“Come on,” Billy said, gesturing to Slocum. They walked in silence down the drift to a larger chamber where bits and sledgehammers were scattered around. Billy checked several of the six-foot-long steel bits until he found one with a properly sharpened tip. “Damn things are never sharpened,” he said. “Miles lets his cronies get by with murder. We work hard and all they do is lollygag and get drunk.”

  “You don’t cotton much to the foreman, do you?”

  “No reason to. He treats everyone like dirt, then sucks up to Mr. Haining. He hires his friends and hardly ever pokes his ugly face down into the mine.”

  “You blame Thompson for that?”

  “Thompson? Hell no, he’s a good guy. Hard worker and the best powderman you’ll find in any mine, bar none. If Mr. Haining didn’t need him so much to do the blasting, he’d be foreman. But Mr. Haining’s more concerned with money matters than anything goin’ on here.”

  “Seems wrong,” Slocum said. He picked up a twelve-pound sledgehammer and followed Billy down a drift. Their lights bobbed about, showing increasingly ragged walls. This section was newly blasted and hadn’t been exploited yet. Shiny flecks shone in his light as Slocum looked around. Gold. Lots of it.

  “The Low Down’s a good mine,” Billy said. “If things were like they ought to be, Miles would be in jail.”

  “In jail? For being a lousy foreman?”

  Billy snorted. He positioned a couple miner’s candles on either side of a rock plug blocking the end of the drift and rubbed his callused finger over a spot marked with a chalk X.

  “There’s a difference ’tween bein’ a wastrel and bein’ a criminal. I got to worry when so many accidents happen, all intended to cripple the Low Down.”

  “You’re saying that Miles is responsible?”

  “I’m sayin’ not many of the deaths look much like an accident. Men get careless, it happens,” he assured Slocum. “But those four killed today? Mighty suspicious circumstances, I’d say. And I put it directly on Miles’s doorstep.”

  Billy picked up the long steel rod and positioned the chisel point where the X had been scrawled. He looked back at Slocum.

  “You want to hold the bit, or you want to swing the hammer?”

  Slocum knew which was harder and which was more dangerous.

  “You’re the old hand at this.”

  Billy nodded. “You’re no greenhorn, either. You know how bunged up you can get holding the bit. Me, I’m not as strong, and that’d make my hammering a little wobbly after a spell. I’ll hold, you swing.”

  Slocum stepped back, took the heavy sledgehammer, and waited for Billy to position it where the hole was to be drilled. When they had a four- or five-foot-deep hole, they’d move to another portion of the wall and put in another and then another and another.

  Then the explosive would be packed into the new holes and a new segment of mountain would be turned into gravel. At that point, muckers would load the debris and get it out of the mine to be sorted and sent to the mill for crushing and the smelter for refining into gold bricks. A good strike meant a few ounces of gold for every ton of rock moved from the belly of the Earth.

  After only four hours, Slocum was ready to go off shift. The work was backbreaking, but he liked Billy and Bowden and got along just fine with Thompson. He thought he was going to enjoy working in the Low Down Mine.

  3

  The work was backbreaking, but Slocum found he enjoyed it because he was able to get a few dollars ahead while working with men he respected. Billy might have been a considerable number of years younger than Slocum, but he knew his trade. Bowden was as crazy as a loon and made the most of it, peering at people with his wandering good eye until they flinched. It took a while to warm to him, but when they got to swapping lies, Bowden proved to be both expert and astute. Thompson was a bit more aloof, but he made certain the men working under him were well taken care of. Or as well taken care of as any miner in the Cripple Creek district.

  The work was done in cold, dark tunnels barely wide enough for Slocum to pass along without brushing his shoulders. He had to constantly bend over, and more than once he found himself on the edge of an unmarked pit. If he had stepped into the darkness, he would have landed on the next level down in a pile of broken bones—his bones.

  But he got into the rhythm of swinging the heavy sledgehammer and eventually worked over to holding the chisel as others hammered away. Of the two, Slocum preferred using the sledge rather than wondering if the one wielding the heavy hammer would miss and crush his hands. In spite of the dangers, they had blasted and torn out close to thirty feet of new drift by the end of the second week Slocum had been working.

