by D. J. Butler
Hiram carried that same revolver now. He swallowed a few times, shook a drop of sweat from his nose, and finally made it to the other side.
And into a different world.
The air on this side smelled of pine, charnel house, and dust. Hiram hoped there wasn’t a human corpse in the camp.
Easels stood everywhere, a couple dozen at least, some with paper flapping against their clips and others bare. One had a rotting crow strapped to it, the wings spread wide and the bird’s skull showing through the rot. Another had mice nailed to the wood. Flies abounded, but not the fat flies Hiram had been seeing for the past two days.
On one canvas, Samuel had incorporated a dead cat in his painting and it dropped maggots across the drawing of the pink cliff faces. Scrawled indifferently across the canvas and the feline corpse alike was the name samuel, in red paint and confused letters.
Or was that samael?
Hiram couldn’t be sure.
Cow bones lay stacked in piles. A campfire smoked beneath a tripod and a boiling kettle, but Hiram smelled nothing that reminded him of food, and had no interest in seeing what might be cooking.
A neat tent, with square shoulders formed by freshly cut pine poles, stood a few paces from the cooking pit. The sun threw long shadows within and behind the canvas structure, and Hiram half expected something awful to rise out of those pockets of darkness.
He wrapped his wool coat tighter around him.
“Holy jeez, Pap. What’s this guy’s problem?” Michael had made it through the crack and stood next to him.
“He’s an artist, son. It’s why I don’t want you to play the guitar too much.”
“Real funny.”
It was a good joke, but Hiram’s stomach was twisted in knots.
“Samuel Kimball?” he called.
No answer.
“Keep your eyes peeled, son.” Hiram walked up to an easel with a complete painting, but this wasn’t of the landscape, though it had similar colors, pinks, creams, a little red of the sunset. Instead of a cliff face, it bore the image of a man, with a full beard and black dots for eyes. Hiram waited for a moment for those eyes to sprout wings and buzz off, then relaxed when they stayed put.
Hiram stepped closer to the painting. It reminded him of the daguerreotype he’d seen of Teancum Kimball. Below the man’s forest of a beard someone had pinned a letter in rough handwriting.
February 13, 1933.
Dear Samuel,
Enclosed is a stone. It’s a dear thing to me and it’s guided me through the more fertile parts of this wilderness. The stone assures me now that you will understand. I don’t suppose you’d come home. I’m making another deal of thirty years that might change things. It might not turn out right because it’s so easy to get lost down there. Either way, Ammon will need his people. God knows, few enough of us have survived.
You might not love me, but we’re family.
Family should stick together.
Love,
Your father.
P.S. Don’t talk to Eliza about this letter or the stone. She wouldn’t understand.
Michael read it alongside him. “Another thirty-year deal? And where’s he going to get lost…down in Helper?”
Hiram didn’t say a word. His intuition was itching and if he kept quiet, that itch might turn into answers.
“The mine,” Michael said. “Maybe you can get lost down there in the mine. Maybe it was a thirty-year deal about some new seam. Or he bought new equipment, modern drills or whatever. But, Pap, how can a stone guide anyone? Is this like Urim and Thummim stuff? Or the Leporello?”
What was the easy answer here, that neither opened Hiram to mockery nor led down to a conversation of Grandma Hettie’s occult lore? “Yes. Like the Urim and Thummim. And you’re thinking of the Liahona.”
“I’m pretty sure a Leporello is something. Anyway, a guy asking for information out of a rock is obviously nuts.”
Hiram shrugged, pondering the note. Another deal of thirty years? A guiding stone—well, that pretty definitively explained the rock on Ammon’s mantel, at least. It must be a seer stone. And apparently Teancum had seen in a vision in the seer stone itself that he should send it to Samuel. Had Samuel given the stone to Ammon because of a similar vision? Was it because of visions in the peep-stone that Samuel was convinced he must sink a new shaft to save the mine, and believed that Ammon had the same knowledge? Did Samuel have reason to think that Ammon had used the same peep-stone?
And who or what was giving the Kimballs visions through their seer stone? A benign power, as Teancum Kimball seemed to have thought? Or something more wicked, something such as the fallen angel Samael?
