We returned to our respective rented apartments, the building sitting at the edge of the city, its hallway always carrying the sun-warmed smell of old carpet and dust. I had drunk too much the night before and lay down without even changing clothes, sleeping straight through until past noon the next day.
When I woke, I lay on the bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The terrain of Red Creek Hollow slowly assembled itself in my mind—the direction of the creek, the curve of the slope, the rock breaks exposed where the tree line thinned. Illegal excavation was not unfamiliar to me. I knew how to judge whether there might be voids, old passages, or residual structures underground; knew how changes in gradient and drainage hinted at the forms beneath the surface; and knew which places were worth the risk. Money had never been the goal. Now it was simply a tool.
No one depended on me for support. My parents had pensions. I lived cheaply alone. The names of those who did not make it back were still there. Some left parents behind. Some left children. Bills do not disappear because medals once hung on your chest. From a distance, survival looks like luck; up close, it feels more like responsibility.
After noon, Carter called. He asked whether what Deadeye had said the night before had gotten to me. He said he had thought about it too—if I was going back to Red Creek Hollow, he would go with me. I did not answer immediately. I turned the Thunderstone in my hand and said Deadeye was not a charity man. He gave us that piece because he saw that we knew how to read land. Carter laughed once and said that glass eye would cause trouble sooner or later. We both understood that losing our temper had no return. For now, working with him was safer than going alone.
Red Creek Hollow lay where the terrain turned complicated—dense forest, fractured ridgelines, old mine tunnels swallowed by brush, abandoned camps. The population was sparse. Few people were willing to leave the main road for long. It did not attract attention. If you were going to work, you chose a place no one wanted to stay in.
Carter mentioned the old ridge, said someone had disappeared below the tree line years ago. I said disappearance usually meant collapse or misjudgment, not a curse. It was simply that no one wanted to verify it again. We did not have to break ground immediately. We could walk first—study the changes in landform around the old camp perimeter, observe how the slope directed water, record vegetation differences that should not have been there. Structures always left traces. If you looked long enough.
That afternoon we prepared separately. Carter cleared out the remaining goods. I went to a flea market to buy flashlights, gloves, masks, rope, and candles, and found two German folding entrenching tools—light, balanced, capable of cutting soil or prying stone. When I held one, there was a sense of trust I had not felt in a long time. I could not find suitable protective masks. We would have to make do and supplement later. Money ran low quickly. The seller would not budge on the price of the tools; I nearly emptied my pockets. Carter checked out of the room, sold what little we had left, and barely scraped together the round-trip fare. That night we bought the tickets.
I was not yet eighteen when I left Red Creek Hollow. I left quietly. No goodbyes. The creek should still be there. The mountains should still be there. Only the people walking in this time were no longer who we had been. The train departed at two in the afternoon the next day. We barely slept.
Carter spread the cash on the table and counted it twice. One hundred and fifty dollars. Enough for round-trip fare and basic supplies, nothing extra. I stared at the loose bills for a while, feeling that going back like this was not right. More than ten years had passed since I had stepped into Red Creek Hollow; I could not show up empty-handed. In a place like that, no one cared about display, but they remembered whether you brought something back with you.
Carter suggested selling the blue stone his father had left him, said it might bring in decent cash. I told him to drop the idea. That piece was not meant to circulate; it was something kept, and once gone it would not return. Some losses could not be measured in price. In the end, I removed the military field watch my father had given me the year I was promoted. That kind of watch had not been common back then; it was not something you could simply walk into a store and buy. On the market it could fetch over two hundred dollars. I sold it to Deadeye. He bought anything. When he heard we were heading back to Red Creek Hollow, he added another hundred dollars, saying that if we brought back something of value he would connect us with buyers. Three hundred dollars was not a large sum, but in a small place like that, with care, it could last a few weeks. We bought coffee, canned goods, chocolate, beef jerky, and tobacco—things unavailable beyond the tree line. The rest went to fuel and tools.
