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An Air That Kills
by Galen Peoples
Part Three
She was standing at the parlor window. Biddie had let him in; he did not know where the others were. "The brides are leaving," he said. It was almost a question. She nodded–or had she? "Why didn't you tell me?"
He waited. "The meeting went late," she said. "Jason came around early."
"But you knew before. Didn't you?" She did not answer him. "What were you thinking? That Jason could arrange it without me finding out?"
"Of course not."
"And you–you–d-didn't you think I had the best right to know?" He was shouting like a child, a disappointed and devastated child.
"I knew Jason would tell you. Or Biddie." She half-smiled.
"But why wasn't it you? Why, Candy?"
How she wanted to tell him! That she had not dared to, knowing if she had, her love for him would have swept away everything else: her awareness of her responsibility to the brides and the strength to stick to it. If they must go, they must not go alone: they were too young, too easily taken advantage of. They needed her. Of course so did Jeremy, but she could not serve both. So she had chosen the need that seemed greater; rather, it had chosen her. If it had been her choice, her own need.... Not daring to tell him this, lest even now it unmake her, all she said was, "I couldn't."
"You didn't have the nerve."
How true! "In a way."
He did not speak for a few seconds. She wondered what he was thinking. Finally he asked if that were all. She did not understand. "Sure there wasn't something else?" he pressed.
One of his riddles! Not that; not now. "Jeremy, whatever you mean, just say it."
His voice was husky and sounded as if it were forced out. "The, the vote. To go away. Was it unanimous?"
She had not expected questions on small matters of fact. She strained to recollect. "Let me see...Ula voted to stay–and I think she will, to marry Daniel. Biddie voted no at first, but–"
"Were they the only ones?"
"Yes," she said, puzzled. Then its significance as he would see it struck her. She lowered her head, and as quickly raised it again. "Yes," she said, holding firm, "the only ones."
Jeremy turned to the wall. "I see." The disappointment, disillusion, desperation in his voice almost broke her heart. She struggled to speak, but what could she say? "I'd 'a' thought it'd be different for you," he said. "Guess–guess I was wrong."
"You could–" He looked hopefully at her. "–come with us."
He shook his head, not in reply but in amazement. "You know I can't. You could stay."
"I can't either."
They stared at each other. Neither could believe this was the end; yet it was.
Candy fought against the flood rising in her. "Before long I daresay you Bolts will be going out and picking yourselves a new crop of eligible girls. You'll meet one of 'em the same way you met me, and poof! I'll disappear from your mind. Pretty silly our little picnics and tea parties will look to you then."
"And you?"
She laughed, too loudly. "Don't you mind about me, Jeremy Bolt. I'll hunt myself up a handsome new beau–plenty to pick from in New England, you know, not like this wilderness. And some day I'll invite you for a visit and you and I will look back and laugh at how young and foolish we were to ever believe our 'understanding' amounted to a–a hill of beans."
Jeremy did not catch the strain in her voice. All he caught was the words. It took him a long time to answer. "If that's what you think then you may as well leave, 'cause it doesn't matter. I thought it did but it doesn't. And if that doesn't matter, then nothing–" His voice broke. He swallowed, and recovered himself. He looked at her as if he were a stranger meeting her for the first time. That look stabbed her through. One more word–"Goodbye"; he did not even say her name–and he was gone. Then the flood burst. But he was not there to see it.
"Where you off to?" Jason asked. Stopping by the cabin to seek a home for some of the smaller manufactures he had decided he could not part with after all, he had found a horse tied up outside. On one of the beds sat a three-quarters-filled saddlebag, to which Jeremy added a portrait of Joshua.
"Find my brother," he said. "You don't mind me taking the grey?" Jason shook his head. "Shoulda gone before. Nothing to keep me now." He hoped to be asked about the last remark and receive some brotherly sympathy without having to beg for it, but Jason was deep in his own grief. His great experiment in the importation of women had come to this. Besides, he would miss the brides, with their bustling and blushing and giggling. He had never dreamed he would mourn the absence of girlish giggling; all his life he had regarded it as a toll men had to pay for the pleasanter feminine attributes. But he would miss it, and them; especially he would miss Candy.
But of course, he realized, Jeremy would too; he ought to be with her now. "Don't squander your time," he said. "Whatever nonsense Joshua's about, he's too late to help us. I give him clear instructions not to dally or dawdle or drag his heels, and what's he do? If that ain't the height of March–"
"You–you don't know anything!"
Jason was too flabbergasted to take offense. "What in the–"
"You–you–" He shook his head.
"No, you've had somethin' lodged in your craw since yesterday. High time you coughed it up."
"You wanna know? Okay, all of this–it's just like you, Jason, just like you. You don't see things like a grown man. You see 'em like a kid."
"Says my venerable, wizened brother."
"Shoot, if I'd known what you were up to–I did, but I didn't know the brides were–if I'd–" He got tangled up in his thoughts and blazed a fresh trail. "You think, you think, hey, the brides want whale oil? I'll ship in whale oil. They want a bridge? I'll build 'em a bridge, and sweet-talk 'em into believing it's the same thing." Jason's face was all over wrinkles. "Forget it," said Jeremy.
"It's always worked, hasn't it?"
"Of course it works!" Jason could not remember having ever seen him so agitated. "When the fella's as slick as you are, it works prime. You could talk the Big Dipper down out of the sky to pour you a shot of star juice." Jason could not but enjoy the compliment, and noticed for the first time his brother had himself some skill in that line. "But there's this," he continued, "and you ain't caught on to it yet–it only works till people get to thinkin'. And these girls have been doin' plenty of thinkin'–been doin' nothin' else. Thinkin' about home, everything they've been missin'. Your magic won't work on them."
