Escape From Five Shadows Read online

  “Mind your clock,” Bowen told him. When the fuse had burned all the way, he looked at Renda again. “How long?”

  “About three minutes.”

  “Mr. Renda,” Bowen said mildly, “we’re talking about how much time to get clear of a blast. Don’t give me any about.”

  Renda glared at him, but looked at his watch again and said, “Just a little over three minutes. Maybe five seconds.”

  After a moment Bowen said, “That means it burns just about a foot in eighteen seconds. Maybe you think that’s slow. It’s not when you’re lighting the end of it.”

  “I’m impressed,” Renda said. “Now what?”

  “Now we’ll test the charges,” Bowen answered. Manring drew the hand axe from his belt and handed it to Bowen as he moved to the case of dynamite. On the top of the case was stenciled, This Side Up, below that, High Explosives—Dangerous, and at the end which Bowen opened, 50 lbs. No. 1 Dynamite—1¼×8 inches.

  “You’re supposed to use a wooden hammer and wedge to open this,” Bowen said.

  Renda edged toward him, then back again. “Why?”

  “Something about a metal tool slipping and hitting the charge,” Bowen said, prying the top boards loose with the hand axe. “You never know what’ll happen.”

  Renda’s hands were tight about the shotgun and he stood without moving. “We don’t need any talk. Just hurry it up.”

  “That’s another rule,” Bowen said. “You don’t hurry.” He lifted one of the ten paraffin-coated packets from the case and opened it.

  “Here you are,” Bowen said. He extended one of the dynamite cartridges to Renda.

  “I don’t want it!”

  “I thought maybe you wanted to see one close.” Bowen rose and glanced around, then moved to the edge of the draw and looked down, studying the narrow defile that reached to the trail.

  “Earl,” Bowen said then. “Take your stick down there and poke a hole in the left-hand wall. Right down at the end of it.”

  “How deep?”

  “Deep as you can make it. Start about a yard in from the corner.” As Manring started down the defile, Brazil following him, Bowen cut a three-foot length of fuse. He opened the box of detonators, took one of the copper capsules from its felt wrapping and began to gently push the fuse into the capsule’s open end. He did this very carefully until the fuse was touching the detonating compound. Then, with his teeth, he crimped the open end of the detonator tightly to the fuse.

  Pryde said, “You ought’n to use your mouth for that.”

  “I don’t see any nippers around,” Bowen said, and thought: For a man in the construction business he’s missing a damn awful lot of tools.

  “How many sticks?” asked Pryde.

  “We’ll try three,” Bowen said. “And find a stick—sharp pointed and about the size of a pencil.” He moved down the draw then, holding the detonator gently in his closed hand. Pryde followed, but Renda came only halfway down.

  Brazil stepped back as Bowen reached them. He saw Renda then and called, “What’s the matter, Frank?”

  “Mind what you’re paid for!”

  Brazil was grinning. “You’re going to miss something way up there.”

  “I can see all right.” Renda was twenty feet up the draw standing close to one of the steeply sloping banks.

  “That deep enough?” Manring asked. “The stick’s no damn good.”

  “You’ll have to get a metal rod,” Bowen said. He looked closely at the hole. It was formed in a slanting crevice in the rock and was not really a hole at all, only the rock fragments cleared from the crevice, but it would serve the purpose.

  Pryde handed him two cartridges and Bowen inserted them into the seam. As he did he murmured, “Look around, Ike. Get the lay of things. Figure how the Mimbres would come from the other side of the canyon.”

  He unwrapped one end of the third cartridge and with the pinyon twig that Pryde gave him punched a small hole. The detonator went into this, and Bowen rewrapped the paraffin-coated paper so that only the tip of the detonator, with the fuse extending from it, could be seen. This went into the crevice, then loose sand on top of it so there would be no space between the charges and the walls of the crevice. Bowen tamped the sand gently and now they were ready.

