The Black Country (29 page)

T
he train depot had sunk five inches into the tunnels beneath Blackhampton. Each tremor had driven the small building another inch into the ground. Calvin Campbell and Hester Price were inside when the first tremor hit, moved out into the snow before the second tremor, but had stayed inside since then. The building was solid and unadorned, and there was nothing inside to fall on them, except the ceiling. There were no shelves or statues or lamps, just three squat benches bolted firmly to the planks of the floor. And so they sat inside and listened to the earth tremble and the wind howl. Hester nestled against Calvin and he put his arm around her, and they stayed like that through three successive tremors, riding the depot as it sank.

“The train should have come,” Hester said.

“It’s the storm,” Calvin said.

“Will it still come tonight?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

He took his arm back and stood, stretched, and went to the tiny window, the glass shattered and crunching underfoot, snow piling up on the sill. There was nothing out there, no sign of an oncoming train. Only snow.

And, somewhere on the periphery of Calvin’s vision, a glint of metal.

—

The old horse was dead. Frozen solid, standing upright in its tracks. The American steadied his Whitworth against its back and took aim at the tiny black square in the front wall of the depot. The horse was already cold, and the fingers of the American’s right hand were stiff and tingling. He rubbed them against the leg of his trousers, but the friction only made them sting. He lowered the rifle and turned toward the young horse. Its black eyes followed him as he reached out and put his hand against its warm belly. It snorted, but didn’t stamp its hooves, didn’t move. Maybe it couldn’t. He supposed the beast was warmer on the inside and thought about cutting it open, but he needed that horse to get away from the village once Campbell was dead.

His fingers were limbering up a bit. They still stung, but he could move his trigger finger easily and that was all he needed. He withdrew his hand from the young horse’s belly and set the Whitworth back across the dead old horse’s back, pointed it at the depot, hunched down, closed his eyes, and made himself still. He opened his eyes and stared down the sight at the depot’s window and saw the blank white face of Calvin Campbell staring back at him.

The American pulled the trigger.

—

Another tremor hit the depot and the boxlike building bucked and swayed just as Hester Price rose from her bench in the middle of the room and approached Calvin Campbell. The big Scotsman was staring hard out the window and, when the building began to sink into the earth, he grabbed the windowsill. Hester heard the crinkling of broken glass and she drew in a last sharp breath, worried that Calvin had cut himself.

There was a whistling sound and then a faint pop from somewhere far away, and Hester’s knees gave out and she fell.

—

Calvin heard the distinctive whistle of a hexagonal Whitworth bullet and ducked, though he knew it was too late. If you heard the whistle, you were already dead, you just didn’t know it yet. But the tremor was shaking the ground hard, and he hoped that might be enough to throw off the shooter’s aim.

He let go of the windowsill and turned and saw Hester falling, the top of her head open like a bowl full of gore and Calvin fell, too, fell toward her, reaching out, trying to put himself in the path of the bullet that had already passed him.

He went down on his hands and knees and scrabbled across the floor, grabbed Hester up in his arms, leaving some essentials of her behind, and crabwalked with her to the wall. He didn’t cry out, didn’t make a sound, but his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, as wide as it would go. His throat was tight, unrelenting, and it kept his grief bottled in his chest. He cradled Hester, protected her, and waited for Grey Eyes to come and finish the job.

Waited for his death and welcomed it.

—

The American immediately understood that he had missed. The bullet had passed right by Calvin Campbell and on into the building. He tried to adjust for the next shot, but the ground was shaking under him and he couldn’t hold the rifle still.

The young horse whinnied behind him, and he turned just in time to watch it disappear, pulled all at once down into the ground. The old horse toppled toward him and he tried to move, leapt to the side, but he wasn’t fast enough. He hit a high drift, sending spumes of snow into the air, and the horse fell against him with a loud
whuff
, pinning his leg and hip.

He couldn’t tell if anything was broken; there was no sensation at all, he was so cold. He pushed out against the old horse, but stopped and turned his head at a wrenching sound nearby. The back wheels of the carriage sank into the ground, and then its long wooden tongue lifted up and the entire thing tipped back and rolled away, out of sight somewhere below.

