Hell Town

Chapter 29

Goldy responded magnificently as Frank left the trail and started cutting across country to try to get ahead of Colonel Starkwell and the militia company. The horse took to the steep slopes almost like a mountain goat, bounding from rock to rock going up, and then deftly keeping his hooves under him as he skidded down the far sides. Goldy leaped gullies and weaved through trees, and even though Frank felt a little guilty for thinking it, he didn’t believe that Stormy could have done any better.

Dog raced alongside. The big cur seemed as happy to get out and stretch his legs, as eager for action, as Goldy did.

Frank came in sight of the bench where the Alhambra was located, with its overhanging cliffs and the rock formations that looked like battlements. He didn’t see the militia on the trail approaching the mine and knew he had beaten them here. He couldn’t be very far ahead of them, though, so he knew he didn’t have much time. He galloped down the hill and brought Goldy to a halt in front of the bunk house.

“Rogan!” Frank shouted. “Rogan, it’s Marshal Morgan from Buckskin! Trouble’s on the way!”

There was no response from the building. Frank dismounted and hurried to the door. When he looked inside, he saw that the bunkhouse was empty. Where could the striking miners be?

He walked over to the office and stamp mill, keeping one eye on the trail as he did so. The other buildings were empty too, as if the mine had been abandoned.

That wasn’t the case, though, as the warning shot that came from the mouth of the shaft proved a moment later as Frank walked back out into the open. The bullet whistled past, well above his head, and as instinct made him crouch and reach for his Peacemaker, a man shouted from the mine entrance, “Hold it, Morgan!”

Frank recognized Dave Rogan’s voice. He turned in that direction and saw Rogan standing at the tunnel mouth, along with several more of the striking miners. He realized that they must have barricaded themselves inside the shaft to keep Munro from bringing in any other workers.

Frank straightened and walked toward the mine. He kept his hands in plain sight so that Rogan and the others could see them.

Rogan fired again. This time the bullet kicked up dirt and rocks from the ground about ten yards in front of Frank. Frank didn’t break stride or slow down.

“Get out of here, Marshal!” Rogan shouted. “The next one might not miss!”

“Listen to me, Rogan,” Frank said in an urgent voice that was loud enough so that the rest of the men inside the shaft could hear him too. “Munro’s gotten the governor to send in the state militia to break this strike. A company of armed soldiers is on its way out here right now.”

“Let ’em come!” Rogan replied. “We’ll show ’em that we won’t be budged!”

Some of the other men in the mine shouted in agreement with him.

“You’ll all get yourselves killed, that’s what you’ll do,” Frank said as he came to a stop in front of the mine entrance. “You boys are tough, but those militia men are professionals at this. They’ll do whatever they have to in order to break this strike. They’re liable to heave a bomb in there to blast you out.”

Rogan sneered. “That would damage the mine,” he pointed out.

“You think Munro wouldn’t be willing to have the damage repaired if it meant that none of his workers would ever dare to defy him again?”

Rogan wasn’t so quick to respond to that, and for the first time Frank saw doubt appear on the miner’s rugged face. Rogan was a troublemaker, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that Munro would do whatever it took to suppress this challenge to his authority.

“We got a right to strike,” Rogan said, but the doubt was in his voice now too.

“It’s not about rights anymore,” Frank said. “It’s about Munro wanting to crush you and teach a lesson to anybody else who ever works for him.”

“Yeah, well, what business is it of yours?”

“I don’t want to see all of you massacred,” Frank said. “Munro thinks that he’s above the law. I don’t like that.”

“That’s mighty funny, comin’ from a gunfighter like you. I didn’t reckon you ever worried all that much about the law.”

“Maybe I didn’t in the past.” Frank tapped the badge pinned to his shirt. “That’s before I put this tin star on.”

Rogan lowered his rifle and frowned. “What do you think we ought to do?”

“Get out of here,” Frank said without hesitation. “Clear out and let Munro have his mine back.”

“But that’s giving up!”

Frank shook his head. “Go over to the Lucky Lizard and get the miners there who are on strike. All of you come to Buckskin. There’s a tunnel from the mine that runs under Tip’s office in town, so you can get there without the militia seeing you. We’ll all sit down and have a meeting with Tip Woodford and Munro. Tip’s a reasonable man. His workers will be able to work out something with him.”

“What about Munro? He ain’t reasonable.”

“No, but out in the open like that, where everybody in town can see what’s going on, he’ll have to make a show of listening anyway. And once he sees that Woodford is going to settle the strike at the Lucky Lizard, public opinion may force him to go along and reach a compromise too.”

Rogan scratched at his jaw and frowned in thought. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Might be worth a try.”

This argument was taking too long. “You can decide what to do later,” Frank said. “Right now, you’ve got to get out of here while you still have the chance. That militia company will be showing up any minute now.”

Rogan turned to the other men clustered just inside the mouth of the shaft. “What do you say, boys?” he asked.

“I think we ought to do what the marshal says,” one of the miners replied. “If we join forces with Woodford’s men, then Woodford and Munro will have to listen to us.”

“What about the Crown Royal?” Rogan asked Frank. “Once it starts up again, will the men who work there be treated fairly too?”

Frank nodded. “I can just about guarantee that. You see, I’m well acquainted with the fella who owns it.”

“All right,” Rogan said, reaching a decision. He waved to the men behind him. “Let’s go.”

As they began to file out of the mine, Frank said, “I’ll go back down the trail and stall the militia. Head for the Lucky Lizard and then come on into town this evening. I’ll have Woodford and Munro waiting for you.”

