Big Nose Kate was fast asleep in the loft of the livery stable, nestled in the itchy warmth of a pile of hay, when, from out over the predawn flatlands, a cold wind slithered in through the open hay door. She woke, shivering. Though she still wore the long sleeved mulberry dress, she rubbed her arms in a vain attempt to stave off the chill.
Lying only a foot from the door, she gazed out over the desert. Red bled from the line of the horizon, the dawn cutting its way through the night. Still, the darkness clung to the flatland. A darkness like what is found at the bottom of a deep, deep well, that hides all manner of secrets.
Secrets, like the house cat slinking from cactus to scrub bush to wagon wheel, returning to the livery yard from its nightly romp in the desert. You and I would never have seen that cat, nor could’ve in those shadows, thick as ink, but Kate could, and she watched that cat flop on the sand beneath a buggy and clean itself.
Kate yawned, rolled over in the hay, and closed her eyes, hoping for another hour of sleep, but it was impossible to ignore the call of nature.
She stood up from the hay, stretching, brushing stray strands from her mulberry dress. It was usually warm in the loft, and dark. Really dark. So dark that a man wouldn’t have been able to see his hand in front of his face, yet Big Nose Kate, without the aid of a lantern or candle, ducked under the beams, stepped over the pitch fork there on the creaky boards, and descended the ladder without a single stumble or bump. As she walked by the stables, horses swished their tails and one of them snorted. She went out the back of the barn which faced toward the desert flatlands.
The red in the sky gave way to pink as the sun rose.
Songs of the river frogs were soft and low.
Cacti silhouettes stood like scarecrows out there in the wilderness.
Strands of straw stuck out of Kate’s frazzled hair. She went to her usual spot, behind a pile of weathered planks that were overgrown by scrub bushes about ten or so yards from the barn.
A light flickered, seeping through the cracks between the plank walls of the hayloft. Kate spied it from her hiding spot, watching as the light faded and then reappeared back on ground level of the barn. Horses whinnied in their stalls and a man tried to shush them. The creak of hinges opening echoed in the hushed morning.
Footsteps came pounding from the far side of the barn, the yard side, and someone yelled, “Stop!” Kate recognized the voice belonging to the Deputy Broomstache.
A horse, a bay, reddish brown, came trotting out of the barn. Cornelius Magnus sat atop of it. Bareback. The bay swung its head, struggling against the taut reins in the man’s grip.
“Kate!” He shouted, scanning the livery yard as the horse spun in circles. His eyes locked on her peeking over the old pile of planks. “Kate!”
A gunshot echoed within the barn. The horse tore the ground, desperate to flee. Hooves thundered. The black mane and tail streaming like tattered flags. Dr. Magnus in his white suit, a pale tumor clinging to the poor animal’s neck. Back at the barn, directly behind, the Deputy stood in the wide doorway, revolver in hand, and aimed.
Right as the gun barked again, horse and rider galloped right by Kate, kicking up a cloud of dust. A bullet hit the planks, exploding splinters right in her face. She dropped to the dirt, staying low as she heard the Deputy’s pistol fire.
And fire.
And fire.
Bullets whizzed over her head. Dr. Magnus, though, never did slump off the back of that horse. His top hat tumbled off, but he kept holding on, riding that bay as it flung sand, weaving through the cacti, getting farther out of range of the Deputy’s pistol, before swooping in a wide arc toward the North, heading for the bluffs, his oily head gleaming in the dawn’s early light.
Kate looked as she heard the jangle of the Deputy running. He skidded to a stop there beside the planks, only a couple of feet in front of the prostrate woman, drew a bead and fired one last time.
A cactus arm exploded a good ten feet behind Dr. Magnus and the horse. The Deputy swore as they vanished behind a rocky cliff. He turned, combing his mustache with his fingers. “Good Lord! Miss Kate.” He offered a hand.
She stood up, refusing the help, and adjusted her skirt.
