Ole' Crystal

As I stand in the doorway, ears ringing from the gunfire, I feel footsteps behind me as Ollie and the storekeeper carry Mike from the front of the store.

"This man needs a doctor." The storekeeper's voice is faint... almost a whisper. Mike had lost quite a bit of blood, but his temporary nurse had managed to stop the flow with pressure and then bandaged him as best she could.

"Yeah... " It is all I can muster.

Chris hands the reigns of the horses to Andy and loads both of his pistols.
"Where's Lou."
I look at Ollie, who nods back to the store. Antonelli and I run back inside and toward the front of the store. Lou is alongside one of the windows.

"Lou? What's going on out there?"
"Two of them went around back... "
"We got 'em."
"There's still two out front here. The rest of the town's folk seem to be happy holding back behind those wagons they were going to hang you from."

I look out through the window from where I am standing behind the counter. There are a good twenty or thirty people out there, all of them men now, and most with guns. They are smart, though, not willing to expose themselves to "Orlis Keene" and his legendary gun.

"We better get the hell out of here before the rest of them find their balls, don't you think?"

Lou get's that narrow look to him... the one he get's where there is a plan in the making. But when he finally turns to me, that look is gone and there is something else there.

"I got us into a helluva fix, Jake."
"Like you never have before? What the... we need to go, Lou. Now."

The storekeeper's wife, who has been hiding under the counter at my feet, clears her throat. I nearly shoot her.
"Mr. Keene? You... you forget about ole' Crystal?" She speaks from her place under the counter.
"Stand up, Miss, you have nothing to fear from me."
She is visibly shaking when she appears from beneath my feet.
"Ole' Crystal, it is just out back up behind the dynamite shed."

"And what is Ole' Crystal?"
She makes a clucking noise in the back of her throat, I think it might just be nervous laughter.
"Ole' Crystal... you've used it before."

She stops there, not believing that she needs to explain further. Surely reminding Orlis Keene about something he knows already will bring his vengance down upon her.

"Chris, go see what she is talking about."
With that Chris moves out of the room and heads toward the dynamite shed.

"What about them?" I gesture to the men out front. The brave two with rifles drawing a bead on anything they can see moving inside the store. Almost on cue, a shot rings out and a hole opens up on the opposite side of the window Lou is standing next to. He moves away quickly and joins me behind the counter. The shot has seamed Lou's thoughts together into a plan.
"Go... out back. Tell Chris to bring in a couple of those packs of dynamite."

I start out back.
"From the shed, not the horses." Lou calls after me.
With a quick stop at the door to check for any more brave souls, I run out to the dynamite shed. Off to the right Andy and Ollie are securing Mike to the back of Andy's horse. Ollie's head is on a swivel for anyone that might try to take a shot at them.

The key is still in the door of the dynamite shed, the door cracked open. I start around back to see what this Ole' Crystal might be, but see nothing rocky hillside that butts up against the shed.
"What the fuck is she talking about." I say to myself.
"It's not outside, it's inside." Chris says behind me. I turn and he waves me inside of the dynamite shed.

I hadn't gone inside when we retrieved the dynamite earlier, just grabbed what was handed out the door. Now that I am inside, I see what she is referring to. The shed is actually covering the entrance to a cave in which they have stored the dynamite. The remaining dynamite is within steps of the doorway so that the light of day will illuminate their location. The smell of wood smoke is heavy in here.

"Help me move this shit out of here." Chris grabs one of the wooden crates that hold the burlap wrapped dynamite. There are only four crates and we have them outside in no time at all.

"Lou wants one of these inside." I start for the store with the last case I am holding.
"Wait." Chris runs back inside the store and then returns with a hand held oil lantern and some wooden matches. Inside the emptied dynamite shed we light the thing and step through the cave entrance. The lantern's light reflects from a thousand surfaces, reflected by crystals in the side of this small cave.
"What the fuck is this?"
"Quartz?"
"Could be quartz."

There are some iron hooks that had been tapped into the side walls of the cavern. The naturally coolness of this chamber must have been a perfect place to hang meat before they put the dynamite shed out front. As the crystals diminish the tunnel continues.

"She can't be talking about using this."
"Sure as hell can't take any horses in here."
"It's got to be a fucking trap. She's... "
"I doubt it. She fears for her life from this Orlis Keene. No one has killed him yet as far as she knows, so she wouldn't be saying this if she thought we would make it back to town some time down the road."
"So what? We go down the shaft and end up on foot in the middle of the desert?"

