The storm broke the next morning. Vert and Adam set out from the hut at first light, strapping snow shoes onto their boots. Vert said that the Dry Gulch's hideout was half a days walk away, and that it would be easy enough to approach unnoticed. Adam had calculated that the little gun run to Canada could net Vert as much as two dollars a rifle. This idea filled the old man with childlike impatience, and he was suddenly in a rush to get the Reverend Evan rescued. Even with Vert and Adam's share, Adam was confident that Mrs. Sears could more than double her investment on the guns. If these Mounties bought three hundred rifles, that'd be enough grub stake for Mrs. Sears to cut her losses in End of the Line and set up shop in a real town.
It, of course, crossed Adam's mind to buy up all the guns at cents on the dollar and make the trip solely for his own benefit. Unfortunately, all the cash in the Hinny's till wouldn't get him twenty rifles, even at rock bottom prices, and he still hadn't paid for the one he just gave Vert. But it was more than that. After her help shooting it out with the the Doogans, Adam felt that he owed Mrs. Sears something. She wasn't the sort that would take his help, but she was far too shrewd a business woman to pass up an opportunity like this. If he could help her get the heck out of End of the Line, maybe that would be part payment for her shooting Ed Doogan. I'd be something, anyway.
It was just after noon when Vert and Adam came upon the Dry Gulch hideout. They crested a snow covered ridge, and set eyes on a small cluster of log cabins set back deep in a ravine. Smoke rose from a makeshift chimney topping the largest of the buildings. It was easy to see how a posse had been unable to track the rustlers to such a secluded spot. Without Vert, Adam would never have found it. Not in a million years of looking.
“You sure this is it?” Adam asked, crouching down behind the ridge.
“I am sure.”
“Then that's all you can do for me.” Adam patted the gold nugget in one pocket, and his revolver in the other.
“Would you like me to cover you from here?”
“Nope. There ain't going to be any shooting.”
“You sound very confident.” Vert snorted.
“I've had my belly full of guns.” Adam said, and climbed over the ridge. “You'll wait for me?” Adam yelled back, sliding down into the ravine on his buttocks.
“Don't worry! I'll find you before you freeze again!” Vert yelled. “You going to make me very rich, Monsieur Ad Liche!” And he was gone.
Adam pulled himself to his feet at the base of the ravine. He tromped through the snow until he was almost at the door or the largest cabin. All was quiet except for the sound of his snow shoes compressing the snow. If this was an outlaw camp, they was little that indicated it. Adam expected to be challenged, accosted, or otherwise told that he wasn't welcome. He reached the door and realized that he was going to have to knock. Maybe Vert had made some sort of mistake.
Adam knocked three times on the log door, and strained to hear muffled voices stirring inside. He knocked three times again, and one of the voices yelled out something inaudible. Things fell quiet, and Adam contemplated what to do. He was about the knock a third time, when the log door began to rattle. It opened an inch, and a pistol barrel poked out.
“What the heck?” Came from the darkness inside. Adam wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question.
“Err.... I... That is...” Adam felt like a fool. “Is this?.... Are you Diablo?” It was all he could think to say. The gun barrel seemed to be stunned silent.
“What do you want?” It said.
“I'm Sheriff Liche of End of the Line.”
“Sheriff?!” There was cocking sound from behind the door.
“I have your ransom!” Adam blurted out as quickly as possible. He raised his hands in surrender.
“The ransom?” The gun barrel seemed confused.
“For the preacher...”
“The ransom! Well, that's a different matter entirely!” The door was pulled open, and a grizzled, shirtless, gray haired man kept the pistol leveled at Adam. “Get in here before I freeze my nuts!” He said, waving with the gun. Adam lunged forward into the cabin, his snow shoes slapping on the wood floor.
