Black Pine Creek

by David Haynes

  Vinson stood up. “Mr Burgess?”

  “Huh?” Burgess was scratching his gigantic beard.

  “I wondered if I might ask you about the lease?”

  “What of it?”

  “Maybe I could take it on? I’m not that experienced but I’ve...”

  “Ever managed a crew of miners before? What’s your name again?”

  “Mike Vinson. No, but I owned a car shop in Carlisle and had five guys working for me. I reckon it’s...”

  Burgess held his hand up. “I need someone who knows what they’re doing. Not some greenhorn mechanic with gold fever.”

  Vinson felt a rage blossom suddenly in his gut. He couldn’t afford to let it show though.

  “I’m the only thing keeping that wash-plant running. If it wasn’t for me, it would’ve packed up a month ago. And as for being a greenhorn, well, hiring a murdering thief didn’t work out too well for you, did it?” His anger was concealed but just barely. It made his voice sound whiny. It was how it sounded when he was pleading for a little more time to get some money together before someone put a masonry drill through his temple.

  Burgess stared at him for a moment. His brown beard worked up and down as he chewed on something. Maybe it was his lip, maybe it was his tongue, it was impossible to say, but at least he was thinking. He hadn’t dismissed Vinson quite so readily.

  “Up there, that jar full of gold on your bunk. Is that my gold?”

  Vinson turned around and saw the jar on the unmade bed. Shit. He turned back around.

  “I’m... I was...”

  “Keeping it safe for me?” Burgess smiled.

  “That’s right. Draper told me to hold on to it until he got back. I...”

  “And what you got in that fist of yours? I thought at first you were itching to take a swing at me but I heard it clink against the bottle. I know what that sound is and you haven’t got any rings on your fingers, Mr Vinson.”

  “It’s mine,” Vinson blurted before he could control himself.

  Burgess stepped forward. His bulk filled the space, making the camper feel claustrophobic.

  “None of the gold here is yours. It all belongs to me. The trucks out there. Mine. The wash-plant, that’s mine and even the creek down there, well that’s mine too. The only thing that belongs to you is this shitty little hole you call home. Now I’d recommend you pass whatever’s in your hand to me and that jar over there, I’ll take that too.”

  Vinson stood where he was. He’d been in situations like this before. He knew what he was supposed to do. Hand it over, hand it all over. So why wouldn’t his fist unclench?

  “Draper doesn’t know anything about this, does he?” Burgess was smiling at him.

  Vinson bit his lip but made no reply.

  Burgess sucked air through his teeth. “You called him a murderer so you know what he does to people who cross him. When I show him this he’s going to...”

  Vinson swung his fist hard and fast at Burgess’s temple. He felt the power of the nugget in his arm, the punch landing with a satisfying crack. There was little time to think, it being such a confined space and Burgess being as massive as he was. He needed to get the big man down as quickly as possible. He aimed a kick at Burgess’s balls but the punch had done little damage and already Burgess was righting himself. The kick glanced off a knee and slapped pathetically against his thigh.

  He threw another punch. This time it was straight, directed at Burgess’s pudgy nose. He felt the bone crack under his fist and the big man staggered back. He reached down for the knife, remembering the nugget in his hand. He didn’t have the will to release his grip on it and pull the knife. He couldn’t do it.

  In that split-second, he heard Burgess roar like the wounded beast he was.

  “Fuck!” yelled Burgess. “You shit!” He stepped forward.

  Vinson pushed his back against the bunk, trying to draw the blade with his left hand. It was awkward and he wasn’t quick enough. Panic gripped him just as a massive fist hit him just below the eye, snapping his head back so far he felt like his neck vertebrae were fracturing.

  He pulled both arms up to protect his face as more blows rained down on him. It was like being hit by a hammer. An experience he had first-hand knowledge of.

  Still he gripped the nugget. Still he squeezed it into the meat of his palm, trying to bury it beneath the flesh. Hiding it away from everyone. It belonged to him.

