The Cowpuncher (10 page)

“You put him into the hospital for a couple of weeks,” said Sue. “But he’s all right now.”

“That’s fine,” Huck said. “I’m powerful eased to hear it. I didn’t want anybody’s death on my conscience…What’s the matter, Sue?” He had noticed a look of puzzlement on her face.

“Nothing,” she replied at once. “Nothing at all. Tell me about your mine, Huck.”

So Huck launched into the story of the El Padre. He started from the beginning—of his first meeting with Old Tom and Lank Mason. He passed lightly over the episode of his rescue of the old man and went on to tell Sue of the job he had taken, of the scrap with Cale Coleman and finally of the search for and discovery of the lost mine.

He could see that she was keenly interested in the recital, and added that Old Tom feared there was a curse on El Padre. And he told her of finding a moccasined footprint and of someone shooting
out his Davey light. He read concern on her face.

“Do you think there’ll be any trouble, Huck?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he reassured her. “An’ if there is, I reckon we can take care of it.”

But if Huck Brannon had been vouchsafed a brief glance into the future, he would not have been so confident.

“Huck,” asked Sue—she seemed to deliberate for a moment before asking the question. And it may have been accidental, but she seemed also to evade looking at him. “Why didn’t you come back to the Bar X?”

Now it was Huck’s turn to deliberate and hesitate before speaking. What could he tell her? That he had left the Bar X Ranch because of her? Because he had been afraid of going soft on her—he a footloose cowboy and she his owner’s daughter? But it
had
happened, anyway. He
had
gone soft on her.

“I reckon,” he evaded, “that I was getting pretty tired of riding herd. And getting restless, too. I itched to see what was on the other side of the hill. So I thought it was high time I pulled my stakes and got going. I wound up here—in Esmeralda—part-owner of a coal mine.”

Huck fancied he saw a look of disappointment pass over Sue’s face.

“Is that what you want to be, Huck?” she asked, staring frankly into his eyes. “A mine owner?”

“Why not?” he demanded. “It’s as good as being anything else—especially if it pays off.”

It was a lie, he knew. But once he had started to
lie, he found it difficult to stop. Moreover, he had to keep his story straight.

After having hired a room for Sue with the wife of Jagger Dunn’s foreman, Huck made his way slowly down the main street to his office.

He cursed himself for being a fool. When he had sent the telegram to Doyle, he had deliberately omitted sending a message to Sue. He was asking for a loan, and until the loan could be paid back he had determined to forget about Sue completely.

And now, it was all mixed up. If she had only stayed away until he had gotten the mind running and the loan repaid, he wouldn’t be feeling sorry that he had kissed her. Not that he was sorry he kissed her—no, certainly not. But he
was
—damn it!

When he entered his office, he found it difficult to shut out a certain picture and concentrate on the work before him.

Sue Doyle had trouble falling asleep that night.

Her search was over—she had found Huck Brannon. She had been ecstatically happy when he took her in his arms and kissed her. The reason for her coming had been fulfilled. She now knew definitely what Huck would do when he saw her. She knew because he had already done it. He kissed her—and she had been idiotically happy.

That is, until Huck had taken her to the restaurant. There, something had happened to him. She saw it happen before her eyes. He had turned cold and hard suddenly. He no longer looked at her the way he did when he first saw her. As she thought of it now, her heart stiffened.

She had been sure—positive—of his feeling. Now she wasn’t any longer. She had been happy—wildly—at first. Now the cold tentacles of fear clutched at her heart, fear that something—some insurmountable obstacle stood between them.

Sue Doyle was most miserable before she fell asleep that night.

The ghost of grim old Don Fernando de Castro would have been hard put to recognize his silver mine when the sun of returning Spring melted the snows on the mountains and clothed the hillsides with myriad shades of green. Instead of silence broken only by the low thunder of falling water, the cry of the eagle and the scream of the stalking panther there was the whine and rumble of machinery, the crackle of locomotive exhausts, the screech of complaining wheels and the crash of steel on steel. Instead of the stainless blue of the arching sky, there were sullen clouds belching forth from stack and chimney.

Inside the mine there were also changes. Drawn by mules and rumbling along on narrow-gauge tracks were trains of little cars heaped high with glistening black lumps. In the rooms cut back from the main galleries there was a thumping of picks and a pounding of drills, with ever and anon the rumble of explosions.

A deep shaft had been sunk within the mine and there were levels beneath the original borings. Cages raised and lowered by cables sent men into the lower levels and brought them forth. Other lifts brought forth the black diamonds torn from the
heart of the mountain. There was a constant whistling of blowers that pumped the inflammable gas from the mine.

