Journey to Yesterday

by Madeline Baker

  A small cage hung suspended over the pit. Shaye looked at the man who operated the hoist. “Are you sure this is safe?”

  “Safe as anything can be,” he replied with a grin that did little to reassure her.

  Alejandro lifted the bar and stepped inside, then held out his hand. “You coming?”

  Shaye took a deep breath, and nodded

  The operator rang a bell, there was a lurch, and the cage began its descent into the shaft.

  Darkness soon closed around them, held at bay only by the dim yellow glow of the lantern.

  “You all right?” Alejandro asked as the cage plunged downward.

  “Yes,” she replied, but her heart was pounding. She had never realized she was afraid of narrow dark places until now. She remembered an old Andy Griffith show where Andy and Helen had gone exploring and been trapped in a cave-in. If anything happened now, there was no Barney Fife to launch a rescue effort.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Cause I’ve lost the feeling in my hand,” he replied, his voice filled with suppressed laughter.

  Muttering, “Sorry,” Shaye instantly loosened her grip.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’. They hoist loads of up to nine hundred pounds in this thing.” He grinned at her. “And you don’t look like you weigh near that much.”

  “Very funny,” Shaye retorted.

  Moments later, she forgot her fear. “Oh, my,” she murmured, “will you look at that?” In the lantern light, flecks of gold and silver glittered from the cave walls. “How far down are we going?”

  “I think they’re at eight hundred feet.”

  Eight hundred feet! She looked up, felt her heart begin to pound when all she saw was darkness.

  A short time later, the cage landed with a dull thud. A tunnel stretched out ahead of them, illuminated in the glow of the lanterns strung overhead. The sound of metal striking rock echoed off the walls.

  “Hey, Rio, is that you?”

  “How ya doing, Moose?” Alejandro lifted the bar and stepped out of the cage. Turning, he offered Shaye his hand.

  “Who’s that you’ve got with you?”

  “This here’s Miss Shaye Montgomery. She’s never been in a mine before.”

  “Well, bring her on down. We hit a rich vein yesterday morning.”

  They walked down the tunnel, careful to avoid the tracks. She could hear the rumble of an ore cart in the distance.

  Moose was aptly named. He was far and away the biggest man Shaye had ever met. Solid and square, he looked to be at least six feet, six inches tall. Sweat gleamed on his chest; his biceps were bigger than her thighs. He had long blond hair; a faded red bandana was tied around his forehead to keep his hair out of his face. There was a snake tattooed on his left shoulder.

  “Miz Montgomery, welcome to the Robison mine.” His voice was as big as he was, and echoed off the walls.

  “Thank you.” She glanced around, feeling uneasy. The tunnel was about seven feet high and five feet wide. Here and there, she could see huge timbers shoring up the ceiling. Wooden planks had been placed against one wall. The precautions should have made her feel better, but somehow, they only made her more nervous. A few feet behind Moose, she could see a wooden ladder leading up to another level.

  “All right if we look around?” Alejandro asked.

  “Sure. We’re not doing any more blasting today.” Moose reached into his pocket. “Ever seen raw gold, Miss Montgomery?”

  “No.”

  “Here ya go.” He handed her a lump of gold the size of a marble. “Found that in some clay this morning.”

  When she started to give it back to him, he shook his head. “Keep it.”

  “Really? Thank you.”

  “Well, come along.” Moose said, moving down the tunnel. He pointed at the wall on the left. “Vein starts here. Don’t know how we missed it the first time. The face of this here drift assayed at three thousand a ton, some prime samples went over four grand.”

  Alejandro whistled. “Guess I should have bought some stock.”

  “I told you so,” Moose said. “It’s nigh on to seventeen dollars a share.”

  Alejandro laughed. “That you did! Well,” he said, slapping Moose on the back, “I’ll get my share one way or the other.”

  Moose laughed, too. “I reckon you will, at that. They hit a new vein over to the Standard, too.”

  Alejandro nodded. “I heard Jim Mason struck it rich, too.”

  “Yep. Ole Jim, he bought stock in the Standard when it was forty cents a share. Hear he made more than six thousand dollars. I remember a few years back when a couple miners bought a claim for nine hundred fifty dollars. They brung out thirty-seven thousand in gold, then sold the mine for sixty-five thousand.”

  Shaye’s eyes widened. Sixty-five thousand dollars was a pile of money; in this day and age, when you could buy three pounds of salt pork for ten cents and a man could buy a pocket watch for a dollar, it must have seemed like a million.

  “I heard about a couple of miners at the Bodie who found a pocket of rich ore a while back,” Alejandro remarked. “They asked for shares instead of wages, then told the owners about their strike.”

  “Yeah, I recollect that. Stock went up to fifty-five bucks a share. Pretty soon those two were earnin’ near ‘bout nine hundred dollars a day.”

  Shaye pressed against the wall as a tall man pushing an ore cart moved down the tunnel toward the hoist.

  “Moose, dammit, if you don’t light a fire under Tolley, I’m gonna whip his ass. I swan, he…”

  “Hey, watch your language, Dave, we got comp’ny,” Moose said.

