Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

Virgil nodded, then looked up to the operator.

“You got a territorial map?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

The operator retrieved a rolled-up map from atop a cabinet and handed it to Virgil. We rolled it out on the desk. Virgil pointed to the spot.

“We could get there before day’s end tomorrow,” I said. “Take the train to Phoenix Junction and ride on from there.”

Virgil nodded.

In the morning we loaded the horses and took the train from San Cristóbal up to Phoenix Junction. There we saddled up and rode from the Junction directly to Bridgewater. The ride was an easy one, but it took up the afternoon and we arrived close to sunset.

We had made arrangements to meet with the Bridgewater Emergency Department. We had determined after a few more telegrams that the emergency department was comprised of local off-shift miners from the area. When there was a problem they banded together to deal with whatever arose within the mining community.

When we arrived we were met by a group of miners gathered around a long table inside the general store. One of the miners, a smaller older fella sitting at the head of the table, introduced himself.

“Name’s Cotton Horton,” he said. “I’m the off-shift foreman here.”

Cotton went around the table and introduced the other men. Then he pointed to a spot on a map he had laid out on the table in front of him.

“This is number forty-two,” Cotton said. “This is where the explosion occurred.”

“How is it you know the posse and the Yaqui sheriff, Stringer, were inside?” Virgil said.

Cotton looked to a younger man with dark hair and bright silvery-blue eyes. “This is Jeff. Tell ’em what happened.”

“We were coming out of one of the lower shafts,” Jeff said as he pointed one of his big, rough hands toward the north, “and me and another fella, Bobby, we was on the road coming back to town when we run into a big mean sonofabitch wanting to know how to get to forty-two.”

“Why forty-two?” I said.

“It cuts across the mountain all the way to the other side,” Jeff said. “Pretty straight shot... well, it used to be, till it got closed up.”

“How is it he knew to look for forty-two?” I said.

“That I couldn’t tell you,” Jeff said.

“Thing is,” Cotton said, “forty-two is not active, has not been active for a long time, but we have used it for storage as well as a thoroughfare to the other side.”

“A tunnel across,” Jeff said.

“Who all uses it?”

“Just us,” Jeff said, then looked to Cotton.

Cotton nodded.

“We let a few locals use it from time to time to pass through. Otherwise it’s a long way around.”

“And this fella, the mean sonofabitch you are talking about, he went into forty-two.”

“Far as I know,” Jeff said.

“What about the posse,” Virgil said. “How do you know they were here, you see them?”

Jeff nodded.

“The posse came through ’bout a half-hour after,” Jeff said. “They asked me if I had seen the man and I told them I did and I told them about forty-two and they hurried up the road after him.”

“And you know for a fact they went inside of forty-two?” I said. “Did you or someone follow them there?”

“No,” Jeff said. “But they did.”

“How do you know for certain the posse and the escapee were caught inside. Did someone else actually see them enter and not come out?” I said.

“We did not see them go in but after the blast, after Bobby and me heard the explosion we hurried up there and... the horses were there but none of the men, I’m afraid.”

“We can take burros through and we do, so do the other few locals I was talking about, but no horse can get through there. It’s the biggest widest shaft we have and the only one that goes to the other side, but it’s damn sure not tall enough for a horse.”

Virgil looked to me and shook his head slightly.

“We got their horses here,” Cotton said. “We gathered them up and they are in the corral across the way here... Anyway, we don’t know what happened, we did not see it, but there are horses here, and a shaft that has damn sure been dynamited.”

“Tillary told us Degraw had blown shit up before,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Train safes,” Virgil said.

“So he’s no stranger to this sort of thing,” I said.

“Have you or anyone else gone to the other side of the mountain?” Virgil said.

“No. Hell, that’s a long way around the mountain,” Cotton said. “And there is no reason for none of us to get mixed up in poking our nose into some escaped convicts’ business. Like to do what we can to help the good men of the law, but I hope you understand our business is hard enough. The last thing we need to do is confront some convict, or convicts. But the fact of the matter is, it’s hard to say if him or any of the lawmen are even alive.”

“How many saddle horses did you find at the mine?” Virgil said.

“Six altogether,” Cotton said.

Virgil looked to me and I nodded.

“Stringer’s horse, his three deputies, and Locky his Kiowa tracker, that’s five horses,” I said. “Then Ed Degraw... that’s it, that’s six.”

Virgil leaned over to look at the mining map.

“How deep,” Virgil said. “How far back was this explosion?”

“Right at the portal,” Cotton said. “At least that is what it appears to be, but we won’t know for certain. That is all we can see.”

Jeff nodded in agreement.

“No telling how deep,” he said.

“Assuming it was the escaped man that blew the shaft up,” I said, “where would he have found the dynamite to do this?”

Cotton pointed.

“On the main road up top we have a storage facility up there, near forty-two. He broke in there.”

“How much was removed?” I said. “Do you know?”

“Not exactly,” Cotton said.

“Don’t think he got that much,” Jeff said.

“There were no complete cases taken, that we know,” Cotton said.

“But he got enough to do what he did,” Jeff said.

The other miners around the table nodded.

Virgil looked to his watch.

“What can we do?” he said.

“Open it back up,” Cotton said.

Jeff nodded.

“Need to dynamite the shaft back open,” he said.

“How long, you figure?” Virgil said.

“Not sure how much it’s blocked, won’t know till we know,” Cotton said. “We will eventually have to, no matter what. Like I said, it is a passage to other mines that we have on the other side. So we’ll have to do it sooner than later.”

He looked to his hands resting on the table, then looked back to Virgil and me and said, “We would have done it by now... but like I said, we don’t have any idea what might happen. For all we know there is nothing but trouble on the other side. Fact is, Jeff had no real evidence the men they saw were who they said they were.”

Jeff nodded.

“It was early and it happened kind of quick,” Jeff said. “Them men following the other fella kind of gave me and Bobby a start, and they just hurried on... and, well, Bobby and me we didn’t ever see no badges. I don’t know, like I said, happened fast and they moved on and so I just told Cotton here what we saw, what happened.”

Cotton nodded.

“I told Jeff and Bobby I needed to contact authorities, let this be what it is, a matter of law, and now that you are here we will do what we can to help you open forty-two back up.”

“Can we be ready to do that at sunup?”

Cotton looked to the other miners and they nodded.

“Sure,” Cotton said. “But we can do it now, too.”

Virgil looked to me.

“Tonight?” I said.