  “Got to tell you, men,” Thompson said to them as they ate their lunch, “you’ve been burning up the mountain. Nobody else is making this much progress.”

  “Yeah, but there ain’t no gold in the rock. We’re followin’ a damn will-o’-the-wisp,” Bowden declared. He held out his roast beef sandwich so the light from his carbide lamp fell on it. Slocum looked away. The meat was tinged with green even in good light; it turned putrid in the curiously bright carbide glare, but this didn’t stop Bowden from munching away at it.

  “The big vein we hit last month turned in that direction,” Thompson said.

  They all looked up when Lucas Miles and two of his cronies came trooping into their rocky chamber.

  “Yeah, we been wonderin’ ’bout that,” Miles said. “Not bringin’ out the gold you were.”

  “Hell, Miles, not every rock has gold in it. You know that.”

  “I been thinkin’ might be a lot of gold in that rock, but none of it’s gettin’ to the surface.”

  “Nobody here’s stealin’ the gold,” Thompson said hotly.

  “I ain’t accusin’ nobody. I just want to make sure some dust ain’t fallin’ into pockets unbeknownst to them,” Miles growled. His two men turned to Bowden. “Let ’em search you,” Miles ordered.

  “Like hell I will.”

  “Do it or I’ll fire you,” Miles said. He glared at Thompson to shut him up.

  “You want to see what’s in my pockets?” Billy spoke up.

  “We’ll get to you, boy.”

  “Here, look now. It’s the only chance you’re gonna get.” Billy turned his pockets inside out and spun slowly. “You want to look at my boots? They got holes in the soles, so I’d be leavin’ a gold trail behind.”

  “He’s clean, boss,” one man said after checking Billy’s clothing.

  “Go on, Bowden, show us you ain’t got nuthin’ to hide,” Miles said.

  Slocum watched carefully. These men weren’t going to search him. Either they took his word or they fired him. He had come to enjoy the work, at least as much as a mole might, but he wouldn’t put up with such accusations. Then he had to keep from laughing when he saw Bowden dancing around in the harsh light from the miner’s lamps.

  Bowden stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. His boots followed. Then he skinned out of his pants so he was dressed only in his longjohns. But the half-crazy man didn’t stop there. He pulled off the woollies and dropped them onto the pile. He stood buck naked and shivering until his pallid white skinned turned blue from the cold.

  “You got a razor on you, Miles?” Bowden asked.

  Miles looked stunned at the man stripping down to his bare skin. He shook his head and said, “No. Why are you askin’ a thing like that?”

  “I reckon you want to shave the fur off my hairy hide and see if I’ve woven gold into my beard. And back here. You want to check here, too, Miles?” Bowden swung around and bent over, presenting his hindquarters to the foreman. “You might see somethin’ you like there. If it’s gold, let me know. If it’s somethin’ else, don’t bother tellin’ me.” He waggled his rear like a cancan dancer.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Miles said.

  “Hold on,” Thompson called to the foreman. “You’re forgettin’ something, Miles.”

  “What?”

  “An apology.”

  “Go to hell,” Miles snarled. He stormed off, his two henchmen trailing behind him. One cast a final look at Bowden, who danced about in his birthday suit, then shook his head and went around a bend in the drift.

  “Get dressed, you stupid son of a bitch,” Thompson said.

  “I dunno, boss, I kinda like it this way. Makes me feel all free.” Bowden spun about with his hands above his head.

  “It makes me sick to my belly.” Thompson turned away but Slocum saw the smile on his lips. He appreciated the way Bowden had humiliated Miles after the foreman’s accusation that they were smuggling gold from the Low Down.

  While Bowden climbed back into his clothes, Slocum and Billy finished their lunches. Slocum chased his with a swig of water from his canteen.

  “Time to get back to work, gents,” Thompson said. “And don’t you go stealin’ gold from the mine, now.”

  “We got to find it first,” Billy said. “I think we’re gettin’ closer, though, to that big vein.”

  “Me and Bowden’ll hit it first. The new drift looks promisin’, and we’re about ready to blast.”