Three other men were inside the cabin. Adam instantly recognized the Reverend sitting beside the franklin stove, disheveled, but otherwise unharmed. Like the man with the gun, the other two men were also in various stages of slumber. A large Chinese man lay snoozing on a cot, while a lanky curly haired man dressed in long johns sat up in his bed.
Suddenly, the shirtless man was rifling through Adam's pockets. His snow shoes, and the pistol barrel in small of his back, made it hard for Adam to resist. Before he knew it, the gold nugget, the ransom note, the deed to worthless gold mine, and Adam's pistol where on a rough wooden table in from of him.
“Who the heck is this?” The curly haired man said, pulling his britches on.
“He's our meal ticket!” The shirtless man said, still frisking Adam. “So? Where is it?”
“Where's what?”
“The ransom, idiot!” Finding nothing, the shirtless man turned to the items on the table.
“There you are.” Adam said, gesturing to the contents of his pockets.
“What? This?” The man questioned, holding up the nugget.
“Yep.”
“This ain't worth no ten thousand dollars?”
“No, but-” Adam managed before the shirtless man shoved the gun in his face.
“You said you had the ransom!”
“I do, but you have to let me explain!” Adam said quickly.
“And how the heck did you find us here?” The man ignored Adam. “Nobody can find our hideout!”
“I figured in this snow, you wouldn't be coming down to the Lazy S to collect your random. So I brought it up here. Wasn't hard to find it really...”
“You're laying...”
“Laying about what? I'm here, ain't I? If I can find it, then my posse sure can too.” Adam let the word 'posse' hang in the air for a moment. It seems to focus attention. The Chinese fella stirred from his sleep.
“Posse?” The curly haired man said.
“Yep, sent of twenty guns out of Virgina City the moment we got your note. Seems the Reverend here has some powerful friends in the territorial government.” For the first time since Adam's arrival, the Reverend looked up from the stove. He gave Adam a pained look of incredulity, then looked back at the iron pot.
“Twenty Guns, Trigger Jim!” The curly haired man panicked. “We're in for it now!”
“Will you hush a spell, Curly John!” Trigger Jim bellowed back at his friend, then turned to Adam. “If you've got a posse, why you knocking on our door with nothing but a six gun?”
“Posse's still down in End of the Line, waiting on the snow. Figured I'd mosey on up here and have a jaw while we were waiting. I hear that you're all reasonable men. Reckoned on maybe we could make ourselves a deal where no one's got to get all shot to hell.”
“You said you had the ransom...”
“And I do. Right there on the table. That there mine is worth a might more than ten thousand. Look at that nugget. That's just a sample.”
“We ain't interested in no damn mine!”
“As I said, I was thinking on making a deal.”
For behind a door at the rear of the cabin, a fit of coughing interrupted the conversation. Someone was waking in a back room. The Reverend flinched like he had been bitten, and the three men fell quiet in expectation. After a few more deep, phlegmatic hacks, the door swung open on the darkened room. A young man, no more than twenty, stepped out, half dressed in blue jeans and a shirt. His hair was wild from sleep, and he rubbed at his eyes. It was something of an anticlimax after the awed hush the other man had afforded the coughing.
“What's all the yelling about?” The young man said sleepily. “Who the heck is this?”
“Sheriff from End of the Line.” Trigger Jim said.
“Sheriff?” The young man reached for a phantom gun at his hip. Denied, he looked around quickly for a weapon. He grabbed at a rifle that was laying at the foot of the Chinese man's bed. “Where'd he come from?”
“Just up and knocked on the door.” Curly John said. “Says he's here to pay the ransom, Diablo.”
The young man was Diablo. Perfect.
“Grand, where is it?” Diablo said, look at the table.
“That's why we was yelling.” Trigger Jim replied. “He ain't got no money. He's brought us a nugget and some piece of paper for a mine.”
“Well, that ain't no ten thousand dollars...”
“What I said.”
“I understand you fellas disappointment, but if you'll all put down the guns and let me explain, I think you might see why this here deed and nugget are a might nicer than ten thousand dollars in cash.”