And Michael’s initial question remained. Was Teancum referring to the mine? Did he send his son the seer stone and then go down the mine, trying to make a deal but fearing he’d lose his way?
A whistle broke Hiram out of his reverie. He was far too far from the train tracks for the sound to be coming from a train. He shook his head.
Tripping down through the scree at the base of the ridge came a man with black hair and round glasses over his sunken eyes. Samuel Kimball.
Samuel was carrying an easel and a satchel hung off a shoulder. His palette was attached to the satchel by a piece of string and paint spackled his pants with every step.
He bounced into the camp and put his easel down. “You come to arrest me, sir?” His hands fluttered around his chest.
Samuel must be right around thirty. Hiram remembered someone telling him that Samuel’s mother had died giving birth. Did that have something to do with Teancum’s deal?
“My pap here is a farmer,” Michael said. “I’m his driver. And future scientist.”
“I remember you,” Samuel said. “Henry Furry?”
Michael laughed, coughed, and choked.
“Hiram Woolley. Are you out here painting for the WPA?”
“I am, sir. I am.” Samuel set up his easel, showing them his painting.
A shiver went through Hiram. It was a close cousin of the two he’d already seen, the same ridge, the pictographs, and the symbol that came together in the rough outline of the landscape. Hiram pivoted where he stood, examining the ridges surrounding the camp. None of them resembled the glyph he’d copied from Gus’s window at all, or Samuel’s painting. To be sure, Hiram slipped the scrap of paper from his pocket and compared.
Samuel was imposing the sign in Gus’s window on the landscape, over and over again in all his paintings.
Why?
The pictographs in this painting weren’t of men battling beasts, but of a cyclone tossing bodies in three directions: two men and a woman, with lines for a dress. Beneath the three lay an outline that looked like the head of a snake, or a lizard.
Samuel threw out his hands. “Sir, the air is alive, can you feel it? This is Apostate Canyon, the canyon of the great rebel. I have fallen away, and yet I am reborn. You, Indian brave, can you feel it? You must. Your kind were born in the heart of the desert.”
“Not my kind,” Michael said. “I grew up in a house by the lake.”
Samuel lurched forward. His glasses glowed in the light of the setting sun, and Hiram couldn’t see his eyes. He’d behaved oddly before, when he’d faced off with his brother at the mine entrance, but here, in his camp, he seemed stranger still.
Samuel’s fingers gripped Hiram’s arm. “You know. You’re a special one, I know it. And other…things…do, too. The spirits of the canyon, fallen away, to find freedom. They have a purpose for you. I have seen it!”
“In the stone?” Hiram gripped the painter’s shoulder.
Samuel ignored the question. He lifted Hiram’s hand and pressed his lips to it. “You’ve come to help me. You’ve come to show Brother Ammon the error of his ways. The mine is emptied out, cursed, and haunted. It is the valley of the shadow of death, and no man should tread there without fear. But I know where to find coal! The wise response to the current crisis is to dig a new shaft. I’ve seen what Kim
ball Canyon can become, what we can all become. Please, Mr. Furry, please.”
Samuel seemed to be echoing what Gus had said about fallen angels, and gave the impression that he was being fed his information through the seer stone. If Gus was right and the Kimballs were under Mahoun’s influence, did that mean the demon was speaking to them through the stone?
As gingerly as he could, Hiram extricated his paw from the young Kimball’s grip.
Michael looked coiled, ready to spring.
“Samuel, how do you know you’re right?” Hiram asked. “Is your father’s stone guiding you?”
The painter stepped back and hissed. “You’ve heard about the haunted mine tunnels. If you’ve talked to Sorenson, you have. But he doesn’t believe. Dimitrios, Stavros, they understand.”
Another shiver slid a cold finger down Hiram’s spine. “I don’t have a side in this. I just want the men in the mine to make some money, get out of debt, and get their families food. Greeks and Germans and all the rest. Maybe you, Ammon, and Eliza can all sit down, and I can be there, to help you all hash things out.”
