The Third Cthulhu Mythos Megapack

by Adrian Cole et al.

  He had tried to lie to himself that it was the nature of the work which led to this decision but the lie wouldn’t take. There was much more to it, including that which he had hitherto refused to give credence but now was uncertain about. True, it was back-breaking work in at times the literal meaning. He had been fortunate so far and he knew it, especially considering his lack of knowledge of what he was doing. He had never shied away from hard work and lack of knowledge, he reasoned, could always be improved upon. If talent or inclination didn’t take hold, he could always reassure himself that the endeavor in question was never really for him in the first place. This had led to an odd assortment of jobs over the years, none of which had taken root. Hard-rock gold mining? He knew now that he was not meant to be a miner, just as he knew he was not meant to be a farmer, a carpenter, a butcher, a rancher or a dozen other things he had tried on his way west.

  When he was young, before he ever needed to shave, he swept the floors and cleaned and carried and stocked at a local market in his neighborhood. He could have built a steady income for himself as he was much favored by the owner but he was restless and saw the life of a shop-keeper dull and routine. When he was old enough for the hiring manager at the docks to notice him, when he had the stature at last of a man, he quit the store and started in as a lumper. Two seasons on the docks and he was convinced that was not the life for him so he headed to a foundry and learned, very quickly, that the life of a caster was even more undesirable. To the stockyards he went and after six months as a knacker, he was ready for anything else but the ceaseless gore of a slaughterhouse. As if in answer to his prayers, a fort in far-off South Carolina was bombarded and a call was put forth for able-bodied men. He quit the stockyards and signed up for a new slaughterhouse and a new career he very soon wished he hadn’t pursued.

  He spent the whole of the war doing things he never would have thought of doing and never would have wanted to. He went in wide-eyed and adventurous but was cured of that quickly. The life of a soldier, even that of an officer, was not for him so he learned to avoid promotion. He wanted out but if he had to be in, he did what was needed, pulled his weight, and lost count of friends fallen. Eventually he found himself in a long march, a victorious rout to the sea and through attrition and longevity, ended the war with stripes on his sleeves. He was lucky, extremely so and he knew it. He had faced and returned fire more times than he cared and survived scarred by neither battle or disease. He also learned how to fight.

  When one puts on wander-legs in their youth, going home to jobs already determined detestable is the least of options. There was a world out there that was now accessible so he stepped out to discover what his life’s work would be. He had a little plunder he had picked up on the way, an investment program he instituted on the road to Atlanta. It was enough to give it a go on some good land in Kansas vacated in the recent troubles and with no heirs to resist or complain.

  It was a very educational year. He learned he knew nothing about farming. Where his neighbors’ crops came in full and ripe, his modest field yielded exactly two dozen viable ears of corn. He knew he was the laughing-stock and talk of the community, unwelcome by nearly all sympathies as an outsider and considered unlucky to even speak to. Even those who had worn the same coat in the recent conflict wondered openly, him at times mere feet away, if the previous owner of that land was not getting his due at last. Such speculation ended in Delrosa taking a deep depreciation, but one he was willing to in order to never till a field again. He purchased a kit and a brace of Colts, mounted up and never looked back. He had learned, beyond all doubt, that he wasn’t meant to farm the land.

  Wichita was a busy place, one with ample opportunity, especially for a man in his prime who could hold his own. Boom towns always need men to build the next saloon or the next bank. Dozens of odd jobs as well were to be had for one unafraid to work. That kept him busy with a roof over his head for nearly a year but he was young yet in a town that did not have sidewalks to roll up. It was during this time he learned that he was no good at cards and that hard liquor was not something he handled with decorum. More than once he was rolled, either drunk in an alley or in a prostitute’s crib. When the roof over his head began to worry his pockets, he determined it was time to move on.

  From Wichita ran many trails. It was the Chisolm he took, signing on for a life in the saddle. No more roof to shield him from the weather at night. This did not bother him in the least for he had years in the field of just that behind him. This was hard work of a new nature, one with left him often riding on the fringes of the herd alone. That was when he first felt the stirrings of loneliness. In all his previous occupations, he never worked alone nor was ever truly alone. Whether the docks of Lake Michigan or the construction boom in Wichita, he always had worked with others in teams or pairs or at least with others within view. Even as a soldier, with exceptions of nights on sentry, he had always been surrounded by others. On his farm, he worked alone but he was not far from others and a regular procession of the morbidly curious had turned the road alongside his sad little farm into a well-traveled trail. Out on the range, he found himself riding solitary for long stretches of time. While there had been jobs he had detested, with the exception of farming, there had never been one he couldn’t do. The work was good and the moments of solitude were welcome and reflective. The worst part of life in the saddle, he determined, was the saddle. Some men are born to them. He had not been.

