Rocky Mountain Slide

Colorado took some getting used to.

The air was thin in Denver, and the moment he got off the plane it made Cyrus feel exhausted. Fortunately he was able to charter a driver, and snooze along the way. It was about a four hour trip through the mountains, and by the time he woke up, cramped and aching in the back seat, they had arrived at their destination.

The second he got out of the car, he knew he’d made a mistake. It was the end of December, and Aspen was fucking freezing.

Ten minutes later, after retreating into the nearest Woolworth’s and buying a heavy jacket, he warmed up at the counter with a decent cup of coffee. For twenty-five cents, it had better be decent, he thought crankily, but was smart enough to keep that to himself.

The town wasn’t much to look at. A few streets, a couple of blocks of buildings nestled between the peaks, with snow thick and crisp and far too deep slathered over everything. It was an old mining town, and in a saner world, it would have been emptied out and left behind for the polar bears or whatever the hell it was that thrived around here.

But then a fancy businessman had looked at Aspen Mountain and decided “What if we made people pay to throw themselves down this with only a couple of pieces of wood between them and a slow, cold death in the snow?”

Now he owned the mountain, and Cyrus saw signs of new construction all over town, and what looked to be a ski lift busily hauling little metal capsules up to a fancy-looking lodge.

It almost made him want to go in for a closer look. The spectacle was intriguing…

Then wind howled outside, and Cyrus watched the cars wobble on the wire, shaking back and forth. No, no he decided that he was fine right where he was. For now, at least.

It wouldn’t last, though. He had someone to find, and it was a small enough town he figured he could do it in a day or two.

He HOPED he could do it in a day or two. This place was far too cold for his blood.

So after he finished the coffee, and slid a quarter across the table he hesitated, then slid two more to follow it.

The clerk, wearing a soda jerk’s hat, apron and bow tie, squinting at the world through thick, battered glasses, raised an eyebrow. He was an older fellow, and he took the coins with a gap-toothed smile. “That’s right kind of you, friend. You here to, uh…” he stopped when he saw the cane leaning against the stool. He’d missed that before, obviously.

“No, I ain’t here to ski,” Cyrus said without heat. “I’m looking for a fellow. No trouble, just looking to talk with him about some work.”

“What’s this feller’s name?” The clerk smiled.

He stopped smiling and started frowning when Cyrus told him the name.

Then he told Cyrus why he was frowning, and by the end of the story, Cyrus was frowning, too.

It took a few dollars, and a phone call from the clerk to arrange a ride to where Cyrus needed to go. And Cyrus enjoyed absolutely none of the trip up the old mine trail, out to where the crumbled remains of the prospector’s shacks and the company housing lay in snow-covered heaps, a steady progression of demolished buildings telling the story of history being wiped away for new construction. Eventually wrecked shacks gave way to whole shacks and cabins, hewn from pine, and each and every one of them sporting a bright yellow sign warning that they were condemned and to keep away.

All but the last.

They were high up the mountain now, deep in the pines, and the wind wailed like a screaming mother going through her first birth. The last cabin they came to was in better repair than the others, with a fence of barbed wire squared around it, and sheet metal bolted to the walls. The part of Cyrus that knew a little bit about engineering wondered how much damage that did to the wood underneath, with the temperature shifting as it did around here. The frozen metal would expand and contract, and wear on the wood.

Then he looked at the windows of the cabin, and knew that long-term problems definitely weren’t the main concern for its owner.

“This is as far as I go,” the clerk’s cousin said, rubbing the back of his head where the cap didn’t cover. “I’ll wait a few in case he don’t want to talk with you.”

“Much appreciated,” Cyrus said, and flipped the hood up on his own coat. Then he opened the door and slid out into the snow. Out towards the gates of that cabin that had reinforced firing slits for windows.

There was a feeling you got, when you were being watched. When someone had eyes on you, there was a pressure, almost. Like God was looking through every single set of eyes in the world, and through your immortal soul you had a connection enough to know when you were being scrutinized by another soul. At least, that was what PFC Bennet had said one drunken night in Seoul. At the time, Cyrus had thought it deep, had thought PFC Bennet wise beyond his years. But then the guy had charged an enemy strongpoint with a bayonet, and ended up with more holes in him than whole parts, so his wisdom, perhaps, had been a bit overrated.

