“Horace,” Briny said, “show him where to go. I’ll stay here and stall Storm.”
Horace jumped to obey. “Follow me,” he said to Booker, and led him through the storeroom to the back door. Down three steps to the ground, it was only about five yards to the opening of the caves, hidden behind a thicket of small firs. Just inside the dark opening, Horace stooped to pick up a lantern and lit it. The lantern light revealed a limestone chamber about the size of a spacious living room, with a seven-foot ceiling. At the back of the room, there were two dark openings. “Here,” Horace said, handing Booker the lantern. “There’s two tunnels leading off from this cave. The one on the left goes to another cave about half the size of this one. The one on the right can take you outside again, but it gets kinda tight before you get out. You have to crawl on your hands and knees for the last ten or twelve yards. Briny says it was dug by them trappers for an escape tunnel if the Injuns attacked ’em.” He stepped back then and waited for Booker to enter the cave.
While Booker was making up his mind on how far he wanted to crawl back up under the cliff, Jason climbed the front steps to the porch. Slowly placing one foot after the other, he held his rifle ready to fire, trying to keep a close watch on the window and the door. His arrival already announced by the dog, he tried to be ready for the ambush he felt was bound to come. He reached the top step and still there was no sudden gunfire. So far, so good, but he wondered if he should have tried the back of the building instead of presenting himself at the front door.
Once he was on the porch, he moved quickly to flatten himself against the wall between the window and the door, and listened. There was no sound of any kind coming from inside, which made him even more leery of ambush. Sliding closer to the corner of the window, he peered inside. The dingy glass was almost opaque, but he could see the old man sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace. From his angle, he could not see anyone else in the room. Maybe I was wrong about the horse, he thought. Maybe it ain’t the same one. More likely I ain’t wrong and I’m about to get my ass shot off. Even with uncertain thoughts, he went to the door, and with the muzzle of his rifle pushed it slightly ajar, enough to see the end of the room opposite the fireplace. There was no one else in the saloon.
He pushed the door open wide, glancing in the crack as he did to make sure no one was standing behind it. Watching his cautious entrance, Briny curled one corner of his lips in a half smile. “Well, if it ain’t Jason Storm, come back to visit ol’ Briny. What brings you back so soon?”
Jason was about to answer, but jerked his rifle back up in quick reaction to the sudden opening of the back door. A second later, Horace started through, only to recoil in a sudden stop when he saw the rifle leveled at him. “Whoa!” Briny exclaimed. “Don’t shoot the hired help!” When Jason lowered the rifle again, Briny commented, “Danged if you ain’t jumpy as hell tonight. You lookin’ for somebody?”
In no mood to play games, Jason replied in a firm tone. “Where are they, Briny?”
“Who?” Briny asked.
“You know damn well, who,” Jason answered. “Mace Cantrell and the dark-haired fellow he’s ridin’ with.”
“Why, hell,” Briny replied, “that pair of outlaws? Haven’t seen ’em.”
“He’s done gone,” Horace volunteered, trying to help his employer in his lie.
“That a fact?” Jason said, reasonably sure that there was only one of them to worry about, thanks to the ever-reliable Horace. “Where’d he go? He didn’t take his horse.”
Irritated by his employee’s blunder, Briny insisted, “They ain’t been here.” He shot Horace a blistering glance that was caustic enough to silence the simple man.
Judging by Horace’s reaction, Jason felt sure the outlaw was still there, which gave him cause to position himself where he could watch the window and the door he had just come in. Looking again to the reliable Horace, he asked, “It wasn’t Cantrell, was it? It was that other fellow that rode with him.”
“Shut up, Horace,” Briny warned before the confused man could answer. Looking directly at Jason, he said, “There ain’t nobody here that you’re lookin’ for, so why don’t you just go on your way and leave honest folks alone?”
Jason couldn’t help but smile at the old crook’s comment. He was getting nowhere just standing there jawing with Briny, and he assumed that Booker had decided to run instead of ambushing him, so it was a question now of cornering him before he had an opportunity to get very far. He directed his question at Horace again. Nodding toward the door Horace had just come in, he demanded, “What’s in there?” It was asked with such authority that Horace replied at once that it was the storeroom. “Open the door,” Jason ordered. “Wide.” He brought his rifle up ready to fire. There was no one in the room.
