Escape from Five Shadows

13

Six hundred pounds of dynamite were brought out of the stable and loaded onto the equipment wagon the next morning. Bowen specified the amount. He remained in the stable until the wagon was loaded and when he came out he was carrying four detonator boxes. One of the boxes had been emptied and in it was Lizann Falvey’s. 25-caliber Colt.

Bowen drove the equipment wagon. He took it over the Five Shadows slope, down into the canyon and to the foot of the trail that reached silently up into the early morning sunlight. The floor of the canyon was in shadow and there was little talk as the dynamite was unloaded.

“We’ll take eight cases up,” Bowen told Renda. “Leave the other four down here. Maybe we’ll use them, but I don’t think so.”

Renda pointed to eight men in turn, and approximately fifteen minutes later the dynamite was up on the rim of the canyon. The eight men returned to the convicts working on the ledge, spreading the results of the previous day’s last explosion. And now the dynamite crew was alone with Brazil.

They were ready to plant the first charge when Willis Falvey came up the trail. He passed them without a word, without even looking to see what they were doing, kicked his dun horse up through the draw and rode along the rim until he was beyond the end of the canyon.

The way you’re going, Bowen thought, watching him disappear into the deep shadow of the pass which led down to the boulder field beyond the canyon.

Through a mile of rock and across the meadow, Bowen thought. Up past the road, straight over the hill and down the grade. Cross the creek, come out of the willows. You’re there.

Brazil’s voice brought him back to the ledge. “You going to light the fuse?”

Bowen lit it. They went back to the draw to wait for the explosion and Bowen watched Brazil. The gunman squinted, his mouth open and tensed, waiting, and he seemed to be smiling, keenly anticipating what was to come.

And when it came, more suddenly than they could be ready for it, the rock-shattering, head-numbing violence, the thunder rolling into the distance, somewhere beyond the ringing in their ears, Brazil still smiled.

“Damn!” He shook his head slowly as if the pleasure of it had exhausted him. “I’d like to see what would happen to a man sitting on one of them.”

“You never know,” Pryde said. “Maybe you will.”

Brazil looked at him. “Did you see anybody get blowed up at Yuma?”

“Not me,” Pryde said.

“Did you?” Brazil asked Bowen.

Bowen shook his head.

Brazil seemed disappointed. “Maybe somebody got it before you were there. Didn’t you hear of anybody?”

“I wasn’t listening,” Bowen said.

Brazil grinned. “That would be some sight.”

They went down to the shelf again as Renda and a guard brought up the convicts to do the grading. Bowen looked over the edge. There were still two guards down in the canyon. So he’s got another man on, Bowen thought. One of the night guards.

“That one took more slope,” Renda said. “They hardly got any chipping off to do.”

“We tried a bigger charge,” Bowen told him. “Packing more sticks to the bundle.”

“You go any bigger, we’ll be filling in,” Renda said. His gaze moved along the edge of the shelf, then stopped. Unexpectedly, Bowen saw his face become tensed. He followed Renda’s gaze up canyon and saw a rider moving along the stretch of new road. Now all of them were watching and soon they saw that it was Lizann Falvey.

Brazil said, “What’s she doing up here?”

Renda continued to watch her, his eyes half closed in the sun glare. A swirl of wind blew dust at him, fanning his hatbrim, but he did not turn away from it.

“I never saw her up this far,” Brazil said.

She bothers him, Bowen thought, still watching Renda. All she has to do is show herself and he’s on his guard. You thought it once. Maybe she’s threatening him. Confident she’s leaving and she throws it in his face. Tells him everything but how.

Following Lizann, trailing her perhaps fifty yards, was a Mimbreño. Bowen watched him move off to the east side of the canyon. Lizann had circled and now was riding back toward him, past him, becoming smaller, and soon she was out of sight. But even after she was gone, Renda continued to stare up canyon and a moment later he moved down the shelf.

That’s good, Bowen thought. Give him something else to think about.

Bowen indicated where the next charge would be placed before they moved back up onto the rim. And now they got ready the fuses and the dynamite cartridges they would use.

“I think I’ll light the next one,” Brazil said.

“That’s all you got to do,” Bowen said, “and you’re a dynamite man.”

Brazil was studying his Winchester. “It’s a far size bigger than this.”

Bowen looked toward Manring and nodded. Manring rose, picking up his shovel and started for the draw.

Brazil’s head came up. “They’re not ready for you yet.”

“Earl’s got another job,” Bowen said. He rose as Brazil did and walked over to the edge of the draw. “He’s going to dig that corner where we tested yesterday.”

Brazil frowned. “What for?”

