Escape From Five Shadows Page 12

  As it happened, Bowen was taken and Manring’s luck began its run. That he had tested his luck with a man’s life in the balance rose to his conscience only briefly. He shrugged it off with the thought that if Bowen had been killed, he deserved it. He would be repaid for that night in the Prescott jail cell: the night Bowen slugged him four times before the deputy pulled him off.

  It was not until a few days after Bowen and Pryde had been thrown into the punishment cell that Manring realized that he had not asked Renda for a reward. He could not risk Renda suspecting that he had informed on Bowen for any other reason than for a reward. So he asked to be taken off stump-pulling.

  Now he was doing the same thing in reverse. Nearing the end of the canyon, it was time to be working with Bowen again. When the dynamite arrived he would still be with Bowen. Renda would be asking what he had learned and he would have to stall Renda. But that could be done, he was sure. And Pryde. It was too bad Ike was still working with Bowen. But maybe something would happen to Ike.

  Bowen was backing the team into position, Pryde pushing down on the long handle of his shovel, levering the stump, and the Mexican was passing the chain through the stump’s shallow roots. Pryde saw him first. He said, “Here comes Earl.” And now the three of them paused. They waited expectantly, watching Manring coming toward them.

  As he reached them, Manring’s eyes went to the Mexican and he lowered the shovel. “Renda wants to see you.”

  The Mexican’s hand moved to his chest. “Me? What does he want with me?”

  “Don’t get overheated. You’re going on the scraper.”

  “On the scraper? But why does he want me?”

  “Ask him. I don’t run the place.”

  The Mexican rose slowly, wiping his hands on his thighs. “Maybe he thinks I did something that I didn’t do.”

  “You’re going on the scraper. That isn’t punishment.”

  The Mexican shook his head. “Something’s wrong.”

  “You’re just jumpy,” Manring said.

  “I’m jumpy since the time Chick Miller went to see Renda.”

  “Go on, get out of here.”

  Manring’s eyes followed the Mexican as he started off toward the equipment wagon, then his gaze returned. He looked from Pryde to Bowen as he said, “I got transferred.”

  Bowen only nodded, but Pryde said, “We saw you talking to Renda.”

  “Sure. He was sending me over here.”

  “You’re talking to him all the time, aren’t you?”

  Manring looked over at Bowen. “Your friend don’t trust me.”

  “Maybe I don’t either,” Bowen said. He backed the team up to the stump and there was no more said until they had pulled the stump and Pryde moved off with the team, dragging the stump to the nearest bonfire.

  Manring said then, “I talked Renda into sending me over here. We got to be working together, Corey, if we’re going to pull it.”

  “You can talk in front of Ike,” Bowen said. “I already told him about it.”

  “You told Ike!”

  “He wants to get out just like you do.”

  “We don’t need three!”

  “But you need me. And if Ike doesn’t go, I don’t.”

  “Corey…it’s different with you and me. We got no business being here in the first place. Ike killed a man. He deserves to be here.”

  “I’m not judging him,” Bowen said. “If I go, so does Ike.”

  By late afternoon, the road had passed the sycamore grove and was halfway to the horse trail that slanted gradually up the western tree-covered slope of the canyon.

  “By tomorrow afternoon the brush cutters will be on the slope,” Manring said. His shovel jabbed at the roots of the stump they were working on. As Bowen went to his knees, Manring stooped, pushing down on the shovel and one side of the stump lifted, popping the roots that held it. Pryde passed the end of the chain to Bowen and they fastened it to the stump. As they worked, their eyes would raise to the tree-covered slant of the canyon wall looming above them.

  “More or less,” Manring said, “the road’s got to follow that natural trail.”

  Pryde said, “I don’t see any trail. Though it must be there. The girl passes this way and so does Willis.”

  “You can’t see it for the trees,” Manring said. “It goes up a shelf, all the way up, that looks like it was put there for the purpose. When the trees are cleared, maybe the shelf would be wide enough for a wagon. But it’d be just wide enough, without any room to spare.”

