We rode to Coeur d’Alene, through Harrison and
Wallace, they were blasting out the tunnels, making way
for the light of learning. When Jesus comes a’calling,
she said he’s coming round the mountain on a train.
   —Josh Ritter, “Wings”

THE LIGHT on the answering machine beat a tiny pulse in the darkness of the cold house. Matt stripped off his sweat-soaked uniform shirt, gave a futile wipe at the venison bloodstains on his work shoes, and wearily punched the blinking red button.

Unexpectedly, the sound of Doug’s voice filled the room.

As the sound emerged, Matt stopped moving. He was not prepared to hear this particular voice. In his mind, he could hear in the sound of its uneven timbre the faintest of echoes of every teenage argument, every ten-year-old utterance, every baby cry. Matt closed his eyes and sank down to the couch.

Matt did not know who his son was anymore. All that he knew of Doug was past. He didn’t even know where Doug was, and he still didn’t understand why he had left. He tried to think back to when his pop had been around, when he had been a boy Doug’s age, but there was nothing solid there for him to hold on to, it seemed, no emotion that came clear—and besides, he was so different from Doug. They were light-years away from each other, universes apart. Then the voice stopped, and Matt realized he hadn’t really comprehended a word the boy had said.

He punched the button again. Once more, Doug’s voice filtered up through months of abandoned cities, distant places far removed from Matt’s experience. His voice was like something intentionally lost, now echoing out across the room again.

“. . . just wanted to tell you . . . I’ve been figuring things out, here in LA. I think I got a handle on what I want to do with my life. I don’t know if you’ll like it or not, I don’t really give a damn if you do. I didn’t know if I’d be back. I got a lot going on in LA already, got a job here, got a life. But I miss the mountains there, I miss the high places, the cabin too. I want to get back there when I get a chance. And Dad, don’t worry, okay? I’ll be all right. I just had to figure things out, on my own, without you around. I’ll be back, you take care . . .”

As the message ended, Matt heard a sound, a low moaning in the air. He looked around a moment before he realized that he himself had been making that sound.

His cheeks were wet. He remembered with a sudden gratefulness that no one else was nearby. The house was empty, his wife was at work. He wouldn’t want to admit to anyone, even Sall, that he was crying his eyes out over a damned phone message.

He was relieved to hear the ratcheting tick of an adjustable wrench continue from the other side of the house, where Kev’s work continued, undisturbed.

After dinner, Matt took the kid in the garage a steak. He didn’t invite him into the house, he didn’t trust him that much. The kid had a little suite set up in the corner of the shed behind the car—on the army cot was an old pillow, that bedraggled blanket, and a poncho Matt had given him. The kid had also cadged Matt’s broken-down easy chair for a makeshift living room. By the side of the car was a jug of water. The kid was working on the car in just shorts, shirtless and shoeless. His torso was streaked with grease, and his cot was spotted with old oil. Looking at the boy’s dirty skin and the hardening muscles moving under the strain of the wrench, Matt had second thoughts. Maybe he should let him into the house every few days for a shower.

The kid chewed on the steak appreciatively. Matt thumped the rusted hood of the Barracuda. “How’s it going with this old heap?”

For the first time since he’d encountered the kid at Pop’s house, Matt got to see him smile. “Ah, it’s going great,” the kid said through a mouthful of potato. “I got the weeds cleaned out—they were growing all over, through the engine, in the fan and the fuel lines.”

“Okay,” said Matt cautiously. “That’s a start.”

“Ah, I know, I know.” The kid waved his fork in the air and gulped down his mouthful. “I found a battery here beside the car, so I stuck that in—got the juice going.”

“Oh damn,” said Matt. He glanced inside the engine well.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the kid glowering, a renewed sullenness. At the least comment, the kid sank into a state of surly antagonism. “No, no,” said Matt. “I was just kicking myself, leaving a battery on concrete.” The kid brightened a bit, but he still held the sullen posture. “Yeah, I checked for that before I put it in. I know about batteries deionizing. Battery kept the charge.

