by Hunter Shea
hunter shea
Ghost Mine
FLAME TREE PRESS
London & New York
‘Good judgment comes from experience,
and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.’
Will Rogers
‘Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company’.
Mark Twain
For you, Dad. I miss you.
Chapter One
This was Billy’s favorite time of the day. The whistle had sounded some time ago, signaling an end to the shift in the mine and that all was well. Most of the men were in either of the two saloons blowing off some steam, as his daddy liked to say. His ma forbade him to go anywhere near those places, lest he get caught in the middle of something he was too small to extricate himself from.
That was fine by him. The men, and sometimes even his daddy, scared him when they came out of the saloons.
Billy had spent the better part of the day trying out a new slingshot on the field mice behind their small temporary house. The little critters might be tiny and fast, but he’d still managed to bag a couple. His pants pockets were laden with rocks and his slingshot poked out of his waistband.
A cold breeze swept across the plain, tilting the shriveled blue-green wheatgrass. Only two weeks into fall and already they could tell that a brutal winter was on the way. Pretty soon, he’d be confined to the house or, worse, Ms. Betty’s school.
All the more reason to have as much fun as he could now.
He looked up at the sun, realizing he didn’t have much time until it dipped for good.
His ma would be calling him in for supper before he knew it.
He ran to the small crop of hills on the rear side of the mine, to the cave that, as far as he could tell, was unknown to all but him. He’d found it by accident a month ago when he was out riding on his horse, Sugar. Something had spooked her bad and she’d reared back, throwing him from the saddle. He’d gone ass over heels through a patch of cattails over six feet high. He’d braced for impact as he hit the air, sure he was going to splatter against the unforgiving sharp face of the hillside.
Instead, the cattails cushioned his fall and deposited him into the mouth of a dark, cool cave. Fear for his life was quickly overcome by wild fascination, as can only happen in the heart and soul of a nine-year-old as wild as the creatures that roamed the prairie. The cattails had formed a perfect, impenetrable barrier to the cave’s mouth. If it weren’t for that stupid horse, he’d never have found it.
He’d been coming back ever since, stealing candles and a few matches from his house so he could explore the cave a little deeper each time.
When the men blasted the charges in the mine, he could hear their echoes in the cave, feel the ground shake. He wanted to be a miner like his daddy. For now, this was as close as he could come.
One thing he’d discovered early on was that the cave was home to some of the biggest rats he’d ever seen. They chittered about in the darkness, fleeing from his meager candlelight, sometimes scampering over his bare feet. Disgusting varmints that would have sent his ma on top of the table, screaming her head off.
Because of the chill, he’d worn boots today. Their slick, furry bodies wouldn’t have him hopping this time around. Today was payback time. He struck a match against the side of the cave’s mouth and lit one of the candles he’d ferreted into his pockets when his ma wasn’t looking. They were both down to their nubs, which is why he thought it best to grab two.
The amber glow from the candle’s flame was swallowed up by the obsidian depths of the cave. The usual frigid breeze wafted from somewhere beyond his explorations. If they were still here come spring and summer, he might tell his parents about the cave. Seemed to him a good place to store food away from the heat and the rot that it brings. His daddy might even take him out for some candy for coming up with such a great idea.
Billy took several confident steps into the cave. The reverberation of his footsteps caromed off the uneven walls, disappearing into its unfathomable core.
A pile of loose rocks on the left, just fifteen feet into the cave, would make for a good place to sit and wait. The sun’s dying rays didn’t dare come this far into the cave. In here was the blackness of a starless night. He tilted the candle and poured some hot wax onto a flat rock by his feet and planted the nub in the wax.
With his hands now free, he laid out a few of his choice rocks and fitted one into the slingshot’s pocket holder. He pulled back on the rubber, stretching it as taut as he could, feeling the small burn in his muscles.
Reaching into his front shirt pocket, he found the crumbs of bread and cheese he’d secreted off his supper plate the night before. He scattered the morsels of food in front of him.
Now all that was left was the waiting.
He kept as still and quiet as the stones around him. He breathed through his mouth because he had a tendency to whistle through his nose. Even the tiniest noise was made large by the acoustics of the cave.
It didn’t take long. He heard the rats well before he saw them. Their enhanced sense of smell drew them to his trap. Their squeaks and squeals filled the cave with the sounds of starvation.
The first pink snout, whiskers twitching madly, stepped into the candlelight. Billy saw its round, black eyes and pulled back on the slingshot.
Just a little closer, he thought.
The rat was as long as his forearm, but so skinny he could see the outline of its ribs through its matted fur. This would be a mercy kill.
Squinting his right eye down the Y sight of the slingshot, he let the rock fly. It zipped through the air fast as a hummingbird. The rat yelped and flipped onto its back. It clawed the air, wailing in pain. He watched with morbid curiosity as it struggled to turn itself over. Each time it tried, it scraped its wounded belly against the floor. The pain sent it reeling onto its back, leaving small droplets of blood in its wake.
