And the Hills Opened Up (2 page)

2

Father Lynch sat in the narrow front room of his empty church, smoking his pipe and wondering if it was too early yet for the day’s first sip.  Like Bonnie Chambers, his sleep had been troubled, though his nightmares had been more of a muddled sort, various scenes that blurred together into one long, hellish roll of imagery he could vaguely remember.  Something involving a scuttling, many-limbed creature, perhaps, and the unpleasant smell of sulfur. 

A gaunt man of sixty-two years, Father Lynch cut his hair with a straight razor and shaved every morning.  He kept the wooly, silver hairs upon his head cropped short, hoping to set an example of comeliness for the camp’s miners—filthy, work-trodden beasts that they were.  Lynch preached that cleanliness was next to godliness, yet still they came to service each week with bits of soil hanging from their unkempt beards and peppering their greasy hair, their breath reeking of whiskey and beer while they wiped their oily palms upon their mud-stained trousers.

Well, at least they came, and were generous enough when the offertory basket was passed, providing funds to keep the church running and his belly full.  Lynch had been forced to leave Cheyenne the year before due to a lack of interest and support, his small Catholic church overwhelmed by the various religious tendrils already in place.  That and his failure to lure enough cattle barons to his services—they did not like his bare bones view of the Bible and its teachings.  They wanted to believe that a rich man could easily get into heaven, the greedy sods, and wanted none of the unpleasantness a true spiritual scouring brought upon the seeking believer.  Indulgence, they cried.  Let us atone for our sins through coin—we have not the time for good deeds and a quiet hour of prayer now and again.  We’re men of business and must tend to that, Father, lest our earthly kingdoms fall apart.

Good Lord, the shit ran deep in Cheyenne, and the waste their beloved bovines excreted was the least of it.

Father Lynch stood up and stretched, looking at the bottle of gin corked beside his bed.  The sun was high enough—it must have been two o’clock by now, and two was closing in on four, and four was nearly dinnertime….

A knocking brought Lynch out of his reverie.  Someone was at the church’s back door, pounding away.  “Yes, yes, I’m coming,” the priest called out, setting aside his pipe.  He ran a hand across his hair and glanced around his bedroom, which contained a small writing desk, a chair, a cot, a potbellied stove, and two shelves stocked with food.  A small space, indeed, yet it contained everything Father Lynch needed to live as he administered to the camp’s souls.     

The priest opened his bedroom door and entered the church proper.  The entire building had been built with volunteer help the summer before, from chopping down the pine trees in the surrounding hills to shaving them into planks to plugging it all together.  Dozens of miners, many of whom hadn’t crossed the church’s threshold since, had shown up on their Sunday off to aid in the church’s construction, working with a quiet ferocity Father Lynch had found surprising.  They might not have all believed in God, but the men of Red Earth definitely believed in having a church in town.  Perhaps they thought having a church would make the town appear softer to women-folk, more welcoming, or maybe they’d donated their time and sweat in hope of banking the universe’s goodwill.  Lord knew they could use it—they hadn’t had a major accident in the mine yet, but when you spent your days with so much rock above you, even sturdy copper-ore, it got you to thinking about what may come next.

Father Lynch made his way down the sanctuary’s center aisle.  A dozen wooden benches made up the sanctuary’s seating, each one as roughly crafted as the church itself, and on Easter and Christmas there was plenty of standing room behind them.  Four windows, two on the east side and two on the west, let in enough light to see by. 

Lynch opened the back door, which was heavy and wide.  Four women stood outside on the back porch clad in lacy, tight-fitting dresses the pushed the swell of their breasts forward, as if their bosoms had been placed upon a shelf.  Lynch averted his eyes from the swelling, trying to keep his gaze above their chins.  The afternoon sunlight was dazzling after the dim interior of the church and made the exposed, pale skin of each woman seem to glow doubly.

“Good afternoon, ladies.  Is it Saturday already?”

“Afternoon, Father,” the oldest, Madam Petrov, replied.  A stout, fifty-year-old Russian with broad shoulders, she was as devoutly Russian Orthodox as she was adept at minding her girls.  She never missed a Sunday service, despite the difference between her faith and his. 