“There’s straw in your hair,” he said, fumbling with the holstering of his pistol.
“Reckless, sir!” She pointed at him, wielding her finger like it was a knife. “I will be telling the Sheriff.”
“Dr. Magnus escaped and stole my horse.”
“You nearly shot me!”
“I didn’t want to hit Buttercup.”
Kate’s eyes swelled and she rose, fighting that humped back of hers to stand as straight as she could.
“I didn’t mean it like that, ma’am. I…” He stammered, but then his brow knotted and his eyes narrowed. “What’re you doing out over here anyway?”
She brushed the dirt from her dress. “Don’t you have a fugitive to catch?”
“A horse thief now,” he said and ran back toward the barn.
Kate gazed out over the desert flatlands, at the rocky cliffs of the bluffs, at the fading dust cloud of Dr. Magnus’ escape. A subtle grin ebbed the hardness of her stare.
Mr. Doolin picked through his hammers, holding them, feeling the handles. The steel heads clanged. Kate was out in the shop with him, standing in the doorway into their home. Out in the street, the dust cloud, stirred up from Sheriff Bull Pearl and his Deputies’ horses, was still settling. Dissipating swirls reflected the sunlight.
“There’s straw in your hair.” Mr. Doolin said.
Kate leaned against the jamb. Her gray bun was undone, the smokey braid unraveled, and her hair hung long over her shoulder. She dug a comb through the matted mess, wincing when it snagged a knot. “You lied to the Sheriff.”
“Bull was throwing his weight around. He had no right to arrest Dr. Magnus.”
“So noble of you,” Kate held her hair with one hand and with the other she worked at the tangle of hair.
Mr. Doolin strode up to her. “I noticed you didn’t say nothing.” He then walked by her, through the door inside.
She plucked a stalk of straw from strands of red and gray that she was combing and followed him. “I was not the one that freed him from the jail.”
“But you’re culpable. You knew I gave him the key. I told you all that happened last night.” The two pound sledge rattled the table when Mr. Doolin tossed it there next to a leather work bag that also sat on the top.
“I was protecting you. I do not want you swinging next to a horse thief.”
“So noble.” He grabbed a sack of corn nuggets out of a cabinet, glaring at them before he threw them, unceremoniously, into the work bag. “I wouldn’t have been hanged. His theft was after I released him. I believe, Ms. Kate, that your curiosity, and dare say hope, have got the best of you. You want to know if the gold is there as much as I do.”
Kate tugged the comb through a stubborn knot.
“Come if you like.” He laced his arm through the shoulder strap of the bag and took up the hammer, steel sliding along the wooden top.
Kate huffed. “Mr. Brocius needs his carriage repaired by tomorrow, which he is paying cash money for.”
“You missed the séance due to your stiff neck,” Mr. Doolin said. “Don’t miss the Find of the Century as well.”
“You have mush for brains if you believe anything you saw in that so-called séance. A ghost raven?” She turned up her big nose, drawing her lips in a contemptuous smile.
Mr. Doolin smirked. “Dr. Magnus asked about you.”
“Why on earth would he do that? What did he ask exactly?”
“Where you were.”
Kate ran her finger along the tines of the comb. “But why?”
Shrugging, he said, “I haven’t the foggiest notion.” He exited through the back door out to the livery yard.
Twist of Fate’s waters sparkled in the sunshine as the rumbling rapids echoed between the tall walls of the bluffs. High on a shelf cut into one of the red and orange cliffs, a donkey clopped up a shallow slope, pulling a cart with two large wheels made of planks. The old wooden chassis squeaked and creaked while the wheels crunched pebbles and sticks along the trail. Mr. Doolin walked behind, not wanting to overburden the donkey.