  As more blows landed, Burgess grunted with effort. The punches became less frenzied but more accurate. Burgess was the stronger man by far, yanking at Vinson’s protective arms to give him access to the fleshier parts of his skull.

  Something that felt like a truck hit him in the gut and his knees buckled. A boot kicked him in the chest. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. He gasped and tried to pull air in but he couldn’t.

  “Pl… eeee... asse,” he choked out the word and dropped his arms.

  Burgess was not one for mercy. A fist caught Vinson on the side of the head with such power that he thought his skull was smashed. He slumped sideways.

  “No more,” he groaned. And yet his fist remained closed. Even now he couldn’t give it up.

  “Open your goddamn fist!” Burgess stood over him panting, face red with a sheen of sweat coating his pocked skin.

  Vinson didn’t move his body, just his eyes. His arms didn’t feel like his own anymore. From this angle, he could see the bulging and hairy gut beneath the shirt but that wasn’t what interested him. It was the nose of the gun. If he could reach it somehow. Reach up and take it.

  “You look at that gun again and I’ll put a bullet in your face, you thieving scum.”

  Vinson shuffled against the bunk and righted himself. His breathing was coming back under control.

  His options were running out, if they hadn’t evaporated already.

  “Give,” Burgess barked, holding his hand out. Blood was running from his nostrils but the forest of beard gobbled it up immediately. It probably wasn’t the first time Burgess’s nose had been broken in a fight.

  Vinson shook his head and tried to stand. A boot put a stop to that.

  Burgess slid his gun out of the holster and pointed it at Vinson. “I’m quite happy to kill you. Quite happy.”

  The click of the safety releasing made Vinson squirm. He licked his lips and tasted blood. He didn’t know where it was coming from.

  “Last chance.” Burgess was smiling now. His finger resting on the trigger.

  Vinson lifted his arm as high as he could. Two of his fingers felt numb, the others tingling as the sensation wriggled back into the nerves. He tossed the nugget toward Burgess with a feeling of utter desperation.

  The nugget slid across the floor, between Burgess’s feet.

  “You’d die for that? I’ve shit bigger nuggets than that.” Burgess stepped over it and reached above Vinson’s head. “I’ll take that too.”

  Vinson heard the jingle of gold in his jar. Burgess was taking everything. Everything he’d worked for was being stripped away from him. Again. Just like at the car shop.

  Burgess pulled back. “You’re lucky I don’t fetch the cops. As it is, you’ll never work a mine again.” He kicked Vinson’s leg with his dirty boots and turned away.

  Vinson opened his mouth to speak but he knew anything he said would sound like a whine… childlike.

  Burgess knelt down. His shirt stretched, stained and sweaty across his broad back. “Draper’s going to need a new mechanic.” He picked the nugget up and stood up.

  He held it up to the light as he turned back around. “Might be a good time to get out of town, Mr Vinson. I’m not sure I’d want to get on the wrong side of any of Draper’s crew. When I tell them you’ve been skimming a little for yourself, they won’t be too happy.”

  Vinson’s mind was a maelstrom of emotion. Despair, sadness, fear, frustration and above all anger. Everything was about to disappear. Everything. All options gone.

  Burgess turned away, satisfied that Vins
on was beaten. The gun was in his hand. The same hand where the nugget was, the jar in the other. “Nothing worse than thieving scum.” He left his parting words hanging in the air for a moment then took a step toward the door.

  Something Vinson had never felt before bloomed in his head. Something bright, white and pure – furious energy. That gold was his. He’d worked for it and nobody was taking it away from him. He pushed himself up using the bed’s raised platform as a brace and slid the blade from its sheath. Nobody was taking anything else from him ever again.

  He shot forward with the knife held by his waist. “That’s mine!” he screamed.

  Burgess turned around just in time to twist away from the stab at his gut, but Vinson crashed into him and sent them both outside with a thump. Vinson swung the knife again, feeling it cut through something soft. Something fleshy.

