Domino. Part 19

That brought me up from the bed at once, and I went to open the door. "What have you heard?"

"A man from town telephoned to report that when he as out on a ch.o.r.e for Mark Ingram, he heard a dog barking over near the mine. He didn't investigate, but when he got back to the hotel and mentioned it, Belle Durant said it might be your dog. So he called to tell us."

I made up my mind quickly. "I'll ride over there and look for him. I need to get out anyway. I need something to do."

Caleb seemed uneasy with me, as though bringing everything out in the open had made him even more uncomfortable about me than before. Until now he had veiled his dislike a little. Now it looked hotly out of his eyes, and he made no attempt to dissuade me.

"As you please," he said, and went away.

I changed quickly into jeans, s.h.i.+rt, and jacket, and started for the barn. As I followed the path, I looked off toward Old Desolate and saw-consciously this time-the gate that led away from the ranch. Now I remembered. Those men who had ridden off yesterday after the attack on Jon had gone through that gate without stopping on their gallop up the valley. The gate had been left open behind them, and no one had gone to close it for some time. I had been thinking only of Jon's injuries and the need to get help for him. Red could easily have dashed through that opening. The dog that had been heard near the mine must be Red. He was a town dog, and not used to free s.p.a.ces. He might not know how to get back to the ranch.

I was glad to have a strong purpose in this hour when I needed something important to do. It never occurred to me to question Caleb's message.

XIV.

Sam was in the barn, and he helped me saddle Baby Doe. In answer to my question he said that Jon was feeling better, but was still sore from the beating and was taking it a bit easy today. I thought of stopping in to see him, but if Jon knew what I meant to do he might insist on coming with me, no matter how he felt. I didn't want that. Let him rest.

"Somebody heard a dog barking over near the mine," I told the boy. "So I'm going to ride up there to see if I can find Red."

"Want me to go with you?" Sam asked.

I shook my head. I still needed to be alone. I had to figure out, among other things, what I was going to say before I saw Jon. I wanted very much to talk with him, but first I must try to find my direction.

"Better take this with you," Sam said when I was in the saddle, and he handed up a flashlight. I thrust it into a pocket and turned Baby Doe's head up the valley.

The high cone of Old Desolate beckoned me, as it had since I was a child, and I found the mountain stillness comforting.

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Human problems grew small in the face of all this vastness, and I needed that sort of perspective now.

How unreal were the lives we had been leading, I thought as I rode along. If only I could recapture the essence of that little girl who had once ridden up this valley on a pony beside her father. But that had disappeared forever. It had vanished in the sound of a single shot that had gone echoing through Morgan House.

That was when all the lies had begun that changed our lives. My grandmother's first of all, in the deceptive trail she had built to fool the world. Caleb had gone along, doing her bidding. But not, I thought, quite as willingly as she supposed. My mother's whole life from that time on had been a lie. She had given herself to concealing the truth, even from me, and if she had suffered over my father's death, or longed for the return of her lover, she had never let anyone know.

I had a strong feeling that Noah must never have returned. Surely if he had, if only to get in touch with her, I would have been aware of some change in Marybeth Morgan. But for as long as I could remember, she had been the same-a sad woman, gentle and loving, but somehow hopeless. It was difficult to imagine her with the sort of spirit it must have taken to be willing to leave her husband and her child and run away with Noah Armand.

Why had he never turned up again? If he had cared enough to come back to the house for her, if they had planned to run off together, leaving my grandmother's fortune behind, why had he never been heard from since? There was a strange mystery here that troubled me. Was there more to what had occurred than Caleb had told me?

Could something have happened to Noah in that house? Could there really have been some quick vengeance? But at whose hands? Caleb's? Persis Morgan's, as I'd thought earlier?

r^ t 22O.

Persis was her father's daughter. And there was a missing deringer that might have been fired and had to be concealed.

I didn't care for these thoughts that had begun to haunt me, and I tried to give myself to an awareness of the beauty of mountains and valley all around me, and that vault of blue overhead. I had enough horrors to make my peace with now without dreaming up new and terrifying problems.