  At Fort Worth, the drive was over and after a week hard in whorehouses and saloons, he was ready to ride again. There was word of a drive heading west from Fort Belknap. With some of the men he’d ridden the Chisolm with, he headed west, a Yellowboy ’66 over his saddle. It was well before the Pecos he learned that he’d made a mistake. This was a hell run across the deserts of west Texas and up New Mexico ending in Denver. Not only was the Goodnight-Loving near twice as long at least as that of the Chisolm, it was through wastelands haunted by Comanche and baked by the sun. They were ambushed more than once in what amounted to mostly harmless harassment raids. Delrosa knew how to fight and did but he was learning that this wasn’t the life for him; work related injuries due to Comanche arrows was not appealing and life in the saddle left quite a bit to be desired. He rode and he fought and he endured and the very moment the drive was over, he collected his final pay and said good-riddance to an ever-aching ass and life on the trail.

  Denver was a raw and rough town yet. Hiring on as a carpenter was no problem, at least short term. He figured with the long list of trades he was building, at least he wouldn’t starve before he found his proper calling, something that he could imagine his life doing. Construction wasn’t where the money was though. Silver was King in Denver and the mines were paying so he said goodbye to the sun and crawled underground for the first time. Hard work but different only in the manner. He worked hard, sweated hard and learned what he could, adding it to all the knowledge over the years he had obtained. Along with that he added mining to the list of things he preferred to not spend his life doing. There had to be a better way and after a winter spent digging in the heart of a mountain for another’s profit, he left Denver and the mines to further seek that better way.

  He rode as a hired gun with a wagon train heading south and west. The Arizona Territory was the destination. He didn’t know or care what or where Arizona was. It was a place and he was displaced. Loneliness began to take over even when the solitude was welcome. All whom he had known in his life were no more. The city of his youth was no longer home and the men whom he marched with were either dead or in the wind. He rode distant and aloof, preferring his own company to that of the settlers he was being paid to guard. Even the other bulls on the train he avoided where he could. When they reached Fort McDowell and cashed out, he took stock of where he was and what he had. The middle of nowhere with very little was the answer.

  He was in a desert he would never have believed the likes of which could have existed had he been described it a decade befor
e. In nearby Phoenix, he found work helping to dig out ditches they said were ancient Indian canals in a mad scheme to water the desert. It took him all of three weeks of sun-blasted heat and scorpions crawling in his boots before he mounted up and rode north, and it was only May. The talk around the trading posts and saloons had all been of gold. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who had struck it rich or so they claimed. Tales of floats lying in the open, gold nuggets the size of a thumb there for the taking if you just found the right hill or the right stream. There was talk of a Dutchman and his mine in the Superstitions to the east. To the north, one creek in particular was the chief focus of gossip; the Bajazid in the Silver Mountains. The tales coming down from there were near unbelievable. It was discovered, the stories went, with gold lying glistening in the sun, the stream fairly sparkling. That party that found it were all rich as sultans. A rush was underway as those Sultans, a title assumed, could not stem the flood of hopefuls looking to find their own fortunes. That is how he found himself in Baird’s Holler.

  He arrived in Baird’s Holler in early June of 1871. It was a respite from the desert floor below, but barely. Pine forests covered the mountain canyon but did little to mitigate the heat. The town as well was hot. Four years from the founding and the town claimed seven saloons but only two houses of worship, and neither of those were complete in construction. His distrust of others was amplified in this place. Of all the places he had lived, all the sites he had seen, Baird’s Holler is the one civil setting which most reminded him of the chaos of battle he had known. Fights in saloons and in the streets by tired, desperate, drunk men were daily occurrences. He saw two men gunned down his third night in town and a body swung on the lone gibbet the fifth morning. That night he got into his first brawl and walked away with only a bloodied nose from a fist that landed before he pummeled the other guy into unconsciousness. He did not hold his decorum well with hard liquor but that did not deter his drinking. He was surrounded by men lost and alone like himself and each and every one eying the other with warranted suspicion.

  He stayed in a common room for two weeks before his Winchester was stolen. After this he sold his horse and saddle to save livery expenses and took a single room in a boarding house. It cost, but the privacy, the solitude and the safety was worth it. He had taken a position on the courthouse construction and had a little money to spare. This evaporated nearly as quickly as it came in. He was alone in a boom-town, surrounded by hundreds of men just like himself and each hostile to the other. He drank with those he worked with and at times joined in their brawls. He took to bed many a woman but only after paying. By the end of the summer, he had had enough and began to take exploratory hikes through the surrounding canyons just to get away from other people, just to be on his own. He felt trapped in town and could feel the general hostility around wearing thin on him.

  That October, when at last the heat was beginning to abate, he took one of his hikes. The Bajazid runs east to west in general direction. Five tributaries feed it, three from the north and two from the south. It was along the lower southern creek, a gully off a side canyon, where he found the nugget. He had been out a day and had already slept one night beneath the stars. Aggressions he hadn’t known had been surfacing and he figured a couple days on his own would perhaps prevent him from killing someone. The nugget was lying amid loose rock out in the open, something that at least confirmed tales he’d come to believe were too tall to bear. Searching around, he found more small chips and nuggets and traced their general source to the back of the gully. He had no idea what he was doing beyond blindly digging, but he started in with the small hammer he carried on these outings just in case. An hour later, he sat staring at a small handful of gold in the palm of his hand.

