Dominoes in Time

by Matthew Warner

  He knew he would eventually reveal what he saw. But he would have to be good and drunk first. For now, he needed to concentrate on survival. That meant climbing out as fast as possible. He didn’t know if he’d ever have the courage to return.

  Because what he’d seen hadn’t been a train at all.

  It was the head of a massive, gray worm. It filled the tunnel from side to side. Its skin glittered like quicksilver. A great maw slit its head. It opened and shut once in the time he observed it, exposing rows of pointed, silver teeth. But that mouth, as ugly and deadly as it appeared, wasn’t what he found most disturbing.

  A bulb jutted from the top of the worm’s head, looking a bit like a clown’s nose. Except Jobe knew it wasn’t a nose just as surely as he knew his own name. The protrusion, resting on a stubby neck, had been a human head.

  And its face, oh God, its face…

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When Jobe said he was sick the next morning and didn’t want to get up, Louis returned to the mine alone.

  He tied a bucket to the rope and lowered it in.

  They hadn’t yet purchased the pallet and winch they would need to haul out the massive quantities of silver. They didn’t have the money yet.

  As he climbed down, huffing from the effort, Louis spoke to the air to keep his courage up. “My age, won’t have more than one trip down and up in me. Gotta make this a good one.”

  The tunnel was quiet and still, which suited him fine. He would never admit it to Jobe, but what happened last night scared the dickens out of him. The cool air was also welcome. The heat outside was already unbearable.

  He set to work throwing chunks of metal into the bucket. Just this small amount, right here, might be enough for him to retire—or at least ensure he could stay the hell out of the Confederacy until the war was over.

  If only he’d had this much money when he returned to Georgia the first time.…

  Light flashed in the bucket. He thought sunlight was reflecting off the silver—then realized it was coming from the silver itself.

  “Good Jesus!”

  He reeled backward, fearing an explosion. They should’ve kept a canary on hand. But again, there was no money, and…

  The light continued to flash silently. What was going on?

  Louis inched forward and peered in. White sparks swirled across the metal. As he leaned closer, they intensified.

  He experimented with this until deciding it was safe. “Damn strange,” he muttered and leaned in again.

  Abruptly, the silver flattened and became reflective, like the surface of water. Louis gasped as silent images appeared: faces, the inside of a cabin, firelight.

  He recognized himself. He was seated in the main room of Jobe’s house. He was speaking, excited about something, making grinding motions with his hands.

  His audience was Jobe and Mollie and their son Sammy. Sammy said something to Jobe, who stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  It was the day he returned to Georgia earlier this year. He remembered it now. He’d told Jobe about all the money they could make mining silver. And he’d spent the whole time harboring secret fantasies about Mollie, about how he wished he could take her away.

  The images shifted to later in the evening. Mollie was showing him to the door, then watching him as he walked into the darkness.

  Suddenly, Mollie hawked and spit. She glared at his receding form, then shut the door.

  Louis was surprised to see this. He’d had no idea she disliked him so much. And this answered the question of whether he ever had a chance with her. It wouldn’t have mattered if he came there rich already.

  He shook his head and backed off. The silver resumed its normal appearance.

  “No. I’m drinking too much. Seeing things.”

  That had to explain what was happening. He’d always been a hard drinker and a user of whatever else he could get his hands on—peyote, cocaine, opium—and knew he always would be. One time, in fact, he’d had an entire conversation with the angel of death before realizing it was just a cactus.

  The alternative—that the silver could grab your thoughts right out of your head and show you things—was simply too terrible to accept.

  He began to climb back out of the tunnel. The sooner they could cash in and get out, the better.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  For the next two days, Jobe couldn’t summon enough courage to return to the tunnel. Instead, he busied himself with other tasks. As he fell asleep each night on his cot, he hoped he could spend the rest of his career immersed in them. Anything would be better than facing that worm again.