Baby Doe carried me along at a moderate pace, and from time to time I gazed off toward the high shoulder of the mountain, where the trail led toward Domino. Suddenly a tiny movement up there caught my eye. As my sight adjusted from sunny meadow to darker spruce, I made out a figure almost lost in the shadow of the trees. A man on a horse. His face showed as a white patch, watching my progress up the valley. He was too far off for me to identify, and he could have been anyone at all -man or woman.

The watching presence worried me after what had happened to Jon, but I didn't want to turn back. Riding on, I whistled now and then and called Red's name, but there was no sign of my dog anywhere. When I next looked up at the stand of spruce trees, the rider was gone. I was not particularly afraid. Perhaps my mind was too full of all that I had learned, all the puzzles that still faced me, for there to be any room for fear. I had lived through too much today to be able to fear anything more.

Baby Doe's pace slowed as she started up the slope. She picked her way over stony ground, her hooves clattering on rock, the sound echoing from the peaks. Once as we followed the trail, I seemed to hear a faint, distant whining, and I reined in at once to listen. But when the horse was still, I could hear only the wind in the trees and the noise of a dislodged stone rolling down the path. Again I called Red's name, but there was no response, so I rode on. I didn't know until later how 221.

close to him I was, and that the mountain itself and his own thras.h.i.+ng must have kept him from hearing me.

Near the tall spruce trees I found the area empty of human presence. The only movement was among mountain jays, and the chipmunks that played among the rocks below the trail. Only a few hoof marks in the earth betrayed the presence of the rider who had sat in this spot watching my journe) up the valley.

^Vhen I came out along the far side, I paused again and ave myself to the impact of the view. E^ en with all this new desolation inside me- a desolation that matched that of the mountain itself- I felt the same surge of emotion that I had experienced the last time I saw Domino.

Those few broken houses, the single dusty street far below, caught at my heart. It was as if I were being pulled back into my childhood, back into lives I had never known that still affected me. Back, perhaps, to a safer time, before I, too, had begun to live a lie, deceiving myself most of all.

In the gulch below me straggled the timbers of what had once been the thriving mining camp, and I found again the one house that had been preserved and that still belonged to Persis Morgan. As I sat my horse, studying it, something seemed to move down there- as it had before. Had m mysterious horseman gone down into Dornino, and was he perhaps watching me from amid the wreckage? No matter if he was. Undoubtedly there were riders up the valley from time to time, doing Ingram's bidding, but they needn't threaten me. What had happened to Jon had been deliberate, planned, and no one except Caleb and Sam knew I was here.

In any case it was not down into Domino that I would ride today. The mine ruins lay over on my right, with the remnants of the trail leading toward them. I followed the curve of the hill past ugly tailing mounds, still calling for my dog.

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I had no answer, and I was afraid my search was hopeless. But before I turned back, I would ride a little closer to the entrance and try shouting for Red again. I knew that if he could hear me he would respond with an ecstasy of barking.

Baby Doe picked her way gingerly along the slope. Now, as I neared the entrance, I saw something surprising. The door to the mine stood open. The entry was a gaping black hole in the side of the mountain, with the wooden door standing open on its hinges, the padlock hanging loose. I felt hair stir at the nape of my neck, and I knew that an eerie fear of this place was part of my childhood. A fear that reason could not quiet.

Here in this high spot the sun was hot on my face, reflecting from the tailings, where nothing grew, yet at the same time a wind moaned around the shoulder of Old Desolate, cold at the back of my neck. As cold as the valley wind had been yesterday in the cemetery. I wanted nothing more than to wheel my horse about and escape from this haunted place as quickly as I could.

But reason held me there. With the mine open Red could have wandered inside. He could be helplessly trapped, and the least I could do was to go to the entrance and call to him.

Near the square black opening, framed in supporting timbers, I dismounted and peered in. Past the doorway there was nothing to be seen but blackness. A cold musty odor seemed to flow out from the depths of the mountain.

Again I shouted for Red, and this time, faintly and from a distance, but more distinctly than before, I heard the high whining of a dog. I called out loudly, and there was a wild barking and yelping in response. I knew a cry for help when I heard it. Red was in the mine and trapped in some way so that he couldn't get out.

kl checked myself from rus.h.i.+ng headlong through that open door, remembering the things Jon had told me about old mines. I would take no chances. Perhaps I could ride down 223.

into Domino and get old Tully, the watchman, to help me find my dog.

