Bowen nodded. His eyes moved to Brazil. Brazil was watching Karla.
“I thought I had a letter for you,” Karla said. She came to the last letter, then started through them again. “It seems to me it was from an attorney. The return address, I mean. Lyall Martz? Is that name familiar to you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bowen said.
“But now I don’t see it.”
Brazil moved toward them. “What would you be hearing from a lawyer about?”
“He’s a friend,” Bowen said.
Karla looked up. “I know there was a letter from him. Somehow I must have misplaced it. Tomorrow…I’ll be sure to bring it tomorrow.”
“He can wait,” Brazil said. “Now move out of here.”
“I remember it looked like such an important letter,” Karla said.
Brazil’s hand came down on the horse’s rump and it sidestepped away from him. Karla looked back, then reined toward the draw and Brazil called after her, “When you find Frank, tell him I want to see him!”
Manring leaned toward Bowen. “What’s this lawyer business?”
“You think it concerns you?”
“We were in it together, weren’t we?”
“You don’t fit into it, Earl,” Bowen murmured. He began taking dynamite cartridges from an open case and binding them into bundles of eight sticks.
And you don’t fit into it either, he told himself. You don’t hang on to a thread. Not now. Maybe when there was time, but now it’s a matter of minutes. You understand that? Minutes.
A convict appeared out of the draw and told Manring the charge hole was ready to be dug. He stood with hands on hips looking about idly, to the pass, up into the trees, then his eyes dropped to Bowen who was winding twine about the dynamite sticks and he moved back down the draw. Manring followed him.
Watching him go, Pryde murmured, “We could leave Earl there too.”
“All four of us walk back up here,” Bowen said.
“How’re you going to handle Brazil?”
Bowen glanced over his shoulder-Brazil was still at the edge of the draw-then raised the top from the detonator box which held the revolver. “Like this.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“I’m not saying.”
“I could guess.”
“And you’d be wrong.” Bowen closed the box.
“You going to shoot Brazil?”
Bowen shook his head.
“Let me have it,” Pryde said. “I’ll use it on him.”
“You got enough to do,” Bowen said; then asked, “Have you got it straight?”
“I think so.”
“Tell it.”
Pryde’s eyes raised to Brazil, then lowered again. “When we’re called to set the charge, you’re going first. You carry the case with the bundles in it. Then I follow. I’m carrying another case. There’re a few sticks in it and the knife. You get down to the end of the draw before you notice I’m carrying it. Then you say, ‘I got enough sticks. Leave what you got here and we’ll pick it up on the way back.’ I set the case down where you planted the charge a while ago. Right under where the fuse is hanging. Then we go around on the trail and do what we’re supposed to be doing. You light the charge and we all hurry back up the trail. We’re starting up the draw and I say that I’ve forgot the case. I lag back to get it, take the knife out of the case, cut the fuse so only five feet is hanging out of the wall, light it and come after you.”
“That gives you a minute and a half,” Bowen said, “to climb out of the draw.”
“It doesn’t take half of that,” Pryde said.
“You want to be on the safe side.”
“But why a five-foot fuse?”
“We want this charge to go off as close as possible with the main one,” Bowen said. “If they blow too far apart, somebody down below will start to think about it and come up too soon to find out why. But we couldn’t put on just five feet when we planted the charge, because Brazil would notice it being short and wonder about it.”
“But with the draw caved in,” Pryde said, “nobody could get up here anyway.”
“This way is called not leaving anything to chance,” Bowen said. “Maybe there’s a quick way up out of the canyon we don’t even know about.”
“All right.” Pryde nodded, then asked, “When do you pull the gun?”
“As soon as the draw blows,” Bowen said. “Whether it goes before or after or at the same time the main charge does, Brazil won’t expect it. He’ll be off guard.”
“Then we tie him up,” Pryde said.
“That’s right.” Bowen glanced at the row of long-fused dynamite cartridges next to him. “While Earl cuts the fuses on those.”
“Why don’t we do it now?”
“For the same reason that charge down in the draw has a ten-foot fuse,” Bowen said. “Brazil isn’t that dumb. If he sees six-inch fuses sticking out of these he’ll know damn well what they’re for.”
“And the rest is up to luck,” Pryde said.
Bowen shrugged. “Maybe we’ll make our own.”
The convict who had come for Manring a few minutes before appeared again at the top of the draw.
“Here we go,” Pryde said.
Brazil looked toward them and called, “Ready for the stuff.”
Rising, lifting the case to his shoulder, Bowen said, “Take your time. Cut the fuse right where it touches the ground and you’ll have five feet.”
Pryde nodded. “Don’t worry about it.” As Bowen walked off, he picked up the second wooden case and followed him. Brazil fell in behind going down the draw. No one spoke and there was only the sounds of their steps in the loose gravel. Then, as they reached the shelf, Bowen looked back.
“Ike, what’ve you got that for?”
Pryde stopped. “Didn’t you say bring it?”
“I got all we need,” Bowen said. “Set it down there and we’ll pick it up on the way back.” His eyes moved to Brazil. No reaction. No change in his tight-jawed, narrow-eyed expression.
Bowen turned the corner and moved down the shelf, along the thirty feet which they had not yet dynamited, then over the widened, graded section-roughly fifty feet of this-to the place where they would set off the next blast.
Manring was waiting there. The grading crew had moved out and were already at the bottom of the trail. “Ready?” asked Manring.
Bowen only nodded. He stepped into the closet-sized space that had been cut into the wall and began placing the charges. The horizontal chamber that Manring had prepared was waist high and ran parallel with the wall of the canyon. It was deep enough to hold all of the charges, but it was too wide; and with each charge that he placed Bowen would tamp sand into the chamber so the dynamite would fit snugly and there would be no air space. When he finished, only the fuse could be seen extending from the packed sand.
Bowen looked at Brazil. “You said you wanted to light it.”
“I’ll hold your rifle,” Pryde said.
“I guess you would,” Brazil said. He waved the barrel of the Winchester. “You all get out of the way. Start moving up.” He drew a match and stooped over the fuse, then called after the three men, “This one’s ten feet?”
Bowen turned and nodded. “Three minutes’ worth.” He watched Brazil strike the match and hold it to the fuse. “Give him room,” Bowen murmured.
He turned again, now hearing Brazil coming up behind them, and started to walk faster.
Brazil called, “What’s the hurry?”
Bowen glanced back. “That one’s bigger than the others. We got to get all the way up to the top.”
Pryde let Bowen pass him. He was next to Brazil as they turned into the draw. Then he stopped. And as Brazil went on, Bowen and Manring ahead of him, he stooped quickly, took the knife from the wooden case and cut the fuse so that less than a foot of it remained. Bowen looked back as he brought the knife down.
“What’s the matter?” Bowen called.
Brazil stopped.
Pryde stepped in front of the cut-off fuse and waved up to Bowen, the knife palmed in his other hand. “Go on. I got to get this box is all.” He watched Bowen and Manring move up through the draw. Brazil turned to follow them.
“Hey!” Pryde called sharply, bringing Brazil around. He waited. Brazil frowned. Now Bowen and Manring were reaching the top of the draw. Pryde waited a moment longer, until they were over the rim. Then he said, “Come here.”