IRONGATE

by

Terry Wright

“Yah claim jumpin’ varmints—just wait ‘n see what I has in store for yer hides.”

Cackling, Rascal worked under a scorching sun, talking to himself as usual. “Confounded squatters.” With ropes, he’d already hoisted up the iron gate, the one that came from San Francisco, and now he went to work tightening hinge bolts to posts he’d sunk on either side of the trail. He scratched his gray beard. “Deckers…hump…what kind a name were that for a town.”

The old geezer spit chaw, some of which dribbled down the front of his dusty coveralls and splattered on his church boots. He called ‘em church boots ‘cause they was holy. He latched the gate with a lock and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “That oughta keep them bastards out.”

He scrambled down the dusty trail, now blocked by his iron gate, and made his way across the ravine bottom. On the west bank, a wooden shack sat atop a pile of mine tailings, and from the rock face, shoring timbers poked out of a square, black hole. He’d named her Penelope. For the longest time, Rascal’s mine had been barren as a barroom whore. Near on ten years. But never mind that now. He’d already figured a way to drop her shaft another hundred feet, follow the bedrock seam, and whittle out another fork of gold ore. He was going to be rich and weren’t about to give it up to them thievin’ squatters.

Hoisting a shoulder load of timber, he hunkered down into Penelope. The air took on a chill. Rusty lanterns lined the tunnel, not many, though just enough to break the darkness into flickering shadows. Dripping water echoed from the depths, and his church boots crunched dirt. Several tunnels went off to the left and the right and crisscrossed this way and that. Some tunnels were dead ends, and some broke out into deep fissures that’d leave a man without a foothold. Others had trip beams that would bring down the ceiling and false floors that could collapse underfoot, dumping a man into subterranean washes to drown. Rascal placed his feet carefully, counting each step, as he made his way deeper into Penelope’s rocky bowels. “Claim jumpin’ varmints.”

Roger Denton spurred his steed down Deckers’ main street, his gang of thieves riding behind him, horse hooves clomping dirt. Women and children scurried in every direction. Wagons laded with wood planks and roofing tar rambled through town, stirring up dust. Hammers struck nails, saws rasped wood, and men groaned and sweat under the Texas sun.

Signaling his gang, he dismounted in front of the Devil’s Roost Saloon, hitched his horse, and took to the boardwalk, boots clunking and spurs jingling. From swinging doors, honky-tonk piano music spilled into the street. Voices yammered from within, some drunkenly. “I tell yah, boys, Rascal hit it big. I say we bushwhack the old coot and do our own diggin’.”

“Penelope is a worthless hole.”

“Not so,” another voice said. “I seen Rascal at the assayer’s office day before last. Weren’t no fools-gold he was handin’ over.”

“I say we jump his claim…hic…find out fer ourselves.”

Denton pushed his way through the door, and with his gang, sidled up to the bar. Talk of claim jumping came to a quick end. Cigar smoke clouded the air. “Sarsaparilla,” he said to the bartender, a pudgy fellow with more hair under his nose than on his head.

“We don’t want no trouble, Mister Denton.”’

Some fool at a card table laughed. “Sarsaparilla?” He chugged hooch straight from the bottle. “My pappy used to say, if you’re gonna walk like a man, yah gotta drink like a man.”

His card buddies howled.

Hands on their pistol grips, Denton’s gang turned away from the bar.

“Easy, men. I’ll handle this.” Denton eyed the drunken cowboys. They were probably in town just for the night. Tomorrow they’d be back to driving their stinking cattle herd east toward Fort Worth. A couple of them didn’t look much older than snot-nosed kids just weaned from their mamma’s apron strings.

At the next table, a dapper looking bunch of gamblers leaned back in their chairs, their eyes shifting about nervously. One big fellow in a black bow tie and vest stroked a bar floozy’s thigh while she sat in his lap. “Can’t a man play poker in peace around here?”

Now that he had everybody’s attention, Denton twitched his mustache. “What’s all this talk about jumpin’ old man Rascal’s claim?”

“What’s it to yah, mister?” This smart remark came from a dusty cowpoke in need of a shave. He hadn’t been playing cards with the cowboys, but stood at the end of the bar, sipping straight Kentucky bourbon.

“If anybody jumps that claim, it’ll be me and my men. Rest of you stay away.”

“And if-in we don’t?”

“You die.”

