The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine

by Kristen Heitzmann

  Changeable. The doctor thought her changeable? Had warned Quillan? Beh! She tugged the blanket to her chin. Didn’t she have reason? She caught Father Antoine glancing over Jack’s back. Could he read her thoughts?

  He dutifully held Jack’s reins, but she knew it was to Quillan Jack responded, and to Jock, his twin. She remembered too well trying to control Jack separately. And landing in the creek for her trouble. And Quillan trying not to laugh—though not hard enough. Oh! And there again a glance from the priest.

  She raised her head from the cocoon of blankets. “Èmie said you’ve been busy, Father.”

  “Four weddings, one last rites, and one baptism,” he said. “And that was only yesterday.”

  She couldn’t accustom herself to his gaunt smile. He needed “feeding up,” as Nonna would say. Carina’s chest tightened. Soon she would see Nonna. And Mamma and Papa, elegant Papa. But most of all old Giuseppe. She pressed her cheek into the woolly mat again. How thoughtful for Quillan to have attached it. She felt like a lamb pressed to a ewe’s belly. She could smell the musky scent of lanolin in the fleece. He was a good man, her husband. She warmed at the thought.

  It took an hour and more to reach the circular shelf outside the Rose Legacy mine. The burned-out foundation was buried in snow, nothing more than a vague outline. But the mine gaped as though surprised to see them climbing up through the snow, and roots formed eyes above the tunnel mouth.

  Quillan brought his team to a halt, and Carina sat up. The ride had been as smooth and joltless as he’d predicted. He walked around Jock’s rump as she slid toward the edge. Then he gripped her waist and swung her down.

  “Thank you.” She smoothed her coat.

  He untied the coils of rope from Jock’s side and hung them over his shoulder.

  “Did you bring lanterns?” she asked.

  “Miners’ candles. In my pack.” He gave her a hand over the snow. It dwindled to a thin coat of powder immediately inside the tunnel.

  Carina felt a quiver of excitement. This was the first time she would go down to the cave without Alex. Yet it felt so right with Quillan. He’d saved her from the mineshaft before she even knew there was a cave beneath. The cave had been Alex’s discovery. The painted chamber had been hers.

  Quillan emptied a large lumpy bag of fodder and grain onto the ground for the horses. Carina watched them nose it eagerly. They wouldn’t wander far on this steep snowy slope. Quillan unfastened the litter and leaned it inside the tunnel, tossing the blankets at its foot. He wouldn’t leave the horses encumbered. That was the first good thing she’d noticed about him, how he cared for his animals.

  Inside the tunnel, Quillan shrugged off his pack. He took out tin candle holders with a flap of metal at one edge to keep a draft away. He affixed one candle and handed it to Carina. The acrid smell of the match caught her breath, then the flame grabbed the wick and stretched upward, its thin light dancing across the low ceiling.

  “We’ll just use one until we’re down.” Quillan picked up a coil of rope and started working it into a harness. When he finished the knots and twists, he held it open for her to step into.

  Carina handed the candle to Father Antoine. She had not thought to wear the pair of pants that she occasionally wore, and the rope harness caught her skirts up awkwardly. But it was dim and both men discreet in their gaze. She took the few steps to the edge of the shaft and looked down. Before God healed her fear of heights, the sight would have set her head spinning, her stomach surging to her throat. It was intimidating even now.

  She clung to the rope as Quillan lowered her, using the spikes he’d attached to the beam as a pulley. Just the way Alex had let her down that first time when she’d sensed the darkness like a hostile force. She felt safe today with Quillan and Father Antoine, however. She reached the ledge, which had been the floor of Wolf ’s shaft, then gathering herself, swung into the hole where he’d broken through the roof of the limestone cave.

  This was the worst part of the descent, dangling helplessly in the vast darkness of the first chamber. With no light at all she could hardly sense her downward motion. Maybe she was just hanging there in the void. She smelled the musty bodies of bats. Then her feet hit ground and slid on the pungent, slimy guano. She climbed out of the harness and tugged. She wouldn’t yell and set the bats off in a cloud.