  “So,” Bowen said. “You blast the wall out and use the rock to build up the shoulder of the road.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Manring said.

  “Is that the way you and Renda both see it?” Bowen said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You and he surveyed it together, didn’t you? Is that the way Renda said it would be done?”

  “Something like that,” Manring said guardedly. “He wasn’t sure and he just talked about it generally.”

  “So you weren’t sure either how it would be done,” Bowen said.

  “As sure as anybody,” Manring insisted. “There’s only one way to get out.”

  “We want to hear your idea,” Bowen said.

  “You’re awful damn anxious. We got about a week yet.”

  “Earl, I don’t think you have a plan.”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Bowen nodded. “We’ll find out right now.”

  “It’d be easier to tell it once we got up on the slope.”

  “Earl, I think you’re stalling.”

  “I can’t give you details now! You got to be up there to see what I’m talking about, else it won’t mean anything to you.”

  “Try us anyway,” Bowen said.

  “Well,” Manring began, “it’s based on three things. We got to do three things else it isn’t going to work.” He spoke slowly, as if giving himself time to think.

  “First, we got to take care of the guard that’ll be on us. I figure Renda or Brazil. We get hold of him, but without anybody else knowing about it. Second, we set the charge so as to close the road on anybody coming up from below. Lay a rock slide over it or else blow a hole in it that a horse couldn’t cross. Third, we got to take care of the Mimbres. I figure we can force Renda or Brazil, whichever one we’re holding, to call them out. See, we’ll have another charge planted. All this is timed to the second and just as they come out—boom—they’re blown sky-high.”

  “Then what?” Bowen said.

  “Then we run for the station. For horses.”

  Bowen looked at Pryde. “What do you think?”

  “He don’t anymore have a plan than I do.”

  “He must’ve just thought it up,” Bowen said.

  Manring looked from one to the other. “What’re you trying to pull?”

  “You got a lot of holes in your idea,” Bowen said. “That’s all.”

  “Well, sure,” Manring said. “You can’t work everything out until you got the stuff.”

  “You can’t work anything out,” Bowen said.

  “It’ll go like I said, or it won’t go at all.”

  “Maybe some of it will,” Bowen said. “You’ve wanted us to believe you had a plan so we’d get it in our heads we need you. You supplying the brains and Ike and me lighting the fuse. But it comes out all you have is a sketchy idea…and now we’re not sure if we do need you, Earl.”

  Manring remained calm, as if he had anticipated this and already knew how he would answer it. He shook his head saying, “You won’t do it without me. If you don’t like my idea, think it’s got holes, then figure your own way. But whatever way you do it, I’m going to be along.”

  “Now he’s threatening us,” Pryde said.

  “You can call it whatever you want,” Manring said.

  Pryde shrugged. “I was thinking you wouldn’t want to go up there with us. A man could fall and kill himself.”

  “Ike,” Manrin
g said, “I can fix it for you right now.”

  “You’re going, Earl,” Bowen said easily. “We might not need your help, but we sure as hell need you in plain sight.”

  As Manring predicted, the “brush cutters”—the convicts who cleared the pinyon and scrub brush—were working their way up the slope by midafternoon of the next day. On the morning of the day after that, the crews that followed, including the scraper, had reached the beginning of the trail and could go no farther—not until dynamite widened the narrow, uneven horse trail. But the dynamite had not yet arrived.

  By noon, two thirds of the convicts were idle—until Renda devised something for them to do. He was reluctant to put more men up on the slope. That would increase the rate of construction, shorten the job time and consequently decrease his daily profit. Still, the convicts had to be kept busy. So he put them to work clearing the canyon area beyond the point at which the road would begin ascending the west slope.

  “Cleaning out the brush is for your own good,” Renda told the convicts. “Then later on when we’re working high up and somebody falls off, we’ll be able to find the body for a decent burial.”

