Shotgun Mine

by Jim Heskett

  “Yep,” Molly said, nodding. “That sounds like the kind of magic it took me until my thirties to figure out. But you were good at it from a young age.”

  He felt himself blushing, maybe just a little. “I appreciate that, Molly Waffles.”

  Her phone dinged, and she checked it, her mouth moving silently as she read the words. “Uh oh. Carl—the guy who owns the shoe shop—said he saw Keegan going up the pass in someone else’s car. Didn’t look like a voluntary visit.”

  Layne sat up, eying Molly. “Back seat?”

  “Yep.”

  “Recently?”

  “This text says five minutes ago.”

  Layne stood and yanked his jacket from the back of the chair. “Let me guess: they were headed up the pass toward the East Mine.”

  “Yep.”

  “Let’s go.”

  27

  The street toward the East Mine started as all the major streets did in the area, paved. Then it turned to gravel and then flattened dirt with a thin layer of ice.

  Molly Waffles drove, and she slowed once they’d reached the ice part. Layne kept low in the back seat, since he didn’t want to turn Molly’s car into a target. He popped his head up every couple minutes, but he mostly relied on his driver to keep control of the situation. With most people, relinquishing control would make Layne nervous, but Molly Waffles Version 2.0 seemed to have her head on straight.

  What an asset she would have been to the team. He could have used her on the Singapore operation, or during the chaos of the Mexico City mission. But the life of a spy and assassin wasn’t for everyone. It had also turned out to not be for Layne Parrish, either.

  A minute later, they reached the pass turnoff toward the mine. And Layne spotted the black SUV as soon as they turned into it. Layne saw two men near the truck. Both young, both white, but their faces were obscured as they were leaning into the back of the truck to fiddle with something in the bed.

  “You know these two?” Layne asked.

  “Can’t tell.”

  “Tourists? Hikers?”

  She shook her head. “Could be.”

  But it didn’t matter. Molly stopped the car a hundred feet away, and instead of a welcoming committee, both of the two men near the truck started firing. Layne pushed open the back door of Molly’s car and rolled out, then he scooted around the back. He looked up to see Molly join him there.

  In the TV shows, the heroes always used doorframes or other silly and ineffective things as bullet shields. A car was better, but not by much; any bullet could punch right through. But it was either this or take their chances out in the open.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Molly asked.

  Layne only said the word, “Disciples,” as he leaned around the edge of the car. He lifted his P320 and fired off a couple of shots toward the black car. A barrage of bullets came back. The gunfire pinged off metal and broke glass, showering them with glittery shards.

  “Son of a bitch!” Molly Waffles said, roaring as she shucked glass from her shoulders. “I just paid this car off.”

  Layne listened to bullets puncture the hood and deflate one of the front tires. He tried to lean around for a few more shots, but their enemies were sending a steady stream. Too dangerous for Layne to expose any part of his body.

  From out of nowhere, the bullets stopped. The sounds of the mountain returned immediately: a mild breeze jiggling the limbs of trees. The hardier winter birds chirped their songs.

  Layne popped up, locked his arm, and gazed down the sight.

  But it was too late. The SUV opposite them was already in motion. It ground its wheels for a second, then launched. Layne couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but he could have sworn he met a pair of familiar eyes as the SUV sped away.

  “New Mexico plates?” she said. “Who was that?”

  “License was fake,” Layne said.

  “How do you know?”

  He pointed at the cloud of dust and gravel as the car sped into town. “You could see the plates were old, but the screws were shiny and brand new. Fake plates.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Training. I’ve been trained to spot fake plates.”

  Molly Waffles shook her head. “Who are you, Mr. Layne Parrish?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said as he checked the nearby snowy fields for avalanche danger. The snow on the angled surfaces seemed stable. All that gunfire could have easily triggered something, but they seemed safe, for now.

  “Was Keegan in that car?” Molly asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Layne turned his attention to the mine as a pang of doubt soured his stomach. “He’s probably down there.”

  They trudged toward the mine entrance, and began their descent into the scree-filled tunnel. A minute down, Layne noted a separate hole leading down, to the left. He pointed at it. “What’s that?”

  “That’s an old ventilation shaft. Usually, they're straight down, but they built this one at an angle.”

  “Is it safe?”

  Molly raised an eyebrow. “No, it’s not. What have you got in your head, Layne?”

  “What makes it not safe?”

  “The angle, for one. It maybe doesn’t look that steep, but it’s steeper than you’d think. I’ve heard of people trying to use this to access the mine and instead sliding right to their stupid deaths. It doesn’t look stable to me. Even if you make it down, the first level of the mine is a deathtrap.”

  Layne pointed at the collapsed stairs, leaving them no way to descend into the first level of tunnels. “Well, that’s not stable at all, so if this is even a little better…”

  “Fine,” Molly said. “But if we fall into some dark cave and drown, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Fair enough, Molly Waffles.”

  They headed into the ventilation shaft, and Layne spread his arms and legs to brace himself as he slid down. This allowed him to control his pace. Molly had been right; this thing was steep. If it were snowing, the slickness would probably send him down like a bullet.