  To her immediate left plunged a subterranean well. She knew it was there but could see nothing. Alex had sent her down with a candle in her pocket. Quillan had not thought to. He was not as accustomed to the underground as a mining engineer. Now, though she knew the cave held nothing evil, the darkness preyed on her mind. Her ears fixed on the soft plink-plink of water dripping somewhere. And the mouth of Wolf ’s chamber moaned. She would never forget that sound.

  She heard someone, Father Antoine she guessed, directly above her and stepped aside. He landed with a grunt, and called, “I’m down.”

  Carina put a hand to his arm at the flutter overhead, but his words must not have been enough to frighten the bats en masse. “Bats,” she said and felt him look up, though they were in pitch darkness. How ingrained their habits. “Step this way, Father. There’s a well to your left. Did you bring a light?”

  “Yes.” He fumbled in his pockets, and she wondered if his mind felt muffled, like hers.

  The end of the rope brushed the floor with Quillan’s descent. She caught the end and held it firm. Soon she heard him straining and stepped out of his way. The snick of a match sounded loudly in the chamber, and she watched the tiny flame lick the candlewick. It caught easily.

  Quillan landed and tugged the handle of a holder from his pocket. “Forgot to give you this.”

  She took it and lit the candle from Father Antoine’s. Quillan lit his, as well, then all three held them out at arm’s length and circled slowly. The light glanced over the closest stalactites, stalagmites, and a narrow sheet of tawny flowstone, only hinting at the size of the cavern.

  Father Antoine said, “Wolf painted this?”

  “Not this one.” Quillan pointed his light away in the direction of the painted chamber. “It’s over that way.”

  He started, and Carina followed closely with Father Antoine behind her. They felt the floor rise, and the men needed to duck their heads as they entered the narrow cave tunnel. Suddenly the floor dropped, and they entered the small chamber. It was the third time Carina had been there, but as her candle illuminated the pictures around her, she felt the same trembling emotion. Wolf ’s saga could not leave her unmoved.

  She glanced at Quillan. He had fixed immediately on the final picture in the circular mural, where Wolf stood with his son raised over his head. Father Antoine circled slowly, studying each new image with a grim countenance. She knew well what he was feeling. He’d been a part of Wolf ’s life.

  Wolf had told him of the slaughter of his family, shown him the scars of being a white slave among the tribes. But it was not the same as seeing the images Wolf had transferred from his mind. Without speaking, Carina joined Quillan and laced her fingers with his.

  He kept his gaze to the wall. “I remember this.” He spoke so low, she wasn’t certain she’d heard.

  “Remember?”

  He nodded. “Impossible, I know.” The opening in the teardrop-shaped ceiling moaned softly. He looked up. “That, too.” His hand tightened its hold on hers. “The first time I heard that, I recognized it. That sound has been in my dreams all my life.”

  “But, Quillan . . .”

  “I know. I was only an infant. But I’m sure Wolf brought me here.” The candlelight flickered across his face.

  “And this scene . . .” He stepped closer to the wall. “Carina, I remember it.”

  “Not impossible.” Father Antoine joined them. “The mind is a tome, holding every image, every word. If you did see it, even in those early months before Rose sacrificed her good for yours, then surely it’s locked away somewhere.”

  Quillan returned his gaze to the image on the wall. “I’ve a
lways remembered easily. Words. Pictures.”

  Father Antoine asked, “Words spoken or written?”

  “Both. But mainly written. When I was young I thought everyone did.” His face hardened. “Then I learned otherwise.”

  Carina guessed it was a painful memory. He had so many of those. Quillan turned now, and together they circled the chamber, reading Wolf ’s life on the walls. Like his son, Wolf ’s life had not been easy. A fierce defensiveness rose up in her for Quillan. He may have had a joyless youth, but no more. She would make him happy.

  He looked down, and she thought he had read her thoughts, but then she realized she was squeezing the blood from his fingers. She relaxed her grip. When they had completed the circle and stood once again at the final painting, Quillan asked, “Why would he show me this?”