Jason stared at him with new respect. "And they say Joshua's the smart one."
Jeremy was not sure he liked that but let it pass. "And Joshua–you know yourself he isn't d-dawdlin' or d-dallyin' or–"
"You got cause to believe otherwise?"
"We're brothers, Jason. I feel it–and so do you. Think past this trouble with the brides for a second. Something's not right."
It was obvious now Jeremy had said it. "Go after him," said Jason, "find him, bring him back." Jeremy buckled the saddlebag and hoisted it onto his shoulder. "But, Jeremy? If he is in a jam, don't follow him. Keep yourself well clear and come fetch me. I can't be worrying about two brothers." Their eyes met. Jeremy nodded.
He stopped in town just long enough to pick up a few provisions, but that was enough to expose him to Biddie's probing eye. He pretended not to hear her calling–she had often wondered why all her acquaintances were intermittently deaf–but she ran after him, shouting, and eventually he had no choice but to stop and wait for her.
"Going somewhere?" she asked with a casual air, still panting from the run.
"Find Joshua."
"Oh, of course. You would. I mean, the two of you are brothers, aren't you? And we are our brother's keeper–if we have a brother. Personally–"
"Biddie, what the hell do you want?" He was usually polite to her for Candy's sake, but why bother now?
His bluntness shocked her into direct statement. "I want to tell you something. I don't like to call Candy a liar–well, not lying exactly. But if she didn't have the brides to think about–if it was her alone–"
"I know." He had known almost as soon as he had left her but only now did he admit it.
"I wanted to be sure you did. Because, you know, you're more important to her than anything."
"Except the brides," he said bitterly.
"And nothing is more important to you except your brothers. So you're really the same that way, now, aren't you?"
Jeremy smiled. "And they say Candy's the smart one." She did not like that any better than he had. "Tell her–" he began, and then broke off. "Just tell her." He lightly kneed the grey, and off he rode. He did not hear, nor was meant to, the mutter at his back: "Who says she's the smart one?"
At the mine the coal was ready to ship. The boats sat low in the water–too low according to one of the deputies, who argued strenuously with Bascombe to lighten them. Bascombe only stood and shook his head. He ordered the two carters to keep bringing more till told to stop.
On one of their jogs Knacker lost his footing and toppled the barrow, scattering its load. Before he knew it Moyle was standing over him, swearing and dealing out a succession of sharp cuffs as Bascombe and the deputies watched impassively. "A bit of mercy, Toby," begged his victim.
"Mercy, you scoggin? Who d'you take me for? Ben't I the one 'as kept 'ee when else 'ee'd be dead?" He extracted the blacksnake from his belt. "I'll show 'ee who's master."
"No, Toby!" Knacker cried. "I can bear 'most anything 'cept that. Please–" He clawed in the dirt, laboring to scramble away. Moyle flung the lash behind him, but when he tried to bring it back he found it stopped and his arm wrenched sideways. He swung round angrily to find Nate up against him, the leather cinched around his still-stinging knuckles. He met Moyle's eye, and spoke for his ears only. "You're the lowest kind of coward that crawls. Face me if you've any manhood in you."
Moyle's eyes bulged and his face grew red. He tugged at the whip. Nate's arm jerked forward, but his hand would not let go its grip and the cart at his back trebled his force to resist–unexpected ally! The two stood almost chest to chest glowering at each other. In another moment Moyle might have dealt a blow to smash Nate into the hard iron, maybe breaking some ribs. But the moment was stolen. "Moyle!" rose an imperious shout. "I must speak with you."
Nate released his hold. With sentiments unspoken on his lips Moyle turned and trudged away down the hill, coiling and belting the blacksnake as he went. Knacker glared after him. Nate extended a hand to help him up, which he took gratefully.
"I don't object if you please to whip your dog," Bascombe told Moyle, "but lay off the boy. He does half again the work of the rest." As seldom and as briefly as he stopped he had noticed that.
"'e raised 'is 'and to me!" Moyle objected. "'e wants a right lacin'."
"He's helping me make a profit from this godforsaken hole," said Bascombe. "That's all that concerns me." Moyle bit his tongue. "But what I wished to say to you was this. I'm withdrawing most of the deputies to help me conduct the ore to the city. Can you manage short-handed?"
Moyle nodded toward the mine. "Whyn't tak' they?"
"And allow them a chance to escape? Are you six kinds of a fool, man?" Moyle bit his tongue again. "My question to you is this: can you manage, yea or nay?"
Moyle tried to smile but managed only to look a little less sour. "Dusn't be teasy, now, cap'n. I'll manage." He palped the whip stock. "One way or t'other." He glanced toward Nate, who was now retreating into the mine.
"I'll remind you again to keep your temper. Never wise to court trouble." Moyle walked off without answering. Bascombe scowled after him. He distrusted the man but for his present purposes he could not have found a better.
From the brink of the mine Moyle watched Nate fade in and out of sight through succeeding realms of light and dark. "I'll do for 'ee, me lover," he said, now that Bascombe could not hear him, "for certain sure." But he could not do it while the boy was under Bascombe's protection. He would have to put an end to that first.
For the rest of the day he paid Nate no attention except to redirect his next load, while the boats were embarking, to an expanse of flat ground a hundred yards past the dock where the coal was to be piled till their return. So Nate knew what none of the men inside did: that three-fourths of the deputies were gone. For how long he did not know; but they were gone. The knowledge might prove useful.
