The Devil's Paintbox (40 page)

“Yeah.” Aiden lay back down.

“We carry many lives.”

Aiden said nothing. He could not summon much hope to hang upon these strings. He pressed his hands hard against his eyes. He saw everyone from the wagon train, Polly and Annie, Reverend Gabriel True and Marguerite; everyone from the coal mine towns before that and the plantation before that and Ireland before that. He saw soldiers missing arms and legs. He saw Bandy with a smooth, beautiful face, dancing at a ball. Each string became a person, then a spark, then gone. What did any of them matter?

iden woke disoriented. The air was stuffy. He sat up and looked around. It was completely dark. He heard nothing but the blood pulsing in his ears. He took a deep breath, hoping to clear his head, but the breath felt empty. With sudden fear, he realized what was wrong.

“Tupic.” He nudged him. “Tupic, wake up!” Aiden groped for the candle and matches. Tupic woke with a start, sitting up so quickly he hit his head on the low rock ceiling.

“What?”

“I think we're snowed in,” Aiden gasped. His hands shook as he snapped a match and lit the candle. The flame was weak. Tupic grabbed the stick that had once poked out their airhole and shook it, but it was wedged tight and broke in his hand. He pushed and pulled on the saddles, but neither moved.

“Hold this.” Aiden handed the candle lantern to Tupic and scrunched around so his feet were toward the front. He lay on his back and kicked the saddles. Nothing. Tupic scraped at the snow around them with his knife, but they still didn't even wiggle. He and Aiden lay gasping and silent for a few long seconds. There was no denying the awful truth. They were buried alive, sealed in a space a little bigger than a coffin. In a frantic burst of energy, Aiden turned back around, grabbed the enamel cup and began to dig.

“Wait.” Tupic put the candle lantern down.

“No—we have to work fast!”

“But let us work well.” Tupic pressed a hand on Aiden's arm. “We must move the snow back.”

Aiden saw that his mad digging had already made a pile of loose snow around his knees. Of course, they had to move the snow back out of the way.

“Here.” Tupic grabbed one of the empty saddlebags. Aiden scooped the loose snow into it with the cup while Tupic began to dig more out with his knife. When a saddlebag was filled, they swung it to the back of the cave, tipped it out and kicked the snow down to compact it. After a short time they were both sweating heavily and had dug extensively around both saddles but still had not broken through.

“It can't have snowed this much in one night,” Aiden said, panting.

“No.” Tupic took the sock off his hand and wiped his forehead. “But wind blows snow to—little hills?”

“Drifts.”

“Yes.”

Suddenly Tupic's knife hit a pine branch, flicking bits of needles over them both. They dug around it, thinking it was just a fallen branch that had been swept up in a drift. But as they dug deeper, they hit a larger branch, then another.

“Wait.” Aiden got the candle and held it close. The flame melted tiny rivulets of snow off the branches and glistened on the sides. Neither said a word. This was far worse than a snowdrift.

“It's a whole tree,” Aiden said. “Came down in the storm.” He knew by the thickness of the branches that this was the top part of a huge spruce tree. No amount of digging
could get them through the dense branches, nor would it likely even yield an airhole. Aiden felt light-headed and saw golden tadpoles swimming around inside his eyelids. “We'll dig there.” He waved toward the back of their cave.

“We can't squeeze through the rocks back there,” Tupic said weakly.

“No, but—air,” Aiden gasped. “Maybe not so many branches.” Their shelter was close to the rock face; the tree would have fallen at a steep angle from above, so there was a good chance that the trunk would be high enough to leave some space. But that was too complicated to explain. “Maybe air,” he said.

Tupic nodded, pulled his knees up to his chest and shifted around. He grabbed Aiden's jacket and helped him turn; then they lay on their backs and began to dig again. Snow fell into their eyes and down their necks. Their arms grew numb and the skin on their hands began to crack. Blood trickled down Aiden's wrist, making lacy stains on his shirt cuff. Meanwhile, their body heat was melting the snow from the roof, so cold water dripped on them and the floor had become a puddle. They dug only six inches before they both dropped in exhaustion, gasping for breath.

“I can shoot a hole,” Aiden said. His voice sounded far-off, tinny and small. “But I don't know what time it is. If the men are anywhere near, it will give us away.”

Tupic didn't say anything. “Tupic—come on.” Aiden shook him, but Tupic didn't respond. If Tupic was losing consciousness, Aiden knew he didn't have much longer himself. He had to take the chance. Anything was better than suffocation. He dragged his bag over and took out the pistol, aimed
it up, turned his face away and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening, but the tiny patch of blue sky was the prettiest thing Aiden had ever seen. Even through the acrid sting of gun smoke he could feel a trickle of good air drifting in. Aiden shot again to enlarge the hole, then took some deep breaths.

