Flames of silver, p.22
Flames of Silver, page 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mason had no idea what he was doing. Driving a wagon required skill and experience he did not have. He balanced at the top of the steep downhill slope. The horses nervously pawed the ground. A quick look back down the deserted road leading to Virginia City showed he had time. The marshal wasn’t after him. Yet. Mason felt in his gut the lawman would get around to forming a posse. By the time that happened, Mason had to stop Emma and Slick Sid and the rest of their gang.
Another look back, this time at the dynamite in the wagon bed, gave him a thrill of impending death. The only thing he could do with so much dynamite was to blow it up. Where?
“Giddy-up.” He snapped the reins and started downward, faster and faster. The wagon inched closer to the galloping horses. He reared back, braced himself and shoved his boot against the brake to slow the wagon. For a few seconds, he thought he was winning. Then he realized the horses were pulling, too, adding to the downward speed.
He stood on the brake with both feet now while he gave the horses free rein. If he didn’t, the wagon would run over them. The smell of burning wood rose, along with an ominous white curl of smoke from where the brake pressed into the front wheel. A new threat rose. The brake worked all too well and caused the wagon to skew to one side.
A quick release let him right the wagon, then he applied the brake again. His back ached, and his legs threatened to pop. Then he flopped backward, resistance gone. The brake handle broke off. He scrambled about, reins still in hand. The only thing he could think was to slow the runaway horses. He pulled back on the reins as hard as he had applied the brake.
The wagon began to slow. The harness creaked with the strain of pressing into the horses’ rumps. The breakneck descent became more manageable, and finally he brought the wagon to a dead stop.
Mason flopped forward over the driver’s seat, gasping for breath. His arms and shoulders burned with the fury of a thousand wildfires, and his legs turned to water under him. Mindful of how he moved with the reins still in hand, he climbed from the wagon bed back into the driver’s box. Simply sitting a few seconds calmed him enough to hunt for the trail around the mountain to the mine shaft disgorging a thousand pounds of silver stolen from the Wells Fargo vault.
Much of the landscape was still cloaked in night. It’d be another half hour or more before the sun crested the mountain and warmed the western slopes. Mason hoped this twilight hid his approach to the mine. Hearing the horses complain of the mistreatment he gave them, the rattle of chains and the creak of wheels, he gave up on the idea of sneaking up on the robbers. The other course of action was plain.
The trail was narrow and rocky, but he brought the horses to a quick step, bounding around and to hell with the dynamite in the rear of the wagon. Speed mattered. He either got to the road leading up to the mine and made a stand, or he didn’t.
By the time the sun peeked over the mountaintop, he pulled the wagon around to block the road. This was the best he could do, and it was futile. All the outlaws had to do was drive across the desert around him. The road was hardly more than a scraped-off patch of desert, and telling the difference in places wasn’t possible.
He considered all the things he could do and none of them looked promising. Driving the wagon into the mouth of the mine and setting off the dynamite was his best chance, but did he want to bury Sid Underwood and the others in the mine? And Emma Longview? Did he have it in him to bury her alive? He’d heard stories of miners trapped underground. The few who escaped were never the same. The ones who didn’t quit mining turned wild as the wind. They had cheated death and hunted for new ways to laugh at the Grim Reaper. Whether they thought they were invincible or simply sought to kill themselves wasn’t anything Mason had considered too closely.
The horses balked when he tried to get them up the steep slope to the mine opening. He saw deep ruts in the ground where at least two wagons had already rolled down, straining under the silver piled into them. Was it worth killing the gang if they’d made off with most of the silver?
“Trap them. I’ve got a gun.” He touched the six-shooter at his hip. Penning them up inside and waiting for the law to arrive was something that didn’t involve crushing them under tons of rock. “Let them stand trial. And tell what happened to the silver already moved out.”
