by Jake Logan
“You could get lost in here,” Slocum said. “Real easy.”
“And men get lost in these mountains all the time,” Wally said. “Some are never found until someone comes across their skeletons.”
“I’ve been in such places before,” Slocum said.
Finally, Wally slowed his pace and leaned over toward Slocum to whisper what was on his mind.
“See all those big boulders?” he asked.
Slocum nodded.
“We’re getting close. Damned close.”
“Just let me know when you spot Cordwainer’s cabin. I don’t want to ride up there and get shot out of the saddle.”
“I will. He’ll have a lookout sitting or standing atop one of those big boulders. “He’ll probably see us before we get a good look at him.”
“Remember to let me do the talking, Wally.”
“It’s your call, John. I do trust you.”
“Good,” Slocum said.
A little later, Wally whispered, “We’re getting damned close. Should see the lookout pretty soon.”
Wally reined his horse up and kept him at a very slow walk. Slocum did the same.
They slipped through the pines and spruce, angling through shafts of sunlight that danced with dust motes, their horses’ hooves stepping on dried pine needles that shone like amber jewels.
Slocum’s hand went to his belt buckle and he tucked in his shirt, pushing something behind it from one position to another. Wally caught the movement and looked at Slocum hard for a long second.
“Get a wood tick, John?” he asked.
“Belly gun. I just want it right behind my buckle so it doesn’t show.”
“A belly gun? What for? What kind is it?”
“It’s a Remington .38. And it’s just in case.”
“In case of what?” Wally asked.
Slocum shrugged and assumed an air of nonchalance.
“Sometimes, when you least expect it, someone will get the drop on you. You can’t draw your sidearm. So if that happens, you might be able to reach down and get the belly gun and turn the tables on your attacker.”
“Well, I damned sure hope that doesn’t happen when we come to getting Abby away from Cordwainer.”
“I hope so, too,” Slocum said.
A few moments later, Wally pointed to a jumble of rocks, large boulders that seemed to have been piled up in a heap by some giant force.
“There’s Bud Rafferty,” he said. “One of Cordwainer’s men. Sittin’ atop that boulder yonder. And he’s lookin’ straight at us.”
Slocum craned his neck and looked through the trees. There was a man whose head was turned in their direction. As they watched, he put a pair of binoculars to his eyes.
“He’s spotted us, I think,” Wally said.
“No doubt.”
Slocum raised a hand and pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket. Then he stood up in the stirrups, drew his knife, and cut a small limb from one of the pines. He shaved off the little branches and tied the handkerchief to the slender end.
“You goin’ to surrender, John?” Wally asked.
“This might tell them that I come in peace.” Slocum waved the makeshift flag and grinned. “I’ll be lying, of course,” he said.
They rode through the trees and halted their horses just short of the nearest pile of boulders.
“You there,” Slocum called. “We’ve come to see Jess Cordwainer. Just to talk. We don’t want any trouble.”
Bud stood up and looked down at Cordwainer.
“Let ’em come in, but every one of you draw your pistols or point your rifles at both men, and if either of them so much as twitches, you blow ’em clean out of their saddles.”
“Yeah, boss,” Lou said as he drew his pistol. Pat drew his, too, and Bud raised his rifle to his shoulder.
“Come on in,” Bud called. “Real slow and keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
Both John and Wally raised their hands and spurred their horses onward at a slow walk.
John kept the handkerchief floating high over his head.
“You can drop the hanky, mister,” Bud said. “Ride right on in until I tell you to stop.”
Slocum dropped the stick with his handkerchief tied to it. He and Wally rode to a point where they could see Cordwainer holding a big .44 Remington to Abby’s head, and two men pointing pistols at them. Both pistols were cocked.
“That’s far enough,” Bud said after Cordwainer nodded to him.
“Well, well, well,” Cordwainer said. “What do we have here? Wally Newman and his gunny friend who’s wanted for murder. I suppose you know I hold all the cards in this deal.”
