Jackson's Woman

by Judi Lind

  Propping his foot on a rock, the guide lowered his voice. “Verity McBride was a half-breed accused of murdering her stepfather. Those who knew her claimed it was impossible. Verity had the face of an angel and the prettiest long black hair ever seen. Like this lady’s hair.”

  He smiled and pointed to Vera’s own ink-dark hair, tied in a loose ponytail at her nape. Then, his smile melted. “Say, are you all right, miss? You look a little pale.”

  “What? Oh, no, I’m fine. Not used to the heat, I guess.” As if to validate her words, Vera wiped a sheen of perspiration from her brow. It felt so odd, hearing this stranger speak about Verity as if he’d known her. That was ridiculous, of course. Verity’s last journal entry had been made over a hundred years ago. Just before she disappeared. Her legend had grown like wildfire until Verity’s story was as well-known as that of Paul Bunyan—at least, in this tiny mountainside village.

  A story Vera knew as well as her own. The legend of Verity McBride had followed Vera like a dark, stalking vapor for most of her life. In fact, the night Vera was born, her mother had dreamed of Verity, a dream in which Verity vowed to protect the infant from danger throughout her life.

  That dream, along with Vera’s uncanny likeness to the only surviving photo of her distant relative, and the similarities in their names had caused family members to lower their voices to a whisper whenever Vera entered the room. An only child in a world of adults, she’d even believed their teasing that she wasn’t “real,” but a reincarnation of their long-dead relation.

  Now, she was finally in Jerome, Arizona, at the abandoned mine where Verity had last been seen alive. Maybe now Vera would find the answers that hadn’t been in the journal she’d treasured for so long. Maybe even free herself from the haunting spirit that had dominated her life.

  The guide glanced at his wristwatch. “Time’s getting away from us, folks. I’ll finish Verity’s story on the way back to town. Right now, let’s go inside. Everybody got your flashlights handy?” He paused while they all held up the pencil-point lights he’d handed out earlier.

  “Good. There’s no electric power in the mine, so keep those lights pointed at the path in front of you so you don’t trip on any debris. Keep your eye on my light so no one gets lost. Got it?”

  They all mumbled their assent and he switched on a powerful portable beam as he herded his group into the dim mine. “I want everyone to stick close to me. Including you, Jeffrey. There’s a lot of twists and turns in this old shaft and some of them haven’t been reinforced yet.”

  Their voices hushed as they entered the cool, dim interior. Only the guide’s occasional terse directive could be heard over the soft slap of shoe leather as they trailed along the packed dirt floor.

  Lagging a few feet behind the others, Vera was lost in her own thoughts, occasionally focusing her penlight on the dank red earth walls. According to the journal, Verity had hidden in this very mine to escape “justice” from the law after Rate Wilson’s death. She’d only been nineteen. Had she shrunk back in terror when daylight faded and she was alone in the darkness?

  How many days had she hidden in these treacherous depths?

  And what had ultimately become of her?

  When the posse finally tracked her down after Verity’s stepfather’s body was discovered, they found the Balbriggan deserted. The only evidence Verity had been there at all was the rumpled quilt and dog-eared journal she’d left behind. Had Verity escaped to live out her life in peace and obscurity, or had she gotten lost in the twisted maze of Balbriggan’s many tunnels and met her death through cold and starvation?

  The answer, like the lovely half-Indian maiden, had disappeared into time.

  The soft drone of the guide’s voice echoed down the empty shaft. Vera looked up. The others had disappeared around a bend. She’d better catch up before she, too, was lost.

  Hitching the knapsack strap onto her shoulder, she hurried to rejoin the others. A quick darting shadow down a side tunnel caught her attention. She stopped and stared into the murky darkness. A sliver of white moved then disappeared again.

  “Jeffrey? Is that you?” Vera called into the dingy corridor. Her voice trailed away in the hollow emptiness.

  She inched forward. They were so far from the entrance that it was almost pitch-dark. Eerily, hauntingly dark. “Jeffrey?” Was that quaking voice really hers?