From ahead, around the bend of the trail wrapping around the corner of escarpment, came the thundering of galloping hooves. “Whoa girl,” Mr. Doolin said to the donkey. As he reached for the revolver in his holster, he heard laughing. A lady riding a horse turned the corner. The horse skidded on the trail, nearly shooting off the edge of the cliff, but the smile and laughing never erased from the lady’s face. She was pretty and young. A long ringlet of blonde hair trailing out from her fancy hat (it had a dead quail pinned to it) as she tore past Mr. Doolin and his sleepy donkey. Then a man came ripping around the corner. A gentleman with mutton chops as bushy as a deer’s tail. There was a hungry excitement in his eyes and the dust he churned up, galloping by the cart, sent a thick cloud of dust that got the donkey sneezing and Mr. Doolin coughing.
“Dern, Easterners!” He shouted at the two, raising a fist, but the pair were long gone down the trail back to Esau town.
Waving the billowing dust away from his face, Mr. Doolin began to wonder if there were other folks up in the bluffs, any other folks from the train, any other prospectors. The mining companies still owned the abandoned land as well. Finding the gold was only one of many hurdles.
I can figure that out later, he thought, pulling the map from his britches back pocket. The map was crude and hand drawn. Wobbly lines. Smudges. One thumbnail sized area was scribbled out. Dr. Magnus had done it up in a hurry.
When Cracked Beak returned from the Spirit World, see, he was weak. The ghostly raven was barely visible, only a will-o-the-wisp cradled there in Dr. Magnus’ arm. He was scared too. Not wanting to talk about the gold he had found. Saying that he never did see any. But Mr. Doolin wasn’t budging. No gold. No freedom. Even Dr. Magnus pleaded with the spectral bird. There wasn’t much time though. Cracked Beak was fading fast, so he whispered frantically, giving directions to the gold he had found. The words were too soft and quick for the blacksmith to comprehend, but the huckster scrawled the lines on a blank page torn from a book. Then, like smoke trailing from a cigarette, Cracked Beak dissipated, his wispy form floating from Dr. Magnus’ arm, down to the broken bowl on the floor of the jail cell, transcribing, returning to the fragments, just as his fractured self was before he was summoned.
The map, despite its hurried creation, was accurate. Thus far. It depicted the trail along the West side of the river, its curves as it ran along the path of the roaring rapids. It showed the corner of the escarpment up ahead, where those two Easterners had tore through. Mr. Doolin clapped the hind of his donkey and the beast of burden started tugging on that cart. Wheels grinding. Chassis squeaking.
The trail continued around the escarpment, going up and up, winding along the shelves cut into the red and orange cliffs. Sweat stained the armpits of Mr. Doolin’s dingy shirt. He stopped the cart to water the donkey. They continued. Up and up. Twist of Fate’s waters tumbled down steps of smooth boulders. The trail narrowed, barely wide enough for the cart. One of its wheels rolled too close to the cliff’s edge and the rocks crumbled away. The donkey strained, but managed to pull the cart back onto the trail. They came up on a wall. A dead end. A waterfall to the left. A steep escarpment ahead of them and another to the right. Mr. Doolin snatched the map out of his back pocket.
The crude drawing and wobbly lines could be interpreted that he would have to climb. Looking up, he did see a ledge, about thirty feet up. No telling what was up there though and he wasn’t a young man. But he came for the gold and he wasn’t leaving without the gold.
He nudged a fifty pound boulder, making sure that it wasn’t stuck in the ground, and when it rolled easily for him, he tied the donkey’s lead rope around the big rock and then situated the boulder so it couldn’t roll or rock. The donkey had already found some briars growing next to the waterfall and was munching happily. Next, Mr. Doolin fetched his leather work bag out of the cart, and laced his arm through the shoulder strap and headed for the cliff he was fixing to climb, but gazing up again, that thirty feet looked to be a mighty long way.