“We know,” Slocum said. “We want a new deck. We’ve come to bargain with you.”
Cordwainer looked surprised.
“Bargain with me?”
“That’s what I said, Cordwainer. You have Miss Abby, and Wally here has a producing gold mine. He’s willing to sign his mine over to you if you give us Abby.”
There was a long silence as Cordwainer stared at Slocum in disbelief.
“You serious, Newman?”
Wally just nodded. Slocum had asked him to keep quiet and that was what he was doing.
“He’s serious,” Slocum said. “His sister means more to him than all the gold in the world. If you turn her over to us, he’s going to draw you a map to his mine and he will sign off his claim to you. No strings. Straight deal.”
“Well, I’m damned sure interested in such a deal,” Cordwainer said.
“You give us Abby and you’ve got yourself a working gold mine,” Slocum said. “Lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Light down, then, one at a time. You first, Slocum and no tricky moves. Then you step down, Wally.”
Slocum dismounted.
“Drop your gun belt,” Cordwainer ordered.
Slocum unbuckled his cartridge belt and let his holster drop to the ground. He held both hands high.
“Now, Wally,” Cordwainer said, “you do the same. Real slow-like.”
Wally stepped out of his saddle. He unbuckled his gun belt and let the pistol touch the ground before he released the cartridge belt. He raised his hands.
“Come on inside, you two,” he said. “Lou, you and Pat keep your guns on them.”
Then Cordwainer pulled his pistol away, and eased the hammer down to half-cock and holstered the .44. He pushed Abby in front of him and entered the cabin.
All of them walked into the cabin’s front room. Cordwainer waved Wally and Slocum to the table and put Abby in a straight-backed chair a few feet away where he could keep an eye on her.
“Sit down, boys,” Cordwainer said. He pulled up a chair. “Lou, in that desk over there, you’ll find some sheet paper, an inkwell, and a quill pen. Bring ’em over to the table. Pat, you keep on eye on our three visitors. If either of these men so much as lift their asses up to fart, you shoot the gal first and then turn your gun on them two.”
“Right, boss,” Pat said.
Lou went to the small rolltop desk against the wall and opened a drawer. He took out several sheets of white paper, then lifted the ink bottle from its well and a quill pen from one of the cubbyholes. He brought them to the table and laid them in front of Cordwainer.
“You stand by the door, Lou, and keep an eye on Slocum, Newman, and Miss Abby.”
“Sure will, Jess,” Lou said. He stood by the open door and moved the barrel of his pistol back and forth between Abby, Wally, and Slocum.
“Now, then,” Cordwainer said, “where do you want to start? You want to draw me a map showin’ me where your mine is, or a paper transferrin’ ownership to your claim?”
Slocum nodded to Wally, indicating that he should answer Cordwainer.
“Whichever you prefer, Jess,” Wally said.
“Draw the map,” Cordwainer said. “Then I’ll tell you what to write.”
“Damned mine’s about petered out anyways,” Wally said as he dipped the pen into the ink bott
le.
Slocum kicked him under the table.
“What’s that?” Cordwainer said. “Are you lyin’ to me?”
“I reckon I was. I hate to lose that mine. I think we’re close to finding the mother lode. A few more feet. I’m into a rich vein and it keeps getting wider with every swing of the pick.”
Cordwainer’s face cracked in a wide smile.
“Your map better be right, Wally,” he said.
“It’s in a straight line from my cabin and the Ettinger mine,” Wally said. “Easy to find once you know where it is.”
“It better be,” Cordwainer said.
Slocum watched as Wally drew a crude map on one of the papers. He drew a square where his cabin was, then a line to his mine, and beyond, another square, which he labeled ETTINGER MINE.
Wally passed the map over to Cordwainer, sliding it across the pinewood table.
Cordwainer looked at it then slid another blank sheet over to Wally.
“I’ll tell you what to write, Wally,” he said. “Then you’ll sign the paper and my men will witness it.”