“Come on.” He slapped Tupic's cheek and shook him hard. “Move, I can't drag you!” Tupic roused enough to flop himself over. They lay like hungry puppies, drinking in the sweet fresh air. Aiden closed his eyes. They were still in a hundred kinds of trouble, but none felt so terrible now that he could breathe. After a while, Tupic wriggled back around, got the stick from their original airhole and used it to widen the opening a few more inches, giving them a small disk of blue sky.

They must have dozed off then, for the next thing Aiden knew, a shower of snow fell down on his face and the sun blazed brightly above. A stick came thrashing down through the hole, grazing the side of his face just inches from his eye. He threw up his hands and rolled away. The air was suddenly plentiful.

“There they are! Rats in a hole!”

Aiden brushed the snow out of his eyes and stared up at the grinning face of William Buck.

uck and his men had a camp shovel and a small axe and got to work digging and chopping a passage through the branches of the fallen tree. As the blockage was being cleared, Aiden could see three men besides Buck. Two were loggers from his own camp: Sam and Eight-John, so called because he was missing two fingers on his left hand. Aiden knew Eight-John was part of the group that had nailed him in the outhouse, because of the strange grip of that hand. The third man was an Indian who sometimes came to the fights and often sold game and fish to the camps. Aiden didn't know anything about him but suspected that he was probably the one who'd tracked them and wouldn't be doing it for free. So Napoleon Gilivrey must be behind this.

“Come on out!” Buck shouted as soon as the hole was big enough. “Don't waste our time.” The men were in evil moods after the hard work.

Aiden crawled out first, expecting to be hit immediately, and he was not disappointed. As soon as he was halfway out, Buck kicked him in the ribs so hard Aiden flew backward, crashing into the limbs of the fallen tree. Then Eight-John grabbed his jacket, dragged him to his feet and held him while Buck backhanded him across the face and slammed a punch to his stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, but Aiden was hardened to punches by now and didn't collapse. This infuriated the men even more. Eight-John kicked the
back of Aiden's legs so he fell to his knees, and Buck punched him a few more times, then shoved him back into the snow. As he heaved for breath, Aiden looked up and saw Doc Carlos sitting against a rock. His hands were tied. One eye was bruised and swollen shut, his lip was cracked and there was dried blood above his ear, clear signs of a beating.

“Doc?” Aiden gasped. “What's he doing tied up? He wasn't any part of this!”

“Shut up!” Buck shouted. “Now you, Injun!” he yelled into the hole as he picked up a broken tree limb.

“Don't kill him!” Aiden spat blood into the clean snow.

“There's a bounty on his head in Seattle, Prairie Boy. One hundred dollars dead or alive.”

“I can match it. You know I have fight money. You can have it all.”

“I can have it all anyway,” Buck laughed. “Besides what I get for bringing in the vaccine! Probably a bounty on your doctor friend too, for aiding the Injuns in an illegal way.”

“He wasn't aiding us,” Aiden said. “We came on him by chance and took him for a hostage because he's cripple-armed. You know he's no friend of mine.”

“Shut the hell up! Come on out, Injun—you got no escape. Make it easy and we'll kill you quick.”

“Shoot them, Tupic!” Aiden yelled. “They're going to kill you anyway!”

“Oh, goddammit, don't make complications.” Buck went to a horse and pulled a rifle out of its sheath. He came back and pressed the muzzle against the back of Aiden's head, pushing his head down.

“Now you see what's going to happen?” Buck shouted to Tupic. “You throw the pistol here or I shoot his brains out.”

Aiden stared at the snow crystals twinkling in the sun. Time became very slow

“All right.” Tupic's voice drifted out of the cave and barely sounded above the roar in Aiden's ears. “Here it comes.” He tossed the pistol out. Eight-John snatched it up and aimed it at the entry hole.

“Now the vaccine. Hurry up!” Buck shoved the rifle harder against Aiden's head. The metal barrel burned cold on his scalp. He heard the rustle of branches as Tupic handed the black saddlebag up through the hole. Aiden tensed, every nerve coiled. He knew what was going to happen next. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused only on the feel of the rifle barrel on his skull. It was as if he could hear Buck's heartbeat through the metal. The instant Buck swung the rifle toward Tupic, Aiden sprang.

He smacked the barrel aside just as Buck pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the rock and zinged harmlessly away, but the rifle spun out of reach before Aiden could grab it. He smashed his fist against the side of Buck's knee, grabbed his leg and wrenched him down. They tumbled together through the top of the fallen tree, branches smacking and snapping beneath them. There would be no “play wrestling” now. Rules didn't matter; hurt didn't matter. Aiden was set on damage. He drove two quick punches into Buck's nose. He felt the skin on his knuckles burst open but did not register the pain. Buck howled and threw him off. They were clear of the treetop now, and Aiden plunged through the crust into a drift up to his waist. He struggled to get out, but it was almost noon. The day had grown warm and the snow was sticky. Buck staggered forward a few steps, then bent over, resting his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.