Laid a hand on it almost fondly. A man who might in a moment of grief come back to dig for water in the ruins of the only thing he ever loved. But Wade's stomach turned over. No. A tragic accident.
Garrett. The old well. Unsound. Everyone knew it. A shame you killed him here.
I did. Voss said easily. It was messy. He would not tell me where he had put the originals. I would have done it cleaner today.
I have improved. What did he say at the end? He said something strange. He said, "My boy will give water to the wrong man. " Voss smiled.
I thought he meant you would be a fool. I am. Yes, but a useful one. Two riders hauled Wade to the rim. A bucket on a rope.
They shoved him into it. And Callaway, wincing at his cracked rib, tied a bundle of red sticks to a second line dynamite. The six sticks, a fuse as long as a man's arm. Leave the old well be, Wade said. Voss paused, turned, and for the first time in all those days, something flickered across his face.
Not triumph, something older, something closer to dread. Yes, he said slowly. He said that to me, too. Then he nodded. The bucket dropped down.
Down. Stone walls sliding past the circle of sky shrinking, the torches becoming stars, the air turning cold, then wet, then cold as a graveyard. The rope slackened, splash, black water taste, stone beneath his boots, cold needles in his bones. He kicked free of the bucket, treaded, gasped, looked up. Far above a small round window of dawn, the head leaning over it white suit, silver hair.
Goodbye, Mr. Harland. A rope came down slowly. It stopped 10 ft above his head. Hung there, turning slow. A match flared at the rim.
A tiny orange flower. The fuse caught. It hissed. A bright live thing crawling down the dark, throwing sparks on the water, throwing shadows on the stone, burning toward the red sticks with the patience of a thing that knows exactly how it will end. Wade stared at it, bound hand and foot, treading water in the throat of a dying well.
60 ft of stone above him. A son's whole life in ashes. A father's name in the hands of his murderer. Down, not up. He closed his eyes.
Felt the handkerchief against his wrist. felt something cold and rough under his boot. Not mud, not stone, something that moved. And far above the fuse burned on, the fuse hissed. A small, bright, ridiculous sound like a kettle that had made up its mind. Wade Harland stood chest deep in black water, hands tied behind him, ankles bound, 60 ft of stone overhead, and six red sticks of dynamite, turning slowly on a rope above his head like the world's worst chandelier.
Down, not up, he said. Down, not up. Fine, I'm down. I am as down as a man can get. The stone under his boots shifted.
Not mud, not rock, a shelf, a flat slab just under the water line, cut by somebody with a chisel and a reason. Wade had drawn water from this well for 38 years and never once asked why a man would build a shelf at the bottom of it. Because the fuse had burned another inch, and he had no time to feel foolish. His fingers found the handkerchief in his cuff, knotted tight, he dragged it into his palm, picked at the knot, with fingers gone numb and stupid, and it gave. Something heavy dropped into his hand.
Then something thin and sharp. Two curved halves of cold metal, a short bronze pin and a flake of black glass, thin as a leaf with an edge that bit his thumb. "Dakaya," he whispered. "You old fox?" he sawed blind behind his back. The glass slipped, nicked his wrist, found the rope again.
Overhead, the fuse popped and spat. The spark fell and died on the water 6 in from his face. The rope parted. His hands flew free. He looked up.
The fuse was 2/3 gone. Right. Then weighed right. Think. He took one enormous breath and dove cold black.
His ears screaming, he ran his palms along the stones. Slime, rock, slime, a seam. Another. His chest began to burn. And there under his fingertips a circle cut into the wall.
The insideed a line beneath the line three short grooves and in the center a small round hole to have together slid the pin through pressed the whole bronze disc against the carving it fit. He turned it nothing. Stars bloomed behind his eyes. He turned it the other way harder and deep in the stone something groaned long and low like the earth clearing its throat. The wall moved.
A great round slab swung inward on a hidden pivot, and the water went with it. All of it. The well drank itself dry, and Wade went down the throat like a cork down a drain. He tumbled, scraped, slid on a rush of cold foam, and landed on a slick shelf of rock. The far above, the world cracked open.
The blast was not a sound. It was a fist. It hit his chest from the inside. Stones rained. Dust rolled down the passage in a long gray wave.
And then, silence, ringing, complete. Wade lay on his back, coughing, spitting water. The disc was still in his fist. He did not remember pulling it from the wall. Well, he croked.
That's new. Nobody laughed. There was nobody, too, because something warm moved in his chest. Looking down at a column of dust where a well used to be, and in his white linen heart, he would be certain Wade Harland was dead. It was the first piece of luck he had had in six days.
Decided to treat it like a stolen horse. Write it hard. Ask no questions. He crawled. The passage ran downhill, narrow, low, cut by hand into rock that smelled of old smoke 50 yards on his fingers, found a wooden shelf, a lamp full, a flint box beside it.