“I’m not signing a damned thing until you turn Abby over to Slocum here,” Wally said.
The room filled up with silence.
Even Slocum was surprised at what Wally said. He hadn’t expected it.
He looked at Wally and saw the steely look in his eyes as he stared at Cordwainer.
Cordwainer’s jaw hardened to granite and his eyes narrowed to cold slits.
Then he looked at Slocum, whose face was without expression.
“This your idea, Slocum?” Cordwainer asked.
Slocum shook his head.
“Well, it’s a piss-poor idea, Wally.”
“I’m not signing any paper until I know my sister is safe. And I trust my friend John Slocum. You hand her over and let them leave and then I’ll write out the terms and sign your damned paper.”
There was another silence. This was deeper and longer lasting than the first one.
Everyone in the room seemed frozen, immobile, as if they were wooden mannequins.
Then Cordwainer rose from his chair and pulled his pistol from its holster. He walked over to Abby, put the barrel up to her throat, and cocked the hammer back all the way.
Slocum glared at him, but was powerless to move. He had two guns on him and both Lou and Pat were as twitchy as a pair of nervous squirrels. They were just itching to blast him to pieces with their bullets.
The tension in the room was like a steel spring attached to a box of explosive powder. One false move from anyone could set it off and blow them all clean to hell.
24
Abby closed her eyes as she felt the icy iron of the gun barrel touch her throat. She squeezed both lids tight.
Slocum felt the volcano of his anger rising inside his gut, the first tremors in his lungs. He wanted to jump up, grab Cordwainer by the throat, and squeeze his neck until his spine cracked, his eyes bulged out, and blood squirted from his mouth and nose. Slocum’s green eyes flashed a viridian fire as he controlled his rage.
Then he reached out with his left hand and grabbed the blank piece of paper from under Wally’s pen poised like a dagger above it.
He crumpled the paper in his hands.
“You shoot Abby, Cordwainer, and you’ll never get anything from Wally Newman,” Slocum said. Each word was measured. Each word carried weight. Each word was filled with poisonous barbs.
Cordwainer blinked.
He opened his mouth as if to curse Slocum or say something in rebuttal, but no sound came out.
Instead, he swallowed hard and the pistol in his hand glided away from Abby’s throat.
Slocum heard the slide of the hammer as Cordwainer pulled it to half-cock. The converted Remington .44 looked like a dead sash weight in Cordwainer’s hands as he slid it back in his holster. He walked slowly back to the table, looked down at Slocum, his face contorted into lines and wrinkles until it looked like boiled mutton, steaming in a seething pot with flames licking the bottom.
Cordwainer sat down and picked up another sheet of paper, passed it to Wally.
“Write down my terms,” he said, “and I promise that all three of you will go free once you sign the mine over to me.”
“You won’t let Abby go now?” Wally said.
“That would be stupid of me,” Cordwainer said. “She’s my ace in the hole. My promise is good, I swear.”
Wally looked at Slocum.
“Go ahead, Wally,” Slocum said. “Write it all out but don’t sign it until Cordwainer actually hands Abby over to me.”
Wally looked across the table at Cordwainer.
“Go ahead, then, Jess. Tell me what you want me to write down. I guess I have to trust you, for my sister’s sake.”
“You damned sure do,” Cordwainer said.
He began to dictate the transfer of Wally’s mine to him.
“What’s the mine called in your claim?” he asked when he got to the pertinent clause.
“It’s called ‘The Lorelei,’ after my wife,” Wally said.
Abby stiffened in her chair at the mention of her brother’s dead wife.
No one saw her reaction except Slocum.
“All right, you hereby deed over to me, Jesse Cordwainer, all rights and title to The Lorelei Mine without encumbrances.”
Wally dipped the quill pen into the ink bottle and finished drafting the document. He shoved the paper over to Cordwainer, who spun it around and read it.
“Draw four lines at the bottom and put your name under one of them, my name under another, and the word ‘Witness’ under the other two.” He slid the sheet back to Wally.
