He tightened his jaw and shook his head.
Doc swallowed hard.
B. J. Stone stood on the edge, knowing he ought to do something, but not knowing what.
Ruth Lillian arrived at Matthew's side. 'Give me the gun, Matthew.'
'You'd best get out of the way, ma'am.'
'No, I won't get out of the way. Now give me the gun.'
Matthew shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.
'Here, Matthew, use my handkerchief. Your cheek's bleeding.'
He slapped her hand away. 'Get away from me, goddamn you! Just… get away!' His eyes searched hers desperately. 'Leave me alone! Don't make me… Please… please… please!' A long, thin moan of soul-pain escaped him, and he lowered the gun. B. J. stepped forward and took it from his slack grip as, with a whoop, the miners surged past them on their way to hot baths, tepid rotgut, and sizzling poontang! Boy-oh-boy! Look out, girls, here I come! They were momentarily surprised to hear the insistent tooting of the narrow-gauge train as it returned to town, backing up the line, pulling a cone of headlamp-lit snowfall behind it. What the hell…? But the miners weren't going to let anything stand in the way of their few hours of well-deserved fun. 'That kid's nuttier'n a fruitcake! You remember ol' Mule? The fella who used to do odd jobs before he went around the bend? That kid's just like ol' Mule!'
Matthew stood at the edge of the cliff between Ruth Lillian and B. J., the outlines of the westward mountains just visible through the falling snow. Grunting with the effort, B. J. flung the shotgun out into the swirling void.
Matthew hung his head and let go, just… let go and slipped deep into the delicious calm of the Other Place, where he remained forever after.
Holding his hand, Ruth Lillian led him upstream against the flow of jostling, laughing miners, bringing him through the snow to the Mercantile, where her father awaited them.
February, 1998
St. Etienne de Baпgorry
WHEN I FINISHED READING Mr. Pedersen's manuscript of recollections of Twenty-Mile, I thanked him and, after another cup of coffee, I pushed on west, putting what I already called the 'Twenty-Mile Tale' on the back burner, where it would simmer for much longer than I anticipated.
But I returned to Wyoming now and again to sip Mr. Pedersen's rye and listen to his stories, stories that I would amplify with research in the 'living heritage' section of the archives of Cheyenne's Historical Society, where I found memoirs of train engineers, bank clerks, miners, prison guards, frontier journalists… all sorts of people, many of them written by widows eager to give significance to the lives of departed husbands. I emptied filing boxes and pored over those shards and orts of the living past that can animate a writer's fancy: newspaper accounts, legal documents, municipal registers, memoirs, bills and records from stores, banks, railroad ticket offices.
I also went to see what is left of Tie Siding: a few foundation stones barely visible in the red earth, the roofless ruin of the old stone jail, a grave surrounded by a weathered, frequently vandalized fence. And several times I made the hard climb up to Twenty-Mile, where I would sit near the edge of the cliff, looking out toward the westward hills as I let the characters of my someday novel play out their encounters in my imagination.
During my last visit I was saddened to see how much Mr. Pedersen had faded and diminished. But then, he was nearly ninety. After we finished breakfast, he gave me his manuscript tied up in brown wrapping paper.
'Here, take this with you.'
'You're sure?'
'I'm sure.'
He died that winter.
Years passed as other work occupied my time and mind; then, not long ago, it occurred to me that the centenary of the incidents at Twenty-Mile was approaching, so I decided the time had come to write my only book in the Western genre, giving a new twist to the Western's conventional characters: the 'kid,' the tubercular gambler, the heart-o'-gold dance-hall gals, the philosophic shopkeeper, the frontier preacher, the 'prairie rose' heroine, the embittered outsider, the outlaw who descends on the town like a biblical plague.