  He looked down into the canyon—seeing the convicts grouped around the wagons that were pulled over to the far side and the two guards mounted and standing off from them—then lit the fuse. As he turned he saw Renda go over the top of the draw. “Frank’s already cleared,” Brazil said, then waited to go up last to show that he wasn’t afraid.

  They moved back from the rim of the canyon and a moment later the blast went off. Dust billowed up out of the draw and close on the explosion they heard the faint boom of an echo up canyon, then another, then silence and the dust hung in the sunlight above them.

  As it began to clear, they went down into the draw again. The corner that met the trail was sheered off in an undercut. Shattered rock and sand were scattered over the shelf and much of it had gone over the edge into the canyon.

  “That wasn’t so big,” Renda said. He was at ease again.

  “The next one’ll be bigger,” Bowen said. “First you find out what a few sticks will do. Then you add to it.” He glanced at Pryde, then back at Renda. “We can make them as big as you want.”

  Bowen organized the routine and that day they blasted three times. At Bowen’s direction they began thirty feet down the trail from the defile. Four convicts were brought up and put to work digging into the wall of the canyon. Their job was to hollow a niche six feet deep and wide enough for Manring to work in. Manring would then cut a hole, parallel with the canyon wall, for the dynamite charges. As he did this, the four convicts would return to the bottom of the canyon.

  Renda said, why not send them around into the draw? But Bowen objected. “Once we light the fuse that’s the way we run, and we’re not going to have anybody standing around in the way.” There was an anxious moment, a moment of seeing the plan that was already forming go to nothing. “That’s why we started down a ways,” Bowen explained, “instead of right at the defile. So we’d have cover to use. But it won’t do us any good crowded with men.” Renda said nothing and Bowen added, “Then, after we’re about halfway down the trail and working the dynamite from the bottom, we’ll come back and blow the part we skipped. Right now, though, we got to have that pass clear.”

  Renda thought it over. “All right,” he said finally, “send them down before you set your charge”—and Bowen’s anxiety was past.

  They exploded the first charge at midmorning—a forty-pound charge with the cartridges tied into bundles of eight—and the convicts were kept busy until almost noon clearing the shattered rock, spreading it evenly over the widened section of road.

  As Bowen thought would happen, Renda went below before the first charge was set off, leaving Brazil to watch them. Brazil remained close. He would wait until the fuse was lighted, then go for the draw with them. He seemed fascinated by the dynamite, by the force and the noise of it, and he watched every phase of the work carefully.

  That afternoon they moved a dozen feet farther down the trail. This would be slow going, Bowen realized, blowing only ten or twelve feet at a time; but Renda did not have drilling equipment and without it they could use only smaller charges effectively. Another niche was carved out of the crusted sand and rock and another blast set off. Then later, after the third charge was exploded, after watching Brazil and now realizing there would be only one more day of using the draw for cover, Bowen made up his mind.

  And later again, in the barracks that evening, after the lamps had been put out and the three of them crouched in the darkness beneath the window, Bowen explained his escape plan. He told Pryde and Manring exactly what each of them would do. He made sure there were no objections. He emphasized that each man had to do what he was supposed to do, and nothing else. And if they did, this would be their last night at Five Shadows.

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  Six hundred pounds of dynamite were brought out of the stable and loaded onto the equipment wagon the next morning. Bowen specified the amount. He remained in the stable until the wagon was loaded and when he came out he was carrying four detonator boxes. One of the boxes had been emptied and in it was Lizann Falvey’s. 25-caliber Colt.

  Bowen drove the equipment wagon. He took it over the Five Shadows slope, down into the canyon and to the foot of the trail that reached silently up into the early morning sunlight. The floor of the canyon was in shadow and there was little talk as the dynamite was unloaded.

  “We’ll take eight cases up,” Bowen told Renda. “Leave the other four down here. Maybe we’ll use them, but I don’t think so.”

  Renda pointed to eight men in turn, and approximately fifteen minutes later the dynamite was up on the rim of the canyon. The eight men returned to the convicts working on the ledge, spreading the results of the previous day’s last explosion. And now the dynamite crew was alone with Brazil.