Then he turned to look at Pat Morris.
“When we finish signing this, Pat,” he said, “you come over and sign as a witness.”
Then he looked at Lou.
“Jessup,” Cordwainer said, “after Pat signs, you come and sign the other witness line.”
Lou nodded in assent.
Wally drew the lines, four of them. They were fairly straight and he wrote under each one according to Cordwainer’s wishes.
“There,” he said, and signed his name.
Cordwainer took the paper and examined the signature of Wallace Newman. Then, with a wry smile, he signed his name. He blew the ink dry and held up the paper and waved it as if it were a fan.
Then he beckoned to Pat, who walked over and holstered his pistol. He flexed his arm and picked up the pen. He signed his name. His hand moved painfully slow as he looped the letters. Then he stepped back.
“That okay, boss?” he asked.
“You could get a job writing prescriptions for doctors, Pat,” Cordwainer said.
Then he looked at Jessup.
“Lou? Come here and sign this.”
Lou holstered his pistol and walked to the table.
He had a sheepish look on his face.
“I ain’t never learnt to write,” he told Cordwainer.
“You dumb sonofabitch,” Cordwainer said and waved him away.
He looked out through the open door.
“Bud,” he called, “can you write your damned name?”
Bud stepped up to the door, his rifle still in his hands.
“Sure, boss. I ain’t too good at it, but—”
“Then, get your fat ass in here and sign this here document. Put the rifle by the door.”
Bud came inside and leaned his rifle against the wall next to the door. He waddled over to the table.
“Where do you want me to sign?” he asked.
“That blank line down at the bottom,” Cordwainer said. “Bud, can you read?”
“Not too good,” he said, “but my ma taught me how to write my name.”
“Sign on that line. And don’t put no X there.”
Cordwainer put his index finger on the blank line, then took it away as Bud bent over to sign his name. He was left-handed.
As he bent over, his pistol was right next to Slocum’s face. He gave a si
delong glance at both Jessup and Morris. Both of their pistols were still in their holsters.
He would never have a better chance, Slocum thought.
Still, it was four against one, and both Wally and Abby were exposed and without any weapons for protection.
He would have to be fast. Faster than he had ever been.
And there was still one man on guard outside. He glanced through the door and saw the man climb to the top stone in the pile of boulders where Bud had been.
Bud began to write his name in a long lazy scrawl.
The butt of his pistol jutted from its holster so close that Slocum could smell the oil on the barrel. It was a converted Colt Navy, probably .36 caliber.
Now or never, he thought and his hand was a striking viper, lightning fast.
He jerked the Colt from the holster, and shoved Bud into Cordwainer. He cocked the pistol on the rise and shot Lou in the belly. Then he swung the pistol at Pat, who was pulling on his pistol. He shot him between the eyes.
Cordwainer flailed his arms under the weight of the heavyset Bud as Slocum rose up and cold-cocked Rafferty with the butt of the Navy, knocking him cold. Bud slumped down on Cordwainer, whose eyes were frantic.
Just then, they all heard a rifle shot from outside.
Slocum turned and looked up at the man on the rock. Blood streamed from his face as he toppled over and fell to the ground, his rifle rattling against the rocks.
Pat groaned in agony a few feet away, his belly gushing blood. Lou lay dead-eyed, a black hole in the center of his forehead.
Abby screamed in terror.
Wally scooted his chair back and ran to the door. He picked up Bud’s rifle, cocked it, and shot Pat in the throat. His moan wound up as a bloody gurgle.
Then they all heard hoofbeats outside.
Someone was riding up mighty fast.
Cordwainer shoved Bud off his chest and clawed for his pistol.
Time seemed to freeze that one moment for an eternity.
There was the smell of burnt powder, and wisps of smoke hung in the air like a fog over dank swamp waters with its floating dead.
25
The hoofbeats outside ceased abruptly.
Slocum cocked Bud’s Navy and fired point-blank at Cordwainer.
