KILL THE RAVEN
A thriller
KURT B. DOWDLE
Kill The Raven Copyright © 2016 by Kurt B. Dowdle.
All rights reserved.
"Bring me an axe and spade,
Bring me a winding sheet"
―William Blake
ONE
MAUCH CHUNK, PENNSYLVANIA - 1873
“IT’S GOING TO EXPLODE, ISN’T IT?”
Nyx Bauer stared at Aodh Blackall’s face and awaited the answer. The corner of his mouth turned up, but he said nothing. They reached the spot where they’d remembered digging the seventh hole in a string of charges intended to break up the coal seam.
Aodh said, “Musta been eight.”
Nyx caught a faint whiff of smoke and turned to look up at the spot near the ceiling where they’d dug the eighth hole.
A breeze blew into the room, and the fuse that led to the eighth charge, which had nearly but not entirely gone out, sparked to life and raced the short distance to the blasting cap.
Aodh only enough time to say, “Ah, Jaysus” before shoving Nyx to the floor and catching the brunt of the explosion in his back.
SIX HOURS EARLIER MEN SHUFFLED FORWARD and loaded themselves into the car as it emerged from the mouth of the mine. As she joined the procession, Nyx caught a fragment of a distant memory.
She’d just come home from picking raspberries with her sisters, who’d run ahead of her into the house to show their mother their haul for the day. Nyx heard the hoof beats and wagon creaks that meant her father was coming home. She’d stood in the front yard, waiting for him to come into view, that exquisite instant before she laid eyes on him.
She’d met the wagon at the road and looked into her father’s eyes, searching for reassurance that wasn’t there.
“Daddy?”
“Yah.”
“Are you all right?”
That night, after her sisters had fallen asleep, Nyx had lain next to the stovepipe hole in the floor that led to the kitchen. She heard him tell her mother that his good friend Roy Kunkle had died that day in an explosion and that only Kunkle’s body had saved him from the same fate. She’d heard him say he’d carried Kunkle’s head out of the mine and given it to the undertaker, already on the scene.
NYX SWALLOWED HARD AND STEPPED into the mine car. She stared straight ahead into the maw, not looking at any of the men who made no attempt not to stare.
The car passed under the thick, rough-hewn lintel onto which someone had scrawled in charcoal the words “Sic Transit.”
Candlelight from the mouth of the mine lit the way, and Nyx saw an immense wooden door straight ahead. The door had words and pictures painted on it, including a form Nyx recognized as the double distelfink, the good luck goldfinches. The door seemed to creak open of its own accord, and when it did, she felt a blast of soggy, foul air, as if the whole earth exhaled smoke and sulfur.
Once they passed through, Nyx saw a small person, probably a kid, standing next to a wooden bench. The kid closed the door after they went through, and all went black.
She felt the rough canvas cuffs of her jacket sleeves against her hands and smelled the breath of the men riding with her in the car, felt the pressure of their bodies pressed together and shaken down the iron tracks.
Friction thrummed up through the soles of her boots, and Nyx felt her throat constrict, fought the urge to grab the man next to her for comfort. She clenched her jaw and prayed for the car to stop moving, stop plunging into the black, stop going down.
When it did, by the light of the men’s candles, Nyx saw a room to her left, supported by heavy timbers, floor-to-ceiling, wedged hard. The men gathered their gear and walked through the room which led to another and another, and so on. The only sounds were their boots crunching on the floor and the clinking of their gear.
Nyx wished someone would say something to her, to welcome her or simply to acknowledge her presence. But no one spoke. She’d never worked with men and didn’t know this was often typical.
She felt the absence of her own set of tools, the Gezähe, they called it. She lacked the equipment to mark her as a member of the group, not that she would have known how to use it. Nyx felt the heat that met them the further down they went and felt, too, her breasts and ribcage pressing against the bandage Angus had wrapped around her torso before sunrise.
She recalled another moment long past, the ghost of a sensation, the feeling of her father’s embrace when he left for work.
When they reached what looked like a dead end, a jagged wall of coal and slate, the men set their gear on the floor. Two of them took off their shirts.
A man said to Nyx, “Get down.”
The man’s voice snapped Nyx from her reverie. Coal dust filled the lines in his face which otherwise looked to her like a red mustache and greasy smudge under the candle flame.
She said, “Why?”
The silence held for a long moment, and then a low ripple of laughter passed through the men.
The man pointed to the dark, far corner of the room and said, “There.”
Nyx said, “All right, I’ll play along.”
“Yah, you better would. Though this ain’t no game.”
More laughter.
She crossed the room, belly tight, fingernails pressing into her palms. Nyx got down on one knee and faced the man who handed her an iron spike. He pointed to a spot on the floor.
“Put it there.”
A man stepped forward, holding a sledgehammer. He took up his place a few feet from where she knelt. The man raised his shoulders to his ears and then relaxed.
Nyx said, “What should I do?”