  Melting down their first load of silver was one. Oh, sure, it raised eyebrows. The muddy boys and Chinese in the mill about fell over with astonishment when Jobe and Louis rolled in, their mule cart brimming with silver chunks like they were maharajahs. Louis didn’t seem to think it was a concern. In fact, he appeared to enjoy the attention. Jobe, though, hoofed it to a gunsmith and used their new money to purchase a pair of Colt six-shooters, one for each of them.

  Jobe also made an appointment to see an official with the Sawtooth Mining Company, an established operation. He planned to discuss using their facilities, labor, and security in exchange for a percentage. If he played it right, Jobe figured he might never have to enter the tunnel again.

  Despite all his earlier blustering about staying in charge, Louis merely nodded when Jobe told him what he’d done.

  He did say, however, “Doings like that take time, and there ain’t no use in wasting any.”

  They were walking together down the wooden sidewalks of C Street, little splashes of dust pluming beneath their footsteps. Jobe paused to touch his hat brim at a lady passing by. “What are you saying? We should go on risking our hides in that tunnel?”

  Louis hesitated, appearing to argue with himself before reaching a decision. “All I’m saying is what if that worm thing you saw eats it all up afore the Sawtooth takes over? Then we got nothing.”

  “That’s pre… pre…”

  “Preposterous? Why don’t you just leave the heavy thinking and the big words to me?” Louis smiled, showing blackened and crooked teeth. “Now let’s go move our tent out to the mine hole. That way, we can guard the silver when we ain’t digging.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The first night back, Jobe woke in the four o’clock hour, unable to sleep. Sammy and Mollie were never far from his thoughts, but the image of Sammy’s face, especially, was what pulled him from his cot. He stoked up the camp fire, set the kettle to boil, and chewed on his worries.

  Sammy’s face. The worm had been wearing Sammy’s face.

  It had taken the boy’s head as a trophy.

  Jobe stabbed a stick into the camp fire and then surprised himself by sobbing.

  Louis was right. He would return to the underground lair, not a dozen feet from where he sat. And if he couldn’t kill that monster, he would at least take what he could from it.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He didn’t mention these thoughts to Louis as they descended the rope after breakfast. He’d never told the older man about seeing Sammy.

  Once they reached the tunnel, Jobe asked, “What will we do if the worm returns?”

  Louis rolled his eyes. “Hide in the side tunnel again.”

  Jobe shook his head. “We don’t know which direction it’ll go. It could pass us, or it could run us down. Last time, we got away by dumb luck.”

  “Then shoot it,” Louis said. “And pray you’re lucky again. You already got dumb.”

  Jobe shook his head with disappointment as he set to work.

  The plan for the morning was to pile silver near the entrance. The afternoon would be spent setting up a tripod winch over the hole to raise pallets.

  After a while, Louis announced, “I’m going out for a piss and smoke my pipe. You all right here by yourself?”

  Jobe stared at him.

  “You ain’t a sissy now, are ya?”

  Jobe set his jaw. Bastard, he
thought. He picked up his shovel and the spare lantern and trekked into the darkness. Louis’s chuckle followed him the whole way.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Jobe wasn’t surprised to find a second tunnel now branched off, not far from the one they hid in before. The worm must have dug it when it passed by. Like the others, it was lined with silver.

  What are you? What did you do to my Sammy?

  He was about to start scraping when something drew his gaze toward the darkness.

  The walls glowed faintly. He’d seen this the first day in the other branch but assumed it was reflected lantern light. Today, the old branch no longer appeared to be any different than the main tunnel. But this one was newer.

  He gasped as a burst of color flared along the wall. He leaned closer.

  The colors responded to his proximity, bunching as if to touch his nose. He reached out and hovered his hand over the surface. Below it, a corresponding white palm print appeared. He waved over the rock, and the glimmering reflection followed him.

  He laid his hand on the cool stone. The wall responded by erupting in a silent explosion of color. The light spread outward and covered the tunnel walls in all directions as far as he could see.