  Both Carina and the priest knew the question was much deeper. Why would Wolf take his infant son into the cave and show him his deepest secret when he couldn’t bear to have the baby near? When Quillan’s cries set off memories too painful, too present to bear? When Wolf ’s madness made Rose give their child to another to raise?

  Father Antoine said, “Perhaps his mind was like yours, Quillan. He didn’t read or write, but he remembered. How else could he depict those early scenes with such detail? He couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time.”

  Quillan frowned. Carina bit her lip. Had Wolf passed on a gift to Quillan? Or a curse?

  “Maybe,” Father said softly, “he knew you would remember.”

  Quillan drew a slow breath. “I’ve asked Alex Makepeace to help me seal this off. I don’t want others—”

  “Quite right.” The priest circled the cave with his eyes. “Wolf ’s borne enough.”

  His words brought a low rumbling. Some trick of wind through the angled opening above? It grew, and now Carina felt it in the ground. Did the earth shake? But no. It was like the flood, something rushing, crashing above them. Quillan tugged her as snow powder gushed through the small opening like sugar from a sack.

  “Avalanche!” And he turned and rushed down the tunnel to the main cavern and the rope.

  Carina’s candle fluttered as she hurried after her husband. The bats beat the ceiling with their wings and swirled like a dark cloud above. But they must sense that their exit through Wolf ’s chamber was shut off. Quillan shimmied up the rope through the bats, his candle doused. Father Antoine joined Carina, holding the end of the rope with the harness swishing the floor. Quillan disappeared into darkness. She wondered if she should put on the harness, but the rope hung limp once he reached the top. Had he forgotten them?

  Father Antoine took the rope firmly. “I’ll go next and bring you up.”

  She didn’t want to be left down there. What was wrong with Quillan, to rush up and abandon them? Father Antoine pushed back his sleeves and started to climb. He wasn’t as swift, moving like an inchworm on the rope. But he doggedly climbed. Now there was only her candle lit, and she lost the priest in the dimness.

  She was alone in the cave with the bats. What was happening? Could it really be an avalanche? The rope jerked and she caught it, climbed into the harness, and blew out her candle.

  The first tug yanked her off her feet. The men must be pulling together. She was hoisted into the musty cloud of bats, but not one touched her. Grazie, Signore! She pushed through the hole in the ceiling, which was the floor of Wolf ’s shaft, used her legs against the wooden ties that formed the walls, and then she was up. But the tunnel was as dark as the cave. Where was the daylight?

  Quillan caught her waist and helped her from the harness. She felt him shaking. Quillan shaking! Dio! “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “We’re buried.” His voice was grim.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The avalanche has covered the mine.” Quillan relit her candle. “Chunks of snow and ice like boulders and tons of powder.”

  She tried to picture it. The closest she could come was to imagine the flash flood that had torn away half the city of Crystal.

  Quillan smashed his fist into his palm. “I should have known with the warming today.”

  “How could you? Could you know the flood was coming, too?”

  He pressed his palm to his forehead and stared at the tunnel’s mouth. “My team.”

  And now she knew why he trembled. Jack and Jock. Oh, Signore. She gripped his arm. “Maybe they ran. You left them free. Maybe they heard it and ran.”

  Quillan didn’t answer, and she looked at Father Antoine. His grim face belied her. But couldn’t they have? She thought of Dom, her own mule lost in the flood, carried away by a force beyond him. How Quillan loved his horses. She ached for him. “What do we do?”

  Her question seemed to settle Quillan. Give him a task, let him work. He held his candle up and searched about. “Carina, in your trips here, did you ever see a shovel?”

  She shook her head. The little alcove where Quillan had found candles held nothing but some rotted sacking. Her gaze fell on the litter. “What about the poles? Could you poke through with them?” She pointed.

  Quillan blew his breath sharply. “We should be so lucky.” He set his candle on the floor and pulled the litter from the wall. “With so little light showing through, there must be more than six feet of snow piled out there. But . . .” He started untying the corner of the litter.

  Father Antoine handed her his candle and joined Quillan. “How can I help?”

