by Blake Crouch
The last of Abandon’s residents trudged up the web trail, the closest of them Emma Ilg, wrapped in a black manta, her purple gown bulging out of the bottom, encrusted with ice. Emma stopped below Gloria and hunched over to catch her breath in the thin air.
When she looked up, she said, “Have you seen Russ—What’s wrong?”
Gloria shook her head, tears streaming.
“Billy McCabe and Oatha Wallace . . . know ’em?”
“Know of them. Why?”
Gloria went to pieces. “I think they killed our husbands.”
Emma’s ruddy face turned cold, rigid. “No. Don’t you say that to me. Russ and Ezekiel are up ahead. They’re trying to find us—”
“Listen to me, Emma.”
“I will not hear—”
“Billy and Oatha murdered Mr. Packer last night and made off with his gold. That’s why our husbands rode up to the pass. But it’s been four hours and Zeke hasn’t come back to me.”
“How do you know they’re gone?”
“ ’Cause Billy came to my cabin and was on the verge of killin me before—”
“You’ve seen them dead?”
“No.”
“Then they aren’t. My husband’s up ahead.”
“Please, Emma—”
“Don’t speak another word to me!” Emma pushed her way up the trail, knocking Gloria down into the snow as she passed.
A ways up the mountain, a woman screamed.
“Al, get your fuckin hands off me,” Joss said.
“Come on, they’s children up ahead a you. Watch that mouth—”
“Don’t tell me how to be. You got these wrist irons too tight. They’re strangulatin my hands. And I need a brain tablet.”
“I’ll fix ’em when we get there and get you a smoke. Simmer down.” Joss glanced up toward the end of the canyon. With the storm having passed, she could finally see the steep white slope two miles south that led up to the Sawblade. She squinted her eyes, trying to raise the black specks zigzagging down like a line of warrior ants, thought she’d rather go it alone, take her chances in Abandon, than holed up with this miserable bunch of pilgrims.
Near the rimrock, the trail had become an icy staircase, stomped down and smoothed over by the passage of a hundred pairs of webs.
“How you expect me to climb with no hands?”
“Haul in your neck. I’m helpin you, ain’t I?”
Joss purposely tripped, and Al had to grab her under both elbows to keep her from sliding down the mountain.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Can you climb ten more steps?”
As Joss struggled to her feet, her fingers grazed over the bowie knife jammed down into her canvas trousers, and she thought, It will be such a pleasure to stick this in you, you stackwad cocksucker.
Fifty feet back down the trail, Joss heard a woman scream.
“Where’s Daddy?”
“He rode up to the pass with Mr. Wallace, honey.”
“What for?”
“Don’t you worry about that.”
Bessie walked ahead of her daughter as they climbed the slope above town, her mind running in ten directions at once. The gold. The murders. Heathens riding down from the pass. They’d been delayed in getting to the chapel, because Billy had told them to go home first and pack for the trip to Silverton. But she was with him now, and despite everything, it felt right. He was her husband, after all. The Good Lord commanded that she obey him.
The trail steepened, and just ahead lay a series of icy steps that climbed the remaining distance up the cuesta to the rimrock.
“All right, Har, I need to hold your hand on this part.” Bessie turned around. “Harriet!” she screamed. “Harriet!” She couldn’t see anything downslope, standing high enough above town that a slice of the sun still lingered over the far side of the canyon.
“What’s wrong, ma’am?” An Englishman leading his wife and two daughters stopped on the trail just below.
“You seen my daughter? She’s yea high. Six years old. Curly black hair. She was right here with me not a second ago.”
“No, I sure haven’t seen—”
“Oh Jesus. Excuse me.” Bessie tried to scoot by, but the big bearded Englishman stretched his arm out to stop her.
“Ma’am, now you gotta keep climbing. We’re in terrible—”
“I’ve lost my daughter!”
“And someone’s gonna find her and they’ll bring her along.”
“Sir, please step out of my way.”
“You’re holding up the line.”