Surprised, Matt jerked his head upward, banging it into the hood. Gingerly, he felt his scalp for bruises. “Huh, you know that already, Kevin?”

“Yeah, my uncle taught me all about electrical components—like you shouldn’t leave a battery on a concrete slab too long, it’ll deionize. It’s Kev— just call me Kev.”

“Hmmph,” said Matt.

Kev finished the steak. “I think it’s all working. Let’s put in the key, start her up!”

Matt took a hose in his fingers and pushed at it, feeling the stiffness and decay in its twist. “Sure, it’ll turn over. And it might even run for a while. But all your hoses and fuel lines are filled with dust and old gasoline. That old gas has been sitting so long, it’s turned into sludge. Once you turn it on, all that gunk will get driven deeper into the engine.”

Kev shrugged. “So it’ll run dirty. So what?”

“No, it could end up damaging the engine. Hurt the valves permanently.” There was a frustrated moan from Kev, and he threw a wrench against the

wall. After it clattered to the concrete, Matt spoke. “The first thing is to replace all the fuel lines. There’s even the right gauge of line here somewhere. You know how to do it?”

Kev grunted. “Yeah.”

Matt rubbed the bruise on his head. “But if you really want it to run long-term, you could do one better. You should take apart the engine and wash the fuel system out with denatured alcohol. Probably the last thing a young buck like you wants to do though.”

He pointed at a covered bucket. “But if you want to, that’s denatured alcohol.” Kev grunted again.

Matt shrugged. “Well, you probably won’t get to it. But it’d be the best thing to do.” He picked up the plate and the fork and made his way out of the garage.

The witching hour had come and gone. In Matt’s head, there was a voice, echoing out from the depths. It was the boy at five, at ten, at fifteen, even at eighteen, with that perpetual cigarette in his mouth. It was the country of memory he spoke from, a place buried so deeply under the layers of dark and buried love, the sand of too many scattered years that Matt couldn’t see through anymore, couldn’t move aside, couldn’t shift, not with the weight and strength of his own life.

I miss the mountains there, I miss the high places, the cabin too . . . I just had to figure things out, on my own, without you around. I’ll be back . . .

When the phone beside the bed rang, Matt picked it up automatically. He could still hear Doug’s voice inside his head. I want to get back there when I get a chance . . .

“Hello?”

“Matty, I’m sorry for calling so late. It’s just that your pop, well, he . . .” “Ruth?” he said groggily.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m so sorry for calling so late. It’s just that your pop, he’s sitting up on his front porch, all the lights in the house blazing away. He’s shaking and nervous. He’s just not the same since he came back from the hospital. All evening he was sitting over there with his shotgun across his lap. Worried about his kitchen, he says.”

Matt sat up in bed. “Did something happen to him? Something while he was gone?”

“Well, he’s claiming someone broke into his house while he was gone. Don’t know what he’s on about, but it had him real scared earlier this evening.”

“Dammit.” Matt got out of bed, looked for his bathrobe. “It was that damn kid I found on his property. The kid broke in—I know he did. How’s Pop doing now? Is he still sitting out on the porch?”

“No, no,” said Ruth. “I managed to get him off the porch. He’s over here now, having a cup of cocoa. But he’s not going to bed, not till he finds ’em. Whoever they are.”

“Thank you, Ruth. Sally and I just really both thank you.”

“Well, there’s no need to thank me. But your pop does seem kind of agitated.”

“Let me talk to him. Don’t you worry—I’ll take care of this first thing in the morning. Let me talk to him, Ruth. I’ll take care of this, I’ll talk Pop back to sleep.”

Kev Macht woke before dawn. He was drowning under the weight of a river pouring down upon him. He gulped in the sudden cold. He shook the liquid off his head.

Then Matt dumped another bucket of water over him.

“You awake yet?” said Matt. “Dammit, how could you do that?”

“What the hell?”

“You broke into my pop’s house when you were over there. He was scared all night his first night home from the hospital. How could you do that?”

