Under Starry Skies

by Judy Ann Davis

They were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the parlor door. Tye, closest to the door, rose to answer it. He found a harried-looking Maria on the other side.

  “What’s wrong?” Eyebrows knitted, he reached out and pulled her inside.

  “Both Lenny Sanderson and Joseph Sarowski’s grandson, Isaac, didn’t show up for school today,” she said in a frightened voice. “They started the schoolhouse stove and then must have left.”

  “Boys skip school, Maria,” Tye said in a reassuring tone.

  Behind him, Flint, Brett, Marcus, and Cullen came through the archway and stopped.

  “Not these two,” Maria insisted. “They are my best and brightest students. They’ve never missed a day of school.” She bit her lip and wrung her hands. “Isaac’s father stopped by the school this morning. In all the excitement of the new baby, Isaac forgot to take his lunch pail. When he didn’t find his son with me, he was most upset.” She looked at Tye with pleading eyes. “We have to look for them. I have Abigail at the school house watching the rest of my students.”

  “Then we better find those boys quickly,” Brett said in a droll voice, “to rescue the rest of the class from the hands of your sister. She would have more luck teaching a bear to drink whiskey than instructing those poor innocents.”

  Tye whistled for Swamp and laid a reassuring hand on Maria’s arm. “Brett and I will meet you at the school house with horses. We’ll try to track the boys from the schoolhouse onward. Marcus can go up the mountain and check on the Sanderson homestead to see if Lenny returned there. Flint can round up a couple of men and search the town and surrounding area, then fan out to the woods to the north. Doc should stay in town in case we need him. Three rapid shots in the air means we found them.”

  “I’m going with you,” Maria insisted. “I feel responsible.”

  “Get something from the classroom he’s touched,” Tye instructed her.

  Later, as Tye and Brett drew up in front of the schoolhouse with Swamp trotting along beside them and an extra mount behind Tye, they found Maria waiting. She was dressed in a split riding skirt and held a ring flask, a lantern, a rope, and a sketchpad in her hands. “The boys tell me Isaac and Lenny often talked about the old mines and finding gold,” she said. “I dismissed the class for the rest of the afternoon and sent Abigail to the inn to alert the men there to help Flint round up some search parties.”

  “Everyone dreams of finding gold,” Brett said. “Every boy dreams of having adventures.” He looked at the sketchbook with a puzzled gaze.

  “This is all I have of Lenny’s,” she said with a shrug.

  “Swamp doesn’t need much to make a connection.” Tye dismounted. Behind his saddle, he had tied on another lantern and a shovel. He took Maria’s lantern and rope and fastened it to her horse, then took the offered sketchbook and called the dog, letting him sniff the paper. “We need to find him, boy.” He patted the dog on his head. “Find him,” he repeated and waited as the dog smelled the sketchbook yet again, then sniffed the ground around the doorstep of the school before barking and taking off toward a copse of aspen behind the school.

  They mounted and followed until they came to a clearing slowly taken over by bright yellow plumes of goldenrod and blackberry bushes with a splattering of late berries wildlife had yet to find. Entering a small path lined with bull thistle and half-dried weeds, they climbed up and over a hillside toward higher ground, always vigilant of the route the dog was taking.

  Suddenly Tye pulled up and the others stopped beside him, leather creaking. His frisky horse snorted and danced sideways, eager to proceed. He looked at Brett and Maria with a disturbing gaze and brought his mount under control. “If Swamp does have their scent like I reckon he does, then those boys are headed for the old caved in mine Lenny’s dad owned. You know the one, Brett—where he buried his wife when the mine caved in?”

  A rumble of thunder above their heads brought them all to attention. Clouds began to gather in the sky, turning black, looming dark and threatening. Around them the sunshine had disappeared along with the trill of songbirds. Nighthawks and swallows prowled the sky, wheeling and diving, catching insects gathering before the storm. Far off, they could hear the roll of thunder.

  “You should go back, Maria.” Tye checked the sky with a nervous gaze. “This is going to be a wet one. A dandy.”

