Chapter 14
The voices were coming closer. Mark did the only thing he could and, holding onto the rope, began to make his way over the edge. He had to go down backward; it was the only way.
What about Michael? If those bandits find him and the rope, this whole plan goes bang and we’ll have no hope at all.
Hesitating, Mark wedged his feet into two dips in the rock face and waited just below the ridge. Maybe he could grab one of the bandits and throw him over the edge. It might work if it had to.
“Go,” Michael hissed. “What are you waiting for?”
“For them to leave,” Mark hissed back.
“That’s not a good idea. They’ll see the rope. Go, so I can untie it and hide!” Michael insisted.
Mark grunted. That was a much better plan for Michael, but a worse one for him.
He would have to climb down the perilous rock face at speed in the dark.
This wasn’t how he had imagined this part of the plan would go.
But if he and Michael were caught, it would all be over, and he’d never get that happy life he had imagined with Heather.
So, for Heather and for Unity, he would go as fast as he could.
Without a proper harness, it was impossible to jump down the rock face.
That would have been the quickest way and would have taken minutes.
That was how they had climbed down into the mine back in the day, and they got quite good at it.
But no harness meant no jumping. So, he had to do a sort of climbing walk down the cliff face, finding footholds while feeding the rope through a loop in his makeshift harness.
“How are you doing?” Michael whispered down at him. “Go faster. They’re coming close.”
Mark listened. He was right. The bandits’ voices were becoming clearer, and he was starting to make out words here and there. They had to be just about on Michael.
This was it; he couldn’t let Michael be caught, so Mark made a decision. He leaned his torso against the cliff face and did something he had hoped to only do when he was on the ground. He untied the rope from around his body.
“Michael, pull the rope up,” Mark said.
“Are you on the ground?” Michael asked.
“No time. Pull it up and go hide. I’ll be fine,” he said.
“Okay,” Michael said, and the rope began to rise.
There was a moment of shuffling noise above him and then a trickle of small stones that pinged off his head and shoulders. Mark looked down, trying not to get grit in his eyes.
The bandits’ voices were coming closer.
“Why we gotta patrol up here anyhow?” one of them moaned. “No one’s climbing that stupid cliff.”
“Why are we patrolling at all?” his companion asked. “Do we look like guards? I don’t think so.”
Mark pressed himself right up against the rock wall. He hoped that his hand and footholds would hold. They sounded like they were right above him. He hoped Michael had managed to get out of the way and hide in time.
“Yeah, it doesn’t make no sense,” the first bandit said. “I thought it would be like the other towns. We threaten them, take their women, make sure they know who’s boss, and then off to the next place.”
An involuntary shudder ran through Mark when he heard that. He thought of what Heather might be having to endure, and he gritted his teeth. Oh, how he wanted to climb back up and make those devils pay for what they had done.
But he couldn’t. He was halfway down the cliff face, and any rash action could cost a lot of people their lives. Everyone was counting on him, Heather included. He had to do this right. So he held on and prayed that he would make it to the bottom of the cliff, find Mac, and free his town.
“The boss has plans,” the other bandit said, his voice sounding a little softer as though he had possibly moved on.
“Yeah, always working some angle,” the second agreed, also sounding more distant. “Just wish I knew how he meant to make us all rich.”
“Yeah, me too,” the first one said.
Mark waited for their footsteps to recede into the darkness, and then he began the long climb down.
He hoped and prayed that Michael was safe, but surely he would have heard if they had found his friend.
He would have kicked up a fuss, and in the quiet night air, the sound would travel.
Mark had to believe that Michael had managed to untie the rope and hide away.
He had a bigger issue. Climbing down without a rope was an issue. The moon wasn’t bright enough for him to see well by, and he ended up climbing mostly by feel. It was slow-going, and it took him a long time to reach the bottom of the cliff.
The moon had set by the time he got to the ground, and he had to set off on foot with nothing but starlight to guide him.
Mark knew the area quite well, thanks to his many patrols outside the wall. He had a good idea of what direction to head to get to San Antonio.
He set off across the open ground that, not long ago, he was supervising the clearing of. It felt surreal to be there under the cover of darkness, sneaking away.
A strange feeling crept over him. It felt as though someone was watching him.