First came the train, then a bus, then an old logging truck heading toward the tree line. Asphalt became gravel, gravel became dirt, and finally only two narrow ruts pressed into the earth remained. When we started on foot, each of us carried nearly seventy pounds. I could hold a steady pace, but by afternoon Carter was spent, sitting beneath a pine tree, breathing hard, his face pale.
Red Creek Hollow had not changed much. Electricity had come in years ago, but outages were common, and lights were sparse at night. The main road was still gravel. Word had already spread. When we entered town, people stood by their fences waiting. Maggie stood there holding a child. She looked steadier than I remembered, though the plainness had not changed. Her father gripped our shoulders and said we should have come back sooner.
In that moment I realized time had moved forward. The mountain had not.
I asked the feed store clerk, "Where are the young men?"
He jerked his chin north and said they were all at Round Butte. Years ago the slope shifted, splitting an old mineral layer and exposing a section of stonework. A few locals went down and brought back several old objects. After word spread, the state geological survey arrived, along with a university team. They strung orange safety mesh and put up signs, saying it might involve an unregistered site or an early settlement structure. No one had reached a conclusion. Since then, Round Butte had been under reinforcement work. Clearing debris. Shoring passages. Local laborers were hired to move stone and brace tunnel mouths. The pay was low but steady. Some had been at it for years.
Carter looked at me. Round Butte had been in our plan. Now it bore the state seal. To go in meant crossing a line.
There was more than one mountain.
In the West, what lay underground never stayed quiet for long. Since the gold rush era, someone always slipped into remote hills to reopen abandoned shafts or dig unregistered sites, taking whatever metal or artifacts could be sold. No one talked about morality, only opportunity. If there was word of structure, of voids, or of an old camp buried by a slide, someone would go look. Remote areas had no surveillance and no patrols. By the time the state knew, whatever could be taken was usually gone. It had happened here before.
Maggie's father said that before the state sealed Round Butte, several young men from town had gone farther north, chasing rumors of earlier remains beyond Blackwind Pass. The canyon was called Lost Man Gulch. The name was not legend. It was record. Those who went in never returned. No one knew whether it had been collapse, exposure, or a storm sealing the exit. One of Erin's uncles had been among them. When he said it, he did not look up, only tapped ash against the edge of the table.
The Blackfeet elders never went deep into that gulch. They called it "the mountain's closure." The miners who went in later gave what was inside a name—
Old Man.
Blackwind Pass was a narrow wind corridor; in winter white storms could flatten the ridge line. Lost Man Gulch lay lower, its rock walls tightening, the tree line pressing down. Wind shifted direction inside the canyon. The real danger was not in the story but in the terrain. No one in town had truly gone deep into Lost Man Gulch. It lay near the state line, with no marked trail and no forest patrol. Hunters turned back at the outer edge. Farther in, no one would find you. Temperature dropped quickly. Bear trails crossed with old mine shafts. One wrong step and you did not walk out. The town kept three bear hounds and several older hunting dogs. Solid, loud, mountain-bred. They had seen grizzlies and did not spook easily. There had been one exception.
Near the canyon entrance, two dogs stopped.
They did not bark.
He recommended Erin as guide. Nineteen. Raised along the tree line. She knew the terrain north of Blackwind Pass better than anyone in town. She walked slowly but did not walk wrong. Of the three bear hounds, two had been trained by her.
Maggie's father's knee had flared up again; he could not climb. Maggie was carrying her second child and could not travel far. The Round Butte project had tied up most of the town's younger labor. Before we left, he said that if we insisted on heading north, we should not chase stories or try to prove anything. If the wind shifted, we turned back. The mountain would not give a second chance.
At first light we reorganized our gear. Steel pry bar. Probe rods. Rope. Alcohol. A bucket of vinegar. And a small metal birdcage—an old miner's habit, used to test air before entering a shaft. He walked with us as far as the trailhead near Round Butte. The slope stood still in the morning light. The sign behind the wire fence swayed in the wind.
Beyond that, clouds pressed over Blackwind Pass. Deeper still, Lost Man Gulch sat like an unmarked cut in the range. No one spoke. We headed north.