And the Hills Opened Up (10 page)

17

The street outside the Runoff Saloon was filled with curious residents of the Copper Hotel and a dozen mining wives who’d come downtown to find out why their husbands had not yet returned home though it was nearly eight-thirty.  The men stood clumped together in one group discussing the shootout while the women stood in another and speculated about the whereabouts of their men.  The saloon’s owner, Madam Petrov, had already come out to speak with both groups, assuring everyone that not one miner was currently in the saloon, either in bed or on a barstool. 

Bonnie Chambers stood among the women, trying to ignore the idle chatter around her and eavesdrop on the men. 

A hand touched her shoulder.

“Bonnie?”

She turned, heart fluttering, but it was only her friend, Susan Logan, mother of the loudmouth, red-headed Jess Logan, spreader of gossip and alarm.

“Did Hank say anything to you about the men working late?”

“No,” Bonnie said, wondering if he’d said something she’d missed.  “I can’t say he did.”

Susan shook her head as if she’d expected as much.  She was a thick-shouldered woman who wore her dark hair in a tight, nest-like bun. 

“Maybe they found a new seam?”

“Could be.”

“That’d be nice,” Susan said, her round face brightening.  “More work for everybody.” 

Bonnie nodded, as if she cared two bits about more work.  As far as she was concerned, they could run out of copper tomorrow, close shop, and head directly for the Rawlins’ train station.

“Still,” Susan said, “it’s getting late, even for that.”

Bonnie’s gaze drifted past her friend toward the hillside south of town.  The evening light was going from blue to black, yet she could still make out the Dennison Mine’s dry house and storage shed, small as they appeared from such a distance.

“You think they—”

A flash lit up the hillside, followed by a loud bang.  Everyone in the street turned their head in the direction of the explosion, the women around Bonnie gasping in unison.  Dust blanketed the hillside, obscuring the mine’s entrance and the buildings outside it.  Bonnie felt her heart squeeze in her chest, a painful, aching contraction, and then she found herself pushing through the crowd of dumbfounded women and men as if propelled by a great wind.

By the time she’d moved beyond the gawkers, Bonnie had come to her senses enough to realize she’d need a lantern if she wanted to hike the half-mile to the mine, perhaps some proper footwear as well.  She stopped at the general store, which was dark and empty.  As she’d expected, both Leg and Henry Jameson had both run off half-cocked, likely out of their heads in their excitement to join the sheriff’s little expedition.  Bonnie, who knew her way around the store as well as anybody else in town, made her way to the counter in back, found the lantern, and lit it with one of the white phosphorus matches Leg kept beside it in a little tin box. 

The lantern bloomed like a sun being born.  Metal rattled at the front of the store, making Bonnie jump.  A stranger sat at the sheriff’s desk, his wrist and ankles wrapped in chains. 

“Howdy, ma’am.”

Bonnie, who didn’t have time for pleasantries, declined to respond.  She went around the counter and examined the shelves, which could have used a good scrub.  She plucked an oil lamp off the shelf, checked it for fuel, and lit it from the counter lamp.  In the increased light she noticed a pair of boots on a bottom shelf.  She took off her shoes and tried on the boots—a little big, but they’d do.

“They haven’t fed me dinner yet.”

She tightened the laces on each boot and knotted them. 

“You mind bringing me something to eat?  I can see they’ve got some ham on that middle shelf there.”

Bonnie picked up the second lantern and went back round the counter.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry, but good men are in trouble out there.  You’re going to have to wait for your dinner.”

The stranger lowered his head. 

“My luck has not held today.”

“Yes,” Bonnie agreed, “but you are not the only one.”

And she was out the door.

The air cooled now that it was fully dark and the stars had come out.  The surrounding hills, a shade lighter than pitch black, absorbed the growing starlight and sat hunkered against the sky.  Bonnie crossed the valley floor as fast as she could, watching the rocks at her feet so as not to trip or step on a rattlesnake.  Enough time had been wasted without more bother like that.

A cloud of dust from the explosion drifted down from the mine’s entrance, rolling across the valley floor.  Bonnie coughed and bowed her head, covering her mouth with her free hand while the lantern flickered in the other, the flame struggling with the thick air.  The dust limited her sight so much she did not see the figure until she was plowing into his chest with the crown of her head. 

“Ooof.”

Bonnie shielded her eyes against the grit and raised the lantern. 

“Randy Bale?”

The boy sniffed and wiped at his mouth.  His eyes looked red and wet and scared. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What happened?”

The boy dropped his gaze to her feet. 

“They blew the mine shut.”

Bonnie clucked her tongue and peered up the hillside.

“On purpose, you mean?”

