Reluctantly, he let her go, and stood, stepping over the rocks, and moving to the wall.
“But I’m not a patient man.”
He began climbing up the wall. The explosion had loosened one slab, and a few smaller stones that could have crushed Julia and Dooley had they fallen a few feet closer. He moved with a purpose now, climbing up, bracing himself against the wall and the ceiling. He stuck his head through the largest of the air pockets.
Dooley Monahan began to dig.
Twenty minutes later, Julia was beside him. Determination chiseled into their faces, they worked with their hands and fingers, clawing, digging, wrenching out rocks and pebbles, even bits of silver and maybe even some copper. They did not speak. They barely glanced at each other. All they did was dig, dig, dig.
The moon had passed, though, so the only light filtering through the much larger hole now came from the stars. They kept digging. Dooley began to see clearly. The sky took shape. Despite the burning in his eyes from dirt, sweat, and grime, he could make out the forms of trees on the top of the hill. Dawn was approaching when they had managed to scrape out a hole big enough for Julia to be boosted through.
“Go,” Dooley told her. “Quickly. Get to town.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she countered.
“I’ll be fine. I don’t want Miller to get away.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she belted out again, and began clawing the dirt once more.
Dooley started to curse, thought better of it, and he worked from the inside as Julia dug from the outside.
A circus had stopped in Iowa one year, and Dooley remembered the contortionist, or whatever she was called. That’s what Dooley felt like as he squeezed his shoulder this way, craned his neck that way, moved his arm, and sucked in his belly. He felt Julia’s mud-caked, bleeding, scarred fingers clawing at his shirt and tugging. Dooley grunted, cursed, groaned, and finally pushed himself through the opening. He felt as though half of the roof now resided inside his trousers, but he had no time to worry about such inconveniences.
He stared at the sky, breathed in the fresh morning air of the Colorado Rockies. They were out, safe, and then he heard the maniacal laughter. Dooley rose.
George Miller stood against a pine, holding a pistol in his right hand.
“You thought I’d just leave you here?” He stepped away from the tree and thumbed back the hammer. “You think I’m crazy? A fool? I just wanted you to think you had a chance.”
Dooley came to his feet and stepped in front of Julia, shielding her body with his.
“Noble,” Miller said. “But pointless. I’m going to kill you both.”
Dooley tried to think of what he could do, looked on the dirt for some type of weapon. A rock he could throw, but all he saw were pine needles and pinecones. He’d have to charge, survive the bullets sure to strike him, give Julia a chance to run. And maybe he would have enough strength to break that criminal’s neck before he died.
Just as Dooley broke into a run, a voice sounded off to his left.
“Miller!”
Charging with desperation, Dooley saw Miller turn, shift his gunsight down the incline, and then heard the roar of a rifle. Dooley stopped running and watched, uncomprehending, as George Miller was lifted off his feet and slammed against a tree trunk, then crumpled at the base and did not move, did not breathe, just died.
“Julia!”
Butch Sweeney climbed the hill, pitched the rifle aside, and Dooley felt something brush past him. He saw Julia running and leaping into Butch Sweeney’s arms.
Dooley blinked. Sometimes, he could be a wee bit dense, especially this early in the morning, but not today.
Julia, he told himself, loves Butch. Not you.
He thought about that for a moment, and suddenly smiled. That was fine. Mighty fine.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Two weeks later, Dooley Monahan rode out of Leadville a wealthy man. Maybe not as wealthy as he could have been, or should have been. He had given the mine to the schoolmistress. Butch and Julia refused to take it, and Dooley had had enough of being a man of means.
He leaned over the saddle and shook the hands of the Leadville Ledger editor, of Mr. Adam Wolfe, and of both bank presidents. He smiled at Butch, and thought that marshal’s badge looked fitting on his pard’s vest. He tipped his hat at Julia, who wore black. She was a widow, and she’d be respectful right now. For a while. Then she and Butch would live happily ever after.
So would Dooley.
