The Last Gunfighter Hell Town

by Johnstone, William J.

  Strike. It was a word Frank didn’t want to hear. There had been miners’ strikes before, as well as strikes in other businesses, like the railroads. They nearly always led to violence. Back East, there had been riots and bombings connected with strikes. The business owners usually brought in armed men to break the backs of such work stoppages. The Pinkertons had come to specialize in such work. Because of that, these things were seldom if ever resolved in a peaceful manner.

  Folks usually had to die first before anything got done.

  Frank didn’t want to see that happen here. He liked Tip Woodford too much for that, and besides, it was his job to keep things as peaceful as possible.

  “I think you ought to try to talk to Woodford again,” he began, not knowing if it would do any good or not. “If you want, I’ll say something to him—”

  A sudden rumble from somewhere nearby interrupted Frank’s words. He felt a faint vibration in the floor under his feet and knew it couldn’t have come from anything good. Thunder sometimes sounded like that and shook the earth….

  But this wasn’t thunder.

  Fowler’s eyes widened with shock as the other miners bolted up from the bunks. The bearded man’s exclamation put into words what whey were all thinking.

  “Oh, my God! Cave-in!”

  Chapter 23

  Frank whirled around and headed for the doorway at a run. Fowler and the other miners were right behind him. They burst out of the barracks building and turned toward the mine entrance, where a cloud of dust boiled out of the dark mouth of the shaft.

  They weren’t the only ones who had heard the rumble and felt the earth shake. Anyone who had worked around mines for very long had experienced those sensations, and once experienced, they were never forgotten. Men came running out of the stamp mill and the office to stare toward the shaft with stricken looks on their faces. Someone began to ring an alarm bell.

  Frank ran toward the mine entrance. So did most of the other men.

  “Gib!” Fowler shouted. “My brother’s in there!”

  So were probably a dozen other men, maybe more. Although Frank was no expert on such things, it seemed to him that the cave-in must have occurred fairly close to the entrance for the dust to be coming out like that so soon after the collapse. Of course, there was no telling what might have happened deeper in the mine, but Frank’s hope was that even if the shaft was blocked, the tunnels were all right. In that case, they would have at least a chance to get any trapped men out of there before they ran out of air.

  The choking dust kept men from reaching the entrance right away. They tried to penetrate it but staggered back, coughing and hacking. Frank pulled a bandanna from his pocket and tied it over his mouth and nose like a bandit, then started forward into the dust. He took off his wide-brimmed hat and waved it back and forth in front of his face, trying to clear the air a little as he pressed ahead. He heard some of the other men following him, but didn’t look back.

  Blinded, eyes stinging from the dust, Frank knew he had reached the cave-in only when he ran into it. He barked his shins against something hard and stopped. Clapping his hat on, he reached out with his hands and felt a jumbled barrier of rock, dirt, and broken timbers. “Hello!” he shouted. “Anybody hear me?”

  No response came from the other side of the cave-in. Men crowded around Frank on this side. Fowler said, “We’ve got to get these rocks out of here and see how bad it is!”

  That made sense. Frank grasped a chunk of rock so big and heavy that he needed both hands to carry it. Turning, he stumbled under the weight and headed back toward the mouth of the shaft. The dust was beginning to thin a little, and now he could see that the cave-in was about thirty yards inside the shaft.

  As he emerged and dropped the rock to one side of the tunnel mouth, more men rushed past him carrying picks and shovels. A couple of men trundled wheelbarrows into the mine. The foreman Frank had spoken to earlier rushed up carrying a lantern.

  “What’s it look like in there?” he asked.

  Frank shook his head. “Couldn’t tell. The dust was still too thick. Looks like it’s clearing out now, though.”

  The foreman nodded. “That’s a good sign. You can tell there’s some air blowing out of the mine. That means the shaft isn’t sealed off completely. There have to be some little openings somewhere, and the ventilation holes deeper in the mine are supplying air.”

