by Hunter Shea
“I just can’t figure where Lucille fits into all of this,” I said.
Matthias said, “If I may be so bold, I believe she was presented to you to break your spirit, to confuse you, to distract you from your one true purpose. Whatever is here needs you unbalanced and afraid.”
I massaged the back of my neck. “Then I’ll do my best to prove it wrong.”
I heard a sharp click, then the whining of hinges. Angus had opened his chest. “That can’t be a good sign,” I said.
“There are no good signs down here,” Teta said. “Where there are bones, there are spirits.”
Angus stared at the mountain of bones, transfixed.
“If they’re angry spirits, they’re no more pissed off than me,” I snarled. I wiped the blood from my palms onto my jeans. “What’s he waiting for?” I asked Matthias.
“Sometimes, he has to let the spirits come to him. He can sense them. But I daresay they’re not angry spirits.”
“No? Then what are they?”
“Tortured. I can feel it myself. Angus is going to take them from here, and release them to a better place.”
“Are there any other tunnels?” I asked Teta.
“No, just the one we came through that led to here. There might be something on the other side of those bones, but it’s buried.”
“So what’s the sense of jamming that box full of spirits when we have nowhere to bring them?”
“Faith, Mr. Blackburn. Faith.”
He was wrong about me. I did have faith.
I knew for sure we were never going to see the light of day again.
Chapter Fifty-One
Angus’s voice boomed with his creepy deadspeak, his echoes gaining intensity. Some of the bones on top of the mound began to shift. If he kept it up, he was going to bring the whole thing down on us.
“Ubataya singnot futool!”
He repeated the phrase over and over, until the air became electrified. Every hair on my body pricked. I felt like we were being watched. It was a far-from-pleasant sensation.
“Ubataya singnot futool!”
“Maybe he’s calling more of those black-eyed kids to save us,” Teta whispered. “For their sakes, I hope they’re not down in this pit.”
“Stop!”
It was the voice of an old man, grizzled by years, made weak and thin. From the bottom edge of the bone mound, something white, almost glowing, appeared. As it came closer, it grew, took shape, until it was a man.
Franklin.
He stopped before Angus, looked at me and smiled. It was enough to chill me to the core.
“You’ll bring them all,” he rasped. Then, to me he said, “I never wanted to be here. But where my brothers went, so did I. They said I was acting like an old, scared man. And now here I am. Punishment for not succumbing to the lure. They scared me then. They scare me now.”
Matthias stood with openmouthed fascination. I reached out to Franklin. My hand passed through his chest, to an unseen, frigid core.
“But you’re dead,” I said. “What’s left to be scared of when you die?”
His eyes grew sad and the smile faded. “So much more.”
“Why do you keep appearing to us?”
“We need your help.”
“I don’t think we’re in any position to help anyone. In fact, if it wasn’t for those spirit kids, we’d probably be dead. If they can’t help you, you’re shit out of luck.”
He considered me for a moment with an expression that was impossible to read. Matthias pulled a small leather Bible from his back pocket. “Is there anything I can read to you that can give you rest, perhaps comfort – help?” Franklin looked at him but didn’t answer.
Matthias opened it to a random page and began to read from the Gospel of John. Franklin considered him with tenderness. The words flowed from Matthias as if he’d memorized every word.
Franklin put up a hand to stop him. “Thank you.”
He looked at Angus’s spirit chest. “The weight will be considerable. I can call them for you.”
Angus was stoic. One hand rested atop the open chest.
“The others, they will follow, but there’s nothing I can do about that.” Franklin turned to the bones.
It was as if tiny fires spontaneously flickered to life within the hundreds of dark gaps. Small points of white light began to glow. The lights poured out of the bones, converging into the center of the mound until they formed a continuous streak of light that touched down to the floor. Human shapes made entirely of that light stepped from the flowing spring. We couldn’t make out faces, but by their builds we could see some were men; others, women; and so many were children. Angus stepped back as they filed past Franklin, melting into the chest. Franklin reached out to touch them as they passed, his fingers drifting through them.
Dozens, then a hundred, and still more stepped into the chest.
I saw a man in uniform, then another. Teddy’s troops. They didn’t look my way as they followed the somber parade into the chest.
When the last spirit – a willowy woman by the looks of it – made its way, Angus knelt and carefully closed the lid. He muttered some deadspeak, too low for us to hear.
“He’s sealing the box,” Matthias said.
Then Matthias prayed over the chest, resting his Bible on the lid, his hands clasped together.
It was an amazing thing to see and, for once, I didn’t have a hard time believing my eyes and ears. Maybe some of that faith was starting to rub off on me.
I said, “Franklin, why didn’t you go in the chest?”
“I have more work. I can’t see Momma until I’m done. Where’s the dog?” he asked.
There was no soft way to put it. “We had to put him down. He turned. He was bad.”
“Yes. Yes he was.”
He began to walk back to the mound.
“You may want to protect yourselves,” he said with his back to us.