Earlier that day the one Bolt left in Seattle had happened on Ula at the pump. He bade her good morning and asked for courtesy what sort of name Ula might be. "Short for Ulalume," she said, a little reluctantly. He began to recite but she cut him short. "I've heard it, Jason. My father was an inveterate reader of Mr. Poe. It was in honor of him he named me and my sisters–Lenore, Helen, and Annabel." Resisting the temptation to quote again, Jason picked up her filled pail and escorted her and it back to the dormitory. On the way he thanked her for her vote. She told him she had retracted it. "I never liked to stand against the others," she said, "and now it isn't necessary. I'll be going, and Daniel will be coming with me."
"He what?" Jason halted so suddenly, water high-jumped the rim of the pail.
"Splendid, isn't it? 'Its Sybillic splendor is beaming.' That's from the poem. Jason?" He had not moved. From his expression she judged he might not think it so splendid.
"You can't do it!" he informed Daniel as soon as he had located him at camp.
"I can. I'm a free citizen, I can do as I please."
"And run out on your obligations?"
"I got obligations to others than you, Jason. They got first call on me."
"But look here, if you go the next fella'll be wantin' to go too, and then the next. And before you know there'll be a regular stampede, with everybody shovin' and elbowin' and tramplin' on his neighbor–like a herd of love-starved bulls. I reckoned you for more of a man than that. But if that's how you account yourself–as no better'n a beast of the field...." He noticed Daniel was gazing off down the mountain. "Dan? You listenin'?"
"Are you through?"
"Am I through? Am I–" He sighed. "Yes, I'm through."
"You talk good, Jason. Ain't no one can gainsay that." He was already walking away, as if in foretoken of the longer departure.
"Not so, Daniel," Jason said, but only to himself. "Not half good enough."
The next day dawned rainy everywhere. The loggers worked regardless. Strangely, after learning of the brides' imminent departure they had reverted to a semblance of their former industry. The reaction was not logical but it was human: permanent, irreversible loss they could bear; they were used to it; what had tormented unendurably was to have the object of longing in sight, seemingly in reach, but lost to the other senses.
Traveling, Jeremy kept to the trees as far as he could till a small rise brought him into sight of Snohomish at the base of the shallow river valley. He prodded his horse on.
At the mine Moyle had a canvas stretched over the coal pile and the day's further extractions husbanded inside till the rain lightened. The breast filled rapidly. Little of what it yielded tumbled out and Parson was having to shovel almost continuously.
In the middle of the morning he collapsed. He was groggy almost to insensibility. "It's the sulfur gas," said Yarrow, "from the rocks and blasting." In the absence of Moyle, whom they had seen hardly at all, he and Sewell carried Parson outside and laid him on the wet earth. The rain tapping at his face revived him a little.
Moyle appeared. His temper unabated since the day before, he shoved the pair aside and planted his feet astride the stricken man. "It's chlorine that's wanted," Yarrow advised. "That's the antidote."
"I'll give'n antidote." He grabbed up Parson by the shirt and administered a hard slap to the face. "No qua'ms, I say!" Parson's eyes rolled back and his head fell limply to the side. Moyle threw him down in disgust. The mud splashed over his still limbs. "Leave 'e lay," said Moyle. "'e'll come round d'rectly." With that he tramped off to his cabin. The others stared after him. Disregarding his order for once, they moved Parson to the stable. "It'll be us next," said Sewell. Yarrow nodded. From below Nate had been watching with rising fury. If he did not yet know himself, he was returning to himself. And his self was speaking to him, saying clearly: it's time.
At the edge of Snohomish the grey began to limp. Jeremy dismounted to lead him in and paused under an oak (seemingly the town's only tree) to inspect the shoe, where he found a rock that had somehow wedged itself under the heel. He wiped his hands on his trousers, which were wet themselves, took his knife from its sheath at his waist, and worked to dislodge the intruder. Between the muddy hoof and his wet hands it was a slippery job, but he managed it, to the grey's evident satisfaction.
Up the street someone was making a speech–hawking his wares, to judge by the sound of it. Jeremy could not make out the words. The speaker was standing in the bed of a wagon. He was clad in a slick rain cloak that streamed water and camouflaged a too-green suit. He was facing an audience of three who had probably been passing anyway; Jeremy made it four. "Job pays a dollar a day, guaranteed," the man was saying, "plus a rare chance to git away from the temptations that beset a body–women, liquor, gamblin'–and set your feet in the way of righteousness." He reached under his cloak and brought out a small picture: a twin picture: a stereoscope card. "See this here church? I carry it around with me–" But his mention of the spiritual advantages the job purveyed had scotched any interest he might otherwise have provoked in his hearers, except for one. "Does my soul good," he finished lamely.
"Can I see it?" asked the one remaining.
"You want it? It's yours–for a price."
Jeremy studied it. There could be no mistake. He stared squarely at the man. "It belonged to my brother."
"Oh?" Jigger said without interest, and then, differently, "Oh-h."
Jeremy leapt into the wagon. "Where is he? Tell me!" Jigger looked down at the knife still in Jeremy's hand. Jeremy recollected its presence at the same instant. "Talk fast," he said menacingly, "or–"
"All right," Jigger yelped, without knowing clearly what he was saying. His mind scurried about nosing for a way out and found one. "I'll take you there," he said, "but it'll take 'most till dark. It's down Seattle way."
Jeremy's relief that his brother was close to home after all diminished as they rode south, largely retracing his route of yesterday. Jigger would say no more and was obviously hiding something. Jeremy kept close to him as he drove. As evening fell they reached a town hardly distinguishable from the last. "Black River," Jigger announced. He pulled up in front of the sheriff's office. Jeremy asked if his brother were in jail. He thought that might be good in a way: Joshua would be safer there. "All in good time," said Jigger with a smile. He was far more chipper than when they had started.