Rogan jerked his head in a nod.

Frank hurried back to Goldy, grabbed the reins he had left trailing on the ground, and swung up into the saddle. “Come on, Dog,” he said as he heeled Goldy into a run.

Following the main trail this time, Frank rode hard. He spotted a haze of dust in the air up ahead and knew the militia was only a few hundred yards away. He sighted them as he came around a bend where the trail looped around a cluster of large boulders.

Frank said, “Dog, stay,” then reined in and sat there in the middle of the trail, blocking it as the riders approached. Of course, he was outnumbered by more than twenty to one, and if they really wanted to get past him, he wouldn’t be able to stop them. He could take a few of them with him if they rode him down, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to draw and fire on them. Even though they were being used for a purpose he considered corrupt, the militia men weren’t outlaws or anything like that. He didn’t want to have to kill any of them.

Colonel Starkwell rode in front of the troop. He raised a hand in a signal to halt, and the sergeant who rode behind him bawled out the order. Starkwell walked his horse forward to confront Frank.

“What are you doing here, Marshal?” Starkwell demanded. “I thought that when we left you back in Buckskin I made it clear this was none of your affair.”

“I’m making it my affair,” Frank said. “I took a shortcut and rode out to the Alhambra. You might as well turn around and go back. The mine’s deserted. All the strikers are gone.”

Starkwell’s mouth thinned in anger under the mustache. “You mean you warned them and they fled,” he snapped. “By God, I ought to put you under arrest! You should be clapped in irons and thrown in your own jail!”

“You can try it if you want,” Frank said in a quiet, dangerous voice.

Starkwell glared at him for a couple of heartbeats, then said, “Move aside. I’m not going to take your word for it that the strikers have abandoned the mine. We’re going out there anyway.”

Frank hoped that Rogan and the others had had plenty of time to get into the thickly wooded hills above the mine by now. He pulled Goldy to the side of the trail and said to Starkwell, “Fine. Go right on ahead, Colonel.”

Starkwell’s eyes slitted in suspicion, as if he thought that Frank was playing some sort of trick on him, but he gigged his horse into motion and waved the rest of the soldiers ahead. Frank sat there beside the trail as the militia troop rode past him.

He followed them back to the Alhambra, but reined in a couple of hundred yards away to watch as the men searched the bunkhouse, the stamp mill and office, and the mine shaft itself. He could tell from the way Starkwell was stomping around that the colonel was getting madder and madder.

Frank turned Goldy and started back toward the settlement. He didn’t want another confrontation with Starkwell right now. Starkwell might be angry enough at the fact that his quarry had eluded him to try making good on that threat to arrest Frank.

Pushing Goldy into a run, Frank reached Buckskin well ahead of the militia. He went straight to the office of the Lucky Lizard Mining Company, hoping he would find Tip Woodford there.

Tip was there, all right, and so was Diana. They greeted Frank warmly, but both of them could tell from the expression on his face that something was wrong. “What is it, Frank?” Diana asked.

“You know the militia was here earlier?”

Tip nodded. “Yeah, we saw the soldier boys. Heard that Munro got the governor to send ’em in. I wish he hadn’t done that. It’s liable to just make things worse. We would’ve worked things out sooner or later, if everybody would just leave us alone.”

Frank nodded. “I know. That’s why I rode out to the Alhambra to warn Rogan and the other men that the militia was coming to break the strike. I sent them to the Lucky Lizard.”

Tip’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “The Lucky Lizard? Why’d you want to do that?”

“Because all the men from both mines who are on strike are coming in to town tonight for a meeting with you and Munro. We’re going to settle this without a war breaking out.”

“I’d be glad to settle things with the fellas who work for me,” Tip said, “if they’ll just listen to reason.”

“I think they will, once they realize they’ve been duped. The Fowler brothers are still working for Munro and Hammersmith. They caused that cave-in to stir up trouble and get the strike started, so the Lucky Lizard would be shut down. The only problem was that Munro didn’t count on it spreading to his mine too.”

Diana asked, “Do you have any proof of that, Frank?”

“Nothing that would stand up in a court of law more than likely,” Frank replied with a shrug. “But I can prove somebody sabotaged the timbers in the mine and caused the cave-in. I’m betting that if Mike and Gib Fowler think they’re facing a hang rope because of what they did, they’ll be more than happy to testify that they were following orders from either Hammersmith or Munro.”

Tip nodded his bulldoglike head. “Maybe. Munro bein’ behind it all would explain why he raised his wages and cut back the hours his men are workin’ too. Those things were just temporary to make the Lucky Lizard look worse.”

“That’s my theory,” Frank agreed. “As soon as he put you out of business, things at the Alhambra would go back to being the way they were, if not worse.”

“That fella was playin’ a mighty deep game.”

“Yes, but he’s going to lose the final hand,” Frank said. He gestured toward the back room. “Dave Rogan’s the leader of the strike at the Alhambra. I told him about the tunnel that runs down here from the Lucky Lizard. All the men from both mines will be here after dark, coming through the tunnel so the militia won’t be able to stop them.”

“That fella Rogan’s an ornery varmint. Are you sure we can trust him?”

“He’s a hothead and a troublemaker, all right…but I think at the core he’s an honest man.”

Tip sighed. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

“And let’s hope everything can be settled without bloodshed,” Diana added.

“That’s the idea,” Frank said.

“But you don’t hold out much hope that it’ll happen, do you?” she asked.

“It never hurts to hope for the best,” Frank said.

And prepare for all hell to break loose, he added silently to himself.