Silver Dreams (35 page)

Paulie looked at Nick and Nick grinned at Paulie. There passed between the two men an unspoken agreement, and Paulie sealed the deal with a thumb's up sign. "Dooley," he said, "do you care if you ever return to New York, because if we do this thing, you can't ever go back."

"Hell no. One rat trap's as good as another as far as I'm concerned."

"Well, then, if you do what we tell you, and you stay away from Manhattan the rest of your life, you'll be able to trade your rat traps for mansions."

"You’re fixing to cut that Galbotto fellow out of the profits, ain't ya'?" Dooley asked. He didn't get an answer, but he knew it was true. It didn't matter. The only thing that counted now was that the pie was starting to smell awful sweet again. "Spit it out, then. What've you got in mind?"

The plan was spun before Dooley's eyes with all the shimmering enticement of a spider web, and when he'd heard it all, he believed it could work. What's more, he was convinced he deserved the reward that would come of doing it. There was only one little problem. He'd never killed a man in cold blood before.

"You can't think of Ross Sheridan as a man," Paulie said. "He’s lots of things, that’s for sure, but a man? I don’t think so."

"I do feel a powerful hatred toward him, and the truth is I'd rather he was dead instead of alive, but I just don't know if I could put a bullet in him."

Paulie looked at his punching bag friend. "It's not so hard to kill a man, is it Nick?"

"Nope," the bag answered. "Just think about the gun, that's all. The fella at the end of the barrel is a target, that's all, a bale of hay, a bottle, nothing more."

Dooley pictured himself leveling his gun at Ross's chest and actually pulling the trigger. Suddenly the prospect didn't seem so outrageous. "I could do it," he said, and was rewarded with the smiles of his new partners.

"We'll be waiting by your campsite tomorrow," Paulie said. "When Ross is in the mine, we'll give you a sign, and you go in and do the job. Understand?"

Dooley nodded. "Just Ross, right?  I don't have to shoot anybody else?"

"Nope. Leave everybody else to Nick and me."

Dooley didn't care for the strange sensation that began to work its way into his consciousness. He recognized it as a jolt of conscience, unexpected and certainly unwelcome. "About the others," he said. "You know, the girlies and that writer fella. They ain't so bad deep down. I expect it would be something of an injustice if they was to get shot, too."

Paulie dismissed Dooley's concerns with a wave of his hand. "We won't hurt them, will we Nickie?" His friend shook his head. "We’ll just tell them politely that they're out of the deal. Once we throw the name Frankie Galbotto around, they'll hightail it off the mountain without any prodding from us."

"Won't they wonder about Ross...how he got plugged?"

"Naw. We'll lead them away from the campsite. They won't even hear the gunshot. We'll tell them Ross got careless and fell down the mountain. Even if they don't believe us, they'll have no proof. And they won't stay around long enough to find any."

It sounded good, but something about their plan still didn't sit right, and Dooley couldn't shake the feeling that the real loser just might turn out to be him. Figuring it was best to get his worries out in the open, he stared first at Paulie and then at Nick. "How do I know you two won't turn on me, that you won't put a bullet in
my
heart?"

"Why would we be stupid enough to do that?" Paulie quickly answered. "You're the guy with the deed, right? You forget, we've been watching you since Manhattan. We know you walked into that courthouse in Georgetown a few days ago and proclaimed yourself rightful owner of the Fair Day Mine. We need you, Dooley, a lot more than you need us. We should be worried that you'll turn traitor on us, not the other way around."

Dooley brightened considerably. "That's right. If you two was to take my claim, that pen pusher in the records office would know right off you was lying."

Paulie leaned back and grinned jovially. "So you see, nothing to worry about." He started to refill Dooley’s cup.

Just one hour ago Dooley had felt so low it was as if he'd never taken a step up the Devil' Fork. Now suddenly he was on top of the mountain and on top of the world. Things had a way of working out for the best. "I'm in.” He held his cup under the lip of the bottle. "Partners."

Chapter Nineteen

Ramona was tired. By mid morning she and Ross had filled their ore buckets three times, loaded them on the burros and taken them from the mine to the camp. There they'd dumped the deposits onto an ever growing pile that Max and Elizabeth attacked feverishly, hammering the larger pieces into small silver samples to take to the assayer.

Back in the mine again, Ross swung his pick at a rich chunk of ore, bringing it crumbling to earth. "One more day of this, Ramona," he said. "That's it. We'll have about all the weight the burros can handle. Even if we leave most of our gear here on the mountain, the beasts will be loaded down."

"Does that mean we'll be heading back to Georgetown tomorrow?"

"Most likely. The sooner we go back down and see what this strike is worth, the sooner we can make one more trip up here. I'd like several thousand dollars worth of silver before the snow falls."

