“All ready,” Drake said.

  “Firing duty—”

  One man screeched and staggered back a pace, breaking the line. Nathan advanced a long pace to command him to get back in line, but then the rest of men moved back a pace, too. A deep crunching sounded behind Nathan.

  He turned around. With his huge legs set wide apart, Abe had ripped the firing-post from the ground. Nathan tried to order his men to fire, but his own surprise paralyzed his throat and he just croaked indistinctly while he waved his sword in a vague circle.

  With the post still attached to his back Abe bent over and swung it in an arc, scything through the equally surprised burial duty. When the post splintered in two over the third man’s head, Abe threw it away, ripping away his bonds in a shower of rope.

  Then, with a lunge of his thick arm, he hit the last member of the burial duty in the stomach. The man flew backward to wind around Jack’s firing-post. As if this was the final proof Nathan needed that this wasn’t a nightmare, he ordered his firing duty to open fire. The men took aim, lowered their guns and then took aim again.

  “Fire,” Nathan said again.

  “They might hit our own men,” Major Parish said, stepping forward.

  “Just do it, but aim well!”

  Rifles swung toward Abe and gunfire ripped across the corral, arcing through the two prisoners who were still tied to their posts, but when the gunfire reached Abe, Abe hurled himself behind the burial cart.

  The firing duty kneeled and trained their guns on the cart, waiting for Abe to emerge, but two great clawing hams of hands appeared from behind the cart and dragged two of the pole-axed burial duty away. Abe tossed the men on to their fronts and when he rose to his feet, he had a gun in both hands.

  Gunshots blasted across the corral. In a ripple of sudden movement, Mayor Parish and then the firing duty stumbled back with their chests pitted red. Then Abe turned to Nathan. Nathan cried out as a gunshot clipped the sword from his hand.

  The gunshots echoed away to nothing, leaving the body-strewn corral shrouded in eerie quiet. While Abe hurled the cart aside and stormed toward him, Nathan fell to his knees and scrambled for one of his men’s rifles.

  His hand slapped on a weapon, but pain sliced through it. The gunshot, which had torn his sword away, had ripped clean through his palm. He tried to force his shaking fingers around the rifle, but his fingers wouldn’t move. A vast shadow blotted out the sun, as Abe loomed over him, his guns held high, a smile breaking his great shaggy beard.

  “Like I promised, death will need to catch me unawares, and your men were nowhere near sneaky enough,” Abe boomed.

  “You promised to hold me responsible for your arrest,” Nathan babbled. “You had no reason to kill my men.”

  The sound of boulders crunching filled Nathan’s mind as Abe chuckled.

  “I’ll take those for your last words. Do you want a blindfold?”

  Nathan shook his head and Abe’s two guns swung toward him.

  Chapter Three

  IN THE HOT SILVER SALOON, Yick Lee slipped on to a stool at the end of the bar. Rough-clad miners, who’d spent half their lives underground, and well-dressed men, who’d never soiled their hands in their lives, filled the saloon.

  The noise level was only at the level of excited chatter. This early in the evening, the bulk of the miners had yet to arrive, so the raucous singing and fighting hadn’t begun. With his failure to get the deputy’s job, Lee had been ready to slope out of Silver Creek.

  Then he would start the long journey back to the Pacific Ocean, perhaps followed by an even longer journey, but Carter Lyle had insisted he stay for a drink. As the nights in Silver Creek produced a bone-aching cold that his blanket couldn’t repel, Lee had relented.

  “Are you sure that you want to be in here with me?” Lee asked.

  Carter kicked the counter, his shoulders hunched. “Why not? I’m as big a failure as you are. We both aren’t suitable deputy material.”

  “That’s as maybe, but they won’t serve me. This saloon wouldn’t give me work earlier.”

  With his head on one side, Carter bunched his eyebrows.

  “I don’t see why they wouldn’t give you work. Back on my farm, my pa never turned away any man who wanted work.” Carter sighed. “Although he turned away plenty who wanted paid.”

  “Life is different in Silver Creek – not everyone prospers.”

