“So we would play it too,” Asa Bailey said, “pretend we was Moon and hang back off Sundeen's flank and sooner or later cross Moon's sign. Sundeen'd camp, we'd camp, rigging triplines, and making a circle around us with loose rocks we'd hear if somebody tried to approach.
“We were the stalkers, huh? Like hell. Imagine you're sitting all night in what you believe is an ambush. Dawn, you're asleep as Wesley and Urban are over a ways gathering the horses. You feel something-not hear it, feel it. And open your eyes in the cold gray light and not dare to even grunt. The man's hunched over you with the barrel tip of his six-gun sticking in your mouth. There he was with the kindly eyes and the tobacco wad you see in the pictures.”
There wasn't a sound at that table until one of the newsmen said, “Well, what did he say?”
“What did he say? Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
Asa Bailey reached across an angle of the table, grabbed the newsman by the shirtfront, drew his revolver and stuck it in the man's bug-eyed face, saying, “You want me to explain things to you or do you get the picture?”
2
Franklin Hovey, the company geologist, came in with a survey crew and two ore wagons of camp gear and equipment. Noticeably shaken, he said he would quit his job before going out with another survey party. “You don't see them,” he said, “but there they are, like they rose out of the ground.”
The news reporters finally got hold of him coming out of the telegraph office and practically bums-rushed him to the Gold Dollar. “Here, Franklin, something for your nerves.” The reporters having a glass also since they were here.
“Whom did you telegraph?” they asked him.
“Mr. Vandozen. He must be apprised of what's happened.”
The reporters raised their eyebrows and asked, “Well, what did happen out there?”
Franklin Hovey said his crew of eight had been working across a southwest section of the range at about seven thousand feet. One morning, three days ago, a tall nigger had appeared at their camp, came walking his horse in as they were sitting at the map table having breakfast. He gave them a polite good morning, said his name was Catlett and asked if they planned to blast hereabouts.
“I told him yes, and pointed to an outcropping of ledge along the south face that looked promising. I can't give you his exact words as the darkie said them, but he took off his old hat, scratched his wooly head and said, ‘If you disturbs that rock, boss, it gwine come down in de canyon where de tanks at. Is you sure you wants to do that?’”
A couple of the reporters looked at each other with helpless expressions of pain, but no one interrupted the geologist. Franklin Hovey said, “See, there was a natural water tank in the canyon where they grazed a herd of horses. I told the darkie, ‘That might be; but since the canyon is part of the company lease, we can blow it clear to hell if it strikes our fancy.’ The darkie said something like, ‘Strike yo fancy, huh?’, not understanding the figure of speech. He said, ‘Boss, we sees that rock come down in there, we-uns gwine strike yo fancy clean off this mountain.’ I said, ‘And who is the we-uns gwine do sech a thing as that?’”
Franklin sat back, beginning to relax with some liquor in him, glancing around the table to see if everyone appreciated his dialect. There were a couple of chuckles.
“The darkie himself smiled, knowing it was meant only as good-natured parody, and said, ‘If y'all be so kind, jes don't mess the graze and the water. Awright, boss?’
“Now one of our powdermen went over to the wagon where we kept the explosives, got a stick of Number One and pointed it at the darkie, saying-this was not good-natured, though I'll admit it was funny at the time. The powderman pointed the stick and said, ‘How'd you like it if we tie this to your tail, Mr. Nig, with a lit fuse and see how fast it can send you home?’ The darkie, Catlett, said, ‘Yeah, boss, that would send a body home, I expects so.’ He smiled again. But this time there was something different about his smile.”
There was a silence. Those around the table could see by Franklin Hovey's expression he was thinking about that time again, that moment, as though realizing now it should have warned him, at least told him something.
“Did you blow the ledge?” a reporter asked.
“Yes, we did. Though we set off a small warning charge first to indicate our intention. I insisted we do that.”
The reporters waited, seeing the next part coming, remembering the story Asa Bailey, the former contract guide, had told only a few days before.
“Our party was well armed,” Franklin Hovey continued, “and we set a watch that night around the perimeter of the camp. As I've said, we were at about seven thousand feet on bare, open ground. With night guards on four sides and enough moonlight to see by, we were positive no one could sneak up to that camp.”
“They hit you at dawn,” a reporter said.
Others told him to shut up as Franklin Hovey shook his head.
“No, we arose, folded our cots, ate breakfast…discussed the darkie's threat while we were eating and, I remember, laughed about it, some of the others imitating him, saying, ‘Yessuh, boss, ah's gwine strike yo fancy,’ things like that. After breakfast we went over to the dynamite wagon to get what we'd need for the day-you might've seen it, a big ore wagon with a heavy canvas top to keep the explosives dry and out of the weather. One of the men opened the back end”-Franklin paused-“and they came out. They came out of the wagon that was in the middle of our camp, in the middle, our tents and the two other wagons surrounding it. They came out of it…the same colored man and another one and two Indians.” Franklin shook his head, awed by the memory of it. “I don't even see how there was room in there with the fifty-pound cases, much less how they got in to begin with…Well, they held guns on us, took ours and threw them into the canyon…tied our hands in front of us and then tied the eight of us together in a line, arm to arm…while the one named Catlett took a dynamite cartridge, primed it with a Number Six detonator and crimped onto that about ten feet of fuse, knowing exactly how to set the blasting cap in there and gather the end of the cartridge paper around it tight and bind it tight up good with twine. This man, I realized, knew how to shoot dynamite. I said, ‘Now wait a minute, boy, we are only doing our job here, following orders.’ The darkie said, ‘Thas all ah'm doing too, boss. Gwine send y'all home.’ I said to him again, ‘Now wait a minute,’ and the other members of the crew began to get edgy and speak up, saying we were only working men out here doing a job. The darkie said, ‘Y'll doing a job awright, on our houses.’”
“Was Moon there?” a reporter asked.
“I told you,” Franklin Hovey said, “it was the two colored men and two Apache Indians which, I forgot to mention, had streaks of yellowish-brown paint on their faces.
“The other colored man also began to prime sticks with blasting caps; so that between the two of them they soon had eight sticks of dynamite ready to fire, though not yet with the fuses attached. The one named Catlett approached me and poked a stick down into the front of my pants. Again, as you can imagine, I began to reason with him. He shook his head, pulled the stick out and walked around the line of us tied shoulder to shoulder and now placed the dynamite stick in my backpocket, saying, ‘Yeah, tha's the place.’”
Many of the reporters were grinning and had to quickly put on a serious, interested expression as Franklin Hovey looked around the table.
“Well, they were behind us for several minutes, so we couldn't see what they were doing. Then they placed a stick of Number One, which will shatter solid rock into small fragments-they placed a stick in every man's back pocket or down into his pants if he didn't have a pocket. Then came around in front of us again and began drawing the fuses out between our legs, laying each one on the ground in about a ten-foot length.