Auraria: A Novel (22 page)

“I cannot leave my friend,” said the Sky Pilot. “As long as he is here, I will not be moved.”

“Yes, your friend. Will your friend not be persuaded to relocate?”

“He has special requirements.”

“We have made spectacular accommodations for others. Can I talk with him, please?”

The Sky Pilot thought for several minutes. He stared into the crashing waters.

“I suppose that he won’t like it if the Cascade goes dry,” said the Sky Pilot. “That won’t do for him at all. You had better talk to him.”

“Yes! Let us go see your friend. Can we go now?”

“I will get the rope.”

Minutes later, Holtzclaw dangled from a rope harness and was being lowered into the gorge by the Sky Pilot. His feet dangled in space above the churning current of the Terrible Cascade. With his eyes only a few feet from the cliff face, Holtzclaw could see that the rock was a complicated network of fractures, outcrops, crevices, and slides. Tiny trees clung to the face of the cliff, growing in teaspoons of soil that had found their way into depressions. The spray of the falls kept them moist.

Holtzclaw had been so focused on his white-knuckled hands that the arrival of the ledge beneath his feet came as a surprise. The ledge was still a hundred feet above the water, but he did not need to descend any further. Holtzclaw stepped out of the loop seat and tugged on the rope three times, which was the signal that the Sky Pilot could let it go slack for a time.

The ledge provided access to a rocky fissure, which opened into a cavern fifty feet wide and twenty feet tall at its highest point. Entering, Holtzclaw felt coolness caused not just by the twilight. Water gurgled unseen through the rock. The floor was glass-smooth and slick from moisture. The ceiling was domed, like an odeon. The space would make an interesting dance hall if it weren’t so difficult to reach. To one side of the cavern, Holtzclaw saw silk-and-straw-wrapped bundles—the Sky Pilot’s store of ice.

Holtzclaw called out a hallo. From the deeper shadows of the cavern came a scrabbling noise, then the sound of an enormous weight being dragged along the stone surface. A leathery head emerged into view and, behind it, the idea of a shell that filled the cavern, floor to ceiling. “I am the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin that Lives Under the Mountain.”

“I am James Holtzclaw, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Welcome, little morsel! I will tell you a story. Long ago, when the world was soft and had not yet been baked hard by the sun, I was a small terrapin. The sun began to blaze, and I fled from its heat. I burrowed into the mud, and as I grew, I made larger and larger channels. I came to this place where the rock was soft and the valley was cool and dark, and I have lived here ever since. I am old here.”

“Well, I am new here,” said Holtzclaw. “We are developing this valley.”

“What does it mean, ‘develop’?” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin.

“We are going to build a hotel, a company town, and bring in industries. We are going to flood the valley and turn it into a lake.”

“Long ago, a flood came over the lands. Much more than the valley was underwater. The whole world was underwater. The land became soft again, and I pushed my head out from the top of Sinking Mountain, which in those days had no name. I saw the Great Bird fly over the earth, looking for dry land, and his wings pulled up mountains and pushed down the valleys, and they were filled then with men and creatures.”

“Were they men and creatures of ordinary size? Or were they all as big as you?”

“Long ago, we were all small. Many died before they could become large. Those of us that lived on became Great. Not all who are Great are Harmless or Invincible. I think that the Armadillo is also Great and Harmless and Invincible. The Great and Harmless and Invincible Armadillo and I once ventured to the vast southern desert together. The sun had been hanging over that land for many years, and the earth was scorched into a red clay that burned the tender parts between our claws.”

“But you said that you are invincible.”

“Just because I am Invincible does not mean that I do not suffer pain,” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin. “I suffer the pain of many, many long years spent under the mountain.”

“Then perhaps you will be receptive to my offer. We would like to remove you from under this mountain and give you a new home.”

“Where would my home be?”

“Wherever the Sky Pilot chooses to live, I suppose,” said Holtzclaw.

