“I want all five covered by a half-dollar!” the rancher snarled. “That’s the standard Reece Brabazon set, Cato, and that’s the standard we’ll meet!”
Cato sighed. “Okay. I’ll take a grain of powder out of each cartridge. That ought to do it without knocking more than a couple of foot/pounds off the energy and velocity. But you’re splitting hairs, Dekker.”
“I deliver what I promise!” Then he grinned abruptly. “But I’m pleased, Cato. You may yet live to see your Governor Dukes killed with a bullet you have loaded, fired from a gun you have built.” He laughed harshly. “Be kind of ironic, won’t it? Dukes killed by one of his top men ... ! Oh, don’t look so surprised, Cato. I’ve known all along who you and Bannerman were. Enforcers. Dukes’ top Enforcers!”
“Then what the hell was all this about?” Cato asked, stunned by Dekker’s admission.
“Burrell had spoken of you, what a top gunsmith you were,” Dekker said. “In fact, he said the only other man capable of making this gun the way I wanted it was you. As soon as he realized I had an assassination in mind, he refused to work on it any more. I lost my temper with him and shot him dead.”
“Smart,” Cato said sardonically.
“Yeah. But I figured it wasn't any real problem. Burrell had told me about you. All I had to do was get you here. So I imported those six gunmen into Rifle Ridge and spread the word that they were gathering, aiming to make trouble for Dukes’ official visit. I knew he’d send in his top men to clear Rifle Ridge out, and that meant Bannerman—and you. All I had to do then was get you out here. As you know, I succeeded. I didn’t really need Bannerman, but I thought he might be useful as some sort of lever on you should you refuse to work on the weapon, like Burrell.”
Cato, face grim, nodded slowly. “Okay. You’ve got your gun, just about the way you wanted it. But why the hell d’you want to kill Dukes? He’s the best governor this state has ever had or is likely to have.”
Dekker looked really mad for an instant. “Like hell he is!” he snarled. “Some folk might think that way, but not me! Not after that acreage tax he slapped on me ... Me! With fifty thousand acres! It’ll take all my ready capital and then some. I’ll have to mortgage. Take out a note with the bank on land I’ve fought for for years, held against all-comers, land I own, lock, stock and barrel!”
“Hell, almighty, man, that’s exactly why Dukes is coming here! Apart from the celebrations, he wants to hear from anyone who can’t manage the tax bill. He aims to compromise with you, help you! And you want to kill him!”
Dekker leaned close, his eyes hot and crazy. “I will kill him, Cato! And I’ll be standing close to him when Reece Brabazon puts the bullet into him from this very gun, the one you made! I’ll be standing close enough to see the bullet strike and watch Dukes die, kickin’ out his life right at my feet ... ! And that’ll make it all worthwhile. Everything!”
Cato’s mouth was tight, his eyes slitted as he turned and looked down at the gun glinting in the early morning sunshine. Dekker leaned down and picked up the weapon, hefting it, fondling it as he turned it over and over in his hands. “I’ll keep this now. You get on with loading some cartridges and we’ll give it another test.” His voice hardened. “And this time the five shots had better be covered by a half-dollar! Savvy?”
Cato said nothing.
Chapter Nine – Only One Way
Yancey had been wrong. The wooden rails did not lead him to freedom. At least, not directly.
He had staggered down and around and up, following them along the tunnel, legs rubbery, weary as all get-out, ready to drop. The mist of light he had seen had been coming around a bend in the tunnel and the ground had begun to climb slightly at this stage. He had been sure that he would come to open country. But the tunnel had merely leveled off and, though the light source was closer and stronger, there was no tunnel opening in sight. He had weaved his way on, using the walls for support now, bouncing from one to the other, he had so little control over his tortured muscles.
Then he had arrived at the end of the rails. They finished at an ore-dumper. At the bottom of a shaft.
The disappointment hit him like a sledge hammer and his legs simply folded up and he sat down heavily on the ground with a groan. He leaned his head back against the earthen wall.