“Harriet! Harriet!”
As Bessie tried once more to step around him, he scooped her up, threw her over his shoulder, and continued up the steps toward the rimrock, Bessie flailing and screaming, the Englishman shushing her.
“We’re gonna get everyone safely inside, and if she isn’t there, I’ll go find her myself. That’s a promise.”
But Bessie’s desperate screaming drowned him out. She even surpassed the church bell until the mountain swallowed her.
2009
FIFTY-THREE
J
une whimpered, “I should’ve stayed with Emmett. He’s all alone in that place.”
Abigail walked with her arm around June, supporting her, and within earshot of the two professors. “I know,” she said, “but we can’t split up, and with the snow coming down like this, the roof of Emerald House could collapse.”
They made a careful descent out of Emerald Basin, down the steep switchbacks to the canyon floor, Lawrence and Quinn talking shop while they fought their way through the snow.
Even though her tailbone was in agony, Abigail felt revived by a second wind as they passed their buried tents, the llamas standing together in a mass of fur and breath clouds. It was almost four in the morning when they entered the ghost town of Abandon, a pride of headlamps moving between the dark and snow-fraught buildings—some swaying in the wind, on the brink of collapse.
She caught a fragment of what Lawrence was saying: “. . . tempting, but my first priority is getting June and my daughter out of here.”
As they approached the north end of Abandon, Abigail improved her pace, came up between the professors, said, “So where are you taking us, Lawrence?”
He glanced back. “Not much farther now. All will be revealed.”
At the end of town, Lawrence turned and led them up the east side of the canyon. After a hundred yards, Abigail’s headlamp shone on something through the heavy snow—that ruined church in the spruce, its iron bell capped with snow, its cross powder-blown and listing in the wind.
They hiked on, the snow rising almost to her knees. Soon they were climbing again, Abigail using her hands and feet now, the slope so steep that
she had to kick her boots in to avoid slipping. At the moment she didn’t think she could climb anymore, Lawrence reached back and pulled her and June up onto a wide ledge.
They’d arrived at the base of the rimrock. From here, the canyon wall rose vertically into darkness, and Abigail was on the verge of asking where they could possibly go from here when she saw it—behind Quinn, an opening to a mine shaft, seven feet high and wide enough for several to walk abreast into the mountain.
“How have I never seen this?” Quinn said.
Lawrence pointed to the rock around the opening. “Because of the way the rock overhangs, you can’t see the shadow of the tunnel from the canyon floor. You’d have to stumble upon it by sheer dumb luck, like I did last year.”
He turned and walked into the mine.
“Warmer in here,” Quinn said.
“Most of the mines around Abandon stay a balmy thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit year round. Refreshing in the summer.”
Abigail and June followed them in.
The wind died away.
“How’s your ankle holding up, Lawrence?” Abigail asked.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m on pure adrenaline now.”
Water dripped from the ceiling onto t
he hood of Abigail’s jacket.
The air smelled dank, of water and minerals.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“They used to call it a ‘shoofly,’ ” Lawrence said, his voice echoing off the rock and trailing away deep into the mountain. “It’s just an entryway into the mine.”
She shined her headlamp into the distance, where the tunnel seemed to narrow, and thirty feet ahead, Abigail saw their headlamp beams converge upon a small iron door.
1893
FIFTY-FOUR
S
hadowgees had been placed every twenty feet on the wet, rocky floor, like luminarias for a subterranean party. Gloria hurried along the downward-sloping tunnel into the mountain, following the echo of voices in the darkness ahead.
The day hole narrowed, and she came at last to a small iron door built into the rock. A man she recognized as the Godsend’s assayer manned the entrance, and he offered his hand, escorting her through.
“You can head on over that way with the others, ma’am, and do watch your step on this uneven rock.”