  Suddenly, another flash of white raced away, but not before she’d raised her penlight and captured the youngster’s face above his white T-shirt. “This isn’t funny, Jeffrey. Come on back before you get lost. Where’s your mother?”

  The boy didn’t respond.

  Vera glanced behind her. No beckoning light from the guide’s flashlight, nor murmur of voices penetrated the emptiness. If she went for help, Jeffrey could be well and truly lost, or injured, before she returned. Besides, her years of experience as a California Highway Patrol officer had conditioned her to respond quickly to potential emergencies. The most expeditious course of action was to go after the mischievous adolescent and drag him back to his doting mother.

  If she didn’t throttle him first.

  Fists on hips, Vera advanced deeper into the blackness. “Jeffrey, do you hear me? The joke’s over...time to go back to the others.”

  In the distance she heard the creak of ancient lumber.

  “Jeffrey! Come on back before you get hurt. Don’t make me come after you.” If the boy’s mother didn’t get control of the willful child soon, Vera reflected, the boy was headed for trouble when puberty kicked in. She shuddered in memory of the multitude of teenage “Jeffreys” she’d pulled from automobile wreckage.

  Whether or not it was politically correct to reprimand someone else’s youngster, Vera intended to give young Jeffrey a severe tongue-lashing when she finally caught up with him.

  Step after halting step, Vera continued to chide the youngster while she followed the minute sounds of his passage. Her scolding, she knew, was more like whistling in the dark than actual anger. This old mine might be the source of a notorious family legend, but it was still spooky. Wooden planks that occasionally littered the dirt floor wobbled precariously beneath her feet as, keeping her fingertips on the earthen walls, she followed the small, scuffling sounds of Jeffrey’s footfall.

  She rounded another curve and a dank, acrid smell rose like fumes from a cyanide pellet dropped in acid.

  Playing her penlight across the flooring, she saw a chalky white substance coating the floor and walls. A by-product from the copper?

  Vera jumped at a slight scuffling over head. Shining her light upward, she shuddered at the dark, softly undulating mass squirming along the rafters. Bats! The nocturnal creatures began softly squealing at the intrusion and the noxious odor became even more pronounced. Vera jerked her hand from the bat guano covering the wall, swiped it across her jeans and held her forearm over her mouth and nose. The fetid odor was almost overwhelming.

  Anxious to get out of the bats’ territory, she pressed onward. Finally, the smell faded and she knew she was beyond the bats’ lair. But where were the others? Why hadn’t they noticed the missing pair and come looking? And where was Jeffrey? It had been several minutes since she’d last spotted any movement in the mine.

  When she saw his mother again, she intended to give her some strong advice on the care and taming of ten-year-old boys. Irritated to reckless anger, Vera stalked forward and came down on a rotted board.

  Squealing in protest at the sudden weight, the plank buckled and Vera felt herself start to sway. She glanced down and gasped in dismay. She’d somehow ventured onto a wooden catwalk of sorts. At least half of the boards were missing, while several others were broken into jagged scraps. The only safeguard was a badly frayed rope that had been looped around a few sagging posts as a makeshift railing.

  Tightly grasping the penlight in her shaky fingers, she pointed the beam downward but its feeble light couldn’t penetrate the depth of the shaft. At least the utter darkness below kept her fr
om seeing exactly how far down she would fall if the catwalk gave way.

  Creak! The rickety bridge bucked ferociously. Vera’s hand flailed the air as she grasped for support. But she’d moved too far from the wall and her fingers no longer found purchase.

  As she rocked on the wobbly, moaning timbers she thought suddenly of Verity McBride, and had an image of the young woman standing beside her, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. Stunned by the vividness of the hallucination, Vera redoubled her efforts to find a handhold.

  Lunging against the red dirt wall, she drew in a quick breath when she struck something hard and metallic. She grabbed, clutching at a bright silvery horseshoe nailed to a soot-blackened beam. Even in her panic, she was taken aback by the horseshoe’s similarity to one that had always hung over her mother’s mantle. For good luck.

  She could certainly use some of that luck right now, she thought, as she clutched the sweat-slickened metal. Her forearms stained until she thought her arm would surely pull from the socket but she didn’t give in to the fatigue.