  But after a couple minutes of steadily trudging down, Layne’s feet splashed into an icy puddle. Quiet and dark.

  He was in a small space, and when he flicked on his flashlight, he saw an unobstructed tunnel leading off to his right. A few seconds later, his partner joined him. Molly had an easier time, since her man-made arm had the gripping power of ten regular hands.

  Layne could feel the chill from the outside at his back, and the warmer mine air in front. They both leaned against the cold wall of the mountain’s interior to catch their breath.

  “That was easier than I thought it would be.” Molly said. "We might have slid past the first level. If that's true, we're past the worst of it."

  "You didn't know the shaft went all the way down here?"

  She pushed out her lower lip and shook her head. "I had no idea. Like I said, a good number of the people who come down here don't come back. Technically, what we're doing right now is illegal."

  “I'll turn myself in to Sherrif Bob when this is all over," Layne said with a hint of a grin. "Because if the Disciples know about that shortcut, then maybe they really are moving things in and out of here.”

  “Maybe so,” Molly said as she shined her light down the tunnel. It seemed solid enough, so they continued to explore. They marched along, slow and deliberate.

  “I don’t think we’re going to like what we find down here,” Molly said.

  Layne flexed his jaw. “Probably not.”

  A couple minutes later, Layne spotted a hole to the side, and he shined his flashlight on it and looked at Molly Waffles with raised eyebrows. She shrugged with her free hand and Layne turned through the hole.

  And they found themselves in a wider tunnel. The wooden beam supports looked newer, built within the last few years. While Layne still saw old mine paraphernalia everywhere, this place had definitely seen action recently.

  "Here we go," Layne said.

  Five mi
nutes later, Layne found the lifeless body of his old high school best friend, slumped on the dusty floor next to a crate. His throat had been slashed, and the blood had gone cold, but it still felt wet. His fingernails were missing.

  And one of his fingers had been cut off.

  Layne dropped to one knee and plucked a bloody thumbnail from the ground. “Sick bastards…”

  And also, Layne noted a power cable running along the floor. It disappeared down into the blackness. He would have to come back for that. Now that he knew the safe side way in and out of this mine, it would make exploration a lot easier.

  Molly stumbled back a step, then her flashlight turned off. Layne started, then he settled down when he realized what was happening. Molly was crying, and she didn’t want Layne to see her.

  He ignored her unspoken plea and stood so he could wrap his arms around her. She let him. For the first time in a quarter century, Layne held Molly Waffles while she sobbed. He stood there for a full minute as she did, saying nothing, letting her lean into him as he supported her weight.

  Eventually, she slipped out of his grip and wiped her eyes. “This is too much. It’s too much.”

  “I know.”

  “Keegan was a good man. He didn’t deserve this. After everything that guy's been through, he deserved a better end than this. It's not dignified. Not at all. Not one bit.”

  “I know.”

  Now she met his eyes, bleary, red, and wet. “What do we do?”

  “Let’s go find the people who did it.”

  28

  Shotgun Mayor Winnie Caldwell hadn’t taken her meds today. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if she had taken her meds yesterday, either. The answers were in that plastic box in the cabinet in her office, but she couldn’t muster the motivation to cross the room to check.

  Part of her didn’t want to know. The meds turned her into a subtitled version of herself, or like a video game version of herself. As if she had a game controller in her hands on the couch as she watched herself go through the day. Winnie would press buttons and point the controller’s sticks, and sometimes her character would obey, sometimes not. The whole time, she would feel disconnected and unaffected by the events her avatar experienced.

  But, off her meds, she felt like a rock star. The highs, the lows, all of it intense and real and exactly what living was supposed to be about. She could feel creative again, maybe. For a little while, at least, until the chemicals in her brain caught up with all that living, and she would come crashing back down to reality.

  Usually.

  Okay, honestly, it always happened, but Winnie thought she might have an idea to beat her brain this time: conscious medication dosing. If she could only take the meds when she felt herself slipping, maybe it would be enough to make her feel more alive, while not sapping her creativity.

  Maybe.

  She spied the hallway before she left to use the bathroom. Most of the city hall staff had gone home early. Her assistant Jordan Beckett was nowhere to be found, and she was as drunk as a skunk in the middle of the day.

  She checked the hall again. No one. She skidded across the hall and into the bathroom where she almost tripped trying to unzip her skirt.

  She made it onto the toilet without killing herself, then she settled in for a few moments of quiet.

  When she was done Winnie stumbled out of the bathroom and saw the mail sitting on the floor in front of the entrance. She needed to talk to the post office about that. Dropping the mail through a slot in the front door had to end. She was the mayor, after all, so she shouldn’t have to bend over daily to pick up all the junk.

  “Mayor, mayor, meer, meow-er, meow,” she said, giggling to herself as she grabbed the mail.

  But the letter on top killed her smile in an instant. The newest missive from the lawyers of the Colorado Western Slope Big Cat Sanctuary. Given the size, there were more documents to sign, more complex legal pages to pour through. At the end of that road would be more pain and heartache.