“After a couple of more blasts,” Bowen explained, “we’ll be far enough down to come back to the part we skipped. Earl thought he’d get it ready now if it’s all right with you.”

“Frank know about it?”

“Ask him,” Bowen said. He turned and walked back to Pryde.

Brazil glanced at Manring. “Go on. I’ll see him later.” He squatted then at the edge of the draw where he could watch Bowen and Pryde, to his left, and Manring below and to his right.

“The first step,” Pryde murmured.

Bowen sat down with his back to Brazil. The detonator boxes were in front of him. He raised one box, then another, and raising the third one he felt the weight of the Colt revolver. He lined up the boxes and placed this one on the right.

Now he studied the dark mass of pines that were forty or fifty yards in front of him and he began setting a fuse into the open end of a detonator.

“Ike, have you seen Mimbres?”

“For about a hair of a minute. When we first came up.”

“We have to figure six on this side,” Bowen said. “They don’t like what’s going on, so they stay back in the trees.”

“What would we do if they didn’t mind it?”

“Think of something else.”

“And six more on the other side of the canyon,” Pryde said.

“We’ll think of them when the time comes,” Bowen said. He crimped the open end of the detonator to the fuse. He unwrapped one end of the dynamite cartridge, pushed a twig into it to form an opening, then inserted a detonator.

“How many you going to do?” Pryde asked.

“We’ll have five ready,” Bowen said. “Maybe we won’t use that many, but we’ll have them.”

“Brazil wants to light the fuse,” Pryde said. “It’d be purely simple to leave him with it.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I can’t help it. It’s too good not to.”

“Ike, we do it the way I said.”

“I know it. I was just talking.”

Bowen had attached the fuse to the fourth detonator and was inserting it into the cartridge when Brazil called to him. “Earl says he’s ready.”

Rising, Bowen said to Pryde, “Like he works for us.” He picked up a coil of fuse and a detonator and moved down the draw. Pryde followed, a half-full case of dynamite on his shoulder.

Brazil said, “What’re you in such a hurry to plant this one for?”

Bowen dropped the coil, but held an end of it. “Might as well do it now as later.”

“You sure Frank knows about it?”

“Go ask him,” Bowen said. He saw Brazil’s gaze go down into the canyon.

“Frank would’ve told me,” Brazil said.

“He tells you everything?”

Brazil did not answer. He was studying the small figures far below. He said then, “I don’t see him.”

Now the four of them looked down into the canyon. Almost at once Pryde said, “That’s him…riding off. Way up the road there.”

“Like he’s going back to camp,” Manring said. He looked at Brazil. “Everybody works but Frank.”

“You dig your hole,” Brazil snapped. “And keep your mouth shut.”

“It’s dug.”

“Then plant the charge!”

That’s it, Bowen thought. Get mad. Get your mind on something else.

When they climbed out of the draw again, a ten-foot length of fuse hung curling to the ground from the hole where the charge was buried. The hole had been dug above the undercut of their test blast of the previous day. It was approximately five feet from the ground.

“When you going to light it?” Brazil asked Bowen.

“I figure sometime this afternoon.”

Brazil’s gaze found the four dynamite sticks with fuses already attached. “You’re doing a damn awful lot of work beforehand.”

“What difference does it make when we do it? Long as it gets done.”

“Maybe I ought to ask you that,” Brazil said.

Bowen shrugged. “Pull the detonators out if you don’t want them there. We’ll walk off about a half mile and watch you.”

Bowen turned from him. He went over to the equipment, sat down next to Pryde and began fitting a fuse end into the fifth detonator, thinking, now watching Brazil wander to the edge of the draw: Don’t push him too far.

Manring stopped next to Bowen. “Are we ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be.”

“How much did you plant just now?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“Is that enough?”

“I’d have to set more if it wasn’t.”

“We got to be sure.”

“What do you want to do,” Bowen said, “light it now and find out?”

Manring’s hand scratched nervously at his beard. “We got to be sure, that’s all.”

Pryde got to his feet. They saw him stare off toward the pass that was beyond the end of the canyon. Then Brazil noticed him, hearing the hoof sounds at the same time. “Sit down,” he told Pryde, and swung the Winchester toward the pass.

As he did, Karla Demery appeared in the shadowed opening. She looked up, showing surprise at seeing them, then walked her horse toward them.

Her gaze moved from Bowen and the two men next to him to Brazil. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

“We’re full of surprises,” Brazil grinned. He saw her move to dismount. “Sit where you are. I got enough to watch without a horse standing by.”

“I wanted to see if these men had any letters,” Karla said. Her hand was behind her on the saddlebag, unfastening the strap.

