“I don’t know how to process it all. Everything we’ve been through tonight.”
Lawrence hollered through the chamber, “Quinn! Come in here! Have you seen this? We found Abandon! They’re all in here!” Lawrence tapped his headlamp. “Damn, my light’s dying. Walk with me back to the entrance, Abby.”
They crossed the uneven rock, working their way among the skeletons.
“There he is,” Lawrence said, pointing to the bulb of light thirty feet ahead. “Hey, professor, you really need to come in here, see all the bones.”
When Abigail’s headlamp struck Quinn, he was zipping his backpack.
He glanced up at them, said, “I hope it’s enough, Lawrence.”
“What? The gold? Of course, eighteen million is plenty for every—”
“I’m not talking about the gold.” Quinn shouldered the sagging backpack. “I mean knowing what happened to the town. You spent a good part of your life trying to solve that mystery, and I want you to know I sincerely hope it’s a good consolation.”
“For what?”
Quinn stepped into the passage. The door to the mine slammed shut in a thunderous concussion of metal on metal, and its echo seemed to last forever. Then came a sound Abigail had already heard once before—the squeak of that rusted bolt sliding home inside the iron door, then the crossbar dropping into the brackets, then that giant padlock locking back.
1893
FIFTY-EIGHT
Gloria and Rosalyn sat against the rock wall, holding each other and listening to the burgeoning chaos near the iron door, where twenty armed men had gathered after hearing gunshots in the passage. But that had been some time ago. The men were growing antsy.
Someone said, “Time we rain hell on some red niggers.”
“Preacher said to wait until—”
“And what if that fire escape’s already lost his hair? Considered that? Sounded like quite a powder-burnin contest out there.”
“Mason, get up here and bring the key with ye! We done waitin!”
Gloria watched the unassuming smith push his way through the cluster of miners, heading to the iron door.
“What’d you say?”
She couldn’t see Stetler, who was surrounded by the mob of taller men, but his voice rose above the bedlam, far deeper and louder than his size seemed to accord.
“Said we need the key to this door. I do believe that’s the only way to open it from inside.”
“You see a keyhole there, Will?”
“What are you talkin about?”
“Preacher asked for the key, and I give it to him. What’s it matter anyway? This door only opens from the outside.”
“The f**k you do that for?”
“He asked for it!”
“Jesus. He gets himself kilt, how we gonna get out?”
He suddenly fell over, his stomach flat against the floorboards.
Harriet thought he’d died, until he wept, softly at first, then outright sobbing, pounding the planks with his fists. Harriet had seen her daddy cry once before, but not like this. She’d never seen anyone in such soul-splitting anguish.
“Why?” The word exploded—guttural, ragged, raw. He screamed it three times, so loudly that Harriet thought it might shatter the glass of those tall south-facing windows. He got back onto his knees, and when he spoke again, Harriet had to strain to hear the words.
“You say You love truth. Well, here’s my truth. I don’t know who You are right now. I don’t understand how the Creator of love and mercy and compassion, the God who seared my heart in Charleston, can command His servant to lock a town into a mountain. Women! Children! How can a child give You such offense? Are You not the God I think You are? Of David? Of Christ? You are ultimate, whatever Your nature, but I need to know if I’ve been wrong about You. Correct my perception. You know I love You. That I chose a cimarron’s life in Your service, over a woman who still haunts my dreams. If You love me, Lord, if You love me at all, infuse me with a peace that passeth all understanding. Because I need it now. I’m in a bad way. This is my deepest trench, and I may not see the morning. Don’t draw back from me. I’ve destroyed myself for You, and I am so alone.”
He bowed his head, and as he cried, Stephen felt something graze his shoulder. He spun around and fell back, bristling with fear. A little girl stood before him in the darkening nave, her curls pitch-black and her eyes aching with hunger.