Jasper Mountain (5 page)

L
ittle by little Milena moved away, always one small move so not to wake the lumbering beast. First, she pulled her arm to her side, and waited until his breathing returned to even. Next, she pulled her hair out from under his head. Again, she waited.

Rolf snorted and rolled onto his back. She sat up. His mouth dropped open and a horrible rattling began. She crawled out of the tent on her hands and knees, each movement painstakingly cautious. Finally outside, fresh night air greeted her as she stood. She filled her lungs and tasted freedom.

The moon watched, full and close. Light spilled over the slumbering camp, painting the landscape in shades of gray. She dare not stop for any supplies or even a horse. She crept past the tents of the party, filled with those who did not help her but leeringly informed her of the law of the land. Informed her she was lucky.

Lucky.

Once she was sure they wouldn’t hear, Milena broke into a run and her feet pounded the ground, beating a cadence to jolt up her legs and hammer through her chest. Or perhaps it was an echo of fear. She ran. Fast. Her heart thundered even faster.

When he woke to discover her missing, nothing would stop Rolf from coming after her. She yanked her skirts up and ran faster, gulping in air thick with grit. She ran endlessly, for hours it seemed. Her breath came with more difficulty. Her legs ached, but she refused to stop. She would have no other chance to escape him. Running was her only hope.

The mountain named Jasper rose ahead. A sacred place. The Ancient One called her now, the promise and magic of the mountain pulling her. What she left behind urged her forward. She ran, propelled by fear and anger at them all. The Dim Swede. The party. Perhaps, even Baba. And most certainly, at herself. She’d been as strong as she could, and still it wasn’t enough to survive on her own terms. So now she ran, finally, on her own terms.

Her head hit the ground before she knew she fell. Her jaw stung with the impact. She stayed for a moment facedown in surrender. Despite her precautions, somehow, he’d still heard and followed. She rolled over to face him.

A full moon hung heavy in the sky, its glow softened by a veil of blowing earth. Nothing else. No one else. Relieved and confused, Milena sat up. Someone had stopped her. Yet, she was alone.

Perhaps not, she thought.

“Shuv’hani?”
she whispered against the howl of the wind, calling upon the soul of her grandmother who in life was a mystic wise woman. The shroud between the realities did not hinder a
shuv’hani,
and Milena sensed her grandmother watching over her from the Otherworld. Or was her feeling just hope, longing?

“Shuv’hani?”
Milena asked again. “Help me. Please. I am lost.” She gasped in and heard her own sob. No. She brushed gritty tears from her face.

Milena.

She leapt to her feet and scanned the landscape. A vast, solid darkness loomed like a fortress before her, the start of the mountain range.
Milena.

She regarded the path behind her, the way back, where she’d left the small party of settlers, along with an endless land of dust and dead branches. Her father’s grave. And the Dim Swede. There was nothing there for her.

She turned her back on her past for good. Moonlight poured over the mountains, rimming them in shades of silver. Sitting high above the range, Jasper Mountain towered over the land, a giant that broke through the ground to reach for the heavens. The Ancient One watched her. Called her.

Even at this late hour, lamps of the town glittered like jewels in the sky. A
maje,
a vision. Civilization. A place where she could survive. She closed her eyes and bent her head in prayer.
“Mi Duvvel opral, dik oprè mande.”
My God above, look down upon me.

Milena opened her eyes and ran toward the range with her spoken prayer and a reminder of her strength.

After all, she had a mountain to climb.

Hours passed, and although she trembled with exhaustion, she did not stop. Finally, she met the start of the mountain range, and every step up meant one more away from him. She left the safety of the trail behind, determined he not have a chance to find her. She traveled on instinct. Faith. The higher she climbed, the cooler the night. Fresh air, finally devoid of sand and dust, blew around her. She filled her lungs. Freedom tasted sweet.

A boulder the size of a house thrust up from the land with no way around it. Milena felt around in the dark until she found places to hold, and she hoisted herself up. Once she crested the huge rock, she scrambled on her hands and knees.

A meadow stretched before her, silver grass and trees, all still.

All silent. A small lake reflected moonlight. Ancient ones from the Otherworld walked here. They swirled, watching her, curious to be interrupted. She bowed her head and whispered a request for permission to touch such sacred ground. The moonlight brushed across the land, claiming it for her own. The Pass of the Moon. Milena felt the magic of almost touching the heavens from this great height. The Moon comforted her, a faithful and constant friend who kept watch over her on this journey.

She rose to her feet, lifted her shawl above her head, and spun around, gathering the Old Magic to her. She hugged her shawl back around her shoulders and walked to the border of the sacred place. A great void whispered to her from the blackness beyond.

She tossed her hair back and lifted her face, listening with more than her ears. Spirits rustled though the twisted trees guarding the pass, and they brought with them a taste of the
tacho Romano drom
—the true Romani path.

“Shuv’hani?
Please. Guide me.” Holding her hands out over the dark void, palms up in asking, she requested for the Old Magic to mend her broken heart and heal her soul. She promised to stay true to her path.

A sound of whispering wove with the wind and sang out, its harmony laced with the strength of wisdom. The song rushed up the mountain and blew over her. She resonated like the string of a mandolin with the music of the ancients.

The voices sang past her and up, up. Up to Jasper. On this night of answered prayer, her path was clear, her courage, once again whole.

She stood upon the edge of rock and lifted her shawl above her head. The wind whipped it about, and she let it go. The shawl sailed in the moonlight, across the black void, twisting and flying like a ghost on the wind.