  They were ready to plant the first charge when Willis Falvey came up the trail. He passed them without a word, without even looking to see what they were doing, kicked his dun horse up through the draw and rode along the rim until he was beyond the end of the canyon.

  The way you’re going, Bowen thought, watching him disappear into the deep shadow of the pass which led down to the boulder field beyond the canyon.

  Through a mile of rock and across the meadow, Bowen thought. Up past the road, straight over the hill and down the grade. Cross the creek, come out of the willows. You’re there.

  Brazil’s voice brought him back to the ledge. “You going to light the fuse?”

  Bowen lit it. They went back to the draw to wait for the explosion and Bowen watched Brazil. The gunman squinted, his mouth open and tensed, waiting, and he seemed to be smiling, keenly anticipating what was to come.

  And when it came, more suddenly than they could be ready for it, the rock-shattering, head-numbing violence, the thunder rolling into the distance, somewhere beyond the ringing in their ears, Brazil still smiled.

  “Damn!” He shook his head slowly as if the pleasure of it had exhausted him. “I’d like to see what would happen to a man sitting on one of them.”

  “You never know,” Pryde said. “Maybe you will.”

  Brazil looked at him. “Did you see anybody get blowed up at Yuma?”

  “Not me,” Pryde said.

  “Did you?” Brazil asked Bowen.

  Bowen shook his head.

  Brazil seemed disappointed. “Maybe somebody got it before you were there. Didn’t you hear of anybody?”

  “I wasn’t listening,” Bowen said.

  Brazil grinned. “That would be some sight.”

  They went down to the shelf again as Renda and a guard brought up the convicts to do the grading. Bowen looked over the edge. There were still two guards down in the canyon. So he’s got another man on, Bowen thought. One of the night guards.

  “That one took more slope,” Renda said. “They hardly got any chipping off to do.”

  “We tried a bigger charge,” Bowen told him. “Packing more sticks to the bundle.”

  “You go any bigger, we’ll be filling in,” Renda said. His gaze moved along the edge of the shelf, then stopped. Unexpectedly, Bowen saw his face become tensed. He followed Renda’s gaze up canyon and saw a rider moving along the stretch of new road. Now all of them were watching and soon they saw that it was Lizann Falvey.

  Brazil said, “What’s she doing up here?”

  Renda continued to watch her, his eyes half closed in the sun glare. A swirl of wind blew dust at him, fanning his hatbrim, but he did not turn away from it.

  “I never saw her up this far,” Brazil said.

  She bothers him, Bowen thought, still watching Renda. All she has to do is show herself and he’s on his guard. You thought it once. Maybe she’s threatening him. Confident she’s leaving and she throws it in his face. Tells him everything but how.

  Following Lizann, trailing her perhaps fifty yards, was a Mimbreño. Bowen watched him move off to the east side of the canyon. Lizann had circled and now was riding back toward him, past him, becoming smaller, and soon she was out of sight. But even after she was gone, Renda continued to stare up canyon and a moment later he moved down the shelf.

  That’s good, Bowen thought. Give him something else to think about.

  Bowen indicated where the next charge would be placed before they moved back up onto the rim. And now they got ready the fuses and the dynamite cartridges they would use.

  “I think I’ll light the next one,” Brazil said.

  “That’s all you got to do,” Bowen said, “and you’re a dynamite man.”

  Brazil was studying his Winchester. “It’s a far size bigger than this.”

  Bowen looked toward Manring and nodded. Manring rose, picking up his shovel and started for the draw.

  Brazil’s head came up. “They’re not ready for you yet.”

  “Earl’s got another job,” Bowen said. He rose as Brazil did and walked over to the edge of the draw. “He’s going to dig that corner where we tested yesterday.”

  Brazil frowned. “What for?”

  “After a couple of more blasts,” Bowen explained, “we’ll be far enough down to come back to the part we skipped. Earl thought he’d get it ready now if it’s all right with you.”