“From what?” Teta asked.
“The glue has been undone. Even Jericho fell.”
We looked at one another. Teta looked over his shoulder. “Shit, the bones,” Teta said.
They had started to tremble. Skulls bounced crazily onto the floor, exploding into clouds of dust.
“Back to the tunnel!” I said.
Angus tucked the chest under his arm and was the first to run out of the cavern. We weren’t far behind.
There was a tremendous explosion, and a whirlwind of bone dust blew over us. We tucked our faces into our shirts, shutting our eyes against the onslaught. It took several agonizing minutes to pass. I was grateful that it hadn’t blown out our torches.
“If that bone mound collapsed, maybe there’s a way out now,” I said.
“I think we have to go deeper before we can rise,” Matthias said.
“Nobody likes a pessimist.”
Teta ducked in and out of the entrance. Then he craned his head back inside, his body following.
“Nat, you have to come in here.” I ran into the cavern.
The entire bone mound was gone. It was as if it had never been there. The floor was gritty with white and yellow dust.
Teta pointed, and my eyes followed.
A small shape lay amongst the ruins. I ran to it, heedless of what might happen.
Worrying about what would befall us next was no longer a concern.
I skidded along the bone dust, stopping inches before the figure on the ground. “Selma.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Her head turned to me the moment she heard my voice. Unlike Lucille, she was conscious, and as I helped her up, she seemed, impossibly, unhurt. We looked at each other for what seemed like hours, then her eyes melted into tears and she fell into my chest. I held her, rubbing her back, trying to calm her sobs.
“Oh, Nat,
I thought I’d never see you again.”
It was disconcerting, hearing that for the second time that day, from another woman. I’d be damned, if I wasn’t already, if I let something snatch her from me again. Whatever had tried to scramble my heart and brains with Lucille would have a hard time getting to Selma. She was alive, and here, and possibly my last shot at a future. Hecla’s plan had backfired. Lucille was gone, and not to a better place. I couldn’t be her savior now, just as I couldn’t the day she decided to take her life. It was her telling me to keep searching for Selma that had lifted a weight from my soul, a dark shroud that many times had sabotaged my chances for a normal life.
I did like you asked, Lucille. I found her. Now comes the hard part. Saving her.
“Did the wild men hurt you?”
She shook her head against my chest.
“Do you remember what they did, where they took you?”
I couldn’t imagine her surviving under the weight of all those bones. Again, wondering if we were all dead troubled my mind. Matthias couldn’t know everything.
“I…I don’t even know where we are now.”
“Somewhere in the lower intestines of the Deep Rock Hills,” Teta said, keeping his eyes peeled for anything to come out of the darkness.
“Whatever is in charge of Hecla and the mines used you to get us here,” I said. “Now that it has us, I’m not sure what its next move will be.”
“I’m just glad you’re here,” Selma said, wrapping me in a hug. She felt real. But so had Lucille. I wondered how I felt to her.
Teta shouted, “Hey, there’s another tunnel back here!” Matthias and Angus came jogging up to us.
“You’re all here,” Selma said.
“A horde of wild men couldn’t keep us away…literally,” Matthias said with a grin.
Angus touched her face. “I’m happy to see you’re okay.”
“I guess there’s only one way to go,” I said. “Can you walk?”
“Yes, I’m fine. It feels like I’ve been sleeping. I remember being carried off by those creatures, and calling out for you, but that’s it. The rest is blank.”
“It’s probably better that way.” I whistled and Teta turned to me. “You want to take point this time?”
“Sí.”
We followed him into the next shaft. This one was larger than the main access tunnel outside. We could easily walk four across, even with Angus. This was nothing that miners had ever dug out. It felt ancient. It reeked of centuries of decay and secrets. This had been here before the hills settled into position above us. It couldn’t lead to anywhere good.
* * *
As we walked, Matthias explained his theory about the Djinn to Selma. He said knowledge was power and there was no reason to hide anything from her just because she was a woman. I wasn’t in a mood to argue.
“So the Djinn are bad?” she asked.
“Not all, and I suspect the ones we’ve encountered are under a kind of spell. That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt us.”
“If one of them tries to drink my blood, I’ll make sure they choke on it,” Teta said.
Our torches were growing dim. They had long outlasted their burning time, but like everything here, nothing about them was typical. I suspected they’d last just as long as they needed to in order to move us along.
The coolness of the tunnel had taken a turn, and the humidity began to rise. Our footsteps echoed down the vast passage. The more we walked, the hotter it became, which was a welcome relief for my joints. The cold had stiffened them up. Now I could walk a little easier. Tiny beads of sweat danced on Angus’s shiny head as he lugged the full chest.
“Any theories on what we can expect?” I asked Matthias.
He sighed. “None, I’m afraid. Angus and I have seen a lot of strange places and done our fair share of odd deeds, but nothing like this.”
“I keep wondering why they don’t just come out and kill us,” Teta said. “Or at least give it a real try.”
“It’s because we’re not afraid,” I replied, startled by my own words.