“He will go where I choose. Long ago, a Great Serpent lived in the mountains to the north. He was also Invincible, but he was not Harmless. He ate many creatures, including men. The Great Serpent and I quarreled, and he departed the mountains. He made this terrible valley as he descended. That is why it is so crooked and narrow and deep, because of the passing of his Serpent body. Below here are the flatlands, and there are so many tracks on the flatlands. The Great Deer ran across them in the time before the sun baked the earth. The Great Bird covered them over with fallen seeds. The Great Roly-Poly pushed them flat with his rolling and polling. I could not see where the Great Serpent had gone. I was not yet Great, and I could not roam forever looking for the Great Serpent. So I stayed where I could see the signs of his passing. Now I am like the Serpent. I am Great. There is one who follows me, who is the Sky Pilot. Wherever I will go, he will go. That is my choice and his destiny until he is Great or dead. Will my cavern be flooded when you have made your development?”

“No, it will be dry,” said Holtzclaw. “There will be no more water coming through the gorge.”

“That will be a sadness, but weeping will not make it wet again. I shall continue to live here.”

“If there is no other cavern to suit you, we can build one. We can blast it from the rock with dynamite.”

“I do not need your little fireworks to make a home,” said the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin. “My beak is sharp and my claws are strong. My shell can raise the earth. I can bring down any mountain that I choose. I do not want another cavern. I will stay here and wait for the Great Serpent, or I will wait until the Sky Pilot or some other man becomes Great.”

“I find your mythology very confusing,” said Holtzclaw.

“Listen, little morsel! It is very simple. A long time ago I came here. Some far day, I may leave. As for now, I and my friend will stay. I will play the Song of Parting for you.”

The Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin lifted up its head, which revealed a patch of pink skin along its throat. The skin vibrated as the terrapin wheezed. Its breaths became deeper; a long tone began to issue from its nose. Above and below this note, others sounded from within its shell. Ridges and fissures and gaps modified the tone; flexure of muscles changed the rhythm and pitch. When the pipes of the Great and Harmless and Invincible Terrapin’s internal organ were sounding at their full volume and pace, the Song of Parting had a jolly, jaunty swing—the sound of a mazurka, not a dirge.

Chapter Thirteen

Shadburn’s office in Auraria had developed a peculiar aroma during the months he’d occupied it. A man sitting in a room too long fills it with various emanations and eructations. Had they set up their offices in Walton’s infinite dwelling, the worst of these odors would have diffused among the many stories. But Shadburn had insisted on a different space, any space. He had spent too many unproductive hours in the Walton house, he said. Instead, he and Holtzclaw had occupied a second-story warren of rooms above an abandoned storefront. Whatever respectability Shadburn pretended in the streets was not kept in the offices. Only Holtzclaw was admitted—none of the townspeople could hope for an audience here.

“Come in, Holtzclaw. Excuse the mess. Have a seat.” To emphasize his order, Shadburn pointed to a chair that was already occupied with papers. “I’ve finished with those. You can dump them out.”

Holtzclaw removed a few sheets from the top of the pile.

“I did not say to examine them,” said Shadburn.

“These are receipts, bills of sale,” said Holtzclaw. “They should be indexed.”

“The work has been done and the money paid. Why keep them?”

“In case there is some dispute.”

“They are useless jetsam. In a true knock-’em-down fight, each party will produce contradictory receipts and claim the others are false.”

Shadburn took the receipts that Holtzclaw was holding, tore them into pieces, and cast them into the fire. Rising cinders extinguished themselves against the cast iron of a kettle.

“You have a few thousand others here,” said Holtzclaw. “Will you burn them too?”

“I’ll burn the whole building. It must be destroyed, just like all the others, before the floodgates are closed. Now, be kind enough to take a seat.”

Holtzclaw lifted the back of the chair, and the pile of papers fell forwards onto the floor. A stain on the fabric disconcerted Holtzclaw; he stooped to inspect it and was relieved to find it was likely tea and, in any case, long dried.