For the Lost Padre was a dangerous mine. It was, as Lank had predicted, a “blazer.” Always present was the threat of an explosion that would leave death and destruction in its wake. Smoking was forbidden inside the mine and only the Davey safety lamps were used to provide illumination. Quite different from the smoking torches used by the doomed Indians who got out the silver for Don Fernando de Castro and His Imperial and Holy Majesty of Spain.

Only one thing was unchanged. Within their night-black tomb, the silence of which was broken only by the monotonous drip and trickle of water, the murdered Indians slept undisturbed their last long sleep. Huck Brannon had thought at first to remove the bodies and give them burial, but Tom Gaylord counseled against it.

“Our Mexican fellers is mighty superstitious,” said Tom. “I got a notion they wouldn’t take overkindly to shovin’ them corpses ‘round. Fact is, I cal’late it’s best if they don’t even know they’re in there.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Huck admitted. “Lank, take your rock-busters in there and throw up a wall across the gallery that leads into the cave where those poor devils are. Let ‘em rest in peace where they been all these years.”

So a light stone wall was built across the gallery from floor to ceiling. A shallow conduit with an
arching top was constructed beneath the wall at one side, so that the seeping of water could be carried off.

“That’s fine,” Lank Mason observed, eyeing the completed wall with satisfaction. “That’ll keep the boys outa there and from gettin’ the livin’ blue blazin’ daylights scairt outa them. Fact is, I been hearin’ things already. There’s a whisper goin’ around in town that this mine has a cuss on it, and that the Injuns what live back in the hills is mighty put out over us startin’ operations here again.

“The Injuns say, I’m told, that this mine should stay closed forever and forever. They say it’ll be a mighty bad thing for the red people if anythin’ is taken outa the mountain again—say the hill gods’ll be mad ‘bout it. They figger the hill gods’ll blame them if they don’t stop it.”

“Now who’s starting those yarns?” demanded Huck.

“Dunno,” Lank admitted. “They jest start; but they shore spread.”

Sue joined them. She overheard Mason.

“What’s sure to spread, Lank?” she asked him.

“Why, nothing, Sue—nothing,” replied Huck quickly. “Lank was talking about some gas in the lower chambers. Said it was sure to spread if we didn’t keep the blowers goin’.”

For a moment Sue eyed him without saying a word, and she colored slightly. “Huck,” she said calmly, “you’re still treating me like a little girl. I know what’s going on. There’s talk of a curse on E1 Padre.”

“Yes,” Huck said. “Some blame fool’s spreading
the yarn. There isn’t a word of truth to it. I just didn’t want you to worry is all.”

“It doesn’t worry me, Huck,” said Sue.

“Say,” Lank interpolated. “I gotta hand it to yuh women. I ain’t had meals like them since I was knee high to a pup. Why, since yuh came to stay at E1 Padre to do the cookin’, I ain’t heard a peep outa any of the men ‘bout hard work, or nothin’!”

Sue blushed warmly at the praise.

“Thanks, Lank,” she said.

When Sue Doyle had first come to Esmeralda, a short time back, she had no idea that she would soon become assistant camp cook for Huck Brannon at his El Padre Mine.

Yet it had come about in the most natural way in the world. The wife of Jagger Dunn’s foreman, with whom Sue roomed when she arrived, was a robust, bustling Irishwoman, named Mamie Donovan. Bristling with an over-supply of vitality and energy, she had suggested to Huck at the opening of his mine, that she join his camp as cook.

Huck, immediately perceiving the advantage of obtaining the services of Mamie Donovan—for her cooking prowess was too well-known for dispute—hired her on the spot.

The good Mrs. Donovan immediately hired as assistant Sue Doyle, whom she had taken wholeheartedly to her more than ample bosom. And although Huck had at first protested at Sue’s being on location, on the grounds that it was too dangerous for her, he finally had gratefully accepted her presence.

Sue, after the first shock of disappointment had
worn off following the change in Huck’s attitude toward her, had determined to stick it out—for a while at least—and had wired her father. Her pride was trampled and sore, but she refused to indulge it.

Lank and Old Tom, who had observed the situation with knowing eyes, had diagnosed the symptoms and read the chart accurately, were at a loss to understand their partner’s reactions. Their oblique comments, however, had been cut short by Huck, who brooked no invasion of his privacy—and minced no words in making it clear to them.