“We wish you would stay, Dooley,” the mayor said. “Leadville won’t be the same without you, sir.”
Dooley smiled. “It’ll be a whole lot quieter.”
“What you did for Miss Monroe,” the editor said, “giving her the mine, that was the most generous thing I’ve ever heard of. She will use the funds for an orphanage, a school, a hospital. Leadville will live on, sir, as will your memory, even if the silver boom ends.”
Dooley looked around. “I’ve got all I need,” he said, and he knew it to be true. He had the best horse under his saddle, and a fine dog waiting patiently, ready to ride on, ride on.
All those years, Dooley had wanted to hit a mining town, strike it rich, but now he knew that he was rich. He had always been rich.
He straightened in the saddle, gave Butch and Julia a final nod, and rode out of town with Blue jogging along contentedly at his side.
There was no hurry in him. He rode south along the Arkansas River, climbing down out of the high country, through Buena Vista and Salida, and happened to be in Cañon City just as the prison wagon arrived with former deputy marshal Richard Blue in leg irons attached to a heavy ball that the corrupt man had to carry as he walked to the gate of the state prison. Blue had been arrested in Breckenridge, tried quickly, and sentenced to ten years. Paul Pinkerton had left the Denver Telegram for a new job at the San Francisco Daily Caller, turning down offers, according to the Telegram, from newspapers in Chicago, New York, and even London.
Dooley left the river in Pueblo and followed the wagon road south through Walsenburg and into Trinidad, where he tried his hand at a few games of poker, but didn’t find the paste cards satisfying anymore. So he rode west, through the mountain passes, and into the western part of Colorado. Good country, he thought, where cattle could graze in the valleys in winter and the high country in summer. When he saw smoke, he smiled and turned off the little road to follow a path to a ranch. The bunkhouse and the main house weren’t fancy, just roughhewn logs, but the barn was sturdy and he liked how the horses in the corral looked.
The door to the bunkhouse opened, and a man stuffed a muslin shirt inside his britches and stepped off the porch and to the ground. He was a wiry man, with a thick mustache, and a face bronzed from wind and sun.
“You ridin’ the grub line?” the man asked. “Or lookin’ fer work?”
“Food’d be welcome,” Dooley said. “But a job would be better.”
The foreman nodded. “That’s a good dog you got with you, son, and I like the look of that horse, too. We pay thirty a month and found. Happens that an ol’ boy decided he wanted to try minin’ and up and lit out for Leadville. So I’ve got a job for a good cowboy, as long as he ain’t got no interest in gamblin’ and minin’.”
“I’m a cowboy,” Dooley said, and swung off General Grant and held out his hand. “The name’s Monahan. Dooley Monahan.”
This would determine everything, he knew. If the man knew of Dooley’s reputation, he would tell him to eat and ride on. Instead, the man shook Dooley’s hand.
“You look like a cowboy, son. My name’s Dawson. Bitter Bob Dawson. Welcome to the Lazy Nine.”
Blue barked a contented bark, and wagged his tail.
As Dooley led General Grant to the corral, he knew he had found his place in the world. For now, at least. Until he got the urge again to see something new. To drift, with Blue and his bay gelding. Riding North. East. South.
But most likely . . . West.
Keep
reading for a special preview of . . .
The First Mountain Man
PREACHER’S KILL
A fur trapper by trade, Preacher can smell a bad deal from any direction, no matter how well it’s disguised. It wasn’t always that way—he’s got the scars to prove it. Now he’s ready to pass on his deadly survival skills to a boy named Hawk, who just might be his son . . .
Preacher and Hawk ride out of the Rockies and into St. Louis loaded with furs. It’s Hawk’s first trip to civilization, and the moment he lays eyes on young Chessie Dayton he’s lost in more ways than one. When Chessie unwisely signs on for a gold-hungry expedition into the lawless mountains,
Hawk convinces Preacher to trail the outfit, because they’re all headed straight to the sacred Indian grounds known as the Black Hills—a land of no return. To come out of it alive, a lot of people will have to die. And Preacher’s going to need a heap of bullets for this journey into hell . . .