Next thing he knew, he was starting out of a sleep with a choked yell, sitting up with a jerk, staring wild-eyed, heart pounding, breath rasping in his throat. He had been having some kind of a nightmare and it took a half-minute or so for the memory to pass and for him to orientate himself again. Man, did he ache! He had never known there were so many muscles and tendons in the human body. Every nerve-end seemed to be raw and screaming. His fingers were tender, reddened and torn. But he was alive, even if he was at the bottom of a mine shaft.
Bright, strong sunlight poured down the shaft now and he could smell sage on the breeze that came through into the tunnel. He got to his feet and stumbled to the ore-dumper, a huge iron drum, rusted and pitted now, resting at an odd angle on a set of bogey wheels that had been made to fit the wooden rails. He guessed that the miners pushed the ore trucks along the tunnel, tipped the load into this drum, which was then hauled to the top of the shaft, by a winch. It would have to be driven by a steam donkey-engine, to haul up this drum full of ore.
Squinting against the sunlight and catching a glimpse of white clouds scudding across a pale blue sky, Yancey saw the rusted steel cables dangling down the shaft from the remains of the winch high above. He shaded his eyes, stepped back a little and tried to estimate the depth of the shaft and reckoned it was all of forty feet. Well, that was sure high, but, at least it was thirty feet less than the original shaft Dekker’s crew had dropped him into.
Yancey climbed to the top of the rusted drum, his boots going through one rusted section as he clambered up onto the thick, riveted rim. Up here, he was another six feet closer to the top. The cables were fixed to an iron handle across the mouth of the drum, with heavy, rust-pitted shackles. Some of the wires had busted loose from the cable and he reckoned it would be the same all the way up. A man’s hands would be shredded before he had climbed ten feet. He pulled out his shirt, ripped it off and tore it into strips. He wrapped it around his hands and then gripped the cable, heaving down, tugging several times, finally lifting his legs off the rim and throwing all his weight on it. The cable held. He hoped it was fixed as solidly to the winch drum above as it was to the ore drum handle. There was no other way out that he could see.
Yancey didn’t know if his arms would take the strain but he sure wouldn’t get out by staying where he was. He had to do something. And climbing that cable seemed to be the only thing he could do. Yancey started up right away, gasping as the rusted, jutting pieces of wire scraped his body as he swung in against the cable. Others pricked his legs as he wrapped them around the wire rope, boots pushing and slipping. It was going to be a long, slow climb and if his muscles couldn’t hold out, he would have to let go and the only way was down.
He managed ten feet and had to rest. Looking up, he could see how far he had to go, so he looked down and told himself to think about how far he had come. Body and legs scratched, bleeding in some places, he started up again, aching muscles screaming for rest. He made another six feet and the cable had some slack here and he began to turn slowly with it. There was nothing he could do to stop the movement; the cable wanted to spin slowly under his weight and he just had to hang on and twist with it. Then the motion carried him into the shadow of one of the walls and, for the first time, he wasn’t looking up at the glare at the top of the shaft. He could make out individual rocks and shoring timbers on the walls. He could make out the entrance to another tunnel at this level! It ran off on the opposite side of the shaft to the one he had found his way through. Likely it had been the first one dug and worked, then they had gone deeper in their continuing search for gold. But—he couldn’t believe it. He actually blinked his eyes, rubbed them awkwardly against his upper arms, and tu
rned his body so that he swung with the cable back into the deepest part of the wall’s shadow.
Running up the dark wall was a ladder. The bottom rung was not three feet above his head.
Yancey didn’t even stop to consider if it was sound or not. His muscles were cramping and he was beginning to slide very slowly down. He heaved up and stepped away from the cable, hooking a boot over the bottom rung. Because of the cable’s slack it moved back away from the ladder and he was suspended there at an odd, almost horizontal angle, desperately holding on. Then he made a mighty effort, arched his body and thrust with his arms against the cable and heaved upright and forward, letting go the wire rope and snatching at the ladder. Just as his hands closed over the wood he thought about rotting timber ...
