The Cross Cut
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Courtney Ryley Cooper >> The Cross Cut
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It was there before him--all about him--the black, heavy masses of
lead-silver ore, a great, heaping, five-ton pile of it where it had
been thrown out by the tremendous force of the explosion. It seemed
that the whole great floor of the cavern was covered with it, and the
workmen shouted with Fairchild as they seized bits of the precious
black stuff and held it to the light for closer examination.
"Look!" The voice of one of them was high and excited. "You can see
the fine streaks of silver sticking out! It's high-grade and plenty of
it!"
But Fairchild paid little attention. He was playing in the stuff,
throwing it in the air and letting it fall to the floor of the cavern
again, like a boy with a new sack of marbles, or a child with its
building blocks. Five tons and the night was not yet over! Five tons,
and the vein had not yet shown its other side!
Back to work they went now, six of the men drilling, Fairchild and the
other four mucking out the refuse, hauling it up the shaft, and then
turning to the ore that they might get it to the old, rotting bins and
into position for loading as soon as the owner of the Sampler could be
notified in the morning and the trucks could fight their way through
the snowdrifts of Kentucky Gulch to the mine for loading. Again
through the hours the drills bit into the rock walls, while the ore car
clattered along the tram line and while the creaking of the block and
tackle at the shaft seemed endless. In three days, approximately forty
tons of ore must come out of that mine,--and work must not cease.
Morning, and in spite of the sleep-laden eyes, the heavy aching in his
head, the tired drooping of the shoulders, Fairchild tramped to the
boarding house to notify Mother Howard and ask for news of Harry.
There had been none. Then he went on, to wait by the door of the
Sampler until Bittson, the owner, should appear, and drag him away up
the hill, even before he could open up for the morning.
"There it is!" he exclaimed, as he led him to the entrance of the
chamber. "There it is; take all you want of it and assay it!"
Bittson went forward into the cross-cut, where the men were drilling
even at new holes, and examined the vein. Already it was three feet
thick, and there was still ore ahead. One of the miners looked up.
"Just finishing up on the cross-cut," he announced, as he nodded toward
his drill. "I 've just bitten into the foot wall on the other side.
Looks to me like the vein 's about five feet thick--as near as I can
measure it."
"And--" Bittson picked up a few samples, examined them by the light of
the carbides and tossed them away--"you can see the silver sticking
out. I caught sight of a couple of pencil threads of it in one or two
of those samples. All right, Boy!" he turned to Fairchild. "What was
that bargain we made?"
"It was based on two hundred dollars a ton ore. This may run above--or
below. But whatever it is, I 'll sell you all you can handle for the
next three days at fifty dollars a ton under the assay price."
"You 've said the word. The trucks will be here in an hour if we have
to shovel a path all the way up Kentucky Gulch."
He hurried away then, while Fairchild and the men followed him into
town and to their breakfast. Then, recruiting a new gang on the
promise of payment at the end of their three-day shift, Fairchild went
back to the mine. But the word had spread, and others were there
before him.
Already a wide path showed up Kentucky Gulch. Already fifteen or
twenty miners were assembled about the opening of the Blue Poppy
tunnel, awaiting permission to enter, the usual rush upon a lucky mine
to view its riches. Behind him, Fairchild could see others coming from
Ohadi to take a look at the new strike, and his heart bounded with
happiness tinged with sorrow. Harry was not there to enjoy it all;
Harry was gone, and in spite of his every effort, Fairchild had failed
to find him.
All that morning they thronged down the shaft of the Blue Poppy. The
old method of locomotion grew too slow; willing hands repaired the
hoist and sent volunteers for a gasoline engine to run it, while in the
meantime officials of curiosity labored on the broken old ladder that
once had encompassed the distance from the bottom of the shaft to the
top, rehabilitating it to such an extent that it might be used again.
The drift was crowded with persons bearing candles and carbides. The
big chamber was filled, leaving barely room for the men to work with
their drills at the final holes that would be needed to clear the vein
to the foot wall on the other side and enable the miners to start
upward on their new stope. Fairchild looked about him proudly,
happily; it was his, his and Harry's--if Harry ever should come back
again--the thing he had worked for, the thing he had dreamed of,
planned for.
Some one brushed against him, and there came a slight tug at his coat.
