Chapter 16

It was a mighty pissed off bunch in the cave the next morning. Mr. Texas wasn’t smiling. “This has got a bad feel to it, boss. You’ve lost twenty two men so far, all killed by Brad Walters, an old man, a kid, and a girl. What you think would happen if the whole Walters clan showed up?”

Bart Hill was consumed with rage. He was blind in his left eye, his partner had lost a leg and might lose another if infection got into his wound. Two of his best men were down. One had a hand missing, the other eight broken ribs. This mine better be as good as they say. It wouldn’t give him an eye back or fix his ruined face, but people can forget a lot when money gets in their eyes. He could give a shit whether Darby lived or died. It was an association of convenience and he was getting downright inconveinent. He’d figure a way to get rid of him later. Right now he needed what few guns he had left and all his miners.

“We got ‘em all but Walters. He’s out there alone. We’ll get him before his brother gets here.”

Texas had his doubts. Walters was proving to be one hard sonofabitch to kill. He was thinkin’ about cuttin’ his losses and just driftin’ off when two riders came in.

“Riders comin!”

“Good. Now we can end this. Check your guns boys, it’s time to get rich.”

“Uh, boss, there’s a lot of riders comin’. Four or five wagons at the cutoff, with at least thirty outriders, and twenty Calvarymen.”

Hill cursed inwardly. You could do a lot with a gun, but one thing you couldn’t was mess with the military. Kill a trooper and they’d send a thousand men and turn over every rock in the West until they found you.

“Go get the miners. Make sure they’re heeled. If push comes to shove we’ll need them. You be sure and tell them that if we go down they’re next. Walters won’t give a damn whether you pulled a trigger or not.”

I skinned back into the cave, stopping to get the three remaining sticks of dynamite, setting them with a short fuse, about thirty seconds by my calculation. I ran along the ridge as fast as I could go, stopping just above the mine entrance. I was wheezing like mad, cursing myself for being in such bad shape. Then again, you get chased, miss a lot of meals, get shot more than once, and see if you felt up to running hard.

I’d taken the time to rig the dynamite into bombs, a sack of shells around each one. I had no idea if they would go off when the stick blew, but even unfired it would be a chunk of metal coming in fast.

They were yellin’ at the miners, telling them to hurry up and make sure they grabbed their weapons. The first were just coming out when I tossed the dynamite. I mistimed by about three seconds and instead of going off in front of the mine it hit the ground before exploding. The bullets, most of them anyway, did fire, slinging lead in all directions. Two riders and their horses went down and there were a couple of screams from the mine.

I yelled out. “I got a bunch more of these and I’m dug in pretty good. You boys stick your nose out of that mine and I’ll blow it off, you hear me?”

There was a bunch of cussin’ so I waited until it died down and tossed the second and third stick. There were a couple of yells and then it went quiet. I think I made believers out of them.

I scooted back to the cave as fast as I could, arriving just in time to watch as Zeke and his riders lined up in front of the cave. Hill had sand, I’ll give him that. He grinned and asked why they were trespassing on private property.

“Last I heard, me and my brother had legal claim to this valley and all the gold in it. Where is Brad?” Zeke was smiling but it wasn’t reaching his eyes.

“Yeah, about that. He sold this place to us saying he was sole owner. You could ask him I suppose, if you could find him. Last I saw of him he was headed for parts unknown with a gal and her kin.”

“That a fact?”

“Gospel truth.”

They didn’t know it, but I had stepped out of the cave right behind them. I was ragged, rail thin, with a six week old beard and hair in tangles. My hat was long gone. Zeke saw me and his eyes widened slightly before he grinned. I grinned back, right after I threw the hammer back on my shotgun. Texas looked behind and almost fainted.

“That ain’t necessarily how it happened brother. These assholes tried to jump the claim. They killed Eion, Elsa, and I don’t know what happened to Gal. They put up a good showin’ though. A lot of them lost their lives before they got them.”

Bart Hill finally glanced back and paled. No! He was supposed to be dead or gone!

Now he was standing between them and shelter, a big shotgun pointed right at him. In front of him was his very pissed looking brother, twenty Calvarymen, and an assortment of hands, all holding weapons at the ready. He blanched when he saw four of the group were women and they all held shotguns and wore pistols on their hips.

He tried to grin. “Maybe I made a mistake here. That don’t look anywhere near like the feller that sold us this claim.”

“You made your first mistake the day you took this trail, Hill. I don’t intend to shoot you if it makes any difference. I intend to hang every one of you. That’s what you do to murderers and thieves ain’t it? And I intend to personally put the noose around the neck of Mr. Texas here. He was the one who shot Elsa. In the head. She was dead before she hit the ground.”