But the wood was solid, of heavy beams that had been bolted together, not just nailed. He hooked an arm through a rung and hung there, sweating forehead pressed against the rung above, boots planted firmly. After a while he tilted his head back. The ladder ran all the way to the top of the shaft. Wearily, before his muscles gave out completely, Yancey started the long climb up to the sunlight.
~*~
Cato was left mostly alone in the gunshop now. No one, including the guards, wanted to be very close while he was loading the cartridges, working with cans of black powder and weighing out the quantities. The guards were there, but they were away from the hut, behind rocks, watching, but at a distance.
Inside, Cato worked at his brass scales, using a copper ladle and funnel to pour the grains of gunpowder into the brass cases he had already prepared with primers seated in place. He worked on a table draped with calico, well away from any of the workbenches with iron or steel tools on it. There was always a chance that steel or iron could be dropped and strike a spark as they hit against another tool or the stone floor. And one spark would be one too many in this place.
He was wearing canvas slippers over his boots and the door and windows were closed to avoid draughts. The scales were finely balanced and he weighed out the required amount of powder accurately. The normal every-day load would be twenty-eight grains, with the heavy 128 grain bullet. But these copper-jacketed slugs were lighter, more elongated, and so their ballistics were altogether different to the ponderous, blunt-nosed missiles of the normal six-gun. Out on the range, he had tried twenty-six grains of powder but it was too much, sent the bullets flying wide. Even their passage through the cardboard target had sent the first lot ricocheting dangerously. So, next he had dropped it back to twenty-four, then twenty-three. It was almost right now and he took it down one more grain and loaded a dozen cartridges with this amount, afterwards using the press he had devised from the wooden-jawed vice to seat the bullets into the cases.
He took some of the powder and looked at the flat, oval grains. It was slow-burning, and uneven: it would be many years yet before gunpowder was refined to absolute reliability and with total, fast-burning properties. But Cato knew what was required to make his powder burn better, faster, generate more gases. He took a square of fine-meshed brass wire and poured a small mound of powder into its centre. Using a fingertip, he rubbed gently, forcing it through the screen, breaking up the tiny flat ovals into more uniform grains. He screened maybe a couple of ounces in this way.
Then he took some brass cartridge cases that were as yet unprimed. He moved to the other bench, picked up a fine steel probe and slightly widened the primer hole in the base around the miniature anvil against which the primer cap would be forced by the gun’s hammer. With a wider flash-hole there would be more chance that the powder would ignite instantly. He took a dowel and wooden hammer and forced the dowel into the cartridge cases, flaring the ends slightly, straining the brass. Then he rolled them on a slab of marble under a flat piece of wood until they took on their original shape again. But, if a man looked closely, he would see fine, hairline cracks and fractures in the metal where the bullet would seat.
Next, he took the screened powder and weighed out a quantity. It was thirty-five grains and it almost completely filled the weakened cartridge case. He tipped out a little then seated the bullet home, crimping the brass in close against the copper jacket. In the bright sunlight coming through the window it took him almost half a minute to find the first hairline crack.
Satisfied, Cato returned to the loading bench and set the cartridge aside from the previous ones he had loaded. Whistling softly, he began weighing out more of the finely-screened powder in thirty-three grain lots.
~*~
Yancey knew he must still be on Circle D land. He hadn’t travelled far enough underground for him to have cleared Dekker’s boundaries. That meant more dangers and hazards to watch out for before he could get to a telegraph and send a warning to Governor Dukes.
Cato would have to take his chances back at the ranch-house. The important thing now that Yancey was out in the open air once more, was to get a message off to prevent the governor visiting Rifle Ridge. He could send it in code so no one who handled the telegraph would get the real meaning, and he wanted the governor to send a stand-in so they might catch Dekker and his crew at the assassination attempt.
First, he had to get clear of Dekker’s land and find himself a horse to get into Rifle Ridge and the telegraph station.