  Suddenly, the horseshoe dipped downward, jerking free from Vera’s grasp. A white swirling mist seemed to envelop her, and a cavalcade of dizzying stars exploded behind her eyes.

  Even Verity’s protective spirit couldn’t defeat the rotted lumber. With a crack, the remaining floorboards broke away and Vera fell backward, spiraling into the black nothingness far below, where she landed with a bone-jarring thud.

  VERA DIDN’T KNOW how long she’d lain, drifting in and out of consciousness, in the musty pit. She had a vague sense of someone beside her, someone dressed in white, holding her head and whispering soothing words. Jeffrey? No, certainly not the spoiled, willful child who’d gotten her into this mess.

  Probably a hallucination brought on by the fall.

  She turned slightly and realized her head was resting on her backpack and that a blanket or soft cloth was draped across her body. Had she become entangled in an old piece of fabric when she fell? Or...had someone covered her against the cold?

  If so, why had she been left alone in this pit? Verity’s journal was wedged in a pocket, where it had been before.

  Struggling onto her elbows, Vera cringed against the tenderness of muscles strained by the fall. Drawing on her emergency medical training, she cautiously tested her fingers, then arms and finally her legs. Her bands and elbows were scraped raw, and her face felt caked with centuries-old dirt. But other than being bruised and sore, everything seemed to be in working order. She decided to risk sitting up.

  A major mistake. Her head pounded like a thousand hammers were beating out an endless supply of horseshoes on invisible anvils. Slowly raising her hand, Vera gingerly examined her scalp, amazed by the number and variety of bumps and knots her probing fingers encountered. The cushion of her backpack probably kept her from being killed.

  Or was a slow, lingering death her destiny? The grim thought reminded her that the mine had been abandoned for decades and was used only by the occasional tour company. Even so, she’d wandered far from the normal route. The earthen walls would absorb the sound of her voice, so that if her rescuers were more than a few feet away they’d never hear her call.

  Vera shuddered beneath the realization that the pit she was lying in might well become her coffin.

  No! She couldn’t just give up. She had a life. Her cat Squiggles would never adjust to living with Sheila and her shar-pei. And what about Vera’s mother? Even though the older woman, bedridden now with Alzheimer’s disease, hadn’t recognized her daughter in months, wouldn’t she miss her only child’s visits?

  Besides, Vera wasn’t a quitter.

  She’d had to work harder and longer than the men in her class at the academy just to pass the grueling physical. But hadn’t she ultimately been accepted as a patrol officer for the CHP? Vera hadn’t overcome so many obstacles to just give up and die now.

  She licked her lips, suddenly aware of her dry mouth. She wouldn’t last long without water, and the temperature in the deserted mine would surely drop dramatically as night approached. That cotton quilt might not be enough to stave off the cold. Hot tears stung her eyelids and she bit down on her lip to keep from crying. She couldn’t give in to fear, and she wouldn’t just lie still and die of thirst or hypothermia.

  Nor could she rely on the possibility of help; she had to find her own way out.

  The flashlight! She had to find it. Refusing to give in to the fear that was threatening to engulf her, Vera trailed her fingertips over the floor. Her palms were raw and oozing and the tiny pebbles littering the floor stung like needles poking her bruised flesh. But she had to have that flashlight. Had to.

  At last, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she glimpsed the slender cylinder a few inches from her hand. Her fingers clutched the cold metal and she clutched the penlight to her chest. Flicking the switch with her thumb, her heart sank when no reassuring glow followed.

  Vera batted the head of the light against her palm and flicked the switch time and again. It was useless; the penlight had been broken in the fall. She was alone in the darkness.

  A cold, sodden fear filled her soul. Never had she felt more alone, more helpless, in her life. The life that had seemed so empty, so meaningless a few weeks ago but now seemed more precious than gold.

  There had to be a way out of this pit. And she would find it.