Naturally, the oldsters’ sympathies lay with the feminine side of the apparently insoluble equation. And in revenge for Huck’s blistering tongue, they constantly praised Sue, extolled her virtues, her character, her beauty, to the very skies. And revenge it was, for they could see their partner squirm.

Fortunately for Huck, there were other things to be done around the mine than talk. Yet they never lost an opportunity to remind Huck what a fine girl she was. And they meant it, too. Right now Lank Mason had another chance. And, as usual, he didn’t let it slip.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” he said after Sue had left, watching Huck out of the corner of his eye.

The big, tanned puncher was also watching Sue walk past the pumphouse toward the cabin which she shared with Mrs. Donovan.

“Yes,” he said, almost to himself, “a beauty.”

“I been talkin’ to her,” said Lank Mason casually. “Been tryin’ to persuade her to go home. This mine
ain’t no place for a girl like her.” He wasn’t looking at Huck now, but he felt the latter stiffening.

“What did she say?” asked Huck. His voice held little expression.

Purposely Lank withheld his answer for a moment. “She said no,” he said. Then he changed the subject. “What are yuh gonna do, Huck, ‘bout them yarns of the cuss on El Padre?”

“Keep our ears open,” said Huck. “Mebbe we can get our hands on the hombre or hombres spreadin’ them damn yarns.”

In the weeks that followed Huck was too busy to give the matter further thought. And then one night of wind-thinned moonlight, when the blazing winter stars seemed to brush the ghostly tops of the mountains and frost diamonds sparkled in the silver flood, he heard Lank call him from the inner room of the little cabin they occupied together.

He found the old miner leaning out the open window. Lank motioned to the puncher to join him and listen.

At first Huck could hear nothing but the muted roar of the distant waterfall and the monotonous clank of the pumps that drew the never-ceasing seepage from the lower levels of the mine. Then, filtering through the low rumble and the steady metallic clang, his straining ears caught a muffled throbbing that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, rising and falling, rising and falling on the crisply cold air. He glanced questioningly at Lank.

“Injun drums,” said the miner. “Injun drums
beatin’ back in the hills. They’re havin’ some kind of a tom-tom pow-wow up there. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t suppose it has anything to do with us,” Huck demurred. “Tribal dance or feast or something.”

“Mebbe,” Lank admitted, “but I’ve heerd them before, and it almost always meant some deviltry was in the wind.”

For several minutes they listened to the throbbing of the drums. The moon sank below a crag and weird shadows crept over the cliffs that crouched like monsters waiting to spring and spilled their smoky dust into the canyon depths. Somewhere in the forest that clothed the lower slopes a panther screamed with a desolate unearthly note and an owl hooted solemn answer.

And still the whisper of the drums persisted through the gathering of the dark. The sound appeared to come from the west, with an answering echo from the north. To Huck it suddenly seemed that the drums were “talking,” that there was a sinister message sent forth by unseen hands upon the taut heads.

“We will kill you, if we can!” said the hidden men in the west.

“We will kill you, if we can!” said the men in the north.

Each flinging their ominous threat at the gloomy canyon wherein ancient taboos were being broken and long-dead evils brought to light.
“We will kill you, if we can! We will kill you, if we can!
”

Huck went back to bed not quite so skeptical of
Old Lank’s forebodings. His skepticism vanished altogether when, two days later, the body of a miner who had gone up the cliff top to hunt for grouse and had not returned within a reasonable time was found by a searching party, shot in the back.

Huck immediately gave orders that nobody should wander alone into the hills, particularly along the wooded banks of Dominguez Creek and the old channel, whose frozen pools glittered in the sunlight and were traced by the shadows of the leafless growth which hung over them from either side.

“Stay down here in the canyon where you’re safe,” he warned his men. “Those red hellions are on the prod for some reason or other and are liable to be snooping around up there in the bush just waiting for a chance to drygulch one of you.”

He now renewed his efforts to induce Sue to leave the camp—to go home, or at least to return to Esmeralda until the threat of the evil that hung over the camp like a darkening pall, was lifted.

But she was as determined to stay as he was determined that she go. After a lengthy argument, they finally compromised on Sue’s promise to remain close to the camp and cabin at all times. Huck was not entirely satisfied, but he had to be content with the decision.

Moreover, Sue was not his only problem. His mine and his men were his obligation, too.

He was aroused to additional alertness when one night a couple of weeks later the drums throbbed again. Taking no chances, he made a swift check of
the camp and was relieved to find all the workers either safe in their cabins or performing duties required of them.

“Reckon they’re just making medicine this time, and not celebrating any killings,” he told Lank.