Silver Dreams (38 page)

"Look, I don't know what you're planning to do," Max said, "but there's no reason to hurt the girl. Take the silver and go back down the mountain, but don't hurt her."

"Now, you know we can't do that, Cassidy. We can't leave anyone alive to tell the tale."

"Be reasonable. She'll probably die trying to get back to town. But at least don't kill her in cold blood."

Paulie laughed out loud. "You've got a real heart, Max. About as big as these mountains. Too bad you're about as stupid as a clod of dirt."

Give me time, Max, Elizabeth prayed. Keep talking so I can make this little acting job believable.

"What about Galbotto?" he said. "If you're planning to double-cross him, don't you think he'll hear about it? I've been studying that man's habits for a long time, and I guarantee you that his arm is long enough to reach Colorado. He'll have you two pushing up prairie grass before you get a chance to spend the first dollar."

"I'm really scared,” Paulie laughed. “Aren't you scared, Nickie? Do you think we’ll be worm bait?"

"I don’t know, Paulie,” Nick said. “Galbotto is pretty powerful.”

"And you’re pretty stupid. This little coward is just trying to save his own skin."

"All right, then, don't believe me," Max said. "But use some common sense. Keep us working for you. We'll pack up the ore. After all, you know you can kill us any time, so why not get the most out of us while you can."

"I don't need any help. I got you, right, Nickie?"

"Right."

"As soon as Dooley gets back, we're leaving. As a matter of fact, the old boy ought to be along any time, so we got to make short work of the two of you. We told him you were going to walk into the sunset peaceful-like, so we don't want to leave any trace of you here on the mountain.” He waved his gun barrel at Max. “So we’ll toss you over the ledge first, lover boy and then send your sweetheart after you.”

"Why you scum..."  Max barreled headfirst into Paulie. Just when Elizabeth thought their chances for survival had taken a leap forward, Nick joined the fray and was on top of Max in an instant.

The bigger men soon had Max subdued. They dragged him toward the edge of the cliff. "Time's up, wise guy," Paulie said.

Max fought like a wildcat, kicking his legs and wrenching his shoulders to get loose, but he inched ever closer to the end of the earth.

In another minute Max would be plummeting to his death down the side of Devil's Fork Mountain, and Elizabeth knew she'd soon follow. It was now or never. She stood up and waved the flask in front of her face. "Wh...Wha’s goin' on over there?" she asked in a raspy voice.

Paulie and Nick put the brakes on their death machine and whirled around. All eyes were riveted on Elizabeth for what had to be the best performance of her life.

"What the hell's she doing?" Paulie yelled.

"Tha's what I'm askin' you," she said. "What're you doin' to my poor l'il Max?"  She held the flask up to her lips and pretended to take a long swallow. Then she stumbled toward the astonished men. "If you're gonna kill him, you might as well let him have a bit of this stuff, so the fall won't hurt so bad."

"Is she drunk?" Nickie asked. Paulie just stared at her without answering.

Max looked at Elizabeth for a good long moment and then at each of his captors. "Is she drunk?” he said. “You mean to tell me you couldn't see she was flying with one wing low when you got here? Why do you think she lit into me like a damn fool a few minutes ago and nearly got herself killed? A person would have to be drunk or a few pints shy of a quart to do something that stupid!"

Even considering their perilous situation, Elizabeth couldn't help noticing an underlying bitter tone in Max's voice. He almost sounded like he was angry with her. She decided she'd ask him about it once all this was over with, but right now she was just thankful he was playing along.

"She's drunk all right," he continued. "She has been since we left Manhattan. That flask of hers is always full of whiskey."

Elizabeth grinned stupidly and put the flask to her mouth again. Then she hugged it to her chest. "I changed my mind,” she said. “I don’t want to give one drop of this to Max. It’s the best I ever had, and if you're gonna throw me over this mountain, at least I'm gonna feel like I'm flying when I go down."

Nick roared with laughter. "Look at her, Paulie. She sure is drunk as a skunk. I got to have me a taste of whatever’s in that flask."

"No!" Elizabeth shouted, clutching the bottle even more tightly. "You stay away. You can't have any. It's mine."

"Like hell, girl."  Nickie grabbed the flask out of her hand and raised it to his lips. He drank like a man denied water for a week, and when he was finished, he tossed the empty container to the ground. "Hooey, she's right. That's some good whiskey."

Paulie’s scowl said he was losing patience with his partner. "You've had your fun, Nick. Now get over here and finish the job. Nick...Nickie?"

Nick couldn't answer. The croaking sounds coming from his mouth were definitely not words. His face had turned a deep crimson. His eyes bulged grotesquely. His big lips quivered in time to the jerky motions of his arms and legs. He put his hand around his throat and squeezed. And then he dropped.

