by Hunter Shea
We tracked them to a cave. The day was like this, hot as a whorehouse on nickel night and quiet as death. We’d left our horses behind an outcrop of fallen rocks and crept to the mouth of the cave. There wasn’t a sound coming out of that hole in the hill. But we knew they were in there. We crouched outside, too afraid to move or even breathe. Caves were a terrible place to conceal sound, but somehow they managed it. I only needed one of them to so much as cough so I could have the proof I needed to report back to the fort.
We waited for them to do something, anything. Day bled into night, and still not a sound. I wasn’t about to take a French leave, even though my companions kept motioning for us to skedaddle.
The first Apache scream tore out of that cave like a flock of mad bats and made our hair stand on end. A fire was lit deep in the cave and we could only make out dark, twisted shadows as the ghost dance began.
We were the first and only white men to ever see Nock-ay-det-klinne’s ghost dance. It looked like any other Indian dance to me, but to them Apaches it meant the coming of a new age and the end of the white man and our rules.
We hightailed it back to Fort Apache and told Colonel Carr where he could find them. By the time the troops mustered out, the Apaches were gone, but they couldn’t hide forever. Nock-ay-det-klinne never did bring those men to life, and he was eventually shot in the throat and died. He’d fought hard, like a true warrior. At the time, I was worried his death would only make things worse. Lucky for us, it didn’t.
Those Apaches showed me that an enemy could hide anywhere, beyond the reach of your senses. I was kind of sorry Nock-ay-det-klinne never did what he set out to accomplish. It would have been a hell of a trick, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to establish his place in the world.
Teta woke me from my daydream when he shouted, “All clear!”
“Let’s move on to the next. Must be a dozen more to the east. I’ll help you look them over.”
I dismounted and tied my horse to a withered ash tree and joined Teta’s side. Together we poked around the homes. All of the doors were open, most of them hanging off their hinges. Practically nothing had been left behind, not even a stray dish or wash basin. I’d been to my share of abandoned mining towns and you could always find something left in the departing miners’ wake.
I looked down the parallel row of frame houses and one-room cabins and noted their coloration, worn and sanded down like they had been in a month-long sandstorm. The rooftops were in sore shape, many of them caved in. Hecla was like a fish that had been cleaned and gutted, and left to dry and rot in the unrelenting sun.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn this place had been left behind forty years ago.
Teta must have felt the same way, because he turned to me and said, “You sure we have the right place? Nobody’s been here since I was working on my padre’s farm.”
I pointed to a building slightly larger than the others, to our north. It had a raised but warped porch with a pockmarked sign above the opening where a door would have been. It read HECLA MERCANTILE.
“I’d say that’s our proof, unless a twister picked that store up and dropped it here.” Teta holstered his gun and rubbed his arms as if he were cold.
“Come on, let’s check out the rest.”
Hecla had been a small town on the outskirts of the Deep Rock Hills. By all appearances, it was a mite tiny for a place that had gone from copper, to gold, to population zero. The moment gold had been discovered should have sparked an influx of miners and their families, all hell-bent on getting rich. Mining towns always, and I mean always, exploded at the mere mention of gold. Most places burst at the seams with houses, saloons and throngs of people stricken with fever. Gold towns grew and grew until they went bust.
There wasn’t much left here, but everything we had seen and heard about Hecla didn’t add up. If any lesser man had sent us here, I would have thought we were being played for fools and turned back to Laramie.
This place was a ghost town, nothing more.
We pressed on. There were two saloons, though the second was barely big enough to seat a dozen men. It looked more like a sitting room with a bar top. Other than the mercantile, these were the only businesses in town. Mining could be a temporary operation, so towns got by on the bare minimum. Far as I was concerned, more than that was wasteful. Places like New York had too much to distract a man.
The edges of the sky were turning a light purple when I said, “I think it’s safe to say no one’s home.”
“You want to hole up in one of the houses for the night?”
“Not necessarily, but I’m not sure I want to be out in the open.”
“How about that one, jefe?”
He jerked his chin in the direction of one of the few houses that still had a door, stable roof and even glass in the windows. There hadn’t been a stick of furniture inside.
“Better than most.”
“I’ll get some firewood, start supper,” he said.
“I spied a water pump and trough behind the saloon. I’ll take care of the horses.”
Teta narrowed his dark eyes and said, “Be careful. I know we haven’t found anyone, but that doesn’t mean someone isn’t here. And if they’re hiding, it’s not for a good reason.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I swung my rifle over my shoulder and grabbed the reins of the horses to lead them to the saloon.
It only took a minute of pumping to get the water flowing again. It came up surprisingly clear and cool. The horses dipped their muzzles into the trough. It had been a long day.
After filling a spare canteen, I walked to the house. Even with the sun sliding behind the hills, it remained hot and still. I turned on my heels a couple of times because I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was at my back.