  He purchased some proper picks and shovels. He bought a shotgun and shells. He picked up some provisions. He overpaid for a mule to pack his possessions and, taking leave of his room and his employment, established a camp beneath an oak tree at the back of that gully. Prospecting was new to him and his experience in mining was from the standpoint of a cog in a large machine. Here it was just him and he began chasing into the side of that gully hints of a vein revealing itself just enough to inspire pursuit. He sought nuggets, chips, flakes; that which he didn’t have to process but could just pack away. He knew he was abandoning valuable ore as he dug. His inexperience he recognized and he figured, if he needed to, he could erect a simple arrastra and grind the ore down. He set aside large chunks to do just that but the vein he was following was providing enough solid pieces that he kept digging and let the ore pile.

  After two weeks, he went to town with a couple baskets of ore which he had assayed to sell. While this proved some for his pocket, his true treasure he kept hidden back at his mine. He spent two nights in town taking advantage of a bed to let, a choice of saloons and a whore of his picking. On the second night, he never made it to the whorehouse. While pissing in an alley, a short, rat-faced man came up and distracted him enough he didn’t see the giant come up behind him. He woke that morning aching but he woke in the bed he’d let. He’d left the big fellow unconscious and laid out in the mud. The rat-faced man he had to kick multiple times in the stomach before he stopped struggling. He had taken a beating himself as well but not anywhere as bad as the two who had jumped him. He knew how to fight.

  Back at his camp the next day he discovered his claim had been found out when he was gone. His tent, a simple canvas sheet strung between the oak and a nearby pole pine, had been uprooted from two of its grounding stakes. Nothing, to his surprise, was missing but someone had been there and had violated his property. It wasn’t a beast for the footprints in the dirt were clear. Whomever had struck had a lame, dragging gait.

  He did not return to town for another fortnight and that became his pattern. For meat, rabbits and squirrels taken with his shotgun sufficed. Other than that, he had hardtack and beans enough. Footprints would sporadically appear near his camp, whether coming as he slept or when he was deep within his hole. They were consistent, a dragging step where one shouldn’t be. He began to sleep with his shotgun beside him, an ear always listening for a step that he never heard. This left him on edge, paranoid constantly and assuming he was being watched with intent to rob. When he did return to town it was again to have ore assayed. Of the nuggets he had been prising from the ground, those he kept in a saddlebag which he taken to hiding within his tailings. He had no desire to carry his prize with him and risk it to thieves such as the pair he’d left in the piss and mud of that alley. He saw those two again on that trip to town and on others and they recognized him as well. Whenever he saw them, the rat-faced man and his lackey, he made sure to expose the handle of his Colt Navy. Five miles is a long trip when the contours of the land double the distance traveled. He stayed the night and returned the next morning with supplies to his camp unmolested beyond that same set of mysterious tracks again in the dirt.

  He killed a man the next time he went to town. He was followed on his return by two unartful enough to track properly. At first he thought it was rat-face and his large friend so he hid and waited for his assailants. It wasn’t who he expected but the result was the same…he was being stalked by a pair looking to exploit him. They hadn’t planned a parlay and he gave them no chance to make such a case. Startled, they drew when he announced himself. Gunfights last seconds. He was left with one dead man and a trail of blood from the fleeing second. He did know how to fight. He abandoned the corpse where it lay and finished his return to his mine never knowing what happened to the other.

  For five full months, he dug deeper and deeper. Each day he dug, the worse his disposition grew. Of all the places he had lived, never before had he been so distanced from his fellow man. Never before had he felt such disdain, distrust and outright hatred for others. When he visited Baird’s Holler, which he did roughly every other week for supplies, he would notice only the ugly, only the coarse. The town was growing and an extremely mild winter allowed for continuous constr
uction. The town had boomed, a quarter at least larger than it had been then when he had staked his claim, but he didn’t notice. He saw only the rough edges where men shed their skins and clawed through their drunken desires, the shadows where beasts prey on each other after the drudgery of the day is done. For five full months, he dug himself deeper and deeper into his hermitage and abandoned the world save to refill his reserve and his bottle.

  Once when he arrived back at his claim following a trip to town that March, he saw that it had been plundered. All that was missing was a good quantity of the ore which had stacked up. His personal effects had been ransacked but being he had nothing much of value exposed in his camp, his loss was minimal. His growing stash was where he had hidden it, inconspicuously buried under stones beneath a small patch of manzanita which grew between the oak and the entrance to his mine. Inside the mine, the bandit had done him a favor of removing some large pieces of ore for him. To his dismay though, the bastard had also taken his shotgun which he’d hidden deep within. He was tired of this place.

  He had had enough.

  This realization came to him as he crouched uncomfortable at the back of the tunnel he had dug. It wasn’t an impressive tunnel. It reached a depth of only about ten yards and averaged four feet in diameter, enough to facilitate his entry and work. Throughout it was supported by braces of wood, either made from young pines chopped himself or lumber purchased in town. The result was a tunnel only the ignorant or truly brave would find comfort in.