So my better half clearly knew what was going on. “Someone fill me in?”
“Made a bargain with Mack and Eli last night,” Melody explained cheerfully. “Not only do you get the two four-wheelers, but I’ve saddled up two of my best trained horses as well. You can take them up to help.”
“In return, I have written down several family recipes,” Mack picked up smoothly. “An even trade, you could say.”
This amused me greatly. “Really, recipes?”
“I don’t want a jambalaya recipe off the internet,” Melody informed me with a sniff. “I want a recipe from someone who sounds likehim. That’ll be authentic.”
“You’re not wrong.” I found it funny this had happened to Mack at least four times that I knew of. His family were good cooks, granted. I think his accent was almost advertising, in a way.
It was like Melody realized the obvious as she squinted up at me. “You get to eat his cooking all the time, don’t you? I’m jealous as hell.”
I just shrugged because, well, yeah. One of the many perks to living with him.
My other elbow sprouted a second head. I felt almost like Cerberus. Gwyn was all excitement and heart-shaped eyes.
“Horses?”
Horse-girl spotted. Her excitement was cute, but I had to ask, “Do you know how to ride?”
“I do,” she surprised me by saying. “I used to take equestrian classes.”
“I offered the horses because Eli and Lachlan can ride, Davina as well,” Melody explained. “But you can trade off with them throughout the day.”
No sense in riding all day anyway if you weren’t used to it. It was a great way to have very sore thighs and ass tomorrow if you pushed it. I spoke from experience. “Why don’t you start this morning with Seiji, get your lesson in?” I told Gwyn. “Then switch after lunch or something. They’ll probably welcome a break by then.”
“Sure!” She turned and bounced back inside, calling for people as she went.
I was very curious on how long her energy would last. Hopefully throughout the day, otherwise she’d be dragging midafternoon.
“One second, Melody,” Mack requested. “I’ll fetch those recipes.”
“Thanks.” As he ducked back inside, Melody asked me, “How are things going, anyway? I can’t tell if this request is a good sign or not.”
“To be frank? Things are improving but it feels glacially slow. Every time we wrap our heads around one part of the problem, another rears its head. Something very dark and gnarly is in the mines under that ghost town.”
“I’m not surprised.” Melody leaned closer to me, her manner suggesting a confidence about to be shared. “Now, the storyIheard growing up was that the mine was in operation until about 1920, but then they had a huge accident that wiped out half the tunnels. An explosion was triggered somehow and it collapsed, trapping a lot of miners. Miners from the rival mines actually poured in to help dig them back out. They reached some, but not all.”
“Shiiit,” I breathed, realizing what this meant. “How many died?”
“I’ve heard different numbers. At least twenty, upward of a hundred, just depends on whose account you’re listening to. But everyone agrees it was really, really bad. It ended the mining operation up there, and it became a ghost town practically overnight. Once people had payday, they just…left.”
“I’m sorry, payday? They waited for a final paycheck?”
“Oh, no, it’s vernacular for miners, especially back in the day. My grandfather mined, he taught me a little about it. Miners didn’t call the day they were paid payday, they called it Eagle day because of the coins they were paid with. Payday meant a miner had died and the company was paying out to his surviving family.”
“Ah.” I made a mental note. Sometimes trigger words helped bring out ghosts who were hiding. “Either way, that’s great information to have. I’ll pass it along to my team.”
“How much of a danger is this big bad?”
“We haven’t been able to lay eyes on it, so it’s really hard to judge. But we’re not sure if we can defeat it. We might have to lock it down and send another team in.”
“Defeat…? Oh, oh wow, is there something you have to kill, then?”
“Yeah. Sadly.” Seeing her worry, I hastily reassured, “It’s not going to come down this far. It seems locked into the area, actually, as it won’t move past Miner’s Creek. We’re working on setting a new boundary today to absolutely lock it down. Either so we can hunt it or so another team can.”
“That’s reassuring. Best of luck, then.”
