Stand-off at Copper Town Read online

  ‘All right, we need to. . . .’ Nathan trailed off when Daniel peered past him and Mike hurried closer. A feeling of inevitability overcame him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Daniel asked. He waited for an answer, but when Nathan didn’t reply, he moved to go by him.

  Nathan made to block his way, but Mike side-stepped around his other side and when he lunged for his arm Daniel slipped by him. Then all he could do was turn and see both men stride into the tunnel and then come to a halt, lower their heads, and with their hands raised move over to the side wall to join Jeff.

  Clay stepped into view and beckoned him to join them.

  ‘A warning would have helped,’ Mike grumbled.

  Nathan didn’t meet his eye and instead faced their captors. He took a deep breath, searching for another solution, but he couldn’t think of one other than to offer a compromise.

  ‘Now we’re all here we need to talk,’ he said. ‘Sherman wants this rock face blown up in less than an hour. That’s not enough time to get the gold. The only way we’ll get it is to work together.’

  ‘And take equal shares, I suppose?’ Clay said, sneering.

  Despite Clay’s unpromising expression and Tucker’s head shaking, Nathan smiled.

  ‘A share of the gold is better than no gold.’

  ‘No deal. There are too many of us now.’ Clay gestured at the newcomers.

  ‘We had no choice after you told them about the gold.’

  ‘We didn’t. We’ve never seen them before.’ Clay turned to Tucker, who shook his head.

  ‘We haven’t,’ he said. ‘If any deals have been done, they’re your problem.’

  ‘That’s not the truth though, is it?’ Daniel said with quiet confidence. ‘Jeff and Nathan didn’t tell us nothing. So how else would we have found out you broke Patrick out of jail to make him tell you where the gold is?’

  Tucker and Clay both shook their heads, but then at the same moment both men furrowed their brows. Slowly they turned to each other as it dawned on them that if they hadn’t revealed the details, the other one must have.

  ‘You fool,’ Tucker said.

  ‘You’re the fool,’ Clay snapped. ‘I said nothing.’

  Both men advanced a long pace on the other. Their eyes bored into each other, but with their attentions no longer on their captives, Jeff moved in.

  He ran towards Tucker. A moment later Daniel reacted and leapt at Clay while Nathan and Mike both moved in.

  Their captors broke off from their escalating confrontation and turned to face the onslaught, but they were already too late.

  Jeff ran into Tucker and grabbed his gun hand. He pushed his arm up while Daniel did the opposite to the other man and went in low, grabbing Clay around the waist and pushing him backwards.

  Clay backstepped twice before he stumbled and went sprawling on to his back. His gun hand hit the ground. He moved to raise it, but Nathan reached him and kicked out, the toe of his boot sending the weapon hurtling across the tunnel to slam into the wall.

  Confident now of success Daniel grabbed Clay’s vest front and hauled him to his feet. He stood him upright and then delivered a round-armed punch that sent him staggering along towards Nathan, who repeated the action and sent him back to Daniel.

  As they knocked him back and forth, Jeff kept Tucker immobile while Mike joined him and reached up to prize the gun from his fingers.

  Then, with Mike holding the weapon on their opponent, Jeff turned Tucker round and shoved him against the wall, tearing the air from his lungs. He grabbed his shoulders and for his second shove he aimed to slam his forehead against the rock wall.

  Tucker managed to cushion the blow with his forearms, but a second and a third shove proved too much for him and his head collided with a dull thud.

  As Jeff made sure he’d knocked the fight out of him with another thud, Nathan decided they’d handed out enough rough treatment to his and Daniel’s opponent. With a firm kick to the rump he sent him tumbling out through the entrance.

  The moment he’d passed by, Jeff released his hold of Tucker. The dazed man made two uncertain paces away, but that only brought him within range of Mike’s boot and a second kick sent him after Clay.

  Daniel gathered up Clay’s gun. Then he joined everyone in peering out through the entrance and watching the two men roll down the steep slope of the cauldron.

