At least the mystery of the missing partner was easily solved.
‘Been dead a good year, Amy,’ Crow said, his voice seeming to hiss in the coffined passage of bare rock. ‘Hold the light up some. There.’
‘I just saw him lying and …’ her voice shook nearly as much as the oil-lamp and she was on the edge of bursting into tears.
Crow had found her about twenty-five paces into the hill, stooping as the tunnel grew more narrow and the ceiling seemed to drop. She was standing looking down at a jumbled heap of bones and rags, the quivering light throwing moving patches of blackness across the corpse.
‘What …’
Crow bent lower, folding his height, peering at the body. Pointing to the remains of a pick-axe protruding from the skull, half its length buried among the straggly, matted hair. The bones were stained deepest black with old, clotted blood.
‘Looks like a little murder runs in the family, Amy. Seems Radley bought out his partner by caving in his head for him.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Could be we’ll never know.’ He foraged among the dry rags of shirt and pants, finding nothing but a few small pebbles. Holding them to the light he saw that they were high-grade ore, almost certainly a small sample of what the cousin had brought back with him, along with the map to the Black Bird Mine.
There was little clue as to what the man might once have looked like. He had been shortish, around five feet and a few inches, though it was hard to tell. The man had died with his knees drawn up to his chin, arms reaching out as though he was trying to fend off a blow. The eyes had long gone and the thin beard and moustache was an indeterminate brown.
‘Nothing. He was mentioned among your cousin’s papers?’
‘No. Not a word. Might there be others?’
‘Doubt it. Looks like we’re close to the end of the mine. Or as far as they got with their digging. Wonder why he came out?’
‘Perhaps to raise money to finance the expansion of the mine, to retrieve the ore on a more commercial scale. It’s possible, is it not?’
‘Could be.’
‘Yes. I’m sure that must be it. And this villain here tried to rob me of my silver. The dog! Bastard, whoever he was! Stealing my dreams. My precious, precious, precious dreams.’
And she began to kick the rotted corpse, stamping on the dry bones so that they snapped and danced under her boots. The skull came away from the torso, rolling, and she lashed out at it, sending it spinning like a top, teeth showering from the sagging jaw. Ribs tinkled against the walls of the passage and a thigh-bone bounced away into the hollow blackness.
Only when the skeleton was dismembered did Amy stop, leaning a hand against the tunnel, panting hard as if she’d run a race across ploughed meadows, the lamp shaking in her fist.
‘There.’
‘Guess that’s taught him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry, Ma’am,’ said Crow, looking at her. ‘Won’t tangle with you again, I figure.’
‘Guard that tongue, Crow. You’re going to learn not to cross me in the near future. I employ you, to be a bodyguard.’
‘And scout.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, the straggly blonde hair veiling out around her narrow face. ‘Not any longer. I don’t need a scout, Crow. So remember that before you speak out of turn.’
He didn’t reply, turning on his heel and walking back out of the tunnel, into the open space where Edgar lay in a fitful sleep. There was that piece of paper stuck conspicuously in the empty tin that he meant to look at. But that could wait until Amaryllis Okie wasn’t hovering around.
There was still a little of the jerked meat left and Crow took some out, chewing thoughtfully on it. There was something wrong about the Black Bird Mine. He could feel it, but he couldn’t quite locate what it was. If the ore had been as rich as Okie had said, then why was there so little evidence of much working? He didn’t know a lot about mining, but there wasn’t any proof that this was the mother lode.
That was the problem with any kind of mining, for gold or for silver. Sometimes you might stumble on a pocket of wealth that promised unbearable riches. But the seam might only be five feet across and ten feet deep.
Could be you struck it big.
Could be that you didn’t.
That evening, Amy sat on the far side of the cave, staring out through the screen of bushes, watching the light fade away from the snow-covered mountains all around them. Crow wondered about the map that she claimed to have been drawing for herself, showing the way out. Despite all his own cunning he was worried that he might miss a vital turning or side-trail in the bad weather. And if he might not make it, what sort of chanced did Amaryllis have? Two chances. Infinitesimal and none.
The more he thought about it, during that evening, the more certain he was that she hadn’t meant her threats. It was clear enough that the silver and the possibility of great wealth had tilted her already unbalanced mind, but he couldn’t believe that it would have tilted it so that she utterly lost sight of reality.
Crow slipped into sleep with that comforting thought at the back of his mind.
When he woke it was still dark, but there was sufficient moonlight filtering through the stunted trees for him to see something going on in the cave. There was a dark shape moving about.
His first thought was that the bears used the mine for their den. There had certainly been droppings inside the tunnel, but he doubted that they would risk entering if they scented humans. They’d wait outside and spend long hours checking the risks. But if they caught Crow and the woman inside they’d finally take them easily.
But there wasn’t the strong smell that Crow linked with black bears. His second thought was that the Apaches had, after all, followed them. Perhaps they had a war-chief who would sacrifice his whole tribe to try and avenge the shame of the appalling losses that Crow had wrought on his warriors.
Edgar was far too weak and near death to be moving about.
So …
He was about to whisper her name when he heard a strange noise. Rather like a fountain, pattering on a summer’s day onto cool Italian marble. A gentle, delicate sound.
He rolled silently on his side, trying to make out what was happening. Amy, if it was her, seemed to be kneeling close by the figure of her only son. Was she holding him? But what was the noise? If she’d been in a further corner of the working Crow would have guessed that she was simply relieving herself.
Gradually, the noise grew quieter and then stopped. He heard the woman whispering. Talking to Edgar.
‘There, dearest child. All over. Over and no more pain. Pain gone.’
Then she stood up and the shootist realized with a chilling certainty what the sound had been and he started to roll over, reaching for the scatter-gun. But he was way slow and he heard the triple click of the hammers on the Colts and then the crack of the pistols being fired.
And the woman’s voice. ‘I’ve done for Edgar, and now you, Crow. Now you! And it’ll be all mine. Mine, all mine!!’