“Hey, I’m sorry, man,” said Kev. The shock of the water was painful on his skin. He blinked water out of his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s an old man, dammit! You frightened him half to death, in his own house.”

Kev made a sound.

Matt kept talking. “I should have just booked you for trespassing!”

Kev sluiced the water off his face. “I didn’t do anything, man. Just ate some food.”

“You’re going to apologize to him, understand?!” Matt slammed a fist into wall.

“Jesus Christ—I’m coming already!”

Matt sighed. “I’m gonna go make some coffee. Meet me at the truck. Fifteen minutes.”

In the truck, Matt handed Kev a steaming aluminum mug. “Coffee,” he said. “Y’know, I guess I’m angry mostly because Pop’s nearly eighty years old and—”

“Straight-edge.”

“What?”

“I’m straight-edge. I don’t drink coffee.”

Matt yanked the truck into gear and pulled out of the driveway. “Whatever. Drink the damn coffee. It’s early in the morning. Everybody needs coffee.”

Kev rolled his window down. Matt raised his voice over the wind rushing into the car. “I’m really worried about Pop. He forgets things. He even forgets who I am from time to time.” Matt drummed his fingers on the wheel.

Kev sipped from the top of the mug. Then he took the plastic lid off and threw the coffee quickly out of the window.

“Dammit—that was good coffee! And you know what? I was going to talk to you this morning—originally—because I had something good to tell you. I talked to Doug, and he wanted me to tell you hi for him. Goddammit!” Matt knocked the empty mug down on the floor and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, his face flushing with anger.

Kev rolled his window up. He did not look at Matt again, even when Matt spoke.

“You got it? You understand that you’re going out there to apologize to an old man who didn’t deserve to get scared? After all, I didn’t have to take you back to—”

“Yeah,” said Kev. “You don’t have to spell it out. I’m not some stupid-ass Negro.”

Matt raised a fist in the air. “Don’t bring that stupid racist bullshit into my house!”

“Okay, man, hey, okay—I’ll say I’m sorry. All right, already? Jeezus!”

Matt breathed heavily, and opened his mouth, as if he were about to respond. Then he thought better of it. He downshifted and the truck lurched as they slowed on the grade. New construction had closed off half the highway on the pass. Heavy-equipment trucks blocked the road for minutes at a time. Bulldozers bit into the hillside on either side, enlarging the highway, their massive tires turning on the road in eruptions of mud.

When the rain came, it spread out across the Bitterroot Range and filled the space between the mountains before it moved toward the quiet depths of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The concrete of the highway steamed as the water slicked it with dark patches of wet. Just before they turned off the highway, Matt switched on the windshield wipers.

The wet slapping sound of them put Kev in mind of the morning. It was the first shower he’d had at Doug’s house, ever. Kev had come out of the shower stall slowly, wanting desperately to go back to sleep—but his nest of blankets was soaked with water, and the only place he could think of was in the backseat of the Barracuda, next to the motor oil and the engine parts soaking in denatured alcohol.

He sensed a threat in Matt this morning. He felt that if Matt found him sleeping again, he would lose the car. The car was the single thing that kept him moving after the shower. The thought of the Barracuda fixed up, painted a bright neon yellow, revving a Hemi engine, that was what got him dressed and out the door.

Something outside himself had moved him to be here now, driving through the rain. When Matt began to talk, he listened for a few moments. He talked about how his pop wasn’t close to him anymore. They used to be, or something. Kev tried to tune out the sound of Matt talking. But the batteries for his tape player were running low, and the sound of the voice kept coming through.

Kev closed his eyes. He’d stood there in the shower for the longest time, feeling the hot lines of water touch his skin. He’d stood there drifting off over the edge of sleep, waking only when he felt himself falling.

Pop Worthson walked out of the kitchen slowly, a shuffle in his walk. His head came up to look at them. Kev thought of a turtle pushing its head a little at a time out of its shell. He was surprised how much this old man looked like Matt when he looked up. They were close enough to be mirror images of each other, a few decades apart in time.