Seeing another door that led to the outside, he crossed the room and opened it, careful lest he might find Booker waiting for him to come out. There was nothing beyond the door but an outhouse and a small shed, and no sign of Booker or anyone else. He glanced at the corral and noticed that the big gray that Booker rode was still there. He was still here somewhere, but evidently not lying in wait to ambush him. “I told you he ain’t here,” Briny said, standing in the doorway behind him.
“If he’s gone,” Jason said, “he ran off without his horse.” Noticing the faint trace of a path in the thicket before the cliff, he asked, “What’s behind there?”
“Nothin’ but a cliff,” Briny replied.
Trying to support his boss’ claim, Horace chimed in. “There ain’t no caves or nothin’.”
Certain now where Booker was hiding, Jason pulled a low branch aside and entered the thicket, leaving Briny behind to castigate his simpleminded employee. After walking only a few yards, he found himself before the opening to the cave. He had to stop to think about what he was getting ready to do. Walking into that dark hole might be the last steps he would take. Not ready to commit suicide, he turned around and returned to the back door. “I’ve got a job for you, Horace,” he said. “I saw a lantern inside the door. Get it and light it.” Horace looked toward Briny for help. “Never mind Briny,” Jason ordered. “Do what I told you.”
“He don’t have to do nothin’ you tell him,” Briny spat.
“If he doesn’t,” Jason threatened, “I might have to shoot you.” Playing on the simple man’s loyalty to his boss, Jason leveled his rifle at Briny’s belly. The move had the desired effect.
“Don’t shoot!” Horace wailed. “I’ll get it!”
In a couple of minutes, Horace returned with the lantern. “I couldn’t let him shoot you,” he said to Briny as he edged past in the door.
“You damn dummy,” Briny growled. “He wouldn’ta shot me.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Jason said. Then motioning with his rifle, he ordered, “Bring that lantern. We’re gonna take a look in that cave.”
Following dutifully, Horace brought the lantern to the edge of the thicket, where Jason stopped to wait for him. “All right, you go ahead of me now and go in the cave.” Just as he suspected, Horace balked and held the lantern out to him, reluctant to walk into the dark opening exposing himself in the bright lantern light. “You ain’t as dumb as I thought,” Jason said. Once again the simple man had given him information inadvertently. “Go on up to the mouth and yell out your name. Tell him it’s you that’s comin’ in. He won’t shoot you.”
Inside the cave, sitting with his spine pressed tight against the back wall of the large chamber, Booker cursed under his breath when he heard the conversation between Horace and Jason. Waiting in the thick darkness for Jason to be silhouetted in the mouth of the cave, Booker realized that his advantage was gone. The idiot that worked for Briny would light up the whole chamber and there would be no cover from Storm’s rifle. To make matters worse, after sitting in total darkness for so long, he wouldn’t be able to see until his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.
No longer pleased with the odds, he had no choice but to escape. R
eaching toward the dull glow of his lantern, he turned up the wick enough to light his way, and scrambled through the opening at the back of the cave. Horace had told him that this was the opening that led to an escape tunnel. He desperately hoped the idiot had not told him wrong.
Back in the large room, Horace blurted a relieved announcement. “There ain’t nobody here.”
Right behind him, Jason quickly scanned the room, ready to fire if necessary. Seeing the two openings at the rear of the cave, he asked, “Where do they go?”
Still reluctant to answer, Horace replied, “I don’t know.” “The hell you don’t,” Jason shot back, fearing that he was losing too much time. “Where’s that one go?” he demanded pointing to the one on the left.
“Nowhere,” Horace replied. When Jason pointed to the other one, he said, “Little ol’ tunnel—goes a ways.”
While that exchange of words was going on, Booker was stumbling up a tunnel that was getting more and more cramped. Already he was running in a crouch to keep from knocking his hat off on the ceiling. With the wick turned down, the lantern afforded barely enough light to keep from tripping on the rough floor. Breathing heavily, he stopped when he came to a solid rock wall where the trappers had been forced to turn sharply to the right. Concerned that the tunnel was getting even tighter, he decided that the spot might be a good place to stop running and wait for Storm to come up the tunnel after him. Turning his lantern down as low as it would go without killing the flame, he positioned himself flat on the tunnel floor, using the corner as cover. Then he waited, straining to listen for sounds of pursuit, watching for the appearance of a lantern.