  Dave’s eyes widened when he saw Shaye. “My apologies, ma’am. I didn’t mean no disrespect. Howdy, Rio.”

  “Hey, Dave,” Alejandro said. “How are you doing, amigo?”

  “Same as always, Rio,” Dave replied with a grin. “Counting the hours until shift change.”

  Shaye could understand that. She was anxious to get out of the mine. She knew it was just her imagination, but she felt like the walls were closing in on her. How did the miners spend twelve hours a day down here? She edged closer to Alejandro, finding comfort in his nearness.

  “How did William Bodey happen to find gold here?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off her growing sense of claustrophobia.

  Moose rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Well, according to the story I heard, he was huntin’ his dinner and he shot hisself a rabbit. Didn’t kill it though. He followed the rabbit to its den and while he was digging down, trying to get the dang thing, he hit pay dirt. Thing is, he never got to spend any of it cause he froze to death that winter.”

  “That’s so sad,” Shaye remarked.

  “Reckon so,” Moose agreed. “Thanks for letting us look around, Moose,” Alejandro said. He looked at Shaye. “You ready to go back up?”

  “More than ready.”

  “Come back anytime,” Moose said. “A pretty girl is always welcome.”

  “Thank you, but I think once is enough.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, come see us again. I’ll walk you back.”

  “No need,” Alejandro said. He took Shaye’s hand in his and they started walking back toward the shaft.

  Shaye frowned as she heard a dull roaring sound. “I thought Moose said they weren’t doing any more blasting today.”

  “Yeah.” His hand tightened around hers as the ground beneath them shuddered. Muttering an oath, he pulled her into a passageway that led off the main tunnel. She stared ahead into the darkness, wondering where it led.

  Alejandro dropped to his knees, pulling her with him. “Shit! Get down!”

  Before Shaye had time to wonder what was happening, she was face down in the dirt with Alejandro lying across her, his big body shielding hers. There was a low rumble, like distant thunder, a shriek that sounded eerily like a woman’s scream. The ground beneath her shifted, heaving violently. Clods of dirt rained down around them.<
br />
  Being a California girl, her first thought was that it was an earthquake. And then she heard the faint wail of a siren from above ground, the cries and screams of frightened men, and she knew it wasn’t an earthquake.

  The mine had caved in.

  Chapter Ten

  Shaye released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when the earth beneath her stopped trembling. There was a pain in her left cheek, her reticule was an uncomfortable lump under her left arm.

  A moment later, Alejandro rolled off her. She felt a rush of panic as she opened her eyes to utter blackness. She knew he was there, but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything.

  “Rio?”

  “I’m right here.”

  His hand brushed her shoulder, slid down her arm, closed around her fingers.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I think so.” She sat up. Lifting one hand to her cheek, she felt a warm stickiness on her fingertips.

  Alejandro helped her to her feet. “Guess I picked a bad day to show you the mine,” he muttered wryly.

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure help’s on the way.”

  She nodded; then, realizing he couldn’t see her, said, “I hope so.” She clung to his hand, her heart pounding like a jackhammer. The mine had caved in. But maybe they weren’t in any danger. Alejandro had pulled her into an off-shoot of the main tunnel. Maybe it led to the outside.

  She took a deep breath. “This leads outside, right?”

  “No. It’s just a tunnel where the vein played out.”

  She tried not to think of what would happen if this section of the mine collapsed, too, or if they ran out of air before someone came to rescue them. Buried alive…she clung tighter to Alejandro’s hand.

  “Moose!” she exclaimed. “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. Moose!” Alejandro shouted. “Moose, can you hear me?”

  There was no answer.

  She didn’t want to think about Moose and the other men, buried beneath tons of dirt and rock, and she shook the thought away. She and Alejandro were still alive. Maybe Moose and the others were, too.

  He gave a tug on her hand. “Come on, let’s see how far back this goes. Maybe it leads up to the next level.”

  She followed him down the narrow passageway. The blind leading the blind, she thought. He was right in front of her, yet she couldn’t see a thing.

  They hadn’t gone far when he swore under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.

  “It’s a dead end.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She didn’t want to believe it. There had to be a way out, if they could just see it. Her camera! Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? Reaching into her reticule, she pulled out her camera. Easing to Alejandro’s left, she took a picture. In the light of the flash, she saw that he was right.

  “Handy,” Alejandro remarked as she took another photo.

  She shivered as she tucked the camera into her reticule again. She couldn’t help wondering if she going to die down here? Alejandro would probably survive, she thought, since history said he had been hanged on August twelfth, but what if her journey into the past changed history? If not for her, he wouldn’t be down here now. Today was the twenty-sixth of June. Had she robbed him of forty-seven days of life? If he died and she made it back to her own time, would Bodie’s history books now say he had died in a cave-in?

  He turned and drew her into his arms. She was shivering uncontrollably. “It’ll be all right,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “Trust me. Hear that?”

  She cocked her head to the side as she heard the faint wail of a siren from up above. “Yes.”

  “They know what to do. They’ll have us out of here as soon as possible.”

