Slocum and the High-graders, page 14
“You’re wet,” she said. “Your clothes are drenched.”
“I went for a swim,” Slocum said. “I was knocked out on my way back for another load of ore for the mill. I ended up in what turned into a well.”
She looked at him curiously. A glint came to her eyes and she smiled. It wasn’t a shy smile.
“You’re wet,” she repeated.
“So?”
“So am I,” Evangeline said, moving back into the circle of his arms. “Is that so strange? I’ve been tied up and was sure my life was forfeit, and now you rescue me and . . . I want you!”
Her lips crushed Slocum’s. He returned the passion. Her reaction wasn’t all that outrageous since he shared it, too. Something about almost dying made him—and Evangeline—horny as hell.
His fingers stroked through her tangled hair, then moved lower, down her back and to her skirt. He bunched up the cloth until he could work his hand underneath and find warm flesh. Her thigh throbbed with life. She twisted slightly so his hand slid around between her legs. He found what she’d meant when she’d said she was wet. Her inner legs were slick with her inner juices leaking from her aroused sex.
His hand moved up and a finger slid easily into her. The woman moaned and ground herself down into his hand. Her mouth worked fiercely against his and then her tongue snaked out, pushing past his lips and going boldly into his mouth. Slocum’s tongue began an erotic dance that frolicked from his mouth to hers and back, slipping and sliding and stroking over her tongue until they both gasped with need.
“Take me, John. Take me. Don’t be gentle. I need you inside me. Now!”
She hiked up her own skirts and exposed herself. It took Slocum a little longer to drop his jeans and get free, but when he did he felt her hot hand circle him and draw him toward her hot, moist channel.
“The candle,” he muttered. “Must be sure it doesn’t go out.”
“I’m hot enough to light it again. We both are,” she said. Slocum cast a quick glance in the direction of the miner’s candle burning where he had placed it on the ore cart. It would last long enough, and he needn’t worry about starting another candle yet.
“Now, John, don’t stop. Go fast, as fast as you can. Burn me up!”
Evangeline lifted a leg and wrapped it around his waist, drawing her crotch into his. His meaty shaft sank easily into her, taking away their breaths. Slocum was surrounded by tight, clinging female flesh. Evie tensed and relaxed, giving him an added thrill. He ran his hands around her back and down until he cupped her buttocks. He lifted her easily and swung her about. He deposited her on the edge of the ore cart, her legs dangling down on either side of his body.
The woman leaned back and rammed herself down hard around his impaling manhood. She began lifting and twisting,moving to get the most stimulation possible out of their coupling. For Slocum it was pure torture. She teased and tormented and slipped up and down his length until he could hardly restrain himself.
“Hard, John,” she repeated. “Take me hard and fast. I want it. Oh, how I want to feel alive!”
He began stroking back and forth with powerful movements of his hips. He slammed hard into Evangeline, ground down and then pulled back as fast as he had entered. She gasped and sobbed again, this time in unbridled ecstasy. Slocum pistoned faster into her tightness and felt the heat mounting. Carnal friction threatened to burn him to a stub. He worked his hips faster.
“Yes, yes!” she cried out. Evangeline arched her back, threw her head back, and collapsed all around Slocum’s hidden length. As her climax eased, Slocum began stroking even faster. He had to. His loins were on fire. The white-hot tide rose within him and then erupted uncontrollably.
Evangeline gasped again and clawed at his shoulders until the winds of ecstasy died down to a mere warm afterglow.
“Thank you, John. That was what I needed.”
“Me, too,” he said. “It was almost worth nearly dying to get this chance.”
“Almost? Almost worth it? I’m still horny. I’ll wear you down. I’ll—”
“We have to get out of here, Evie,” he reminded her. “As pleasant as this was, there are more pressing matters.”
“This pressing into me is all I want,” the woman said, fondling his flaccid length.
“Later. After we get out of here.”
“That’s a promise I’ll hold you to,” she said.
“Do you have any idea what mine we’re in?” While she went down a list of possible locations, he lit a second candle from the one that had collapsed to a thin disk of wax on the edge of the ore cart. The new light highlighted Evangeline’s face and made her seem even lovelier. That she hadn’t bothered to pull down her skirt and was still wantonlyexposed didn’t do anything to take away from her beauty.
“So,” she finished. “It seems we might be in a mine adjoining the one where we found the high-graders.”
“I know Herk and Singer are involved in the theft of your pa’s ore,” Slocum said. “Miles is, too. I feel that in my gut.”
“But?” Evangeline prodded. “You’re not telling me something.”
Slocum stayed silent. There had to be more to the high-grading than he had seen. Lucas Miles wasn’t smart enough to have set up the operation on his own.
But before he worried more about who might be involved in the theft of the ore, he and Evangeline had to get out of this rocky prison. Looking around the large chamber didn’t show him any obvious way out.
15
“That almost makes being kidnapped, tied up, and dumped in a mine worthwhile,” Evangeline said, fluttering her skirt to get dust off it. Slocum watched. In the candlelight he saw the canyons and valleys he had just explored so ardently, but the edge was off now.
