by Hunter Shea
Selma’s eyes were downcast and she set about cleaning things up. “He won’t come.”
“Now, I don’t have a daughter myself, but I know if I did I wouldn’t let her run off like that, especially to a place where folks go and never come back.”
“I’ll saddle up the horses,” Teta said in a graceful exit from what looked to be a difficult conversation.
“My father’s not a young man. He’s old and afraid. During his life, he’s lost everything but the ranch and me. I’m just one more thing the Lord’s taken from him. He often compares himself to Job, feeling like the hardships this life has given him will hold him in good stead in the next. Maybe’s he’s right.”
I could feel the pain and sadness radiating off her like heat on a tin roof. I didn’t know whether to tell her she had to be wrong, hold her or assure her that her father loved her more than anything in this world. But the truth was, I didn’t know that. So I kept quiet and hoped she was wrong.
“I’ll come up to the mine with you today and promise to stay outside. I don’t want to wait around here.”
I nodded and went into the house to get my guns.
When my foot touched the first step, I felt the earth move. Thinking it was the house about to collapse, I jumped back. Turning around, I saw Selma’s eyes go wide.
It wasn’t the house.
“You get earthquakes out here?” I said when everything settled. It only lasted a few seconds but it was enough to put a scare in us.
“Not in Laramie. I can’t tell you about Hecla.”
I was about to say something when a deep, chest-rumbling blast of noise ripped the morning in two.
Chapter Twenty-One
The thunderous noise was so loud, lasted so long, we clapped our hands over our ears to keep our heads from splitting.
It paused for a moment, then picked up again, cacophonous as hell and painful to hear.
After the third time, it stopped. I removed my hands and my ears rang as if I’d had a gun go off by my head.
Selma walked in a slow, tight circle, her gaze settling on the distant hills. She said, “What on earth was that?”
The horses whinnied for all they were worth and I heard Teta trying to settle them down.
“I’ve been around a few quakes before and sometimes I’ve heard some strange stuff coming from the ground. A fella once told me that’s the sound of giant rocks under the earth scraping against one another.”
I wasn’t lying, but I also wasn’t telling her that what I’d heard before bore no relation to what just happened. “Everything under control over there?” I shouted Teta’s way.
“Getting there!”
I sat down hard on the ground. If another rumbler was going to come through, I wanted to feel it at the source. My hands trembled a bit when I pulled out my tobacco pouch. I rolled a cigarette quickly before Selma could see.
“I think it came from the mine,” she said, her voice so soft and distant it was like she was talking in her sleep.
“Maybe the whole thing collapsed. That’d be enough to make a racket like that.” She wasn’t buying it. Fact was, I wasn’t either.
“Are you still set on going up there?”
I looked up and down the empty street. “Can’t see much else to do around here. Like I told you, Teta and I—”
“Have a job to do. Is it something worth risking your lives over?”
I got up and masked the sound of my knees crunching by coughing hard. Selma was fussing with her hands, pressing them together and rubbing her palms like she was polishing brass. I took her hands in mine, feeling a slight tremor running through her body.
“Teta and I have been in much worse situations before. When I compare staring down the barrels of hundreds of guns or riding in the middle of a stampeding herd, walking through some old mine is filled with about as much danger as whiling the afternoon away in a rocker. Don’t you worry about us. We can take care of ourselves – and you, for that matter. I counted eight other tunnels. The one we explored was about as empty as a freshly dug tomb. Just some tracks and timber and a mining car. Men leave behind a lot of things when they take off. Not here. I have a duty to the president to find out what’s going on here. If you’re going to stay, you just have to trust us and do what I ask of you. You all right with that?”
To her credit, she didn’t bat an eye. All the fear swept out of her. Her fingers laced with mine and she pulled me close.
“Yes. I’ll do whatever you say. I hardly know you, but I have faith in you. I could tell the moment I saw you at the ranch that you’re a good man. It’s the reason I—”
“Horses are ready,” Teta said, leading them to us. “I’m not sure how happy they’ll be if that noise kicks up again.”
Our fingers untwined and we took a small step away from each other. Her deep-brown eyes still stayed on mine and I knew I was in trouble. Deep trouble.
* * *
Navigating through the pines, I watched Teta spend more time looking at the ground than straight ahead.
“Looking for more prints?” I asked.
“I’m not searching for my Tía Anelida.”
It was another scorcher of a day. We’d packed extra water to get through the heat of the afternoon. Selma rode slowly to my right. Her hair was down and blowing in the arid breeze that did nothing but make you hotter.
“Might be better if you waited for us a little ways into the tunnel. You don’t have to go that far for things to cool off. Better than waiting under this sun.”
“Thank you. I think I will.”
