Free The Return of Caulfield Blake by G. Clifton Wisler Page B

placed the final three sticks of dynamite near the dam’s center.
    Marty raised a hand, and Caulie lit the first fuse. He then raced for the other fuse and lit it as well. The sound of feet tramping toward the boulders attracted the guards, and one fired off a shot. Soon a half-dozen men hurried toward the dam. More shots followed. Orders bellowed across the hollow.
    â€œSomethin’s burnin’!” a guard cried out. “Powder!”
    By then Caulie was dragging Marty toward the horses. Zach held the reluctant animals steady. The two raiders joined the boy just as the first explosion split the evening asunder.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” Caulie urged as he grabbed his reins and fought to mount the rearing stallion. Marty had no easier time getting atop his animal. Zach held on to his bay for dear life. The second and third charges went off together, and the air was suddenly full of spray and debris. The ground trembled. Then the water began eating its way through the dam, and what had been a muddy stretch of sand became a raging torrent.
    â€œWe did it,” Zach cried, slapping his father’s back.
    â€œAnd now we’d better get out of here,” Caulie said as he turned the big black and drove the horse forward. The dam’s right side collapsed, and the water was soon eating away the left. Guards fired wildly, and men alternately issued curses and orders.
    Caulie gazed for a final time at the chaos behind him. And as a wall of water swept down Siler’s Hollow, scattering cattle and horsemen like leaves in the autumn breeze, it looked as if they’d just get clear. Simpson’s riders had no time to chase anybody. They were scurrying for their lives.
    Caulie tore through the fence line a quarter mile from his original break. He sent Marty flying homeward, then led Zach toward the cabin.
    â€œCare for some company?” Zach asked as he pulled his bay alongside his father. “Ma’s accustomed to me passin’ the night over at the Cabot place on my way back from town.”
    â€œYour ma’s goin’ to need your help, what with the floodwaters and all.”
    â€œShe won’t miss me. Marsh’ll do most of it, and Carter’s there.”
    â€œI won’t claim you wouldn’t be welcome company, son, but she’ll worry, you know. What’s more, she won’t be fond of the notion you rode with us tonight.”
    â€œI thought. . . I mean . . . I guessed maybe once I proved to you I could handle a job, you’d want me along.”
    Caulie pulled up short and swallowed a sudden sadness.
    â€œYou never once had anythin’ to prove to me, Zach. I’m glad you’re here just now, and I’d have you with me from now on if it were just the two of us that were concerned. But there’s your ma to consider. I won’t bring her grief and worry again. Not for anythin’. Now get along home. There’ll be other days to pass together. I promise you that.”
    â€œYou’re back to stay then?”
    â€œI’m back. Let’s leave it at that.”
    â€œAll right,” Zach said, reluctantly turning his horse homeward. “Before long you’d best come out to . . .to Marsh’s place . . . to home. Ma can’t blow up a dam, but she’s surely a better cook than you are.”
    Caulie laughed as the boy rode away. It was hard watching the night swallow up Zach, and the silence that ate at Caulfield Blake as he rode back to Dix’s cabin was deafening. He longed for sounds, for laughter and singing. He longed for the family that had somehow slipped away. And more than ever he was determined to keep them safe.

Chapter Eight
    Caulfield Blake spent an uneasy night following the destruction of Simpson’s dam. Sounds of galloping horses and rampaging cattle mixed with the eerie noises of the creek eating away at its banks, tearing at rocks and hills and trees as it surged toward the