  After a few moments, the hammers echoing in her head eased a bit. Encouraged, she decided to try standing. Like a moth shedding its cocoon, she unwrapped herself from the cotton covering and eased onto her feet. Although weak and wobbly, her legs held and she forced herself to remain standing. A wave of dizziness wrapped her in its folds and she swayed, reaching out for something to steady her. Her hand found nothing in the pitch darkness, but suddenly, Vera had a sense of unseen hands clutching her shoulders, protecting her from further harm.

  She drew deep breaths through her open mouth, while the unseen hands held her until the wave of dizziness finally eased. Her arms clutched around her own waist, Vera leaned against those strong hands, real or imagined, that were her only comfort. Her only security.

  The nausea finally dissipated, leaving Vera weak but grateful anew that she’d survived the fall. Slowly turning to see what she was leaning against, she had an odd sense of movement behind her, and suddenly, the support was gone and she once more felt alone in the black emptiness.

  Glancing upward at the faint ambient light filtering around the broken catwalk, she wondered why no one was calling her name. Why weren’t they looking for her? Of course, she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. They could have been searching for hours. They might have given up.

  No!

  She mustn’t give in to her fears. The others wouldn’t abandon her. Vera remembered the cottony fabric and reached down to pull it up to her chest. Someone had covered her. Her rescuer had probably gone for help.

  “Hello? Anyone up there?”

  Only an empty, haunting stillness responded. The erratic thudding of her own heartbeat resounded like a frenetic drum in the hollow silence.

  Refusing to believe she was alone, Vera reflected that her voice had sounded weak, rusty, even to her own ears. She’d have to shout louder for the sound to carry throughout the vast cavernous structure. Brushing a strand of hair from her mouth, she cleared her throat and tried again.

  “Hello! Can you hear me? I’ve fallen and can’t get out.” An incongruous giggle of mounting hysteria tickled her throat. She sounded like that old lady on the television commercial; the one who’d fallen and couldn’t get up. Why had she ever found that commercial remotely amusing? There was certainly nothing funny about a person lying helpless on the ground.

  Nonetheless, a fresh chuckle burbled up from her chest and broke loose as she joined in the laugh fate was surely enjoying at her expense. This trip to Arizona was for the sole purpose of discovering what had become of Verity McBride. Vera’s research had brought her to the Balbriggan where Verity had
disappeared decades ago; would Vera also meet her destiny in this abandoned mine?

  Alone, frightened and hungry. Like Verity.

  But Vera wasn’t giving up; not without a fight.

  Her will to live strengthened by encroaching panic, she cupped her hands around her mouth and drew in a deep breath. Using every fiber of her reserve of strength, she filled her lungs and shouted, “Hello! Can you hear me?”

  “I’ve heard freight trains that made less racket.”

  Vera jumped at the sound of a rich, masculine voice. Because of the odd configuration of the crisscrossing tunnels, she couldn’t tell from which direction the man had spoken. But energized by the fact that she wasn’t alone, that help was on the way, she grinned and shouted again, “Did anyone ever tell you that you have the most beautiful voice on earth?”

  A pause, then a droll chuckle sounded in the vast emptiness. “Not so’s I recall. But keep talking so I can track you.”

  To converse with that deep, welcome voice required no effort at all. “You don’t know how glad I was to hear you. I thought they’d all gone off and left me here.”

  “All who?” He was closer now. “Who’d you think had abandoned you? Ver, you don’t have the boys here, do you?”

  Boys? Maybe he meant Jeffrey, the youngster she’d been chasing when she fell. “No, I was talking about the people from the tour. The ones I came with.”

  There was a long silence. When her rescuer spoke again, his voice boomed with nearness. “By any chance did you hit your head when you fell?”

  Vera recalled that relief map of goose eggs on her scalp. “Maybe a mild bump or two.”

  Suddenly, a flickering light appeared overhead and the silhouette of a man’s head bobbed over the edge of the pit. “That explains it then,” he muttered, his voice not quite so melodious as before. “You’ve gone and knocked yourself silly.”

  Chapter Two

  Jericho Jackson tipped his hat to the back of his head and lifted the lantern over the mine shaft. She was standing on a rock ledge about nine feet below the bridge. If she’d fallen a yard farther in any direction, she would have plunged another hundred feet to her sure death.