“Why ain't nobody shot him yet?” Diablo said, cocking his rifle.
“He says he's got a posse back in town waiting on the snow.” Curly John said nervously. “Twenty guns, and they know the way here.”
“Nobody knows the way here.”
“He did...”
“So what so special about this mine?” Diablo said after a thoughtful pause. Adam breathed a sigh of relief.
“Surely you boys know about the Marauding Monk?” Adam said conversationally. The Reverend looked up from the stove again, unknowing panic in his eyes.
“The what?”
“Marauding Monk? No? Where you boys been? Don't you know why the railroad stopped building in these hills?” Adam looked back and forth between the Dry Gulch Gang. They exchanged confused looks.
“I figured they ran out of money...” Diablo offered weakly.
“Heck no! Well, it did bust 'em, but that came later. What put and end to the railroad was the ghost of the Marauding Monk!”
“Ghost?” They all said at once.
“Yep. Appeared at night and warned off them that was laying the tracks. Said only bad things would come to those that labored in these mountains. Scared off every living soul. Couldn't get a man to hammer a spike for fear of his life. Broke the back of the railroad.”
“These hills is haunted?” Curly John said mostly to himself.
“And how. Of course, fear of the Marauding Monk didn't scare off the treasure hunters.”
“Treasure?”
“Yep. You see, the legend goes that there was this Monk down in a priory San Antonio way. Keeping to himself, living the cloistered life. Then he gets this call from God- though some say it was the devil -to punish them that despoiling the New World. So this Monk becomes a bandit. Starts robbing wagon trains. Shipments of gold, collected from the natives by the Queen of Spain. He quickly becomes amazingly wealthy, starts living like some Bandit King. Even has his own town. That is until God comes to him again, and tells him that he's lost his way. Course, the Monk's living high on the hog now, and he ignores God's demands he change his ways. Retribution comes when the Queen of Spain sends an army to put and end to Marauding Monk's little bandit empire. Burns his town. Defeated, the Monk escapes to the north, leaving not a speck of treasure behind.
“Now, that's where the legend ends, but once word got out that his ghost had been seen around these parts, people started putting two and two together. If the Monk's restless soul, punished by God for his arrogance, was wondering through these hills, then maybe this was where he had come to hideout from the Queen of Spain. And if this was where he'd ultimately kicked the bucket, maybe this was where he'd hidden all that ill-gotten loot before his death.
“So the railroad's stuck 'cause everyone's afraid to build it, but that don't stop folks from sinking holes every which way, trying to dig up the Monk's treasure. People start finding gold, but it's the regular sort of natural stuff. Well, things really start to go crazy then. Treasure hunters, gold miners, you name it. Built that whole town of End of the Line. I'm sure that's what brought you fellas out here.”
“I don't remember nothing about no treasure?” Said Trigger Jim.
“See, that's where this mine comes into the story. With all the gold fever, folks forgot about the Monk and his treasure. Fella here stakes his claim early on during the rush, but dies under mysterious circumstances. Next fella who stakes the claim there dies too. All told, the patch of land goes through six owners, no man living outside of three weeks. The claim gets a reputation for being cursed, and folks avoid it. By the time the likes of you and me show up, everyone's plum forgot why no one wants the claim, just that it should be steered clear of.”
“What you saying?” Diablo asked with skepticism. “That this long dead Marauding Monk knocked off these miners to protect his treasure?”
“Nobody can say for sure. Weren't nothing like a sheriff back then to look into the matter. All folks remember is that all six of them miners were found in their beds, their faces twisted with such fits of fear that they had to bury them with the coffins closed.”
“Diablo,” Curly John said pensively. “I don't want no cursed mine.”
“We don't want no mine, Curly John!” Diablo said. “Cursed or not.”
“Are you some sort of idiot?” Trigger Jim asked. “You want us to end up like them miners?” Adam smiled inside.