1.

Friday May 19th, 1871

Warren awakes coughing in the blackest of blacks.

Jesus Christ, what now? He thinks between a fit of hacking spit.

All Warren sees is a sheet of formless black as if his eyes are bound shut. He touches his face and brow but finds no bindings.

After the wet coughs subside, Warren looks to the sky, or up to where a sky would be. Finds no moon, no stars, just more thick, black nothing. The floor under him is stony and cold.

“The mines,” he breathes. “The God damn mines.”

With the back of his hand, Warren wipes away the spit from his chin. Even this he can not see.

“Joe!” Warren says in a half whisper half shout. “Joe, you there?”

This is not the first time Warren has awoken in some strange place after a night of heavy drinking— though the mines? How in God’s name has he ended up in the mines?

“Joe!” Warren calls out louder. “Joe! You there?”

Warren’s own voice echoes back. Joe you there… there… there…

“Joe!”

Joe… Joe… Joe…

“Well, you did it now,” Warren says. “Got yourself in a tight one. You old, stupid fucker.” Warren shakes his head. “Think, you old mule. Think.”

He wills himself to sober up. Or at least imagines he does.

There was a woman, he remembers.

A women out in the desert. A naked woman. She was out there, as pale as the moon.

Yes, Warren thinks, the woman. Even in the fix he’s in Warren grows excited.

He remembers her long, flowing hair. He remembers her thin arms and curving hips. The way she moved. And certainly, Warren remembers her bare backside.

She was out there, just beyond the edge of town, beyond the lantern light, dancing and laughing. She was out there, in the desert, out in the dry night as if she were being born out there from their dreams.

But now Warren was away from the desert. He was there, in the mines, stole away some how from the night and away from Cull and the drinks and the oil light.

Warren remembers they ran to her— him and Joe. Drunk and excited. Telling her to wait for them. To slow down.

Warren remembers stumbling over rabbit brush and he remembers Joe getting to her first.

“Joe!” Warren calls again. “Joe!”

“Joe ain’t here,” a boy’s voice says, cutting through the blackness. Warren nearly leaps out his skin.

“Who’s there?” Warren demands.

Who’s there… there… there…

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“Benji,” the voice says, just as flat as the darkness that surrounded them.

“Where are you?”

Warren feels something brush his hand. “Stop that!”

Stop that… that… that…

“You gots to quiet. She gonna hear.”

“The woman? Where is she? Where’s—”

“Shhh,” Benji says.

“Listen, kid. I can’t see a damn thing in here and—”

“You’ve got matches.”

“I do?” Then Warren remembers. He pats down his shirt. In the breast pocket he touches something square— a matchbox.

Blindly, Warren takes the matchbox from his shirt pocket, slides it open, pinches a match between his fingers and takes the match out. He slides the box closed once again, and runs the match on the strike strip. It sparks but doesn’t light. He runs it a second time and it catches. The flame is small compared to the sea of blackness and illuminates nothing other than his hands and wrist.

Warren swings the match around, looking for the kid.

“Over here,” the boy says.

Warren moves then, taking slow, shambling steps. He crouches low so the match flame illuminates the mine floor.

“Where are you?” Warren says.

“Here,” the boy says and Warren moves again, like a game of Blind Man’s Bluff.

The flame burns down and licks Warren’s finger and he drops the match and the light goes out. The black engulfs him and Warren curses.

Warren’s hand is back in his shirt pocket, rooting around for the matchbox. Another match is lit and he calls out for the boy again.

“I’m here,” the boy says. He’s nearly on top of Warren. “Here. Here’s my hand.”

A pale, small hand swims out from the blackness and Warren takes it.

“Christ,” Warren says. “Christ almighty. What are you doing in here?”

“I know the way out,” the boy says.

“Let me get a look at you.” Warren waves the match but the boy is pushing the light away.

“Stop now,” Warren says. “I just want to get a look at you.”

The boy grunts, tries to pull away, but Warren’s knobby hand holds tight to the boy’s wrist.

“Say,” Warren says. “You ain’t that lost boy everyones lookin’ for, are you?”

The boy grunts again, pulls more.

“Everyone is lookin’” he says but the boy pulls harder and Warren goes toppling forward. He lets out a wild shout first of surprise and then anger. Warren’s knees hit the stony floor hard and he curses. “You God damn fucker!”

The match is out again, fallen to the ground, but Warren is too angry to notice. “You Bastard fuck! You… you…”

She’s there then and Warren is quiet.

Even in the black pit of the caves she illuminates.

“There you are,” Warren says, losing all interest in the boy. “My God. There you are.”

The boy, Benji, is hungry. He thinks he could have eaten the old miner all himself— he was mostly just bone and gristle, after all. But she is there with her magic trick, her performance. Something akin to a mating ritual, or a dance, and the old miner is following her.

“Now you ain’t shy is you?” He says stupidly. “C’mon here. Don’t make me chase you.”

She doesn’t make him chase her.

She stops and Warren nearly pounces on her but there is nothing to pounce on. The woman is a moving picture of sorts, a pattern on something, like the eyes upon the wings of a butterfly. Warren is lost for words. He touches this drawn woman, and the surface is soft and pliable. Like a wall of skin. He begins to wonder but it’s cut short and then there is nothing for old Warren to wonder of any more.

2.

She had eaten the other one, the friend, Joe, all on her own and when Benji had tried to eat she pushed him away without so much as looking up from her meal. This time though, she does not push Benji away and they claw, and tear, chew and spit, and drink, together; like a pair of wild dogs at a fallen fawn.

The town of Cull sleeps on.