“What do you think it was, Mr. Lockett?” Tim asked.
“I think it was dynamite.”
“Do you think the shaft is closed up farther on?”
Brian took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t know, Tim. But we’d better go get the shovels.”
For a minute neither of them moved. The light from Brian’s flashlight had lowered to the base of the rubble and rested on the two skeletons stretched out on the ground. The possibility that two more skeletons might soon be stretched out beside them occurred to both Brian and Tim. Neither of them spoke; then Tim suddenly whirled and turned his flashlight on the darkness behind them.
Brian had heard it too—a plop, as if something heavy and wet had dropped to the floor of the mine shaft. Tim glanced at Brian and they both moved toward the sound.
A second and third plop came almost simultaneously. Then they saw them, three strange-looking creatures moving slowly across the dirt, oozing out yellow, gelatinous liquid. They looked like octopuses with tiny, flat bodies and orange eyes. They were coming from the hole surrounded by the amber-colored material that they had looked at yesterday.
“Holy Jesus!” Tim said half under his breath.
The span of their tentacles was no more than two feet across, but they were repulsive enough that both Tim and Brian stopped ten feet from them. “What the hell are they, Mr. Lockett?”
Brian shook his head, then looked up at the hole, where another one slid over the edge and dropped to the ground. He caught his breath as a six-foot-long tentacle came sliding over, the end of it reaching out in one direction and then the other.
Brian made an instant decision. In a moment, the giant animal would be sliding over the edge and dropping to the floor, making it impossible for them to pass. With the blocked passage behind them, they would be trapped. He grabbed Tim’s arm and pushed him forward. “Run!” he shouted.
Tim hesitated for an instant, then ran, leaping over one of the smaller creatures that had moved across the shaft Brian started after him, but stopped short as the arm of the larger creature suddenly shot out and whipped at the breeze Tim had left behind.
The tentacle probed left and right, then slowly curled back as the creature slid to the edge of the hole. Brian stared at it, horrified, as the tiny orange eyes seemed to fix themselves on him. His heart dropped as a second tentacle came curling out of the hole and lashed at the air.
Brian’s heart was pounding so hard he could scarcely breathe. He flattened himself against the opposite wall, still ten feet from the creature. He held his breath as the thing slid farther forward, teetering on the edge of the ledge. This was probably his last chance, Brian told himself. Once the creature landed on the ground, the shaft would be blocked.
He waited for two seconds, then three, as the creature teetered uncertainly. Then, as it started sliding over the edge, he threw himself forward, taking three long strides.
It worked. In the instant when the creature was off balance, he accomplished two of the strides before one of the tentacles lashed out. He felt the end of the tentacle slap hard against his trailing boot, but by then his momentum had carried him forward and out of its grasp. With his fourth stride, he went sprawling headlong into the dirt. Tim quickly helped him to his feet and they ran.
After a hundred yards they stopped, both panting heavily. Tim dropped to his hands and knees and Brian leaned against a support timber, staring back into the darkness. He couldn’t remember ever having seen anything so repulsive. Nor could he remember ever having been so scared. Were those the things the people in Summit called Boogens? My God, if the people knew they were there, why hadn’t they killed them? Or at least told the police or the government, so they could be poisoned, or gassed, or blown to hell.
Brian eased down to a sitting position and gazed vacantly across the mine shaft. He was not the fastest thinker in the world, he decided, but now it was finally coming to him—the reason why nobody in authority had been told about the creatures. If somebody came to look for them, they might also find the gold. And if somebody found the gold, they would find out that Otis Blanchard had tunneled into the Hatcher mine to steal the gold. That was probably why Hitchings’ and Thomas’ bodies had been sealed up in the mine and why there had been an explosion in the shaft twenty minutes ago. Brian closed his eyes and groaned softly to himself.
Where, he suddenly wondered, had Chris been when the explosion had gone off? Had the dynamite been set deeply enough in the mine that the shaft she had taken was still open? It was possible. Whoever set the blast would have assumed all three of them were in the main shaft.