Cyrus didn’t feel too wise at the minute, opening up the gate, struggling with the heavy metal latch, hearing it clack and clunk against the old wood. It creaked open, and the wind almost shoved it into him. He wrestled with both it and his cane, fell over once, then managed to get inside and shut it behind him.

He kept his eyes on the cabin as he moved forward, one hand raised, the other trying to find purchase with the cane.

And when the rifle poked through one of the slits, he stopped, feeling the wind cut through him, knowing that his life was on a knife’s edge here.

“Greg Holden!” he called out. “I just want to talk!”

A spit of snow kicked up at his feet, as a gunshot rolled through the mountains. But Cyrus felt himself relaxing. So often he was on pins and needles at home, in the quiet, waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Now? Now it had. At this range, the gunman couldn’t miss. Especially not THIS gunman, if the files Cyrus had read were at all accurate. No, the fact that Cyrus was still standing, the fact the guy had shot the ground, that meant that Holden didn’t want to kill him.

Yet.

Let’s keep it that way, Cyrus thought. “Benny Clackson down at the Woolworth’s told me about your troubles. I’m not part of that! I’m here about something else!”

There was a long pause. Smoke drifted silently up from the rifle. Cyrus kept his hand raised, tried to ignore the fact that he was freezing his ankles off in deep snow.

The rifle tilted, withdrew. “You ain’t here about the mail. That gets dropped off on Tuesdays.”

That was a deep voice. Deep but low, and Cyrus had to strain to hear it over the wind. “This isn’t about the mail. I’m here to offer you a job. But I can’t stay out here and yell at you.” It was the truth. His lungs had been mostly spared from the fire that broiled half of him, but he’d still inhaled enough smoke that cold air hurt. And the cold, thin air of Denver was already itching at his throat, threatening to send him into a coughing fit. “I got a little cooked in Korea, and not in the good way,” he admitted. “Please, can I just come in out of the cold?”

“You were in the service?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “Army.”

“What’s your series?” The voice was flat. This was a test.

“Eighty-eight Mike!” Cyrus called, coughing at the end of it. “I drove deuces wherever they told me to!”

Silence again. Then the door opened. “Come on in,” said the figure lost in the shadows behind, carefully NOT standing silhouetted in the light of the flickering fire beyond. “Get a wiggle on. They’re likely watchin’ you right now.”

*****

Greg Holden was a huge bear of a man. He was three hundred if he was a day, and while a good chunk of that was wrapped up in a great gut that bespoke a man who’d never quite adjusted to being back in civilization, he was tall enough and sturdy enough to bear his bulk with ease. Clad in faded flannels, with a stocking cap on his head and a beard that covered the miniscule amount of flesh that on other people would be called a neck, Cyrus knew there was no real softness to the man.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Not on the outside, at least. But those eyes told a different story about what was on the inside. They were filled with concern as he bustled around the front room of the three-room cabin, pulling an MRE out of a box that was identical to the twelve empty ones next to it, and putting a kettle on to boil. “I feel bad about making you stand on that leg,” Greg Holden said, as Cyrus tried to find the perfect spot by the fire. This was the tricky part, trying to chase the cold away without aggravating the grafts with the sudden heat. They were threatening to cramp up, too, and Cyrus massaged them as best he could through the layers. Holden continued. “If I’d known you weren’t with Pfeifer, I would have let you in lickety split.”

“It’s all right. If I were in your situation, I wouldn’t have taken the risk,” Cyrus said, accepting the MRE on a chipped depression glass plate. He took a token bite of something that had probably once qualified as chicken, and continued. “Have they really taken shots at you? Clackson wasn’t sure about that part, said he’d heard it as a rumor.”

“Well,” Holden said, sprawling out in a faded, stitch-popped armchair across from Cyrus, and peeling a can of beer out of a six pack, “someone sure did. And I don’t reckon I got no other enemies ‘round these parts who would aside from the feller whom I’m inconveniencing.” He grimaced. “Ain’t sure I even qualify as an enemy. More of a bump in the road.”

Cyrus nodded. “Can I hear it from your own lips? Just to make sure I got things straight, before I figure out if we can employ you?”

Holden nodded. “Sure. Reckon you came all this way. I owe you that, gotta make up for my bad manners somehow. But I tell you, odds are I’m probably gonna turn you down, Sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living,” Cyrus muttered, and the two shared a grin at the old joke.

Greg’s smile faded, as his eyes flicked left, recalling the past. He hunched forward, one hand rubbing the worn cloth of the armchair as he began to speak, voice low and deep and steady against the crackling of the pine-fed fire.