As they entered, the smell of oil met their nostrils. Sheriff Case was occupied in cleaning his shotgun. Two rifles, having received his ministrations, were resting again in their rack; his pistols sat waiting their turn. "You the sheriff?" Jigger asked loudly, making a face at Jeremy's back to signal something was up.
Case barely let on to notice them. "Guilty," he said, flicking his badge. "Help you gents?"
"We reckoned you mighta seen the fella this fella's lookin' for." Jeremy took the portrait of Joshua from the coat pocket where it had been sitting alongside the church scene he had reappropriated and he handed it to the sheriff.
"Who is he?" Case asked, and upon Jeremy's answer, "Of the lumber Bolts?" Jeremy said yes. The sheriff's face slackened a little. He put down his rifle and his next words fell heavily. "I'll take you to him." Jigger began edging to the door. "You're coming with us," Case said sharply. Jigger froze. This was not going as he had expected.
Parson lay unconscious on his straw bed. He had emerged from his faint into a daze that had eased into sleep. The others stared at him, or looked away. The fear Sewell had voiced–that one of them would be the next–clung to them all.
"When men are being mistreated, they should stand up and do something about it."
It was the first time Nate had spoken that evening; almost the first time he had spoken at all. "You mean a strike?" said Riggs.
Yarrow hushed them till he made sure Hounditch's space was empty. "It's all right," he said. "The rat's off somewheres."
"You led strikes before?" Riggs asked.
"Must have," said Nate, "it's so clear in my mind. But it's not a strike we want, it's a jailbreak."
"What about the deputies?"
"Right now there are more of us than there are them."
"Tonight most'll be asleep," said Yarrow. "Even better odds."
Nate looked to Sewell, the oldest and in many ways the wisest, and put the rest of the case. "If we get sick there'll be no doctor. And when our contracts are up, you know they'll never risk us turning them in to the law–the real law, I mean. We'll die here one way or another."
Sewell's eyes met his. "Unless we bust out now."
"You others agree?" asked Nate. There was an approving murmur all round. "Then here's what we'll do."
As he laid forth his plan unsuspected ears were listening. Hounditch, having returned from a commune with nature, had had his hand on the door when the voices reached him. Presently he was descending with soft steps to Moyle's shack. "More tattle?" Moyle greeted him.
"More than tattle," Hounditch announced with relish. "It's an uprising!" After gauging him for a second Moyle motioned him inside.
While he and Nate communicated their respective intelligences, Jason Bolt, unusually for him, was saying nothing at all. He was leaning against the dark front of the general store gazing out at the space Little New Bedford would have occupied. All that was left now was the failed common, which he would allow to wither; most of the rest had been chopped for firewood.
"You couldn't do it," said a voice out of the night. "You couldn't keep 'em." Aaron stepped into view. He had had the whole story from his men and was unable to resist the tardy comment.
"I been keepin' 'em ever since they got here!" Jason broke out. "Me, Jason Bolt, with precious little help from any other soul–you especially. Always havin' to calculate how far I could push 'em this way or that, how I could keep 'em marriageable before they revolted altogether and got themselves in some worse mischief. I'm clean out of schemes. If they're fixed on goin' I can't stop 'em. Don't believe any man could."
"So the mighty Jason has lost his powers of persuasion. Not sure I mind that." He enjoyed needling Jason but also hoped to rile him out of his depression, which the brides' exodus did not fully warrant. Of course life would be duller without them, but they had served their purpose. The town had gained dozens of young wives, who would suffice for his tea shop. For the bachelors still unpartnered, Jason could whistle up a new cargo, from San Francisco maybe. He was taking his failure too hard, wallowing in hurt pride that did nobody any good, him least of all.
"One of the men's going with 'em," he said, cutting off Aaron's next remark. "And there's others talking about following him."
"All the way to New Bedford?" Jason nodded. Aaron chuckled, and then stopped suddenly. His face grew as serious as Jason's.
"Exactly."
"The town will miss the brides, of course. But if the men start leaving too–"
"Lumbermen are a dime a dozen. Isn't that what you've always said?"
"So are lumber towns, now. This isn't the old days. Lot of other places they can ply their trade. A town gets a feeling about it. And a town half-empty is a dreary kind of a place. I've seen it happen. Nothing there to attract new businesses, new families.... Eventually it may just dry up and blow away." That had been Jason's fear too, but only in outline; now that Aaron's business sense had filled it in it looked worse than he had thought. "I don't like to say this," Aaron concluded, "but you and I could be looking at the last prosperous days this town will ever see." To Jason's eyes the barren acre where his park had been envisioned seemed now a harbinger of a greater emptiness to follow.
Nate was jerked violently out of sleep. Hands locked his arms in a crushing grip. They belonged to men he did not know, hemming him in. He struggled by instinct. "Nat this time, me lover," said a voice he did recognize, if only he could– A short sickening blow from a rifle end plunged him into blackness.
And black it was indeed when next he opened his eyes; as black as if they were still shut. "Where am I?" he called out. "Is anyone here?"
"Why, me," said the same voice as before, now a velvety whisper terrifyingly close. "You're with me, in Devil's Jaw." Nate scrambled to his feet, and immediately clutched his head. He had known this kind of pain before, and lately. Fighting it, he stumbled forward, struck a rock face, changed direction, struck another. It was not the pain driving him, it was fear: the fear of his dreams, a fear from the lost days, to shun which he had been willing to suffer almost anything else. He clawed at the wall for handholds.