The barking grew more frantic. I looped Baby Doe's reins through the rusty iron handle of the open door and took out my flashlight. Before I went for help I would see if I could locate the direction of Red's barking. The slim pencil of light helped very little in cutting the black wall of darkness, but at least it showed a flat expanse of earth that hadn't been choked with debris. I went in a few steps, listening to the explosions of sound Red was making. Because of the echoing inside the mine it was difficult to find the exact direction, but it seemed to come from a tunnel that branched off on my right. I moved a few cautious steps more toward the sound, shouting again to keep him barking. My voice roused further echoes that seemed to crash through the rocky tunnels of the mine.

I tried speaking more quietly, telling him to "Stay," asiuring him that I would be back for him soon. Then I turned toward the welcome square of sunlight that marked the opening. If Tully was of no use to me, then I must ride back to the ranch and get Sam.

I had gone inside farther than I'd intended, and as I moved toward the door, something terrifying happened. Without warning the sunlit square of the opening was no longer square. A wedge of blackness had cut across it, and the yellow band was swiftly narrowing. Even as I flung myself toward the opening, the wooden door slammed shut and I heard the click of the padlock that secured it. Outside, Baby Doe whinnied and stamped.

I called out frantically. "Wait, wait! Don't go away! I'm in here-don't shut me in!"

But whoever had closed that door had seen my horse and must know where I was. So the closing of the door had been deliberate.

Outside I heard Baby Doe whinny again, heard another 224.

horse answer, followed by the sound of hooves moving away. I shouted again in desperation so that the echoes crashed and Red began to yelp piteously-at some distance away.

The noise was awful, and I made myself be still, listening. Beyond the door there was only silence. The horses were gone. It was not by any mistake that I had been shut in here and my horse led away.

Panic surfaced and I threw myself against the wooden door, hoping the hinges might give, or the wood splinter. But though the boards shuddered, my only reward was a bruised shoulder. I stopped my a.s.sault quickly.

Darkness-blackness!-the worst thing of all. The beam of my flashlight was strong enough for only a limited area, and I hoped the batteries were new. I mustn't lose my head. AIL I had to do was wait for help to come. Both Caleb and Sam knew where I had ridden. However, it might be a long while before one of them decided that I'd been away an unreasonable length of time.

Black silence seemed to have a pressure of its own on my eardrums. I moved the beam of light about me cautiously. A false step in any direction might plunge me into some unseen shaft. Yet to sit down and wait in patient surrender was beyond me at that moment. If I moved, if I took some action, perhaps I could hold off a terror that waited for me, just beyond the edge of reason. As a child I knew I'd been horribly afraid of this mine-perhaps only because it was a black pit in the mountain that my father must have shown me. Later it had become the place in which I feared that he had died. But these were thoughts that I must not let in.

At least I wasn't in total ignorance of how the mine lay as if tunneled into the mountain. The book on Morgan mines that I'd studied had shown a diagram of the Old Desolate, its upper pa.s.sages like veins striking out from the top of a main artery that thrust its way deeply into the earth. There had been brief 225.

descriptions of mining operations in the pages I read, and the writer had used the terms of miners. Knowledge that I'd never expected to need.

My flashlight beam picked out the narrow entrance pa.s.sage where I stood, sloping straight into the mountain. The floor was strewn with debris as I moved farther in, seeking for a way to reach Red. He was quiet now, probably losing hope as I didn't come to him. There were chunks of fallen rock, rotting timbers, an old pickax and other discarded tools left along the way.

Ahead the blackness seemed complete, and I could smell danger in the very odor of dampness and rotting wood, though here near the entrance the air wasn't especially bad. Not yet. Somewhere ahead I knew there would be a deep shaft dropping to the next levels, and down there, deep in the total blackness of the mountain's heart, there would be catwalks along the connecting winzes-the pa.s.sages-as the book had indicated. At the lowest levels there would probably be water. All of the mine was a honeycomb under my feet, perhaps ready to collapse at any point, to crumble in upon itself. I remembered Jon pointing out the Glory Hole, where men had died in such a collapse, and wondered if that would be my fate. Ladders down the shafts would be rotten now, unless they were of metal, and I could only hope that Red hadn't fallen down there.

