Denver Strike Read Online Free PDF Page B

the plank table while the woman served him the bacon and eggs. “You’re going to have to leave here with me, Lomela. You know that, don’t you? We’re going to have to leave today.”
    â€œI know. I’m kind of disappointed, too. I surely do like this cabin. It was kind of lonely the first week, but then the kids and me got to liking it. The air’s so pure and the mountains are so pretty—”
    â€œAnd Bill Nek’s men know exactly where it is. When those four goons don’t report back in, Nek is going to order another one of his hit squads up here to see what happened. I don’t want you and your kids waiting around to be questioned. While I’m taking care of my business up there on the mountainside this morning, you and your kids get packed. We’ll load your gear onto that Appaloosa mare and walk out. I’ve got a Land Cruiser hidden on a logging trail about three miles from here. I’ll drive you back to Denver, we’ll get in touch with Tom Dulles, and we’ll decide on a new hiding place for you.”
    As she took Hawker’s empty plate, she hesitated and looked at him closely. “But what will you do—after that, I mean?”
    â€œI’ve got to find where Nek is hiding Jimmy Estes and Chuck Phillips. I think that’s the key to this whole operation. That’s probably where Nek keeps most of his hired guns and most of his illegal munitions. When they took your father there, they made sure he was blindfolded. And when he escaped, it was dark, and they’d worn him half-crazy, so about all he can remember is that their hideout is in a deserted silver mine in a high valley not far from Leadville.”
    â€œThere’s no shortage of high valleys around Leadville,” the woman said. “Finding one little played-out silver mine could take you months.”
    â€œI’ll stay however long I have to stay and do whatever I have to do to find them. We have a couple of things working in our favor. Nek has to keep your father and his two partners alive. If one of them dies, then the trust awards the remaining shares of stock to you—but in the form of a yearly allowance that would make it impossible for you to sell to anybody. Nek knows that. His lawyers have made sure he knows it. So Nek has to come up with some kind of leverage so strong that he can convince your father and his two partners to sell. I don’t doubt that he can do that, but it’ll take time. And with every hour that goes by, I’ll be that much closer to him and his gang.”
    â€œBut why is it, you think, Mr. Nek wants my daddy’s mine so bad? He’s got all the money he could ever need. He’s got an estate in Denver as big as a castle—I’ve seen it from the road. And he’s got about a dozen condos in Aspen and Snowmass. Anything that man wants, he can afford to buy.”
    Hawker shrugged. “Maybe you just put your finger on it—part of it, at least. Maybe Nek doesn’t like the idea of his old partners having something he wants but can’t buy. Maybe it touches some of the old guilt he feels. Put yourself in his place. Fifty years ago, you cheat your three best friends out of a lot of money. You come up with some shoddy way to rationalize it: all’s fair in love and business, that sort of thing. Even so, the guilt is always there, always lingering just beneath the surface. So you go a little crazy, and you dedicate your whole life to making money, acquiring silver. You want to prove to yourself and everyone else that you really are the Silver King—not because of what you stole from your friends but because of your ability to accumulate a fortune. And didn’t Nek prove that, in a way? Compared with the wealth he’s amassed, that little bit he stole from his partners fifty years ago is really just a drop in the bucket. But your dad and the other two guys still remained broken-down old