  “Frank know about it?”

  “Ask him,” Bowen said. He turned and walked back to Pryde.

  Brazil glanced at Manring. “Go on. I’ll see him later.” He squatted then at the edge of the draw where he could watch Bowen and Pryde, to his left, and Manring below and to his right.

  “The first step,” Pryde murmured.

  Bowen sat down with his back to Brazil. The detonator boxes were in front of him. He raised one box, then another, and raising the third one he felt the weight of the Colt revolver. He lined up the boxes and placed this one on the right.

  Now he studied the dark mass of pines that were forty or fifty yards in front of him and he began setting a fuse into the open end of a detonator.

  “Ike, have you seen Mimbres?”

  “For about a hair of a minute. When we first came up.”

  “We have to figure six on this side,” Bowen said. “They don’t like what’s going on, so they stay back in the trees.”

  “What would we do if they didn’t mind it?”

  “Think of something else.”

  “And six more on the other side of the canyon,” Pryde said.

  “We’ll think of them when the time comes,” Bowen said. He crimped the open end of the detonator to the fuse. He unwrapped one end of the dynamite cartridge, pushed a twig into it to form an opening, then inserted a detonator.

  “How many you going to do?” Pryde asked.

  “We’ll have five ready,” Bowen said. “Maybe we won’t use that many, but we’ll have them.”

  “Brazil wants to light the fuse,” Pryde said. “It’d be purely simple to leave him with it.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s too good not to.”

  “Ike, we do it the way I said.”

  “I know it. I was just talking.”

  Bowen had attached the fuse to the fourth detonator and was inserting it into the cartridge when Brazil called to him. “Earl says he’s ready.”

  Rising, Bowen said to Pryde, “Like he works for us.” He picked up a coil of fuse and a detonator and moved down the draw. Pryde followed, a half-full case of dynamite on his shoulder.

  Brazil said, “What’re you in such a hurry to plant this one for?”

  Bowen dropped the coil, but held an end of it. “Might as well do it now as later.”

  “You sure Frank knows about it?”

  “Go ask him,” Bowen said. He saw Brazil’s gaze go down into the canyon.

  “Frank would’ve told me,” Brazil said.

  “He tells you everything?
”

  Brazil did not answer. He was studying the small figures far below. He said then, “I don’t see him.”

  Now the four of them looked down into the canyon. Almost at once Pryde said, “That’s him…riding off. Way up the road there.”

  “Like he’s going back to camp,” Manring said. He looked at Brazil. “Everybody works but Frank.”

  “You dig your hole,” Brazil snapped. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  “It’s dug.”

  “Then plant the charge!”

  That’s it, Bowen thought. Get mad. Get your mind on something else.

  When they climbed out of the draw again, a ten-foot length of fuse hung curling to the ground from the hole where the charge was buried. The hole had been dug above the undercut of their test blast of the previous day. It was approximately five feet from the ground.

  “When you going to light it?” Brazil asked Bowen.

  “I figure sometime this afternoon.”

  Brazil’s gaze found the four dynamite sticks with fuses already attached. “You’re doing a damn awful lot of work beforehand.”

  “What difference does it make when we do it? Long as it gets done.”

  “Maybe I ought to ask you that,” Brazil said.

  Bowen shrugged. “Pull the detonators out if you don’t want them there. We’ll walk off about a half mile and watch you.”

  Bowen turned from him. He went over to the equipment, sat down next to Pryde and began fitting a fuse end into the fifth detonator, thinking, now watching Brazil wander to the edge of the draw: Don’t push him too far.

  Manring stopped next to Bowen. “Are we ready?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be.”

  “How much did you plant just now?”

  “Twenty pounds.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “I’d have to set more if it wasn’t.”

  “We got to be sure.”

  “What do you want to do,” Bowen said, “light it now and find out?”

  Manring’s hand scratched nervously at his beard. “We got to be sure, that’s all.”