  As they landed, Vinson heard the gold rattle around inside the jar but there was no sound of breaking glass. They rolled across the dirt in a tangled heap, Vinson up and moving before Burgess. The bigger, heavier man’s weight was now working against him. Vinson knew giving Burgess the opportunity to use the gun he was still clutching in his hand would be his final mistake. He would be killed.

  For a second their eyes locked, and in Burgess’s eyes he could see his own reflection in the half-light, grim and determined.

  Burgess stayed on his back but started to raise his right hand. It was on the other side to Vinson which gave him time to bring the knife down squarely in Burgess’s chest. He felt something crack as it slipped easily through the skin. Blood immediately covered both of them.

  And yet still the hand was coming toward him. The barrel of the gun gradually, in slow motion, pointing at him. He withdrew the knife and plunged it in again. This time Burgess expelled a long breath, like he was sighing. Blood welled up onto the hilt, coating his fingers with a sticky warmth.

  Burgess stopped lifting his arm but squeezed the trigger. The crack was deafening – Vinson heard and felt the bullet whip past his ear. It forced the clean air apart and left behind an acrid stench.

  Somewhere he registered a low-pitched growl echo along the treeline. But he didn’t have time to consider it. He withdrew the knife again and raised it.

  “Enough,” gurgled Burgess. Blood frothing at the corners of his mouth.

  Vinson pushed the knife slowly into Burgess’s throat, feeling hot blood splash over his face and neck.

  “That was my gold!” he screamed, pulling open Burgess’s fist, leaning on the knife, forcing it through the back of his neck.

  Burgess jerked, his body going into a spasm that Vinson found vaguely funny, and then his body became a statue in the dirt. A leaking, bloody pile of bones and fat.

  Vinson rolled away, gripping the nugget between his fingers. He didn’t want it covered in the blood of some fat, obnoxious thug. It was perfect.

  19

  There was a stripe of grime around the bathtub by the time Mercer had finished. It was debatable whether the man had washed at all in the couple of months they had been up at the claim. Certainly by this evidence, it looked unlikely.

  “Want me to wait?” Mercer shouted from the bedroom.

  Draper rubbed off the grime as best as he could. “No, you go over now. I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll get a cold one behind the bar for you.”

  Steam rose from the water, creating a cleansing fog. “Okay,” he shouted. A moment later he heard the door to their room slam shut.

  He’d drunk a beer when he was putting money behind the bar for the others earlier, while Mercer was wallowing in the bath. It had tasted a thousand times better than anything he’d had in the last two months. Being just after noon, it had also gone straight to his boots.

  He lowered himself down into the water, exhaling loudly. He closed his eyes. There was nothing like it. Treats like this usually came at the end of the season, not during the final stretch, but there was no getting around the lack of fuel. It was a stupid mistake, not one he had ever made before.

  By the time his cell signal was back on, he could see a couple of missed calls from Burgess. He hadn’t left a message though so he was probably just checking up on him. Working out how much money he was going to make. There wasn’t going to be much, that was for sure. Not unless things changed pretty quickly.

  He might need Burgess for another year or two but with results like they had so far, it was unlikely Burgess would give him another lease. He sank down into the water, letting it wash over his face and hair. One thing for sure. Burgess wouldn’t be too happy if he knew they were all down here taking a holiday.

  *

  Mid-week afternoon in a bar, the only bar, on what passed for the high street was not a rowdy affair. At least not yet. They had the place to themselves, not counting the staff.

  Meg and Puckett were at the far end playing pool while Mercer and Flynn shared a table and a pitcher of beer. An extra glass had been set for Draper. He filled it and topped the others up at the same time. Rock music boomed from the jukebox by the pool table. No prizes for guessing it was Puckett’s choice. What music did Meg like, he wondered?

  “Thought you’d drowned in there,” Mercer said, picking up his glass. He had shaved his beard off. It took twenty years off his age but within two days it would be full again.