Lanterns and candles and more shadowgees illuminated the rock in firelight, and as she passed into the main chamber, the whole of Abandon overwhelmed her in a hundred-strong chorus of weeping and shouting and voices in varying strains of panic—bawling, terrified children; mothers and fathers trying to comfort them, many failing to hold back their own tears; a handful of men barking orders, attempting to manage the chaos; huddles of roostered miners, cursing whatever breed of heathen dare descend into their canyon and making pronouncements of war and grandiose predictions of the hell they would unleash on any savage who breeched the iron door; and Emma Ilg, flitting from person to person, a manic fly, asking if they’d seen her husband.
Gloria found a spot along the wall between two distraught families, crumpled down on the cold rock, and buried her face in the sleeves of her woolen jacket. Heathens are coming and Zeke is gone. She kept repeating it to herself, as if verifying that the nightmare was real, crying harder and harder as the pandemonium lifted to a crescendo.
Someone touched her shoulder. She looked up, and for a split second, out of sheer will and hope, she thought she saw Ezekiel squatted down in front of her, and her heart ruptured for him.
But it was the shunned madam she’d met last night at the dance hall, a thousand years ago, shivering under her bright red capote, her burgundy curls dusted with snow.
“It’s Rosalyn,” the old whore said. “What’s wrong, honey? Where’s your husband? He ride up to the pass with the other men?”
Gloria shook her head, but when she tried to tell her about Zeke, the words froze in her throat. Rosalyn sat beside her, reached over, and pulled Gloria’s head down into her lap. She pushed back the hood of Gloria’s cape and ran her fingers through her blond hair.
A voice rose above the din. Children stopped crying. The rowdy miners hushed. Gloria lifted her head from Rosalyn’s lap, saw all eyes on Bessie McCabe, who was standing amid the crowd, ripping out clumps of hair, and screaming Harriet’s name, her voice filling the cavern, reverberating down the tunnels, firelit tears glistening on her bruised face.
Stephen Cole rushed through the iron door toward Bessie. He embraced her and they sank down together on the floor, the preacher cradling her in his arms like a baby, rocking with her, whispering, “Calm down, my child, calm down. We’ll find her.”
Joss spotted Lana Hartman across the cavern, sitting quietly against the wall, her eyes shut tight, lips moving as if in prayer.
“Al, I told you I gotta see a man about a horse.”
They stood twenty feet from the iron door, and even in the weak, shadow-ridden light, Joss saw the boy’s pale complexion flush.
“Can’t you hold it a little while longer?” he whispered.
“Let me go on down that tunnel there, have my piece a privacy.”
“You know I can’t let you out a my sight.”
“You promised you’d loosen these wrist irons,” she whined.
“Hell, Joss. Hell.” The young deputy reached into his slicker, worked the key off the big ring attached to one of the belt loops on his dungarees, and waved it in Joss’s face. “Zeke Curtice’ll put me in the boneyard if I let you run a blazer on—”
“Al.” Joss smiled, watched how easily the boy’s face disarmed, knew for a fact he’d take full advantage if he ever got the chance. “You’re too close to the belly. Watch me squat if you want.”
“Might have to, Joss,” he said, then sighed. “Turn around.”
Al lifted her black serape and unlocked the wrist irons.
“Bring a happy jack,” she said, and Al picked one of the shadowgees off the floor and followed his prisoner into the empty passage.
2009
FIFTY-FIVE
A
s Lawrence rapped his knuckles on the iron, Abigail’s headlamp shone on the surface of a door so overrun with rust, it resembled brown mold. It stood closed and locked by means of a thick crossbar held in place with a padlock the size of a small shield.
Quinn reached into his down jacket and pulled out the key.
“Full disclosure, Lawrence. How’d you find this place?”
“On my final day last fall, I climbed up the east side of the canyon to take a picture of the ghost town from above, and happened to stumble upon this mine. You have to understand—at the time, I was so absorbed in my search for Oatha and Billy’s claim hole that I didn’t think twice about this shaft. Besides, there are countless mines above Abandon. Figured it wasn’t anything special. But if you found that key in Bart’s suite, and it fits that lock . . . Shit, my heart must be going a hundred miles an hour.”