Fairchild looked downward to see passing the form of Anita Richmond. A
moment later she looked toward him, but in her eyes there was no light
of recognition, nothing to indicate that she had just given him a
signal of greeting and congratulation. And yet Fairchild felt that she
had. Uneasily he walked away, following her with his eyes as she made
her way into the blackness of the tunnel and toward the shaft. Then,
absently, he put his hand into his pocket.
Something there caused his heart to halt momentarily,--a piece of
paper. He crumpled it in his hand, he rubbed his fingers over it
wonderingly; it had not been in his pocket before she had passed him.
Hurriedly he walked to the far side of the chamber and there,
pretending to examine a bit of ore, brought the missive from its place
of secretion, to unfold it with trembling fingers, then to stare at the
words which showed before him:
"Squint Rodaine is terribly worried about something. Has been on an
awful rampage all morning. Something critical is brewing, but I don't
know what. Suggest you keep watch on him. Please destroy this."
That was all. There was no signature. But Robert Fairchild had seen
the writing of Anita Richmond once before!
CHAPTER XXI
So she was his friend! So all these days of waiting had not been in
vain; all the cutting hopelessness of seeing her, only to have her turn
away her head and fail to recognize him, had been for their purpose
after all. And yet Fairchild remembered that she was engaged to
Maurice Rodaine, and that the time of the wedding must be fast
approaching. Perhaps there had been a quarrel, perhaps-- Then he
smiled. There was no perhaps about it! Anita Richmond was his friend;
she had been forced into the promise of marriage to Maurice Rodaine,
but she had not been forced into a relinquishment of her desire to
reward him somehow, some way, for the attention that he had shown her
and the liking that she knew existed in his heart.
Hastily Fairchild folded the paper and stuffed it into an inside
pocket. Then, seeking out one of the workmen, he appointed him foreman
of the gang, to take charge in his absence. Following which, he made
his way out of the mine and into town, there to hire men of Mother
Howard's suggestion and send them to the Blue Poppy, to take their
stations every few feet along the tunnel, to appear mere spectators,
but in reality to be guards who were constantly on the watch for
anything untoward that might occur. Fairchild was taking no chances
now. An hour more found him at the Sampler, watching the ore as it ran
through the great crusher hoppers, to come forth finely crumbled powder
and be sampled, ton by ton, for the assays by old Undertaker Chastine
and the three other men of his type, without which no sampler pays for
ore. Bittson approached, grinning.
"You guessed just about right," he announced. "That stuff 's running
right around two hundred dollars a ton. Need any money now?"
"All you can let me have!"
"Four or five hundred? We 've gotten in eight tons of that stuff
already; don't guess I 'd be taking any risk on that!" he chuckled.
Fairchild reached for the currency eagerly. All but a hundred dollars
of it would go to Mother Howard,--for that debt must be paid off first.
And, that accomplished, denying himself the invitation of rest that his
bed held forth for him, he started out into town, apparently to loiter
about the streets and receive the congratulations of the towns-people,
but in reality to watch for one person and one alone,--Squint Rodaine!
He saw him late in the afternoon, shambling along, his eyes glaring,
his lips moving wordlessly, and he took up the trail. But it led only
to the office of the Silver Queen Development Company, where the
scar-faced man doubled at his desk, and, stuffing a cigar into his
mouth, chewed on it angrily. Instinctively Fairchild knew that the
greatest part of his mean temper was due to the strike in the Blue
Poppy; instinctively also he felt that Squint Rodaine had known of the
value all along, that now he was cursing himself for the failure of his
schemes to obtain possession of what had appeared until only a day
before to be nothing more than a disappointing, unlucky, ill-omened
hole in the ground. Fairchild resumed his loitering, but evening found
him near the Silver Queen office.
Squint Rodaine did not leave for dinner. The light burned long in the
little room, far past the usual closing time and until after the
picture-show crowds had come and gone, while the man of the blue-white
scar remained at his desk, staring at papers, making row after row of
figures, and while outside, facing the chill and the cold of winter,
Fairchild trod the opposite side of the street, careful that no one
caught the import of his steady, sentry-like pace, yet equally careful
that he did not get beyond a range of vision where he could watch the
gleam of light from the office of the Silver Queen. Anita's note had
told him little, yet had implied much. Something was fermenting in the
seething brain of Squint Rodaine, and if the past counted for anything,
it was something that concerned him.