The American panicked and hit the old horse, beat his fists against it, reached for the Whitworth and smashed its butt against the horse’s back, but the beast didn’t budge.

He was surrounded by a roaring sound, as if he had stumbled into the fast-moving stream of a waterfall, plummeting blind through the churning foam, and then he was actually falling and the horse was falling with him and the world went dark around him and the sky receded.

He hit the floor of the shaft below him, hit it hard, and the horse came a second after. It landed heavily on his right foot. The foot jounced violently to the side, twisted like something strange, some inanimate thing that wasn’t connected to him, and there was a crunching sound and a blinding flash of pain that ended deep in his right shoulder.

He looked up and saw a mountain of ice and snow and dirt funneling down at him, on top of him. His open mouth filled with it, and his eyes shut automatically.

D
ay was worried about the boy’s bare feet. He had taken off his tattered gloves, shoved them on the ends of Peter’s feet, but he doubted they did any good. Still, it had made the boy giggle to see that he had monkey paws, and he had not complained about the cold.

Dr Kingsley also seemed to be struggling, carrying the girl through the snow. She hadn’t awakened yet, and that worried Day, too. Henry was the only one of them who seemed to be doing all right. Jessica had woken up and asked to be put down, but Henry had refused. He trudged along with her, polite but stubborn, his large body hunched over the schoolteacher as much as possible to protect her from the blowing snow.

The tremors hit them hard. Both Day and Kingsley fell down, dropping the children. Day heard a rifle’s report, but the crack of it echoed back and forth around them and he couldn’t locate it. He motioned to the others to stay down. Henry stood where he was, unaffected by the tremor, sheltering Jessica with his arms.

The girl, Anna, woke up, sat in the snow, looked around at them all. She opened her mouth to speak, but Peter shushed her, watching Day’s face to see what he should do next. Day smiled at the boy and listened for another rifle shot.

But there was no other sound and the tremor stopped. Day nodded at Peter and the boy crawled over and hugged his sister. He helped her to her feet. Jessica pressed a hand against Henry’s chest, and he finally let her down. Day gave his lantern to Jessica, held out his hand to Kingsley, and pulled the doctor up. They stood, looking into the distance, seeing nothing.

“We need to get the children inside,” Kingsley said. “Someplace warm. Or, at least, out of this wind.”

“I still think the depot’s in this direction,” Day said. “We must be close.”

“I can see the fire there,” Kingsley said. He pointed to an orange glow on the horizon where the inn blazed away, still busy cremating the bodies of Oliver Price and Bennett Rose. “Which means you’re right, I think. If we just keep going . . .”

“But there’s someone shooting out here.”

“Surely not at us.”

“Whoever they’re shooting at, it can’t be good for us. We don’t want to stumble across something. Not with the children.”

“We’ll be fine,” Anna said.

“You let us be the judge of that,” Kingsley said.

“No, thank you,” Anna said.

“Anna!” Peter said.

“We’ve done very well on our own, so far.”

“That may be,” Day said. “But we’re all in this together now and we need to rely on each other. You know this place much better than the doctor and I do. We’d very much appreciate your help in finding the train depot or we’ll freeze to death.”

Anna looked at Peter. He raised his eyebrows at her. Day worried that if the boy stood in the snow much longer, with nothing but gloves on his feet, he might lose his toes.

Anna sighed. “Very well,” she said. “I think it’s this way.” And she marched off into the night, expecting the rest of them to follow. They did.

Jessica caught up to Day and touched his arm. “You’re very good with children,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, barely audible.

“Thank you,” Day said. “I’m expecting my first at any moment.”

“I know. You’ll do well, I think.”

He grinned at her. “I do hope so,” he said.

Then he fell into a chasm and disappeared from sight.

H
ammersmith staggered through the tunnel, stopping every few feet to rest and to make sure he was still following the tracks in the dirt. He didn’t have a lantern, and so he had to strike a match every time he checked the ground under him. He had four matches left and was just beginning to worry when he saw a dim yellow glow coming from somewhere ahead. He put the matches away and leaned against the wall for a minute, waited for his vision to clear. The blow to the head had affected him more than he’d imagined it would. He’d assumed he’d shake off the effects and be fine, and maybe under other circumstances he would have, but since arriving in the village he had hardly eaten, he’d fallen ill, and had even been drugged. He was afraid the omen of the owl had been more than a silly superstition. That Blackhampton would kill him if he spent another day here.

