Chapter 7

"Mebbe it don't exist in this place, Scott."

Long seconds passed before the elder man recognized someone—Johnny, it was Johnny—had spoken. Minutes or more passed by before his brain produced a response. "What's that? What doesn't exist?" The returning words came in a rambling reel.

"The mine. Mebbe it's like that story. That Greek fella you told me about. Otis or something. He keeps looking for something, but he can't ever find it."

Scott dropped his head against his brother's as his muddled thoughts struggled through the cold and rain. "Odysseus? That Greek fella?" Scott chuckled when he thought he solved the riddle. "It took him a while, but he found his home. Just took a long, long time."

"Didn't you say those gods took a shine to punishin' people? Playin' with 'em. Mebbe they're the ones runnin' this place."

"Johnny, I don't think the good Protestants of Green River would care to hear you speak of such things."

"Ok, so being here ain't all bad. Won't miss a lot of them folks any. 'Course, they won't be turning out for me either. Now you, that's gonna be some kind of affair, Lotsa lamentin' going on."

The softly spoken words, somewhat staggered in delivery, were lost in the rain as Scott tried to remember what they were looking for exactly. His body craved sleep, longed to curl into the cold that filled him and simply let it all be, but his brother leaning against his chest made him force his eyes to open. C'mon, Garrett. Think! No, it's Lancer. It's Lancer. He adopted his legal surname when he joined the army. Grandfather was livid. That was years ago. He served his commission. He left Boston. The name became a part of who he was when he came to California. How could he forget that? Why was he so confused? And now he was…he was…holding his brother…he had a brother…an incredible brother and…and… they were looking for something…something…something…wait, someplace. Someplace out of the rain. The mine entrance. That was it.

"Someplace warm. That would be heaven," Scott murmured.

"I'm sorry…," a dejected voice replied.

"The mine," the eldest son clarified, misunderstanding his brother's regret.

"Do you see it?" Johnny's head lifted.

"No…not yet. Soon, Brother. Soon."

"That's what Otis said, too." The younger man slumped back against him.

Neither brother could cling to the concept of time. Scott fought the creeping cold dulling his senses. Johnny was lost in a miasma of unrelenting pain. It was Charlemagne, Scott's horse that spied a wooden barrier that looked too much like a stable door to pass it by as his own exhaustion mounted. The animal knickered and pawed at the mud creating a puddle at the base until first Scott, then Johnny, lifted bleary eyes to see what the animal wanted. Darkness had shielded everything around them from examination, but the boarded planks gleamed like the entrance to a promised sanctuary offering shelter from the steady rain.

"I'll check it," Scott stated, tapping Johnny's leg as he handed over the reins of the dancing horse to his brother and clumsily dropped to the ground. He grabbed Johnny's shin, his own legs buckling when he touched the muddy surface. Johnny groaned as the unexpected tug sent stabs into his flank shred by the mountain lion's claws. The older man barely grounded himself in time to prevent his brother's fall. "Johnny! Hold your seat. We're almost there, Brother. Hang on for me."

Johnny instinctively reached with his right firing another cascade of agony. His reflexes, though hampered, twisted both the reins and the horn in his left. He was unable to respond to Scott but managed to settle back into the saddle.

Moving like he had finished a bottle of his father's best brandy on his own, Scott teetered to the boarded mine. He shoved against the wet wood finding some rot and give but no loose boards. Pressing his forehead against the cedar planks, finding only more wet, he allowed his own groan of defeat. Charlie nudged him, blowing warm breath against his cheek as the horse sought his way in.

"You…g-g-got an axe on you, boy?" his favorite rider stroked his nose as the words floated to his twitching ears. Charlie's chest pushing Scott against the barricade kept him from collapsing.