  There were three bonfires to consume the brush as it was hacked down and cleared away. Bowen was given the job of tending to one of them. Shirtless in the close, almost unbearable heat, he would throw the dry brush into the flames. Then, waiting for more to be dragged over to him, his gaze would rise to the jagged, climbing trace of the horse trail that became visible, foot by foot, as the pinyon was toppled into the canyon.

  Now it was a matter of patience, of waiting and using the time to think it out clearly, to think of every possibility. No, there was not that much time—not time to think of everything—so you eliminated some of the things right away. The things you had thought of already and had seen no hope in. Like Karla…and the lawyer…and walking out with a pardon or a parole or an acquittal or whatever you wanted to call it.

  It was nice to think about that. It was nice to think about her. But it didn’t do you any good. And now you think about only the things that’ll do you some good. And it’s the bad things that do you good. Do you realize that? You get good from bad. That isn’t possible, but that’s what you’re getting. From Lizann. And from Earl.

  A gun from Lizann and an idea from Earl.

  Bowen had hidden the gun in the stable. In the stall where Renda’s chestnut mare was kept, he had pried loose one of the boards against the back wall and slipped the gun behind it. There, because the barracks offered no safe place to hide it. Getting it again, when the time came, would be another problem.

  But there were a lot of problems and one more didn’t make much difference. Shooting Willis Falvey, though, was not one of the problems.

  Lizann’s plan, when he realized it, was very simple. It was not a question of running away. That had no part in it. If her husband were killed, there would be an investigation. Someone would come down from Prescott—if not for a formal investigation, at least to take over Willis’s duties. When he did, Lizann would leave, and Renda would be able to do nothing about it. It was that simple. A convict, trying to escape, had killed Willis. The convict either got away or was recaptured. That was the convict’s problem.

  But it won’t be your problem, Bowen thought. And it won’t be anybody else’s problem, unless she had more than one gun.

  He imagined that she would be confident, patiently waiting for it to happen, rehearsing what she would say to the man from Prescott—perhaps even taunting Renda with hints that she would be leaving soon.

  Lizann had a surprise coming.

  So you are left with Earl. Earl and the dynamite. And you have to be careful how you mix them if you expect to get out of this alive.

  On the morning of the second day of tending the brush fire, Bowen saw Karla Demery ride down the canyon. The convicts on the slope stopped working to watch her go by; and those below, on the floor of the canyon, turned and followed her with their eyes as she crossed to Renda sitting in a shaded section of the east wall.

  She spoke to Renda for only a moment, then reined her horse in a tight circle. As she did, her gaze found Bowen. She nudged her horse toward the fire, toward the motionless naked-to-the-waist figure who stood in front of the swirling, wind-caught rise of smoke. Renda called to her and she drew in the reins. Bowen watched. She was not more than fifty feet away, still looking toward him. She wanted to tell him something, he could see that by her expression. Then it was too late. Renda, mounted now, came up next to her and they rode off together toward the nearest team of horses.

  A few minutes later they passed Bowen again, heading up the canyon. Behind them came a wagon carrying three convicts, one of them Manring. A guard followed, bringing up the rear.

  She wanted to tell you something, Bowen thought. But it could’ve been bad news as easily as good, so don’t think about it. You’ve got enough to figure out already. But through the rest of the day his thoughts would go to Karla Demery. She was not that easily put from his mind.

  That evening the convicts were in the barracks when the wagon returned. Six men were called out to help unload it and they did not return for over a half hour. When they did, Manring was with them.

  The lean, bearded man came over to Bowen’s mat. He sat down at the foot of it and rolled a cigarette. “Let me have a match.”

  Bowen handed him a box of matches and watched silently.

  Manring struck the match. As he held it to his cigarette he said, “Boy, we just unloaded it in the stable. Enough to blow everybody clean to hell.”

  12

  “Wait a minute,” Renda called. “This is far enough!” He brought up his shotgun as the four men on the climbing trail ahead of him stopped.