An hour more, then Fairchild suddenly slunk into the shadows of a
doorway. Squint had snapped out the light and was locking the door. A
moment later he had passed him, his form bent, his shoulders hunched
forward, his lips muttering some unintelligible jargon. Fifty feet
more, then Fairchild stepped from the doorway and took up the trail.
It was not a hard one to follow. The night wind had brought more snow
with it, to make a silent pad upon the sidewalks and to outline to
Fairchild more easily the figure which slouched before him. Gradually
Robert dropped farther and farther in the rear; it gave him that much
more protection, that much more surety in trailing his quarry to
wherever he might be bound.
And it was a certainty that the destination was not home. Squint
Rodaine passed the street leading to his house without even looking up.
Two blocks more, and they reached the city limits. But Squint kept on,
and far in the rear, watching carefully every move, Fairchild followed
his quarry's shadow.
A mile, and they were in the open country, crossing and recrossing the
ice-dotted Clear Creek. A furlong more, then Fairchild went to his
knees that he might use the snow for a better background. Squint
Rodaine had turned up the lane which led to a great, shambling, old,
white building that, in the rosy days of the mining game, had been a
roadhouse with its roulette wheels, its bar, its dining tables and its
champagne, but which now, barely furnished in only a few of its rooms,
inhabited by mountain rats and fluttering bats and general decay for
the most part, formed the uncomfortable abode of Crazy Laura!
And Fairchild followed. It could mean only one thing when Rodaine
sought the white-haired, mumbling old hag whom once he had called his
wife. It could mean but one outcome, and that of disaster for some
one. Mother Howard had said that Crazy Laura would kill for Squint.
Fairchild felt sure that once, at least, she had lied for him, so that
the name of Thornton Fairchild might be branded as that of a murderer
and that his son might be set down in the community as a person of
ill-intent and one not to be trusted. And now that Squint Rodaine was
seeking her once more, Fairchild meant to follow, and to hear--if such
a thing were within the range of human possibility--the evil drippings
of his crooked lips.
He crossed to the side of the road where ran the inevitable gully and
taking advantage of the shelter, hurried forward, smiling grimly in the
darkness at the memory of the fact that things were now reversed; that
he was following Squint Rodaine as Rodaine once had followed him.
Swiftly he moved, closer--closer; the scar-faced man went through the
tumble-down gate and approached the house, not knowing that his pursuer
was less than fifty yards away!
A moment of cautious waiting then, in which Fairchild did not move.
Finally a light showed in an upstairs room of the house, and Fairchild,
masking his own footprints in those made by Rodaine, crept to the
porch. Swiftly, silently, protected by the pad of snow on the soles of
his shoes, he made the doorway and softly tried the lock. It gave
beneath his pressure, and he glided within the dark hallway, musty and
dusty in its odor, forbidding, evil and dark. A mountain rat, already
disturbed by the entrance of Rodaine, scampered across his feet, and
Fairchild shrunk into a corner, hiding himself as best he could in case
the noise should cause an investigation from above. But it did not.
Now Fairchild could hear voices, and in a moment more they became
louder, as a door opened.
"It don't make any difference! I ain't going to stand for it! I tell
you to do something and you go and make a mess of it! Why did n't you
wait until they were both there?"
"I--I thought they were, Roady!" The woman's voice was whining,
pleading. "Ain't you going to kiss me?"
"No, I ain't going to kiss you. You went and made a mess of things."
"You kissed me the night our boy was born. Remember that, Roady?
Don't you remember how you kissed me then?"
"That was a long time ago, and you were a different woman then. You 'd
do what I 'd tell you."
"But I do now, Roady. Honest, I do. I 'll do anything you tell me
to--if you 'll just be good to me. Why don't you hold me in your arms
any more--?"
A scuffling sound came from above. Fairchild knew that she had made an
effort to clasp him to her, and that he had thrust her away. The
voices came closer.
"You know what you got us into, don't you? They made a strike there
to-day--same value as in the Silver Queen. If it had n't been for
you--"
"But they get out someway--they always get out." The voice was high
and weird now. "They 're immortal. That's what they are--they 're
immortal. They have the gift--they can get out--"
"Bosh! Course they get out when you wait until after they 're gone.
Why, one of 'em was downtown at the assayer's, so I understand, when
you went in there."
"But the other--he 's immortal. He got out--"
"You're crazy!"