Pop reached out a shaking arm to shake their hands. Despite his apparent frailty, Kev was surprised to find that the man’s grip hurt like hell. He couldn’t crack this old guy’s knuckles.

“Good to see you, Pop,” Matt said.

“Nice of you to come out unexpected,” he said. “Should’ve called, you know.” He turned his back and moved back into the kitchen.

“Ruth been here?” Matt asked. He flipped through the new mail on the counter.

“Oh yes,” his father said. “Wish she wouldn’t, she—”

“Well, that’s what we pay her for.”

But Pop didn’t seem to have heard him. “You know, she drops by all the time now. Nosy old busybody. Always trying to feed me dinner.” They followed Pop to the kitchen.

Kev looked down at the sink. It was thick with grime. Bits of toothpaste and bristles from old shaving sessions were spattered over the tile counter.

Old Worthson turned toward them. His eyes widened and his mouth trembled. “Doug? Is that you?” he said. “I’ve missed you—we’ve all missed you around here.”

Kev opened his mouth. The lie came up sudden, but then it stuck in his throat.

“No, Pop,” Matt said. “This boy is a friend of Doug’s—he’s Kevin Paulsen. Kevin came over here today to apologize.”

Kev tensed as Matt laid a hand on his shoulder. His fists clenched, but the thought of a Hemi roaring in the engine well of the ’Cuda forced him not to flinch away.

“Apologize?” asked the old man.

“Yeah,” said Matt. “For breaking in. We talked last night? You were upset?” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that? I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry

about.”

“Well, uh . . . ,” began Kev. “I just gotta say—”

“Speak up—he’s getting deaf,” hissed Matt in his ear.

The old man was already turning his back on them. He was heading for the kitchen table. Kev’s voice trailed off. “I just got some food that day. Guess it’s all right, huh?”

The old man stood beside the table. “No need for you all to come out here. I’m fine. The Good Lord looks out for his own. Don’t worry about me none.”

Kev sat down. There was a radio on the table. Maybe he could switch his old batteries out for the live ones. All there was on the radio was some preacher anyway.

“Well, I do worry about you, Pop,” said Matt. “After all, look at this sink. I should scrub it out while we’re here.”

“He doesn’t even listen to me.” The old man stood up slowly and faced Matt, anger in his face. “I told you not to worry about me! Why’dja come out? Just go on home now.”

Awkwardly, Matt chuckled. “Ah, we weren’t worried about you, Pop! I’ll leave the sink alone, okay? I had to hang some posters out in the Valley, I had to get out here anyway. Look—I got one right here. You want to see policemen at work, here it is.”

Carefully, he unfurled it. “See,” he said. “There’s his face. Wanted for murder.”

“Curtis Siwood,” said the old man, and turned toward the kitchen.

“What’s that?” said Matt.

The old man jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “That there is Curtis Siwood—he used to mine with me at the Sunshine. Was my partner for a while . . .”

He snapped his fingers and turned to look at Matt. “That reminds me, I got something to tell you when you got a chance. It’s important.” He swallowed hard.

Matt moved forward. “But this guy—you’re calling him Siwood, what do you know about him? Did you see him recently?”

The old man shrugged. “I just saw him . . . I mean, it seems like I just saw him—it must have been about fifteen years ago. So he ain’t a twenty-year-old greenhorn anymore. Must be forty-something now. Before we get to that, I need to tell you about the mine—”

“Yeah, yeah, Pop,” said Matt. “I know all about what you did at the Sunshine—the guys you saved. But this guy on the poster is wanted for a murder! When did you see—”

“Never mind him now,” the old man shook his head slowly. “I gotta tell you—”

“Goddammit, Pop.” Matt threw the poster to the floor. “This is really important. I need to know.”

The old man turned his back again, shuffling toward the kitchen. “So go to heck! Guess your old pop doesn’t know anything. Go hang your dang poster. Get out of here!”

