Deadman's Crossing (20 page)

When the Reverend stopped his horse, Flower dropped off,
said, “You better stay here until I see Butch, calm him down. I
been gone awhile, so he’s kind of wound up. I got to baby him
some. I’ll call out to you when I got him ready. Sometimes I have
to jerk him off to put him in the right frame of mind.”

“Say you do.”

“Yeah, he likes that,” Flower said.

“Be sure that deed is finished before you call,” the Reverend
said.

After Flower slipped behind the blanket the dog stopped
barking. A full minute passed before she called out, “Come on
up.”

The Reverend tied his horse to a scrub brush, walked up and
behind the blanket, his hand on the butt of his Navy. It was pretty
big in there and the place smelled worse than Flower. There was
her aroma and the odor of old cooked meals and the stench of the
dog, a big black monster with a face that bore many scars. One of
his ears had been half chewed off by something. The dog’s dark
eyes settled on the Reverend like gun barrels.

“Nice doggie,” the Reverend said.

“Oh, there’s nothing nice about him. Except with me. He’s
nice to me. He can bite a pick handle in half easy as you and me
can chew up a chunk of bread. He can run fast too. Hell, he ain’t
nothing but muscle.”

“I see that.”

“It’s okay. I’ve calmed him down, and he knows I’m letting you
in.”

“Did you have to...you know....”

“Oh. No. He was in a pretty good mood. You can pet him.”

“I don’t want to pet him.”

Flower grinned wide enough that the Reverend could see that
her back teeth were dark as coal. Those were going to hurt her
some day.

“Thing I ought to do is curry my horse,” the Reverend said. “I
hate leaving him out and unattended.”

“When I had a horse, I built a corral and a little shed with a
good roof on it. It’s still standin’, so you can put him there. It’s
around the edge of the rocks just outside my digs.”

That night, Flower cooked some meat on the fire and the smoke
grew thick inside the cave, so thick, Flower pulled the blanket
back and let it out. What she cooked was the beaver meat and
warmed-up beans. There was a little spring ran through the cave,
so all that needed to be done was add water to the pot and cook
it down.

The beans weren’t bad. The meat was reasonably fresh and only
pocked with a few worms.

Flower chopped some wood and slammed the axe into a log she
dragged up, and sat down on another. The Reverend took a small
worn Bible with a silver cross on it from his pocket and placed it
on his knee.

“That there give you comfort?” she asked.

“No. It was twisted in my pocket. I do not find a book of murder,
incest, rape, and animal slaughter all that comforting. But I believe
it owns me and it owns us all.”

“Ain’t there a Jesus part that isn’t so nasty?”

“He got put on a cross. That is nasty. And the rest of the time
he needed a better attitude and a big stick. He got pushed around
a lot.”

“You ain’t much for redemption, are you?”

“Of the fire and sword variety, yes. I believe that is what god is
about. The Old Testament. He does not do things because they are
right, he does things because he can.”

“That ain’t somethin’ I’d want to believe.”

“It is not a matter of wanting.”

The Reverend picked up the Bible and held it. He lifted it up,
said, “It is a book of power. That is what matters.”

He put the book away in his coat pocket, turned to watch the
fire crackle and pop.

“We can get some lanterns and go up to the mine, you want,”
Flower said.

“Whose mine is it?”

“The Wood Silver Company, Incorporated. Miners are supposed
to be workin’ on a percentage, but since ain’t no one around to
keep numbers and pounds, whoever is up there workin’ is making
a straight across the board profit. The Wood Company is getting’a
fuckin’. I say we have a bit of the devil’s pee, and go up there to
look around.”

“The devil’s pee?”

“Whisky. And you want to knock you off a piece before we go
up there, I’m willing.”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Is it because I’m fat and ugly?”

This was actually part of the reason, but the Reverend said,
“No. I just don’t mix business with pleasure, and besides, you are
a lady, and mixing our parts for the purpose of mixing them is not
the way of my world.”

“Say it ain’t,” Flower said. “It’s the way of miners. They are
mixin’ sonofabitches, that’s what I’ll tell you. I was just offerin’
you some ’cause we’re friendly and I was being polite.”

“I know, Flower, and I appreciate the offer. I will cherish it.”

They rode up into the higher range, toward the mine. The Reverend and Flower were well armed. Him with his Navy and Henry
and Bowie knife, she with a double barrel shotgun and the old Colt
revolver stuck in her belt. When they got near the mouth of the
mine, they dismounted. Flower had provided lanterns filled with
coal oil. They took a lantern for each off the straps on their saddlebags and started up the rise, the Reverend leading his horse. They
didn’t light the lanterns because there was enough moon to see by.

“I know you feel there is nothing but miners of the human
sort,” the Reverend said, “but I want to prepare you that I know it
to be something different. I have met them on the trail.”

“Them?”

“Kobolds.”

“Who balds?” she said.

“Kobolds.”

“Who are they?”