“Give them to Frank,” Brazil said.

“It’ll only take a minute.” Karla brought out the letters, began going through them, then glanced at Bowen again. “Isn’t your name Bowen?”

Bowen nodded. His eyes moved to Brazil. Brazil was watching Karla.

“I thought I had a letter for you,” Karla said. She came to the last letter, then started through them again. “It seems to me it was from an attorney. The return address, I mean. Lyall Martz? Is that name familiar to you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bowen said.

“But now I don’t see it.”

Brazil moved toward them. “What would you be hearing from a lawyer about?”

“He’s a friend,” Bowen said.

Karla looked up. “I know there was a letter from him. Somehow I must have misplaced it. Tomorrow…I’ll be sure to bring it tomorrow.”

“He can wait,” Brazil said. “Now move out of here.”

“I remember it looked like such an important letter,” Karla said.

Brazil’s hand came down on the horse’s rump and it sidestepped away from him. Karla looked back, then reined toward the draw and Brazil called after her, “When you find Frank, tell him I want to see him!”

Manring leaned toward Bowen. “What’s this lawyer business?”

“You think it concerns you?”

“We were in it together, weren’t we?”

“You don’t fit into it, Earl,” Bowen murmured. He began taking dynamite cartridges from an open case and binding them into bundles of eight sticks.

And you don’t fit into it either, he told himself. You don’t hang on to a thread. Not now. Maybe when there was time, but now it’s a matter of minutes. You understand that? Minutes.

A convict appeared out of the draw and told Manring the charge hole was ready to be dug. He stood with hands on hips looking about idly, to the pass, up into the trees, then his eyes dropped to Bowen who was winding twine about the dynamite sticks and he moved back down the draw. Manring followed him.

Watching him go, Pryde murmured, “We could leave Earl there too.”

“All four of us walk back up here,” Bowen said.

“How’re you going to handle Brazil?”

Bowen glanced over his shoulder-Brazil was still at the edge of the draw-then raised the top from the detonator box which held the revolver. “Like this.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“I’m not saying.”

“I could guess.”

“And you’d be wrong.” Bowen closed the box.

“You going to shoot Brazil?”

Bowen shook his head.

“Let me have it,” Pryde said. “I’ll use it on him.”

“You got enough to do,” Bowen said; then asked, “Have you got it straight?”

“I think so.”

“Tell it.”

Pryde’s eyes raised to Brazil, then lowered again. “When we’re called to set the charge, you’re going first. You carry the case with the bundles in it. Then I follow. I’m carrying another case. There’re a few sticks in it and the knife. You get down to the end of the draw before you notice I’m carrying it. Then you say, ‘I got enough sticks. Leave what you got here and we’ll pick it up on the way back.’ I set the case down where you planted the charge a while ago. Right under where the fuse is hanging. Then we go around on the trail and do what we’re supposed to be doing. You light the charge and we all hurry back up the trail. We’re starting up the draw and I say that I’ve forgot the case. I lag back to get it, take the knife out of the case, cut the fuse so only five feet is hanging out of the wall, light it and come after you.”

“That gives you a minute and a half,” Bowen said, “to climb out of the draw.”

“It doesn’t take half of that,” Pryde said.

“You want to be on the safe side.”

“But why a five-foot fuse?”

“We want this charge to go off as close as possible with the main one,” Bowen said. “If they blow too far apart, somebody down below will start to think about it and come up too soon to find out why. But we couldn’t put on just five feet when we planted the charge, because Brazil would notice it being short and wonder about it.”

“But with the draw caved in,” Pryde said, “nobody could get up here anyway.”

“This way is called not leaving anything to chance,” Bowen said. “Maybe there’s a quick way up out of the canyon we don’t even know about.”

“All right.” Pryde nodded, then asked, “When do you pull the gun?”

“As soon as the draw blows,” Bowen said. “Whether it goes before or after or at the same time the main charge does, Brazil won’t expect it. He’ll be off guard.”

“Then we tie him up,” Pryde said.

“That’s right.” Bowen glanced at the row of long-fused dynamite cartridges next to him. “While Earl cuts the fuses on those.”

“Why don’t we do it now?”

“For the same reason that charge down in the draw has a ten-foot fuse,” Bowen said. “Brazil isn’t that dumb. If he sees six-inch fuses sticking out of these he’ll know damn well what they’re for.”

“And the rest is up to luck,” Pryde said.

Bowen shrugged. “Maybe we’ll make our own.”

The convict who had come for Manring a few minutes before appeared again at the top of the draw.

“Here we go,” Pryde said.