Somehow the plan made sense until gunfire from the mine caused the horses to rear. The wagon rolled back down the hill. Without a brake, he had no way to slow it. The weight of the wagon pulled the horses backward until they fell. Then they were dragged, amid kicking hooves and wild cries of pain.
The wagon fetched up against a tree and saved the animals from further torture. They climbed to their feet and strained against their harnesses. Mason fastened the reins around a front wheel, hitched up his britches and started the climb alone. He reached the level area at the mine’s mouth and cautiously peered into the depths.
He flinched when a foot-long tongue of flame disturbed the darkness. Loud cries followed. Then Emma and Slick Sid backed from the mine.
“Got it?” The gunman emptied his pistol into the mine, did a border shift and drew a second six-gun from his belt. He began firing methodically, one round every five seconds. A cry of pain from the mine warned of his deadly accuracy.
“Right here,” Emma answered. She held up a single stick of dynamite.
“Hurry up. I need to reload.” Slick Sid jerked to the side as return fire came from in the mine.
Emma Longview drew out a match, struck it on a rock and lit the fuse. The black miner’s fuse sputtered and then flared. She tossed it into the mine.
“How long before it blows?” Slick Sid tossed an empty six-shooter to her and began reloading his second pistol.
“They’re rushing us!” she cried out. Her derringer appeared in her hand and sent two .45 slugs into the mine. “The fuse burns at a foot a minute. That was about a foot long, so—”
The explosion knocked Mason to the ground. It was far more powerful than any single stick of explosive ever invented. Emma had cached more dynamite just inside the mine and used her single stick to detonate whole crates.
Dust and debris gushed forth as if the earth exhaled mightily. Mason shook himself and sent new clouds of dust flying. He got to his feet and advanced, six-gun drawn. The explosion had sealed the mine permanently. Digging it out would require as much work as had originally cut the tunnel.
“You buried your own men,” Mason called. “Get your hands up. I’ve got the drop on you!”
Emma and Slick Sid turned, she slowly and Underwood with a practiced spin that took him into a gunfighter’s crouch.
“Why, I do declare, look at who’s joined us, Slick. It’s Mr. Mason. Did I make a mistake saving you from that arsonist?” Emma’s cool, collected manner did more to unnerve Mason than the gunman training his pistol on him.
“Reach,” Mason said. “I’ve got the drop on you. Both your six-shooters and that derringer are empty. You killed your own men.” That kept coming back to shock him. He had planned on doing that very thing, but they weren’t his partners. Even then he hadn’t come to a solid decision about what to do.
These two had solved one problem for him. All he had to do now was bring in the pair of them.
“You are correct, Mr. Mason. My two-shot is empty. And so is this six-gun.” Emma held it up high.
Mason made the mistake of following her movement and took his eyes off Slick Sid.
“Mine’s got bullets in it. I reloaded.” The gunman fired twice.
Mason winced as a fiery streak crossed his side, going between his chest and inner arm. The second round went wide because Mason doubled over in pain. As if from another country, another world, he heard Slick Sid’s hammer fall on a spent round. The outlaw had only reloaded two chambers. Mason forced himself to stand, aim and fire.
Slick Sid dived for cover while Emma remained standing, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She carefully reloaded her derringer, then reached down and took cartridges from a box on the ground and began reloading the six-shooter.
“Drop the gun,” Mason commanded. She looked up and smiled. That expression burned itself into his brain. She was amused. She came close to laughing out loud. And then she closed the gate on the six-gun, cocked and fired it at him.
Mason reacted instinctively—or his legs simply gave way. He sank to the ground so all her slugs tore through thin air.
“Oh, Slick, this is becoming tiresome. Take care of him, will you?”
“We’ve got to get the wagon on the road fast,” he said. “If he found us, the law’s not far behind.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. Mr. Mason is quite a clever man. Aren’t you, Morgan? He figured this out all by himself and never shared it with the marshal. After all, he and Benteen did not get along too well. Am I right, Morgan?”