  She shook her head and nudged her horse forward. “I’m not quitting until we find those boys. They were my responsibility.” Together, they watched Swamp lope easily up an embankment and over a ridge.

  “Yep, it’s the old mine.” Tye kicked his mount forward.

  They reached the spot just as the first fat drops of water fell from the sky. Tye was the first to slip off his horse and approach the cave from the front. Swamp was running in circles and barking at the piles of slag and rubble barricading the entrance.

  “Lenny! Isaac,” he yelled above the rumble of thunder. He started up a small spoil pile footpath winding its way upward to the top of the mine with Swamp in front of him. “There’s an air shaft up on top leading straight down into the mine if it hasn’t caved in by now,” he shouted to the others. He turned and motioned to Maria to take his horse and circle around from the other side where a better path led to the top of the mine. She and Brett reached it about the same time. Tye knelt before the opening and shouted down the long dark shaft lined with timber. “Lenny and Isaac, can you hear me?”

  The faint sound of “help,” like a distant echo, filtered up from the mine shaft between the rolls of thunder from above.

  “One of us has to go down there,” Tye said to Brett. They barely exchanged glances when Tye scrambled up and hurried to the horses. He removed a rope, a pair of leather gloves, and the two lanterns.

  “Since I know your wish is to overcome your fear of caves and dark, small places, I think you should have the honors.” Brett took a tin of matches from his coat and handed it to him. He grinned his cocky grin. When Tye shot him a sour expression, he plucked at his new sack coat. “What?” His hand flew up in the air. “You know I was planning to meet with the town council today at the lumber yard.”

  Tye shook his head and cursed softly. For a fleeting second, he thought about throwing him head first down the chute. Instead, he dropped to the ground, removed his hat, made a lasso in the rope, and pulled it over his head to settle at his waist. “Any idea how far down this shaft goes?” he asked no one in particular.

  Maria was already lighting a lantern and tying it onto a rope she had taken from her saddle. “We’ll lower this first lantern down to try to determine the depth,” she said as a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. “We may be able to get an idea of how sound the timbers are lining the chute.” Her hair had come undone and whipped about her head and shoulders, blowing strands into her eyes as the wind began to pick up in strength with the incoming storm. She knelt in front of Tye, hands on her knees. “You need to signal us if you need help, if someone is injured. Pull once on the lantern rope. Leave it at the entrance to guide you back to the chute. I’ll have it in my hands to feel the tug. One of us can come down. Pull twice on the other rope when you need us to pull someone up.”

  He reached out and carefully pushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. They stared at each other without speaking. Finally he said, “I don’t want you down there under any circumstances, do you hear me, Maria? Send down fancy pants over there in the new duds. I don’t give a damn about his going-to-the-meeting clothes. Use my horse to pull us up. Dreamkeeper’s a good cow pony, and he knows what he’s doing even in the worst situations. That’s why I brought him. He’s steady, and he won’t shy from a rope.”

  “Please be careful, Tye,” she said, her voice cracking. “Remember, yank twice on the rope when you need us to pull someone up.”

  He took off his hat and handed it to her, then raised a hand and cupped the side of her face. He could see her spirits sagging. “Hey, don’t worry. How hard can this be? No one will be shootin
g at us, and I can guarantee there are no snakes in that blasted cold mine down there.” He touched his lips to hers and kissed her quickly.

  She pulled away and sighed. “Don’t joke.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Tye slipped down the hole into the inky blackness, pleased to find Maria’s lantern sitting at the bottom, casting a dim light to illuminate the floor of the mine. As soon as he hit bottom, he tied his rope to a nearby piece of rotted timber and lit the second lantern he had secured at his waist. Above him, he heard Brett fire three rapid rounds from his gun to signal their whereabouts and to alert other search parties they had found the boys. Beside him, he heard the steady drip, drip, drip of water coming from a crack in the rock ceiling and hitting the mine floor. He surveyed the gloomy walls around him and yelled the boys names again, waiting patiently for a response.

  From somewhere down a long low tunnel to his right, a voice called out, “Here! We’re over here.”

  “Can you see the light?” Tye shouted. He held the lantern higher.

