by D. J. Butler
The answer had been: all the Kimballs.
He shouted at the Kimballs. “Ammon! Samuel! Eliza! You have to forgive each other! Forgive each other, or this won’t work!”
They stared at him.
The Beast leaped over the dying flames and galloped up the chasm, its grey misshapen form shrouded in the buzz of countless flies. Hiram stopped and laid down one last line of gasoline. Twenty-five feet above, the others were yelling the Latin words, but Hiram feared the words were useless.
“You must forgive each other!” he shouted.
He knelt to put fire to the gasoline.
The Zippo slipped from his fingers.
Medea watched the lighter click against the stone. She cursed in Greek and leaped down the chasm to the face the Beast once more.
Hiram fumbled for the lighter. It had slipped down into a crack, and he had to stretch to get his hand down there. Something cold and dry touched his fingers and retreated, and he imagined horrible things that might eat his hand or inject him with venom.
But he grabbed the lighter.
“Medea! Come back!” He crouched again over the line of gasoline, ready to light it when the Greek woman rejoined him.
Medea struck at the Beast, and Hiram saw that she was doing no real damage. Its skin was uncut and its movements were unslowed. Then Medea turned to race up the crack, and the Beast grabbed her by the ankle.
Hiram raised his arm to the square once more and shouted the Name. Before he could shout it again, the monster swung Medea through the air, splattering her skull into fragments in a single blow against the stone wall.
Hiram felt faint. The Beast seemed to fade away into the distance and then pulse closer into his view again, and Hiram sucked in cool air, battling to stay conscious. A faint smell struck his senses, spicy and sweet.
“Pap!”
The Beast was racing toward him.
Medea had followed her daughter into death, there was nothing Hiram could do for her. But Medea’s other children still lived, as did her husband, and so did Hiram’s son. He lit the gasoline.
The Beast threw itself into the flames this time, but they drove it back. It wasn’t the heat at work—a man could have jumped through the flames—it was the light and sacred power in the fire itself. It was the power of Gabriel.
Hiram hurled the gas can at the Beast. Flames licked around the open stubby neck of the can as it bounced off the creature’s shoulder, and then Hiram shouted the Name again.
The Beast shrank and hissed, but then roared at Hiram. A column of flies shot from its open maw, slamming into the flames. Thousands of charred flies fell dead onto the stones and the fire burned on, keeping the thing trapped.
That conflagration wouldn’t last much longer.
Shouldn’t the Name be hurting the Beast more?
Was Hiram not worthy?
“Mary!” he shouted. “Get Michael to the surface, warn the miners! Eliza, Ammon, Samuel, I need you to stay. We can stop it.”
Mary looked pale, but she nodded and they ran. Michael took the flashlight with him, leaving the flames the only light in the chasm.
Hiram scurried up to where the three Kimballs stood, trembling and staring, on a flat boulder the size of a double bed. He grabbed Eliza and shook her, shocking alertness back into her eyes.
“Eliza!” he shouted. “Samuel! Ammon! No heart is completely pure, but your hearts have been corrupted by that thing. It gave you all false visions, like it gave your father. If we are to have any chance at all, you must forgive each other now!”
Ammon broke first. “I’m sorry, Samuel,” he said. “I’m sorry, Eliza.” Then he dropped to his knees. “I didn’t know the power I was serving, but in my heart, I knew I was wronging you. I forgive you, and I ask you to forgive me.”
Standing above the man, Hiram noticed that he had no visible boils.
The Beast bellowed, and is if in response, Eliza threw herself on her brother’s neck in an embrace. “I’m sorry I judged you! I’m sorry I gave into curiosity and looked into the stone! I’m sorry I tied you up and brought you down here! It wasn’t me, but also it was! I’m sorry! I forgive you! Forgive me, Ammon!”
Samuel stood, a glazed look on his face.
Hiram could guess what might be causing the youngest Kimball’s daze. “Samuel, are you on reefer right now?”
Samuel shook his head, but the motion was a shocked one. Hiram had seen it before, on the fields of France.