Piano music stopped.

Dumping the floozy on the floor in a heap of petticoat lace, the big gambler stood.  He wore a black glove on his right hand and looked like a gunslinger. His eyebrows canted menacingly. “Says who?”

“Now, gentlemen,” the bartender said.

“Stay out of this, Shorty.” Denton stepped forward, glaring. “Time for you boys to move along.” His hand hovered over his holstered Colt.

The gun-slinging gambler flexed gloved fingers and poised them above the ivory handle of his six-shooter. “I think you better…”

Denton drew and fired. Cowboys scattered. Chairs upended. Grimacing, the gambler stagger-stepped, fell face first, and hit the floor like a sac of flour. Blood pooled.

The floozy screamed.

In the next second, Denton spun around. Sure enough, the dusty cowpoke at the end of the bar was going for his gun. But Denton had a bead on him and pulled the trigger. Blood and brain matter spattered the wall.

            The Denton gang pulled their guns and covered all the wide-eyed patrons. As the floozy whimpered over the dead gambler, Denton strode up to the cowboy who’d badmouthed sarsaparilla. “Didn’t pappy ever tell you to hold your tongue?”

            Cowering on the floor like a whipped dog, the cowboy stuttered. “I-I didn’t mean no harm.”

            “But I do.” Denton fired a bullet into the cowboy’s forehead and turned to his gang. “Come on, men. We got a claim to jump.”

            With a rope and a good horse, they pulled down Rascal’s iron gate and left it bent and twisted on the side of the trail. Whooping and hollering, they rode into the ravine, a dozen or more thieving bastards firing their guns. Rascal had hold of his shotgun and watched the whole thing from the window of his shack. Beard itching, he leveled the barrel on the nearest claim jumper and pulled the trigger. With a boom, the man came out of his saddle and landed in a cactus bed.

            “Varmints!” Rascal spit and reloaded.

            About that time, bullets started ricocheting off his shack, some zinging through the window and dislodging pots and pans from the wall. “Yer askin’ fer it now.” He unleashed another shotgun blast that tore the head off a man riding at full gallop. “Yer not takin’ my Penelope!”

            A rain of bullets pummeled the shack, forcing Rascal to retreat into his mineshaft. Extinguishing lanterns as he ran, he found it more difficult to place his feet safely. He lost count of his footsteps. His booby traps now became a harrowing problem. He started counting steps between beams, but he wasn’t sure which beam was which. Was it four steps or five then sidestep left…or was it right? In all the mayhem, he’d become confused. He thought he should’ve been at beam seven by now, but this beam had a wood knot half way up, like beam ten. Or was it beam eleven?  “Tarnation!”

            Gunfire rang out from Penelope’s entrance. Men’s silhouettes now blocked out the glow of daylight. “Give it up, old man,” someone shouted. 

“Drats!”

“Spread out, men. Take the tunnels on the right and left. Holler if you find him.”

Moments later, a long scream echoed through Penelope, faded, and then a thump. A rumble belched from a tunnel on the left, followed by a short scream. Rocks crashed down, and dust swirled in the air.

Now Rascal grinned. “Served them thievin’ bastards right.” He turned, took three steps forward and one step left. The floor gave way underneath him. He immediately realized he’d gone beyond beam twelve. “Curses!” Crashing downward, falling rocks knocked him senseless. He never felt himself hit the roiling subterranean wash.

Denton peered into Penelope’s black mouth. “Anybody there?”

Eerily, only the sound of dripping water and an occasional rock fall came back.

“Rascal?”

Silence.

With lantern and shovel in hand, he entered Penelope. Dirt crunched under his boots and echoed away. Shadows danced on rocky walls. Timbers sagged and creaked. About ten yards in, rocks cascaded from the ceiling, and dust choked the air. From somewhere in the dark abyss, he heard a moan.

“Who’s there?”

“Go back. Save yourself.”

A scream echoed.

Rocks clattered.

A wave of panic swept over Denton like ice water, chilling him to the bone. 

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

The ceiling spit more stones. Penelope groaned like a wraith in the night.

Now panic took over. Acting on their own accord, his feet raced for the mine entrance and daylight. Once outside, he bent over, put his hands on his knees, and gasped fresh air like mad. He’d lost his entire gang to Penelope. The old man had turned his mine into a death trap, a gauntlet of unspeakable horrors. It would take an army to dig through the cave-ins, shore up the walls, and patch the floors. How many men would die in the process? It wouldn’t take long for word to get around that the mine was cursed. Nobody would work a suicide pit. Gold or no gold, Penelope was too dangerous. She would take revenge on whoever entered her womb.