"Let Charlie do it." The drawl in his ear caused Scott to jump. He blinked several times until accepting that Johnny stood by his side, his hand against the wood. "These are old boards, Scott. Maybe he can knock them loose. He doesn't know the command like Barranca, but we can give him his first lesson. Stand back." Johnny plucked at his brother's arm until he took several faltering steps to lean against the rock face.

"Empinas. Empinas, Charlemagne," Johnny instructed as he pulled the gelding near the barrier and slapped his front legs with the ends of the reins. Charlie attempted to jerk back, his nostrils flaring at the indignity, but the dark-haired two-leg yanked at him, raised his arm up pulling his head into the air and repeated the unfamiliar word. "Empinas! Empinas!" His front hooves lifted a few inches from the ground in his distress. (Rear up. Rear up, Charlemagne.)

"Good boy, Charlie! You can do it!" a beloved voice calmed the beast, and he turned his head to study the riders. The commanding man pulled Charlie back toward the blockage as the animal briefly pondered why the way remained closed. The man raised his arm once more lifting the horse's jaw repeating the strange sounds until Charlie lifted his legs higher and hit the wood with a thud due to the proximity. "That's it, boy! Do it again!"

"Empinas! Empinas!" Charlie rose again, his haunches bending toward the ground allowing the front legs to dance in the air. Excited praise encouraged him to rise higher, and his powerful hooves cracked the boards in front of him. A hint of warmer air touched his tender nose, and the animal needed no further instruction to rear and assault the planks preventing his entry into the haven where he hoped for a rubdown and a full feed bin.

Several hammers against the wood cracked through enough planks that the dark one ceased his commands while his rider wrapped his arms around his neck and stroked him. "You did it! Good boy, Charlie! Good boy!"

Johnny fell back against the rock siding, his eyes closed. Both shoulder and side glistened red. Scott attacked the broken boards until he cleared an opening large enough to allow all of them entry.

"Come on, Brother. Let's get you inside," Scott grabbed the reins in one hand and wrapped his other around his brother's waist. They stumbled into the musty cave, protected at last from the stinging rain.

Johnny's stilted movements mirrored Scott's as they advanced into the mine away from the dreary deluge outside, Charlemagne's head drooping against Scott's back to push them along. The natural cave led back in the direction they had just left. Underground this time. Scott scanned the roughhewn walls deliberately blanking his mind of the water filled shaft into which he had fallen. At least this part of the caves was dry.

The air was cloying. Johnny coughed from the dust they stirred as they walked along the pathway until finding a broader area to settle. Remnants of the once working mine, including old buckets, empty bottles, rusted pickaxes, cotton wrapped torches and a cracked lantern, were tossed about the space. Charlie stuck his nose into one of the buckets and shook his head in disgust when no oats appeared.

When they left Lancer earlier that afternoon, a simple hunt was planned with a quick turnaround to be back in time for dinner. Scott's saddlebags held no food, and no bedroll was tied behind the cantle. With fumbling hands lacking feeling, he managed to uncinch the saddle and prop it against one wall where Johnny had slid and slumped, his chin against his chest. He dragged the saddle blanket to the spot and tossed it on Johnny's lap before taking two of the least damaged buckets back to the entrance where the rain might provide something useful. The water-filled containers dragged at Scott's shoulders, and he was forced to set them down twice and regrip before returning to their haphazard shelter. As soon as Scott freed him from the bridle, Charlie made immediate use of the bucket set at his feet. Scott joined his brother against the wall with a long exhale.

"To wax poetic in a most unpoetic situation, night has fallen and so we wait for the sun to rise again. They will miss us soon but with this storm, no one will come looking for us until tomorrow."

"Not gonna like what they find when they get there, I guess."

"Can't say I like what we found. Can't make a fire, can't get dry, can't wrap those wounds of yours, can't get warm, can't eat. Water," Scott spun his pointer finger in the air, "there's no shortage of that."