"Yes, crazy!" She suddenly shrieked at the word. "That's what they
all call me--Crazy Laura. And you call me Crazy Laura too, when my
back 's turned. But I ain't--hear me--I ain't! I know--they're
immortal, just like the others were immortal! I can't hold 'em when
they 've got the spirit that rises above--I 've tried, ain't I--and I
've only got one!"
"One?" Squint's voice became suddenly excited. "One--what one?"
"I 'm not going to tell. But I know--Crazy Laura--that's what they
call me--and they give me a sulphur pillow to sleep on. But I know--I
know!"
There was silence then for a moment, and Fairchild, huddled in the
darkness below, felt the creeping, crawling chill of horror pass over
him as he listened. Above were a rogue and a lunatic, discussing
between them what, at times, seemed to concern him and his partner;
more, it seemed to go back to other days, when other men had worked the
Blue Poppy and met misfortunes. A bat fluttered about, just passing
his face, its vermin-covered wings sending the musty air close against
his cringing flesh. Far at the other side of the big hall a mountain
rat resumed its gnawing. Then it ceased. Squint Rodaine was talking
again.
"So you 're not going to tell me about 'the one', eh? What have you
got this door shut for?"
"No door 's shut."
"It is--don't you think I can see? This door leading into the front
room."
The sound of heavy shoes, followed by a lighter tread. Then a scream
above which could be heard the jangling of a rusty lock and the bumping
of a shoulder against wood. High and strident came Crazy Laura's voice:
"Stay out of there--I tell you, Roady! Stay out of there! It's
something that mortals should n't see--it's something--stay out--stay
out!"
"I won't--unlock this door!"
"I can't do it--the time has n't come yet--I must n't--"
"You won't--well, there 's another way." A crash, the sudden,
stumbling feet of a man, then the scratching of a match and an
exclamation: "So this is your immortal, eh?"
Only a moaning answered, moaning intermingled with some vague form of a
weird chant, the words of which Fairchild in the musty, dark hall below
could not distinguish. At last came Squint's voice again, this time in
softened tones:
"Laura--Laura, honey."
"Yes, Squint."
"Why did n't you tell your sweetheart about this?"
"I must n't--you 've spoiled it now, Roady."
"No--Honey. I can show you the way. He 's nearly gone. What were you
going to do when he went--?"
"He 'd have dissolved in air, Roady--I know. The spirits have told me."
"Perhaps so." The voice of the scar-faced, mean-visaged Squint Rodaine
was still honeyed, still cajoling. "Perhaps so--but not at once. Is
n't there a barrel of lime in the basement?"
"Yes."
"Come downstairs with me."
They started downward then, and Fairchild, creeping as swiftly as he
could, hurried under the protection of the rotten casing, where the
wainscoting had dropped away with the decay of years. There he watched
them pass, Rodaine in the lead, carrying a smoking lamp with its
half-broken chimney careening on the base. Crazy Laura, mumbling her
toothless gums, her hag-like hands extended before her, shuffling along
in the rear. He heard them go far to the rear of the house, then
descend more stairs. And he went flat to his stomach on the floor,
with his ear against a tiny chink that he might hear the better.
Squint still was talking in his loving tones.
"See, Honey," he was saying. "I 've--I 've broken the spell by going
in upstairs. You should have told me. I did n't know--I just
thought--well, I thought there was some one in there you liked, and I
got jealous."
"Did you, Roady?" She cackled. "Did you?"
"Yes--I did n't know you had _him_ there. And you were making him
immortal?"
"I found him, Roady. His eyes were shut, and he was bleeding. It was
at dusk, and nobody saw him when I carried him in here. Then I started
giving him the herbs--"
"That you 've gathered around at night?"
"Yes--where the dead sleep. I get the red berries most. That's the
blood of the dead, come to life again."
The quaking, crazy voice from below caused Fairchild to shiver with a
sudden cold that no warmth could eradicate. Still, however, he lay
there listening, fearful that every move from below might bring a
cessation of their conversation. But Rodaine talked on.
"Of course, I know. But I 've spoiled that now. There's another way,
Laura. Get that spade. See, the dirt's soft here. Dig a hole about
four feet deep and six or seven feet long. Then put half that lime
from the barrel in there. Understand?"
"What for?"
"It's the only way now; we 'll have to do that. It's the other way to
immortality. You 've given him the herbs?"
"Yes."
"Then this is the end. See? Now do that, won't you, Honey?"
"You'll kiss me, Roady?"
"There!" The faint sound of a kiss came from below. "And there's
another one. And another!"