  “Need help?” Billy asked.

  “That’ll be the day, when I need your help. You just want an excuse to stand around and watch instead of workin’. Get to it, you two.”

  With that, Thompson and Bowden set off down an adjoining drift. Billy hoisted a long, steel chisel and pointed to the sledgehammer.

  “You want to hammer a spell? My shoulder’s botherin’ me something fierce again.”

  Slocum silently picked up the twelve-pound hammer, and they went back down the drift where they had worked so hard for the past ten days. He was no geologist, but the rock here looked promising for more gold. Slocum hadn’t seen the drift where Thompson and Bowden were commencing to blast.

  “Wait up,” Slocum said. “I left my canteen back there. I get mighty thirsty pounding on the end of that spike.”

  “You should work out in the hot sun drivin’ railroad spikes,” Billy said. “I did that for almost three months on the Denver & Rio Grande. No way would I give up this job to get out into fresh air. We lost more crews to avalanches than you can shake a stick at.”

  Slocum dropped his hammer, then backtracked, his stride long and gliding as he kept hunched over. He reached the chamber and grabbed his canteen, then paused. From the drift where Thompson and Bowden had gone he heard a commotion. Before he could figure out what the men were doing, it stopped. Slocum shrugged off the echoes; his ears still played tricks on him, even after being underground for so long. Vibrations moved through rock and down drifts and up stopes in ways his tracking skills told him were impossible. Despite what Billy said, Slocum wouldn’t mind seeing the open ranges and tall mountains again, rather than the confined spaces of a gold mine.

  Slocum hurried back to where Billy stood studying the wall.

  “Thompson’s marked where he thinks we ought to drill,” Billy said. “You reckon these are good places?”

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Slocum said. He examined the four spots where Thompson had drawn chalk marks, then shrugged. “As good as anyplace, though if we moved this hole over about eight inches it might blast through the rock better.” Slocum traced out the strata showing harder segments.

  “You’ve got the touch, too, Slocum,” Billy said. “Let’s start there. I don’t think Thompson would mind. He’s—”

  The explosion that rumbled through the mine knocked both men to the ground. Slocum’s carbide lamp went flying, spilling the water and the calcium carbide pellets to the ground. They sizzled and hissed, but Slocum couldn’t hear them. The explosion had deafened him. He fumbled around, lost his balance, and sat heavily. His head spun, and getting his feet under him proved impossible.

  He had felt this way before. Sudden shocks caused his balance to gallop away whenever he went deaf. Slocum propped himself up against the wall and let the dizziness pass. He looked around the gloom and saw Billy fumbling to get a miner’s candle lit. Several strikes of a lucifer finally ignited the wick and cast a yellow light around.

  “What happened?” the young miner said.

  Slocum saw Billy’s lips moving but knew he heard less than he guessed.

  “Explosion,” Slocum shouted. “We don’t have any powder, so it must have been either Thompson or the magazine.”

  “We’d be goners if the magazine had blowed,” Billy said.

  A buzzing sound began to invade Slocum’s skull, and slowly his normal hearing returned. He got to his feet and stumbled along behind the miner as they made their way to the chamber where they had split with Thompson and Bowden. Every step took Slocum through thicker clouds of dust until he was choking. He pulled off his bandanna and slung it over his nose and mouth, as if he were enduring a West Texas sandstorm. His eyes watered, but he kept Billy’s flickering candle in sight. Even so, he crashed into the young man when he stopped suddenly.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Billy said. “The entire drift where Thompson was blasting is gone. The whole level might collapse.”

  “We can’t leave him and Bowden,” Slocum said. He took the candle and went to the mouth of the tunnel. Holding the light high let him see how the roof had collapsed. “There’s room enough for me to get through.”

  “There might be damp, Slocum. You could blow yerself up like they did.”

  Slocum knew “damp” was a constant concern. The explosive gas might be released at any time from reservoirs trapped in the rock. It was deadly to breathe and worse if an explosion opened a pocket.

  “Then you hold the candle,” Slocum said, handing it back to Billy.