The first man said, “Ach, you don’t do nussing.”
She held the spike with her left hand, arm fully extended.
“Use both hands. And don’t move, not even a whisker.” No one laughed this time. “An’ fear not, lad. This big Irish don’t miss.”
The man with the sledgehammer, Aodh Blackall, stepped closer. He wore no helmet, shirtsleeves rolled up his forearms. Aodh stood a little sideways, waiting for Nyx to do her part. She inched closer to the spike, wrapped her right hand around her left and closed her eyes.
The sledgehammer came down with force, landing square on the spike and driving it in. Nyx held it fast, and the man hit it again, then once more.
The first man said, “You can open your eyes now. And step away.”
Nyx said to the first man, “What are we doing?”
“Round of holes.”
“What?”
He pointed to a point three feet up on the wall. “There.”
Nyx placed the spike, and Aodh gave a mighty swing from the side. As with the previous blows, this one was true, transferring the energy from the hammer to the spike and straight into the seam.
They repeated the process a dozen times with Nyx placing the spike and Aodh driving it home.
When they finished, the first man, whom Nyx learned was the fire boss, said, “Now back around.”
They returned to the first hole, and the fire boss handed Nyx another implement, this one a three-foot long rod. They repeated the entire sequence with Nyx holding the rod and Aodh hammering it in. Blisters formed on Nyx’s palms and her ears rang with every strike.
Sometimes the hole would fill with coal dust, and another miner would remove it with a long, thin spoon. By the time they finished the second round, she felt as if she’d collapse. But she steadied herself and stood among the men, who made room for a small, thin man to move forward. He produced an iron cylinder from one pocket and a spool of fuse from the other. From yet another pocket, the man pulled a pair of p
liers.
Nyx leaned over to Aodh and said, “What’s his name?” Aodh shrugged without acknowledging her. “Well, what’s he doing?”
Aodh looked down at her. “Crimping the caps.”
“What does that mean?”
The fire boss said to her, “Don’t mean nix to you.”
The man with the pliers squeezed the top of the cylinder, then unspooled the fuse as he moved to the next hole. Nyx noticed that the other miners shuffling farther and farther back until they’d exited the room. In short order the man had filled every hole with a cylinder, and all were connected by the same line.
The man walked backward from the room still unspooling the fuse.
“Everybody back,” the fire boss said, though none of the men needed to be told. They’d already retreated into the shadows. “How many?”
“Twelve.”
“Remember to count ’em off, boys.”
The explosives man struck a match and touched it to the end of the fuse. Everyone plugged their ears with their fingers.
The first charge went off, shaking the ground all around them and showering them with dust. Then the second charge exploded and the next and the next as the flame raced along the fuse. When the thundering ceased, the group stood up straight, took their fingers from their ears, and listened.
The fire boss said to the explosives man, “How many?”
“Eleven.”
He turned to Aodh. “What was your count?”
“Eleven.”
The fire boss turned to Nyx. “There’s one hole missed.”
“So?”
There was an eruption of laughter, and the fire boss said, “So, go find it.”
“Find what?”
“Ach, the one that missed.”
“And then what?”
Aodh said, “I think it was seven.”
He walked back into the room with Nyx following. She tried to remember where they’d put the seventh hole and guessed it was close to the floor, meaning she’d have to dig to find it. Aodh got on his hands and knees and removed large chunks of coal and rock. Nyx fell in next to him, tossing pieces left and right.
He grabbed her wrist hard and said, “Careful.”
The fire boss called into the room, “Come on outta there, Blackall. You done your bit already.”
AFTER THE EXPLOSION AODH STAGGERED forward but didn’t fall, as the fire boss looked him over. Aodh put his hands to his ears.
“Don’t worry, they’re still there,” the fire boss said.
“What?” Aodh pointed to his ear. “I can’t hear.”
The fire boss held him by both shoulders. “I said, get back to work.”
Nyx toiled alongside the rest of the team, working by the light of their candles, carrying coal and dumping it into the mine car. Each full car was rolled away by two children, one pulling and one pushing.
No sooner did a full car disappear than an empty one took its place. In this way the team filled the hours in the day. Nyx couldn’t discern the time, and as the day wore on, her senses dulled and she stopped imagining the world above ground. She focused mostly on the pain in her shredded hands until that, too, seemed far away.
At a moment well past any kind of exhaustion Nyx had known before, the fire boss blew a brass whistle, and the work ceased. The men gathered up their tools and trudged out the way they’d ridden in. She noticed Aodh walking with his back straight and arms barely swinging.
She discerned by the fire boss’s candle the dim outline of the kid, still sitting at the heavy wooden door. He stood up and eased it open, and Nyx felt the rush of foul air escaping to meet the night.
TWO
KAMP RAPPED KNUCKLES ON THE DOOR just below the brass sign that read “Strictly No Admittance” and listened for sounds inside the room. Kamp hadn’t been there in a long time and didn’t want to be there now. He heard nothing and knocked one more time just to make himself feel better about having tried to find the Big Judge Tate Cain.