Ramona liked the sound of that. She grabbed Ross' arm and squeezed. "Oh, darlin', do you think we'll really have thousands?"

He nodded. "Dooley says this is a damn fine strike, if he isn't just blowing smoke. By the way, where is the old coot today? He should be helping out in here."

Ramona had been wondering that herself. Dooley had come to the campsite late the night before and had gotten up early this morning. After gulping his coffee, he'd wandered off again. "I think something's bothering Dooley," she said. "It seems like he's avoiding us."

Ross scoffed at Ramona's suggestion. "It's not us he's avoiding, it's work. Dooley's cutting out on his share of the labor." He swung the pick again, this time harder. More ore fell at his feet.

"That ain't it, Ross m'boy. That ain't it at all."

Ross dropped the pick to his side. He leaned on the handle and regarded his partner. "Well if it isn't the prodigal prospector come to watch the rest of us work."

Trying to prevent an outburst of anger between the two men, Ramona patted Ross's shoulder. "Now darlin', hold your temper. I'm sure Dooley's got a good excuse for being gone this morning." She stepped closer to Dooley and spoke softly. "How are you Dooley? We've been worried about you. Are you okay?"

Her gaze was drawn to the movement of his right hand where the fingers flexed nervously around the handle of a large pistol hanging at his side. She noticed, too, that perspiration beaded his forehead. He chewed on his lower lip. Ramona had seen lots of men with bad cases of nerves before, and she recognized this condition in Dooley. She pointed to the revolver and spoke in a low, soothing tone. "Why, Dooley, what have you got that thing for? We don’t need pistols for signaling any longer.”

"Yeah," Ross added. "We need you to pick up a shovel, not a blasted gun. Besides, you'll just end up shooting your own foot!"

"You best shut your mouth!" Dooley said. "I'm not taking any more orders from you."  Then to Ramona, he said, "What are you doing in here, girlie?"  He rubbed his free palm on his pants. "I wasn't expecting to see you in here."

Something was definitely wrong. Anxiety crackled around the agitated man. Since he'd come in, the tension in the mine was strong enough to raise the hairs on a person's neck. Goosebumps rose to Ramona's flesh.

Apparently Ross hadn't noticed it, or decided not to take it seriously, because he thrust his hand at Dooley. "Give me that gun before you hurt somebody," he demanded.

Confusion clouded Dooley's features. He looked like a lost child who didn't know which direction to turn. The gun quivered in his hand.

Ramona sensed that he had suddenly become as dangerous as the sticks of dynamite leaning against the cave wall. Maybe more so, since in Dooley's case, the mental fuse was already lit and burning fast.

He finally raised the weapon and pointed it at Ross. "You stay back," he said. A new resolve made his features seem set in cold, gray marble. He'd made a decision, and the unknown consequences scared the bejeezus out of Ramona.

"I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago," he said. "Back up a couple of steps, Ross, because I'm gonna blow a hole clean through you, and when I do, I don't want your guts getting all over my duds."

There was no way to escape. Dooley had the exit blocked. He raised the pistol and aimed it at Ross. Ramona's heart thudded against her ribs.

"No, Dooley, don't do this," she said. She reached out to him. "We'll talk. Whatever's wrong, we'll fix it. You don't want to shoot Ross."

She glanced at Ross's face which had become a white mask of terror. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He backed away from his assassin, but there was no place to run.

The gunshot reverberated against the rock walls. Ross emitted a sound that was part shriek and part groan as he was lifted off his feet and sent crashing into the side of the cave. His eyes widened with shock and horror. A guttural sound from his gaping mouth was unrecognizable as words. Then he slid down a glittering vein of silver until he slumped against the cave wall. His eyelids fell, his shoulders sagged, and he was still.

Betsy dropped the pieces of ore she'd been washing. "What was that?” she asked Max.  “Sounded like a gun shot.”

Max stood. "Yeah, I heard it."

"Or maybe Ross is messing around with dynamite again. We told him to wait for Dooley."

Max wished it had sounded like dynamite, but it hadn't. "No, I don't think so. We'd have felt the rumble of a dynamite charge out here. That was a gun firing."

"Why would anyone fire a gun?" She hurried to the mine entrance. "Come on, Max, we have to see what happened."

"Stop right there, lady."

Max turned toward the sound of the strange voice. Two men had come into their campsite. Even though their hair and beards were longer than he remembered, their faces were chillingly familiar.

Like spinning mutoscope pictures in a penny arcade machine, images from the past two weeks flashed before Max's eyes. The train station in Manhattan...two men waiting by the main entrance. The loading dock near Denver...the same two men skulking into the shadows by the depot. The ghost town of Bonanza...large dark shapes moving along the gully wall.