  She slipped her arms around his waist and held on tight. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. “How long do you think it will take?”

  “I don’t know, darlin’.”

  “Maybe we could dig our way out.”

  “With what? Our bare hands?”

  The idea was ludicrous, but at the moment she was willing to try anything. “Maybe we could find a piece of wood. Or a…a, I don’t know, a rock.”

  “They know we’re down here. They’ll come for us.” His lips brushed the top of her head; she felt it down to her toes. “We might as well sit down while we’re waiting,” he suggested. “It might take them awhile to dig us out.”

  What if they didn’t know they were there? What if the man who let them down in the hoist didn’t remember them? What if… She pushed the morbid thoughts from her mind. Someone would find them. She had to believe that.

  He sat down, and she sat close beside him, grateful for his arm around her shoulders.

  “How long will the air last?”

  “Long enough,” he said reassuringly.

  “Do you think….do you think that Moose and the others are dead?”

  She felt him shrug. “Damned if I know.”

  Her gaze moved through the darkness, seeing nothing. She couldn’t remember ever being in total darkness before. It was oddly disorienting, and more than a little frightening.

  They sat in silence for several minutes, the only sound that of dirt trickling down from overhead. She didn’t know what Alejandro was thinking about, but all she could think about was the fact that there were tons and tons of dirt overhead that could come crashing down on them at any second.

  She couldn’t remember ever being so afraid, or so close to death. She wasn’t ready to die, she thought frantically. Not now. She took several deep breaths, willing herself to stay calm.

  “You all right, darlin’?” he asked.

  “I guess so. What did you do before you came to Bodie?” she asked. Maybe, if she could get him talking, it would take her mind off how afraid she was.

  “Same thing I do here.”

  “Gamble?”

  “Seems to be my chosen profession. It’s the one thing I’m good at.”

  “So you’ve always been a gambler?”

  “No, not always.”

  He drew her closer. His nearness was warm and comforting.

  “I worked on a ranch in Montana for awhile, breaking horses. It was steady work. Fair pay.” He laughed softly. “But the real money was gambling with the other hands on Saturday night. I made more playing poker in one night than I made in wages.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I took the foreman for three hundred dollars one night. He accused me of cheating, called me a couple of names a lady shouldn’t hear. I was young and hotheaded, and I laid into him. Broke his nose and a couple of ribs. I left before he could fire me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “And you’ve been earning your living gambling ever since?”

  “Yeah. I guess it ain’t much of a life, but I’ve seen a lot of country, and just about every boom town in the West. I reckon this one’ll go bust, too, sooner or later. They all do.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that by next year, only six mines would still be operating. Instead, she asked him if he had ever lived with his mother’s people. “I spent my summers in the Black Hills when I was young,” he said. “My old man had a small ranch near Deadwood. My mother and I went to see her people during the Sun Dance. Those were good days. I miss them.”

  “I’ve read about the Sun Dance. It always seemed like such a barbaric custom. Did you ever…?”

  “No. My mother died when I was nine. A Pawnee raiding party burned our house down the following year, and my old man packed us up and we moved back east to take care of his sister, who was ailing. I didn’t like city life, not after growing up wild. Seems like I was always in trouble of one kind or another. By the time I was sixteen, my old man and I were hardly speaking to each other. We had a big blow-up one night, and I left.”

  He’d never had a place
to call home since then. He had slept in the open when he was broke, in hotels when he was flush, gradually coming to the realization that it wasn’t the place that made a house a home, but the people in it. He wondered briefly what it would be like to be married to Shaye, then shrugged the idea aside. She was a lady through and through, far too good for the likes of him.

  “What did you and your father fight about?” Shaye asked.

  “Everything. I didn’t like school and I didn’t go much. I was keeping company with a pretty wild bunch. Drinking.” He grunted softly. “Gambling. Anyway, one thing led to another. We both said some things we shouldn’t have, but I was just as stubborn as he was, and I refused to back down.” He blew out a deep breath. “I never went back,” he said softly, and she heard the regret in his voice. “Two years later I got a letter from my aunt telling me he was dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Rio.”

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “Me, too, but it was a long time ago. Hell, that’s enough about me. What about you?”

  “My life is much less exciting. I lived my whole life in the same house until I got married…”

  “You’re married!”

  “Not anymore.”

  His hand squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Shaye frowned, then realized he thought her husband was dead. “We’re divorced,” she said, and then wondered if being divorced was still as scandalous as it had once been.

  “I’ve never met a divorced woman,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’m sorry your marriage didn’t work out, though, cause if it had, you probably wouldn’t be here now, with me.” He laughed softly. “Of course, I don’t imagine you’re too happy about that at the moment, all things considered.”

  She had to laugh at that. All things considered, she was still glad to be here, with him.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “There’s really nothing to tell. I grew up, got a job, got married, got divorced.” Except for a couple of high profile news stories she had covered early in her career, being trapped in a mine in a ghost town that had been dead for over a hundred years was the most exciting, and frightening, experience she’d ever had. And Alejandro Valverde was definitely the most exciting man she had ever met. She shrugged. “That about sums it up.”