  They raised a trail of dust as with their arms and legs spread they went bouncing down to the bottom where they came to a halt spread-eagled on the ground. The four men watched them, but they didn’t move.

  ‘Out cold, I reckon,’ Daniel said.

  ‘At the least, but I reckon they deserve a broken leg or two,’ Nathan said.

  The others grunted that they agreed before they headed back into the tunnel.

  ‘With that over with,’ Mike said. ‘I reckon it’s time we shared everything that we know and decide how we’re going to find this. . . . this gold seam.’

  Nathan noticed the hesitation, but before he could ponder on its meaning, rustling sounded behind him in the tunnel. He turned to see a faint light growing brighter as its carrier approached.

  ‘Patrick,’ Jeff said.

  ‘I’m glad to see that they brought him here,’ Mike said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Daniel said with laughter in his tone. ‘He didn’t deserve to get killed by those two after everything he’d been through.’

  Mike joined him in laughing, the sounds reaching Patrick and making him stop twenty yards away while he was still in the shadows.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked, putting a hand to his brow as he struggled to see when facing the brighter tunnel entrance.

  Mike and Daniel took a backwards step into the shadows, an action which presumably encouraged them to speak up on their behalf. Nathan raised a hand.

  ‘It’s Nathan and Jeff along with two friends,’ he said. ‘Tucker and Clay won’t give us any more trouble.’

  ‘Who are your friends?’ Patrick said, his tone sounding irritated that more people had become involved. He resumed walking, but he did so slowly with his head cocked on one side.

  ‘Daniel and Mike. They saved our lives and they might well have saved yours, too.’

  ‘Then I’m—’ Patrick emerged into full light. His gaze picked out the men by the wall.

  For long moments nobody said anything as the two men looked at Patrick, who stared at them agog.

  ‘How did you get out?’ he murmured.

  ‘We could ask you the same,’ Daniel said.

  ‘I served my time, but then again I did nothing wrong and you two—’

  ‘Did nothing wrong other than get double-crossed by you.’

  Daniel paced towards Patrick while Mike raised his gun.

  ‘You people already know each other,’ Nathan said.

  Mike shot him a sneering glance, conveying how stupid the comment had been. From the determined way that Daniel was advancing it was also clear that their previous encounter hadn’t gone well.

  Patrick’s gaze darted down to the guns. Then, without warning, he turned on his heel and hurried back into the darkness. His sudden action caught both men by surprise and as they didn’t move Nathan set off after him.

  Jeff had also had the same thought that this encounter would turn out badly, and he ran at his heels.

  Daniel shouted at them to stop and one of them loosed off a shot that ricocheted off the walls before hurtling down the tunnel. Then Nathan slipped into the dark, his only guide being the bobbing circle of light ahead.

  Ten yards on the light came to a halt and illuminated Patrick’s face when he turned. He smiled on seeing them and then ducked and edged forward, his motion letting Nathan see that he was slipping through a hole.

  Then he disappeared from view plunging the tunnel into darkness.

  Slowly Nathan’s eyes became accustomed to the low light, letting him see that they’d reached a rockfall with the hole being the only way forward. Then he made the mistake of looking back, dazzling
himself with the light pouring in from the entrance, but Daniel’s and Mike’s forms were visible as they peered ahead.

  Jeff grabbed his arm and drew him on.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We need to move before they start shooting again.’

  With Jeff guiding him by drawing his head down, he crawled through the hole to find they were in a small recess. Patrick was sitting to the side and out of view from the entrance. Nathan said nothing until Jeff joined him.

  ‘Are we safe in here?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘But if they want to get us out, they’ll have to come in and we can make it hard for them.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Jeff said, taking up a position on one side of the hole while Nathan took the other.

  They waited for a minute for the men outside to make a move, but when they didn’t come down the tunnel, Nathan sat back on his haunches and asked the obvious question.

  ‘What’s this argument about?’

  ‘You can work it out, surely.’ Patrick offered a smile that neither Nathan nor Jeff was prepared to return.