“Yes, ma’am.  Mr. Chambers had me stay at the dry house while he went down into the mine.  He was gone a good while and I fell asleep on a bench in there.  When I woke up, I saw Mr. Chambers talking with Sheriff Atkins and Leg Jameson and some other fellas.  They was looking into the mine kind of strange like.  Then Mr. Chambers was torching a pile of fuse cord and the other men were running down the hill like scattered hens, taking their horses and a crate of sticks with ’em.”

Randy Bale paused to swipe at his nose again.  Fresh tears were running down his cheeks.

“Then Mr. Chambers ran back inside the mine.”

“Back inside?”

“Yes, ma’am.  Right into the entrance, past the burning fuses.  And then the whole thing blew to Kingdom Come.”

Bonnie swallowed.  The cloud of dust had rolled past them and the air had cleared.

“What about the other men?”

“They never came out after their shift, far as I know.  Not a one.”

“And the sheriff?  Where’s he at?”

“They ran off soon as the mine blew.  They weren’t headed toward town, though. More like to the south.  I hollered after them, but they didn’t heed.”

Bonnie passed Randy Bale and started up the hillside, bending forward to adjust for the grade.

“The mine’s shut, Mrs. Chambers.  The ceiling dropped right in.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“You want me to go back up with you?”

“No.  You’ve done enough today, Randy.  You head back into town.”

“I’m sorry about your husband.”

“Go on, now.”

The boy took off like a jackrabbit across the valley floor.  Scree tumbled down as Bonnie climbed higher, peering up the slope.  She hadn’t been to the mine since the previous spring when she surprised her husband with a stein of beer, but she knew the hillside well enough to see the blast had changed its face.  If she hadn’t had the dry house to aim for, she might not have been able to place the mine’s entrance at all.

Because the entrance was gone. 

Blown up and buried in rock.

Tremulations crept up Bonnie’s legs.  They worked their way up her thighs and stomach like a bunch of prodding fingers and they made it hard for her to breathe.  By the time she reached the dry house, she had to set her lantern down and lace her fingers behind her head to find her air.  Even the flat grade beneath the mine’s entrance was gone, the patch where the miner’s hung out before their shifts, laughing and bragging with each other while their lunch pails swung about in their hands.

The tremors moved higher, to her lip, to her quivering eyelids.  Why would her husband have done such a thing?  Why—

A rock broke loose above and rolled down the hill, knocking loudly against others.  Bonnie wiped away her tears and looked up.  A second rock broke free and tumbled down, and then a third.  A spot had opened on the hillside, darker than the chalk-white rocks around it.

More rocks tumbled down.  The spot of darkness grew.

“My Lord,” Bonnie whispered, starting back up the hill.  Something was burrowing out from under all that rock.

Someone.

“Hank!  I’m here, Hank!”

She could see a head pushing through, then shoulders.  She started to run, heedless of the loose rock underfoot or the lantern she’d left behind.  She thanked God from the depths of her poor sinner’s soul and started to laugh and then the man rose, pushing himself up from the ground and standing tall against the night.

Bonnie froze mid-stride, smelling burnt flesh.

“Hank?”

The man cocked his head, taking note of her.  He appeared to be covered in dirt, or soot, with a few patches of white glowing off his body in the starlight.  He started toward her, his strides long and smooth, his footing unnaturally steady on the loose rock.  He moved like a piece of the mountain itself come to life. 

Bonnie stepped back, the tremors in her body grown ten-fold.  She was like a leaf, ripped from its branch and taken by the wind.

part three

What the Priest Saw

18

The men fumbled in the dim light, cursing the cold and the dark and the tremble in their hands.  They’d ridden hard to the mountain’s south end, where one adit entrance sat twenty feet beneath another, and somehow the dynamite strapped to the back of Milo Atkins’ horse had not gone off during the rocky journey.  The whole ride had possessed a syrupy, dreamlike quality for Sheriff Atkins, as if it had been going on forever and would outlast the mountains themselves.  He kept picturing Hank Chambers, arms pumping as he picked up steam and sprinted into the mine’s entrance, hollering for a fight.

The Charred Man. 

“Come over here, Milo.  We’ve got a batch for ya.”

Leg Jameson, Butch Hastings, and Larry Nolan were hunched over the two crates they’d brought along, capping sticks of dynamite and unspooling fuse wires in the faint light provided by the foreman’s lantern.  They’d left town in a hurry, while the day still held some light, and hadn’t thought to bring a light with them.  Young Henry Jameson had already walked off from the group with a pile of capped and strung dynamite in his arms, headed for the upper adit. 

“Now you just set these in as many nooks as you can,” Leg wheezed, placing a crop of dynamite in the sheriff’s arms.  “We don’t have time for a pretty blast, but you need to get them dug in enough so they tear rock out when they go.”

“Sure.”

“And when you’ve got those sticks ready, run that wire back to us and we’ll set the whole mess off.”