"Welcome to my Hell. Every padre and preacher I ever heard said there'd be fire. They were wrong." The echo of the water splashing against the ground carried through the tunnel. Very little light remained. Johnny's thoughts dissipated into the darkness for a spell but then he found them again. "Some say I was born damned." The despair garbled the words, but Scott thought he heard, "Never meant to drag you along."

Scott's head dropped to his left. Johnny's head was tilted back against the wall, his left hand pressed against his right shoulder. Fresh blood oozed between his fingers. Scott was lost in his own maze, trying to place himself in his memories. He was in the woods. In a tent. Near a battlefield. In the rain. No, he was on a horse. Couldn't escape the rain though. Damn cold in any case. The two of them on the horse. That seemed to be important. "We had to stay together." Yes, he was sure about that.

"Here, you're soaked outside but you need to drink. Lost too much blood," Scott offered a handful of water to his brother.

"I can do it," Johnny dipped his left hand in the bucket. Despite the metallic aftertaste, the water was soothing to his throat. Peering into the emptiness of the cave, his mind wandered but always circled back to his utter failure where his brother was concerned. Johnny used his legs to push up a little against the wall, opened his eyes and stared out at a distant place. However distant his vision, his voice wrapped around only the two of them.

"I was good at my trade, Scott. Don't make no excuses for that. Did what had to be done even when it rubbed me raw sometimes. Even when I knew that ol' devil waggled his claw my way knowing he'd take me when the time came. Got the job done and helped the right people most the time. At least that's what I tell myself. I know it stuck in Murdoch's craw, but I never looked back. I knew that gun fit my hand like I was born with it, giving me a way out of the squalor I was in. I was never ashamed of what I was. It was a job. A trade that kept me alive. I was good. Damn good." Johnny chuckled. "Or damned good.

"Then I found out there was something more I wanted to be."

"What was that?" The murmur hinted of his Bostonian roots as exhaustion drained him.

"Scott Lancer's brother."

"You are my brother," Scott stated the words with a surety that sparked a warm ember in the pit of his stomach. He rested his hands across his waist as if the warmth could spread into them. Scott could feel Johnny next to him. Although he was lost from sight, a heat emanated upon his skin and Scott guiltily leaned a little closer to combat the cold that dragged him into its depths. Accusatory words gurgled up from the misery that entrapped them.

Damn you, Johnny. You had no right. You had no right.

"Johnny," Scott grasped his brother's arm forgetting the bite that had torn into that shoulder. He struggled to find an explanation thinking he had said the terrible words aloud again. "I didn't mean it…not like you think. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself for me."

His brother answered as if he knew exactly what curse Scott had yelled. "Who else is worth it, Scott? Couldn't get it right though, could I? Left you in that pit. I failed you. And I left you there for everyone to see."

"Johnny, you never failed me. You gave me everything I ever wanted. You. Just you." Scott had lost focus on much of what Johnny implied, blaming fever for his brother's confusion. "C'mon…we best try to sleep."

"Eternal sleep. Another broken promise," Johnny may have moved his lips. He wasn't sure anymore what sensations he controlled and what controlled him. He wanted to drape the darkness around him and let go. Let it all go and never wonder about what trial came next.

Instead, he was distracted by the sounds as Scott moved away from him and repositioned the saddle against the wall. Scott flopped back to the ground to settle in that direction. Johnny sighed understanding that it best his brother kept his distance given the hurt he had brought to him…until Scott dragged Johnny over to him and tugged him between his legs. Scott rested Johnny back against his chest and told him to straighten up the saddle blanket over them. Johnny didn't complain, not even cursing the blast of pain that had torn into his body at the jostling and found some measure of peace when it faded away. Scott was too tired to wonder why he felt practically nothing at all.

With only the occasional rustle of Charlemagne's hooves on the rock floor to disturb them, Scott's arms firm around his brother, Johnny's back warm against his brother's chest, both fell into troubling, shattered dreams but for a single solid truth that guided them through the nightmares.

Neither walked through the darkness alone.