Teta had a nice fire going and was cooking a can of beans and pork. “Do we at least have water?”
“That we do,” I said.
“I laid your bedroll out inside. Even the mice don’t hang around here.”
“That’s one good thing about this place. I’m not fond of them crawling around me. The older I get, the more I appreciate the comfort of a nice bed.”
We talked more than usual as we ate, trying to fill the silence. Growing up just shy of wild animals, we were both used to spending the night in the middle of nowhere. But even in the dead of night in the midst of some untamed prairie, the night had its own kind of music that let you know life went on while you slept.
Here, it was more like being sealed in your own coffin and lowered into the ground.
Teta pulled a thick piece of jerky with his teeth and said, “You want to check the mines tomorrow?”
“Might as well. At least one of them. Teddy said there may be as many as a dozen entrances.”
“You ever gone in a mine before?”
“Nope. All my life’s work has been done above ground.”
“Me neither. I don’t like not knowing what to expect.”
“Shit, Teta, I have a feeling even if we had twenty years’ experience in mines, we wouldn’t know what to expect here.”
I pitched the dregs of my coffee into the fire and listened to it sizzle as it struck the hot center. When I got up, my back cracked as I straightened.
“Old bones,” Teta said, grinning.
“Laugh all you want. Your bones aren’t far behind. I’m going to get the horses, tie ’em up by that patch of grass.”
By the time I got back, the fire was out and Teta had a hurricane lamp going in the house. He was on his bedroll, reading his Martian book.
“Not tired?” I asked.
“I am, but I want to read a little before I sack out. You forget you’re with a muy inteligente Dominican.”
“How can I? You never give me a chance to forget.”
I
was dead tired myself, and fell asleep the moment I put my hat over my face.
Chapter Nine
Sometime during the night, a strong wind kicked up, whistling through the cracks in the planks of the house’s walls. A cloud was over the moon, and at first I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
Teta was sawing logs somewhere in the dark.
What woke me up?
I’m a light sleeper, but it takes more than a little wind to wake me. I waited for my eyes to adjust, scanning the room from right to left until I could make out Teta’s shape under his blanket. The temperature had dropped considerably. It was the kind of thing that happened more in the desert, not the plains of Wyoming.
There was a sharp chill in the air that I felt down into the center of my gut. Like everything else in Hecla, it didn’t seem right, didn’t quite belong.
One of the horses nickered outside and I heard them shuffle about.
Clunk.
My hand went to my pistol when I heard what sounded like a boot stepping on wood outside the front door.
I waited. If someone was about to come in, it was better I let them come. They wouldn’t be expecting me to be awake and ready. Leaves skittered against the thin panes of glass in the window.
Clunk.
Steadying my breath, I slowly pulled my blanket over my body so my gun hand was free.
The wood groaned as if a heavy weight had shifted on the other side of the door.
I’d been right to be cautious. Someone was listening, waiting. I had to keep a mind to watch the window as well, in case whoever was outside had an accomplice.
The door handle turned, slowly at first. I aimed my pistol midway up the frame, where a man’s chest would be. If I was going to get the first shot off, I wanted it to count.
I could just make out the copper-colored handle as it turned clockwise.
Come on, just a little more.
There was a gust of wind and suddenly the door flew open. It stopped short of slamming into the wall.
I tightened my finger on the trigger and sprang to my feet. There was no one there.
I ran to the door, stopped and peered outside. Nothing. If someone had been there, I would have at least heard them beating a retreat. Even a skilled Apache made enough noise for a trained ear to detect.
I circled the house, looking for tracks, finding none but Teta’s and my own. The town lay as silent as it had been when we first came upon it.
What the hell was that? Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I’d probably dragged a dream with me when the wind woke me up. And then the same wind forced the door open. The creaking was the wood of an abandoned house settling.
“Get your head straight, Nat,” I mumbled and settled back onto my bedroll.
The wind had stopped. I listened for anything, straining so hard that my ears began to ring from the absence of noise.
I kept my hand on my gun and slipped it under the rolled-up blanket I used for a pillow. After a while, I drifted back to sleep, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Chapter Ten
I woke up minutes before sunrise. I like to think that my body is aligned with the sun, and we both know when it’s time to get a move on. Being out in the country had me back to my old self.
I gave Teta a gentle nudge. He’d fallen asleep with his book on his chest and it was still there. While I was hunting for shadows in the night, he’d slept like a dead man. It wasn’t like him.
“Rise and shine, you odd stick.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and looked out the dusky window with squinty eyes.
“Sun’s not even up yet, jefe. Why are you in a rush to walk into some dark holes?”
“The sooner we’re in, the sooner we’re out. No sense wasting time. I’ll heat us up a pot of Arbuckle’s, get the blood flowing.”
“Arbuckle’s? I remember that stuff tasted like tar.”