Mason slid a few feet downhill, hunting in vain for a target. Emma stood exposed, reloading her six-gun. Her partner was out of sight. Mason trained his gun on her but couldn’t pull the trigger. She was going to kill him if he didn’t shoot her first, but he couldn’t bring himself to gun her down.
A new curtain of lead flew down toward him. Almost in relief, Mason turned back to see Slick Sid standing beside a pile of bushes some distance from the mine. A few shots forced Slick to back off. When he did, the brush pulled away from a wagon. The team was facing the mountainside, and all Mason saw was the lowered gate in the back.
The bright flash of silver—bars and bars of silver—dazzled him. Other wagons had removed early loads from the vault. This had to be the final treasure.
Bullets dug tiny craters all around him. Emma walked forward, taking care to aim every time. Mason rolled left and right, then tumbled down the hill. This did nothing to stop the robbers but saved him. He rolled out of range.
“Get in, Emma. There’s no need to kill him.” Slick Sid settled in the driver’s box and wheeled the wagon about.
“I suppose you’re right, Slick. You usually are about such things. Still, he’s such an easy target.”
“Get in.” Slick Sid snapped the reins and got the team pulling, slowly at first, then with greater speed as he turned downslope. Emma gauged her distance, took a running step and vaulted up to sit beside him. She rested her six-gun in her lap, ready to take another shot at Mason if the opportunity presented itself.
Mason’s brain worked at top speed. He couldn’t outgun them. They were escaping with the last of the silver. From the ponderous sway, hundreds of the stolen bars might be in this wagon. He scooped up the reins on his own team and launched himself upward, landing with teeth-jarring impact on the hard bench seat. Mason got the team racing along the trail ahead of Emma and Slick.
With a lighter load, he outdistanced them and reached the main road, the one where the silver caravan was supposed to have traveled by now. The wagons driven by others in the gang must have rattled this way already. Mason wasn’t able to do anything about that, but he could stop the last load from being driven away.
He could stopper them.
The wagon began to fall apart from how he drove along the main road. He took two switchbacks and came to the narrowing in the road he had seen days earlier. The builders had blasted into solid rock here for a road with a sheer drop-off of a hundred feet on one side and the solid rock of the mountain on the other, barely a wagon wide. He reined back the horses and let the wagon slew about onto the constriction in the road.
Working forward, he unhitched the linchpin, setting the horses free. They stood for a moment, then realized galloping away was in their best interest. Mason climbed back into the driver’s box and drew his six-shooter.
He looked back. Emma and Slick had reached the main road and whipped their team to cross this neck in the rocky road. The expression on her face was one of pure fury. The gunman hunched over, intent on controlling his team.
Mason cocked his six-gun, aimed and fired. The explosion lifted him up into the air even as it blew away the road, leaving only a gap and a hundred-foot drop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A gentle fragrance, a soft breeze blowing across his face. A distant, nagging sensation of pain every time he took a shallow breath. Morgan Mason forced his eyes open. It took a few seconds to focus, then he smiled.
“I’ve died and am seeing an angel.” His voice was low and ragged but audible.
“You’re so sweet.” Mrs. Logan bent over and lightly kissed his cheek. The touch burned like fire and brought him fully awake. “Oh, I’m sorry. Your face lost some skin in the explosion, and you broke three ribs.” She brushed over his cheek with her feathery touch. This was better. “And your arm’s broken.”
“Otherwise, I’m all right,” he said. He tried to laugh, but it hurt too much.
“Oh, yes, you’re all right,” she said. Her radiant smile made him try to reach out to her. He failed.
“I see he’s finally decided to join us.” Dr. Sinclair came into Mason’s field of vision and pressed a finger into his left wrist to take his pulse. “Strong. You’ll live.”
“He’s so thin,” Mrs. Logan said. “He needs food. I can get some chicken soup I whipped up for the children.”
“Tommy and Iris,” Mason said. “Did Captain Delahunt let Tommy play with Smudge?”