Samuel reached into his pocket and got out a cigarette. In his pocket, he found a match, which he lit with the flick of his thumb. He sucked in the smoke. “Maybe you don’t understand, Hiram. I thought you might. But you don’t.”
“You were close to your sister, weren’t you?” Hiram asked.
The smell of the cigarette hit Hiram; whatever Samuel Kimball was smoking, it wasn’t tobacco.
Samuel relaxed, sucking some from his cigarette. “Eliza loved my mother, begged her to escape with her, during the riots. She never had much use for me. I killed my mother.”
Michael stood a few steps back, arms crossed over his chest and eyes wide.
“You didn’t kill your mother, Samuel,” Hiram said. “She died in childbirth. It happens a lot.”
Elmina hadn’t even made it that far.
Samuel blew out smoke. “It only had to happen to me once. My sister, half-sister really, took me in. I was grateful for it, but she was never warm to me.”
“I bet if you talked to Dimitrios and the other Greeks,” Hiram said slowly, “you could convince them the mine is still viable. Or at least, that you should finish mining the last of the coal in the eastern seam before dropping a new shaft. And then they could get back to work, get paid. We could bring in a priest, maybe, to put the men’s minds at ease. There’s a Catholic church in Helper. St. Anthony’s, I think.”
“You should leave, sir. The road back is rough. I’ve disappointed you, Mr. Furry, I feel sorry for that. I can’t capitulate. Ammon will have to bend to the will of heaven. And Eliza will be irrelevant once Ammon sees the truth.”
Hiram sighed, regretting that he had ever agreed to help Naaman Rettig. “The railroad has made an offer to buy the mine. You wouldn’t be interested in a deal like that?”
Samuel stubbed out his cigarette and tucked it back into his pocket. “The D and RGW will never have our land. Not while a single Kimball is alive. We are sacred guardians.”
Hiram glanced at the pictographs on the painting and that cyclone, killing what had to be Ammon, Samuel, and Eliza. To defend the lizard’s head? Not while a single Kimball is alive.
Though if they all died, Naaman Rettig might get his deal.
Or would another Kimball relative appear to be guided by the stone on the mantel? Teancum had had four wives, that Hiram knew about. Apparently, many of the children had died young, while the wives themselves had fled. Could there be further living half-siblings? Or cousins?
But Hiram had a more pressing question. “Your name, Samuel. Have you ever seen it…with a different spelling?”
“Sam,” Samuel said instantly. “S-A-M. Also S-A-M-M-Y. But that are kids’ names, and I’m a man.”
“Never S-A-M-A-E-L?”
Samuel looked at Hiram with big eyes, then started to laugh. He held his belly and kept laughing, laughed so hard he fell to the ground. And still didn’t stop laughing.
Hiram left without ceremony. He and Michael returned to the truck; with Michael driving, they headed back over the ridge. The boy was quiet, and didn’t seem to enjoy the tricky driving nearly as much as he had on the way in. Night fell while they were still atop the ridge; they had to slow to a crawl.
When they started down the other side of the mountain, Michael finally broke the silence. “He’s crackers. Full-on Saltines, or what are those new ones you like, the ones that taste like butter?”
“Ritz.”
“He’s Ritz crackers. And he’s convinced the Greeks that his crackers taste good. Like salty butter. And magic rocks? Please.”
Hiram took a deep breath. “Maybe you’re right.” But what had caused Samuel to lose his mind? Or what was causing his madness now?
Rattling along the narrow crest of the ridge, the truck sputtered and died. Hiram guessed they were half a mile from their camp of the previous night.
Michael tried the starter again and the truck sat dead.
Damn Gus Dollar. While Hiram had been foolish enough to make amends, Gus had done something to the car again.
But making amends didn’t make Hiram a fool. He’d gone in, as a Christian, turning the other cheek. And it was only because he was Christian that he had any power. And Gus had been forthright, hadn’t he? And Samuel had seemed to corroborate Gus’s words.
Hiram and Michael climbed out of the Double-A and into the cold. “Anyway,” Hiram said, “I hope you’ve learned something about the dangers of art.”