“Yes, here is Saturday again.”

Father Lynch smiled and rubbed his hands.

“Excellent.  Who would like to go first?”

The younger women looked to each other, then the madam.  Madam Petrov sighed and clucked her tongue.

“Can you not even decide something as small as this by yourselves?”

“We could start with you, Madam—”

“No, I go last.  It feels good to be away from the saloon and stand here in the sunshine.  Did you hear the blasting, Father?”

“Yes, I heard some rumblings.  Are they opening a new section today?”

“Who cares?  What they are going to do is blow us all to pieces.  It is not enough for them to hack underground like madmen, sniffing and hunting for their precious copper.  They must destroy the mountains as well.”

Father Lynch smiled and folded his hands at his waist. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, Mrs. Petrov.  Mr. Chambers wouldn’t do anything foolish to endanger his men or the town.”

Mrs. Petrov snorted.  “You must make joke, Father.  Miners will do anything for extra coin in their pocket.  Even intelligent man like Mr. Chambers has itch for coin—it’s as strong as his men itching for my little sparrows here.  He will blast and blast if he thinks it will bring company more money.”

Father Lynch shook his head. 

“You do have a way with words, Madam.”

“Thank you.  I study—”

“I’ll go,” one of the young women said, stepping forward.  “I’ll go first.”

Madam Petrov paused, then closed her mouth. 

“Fine, now you speak up, Ingrid.  Right when we are talking of superior matters.”

“My apologies, Madam—”

“Go on.  Do not keep the good Father waiting any longer.”

Ingrid frowned, as if this invitation was a trap she must skirt.  Father Lynch stepped back into the church, inviting her inside with a theatrical sweep of his arm. 

“Please, Ingrid.  Come in.” 

The young woman stepped inside.  Father Lynch nodded to Madam Petrov and the other two girls and shut the door. 

“Please, have a seat.”

The prostitute sat on the nearest bench, facing the front of the church.  Father Lynch sat down as well, keeping a foot of space between them.  Ingrid was in her late twenties, with curls of blond hair spilling out from beneath her hat and a full figure that drew your attention from her pinched face, which looked perpetually tired, the eyebrows drawn in dazed perplexity above her blue eyes.  She was originally from Minnesota, Lynch recalled.  She’d run off with a young man at fifteen who’d brought her as far as the Black Hills before dying from cholera, leaving her without an income or trade, in permanent exile from her own family and home.

Ingrid’s story was more or less similar to the tales he’d heard during Saturday confession over the past year, when he opened the church’s doors to Madam Petrov’s girls so they wouldn’t disturb his male parishioners with their presence.  The church had no confessional, so Father Lynch preferred to sit like this instead, side by side, facing the large wooden cross nailed above the altar.  He felt no need for the penitent to kneel during these conversations—he’d leave such grand gestures to the priests in bigger cities, to those who craved power over their flock any way they could get it.  In a scrabbling town like Red Earth, he was glad to have any penitents at all.

Ingrid bowed her head and clasped her hands.  She’d taken out a rosary from the pocket of her dress and held it clenched between her hands.  She crossed herself, and took a deep breath.

“Forgive me, Father, for I sinned…”

Father Lynch tucked his chin against his chest, half-listening as Ingrid got into it.  These Saturday confessions seemed nearly identical to each other, the usual listing of petty sins and grievances that occur in a brothel—the ivory combs stolen, the men cheated out of their pay, the strange sexual perversions yielded to for money or the lust for perversion itself.  The sudden tears that emerged when speaking of an aborted child or a child given up in the distant past.  And, within these stories, ample evidence of the bad luck and bad decisions that had brought these women to Red Earth in the first place.

He could sample the favors of any of these women, Lynch knew.  It would only take a few coins to convince them to follow him to the back room and his little cot.  He’d known the favors of women before joining the church—he could still remember the softness of their touch, the pliable flesh of their breasts and the rich smell between their legs.  These women—these bodies—from thirty years ago still haunted Lynch in the night, hovering above his thoughts like lewd, enticing angels.  He’d told no one of these encounters when he’d entered the priesthood, fearing they’d cast him out before he could formally enter, and he’d carried them in his heart ever since, not as a burden, exactly, but as memories both cherished and disquieting.