I take pause for a moment and then try to put the pieces together.
"What if Keene has fresh mounts at the end of this tunnel... or maybe there is a ranch house or something."
"Great. We can have lemonade and sit on the porch."
"No, asswipe, Keene wouldn't use this escape on foot without having horses at the end of it."

We leave the mystery of Ole' Crystal for the moment and bring a case of dynamite back into the store. The men outside the front of the store are trying to secure our surrender without any shots being fired. They are calling out demands and getting silence in return.

The storekeeper's wife sees the dynamite and all of a sudden she's Chatty Cathy.
"Oh please, please Mr. Keene don't blow up our store. It's the only thing we have. It's everything." She falls into her husband's arms and begins to weep.

Lou trys to calm her.
"Ma'am, I have no intention of blowing up your store. We are going to toss a few sticks into the town square out front just to cause a diversion. I apologize in advance for the windows."

As we work to separate sticks of dynamite, I figure this would be a good time to get a few answers.
"That tunnel out back, where does it end up?"

She cocks her head like a dog, "Well... I don't rightly know. Don't you know?"
I look at her and she averts her eyes.
I turn to Lou, "You can't take a horse through there, too low."
He looks her way, "Ma'am... the last time that tunnel was used what did we do with the horses?"
Nothing.
"Ma'am?"
"You loosed those horses and they just ran."

"We loosed the horses and they just ran. Some how this plan sounds like we end up in Boot Hill." I say, separating the bundled fuses.
"Hey, it comes out somewhere. These horses might know what to do. They aren't stupid animals." Lou tries to convince me... but I don't think he is convinced himself.
"No, we're the stupid animals."
"We don't have time for this. Either we try to kill all of these people, or we make a run for it in the tunnel. I, personally, have seen enough killing for awhile."

With the dynamite separated, we have Ollie go out and tell the boys what we are going to do. They are to take the oil lamp and get a head start with Mike up the tunnel. We are going to drive any of the posse back with gunfire and then launch a few sticks of dynamite out into the street to try to minimize any damage to the store. We will make our escape into the tunnel while their ears are still ringing.

Lou checks his weapons and me my rifle and pistol.
"Dear lady, you and your husband have seen us take this escape before and we always manage to make it back to town. This will be our little secret." The veiled threat seems to find it's mark. The two of them respond with a quick nod.

I make a quick run to the back off the store. I see nothing but horses. The boys have started into the tunnel. Gunfire from the street out front draws me back into the store.

"They're making a run on the place."
I join Lou's side and see that more of the men from behind the wagons have now joined the few out on the street and more are following. There are two dozen men now, all of them getting ready to rush the place.
"You throw and I will give you some cover fire. I have cut the fuses short so as soon as you heave them, we run."

I look down at the three sticks of dynamite and the maybe two inches of fuse on each of them.
"Short?"
"Don't be a pussy. Just light and throw, one after the other. We need to beat feet before they go off."

I look back at the storekeeper. "You, light that oil lamp and take the glass off of it."
He scrambles to ablige me and brings the lamp over with trembling hands. Once delivered, he and the wife lay down behind the counter.
I move by the door. Better to throw from there than take a chance of hitting the window frame and blowing us all up. I have the oil lamp on the floor at my feet and the three sticks in my right hand. I tip the fuses in toward each other until they touch.

"Ready?"
I nod.
"Here we go."
Lou starts to fire. I don't move at first, not sure when to... "
"DO IT."
I extend my arm down toward the flame and wait until the fuses sputter to life. As Lou fires, the front of the store is peppered with gunfire. Rifle shot tears through the wood, pistol shot buries into storefront. All hell breaks loose as I open the door and heave the sticks out thirty or so feet into the dirt street.
Lou fires one last shot and then we turn and run.

Two inches of fuse, a half of second to realize they are lit, the next second spent throwing, then next in mid air... I'm thinking it was a three second fuse. All of the sticks must have remained close together. The explosion hurls us to the back wall of the store, the front wall falling inward from the concussion. We try not to stop moving and scramble for the door. We are pursued by a cloud of dust and dirt, the screams from the storekeeper's wife putting an edge on it. She isn't injured, but I am sure she has never been in such close proximaty to an explosion of this size.

Out back we stumble toward the dynamite shed and fall inside. I stand and pull the key from the lock, closing the door and using it from the inside to lock the door. The horses were no longer outside and I am hoping that they might have made their way out before the explosion scared them half to death.
A second oil lamp burns inside. Thank God one of the boys were thinking or we would be standing here in complete darkness.

We are at the mercy of Ole' Crystal, where ever it leads, whatever is on the other side. I am strangely hopeful that we will find our way to safety.