White Fire

53

The group of miners walked down the dirt main street of town, casually and without hurry, until they reached the far end, where settlement ceased and the forests mounted upward into the mountains. It was a moonless night. The scent of wood fires was in the air, and in the nearby corrals, horses were moving restlessly about. Silently, the group lit their lanterns and proceeded along a rough mining road, which made its way by switchbacks up, and then farther up, passing beneath the dark fir trees.

The night was cool and the sky was pricked with stars. A lone wolf howled somewhere in the great bowl of mountains, quickly answered by another. As the men gained altitude, the fir trees grew smaller, shorter, twisted into grotesque shapes by incessant winds and deep snows. Gradually the trees thinned out into matted thickets of krummholz, and then the cart path broached the tree line.

In his mind, Pendergast followed the group.

The line of yellow lanterns advanced up the barren, rock-strewn slopes approaching Smuggler’s Cirque. They were now entering a recently abandoned mining zone, and around the men appeared ghostly tailings, like pyramids, spilling down the sides of the ridge, the gaping holes of the mines above, punctuated by rickety ore chutes, trestles, sluice boxes, and flumes.

Looming in the darkness to the right was an immense wooden structure, set into the flat declivity at the base of Smuggler’s Cirque: the main entrance to the famed Sally Goodin Mine, still in operation now, in the early fall of 1876. The building housed the machines and pulley works used to raise and lower the cages and buckets; it also enclosed the two-hundred-ton Ireland Pump Engine, capable of pumping over a thousand gallons per minute, used to dewater the mine complex.

Now all the lanterns went out but one: a red-glass lamp that cast a bloody gleam in the murky night. The cart path divided into many winding tracks cut into the hillsides rising above the cirque. Their objective lay above, the highest of the abandoned tunnels high on the slope known as Smuggler’s Wall, situated at an altitude close to thirteen thousand feet. A single track led in that direction, carved by hand out of the scree, switchbacking sharply as it climbed. It came over a ridge and skirted a small glacial tarn, the water black and still, its shore dotted with rusted pumping machinery and old flume gates.

Still the group of seven men climbed upward. Now the dark, square hole of the Christmas Mine became visible in the faint starlight against the upper scree slope. A trestle ran from the hole, and below it stood a tailings pile of lighter color. A jumble of wrecked machinery was strewn about the slope below.

The group paused, and Pendergast heard a low murmur of voices. And then they silently divided. One man made his way up, hiding among boulders above the entrance. A second took up a covered position among the scree just below the entrance.

Lookouts in place, the rest — four men led by Cropsey, now holding the lantern himself — entered the abandoned tunnel. Pendergast followed. The shutter on the red lamp was adjusted to produce only the faintest glow. Arms at the ready, the men walked single-file along the iron rails leading into the tunnel, making no noise. One carried a torch of pitch, ready to be lit.

As they proceeded, a smell came toward them, a smell that became ever more awful in the hot, moist, stifling atmosphere.

The Christmas Mine tunnel opened into a crosscut: a horizontal tunnel driven at right angles to the main tunnel. The group paused before the crosscut and readied their weapons. The torch was lowered, a match was struck, and the pitch set afire. In that moment, the men rounded the corner, weapons aimed down the tunnel. The smell was now almost overwhelming.

Silence. The flickering flames disclosed something in the darkness at the end of the tunnel. The group cautiously moved forward. It was an irregular, lumpy shape. When they drew close, the men saw that it was a heap of soft things: rotting burlap, old gunnysacks, leaves and pine needles, chunks of moss. Mingled into the material were pieces of gnawed bone, broken skulls, and strips of what looked like dried rawhide.

Skin. Hairless skin.

All around the heap lay a broad ring of human feces.

One of the men spoke hoarsely. “What…is this?”

The question was initially answered with silence. Finally, one of the others replied. “It’s an animal den.”

“It ain’t animal,” said Cropsey.

“God Almighty.”

“Where are they?”

Now their voices were rising, echoing, as fear and uncertainty began to set in.

“The bastards must be out. Killing.”

The torch sputtered and burned as their voices rose, discussing what to do. The guns were put away. There was disagreement, conflict.

Suddenly Cropsey held up his hand. The others fell silent, listening. There were sounds of shuffling, along with guttural, animalistic breathing. The noises stopped. Quickly the man carrying the torch doused it in a puddle of water, while Cropsey shut the lantern down. But now all was deathly silent: it seemed likely the killers had seen the light or heard their voices — and knew they were here.

“Give us some light, for Jesus’s sake,” whispered one of the men, his voice tight with anxiety.

Cropsey opened the lantern a fraction. The others were crouching, rifles and pistols at the ready. The dim glow barely penetrated the gloom.

“More light,” someone said.

The lantern now threw light to the edge of the cross tunnel. All was silent. They waited, but nothing came around the corner. Nor were there sounds of flight.

“We go get ’em,” Cropsey announced. “Afore they get away.”

No one moved. Finally Cropsey himself began stalking forward. The others followed. He crept to the crosscut. The rest waited behind. Holding up the lantern, he paused, crouched, then suddenly swung around the corner, wielding the rifle like a pistol in one hand, the lantern in the other. “Now!”

It happened with incredible speed. A flash of something darting forward; a gargling scream; and then Cropsey spun around, dropping his rifle and writhing in agony. A naked, filthy man was astride his back, tearing at his throat, more like a beast than a human being. None of the other four could fire; the combatants were too close together. Cropsey screamed again, staggering about, trying to shake off the man who tore at him with nails and teeth, ripping away anything he could reach: ears, lips, nose; there was a sudden spurt of arterial blood from the neck and Cropsey went down, the monster still on top of him, the lantern falling to the ground and shattering.

Simultaneously, as with a single mind, the other four began to shoot, aiming wildly into the darkness. From the muzzle flashes more figures could be seen, bellowing like bulls, running toward them from around the corner of the crosscut, a melee amid the wild eruption of gunfire. The two lookouts came charging down the tunnel, aroused by the din, and joined in with their own weapons. The guns roared again and again, the flashes of light blooming within clouds of ugly gray smoke — and then all went silent. For a moment, there was only darkness. Then came the sound of a match, scraping against rock; another lantern was lit — and its feeble light illuminated a splay of corpses, the four cannibals now just ruined bodies scattered about the tunnel, taken apart by heavy-caliber bullets, lying like so much ropy waste atop the sundered carcass of Shadrach Cropsey.

It was over.

Fifteen minutes later, Pendergast opened his eyes. The room was cool and quiet. He rose, brushed off his black suit, bundled himself up, and let himself out the back door of the saloon. The storm was in full blast, the fury of it thundering down Main Street and shaking the Christmas decorations like so many cobwebs. Bundling his coat around himself, wrapping his scarf tighter, and lowering his head against the wind, he made his way through the storm-shaken town back to his hotel.