He touched his hands to the stony face. The rocks were easy to grip. He found a good enough foothold. Just one step at a time, he thought. He started to climb. The wall was simple to navigate, plenty of protruding edges of quartz and sandstone, and soon he was at the top. The hardest part was crawling over the ledge, pulling his gut over the ridge, towing that heavy work bag on his back. He collapsed on the hard ground, strung out on his back, the work bag there at his side. Shielding his closed eyes from the blazing sun with his arm laying across his face, he gasped for breath, writhing as his muscles, unused to this kind of labor, ached and complained. After a few minutes, he sat up, drank some water from a canteen he had in the work bag. He crept to the ledge he had just climbed over and peered down. The little donkey was still crunching on briars.
The river rushed to the precipice of the waterfall, slipping over the edge. He was near the top plateau of the bluff, another escarpment there to his left went up another twenty or so feet and there wasn’t anything above that but the pale blue sky. Leaning against the escarpment, laying on the ground, was a ladder. Its wood long weathered and dried out. The ladder was plenty long enough to navigate the cliff that Mr. Doolin had just climbed. He’d be able to use that for the descent. He followed the wall of the escarpment there on his right. The river on his left. Brush was thick. Briars and junipers. Growing so thick he had to crawl on his hands and knees. Dragging that bag along the ground instead of carrying it on his back. The brush gave way to trees. Bone white trees. Buzzards gathered in the barren branches. Roots clung to the hard dirt like desperate skeletal fingers. A few steps more and he came across a minecart. It sat on a set of rails that extended from the mouth of the mine like a tongue.
He picked through the remnants of a camp that was pitched between the river and the mine. Torn tents. Rusted pots. A ring of stones where a fire once burned. While inspecting a bedroll, he startled a rattlesnake, thankfully it missed his hand when it struck. Like a sling, he flung that bedroll, rattler and all, into the river.
A wind whipped through the camp kicking up ash and dust into the air, snapping branches, and tearing off little limbs of briars. The buzzards squawked and Mr. Doolin swore he heard laughter, faint and trickling, from deep within the mine. Children laughing. Mean boys and cruel girls with throats as dry as the desert.
“Don’t go losing your head, Jesup. It’s only the wind.”
He pulled out the map, hoping that it didn’t direct him into the mine, but there, in Dr. Magnus’ sketch was the minecart and the mouth of the mine. No doubt the same one that he was staring into.
He entered, standing on the hard line where the bright sunlight and impenetrable shadow met, and fumbled in his work bag for the lantern.
The interior of the mine lit up in the orange light of the flame dancing on the wick. Timber beams supported the roof of the mine. Cobwebs dangled in the corners, jostled by a faint draft. He followed the tracks deeper into the mine.
The goblin clutched the blacksmith’s leg. She clung to his calf as Mr. Doolin walked the tracks leading into the mine. When they first entered the mine, she too heard the laughter. But, she knew it wasn’t the wind. She knew it was them. All her brothers and sisters. All of them were inside, waiting. Already, as her pet blacksmith crept farther into the mine, she spied her grandfather, sitting at the far end of the long entrance hall of the mine, posed like a gargoyle, his two different colored eyes, red and white, gleaming in the darkness. A smile smeared across his face.
“He’s mine,” she hissed.
Something tugged on Mr. Doolin’s leg. “Good Lord Almighty!” He jumped, nearly dropping the lantern, bumping into a shovel that was propped against a support timber. It clattered on the rocky floor. He clutched his heart and slowed his breathing. He kicked the tool. “Dern shovel!” Sighing, he coaxed himself, “Take it easy, Jesup. Mine’s empty. Ain’t nobody nor nothing here. Just gold. Lots of it.”
He kept following the track, his lantern illuminating the way. Tools, covered in dust and spider webs leaned against the rocky walls. It wasn’t long before he came upon a fork at the end of the tunnel. The track ended as well. One tunnel continued left, the other to the right.
From the leather work bag, he removed the two pound sledge and an iron stake. There, between the openings of the two branching tunnels, he drove the iron stake into the ground. The strikes, steel on iron, tinny dings, reverberated throughout the warm mine. Next, he fetched a big roll of twine and tied the end of it around that iron stake in the ground.
