Jasper Mountain (30 page)

Why hadn’t she fallen in love with one of them instead of Digger? Selfish, irresponsible, thickheaded, funny, sweet, wonderful Digger.

Of course she needed to stay hidden. Victor Creely was somewhere in the clinic. She didn’t want to be trouble for the doctor after he’d been so good to her. Honestly, she didn’t want to get out of this bed, either. Every time the doctor peeked in on her, she’d stop crying enough to feign slumber. It became easier to pretend; she went inside herself for hours on end. Not move, not hear, speak, feel.

She wanted to sleep forever.

Mouse mimicked the action of lighting and smoking. “He wants his pipe,” Jack said.

“I simply will not have a child smoke in my clinic.” Ambrose shook his head firmly at Mouse, who crossed his arms and scowled.

“Look at that. He’s already starting to act like you, Jack.” Ambrose rose, rushed to the other end of the room, and started clinking bottles.

“Well, I’d say the last hour proves there is nothing wrong with him,” Taryn said.

“Can I take him home?” Jack asked, taken aback at his own question. He thought of his house as Mouse’s home. On second thought, he wasn’t surprised. Not really.

Ambrose returned, armed with a bottle of greenish liquid and a spoon. “I’d like to keep him tonight and watch over him. Think he’ll take this?”

Mouse’s expression scrunched down even further until his face seemed to be made of dried fruit.

“I’m sure going to have fun watching you try,” Jack said.

“I’d like to see you go home and get some rest,” Ambrose answered. “Maybe I’ll have better luck with my patient once you’re gone. I think half of this is a show for your benefit.”

Most likely true, and there was nothing for him to do here, not really. But there was something he could do up at the mine. Something he’d contemplated between counting Mouse’s breaths. Why wait? Why ask for permission? Why not start mapping, at least begin it so he’d know exactly what he was talking about. His argument would be much stronger when he presented it to Victor. He needed all the facts he could get for that discussion.

If he found a few tunnels that shouldn’t exist, well, it might stop Victor’s insistence the maps were up to date. And Mouse was the answer to any proclamation of a safe mine. Hell, Mouse, along with an ample list of dead, injured, and just plain missing. Tom and Stoop.

He got a strange queasy feeling when he thought of the two men. Searching through the mine might settle him down a bit. He’d return in the morning and take Mouse home. Besides, he’d sat at the boy’s bedside for hours.

“I’ll be back to get you in the morning,” he said to Mouse. The boy kept his face scrunched and shifted back to watching Ambrose. Jack moved to the door. “Doc? Don’t skimp on anything. I’ll pay for everything.”

Ambrose’s serious countenance broke into a grin. “You? On a miner’s salary?”

“Don’t forget my promotion. I’m living ace-high nowadays.”

“Go home and get some rest,” Taryn said. “I’ll stay, too.”

“Mouse will most likely sleep through the night,” Ambrose said, “if I can get this concoction down his throat. The reverend and I will keep watch. He’s in good hands.”

“Yeah, he is.” Jack gestured to the direction of Victor’s room. “Do you think he’s up to a talk on my way out?”

“Planning your attack when the enemy is weak?” Taryn asked.

The doctor chuckled. “Sound thinking, but he’s fading in and out quite a bit, and when he’s lucid, he’s in quite a nasty mood. I think between the two of you, he might be able to out-jackass you. Although you have become fairly astute in the area yourself.”

“Ah, Doctor, the perfect parting comment,” Jack said. “And I’m too damned tired to return an insult.”

“I knew I’d wear you down one of these days.”

“What happened to Mr. Creely anyway?” Taryn asked.

Ambrose shrugged. “Story is, a group of miners attacked him on his way home from the Boarding House. Luke saw a few of the men. He hasn’t named names, but he swears they were miners.”

“Why didn’t Luke stop them?” Jack asked.

Ambrose cocked an eyebrow. “A good question.”

Taryn shook his head. “Tempers are flaring in the town. You can feel it everywhere.”

“Yep, and that’s about the last thing I want to talk about. You’re right, some sleep will do me good.” Jack gave a quick wave. Mouse waved back.

He glanced inside when he passed by Creely’s room. Edmund leaned over Victor’s bed, speaking low. Whoever smacked the mine president upside the head did one a hell of a job. Pillows propped Victor upright. His eye was swollen shut with a bruise spreading over the right side of his head like merging blots of sickly colored ink. His pallor, tinged with the gray of middle age, usually reminded Jack of the steel running through the man. Now his coloring made Victor look old. Tired. Sick.

Jack looked at the savior of Tumbling Creek Ranch. His father’s oldest and dearest friend. The man who took Jack under his wing, promoted him, reassured Jack he was like a son. He wondered if Victor would recover. An empty space sat inside him, where he should feel something. Anything.

Jack realized he plain old didn’t care if Victor ever got out of his bed again.

The inside of Jasper Mountain was as stable as a structure made of lace doilies. The so-called maps had maybe one-third of the tunnels notated. Man-made passages tore through delicate catacombs and caverns created by Mother Nature. In true form, man simply blasted through whatever looked like it might make some profit.

Lifting his lantern high, Jack put his other hand up against rock. He stood at the end of a mining tunnel that should have been filled in years ago, but was left dead, cold, its mouth a gaping hole in the cavern soaring before him.

No wonder why wind sang here. The sounds racing through were damned eerie, like voices humming. He almost imagined he heard chanting. Weird.

