing at Extra Dub because the barkeep had grasped Boz’s arm so that his revolver was now firing into the ceiling. Plaster dust was raining down & a woman was screaming & chairs scraped as men got up to flee.

  But I was not really paying attention to any of those things.

  Whittlin Walt was coming towards me with purpose & intent, his Bowie Knife in his left hand.

  I am ashamed to say I forgot all about the Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter in my pocket. I turned tail and ran like a yellow dog.

  Ledger Sheet 40

  MY EARS WERE RINGING with the sound of gunshots as I ran outside. I saw that it was dawn & that the boardwalk was jammed with people watching a procession. The wind was flapping their garments & now that I was outside I could hear a brass band above the Zephyr’s howling. I pushed through people and as I jumped down off the boardwalk I nearly got shmooshed by a horse-drawn fire engine draped in black cloth. Firemen in their fire helmets & red flannel shirts & shiny black belts were walking down the middle of the street. Why were they congregating here so early? Had they come to taunt me? They were blocking my escape.

  The wind was buffeting me and making my blanket flap behind me like a cape. It threw dirt in my eyes & filled my mouth with dust. The brass band was getting closer & louder.

  I darted between another black-draped fire engine & some firemen. The boardwalk opposite was a solid wall of miners, so I could not jump up. I had to run along the street, against the stream of traffic. Firemen cursed me as I jostled them but I could barely hear above the sound of the brass band & the still-howling wind. As soon as I reached a side street I turned up it. It was crowded with miners, too, but I managed to shove through the press of bodies.

  I encountered the brass band up on B Street, and also a shiny black funeral coach pulled by coal-black horses with black plumes nodding from their foreheads. Only then did I remember that today was the day of Short Sally’s funeral. That must be why all those miners were filling the boardwalks: to watch the procession. I shoved through more miners up another street & I finally found myself up on A Street, which was mercifully deserted.

  I felt sick & had to stop then & rest my hands on my knees. My foster ma & pa were dead, just like Short Sally. Jace was probably dead, too: shot in the heart because of me. So many dead people. And yet the pa I always believed dead was really alive. He had just never bothered to track me down.

  I was still gasping for breath when something like a Wasp whined past my ear. But it was not a Wasp.

  It was a Bullet fired by Walt.

  He had emerged from the crowds a half block below me & he was shooting at me with his big Colt’s Army Revolver. The sun had still not risen but it was light enough for him to get off a shot that had almost killed me.

  I ran up between two buildings & at the same time I pulled my seven-shooter out of my pocket.

  I stopped & peered out from behind a shed & saw Walt emerging from the alley. I got off a shot. You could hardly hear my piece above the moaning of the wind. I don’t think he even noticed.

  A startled pair of quail went flapping up out of a clump of sage as I backed into it. My stomach sank as I realized I was nearing the outskirts of the town. The sun was just rising from behind the far eastern mountains. If I went any higher I would be exposed on the mountainside by its bright rays.

  Then I saw the big white building of the Mexican Mine further up the sage-dotted slope. Its stamps were silent & no smoke came from its tall chimney.

  I ran towards it.

  I thought, “There will be plenty of nooks & crannies to hide in there.”

  But when I got there, panting & nearly sick from running in thin air, I found it was locked as tight as a Wells Fargo safe.

  The sun was up now and it glinted off narrow metal tracks leading up the side of the mountain to a dark square in the mountainside. The tracks were for a mine car and the dark square was the entrance of the Mexican Mine itself.

  The wind was howling at me & the sun was pointing me out with bright rays.

  I thought, “If I can just get somewhere dark & quiet, I can think what to do.”

  I ran up towards the mine entrance, chasing my own long shadow with its flapping cape of a blanket and feathered hat.

  The entrance of the Mexican Mine was open but deserted. I reckoned the miners had all been given the morning off for Short Sally’s funeral. There were half a dozen candles lying on a raw wood table at the entrance. I shoved all six of them into my right-hand pocket so Walt wouldn’t have any light to chase me. I put down my seven-shooter for just a moment, in order to light one of the candles on the oil lamp hanging in the entrance. In my haste, it did not even occur to me to take the oil lamp along with those candles.

  I made another bad mistake at that moment but did not realize it until later.

  Holding up the candle, I hurried between the tracks & down the empty tunnel as it went deeper & deeper into the mountain. My single flickering candle lit the way.

  It was getting darker & darker.

  I turned & looked back & I could no longer see daylight.

  I slowed down & tried to listen for signs of pursuit. The terrible howling Zephyr was silenced in here, but the blood swooshing in my ears was almost as loud.