“What’re we gonna do, Mr. Lockett?” Tim asked.
“We’re going to get out of here,” Brian answered. The words sounded a little hollow, even to his own ears, but he couldn’t believe they would be trapped for more than a few hours. As long as they didn’t panic, it was simply a matter of time.
If Chris hadn’t been trapped by the explosion, she was surely on her way to get help by now. In the meantime, they could start digging. But where? They certainly couldn’t go back to their old crawl hole. Would it be possible to dig through the piles of galena ore and escape through the lead mines on the other side of the mountain? Assuming that the pile of galena ore was not several hundred feet long, and that the shafts of Blanchard’s lead mine really did connect with the Hatcher mine, that might be the best way out. On the other hand, if Otis Blanchard had anything to do with that explosion, trying to go out through his lead mine might be the worst way out.
“Tim, have you ever been in that old house west of the mine entrance?”
Tim frowned at him. “The Myer house?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. A couple times when I was a kid. It’s a pretty spooky old place.”
“From what I understand, the original shaft into the Hatcher mine started there. Did you ever see anything around there that looked like a mine entrance?”
Tim thought for a minute and shook his head. “No. But you can kind of tell where the fanned-out tailings used to be. The house was built right in the middle of them, right up against the mountain.”
“So the entrance was probably behind the house. Or under it. Did you ever go down in the basement?”
Tim laughed uneasily. “No. The house was spooky enough up above. All I ever did was open the cellar door and take a look. But I never went down there.”
Brian pulled himself to his feet. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find anything that looks like that old shaft.”
They moved steadily westward again, pausing several times to peer into the smaller tunnels that branched off to the right. Most of them were nothing more than exploratory holes ten or twelve feet deep, large enough only for a single miner to squeeze through.
Finally, about halfway back to the point where they had found the quartz vein, they stopped at a small shaft that was partially blocked with rubble. Brian squeezed inside, playing his flashlight beam over the timbers and deep into the darkness.
There was no doubt about the shaft being old. It was no more than five feet high and three or four feet wide. Instead of roughly finished square timbers, the supports and crossbeams were all sawn logs. Brian tapped a couple of them with the butt of his flashlight. They seemed to be reasonably solid. He squeezed his way out again.
“I think this is it, Tim. Let’s go get our tools.”
13
Mr. Lucas’ general store looked as if it had had the same merchandise and the same groceries for the past fifty years. Even the canned goods had dust and cobwebs between them, but the smell of wood burning in the old pot-bellied stove was cozy and comfortable. As soon as they had shaken off the worst of the rain, Trish moved off toward the grocery section and Mark crossed to the counter, where Mr. Lucas was curled over a newspaper.
In his suspenders, collarless shirt and long, woeful face, Lucas looked like an old Ozark Mountain man. He stared at Mark for a minute, then returned to his newspaper. “Find your friend?” he
asked indifferently.
“Not yet, Mr. Lucas. But somebody found his backpack in the old Hatcher mine.”
When Mark had come around asking about Ken the previous day, Lucas had shown no interest whatsoever. Mark might just as well have been asking about the price of rice in China. Today the mention of the backpack seemed to bother Lucas. He glanced up at Mark and turned the page of his newspaper with an angry flourish. “Damned kids oughta stay outa that old mine.”
“I don’t think he went in it,” Mark said. “I think somebody else put the backpack in there.”
Lucas snorted. “Why would anybody do that?”
“To get rid of evidence. Maybe somebody who robbed him and took the backpack.”
“There ain’t no thieves around here,” Lucas said, as if taking it personally. “If you kids know what’s good for you, the whole bunch of you’ll get out of Summit as fast as you can.”
Mark stared at the man, startled by the vehemence of the words. Trish brought a basketful of groceries to the counter and Lucas stood up to check them through the register. Mark smiled. “I’m not suggesting anybody in Summit is a thief, Mr. Lucas. If that’s what happened, it was probably somebody passing through.”
