Douglas Preston - White Fire

Silence. The flickering flames disclosed something in the darkness at the end of the tunnel. The group cautiously moved forward. It was an irregular, lumpy shape. When they drew close, the men saw that it was a heap of soft things: rotting burlap, old gunnysacks, leaves and pine needles, chunks of moss. Mingled into the material were pieces of gnawed bone, broken skulls, and strips of what looked like dried rawhide.

Skin. Hairless skin.

All around the heap lay a broad ring of human feces.

One of the men spoke hoarsely. “What… is this ?”

The question was initially answered with silence. Finally, one of the others replied. “It’s an animal den.”

“It ain’t animal ,” said Cropsey.

“God Almighty.”

“Where are they?”

Now their voices were rising, echoing, as fear and uncertainty began to set in.

“The bastards must be out. Killing.”

The torch sputtered and burned as their voices rose, discussing what to do. The guns were put away. There was disagreement, conflict.

Suddenly Cropsey held up his hand. The others fell silent, listening. There were sounds of shuffling, along with guttural, animalistic breathing. The noises stopped. Quickly the man carrying the torch doused it in a puddle of water, while Cropsey shut the lantern down. But now all was deathly silent: it seemed likely the killers had seen the light or heard their voices — and knew they were here.

“Give us some light, for Jesus’s sake,” whispered one of the men, his voice tight with anxiety.

Cropsey opened the lantern a fraction. The others were crouching, rifles and pistols at the ready. The dim glow barely penetrated the gloom.

“ More light,” someone said.

The lantern now threw light to the edge of the cross tunnel. All was silent. They waited, but nothing came around the corner. Nor were there sounds of flight.

“We go get ’em,” Cropsey announced. “Afore they get away.”

No one moved. Finally Cropsey himself began stalking forward. The others followed. He crept to the crosscut. The rest waited behind. Holding up the lantern, he paused, crouched, then suddenly swung around the corner, wielding the rifle like a pistol in one hand, the lantern in the other. “ Now! ”

It happened with incredible speed. A flash of something darting forward; a gargling scream; and then Cropsey spun around, dropping his rifle and writhing in agony. A naked, filthy man was astride his back, tearing at his throat, more like a beast than a human being. None of the other four could fire; the combatants were too close together. Cropsey screamed again, staggering about, trying to shake off the man who tore at him with nails and teeth, ripping away anything he could reach: ears, lips, nose; there was a sudden spurt of arterial blood from the neck and Cropsey went down, the monster still on top of him, the lantern falling to the ground and shattering.

Simultaneously, as with a single mind, the other four began to shoot, aiming wildly into the darkness. From the muzzle flashes more figures could be seen, bellowing like bulls, running toward them from around the corner of the crosscut, a melee amid the wild eruption of gunfire. The two lookouts came charging down the tunnel, aroused by the din, and joined in with their own weapons. The guns roared again and again, the flashes of light blooming within clouds of ugly gray smoke — and then all went silent. For a moment, there was only darkness. Then came the sound of a match, scraping against rock; another lantern was lit — and its feeble light illuminated a splay of corpses, the four cannibals now just ruined bodies scattered about the tunnel, taken apart by heavy-caliber bullets, lying like so much ropy waste atop the sundered carcass of Shadrach Cropsey.

It was over.

Fifteen minutes later, Pendergast opened his eyes. The room was cool and quiet. He rose, brushed off his black suit, bundled himself up, and let himself out the back door of the saloon. The storm was in full blast, the fury of it thundering down Main Street and shaking the Christmas decorations like so many cobwebs. Bundling his coat around himself, wrapping his scarf tighter, and lowering his head against the wind, he made his way through the storm-shaken town back to his hotel.

At eleven o’clock that morning — Christmas Eve day — after buttering two hundred pieces of toast, washing twice that number of dishes, and mopping the kitchen from wall to wall — Corrie went back to her room, bundled up in her coat, and ventured out into the storm. The idea that Kermode or her thugs might be out in this weather, waiting for her, seemed far-fetched; nevertheless, she felt an electric tickle of fear. She consoled herself with the thought that she was on her way to the safest place in town — the police station.

She had decided to confront Pendergast. Not so much confront him, exactly, but rather to make another pitch about why he should share with her the information he’d apparently gotten on his trip to Leadville. The way she saw things, it was unfair of him to withhold it. She had, after all, discovered the Swinton connection and shared the name with him. If he’d found information about the old killings, the least he could do would be to let her include it in her thesis.

The wind and flying snow came buffeting down the street as she turned onto Main. She leaned into it, holding her cap. The business district of Roaring Fork was relatively compact, but even so it proved a damn long journey in a blizzard.

The police station loomed up through the blowing snow, its windows glowing with yellow light, perversely inviting. All were apparently at work despite the storm. She walked up the steps, stomped off the snow in the vestibule, shook out her woolen hat and scarf, and went in.

“Is Special Agent Pendergast in?” she asked Iris, the lady at the reception desk, with whom she had gotten friendly over the past ten days.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed. “He doesn’t sign in and out, and he keeps the oddest hours. I just can’t keep track.” She shook her head. “Feel free to check his office.”

Corrie went down into the basement, grateful for once for the heat. His door was closed. She knocked; no answer.

Where could he be, in a storm like this? Not at the Hotel Sebastian, where he hadn’t been answering his phone.

She turned the handle, but it was locked.

She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, still grasping the handle. Then she went back upstairs.

“Find him?” Iris asked.

“No luck,” said Corrie. She hesitated. “Listen, I think I left something important in his office. Do you have a key?”

Iris considered this. “Well, I do, but I don’t think I can let you in. What did you leave?”

“My cell phone.”

“Oh.” Iris thought some more. “I suppose I could let you in, so long as I stay with you.”

“That would be great.”

She followed Iris back down the stairs. In a moment the woman had opened the door and turned on the light. The room was hot and stuffy. Corrie looked around. The desk was covered with papers that had been carefully arranged. She scanned the surface with her eyes but it was all too neat, too squared away, to expose much information.

“I don’t see it,” said Iris, looking about.

“He might have put it away in a drawer.”

“I don’t think you should be opening up any drawers, Corrie.”

“Right. Of course not.”

She looked frantically around the desk, this way and that. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” she said.

And then Corrie caught a glimpse of something interesting. A page torn out of a small notebook, covered with Pendergast’s distinctive copperplate handwriting, its top part sticking out of a sheaf of documents. Three underlined words jumped out: Swinton and Christmas Mine .