Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1801322" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter Nineteen, “The Prospectors’ Claim”, January 6th, 1882:They then head back to the El Parador. It is now almost noontime and Flint is waiting to take them out to his claim. Flint's mule is all packed up and ready to go.  Ruby comments, "Well, I didn't know anything about going out today and I have a few things I have to take care of. I hope you don't mind?" She looks to Nanuet and Flint to make sure no one is offended. "Oh." Katherine paused a moment. She was sure Nanuet had mentioned it before Ruby and Jake left. But then, the girl's mind may have been on other things. "Well, I could use a ride. I'm not sure what help I'll be but I'll be glad to go out with you, Nanuet, if you like. As long as you don't need me, Ruby."   Ruby replies, "No I'll be alright. I'm just doing a few things around town. Boring stuff really."Al, Flint, Katherine and Nanuet ride their horse out of town heading towards the hills that make up part of the Chiriccahua Mountains to southeast. The ride for the next mile is uneventful.   During the short ride out to the claim, Katherine had a chance to relax and confirm her thought that Meribel was worth taking the time to train well. The mare seemed good-tempered and happy to go for a bit of a walk. Kate felt a bit guilty, knowing that it was unlikely she would often have reason to ride far. Perhaps when she visited Tom's resting-place next she would ride instead of taking the stage. It shouldn't be hard to convince some of the others to come along for safety. But she wouldn't be returning to Tombstone for some time yet. They see a grassy hill in the distance that has been marked off with posts every 20 feet and rope tied between the posts. Handmade wooden signs are hanging from ropes every three or four sections that read "Stay Out - Private" in the common language. Flint says, "That's our claim". As they get closer they see a pair of canvas tents over by a stream running through the property. There are multiple caves dug into the hill, with piles of dirt stacked up outside of the caves. The camp, to her eyes at least, blighted the landscape. It wasn't messy, but the holes and piles of dirt just didn't belong next to the quiet stream. Meribel nickered as she was tied with a long lead to graze and drink the cold, clear water.  He leads them onto the land and they tie up the mounts to a post near the steam, giving them enough rope to allow for movement to graze and drink. He leads the group into a fairly deep cave into the hill and over to a large locked metal trunk. Flint takes out a key and unlocks it. Inside are picks, shovels, spikes, ropes and around a dozen sticks of dynamite. He takes a metal flask out and drinks a swig of it. He then holds it out to the others and says "Dwarven whiskey. Anybody else want some?" Katherine caught herself just as she was about to say yes. Firstly, he'd just had a drink out of that flask himself. Secondly, she'd been having just a bit too much whiskey lately, and liked it just a bit too much. Not the taste of course, that was vile, but the warmth that spread from just under her heart and up into her head, making the world just a bit softer.   "Thanks just the same, but no thank you," she said firmly. She turned to Nanuet. "Where should we start? This is just a bit out of my experience."Flint takes them out of the cave and walks them around the claim saying, "After silver was discover in the first two mines around the town all of the hills close by were bought up by speculators. We decided to branch out further into unclaimed lands and dug until we found something. We turned up a few nuggets on this hill so decided it was the most promising site. Pooled all of what we had left from mining in California and bought it, a full twenty acres, around fifteen or so taken up by the hill. Hasn't worked out though. We've probably dug up a ton of dirt for every pound of silver ore that's turned up. I don't think we’ve broken even on our expenses, let alone the cost of the land to begin with." They approach a pile of rock beneath a tree around twenty feet from the stream. "I buried Pete here. This was always his favorite spot on the site. He'd sit here and watch the stream flow by." He then takes them over to the other side of the hill and comments, "This is where I found him. Knife wound in the back." Nanuet approaches the area and carefully scans the ground. He takes a good look at Flint's boots and then asks "What size and style of boot did Pete wear?" The dwarf replies "Hard work boots, size twelve. Why?" Nanuet says, "There are four different sets of tracks here, and at least one was wearing spurs. Give me a few minutes here."Nanuet kneels down and scans the earth. He has little trouble following the heavy boot prints as they lead away from the campsite. He points out that one of them seems to walk with at least a slight limp and he finds a discarded unfinished cigarette not too far away. He continues following the tracks as they lead away from the site, noting what information he can glean from them.The tracks double back behind several rock croppings and then converge from two different directions to the spot where prospector Pete was standing. Based on the impressions from Pete's boots he concludes that Pete was looking to towards the west when the pair simultaneously came up behind from both the southeast and northeast.  He is only able to follow the tracks as they curve around the hill and end at a rocky plateau. He moves a little further to no avail, as it is too rocky for tracks to show. He returns to the others and explains to them what he found. Flint says "What doesn't make much sense is that they'd be able to sneak up on him like that. He had a pretty good sense of hearing.  