  Nathan pondered, and then provided his best guess.

  ‘Those men were here with you fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Patrick said with a rueful smile. ‘They’re Wallace Crowley and Foley Steele.’

  ‘They told us they were Mike Ripley and Daniel Smart,’ Jeff grumbled. He sighed. ‘So who are Wallace and Foley?’

  ‘Wallace found the nugget. Foley tried to help him get it out.’ Patrick frowned. ‘They failed, but this time they won’t leave without it.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Can you reach the gold?’ Nathan asked.

  Patrick frowned before he shuffled forward.

  ‘I can reach it, if it’s still there, but it’ll take time,’ he said. ‘Can the story on why they’re here wait until then?’

  ‘It can, but no longer,’ Nathan said. ‘We need to know what we’re in the middle of here.’

  ‘In that case, hold them off, Jeff, while Nathan helps me on the last section.’

  Jeff glanced at Nathan, who nodded before he returned a nod of his own.

  ‘Just hurry back,’ he said. ‘They won’t stay out there for ever.’

  Patrick nodded and led Nathan to a narrow gap beneath a fallen boulder. Nathan squirmed through the gap after him. When he emerged, he was pleased to see that the route ahead, although winding, could be traversed on hands and knees.

  He crawled after Patrick. They’d rounded two bends before Patrick spoke up.

  ‘Everything I told you was the truth. I just left out a few details.’

  ‘I can accept that,’ Nathan said, feeling a pang of guilt about his own recent attempts to keep secrets.

  ‘Before I explain, remember what I told you: gold does something to a man. It can make friend turn against friend.’

  ‘Mike . . . Foley Steele said that, too.’

  ‘He should know. Fifteen years ago, we got out of the tunnel, but in the rush to escape another landslide the gold got left back here.’ Patrick pointed ahead into the darkness beyond the circle of light that his candle was casting. ‘I tried to get it out, but Foley and Wallace wanted it for themselves. They killed everyone outside and then waited for me to come out with the nugget.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I hadn’t reached the gold when I heard the shooting, but I decided that getting out alive was more important. I sneaked away. They reckoned I’d found it and chased me, and they carried on chasing for the next six months until I fetched up in Ash Creek.’

  ‘Then you got thrown in jail?’

  Patrick came to a halt and shuffled round to sit and stretch while he waited for Nathan to join him.

  ‘So you guessed that bit.’ He sighed. ‘After failing to get the gold, those two had gone from bad to worse. They raided the railroad payroll. When they got caught, they tried to buy some leniency by claiming I was an accomplice. I got thrown in jail for twelve years. They got longer terms, so they must have escaped.’

  Nathan nodded, considering this tale, and although he couldn’t be sure, it helped to clarify what he thought his recent colleagues had been doing since they’d come to Copper Town.

  Foley and Wallace had arrived with Baxter Meredith and Peter Parsons, as they’d claimed, but they’d killed them and stolen their identities. They’d bided their time to reach the gold, but when Baxter’s body had turned up, they’d lost their false identities.

  They’d needed new ones and so they’d attacked them to take their names and to stop them investigating, but two innocent men had stepped in and saved them, Mike Ripley and Daniel Smart.

  They’d killed them instead. Then they’d resumed their plans to get the gold.

  ‘I reckon they did.’ Nathan gestured ahead. ‘Let’s see if we can find the gold first before we worry about their plans.’

  ‘If it’s all the same with you, I won’t go any further,’ Patrick said, smiling.

  Nathan peered past him, seeing a wall of rock at the furthest extent of his vision, but also several wide cracks that could be traversed with care.

  ‘I can’t find it alone. You need to keep going. This situation looks hopeless, but there has to be a chance.’

  ‘There is, but as I said, the sight of gold does strange things to a man,’ Patrick said. ‘Some men it turns bad, but in your case, I hope it’ll make you inventive.’

  ‘But you said you’re not going any further. . . .’ Nathan trailed off when he saw Patrick’s smile. Then he noticed the bulge under the end of his jacket that he’d trailed out on the ground. He gulped. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘I sure am. I’ve found it. Prepare yourself.’