“That’s because you don’t know shit about making a decent pot of coffee.”
For some reason, I was relieved to see the horses and mule were still where I’d left them. I hadn’t realized I’d been concerned about their whereabouts until I saw them. Despite the fact that I hadn’t spotted anyone snooping around, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been outside the house.
I started a small fire and put the kettle on. Teta emerged from the house the moment he smelled the fat strips of bacon I’d laid across the frying pan.
“You mind doing me a favor and taking over for a bit?” I asked.
He must have seen the look of concern on my face because he didn’t protest. He just nodded and I walked off toward the mercantile.
I spent the better part of the next half hour reexploring every store, cabin and storage shed in the area. It was the only way to ease my concern. Even in its prime, Hecla mustn’t have been much to look at. Now, it seemed less than a memory.
By the time I was done, Teta had finished eating but had set aside a plate for me. He’d even made a pan of biscuits. They were burnt on the bottom but there was no sense complaining. I’d burned my fair share of biscuits. My father always said the burnt parts were good for digestion.
“You find what you were looking for?” Teta said while he cleaned the barrel of his Colt.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t. If Teddy sent a dozen men here not too long ago, they would have done what we have, right?” I pointed at the fire between us.
“Of course.”
“And odds are they would have commandeered a few of the places here to act as a base camp and hole up for the night. If you were one of them, where would you go?”
“In this one. It’s in the best shape from all we’ve seen.” A glimmer of understanding colored his eyes.
“Does it look to you like there have been any recent fires in or around this place?”
“No one’s used the hearth inside for a very long time.”
“And I haven’t seen any trace of a fire outside or inside any of the cabins. If they were here a few months ago, it would have been colder, especially at night. They would have needed bigger fires, both for warmth and to feed everyone. There’d be no sense to wipe the place clean because it wasn’t like they were on the hunt or being tracked. They were here to do some recon on a damn mine. Even if you take them out of the equation, place like this is pretty enticing for anyone passing through. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear to Jesus that no one has so much as set a foot in Hecla since Cleveland was president.”
“Do you think someone is working hard to make sure this town looks deserted?” That same question had been nagging me from the moment I’d woken up.
“Did you hear me get up last night and go outside?”
“If I did, I probably thought it was better you take a piss without me.”
He gave a weak smile that dropped when he saw I wasn’t joining in the fun.
“I thought I heard someone outside the door. They walked up the steps loud as can be. I even watched the doorknob turn as someone tried to get in. I was ready to shoot first and ask questions later. Then it was like the wind blew the door open and I ran outside, looking for whoever had been creeping around.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I think I was too amazed that you stayed asleep in the first place. I kept expecting you to get up, but you didn’t even move.”
Teta removed his sombrero and scratched his unruly, dark hair. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m not a heavy sleeper, even when I’ve drunk myself stupid.”
“All I know is that there wasn’t anyone outside. At least not so far as I could tell.”
We sat in silence while I finished my breakfast. There was no need to give voice to what we were thinking. I knew we were both on the same page. At least I hoped he wasn’t thinking that his friend was getting too old and skittish t
o be out in the bush.
No, if he felt that way, he’d tell me, if only to keep me from harm. I said, “Guess we should see the mine.”
Teta holstered his pistol and beat the dust off his pants. “Let’s get it over with.”
* * *
We rode the horses out to the multilayered Deep Rock Hills. There were plenty of houses on the outskirts of town, especially as we got closer to the hills. They looked in worse shape than the ones in town. It was fine country around the hills. Great forests of pine trees stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. The closer we got to the mine, the more lush and green the vegetation became, as if this patch of land had been spared by the drought.
Or maybe it had long underground veins that drank the town dry.
We rode up the path that had been carved into the hills leading up to the mines. The trees petered out the higher we went. There were a lot of stumps, the trees having been clear-cut to make room for the miners and their equipment.
We slowed down to a trot. I saw the first open shaft dead ahead.
“Maybe this is where we should camp tonight?” Teta said, breathing deep. “At least it smells alive here.”
We tied our horses to a half-broken hitching post. The trees were filled with birds, singing and fluttering overhead. The air here felt cooler, more humid.
“Hand me that lamp,” I said. We each had full hurricane lamps, with spare candles in our pockets. I wasn’t planning to go very deep because I had no idea what one needed to do in a mine and come out alive.
The wood slats that had been designed as a kind of covering for the mine’s entrance lay on the ground. They’d been there awhile. Tall, sturdy weeds grew through the cracks.
A lintel composed of two-by-fours had been hammered into the mouth of the mine. I didn’t put much faith in some chunks of lumber to hold up an entire hillside. Folks said that to be a miner, you had to be at least half-mad. Looking into the abandoned shaft, I came to the conclusion that miners had to be completely insane. It looked about as safe as walking into a pen of pissed-off bulls.