Nanuet asks.  "Flint, are you out here alone alot? Is there anyone else who might know what times he would be alone, someone familiar with your operation? I don't understand the motive either. You said that you haven't found any silver and that he didn't have personal problems with anyone that you knew of. I can't follow the tracks anymore, the rocks don't show me anything. There are hucksters who might have the power to make footsteps silent, that could explain why he didn't here them. Flint, you might be in danger as well. You need to think hard about who might have done this."Back at the site, Katherine stops and ponders for a minute and then says "What was he looking at?" "Huh"? Flint asks. She replies "You said that the grassy area under that tree was his favorite spot, not behind the hill in that rocky area. There didn't seem to be any digging over by where you found him so he wasn't busy looking for silver. Which prompts the question of why was he standing in place at that spot and looking west for so long?" The four of them head back over to that spot and begin walking westward, with Nanuet taking the lead. After seventy feed of rock and sand it starts to get grassy again. They go another hundred-and-fifty feet until they reach where the stream flows by. On the opposite side of the steam is evidence of the grass having been trampled down by a large number of animal tracks as well as small piles of manure left behind. Nanuet tells the others to wait there and wades across the stream. He spends the next half-hour walking all around the area and examining tracks. He then branches out and locates trails of tracks to both the southeast and northwest. He then checks out over nears some large rocks He returns and tells the others "Hard to tell exactly how many but I would guess around fifty animals, maybe more. Five appear to be shoed horses the others all look to be cows. They stopped here to graze and water. Two riders stayed mounted and three dismounted. Looks like the three on foot then came over to the stream, probably to refill canteens. That must have been when they saw Pete watching them. Two left their horses and went back into the herd and behind that rock cropping over there, probably hidden from Pete's view by the cattle. They then made a wide circle out and around your hill and come up behind your friend. The whole group looks to have come from the direction of town and they continued on to the southeast."Al shakes her head.  "And he just stood there to take a knife in the back? Damn." She looks from Flint to Nanuet and parks herself on a rock. "Guess the bigger question is why, huh?"  She looks around, and thinks, then says:   "Couple hours back, I took a rest stop a couple miles out towards the mountains. Saw some tracks there, similar to these - only three horses though, not five. They were headed out to the Chiricahua Mountains - there's some rustler caves out that way, looked to me 'n' Isaac like they were used pretty frequent." She takes a deep breath. "It look to anybody else like this was done by rustlers wantin' nobody running back to town and tellin' on 'em?""Guess that's the answer to the question why," Flint comments. "The penalty for cattle rustling is hanging. Wouldn't make much sense though if they were all strangers. But if one or more of the fellas was someone from town who Pete might have recognized.....""Then suddenly, these folks got a problem," says Al pensively. "I see."   She looks at Flint. "Anybody should be in town that ain't the last few days?"Nanuet says “These must be the cattle that those Cartwright folks were talking to the Marshall about. Al, you say you know where a hideout is not too far away? I think right about now we have two choices. One, go back to town and let the sheriff handle this, maybe now they will listen. They didn't seem to care about this the first time Flint tried to deal with it. Or, two we can try and do something about this ourselves. I never had much love for thieves.”"Yeah, I know the hideout," says Al. "O'Dell and I bunked up in it two nights ago. I can take you right to it, if that's what y'all want." Kate was quiet for a minute. She thought of the poor prospector, standing out among the rocks watching the cattle when someone planted a knife in his back. She wasn't terribly familiar with magic, but she knew there were ways the rustlers could have snuck up without his notice. Coming out here to take a look around had been one thing, but now there could be a real danger in continuing to follow the trail.   Still, the idea that this man had been killed just to hide another mans theft... Were cattle really worth so much here? Of course, from what she'd seen so far life was considered cheap. Kate says, "I guess it won't do any harm to look at the hideout." She turned to Flint. "You know, if you've had no luck with the silver mining, ever think of ranching? Seems a good piece of land you've got here."Al, Flint, Katherine and Nanuet then hear the sound of horses approaching. The sound is coming from around the hills northwest of where they are standing.  Nanuet grabs Kate and puts a finger to his lips and then motions for the others to try and hide.  As stealthily as possible he attempts to sneak in the direction of the riders and find out who they are without being noticed.Al crouches down behind the rock she was sitting on, one hand at each hip, ready to draw her revolvers if need be. She catches Kate's eye, looking icy calm.   Kate hated not being able to see. Nanuet knew better what to do now than she, of course, but the horses were picketed in plain sight. The riders would know there were people close by. Kate slipped her hand down, took hold of the handle of Thomas's pistol, and prayed she wouldn't need to use it.</blockquote>

Verification