As Hunter drove away, Adan said, “I will tell Dario’s mother about this.”
“That would be good. How are you going to get there?”
“The bus. It leaves in an hour.” He was silent for a moment, “While I was hanging in the shaft, looking down,” he turned his face toward her, his eyes haunted, “I saw bones and skulls at the bottom.”
Hunter said, “I saw one skull, but that was all.”
“You glanced down at the bottom, I looked at it for twenty, thirty seconds at least. Most of them are coated with the red mud, and barely under the surface of the water. There are many.”
Hunter said, “When I get you safe, I’ll go back, check it out.”
“Don’t go alone. Please.”
She patted his shoulder, “Okay.”
Chapter 5
Ellis took his time driving to the abandoned mine, thinking about recent events and how his financial situation currently was holding. Not so good, as a matter of fact. The smuggling loads of illegals had been stymied at several stages. The first was swept away in the flood. Then no others wanted to be transported by Ellis and his partners. After that, the guns being smuggled south had been intercepted twice in the last two months, one by the Highway Patrol and the other by the Border Patrol, with each load being fifty AR-15s and seventy pistols.
The drugs fared no better. They were being caught at the Port of Entry, and the Border Patrol along the river border. Especially his three loads of fentanyl knocked off out near Van Horn last month. That hurt his wallet like a sonofabitch.
On top of that, Winston Hart was not going to adopt him any time soon, so no income there, either. He smiled because his plan to get a piece of the Hart fortune was still in the works, with or without the Harts.
Driving up the slope to the mine was rough, and his vehicle bounced over rocks and potholes, dropping dust from the headliner like thin fog. Once, his teeth clicked together when he didn’t see a deep one, but the trail became smoother as he reached the level area among the junipers and sage.
He parked fifty feet from the mine entrance, picked up the large flashlight from the passenger’s seat and checked his pistol in the concealed holster situated in front for a cross-draw if he needed it. Ellis didn’t expect trouble, maybe a rattler or rabid raccoon in the mine, for sure nothing human, but then again it never hurt to be prepared.
He entered the small blockhouse beside the shed, using his key to open the lock and flip back the hasp. Inside was a case of dynamite, still three-quarters full of the red sticks. Beside it were several coils of timer fuses, the ones that burned at a measured rate. These, he knew burned slowly, at ten minutes for every six inches. There were also fuse strikers in a smaller box, the ones with a ring on the end of the pull plunger that they attached to the fuse end. All he had to do was pull back the spring-loaded ring and let it snap back and that would light the fuse. A small box of blasting caps nestled beside it, and inside the box shined the silver caps, resting on a pad of cotton. A cheap pair of aluminum dynamite pliers to be used to crimp the cap onto the fuse lay nearby.
There were also four hand grenades, two of them fragmentations, and two of them white phosphorus, called Wilson Pickett, by some former Marines he knew.
He spotted something half-hidden in the corner shadow by the dynamite box. Ellis stepped closer and picked up the dusty watch. He ran his thumb across the face. The leather band had been torn in half. It was a Piaget, very expensive, and Ellis remembered twelve years ago when it fell there during his tussle with Vincent Hart. Things had been hectic for a while until he got control of the situation and tied up Hart to take him to the ranch. He put the watch in his pocket, patting it once for good luck.
Ellis took the timer fuse and cut off six inches, then placed a blasting cap on the end, crimping it with the aluminum pliers and made his way into the actual mine shaft. He used his knife to make a hole in the end of a single dynamite stick, then slid in the cap. It fit snug enough to hold the fuse and cap firmly in place.
He flipped on the flashlight as he entered the mine and walked to the edge of the ten-foot-wide hole in the mine floor. Shining the light into the bottom twenty feet down revealed a water level that had dropped several inches because of no recent rains, and the bottom showed a number of bones exposed. The old two-by-twelve board reaching across the hole was still in place to serve as a bridge, but it looked creaky to him.
Shining the light on the shaft walls showed several new cracks where the old mine walls were deteriorating, and he noticed them on all sides of the shaft. Thinking about it for a minute, Ellis decided what to do. Holding the dynamite, he pulled the ring and heard a pop, then smelled and saw the smoke. When it was going good, he dropped it to the bottom of the mine.
Ellis trotted from the mine and back to the vehicle where he leaned on the fender and waited. The six-inch fuse was timed to ten minutes, so he checked the surrounding countryside for a bit, seeing no other soul in sight. Nine minutes later, Ellis felt a soft rumble and heard a muffled boom, followed by the tin shed rattling and a geyser of dust and gravel shooting out the door. One panel of corrugated aluminum came off the shed and twirled through the air like a flipped coin to land in a juniper bush some forty feet distant. Other sounds came from the mine, with most of them the sounds of falling stones. Dust lessened from the shed door, until five minutes later, it had dissipated.
Ellis grabbed the flashlight and entered the mine. Fine bits of dust filtered in the air like motes. He glanced into the bottom of the shaft to see a fresh layer of rubble covering everything a foot deep, but not more than that. The fresh rock hid everything down there.
“Good enough,” He said. He returned to his vehicle and drove off the mountain and toward Presidio. He thought about what to do next. Starting a new pile of bodies in the mine would be handy, and he could cover them up again when needed. Now, to work on upping the game on his plans, including becoming the sole heir of the Hart fortune. It was complex, deceptive, and would be bloody, and the thought made him smile. He hadn’t been good and bloody in a long time.
As he entered Ojinaga, he called RL, who answered, “Sup?”
“You
ready to do some work?”
“Sure.”
Ellis told him where to wait, and he picked him up as they drove toward the International Bridge. Ellis said, “We need to make some money.”
“I’m ready.”
“I need you to travel to Odessa, talk to the contacts there and see what they need. Tell them whatever it is, we’ll provide it.”