While the rudimentary narrative architecture and the psychological simplifications of the Western left ample room for those story/message shell games expected by Trevanian readers, I found the genre's insistence upon a quick wrap-up constricting because I yearned to answer such questions as: Why was the ore train backing up the track to Twenty-Mile while Ruth Lillian was leading Matthew home against the flow of the fun-seeking miners? And why did Twenty-Mile become a ghost town within two days of that event? And what became of Ruth Lillian, B. J. Stone, Kersti, Frenchy, Mr. Kane, Reverend Hibbard, and the rest?
Take the case of the ore train. You will recall how it came backing up the hill into town, the excited scream of its whistle ignored by the miners pressing down the street in pursuit of hot baths, rotgut, and poontang. The train had traveled about three miles down the line from Twenty-Mile when the driver's eyes suddenly widened in alarm. He snatched down the break lever that locked the wheels in a skidding, spark-spraying stop that left the cow- catcher hanging over an abyss created when a huge plate of rock fell into the ravine during the storm. (Remember that strange splitting sound from lower down on the mountain that interrupted Matthew's account of his pa's constant bad luck, and made Coots's neck muscles flinch as he pressed against the wall beneath the kitchen window of the Traveller's Welcome?) Through the swirling snowflakes, the train's feeble kerosene headlamp had picked out some twenty yards of twisted track suspended over the gap, its wooden ties no longer supporting the steel rails, but dangling from them. His trembling hand on the steam cock, the engineer backed off as slowly as he could, but the vibration caused the threads of steel to torque and fall into the ravine as the train backed up to Twenty-Mile, where it arrived with its whistle shrieking to alert everyone to the fact that the track was cut. Only a few miners delayed their pleasure long enough to find out what the hell all the ruckus was about, but the news spread quickly, and both miners and townsfolk assembled in the Traveller's Welcome to decide what to do, while outside the falling snow thickened to plump flakes that fluttered down so densely that Ruth Lillian, staring dully out her window, had the sensation that she was rising into the heavens.
The miners' first reaction to learning that they were cut off from the world was a raucous cheer at the prospect of an enforced holiday, but there were anxious mutterings from those townsfolk who feared an interruption in their profits, should the Surprise Lode be obliged to close down for any time. The meeting began in an unruly fashion with laughter and catcalls and hoots, but this ochlocratic chaos gave way to more-serious discussion after Doc was unanimously chosen to represent the interests of the miners and B. J. Stone was grudgingly selected to represent those of the townsfolk, leaving the rest of the assemblage to return to the business of consuming and providing fun.
B. J. and Doc decided that the train should go back up to the Lode to pick up the maintenance crew, and on its return it should bring back all remaining stocks of food. Doc suggested that everyone should then sit tight in Twenty-Mile while a couple of the hardiest miners tried to work their way down to Destiny, using the steep, dangerous old trail that had been opened during the blasting of the railroad cut. But B. J. couldn't see the logic in that. The people down in Destiny already knew something was wrong when the train didn't come in, but what could they do? The difference in gauge between the main line and their mountain spur prevented any engine from coming to their rescue. And anyway, how could it cross the gap caused by the infall of the rock face? No, the plain fact was that everyone, townsfolk and miners alike, would have to make it down the old trail, which was at this minute filling with snow. Doc asked how long B. J. thought it would take them to get down, and B. J. shrugged. If the trail hadn't suffered too much decay and erosion over the years, and if the snow wasn't too thick, the strongest of the miners could make it in… oh, maybe a day and a half? They'd have to bivouac at nightfall, because trying to work their way down in the dark would be suicidal. 'And what about those who ain't all that hardy?' Doc asked. 'What about the women and the…'
'The old turds?' B. J. asked, saving Doc the embarrassment. 'Well, the women are probably tougher than most of the men. And we old turds will just have to do the best we can.'
They decided that the next day, Sunday, should be spent organizing the descent, which would start with first light on Monday, the strongest men going first to break a path through the snow.
Some miners chose to return to the Surprise Lode to pick up their possessions, but most entrusted their bindles to friends while they stayed down in town to continue their hell-raising.
Up at the Lode, everything useful (and much that was not) was crammed into gondolas or loaded onto