  “I was trying to call Burgess.”

  “Burgess? What the hell for?”

  Draper drained half of his glass and burped into his hand. “I’ve got a couple of missed calls from him. He’s just checking up on me.” Then he added spontaneously, “Making sure I haven’t shot anyone.”

  There was an awkward silence for a moment before Flynn hooked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “You can start with Puckett. I’ve had to listen to that shit all the way down here. I’m not sure what’s worse, his constant babble or Black Sabbath.”

  Draper laughed and filled everyone’s glass again. He raised his own. “Here’s to Black Pine Creek.”

  The three of them chinked glasses and took long drafts.

  The bar was gloomy but not in a depressing way. There was a row of neon lights over the bar advertising different beers, and windows had been cut into the wood at either end of the cabin. The sun offered a weak light that filtered across the room from the windows and met in the middle. It created a small bright pond.

  “Think we need another of those,” Draper said, standing up. “You guys eaten yet?”

  “Not yet, but we’ve ordered.”

  Draper nodded. “I’ll add one to that.” He walked over to the bar where a girl not much older than Meg was waiting.

  “Another?” she asked, flicking the pump handle and filling another pitcher.

  “That obvious?” he asked.

  “You all look like you need a drink, that’s all.”

  He nodded and looked at the chalkboard behind her head. “I’ll take some of that pork too please, with fries, not potatoes.”

  She handed the pitcher to him. “I’ll bring it out with the others. Anything else?”

  He looked toward the pool table. Meg and Puckett had a pitcher but it was still half-full. Meg laughed as she nudged Puckett into a bad shot. He smiled at them.

  “That’s it, thanks. Give me a shout when the tab runs out.”

  “Will do.” She disappeared into the back.

  “Here we go, gentlemen.” Draper poured beer into the three glasses and sat down.

  “Reckon Mike’ll be okay up there on his own?”

  “Sure,” Mercer replied.

  Flynn wiped beer froth from his mustache. “Oh, he’ll be fine all right. He’ll be giving his beloved baby some love.”

  “You mean the plant?” Draper asked.

  He nodded. “I’ve never seen anyone give so much love to a machine before. He talks to it like it was alive. Like it was his lover. I haven’t seen him stick his dick inside it yet but I wouldn’t rule it out before the end of the season.”

  Flynn made the comment without cra
cking a smile. He had a dry sense of humor which made Draper and Mercer laugh even more.

  “Good worker though, eh?” Draper said. Flynn had been around miners both good and bad for most of his life, all of them had, but Mercer and Draper were more detached than the others. Flynn was a good judge of character. Plus, before the night shift regime started, he had worked with Vinson more than anyone else.

  “Knows his stuff all right. Works as hard as anyone I’ve ever seen. Constantly on the go and doesn’t let anyone mess with his plant. You got a guy like that working for you and you’ll never have a breakdown again.”

  Draper nodded. His experience of working the night shift with Vinson had been similar.

  “Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could chuck him though,” Flynn added, taking a drink.

  “Why? What d’you mean?” Mercer asked.

  Flynn put his glass down. “Just a feeling. We’ve been working with him for a few months now and who of us knows anything about the man?” He left the question hanging, looking first at Mercer and then Draper. Both of them shrugged.

  The comment had come out of the blue but the same feeling had been gnawing at Draper for some time. There was something about Vinson that put him on edge, and it wasn’t just the comments he liked to make at their weekly meetings.

  “Is he married?” Flynn continued. “Has he got kids? What team does he support? Who were his high-school buddies and what did he do before he came up here? I couldn’t answer one of those questions. In all this time, I should know something about him. I should know something to be able to trust him. What makes him tick and how he’ll react in certain situations is something I need to know. You need to know these things when you’re working with someone day after day. You need to know he isn’t gonna try to rip you off or stick a knife in your back.”

  It showed Flynn had been giving the matter some thought. It was an unexpectedly high level of analysis for a man usually so taciturn.