"Just like the night our boy was born. Don't you remember how you bent
over and kissed me then and held me in your arms?"
"I 'm holding you that way now, Honey--just the same way that I held
you the night our boy was born. And I 'll help you with this. You dig
the hole and put half the lime in there--don't put it all. We 'll need
the rest to put on top of him. You 'll have it done in about two
hours. There 's something else needed--some acid that I 've got to
get. It 'll make it all the quicker. I 'll be back, Honey. Kiss me."
Fairchild, seeking to still the horror-laden quiver of his body, heard
the sound of a kiss and then the clatter of a man's heavy shoes on the
stairs, accompanied by a slight clink from below. He knew that
sound,--the scraping of the steel of a spade against the earth as it
was dragged into use. A moment more and Rodaine, mumbling to himself,
passed out the door. But the woman did not come upstairs. Fairchild
knew why: her crazed mind was following the instructions of the man who
knew how to lead the lunatic intellect into the channels he desired;
she was digging, digging a grave for some one, a grave to be lined with
quicklime!
Now she was talking again and chanting, but Fairchild did not attempt
to determine the meaning of it all. Upstairs was some one who had been
found by this woman in an unconscious state and evidently kept in that
condition through the potations of the ugly poison-laden drugs she
brewed,--some one who now was doomed to die and to lie in a quicklime
grave! Carefully Fairchild gained his feet; then, as silently as
possible, he made for the rickety stairs, stopping now and again to
listen for discovery from below. But it did not come; the insane woman
was chanting louder than ever now. Fairchild went on.
He felt his way up the remaining stairs, a rat scampering before him;
he sneaked along the wall, hands extended, groping for that broken
door, finally to find it. Cautiously he peered within, striving in
vain to pierce the darkness. At last, listening intently for the
singing from below, he drew a match from his pocket and scratched it
noiselessly on his trousers. Then, holding it high above his head, he
looked toward the bed--and stared in horror!
A blood-encrusted face showed on the slipless pillow, while across the
forehead was a jagged, red, untended wound. The mouth was open, the
breathing was heavy and labored. The form was quite still, the eyes
closed. And the face was that of Harry!
CHAPTER XXII
So this explained, after a fashion, Harry's disappearance. This
revealed why the search through the mountains had failed. This--
But Fairchild suddenly realized that now was not a time for
conjecturing upon the past. The man on the bed was unconscious,
incapable of helping himself. Far below, a white-haired woman, her
toothless jaws uttering one weird chant after another, was digging for
him a quicklime grave, in the insane belief that she was aiding in
accomplishing some miracle of immortality. In time--and Fairchild did
not know how long--an evil-visaged, scar-faced man would return to help
her carry the inert frame of the unconscious man below and bury it.
Nor could Fairchild tell from the conversation whether he even intended
to perform the merciful act of killing the poor, broken being before he
covered it with acids and quick-eating lime in a grave that soon would
remove all vestige of human identity forever. Certainly now was not a
time for thought; it was one for action!
And for caution. Instinct told Fairchild that for the present, at
least, Rodaine must believe that Harry had escaped unaided. There were
too many other things in which Robert felt sure Rodaine had played a
part, too many other mysterious happenings which must be met and coped
with, before the man of the blue-white scar could know that finally the
underling was beginning to show fight, that at last the crushed had
begun to rise. Fairchild bent and unlaced his shoes, taking off also
the heavy woolen socks which protected his feet from the biting cold.
Steeling himself to the ordeal which he must undergo, he tied the laces
together and slung the footgear over a shoulder. Then he went to the
bed.
As carefully as possible, he wrapped Harry in the blankets, seeking to
protect him in every way against the cold. With a great effort, he
lifted him, the sick man's frame huddled in his arms like some gigantic
baby, and started out of the eerie, darkened house.
The stairs--the landing--the hall! Then a query from below:
"Is that you, Roady?"
The breath pulled sharp into Fairchild's lungs. He answered in the
best imitation he could give of the voice of Squint Rodaine:
"Yes. Go on with your digging, Honey. I 'll be there soon."
"And you'll kiss me?"
"Yes. Just like I kissed you the night our boy was born."
It was sufficient. The chanting began again, accompanied by the swish
of the spade as it sank into the earth and the cludding roll of the
clods as they were thrown to one side. Fairchild gained the door. A
moment more and he staggered with his burden into the protecting
darkness of the night.
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