Matt sighed. “Okay. So tell me. What’s this about the Sunshine disaster now?”

“Nah.” The old man grimaced at them. “You ain’t ready. You go on. Go to heck!”

“Look, Pop, I’m real sorry.” Matt took the poster off the floor and rolled it up. “Can I do anything here? Maybe clean out the gutters, strip the moss off the roof?”

“It ain’t necessary,” said the old man testily. “House is fine.”

“Nope,” said Matt. “I never do anything for you. Next time, I’m going to do it. I’m putting my foot down. It’s that time of year—things can go wrong. Maybe when I come back, you can tell me what you were thinking about the Sunshine, all right?”

“That time of year . . . ,” the old man echoed. He sat down heavily at the table and turned up the preacher on the radio. He rubbed a callused hand across his eyes. Then he reached out and plucked nervously at the material of Kev’s shirt. “You’re a good one, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” whispered Kev. “Sure I am.”

“You could have been my boy,” he said. “I thought you were my own.”

It was early in the evening, but the air was already chill. The clouds were closer now, a heaviness in the air. It was as if the earlier rain had only been a warning, the real downpour was yet to come. Kev felt a strange déjà vu, as if he’d come out to the old man’s house only to do what he’d done before. His eyes were open, and the car was driving straight and even down the center of the Valley, but felt himself beginning to fall again. There was that sense of weightlessness before one reached out and held on to the solid things. He shook his head and opened the window, and hoped they’d drive a little faster.

“Well, what’d you think of my pop?” said Matt.

“I met him a long time ago. When I was in high school. Doug brought his grandpop to see me in juvenile hall, sign an autograph. Mining hero or some such shit.”

“Right, I don’t remember that. I keep forgetting you’ve been around here forever.” Matt pulled onto the road and slowed immediately. Construction trucks were mired in sludge and water all along the side of the freeway. The crews were spattered with pale mud, they moved ghostlike through the rain. Dirty water seeped across the freeway.

“So, think you’ll get out of Coeur d’Alene by Christmas, huh?” said Matt. “Got a job waiting for you at your stepdad’s office and all, huh?”

“Yeah. That’s the plan,” said Kev. His voice caught, a reminder of his lie.

Matt drummed his fingers on the wheel. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “There’s some things that need to be done—could earn you some parts for that car. A job.”

“What kind of job?” said Kev.

“Well, for one thing, my pop is going to be needing help around the place. Maintenance, cleaning the garage, painting the steps, odd jobs.”

Kev looked out the window. The clouds were heavy now, oppressive and dark, the feeling washed into him.

“Cutting up firewood for Pop. Things like that. You can handle an axe, right?”

Then it was too late. Anger blew through him, a storm that made every muscle in his body tense. He rode it until it was nearly gone, and then it came out his mouth. “Your pop’s an old fart, shoulda kicked it years ago,” said Kev. “Let him fuckin’ die already.”

Matt gripped the wheel tightly. The rain grew stronger. Kev could hear it hit the car over the rumbling sound of the engine and the windshield wipers.

There was a smattering of ice on the freeway now. The windshield wipers slowed as the glass frosted over.

As the windshield cleared, Kev could see a distant green sign. They came around a curve and the sign came closer until he could make out white letters glittering in the wet. The letters emerged, ghostly in the uncertain light. Sunshine Mine Memorial, it said. Historical Marker. An arrow pointed to the right, at the next exit off the highway.

Matt cleared his throat, spoke for the first time in a quarter of an hour. “I want you to take a good look at something.”

Kev grunted. He tried to make the sound something accommodating, even grateful. But it came out wrong, it always did.

The sign flashed by as they came off the exit down onto the ground beside the highway. When they reached the memorial and the tall sculpture that stood there, the truck rolled a few feet farther, the wheels crunching on the wet gravel as they came up to the base. Then they stopped.