“We need to get out of here,” Slocum said.
“I’m in no hurry. Not if more of that is in store,” Evangeline said, glancing at his crotch. There was no action there, though, because Slocum had finished buttoning up and had started prowling the chamber like an animal in a cage.
He had thought he would find an easy way out. He quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. They were near an elevator shaft, but all the equipment had been removed. He could hardly see the speck of nighttime sky high above. He tried counting how many levels underground they were and stopped at eight. Climbing that high would be impossible without ropes—or a working elevator. Just thinking about getting out using a rope made his arms ache.
“No way we can go up, is there?” Evangeline’s voice was small and weak as the realization that this wasn’t a lark came to her.
“There might be ladders between levels. It depends on how long this mine was being operated.”
“Right!” she said, brightening. “Papa always insists on drilling up to a higher level and putting ladders up in case of cave-ins.”
“In the older drifts and stopes,” Slocum said. Where he had worked in the Low Down was at the end of new tunnels. And most mine foremen ignored the chance of needing to get their miners out in favor of keeping work going along veins of ore. They considered such safety escapes a waste of time to build. And Slocum had to agree. Usually it was.
But he wanted to keep Evangeline from getting too despondent. There had to be a way out. Someone had brought them here, after all. If not by elevator, then there was another way in. He couldn’t see why Miles or whoever had thrown him into the pit hadn’t simply dropped him down this shaft. Such a fall would have killed him. It might not have afforded Miles the pleasure of thinking of his victim dying a slow death, but it would have been more effective. Slocum found his hands balled into fists thinking of Miles and his henchmen.
“How do you think they got you here?” Slocum asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember them lowering me, though.”
“Then there’s probably a way out on this level. They might not have even known of this old elevator shaft,” Slocum said. He held his candle as high as he could, looking for some trace of a ladder down the side. There weren’t even holes in the rock showing where such a way down into the mine had ever existed.
“If I can find the way back to the pit where they tossed me, the tunnel on the far side must lead out.”
“It’s good you didn’t find it earlier,” Evangeline said. He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. He would never have found her if he had discovered the way out. Lady Luck had ridden on his shoulder—and Evangeline’s.
He hoped the run of luck wasn’t at an end. Slocum wasn’t sure how he had gotten to this chamber, since he had been following the sounds Evangeline had made, but backtracking might not be too difficult. His footprints in the dirt ought to provide an easy map back to the pit. From there, getting out of the mine shouldn’t be difficult at all.
“You’re looking as pleased as punch,” Evangeline said.
“We can get out of here,” he said with real assurance.
“Then let’s do it. I want to be home by breakfast and get some food. I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
Slocum shook his head. Women were always practical. He hadn’t noticed how his belly rubbed up against his backbone until she mentioned it. If anything, he was thirstier than he was hungry.
As if she read his mind, Evangeline said, “Could we get some water to drink from that pit? The underground river must be the one that supplies Cripple Creek with all its water.”
“I wouldn’t want to rely on it,” Slocum said, remembering how the corpse had floated on the surface before vanishing back under the rising water. Dirt could be filtered out through his bandanna, but the corruption of a corpse— even a burned one—could kill them.
“Then let’s get going.”
“Look around for more candles,” Slocum said. “I’ve got five left, and they’ve all been burned about halfway down.”
“Hmm, eight hours of light?” Evangeline started a methodical hunt around the chamber and found two more candles. Slocum joined her, hoping to find a carbide lamp. It would provide twice the light and not require the transfer of flame from one candle to the next. He wished he had more lucifers, but he didn’t.
“That’s all we’re going to get,” Slocum said.
“Should we each have a lighted candle?” Evangeline asked.
Slocum didn’t want to waste the candles, but relighting if his candle went out would be difficult if not impossible. He didn’t cotton much to the idea of finding tinder and striking steel against a rock until a spark caught. That might take an hour or longer, depending on what he could find in the mine fumbling around in utter darkness.
He lit one of Evangeline’s candles and saw this simple act let her relax a mite. Together they examined the five drifts branching off the main room. Slocum found his footprints in one and started down the drift, spirits high.
The longer he walked, the more he realized tracking in the dust wasn’t going to be as easy as he had thought. Twice he went down wrong corridors only to retrace when he discovered the tracks he thought were his own had vanished.
“Are we lost, John?” Evangeline asked after he had stomped back to a juncture.
“We know where we are,” he said, a touch of bitterness in his words. “What we need to know is where we want to be.”
Evangeline found this funny and laughed. Before Slocum could say anything, she suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth and turned to him. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you hear them?”
“Who?” Slocum cocked his head to one side and listened hard. At first he thought she was imagining things. The mine was as silent as a tomb—as their tomb, if he didn’t find a way out. But before he could say anything, he heard the voices. Distant. Soft. Muffled. But voices.
“We’re not alone,” he said.
“W-we might be, John. There’s no sign of anything else alive here.”
“What are you getting at?”
“The voices. They might be tommyknockers.”
“Who’s that? Somebody who works at the mine?”