Since our short-lived hand-holding incident, she’d gotten a little more formal with me. I wasn’t sure if I’d overstepped some boundary. Complicated women were never my specialty. I couldn’t help comparing her to Lucille. I’d been young then, Lucille slightly older, much wiser and far more complicated than some kid off a cattle drive could fathom. I fell hard for her, and to my surprise, she fell just as hard for me. She was short and slight, but her personality made her ten feet tall. I remembered the way her blonde curls had a way of slipping over her eyes and how she’d blow them off with a puff of her lips.
Lucille taught me more about women and love and lust in our five months together than I’d experience over the next thirty years. No matter how far time managed to drive her memory into a hazy past, my heart would always belong to the smart-mouthed filly with a smile that could lead a man to do things he knew best not to do.
Selma may have looked nothing like Lucille, but there was a bit of her spirit in her. They both had courage and will that was akin to a force of nature. Far be it from me to stand in their way.
Lucille’s end was her own, a horror and a tragedy that had set me on my own path, running to places other men ran from, staring my own mortality in the eye and daring it to move first. I’d never know why she decided to hang herself. She left no note, or any clues as to what could have possibly driven her to take her life. I was the one who found her, her face blue, her tongue swollen and filling her open mouth. I cut her down, but it was too late. In our last conversation, we’d talked about having a family. Nothing in the world had made much sense to me since that day.
I had to keep reminding myself that that was Lucille’s story, and her ending. That didn’t mean it would be Selma’s. Visions of Lucille on the end of that rope had kept me from getting close to another woman. Maybe it was time to let it go, let it fade until I couldn’t recall every heart-rending detail.
I hoped the Lord wasn’t fixing to call Selma to dinner sooner than need be, just like he’d done to Lucille.
And if he did have designs on her, I’d have something to say about it.
The sun reflected off her raven hair and blinded me for a moment. When my eyes readjusted, I saw that she had moved ahead of me. I watched her back and a knot of concern twisted my stomach.
I got myself into the damnedest situations.
We stopped at a small tunnel entrance, a little south and west of the one we’d first gone into. The tracks leading into this one were broken and warped. The wood was splintered and the steel looked like it had been melted and reshaped. To look at it, you’d think it had been done in by cannon fire.
“Better watch our step, eh, jefe?”
“I’d hate to break my neck or leg out here.”
“For you,” Selma said, handing us four hurricane lamps. We’d learned our lesson from the first time. Aside from the backup lamps, we each had two candles and a box of matches.
I walked over to my horse and found my extra pistol in my saddlebag. I handed it to Selma.
“Take it. If anyone or anything tries to come up on you, don’t hesitate to use it. Shoot to kill. Aim for here.” I poked my chest with my finger.
She tried to hand it back to me. “I don’t like pistols.”
“You’ll like it sure enough if the situation comes up where you need it. I’ll feel better knowing you’re heeled.”
“Be careful,” she said.
“That’s all we can be,” Teta said, tipping his sombrero.
* * *
The crunch of gravel under our boots ricocheted off the tunnel walls, fading into the center of the hills. I was loath to leave Selma behind, but I’d have felt worse if she were with us. What if that bellowing sound was the interior of the hills collapsing on itself? There was no telling how bad things were going to be.
We lit our lamps and started our slow trek down into the heart of the mine.
It was tough going, walking with our heads down, making sure the way was clear. A couple of times, we each smacked into outcroppings of rock. At one point, Teta walked his head right into a small but thick stalactite. It broke from the ceiling and crumbled into pieces on his sombrero.
“That hurt?”
He removed his hat and shook the debris from it. “Shit. It put a hole in it. Look.” He poked his finger through a hole in the brim and wiggled it.
“Better that than your thick skull.”
Again, I was struck by the fact that the miners had left nothing in their wake. Not a stray tool or bottle or anything that said men used to work and eat and drink in the mine. There was nothing but the warped track and blocks of wood that seemed to keep the whole thing from falling on our heads.
It was also bone dry. My feet were appreciative. That also meant it was completely devoid of any sound. No drips of water here. Nothing at all.
“Hey, you learn anything from that book?”
This was proof that I would talk about anything to break up the deathly silence of the tunnel.
“I didn’t get through much last night. It’s kind of hard to read.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. I don’t know why Teddy just didn’t tell me what was in there. It would save me a lot of trouble.”
“Maybe he’s not even sure himself.”
“You could be right.”
I felt the tunnel bend and slope deeper underground. I still wasn’t sure what the hell we were looking for. At this point, confirming that it was all clear was good enough for me.
I heard Teta trip before I felt him crash into me. We went down in a heap, and this time the corner of my other elbow took the brunt.
“This is a habit I’d like to break,” I said through clenched teeth. Teta didn’t answer or move. He lay on me like a smelly bearskin.
I shifted from side to side to roll him off, but he stayed put. Our lamps were thankfully still lit, though both lay on their sides. If I didn’t set them upright, the flames would die out.
Suddenly, Teta clamped his hand on my jaw and turned my head to face the tunnel ahead.
