Atlanta Extreme (18 page)

“Things get a lot more complicated when you're rich,” Hawker said.

The woman only shrugged as she poured tea from a kettle into a mug. She handed the cup to him, then took a seat beside him on the rug. “I just hope we all live long enough to get a chance to enjoy it,” she said without bitterness. “It's a long story; a hard one to understand.”

“I've already heard the story,” said James Hawker. “And I already understand.”

What Hawker understood was that, by rights, Lomela and her family should have already been enjoying great wealth for many years. God knows, her father, Robert Charles Carthay, and his partners had worked hard enough. Yet only one of them ever prospered.

Sitting in the plush lounge of the Slope Hotel in Denver, Carthay had told Hawker all about it.

It had all begun more than fifty years ago, in Denver, when four young men had decided to live out the alluring dream: to strike it rich as silver prospectors. Carthay was the thinker among them, the born leader. Jimmy Estes was the sprite, the camp clown. Chuck Phillips was darkly handsome and mercurial. Bill Nek could be moody, brooding, brilliant, or hilarious, depending on his mood.

For the first years, just the excitement of their rough-and-ready lives was enough for these men. They had the mountains, fresh air, good food, and an occasional bottle of whiskey, and they had their friendship. It was a very close friendship, for the four men had signed an agreement—a covenant—to share all finds, whether discovered individually or together. But they found little silver to speak of, just enough to stake them again to more months in the Colorado wilderness.

But then Jimmy Estes did make a find. He struck a moderately rich vein of silver within spitting distance of the old railroad tracks that filed through Gore Range, high in the Rockies.

The four men celebrated. They went to Denver, where they drank, they ate, they had women—and the first man up and in the claim office the next day was Bill Nek, the brooding one, and he took it all for himself.

Over the years, Nek parlayed that stolen vein into one of the greatest mining fortunes in Colorado. He became known regionally as the Silver King—tarnished silver, some said, because his methods of acquisition were often brutal and illegal, though always carefully concealed by a masterly and expensive use of the law.

Conversely, Robert Charles Carthay, Jimmy Estes, and Chuck Phillips remained poor prospecting desert rats, making just enough money to get by on. As the years went by and they kept up their fruitless prospecting, the local stories about them became wilder and wilder. To Colorado's New Guard (moneyed Easterners who contrived Western accents and wore cowboy hats in Vail's plush watering holes), the three old men became comic figures, legendary buffoons who represented the shaky social makeup of most old-time Coloradoans. “Loony” was the most charitable description.

Jimmy Estes and Chuck Phillips never married; Robert Carthay took a Hispanic and Indian mixed-breed as his long-term companion. The woman who now sat beside Hawker by the fire was the attractive result.

The story could have ended right there—one more tragic tale of prospecting in the West. But it didn't end there because Carthay, Estes, and Phillips never gave up their search for silver. Finally, three years ago—more than fifty years after the four partners had signed the covenant—they found it. They found what they had always dreamed of finding but had never really expected to find at all: a vein of silver so wide, so rich, that it was far beyond any of their wildest expectations. As safely and as secretively as a combined 150 years of prospecting experience allowed, they registered their find, calling the mine the Chicquita, in memory of Carthay's eldest daughter, who'd died tragically when she was only ten. They had commenced mining operations, gradually extending and building a mine. Yet before they had realized any profit, Bill Nek, the Silver King, arrived on the scene demanding that they sell him the mine.

He was wasting his time, of course. The mine wasn't for sale, not for any price, and certainly not to him. But Nek was a rich man, not used to taking no for an answer. He began to apply pressure, trying to grind the old men down. But Carthay and Estes and Phillips hadn't survived for fifty years in the mountains by being soft. They told Nek to go to hell more than once—and maybe once too often: the three of them were kidnapped.

Nek had his hired guns take them to an abandoned mine in the high mountains. There they were kept. Nek couldn't simply have them killed because their joint will would transfer ownership of the silver mine to Lomela through a complex trust that made the mine virtually untouchable. So the Silver King had the infuriating task of keeping his three old partners alive while breaking them to the point where they would sell the mine to him. The old men were tortured, but never beyond the point of endurance, for Nek couldn't take the chance of killing any one of them.

Finally, Robert Carthay escaped. He found Lomela and warned her; she told Tom Dulles, a Denver cop and her former lover. It was clear that Nek would stop at nothing to get Carthay back and make him sign over the papers. And Nek had the money and the hired gunmen to do it.

Dulles realized that it was an extraordinary situation—and that it called for extraordinary measures.

Like most of the cops in major cities around America, he had heard rumors of a lone auburn-haired stranger who feared nothing for he no longer had anything to lose.

Dulles sent Lomela and her father to separate hiding places, then turned his attention to getting in touch with the world's deadliest vigilante.

Hawker was impossible to find. But by now he had such a complex network of sympathizers around the nation that it was just as impossible for people in need to remain beyond his hearing.

The vigilante heard about Carthay and his plight. He was on a plane out of Miami the next day, bound for the Mile High City.

“That's the story your father told me two days ago in Denver,” Hawker said, finishing the mug of tea. “Tom Dulles brought him in to talk to me. It was a short meeting. Your father wore a big Western hat and glasses, a kind of disguise so he wouldn't be recognized. Apparently Nek has spies everywhere. Money buys even the most unlikely spies. Dulles told me where your father was being hidden and where you were hiding. I decided that Nek was most likely to send his goons after you. If he got you and maybe killed one of your children, then he would have plenty of blackmail leverage on your father and his two partners.”

The woman laughed softly. “You know what the really strange thing is? All those years after Bill Nek double-crossed him, my daddy still wouldn't say anything bad about that man. My daddy was fierce loyal, and he just couldn't bring himself to say anything bad about a man who had been a partner of his.”

“Come to think of it,” said Hawker, “he didn't have much bad to say about Nek two days ago when I met him.”

“It's not because Daddy likes Nek. Don't think for a moment that's the reason. He thinks Bill Nek is the lowest creature on earth. He double-crossed his partners way back when Jimmy Estes found that first vein of silver, and he's spent his whole life double-crossing people. Daddy used to just sort of shake his head when folks would tell him that Nek was stealing, cheating—even killing—to get what he wanted. I really don't think Daddy believed the stories. But he believes them now.”

Hawker put his empty mug on the floor and settled back, looking into the fire. Outside, the wind had freshened. It moaned through the high peaks and rattled the windows. Hawker pulled the goose-down quilt up over his chest. “I'm glad you came and helped me,” he said. “I would have frozen to death out there.”

“Don't talk anymore,” Lomela said. “I'll get some warm soup in you come morning. We need to build your strength back up. You'll still be feverish for a while, so you best sleep here by the fire. If you need anything, just call out. I'm a light sleeper. I'll hear you.”

The vigilante let his head sink deeper into the pillow as he stared into the fire.

Soon, he was asleep.

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About the Author

Randy Wayne White was born in Ashland, Ohio, in 1950. Best known for his series featuring retired NSA agent Doc Ford, he has published over twenty crime fiction and nonfiction adventure books. White began writing fiction while working as a fishing guide in Florida, where most of his books are set. His earlier writings include the Hawker series, which he published under the pen name Carl Ramm. White has received several awards for his fiction, and his novels have been featured on the
New York Times
bestseller list. He was a monthly columnist for
Outside
magazine and has contributed to several other publications, as well as lectured throughout the United States and travelled extensively. White currently lives on Pine Island in South Florida, and remains an active member of the community through his involvement with local civic affairs as well as the restaurant Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar and Grill.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1986 by Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2458-7

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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