"Aye, try to clem'n," said the voice, chuckling. "But t'only rope's 'ere by me." Nate cried to be let out, a cry for which the other in all his experience of inflicting pain had never heard a rival. "'urried of the dark, are 'ee? So. I'll give 'ee more'n dark to be 'urried of." There was a snap at his left ear loud enough to make it ache, and then again at his right–the voice of the blacksnake. That and the velvet laughter echoed in the blackness. He lurched forward, then back, but always into the rock, never finding the rope or his tormentor. He could not see where he was, could not understand or escape it–just like that other time, the time he did not remember and did not want to remember. He did not know when he had begun screaming.
His screams made the men in the stable shiver, and eventually woke Parson. He was still weak and his voice slurry, but when he learned whose screams they were he forced himself to sitting. "We have to help him," he said.
That stirred the others. They had been thinking the same, but Moyle's last promise as the deputies dragged Nate away–"I'll deal with 'ee d'rectly"–had cowed them. Suddenly it united them in defiance. "How'd he find out?" asked Riggs.
Hounditch's appearance at that moment gave them the answer. A wave of hatred surged up in them. Sensing it, Hounditch tried to run but two of them grabbed him. They had no clear idea what they would do next. "You dasn't harm me," he blustered. "If Moyle should hear–"
"You think he gives a hang for you?" said Sewell. "Time comes, he'll deal you the same hand as the rest of us."
A second's clear sight was enough to convince him. "And he would, at that."
"The deputies know him for Moyle's man," Yarrow suggested. "He could lure them away."
"How?"
"Use your noggin," said Sewell, rapping on it. "You'd no trouble informing on Nate." Hounditch cogitated, sweating and licking his lips. "And if you betray us again," Sewell added as a last persuasion, "God have mercy on you."
It had the intended effect. After a little more thought and a long breath more like a prayer, Hounditch ran outside. "They've escaped!" he shouted. "Dug a tunnel! It comes out over here!" He ran for the side of the hill.
The deputy in charge while his seniors were away called him back and insisted on his leading them in an inspection of the stable. Nervous of them, and even more so of those who had dispatched him, whose plans he could not be sure this would fit, he obeyed unwillingly, half-convinced that one side or the other would do for him before it was over.
One of the deputies rammed the door open with his rifle and pushed Hounditch in first. The lamp was out–hadn't it been on before?–and shadows hugged the wall. They looked alive–no, wait a moment! As the deputies entered, the forms crowded in on them, grabbed their guns, stopped their mouths, and forced them to the floor. There was nothing to bind them with–till Ottawa, to whom the miners had given no thought till that moment, appeared in the doorway with a coil of rope with which he helped them tie the deputies together. He neither explained nor asked for explanation and when the task was done he disappeared into the night and, for all their subsequent experience of him could say, into the earth like the coal. The only one left was Moyle.
Nate's screams had ceased without their realizing it. Now from the same direction erupted a harsher scream, one torn from a soul at the very verge of destruction. "Nate!" cried Parson.
In one of the abandoned gangways, the second they tried, they found the pit called Devil's Jaw. Their lamp revealed the form the blackness had hidden: a narrow V-shaped cleft with walls jutting in all around, like the inside of a sweet pepper. A rope ladder hung from the near rim. Slumped against it on the floor of the pit lay a body run through with a coal fork, eyes staring horribly, and on top of it a smaller one with its neck broken, wrapped in the leather coils of the weapon that had pulled its owner down. The partnership had continued into death.
At the far end of the pit stood Nate, staring aghast like the others, of whom he seemed hardly aware. Sewell climbed down to him. "I couldn't see," said Nate. "He was lashing me, I struck out, then–" He stopped. The effort was too great; his head was still throbbed from its latest hurt.
"'tweren't you," Sewell said. "'twas the old man. He's done us all a service–and had it paid back on him, God rest him." He spared no sentiment for Moyle.
"We've taken the deputies," Riggs informed Nate. "The way's clear to leave."
"Not quite," said Yarrow.
From the head deputy they took the key to the explosives shed and prepared a blast as they had seen Moyle do. This time the collapsing earth filled his grave. They would have preferred to give the old man a separate burial with a proper funeral but did not dare linger and decided the few words Sewell had said in his behalf would serve as well as any.
A little way down the river the barge had run aground. The deputy who had predicted it was quick to say "I told you so" and Bascombe was pressing for more practical advice when the echo of the blast reached them. Before Bascombe could take in this new worry he received a third unwelcome surprise: Case and Jigger approaching on the road from town in company with a man he did not know. He left the boat to meet them. "What in the blazes are you doing out here?" he demanded.
To his amazement the sheriff drew his gun, ordered him and his crew to drop their weapons–unnecessarily, since they had already laid them aside to inspect the beached craft–and herded them all together on the bank. Jeremy did not understand any of it. "Mr. Bolt," said Case, "these are the men holding your brother. There's a Mr. Moyle yet to round up. I hereby appoint you deputy"–he gave Jeremy no chance to refuse–"and order you to run in the lot of 'em for kidnapping and possible homicide." Jeremy quailed at the last word. "And me along with 'em," the sheriff concluded. He unpinned his badge and pinned it onto Jeremy's shirt. "You're now acting sheriff. Hope you'll do me the justice to testify I turned myself in peaceable–not that I got any mercy comin'."
"You–you said homicide."
"Not your brother," Case assured him, "though it mighta been."
"Where is he?"
Case said Bascombe knew the way. He was a mighty smart fellow, as well as the coal commission agent for those parts. It was he who had advanced Case start-up money for the mine after he bought it from the original owners. Soon he discovered they had been wise to abandon it: it had nothing to offer but bad coal, bad air, and bad luck. The miners began to sicken; one of them died, whether from the mine gases or another cause a jury would have to dectermine. They buried him in an unmarked grave, but Case did not doubt but what he could find it again. There followed a punishing winter; the river froze; the rest of the miners ran off; the mules died. Case had no choice but to turn the business over to Bascombe, not to own but to get back his investment if he could. He instituted the contracts and deputies to enforce them, hired Moyle as foreman and gave him nine-tenths of a free hand, and found a labor contractor in the next county (not too close to home) who would not ask or answer questions.