A shame, actually, all these tunnels punching through caverns. He wondered how much beauty the quest of gold destroyed. The haphazard way the tunnels were blasted through and not filled back in appalled him.

He had more than enough proof for Victor, should he care to listen. Jack’s own sense of responsibility fueled to a feverish pitch. This place was a disaster waiting to happen, and he wasn’t about to let go of this issue.

He glanced down. The fall was only about six feet. Curiosity got the best of him, and he wanted to explore, take the time to see what else was around. It had been a while since he’d wandered simply for the thrill and pleasure of it. He blew out the flame in his lantern and hopped down. Dark didn’t usually bother him, but this dark pulsed, alive with something. Was the creature he kept imagining waiting for him in the tunnels? Spirits darting through the air? Ghosts wandering?

Any or all of these diabolical happenings?

He relit his lantern, trying his best to ignore a shaking hand. God, he really could be an idiot. The small bit of light didn’t do much to slow down his beating heart, but the beauty of the place drew him forward. Plus, he reminded himself, he wasn’t a scared little girl, but a big, strong, brave man.

He laughed at himself and felt a whole lot better.

Ahead an underground lake glistened, still as death and black as Satan’s heart. He kept a few steps back, wondering what, if anything, lived beneath. Probably nothing. A blurp broke the surface and he stumbled back, imagining an aquatic dragon rising out of the black mirror from hell.

“I’m in the wrong business. I should write spook books.” His voice bounced off the walls and came back at him.

He shouldn’t get himself lost. He possessed a pretty good sense of direction, even in these tunnels, and he wanted to wander a bit farther. He skirted around the small lake and ahead to another mouth to probably yet another cavern.

He wondered how Mouse was doing. It was time to go back. He’d found all the fortitude he needed and was about to become Victor’s nonstop, nagging nightmare.

He hoped he didn’t simply disappear, like Tom, Stoop, and anyone else who crossed Victor. Did he really believe that?

No.

Well, maybe. All right. Yes.

There were no more questions about which side he stood on. The biggest question was how it might affect the life of the ranch. Buck and the boys. He’d do his best for them, but he knew Victor could be vindictive.

He laughed to himself, this time at such understated thought.

He turned to retrace his steps, but something caught his eye. A flicker at the other end of the cavern. In the dark, a flash, small, subtle, fast. But there. He saw another. Colors.

He froze. Listened.

Yep, chanting. But how?

And above the chanting, a voice, sweet and pure as sunlight, began to sing in a language he didn’t understand. The words sounded ancient and mystic and from somewhere exotic.

He crept closer to a small entrance. Beyond the opening, more tiny colors sparkled against the floor, a swirling prism. He imagined tiny fairy critters, darting around.

What the hell was going on?

Carefully, he moved forward, the real world falling away with each step.

What was this place?

He checked behind, the black pool troubling him, but nothing rose from it to breathe fire or bite his head from his body.

The singing grew louder. Every step closer revealed more flashes of lights, the place within ablaze with jewels and colors. The chamber mouth was small, and he dropped to his knees to look inside.

Looking in was like being in the darkest night and gazing through a spyglass at another world miles away, full of light and wonder. In the center of it all, eyes closed, kneeling as if in prayer, Milena.

If he needed any proof she was not of this world, it unfolded before him. No question. This woman was magic. Spellbinding. Like a statue carved from the crystal rock, she glowed, translucent. Hair dark and shining like the mirrored pool. She seemed of this place, perfectly at home.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

She sang in a strange language. Romani. At least, he remembered her insisting that’s what she was. Romani. She wove exotic intonations, not the simple melodies he was used to hearing, but sharps and flats twisting, combining to sound like a language all its own. A language of marvel and enchantment.

He crawled in until he cleared the mouth of the chamber. Colors danced around him. Everything was crusted with fluorite, pyrite, crystal quartz, and did he see chunks of gold? Stalactites, stalagmites, boulders, all glistened and glittered. Milena’s lantern lit a dance of color. He’d never seen anything like it.

He didn’t question what she was doing here. She belonged, surrounded by a world she fit. She seemed sprung from the minerals around her, made from the same luminous material. He didn’t know how long he sat, watching her. Time didn’t exist in this place. He would have gladly stayed forever, but she stopped singing and opened her eyes.

Instantly, she jumped to her feet, her black eyes snapping with fear. She pulled a huge knife from her side, no longer the gentle, magical creature, but something that might have risen from the black hell-pool.

She raised the knife, murder in her eyes.

M
ouse swaggered into the bar, just like any miner. He’d show them. He wasn’t a little kid. Even though he was puny and fell off the lift, he wasn’t some baby to lie in a bed.

He walked into Sam’s, unnoticed, and glanced around for Sally. Thankfully, she was nowhere in sight. He wanted to sit by his piano, feel the tones, and, most important, keep away from the preacher.

He had escaped, and he figured they wouldn’t look for him here.

He wove through the forest of men and finally reached the piano, all the while watching for Jack. He thought Jack might be in the saloon, but he wasn’t and maybe he went home to Ook. Disappointment raced through Mouse, but Jack’s place was not his home and he was probably sick and tired of Mouse hanging around. That was okay. He could take care of himself anyway.

Mouse sat and leaned against the warm wood, just happy to be there. He wondered how long it would be before the doctor noticed he was missing. The preacher had fallen asleep in the chair and hadn’t stirred when Mouse got dressed. He was easy to fool but the doctor wouldn’t be, and he hoped the doctor wouldn’t figure out where he’d gone.