  “Yes!” Lenny replied from the depths of a long tunnel in front of him. “Isaac’s foot is caught under a fallen rock.”

  Tye closed his eyes and sighed. He thought about the barn at the ranch and the dark crawl space under its foundation where he had sent Flint instead of himself to check the foundation. Now, even the barn space looked better than the narrow, black, gaping mouth ahead of him ready to swallow him up. He stepped over a puddle of water and stooped to peer into the tunnel. The ceiling was low, and its walls were slimy and black. A drip of water fell on the back of his neck and slipped under his shirt. He cursed, took a deep breath, and ducked down, moving into the tunnel’s entrance. Inching forward into the blackness, he felt the rock ceiling graze the top of his head. Another drip fell down onto the back of his shirt as he crept along, taking care not to stumble or dislodge any debris from the sides.

  Slowly, carefully, and minutes later, he found the boys in a small clearing in the mine high enough to allow a man to stand upright. It was heaped with rock, shale, and ore rubble. Black-faced, filthy, and wet, Lenny sat on a flat rock, and beside him, Isaac lay on the ground, his foot wedged under a large bolder that had slipped from the heap surrounding him. With the help of a fallen timber, Tye pried the rock upward enough to allow Lenny to pull Isaac’s foot from beneath it.

  “Can you walk?” Tye heaved the boy up by his armpits.

  “I think so,” Isaac said, wincing and shivering. “It’s my ankle, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

  “Then let’s hobble out of here,” he said. Before this whole damn tunnel falls down around our heads. “Here, lean on me. Lenny, take the lantern, hold it high, and lead the way.”

  With the help of Brett and Maria, both boys were lifted up the shaft to safety followed by Tye. Maria helped him loosen the rope from around his waist as he tumbled onto his knees, then onto his back in the wet grass. Never had he enjoyed the sight of open air, despite the rumble of thunder and light rain beginning to fall. He gazed up at the stormy, gray sky. Nearby, he heard the snicker of a horse coming around the mine from the trail below. Beside him Swamp whined and complained about getting wet, but loyally hunched down beside his master.

  “Are you all right?” Maria asked with a worried frown. “You’re going to get soaked lying on the wet grass.”

  He laughed cheerfully. “Maria, my dear sweet Maria, just to lie here and breathe in the clean air and be surrounded by miles…and miles…of space…is a blessing.” After a minute, he rolled to his feet, patted Swamp on the head, and surveyed the two boys huddled nearby.

  “That’s Pa coming, and I’m going to get a licking for sure.” Lenny shivered and hung his scruffy head.

  “Why did you two go in there?” There was a stern timbre to Brett’s voice. “Mines are a dangerous place to play, boy.” Behind them, Roy Sanderson rode up, slid off his horse, and glared at the boys, also waiting for an answer.

  “I wanted to see if I could talk to my ma.” Lenny’s face was sullen, and his eyes grew misty. He fought to control the tears and swiped at them with his sooty hands making muddy-looking puddles on his cheeks. “Pa never talks about her. I thought if her spirit was there, she’d talk to me. I hardly remember her.” He looked at Tye. “It wasn’t Isaac’s fault. I begged him to come with me.”

  Roy Sanderson started forward. “I ought to—”

  Tye waved him away. He knelt in front of Lenny. “I lost my mother when I was just a little older than you. I know the loss and pain, even though I have a few memories. But you have to remember your ma’s spirit isn’t just down there in the mine, her spirit is everywhere. Her spirit is with you when you wake up in the morning and when you lay your head on your pillow at night. She hasn’t left you.” He thumped his chest. “She’s right here with you…in your heart…always.”

  He rose and looked Roy Sanderson square in the eye. He shook his head sadly. “Maybe, old man, you need to start talking more with your son, instead of at him. He’s all you’ve got. He’s searching for answers to questions about his mother, and he deserves to get them. A man can’t rightly live a healthy life without having a few good memories to hold onto. The boy needs someone in his life he can turn to when things get tough. Wake up, man. He needs you.”

  Grimly, he took the hat Maria handed him, jammed it on his head, and walked away with Brett beside him and Swamp trotting behind them.