  Carter waved, attracting the bartender’s attention. As the bartender moved down the bar toward Carter, Lee shuffled off his stool and backed away two strides. Carter and the bartender exchanged low words, but to Lee’s irritation, the bartender waved his towel at them and then pointed at the door. Carter joined Lee and stood hunched.

  Lee matched Carter’s posture. “He wouldn’t serve you, then?”

  Carter shook his head. “Nope.”

  “As I expected,” Lee said. “The townsfolk will never accept me.”

  “He didn’t mention you. He just reckoned that having no money was a problem.”

  “How did you hope to get drinks?” Lee spluttered.

  Carter frowned, his jaw set in earnest surprise that the bartender hadn’t given him free drinks. He shuffled inside his soiled buckskin jacket.

  “I’ve learned one thing in life: if you don’t ask, you don’t find out anything. If you ask and get nowhere, you haven’t lost anything.”

  Lee noted Carter’s ragged clothing, all covered in varying types of dirt.

  “Asking is fine, but failing every time can destroy you.”

  Carter shrugged his wide shoulders and pointed across the saloon.

  “Follow me. I’ll show you what worked for me earlier.”

  Shaking his head, Lee followed Carter across the crowded saloon. At the side of the saloon, Carter approached a man wearing a huge Stetson, Silas Malt. Carter slipped his tattered hat from his head, held it across his chest and smiled.

  “Sir, I want to thank you for directing me toward that job working as a deputy,” he said, “but the marshal didn’t want to hire me or my friend.”

  “That’s a pity, friend,” Silas said without turning from his fellow drinker.

  “Do you know of any other suitable jobs?”

  Silas sighed. “No, but you might want to join your friend down the mine. If you’re not interested in that, I’ll tell you if I hear of anything else.”

  With studied finality, Silas turned his back on Carter, so Carter pointed to a gap in the milling drinkers and led Lee to the wall, where he leaned back. With his feet set wide apart, he faced the bustling saloon folk.

  Lee copied the posture. “So what are we waiting for now?”

  “We’re waiting to see someone who might give us a job, or a drink.”

  “I’d settle for either.”

  Carter frowned. “Was that man right? Do you work in the mine?”

  “I did work down the Silver Gulch mine,” Lee said.

  “Then you should stay there. This search for work could take some time.”

  “I’m not. I worked there for two years.” Lee kneaded his brow as he forced himself to speak. “Four months ago, a tunnel collapsed and trapped twenty-seven miners. They all died.”

  Carter gulped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “The trapped people included my brother and just about everyone I’ve ever known.” Lee chuckled without humor. “The ridiculous thing is, for the previous year a dispute about pay had rumbled on, but after the disaster, nobody worried about the money, just the conditions. So they boarded up the dangerous tunnels and everything carried on as if nothing had happened.”

  “And you haven’t returned since?”

  “I returned,” Lee said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice, but knowing that he was failing. “I had to eat, but today I’ve had enough of the grime and the filth. So here I am on the outside, without work, but I’m not returning.”

  “I came to Silver Creek because I heard it was as prosperous as Silver Town is. Perhaps I heard wrong.” Carter sighed. “From the sound of your experiences here, the likes of us won’t prosper.”

  “Maybe for you, Silver Creek will be fine, but for me and. . . .” Lee fingered a frayed end of his blanket. “Let’s just say that I came east searching for a better life. I didn’t expect to find this.”

  Carter chuckled, but when Lee sneered he shook his head.

  “I’m not laughing at you. It’s odd that everyone I knew went west to search for a better life, yet you went east.”

  Lee shrugged. “It depends on where you started.”

  For twenty minutes they stood in silence. Then Silas wandered over to them.

  “I’ve heard about work you boys might be interested in,” he said, patting each man on the shoulder.

  Carter pushed himself from the wall. “Tell us. We’ll do anything.”

  “I wouldn’t say that too loudly. There are plenty of lonely miners around.” Silas smirked and then pointed outside. “If you head to Lorne Wayne’s ranch, he’s looking for workers.”

  Lee snorted. Lorne Wayne was one of the mine owners.