But as he turned to leave, Kamp caught a whiff of blended tobacco, heard the creaking of floorboards and then a voice.
“What is it, Wendell?”
“Open the door.”
“Are you armed?”
Kamp felt his gut go tight. The Judge was goading him already. He didn’t bother answering the question and instead waited for the Judge to unlock the door.
When he did, Kamp entered while the Judge took his seat in an ornate chair by the window. He wore his customary black silk dress and high lace-up boots in the Victorian style.
The Judge put his pipe to his lips and took a long, thoughtful pull, then let the smoke cascade over his bottom lip while he gazed out the window. Kamp waited for the Judge to turn back around. He didn’t.
“What’s on your mind, Judge?”
The Judge banged the dead ashes from his pipe on the arm of his chair, then repacked it with tobacco from a tin emblazoned with the words “Turtle Island Smoking Tobacco.” He struck a match on the windowsill and held it to the bowl, sucking the flame down on the inhale and letting it bob back out. Once sufficiently lit, he let it burn.
The Judge said, “It’s you who called on me. How may I be of assistance?”
“I have some questions.”
“Proceed, Wendell. Time is short.”
The Judge gave no indication that he had anything else to do and certainly nothing pressing.
Before Kamp could speak, the Judge said, “Whatever became of your friend, the little fugitive?”
“Who?”
“The boy, Becket Hinsdale. Where is he now?”
“Gone.”
The Judge took a pull on the pipe, fashioned from briarwood. “All for the best, wouldn’t you say?”
“Judge, listen—”
“Wendell, in your studies at the college, you spent considerable time on philosophy, pre-Socratic. And natural science, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So, perhaps better than anyone, you appreciate—”
“I need—”
“You can appreciate the shift taking place in our world, man’s massive move from the dark into the light. I mean that ironically, of course.”
“I thought you said time was short.”
“Well, in spite of technical advancements and fantastic inventions, the rise of industry, the Heraclitean fire, nature’s conflagration, the Darwinian struggle for existence rages without ceasing, and without remorse.”
“Judge, a soldier came to my front door with a letter. Official business. What do you know about it?”
The Judge took another long pull on the pipe and exhaled slowly.
He said, “I take issue with those who say society is progressing, don’t you? What progress?”
“Why did a soldier deliver a letter to me?”
“Probably because it had your name on it.” The Judge looked out the window to the tall stacks pumping black smoke into a grey sky and said, “Society functions only for the sake of keeping secrets. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“What’s the letter about?”
The Judge turned back around to face Kamp. “Did you sign for it?”
“What?”
“Were you required to sign for the letter?”
Kamp felt a flicker of irritation at the base of his skull.
“Yes, I did. But why did I get it in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the contents of the letter told you.”
“Tell me—”
“You did read it, the letter? You didn’t? Oh, Wendell, at least learn the facts first.”
Kamp rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Judge, they sent someone after me.”
“Who did?”
“Black Feather.”
The Judge pursed his lips and shook his head, then stood up and produced a bottle from a desk drawer, along with two shot glasses. He poured the whiskey and slid a glass toward Kamp.
The Judge sighed, then raised his glass and s
aid, “To divine mysteries.”
The Judge tossed back the shot, but Kamp left his glass on the table.
Kamp said, “Her name is Adams. Do you know her?”
“Of course I know Adams.”
“How?”
The Judge leaned back in his chair. “Her father and I were colleagues in Philadelphia. I knew her when she was a little girl. She doted on her father.”
Kamp downed the shot and said, “You know what she does now.”
“Not as such.”
Kamp felt the whiskey quiet the roaring in his mind, felt his thoughts slowing. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I don’t like your tone.” The Judge sat straighter in his chair.
“Where is Nyx Bauer?”
The Judge rolled his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Where does Black Feather think she is?”
“Wendell, you’re not well. You’re disturbed. It’s time for you to go.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to go.”
Kamp let the words hang and stood staring at the Judge, who interlaced his fingers in front of him, and smiled.
“Wendell, when you were a boy, many times I’d come to your family’s farm to visit with your father. And more than once I saw you talking back to him, arguing with him. Your brothers were much more respectful, I can assure you. But you, Wendell, you antagonized that man, much like you’re antagonizing me now. And on more than one occasion, your father removed his leather belt and put an end to the argument. There you were, squirming on the ground, clutching your little red bottom. Sad.”
“What did you and my father talk about?”
“You made him hit you, Wendell. You realize that.”
“Sounds like you enjoyed watching.”
“Oh, I did, I did. You were a willful boy who needed constant correction.”
“I guess it didn’t work.”
“On the contrary, Wendell, you became a war hero. The state you’re in now is due to your injuries. It’s not your fault that your mind doesn’t function properly anymore.”
“Don’t bother, Judge.”
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 1