  “You’re saying the men trapped down there will be able to breathe?”

  The foreman nodded. “Yeah. Anybody who wasn’t caught in the collapsed area and killed by falling rock ought to be all right. We’ll have them dug out before they can die of starvation.”

  “What about water?”

  “There are water barrels down in the tunnels. They can make it for a day or two, if it takes that long.”

  Frank felt a sense of relief wash through him. Although they wouldn’t know for sure until they cleared away the cave-in, it appeared that this accident could have been a lot worse than it was turning out to be.

  But that didn’t mean there was no danger. Men could have been crushed when the roof of the shaft collapsed. Others could have been hurt badly enough to need medical attention as soon as possible. It was still imperative that they reach the trapped miners just as quickly as they could.

  He followed the foreman with the lantern into the shaft. All the lamps along the walls had been blown out by the gust of air caused by the collapse of the ceiling. Dust motes danced thickly in the yellow glow as the foreman approached the site of the cave-in.

  Frank could see the barrier now that he had only felt earlier. It was a tumbled mess formed mostly of rock. With the practiced swings of men who had been using picks for years, several of the miners chipped away at the barricade, loosening chunks of rock so that other men could pick them up and carry them out or pile them in the wheelbarrows to be hauled out later. The foreman didn’t have to issue orders. The miners were already doing what needed to be done.

  The men worked in silence for the most part, the only noise being grunts of effort and the chinking impact of picks against stone. But after a while, Red Mike Fowler began to curse bitterly and said, “This never would’ve happened if Woodford had listened to us. We told him this mine wasn’t safe! Now my brother’s trapped in there, or maybe dead already!”

  Some of the other men muttered agreement with Fowler’s complaints. The foreman spoke up, saying, “Damn it, that’s not true! There was no reason for this shaft to collapse. The timbers were in fine shape, and the rock was stable!”

  Fowler swung his pick with savage strength and drove it into a crack between two pieces of rock. “Yeah,” he said, “we can all see for ourselves just how safe it is!”

  Time didn’t mean much underground like this. Frank had no idea how long they had been working at clearing the blocked area. He knew he wouldn’t be much good with a pick, so he took over the job of using one of the wheelbarrows, rolling it toward the mouth of the shaft when it was full. His muscles strained against the weight of the rocks, and after several trips he was drenched with sweat.

  At last, an excited shout went up, filling the tunnel, and Frank knew that meant the rescuers had broken through the barrier. Everyone crowded forward to see as the air moving through the shaft from inside the mine picked up. The irregular opening that had been created was a small one, no more than a foot square, but that was enough for Mike Fowler to put his face up to it and shout, “Gib! Gib, can you hear me?”

  A voice answered faintly from the other side. “Mike! Is that you?”

  A triumphant cheer went up from the miners as they heard the proof that someone was still alive on the other side of the cave-in.

  “Yeah, it’s me!” Fowler called back. “Is everybody all right over there?”

  “Most of us,” Gib Fowler replied. “A couple of men were caught when the ceiling came down, but the rest of us weren’t hurt!” His voice cracked a little from the strain as he went on. “Are you gonna get us out of here?
”

  “Hang on!” his brother told him. “We’ll have you out of there in no time!”

  Actually it took another hour of hard, backbreaking labor before the hole was enlarged enough for Gib Fowler and the nine other miners with him to crawl through to safety. They were taken out into the sunlight and open air, which they greeted with gratitude.

  As Frank came out of the mine, he saw that Tip Woodford had arrived at the Lucky Lizard, summoned from the settlement along with his daughter Diana. They wore expressions of great concern that eased a bit when they saw the men who had been rescued. Woodford’s frown returned, though, as he counted the miners and said, “We’re two men short, aren’t we?”

  Mike Fowler turned toward him and said, “Damn right we are, Woodford! There are still two men in that mine, buried under tons of rock because of you!”

  Tip looked shocked at the accusation. Diana was surprised, too, but also angry. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “My father didn’t have anything to do with that cave-in!”