Available now wherever Pinnacle Books are sold!
CHAPTER ONE
A rifle ball hummed past Preacher’s head, missing him by a foot. At the same time he heard the boom of the shot from the top of a wooded hill fifty yards away. He kicked his feet free of the stirrups and dived out of the saddle.
Even before he hit the ground, he yelled to Hawk, “Get down!”
His half-Absaroka son had the same sort of hair-trigger, lightning-fast reflexes Preacher did. He leaped from his pony and landed beside the trail just a split second after the mountain man did. A second shot from the hilltop kicked up dust at Hawk’s side as he rolled.
Preacher had already come up on one knee. His long-barreled flintlock rifle was in his hand when he launched off the rangy gray stallion’s back. Now, as he spotted a spurt of powder smoke at the top of the hill where the ambushers lurked, he brought the rifle to his shoulder in one smooth motion, earing back the hammer as he did so.
The weapon kicked hard against his shoulder as he fired.
Instinctively, he had aimed just above the gush of dark gray smoke. Without waiting to see the result of his shot, he powered to his feet and raced toward a shallow gully ten yards away. It wouldn’t offer much protection, but it was better than nothing.
As he ran, he felt as much as heard another rifle ball pass close to his ear, disturbing the air. Those fellas up there on the hill weren’t bad shots.
But anybody who had in mind ambushing him had ought to be a damned good shot, because trying to kill Preacher but leaving him alive was a hell of a bad mistake.
Before this ruckus was over, he intended to show those varmints just how bad a mistake it was.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Hawk sprinting into a clump of scrubby trees. That was the closest cover to the youngster. Hawk had his rifle, too, and as Preacher dived into the gully, he wasn’t surprised to hear the long gun roar.
He rolled onto his side so he could get to his shot pouch and powder horn. Reloading wasn’t easy without exposing himself to more gunfire from the hilltop, but this wasn’t the first tight spot Preacher had been in.
When he had the flintlock loaded, primed, and ready to go, he wriggled like a snake to his left. The gully ran for twenty yards in that direction before it petered out. Preacher didn’t want to stick his head up in the same place where he had gone to ground. He wanted the ambushers to have to watch for him.
That way, maybe they’d be looking somewhere else when he made his next move.
No more shots rang out while Preacher was crawling along the shallow depression in the earth. He didn’t believe for a second that the men on the hill had given up, though. They were just waiting for him to show himself.
Over in the trees, Hawk fired again. A rifle blast answered him immediately. Preacher took that as a good time to make his play. He lifted himself onto his knees and spotted a flicker of movement in the trees atop the hill. More than likely, somebody up there was trying to reload.
Preacher put a stop to that by drilling the son of a buck. A rifle flew in the air and a man rolled out of the trees, thrashing and kicking. That commotion lasted only a couple of seconds before he went still . . . the stillness of death.
That luckless fella wasn’t the only one. Preacher saw a motionless leg sticking out from some brush. That was the area where he had placed his first shot, he recalled. From the looks of that leg, he had scored with that one, too.
Were there any more would-be killers up there? No one shot at Preacher as he ducked down again. The mountain man reloaded once more, then called to Hawk, “You see any more of ’em movin’ around up there, boy?”
“No,” Hawk replied. Preacher recalled too late that he didn’t much cotton to being called “boy.” But he was near twenty years younger than Preacher and his son, to boot, so that was what he was going to be called from time to time.
“Well, lay low for a spell longer just in case they’re playin’ possum.”
Now that Preacher had a chance to look around, he saw that his horse, the latest in a series of similar animals he called only Horse, had trotted off down the trail with Hawk’s mount and the pack mule they had loaded down with beaver pelts. The big wolflike cur known as Dog was with them, standing guard, although that wasn’t really necessary. If anybody other than Preacher or Hawk tried to corral him, Horse would kick them to pieces. But Horse and Dog were fast friends, and Dog wouldn’t desert his trail partner unless ordered to do so.