  “Hell, man, you can’t go into that without light. You wouldn’t know if there was a pit opened up in front of you.”

  “Then give me your miner’s lamp.”

  “That can be as bad as open flame. Oh, hell, you’re bound and determined, ain’t you, Slocum?” Billy handed over his carbide lamp. Slocum settled the sweat-stained leather band around his forehead, then began scrambling to get past the rockfall.

  He found a level area just beyond. And no gaping cavity intent on swallowing him alive. He made good speed through the clogged, dusty drift and then stopped dead in his tracks when he saw boots ahead sticking out from under a segment of fallen roof.

  “Bowden,” Slocum called. He tugged on the boots, and the legs came free. Sharp stone had severed them at the knees. Slocum swallowed hard and shined his light around, fearing what he would find next.

  A bloody, broken hand thrust out from under the same rock that had killed Bowden. Slocum recognized the hand as Thompson’s. He began scraping away debris, but there was no point. The powderman had been crushed like a bug.

  Slocum was loath to pull on the hand because he feared the result would be the same as tugging on Bowden’s boots. But he saw something bright and shiny clenched in the hand. He pried it open and saw a silver Mexican concha.

  He held it up and looked at it, wondering where it had come from. Thompson didn’t strike him as the sort to go in for such finery, even if could have afforded it.

  “Slocum, you all right?”

  “I found them,” he called. “Both Thompson and Bowden are dead.”

  “Then get out of there. The elevator’s gonna take us up. Miles is worried about the whole level collapsin’.”

  “Fancy that,” Slocum said. “The foreman actually worried about losing a couple more miners.”

  “Who knows? He might have to pay for the tombstones. Now get out of there.”

  Slocum tucked the concha into his pocket and wormed his way through the tight fit that got him back to where Billy stood. Three other miners looked on, their expressions telling what they felt and thought of Thompson and Bowden getting killed. They weren’t men inclined to tears, but Slocum saw how close they came to bawling.

  “Next stop, fresh air,” Billy said, taking Slocum’s arm and hurrying him along. “You sure both Thompson and Bowden are goners?”

  “Caught under a rock that fell from the roof,” Slocum said. “They never had a chance.”

  “Damn, but it hurts to lose them. Especially Thompson. He was a good man.” Billy then clamped his mouth shut, looked at the rock moving slowly past as they were carried to the surface, and didn’t say another word.

  They reached the surface and stepped out into a drizzling rain. Slocum couldn’t have picked more appropriate weather. It matched his gray mood.

  “Hey, you, Slocum, isn’t it? Come on over here,” bellowed Lucas Miles. The foreman stood under a canvas canopy with his two assistants.

  “You going to dig them out?” Slocum asked.

  “What? Oh, you mean the dead miners? Do you think it’s worth our time?”

  “They deserve more than being left down there for the worms,” Slocum said. “Besides, Thompson thought that drift was most likely where the vein of gold had meandered to from the main diggings.”

  “Then we open it back up. Herk and Singer will see to it, but they don’t know blasting. You do, don’t you, Slocum?”

  Slocum only nodded. He was eyeing Herk closer. The man had his hat pushed back so his forehead shone in the light from a lamp on a table nearby, but an occasional glint caught Slocum’s eye like a raven spying a gewgaw.

  “Whatcha starin’ at?” the hulking man said. Herk pulled his hat back down, exposing the hatband.

  “You get that hat in Mexico?” Slocum asked.

  “Took it off a dead Mexican,” Herk said.

  “I like the silver work on the band, though you’re missing a concha.”

  “The hell you say!” Herk yanked off his hat and turned it around. “I never noticed. Musta lost it recently. I had it this morning.”

  “Maybe you lost it in the mine,” Slocum said. He fingered the matching silver concha in his pocket.

  “Yeah, might—”

  “Herk’s not been down in the mine,” Miles said.

  “Sure he was,” Slocum said in a level tone. “When you accused Bowden of stealing nuggets.”

  “Yeah, right, but that don’t matter now. Look, Slocum, Thompson said some good things about you and said you knew your way around explosives. That so?” Miles fixed a cold stare on him that Slocum returned.