“You can go now,” Jason told Horace. “Just leave the lantern here in the main cave.” Already eager to leave, Horace immediately obeyed. After he had gone, Jason entered the tunnel without the lantern and began to feel his way along the wall in the pitch black of the narrow passage. In a short time, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, but not to the point of actually being able to see ahead of him. Slowly he inched his way along the cold, dark walls, pausing to listen every few feet.
A couple dozen yards ahead of him, Booker waited impatiently. Where was Storm? He had thought he heard some sound of movement, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe Storm wasn’t even coming after him. He shifted his body around, trying to position his rifle a little more past the corner.
Behind him in the blackness, Jason was sure he had caught the sound of gravel not far ahead, and he knew he was crawling into an ambush. Determined to draw Booker out, he decided it was going to take a highly risky ploy on his part. He was a big man and the tunnel was getting tighter by the foot. Combined with the meager flow of air, he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the situation. I must be crazy, he thought, but it’s time to get something started. Feeling along the wall, he lowered himself to lie flat. Then pulling his rifle up ahead of him, he fired one shot into the darkness before him. As soon as he pulled the trigger, he rolled over to the other side of the tunnel. Almost immediately, he saw the muzzle flashes from Booker’s answering shots. Cranking out shot after shot as fast as he could, Jason emptied the magazine, aiming at the muzzle flashes. Caught in the corner of the right-angle turn of the tunnel, Booker found himself in the midst of a lead hailstorm as Jason’s shots ricocheted off the stone wall, flying all around him like a swarm of angry wasps. Doing his best to scramble away from the deadly tempest, he was struck in the arm, causing him to yelp with pain as the bullet ripped into his biceps. “Damn you,” he growled under his breath and picked up his lantern with the wounded arm. With his rifle in the other hand, he retreated farther up the tunnel, hoping to find a better place to take cover.
With his light turned almost out, he could not see very well, and was suddenly jolted when he ran into a blank wall. Damn you, you dumb son of a bitch, he thought, his profanity aimed at Horace, who had told him this tunnel was a way out of the mountain. Frantic, he turned the lantern up enough to see around him, and was immediately relieved to discover an even smaller opening by his right foot. Bigger at one time, the opening had become smaller because of settlement and loose dirt that had dropped from the ceiling. But it had been braced by two short timbers with a bulkhead across them. Now, by God, he thought, his throbbing biceps demanding retaliation, this place will make a good tomb for a deputy marshal. Dropping to his knees, he turned around, backed into the mouth of the smaller tunnel, and readied himself to give the deputy a warm welcome.
Being as careful as he could manage not to make a sound, Jason reached the sharp turn in the tunnel without drawing any more fire. If I ever get out of this damn grave, he thought, I ain’t ever going underground again. Crawling on all fours, he continued along the black passageway until something caught his eye that stopped him cold. At first he thought it was a firefly, then told himself it couldn’t be. He realized that it was the glow of Booker’s lantern.
Once again, he pulled his rifle up and, aiming at the tiny point of light, fired a couple of shots, hoping for luck. The slugs embedded themselves in the soft dirt and sandstone wall above Booker’s head. Booker returned fire that sent bullets ripping into the wall a few feet in front of Jason. Jason soon figured out that neither man had a proper angle to hit his target unless he continued farther up the tunnel or Booker moved forward from the small tunnel’s mouth. They were at a standoff.
After a few more shots were fired, both men realized the fix they were in. Booker immediately saw it as his advantage and couldn’t resist taunting the ex-deputy marshal. “I’m right here, Storm. Why don’t you come on up the tunnel a little way and we’ll talk it over? You oughta feel right at home crawlin’ around in that tunnel like a rat in a rathole.” After a few moments when Jason didn’t answer, he had a new idea. Taking hold of one of the timbers that supported the bulkhead, he found it to be fairly rotted through. He gave it a jerk, and it moved slightly. He looked back behind him to discover a faint light filtering into the tunnel. Horace had not lied. It had to be the opening out of the mountain. The light was moonlight. Booker almost chuckled with his delight. He slid back a foot or two. Then intent upon closing the door behind him, he tugged at the timber until it gave way and dropped one side of the bulkhead. Encouraged with the results, he grabbed the other one and pulled with all the strength he could muster. Finally it came loose with a low grinding sound as the weight of the mountain collapsed the opening, blocking it. “So long, sucker,” he gloated. “Sorry I can’t hang around any longer.” He turned then, stopped for a moment by a heavy rumble as the small tunnel collapsed upon itself, burying him in the mountain.