Jeremy did not see the point of it. If the coal was bad– But Bascombe had that fixed too. He had landed a supplier who wanted it to mix with the higher grade he purported to be selling. "Like watering whisky," said Jeremy. Case regretted going along with it but he was not a prosperous man and had hoped against hope he might still see some profit out of the enterprise. "Fool that makes me," he said. Technically in Jeremy's custody but directing matters himself, he loaded the other prisoners into the wagon bed and took the driver's seat.
The escapees, trudging along the bank, heard the clump and creak of the wagon's approach. Their first sight of the sheriff drove them to seek cover in the trees, where they stayed till the wagon noises could no longer be heard. Nate did not see, and if he had would not have recognized, the young man riding shotgun (his precise weapon was a rifle confiscated from one of the deputies) who passed within twenty yards of him.
Soon after, they reached the grounded barge and the tug floating at anchor nearby. They boarded the latter and after unloading the cargo, which took most of the night, set off downstream in the direction of Seattle–from which the Black River mine was not a day's sail away.
The next morning shone fair and warm–warm, that is, after the winter. Candy threw open the shutters next to her bed and was greeted with white lathers of cloud on a brilliant blue field; no view had ever been more dispiriting. Below it she saw Jason at the gate. "Fine morning," she called down.
"Winter's sped," he called back. Both knew that was over-simple but it would do for the purpose of their discussion.
He began to say more but she outpaced him. "Please find out for us how soon the Captain can make sail. Our bags are packed. We're ready to leave." That startled him. She did not tell him how much grief it had involved: how many unrealized hopes had thereby been brought to light and how many last lingering looks indulged in. There would be more grief to come, she knew, but she could no longer do anything about it. "He can take us as far as San Francisco," she continued, "and once there you can arrange for our passage the rest of the way."
"I can, can I?" he said, unsmiling.
"It was part of our agreement."
"Hang the–" He stopped, shaking his head. Then he entered and walked up under her window to speak more softly. "You might know this and you might not. Jeremy gives all he has, and gives it gladly. But he gives it only once. You were his first girl. Chances are, he'll not take a second." He had meant to end there, but a part of him, and not the better part, was unsatisfied. "I trust that will be an abiding source of pride to you."
It wounded her, as it was meant to. She clenched her jaw. "That isn't fair."
"No, miss," he said, "it surely isn't." As he left, that firm jaw began to twitch, the lips to quiver, the eyelids to brim with water. He had not seen; good; the brides must not see either. So she stood at the window and cried alone.
Not far away, yet farther than anyone in Seattle knew, Nate was urgently pestering Sewell to pull the packet in to shore for a little. Hounditch's hope he might have sighted something edible (they had not breakfasted yet) was short-lived. "I know these trees," Nate said. "I'm sure of it. Might have lived here once–might still." Sewell looked away in embarrassment. So did the others: not for his enthusiasm, which they sympathized with, but for the knowledge they shared and he did not: that they could not help him, much as he might (as they did) they owed it to him. "Just for an hour," he pleaded.
At last Riggs put it to him directly. "We ain't stopping," he said. "Not till we're clean out of the territory."
Espey had not been a party to the early morning's conference that had decided this; he was still weak and they had let him sleep. "You were going to report them to the marshal in Olympia," he said. "We agreed on it."
"Done some more talking," said Sewell. "Fact is, this boat's theirs and we stole it. Had contracts and run out on 'em. Blew up a part of their workings, jumped their men, left two dead–"
"They shan't find them," Yarrow said confidently.
"Makes no matter. Law'll say it was us in the wrong."
"But we know otherwise!" Espey protested.
"Listen, young'n," said Riggs, "we can't trust no lawman to give us a fair shake. 'specially when another lawman was in on the deed."
"But I can–" For some reason he did not finish the thought. "Very well," he said. "As you decide."
Nate roved the hills with his eyes, searching for some landmark with a memory attached. He was eager to climb ashore and seek farther inland. The scene looked not only familiar but recently familiar, as if he had visited it yesterday. "I have to find out who I am," he said to Sewell. "Don't you see? If there's any chance–"
"We can't wait," Sewell said with regret.
Nate nodded. He shook hands with Sewell, with Espey, with all of them except Hounditch. They steered the boat in to a depth waist-high, enabling him to slip over the side and wade to shore. Slogging out, his trousers dripping, he gave them a last wave and wished them luck. "You too, Nate," Espey called back, "or whoever you are!"
Whoever he was.... With those words fresh in his ears, he started up into the peaceful green country before him, a place of rest and restoration. He took in every inch, anxious not to miss a clue. But no clues were forthcoming and before long each new tree and rock looked the same as the last. And he was tired, very very tired. He found a small hollow and sat back. Before he knew–
The moon was up: a gibbous moon, showing most of its face but with one small yet important piece still unrevealed. It was surrounded by a dark sea of oblivion. Moonlight silvered the leaves, the trunks, the earth, himself. He stared wonderingly at his silver hands. How long had he been asleep? One day? Two?
He stood, then walked. Presently he came to a hill. He knew it, beyond doubt. He climbed across by a sidewise path he had climbed before to a cleft at the top. From there he looked down on the water of his dream: silver water amid silver slopes. He approached with great gravity, as if it were an altar. By its side he shed his raiment, one piece at a time. Then he dived in.