“Alas, I have not offered you anything to eat, Holtzclaw!” said Shadburn. “The best I can give is the remainder of my lunch.” He extended a plate containing a half-eaten, congealed mound of mushroom-topped hash browns. With his other hand, he wiped a fork against his trouser leg. “How I’ve missed the mushrooms! You’d think a man wouldn’t cling to the tastes of his youth, having been away from them for so long. It’s not so. They are like a siren song. Have a mushroom.”

“Would you believe I have had my fill of mushrooms today?” Holtzclaw recounted his visit with Emmy and his hopes that the dead would soon be persuaded to move.

“If they do not want to cooperate, then we may have to proceed past them,” said Shadburn.

“Do you mean not relocate the graveyard?” said Holtzclaw.

“We can move the stones without permission from the ghosts.”

“The trouble is that the dead are sitting on those stones, and my men are not brave enough to approach them and remove the stones from underneath.”

“Then we can order new stones,” said Shadburn. “Have them engraved appropriately with names and dates.”

“Then we do not move the bodies?”

“I don’t care, Holtzclaw. Do it however you think best. Only do not hold up the matter any further. Did you talk with the Sky Pilot?”

Holtzclaw nodded. “More significantly, I talked with a large terrapin, who is the Sky Pilot’s conscience on the matter.”

Shadburn sighed. “That fat turtle …. Probably telling the same stories as fifty years ago.”

Holtzclaw nodded. “Our conversation did not accomplish much. At the end, it played for me a song that emphasized that it will not be moved, and by extension, neither will the Sky Pilot. I am not sure what other legal recourse we have. Some kind of condemnation ruling?”

“Too slow,” said Shadburn. “We’ll put the dam upstream, as we said.”

“But the cost …”

“Another strongbox arrived just this morning from the Bank of the Ozarks. Half of it I’ve already paid out to the railroad men, but there is still money, and a good many more boxes besides.”

“Money in and money out,” said Holtzclaw. “It’s flowing so quickly.”

“It’s all necessary, I assure you.”

“It’s necessary to pay the railroad men up front twice what they’re asking? It’s necessary to promise marble offices and a silver-topped cupola to Dr. Rathbun?”

“A fitting house for him. And he’ll remember I put it there. Quite a nice present from that scoundrel Hiram, yes?”

“Excuse the impertinence, but as your advisor …”

“My assistant.”

Holtzclaw looked down at his pant cuffs. They were filled with mud. Seeds could take root in them, and Holtzclaw could carry a little farm around his ankles. “As your assistant, then, I must advance the hypothesis that your affection for your hometown is leading to ill-advised business decisions.”

Shadburn, using two fingers, lifted a mushroom from the cold plate of hash browns. He lowered the gray butter-slathered thing onto his outstretched tongue and drew it into his mouth.

“If you run out of money before you see your project through,” said Holtzclaw, “then no one will ever benefit.”

“Then I will take care not to run out.”

#

Holtzclaw pressed his anger and confusion into a gallstone, and what was left was an emptiness that resonated with hunger. He hadn’t had lunch; that should be a simple problem to solve. The palaver with Shadburn had parched him worse than a morning spent climbing the valley slopes. Outside of the Old Rock Falls Inn, a new fruit hanging from a shrub attracted Holtzclaw’s attention. It was difficult to ignore—the smell was unpleasant, and the noise worse.

The locals called it a sheep-fruit plant. It had been agitated by the work in the valley, and its fruits had come out early, over-plump and strained. They resembled eggplants, including a purple skin, and they were covered with a fine white fuzz that made them more closely resemble their namesake. Like their namesake, the sheep-fruit bleated to express their content or displeasure. In this late season, the fruit had become much more vocal. Their angry cries affected the sleep of the townsfolk, even those inured to barnyard noises.