The flash beam suddenly cut into an emptiness of s.p.a.ce, and I realized that the narrow entrance tunnel I followed had suddenly opened into a vast room with rock walls and high ceiling.

I knew what this was. The main shaft of the mine had not been sunk from outside, with the A-frame and hoist placed over it outdoors, as was usually the custom. Here it must have been necessary to tunnel in for a distance before the shaft was sunk, so that a huge room must be hollowed out to accommodate the hoist that would pull up the big ore buckets and the cage that would take men up and down.

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In the tiny piercing light I could use against the black dark, I made out the rotting frame and the pit that opened beneath it, almost at my feet. I stepped back in sudden terror and bit my lip, tasting blood.

This time my voice cracked as I shouted, "Red! Red, are you down there?"

My blessed dog answered mournfully from another direction, and I stepped well away from the edge of the pit. I mustn't let panic take over in this horrible place.

Somehow I needed to find the right tunnel in order to reach Red. With his furry body in my arms we could console each other until help came. We weren't in here forever. This I must believe in defiance of voices that whispered in my mind, Forever, forever!

I played my light ahead and called to Red until I could feel sure I had located the pa.s.sage that would lead me to him. It was disturbing that his barking still seemed so far away. A dog might penetrate into a cluttered pa.s.sageway a great deal farther than I could possibly go. But at least I must try.

The light beam told me that slabbing had been done to some extent in here. I could see what the word meant nowthe shoring up of walls and ceiling with supporting timbers, so that the core of rock that held the ore could be removed without the tunnel collapsing. But the book had told me more than I wanted to know. When slabbing failed, as sometimes happened, those beneath could be buried under tons of earth and rock. The manic voices of terror whispered in my mind again.

Dampness and old rot had surely taken their toll, and the slightest disturbance might cause everything to fall in upon me, burying me here in this mountain tomb. Forever. Forever.

"Stop it!" I told myself, but I didn't speak the words aloud because terror lay in the very sound of harsh echoes. I knew the direction now, and I could let the echoes sleep.

This was the way. A small, more crowded pa.s.sage than the m 227.

others. A pa.s.sage whose opening was partially blocked Red could have squeezed through, but not I. Yet I had to reach him.

I stuck my flashlight in my pocket, and working carefully in the dark, I began to pull away fallen rock and litter from the opening. My hands were quickly cut, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was to reach Red, so that we could comfort each other. To be alone in this place, with nothing alive near me, was the most terrible threat of all. Or at least nothing alive that I wanted to be near.

There hadn't been a real cave-in at the entrance to the pa.s.sage, and in a little while I'd made a way I could get through. I used my flash again and saw that the way beyond was not entirely blocked. Blackness stretched ahead into limbo, and I wondered what creeping things might hide away in here. Snakes, Jon had said. And surely rats. But to sit still and wait would be worse than trying to reach my dog.

Now the ceiling was fairly low, as though the tunneling here had not been completed, and I would have to crawl. I dropped to my hands and knees, doing without light again, though the absence of it was always frightening. The walls seemed to close in on me as I crept along, cold and hard and even more alien in the dark.

Once, when I'd turned on the light, something skittered out of my way. No more than a black shadow, but a shadow that would have sharp teeth, I was sure. For a few moments of shuddering I couldn't go on. But I must.

Crawling was more difficult than walking. There was no mud, but there were still clumps of fallen rock and fragments of splintered wood. The cold of deep earth seemed even more penetrating now, and the air was growing stale and unpleasant -a dirty smell, but at least untainted by the odor of gas. There was still oxygen to breathe. Perhaps the opening of the door had filled the tunnels with fresh air for a little while.

228.

I was still fearful of every shadow that might move when my light was on, and even more terrified of what I might put my hand upon in the dark. Both my hands and knees hurt, but that didn't matter. In my own mind lay the greater dangers. If death came from rock above me, it would be quick. Only in my imagination, in the thought of not being found, lay utter horror.

Red's whimpering seemed closer now. I spoke to him softly, told him I was coming, and again I.moved on, reaching one cautious hand along the pa.s.sage floor and then another. I used my light only now and then, conserving its battery being all-important now. There might be hours ahead for me in this place. One glimpse from the beam showed that the walls had moved apart a little, as though a more complete job had been done at this point.

