“And—?”
“And instead of being charged interest, the people here signed away their mining rights.”
“Well, that was goddamn dumb.”
“It was a timing issue, don’t you see?” said Looks Away, looking pained. “The offer was made before ghost rock was discovered. Just before, in point of fact. The ink was barely dry on the loan papers when the prospectors found the first veins.”
Grey leaned back in his chair. “How soon before?”
“One week,” said Jenny.
“Now isn’t that mighty interesting timing,” said Grey.
“Isn’t it just?” agreed Looks Away. “The people here had barely enough money or liquid capital to build the few homes and stores you see. Not enough for anything else.”
“What makes it worse,” said Jenny, “is that since the Quake the ground doesn’t grow much that you’d want to eat. More than half of the crops that we can grow are either too bitter to eat or they’re infested with worms or bugs or other critters. We’re surrounded by ten thousand farmable acres and everyone’s slowly starving to death. And forget about raising cattle. They drink from the wrong well or eat some of a strange new kind of grass that has been growing wild these last few years. The farmers try to weed it out, but it’s more ornery than crabgrass and it seems to spring up overnight. Everyone has some in their fields. Any cow or sheep that eats it either keels right over or goes mad and runs off the cliffs.”
“Christ,” said Grey.
“Which resulted in people having to borrow more and more money and to pay for food brought in by rail from other towns,” said Looks Away. “Mr. Nolan Chesterfield — of the Wasatch Railroad — controls all supplies being brought in, and he has been trying to acquire the mineral rights. Not only for the veins of gold and silver exposed by the quake, but for ghost rock. A few folks didn’t sell their rights, but they’re on land where no ghost rock has been found. So far Chesterfield has picked everyone’s pockets but hasn’t gotten much in the way of rock. Such a pity because his wife, Veronica, is quite a lovely person who has tried to help.”
“Help — how?”
Brother Joe said, “She’s donated money and some barrels of grain to my church.”
“Why would she do that if her husband was squeezing the town?”
Grey saw the monk look down and Jenny cut a sly and mildly accusing glance at Looks Away. For his part, the Sioux wore an expression of bland and entirely artificial surprise.
“Why, I suppose,” he said, “it’s because she has a — oh, how should I phrase this? — a generous nature.”
“Generous is right,” Jenny said in a sharply disapproving tone. “Humph.”
Grey grabbed the conversation and brought it back to the topic. “Chesterfield’s the son of a bitch who hired those Apaches, isn’t he?”
“Indeed. They were his muscle.”
“Were?” asked Jenny. “Did something happen to them?”
“Someone decided to — how should I put this? — cut short their term of employment.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, Miss Pearl,” said Grey, “that someone cut their heads off and left ’em in the desert with a sign that pretty much says ‘get lost.’ Words to that effect.”
Brother Joe went pale, but Jenny snorted. “Good. Those men were sons of bitches and they’re better off as coyote meat.”
“Dear me,” said Looks Away, pretending to be shocked. Then he turned to Grey and arched his eyebrows. “Would you care to venture a guess as to the name of the other party involved in our little Shakespearean drama? Namely the philanthropist who owns the bank and holds title to every viable mine where ghost rock has been found?”
Grey Torrance felt his lip curl. “Aleksander Deray,” he said. Flat. Not a question.
“So,” said Looks Away, spreading his hands, “now you see the shape of it. The townspeople are buried to their eyeteeth in debt, which ties them to the land by legal and moral obligation. Deray and Chesterfield are like a pair of vultures.”
“They’re worse than vultures,” snapped Jenny. “They’re monsters. They won’t be happy until he owns us body and soul.”
Brother Joe nodded. “I fear that they are both in concert with the Devil.”
Grey wanted to ignore that, but the screams of the wind made it hard to easily dismiss any such comments.
“When the townsfolk had no more mining rights to sell,” said Looks Away, “Deray offered new loans in exchange for their water rights. Some of those rights, by the way, had already been sold to Chesterfield to pay for seeds, medicine, and bulk goods, like dried beans and salt beef. Before you ask, no, the terms were far from equitable, but then no one here is in a position of strength when it comes to bargaining.”
“Which is damned unfair,” declared Jenny, “since around here water’s the only thing worth as much as ghost rock.”
“And both of them worth more than gold,” agreed Looks Away. “Funny old world.”
“So,” said Grey, “while Nolan Chesterfield has been competing with Aleksander Deray to suck this town dry, Veronica Chesterfield has been trying to help? You said she gave extra food and such to the church?”
“She is a generous woman,” said Brother Joe. “I think she would be even more so if she could.”
“I take it her husband disapproves?”
“Her husband doesn’t bloody well know about it,” said Looks Away. “Veronica has to make secret arrangements to get supplies out to Brother Joe. And she risks much in doing so.”
“She’s afraid of her husband?”
“Very,” said Looks Away. “And with good cause. Nolan Chesterfield is a fat, obnoxious, short-tempered, violent, greedy parasite.”
“Don’t dress it in lace, son. Tell us what you really think.”
Looks Away sneered. “I can say without reservation that if he went the way of his Apaches, I would shed so very few tears.”
“Please, brother,” cautioned the monk. “We should not wish ill on anyone.”
“Bollocks.”
The sound of the rain changed and they all looked up.
“The storm’s passing,” said Jenny. “Thank God.”
It was true. The hammering rain had diminished to a few pings and the awful screams were only whispers on the wind.
“Still might wait a piece before we go out,” suggested Grey.
“Did you see any of us bolting for the door?” asked Looks Away.
“Need to find our horses.”
“Mm. However horses are easier to replace than one’s skin. Just a thought.”
Grey nodded and sipped his coffee. “Now, that brings us around to you and your boss, Doctor Saint. If Deray owns all the mining rights, then why’s Saint have a laboratory out here?”
“No, I said Deray has almost all the mining rights,” corrected Looks Away.
“Right, but the rights he doesn’t have are for land without ghost rock.”
“Yes and no. You see here in the Maze there are traces of ghost rock in much of the substrata and—.”
“In the what?”
“Let me back up a bit. Paradise Falls is in what was once the San Joaquin Valley. Hard to tell that anymore, but there it is. Geological explorers, like some of my teachers, believe that this whole area was once a great inland sea many, many years ago. Probably millions of years ago. Water erodes all forms of rock and mineral, and moving water tends to spread it all around, don’t you know. When the mountains were formed — probably by some ancient earthquakes every bit as powerful as the Great Quake — the sediment left traces of every rock it eroded. Are you following me?”