He took Samuel’s hand and wrapped an arm around the younger man’s shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you. But your sister and brother are kneeling. Let’s kneel together.”
Woodenly, Samuel fell to his knees. “You were never really my brother and sister,” he began.
“Please, Samuel,” Hiram begged. “Forgive them.”
The light disappeared as the gasoline burned itself out. They were plunged into unforgiving darkness.
Hiram heard a roar and the scratching, thudding sound of the Beast resuming its climb up the crack.
“Please,” he said.
“I forgive you,” Samuel said. The words were simple, but they sounded sincere.
“Now one more time. Say the Latin words with me, and believe that we will be fine. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.”
A roar so close, the Beast might have been standing on Hiram’s shoulder.
The stones beneath his feet shifted abruptly and began to give way.
Hiram took in a startled breath and heard the others do the same. “This way!” He grabbed in the darkness and found a hand—he wasn’t sure whose. Placing his other hand against the wall, he groped his way up in stygian blackness. The stones beneath his feet shifted and trembled. “And keep chanting. Shout! In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti!”
Their pronunciations were no better than Hiram’s, and Hiram was pretty sure that his was terrible.
“Is that a light?” Eliza asked.
It was. It was a flock of lights, rushing toward them from the mine. They ran forward to meet the lights, still chanting.
“In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti!”
The earth shook. The Beast roared. It sounded in the darkness as if it were only inches from Hiram’s face.
At the boarded entrance into the mine, Hiram stopped to look. The others scrambled past him and into the arms of the miners. Behind and below the Beast, Hiram saw sudden flame and heard the deafening crack of an explosion in a confined space. Had one of the carbine lamps abandoned below ignited some subterranean gas? Or was the lead lamen simply doing its work?
A shadow lunged up to block his view of the flame, roaring and whistling.
Then the Beast’s bellowing was whipped away and buried in a cacophony of crashing stone. The boards were sucked into the cave and the ground beneath Hiram’s feet shook. Finally, a chunk of stone larger than the Double-A crashed into place, sealing off the natural cave.
When Hiram could see, he saw the dirty faces of the miners of the Kimball Mine. He found he was whistling, and when he recognized the tune, he laughed out loud in shock and relief.
It was “Joshua Fit the Battle.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hiram emerged from the earth with Michael, Mary, and the Kimballs, escorted by a brigade of miners.
They were met by blinding lights. The wind had stopped. Dust from the cave-in danced in shifting whorls with slow, fat snowflakes that seemed almost warm, and as Hiram stepped into the light, he heard a cheer.
The light came from headlights—three cars, at least.
A hand gripped Hiram’s shoulder from behind, and Hiram heard a man’s voice he didn’t know. “Hiram and Michael Woolley, you’re under arrest for the murders of Vilhelm and Eva Sorenson.”
“Sergeant Dixon?” Hiram asked, but the voice didn’t sound right.
“My name’s Jefferson. Deputy Sheriff of Carbon County. I’m taking you to Price.”
Hiram nodded.
“What are you talking about?�
� Michael snapped. “We had no reason to kill those people!”
Ammon coughed deeply, a painful sound just to hear, and spat a black wad into the snow. “It wasn’t them, Deputy. The night of the murder, both Hiram and his son were at my house. I was showing them an old stone of my father’s. It couldn’t have been them.”
“I spent all day yesterday with you.” The deputy sounded irritated to the point of anger. “You couldn’t mention this earlier?”
Tears cleared the dust and light from Hiram’s eyes enough that he could see the man’s face, weathered and tired. A hard-working policeman’s face.
Ammon shrugged. “I was distracted. I had family business to attend to.”
“Mr. Woolley is innocent.” Eliza looked surprisingly dignified, with her dress scorched and burned. “As is his son.”
Samuel’s glasses were a sight to see, covered in dust and now collecting snow. “I also want to go on record vouching for them. You don’t, don’t…want to fight us on this, Deputy. We employ a lot of men in this canyon.”
Samuel still sounded dazed, but he was lucid.
Mumbling a baffled apology, the deputy retreated.