“You already told that joke, Pap. We might be sleeping in the truck tonight, you know. There’s nothing but rocks around us. Besides, shouldn’t you be lecturing me about the dangers of giggle-smokes?”
“No,” Hiram said. “You’re not that stupid.” The warm car felt good against the chill.
Michael opened the hood while Hiram went for the kerosene lantern and the crank.
He had only taken two steps when he heard a high-pitched staccato laughter.
Chapter Twenty
“Get in the truck, son.” Hiram crept to the back of the Double-A, the revolver heavy in his hand. They’d broken down on a shelf of rock, out in the open. The moonless night sky wouldn’t help, but at least it was clear.
More laughter and then a howl, but Hiram wasn’t sleepy this time; he was awake and ready for them. His hand was steady and his weapon loaded.
Michael got into the truck and tried the starter again. Nothing happened.
A gunshot rang out and the whine of a ricochet rang across the top of the ridge.
More of the shrill laughter, like a cougar or a woman screaming.
Hiram wiped sweat from his brow and took deep breaths. His nose caught a strong mélange of scents drifting across the high ridge. No garlic or mustard, but there was the juniper, and the faint musk of desert animals, the oil and gasoline smell of the Double-A, and that same fruity smell he’d smelled the night before.
A Christmas sort of smell, like oranges and spice. It had the underlying alcoholic smell of a perfume or cologne, and then Hiram realized where he’d first smelled that scent.
The Greek miner, Dimitrios, had worn it.
At the mine entrance, the first time Hiram had entered Kimball.
Rettig had made a comment about knowing what went on in the camp. Was Dimitrios his spy? Or could the Greek be following Samuel’s orders here?
He didn’t think Rettig and Samuel could be allies—Samuel seemed too unstable to be in league with anyone.
“Get down and stay down,” he whispered to Michael.
The boy obeyed. Hiram crouched behind the truck’s body.
Touching his chi-rho amulet, he chanted a prayer he’d learned from Grandma Hettie. The original was in German, one of the long list of prayers she had memorized as a girl out of a book by some Pennsylvania fellow named Hohman, but Hiram knew no German, so he’d gone ahead and learned the English version.
“I conjure thee, bullet or blade, whatever is injurious or
destructive to me, by every prayer of the priest, and by him who brought Jesus into the temple and said, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul, that thou suffer not me, a child of God, to suffer. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, Lord Divine.”
At each mention of the Lord’s name, and again at Lord Divine, Hiram crossed himself. Hopefully, he’d repented sufficiently of his wrongs against Gus Dollar that the prayer would be effective.
Then he waited.
A minute later, he saw four figures coming up the rocks. In the starlight, Hiram couldn’t make out their faces.
The first of the figures, a short man who seemed to be all torso, reached the hood and went around to the driver’s door, on the same side where Hiram squatted.
“Hey!” Michael yelled.
The door squeaked open, and Hiram attacked. Grabbing Shorty’s throat, he smashed the fellow’s head into the side of the truck. He crumpled, muttering something to himself about biscuits.
The next fellow came at Hiram, and he was enormous. Something in the shape of his head was familiar; it was narrower than it should be. Hiram pistol-whipped his attacker in the face and heard bone crunch. Big Man dropped, and Hiram hoped he hadn’t killed him.
Hiram had taken two down, good work, but not good enough. And where were the others?
The third attacker appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Hiram and throwing him up against the truck. He had the stink of sweat on him. He clocked Hiram, a good blow to the nose, and Hiram felt his blood gush down his lips.
And then he felt a pistol in his gut. “Gotcha, pal,” Sweaty grunted.
Hiram pushed back, and Sweaty slammed him against the truck again.
Sweaty’s gun made a loud clack. That metallic noise was the sound of the semiautomatic pistol’s action jamming.
Grandma Hettie’s charm had worked.
Hiram threw a knee up and caught Sweaty in his nethers. It was a cheap move, but better than blowing the man’s head off. Sweaty sagged to the ground like a split flour sack.
Hiram spun and raised his revolver at the fourth man, who had to be Dimitrios. The miner stood in his cloud of cologne, hands raised. He was dressed in black and his face was darkened.