He took a deep breath, pushed off the wall, and moved toward the light.

Four minutes later, he stepped into a large chamber dug out of the rock below the village. The space was lit by a lantern on the floor, and later he would have time to look around and would notice the bedroll, the shovel, the remains of the fire. And he would notice the two dirt-covered mounds against the far wall.

But when he entered the chamber, the first thing he noticed was Sutton Price, swinging by his neck from a wooden support beam that ran across the length of the cavern’s ceiling. A crate had been upended two feet away from Sutton’s feet, and it was instantly clear that Price had thrown the rope over the beam, tied his knot and stood on the crate, then kicked off and swung free. Sutton’s feet were still moving, kicking sullenly at the air beneath him.

Hammersmith hurtled across the chamber to the hanged man and grabbed his legs, hoisted him up, creating slack in the rope above. Sutton Price thrashed like a fish in the bottom of a boat, and his voice rasped down at the sergeant. “Keh . . . Kawh . . .” A broken bird.

“No,” Hammersmith said. He gasped and held on tight to Price’s struggling legs. “Stop fighting me.”

Price laughed. The sound forced up through the swollen furnace of his throat, burning the air. “Glad . . . glad you’re here. Hear my confession. Last confession.”

Hammersmith stretched out his right leg, angled his foot, trying to hook the box and drag it over, but it was still inches out of his reach. “I’m not a priest,” he said.

“Not . . . I’m not Catholic,” Price said. “You’ll do.”

Hammersmith struggled to keep his feet under him, balancing the hanged man above him. He felt weak and suddenly very tired of everything and everyone. “What is it? What do you want to say?”

“Don’t blame her. Virginia.”

“Where is she?”

“She was lost.”

“I don’t know how long I can hold you up. Tell me where your daughter is. Which tunnel?” He was panting, spitting out short sentences like a mockery of Sutton Price.

“Mathilda. I hit her. Ended her. Buried her here.”

“Your first wife?”

“There.”

Hammersmith looked at the far wall of the chamber, at the two mounds, one packed down and settled, the other fresh and high. “You buried her here.”

“Played out.”

Hammersmith understood. “This tunnel. The seam’s played out here. You brought her here and no one ever found her.”

“She was good. A good person.”

“But you wanted the nanny.”

“Hester. So beautiful.” The words forced out of Price as if by a bellows. “But she loved another. Another man. I knew she did. But I did it all anyway. I did everything.”

“The other grave?”

“It was in her.”

“Who?”

“My wickedness. All my fault. Don’t blame her.”

“Who, man? Tell me before I fall and let you dangle.”

“She killed Oliver. My responsibility. Done now.”

Hammersmith realized who was buried under the mound of earth, had realized it as soon as he saw the two piles of dirt, but had refused to acknowledge it. His stomach flopped over and he cried out. Price kicked at Hammersmith and the sergeant lost his footing for a second, but regained it, used the swaying man to right himself. He planted his feet again and pushed up, but he could already feel his arms starting to give out.

“Put me next to them,” Price said.

“My inspector will come,” Hammersmith said. “He’ll help me. We’ll get you. Get you down. And you’ll pay for your crimes properly.”

“Am paying.”

“This isn’t the way.”

“My way.”

“No. By order of Her Majesty, I’m placing you under arrest. For the murder. For the murder of Mathilda Price. And for the murder of Virginia Price, too. Damn you.”

Sutton Price chuckled. The deep harsh sound of sand shaking through an hourglass.

“I can wait. Policeman. If you can.”

Hammersmith closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He wrapped his arms tighter around Sutton Price’s dangling legs and steeled himself, prepared for a long wait. Price began to talk again, but his voice was gone, nothing but rasping, and Hammersmith didn’t try to listen. He held on and concentrated on breathing, on staying awake, on rooting himself to the ground. He held on and he waited for help.