  Quillan handed him the other end. They worked at it together. Carina held both candles to give them light. Once they had the poles free, Quillan plowed through the snow that had settled inside. He thrust the pole into the center of the opening. When he drew it out a cascade of powder erased the hole. He tried again, higher, but the same thing happened.

  Carina stood the candles on the floor, then tugged the blankets out from under the falling snow and shook them out. Father Antoine and Quillan tried again and again to poke through the snow mass. She folded the blankets and laid them atop the wooly mat and canvas tarp. She tugged Quillan’s pack loose and set it beside the other things. There was also the empty sacking in which he’d brought the horses’ fodder. She tucked it along the wall where it would be less obvious.

  Quillan banged his pole on the floor. “It’s no use. Until the snow packs, we’re rearranging powder.”

  If it was only powder, maybe the horses were all right. How much damage could powder do? Then she imagined the depth and mass of it. Their six-foot poles made no difference at all. What if it were twelve or twenty feet deep? No horse could survive that.

  Quillan laid his pole against the wall. “We’ll have to wait until it melts and freezes. Then it’ll clump when we dig.”

  She nodded. “How long will that take?”

  “If it’s clear outside and the sun works on it deeply enough, maybe a day, maybe two.”

  “Two days! Madonna mia!” The walls closed in. Two days in the dark? Had they candles enough? Had they food? Water?

  Quillan walked over, pulled out his pack. “I had Mae pack us some lunch. Not much for several meals, but better than nothing.”

  Carina sank down onto the mat. Just now she didn’t feel hungry, she felt trapped. Oh, Signore, there must be some way. “Tomorrow, or the next day, then you can dig through?”

  “With a pole? Maybe.” Quillan unwrapped the paper from a slab of stewed beef between two thick slices of brown bread. “If we divide this three ways . . .”

  Why was he insisting on food? Wasn’t there something else to be doing?

  “Cut it two ways,” Father Antoine said. “I’m used to going without.”

  Quillan glanced up. “You’ll need strength to help me dig.”

  But the priest only waved his hand. “God will give me strength.”

  “Oh, sì!” Carina jolted. “We must pray!”

  She folded her hands at chin level, head tipped back. “Signore! You have promised where two or more are gathered, you are there, too.” That thought broug
ht comfort. “Help us now. Help us know what to do. Help us do it.” She hoped no one but God heard her rising panic.

  Father Antoine said, “Lord God, you ordained that we should have dominion of the earth. Give us courage and wisdom.”

  Father Antoine had heard. Why else pray for courage? She must not show her fear. It would only add to their burden.

  Quillan had bowed his head, but he stayed silent so long Carina thought he would say nothing. Then he did. “Help my poor beasts. Amen.”

  Quillan unsheathed the knife that hung at his belt and sliced the sandwich in two. She wasn’t hungry, but Carina took her half. It mattered to Quillan. Maybe he believed they would be out soon. Maybe he needed to act as though they would.

  She bit into the crumbly bread and stiff meat. It brought Mae so vividly to mind. Would she worry? Would she send help? Did she know where the mine was? She’d lived in upper Placerville once. Surely she’d remember. But could anyone get through the snow?

  Carina chewed reflectively. They must make the most of what food they had. And water? Snow, she supposed. But Quillan drew a canteen from the pack. He offered it, and she drank. Father Antoine, also. Then Quillan drank deeply. He’d worked up a thirst, no doubt. It would be hardest for those who worked. She would do what she could, but what would that be?

  When she finished eating, she lay down on the woolly mat, pillowing her cheek with her arm. Quillan covered her with a blanket and sat down at her head. His palm rested there, warm and comforting. He no longer shook. He was in control. He would do what he could.

  Father Antoine also sat against the wall. “At least we have air. Many’s the miner caught below ground without air. I wouldn’t want to go that way. Unless it were God’s will.”

  Quillan looked at him. “Feels a bit tight, though.”

  Carina looked at her husband, a man so accustomed to the road he preferred it to house and hearth. Well, here was a test. Like her climbing up to the mine time after time when she first discovered it to conquer her fear of heights. How would being closed in work on Quillan’s mind? It wasn’t doing too well with hers.