  “Come,” Maria said to Isaac, “let me help you.” She put her arms around the boy’s shoulders. “Hold on to me. You can ride behind me. Let’s get you to your mother and father. They must be sick with worry.”

  Alone, Roy Sanderson stood on top of the mine, staring at his son as the sky opened up, pouring torrents of rain upon them as if it was crying its heart out.

  ****

  Later that afternoon when the rains had stopped and skies had cleared, Brett was surprised to see Tye come thundering into the yard at the lumber mill. From his office window, he could see the man was not in the best of moods. He had changed his blackened, wet clothes and was wearing new buckskins and knee-high boots and what looked like a new tan hat. He dismounted and tied his horse at the rail and, ignoring everyone around him, stormed directly into Brett’s office.

  “It’s not often I have the privilege or pleasure of your company on the south side of town.” Brett watched Tye slump down in a chair across from him and cross a leg over the top of his knee. The ivory handle of a knife protruded from his boot. “By the way, that was a nice job out there in the mine this morning.”

  His face sullen, Tye removed his Stetson, tossed it crown side up on Brett’s desk and grunted. His vexation was evident. “Is your fancy suit still spotless?”

  “Still clean as a whistle.” Brett brushed at the front of his vest like he was dislodging some specks of dirt. He felt a faint twinge of humor forming on his lips and forced himself not to chuckle. “See you have a new hat. About time. So what can I do for you? I’m going to guess you’re not interested in discussing my clothes or buying lumber today.”

  “I need some help, and I don’t want my brothers involved.”

  Brett heaved a sigh. There was never any beating around the bushes with Tye Ashmore. He looked at the gloomy man with a wary expression. “I smell trouble. Haven’t you had enough excitement for today, Tydall?” He raised an eyebrow. “Does this help involve me getting wet, dirty, or hurt?”

  Tye shook his head. “No, you just have to hold my hat.”

  “Hold your hat?”

  “Well, it’s a new hat, and I don’t want to get it soiled on a filthy saloon floor. And it would help if you could train a gun on some of Lang Redford’s friends if they make a misstep while I have a short discussion with him.”

  When Brett looked at him half in anticipation and half in dread, Tye continued, “It seems Redford’s been pushing his weight around with the O’Donnell sisters, and I aim to have him stop. He and his men are over at the saloon, and I figure we should have a little talk with
the galoot while it’s fresh in our minds.”

  “We?” Brett’s voice rose an octave.

  “Take it easy, compadre. I have a plan.”

  “Oh, hellfire.” Brett sighed. “I hope it’s better than the one we had on the flatboat. And if I’m holding your hat, what the devil will you be doing?”

  “Depends upon Redford. I’ll try to be reasonable and diplomatic.”

  Brett snorted and rose from his desk. He couldn’t help grinning. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  When the two men rode into town a quarter hour later, the day was drawing to a close. Soon darkness would fall, and the tinny sounds of the piano would echo from the saloon. But now, the air still hummed with the sounds of rattling harnesses, children’s laughter, and adult voices. A few carriages and wagons still remained on the street, drawn up to the hitching posts and tied with a set of reins. Women with baskets hurried along the sidewalk, heading home to fix supper while children, fresh out of school, rolled hoops and skipped rope.

  Brett and Tye dismounted and tied their horses to the rail outside the saloon.

  “I really don’t want to make this into a gun fight, unless necessary,” Tye warned.

  “Unless necessary? What the devil? I thought you said you had a plan.” Brett threw him a quick look of dismay.

  “I do, but it has room for changing horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak.”

  Brett grunted. “Just give me a signal if you’re going to jump on my proverbial horse so I’ll know ahead of time if I have to swim.” They grinned at each other remembering the mailbag and the flatboat.

  Together they walked through the batwing doors, taking time to let their eyes adjust to the smoky, dim interior. Only a few people were at the bar. Across the room, Lang Redford was playing poker with Jebb Masters, Pat Wenson, and an unshaven man who appeared to be a drifter.

  “Redford, we need to have a little talk.” Tye removed his hat and handed it to Brett.

  He walked toward the table and stopped a few feet away.