Back in the lower part of the tunnel, Jason hugged the floor and covered his head with his arms when the mountain seemed to settle upon itself, dropping small rocks and dirt clods around him. It lasted for only a moment and then all was deadly quiet again. For that one lengthy moment, he thought it was the end of the line for Jason Storm, but after quiet was restored, he realized he was in no danger. Booker, however, was not so lucky. Jason had heard him scream when the second of the two cave-ins occurred, but there was nothing after. He had no idea what had caused the collapse of the tunnel, but he felt reasonably certain that the mountain had claimed Booker’s life.
Retracing his steps carefully along the dark passage, he made his way back to the main cave, fumbling in the darkness until he finally saw the welcome glow of the lantern. Once in the outer cave, he stood up straight and stretched to relieve his cramped back muscles. But it was not until he walked out of the cave into the cool night air that he felt comfortable again. Waiting for him outside the entrance, Briny and Horace seemed genuinely surprised to see him again. “Sorry to disappoint you, boys,” Jason greeted them, “but you’re too late for the funeral. He’s already buried.” Just to be sure, however, there was one more place he wanted to check. Looking at Horace, he said, “Come on, let’s take a look at where that tunnel comes out.”
Without thinking, Horace immediately turned and started through the trees away from the corral. “Dammit,
Horace!” Briny blurted. “Who the hell do you work for? Him or me? Let him find the damn openin’ himself.” Horace stopped at once, realizing that he was again abetting the enemy. Jason grinned at Briny as he walked past and continued in the direction Horace had indicated.
He knew that the opening to the escape tunnel could not be very far—the tunnel couldn’t be that long. Holding the lantern before him, he searched along the foot of the cliff. The exit was partially hidden by laurel bushes but not that hard to find. Jason held the lantern close to the ground to see if he could find any footprints. He could not. Still wanting to be certain, he entered the tunnel, holding his light before him. He walked no more than fifteen feet before coming to a solid wall of dirt and rock. It was all the confirmation needed that Booker had perished. Jason found it ironic that the outlaw had died by accident, killed by the mountain. He would never know that it was actually an unintentional suicide—Booker had pulled the mountain down on himself.
Chapter 16
Jason lifted the corner of his bandage to examine his wound. It was not healing as rapidly as he would have hoped. The reason was no mystery to him. It was difficult to argue with Roseanna’s lecturing that he had to rest it. And his recent scrambling through the caves back at Briny Bowen’s trading post had served to aggravate it. Looking at it now, he was irritated to notice the red, swollen appearance. There’ll be time for it to heal after the job’s done, he thought—the job being the capture or killing of Mace Cantrell.
Sitting by his campfire on the Jefferson River, he poked up the coals heating his coffee as he thoughtfully chewed on a piece of beef jerky. He had to admit to himself that he had no real idea where in hell Cantrell might be. He had decided to remain close to Briny’s place for a day or two to watch for the possible appearance of Cantrell, thinking that the two outlaws may have planned to meet there. Now, three days after Booker’s burial in the tunnel, Jason was strongly considering giving up the chase. It’s a hell of a big country, he thought. The odds are pretty damn high against ever running him to ground without some notion where to look. That thought was discouraging, but he had to admit that the mental picture of Roseanna waiting for him to return was exerting an even stronger incentive to call off his hunt. It was getting along toward late summer, and there was a lot of work he was neglecting back on Blind Woman Creek. And there was Roseanna. Sometimes he wondered if perhaps he had misunderstood her. But it would be hard to misinterpret her proposal—words so clear and direct. I’m a damn fool running around lost, a two-day ride away from probably the only woman who would have me.
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