Sergeant Dixon grabbed Hiram by the other shoulder. “Pretty sure you left this in my car.” The policeman pressed a small object into Hiram’s hand.
His bloodstone.
“Thanks,” Hiram said. “How’s Chief Fox?”
“Damnedest thing,” Shanks said. “Got bit by a whole bunch of snakes in the middle of a February snowstorm.”
“Damnedest thing,” Hiram agreed.
“Best I can figure is the storm somehow knocked open a nest in the valley and woke a bunch of ’em up. I’ve seen enough root doctoring to guess that maybe it was that stone sitting in the back seat of the car that saved his life. Anyway, the chief ain’t dead, but he’s taking a nice long rest.”
“Does that leave you in charge? Chief Dixon?”
“Acting Chief Dixon at most. And your gun…”
“I guess the county sheriff has it?”
“I’ll get it back to you. Where did you say your farm was?”
“Lehi,” Hiram said.
Hermann Wagner tottered forward, head swinging from side to side, followed by Stavros, whose foot made him lurch forward in stutter-steps. “So is the mine back open?” Wagner asked.
“It is,” Ammon said. “We’ll work carefully, and we’ll seal up any natural caverns we encounter.”
The thought made Hiram nervous, but he believed the Beast was destroyed. They’d better conduct a divination of some kind, before Ammon resumed any digging.
“We’ll dig the eastern seam,” Samuel said.
Eliza Kimball nodded. “We’ll get started clearing out the shaft in the morning. Ammon will have to act as foreman, for now. Miss McGill, perhaps you will stay for a while?”
Mary’s face was red from cold and exertion. “Me?”
“The miners might like someone to give them advice, as we get our operations started again.” Ammon paused. “I think I could use a little advice, too.”
“As long as you’re taking advice,” Eliza said, “I advise a corral of horses, a few pigs, a few cows, and of course, a chicken coop.”
“As soon as we can afford them,” Ammon agreed. “If nothing else, Samuel might need something to paint other than rocks.”
His brother laughed.
Hiram couldn’t help but smile.
Mary met Hiram’s gaze. “And you, Mr. Woolley, our business isn’t quite finished. If you’re quite finished with the mine, I’d like a word.”
Hiram blushed.
Ammon approached him and put out a hand. “Before he left, Dimitrios Kalakis said you were going to pay his debts to me. I’ve come to collect.”
Hiram squinted at him even as he took his hand. “I believe Mary is going to argue my case. Good luck with that.”
Ammon slapped him on the back and his laughter rang out across the valley.
* * *
The next morning, Hiram left Michael sleeping in their room at the Buford Boarding House. He had one little errand to run, and his son’s sarcasm wouldn’t help him.
Frank Johnson stood in front of the suite at the Hotel Utah with his arms crossed. Bruises clouded his face, both his eyes were bloodshot, and a narrow bandage pasted his nose into place. “Up early, Woolley?”
“Out late, Frank?” Hiram asked.
“What do you want?”
“I’d like to talk with Mr. Rettig.”
Frank hesitated, but opened the door.
Sitting at his elevated desk, Rettig had his gloves on but his shirtsleeves rolled up. In front of him lay correspondence and an open book of maps. The office smelled of sweat.
Hiram stood behind one of the chairs with the legs sawed short.
“You.” Rettig looked like he wanted to snarl. “Word has it that the Kimballs have become such a loving family, any chance I had of buying their mine is gone. Does that make you feel good?”
Hiram grinned. He’d slept, and he’d managed to get a few peanuts into his belly. “That makes me feel pretty good,” he admitted. “You know what makes me feel even better?”
Rettig hesitated. “You’ll tell me, of course.”
“Buying the mine would have benefited the D and RGW, because you would have got cheap coal. You would have been the hero, so promotions and bonuses for you.”
“So what?”
“So you weren’t content to take that shot alone, were you?” Hiram reached into his pocket and produced just one of the photos Mary had given him the night before, when she’d asked for a word alone. The picture showed Naaman sitting at a table with several men in suits, smiling. “You had to have a second angle, another way to benefit.”