  “Relentless assholes,” she said, twisting the letter in her hands. How much more blood could they squeeze from this stone? How much longer until the sanctuary just ate the town and crapped out bodies?

  Would Shotgun file for bankruptcy? Would the sanctuary’s owners stand on the hill north of town to watch the residents pack up and leave?

  There had to be a way.

  She’d heard a rumor that one of the cats had escaped yesterday. One of the more rare ones, like a lynx or a leopard. Maybe somehow Winnie could bend that to her advantage? Could she demonstrate that the sanctuary was a danger to the town?

  It wouldn’t work. There would never be any proof of a cat escape, and she felt sure their coached employees and doctored security tape logs would back that up.

  She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to launch such an investigation, either.

  Winnie needed to get her head straight. She needed to get sober to deal with all the heartache coming. She needed to think clearly so she could manage the inevitable death of her town.

  Or maybe she could still do something about it. Standing in front of city hall’s main door, she looked back toward her office. Toward the .38 Special in her desk. Her heart thumped at the possibility that had existed in the dark recesses of her mind for weeks now. At the option that seemed less and less unlikely, every day the town’s struggles persisted.

  Before she could ponder it any further, the door to city hall opened. Her eyes instinctively checked herself from head to toe, where she noted a small piece of toilet paper clinging to the back of her right wedge pump.

  And standing in front of her was George Parrish, panting, looking winded. The sun setting behind him cast a purple glow across one of the town’s longest-standing residents.

  “Mr. Parrish?” she said, and it came out sounding like she doubted his existence. "I wasn't aware of an appointment."

  He nodded. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure, George. I got a couple minutes for you. What about?”

  “I’m here to give my confession.”

  29

  Six black trucks drove north out of Shotgun as the morning light finally crested the eastern peak. The growling machines skulked along the icy roads, midnight and chrome and menace on twenty-four rolling wheels.

  This was unusual for several reasons. One of which was that Jordan Beckett had never hosted so many of the Disciples’ Denver soldiers here in Shotgun. It was both an honor and a nerve-wracking exercise, because so much was on the line.

  And commanding a group of these men—many of them older than Beckett—was where most of the nerve-wracking originated. These strangers were Disciples, so they allegedly shared a common cause. But Beckett knew well about the segmentation and fractures within the Disciples of the True America’s belief system.

  These men would respect might and confidence, which were unfortunately two of the easiest qualities to let slip.

  It helped him to think of these men as bullets in his gun. If he thought of them not as living, breathing people with hopes and desires, he could use them. He could turn them into tools.

  The notion terrified him, but it was also exactly what he’d wanted. Now he had to deliver.

  Beckett trailed the rest of the caravan, and he was driving alone. He’d positioned himself at the back because Layne and Molly Waffles had shot up his car yesterday at the mine. So, he didn’t want a bullet-riddled SUV to be the first car to turn into the Big Cat Sanctuary lot.

  If he and Roscoe hadn’t been taken by surprise, that encounter would’ve gone much differently. He was lucky Layne hadn’t seen his face.

  They had returned from the mine to retrieve the chemicals from the truck to dissolve Keegan Swiney’s body. But then Layne had appeared and they’d had to flee, leaving Keegan behind. By now, Layne Parrish probably knew about Keegan, which Beckett didn’t like.

  Layne probably also had learned how to bypass the dangerous first floor via the ventilation shaft. Not good. Mistakes lik
e that one would cost Beckett the war.

  At least he’d been able to go back late last night and deal with the body. That could’ve been disastrous.

  Also, Beckett had driven alone because of the phone call he knew he had to make. He had been telling his bosses that he needed the extra men to squash little problems that had piled up. But now, with the phone up to his ear, he had just now finished explaining the depth of the situation, and the level of interference from Layne Parrish. He’d spilled most of the story, except for the parts that made him look bad.

  Beckett stopped talking as he reminded himself to keep a foot on the gas pedal. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s everything from the last four days.”

  Now, he paused, waiting to see if the boss had bought his explanation.

  The man on the other end of the line had a name, but Beckett didn’t know it. The voice was grim and gravelly, and he assumed he was talking to a man in his forties or fifties. Could be anybody, though. He had only known this disembodied voice as “the boss.”

  “I see,” the boss said. “We thought you would be able to handle all the complications in town. But, instead of a progress report, you’re giving me a lack-of-progress report. This isn’t what I wanted to hear this morning.”

  “I know. I’m working on it. It’s in motion, but we need to scrape all these barnacles off the hull so we don’t have as much resistance.” He paused to swallow the lump in his throat. “I can do this. We’re on our way to handle one of those barnacles right now: the Big Cat Sanctuary.”

  “That doesn’t concern us. We’re only interested in the methamphetamine operation in the mine. Everything else is noise.”

  “I understand, and I’m not trying to drown you in noise. I’m just trying to explain why, despite these setbacks, we’re still on the right track. There’s still so much power to seize here. These mountains still have value.”

  He thought for a second to mention Shotgun Mine, but he had so far kept it to himself. Would the promise of treasure make his boss stop short and listen, or would he dismiss it as legend, as so many others had done?