The rain had turned to sleet. The huge metal sculpture of a miner was streaked with dark wet patches. They could see the man at work, a twelve-foot-tall hard-rock miner, pushing a heavy drill firmly into the empty air above him. “Got any idea what it takes to hold a drill like that up to the rock, eight hours a day?” said Matt.

Kev looked up at the statue, beginning with the heavy boots, the thick heft of the brass legs, moving up to the curved torso. On the man’s hip rested a belt clip, the square shape of a self-rescuer, a flashlight holster. Above him rose two lines connected to the drill he held. The roof of the truck cut off Kev’s view. He couldn’t see the miner’s face.

“Those things,” he said. “What’s in the hoses?”

“Air and water.” Matt moved his hands in the air, describing the arc of the hoses. “The air goes into the drill to be compressed and hit the rock, and after the air shatters it, the water shoots out and breaks down the rock. You have to hold on to it the whole time. It’s backbreaking work. You know, when I was mining as a kid, the muscles in my back used to get so knotted up, I would have my mom stand on my back for me. The guys I know my age who kept working, they’re all bent over now from the work.”

“You quit.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. My pop was always on my case about being a miner, and I got tired of the pressure. Besides, I figured he had enough close calls, I didn’t want ’em.”

“What kinda close calls?”

“Oh geez,” Matt sighed. “Too many to list. I think he was trying to tell me— again—about one of them. Back in the ’60s, he had a drift collapse at Terror Gulch, with seven guys in it—he managed to save five of them. He was a big hero for that. Then he broke his shoulder when a shaft elevator dropped. And there’s the Sunshine too.”

Kev looked at the slapping windshield wipers and the statue beyond them. The rain outside was turning into sleet, a froth of white sound.

“You’re what—nineteen, twenty?” Matt said. “About fifteen years after I came back to the Valley”—Matt gestured at the statue—“this happened. People still come out here, like we have, to think about it. People every day.”

“For what? Talk about mining, working underground, all that shit?”

Matt looked at him. He turned the windshield wipers off, and the rain coursed unimpeded down the window, covering it in ice and water until they could no longer see the statue. Then he opened his door. He stepped out of the car and looked back at Kev.

“Come on,” he said. “You come with me—look at the memorial here.”

When Kev got out of the truck, the sleet struck with a slap. Matt pointed a finger at the brass writing that stood out on the surface of the stone, covering two sides of the memorial. Rain soaked across his shoulders, a dark and heavy mantle.

“What happened?”

“Ninety-one miners died,” said Matt. “There was an accident in the mine— a fire. I don’t know how the fire started”—Matt spread his hands out, water dripping off of them—“no one knows. Everyone in there died from the smoke underground.”

“What do you mean? I thought this was just about mining.” Kev pointed at the words inscribed on the dark metal wall: We Were Miners Then, by Senator Phil Batt.

Matt shook his head, mouthing No through the rain. He took Kev’s arm and led him around to the other side of the memorial. He pointed at the wall of names there. “This memorial is for these men, these men listed here.”

Kev stared at the stone, reading the names.

The rain was turning to snow as it hit Matt’s face. He squinted up at the massive arms holding the massive drill. “Idaho’s worst disaster—weren’t you in grade school here?”

Kev grunted. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I heard about it in school. Ancient history.”

“It’s not ancient history. For a lot of people.” Matt fingered the letters that spelled out May 2, 1972. He touched the Idaho state seal beside the names and date. “It’s not.”

On the day it happened, Matt remembered, the ore trucks and jammed hoists were filled with collapsed miners coming out of the mine. The men were all still wearing their cap lamps, faces streaked with dirt and soot, as if they’d tried to bring the darkness from underground out with them. Matt worked with others, lifting men onto stretchers, waiting to see someone he knew, waiting to see his father.

A week later, he was working when the protest happened. A group of miners—some of the survivors, and others—came to the administrative offices, to tell Herrick what they thought of the lack of adequate safety measures, the buildup of bad air underground. They were angry because of all these things, and more. The miners stood in a tight knot against the door, keeping anyone from going out or coming in.