  “I might have known the only work around here for me was down the mine,” he said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Lorne wants ranch hands. Just see the ranch foreman, Stem Buckfast.”

  “Thanks,” Carter said.

  Silas shrugged. “There’s no need to thank me. The pay’s no good. The work can be hard and nobody wants to do it, but I told you I’d let you know if I heard anything.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Lee said. “The job sounds excellent. We’ll try first thing tomorrow.”

  Lee tipped his hat and as Silas waddled away Carter turned to him.

  “Are you sure the work sounds excellent?” he asked. “The work is hard and the pay is poor.”

  “Nope.” Lee pushed from the wall and smiled. “But the man said the magic words that told me the work is perfect for us.”

  Carter furrowed his brow. “What’s that?”

  “No one wants to do it, and let’s face facts.” Lee patted Carter on the back. “That’s the only work we’ll get.”

  Chapter Four

  JEREMY MONTANA STOOD at the window of his second-floor office in Bear Rock. Below, carts and horses bustled back and forth on the main drag. He yawned and then sat down and stretched back in his padded chair.

  The afternoon had the right level of heat and lack of clients that Jeremy loved. Now he was anticipating a lengthy siesta for the rest of the afternoon. As he locked his hands behind his head and crossed his legs on the desk, his secretary, Martha, pushed open his office door.

  “You have a visitor, Mr. Montana,” she said. “Shall I show him in?”

  “No,” Jeremy said through a long yawn.

  Martha leaned on the door frame and shivered.

  “Mr. Montana, he’s waiting to see you,” she said, lowering her voice. “Shall I show him in?”

  With the siesta receding fast, Jeremy rolled his feet to the floor and nodded.

  “All right, show him in, but he’s the last one I’ll see today.”

  Martha nodded and turned from the doorway. She backed away to press herself against the corridor wall and raised her head. Jeremy flinched as his visitor strode to the doorway. From beneath the lintel, only his body up to his densely bearded chin was visible.

  In an exaggerated style, the man ducked to his waist to shuffle into Jeremy’s office. Once inside, he drew to his full height. The man didn’t wear a hat. If he did, Jeremy reckoned it would probably brush against the ceiling.

  “Mr. Jones is a new client,” Martha said from the corridor.

  “You don’t say.” Jeremy forced a smile. “Sit down, Mr. Jones.”

  Mr. Jones sat in the only available chair by striding over it and dropping on to it. The chair groaned.

  “Thank you kindly.” Mr. Jones’s booming voice rattled the ornaments on Jeremy’s side cabinet.

  Jeremy pushed a document aside to clear a space in the center of his desk, clasped his hands and leaned back to avoid the inevitable neck strain.

  “So, Mr. Jones, what can I do for you?”

  “I want to review a contract that you produced eighteen months ago for some of my colleagues.”

  Jeremy unclasped his hands and held them wide apart.

  “And you’d like me to produce something similar for you?”

  “You have the general idea.” Mr. Jones set his untamed red beard in the center of his chest.

  “I can’t show you the specific contract that I produced for your colleagues – client confidentiality and all that – but if you give me their names, I’ll talk you through the particulars of their contract.”

  With his piercing blue eyes fixed on Jeremy, Mr. Jones ground his teeth.

  “They were Alistair Marriott and Lorne Wayne. The contract was for mineral rights.”

  With a small mystery solved, Jeremy smiled. Mr. Jones didn’t seem to be someone who’d have trouble enforcing his rights, but mineral ownership was something everyone needed help to clarify.

  “Understood. I can’t remember the specific case, but most mineral contracts have similar clauses. I can run through the terms and explain the main problem areas.”

  Mr. Jones leaned forward and placed an elbow on the desk, causing the desk to creak and sway. Mr. Jones widened his eyes, his blue eyes so piercing that Jeremy gulped and leaned farther back in his chair so that the back of his head thumped against the wall.

  “I was more interested in their specific contract.”

  “Perhaps in this circumstance I can take you through the specific terms in their contract.” Jeremy’s voice shook with an uncontrolled tremor and he coughed to regain his composure.