  “He had everything to do with it, little missy,” Fowler snapped. “All of those timbers that shored up the ceiling should have been replaced when the mine was opened up again, not just some of them.”

  “I inspected every one of those timbers myself. Most of ’em were fine,” Tip insisted. “We replaced all the ones that needed replacin’.”

  “That’s what you say now,” Fowler responded with a sneer. “You didn’t care if the shaft fell in on the poor miners you pay slave wages to! A couple of men get killed, you’ll just replace ’em with some other unlucky devils!”

  The miners’ mood was starting to turn ugly. From the edge of the crowd, Frank heard a lot of angry muttering. Tip looked confused and hurt and unsure of himself, and he moved closer to Diana and gripped her arm.

  “Go on in the office,” he told her. “You don’t need to be out here.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving. Somebody’s got to talk some sense into these men.”

  It wouldn’t be her, Frank thought. Tip was right—Diana needed to get inside one of the buildings where she would be safe in case trouble broke out. Three of Tip’s foremen were on hand, and Frank figured they would back their boss, but there were a couple of dozen angry, resentful miners crowding around them.

  It was time for him to step in.

  Raising his voice so he could be heard over the hubbub, Frank called in a powerful, commanding tone, “Everybody just settle down!”

  That brought a moment of surprised silence, but the respite didn’t last long. Mike Fowler said, “This is none of your business, Marshal. We ain’t in town! You’ve got no right to interfere.”

  “I’m making it my right,” Frank snapped. His right hand rested on the butt of his Colt. Men eyed him warily and began to move back. Everybody here knew that before pinning on the badge as marshal of Buckskin, Frank had been the famous gunfighter known as The Drifter.

  “This don’t have anything to do with you,” Red Mike insisted.

  “Tip Woodford’s my friend, and so is Miss Diana. If you think I’m going to stand by while they’re threatened, mister, you’re dead wrong.”

  “What are you gonna do, Morgan? Shoot all of us?”

  “No,” Frank said, “but I can damn sure shoot you if I need to.”

  Fowler’s face tensed and turned pale at the cold menace in Frank’s voice.

  “Tip,” Frank went on, “you and Diana both get out of here. Go on back to town.”

  “The Lucky Lizard is mine, blast it,” Tip said. “I’m as upset about what happened as anybody, but I still don’t think it was my fault.”

  “You just don’t give a damn about the people who work for you,” Fowler accused. “Well, we won’t work for you anymore, will we, boys? We’re on strike!”

  “Strike! Strike!” the other miners began chanting.

  Tip looked sick. “You can’t strike,” he said. “That’ll shut the mine down!”

  “That’s right,” Fowler said with an ugly grin. “We’re shuttin’ you down, Woodford. We won’t work for you again until you agree to meet all our demands!”

  “I…I’ll hire more men!” Tip shot back. Frank wished that he hadn’t. Under the circumstances, that was one of the worst things he could have said.

  “You try it and you’ll be sorry,” Fowler threatened. “So will anybody who tries to work for you.”

  One of the supervisors said, “We need to finish getting that shaft cleaned out….”

  “Clean it out yourself!” Fowler said. “Come on, boys. Back to the barracks!”

  With angry scowls and muttered, defiant curses, the miners tramped off toward the barracks building. “God,” Tip Woodford said. “What am I gonna do now?”

  Frank nodded toward the mine entrance. “I’m no expert, but I’d say you need to finish getting that shaft cleaned out, like this fella said, so you can see how bad the damage is.” Frank’s voice grew more solemn as he added, “And there are a couple of bodies in there that need to be gotten out too.”

  Tip sighed and nodded, then said, “You’re right. With only a handful of us, it ain’t gonna be an easy job. I won’t blame you fellas if you don’t want to stick.”

  The foremen looked at each other, then one of them said, “We signed on to do a job. We’ll do it.”