He held the map close to the lantern, the orange glow permeating the parchment. Arrows were drawn on the back. Thirteen of them. Dr. Magnus had warned that Cracked Beak couldn’t see, that these arrows were the raven’s attempt at recalling the directional changes of his spiritual dive into a pitch black labyrinth. The first arrow pointed left.
“It’s more direction than what I had.”
He tugged on the knot of twine. The iron stake wiggled. He pounded it deeper then yanked on the twine. Knot nor stake gave an inch. Tossing the sledge in the bag, picking up the lantern, he delved into the left tunnel.
The goblin watched her brothers and sisters creep along the ceiling, scuttling like a cockroach over the timber braces, leaping like a squirrel from the dripping stalactites. More of her siblings crept out of small recesses and narrow crevices. Each and every stony face giggling, sounding like pebbles falling on a tin roof. She hugged the blacksmith’s calf as he walked, tugged at his britches whenever he stopped and hammered in another iron stake into the hard ground. But all he ever did was glance back at the string of twine.
“Don’t touch that,” she growled. Some of her family plucked at the taut twine while others danced a jig.
She dug her sharp fingernails into his leg.
Mr. Doolin rubbed his calf. “Don’t cramp up on me now.”
He was close. Checking his map, only one more arrow before the last marker. He hammered another stake in the ground and tied the last bit of the roll of twine to it. “Well, crap.”
He lifted his lantern. Held it high, letting as much of the dancing light fill the tunnel that he was about to explore. There weren’t any timber supports and the shaft was narrower, kept narrowing, even within the short reach of the lantern’s glow. The rocky walls glistened with water, making the tunnel look like the throat of some huge snake. Mr. Doolin shook his head. Folks got lost in old mines. In caves. Easy to get lost. Easy to get spooked and lose all sense. He checked the oil in the lantern. Fine. Checked his box of his matches. More than enough. And he had plenty more iron stakes.
“I ain’t stopping now. So close to Fortune.”
He proceeded slowly, cautiously. Getting hurt would be just as bad as getting lost. A twisted ankle would be mighty bad news. Water dripped from stalactites, falling on the waxy points of tall stalagmites or on to the clay deposits on the cave floor that resembled cow pies. The lantern in his hand cast strange shadows. Shifting shadows that slinked away from the warm yet frail light. The black shrinking away from the flickering orange, but, much like the ocean on the sands of the beach, the waves of darkness returned.
Eventually, he found the junction, standing at the opening of another tunnel. He hammered a stake into the ground, but it all was rock. Granite. Impenetrable. The stake bounced off and his hands hurt from the rebound. He gave up and settled for making an X with two of the stakes, leaning them up against one of those stalagmites. He breathed in deep and grinned. “Almost there, Jesup.”
The passage narrowed. Walls closed in. Ceiling pitched lower and lower to the floor. Mr. Doolin was forced to crawl. His bag of iron rods rattled as he set the lantern down a little ways in front and crept on his hands and knees toward the light. Then he moved it forward a couple more feet. He crawled over several yards in this fashion, scuttling on all fours, inching the lantern along through the dark, when at last the tunnel opened up. He stood, cautious of the rocky ceiling, but on the floor, he saw his reflection in a pool of black water. He searched for a way around, yet quickly learned that the water had submerged the entirety of the floor. Stalagmites rose up like tree stumps in the swamp.
Thankfully, the water was shallow, only swallowing his foot up to the ankle. Ripples carried the reflected lantern light into the darkness. His sloshing steps echoed with a metallic ring and whenever he paused, lifting that lantern high to scan, adjusting the work bag hanging from his shoulder, the lonely sound of water dripping from the stalactites reverberated throughout the tunnel. The water got a little deeper and the tunnel opened a little wider, almost a cavern, though he could see both walls on either side.