  For a while there were coal oil lamps in wall niches along the way, then there was nothing. And still I was going into the side of the mountain.

  I must have gone 200 feet, maybe more, when I saw a dark shape looming up ahead just outside the dim & flickering light of my candle.

  Then I heard something snorting. Something big.

  With a trembling hand, I held up my candle.

  I could see the gleaming milky eyes of some demonic creature.

  I nearly died of fright right then & there. I a
lmost dropped my candle but then I heard a horse’s snort.

  It was a black pony.

  She was harnessed to a whim & I suppose on a working day she went round & round hoisting ore from the infernal regions below. But today she was just standing there.

  “Hey, girl,” I said. “Don’t be afraid.”

  My voice sounded small as it echoed in the tunnel.

  The pony rolled her eyes. She was not comforted by my fearful reassurance.

  I went forward & stroked her flank. Her coat was coarse & dusty, her eyes milky in the light of my candle.

  I think she had been down in the dark for so long that she was almost blind.

  I gave her a final pat & I moved cautiously forward. My feeble light showed a continuation of the tunnel behind her and also several massive caverns. There were three of them, their walls glittering with quartz. But none of them went more than 20 or 30 feet in. I could see where they ended.

  It was warm in there. But it was not a cozy warmth. It was a smothering warmth, like a stifling blanket over your face & nose. Also the air was clammy. It made my skin prickle all over.

  Then I felt more prickling as the echo of voices further back along the tunnel raised all the little hairs on the back of my neck.

  Someone had followed me into the Mexican Mine.

  I needed to go further in.

  I held up my flickering candle.

  Then I saw it. A ladder sticking up from a hole in the ground.

  I went cautiously towards it.

  It was a black pit in the middle of black earth.

  In the feeble light of my candle, I could not even see the bottom.

  Just the rungs going down into blackness.

  I looked back towards the entrance & the poor horse standing & waiting to go round & round. I ran back to her & put my candle on a ledge of quartz. Then I undid her shackles with fumbling fingers & pointed her back the way I had come & slapped her rump.

  “Go on, girl,” I hissed. “Go give Walt a fright. Git.”

  The pony obediently trotted off towards the exit. I knew a black horse emerging from the tunnel would not kill Walt, but it might scare the bejeezus out of him & maybe send him back out into the light of day.

  That is where I wished I was: in the light of day.

  But I knew I had to keep going until the miners came back & it was safe.

  I clamped the candle between my teeth & flung my blanket cape back to free my arms & started down the ladder as fast as my flickering flame would allow me. I had to cock my head at an angle so I wouldn’t singe the brim of my hat. That threw me off balance a little & made the going tricky.

  You would have thought it would get cool & clammy deep down in the earth. But as I descended it got hotter & hotter. I had to stop & take the candle out of my mouth & wipe away drool & breathe properly for a while. Then I sent up a prayer & replaced the candle in my mouth & carried on down.

  When at last I reached the bottom of the ladder, I was so relieved that my knees could not hold me & I had to sit for a spell.

  Then I looked around & for a moment astonishment replaced terror.

  If you have ever seen the timber frame of a house before the walls are on, imagine that as far as the eye could see. A hundred big cubes, made of square planks almost as big as me & twice as tall, all stretched away into the darkness before & behind & above & below. I must have been a hundred feet deep & yet somehow they had brought a whole forest of timbers down here.

  As I held my candle up & looked around, the little yellow flame showed me I could go deeper still. There was a narrow staircase like a corkscrew, spiraling down into the hot, clammy darkness.

  It was the last place on earth I wanted to go.

  It was like going down into the Fiery Pit of Hell itself.

  But only a stretch of tunnel & that ladder separated me from Walt & I knew I had to go down.

  At least I did not have to clamp the candle between my teeth, but as I went down & down, I felt as if I was in one of those nightmares where you fall real slow. All around me was a framework of wood and though I knew the timbers were thick it seemed they were only toothpicks holding up a whole mountain. After maybe 15 minutes of dizzy descent, I finally reached solid ground.

  I was amazed to see a whole city down here. There were picks & axes & a small sawmill & lanterns. I also saw wheelbarrows half full of ore, ready to take their loads to buckets attached to windlasses & ropes & pulleys. I realized on any other day this place would be swarming with miners.

  As it was, it was swarming with rats.

  Rats make good eating if you are desperate. But there were too many of them down here for my liking.

  When they saw my light they melted into the shadows. But I knew they were there. I could see their beady red eyes glinting at me.