It flipped and flopped like this for several minutes. Its protests scared the other rats back into the depths of the cave. Billy waited until the rat stopped and became silent. Extracting the candle from its wax holder, he knelt down to take a closer look.
The rock had pierced one side of its scrawny belly and come out the other. He could see the pink of its guts pushing their way out of the hole. It was dead all right.
It was the biggest animal he’d ever killed for fun. The tail alone had to be six inches. He lay on the ground next to it and stretched his arm alongside its still form. Lining up the peak of its snout with the tips of his fingers, he looked up his arm and saw how the tail ended past his shoulder.
“You’re a big son of a bitch,” he said, getting back to his feet.
Son of a bitch, a bitch, a bitch, called back to him.
For a moment, he felt sorry for the rat. Killing little critters was one thing. For some reason, it didn’t seem altogether right, taking the life of something this big without it being in self-defense or to put on the family table.
Maybe I should give it a nice burial.
That would make it right, help ease his conscience. He’d bury it within the cattails. After being in the dark so long, it would appreciate spending eternity under the sun and stars.
He picked it up by the tail, feeling it slap against his thigh. He hoped it didn’t get any blood on his britches. His ma would kill him if she saw that.
Something heavy crashed in the Stygian depths behind him.
It was followed by a large thud. Then another. Billy felt it in his chest, as much as he heard it with his sunburned ears.
A boulder of phlegm and bile lodged in his throat.
Footsteps! Something was walkin
g inside the cave. And it was coming toward him.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His knees, locked at first, flexed and he started to run. The rat was still in his grasp. A voice called out from the dark.
“Uh-uh-uh, Billy. It’s not nice to take away my pets.”
The words didn’t echo because he heard them in his head.
Stunned into immobility, Billy turned to face the man. Those ponderous footsteps continued. No man could walk that heavily.
His chin quivered when he looked up toward the ceiling of the cave. A pair of red, menacing eyes hovered there, some nine feet in the air. He couldn’t make out a body. The eyes narrowed, and the thunderous footsteps stopped.
Billy’s hands shook, and the rat fell to his feet. It sprang back to life, chirping angrily. An irregular line of blood stretched into the dark as its bony body scampered back to where the red eyes glared.
He tried to scream, but nothing would come out. All he wanted to be was home, safe with his ma and daddy. Hot tears streaked down his grime-covered cheeks.
The candle in his hand sputtered out, and the darkness took him into its cold and empty embrace.
Chapter Two
It’d been two years since my first and last visit to Sagamore Hill. I remember it taking a good two days for my hangover to hit the road after spending the night with the Colonel. His being the president and all now didn’t change things much in my mind. Old dog. New tricks. He was still the Colonel, or better yet, Teddy, to me.
The train to Long Island had been hot and crammed full of sweaty men and women anxious to be home for the weekend. I hate trains. The rocking motion never fails to make me sick. I’d take a gimpy horse over a train any day.
I used my finger to pull the collar from my neck so cooler air could run down my shirt. The Victorian house looked just as it had three years ago. It was big on the outside, but filled with so much stuff inside that it actually felt homey. Gravel crunched under my boots as I trudged up the lane. I saw a man standing on the front porch and smiled.
“We didn’t call for no copper,” he barked.
“And I didn’t call for no trained gorilla,” I shot back.
Scott Goodnight, tall and thick with a bushy mustache that connected to his equally bushy sideburns, clomped down the wooden stairs to greet me. We shook hands until he pulled me in for a bear hug.
“Been a while,” he said.
“Hey, you’re the one who’s in Washington and Lord knows where else most times. Me, I’m always here.”
“Watching that man is a full-time job,” he said with a sly smile, his head jerking to the house behind him. “He’s out for his afternoon ramble. Come inside and set for a spell till he gets back.”
Scott had been Teddy Roosevelt’s bodyguard ever since he’d been named vice president under McKinley. I recalled that I had been offered the job but politely refused. I had no stomach for politics. Washington was my idea of hell on earth.
Inside, the house was too quiet. The Roosevelt brood were a rambunctious bunch. “Teddy here alone?” I asked.
“Wife and kids are in Westchester visiting friends. They’ll be back tomorrow. You want a glass of lemonade?”
I followed Scott into the study and ran my hand over a pair of elk tusks that were mounted on the wall over a set of bookshelves. They were pretty damn big and smooth as polished leather. The room was filled with books and hunting trophies and an array of mismatched furniture. I thought of my East Side apartment with my one book on police procedure, bed, chair and the small table I used for eating and as a catchall. Spartan was what the one woman who’d been to my apartment called it. She’d been a pretty redhead who’d wrongly thought she could tie me down. Guess I’m just not much for collecting things…or people.
“If by lemonade you mean whiskey, neat, then yes, I would like a glass.”
Scott cocked his eyes at my police uniform. “Hell, I’m off duty. And even if I wasn’t, I still want that whiskey.”
He laughed. “I’m just messin’ with you, Nat. Wanted to see how much of this regimented city life had taken hold of you. Be right back.”
