Longarm and the Horse Thief's Daughter by Tabor Evans

him of.
    The adit twisted left and right, up and down. Curiously, the floor was soft underfoot. He did not take time to examine the layer of brown padding spread on the floor.
    Then the answer to what it was came to him. Came in the form of a string of burros plodding toward him out of the darkness, each of the eight small, shaggy animals carrying bulging packsaddles of raw ore.
    That, he realized, explained the height of the opening. It was just high enough to accommodate a burro and just wide enough to accept the burro plus the width of the ore sacks it carried.
    The intelligent little animals were making their journey with no human hand guiding them. Obviously they knew where they were going. Longarm had to drop down to hands and knees and press himself hard against the cold, stone wall at his side in order to let the string of burros pass.
    He reached an opening to his left which turned out to be a larger, taller expanse where a large pocket of ore had been removed. The light from his lamp showed nothing but stone walls and on this floor rock chips instead of the burro manure that carpeted the main line.
    There was no sign of Henry or of any other humans. Back in the main line he traveled perhaps another hundred yards before he encountered lights and voices. He came upon a group of four miners, each wearing a headlamp, with a collection of hammers, chisels, and pry bars at their sides.
    â€œYou lookin’ for Henry?” asked one of the men, with such a grimy, rock-dust–covered face that Longarm was sure he would not recognize the fellow after he washed.
    Longarm nodded, causing shadows to dance in front of him. “I am.”
    The man eyed the chunk of wood in Longarm’s hand, then pursed his lips to point with. “About fifty feet in there’s a branch to the left. Take it.”
    â€œThanks.” Longarm touched a finger to his forehead and moved past the men, who were taking a break with sandwiches and bottles of coffee.
    He moved slowly in until he came to the side opening the miner had mentioned. The adit branched straight left and sloped upward to the right.
    Longarm paused there.
    Left, the man had said.
    Too easily? Henry, after all, was one of their own. And Longarm was a stranger.
    Longarm knelt for a moment to ease aching muscles not accustomed to this cramped posture.
    Then he moved forward. Into the right-hand adit.

Chapter 22
    If the would-be assassin was in there, he was sitting there with no headlamp marking his position. But then he knew this mine. And he did
not
want to be found.
    Henry was the sort who preferred to murder without exposing himself to danger. That, Longarm thought, was the hallmark of a coward. Low, cunning, and sneaky. But cowardly. That seemed to describe Henry to the proverbial T.
    There was no point in trying to be silent, Longarm realized. Not with his headlamp throwing a cone of light twenty feet in front of him. The bastard would be able to see him coming a hundred feet away.
    He bent low but craned his neck to throw the light as flat and as far as possible. If he gave in to the fatigue of the bent-forward position and allowed his head to drop, that threw the light from his lamp onto the floor, practically at his feet, doing nothing at all to help him search for danger lying ahead.
    Every few feet he had to stop, drop down onto his heels, and peer around as best he could.
    Henry was somewhere ahead. He was sure of it. Well, fairly sure. He could have been wrong back there. The miner taking his lunch break could have been telling the truth about which way Henry went.
    Longarm did not believe that. But then he had been wrong about things before now. He could well be wrong again here. If he were, that would allow Henry to get behind him, perhaps to flee from the mine while Longarm was still busy looking for him inside.
    It was a risk. All Longarm could do was to use his best judgment and go on. And right now his best judgment was that his quarry was