“Not who, what. The spirits of dead miners. The poor souls who are killed underground go into the rock.”
Slocum snorted in disgust. He didn’t have time for such superstition. But he heard the voices again. They got louder and he almost made out distinct words. It wasn’t some natural disturbance. Men were talking, and he and Evangeline were almost able to understand what they said.
“Tommyknockers try to warn miners of cave-ins or damp.”
“Or flooding?” Slocum said sarcastically.
“Yes, that, too. I’ve known several miners who heard their warnings.”
“And were saved by them?”
“Yes, and Thompson was one of them. He told me he worked in a lead mine years back and heard a voice whisper in his ear ‘timber’ and he checked. The support timbers were rotted through. The mine would have been his grave if he hadn’t heeded the warning.”
“Tommyknockers,” Slocum grumbled. But he tried to home in on the voices. They faded again, and then a new sound came that he easily recognized. Somebody drilled into rock so hard that the vibration made Slocum think he was the one swinging the heavy sledgehammer.
“The voices,” Evangeline said, crowding close behind him. “They’ve gone away. Drowned out by that sound.”
“Miners banging holes in a rock wall,” Slocum said. “About here.” He pressed his hands against the wall and felt every blow all the way up to his shoulders. “They’ll be through in a minute or two.”
“Then we’re saved?”
“Looks like,” Slocum said. Then he stepped back and stared at the wall
“What’s wrong, John?”
“They’ve stopped drilling.”
“They might be taking a break,” Evangeline said.
“Run,” Slocum said, realizing what was happening on the far side of the wall. “Run like hell!”
His arms circled her and herded her back the way they had come. In his rush he dropped his candle. It snuffed itself out on the floor. And Evangeline’s fell from her hand. It burned on, having landed so the candle lay on its side. But there wasn’t time to pick it up.
“Wh—?”
Slocum grunted as he scooped her up and stumbled fast into the tunnel. He didn’t have time to explain. But she was struggling, fighting him in an effort to be put back down. When Evangeline pushed hard at him, Slocum fell to his knees. Then a huge hand pushed him and Evangeline along the drift. He lay atop her as they skidded. Her screams told him how her skin was being peeled away by the rough rock. And then her screams disappeared entirely.
Slocum lay atop her, deafened and blind. Every breath sucked in a lungful of dust. A shower of pebbles from the roof left Slocum and Evangeline covered like a newly closed grave.
He felt the woman stir beneath him, then begin to kick and shove. He arched his back and got some of the debris off, but it wasn’t fast enough for her.
“What do you think you’re doing? What just happened?” She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed hard, getting out from under him. He collapsed with the weight of the rock atop him.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “The mine collapsed!” She began digging furiously to get him free. By the time the last rock was removed and Slocum sat up, the ringing in his ears had died down. He still spoke too loudly.
“Blast,” he shouted. “The miners were drilling holes to blast through rock. They didn’t know there was already a tunnel on this side and used too much powder.”
“We need to tell them. We have to get out. The whole mine might come down on us.”
Slocum agreed but found it harder to stand than before. He felt a dozen cuts and scratches on his back where sharp stones had slashed him. But his hearing returned faster now and he heard Evangeline’s footfalls going back toward the hole in the tunnel wall. She was shouting for help when a miner stuck his head through.
Slocum saw the man’s face in the bright blue-white carbide light from his lamp. Who was more startled was a toss-up.
“Help us,” Evangeline said, grabbing the miner and almost pulling him through the hole. “You’ve got to help us. We’re trapped here.”
“Whoa, little lady. Rein on back, now,” the miner said. He disappeared through the hole but poked his head back in a few seconds later. “I told the foreman. He’s on his way to see what’s goin’ on.”
Slocum saw Evangeline kiss the man. Her lip prints remained on his cheek, where he was dirtiest.
“Well now, little lady, lemme help you.”
Slocum stumbled along and said, probably too loudly, although his hearing was back, “You better take a close look at the blast. You cut into another mine. The whole damned thing might come tumbling down if you used too much powder.”
“There’s a passel of folks in there, ain’t there?” the miner asked. He backed off again and several sets of hands began moving the rock from the hole until it was large enough for Evangeline to crowd through. Slocum followed immediately after her. The air on the new side of the wall wasn’t any better, but it carried the smell of freedom to him. There was an elevator that went to the surface and a wide-open sky stretching overhead. He had nothing against working in a mine but preferred the sun and stars and the wind blowing in his face.
“What mine’s this?” Slocum asked.
“You don’t know?” The miner scratched his chin and stared hard at Slocum. “This here’s the Molly Magee, the richest goldarn mine in Teller County.”
“Got to agree,” Slocum said. “There’s no price that can be put on getting the hell out from being trapped underground.”
“How’d you get in that other mine?” The man thrust his head back in and looked around. “No gold to be had there, is there? Means this vein done petered out on us. Or them varmints what dug the other tunnels already stole away the gold some time back.”
“You came in from the west side of the mountain, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”>
“They came in from the east. Whatever mine it is was abandoned years back.”