“My grandpa came here, back when Aspen was a mining town. Good work, pullin’ the silver out of the mountains. Honest work. Got him a wife, built him a cabin. Just in time, too. Ever hear of the Sherman Silver Act?”

“That was a mite before my time. I think it was… eighteen ninety something?” Cyrus pushed his glasses up on his nose. The lens that wasn’t blacked out was fogging up a bit.

“Eighteen-ninety on the nose,” Greg sighed. “Before my time, too, but Grandpa wouldn’t shut up about it. For good reason. They passed the act, Aspen turned into the silver mining capital of Colorado. Grandpa rented out the land they weren’t using, made money hand over fist as the mining companies brought people in by the truckload. Then, four years later, Congress decides to repeal the Sherman act. Damn near killed this town. And Grandpa and Grandma. See, he’d been investing his money in more land. And when the prices for silver dropped… well.”

“Well,” Cyrus took a pull of his beer. Greg matched it, gazing into the fire. “There was still mining, of course,” he said. “So the Holdens got along pretty well. But goin’ from rolling in money to havin’ to get by year by year, then month by month, and finally down to week by week…”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, staring into the fire. His family was living that now.

Well. They had been. Now Mom was gone, Dad was probably going to hit the bottle so hard he’d imprint a Jim Beam label into his forehead, and Rusty and Beth were—

—Cyrus pulled himself out of the funk, and smiled, sadly. “That’s why it’s the American Dream. You can catch it, but you can’t hold onto it forever.”

“Yeah. But it was Daddy who put the bug in my ear, I reckon.” Greg looked back, with his own sad smile. “It was important to him, that we had SOMETHING at the end of all of this. Even as we had to sell properties back to the bank bit by bit. Because as long as you got something to work with, you can turn it ‘round with a little luck. He passed back in ‘54. That’s why I got out, actually. No one else to take care of the last little bit we have.” He thumped one hand against the armchair.

“I’m sorry,” Cy said.

“I ain’t. He was a mean drunk. Used to hit me and Mom and Becky.” Greg blew air between his lips, made his cheeks wobble. “Thing is, I ain’t sure he was wrong about this part of things, at least.”

Cyrus watched the flames. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

“No.” Greg said. “Some time back, a couple of rich tycoons came to town. Decided to make it a ski resort town. And they hired a feller named Pfeifer, to help them with that dream. Real polite feller, when I talked with him. Offered me a good chunk of change for this land. Said it was the last holdout property on Buttermilk Mountain.”

“But you’re honoring your dad’s wishes,” Cyrus said.

Greg snorted, killed the beer, and crunched the can in his hand. Cyrus raised his eyebrows. That was a steel can, and Holden hadn’t seemed to put any effort into it.

“Naw,” Holden said. “If it were just about Dad’s wishes, I would have sold. I got no one to hand this property down to, and Becky’s in California, her husband’s making bank growing oranges. She doesn’t care, nothing but bad memories here for her. No, the problem is…” his face glowered over his beard, “...I ain’t so sure Dad’s death was natural. And I don’t like it when bad guys win.”

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. “You think Pfeifer killed him?”

Holden shrugged. “I don’t know if he ordered it. Hell, Dad made enough enemies it could be someone with a grudge lookin’ to take the father’s sins out on the son. But it’s pretty convenient that there’s two very rich men and one very rich woman involved, in this here situation. And it’s REALLY a coincidence that two of the hotels in town got Pinkertons renting rooms in them a few days before I nearly caught a bullet out in the back forty.”

“Pinkertons!” Cyrus’ eye went wide. Pinkertons were bad news. That particular group of freelance police had a history, when it came to helping very rich people deal with troublesome poor folks. A pretty bloody one, in parts.

Then he stopped, as he thought. “Pinkertons,” he said, with the start of a wicked grin. “Okay. This ain’t a problem.”

“Not a problem?” Greg was surprised. “You walk out that door, I can’t guarantee you won’t eat a thirty-ought-six Leadville surprise.”

“All I need to do’s get to a phone,” Cyrus said. “The folks I represent can call off the Pinkertons like bad dogs who have slipped their leash.”

“If I come work for you,” Holden said, squinting at Cyrus.

“Well, technically you’d be workin’ with me. The guy in charge is a big fish, government wise. That’s all I can say.”