The water was colder than the night, colder than ice, but not as cold as aloneness. He hurtled to the bottom, pushed off from the soft silver silt to propel himself back to the sheeny surface, laved water in his cupped hand onto his hair, his face and shoulders, churned the water so it would slap and foam against him and carry away every fleck of blackness the inside of the world had stamped on him. And when all was expunged and purged he lay back and drifted, eyes shut, at peace in the pool's cold rippling caress.
Then he dreamed. But this time it was a waking dream, or vision, and the boy in it was not alone. He was bathing with another boy, one with brown hair and a stammer. "Jason'll s-skin us alive," he said, "if we're not back by s-supper."
"Jason...." Nate whispered.
The brown-haired boy climbed out and began to pull clothes on from a pile on the bank. "You can g-get a whippin' if you want. I'm g-goin'."
"'fraidy-cat!" the other teased. But he was sorry for it when the other ran away. "I was just joking!" he called after him. "Come back! Jeremy!"
"Jeremy...." the dreamer echoed.
The boy climbed onto the bank and dressed. He was about to follow the other when something else diverted him, something high up on one of the enclosing hills.
Nate was standing on the same shore, facing the same hill. He was unclad but he did not feel the cold. He began climbing–
–as the boy in the dream was doing. Almost at the top, he discovered–
–a cave: the cave: the dark place of Nate's dream. He had known it would be there, but now it was practically too small for him.
Not so for the boy. He crawled inside, to where the passage took a turn away from the light. He turned and crawled farther, into the dark. A hole opened unexpectedly. He fell, slid, hit bottom. It hurt him. He tried to climb out, but his feet kept slipping and his hands could not reach the ledge above. He cried for help, cried, and kept crying till his voice turned to a croak. Help had not come. Then he heard stronger voices outside: "Joshua!" "Joshua!"
"Joshua...." repeated the man thitherto called Nate.
The boy Joshua cried–croaked–for help. It was not loud enough; they would not come. But soon he heard them again, closer: "H-here! In h-here!" "Joshua? You in there?"
"Jason! Jeremy!" he whispered.
"I h-hear him! I told you!" "As well do I! Don't be scared, brother! I'm coming for you!"
Joshua began to cry. He knew Jason would fulfill his promise; that he would come, though the cave was hardly big enough for him; that he would manage it somehow. Jason, and Jeremy: he could always count on them to pull him out of any mess he might get himself into. He was not scared now.
Neither was the grown Joshua. Now he remembered: remembered Jason pulling him out of the pit and once they had wriggled out (Jason got stuck once and Jeremy had to tug at his boots to help free him) hugging Joshua tight, hugging both of them, both his brothers....
Brothers: Jason, Jeremy–and Joshua. He repeated the names. They were passwords into his history, into his soul. "I know!" he shouted to the gleaming stars. "I know who I am! I'm! Joshua! Bolt!" The name–his name–echoed through the hills–his hills: he had played here, hunted here. He was not far from home–not far at all, he thought, laughing.
Then a new thought struck him: how did he come to be here? He remembered everything else but that. Yet hadn't he known just a moment ago? Black River, if he had thought of it then, would have meant nothing to him but the name of a place he had once ridden near. He did not know a mine existed there. Perhaps it was a mercy; his joy was untarnished.
Now he felt the cold, and returned to the lakeside to dress. As he did so he recalled the errand on which he had been sent. He wondered if he had carried it out. He had a picture.... Checking his coat, he found he did not. And the Appaloosa–what had happened to him? He would hate to lose that horse.
He could have made town the next day but chose not to. He trod slowly, feeling a strange urge to appreciate as if for the first time the woods and rises and valleys he had known all his life. Twice he napped, for he was still beset with a weariness he could not account for, and his head hurt a little. Not till noon the following day did he reach the outskirts of Seattle.
Instantly he knew something was wrong. The town was too quiet. The shriek of the mill whistle, the thunder of logs sailing down flumes, the rattle of wagon wheels, horses' whinnies, voices: none of these were to be heard. The last curve of the path brought him to an outlook on the street. "No," he said, "please, no." He had never seen it empty before; not in daylight. He began running and did not stop till he reached the dormitory. He barged in shouting, "Candy! Biddie! Ann!" He could see it was no use: the place was bare, except for the furniture the town had provided; stripped of doilies, samplers, china, silver (except the teapot, which the town had provided also), knickknacks, little feminine things whose images he could not summon up. The brides were gone.
Then he remembered, and understood. This was what Jason had feared; this was why he had insisted Joshua hurry. But he hadn't hurried–for some reason–and this was the result. The brides couldn't wait; they had gone home.
Well, but where was everybody else? He returned to the street and shouted again. "Hello! Anybody?" He had been so long and so far away (so he felt it, though he did not know where or how) that now he was back, back where he belonged, he could not bear to be alone; not here of all places. "Anybody?" he repeated weakly. "Please–I'm home–I'm...." He sank to his knees. "...home." He began to weep. He did not understand. Maybe he was imagining it; maybe he had gone crazy. In that case he would still be alone.
Yet he was not. There was, he became aware, a figure standing beside him. He could not say how long the man (he knew it was a man without looking) had been there. He peered up into the face and felt almost a shock that he knew it and that the man knew him. He was not crazy. Embarrassed, he wiped his cheeks. "Aaron," he said, "you're here."
"I was about to say the same to you." What he was feeling himself at Joshua's outward appearance, face longer, body leaner, clothes steeped in black dust, Aaron took care not to show.
"The brides have gone. On account of me."
"You?"
"But where's everyone else?"
"Up at Alki Point seeing them off."
"Not you?"
Aaron traced an arc in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. "I–I didn't have the heart. If you could have seen your brother's face.... Been worried about you too. Where have you been?"