Ingrid paused, taking a deep breath.  He’d said the necessary words, when she’d needed to hear them, and the stream of her confession was flowing toward its end.  Father Lynch avoided looking at the young woman while she spoke, keeping his eyes fixed on the cross ahead.  He could see her pale bosom in the corner of his eye, rising and falling as she spoke.  She smelled sweetly of that perfume they all wore, the cheap rosewater from the general store.  It covered the musked smell of her natural body odor, though not completely.  He could imagine the feel of his body, pressing so gently down upon hers….

The church was silent.  Ingrid had finished her confession and was waiting for his reply.  Father Lynch frowned, as if deep in thought, and charged her with a penance of fifty Hail Mary’s before giving her absolution. 

“Amen,” Ingrid said, nodding.

“Your sins are truly forgiven.  Go in peace, child.”

“Thanks be to God.”

Ingrid rose and started for the back door, her scent lingering in the pew.  Father Lynch remained seated, his eyes fixed on the cross.  He already felt worn and tired, the July heat filling the church with humidity similar to the hot, panting breath of a dog.  He heard the door open behind him and sunlight swept into the church.  Floorboards creaked as the next penitent entered, seeking absolution of her own.

3

Sherriff Milo Atkins circled the town’s perimeter slowly, not wanting to go round too fast.  Twenty minutes was all it took to walk Red Earth and he didn’t want to eat up the ground before he’d cooled off some. 

It was that damn Hank Chambers who’d gotten his blood boiling.  Mr. Fancy Words Mining Foreman, Mr. The Dennison Mining Company is All-Powerful and Rules Above Us All.  Sure, old man Dennison paid the bills around here, including Atkins’ own salary, but that didn’t mean you could blast away without giving the town some kind of warning, even five minutes notice, so you weren’t snoozing at your desk when it happened, a loud enough bang that you woke up and tipped back in your chair, much to the goddamned amusement of anybody who happened to be in the general store.  Haw-haw-haw. 

It was probably Atkins’ age that made Chambers forget about him like that, like a town sheriff was nothing but an itty bitty old fly fit for the swatting.  Atkins’ pa, who’d been a lawman for thirty years himself, in Wichita, Kansas, had warned it would be like this for the first few years—in half-wild towns like Red Earth grown men didn’t cotton to twenty-five-year-old sheriffs, all bright-eyed and damp behind the ears.  Didn’t matter how good you were at the job, or how well you handled a gun.  Men who’d lived long enough with the wilderness at their heels weren’t keen on much authority at all, much less a man wearing tin long before he’d turned thirty.  

But you had to start somewhere.  Atkins had brought his wife and boy out here promising the next town would be located somewhere properly civilized, with an actual railroad running through it.  If putting up with some ignorant jawing would keep them all warm and fed, and give him some experience to boot, he’d just have to do it, no matter how it galled.

Atkins was walking behind the two boarding houses when some rocks broke loose and rolled down from the hills beyond, kicking up dust as they tumbled down to the valley floor, harming nothing.  Atkins followed the trail of dust up the hillside with his eye and found an old mountain goat looking right back at him, horns and all. 

“What you doing up there?  You bent on disturbing the peace?”

The goat chewed whatever the hell he was chewing.  Atkins unbuttoned his holster and pulled out his revolver, lining its sight up with the goat’s face.  The goat made no move to flee—he just stared back at Atkins, mute and as dumb as the rocks he’d kicked.  It’d be a tricky shot, but Atkins reckoned he could hit it right between the eyes if he’d wanted, since he’d been practicing with a revolver for as long as he could hold onto one.  He’d wanted to be a cowboy as a youngster, like Billy the Kid, or Wild Bill Hickok, not knowing that the Wild West was already long over and that it hadn’t really been such a grand shootout to begin with.  Even Wyoming was getting settled now as the ranchers put up their fences and the oil and coal outfits hawked in, everybody looking to get rich.