“I know, mine, too.” Quinn held up the key. “Shall I?”
“Absolutely.”
Quinn slipped the key into the hole.
“Is it working?”
“Don’t know yet. The mechanism feels pretty stiff, so I’m going slow. Don’t wanna break it off.” Quinn carefully turned the key. “I think it’s working.” He slid the padlock out of the crossbar and set it down. “Jeez, that’s heavy. Help me with this, Lawrence.” The two men lifted the crossbar out of the deep iron brackets and dropped it on the rock.
With the crossbar gone, the door was naked save for a small lever on the right side near the rock, which appeared to function as a doorknob.
Lawrence lifted the lever.
From inside came the rusted squeak of a bolt moving.
The door swung inward and clanged against the rock, a strong, cold draft sweeping in, the mountain sucking air deep into itself, as if trying to breathe.
“Unbelievable,” Lawrence whispered as Abigail felt June’s grasp tighten around her hand.
“Lawrence, when did you first come to Abandon?” Quinn asked.
“Nineteen seventy-nine.”
“You’ve got me beat. Do the honors.”
Lawrence crossed the threshold, Quinn following close behind. As she entered, Abigail moved her headlamp along the walls, saw a grouping of holes in a sweep of unblasted rock, the product of a day spent double-jacking more than a hundred years ago.
She heard Lawrence gasp, and she broke away from June and went to her father’s side. “What’s wrong?” His headlamp was trained on an alcove fifteen feet off to the right of the iron door, his dimming light illuminating a collection of tattered burlap sacks, ten in all. Lawrence unclipped his backpack, took a deep, trembling breath, then limped into the alcove and knelt on the rocky floor. He reached into one of the sacks. His head dropped.
“What?” Quinn said. “They empty?”
Lawrence chucked something through the darkness.
A brick of solid gold thudded on the rock at Abigail’s feet. Then another. And another. She reached down, picked one up. The bar looked small in her hand, but it felt disproportionately heavy for its size, the yellow metal gleaming under her lamp, its surface marred with chinks and divots, cold as a block of ice.
“You’re holding more
than two hundred and eighty thousand dollars right there,” Quinn said.
Lawrence wept.
Abigail went to him in the alcove, asked, “What is it?”
He shook his head. “Waited a long time for this.”
Quinn had been rifling through the sacks. “I count sixty-one bricks,” he said.
Lawrence closed his eyes as he did the math. “Almost eighteen million. God, my whole body is tingling. Look at that.” His right hand shook in the beam of his headlamp.
Abigail glanced over her shoulder, saw June wandering off into another part of the mine.
“I’m gonna go check on her,” she said.
Abigail struggled to her feet, walked over to June, found her staggering through the dark, shaking her head and muttering to herself.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Abigail asked. “You okay?”
When June looked back, her face had gone pallid and chalky, her eyes sunken, the small woman as bloodless as a cadaver.
She turned suddenly and vomited on the rock.
1893
FIFTY-SIX
W
hen Stephen Cole raised his left arm, the noise in the chamber began to wane. Soon there was no sound but the occasional squall of a child. He stood in the center of the cavern, taking a moment to regard the horrified faces—these men, women, and children of Abandon who sat huddled together along the walls.
“Would you close your eyes with me?” he said.
Hats came off. Heads bowed. Children were shushed.
“Father.” Stephen Cole fell to his knees. “We come before You on this, the night of our Savior’s birth, a greedy, wicked, corrupt assembly. It is a dark hour. We have provoked Your wrath and for that I fall on my face and beseech Your forgiveness.” The preacher prostrated himself, his cheek against the cold rock floor. “I lift up the children to You, dear God. Children! I beg You.” His voice unraveled. “I beg You. Deliver them. Let them not be afraid, and if it be possible, allow this cup to pass.” The preacher’s tears ran down into the crevices of the rock. He whispered, “What of grace? Oh, my Father, what of grace? But not as I, but as Thou wilt. In Your Son’s holy name. Amen.”