From far behind, echoing through that narrow passage that he had crawled through, came a metallic clang. He spun, splashing water, shining his lantern, but he had come far and the tunnel was deep in the darkness beyond the reach of the little flame.
“It was just the rods,” he told himself, starting to tremble. “They just fell.”
And when he turned back around, the sharp points of the stalactites and stalagmites glinted, making Mr. Doolin feel like a mouse staring into the gaping jaws of a hungry cat.
But, that was where the gold lay. Deep in the bowels of the earth. Hidden in the shadows. Hidden alongside other secrets that man and time had forgotten. Only God knew what waited in the depths.
Mr. Doolin’s mind immediately filled with monsters. Scaly. Pinkish-pale monsters. Blind. Adapted to the dark and the wet. Prowling. Hunting. Creeping among the cavernous walls. Floating, maybe, along the surface of the very pool he waded. The water was like glass. Not a ripple.
“Easy, Jesup,” he coaxed himself. The idea of monsters was a fancy. Dumb. Ignorant. But, what if he got lost. No. He had it marked and this tunnel did not turn or twist at all. But, what if there was a cave in? And he was trapped. Buried alive. That got him quaking in his boots, ripples expanding out into the water.
Gold.
Riches.
No more blasted corn nuggets.
He closed his eyes. Breathed in deep. He could smell the fine cigars. The perfume of pretty women. He could feel their soft hands on his shoulders, feel them tickling his ear lobes as he sat at a card table, winning every hand of poker. He could taste the high end whiskey. He laughed and it echoed in the cave. Hollow and empty.
“So close,” he said, his eyes snapping open. “Can’t stop. Fortune waits!”
He sloshed through the water. Thirty. Forty yards before he came on dry ground, and there, in the lantern’s dim glow was the final marker.
Along the cave wall to his right, the skeleton reclined. The jawbone laid in the mud there by the tattered black britches. Mummified hands lay limp by the pockets. Black boots flopped to the sides, the silver tipped toes sharp as arrows and glinting in the lantern light. The hat was black as the surrounding darkness. Its crown was shallow and the brim, wide and flat, hid the dead man’s face (what remained anyway.)
Mr. Doolin shuddered, trying to reckon the story that was the poor soul’s end, but he settled for a prayer.
The she-goblin saw a host of them coming. Scurrying along the stalactites. Swimming, silent as frogs, through the pool. Hopping from stalagmite to stalagmite, looking like wicked monkeys leaping through a hundred stumps of melted candles. And all led by the oldest goblin with the red and white eyes.
“He’s mine,” she hissed from behind Mr. Doolin’s leg, posing a threatening claw.
“No longer, dear daughter,” her grandfather said, his mouth never moving. “He’s been claimed. And we must obey.”
“I won’t.”
He shook his head. “We are bound.”
“And what happens if I refuse?”
The Grandfather Goblin drew back his lips, revealing a hundred crooked teeth, slender and sharp as toothpicks.
“Leave me to my pet.” She clutched the blacksmith’s leg, as he prayed.
The Grandfather Goblin, with the blood and bone eyes, snarled and leapt, and those on the ceiling dropped, and those on the mud pounced, the whole mess of them swarming upon poor Mr. Doolin like a school of piranhas.
Mr. Doolin crumpled under the invisible weight of the goblin attack, grunting when he crashed into the dead man. Bones cracked. Glass of the lantern shattered and the flame went out.
All was dark.
He hollered, panicking, rolling among dusty ribs and femurs, desperate to get back up to his feet, but little critters scuttled all over him, hopping and pounding. Small feet clamored over his face. Large hands beat his legs. There was cackling and a horrible, horrible, screech, like a witch-hag being stabbed in the heart. And then he was free and he stumbled up to his feet, pulling his revolver, careening backwards till he collided with a cavern wall.
He gasped and the gun rattled in his trembling hand as he listened to ripples in the pool, fading. Fading. Then all was silent. Only his hyperventilated breaths echoed in the complete darkness.