  Jeremy bounded from his desk to his filing cabinet. Even without Martha’s help, he quickly located the file kept under the name of Lorne Wayne. With a folder of documents tucked under his arm, he scurried back to his desk and slid out the bound contracts.

  Jeremy rummaged through his paperwork. As he read his notes, he recalled the complexities that had taken up two days’ work and two weeks’ billed time, some months ago.

  “This is more difficult than I first thought. Do you want to see the first contract or the two later contracts?”

  Mr. Jones leaned his other elbow on Jeremy’s desk. The desk creaked with increasing danger.

  “All of them.”

  To avoid looking at Mr. Jones more than he had to, Jeremy hunched over his papers and examined the first contract.

  “Apparently the Silver Gulch mine was under the intersection of land owned by the two men we mentioned, so the first contract split the rights to the mine between them.” Jeremy read the second contract. The terms were identical to the first, except for the people involved. “The second contract allocated rights to a third man, a Mr. Mountain.”

  Mr. Jones leaned forward, the desk creaking some more.

  “And the final contract?”

  Jeremy scanned the third contract. “That contract excluded Mr. Mountain from those rights and replaced them with rights for a new man, a Marshal Brown.”

  With an explosive sigh, Mr. Jones sat back in his chair. The desk rocked from him and documents fluttered to the floor.

  “I didn’t know that. How could they exclude Abe Mountain?”

  Jeremy rescued his notes from the floor and shuffled through them to refresh his memory.

  “It’s simple. Mr. Wayne and Mr. Marriott always retained the right to change the contract whenever they both agreed to do so. Not that it matters, as three months ago Mr. Mountain died. I have the notice of death here signed by Marshal Brown.”

  Mr. Jones nodded, his vast head shaking the unkempt beard against his chest.

  “So Mr. Mountain has no rights to the mine, in any circumstances?”

  Jeremy saw a hint of what Mr. Jones wanted. “No. Mr. Mountain’s estate doesn’t have rights. If you’re a relative of the deceased man, I’m sorry to tell you that the original contract is no longer valid, however valuable those rights may be.”

  With a beaming smile, Mr. Jones rocked forward and stabbed a thick finger on the contract.

  “Understood. In that case, you’ll produce a new contract for me.”

  Jeremy sighed in relief and relaxed his shoulders. “And the new contract will use the same types of terms and clauses as this final contract?”

  Mr. Jones pushed the contract to Jeremy. “It’ll be exactly the same, except for one final clause.”

  “Which is?”

  Looming over Jeremy, Mr. Jones took hold of either side of the desk in two huge hands.

  “I’ll add the final clause myself, once you’ve drawn up the rest of contract.”

  Jeremy sighed, wondering whether to complain about the problems that always occurred whenever a non-lawyer amended a contract, but he shrugged and picked up his pen, ready to take notes.

  “What are the names of the persons I should include in the contract?”

  Mr. Jones’s smile widened, splitting his red beard and mustache with two rows of gleaming white teeth.

  “Like I said, I want the contract to be identical to the final contract for ownership of the Silver Gulch mine with the same names, same mine, same everything, except for the final clause.”

  Gulping, Jeremy examined the notes on his desk.

  “Why? Such a contract has no worth.”

  “Because I want it,” Mr. Jones roared.

  From sitting so close to such a loud burst of noise, Jeremy’s head rattled. As he shook his head to free the ringing that filled his ears, he thought of a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t produce a copy of the contract, and only one reason why he should.

  As the reason he should was sitting in his office, and filling most of it, he nodded. Normally, he’d tell a new client to collect the finished work in a week, to preserve the mystery that his job was complex, but today he picked up a clean sheet of paper.

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  Mr. Jones gripped the desk more tightly. Splinters broke off the sides.

  “You have five.”

  Jeremy gulped. “Five it is.”

  Working quickly, Jeremy kept his head down and copied the contract. With the writing complete, he dated, embossed and sealed the contract. As Jeremy blew on the wax to set it, with a clawing ham of a hand Mr. Jones ripped the contract from Jeremy’s fingers.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11