But who? If it were a bandit or someone on lookout from the wall, they would have sounded the alarm, surely.
So then was he just being paranoid? Mark thought that might be the case.
Perhaps he had been under scrutiny for so long that he now felt as though people were constantly watching him.
There was no sign of another human being anywhere on the grass plain that he was traversing.
Ahead of him was the dark, shadowy mass that was the grove of trees that he and Jeff had chased the bandit into a few weeks earlier.
The trees would supply cover for him, and he could wait there for daylight before heading off to find Mac.
Mark walked to the trees. The ground here was tough to cross, being full of rocks, a few cacti, and other stumbling hazards that didn’t show up well in the dark.
The trees were coming closer. The feeling of being watched, however, wasn’t diminishing. If anything, it was becoming more intense.
Mark paused. He listened but couldn’t hear anything that sounded like pursuit. So, no one was behind him? Was there someone waiting in the trees?
He could go around the grove. There was no reason that he had to wait for daylight there. It was just more convenient to do so. He would have better cover from prying eyes watching him from the wall.
But if there were bandits in the grove, then all of this would be for nothing.
The eastern horizon was beginning to go gray with the pre-light of dawn. The moment the sun came up, he would stand out like a blazing fire on a hillside at night, unless he was in the trees.
He still had a couple of hours to dawn, but he was tired. He had worked a full day in the mine and only napped for a short while. He needed to rest to be fresh for the long walk ahead of him.
Fine. Trees it is, and I’ll just deal with the feeling of unease.
Mark stepped into the cover of the trees. Nothing happened. He sighed with relief.
There was a click right by his ear as a gun’s hammer was pulled back.
“Well, now, what do we have here?” a voice asked.
Mark froze.
With his hands tied behind his back, Mark was frog-marched through the grove of trees and down into a dip on the other side. There was a camp there with four tents and a little campfire. He was willing to bet that this camp was invisible to the bandits up on the wall.
There was a figure sitting by the fire. He was a big man with gray hair, and he had his back to Mark and his two captors.
“Boss, we got one snooping around,” the man with the gun said.
He was older than Mark, probably late thirties. He wore a dark woolen hat that covered most of his blond hair. Only a few tufts stuck out of the edge of the hat. He was muscular, and the way he walked reminded Mark of Ross and the other security men that they had hired.
His companion was the same, stocky and sure of himself.
They pushed Mark right over to the fire. When the man they called Boss turned around, Mark let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Mac?” he asked.
“You’re Mark, right? We met in San Antonio,” Mac said, standing up and offering Mark his hand to shake.
“That’s right, sir,” Mark said, shaking the offered hand. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”
“I’ll bet,” Mac said. “It’s okay, gentlemen. I know Mark. He’s good.”
“But he came from the town,” the blond one said.
“I said he’s okay,” Mac insisted. “Put your guns away.” Then, directing his words to Mark, he continued. “You’ll have to forgive Steven and Lukas; they’ve been hired to act as security, and that’s what they’re doing.”
“I understand,” Mark said. “I’m so glad you’re here. We really need to talk.”
Mac invited Mark to have a seat.
Mark sat on a log and was handed a cup of coffee. Sipping it, he felt a renewal in his energy. He needed to stay focused and tell Mac everything he could.
“How are you here?” Mark asked. “I thought I would have to get to San Antonio somehow and send you a message.”
“I was in San Antonio,” Mac said. “We were there for a week or so, and then we came out here. I was waiting for you to come to town. Someone from Unity comes every week, but when no one showed up, I figured there was trouble.”
“Also, we caught some of Bernini’s men, and it was amazing how quickly they squealed,” Steven said, pulling the cap off his blond hair as he sat down by the fire.
“Bernini?” Mark asked.
“Yes, Alessandro Bernini is El Aguila,” Mac said. “I thought you knew that by now.”
“No,” Mark said. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because he’s one of my oldest friends and business associates,” Mac said. “I suggested that all of your reports be sent to him when my other partners turned out to be snakes.” He laughed humorlessly. “It seems that I am a terrible judge of character when it comes to business partners.”
Mark digested that for a moment and then asked, “So, you had no idea? When did you work it out?”
Mac looked embarrassed as Steven smiled and said, “He didn’t. Lukas and I worked it out. We’re Pinkertons.”