“That photo proves nothing,” Rettig said.
Hiram handed the photo over. “I don’t aim to prove anything. What that photo shows is you meeting with the owners of the Latuda mine. I have others like it, of you at other operations.”
“So what?”
“Here’s what I think happened,” Hiram said. “You cut yourself a side-deal, a couple of years ago, when the Kimballs were just starting to fight. You bought in to some of the coal mines yourself, personally. If you could buy the Kimballs out for the railroad, great, you’re a hero at the D and RGW. But if not, the Kimball mine shuts down, and all the other mines get to raise their prices because there’s not as much coal. So you get personally rich, though the D and RGW’s costs go up. You’d have been cheating the railroad you work for.”
Naaman Rettig scowled.
“So you’d have been happy if the Kimballs accepted your offer. But failing that, you wanted to add to the chaos and fear and stop the mine from reopening under any circumstances. It’s why you sent your men around to scare people.”
“Self-dealing and corporate chicanery? My men roving the countryside? You can’t prove any of that,” Rettig said again.
“I guess I probably could,” Hiram told him. “But I don’t want to. I just want you to know that I beat you. I beat your plan to buy the mine, and then I beat your plan to shut it down. You have a good morning, Mr. Rettig.”
“Damn you, Hiram Woolley.”
“Damn you right back.”
Hiram left. On his way out, he nodded at Frank Johnson. “I’d find a different boss if I were you.”
* * *
Later, after Hiram had paid his bill at Buford’s, and he and Michael had eaten a pile of breakfast, they walked to the Double-A, parked beside the Price River. The smell of the water mixed with the scent of coal smoke and wood smoke from the houses and the trains.
They’d retrieved the truck the night before from where Hiram had hidden it, and it sat under a sky, dazzling blue, shining down on a snow-capped landscape. The truck wasn’t alone. Other cars were there, as well as a gang of people. Mary was present, as were a few of the miners, including Hermann Wagner, Stavros, and the odoriferous Paul.
Eliza stood at the rear of the company.
>
“We came to say goodbye,” Mary said. “And to thank you. You are something, Hiram.”
He shook her hand and blushed.
Stavros limped forward. “Mr. Woolley, we don’t know exactly what you did. But we thank you for it. My wife, she made a little candy for you.”
“And I have some Käsekuchen.” Hermann Wagner offered him something pie-shaped and wrapped in a gray kitchen towel.
Other miners came forward with gifts. Most gave Hiram and Michael food, but a few had brought him coins or a little folding money.
From miners who had just been unemployed, the gifts were generous.
Hiram thanked them all. Then he shook his head. “I feel bad for Walter and Medea. Without them, we wouldn’t have made it out. Especially Medea. Are their families going to be taken care of?”
He thought of Callista, and her father who had taken to banditry, and now might be lame for life.
“Ja,” Hermann said. The others bobbed their heads. “We’ll take care of their families. We of the Kimball mine local will take care of our own.”
Hiram said a silent prayer for the fallen, including Vilhelm and Eva Sorenson.
He gave Mary one last little smile.
She drew near and handed him the brass lamen. “You’ll need this more than I will.”
Hiram stuck it into his inside coat pocket. Feeling awkward, not knowing what to say, he squeezed her hand and stepped back.
Her reaction was to smile more brightly.
Eliza handed Hiram a heavy object, wrapped in paper. “I got curious, and I looked into the stone. I shouldn’t have.” Her face was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes. “We want you to take this and keep it safe.”
Hiram took the stone. “Curiosity is natural. You didn’t do anything wrong. The Beast did those things.”
She smiled, for just a second, gratefully.
Hiram raised a hand. Michael said his goodbyes, and the pair drove away in the Double-A.
Hiram sat back and closed his eyes. He’d sleep, Michael would drive, and hopefully there wouldn’t be much conversation.
They were going up the slope, up toward Soldier Summit, when Michael broke the quiet. “I gave Mary our address. I figure you could use a pen pal. I think you might be sweet on her. Am I wrong?”