  It focused and organized itself until the tunnel became a great mirror. Jobe saw himself in it, kneeling with his mouth agape. His distorted reflection smeared around him. The white light of the walls intensified until the tunnel was as bright as a snow-covered mountaintop.

  “Dear Lord,” he whispered.

  His reflection vanished, replaced with the blackness of a night sky sprinkled with a thousand stars. The stars blurred in a series of jumps and starts. A great white and orange ball appeared, ringed with a vast debris field. It looked like the planet Saturn, which he’d once seen drawn in a book. It moved past him—or rather, he moved past it—and it disappeared.

  Jobe was surprised at how calm he felt. He could still feel the rock under his palm and understood he was still in the tunnel—so that helped. These were images, nothing more, something spied through a strange window. He didn’t feel threatened. Rather, a warm feeling of peace and comfort suffused him. He knew that this, too, came from the rock, right up through his arm—so maybe it should worry him. But for the life of him, he couldn’t pull away, only watch. The warmth flowing up his arm from the rock finally reached his head. With it came the understanding that these images were only shadows from the past.

  Soon, the progression through the stars slowed. Ahead, starting as a speck and then filling his vision, he saw the great worm from the tunnels. Long and gray, it was a cross between a night crawler and a snake. Like the tunnel walls, it glowed faintly. It floated languidly in space, stretched straight out. The bulb jutting from its face, where he’d fancied seeing his son’s head, now looked like the head of a horse, with a long, pointed nose and mouth.

  Suddenly, the worm’s body snapped like a whip. The space around it distorted like it was rushing through water. The stars blurred and then stopped. The worm now fell toward a vast, pink planet so close it filled half the sky.

  The worm disappeared for a moment as it fell through clouds, then Jobe’s perspective closed on it. He rode its back as the surface of a pink and yellow desert rushed up to meet them. The worm hit the ground and vanished in an explosion of dust.

  A second later, it recovered and leapt across the surface of the desert world. It dove into the sand like a fish into water, then breached to soar through the air. A geyser of dust and rock trailed from it, turning silver in the sunlight. The worm dove back into the ground and repeated the process.

  A man stood upon a plain, watching the creature. But he was like no man Jobe had ever seen. He had a head and two arms, but he had six legs, which folded and fanned around him like a spider’s. A hard-looking, black shell covered his body. His face was flat. He had no mouth, and he watched the worm with a single eye in the center of his forehead. A plume of spikes descended from his brow like an Indian chieftain’s war bonnet. He looked magnificent and savage, and Jobe couldn’t tear his gaze away. As the worm drew near, leaping and diving, the strange man crouched. His spikes stood on end.

  The worm emerged and jumped. It swallowed the man whole before disappearing into the ground again.

  Jobe cried out, but there was nothing he could do.

  The worm erupted from the ground and shot into the sky. Jobe followed as it ascended through the clouds. The horse-head appendage retracted into the worm’s body but soon slurped back out. Now the face was flat, one-eyed, and wore a headdress of spikes—just like the man it had swallowed.

  In the blackness of space, its body snapped. The stars blurred around it, then returned to normal.

  The worm was falling again, this time toward a blue planet swirling with white clouds. The moment before it hit the ground, Jobe saw cactus trees, mountains, and glimpses of faraway buildings and streets.

  Virginia City. Had to be. He was seeing how the worm came here.

  Night time. As before, a man stood out in the open—but this time he was human, with torn trousers, a thin beard, and a red kerchief.

  Jobe gasped as he recognized his son.

  Sammy looked angry. His face was pinched, his shoulders hunched, his arms crossed. He was staring down into the open hole of a mine shaft not far from the edge of town.

  A mine shaft? Oh, no.

  Sammy turned when Louis approached. The older man made a sweeping, dismissive gesture. Sammy shouted and pointed at him. Jobe couldn’t hear the words, but he could guess: It’s your fault we don’t have nothing. You brought us out here, and now we lost all our money playing Faro.

