Both had been killed by the blast, their skin completely shredded by flying glass.
Neither of them was Henry or Sarah Brant or Kip.
It was starting to look more and more likely that no one in this building had escaped the explosion. There had been too many windows, and the main force of the blast had hit the big house almost directly. It was lucky the building was even standing.
Still, being careful in every room, Fargo searched the big place, moving as silently as his boots on the broken glass would let him.
He found two other bodies in the kitchen, both cooks.
He found another body, a guard, in a bedroom. He had probably been using the room and the window as a guard post.
And still no Kip, Henry Brant, or Sarah Brant.
Fargo went back through the house and motioned for Walt and Hank to come down.
As the two miners climbed down the rocky slope, Fargo checked the compound completely, making sure there were no surprises left, no men left alive.
When Walt and Hank reached Fargo, he said, “They escaped. One of you get Jim and about ten men from up the road to come down here and check that mine, make sure no one is in there. Tell them to go in with guns drawn and bring out anyone who might be in there. And tell him to leave some men guarding the road. This isn’t over yet.”
Walt nodded and headed at a run up the road. When he reached the second rise, he started shouting, “Jim, it’s me, Walt. I’m coming up the road. Fargo wants you and some men.”
Fargo nodded. Smart kid. He was taking no chances of getting shot by a tired miner with a hair trigger.
Fargo turned back toward the main house. They had last been seen in that house. That was where their trail started; that was where he would start.
He went through the house and out the back. Then he turned and looked up at the ridge, moving around until he found a place where someone could move behind the building and not be seen from the ridgeline. After a short time, he had their tracks. They went along the side of the house into some brush and rocks and then up into the canyon. Three sets of tracks led into the canyon, one of them a woman’s.
Hank followed Fargo through the building, looking ashen at the sight of all the dead bodies.
“Where does that canyon lead?” Fargo asked, standing beside the tracks. “That’s where they went.”
“It goes nowhere. It’s a box.”
“No trail out?”
“Not that a horse could follow.”
“They weren’t on horses. Where’s the closest ranch or mine from here in that direction?”
“The Toole Mine,” Hank said. “Played out and abandoned about two years ago. A very rough full day’s hike on foot, but they would have to get out of that canyon first.”
Fargo looked around at the hills and rough terrain towering behind the mine. “Any chance they could circle around and get back to the Placerville road?”
At that moment, Jim and Walt joined them, coming through the house, their boots crunching on glass.
“No one lived through this,” Jim said, stepping down to stand beside Fargo and Hank.
“Men are searching the mine,” Walt said.
“Brant, his daughter, and Kip got out before the blast, headed up into the canyon,” Hank said.
Walt laughed and looked at the canyon. “You’re kidding.”
Jim shook his head. “In the dark, I’d wager they didn’t get far in those rocks.”
“It’s been light enough to move for an hour,” Fargo said. Then he repeated his question. “Could they circle back to the Placerville road?”
“No chance of circling back,” Jim said, and both Hank and Walt nodded their agreement. “The only way out of that area is the Toole Mine road. Or back this way.”
“Or,” Hank said, “climb out of the canyon on the left side, go around Mary’s Peak there, and come down the creek into Sharon’s Dream.”
“So we cover all three ways,” Fargo said. He turned to face the three miners. “I don’t want any of them to get away.”
15
Fargo figured out his plan. “Walt, get two more sticks of that dynamite and blow them on the hillside like you were doing all night. And keep it up every thirty minutes or so. I want Brant to think it’s still a standoff here.”
Fargo turned to Hank. “Get some men and get the bodies cleared out of here, then set your men to guard this house and not let anyone out of that canyon, just in case someone gets past me.”
“You think Brant has a hideout back up in that canyon?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Fargo said.
He strode over to the Sharon’s Dream side of the house and glanced at the ground, then followed the tracks to the edge of the rocks. He quickly pulled some sagebrush away that had been hiding wagon tracks leading back into the rocks.
“They couldn’t leave this way because you would have seen them, so they went out over the rocks on the other side of the house. Then, more than likely, a few hundred paces up the canyon they doubled back to this trail. It would have been an easy walk in the dim light.”
“Why have a hideout up there in a box canyon?” Walt asked.
“The same reason Cain always moved his gold ore out to Sacramento every time he had a full load,” Hank said, starting to smile.
Fargo nodded. “To keep it safe.”
“I wondered why Brant very seldom moved ore into Sacramento,” Jim said, shaking his head. “He probably kept most of it up in that canyon.”
“He wanted people to think his mine was playing out,” Walt said. “To give him a reason for going after Sharon’s Dream.”
“Maybe it was playing out,” Fargo said. “But going after Sharon’s Dream was probably just his need to always have more. I know the type.”
Fargo turned and started up the trail, his carbine off his shoulder and a shell in the chamber. “I have a hunch the owners of Sharon’s Dream are going to become a little richer very soon.”
Fargo moved carefully up the winding trail, staying in as much cover as he could.
About a hundred paces up, he saw where the three had come out of the rocks and turned into the box canyon.
He studied their tracks, making sure there were only three. There might be a few other guards up there, but he doubted it. The box canyon walls would give Brant a feeling of security, but still, Fargo was going to take no chances.
He waited for a few minutes until the two sticks of dynamite rocked the air. That would let anyone up in the canyon think that nothing had changed at the mine.
He left the trail and moved through the rocks, keeping low, stopping regularly to study the shadows and vantage points ahead of him in case there was a guard post set up along the road.
It took him a full hour to get within sight of the house and large stable tucked against a rock face on the right side of the box canyon. The rock walls towered far higher than the tallest trees, and most of the walls were sheer. Even on one side where there had been a rockfall, Fargo doubted anyone could climb out of here without ropes.
In the back of the canyon on the left side, the wall was stained with the remains of a dry creek. During rain, it must be a pretty spectacular waterfall, but in the summer it was just a dry, watermarked wall with not even a drop of water in the big depression below the falls.
Even animals would have no reason to come up this canyon.
No guards were posted anywhere that Fargo could see, and there was no sign at all of Brant or Sarah or Kip.