I slumped into one of the many rocking chairs in the room and heard it creak so loud I thought it would break into kindling. The more I settled in, the less it protested. Staring at the pattern of the Oriental rug on the floor, I wondered, not for the first time, why Teddy had sent an urgent message for me to come. Far as I knew, we weren’t at war with the Spaniards again. Not that I’d mind getting another crack at that nut.
The sound of a door slamming caught my attention and I was about to ask Scott where the hell my drink was when the man himself came bustling into the study like a force of nature.
“Nat Blackburn! You look remarkably fit. I’m so glad you came.”
His grip was like a vise. Teddy was always good at letting folks know who the top dog was in the room. I didn’t mind it at all because he had proven to me many times that he could stand behind the things he said.
“Far be it from me to deny a presidential request,” I said.
Teddy was dressed in a heavy three-piece suit. He wiped his pince-nez clean with a handkerchief. He’d put on some weight since we last met, but it seemed to be all muscle and collected around his broadening chest. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on him, even though he’d been out walking in the summer sun. It was over ninety degrees, without a lick of a cool breeze, even out here on Oyster Bay.
Scott came in with two glasses of whiskey. “Pour one for yourself and have a seat,” Teddy said to him. He was only too happy to oblige.
Teddy sat in an overstuffed leather chair and fiddled with an ivory-handled knife that was on the side table. I took a sip of my whiskey and winced. Damn, it was good. Better than anything I could buy on a cop’s salary.
“How have things been on the force?” Teddy asked me.
“Never a dull moment. Just yesterday I caught a kid stealing bananas from a fruit vendor over on Twenty-Second Street. Kid stomped on my boot and got it all scuffed. He got an ear twist for that.”
Teddy blew out a tremendous laugh. “God, I miss your sarcasm. When you get to be president, people talk to you differently. You’re no longer a flesh-and-blood man. Mind you, there does need to be a code of conduct, but it’s always refreshing to talk to my men. What a lot we were.”
The men he referred to was the First US Volunteer Cavalry. Folks called us the Rough Riders, and even though we weren’t too keen on the moniker, it kind of stuck. Men came from all over the country, itching to fight the Spaniards. Everyone from old cowpokes like me to professional soldiers and rich dandies made up the ranks. All were exceptional when it came to riding and shooting. We’d seen the best and worst of war in a very short time. It was the quickest and hottest summer of my life in some ways.
Colonel Roosevelt and I had shared a moment during the siege of Kettle Hill that I guess had bonded us for life. He claims I saved his life. I say I was just doing what I came to do – kill Spaniards and protect my fellow Rough Riders. He did a good job taking care of us during and after Cuba, getting folks like me settled in New York with jobs and futures. I was damn proud to call the president a friend.
Seeing Teddy brought back the smells of gunpowder and the cordite from the smokeless powder guns the Spanish used, quite successfully when they were sniping from trees and dugouts. The phantom taste of the horrendous canned roast beef the military provided us made me scrape my tongue against the roof of my mouth to exorcize it. If it weren’t for the Colonel buying us edible food out of his own pocket, we all would have starved or died from food poisoning.
Scott returned with his drink and we shot the shit for a time. Scott and I knew each other from a brief stint in the Apache Wars while we were out in Arizona and much younger men. He’d gained some measure of infamy with the Cibecue Indians in his time. Now, here we were, in suits sitting wit
h the president in a study that was half trophy room, half library. You never can figure what the hell life is up to.
“So tell me, Nat, how have you found your time in New York?” Teddy said. He paced around the room, all nervous energy, running his fingers along the leather spines of his books. “I know it’s a far cry from what you’re used to.”
I shrugged. “Not much to say. It has its good and bad points.”
Teddy wrinkled his brow and pointed at me. His naturally high-pitched voice had dropped a bit, thanks to the whiskey. “I look at you and do you know what I see? I see a God-honest cowboy trapped in a blue uniform. Truth be told, I never thought you’d last this long. After Cuba, I wanted to give you a chance to rest, add a little padding to your bank account, see a city that will be the brightest light in this nation. I assumed that once you’d had your fill, you’d be on the next train to New Mexico or California.”
“I’m an old man, Teddy. Old men need a place to take root before they get laid to rest with the roots.”
“Nonsense! You’re not much older than I am and the last thing I want is to take root.” Scott said, “You’re younger’n me, Nat. You think I should be fitted for a rocker?”
I laughed, bringing up the point that he was currently in a rocker.
Teddy slammed his glass on his desk a mite too hard. Good whiskey splashed onto his shoes.
“We’re in the prime of our lives, Nat. We have wisdom to go along with our experience and courage. I’m afraid that by letting you stay here, you’re in danger of becoming an old codger. Which is why I’m sending you to Wyoming!”
Chapter Three
“Wyoming? Now what could possibly be in Wyoming that has you all fired up?” I said.
Now it was my turn to get up and walk about the room.
Teddy poured two more fingers of whiskey and said, “Opportunity, that’s what’s in Wyoming. But in order to take advantage of it, we need to clear out a small problem.”