Then, when Herrick had to go to Coeur d’Alene, he asked Matt to escort him. To this day, Matt didn’t know why Herrick chose him, and why he hadn’t turned him down.

Instead, Matt stepped outside into the rising sound of the angry miners, the hoarse shouts, the fists in the air, the threats and accusations. He stood there a moment, ahead of Herrick, unable to move against the arms of the miners. All around him, he saw men his father’s age, a helpless rage filling their faces. Finally, Matt took the gun out of his belt, and lifted it into the air. Then they let him and Herrick through in silence, in despair. As Matt walked through the silent group of miners, he did not feel brave. Walking through that crowd made him weak. It sapped every bit of strength he’d ever had.

A week after the mine protest, Matt came to his desk one day and found a note from Herrick. Inside a blank white envelope was a piece of torn paper that said:

Matthew Worthson—
Thank you for the help. CONGRATULATIONS to our new security day supervisor. You deserve the promotion. Keep that gun handy! Good work.
—William S. Herrick
   Herrick Industries

When Matt received the note, he wondered if Herrick had looked around at the faces in the crowd, if he had seen men so violently helpless ever before.

The world was full of sleet and snow, it swirled around them, a plague of ashen insects. Matt’s finger traced the old names on the brass plate, the long line of lives gone too soon. He’d read a book once where someone visited a nursing home and saw the same faces he’d grown up with, the same ones as in the old neighborhood—old women gossiping over their knitting, old men talking politics and sports over cribbage boards.

This brass plaque on the monument was his old neighborhood. Fathers and brothers. Friends he’d known for years and years. The ones who knew him best.

Kev looked up at the statue. “These guys—they all got burned to death, right?”

“No,” said Matt. “They were mostly smoke-inhalation victims. Some of ’em recovered. But if you were caught underground for too long, you didn’t recover. You suffocated. Half the guys underground died from the bad air, some fast, some slow.”

“Who got out alive?”

“Three survivors,” said Matt. “Tom Wilkinson, Ron Flory, and Stan Worthson.”

Kev grunted. “That’s your pop.”

“Right. Stan’s my father. He survived. That’s part of the reason I come out here.”

Kev walked around to the other side of the statue. “Lotta guys here,” he said.

“Ninety-one. And there should have been ninety-four.” Matt slapped the list of metal names. “There should have been ninety-four, but my pop survived in there for seven days, drinking water condensed on the pipes, eating his dead buddies’ lunches, until he was rescued. You know what it takes to do that? To survive?”

“No,” said Kev.

Bits of ice danced on the wind. Matt squinted into the cold air. “Neither do I. I’ve thought about it. Thought about it a hell of a lot, but I don’t know. Not at all.”

Matt had been to the memorial many times. By now, there were only a few names he did not recognize. Now one caught his eye. He peered at it, and tapped the burnished name on the plaque: Curtis Siwood.

Matt glanced away, looking up at the miner’s face with the cap lamp above it, the eternal carbide light shining ever upward into the freezing air.

“What the hell? Why is Siwood on the death list?”

“What is it?” said the kid. “Jesus Christ, are we gonna be out here all day?” Matt wiped the water and ice from the plaque, sluicing it off with one hand.

He scrutinized the name on the memorial. “I just saw this man’s fingerprints— and he’s listed on the memorial here as one of the dead.” He turned and faced the statue, looking up at the ice falling down from above the giant drill.

“And apparently, now there’s a fourth survivor. Someone who got out without being found—maybe he wanted us to think he was dead.”

“Who? Who wanted you to think he was dead?”

Matt looked at the kid blankly. “Never mind,” he said. “Get in the damn car.”

“It’s about time,” said Kev. He ran a hand through his buzz cut. Specks of ice peppered it all the way through.

The wipers became a blur, slapping from one side to the other across the windshield as they came up the spine of the Bitterroot Range. Freezing rain was covering Lake Coeur d’Alene, they could feel it coming toward them, scattered and stinging in the late afternoon.