That was what Preacher did now, whistling to get Dog’s attention and then motioning for the cur to hunt. Dog took off like a gray streak, circling to get around behind the hill. He knew as well as Preacher did where the threat lay.
Preacher and Hawk stayed under cover for several minutes. Then Dog emerged from the trees on the hilltop and sat down with his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. Preacher knew that meant no more danger lurked up there. He had bet his life on Dog’s abilities too many times in the past to doubt them now.
“It’s all right,” he called to Hawk. “Let’s go take a look at those skunks.”
“Why?” Hawk asked as he stepped out of the trees. “They will not be anyone I know. I have never been in . . . what would you say? These parts? I have never been in these parts before.”
“Well, they might be somebody I know,” Preacher said. “I’ve made a few enemies in my time, you know.”
Hawk snorted as if to say that was quite an understatement.
“What about the horses?” he asked.
“Horse ain’t goin’ anywhere without me and Dog, and that pony of yours will stay with him. So will the mule.”
Taking his usual long-legged strides, Preacher started toward the hill.
As he walked, he looked around for any other signs of impending trouble. The grassy landscape was wide open and apparently empty. Two hundred yards to the south, the Missouri River flowed eastward, flanked by plains and stretches of low, rolling hills. Preacher didn’t see any birds or small animals moving around. The earlier gunfire had spooked them, and it would be a few more minutes before they resumed their normal routine. The animals were more wary than Preacher, probably because they didn’t carry guns and couldn’t fight back like the mountain man could.
“Since you ain’t gonna recognize either of those carcasses, as you pointed out your own self, you keep an eye out while I check ’em.”
Hawk responded with a curt nod. Preacher left him gazing around narrow-eyed and strode up the hill.
The man who had fallen down the slope and wound up in the open lay on his back. His left arm was flung straight out. His right was at his side, and the fingers of that hand were still dug into the dirt from the spasms that had shaken him as he died. He wore buckskin trousers, a rough homespun shirt, and high-topped moccasins. His hair was long and greasy, his lean cheeks and jaw covered with dark stubble. There were thousands of men on the frontier who didn’t look significantly different.
What set him apart was the big, bloody hole in his right side. Preacher could tell from the location of the w
ound that the ball had bored on into the man’s lungs and torn them apart, so he had spent a few agonizing moments drowning in his own blood. Not as bad as being gut-shot, but still a rough way to go.
Remembering how close a couple of those shots had come to his head, and how the ambushers had almost killed his son, too, Preacher wasn’t inclined to feel much sympathy for the dead man. As far as he could recall, he had never seen the fellow before.
The one lying in the brush under the trees at the top of the hill was stockier and had a short, rust-colored beard. Preacher’s swiftly fired shot had caught him just below that beard, shattering his breastbone and probably severing his spine, too. He was dead as could be, like his partner.
But unlike the other man, Preacher had a feeling he had seen this one before. He couldn’t say where or when, nor could he put a name to the round face, but maybe it would come to him later. St. Louis was a big town, one of the biggest Preacher had ever seen, and he had been there plenty of times over the years. Chances were he had run into Redbeard there.
Now that he had confirmed the two men were dead and no longer a threat, he looked around to see if they’d had any companions. His keen eyes picked up footprints left by both men, but no others. Preacher crossed the hilltop and found two horses tied to saplings on the opposite slope. He pulled the reins loose and led the animals back over the crest. Hawk stood at the bottom of the hill, peering around alertly.
Preacher took a good look at his son as he approached the young man. Hawk That Soars. That was what his mother had named him. She was called Bird in a Tree, a beautiful young Absaroka woman Preacher had spent a winter with, two decades earlier. Hawk was the result of the time Preacher and Birdie had shared, and even though Preacher had been unaware of the boy’s existence until recently, he felt a surge of pride when he regarded his offspring.
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