Atkins nodded, already walking away from the old man.  He bristled at the store owner telling him what to do, like he didn’t know full well already.  It didn’t take a genius to see how blasting was done, even if you weren’t some old coot of a forty-niner.  You had your sticks and your fuse caps and your wire—stick it all together, light a match, and watch the rock fly.

But damn if it wasn’t getting brisk now, the stars coming out and no moon.  Downright cold in these mountains, even in the middle of July.  Atkins climbed the slope toward the lower adit, his jaw clenched so his teeth didn’t chatter while the fuse wires tangled around his feet, trying to trip him and his load of capped dynamite.  Wouldn’t that be a fine way to die.  Out here with Leg Jameson and his strange crowd, while his wife and boy were back in town expecting Atkins by the fire.  Blowing himself to bits would just cinch the day’s events with a big satin ribbon.

Rocks dribbled down the hillside.  Atkins looked up and saw Henry Jameson struggling with his footing.

“Easy there, Henry.”

Henry answered him with a sort of half-choked grunting, about as much noise as Atkins had ever heard him make.  The young man was climbing the last and steepest slope before he reached the level ground circling the mouth of the upper adit.  The dynamite in Henry’s arms was weighing heavy on him, causing the young man to recline at an alarming angle.

“You go on now, Henry,” Atkins shouted up, his own troubles momentarily forgotten.  “You keep pushing that goddamn heap.” 

The mute wavered on his heels another moment, still fighting gravity’s pull, before finally making the last few yards and disappearing from Atkins’ sight.  Henry would have had an easier time going up the switchbacks the haul wagons used, but that path took longer than scrabbling directly up the hillside. 

And they didn’t have much time, did they?  Not if the Charred Man was still seeking a way out.

Atkins reached the lower adit and set his bundle of dynamite outside the tunnel’s opening.  Leg Jameson hollered something from below that Atkins could not make out nor cared to.  His eyes had grown accustomed to the weak starlight and he was able to see just enough to pluck a few sticks from the pile and start plugging them into crevices around the adit.  A gust of air, warmer than the chill night, blew out from the tunnel.  Atkins sniffed it for anything suspicious, like powder smoke, but all he got off it was the smell of water and stone, about as innocent a scent as you could wish for.  He returned to his pile of sticks, took up another load, and brought them inside the adit’s entrance.

He could make out two steel rails, faintly gleaming along the tunnel’s floor and disappearing into the dark.  He turned his head but couldn’t hear anything beyond the wind and his own breathing.  He imagined the Charred Man, walking out of the tunnel in that odd, choppy manner….

Something rustled outside the tunnel entrance.  Atkins blinked and poked his head outside.  Henry Jameson had scrambled down the hillside, already finished with his own load of sticks.  He stood with his fists at his side, watching Atkins in that loud silent way he had.  “Just a few more,” Atkins said, and went back inside.  He finished his work in a hasty, unsafe manner, plugging in the dynamite with too much force, and brought the tangle of fuse lines back out with him.  The mute had already straightened the other fuse lines, added them to his own, and was running the lines down to where his father and his cronies were standing around the one lantern like a bunch of old witches with their favorite bubbling cauldron.  Atkins brought the remaining lines down the hillside, no longer feeling the cold as much. 

“You want the honors, Sheriff?”

Atkins glanced around at the men, surprised by the rare show of respect.  Nobody in Red Earth had offered him honors before.

“Let your boy do it, Leg.  He was the one that near broke his neck climbing up to the higher tunnel.”

Leg Jameson nodded and stroked his beard. 

“Go ahead, Henry.  Touch ’em off.”

The mute took up the lantern and put its flame to the fuse wires.  With each wire sparked, a new line of hissing red was born, its color and beauty made all the more spectacular by the near dark.  The horses whinnied and toed the ground, not liking the hissing, and the men grabbed their halters, stilling their whipping heads.

“Hard to believe all this,” Atkins said, watching the wires burn.  “Today, I got up and ate my breakfast like it was any other day.”

Leg cleared his throat and spat on the ground. 

“That’s how the bad ones start.  Same as the good ones.”

The hissing of the wires grew fainter.  Atkins glanced at Leg to see if the old miner was worried by the quiet.

“You don’t think those wires—”

A terrific flash of white lit up the hillside, interrupting Atkins with a booming thunderclap.  Atkins covered his ears and ducked his head as a spattering of pebbles and dirt rained down upon his shoulders and his horse fidgeted beside him, wanting to bolt. 

A long second passed. 

Then another.

Another flash of light followed by its own thunderclap.  This time all the horses reared up, tearing at the sky with their hooves and forcing their handlers to wrangle them back into submission.