Then it was gone.

“How far down are we planning to go?” Digger asked.

“This is the last tunnel. I want to be sure,” Jack answered. Despite reason telling him Tom would never be down in the abandoned section, Jack was determined to search every inch. He owed that much to Tom, and more.

The mine was divided into two sections, working tunnels and the abandoned ones below. Teams searched the upper region of the mine while Jory had ordered Jack and Digger to search the lower passages. They were scheduled to be filled in next month, just like the first ones were years ago. The process of filling in abandoned tunnels was imperative to stabilize the mine, otherwise, a collapse might happen; a scenario no one wanted.

Jack crawled through the bent passageway until he reached the stope, a jagged cave at the spot where miners extracted the ore. He slid over the edge, his legs dangling. Holding his lantern high, he jumped, landed on his heels, and fell on his butt. Candle wax splashed over his hand.

“Ouch! Goddamn it!”

At least the light didn’t go out. He lifted his lantern and stared into a gaping hole. A tunnel that shouldn’t be there. Damned if he didn’t feel like he looked down the huge maw of a creature patiently waiting for its next feeding. Light illuminated only a few feet in. Shadows wavered and whispers fluttered out and past him, as if ghosts spoke secrets in the dark. Empty tunnels played all kinds of tricks on a man’s mind.

Digger dropped beside him. “Ain’t no way he’d be down here. Even if he did get hurt and was mixed up and crazy in his head. ‘Sides, how could he get down this far? I’m in my prime of health, and I barely made it.” He eyed the passage warily. “Hey, Jack? Weren’t this tunnel supposed to be filled by now?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Dig, listen. You go back up. I’ll search this one, just to be sure.”

Digger shook his head. “Lead on. We come this far together.”

“You wouldn’t be so far down here if you chose your friends with bit more discretion,” Jack said, half teasing, half meaning it. Jory always gave Jack the dirty work.

“Well, you got one thing right. I’m the one to pick who I share my whiskey with. No one else. Besides,” Digger continued, “whoever said I was your friend?” In the murky glimmer of candlelight, his grin flashed white in his dirt-darkened face.

Jack snickered and crawled up and into the slanted space, thankful for Digger’s humor and praying he’d get to share a laugh with Tom again. Once the passage opened up, Jack reverted to his hunched-over miner’s walk. He kept the lantern raised high.

“Tom!” Digger called. “Tom!”

A litany of airy echoes reverberated down the tunnel. “Tom! Tom! Tom!”

No wonder miners believed the tunnels were haunted. Not only did they twist through the dark and stretch on, seemingly endless, but men had died down here. Since Jack began working at the mine eight months ago, seven men had lost their lives deep within the mountain. Most not in easy ways. Panic for Tom rose. Jack pushed it down. Keeping his head would serve Tom best.

He got an uneasy feeling on the back of his neck again.

“Hey, Jack, stop.”

He hunched over to the side, his back against the rock wall rather than exposed to the endless black and whatever else might be down here.

“Ain’t this the tunnel where Eli got crushed?” Digger asked in hushed tones.

One of the worst things Jack had ever seen, and it happened when he’d been mining for only a week. An ore car broke loose, lost control, and smashed into the unlucky miner in its path, partially severing his leg. Jack did his best to stop the bleeding. They tried to get Eli up top, but he died on the floor of Tunnel Number Six.

Jack still smelled the coppery richness of lifeblood mixing with dust. Or was it just the stench of the mine? God, he hated this place. “Yeah, Dig, I think you’re right.”

Digger bowed his head and shut his eyes. “Lord, have mercy on your soul, Eli. Help us find Tom. Amen,” he whispered.

“Amen,” Jack said, resuming his troll-walk.

“Tom! Tom!” Jack called, feeling the emptiness as Tom’s name repeated back at him in an eerie rendition of his own voice. He hoped he’d find the man alive and well or, at least, not hurt too badly. He sure didn’t want to send word back to Nebraska of anything else.

The air down here felt colder, darker. Dank. Dead. Shadows danced at the edge of vision. He willed himself to relax. They were only shadows, images cast by flickering lamplight. Nothing more. This tunnel wasn’t going to get the best of Jack Buchanan. He hoped.

The main shaft couldn’t be too much farther ahead. A cold breeze blew past. Their lanterns and hat candles all blinked out. Jack’s throat closed.

“Jack?”

“Hang on, I got a Lucifer.” Using the term sent a fresh set of chills through him. “I mean match.” Setting his lantern down, Jack fumbled in his pockets with trembling hands and peered into dark that was more than dark; a complete absence of light. A void.

When he struck the match, relief sprang into existence along with glowing light. He relit his lantern, took off his hat, lit the candle, and passed it to Digger. Jack’s hands clutched the rim of his hardboil.

Digger lit his lantern. “You think that mighta been Eli? Or Tom?”

“That’s foolishness, Dig.”

“Is it? Foolish as a cold gust of wind this deep in the earth?” He handed the candle back to Jack, who fastened it back to his hat.

“Hang on, Dig. I think we’re just about to the main shaft.”

When they arrived there, sadness replaced Jack’s moment of relief. These lower tunnels were probably their only hope, and they’d searched every one.

Tom Gallagher was still missing without a trace.

“Where is everybody?” Jack asked the small handful of men gathered at the entrance to the mine. At the time Jack and Digger descended, men were busily scouring every inch of mining property, searching for Tom. Mining operations were on hold and the night shift had joined in the search. Now only a few miners remained, huddled in a pool of lantern light by the gate.