Till now Joshua had put the question out of his mind, hoping it would answer itself in more familiar surroundings. He applied himself to it again but after a moment he gave up. "I can't–"
Then they heard voices, distant but unmistakable. They turned to the hill opposite the one Joshua had entered by. Soon heads rose into sight above the rim, then bodies under them, the children running ahead, the grown-ups following, the whole town; faces Joshua had known for his whole life, or the main part of it; people he loved and some he did not like so well: he was overjoyed to see all of them, and especially the brides: they had returned.
Someone spotted him and passed the word back. At the rear, now topping the crest himself, walked Jason. The word and the sight reached him at the same time. He broke into a broad smile, dropped the bags he was carrying, and started at a run down the hill. He ran all the way to within a few yards of Joshua and stopped short. They stared at each other in an outpouring of infinite gratitude, infinite gladness, infinite love. Their tears ran unbidden and unchecked. "Welcome home, brother," Jason said. He saw as plainly as Aaron that Joshua had been through some ordeal, but it did not matter for the moment; he was home, and safe. They embraced. The crowd collecting around them cheered.
"Are the brides back, then?" Aaron asked casually, as if the answer held only the barest interest for him.
"Queerest thing," said Jason. "No sooner did we put to sea than they got more homesick than before, but this time it was homesick for Seattle. Promptly took charge of the ship and ordered Clancey to return to port." The crowd cheered again.
"And your speech to them–where did that fit in?"
"Just after the putting to sea and ahead of the taking charge."
Aaron leaned forward and spoke into his ear. "Near thing, was it?" Jason's eyes gave the answer he expected. Aaron clutched his arm with a fervor seldom seen in him. "That's my man."
Jason's surprise at this nearly equaled his pleasure. "So, yes," he said, "the brides are back"–at this he and Candy exchanged the deepest and truest of smiles–"and Joshua's back."
"And Jeremy?" asked Joshua, who had now noticed his absence.
"Where do you think? Out looking for you. Fine thing, a grown man so harum-scarum his little brother has to be sent to fetch him home. And where have you been, after all?" Joshua's face took on the same intense, unmoored look as the first time he had tried to know. Aaron caught Jason's eye and gave a slight shake of the head. "Well," Jason said, all seeming joviality, "time enough for that. What's in order now is a celebration, for the return of the brides and a brother. To Lottie's!"
"Drinks are on me!" Aaron seconded, and then regretted it immediately. "I mean...." But he was too late. Someone with a fiddle struck up a tune, and the music inspired a flurry of chatter and laughter as the crowd moved up the street.
"It's too much for me," said Joshua. "I'll head up home." He declined Jason's offer to accompany him. "I know the way." Jason and Aaron watched him go. His walk was resolute but plodding, the walk of a man who has journeyed a long way and has a long way yet to go.
"Where do you suppose he's been?" Aaron asked.
"At a guess," Jason answered, "in one of the outer circles of Hell."
At the cabin where he had been born, played, studied, worked, and lain Joshua lay again. He felt as if he had been gone a hundred years, like Rip van Winkle. And like him he settled into a profound slumber.
He stuck mostly to the cabin for the next few days, to homely chores and strolls through the woods. One morning as he stepped outside his heart bounced to see Jeremy climbing the path. Candy and Jason were with him. At the sight of his brother he dropped his pack and ran to embrace him. The others hung back deliberately.
"You're okay then," said Jeremy.
Joshua shrugged. "Sorry you had to go hunt me down. There's a switch, huh?"
Jeremy searched his face for scars of the ordeal. "What you been through.... Musta seemed like a fever dream."
"Wish I knew. Sometimes I remember things–small things–but can't make out what they mean. Don't know yet where I was, what I did–"
"But I do." They stared at each other in mutual astonishment. "There's a mine on the Black River...." The two of them had got halfway inside when Joshua stopped and looked back. "Jason? Candy? You come hear too."
The following month an article in the Olympia Star under the byline Philip Espey set forth the appalling conditions at the Black River mine. Joshua communicated with the author through his newspaper, and a few days later they enjoyed their first happy meeting. They were not quite friends, they found, yet they were much more. Espey was able to fill in some of the gaps in Jeremy's account and to explain his own presence among the miners: his editor had assigned him to take up various trades and report the hardships he experienced so his readers might see more clearly the plight of the working man. His article emboldened Sewell and some of the others to reappear and testify along with Joshua and Espey at the owners' trial.
Espey was also able to assist Joshua in investigating other matters of which he was curious to learn more. Inquiry among Fertig's competitors revealed no disaster had befallen him, in the customary sense at least; an admirer of Bismarck, he had felt a resurgence of nationalistic pride so strong it had moved him to forsake his stoneworks and repatriate. The same inquiry revealed that Joshua's assailants, by name Salty Pepper and Veronica, having appropriated the place as one of their dens, had been surprised at their business there and arrested as horse thieves. Veronica had disappeared before trial with her jailer and was never seen under her own name again. Salty had narrowly escaped hanging by persuading the jury it was his elder sister who had perverted him, a poor honest lad, to a life of crime. Joshua was able to track down the Appaloosa and, though not obliged to do so, paid to recover him from the rancher who had bought him in good faith.
Joshua had changed; his brothers saw it and so did the men. Now he was always ready, and more than ready, to listen to their side and to recognize when they were being overtaxed (and when they were only letting on to be). If there was a burdensome job to be done he would do it first himself, and see it made as tolerable as circumstances would allow. He was never certain how much of his adventure he remembered and how much he only imagined from what he had been told but for months afterward, asleep or no, some piece of it would always be appearing to him, like a goblin popping its head in, and the scare was not always quickly dispelled. And forever after when business called him away he always felt a little anxious on the road and remained so till he got safe home.
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