  Brazil, leading the file, called back, “He says you got to start at the top.”

  “You believe everything he tells you?” Renda’s face, flushed from the climb, showed sudden anger.

  To Bowen who was second in line, carrying two coils of fuse over his shoulder and a box of detonators in his hand, Brazil said, “The old man can’t take it, so he’s got to yell at somebody.”

  Bowen turned and looked past Pryde and Manring who followed him to Renda. “You want to stand here with fifty pounds of dynamite and talk about it?”

  Renda edged along the inside of the trail close to the wall, past Manring and Pryde. As he reached Bowen, Pryde lowered the case of dynamite from his shoulder, placed it against the wall and sat down on it.

  Manring, carrying a shovel, a hand axe and a sapling pole, looked at him uncertainly. “You better be careful.”

  As Manring spoke, Renda turned quickly. “What are you doing!”

  “I’m resting,” Pryde said, “while you talk it out.”

  “You can’t sit on dynamite!”

  “And I can’t stand with it a hunnert feet above nowhere while you get over your nervous state.”

  Bowen said to Renda, “I explained it once. You got to start at the top.”

  “He don’t take to high places,” Pryde said. “Or marching behind fifty pounds of charge.”

  Renda turned on him angrily. “Pick it up!”

  Pryde remained seated, leaning back against the wall. “There’s more chance of dropping it than my hind-end heat setting it off.”

  “I said pick it up!” The tight-muscled, open-eyed expression of Renda’s face was dark with anger. He was aware of the four men watching him, and wanting to show neither anger nor fear he said to Bowen, more calmly, “All right. We’ll talk about it upstairs.”

  Rising, lifting the case of explosives, Pryde said, “Frank, you want to carry this a while?”

  But Renda, refusing to be angered further, ignored Pryde. He remained in line where he stood and followed Bowen the rest of the way up the trail, along the slanting wall, then into a depression where the rock had fallen away and the trail was less steep. The depression cut into the wall and formed a forty-foot draw from the shelf up to the rim of the canyon.

  As he
came up out of the draw, Bowen saw a Mimbreño tracker off in the trees. He was there for a moment, then gone. That’s your big problem, Bowen thought.

  Renda was still breathing heavily as he reached level ground. He stepped aside as Pryde and Manring came up and said to Bowen, “All right, why do you start at the top?”

  “I figure—” Bowen began.

  “You figure!”

  “I never blew up a mountain before.”

  Renda exhaled. “Go on.”

  “I figure,” Bowen said again, emphasizing the word, “if you start from the bottom, as you work up you’ll be covering what you just uncovered every time you set a blast. You get your road widened and the shoulder built up, then touch one off higher up and”—he snapped his finger—“like that, no more road.”

  Manring said, “That makes sense.”

  Renda glanced at him. Then to Bowen he said, “What do you do first?”

  “Test the fuse.” Bowen placed the box of detonators on the ground carefully and took the two coils of fuse from his arm, dropping one of them and handing the end of the other fuse to Manring. Then he walked away from them, straightening the line as he did, measuring it with the length of his hand as he unwound it. With ten feet of it played out he said to Renda, “I need a knife.”

  “What for?”

  “To cut the fuse!”

  “I’ll do the cutting.”

  Bowen shrugged. “Then over the next couple of weeks you’re going to be living on an awful lot of dynamite.”

  Renda brought out a pocket knife. He hesitated, then handed it to Bowen. “Every day when we quit, you give this back to me. Closed.”

  Bowen smiled. “You don’t trust anybody.” He cut the fuse, then stretched it out on the ground. “Have you got a clock with a sweep hand on it?” When Renda nodded, Bowen said, “Start timing as soon as it catches.” He pulled a match from his hat-band, struck it on the bottom of his shoe and touched it to the fuse.

  The fuse hissed and a small flame spurted from the end of it. There was little smoke, but the fuse moved and seemed alive with the flame burning through its powder-filled core. “It’s slow enough,” Renda said.