Matthias snapped his fingers. “I think you might be right.”
“Of course I am. Whoever he is, he may have us where he wants us physically, but he can’t get us there emotionally. He’s not going for the grand finale until he pushes us exactly to the point he wants us.”
It was like someone was talking through me, using my mouth and lungs and throat to put voice to the bare truth behind our predicament. I knew it was me. I just wasn’t sure what part had taken control.
And to my surprise, I kept going. “You told me that the Djinn feed on fear. Maybe that’s what kept drawing them to us, until they pushed us too far and the fear turned into something else. They thought they were dealing with regular people. I’ve been told more times than I can count that I’m not regular people, and it’s usually not meant in a good way. Teta and I, we’ve survived off a controlled recklessness and learned how to use anger as a tool. In the lines of work that we’ve done, it’s the only way to even hope of seeing another day. The Djinn, or whatever is controlling them, were doing a good job keeping us off-balance, what with the wild men, ghosts and that strange dog. When they took Selma, they overplayed their hand. Teta and I don’t get scared, we get angry. And from what I can tell, you two actually want to be in the mix of things like this. I don’t think they factored four folks like us coming together into their odds.”
“Exactly why I can’t understand why they don’t kill us now,” Teta said. “It would be easy. Just drop the roof on us. Problem solved.”
Selma looped her arm through mine. “Maybe they can’t.”
Matthias said, “I get the feeling this has all been a game, and the prize is whatever amount of terror that can be induced in us. It’s not so much that we die, more so that we die consumed with fear. So if we follow Mr. Blackburn’s line of thinking, which I think we should, there is going to have to be an escalation of scale.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“I would think that if everything else has only succeeded in stoking your anger, the he in Hecla is preparing to up his ante.”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Teta and I had been through a lot, but every man had his breaking point. I had no idea what Matthias and Angus’s would be, and I worried about Selma.
I said, “I think it’s best if we all just shut up and keep walking.”
So we did. It felt like we were starting to ascend, if only slightly. The gradient of the tunnel was too minute to tell for sure. Rivulets of water wound down the cracks and crags in the walls, but didn’t touch the floor. The walls swallowed up the water before it could collect at our feet.
It was getting hotter. My clothes stuck to my skin, the salt of my sweat stinging the wounds that covered me from head to toe.
I knew that lava was formed underground. Even though there were no volcanoes around, could there be a river of lava nearby? There was no way of knowing how deep underground we were. I was tempted to ask Teta. Maybe he’d read it in a book somewhere. But I was the one that told everyone to keep quiet, and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence.
I looked over at Selma and offered a weak smile. Her hair was plastered to the side of her face, but she still looked beautiful. She smiled back and clutched my arm, as if to tell me she was all right and knew I would lead us all out of here.
Then I thought of Lucille, and a dull ache settled into my chest.
It seemed an odd thing to fixate on, considering our situation. That’s exactly what Hecla, he, wanted. Why else bring Lucille back, only to snatch her away? Play with a man’s emotions enough, you rob him of his ability to function.
I reached down and laced my fingers through Selma’s. Her palm was damp and warm. “When we get you back to your ranch, I think me, you and your pa have to have a talk,”
>
I said softly.
“About what?”
“Certain long-term things.”
It took her by surprise, and a welcome one at that. “I know I’m no spring chicken, but I can provide.”
“I know you can.”
The emotional turmoil that had been boiling inside me began to subside. For the first time since stepping off the train in Laramie, I felt sure of something.
Hecla and the Djinn could suck on that for a while.
Teta had moved ahead of us but not so far that we couldn’t see his back, except when there were bends in the tunnel. I could hear each boot step clear as day, and I was immediately aware that he had stopped walking. We rounded the bend and he motioned for us to stop. The tunnel ended five feet from where he stood. Another tunnel sprouted to our right.
“We have company,” Teta whispered.
* * *
I let go of Selma’s hand to look into the next tunnel.
Seven men were gathered in a circle. But they weren’t ordinary men.
These men glowed, like ghosts, but they appeared as solid as me or Teta. Their heads were bowed and they were muttering some kind of chant, but it didn’t sound like English to me. One of them lifted his shaggy head, and I stepped back, out of sight.
“Franklin’s in there.”
“He keeps popping up like a bad penny,” Teta said. “Except I don’t think he’s the bad one.”
Selma tried to nudge past me. “I want to see.”
I held her back. “Just hold on. We have to think before we do anything.”
She slipped out of my hand and turned the corner. Her mouth dropped open. She covered it with her hands.
“Hank.”
There was no sense hiding now. Teta, Angus, Matthias and I filled the entrance to the tunnel.
We faced what could only be Selma’s husband, Hank, and his brothers. Judging by their appearance, they hadn’t fared so well when they came searching for gold. Something else had found them first. To say they were a ragged bunch was putting things mildly. They broke their little circle and fanned out the length of the tunnel, forming a barrier between us and the next leg of our journey.