Atkins sighed and lowered the gun. 

“Go on.  Git!”

The mountain goat lowered its horned head and sniffed the ground.  It nibbled something green. 

“On your own schedule, is that it?”

The goat ignored him and kept nibbling.  Atkins took aim and fired a shot about a foot’s distance from the beast’s nose.  The shot echoed loudly off the hills and kicked up a puff of dust, causing the goat to buck and scramble upward, fast and nimble.  Atkins holstered his revolver as its fluffy white backside grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing into a clump of pines. 

“That’s more like it,” Atkins said, hitching up his belt.  “That’s how you show some goddamn respect.”

Atkins circled around the boarding houses and started back up Main Street, which was nothing but cracked earth beneath the July sun, so dried out it was painful to look at, with Revis Cooke’s house the only proper building lining it in either direction.  Set on the east side of the street, south of the church and the Copper Hotel, the Cooke House was two stories tall, with limestone walls built to hold up against anything from a winter’s storm to an angry mob.  The front door, which had been shipped out from San Francisco, was made out of solid iron and had a narrow viewing slot for security purposes.  And, for every narrow window of the place, you could pull a cord from inside and a steel shutter would drop over it, like scales covering a dragon’s hide.

Cooke paid the miners once a month, throwing open the door to his little fortress and dolling out the Dennison payroll from his desk on the first floor, scribbling names and figures into his notebook while the miners stood waiting in line, dirty hats in hand.  The payroll line ran out the front door and far down the street, the men outside loud and jovial, reckoning aloud how they’d spend their pay, while the men inside kept as quiet as church mice, their eyes focused on the stack of coins piled at Cooke’s elbow. 

Part of Atkins’ job was to watch over payday, which meant he needed to stand behind Cooke the whole time, arms crossed and gun strapped to his hip.  Occasionally, one of the men would get a wild hair up his arse to make a run for that pile of coins, or to try and threaten Mr. Cooke when his payout didn’t meet his expectations or need—Atkins escorted these gentlemen outside the house with a firm hand and, according to how riled up they’d gotten, either sent them on their way, whooped them with the butt of his pistol, or escorted them to the edge of town and told them to get the hell out while they still could.  So far, in a year and a half’s service, he’d had to whoop three unrulies and banished two violent, wild-eyed drunks.

Ah, the life of a small town lawman.  Almost as fancy as being the President of the United States, or the King of England.

Atkins passed a prospector on the street and touched the brim of his hat in greeting.  The prospector, who smelled like whiskey through every pore, grunted and nodded back, a pickaxe resting easily on his shoulder, as if he’d forgotten it there.  The prospectors had only come to town in the past year, trickling in one by one, and they kept mostly to themselves, bunking in the Copper Hotel during the summer and heading home when winter came on, wherever home was.  They were all looking for a new copper seam they could turn and sell to the Dennison Mining Company, not guessing or believing Dennison had already sounded out this hunk of the Sierra Madres.

One of the men squatting in front of the general store, an old man named Butch Hastings, waved to Atkins from across the street.  The sheriff gritted his teeth and pretended not to see the flagging, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead.  He’d already spun enough bull with the loafers for one day—talking with bored souls was one of the hazards of Atkin’s job, since his desk was just inside the store and prone to all manner of disruption from their kind.  They’d talk to anyone, about anything, until their listener’s ears fell off, and even that might not serve to halt their yammering. 

Atkins decided to keep on walking and check in at home.  He’d taken his lunch there only three hours pervious but you never knew what fires might need putting out.  Last spring their boy, Billy, had brought in a jar of red ants and set them loose to see what would happen (what happened was they bit the hell out of everybody, especially the dog, until Atkins had killed them all with a mixture of honey and arsenic, including the dog, who’d stupidly followed the ants’ lead).  Every day was something new with that boy, some fresh trial he liked to set upon his poor mother, and more often than not Atkins was reminded of his own father years ago, shouting himself hoarse.