“That was a fun one,” Leg Jameson shouted above the ringing in everyone’s ears.  “Forgot about that charge you get.  It’s one thing to watch a blast, another to help set’er up yourself.”

Hastings and Nolan grunted in agreement.  Henry ran back to make certain the two adits were collapsed fully and returned, nodding yes.  Atkins patted the neck of his horse and looked back up the hillside.  “That mine is sealed tight as a bunged keg,” Leg said, following the sheriff’s gaze.  “Hank and the other men can rest easy and that damned creature can stay with them.” 

Atkins brought his horse around, put his foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle.  The leather creaked beneath his weight, gone rigid in the cold.  The other men mounted as well and they started riding for town as a group, picking their way slowly through the treacherous dark, each man absorbed in his own thoughts.  This was trouble for certain.  The kind Atkins’ father had warned him might come to a lawman’s door someday. 

They rounded the mountain and headed north across the valley floor.  The horses snorted and you could see the steam rise from their nostrils, lit white by the starlight.  The sky was black and the stars so plentiful it was like they were riding through them, not just beneath them.  Atkins tried to focus on the terrain, his mind still uneasy.  He felt he might be uneasy the rest of his life, no matter if he lived another seventy years, and he’d think of the discomfort as simply the price you paid for being allowed to go on living.

Atkins noticed a light on the hillside, near where the mine’s entrance had been.  “Whoa now,” he called out, both to the group of men and his own horse.  “Look up the hillside, fellas.”

The others drew up their horses and turned.  Sure enough, a smallish fire was flickering in the wind.

“I reckon that’s a lantern.”

Leg Jameson smacked his gums and mumbled something.

“What was that, Leg?”

“I said, my sight ain’t so good.  I guess I see something up there.”

“Right.  I suppose we should check it out.”

Atkins dug in his heels and his horse took a few stutter steps forward.  The other men hung back, however, looking at each other like nervous hens. 

“Well?”

“The rest of us are getting hungry and cold, Sheriff,” Leg Jameson said.  “We just want to go home and sit by the fire.”

“Sit by the fire?”

Leg nodded and looked to Hastings and Nolan for support. 

“We’re old men, Milo.  We’ve already had about as much as we can take out here.  Any more and our hearts might give out.”

Atkins waved the men off. 

“Fine, then.  Go on back.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.  We’ll buy you a round at the saloon.”

Atkins smirked at the other men and spurred his horse.  He sat hunched forward in the saddle as the horse picked her way up the hillside, eyes straining to see in the starlight.  It took him a moment to realize Mute Henry was riding beside him, a few feet off in the dark.

“Well,” Atkins called out.  “I’m glad to see there’s one Jameson who still has guts in his belly.”

Henry looked over and nodded.  Didn’t say anything, of course.

They reached the lantern and found the body a few yards beyond.  A woman, stretched out on her side, with her head lying against her arm as if she’d fallen asleep there.  They dismounted and approached the body slowly, scree tumbling down the hillside with each footstep. 

Atkins took up the lantern and held it over the dead woman, wincing from what his eyes told him.

“Lordy.  That’s Mrs. Chambers.” 

Henry nodded, the glassy whites of his eyes poking out from the coating of dirt on his face.  Atkins squatted to get a closer look at the dark ribbon across the dead woman’s neck.  “Her throat’s been ripped open,” he said, his voice soft with wonderment.  “Something with claws got at her.”

Henry took a step back from the corpse, kicking more scree loose.  Mrs. Chambers’ eyes were open to the night sky.

Atkins straightened above the corpse and wondered if he was going to vomit.  He turned his head to the side, prepared, but his queasy stomach held its peace—lunch had been a long time ago, and he’d missed dinner.  Violet would not be happy with him when he got home.

Henry snapped his fingers and pointed up the hillside.  Atkins followed the mute’s gesture and climbed a few yards further.

“What is it?  What’d you see?

Henry snapped his fingers again, still pointing, but Atkins had already found what was getting him so worked up.  A hole had appeared in the hillside, centered over the rubble covering the mine’s entrance. 

Atkins stood over the hole.  Something large had burrowed through the loose rock, something as big as a man.

“Shit.” 

A gust of air wafted up from the opening, but it didn’t smell like deep earth.  It smelled like smoke and char.

“He wasn’t headed for the adits.  He didn’t need to.”

Atkins and Henry turned toward the lights of Red Earth, which looked faint and small from the hillside.  Atkins set the lantern down and returned to the spot where he’d left his horse nibbling on a pile of uprooted brush.  “We need to get to town first, Henry.  Before he does.”

Mute Henry nodded and they rode out, kicking more scree loose as they galloped to the valley floor and toward the lights of town.  The earthly remains of Bonnie Chambers watched them depart from the hillside without comment, the emerging stars reflected in her eyes.  Around her, the hills had already returned to their endless, windblown calm.