Abandon

FIFTY-FOUR

S

hadowgees had been placed every twenty feet on the wet, rocky floor, like luminarias for a subterranean party. Gloria hurried along the downward-sloping tunnel into the mountain, following the echo of voices in the darkness ahead.

The day hole narrowed, and she came at last to a small iron door built into the rock. A man she recognized as the Godsend’s assayer manned the entrance, and he offered his hand, escorting her through.

“You can head on over that way with the others, ma’am, and do watch your step on this uneven rock.”

Lanterns and candles and more shadowgees illuminated the rock in firelight, and as she passed into the main chamber, the whole of Abandon overwhelmed her in a hundred-strong chorus of weeping and shouting and voices in varying strains of panic—bawling, terrified children; mothers and fathers trying to comfort them, many failing to hold back their own tears; a handful of men barking orders, attempting to manage the chaos; huddles of roostered miners, cursing whatever breed of heathen dare descend into their canyon and making pronouncements of war and grandiose predictions of the hell they would unleash on any savage who breeched the iron door; and Emma Ilg, flitting from person to person, a manic fly, asking if they’d seen her husband.

Gloria found a spot along the wall between two distraught families, crumpled down on the cold rock, and buried her face in the sleeves of her woolen jacket. Heathens are coming and Zeke is gone. She kept repeating it to herself, as if verifying that the nightmare was real, crying harder and harder as the pandemonium lifted to a crescendo.

Someone touched her shoulder. She looked up, and for a split second, out of sheer will and hope, she thought she saw Ezekiel squatted down in front of her, and her heart ruptured for him.

But it was the shunned madam she’d met last night at the dance hall, a thousand years ago, shivering under her bright red capote, her burgundy curls dusted with snow.

“It’s Rosalyn,” the old whore said. “What’s wrong, honey? Where’s your husband? He ride up to the pass with the other men?”

Gloria shook her head, but when she tried to tell her about Zeke, the words froze in her throat. Rosalyn sat beside her, reached over, and pulled Gloria’s head down into her lap. She pushed back the hood of Gloria’s cape and ran her fingers through her blond hair.

A voice rose above the din. Children stopped crying. The rowdy miners hushed. Gloria lifted her head from Rosalyn’s lap, saw all eyes on Bessie McCabe, who was standing amid the crowd, ripping out clumps of hair, and screaming Harriet’s name, her voice filling the cavern, reverberating down the tunnels, firelit tears glistening on her bruised face.

Stephen Cole rushed through the iron door toward Bessie. He embraced her and they sank down together on the floor, the preacher cradling her in his arms like a baby, rocking with her, whispering, “Calm down, my child, calm down. We’ll find her.”

Joss spotted Lana Hartman across the cavern, sitting quietly against the wall, her eyes shut tight, lips moving as if in prayer.

“Al, I told you I gotta see a man about a horse.”

They stood twenty feet from the iron door, and even in the weak, shadow-ridden light, Joss saw the boy’s pale complexion flush.

“Can’t you hold it a little while longer?” he whispered.

“Let me go on down that tunnel there, have my piece a privacy.”

“You know I can’t let you out a my sight.”

“You promised you’d loosen these wrist irons,” she whined.

“Hell, Joss. Hell.” The young deputy reached into his slicker, worked the key off the big ring attached to one of the belt loops on his dungarees, and waved it in Joss’s face. “Zeke Curtice’ll put me in the boneyard if I let you run a blazer on—”

“Al.” Joss smiled, watched how easily the boy’s face disarmed, knew for a fact he’d take full advantage if he ever got the chance. “You’re too close to the belly. Watch me squat if you want.”

“Might have to, Joss,” he said, then sighed. “Turn around.”

Al lifted her black serape and unlocked the wrist irons.

“Bring a happy jack,” she said, and Al picked one of the shadowgees off the floor and followed his prisoner into the empty passage.