The Pit-Heads: Short Story by David Nickle Page B

splayed out from the narrow, peaked tower head, which Paul had represented with a carelessly precise rectangle of shadow. The trestle emerged from the far side, a jumble of cross-beams and track that draped like a millipede over the spine of a treacherous spill of rock. The thin curves and jags suggesting hills and a treeline seemed like an afterthought — although Paul would scarcely have had time for one. He had completed the whole, perfect sketch in less than a minute.
    “Any other takers?” Paul asked, in a tone that suggested there might have been a real question.
    The forecast had called for frozen rain in the Hailiebury area, but by the time we pulled onto the mine road the air was just beginning to fill with fine, January-hard snowflakes. They caught in the crevasses and crannies of the low cliffs that rimmed the mine road, making thin white lines like capillaries of frozen quartz.
    I watched Paul’s taillights through the scratch of snow. He drove an old Ford panel van, and he had set up a small household in the back of it — a foam-rubber mattress near the back for sleeping, a little chemical toilet tucked in a jury-rigged bracket behind the driver’s seat, a big cooler filled with enough groceries to feed him for several weeks if need be. And a 12-gauge shotgun with a box of ammunition, in a case beside the mattress, for painting trips during bear season. Paul made his living from his painting, but it wasn’t enough of a living to spring for a week in a motel every time he went off on an overnight painting trip. The rest of us followed his lead.
    It was scarcely four o’clock, but darkening towards night already, when we finally reached the pit-heads of the Royal Mine. We pulled up on the edge of a wide gravel turnaround maybe three hundred feet downslope from the nearest of the two pit-heads.
    The turnaround was near the top of a great boulder of a hill, gouged by glaciers from the tiny slit of a lake that was barely visible through a stand of poplar to the north. The two ancient pit-heads rode that hill’s peak, like signal-towers for some forgotten empire.
    “We won’t have enough light to get any work done tonight,” said Paul as he emerged from his van. “But we should be able to go up and have a look inside before nightfall.” He hefted a big, ten-battery flashlight on a shoulder-strap he’d tied together from old bootlaces.
    Harry put his hands in the small of his back and stretched, making a noise like an old man. “Are those things safe?” he asked.
    Paul tromped past him up the slope towards the nearest pit-head.
    “Not entirely,” he said simply. “No, not entirely.”
    The pit-head was in disuse that year, so the main room underneath the tower was black and empty. Before anyone went in, Paul speared the flashlight beam inside and ran down a brief inventory of what would otherwise have filled the darkness: the great cable spool, driven by a diesel motor in the back of the hoist house, connected to a wheel that would perch in the very top of the tower, where the belfry would be if this were a church. The bare rock floor of the hoist-house was empty, though, the tower just a dark column of cold, lined by beams and tarpaper; according to Paul, the Royal company had moved their operation out of here three years ago, and had warehoused anything remotely portable in Hailiebury. He ran the flashlight beam across the floor in the middle of the chamber, where the cable would have attached to the lift platform. At first, I couldn’t even see the mouth of the pit: Jim had to point it out.
    “It’s pretty small,” said Jim, and he was right: the hole leading into the depths of the Royal Mine wasn’t more than eight feet on a side.
    “This was one of the first mines in the area,” said Paul. “One of the ladies from Hailiebury told me it dates back to 1903, when the whole silver rush got its start. Story goes that a prospector found a vein of silver by accident, getting his boot out from