Their cabin was on the far north of town with nothing but mountains behind it.  Last in a row of cabins, you had to walk past everything else in town to get there.  Atkins preferred some distance from the center of town, where he often had to break something up, or talk somebody down.  Miners in general didn’t often carry guns but they did carry knives, one and all, and they liked to use them on each other when they got riled.  Atkins had seen men lose ears, fingers, and entire chunks of cheek before he could so much as draw his gun—why would any sane man with a family want to live next door to that?

Their door was propped open with a rock.  Atkins went inside and removed his hat, hanging it on a nail peg beside the doorway.  Violet was sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace, her knitting on her lap.  She smiled dreamily at him and tilted her head.

“You look like an angel, Milo, standing there with the sunlight behind you.”

“I do?”

“Sure do.  You stop by to take me up to Heaven?”

“I hope not,” Atkins said, leaning down and kissing his wife on the cheek.  “I’d hate to get there and find out I’m not allowed.”

Violet laughed softly, rocking in her chair.  She had hazel eyes and fine brown hair that hung to the middle of her back, which she braided on Christmas, Easter, and his birthday.

Atkins glanced around the room.

“He in the bedroom or behind the cabin?”

“Behind.”

“Playing with those dolls of his, I reckon.”

Violet closed her eyes and sighed.  “They’re not dolls, Milo.  I told you.  They’re his stickmen.  He has wars and all kinds of things like that with them.”

“Fine.  I’ll go visit the general and let you get back to it.”

Atkins kissed his wife on the forehead and started back toward the door.

“Milo?”

Atkins turned, looping a thumb into his gun belt.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Was there any special reason you stopped by like this, mid-day?”

“No, nothing special.”

“Those old men at the general aren’t getting under your collar, are they?  Teasing and the like?”

“Oh, only the usual.  Nothing too bad.”

“Still, I don’t see why Mr. Cooke makes you keep your office at the general.  Seems like he’d have plenty of room for you in his house.”

Atkins shrugged.

“I don’t know if that’d be much better, Vi.  You know how Cooke is.  So particular and the like.  You can’t sneeze without him scowling at you and grumbling beneath his breath.”

“I suppose.  I don’t know him like you do.”

“No,” Atkins said, grabbing his hat as he headed out the door.  “You sure don’t.”

As foretold, young William Atkins was playing behind the cabin, his back turned to the world.  He was hunched over several piles of sticks, each bundled together with a strip of old burlap.  Violet and Billy had made the stickmen together, right before Christmas, and ever since they’d been Billy’s inseparable companions, getting dragged along wherever the seven-year-old went, from the public outhouse to church on Sundays to his bed.   

The sheriff leaned against his cabin, watching his son play.  He counted seven stickmen, all of them a-smashing into each other while his son made crashing noises with his mouth.  Either the game or the sun had brought out the blood in the boy’s soft, downy cheeks, giving him a flushed look that reminded Atkins of what his wife had said about him looking like an angel. 

“Hey there, Billy.”

“Hi, Pa.”

His son continued playing without turning to look back.  Atkins stepped forward and squatted beside him, pinching a blade of grass between his fingers and setting it in his mouth.

“What game you playing there?”

“One against all,” Billy said, glancing up.  “It’s when one stickman fights everybody else.”

Atkins chewed the grass and squinted up into the hills.

“That doesn’t sound too fair.  One against six.”

“No, it’s fair,” Billy said, solemnly nodding.  “The one stickman is really strong, stronger than all the others.  He’s winning.”

Atkins rose from his heels and straightened up. 

“That sounds all right, then.  You keep on playing that.”

“Yes, sir.  I will.”

Atkins spat out the blade of grass.  Billy looked up from his stickmen, frowning with a thought.

“Pa, it’s not dinnertime already?”

Atkins tousled the boy’s hair, which was dark and fine, like his mother’s.

“No, sonny.  It’s not.”

Billy grinned, so wide and happy Atkins had to look away.  The stickmen resumed their crashing and you could hear the old straw in them, so dry and cracking you expected a brushfire any moment, rising all around.