Elmore Leonard - Escape from Five Shadows

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.

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.