Obviously this hadn't been a large operation, like the rest of the mine. Perhaps this vein had run out quickly and been soon abandoned. I came to a spot where supporting timbers were falling into decay, and I knew they might crash down upon me if they were jarred. I thought again of all those who had been buried in mines during the years of the gold and silver madness.

But still I must move ahead. Gingerly I made my way past the place of danger, and the going became easier. The smell , was all-pervading now, smothering me in its thick, earthy odor. I could understand about claustrophobia.

My hand, testing the ground ahead, touched something different, something hard and rounded, with sharp-edged hollows in it. Not a rock. My flesh knew and recognized and recoiled in horror. It was time for light.

The beam played over what was left of what had once been a man. The white skull, the rib cage, the long leg bones and folded arms-all laid out in orderly fas.h.i.+on where he had been left, here in the mine. Left, not trapped.

1.Suddenly I was sure, without any doubt. I knew who this man had been. It had to be Noah Armand. More had happened at Morgan House than they had wanted me to guess. Noah, too, must have died, and they had brought him here, left him to the tomb of the mountain. Perhaps it hadn't been my father they meant after all when they had stood in the hallway talking about the mine.

Red barked faintly, questioning, pleading.

"I'm coming," I called.

With the light turned off, I moved carefully, clinging to the side of the tunnel farthest from what lay there, working my way past horror. Only when I was safely beyond did I turn on the light again. Ahead the tunnel took a turn, and as I followed the bend around, my flash showed me Red, lying on his side, his leash caught beneath a chunk of broken rock.

At the sight of me he thrashed and yelped and tried again to free himself. I crept to him and wrapped my arms about his wriggling body while he reached for my face with an ecstatic tongue and s.h.i.+vered with joy.

The air was better now, and I breathed more deeply. Perhaps there was a way out. Perhaps Red hadn't come in through the main door of the mine, but had found another opening in the hillside. Hope took the place of terror, and I let the flashlight burn while I tried to free Red's leash. Now I saw what had been done. No accident has caused this securing of the leather strap. It had been drawn under the big chunk of rock so that only fingers could release it.

Someone had found Red in his wandering. Someone had placed him in this pa.s.sage and seen to it that he could never extricate himself. Then the message had been sent to me, the mine door left open, knowing that Red's barking would lead me in. I held him tightly and pressed my face against his head that was no longer silky and clean.

"We've got to get out of here," I told him, wincing a little as I looped the leash around my wrist. I didn't know how much more laceration my hands and knees could take, but I had to go on. Then, as I started to crawl again, the sound of shouting reached us from a distance-from outside the mine. Red barked furiously, and I shouted back, recognizing the voice.

"Jon! We're in here! Jon, come and help us out!"

His next shout was much closer. "Keep on yelling so I can locate you, Laurie."

We filled the tunnel with sound, and the echoes no longer mattered. In a few moments Jon was crawling through the far pa.s.sage.

By the time he reached us, I was weeping in relief. He sat on the floor of the tunnel, drew my head against his shoulder, and let me cry. His arms were around me and his cheek was against my hair. It was wonderful to just let go and stop struggling for my life. And most of all it was wonderful to have Jon hold me. I had come to my own moment of truth.

I'd loved him since I was a little girl, and I loved him now. I had been looking for him in other men through all my years as a woman, yet I wouldn't have dared to tell him this. I could only cling to him and weep in relief.

"That's enough," he said after a moment. "You can finish your bawling outside. Are you all right, Laurie? Can you crawl a little farther?"

I could have crawled anywhere, and Red and I crept after him as he led the way out. Around the next bend we could see daylight, and the air was fresh. Weed growth and the gnarled roots of a fallen pine tree almost blocked the entrance, but Jon squeezed past and pulled us both after him into the suns.h.i.+ne.

The sight of Sundance tethered nearby was very welcome, and the high thin air had never tasted so sweet. I flung myself on the gra.s.s with Red beside me. For these few moments I wanted only to know that I was safe and with my love. This in- tensity of feeling was all I could bear for now. Horror lay just bevond, where reason started, but I still held it away.

"Do you see where you are?" Jon asked after I'd rested for a few minutes.

He was sitting on the gra.s.s beside me, not touching me now, but waiting for me to recover with more patience than I might have expected.