  “Let’s get to work then,” Tip said. “Frank, if you’d take Diana back to town—”

  “Town, hell,” she said. “I can handle a wheelbarrow.”

  “Now, blast it—”

  “Haven’t you learned by now, Pa, that you’re wasting your time arguing with me?”

  For the first time in quite a while, Frank felt like smiling. Diana Woodford was one stubborn young woman, living proof of the old saying about the apple not falling far from the tree.

  “All right,” Tip growled after a moment. “But when I tell you to get out of the tunnel, you get out, hear?”

  Frank knew what he was getting at. As they cleared away the debris from the cave-in, they were bound to come across the bodies of the two men who had been trapped in the collapse. Tip didn’t want his daughter to see that gruesome sight, and Frank couldn’t blame him for feeling that way.

  Diana must have understood what her father meant too, because she nodded and sounded uncommonly agreeable as she said, “Of course.”

  They all set to work. Mike and Gib Fowler watched them from the door of the barracks, but they didn’t try to interfere. Progress was slow with only a half-dozen people working now, but gradually Frank began to see that only about ten feet of the ceiling had collapsed. The two men who had been caught in the cave-in had just been unlucky. A few yards either way in the tunnel, and they would have been able to avoid being crushed.

  Tip Woodford had been swinging a pick, loosening the fallen rock, but he suddenly straightened from that task and said, “Go on out of here, girl.” His tone made it clear that he wouldn’t put up with any argument.

  Diana didn’t try to give him one. She just said, “All right,” and left the tunnel.

  “Here’s the first one of those fellas,” Tip said when she was gone. The men gathered around to remove the rocks from the body.

  Frank had seen plenty of gory sights in his life, but the body of an hombre crushed by tons of falling rock was right up there with the worst of them. One of the men went to a storage building and came back with some sheets of canvas. The mangled remains were taken from the rocks as carefully as possible and wrapped in the canvas. A few minutes later, they found the second body and accorded it the same respectful handling.

  “We’ll put them in one of the wagons and take them to town,” Tip said. “Reckon the coffins Langley makes will have to be closed at this funeral.”

  Frank nodded. Tip looked very upset, and Frank couldn’t blame him. Despite his insistence that the mine was safe, Tip had to be wondering if maybe, in some way, these two deaths were his fault.

  As the bodies were being carried out, something in the rubb
le caught Frank’s attention. He bent and pried it loose from the rocks that were piled around the object. It was part of one of the shoring timbers that had been holding up the ceiling before it collapsed. The jagged edge showed where it had snapped. Frank inspected it intently, holding it up and bringing his face close to it as he studied it in the light from the lantern.

  “Well, how about that?” he said in a soft voice, more to himself than to any of the others. They weren’t paying attention to him anyway. The men were all too upset and grieving over the deaths of the two miners.

  They would be even more upset if they knew what the broken piece of timber had told Frank.

  But he was going to keep that knowledge to himself for now, until he figured out what to do with it.

  Chapter 24

  It was well after nightfall before Frank got back to Buckskin. He rode straight to the office and tied Goldy at the hitch rail outside. When he came in, he found Clint Farnum behind the desk, leaning back in the chair with his booted feet propped on top of the desk.

  Clint sat up and said, “Sorry, Frank. Didn’t mean for you to catch me loafing.”

  Frank waved a hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Everything all right here in town?”

  “Yeah. I did the rounds a while ago, then came back here and sent Jack to get himself some supper. We heard about what happened out at the Lucky Lizard. One of the townspeople came by and said two bodies had been brought in, claimed they were men who’d been killed in a cave-in.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s right.”

  Clint stood up and came out from behind the desk so that Frank could sit down. “Better take it easy for a while,” Clint advised. “You look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet. I reckon digging out a collapsed mine tunnel must be pretty hard work.”

  Thinking about what they had found in that tunnel, Frank nodded and said, “Yeah. Really hard work.”

  “Why don’t I go over to the café and get the girls to fix up something for you to eat? I’ll bring it back here.”