Chapter 40
Church bells chimed merrily in the crisp autumn morning, calling Salida to worship.
Conn stumbled toward the sound, looking like a dead man who’d clawed his way out of the grave to answer the call of the tolling bells.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
He had, indeed, escaped a grave.
Sheffield’s grave and almost his own.
It had taken an eternity.
Now, his clothes were ragged and bloody and impossibly filthy. He’d lost his hat. His hands were torn and bloody, the nails split from hours of digging.
His eyes were leaden with fatigue and loss and determination, like the eyes of a revenant risen from the grave to wreak its terrible vengeance.
Which, again, was not far from the truth.
Because that’s what had driven Conn through the brutal, endless night, through the pain, through the frustration, through the seeming hopelessness when there didn’t seem to be a way out: the need for vengeance.
He lived to avenge his brother and Sheffield and the farmer whose wife and boy he’d helped.
He lived to keep those promises and the promises he’d made Mary and his parents.
That’s what drove him now.
But thirst for revenge hadn’t saved him.
Beaten, bitter, and lost in the darkness of the collapsed mine, he had prayed for his own survival and success, a thing he had never done before.
And while he didn’t consider himself important enough to warrant God’s favor, he would be a fool not to admit that his escape from certain death had been more than uncanny.
There had been no way out.
Then, just as the lantern started sputtering, he noticed the tug of its dwindling flame, noticed that weak light tilting toward a dead end in the deeper darkness…
where, following the leaning flame, he discovered a crack in the seemingly impenetrable wall, a crack that drew and strengthened the flame briefly before it winked out, the lantern’s fuel exhausted at last.
Conn felt something then. Hope. And gratitude.
He’d said another prayer, a prayer of thanks, then asked God again to save him.
Then he’d gone to work on the seemingly impenetrable wall, working in the dark, sinking his fingers into the insignificant crack and laboring on faith as he could see nothing, could only guess at any progress.
But he did make progress.
Eventually, the crack widened. And then, suddenly, his efforts yielded larger chunks of stone and dirt.
He understood that he might at any second tug on the wrong rock and bring down tons of material on top of himself, but he was out of options and besides, a new flame now burned in the darkness, the flame of hope.
Much later, a large section of ceiling broke away and revealed a shaft that ran up and up, opening twenty or thirty feet higher up to reveal a thin strip of starry sky.
Conn fell to his knees then and prayed in earnest, thanking God for saving him when he couldn’t save himself.
To reach the crevice, he had to pile up a lot of the debris he’d pulled loose. By the time he managed to scale the pile and squeeze into the wide crack, the stars were fading overhead as darkness gave way to a grainy light.
Conn pressed his back against one side of the crevice and pushed his boots into the opposite wall. Pushing with his feet, he inched his back upward. Then, one at a time, he brought his feet higher.
In this way, he made his slow ascent, understanding that if he slipped, he would be finished, and that the crevice might open up, become unclimbable, and finish him just as decisively.
But it hadn’t.
As dawn broke in the east, he hauled himself growling out of the crevice and collapsed on the hillside.
Dying of thirst, he’d crawled to the creek, where he’d drunk and drunk, washing away the dust.
He’d passed out for a short time—an hour or perhaps two—then struggled to his feet, said one last prayer of thanks, and set to the business of the death merchant: cleaning and reloading his weapons.
Only three shotgun shells remained.
The Remington’s metallic cartridges, on the other hand, survived.
With these implements of destruction, he set off for Salida, ignoring the fatigue and stiffness and pain, driven by the need to set things right.
Having survived impossible odds, he would allow nothing to stop him.
Did his survival mean God sanctioned this vengeance?
He didn’t know. Couldn’t.
But it might be an interesting question to ask his father if he managed to survive that long.
Meanwhile, he remained the avenger of blood.
These were his thoughts as he passed the little clapboard church at the edge of town. Folks were going through the wide open doors and entering the church, chatting happily, welcoming each other, shaking hands.
Conn felt a funny thing then, an urge to join them, to go through those doors and sing hymns and worship the Lord.
The urge surprised him. Even as a boy, worship had been little more than a hallowed formality to him. He’d had a hard time sitting still in church, and once he’d ridden off, he’d turned his back on the whole thing.
Now, suddenly, he felt himself being drawn toward those open doors, wanting to go inside.
But that, of course, was impossible.
He was bloody, muddy, and ragged. Filthy. And it wasn’t just his clothes.
Before attending church, he would need to attend to himself.
He didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew he wasn’t ready yet.
So he kept walking.
And eventually, he came to the Salida train station, where he approached the man at the counter and asked him if a group of men had come through here recently, one of them short with a scarred-up face.
The station agent nodded. “They came here yesterday and boarded the train to Leadville. Them and eight horses.”
Conn nodded. Leadville made sense. It was a wild boomtown. They could hide there and have all the fun they wanted. Lots of silver money up there, too, so the banks were probably stuffed to the ceiling with money.
Unfortunately, Toole and his crew could also hop a train to anywhere from Leadville.
Conn needed to hurry.
The station agent looked wary. “Are you a friend of theirs?”
“Not at all.”
“Phew. That’s good. Because from what I understand, those are some rough hombres.”
Conn nodded. “They are cold-blooded murderers.”
“So I understand,” the man said. “You’re not the first to come hunting them. Fella came in here yesterday looking for them. A lawman.”
Conn frowned at that, figuring he knew who it was. “Thin man? Wearing his badge on a real neat, black coat?”
“That sounds just like him.”
“Did he hop the train, too?”
“No, sir. He got here too late for the train and rode out of town on a big, white horse.”
Conn thought about that. It was maybe fifty or sixty miles to Leadville.
Mayfield would get there by the end of today if he wanted to.
“When’s your next train to Leadville?” Conn asked.
“Real soon. It pulls out of here in about forty-five minutes.”
Conn bought a ticket and waited, realizing things had just gotten more complicated.
He didn’t just need to track down and kill Toole and the others.
He also needed to avoid Mayfield. At least until he had taken out the killers.
After that, if Mayfield wanted to settle their differences, Conn would be more than happy to oblige.