  With his smile widening Patrick moved his jacket aside to reveal the lump beneath. If he’d been expecting a reaction, Nathan had no doubt he disappointed him.

  The rock he revealed wasn’t what he’d expected to see, although now that he saw it he wasn’t sure what he had expected. Perhaps something that lit up the cramped tunnel with golden light and which appeared to be valuable enough for men to kill to get their hands on it.

  Instead the rock was dust-coated and in the dim light it wasn’t golden at all. It was a gnarled and pitted lump that had so many holes in it he presumed it was light. Although from the way Patrick then struggled to lift it on to his knees, it was clearly heavier than it looked.

  Nathan reached out and brushed away a layer of dust. The rock was cool and touching it made it feel more real. He looked up to meet Patrick’s eyes.

  ‘I’m starting to feel inventive,’ he said.

  Patrick smiled. ‘I’d hoped you would.’

  He got to his knees and wrapped his jacket around the nugget. Then he beckoned for Nathan to lead on back down the tunnel.

  With the light at his back and the growing light ahead, Nathan made quick progress. When he rolled out through the narrow gap to join Jeff he wasted no time in giving a thumb-up signal.

  ‘Any change?’ he whispered.

  ‘Wallace and Foley are staying at the entrance. They’ve been talking quietly so I think they have a plan. . . .’ Jeff trailed off when he saw Patrick roll into view and then drag the bundle out after him.

  He shuffled over to look at the rock. Then to Nathan’s amusement he reacted in the same nonplussed way.

  ‘It’s hard to believe we’ve been fighting over this, isn’t it?’ Patrick said.

  Jeff touched the rock and then looked at his fingertips, as if they might turn to gold.

  ‘I guess I expected more,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll look better in the full light. In here only experienced miners would recognize it for what it is, and that includes the men out there.’ Patrick looked at Nathan with his eyebrows raised, asking him to outline his inventive idea.

  As he didn’t have one yet, Nathan merely smiled.

  ‘Let me do the talking,’ he said.

  ‘Talk away,’ Patrick said, gesturing to the hole bac
k to the main part of the tunnel.

  Nathan shuffled to the side of the hole and sat with his back to the wall.

  ‘You two out there,’ he called. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Foley said from some distance away.

  ‘There is. This stand-off has to end within the next forty-five minutes.’

  ‘We’re armed. You’re not. We don’t have a stand-off.’

  ‘We do. We’re near the gold. You’re not.’

  ‘Gold can make you rich, but a gun can make you dead.’

  Nathan didn’t reply immediately, giving the impression he was thinking.

  ‘The moment you try to come in, we’ll disarm you. So we’re safe in here.’

  ‘For forty-five minutes you are. Then Sherman will return and the situation will get, shall we say, complex.’ Foley laughed.

  Nathan returned a snort of laughter. ‘For that time you’re safe, too. Patrick’s in the tunnel searching. If he gets back before our time is up, we can talk. If he doesn’t, none of us get the gold.’

  He waited for a reply, but other than Foley and Wallace muttering to each other, he heard nothing and so he deemed that the opening taunts were complete.

  ‘What’s this deadline?’ Patrick whispered.

  In hushed tones Nathan relayed the situation outside with the no-nonsense Sherman due to return to monitor progress. This news made Patrick smile.

  ‘Why are you so pleased about that?’ Jeff asked.

  ‘A deadline concentrates the mind,’ Patrick said. ‘When there’s gold at stake, it might give us an opening.’

  With that hope being the extent of Nathan’s plans too, the three men settled down to await developments.

  They did their best to judge the passage of time. As the enclosed tunnel provided no stimuli, this wasn’t easy, but as it turned out the men outside helped them.

  ‘Thirty minutes before Sherman returns,’ Foley called out presently. ‘Any news in there?’

  The three men glanced at each other and smiled, noting that they had broken the silence, suggesting they were getting nervous.