“People don’t pass through Summit,” he muttered.
Trish paid for the groceries and Mark carried them out to the truck. “What was that all about?” she asked as Mark slid behind the wheel.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Everybody in this town seems to be uptight about something.”
The rain was still battering down, and the road up the canyon was now almost a river from the heavy runoff. Mark switched his lights on and drove in the center of the pavement to avoid the worst of the torrents coming down the gutters. Plumes of water flared out from the tires.
He was almost at the turnoff when he saw her. By the way she was running, she was obviously a girl or a woman. She was splashing down the center of the road, waving one arm, half stumbling on the slick asphalt. Mark immediately took his foot off the throttle and eased the truck to the side.
“My God, she’s soaked,” Trish said.
Mark pushed the door open and stepped out. The woman was gasping so hard for breath, she could hardly speak. She was in her late twenties, Mark guessed, and much too pretty to be running down the road in the rain. She was wearing a down jacket with a hood, but the down had soaked up so much water it was almost useless. “There’s been . . . an accident,” she managed to get out. “A terrible accident . . . up in the Hatcher mine.”
“Get in,” Mark said and took her arm. He boosted her into the truck and slid in next to her.
She pushed the hood of her parka down and dropped her head back, still gasping. “There was an explosion in the mine,” she said. “It caused a cave-in . . . There are two men trapped in there.”
Mark wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to drive up to the mine or go back to town. “Can we dig them out?” he asked.
The girl shook her head. “We’ll need tools and more men to help. It’s a bad cave-in.”
Trish found a reasonably clean towel under the seat and gave it to the woman. “Maybe we should tell the sheriff,” she said.
Mark nodded and swung through a sharp turn into the shoulder of the road. He backed up and headed down the canyon again. “Are you the people who found the backpack in the mine?” he asked.
The girl nodded, still wiping her face. “Yes. I found it.”
Mark glanced at her, not sure if this was a good time to question her, but she went on without any prompting.
“The pack was in one of the lower levels,” she said. “Next to a lake in a big stope. Do you know who it belonged to?”
“A friend of mine,” Mark said. “He came up here a couple of nights ago, and nobody’s seen him since. I can’t figure why he would go into a mine shaft. How far inside the mine was it?”
“About a mile,” she said.
Mark glanced sharply at her. “A mile?”
“Yes,” she said. “I can’t imagine why anybody would go in there either.”
“My name is Mark Lowrie, by the way. This is Trish Hallberg.”
“I’m Chris Hurley,” she said.
“Do you have any idea what that orange stain was on the side of the pack?” Trish asked.
Chris started to answer but hesitated. After seeing those octopuslike creatures come out of the lake, she knew very well what the stain was. If the backpack belonged to a friend of theirs, her answer would not be very comforting. “No,” she said, “I don’t.”
“Were the two men hurt in the explosion?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know,” Chris said. “But I sort of doubt it. I think they were deeper in the mine when it happened.” She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to persuade herself that what she had said was true and that everything was going to turn out all right. Brian and Tim must have been deeper in the mine. With help, it would only be a matter of hours before they were dug out.
Tolivar’s patrol car was still parked in front of his office. Mark swung in to the curb in front of it and they all tumbled out of the truck. When Mark pushed the office door open, Tolivar was standing by the counter pulling on his yellow rain slicker. He glanced at Mark and then frowned at Chris.
“Sheriff,” Chris said, “there’s been an explosion in the mine shaft. Brian is trapped . . .” She hesitated, but there was really no choice. “There’s also a boy from Summit in there with him.”
Tolivar stopped closing the snaps of his slicker and stared at her. “What boy from Summit?”
“Tim Lucas,” Chris said.
For a moment Tolivar’s eyes blazed. He looked at Trish and Mark, then back to Chris. “What was he doing in there?”
“He offered to help us,” Chris said. “We hired him yesterday.”
“Holy shit,” Tolivar muttered and finished snapping the slicker. “Of all the stupid . . .” He reached across the counter and picked up a phone. He listened for a minute, then slammed it down. “What do you mean, an explosion?” he said. “Did you take some dynamite up there?”