Brazil looked toward them and called, “Ready for the stuff.”

Rising, lifting the case to his shoulder, Bowen said, “Take your time. Cut the fuse right where it touches the ground and you’ll have five feet.”

Pryde nodded. “Don’t worry about it.” As Bowen walked off, he picked up the second wooden case and followed him. Brazil fell in behind going down the draw. No one spoke and there was only the sounds of their steps in the loose gravel. Then, as they reached the shelf, Bowen looked back.

“Ike, what’ve you got that for?”

Pryde stopped. “Didn’t you say bring it?”

“I got all we need,” Bowen said. “Set it down there and we’ll pick it up on the way back.” His eyes moved to Brazil. No reaction. No change in his tight-jawed, narrow-eyed expression.

Bowen turned the corner and moved down the shelf, along the thirty feet which they had not yet dynamited, then over the widened, graded section-roughly fifty feet of this-to the place where they would set off the next blast.

Manring was waiting there. The grading crew had moved out and were already at the bottom of the trail. “Ready?” asked Manring.

Bowen only nodded. He stepped into the closet-sized space that had been cut into the wall and began placing the charges. The horizontal chamber that Manring had prepared was waist high and ran parallel with the wall of the canyon. It was deep enough to hold all of the charges, but it was too wide; and with each charge that he placed Bowen would tamp sand into the chamber so the dynamite would fit snugly and there would be no air space. When he finished, only the fuse could be seen extending from the packed sand.

Bowen looked at Brazil. “You said you wanted to light it.”

“I’ll hold your rifle,” Pryde said.

“I guess you would,” Brazil said. He waved the barrel of the Winchester. “You all get out of the way. Start moving up.” He drew a match and stooped over the fuse, then called after the three men, “This one’s ten feet?”

Bowen turned and nodded. “Three minutes’ worth.” He watched Brazil strike the match and hold it to the fuse. “Give him room,” Bowen murmured.

He turned again, now hearing Brazil coming up behind them, and started to walk faster.

Brazil called, “What’s the hurry?”

Bowen glanced back. “That one’s bigger than the others. We got to get all the way up to the top.”

Pryde let Bowen pass him. He was next to Brazil as they turned into the draw. Then he stopped. And as Brazil went on, Bowen and Manring ahead of him, he stooped quickly, took the knife from the wooden case and cut the fuse so that less than a foot of it remained. Bowen looked back as he brought the knife down.

“What’s the matter?” Bowen called.

Brazil stopped.

Pryde stepped in front of the cut-off fuse and waved up to Bowen, the knife palmed in his other hand. “Go on. I got to get this box is all.” He watched Bowen and Manring move up through the draw. Brazil turned to follow them.

“Hey!” Pryde called sharply, bringing Brazil around. He waited. Brazil frowned. Now Bowen and Manring were reaching the top of the draw. Pryde waited a moment longer, until they were over the rim. Then he said, “Come here.”

Brazil started toward him, but stopped, as if only then remembering the burning fuse down on the trail. “Pick it up…we got to move!”

Pryde stared at him. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What’d you say?”

“You heard me.”

Brazil’s gaze went beyond Pryde and abruptly his eyes opened wide. “What’d you do to that fuse!”

Something was wrong. Something was going on that shouldn’t be happening. But even as he realized it, even as his nerves came alive and he reflexively brought up the Winchester, it was too late, Pryde was on him.

He tried to go back, tried to leave the Winchester, but Pryde’s left hand pushed up on the barrel. Brazil’s arms went up with it and he half turned to wrench the Winchester from Pryde’s grasp. As he did, Pryde’s right hand drove the knife into his side. Brazil gasped and the shock of it was in his eyes and in his straining, open-mouthed expression as he slumped to the ground.

Pryde was at the fuse again. He struck a match, touched it to the fuse and started to run. A ten-inch fuse-time enough to climb out of the draw, but not for Bowen to come down after Brazil. You had to think of Bowen doing things like that.

He was twenty feet from the rim when the main charge went off and the suddenness of it made him stumble. His ears rang and there was dust in the air and the echo up canyon and suddenly Pryde fell again.

His hands clutched at his stomach. He felt a wetness and looking down saw that it was his own blood. He could not believe it, but it was there. He had been shot and the bullet had gone completely through him. But there had been no report! Only the ringing and the echo and the slamming against his back that could have been a rock-

He rolled over and felt himself sliding and then he saw Brazil at the bottom of the draw. He was lying on his stomach aiming the Winchester.

“Ike!”-above him, Bowen’s voice.

Pryde saw the Winchester raise and he called out to warn Bowen.