  As I went closer to the rock wall, I saw what must be the Mother Lode.

  The Comstock Ledge.

  The Vanilla Frosting in the Cake of Mount Davidson. In the light of my candle it was sparkling quartz all veined with blue, like the marble pillars at the International Hotel. I knew those blue veins were silver & that they would have to be pounded & sieved & amalgamated & refined. But it was silver & it was thick. It was what drove men & women mad.

  Suddenly I was dizzy and panting for breath; the blanket tied round my neck was choking me. I untied it & re-tied it more loosely & soon felt a little better. I wondered if anybody ever smothered down here.

  Then I held up my candle & went all round the wall-rock. I heard the rats scuttling & squeaking but they kept out of sight. I had been looking for a good place to hide for maybe ten minutes when I felt a hot damp draft on my face.

  I was about to offer up a silent prayer of thanks for a breeze, even a hot one, when without warning the candle in my hand was snuffed out & I was plunged into darkness darker than the inside of a black steer on a moonless night.

  Ledger Sheet 41

  I WAS 200 FEET BELOW GROUND in a rat-infested mine & it was darker than a tar pit at midnight.

  Then I remembered that at Almack’s Oyster & Liquor Saloon some people had tossed matches in my begging cup as a cruel joke.

  I started fishing around in my pocket.

  That was when I realized I did not have my seven-shooter.

  I went cold all over. I remembered I had put it down at the mouth of the mine tunnel so I could light a candle. A candle that had just been extinguished.

  I could picture my seven-shooter lying there, right where I left it.

  I was without light & without the protection of a firearm.

  If there was ever a time to pray, it was then. I said, “Oh Lord, please help me.”

  I took a breath & dug my fingers deep into my right-hand pocket where I had put the matches. I felt a small hole & I realized most of the matches must have fallen out.

  “Please, Lord,” I prayed.

  At last my fingers encountered half a match down one corner of my pocket.

  I felt it all over & my heart sank.

  It was the wrong half.

  I could hear the rats scuttling closer to me in the darkness as I dug deeper in my pocket.

  Finally, right down in the bottom of my pocket, stuck between two stitches, was the sparkable half of the match.

  That half match was the only chance I had of illuminating the darkness. I carefully pulled it out of my pocket. Then, holding the candle in my left hand & the match in my right, I tried to strike it against the damp rock face.

  The first time I tried, nothing happened.

  I could hear the rats coming closer.

  The second time I tried to strike it, nothing happened.

  I felt a rat run over my moccasin.

  Finally on the third try the half match flamed up.


  I brought the flame to the candle’s wick, but my hands were shaking so bad I feared I would not get them to meet. Just as the match-flame was beginning to burn my fingers, the wick of the candle caught, flickered, steadied & burned bright.

  The rats scuttled away & I breathed a sigh of relief so great that it almost blew out the candle again. I carefully cupped my hand around the flame to protect it.

  Then I moved forward.

  I felt the hot, damp draft again: the one that had blown out my candle. It was coming up from a tunnel in one of the bluest parts of the rock face. Cherishing my flame, I carefully started down this dark passageway. There were some picks & hammers beside the walls of the tunnel, which was shored up with timbers like a row of sash window frames stretching away into the earth.

  The tunnel went down a gentle grade for maybe a quarter mile. Every so often I caught the faint scent of alkali water. Ma Evangeline once told me there were 2,000-foot shafts in some of the mines of the Comstock.

  The damp got damper & the heat got hotter & at last I came into a clammy chamber about 12 foot by 12. Here the tunnel ended. And here the scent of alkali was strongest.

  I wondered where the smell was coming from, so I held up my candle, being careful to protect it with my hand. Its yellow light showed several objects in the cave.

  A wooden crate.

  Four wooden buckets, three of them upturned.

  A coffeepot.

  Empty tin cans. (Small ones; not the big oyster cans.)

  A shovel, pickaxe & hammer leaning up against one wall.

  An empty bottle of whiskey.

  I took a cautious step forward & almost tripped over a little wooden sign stuck in the ground.

  It read DANGUR.

  I felt sick & dizzy when I saw what lay beyond it. A gaping black hole about six feet wide that seemed to me the very mouth of Satan.

  Ledger Sheet 42

  I WENT CAUTIOUSLY to the lip of the Pit & looked down. It was so deep that I could not see the bottom. I caught a whiff of alkali & remembered that Ma Evangeline had also told me that some shafts dropped down to rivers of boiling water running through the mountain. That is why it is so hot down here. There is a river of boiling water running beneath Virginia City.