“We had some dynamite with us,” Chris said, “but we didn’t take it in the mine. After the explosion, when I came out to our car, the dynamite was gone.”
“Did you leave the car open?”
“No, it was locked. But somebody broke the window.”
Tolivar stared at her, the anger suddenly gone from his eyes. “What a goddamned mess,” he said. “Well, we’d better go tell Tim’s dad and see if we can get some help.”
“We’ve probably got some shovels at our house,” Mark said.
Tolivar nodded and held the door open for them. “Go get ’em and bring them over to the mine shaft.”
Mark and Trish returned to the truck, and Chris got in the patrol car with Tolivar. The truck drove off, but Tolivar picked up the microphone from his car radio. “Pineglen Fire Department,” he said, “this is Sheriff Tolivar. Can you hear me?”
He released the transmit button, but nothing but static came through the speaker. “Barney! Can you hear me?” he asked. Again nothing but static.
“Can we drive down to Pineglen?” Chris asked.
Tolivar shook his head and started the car. “Road started breakin’ up about an hour ago. It’s got a foot of water over it now. Damn,” he said and switched on his red lights as he pulled away from the curb.
There was no doubt in Tolivar’s mind about who had taken the dynamite out of the Bronco and exploded it in the mine. It had been Otis Blanchard’s chauffeur, bodyguard and hatchet man, Victor Baskins. It was all very neat; Lockett buys some dynamite in Pineglen, and suddenly there’s an explosion in the Hatcher mine. So it’s supposed to look like Lockett is careless with his own dynamite.
But what had Baskins intended to do about the broken window on the Bronco? Maybe push the car over the hill, make it look like the rain had caused it to slide over? And maybe the woman coming out of the mine had interrupted things. “Did you see anything, or anyb
ody, when you came out of the mine, Miss Hurley?” Tolivar asked.
Chris nodded. “I saw a black car driving down the road. A small sports car.”
Tolivar nodded. Victor drove a black 280Z. “I take it you were in a different part of the mine when the dynamite exploded.”
“Yes. I’d gone down to the stope where I found the backpack.”
Tolivar nodded again. “I don’t think somebody counted on that.”
He came to a stop in front of Lucas’ store, but he didn’t get out of the car. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, flicked a lighter to it, then stared out the side window for a minute. “Miss Hurley,” he finally said, “I want you to know something about that mine. There’s a lot of gold in there. Or, I should say, there used to be a lot of gold in there. Otis Blanchard has probably taken most of it out by now.”
Chris gaped at him. He glanced at her, took a long pull on his cigarette and went on: “Those two kids, Hitchings and Thomas, they found the gold twenty-seven years ago. But I want you to understand one thing. Nobody killed those kids. At least no human beings did. We found their skeletons up there about twenty feet away from where the gold vein was.” He took a deep breath. “I got reason to believe they were killed by some kind of animal thing. A thing like an octopus that squirts out that stuff like you saw on that guy’s backpack. Anyhow, it was me and Charlie Lucas who sealed up that mine twenty-seven years ago. Charlie and a man named Bill Kennedy drove their truck down to Arizona and left it there to make it look like they had left town. Bill Kennedy’s dead now.”
Chris was stunned. “You did it for the gold?” she stammered.
Tolivar nodded. “But we didn’t get much of the gold. The whole thing was Blanchard’s idea, and he tunneled into the mine from the other side of the mountain to take out the gold ore. I reckon he’s taken most of it out by now.”
Chris’ mind was reeling. The whole thing was unbelievable. People didn’t do things like that.
“Anyhow, Miss Hurley,” Tolivar went on, “I got good reason to believe a man named Victor Baskins, who works for Blanchard, took that dynamite out of your car and blew up the mine. Those octopus animals are still in that mine; they’re probably in that shaft by the gold vein. So what Blanchard had in mind was plain murder.”
The Boogens Page 14