Peso Martin sighed with relief as he watched the spectacle. He grinned. “Whew!” He said. “For a minute there, I thought we weren’t going to make it.”
Rufe and Shorty were grinning also.
“Come on, boys,” Peso said. “We’d better mount up and get out of here before anyone see us.”
“What about the guard and driver?” Shorty asked.
“Forget them,” Peso answered. “They won’t want to stick around with the Wildcat Gang nearby. Everyone is still going to think they robbed the payroll. Come on! Let’s get going!”
They mounted up and rode off.
“Oh, Grampa,” Kitty sobbed. She was still sitting her pinto as she watched the coach turning in air and plunging downward.
“Easy. Easy, girl,” Cyclone said quietly. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. Best you don’t watch.”
Jeremy had ridden up on the other side of her. His eyes were sad and his Adams’ apple bobbed as he choked back his sorrow.
Rap and Chief Henry looked on. “Lawdy. Lawdy,” Rap murmured.
Henry crossed himself and gazed skyward.
Inside the coach Matt Starr and Dandy Jim Butler were being hurled about the close confines of the structure. They fell into each other, bounced off, and crashed against the walls repeatedly. Everything was a blur around them and their senses were a scrambled milieu of light and shadow. One second they were crashing downward and another they seemed to be weightless. Their brains just couldn’t process the suddenness and confusion of it all as the coach flipped over and over spinning in the air as it fell.
Then with just as much shock and suddenness, the coach crashed to a thudding halt. Sharp points of broken support beams lanced through the front and back panels of the coach, tearing the fabric to pieces. Sunlight and air gaped into the openings.
Support beams, cross beams and wreckage of the fallen bridge had dropped into the gorge. As the width of the gorge diminished on the way to the bottom, this debris and beams falling in all directions had piled across the chasm almost half way down. Many of the supports lay crisscrossed between the sides of the gorge. Remnants of the blown bridge had piled on top and had formed a V wedge. The coach had fallen into this V and was cradled on its side, tentatively supported by the mass of debris that creaked and shifted restlessly beneath it.
Had it not been for this obstruction and the sharp broken supports piercing the coach body, the coach would have surely, plummeted to the bottom of the gorge and there would have been no chance for survival.
Up above, on the rim of the gorge, Kitty Carlin gasped in horror as the body of the coach crashed into the fallen debris. She choked back a faint ray of hope, not daring to allow herself to believe that Matt and Jim had been saved.
Matt and Jim were still floundering and crashing about inside the coach when it crashed into the V. Matt Starr had slid into the side door which was now facing downward over the gorge. He was directly on top of the door when it flew open and he fell feet first through the opening. It was all happening so fast, he couldn’t comprehend it. A sudden burst of sunlight and hot air rushed at him as he plunged into nothingness.
As he slid through the opening, his arms automatically raised upward. Something seemed to be sliding past him, but in reality, he was doing the sliding. His hands were sliding down the lower panel of the coach door above him. As his hands slipped into the open air of the door window, he grasped at nothing. But, that nothing turned to something. Suddenly, his fingers had curled around the top edge of the door window. His body jolted to a sudden halt. His eyes clamped shut. He felt as if he had just been stretched a foot taller. Every muscle and bone in his body met with fiery pain. His hands felt sore and weak. His fingers ached.
As he finally opened his eyes, he could see the coach above him, teetering on the unsettled wreckage beneath it. The side door was open and hanging down on its hinges. He was clinging tight to the edge of the door and his feet were dangling in mid air with nothing beneath him but another sixty feet of gorge filled with rocks and splintered upright beams. Letting go would mean death for sure.
Meanwhile, Jim Butler who had been on the other side of the coach, had grasped the hand holds above and to the side of the coach door which was now on top. His arms were stretched above his head and he was now dangling inside the coach; feet not quite reaching the opening left by the door that Matt was now clinging to so desperately.
He swung to the side, braced his feet against what was once the rear panel of the coach , arched his back, and pulled himself upward. Letting go of one hand hold, he reached out, unlatched the door and push upward. He followed it and pushed it until it swung completely open, banging against the outside of the coach as it fell backward.
He reached up through the opening, gave a heave and propelled himself upward. As one arm reached through the opening and obtained a grasp, he released his other hand and pulled his body half way through the opening.
The coach swayed with the movement and the supports creaked. Some of them breaking off or sliding into another position, leaving the coach in an even more tenuous position.
“Look! There’s Jim,” Kitty shouted from up above. “He’s still alive.”
“Yeah, but he won’t be for long,” Cyclone said. “if that mess down there falls apart. We’ve got to get him up here quick.”
Kitty released the lariat from her saddle and started to move her pinto forward. The horse had put one hoof on the planking of the remaining part of the bridge. It wobbled and creaked.
Cyclone grasped her reins and pulled her back. “You can’t take a horse out there, girl. What’s left of the bridge just won’t hold.”
