And the Hills Opened Up

by Oppegaard, David

  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.

  19

  Father Lynch watched as the men who’d carried a coffin into his church earlier that day were lowered into three of their own. Chester would have plenty of company now—apparently his friends were as bad at keeping themselves out of trouble as he’d been. “At this rate,” Lynch announced to the crowd assembled in the street, “Leg Jameson’s going to run out of coffins.”

  “He has,” somebody in the crowd replied. “Those cleared him out.”

  Lynch scowled and waved off the gawkers, trying to make the whole lot scatter with a swipe of his hand. He came up to the first of the coffins, made the sign of the cross above the dead, and prayed for his soul to find its peace. Then he did the same for the second man, then the third. He could feel the crowd’s eyes upon him and heard a few mumbled prayers echoing his own. Never had such a large, interested crowd assembled in his own church, not even on Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday. He figured it was death that drew them together this cool summer evening, the racy spectacle of it, and the idea alone made him feel raw and old and useless.

  The drunken loafer Owen Hayes and a second man came out of the saloon and looked over the line of coffins. Owen looked pallid and damp, with a cloth bandage wrapped around his left thigh. The other man, who was clean shaven and hawk-eyed, looked untouched except for a ragged cut across the front of his jacket and shirt, where the blade of a knife must have passed through.

  “Father Lynch, this is my older brother, Elwood Hayes.”

  The priest eyed the pair closely, seeking out the family resemblance. Owen’s face was round and soft, with the ruddiness of a habitual drinker, while Elwood’s skin was taught and deeply tanned, like a man who spent most of his time outdoors. Yet you could discern a certain likeness to the set of their jaws, the ample breadth of their foreheads.

  “You two are brothers?”

  “Yes, sir,” Owen said, nodding vigorously. “
He was just coming to town to pay me a visit.”

  Lynch ignored the obvious lie and scrutinized the older brother further.

  “So this is how you look out for your little brother, Mr. Hayes? By involving him in the first gunfight Red Earth’s ever known?”

  Elwood Hayes returned the priest’s stare.

  “They had it coming, Father. They stepped to us first.”

  “We all have it coming, Mr. Hayes. But no man shall say when that time has come for another.”

  “That something Jesus said?”

  Lynch nodded.

  “Yes. In a manner.”

  The priest turned back to the coffins, considering them. The Hayes brothers remained where they stood, also considering. The murmuring of the crowd grew louder as people began to lose interest in the coffins and the killers standing beside them. Two explosions, one after the other, sounded in the distance.

  “Goddamn,” Owen Hayes cursed, unmindful of the priest or his proximity to the resting dead. “How much more blasting they bent on tonight? Must be past nine o’clock.”

  “Something’s gone wrong in the mine,” Lynch said, speaking as much to himself as the Hayes brothers. “Men died there earlier today, and I fear more have died since.”

  “They’re sealing her up,” Elwood said. “Has the mine played out?”

  “No,” Lynch said. “Not how you mean, anyhow.”

  Caleb Rollins and Madam Petrov came out of the bar. The madam looked as angry as slapped bull, her bulk all hunched up into her shoulders. Father Lynch would not have been surprised if she’d lowered her head right then and charged the nearest man.

  “What was that explosions?”