“What’s the job? No, wait,” Holden said. “There’s only one reason you’d need me.” He shrugged. “I’m okay with it. Don’t have a problem putting lead in bad people. But… you’d need me to go somewhere else to do it, right?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, seeing where he was going. “No way around that.”

Holden raised his hands, put them down. “Thing is… if I leave, then they’ve got me. Pfeifer and his friends got the city council in their pockets. If I leave, even for a week, then I’m pretty sure they’d find a reason to seize the land, and then they win.”

Cyrus grimaced. He knew where Holden was coming from. And the man was level-headed, too, that made him more likeable. It would be easy for him to blame his problems on the tycoons that were remaking Aspen, but he knew he didn’t have proof, and he wasn’t trying to go after them or make noise and throw possible slander around. Hell, if it had been Barty Mossjaeger here in this situation, Cyrus knew the slopes would be red with blood. And that’s one reason he wanted Greg Holden on the team so bad, to reign in the literal psychopath he’d put on the mission.

But…

Cyrus played his last card. “Look, I can’t explain fully, but time’s not as much as an issue. The mission’s months away from moving forward, we got a time before we need you. Let me get back and make some calls, and get my boss to muddy the waters. Maybe we can get them to back down. I know we can get the Pinkertons out of here, at the very least.”

Holden sighed, and patted Cyrus’ arm. “You’re all right, Colfax. But I got to see this through. So long as this cabin stands, I need to stand by her, or—”

Thunder boomed up the mountain.

“Thunder in December? In the Rockies?” Cyrus asked.

Holden stared back at him, wide eyed. “That’s not thunder!”

The cabin vibrated. The thunder built and rose, rolling.

“That was TNT!” Gregory Holden said, rising and running to the back room. “Get to the car!”

Cyrus struggled to his feet and opened the door in time to see the car speeding away. Then he looked back up the mountain, and wished he hadn’t.

Because the mountain was coming down to meet him. Rapidly.

“Get out of the doorway! Come with me!” Holden half-tackled, half lifted him, threw him over his shoulder fireman style, and ran. Cyrus squeaked in surprise. He was NOT a light man, but Holden, strong already, was a man possessed.

And under his arm, he held a battered sled, its slightly bent rungs tied with wires.

“What…” Cyrus managed to gasp out, as Holden ran toward the cliff. “What’s the…”

“You said you were a driver?” Holden said, plopping both sled and Cyrus down at the edge of a very, very, VERY steep slope, as the avalanche roared and built and shook the mountainside.

“Yes…” Cyrus said, staring at the old sled, that definitely looked too small for one large fellow and the giant that was Holden.

“Drive!” Holden threw him onto the sled, squatted as best he could behind Cyrus, and used his legs to kick them down over the edge, onto the slope.

Later on, Cyrus would revisit this many, many times over in his dreams. The old sled creaking and straining and losing bits as it went, the guide ropes barely holding together in his hands as he desperately tugged and tried to steer the thing, and the rising scream that drowned out the avalanche coming from his mouth the whole way as he dodged pines, rocks, and fleeing deer.

He would dream of how the falling wave of snow and ice and stone caught up to them, and through some miracle confluence of physics and ludicrously painful effort, they managed to crest the wave and get thrown the last few dozen feet, clear of a rocky gorge that ate the rest of the falling slurry and into a vast, soft snow drift.

But at the moment, all Cyrus knew was dark, aching coldness, and the flush of adrenaline that let him dig his way out. He was laughing now, roaring as he ripped snow from his beard, and Greg Holden was laughing with him, hugging him as they rocked back and forth and watched the rocks tumble and come to a stop, a mere few bodylengths away.

“So,” he said, when the joy of survival had faded, and the long, painful trudge back around the edge of the mountain to the road back into town began. “You were gonna stay here so long as that cabin was standing, huh?”

Greg Holden chewed his beard, as he thought. Cyrus let him go. When a man used to his own company got a think on, it was best to let them do it and not push too much or chatter.

Holden sighed, paused his limping walk, and stared back up the slope. The entire mining road had been wiped away, and all the cabins with it. Cruel and unusual geography had rearranged itself, and nothing of man’s work remained.

“Still don’t set right, letting the bad guys win,” Greg said, wistfully. “Whoever they might be.”

“Well,” Cyrus said, knowing that Holden’s answer had pretty much been an affirmative. “Maybe things didn’t work out here, but I can guarantee you that if you come with me now a whole bunch of other bad guys are gonna have a really bad day…”