After climbing out of the shaft, Yancey had sprawled exhausted in the long grass around the shaft, lying there unmoving for an hour. He let ants and small lizards crawl across him, licking at the beads of sweat, the crusts of dried blood from his many minor wounds. He was even too tired to flinch his muscles when the ants nibbled at his flesh. Slowly, the ache drained away, not completely, but at least the muscles seemed to unknot themselves. The grass was so long that dew was still caught in the lower portions and he licked these, sucking at the stalks, slaking his roaring thirst. There was nothing he could see that would help ease his hunger as yet, and he staggered upright, looked around, took his bearings from the sun and headed north and slightly west.
He was in the middle of a large pasture, grass near waist-high, and his greatest fear was that he might step on a sleeping snake. Consequently, he kept looking down as he moved and maybe that was how he missed seeing the guard on the ridge, right on the Circle D line.
Yancey pushed on through the grass, figuring that when he made it over that ridge he would get off Circle D and that would be one less worry. Getting a horse and a gun of some sort would be the next thing, but those were things he figured he could handle when the time came. He stopped, breathing hard, tilting his head to see how far he had yet to go. Then he caught the movement of a rider running his mount through the timber, coming down the slope into the grassy pasture.
Yancey’s first impulse was to drop flat but he figured he had already been spotted and this was why the guard was racing down here. He looked around quickly. No use going ahead right now and he sure didn’t aim to go back. That meant left or right.
To the right, the ground fell away, down towards a boulder-shot slope that would offer little protection for a man afoot. Left, there was sparse timber that gradually thickened as it climbed a slope, but the rider was slightly to his left and could cut across that way and be on him almost as fast as if he kept to his present course. Left or right? There was more cover to the left; that’s what it came down to. It might be chancy trying to reach it but, if he managed it, he would stand a good chance of getting away.
He veered left sharply, doubled over, and forcing his aching legs to drive him forward in a run. The guard spotted him instantly and changed course, angling down to cut him off from the timber. Yancey staggered on, stumbling over something in the grass and almost falling. He put down his hands and pushed upright again, running a zigzag course, knowing he wasn’t going to make it to the trees before the rider rode him down. He was too weak, too tuckered-out. The horseman came riding in fast, the man unsheathing a rifle from the scabbard, levering in a shell, but making no attempt to fire. He was going to have himself a little fun, Yancey figured: the man was going to keep Yancey
on the run, making him go in circles, chasing him all over the countryside, running the legs off him and, when Yancey could run no more, he would ride in, put him down under the horse and finish him with a single, well-placed shot.
Well, Yancey didn’t intend to be anyone’s plaything. He had taken enough from Dekker and his crew so far on this assignment and it was going to end here: right here. Yancey spotted something a few feet ahead in the grass: a fallen tree. He let out a yell, stumbled over it and sprawled headlong. He lay still, making no attempt to rise.
The rider was Red Kinsey, the man Dekker had made go down the shaft on the rope and check to see what had happened to Yancey. He had reported that Yancey was buried under a cave-in, but now he recognized his quarry, or had done when Yancey was up and running, and he knew he had to get the Enforcer this time. His idea was to run Yancey down and kill him, then take his body back to that old shaft and dump him down there. That way, Dekker need never know he had been mistaken about Yancey being buried under that rock-fall. Dekker didn’t like mistakes, even those that were later corrected, and Red figured he had to correct this one pronto.
Damn it, what had happened to Yancey now? The man had fallen as he had a dozen times before during the chase but this time he hadn’t gotten up. Red Kinsey wasn’t about to believe that Yancey had run out of steam yet. He had been weakened and staggering, sure, but Kinsey had judged he was good for another mile or so of fun. Standing in the stirrups, Kinsey saw part of the dead tree that Yancey had fallen over and he frowned. Hell! Looked like the fun was at an end. He must’ve fallen and hit his head when he had tripped over the log. Kinsey was disappointed. He had been looking forward to riding Yancey down and stomping his horse all over him before putting a final bullet into him, but now ...
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