“Then I’ll just have to go out there myself,” Kitty said, dismounting and stepping gingerly, out onto the bridge. At first it felt alright, but as she stepped further out, she could feel a slight tremor beneath her feet. She dared not step out any further. She was not quite above the fallen stage and was off to an angle closer to the rim of the gorge. At least she was in a position that Dandy Jim could see her.
“Jim!” Kitty called. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” Jim answered. “But Matt is in a fix down here. We’re going to have to act fast. I don’t know how long he can hold out. Toss me down a rope”
Kitty didn’t know what that meant about Matt holding on, but she dared not waste time with questions. She shook out a loop and sent it spinning down the gorge.
Jim reached out and caught the loop and slipped it over his shoulders and under his arm pits.
“Secure me as much as you can, but leave enough slack to let me drop down six or seven feet lower and then toss down another rope. I need it for Matt.”
Jeremy tossed his lariat out to his sister. It landed at her feet while she wrapped the other rope to what was left of the bridge railing. Then she tossed the remaining coil to Jeremy, who secured it around the pommel of his saddle.
Again she shook out a loop and let it drop. Jim caught it, waved back and shouted , “Be right back. You won‘t be able to see me, but I‘m going to try to get one of Matt‘s guns. When I fire a shot, start hauling both ropes up.” He lowered himself back inside the coach and disappeared from view.
Kitty tossed the remaining coil to Rap who secured it to the pommel of his saddle. Now both ropes were secured from the side in case the bridge didn’t hold long enough to pull Jim and Matt up.
Matt Starr’s fingers were numb. His body felt like it weighed a ton beneath him. His muscles ached and he feared he couldn’t hang on much longer.
Then a pair of boots appeared above him. Long legs followed and dark coat tails were flapping in the breeze. Suddenly, Dandy Jim Butler’s face was before him. “Fancy meeting you here,” Jim tried to chuckle as if the matter wasn’t serious.
“Hang on!” Jim shouted as he slid a little farther down, just enough to loop the other lariat over Matt’s legs and draw it up under his arms just as his fingers let loose of the coach door window edge. Matt dropped a bi
t, but the lariat held him from above. The coach rocked violently from the sudden motion, but it remained seated in its cradle.
Jim reached out and plucked a pistol from Matt’s holster. Matt was surprised. “Now, you’re going to shoot me?”
Jim pointed the muzzle straight up and fired. He quickly tucked the pistol back into its pouch and reached out to encircle Matt with both arms. He hugged the lawman tight and they both began to feel themselves moving upward.
Slowly, inch by inch, they felt themselves being pulled up through the open doorway back into the coach. The coach was rocking more and more now and occasionally, Jim and Matt could hear the rumbling of sliding supports beneath them. A time or two they felt the sudden shifting of the coach as it slid slightly from its perch.
Up above, on the bridge, Jeremy had ventured out onto it, to help with keeping the ropes straight. The bridge was teetering more under their combined weights. Meanwhile, Chief Henry had mounted Jeremy’s horse. Together Chief and Rap were backing the horses, taking most of the strain of pulling the two men up from the gorge.
Steadily, Jim and Matt were pulled across the inside of the coach. Sunlight streamed in from above and then they were emerging through the open door.
Their legs were still inside the coach when a great rumble emerged from the gorge beneath them. The coach rocked back and forth and the two men’s leg’s banged against the outer edges of the coach as it moved. Their boots barely came free from inside the coach when the coach suddenly sagged in the middle and everything beneath them collapsed in a deluge of belching dust and flying debris crashing to the bottom of the gorge below.
Jim and Matt were now dangling in mid air, ascending slowly and beginning to sway back and forth as their weight took its toll on the bridge remnant above.
Jeremy and Kitty both staggered as the bridge began to sway beneath their feet. They could hear the supports crumbling beneath them.
“Kitty!! Jeremy!” Cyclone shouted from above. “Get off the bridge! We’ll pull them up from here.”
“But Grampa…..” Kitty started to protest.
“Just do as I tell you,” Cyclone shouted. “It’ll be all right.”
Kitty looked at Jeremy. He nodded and she knew they were both right. They let go of the ropes they were trying to keep somewhat straight and hopped sideways toward the rim of the gorge. As their feet stepped onto solid ground the remainder of the bridge crumbled and crashed downward into the open chasm.
At the same time that Jeremy and Kitty released the ropes, Jim and Matt swung sideways as they swung toward the slanting wall of the gorge. Planking and supports rained down into the gorge, barely missing them as they crashed into the wall with enough force that they initially bounced off the shale ledges repeatedly until their momentum was totally spent and they could finally grasp a hold for themselves in the rock.
Rap and Chief Henry had momentarily stopped pulling the men up, waiting for them to come at rest against the ledge. Once they were sure Jim and Matt were ready, Rap and Chief Henry being careful not to work too fast and risk hurting either of the men against the sharp shale rock, once again began pulling them up out of the gorge.
Chapter Thirty One