His boot heels dug into the dirt. He clawed the ground with his fingernails. When his tongue lolled out of his mouth, drool ran into the sand. For the last few seconds that he lived, Nick was an agonizing caricature of a marionette's puppet, his limbs dancing to unseen strings.

Elizabeth had never seen a man die before, but she knew she'd never forget it. Even knowing this one deserved it, her stomach did a cartwheel, and a new wave of dizziness nearly brought her to her knees.

Luckily, Max hadn't waited for Nickie to die before launching his attack on the shocked Paulie. He rammed his head into the bigger man's abdomen. Paulie's breath whooshed out in a rush, and he doubled over in pain. With a resounding crack, Max brought his knee up to meet the thug’s face, and Paulie shot up like a jack-in-the-box.

Elizabeth thought that blow would bring the man down, but she was wrong. The expression in Paulie's eyes was one of venomous intent - kill or be killed.

Suddenly Max and Paulie were a tangle of flying arms and twisting legs. Elizabeth grabbed the nearest thing she could fight with, the last empty ore bucket, and ran for the melee. Just as she was about to bring her weapon down on Paulie's head, Max's face appeared on top. She dropped the bucket only to realize that just as quickly it was the other way around.

Dirt and rocks spun out from under their bodies, and clouds of dust rose in the air, but from what she could tell, no serious injuries were inflicted on either man. They were simply too close together for one of them to pummel the other into submission. Elizabeth was beginning to think that the one who simply outlasted the other would emerge victor.

That might have happened if they'd been on level ground. They might have rolled and grunted until one man gave up, but what they seemed to have forgotten was the mountain ledge. Heedless of direction, they spun toward the craggy edge. "Max!" Elizabeth screamed. "Watch out!  You're going to go over!"

His head popped up. He stared at her for one terrifying second. "Oh, shit!" he hollered.

He dug his heels into the loose dirt at the edge. Pieces of rock flew into the nothingness of space, leaving Max's foot dangling in the air one thousand feet above the canyon floor. Dragging Paulie, he inched backward until his boot bit into another segment of solid ground. That too gave way, sending a large chunk of mountain careening down the chasm.

"Do something, Max!" Elizabeth cried. "Oh, my God!"  He was still attached to Paulie when she reached for the collar of his shirt. The material, matted with grime and sweat, slipped through her fingers. He was going over!

She stumbled backwards, sank to her knees and covered her eyes. An ear-piercing scream rent the air, but it wasn't Max's. She'd never heard Max scream, but in her heart she knew if he did, it wouldn't sound like that, and the knowledge gave her the courage to look up.

One of his legs was still dangling over the edge of the cliff, but he held firmly to a jutting rock and painstakingly managed to swing the leg up to solid ground. He lay flat in the dirt, coughing and panting before raising his head to look at Elizabeth. His shirt was torn and spotted with blood. His hands were shaking and his face was caked with dirt. But his eyes, his wondrous, beautiful blue eyes, peeking out from the matted hair on his forehead, were full of pride. "We did it," he said. "We beat them."

He stood up slowly and came toward her, and the dam of Elizabeth's emotions burst. She didn't know her brother's fate. She didn't know if Ramona was alive. But as she wiped away the moisture from her eyes and the grit from her face, she laughed hysterically. Her tears were mostly for Max, and they were tears of joy.

He halted a few feet from her and gazed into her eyes for a long moment. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She started to close the space he'd left between them, but something about his demeanor stopped her. His voice was distant, cold. While his concern seemed genuine, it didn't touch her soul. He could have been asking after the well being of a perfect stranger. He passed his arm over his eyes to wipe the sweat away, and when she looked into them again, she saw only emptiness.

"Yes, I'm okay," she answered.

"Thank God.” He released a deep sigh. “That was a good plan you came up with," he said. "You probably saved both our lives."

She didn't know how to react. She wanted to throw her arms around him and bury her face against his tattered collar. She wanted to feel his arms around her, but they hung at his sides as lifeless as the veil over his eyes. It seemed as though the light had gone out of Max.

"It was all I could think of," she said. "I’m glad it worked. But you were so brave. You kept them occupied and you picked up on what I was doing. You could have been killed, Max. When I think how close you came to..."

"Well I wasn’t. We're both alive to tell our tales, different as they may be."

He brushed past her, opened the cap of a canteen and splashed cool, clear water on his face before dumping the rest of the contents over his head. Watching his back, Elizabeth shivered as if she had suffered the dousing.

Chapter Twenty-one

It was as though Max hardly knew her. Elizabeth turned away from him, unable to bear this callous indifference. Why was he shunning her now when she needed him most? She was sore, hurt and so miserably alone. For all she knew, the brother who had deceived her might be dead, and the man who had won her heart had just handed it back to her with the insensitivity of a stranger.