Flint was going to be one surprised son of a bitch the next time he saw Longarm.
And Longarm hoped fervently that next time was going to be over the barrel of a gun.
CHAPTER 14
The horses ridden up there by Longarm and Molly had been brought up to the camp from where they had been left and put into the corral. Wing retrieved the mounts while Longarm helped himself to a six-gun and some extra shells from one of the dead guards. Then the three of them started back down the mountain. At the bottom of the coulee, they split up, over Molly's objections. Longarm sent her to the Diamond K with orders to bring as many men as possible to the headquarters of the Mcentire timber operation. "Your pa might not believe me if I told him what's going on," said Longarm, "but I'm betting he'll believe you."
"I'll make sure of it," she promised grimly. Longarm turned to the cook. "Wing, you head for the logging camp and warn them about what Flint's planning to do. Maybe if they know a flood's on the way, they can avoid the worst of it. Once the punchers from the Diamond K get there, bring them and Mrs. Mcentire's men up the mountain to that dam. Even if I can slow down Flint and his men and keep them from blowing up the dam, I'm liable to need a hand by then."
"You can't stop them by yourself," protested Molly. "There are too many of them!"
Longarm grinned. "Reckon I'll just have to make do. Now git, both of you!"
Reluctantly, Wing and Molly galloped away on different trails. Longarm took yet a third path, sending the roan down a narrow trail that he hoped would take him where he needed to go.
He had only a vague idea of where the dam was located, and he didn't have a lot of time to spend searching. A glance at the sky told him that the sun was lowering toward the peaks of the Cascade range. Flint had said he wanted to reach the dam just after dark. That was a good time for the explosion he had planned. None of the loggers would be there, because they would all be down in the main camp, sitting down to supper. The torrent of water that would race down the Mountainside following the blast would take them completely by surprise unless Wing got there in time to alert them to their danger. They might have a little warning, Longarm corrected himself, because they might hear the explosion that destroyed the dam. But that would be too little, too late, especially since the loggers would have no way of knowing what had caused the blast.
There was a lot riding on him, Longarm realized--not only justice for a clever criminal, but also the lives of innocent men.
And possibly the life of Aurora Mcentire as well.
Despite Flint's high-flown statements about not wanting to kill Aurora, he had come close before, when he or one of his henchmen had set free that boom to come crashing into Aurora's cabin. The flood that would wash down the mountain after the dam was destroyed wouldn't differentiate between its victims either. As long as she was in the camp, Aurora was in deadly danger.
As shadows gathered, Longarm had to watch the trail closely. From landmarks on the mountain and in the valleys below, he estimated that he was almost directly above the timber camp now, which meant he should be reaching the dam soon. Despite the fact that any delay chafed at him, he slowed the roan to a walk so that the pounding of its hoofbeats wouldn't advertise that he was coming. If he was going to have any chance to stop Flint's plan, he had to take the men at the dam by surprise.
Suddenly, he heard voices, and he reined the horse to a quick stop. He swung down from the saddle and tied the roan to a nearby bush. "Stay here, old son," he whispered to the horse as he patted it on the neck. Then he started on foot along the path, which had all but disappeared in the thickening dusk.
Through a screen of brush and trees, he saw the dam looming ahead of him. It was built of logs, naturally enough, and had a sluice gate in its center, several feet below the top of the dam. A surefooted logger could walk out there on the dam, bend over and grasp a handle, and pull the gate up to release the water into the flume, which was already partially built. Longarm's gaze followed the steeply inclined, elevated trough as it ran down the Mountainside and disappeared into the shadows. He didn't know how much of the flume had been completed, but if that dynamite went off as Flint planned, it would be destroyed along with the dam.
The flume and the dam itself could be rebuilt, though, once Flint had succeeded in running off Aurora Mcentire. After all, the money wouldn't be coming out of his pocket.
Longarm crouched behind the thick trunk of a pine and searched the dam and the area around it for any sign of Flint and the man's hired gunmen. Surely he hadn't beaten them to the punch and gotten there first. That wasn't possible.
Nor was it the case, Longarm saw a moment later. A couple of men emerged from the shadows on the far side of the dam and began walking carefully out onto the wall of logs. No doubt the rest of the gang were over there too, in the trees beyond the big pond that had been formed by the dam. Stars were beginning to twinkle into existence in the darkening sky above, and Longarm could see the pinpoints of light reflected in the calm surface of the pond. "Lake" would have been a better word to describe the recently formed body of water, he thought; it was already larger than any pond he had ever seen. The surroundings reminded him a little of Lake Tahoe, down in Nevada, where a couple of cases had taken him in the past.
In the gloom, Longarm couldn't see the two men on the dam that well, but he thought they were Flint and Barcroft. They had just about reached the center of the dam. Longarm edged closer, using the brush for cover, and saw one of the men strike a match. The sudden glare of the lucifer revealed the craggy features of Jared Flint. Flint extended the match toward the other man, who was indeed Barcroft, Longarm confirmed. Barcroft held several sticks of dynamite that had been tied together. A single long fuse ran from the deadly bundle.
"I'll light it," said Flint, "and you wedge it down there behind that sluice gate lever."
Barcroft nodded. "All right, but don't waste any time gettin' off of here once the fuse is lit. It ought to burn for several minutes, but you can't never be sure about such things."
Longarm drew his gun as Flint held the match to the fuse. It caught with a sharp, serpent-like hissing sound. Barcroft knelt to place the dynamite.
Longarm knew he couldn't wait for them to leave the dam, then run out there himself and pull the fuse. That would be cutting it too fine. He did the only thing he could.
He shot Barcroft.
It was getting too dark for any fancy marksmanship. Longarm aimed for the gunman's bulky body and squeezed the trigger. As the Colt bucked against his palm, Barcroft let out a howl of pain and flew backwards, driven off the dam by the impact of the slug. He fell into the waters of the pond with a huge splash, the dynamite going with him just as Longarm had hoped it would. The water put out the fuse and rendered the explosives harmless.
Flint twisted toward the sound of the shot and yelled a curse. He brought up a gun and blazed away at the spot where Longarm crouched. Longarm threw himself flat as bullets whipped through the brush above him.
"Somebody's over there!" shouted Flint to his men. "Get him! Get the son of a bitch!"
More yelling came from the rest of the gunmen. Some of them started shooting across the water, their muzzle flashes winking like giant fireflies in the dusk, while others began running around the pond in an effort to close in on Longarm.
Meanwhile, Flint turned and dashed off the dam with the ease of a man who had spent quite a bit of time on such structures in the past.
Longarm thought bleakly that the foreman was probably going back for more dynamite.