He whispered, “Nat, tell me I’m seeing things. Are those eyes?” I looked down the tunnel and my stomach turned to ice.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two red, glowing orbs hovered near the ground. They were set too far apart to belong to a man, unless he had a head as wide as a horse’s ass. Like Teta, I froze, mesmerized by the intensity and impossibility of them.
“They can’t be eyes,” I said softly. “Maybe it’s just something reflecting the lamplight.” Teta eased himself off and pulled me to my feet. We did it slowly, quietly.
“It’s too far back for the light to go,” he said.
The hammer of his Colt clicked as he pulled it back. I lay a hand across his chest.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to start shooting in here. You could spark something off or cause the whole place to collapse. Let’s see what it is first.”
“I’m not going. You check it out. I’ll cover you.”
Ever since we’d gotten to Hecla, I’d been seeing a very different side of Teta. I’d never, and I mean never, seen him so skittish before. This was the same man who’d once taken on seven Spanish soldiers with nothing but an empty rifle and a cavalry sword he’d taken off a fallen Rough Rider, and lived to tell about it. But at least we could see the Spanish. There was no telling what was up ahead.
I took a tentative step and found myself drawing my own pistol.
My boot crunched into the grit of the tunnel floor. The sound danced around us like gnats. I paused, never taking my eyes off the red lights. Teta was right; they were too far away to catch the hurricane lamp’s flame.
What the hell were they?
They were too big to belong to a possum or raccoon.
They blinked. My foot froze in midstep. My blood hammered in my veins.
I aimed my gun in the dark space between them. If it was an animal, it had to be sick to have eyes like that. Eyes like that couldn’t be found in nature. At least not the nature I’d grown up with.
My hand rose up as the scarlet eyes levitated. One foot off the floor.
Two feet.
Three.
Four.
Teta’s shoulder rubbed against mine. He held the lamp ahead of him as far as it would go but it couldn’t come close to penetrating the dark. He kept his gun hand loose at his side.
“What the fuck?” he hissed. Five feet.
Six.
The ceiling of the tunnel was maybe seven feet tops in this area. The eyes finally stopped hovering too damn close to its limit.
“Step back,” I said from the corner of my mouth. We each took a short step, then another. It was hard to tell, but I could swear the eyes moved closer.
Two steps closer.
We stopped. Total silence returned. I could hear my own breathing in my head. “Back a little more.”
The heel of my boot caught on a rock and I almost lost it. I regained my balance. The eyes still watched us, maintaining their distance from us.
“Teta, hold my lamp for a second.”
He hooked a finger through the handle so both lamps were held by the one hand. He needed the other for his gun.
I reached into my shirt and got one of the candles. I lit it and crouched to the floor. After letting some hot wax spill on the ground, I pushed the candle into it and waited for it to harden.
“What was that for?”
“If it keeps pace with us, it’ll step into the light of that candle. That way, we’ll get a better look at it.”
“I’m not sure I want to look at it.”
I thought it best not to tell him I wasn’t too crazy about it either. But if I was going to have to shoot, I wanted to know what I was shooting at.
I said, “Here’s the deal. You’re going to turn around and make sure we don’t break our asses. I’ll lean my back into you and take your lead. If I pull the trigger, it’s going to be louder than hell on a Saturday night. Start running unless I grab you for extra fire power.”
Teta’s head bobbed and his sombrero dipped up and down. It was almost comical. Almost.
�
�On a count of three, start walking.”
“Let’s just start now.”
“Fine by me.”
Teta took two quick steps and I walked in line with him, backwards.
This time, I could definitely tell the eyes were moving. They blinked again and tilted a bit to the right.
Either the animal wasn’t making any noise as it moved, or our own boot steps were masking its advance. Teta kept walking. I could feel his anxiety rippling through the muscles of his back.
“Just a little more,” I said.
The candle’s flame flickered, caught in whatever breeze the animal’s movement kicked up. I hoped it wouldn’t blow out.
“See anything yet?” Teta said.
“Any second now.”
We continued walking like a pair of Siamese twins. It was awkward, at best, but we managed to stay upright.
My hopes were answered when the candle did, indeed, stay lit.
When the creature stepped into its light, I wished I could have traded in that hope for something better.
* * *
Seeing the faint outline of the beast, I did as I’d instructed Selma earlier and shot near its heart. There was no sense waiting to see what its intentions were. At that moment, I didn’t care if it was the second coming of Jesus. If that was the disguise he chose, his father couldn’t blame me for taking a shot.
It was massive. The top of its head barely missed the ceiling, and its shoulders spanned the width of the tunnel. Long hair covered every square inch of its massive body. It stood on two legs, with arms the size of heavy logs that came down to around its knees.
At first glance, I thought it was the biggest bear I’d ever seen. But when I saw its face, I knew it wasn’t any bear.
Those red eyes sat on either side of a wide, leathery nose. Only the face was hairless. It didn’t have any lips, as far as I could see, just a horizontal slash that ran from left to right. And when those eyes narrowed at me, that slash opened to reveal two endless rows of sharp, jagged teeth.