Elmore Leonard - Escape from Five Shadows

Since his talk with Lizann, Renda had thought it out very carefully. There were only two ways she could leave Five Shadows. Either try to run away by herself, or try to summon help from the outside. Both of these avenues were blocked. He read every piece of mail she wrote or received and a Mimbre followed her whenever she took her sorrel out. So Renda told himself she was bluffing. She was being wearisome, trying to get him excited, because there was nothing she could do about her situation.

Still, as Lizann had predicted, he continued to think about it, and merely telling himself that she was bluffing did not ease his mind.

Manring was confident now that Renda would believe almost anything he might tell him. That was a sign that his luck was still running. No, it wasn’t all luck. Getting in with Renda wasn’t luck. Arousing Bowen’s interest in the dynamite wasn’t luck either. It was work and thinking and sweating and being five jumps ahead of any luck that could turn against you.

The luck had been in the beginning. First, seeing the basis of a plan come apart with the word that Bowen was ready to run. Bowen the dynamiter, without whom the plan was nothing. So there had been no choice and informing on Bowen had been a good way to test his luck.

Manring reasoned it this way: If Bowen escaped, or, if he were killed in the attempt, the dynamite plan was finished. But if Renda knew beforehand that Bowen was going, they would be ready for him and Bowen would have only a slim chance at best. He might be killed; but, to Manring, the odds leaned slightly toward his being taken alive. Perhaps with gunshot wounds, but nevertheless alive.

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.”