“They live deep inside the earth. Like men, they like silver. I
do not know why. Maybe for the same reasons men like it. I know
very little about them, outside of what I’ve read about them in
The
Book of Doches
.”

“The what?” Flower said, wrinkling her brow.

“A tome of wizardry, witchery, and demonology.”

“All that, huh?”

“Yes.”

“And they come up from down deep in the ground?” she said.

“Yes. That is all I know.” What he was actually thinking was
that is all you will understand, at least at this point. No use trying
to explain they also mined silver and had a queen of some kind.
In fact, he didn’t understand all he knew about it. But that’s what
he had read.

“Look,” he said. “It does not matter. They are up here and they
have come up from deep in the earth and they do not like men. In
fact, for them men have two purposes. Slaves, and food.”

“Food?” she said.

“That is correct.”

“They eat people?”

“Correct again.”

“What do they look like?”

“They’re short, and they have tails,” the Reverend said. “Or
some of them do. These in this area do. As to their personal features, I can only speculate.”

Flower lifted an eyebrow. “That right?” Flower said. “Tails, huh?”

“I know. It sounds crazy.”

“Not at all, Reverend.”

“Do not humor me.”

“Okay.”

“You will see, lady,” he said.

“Okay.”

“You are humoring me,” the Reverend said.

“Just a little,” Flower said.

They tied the horse to a spindly tree near the mine. The Reverend
made a strap for his Henry with a cut of rope and slung it over his
back. Flower did the same for her double barrel shotgun. They
walked the rest of the way up. At the opening of the shaft they
found the remains of a miner. He had been dead for some time.
His head was missing, the rest of him had gone to bones inside his
shirt, pants, and boots. A pick lay nearby, and a wooden box.

“You still think dogs are chewing off the heads?” the Reverend
said.

“Well, if they eat men,” Flower said, “they sure do waste a lot
of the good meat.”

“Way I read it, they like the heads, sometimes the feet.” The
Reverend pulled the boots away from the pants. Only juts of bone
poked out. The feet were gone. “See.”

“That is right peculiar,” Flower said.

The Reverend was examining the wooden box. He cracked it
open with his knife. “Dynamite,” he said.

“I ain’t fond of that stuff,” Flower said, taking a step back.

“No problem long as it is not lit,” the Reverend said.

“That’s what the last person got blowed up would have said,
had he not got blowed up,” Flower said.

The Reverend took out four sticks and stuffed them in his coat
pocket. He found wicks in the box and stuffed those in his other
coat pocket. He took one more stick from the box and one more
wick and stuck the wick in the dynamite. He poked that one in his
pocket so that it was easy to reach. He checked his pocket to make
sure he had a box of matches.

“Maybe I’ll stay out here,” Flower said. “Midgets with tails
don’t scare me, ’cause I don’t think there are none, but I know
there’s dynamite, and you got it on you.”

“I am not going to get blown up,” the Reverend said. “I have
handled dynamite before.”

“That’s what the fellow would have said, had he not got blowed
up,” Flower said.

“You coming?”

“Oh, all right. But don’t fall down.”

“I told you. It does not blow that easy.”

“That’s what the fella—”

“I get it,” the Reverend said. “I get it.”

He lit his lantern. Flower lit hers.

“Keep that lantern away from that stick of dynamite,” Flower
said.

“The flame is not going to jump out and light the wick,” the
Reverend said.

“That’s what—”

“I said I get it.”

Inside the mine the lanterns gave little light. The Reverend and
Flower followed the shaft along a narrow railway that had been
built to push out carts of rock and ore. As they went deeper into
the mine the shaft narrowed and the rail ceased to be. A little
deeper in, they discovered there were pieces of the rail against the
wall. It looked to have been ripped out, bent and twisted, as if it
had been nothing more than wet licorice.

Flower held her lantern up high and looked at the twisted
metal.

“That there ain’t right,” she said.

“Still think it is just men?” the Reverend said.

“Well, I still ain’t got my mind worked around it being midgets
with tails yet.”

They continued. The mine came to a wide stop.

Flower held her lantern high. “Hell, ain’t no midgets with tails
in here. But what’s that stink?”

The walls moved. At first, in the lantern light, it was hard to
discern. But the walls were trembling; it was because there were
creatures the colors of the walls standing tight against them. The
lantern light hadn’t picked them up at first, but as they moved
they were easier to see. They appeared rocky themselves, but it
was the coloring of their skin. Moving, their skin changed as well,
seemed to grab up shadow and wear it. They were about four feet
tall and had wide almost lizard-like tails that dragged the ground
as they went. Their eyes were yellow, like massive fire-fly asses.
They were without clothes, and one thing was blatantly obvious.
They were all male. A glance up revealed they clung to the high
walls and ceiling like lichen, scuttled across the rocks like roaches.

Flower said, “Okay. I’m right there with you on the midgets
with tails.”

The Reverend and Flower turned left and right, holding their
lanterns high. There were many Kobolds, and they were coming
right at them.

The Reverend said, “Do not wait to see if they are friendly.
Because they are not.”