“You remembered their names,” she said. “How clever of you.”
“Not hard to do,” Mason got out.
“Let me fetch that soup. I’ll get some for you, too, Doctor.”
“Finally. Someone thinks about the man tending everyone else.”
“Oh, Doctor, you know everyone thinks well of you. I do because of how you’ve treated Mr. Mason.” She turned and blew Mason a kiss and blushed. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Sinclair left with her, giving Mason a moment to sink back in the bed. Even this small interaction wore him out. Mason’s eyes began to lower when a shuffling sound brought him back fully awake. He turned slightly and saw Jasper Jessup in the doorway, shifting nervously from foot to foot and holding a fire helmet in both hands. He looked like a schoolboy caught throwing spitballs.
“You’re back among the living. That’s good, Mason, that’s real good. I worried ’bout you.”
Mason looked Jasper Jessup over. He wore a full volunteer fireman’s outfit, with brass belt buckle and red shirt and helmet with a number on it. His suspenders carried the three yellow stripes of a senior fireman, and now there was an added brass button awarded for some heroic deed.
“What time is it?” Mason watched Jessup fumble in a pocket, open the case of a large gold watch and peer at the hands.
“Purty near two in the afternoon. Why do you care? You’re not going anywhere for two weeks or so. Leastways, that’s what the sawbones said.”
“My watch. In my coat pocket. I want to be sure it’s keeping good time. Get it, will you?”
Jasper Jessup rounded the bed and searched through Mason’s coat until he found the watch. Mason saw him stiffen when he drew out the watch.
“I got it, Mason. It needs winding. You’ve been here two days and nobody wound it.”
Jessup came back to the bed and laid the watch on Mason’s chest.
“Why, Jasper? Why’d you do it? You and Finley could have burned down the whole town.”
“No, no, Mason, you got it all wrong. Captain Finley had it all figgered out. You know we had our watches all lined up. We’d agree when I’d call out the brigade and where to go. The fire’d be just startin’. Nothing big, but enough for folks to appreciate us. Finley was sick of Delahunt bein’ number one, always gettin’ to the fire first and puttin’ it out, no matter how fierce. The Yellow Boy Mine fire was put out by Delahunt’s crew. That made him a hero.”
“You did it just to cadge a free drink and have women think you were brave?”
“Even knowing what we faced, puttin’ out fires is dangerous. You know that.” Jasper Jessup swallowed a lot more now and shifted from foot to foot, considering the best time to turn and run away.
“One fire getting out of control could burn down Virginia City. You risked that. For what, Jasper?”
“For this, Mason. For this!” He held the helmet high. “Finley made me his second in command. This is the first time in my life anybody thought so highly of me. I command respect!”
“We were friends, Jasper. I respected you.” Mason closed his eyes and summoned strength. “If you’re right, the doc said I’ll be up and about in a couple weeks. The first thing I’m going to do is tell Marshal Benteen what you and Finley did. Your captain’s dead. You’ve got at least a week’s head start before you’ll end up the same way. If the citizens don’t string you up, your fellow firemen will for betraying their trust.”
“You’re askin’ me to give up bein’ a fireman!”
“One week, Jasper. That’s only because you were the solitary soul to show me kindness when I came to Virginia City.”
Jasper Jessup stood straighter and left without another word. Mason closed his eyes. Turning in one of his few friends in Virginia City would be hard, but he’d do it. Too many people had lost property and lives had been put at risk. He tried to remember Tommy and Iris Logan huddled under the table, fire all around them. The frightened looks on their faces were etched in his mind. Whoever caused such fear had to be brought to justice.
His eyes opened as he felt the gold watch on his chest slip to one side. He thought his breathing had caused it, then he realized there was a different cause.
“Hello, Mr. Mason,” Emma Longview said. She held up the gold watch and examined it. “This is an expensive watch. Somehow, you don’t seem the type to really use it. It’s not like it’s an heirloom.”
