Ironhorse

92

The air was thick, and our sound was contained. The volume of our voices and movement didn’t carry too much. Being up on the wooded ridge in the dense wet haze was like being inside a big tent with a low ceiling. The drizzle thinned out the fog some, but our visibility was still limited to not more than about forty feet.

“What are you thinking, Virgil?” Berkeley said.

Virgil turned and spoke to Jimmy John: “You have any idea what the lay of the land is with the mining camp?”

“Been a while since I was in any of these camps, but the layout’s pretty much the same.”

“Being?” Virgil said.

“The mining takes place across the road.”

“At the bottom of this rise here?” I asked.

Jimmy John nodded. “Don’t remember this particular camp exactly, but I think the miners had bunk quarters that were along the road.”

“This side or the other?” Virgil asked.

“On this side,” Jimmy John said. “Mess hut, too.”

“Tents?” I asked.

“Yes, wood walls, canvas roof,” Jimmy John said, “makeshift as they were, I’d say more than likely they’re not there anymore, but don’t know.”

“What about the offices?” Virgil asked.

“Across the road were the mining offices. Shacks really, and tool sheds. Best I can remember.”

“Good and downhill here?” Virgil asked.

“Steep, you mean?” Jimmy John asked.

Virgil nodded.

“Is,” Jimmy John said.

“Don’t want to ride in there,” Virgil said.

“Don’t want to leave our horses uphill, either,” I said.

“No, we don’t,” Virgil said.

“That road down there. The way out is that way, west, toward Division City, right?” Virgil asked Jimmy John.

“It is.”

“What does the road do in this direction,” Virgil said, pointing east.

“It dead-ends,” Jimmy John said.

“And this ridge we are on here,” Virgil said, pointing east. “Where these telegraph posts are?”

“If we stayed on this ridge we are on here,” Jimmy John said, “following the poles, it gradually drops to the road. There are two more mines before the road. The telegraph line crosses the road there, and there are three small mines on the other side of the road, but the road itself just dead-ends there.”

“So if we stayed riding in this easterly direction on the ridge it levels with the road?” I said.

Jimmy John nodded. “It does, about half-mile or so.”

“But here” — I pointed north downhill to the camp where we located the telegraph connection — “it’s steep.”

“It is,” Jimmy John said. “Real steep, all the way east right before the road and there it levels off.”

Virgil thought for a minute.

“In the event we need to gaff ’n get gaited, the last thing we want to do is have to climb up a steep goddamn hill to get to our horses,” Virgil said. “Figure we get the animals close toward the bottom, go that way toward the dead end of the road.”

“That’d be closest to the tracks, too,” Berkeley said.

“That’s right,” Virgil said, “that way, if we get into this mining camp situation, find out we need to configure things differently, we will be closest to the mule proposition. ’Course, we stay shy of the road, get the animals sequestered. Work our way up back to the mine, staying to the trees. Everett?”

“Sounds right.”

“Gents?” Virgil asked.

Berkeley nodded. Jimmy John nodded.

“All right, then.”

We moved off and rode our horses atop the ridge through the drizzling haze, heading east.