  Spittle flew from their mouths as they stepped closer to each other. They bunched their fists.

  Sammy shoved him.

  Louis recovered and punched his face.

  Sammy fell backward into the open shaft.

  As Jobe watched his son disappear, he let out a breath. His vision blurred so much with tears, he almost didn’t catch what happened next.

  He saw Sammy fall a thousand feet straight down. He saw the terror in the boy’s face as a long shape leapt out of the darkness and swallowed him in midair.

  “No, stop!”

  Jobe strained and tore his hand from the wall. It felt as if it had been stuck to fly paper. The vision flashed and disappeared, and the silvered tunnel resumed its muted glow.

  Screaming with rage, Jobe ran for the exit.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Exhaling pipe smoke, Louis watched the sun climb through the morning sky. Things were looking good for the first time since they came here—for the first time ever, if one counted all the other failed ventures he’d attempted in the past. He just had to keep quiet about what happened to Sammy, was all. And if he played his cards right, he could get Jobe to do all the work, as he was right now.

  He turned at the sound of Jobe’s shout.

  “Louis!”

  Jobe was advancing on him, gun pointed. His hand trembled, making the barrel wave this way and that.

  No, no. How did he find out?

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, Louis felt a telltale shaking in the ground.

  “What are you doing, you stupid boy?”

  “Murderer. You… you.”

  “Oh? How you figure that?”

  He beat his pipe against his shoe to knock out the tobacco, then put it away into his pocket. Have to stay calm.

  Jobe stopped ten feet away. His trembling, however, had not. Louis figured that was a good thing. It meant he might survive.

  Behind Jobe, a cactus shivered as the disturbance in the ground strengthened.

  “Why don’t you re-holster that, and let’s jaw it over some?”

  “Tell me why you killed my boy.”

  There must have been a witness, but that didn’t matter now.

  “I only punched him. It was an accident. The fall killed him.”

  “Don’t you tell me that pack of lies. If it was an accident, you would’ve told me about it.” Jobe
pulled back the hammer on his six-shooter. The trembling in his hand increased.

  Louis could hear the shaking in the ground as a low rumble now, like the coming of a train.

  “All right, then. The silver killed him, Jobe. How about that? It killed him the moment you and him decided to come out here for it. It kills a lot of good men, it does.”

  Jobe furrowed his brows, trying to muddle through Louis’s words. Louis watched carefully, waiting for Jobe to take his eyes off him to look away into his own thoughts.

  When he did, Louis drew his gun and shot him.

  It had been a few years since he’d carried a gun, so his aim was off. The bullet plowed through Jobe’s thigh. Crying out, Jobe staggered back and fired into the air.

  Louis shot him again. This time his aim was better. The bullet went through Jobe’s shoulder.

  Jobe dropped his gun and fell onto his face.

  Louis ran forward, ready to shoot again. But Jobe was moaning and clutching his wounds, so it wasn’t necessary.

  Tears stung his eyes, but he quickly blinked them back. He told himself he’d been through too much to become sentimental. He’d known Jobe forever, sure, but Jobe was nothing more than a horse he’d always ridden. And when a horse was old, lame, or trying to bite off your hand, it was time to put it down.

  But there’d be a body to deal with.

  The whole mountainside swayed with the rumbling. In a burst of inspiration, Louis grabbed Jobe by his shirt and dragged him.

  “Yellow whoreson,” Jobe spat out. He was too enfeebled to do more than clutch Louis’s leg.

  Louis pushed him into the hole.

  He didn’t see Jobe hit the ground. His body seemed suspended in the air—then he vanished in a swirling rush of gray skin. A column of air blasted up out of the mine and drove Louis back.

  A moment later, it was gone. The rumble receded. Louis looked down into the hole and saw only the empty tunnel.

  He spat and began to repack his pipe.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Louis tried to work in the mine for a while, but his strength rushed out of him with every movement.

  Jobe was dead, after all these years. That warranted at least a full day of hard drinking. Maybe two.