Cursing, he spent the rest of the day boarding up Penelope’s entrance. He painted a skull-and-crossbones sign. After pounding the last nail in place, he rounded up the horses and plodded off toward town, thinking how he’d explain it all.

“Civil War started about that time,” Morton McAllister told Captain Holland as they sat together on the front porch of the old Denton Mansion, iced tea glasses in hand. “Roger Denton told the town folks his gang had lit out to fight the confederates.”

“And Rascal?”

“Just another miner swallowed up by his own greed.”

Holland adjusted his aching frame in the rocker. Bandages pressed on his wounds. “How long have you been caretaker around here?”

“My great granddaddy helped Mr. Denton build this place. They made their fortune in cattle rustling back then. Grandpa stayed on after Denton died. Father and I followed in his footsteps.”

“I hear Denton’s misses was a barroom floozy before she took up with him.”

“Frightful woman she was.”

“Do you remember Billy’s great grandfather?”

“Samuel Denton.” Morton shook his head. “I was nine when they hung him. Don’t remember much more than that, except his son was only four at the time.”

“Billy’s grandfather?”

Nodding, Morton examined his glass of iced tea. “He grew up mean.”

“I hear Billy’s dad was brutal.”

“Rattler got the bastard. Billy’s ma died when he was sixteen. Courts couldn’t handle him. Nobody wanted to foster him.”

Looking around the neatly trimmed grounds, Holland took in the scent of freshly-mowed grass. “Why didn’t he stay here with you?”

Morton sighed. “After my Martha died, it was like an anger swelled up in young Billy. He ran off. Spent most of his time up in the hills. Got mixed up with them drug fellas after that.”

Holland felt a twitch. “The hills, you say. Could it be that he went back to the old mine?”

“Only a fool would go there. The place is cursed, you know. Nobody who went in ever came out.”

“I never said Billy had any brains.”

“Be careful there, Captain. He can fool yah.”

The afterlife light dimmed and Holland’s image faded. Justin had seen enough. He rubbed his smooth chin and leaned back in his favorite recliner. Tipped forward a little, his cowboy hat sat canted on his head. His long brown coat smelled of fine leather, and his boots shined.

Concentrate.

He now knew where to look for Billy. The light would soon reveal him.

For the moment, which could have been a split second or a week in the afterlife, Justin wanted to end his torment. Rounding up souls for the devil had proven to be a difficult task. Billy was the key. All Justin had to do was kill him. The devil would win. Everything would be over.

A pain stabbed Justin’s chest. He couldn’t let his daughter down like that. Not ever.

As the light brightened, a twisted iron gate appeared alongside a dirt trail that led down into a ravine. A breeze rustled sagebrush. Rotted wood planks, remnants of a decayed shack, lay strewn about the steep face of a tailings pile, and a trickle of water cascaded down from a crevice above the black mouth of a mineshaft. There, sitting in the shadows, his back propped against a shoring timber, his knees up, Billy napped with his forehead resting on his arms. Earrings glinted, and the barbed wire tattoo was clearly visible.

Anger boiled inside Justin. As long as Billy was alive, his daughter was in danger. He wanted to transform himself into his ghoulish state and appear to Billy, then choke him to death with bare bony hands.

With that thought, a vision of the devil appeared in his mind, laughing. “DO IT, JUSTICE,” the devil crowed. “YOUR JOURNEY TO HELL WILL BE COMPLETE.”

“And my daughter…will you then take her too?”

“DO ME PROUD, JUSTICE.”

“No! Never!”

 “DO IT, DO IT, DO IT…” Cackling, the vision faded.

Justin’s heart hammered.

Just then, Billy lifted his head and turned his eyes toward the light. His piercing glare seemed to be daring Justin to do the devil’s bidding.

In all his years investigating homicides, Justin never hated the murderers he tracked. Not until now. The face that glowered at him in the light was the face of his killer, the defiler of his daughter, the epitome of everything evil, an evil he must snuff out once and for all.            

A growl came from deep inside Justin’s soul as he curled into his long coat and began the transposition to Earth.

TO BE CONTINUED