Gunsmoke by T.T. Flynn

Author:T.T. Flynn [Flynn, T.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-03-12T04:09:00+00:00

The booming shots down lower in the mine were intermittent now. Guns seemed to be lashing out at sudden sounds, and other guns spat quick answer.

"They're on the sixth level," husked Morrison as he followed Shorty. "Damn these echoes. You can't tell how many are down there."

They came out of the rocky chute over a rough ladder into a cross drift, and, when they emerged from the drift into a larger tunnel, the gunfire was suddenly louder. Morrison blew out his candle.

"This is the main tunnel on the sixth level."

Morrison was again leading. He knew these mines like the recesses of his mind. Shorty followed him, stumbling often, uncertain, hesitant.

The gunfire was very close now, and, as they moved closer, the firing stopped. A muffled, unnatural voice echoed along the tunnel to them.

"Dixon ... take a man into that second drift and see if they're trying to come that way." It sounded vaguely like Halliday's voice.

Shorty bumped into Morrison, who had stopped. Crunching steps hurried toward them. Morrison's gun shattered the brief lull, and his yell rang through the tunnel. "Go after 'em, boys! Don't let 'em get away!" Morrison fired again. Shorty joined him, shouting and yelling-until the damp tunnel rang and echoed with sounds that a dozen men might have made.

Morrison was standing still. Shorty groped past him. "Come on," he urged. "If they're waitin' for us, we might as well find it out."

The tunnel curved, and, as they followed the curving wall around, the red flame of a gunshot licked out ahead. Shorty threw a shot back at the flash. His ringing ears caught the warning shout ahead. "Here they come!"

That was all. There were no more shots. Magically the tunnel ahead was free from sound as they moved forward through a stench of powder smoke.

Morrison spoke cautiously. "Here's where they went, I think. In this drift an' up a chute ... or around back in the tunnel, so they won't be trapped."

Close ahead, Pop Marcy's voice hailed them. Morrison answered. Pop and his mine boss joined them-and Pop Marcy swore when he discovered who was there.

"Only two of you? Burgess, you damn' fool, you shouldn't have come back here! Let's get out while we got a chance. Don't strike a light. Maybe they're waitin' for us. I know Nelse Halliday's mine as well as I do my own."

Shorty would have wandered endlessly in that maze of tunnels and drifts, but these mining men were at home in the blackness. They returned the way they had come, climbing up the chutes, the ladders, ducking under the low roofs, going unerringly from the sixth level to the fourth level-without meeting the two miners who had caught Shorty and Morrison.

A candle flame appeared ahead. It was Kathleen, waiting at the heaped rock barring the way back into the Gunsight Mine.

Pop wasted no words. "Get ahead of us, Kathleen. We're in a hurry."

They reached their own mine cage and crowded in. Pop pulled the signal rope. The cage rushed up with them.

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