Well, as the Jenkins kid and I crouched there in the dark of the mine, we soon found out those approachin’ footsteps weren’t the only thing we had to worry about. We also heard a rumblin’ sound from way deep down in that corridor we was in, and the Jenkins kid like to tore my arm off pullin’ on it to get me to run, I reckon. I didn’t need no urgin’, and I grabbed him by the hand and took off hightailin’ it outa there. Behind us we could hear rocks crashin’ and clouds of dust like to choked us to death. Seemed like forever before we busted outa there, so covered in dust nobody coulda told who we was, and behind us, the entrance to the mine just collapsed, rocks and dust and dirt follerin’ us and sendin’ us to our knees, coughin’ and spittin’ up our guts. We just laid there for a bit, bein’ glad we was alive, I reckon.
And I reckon the noise and shakin’ had alerted folks from down the road, ’cause pretty soon a great big ole crowd come a’runnin’ toward us, hollerin’ and carryin’ on. Once they got us on our feet, they was relieved to see we was okay, none more’n me. Gradual-like we managed to get the story out, about the silver and zinc and how there was plenty there after those no-account Turner boys had led us to believe the mine had played itself out after their daddy died. And then we remembered those approachin’ footsteps, and tried to tell everybody there was somebody else in there, and folks commenced to diggin’ with their hands ’til somebody finally got ’em organized enough to dig ordered-like, with picks and shovels and stuff.
It took a couple a days before they was able to find a body, draggin’ out a feller nobody knew, and maybe couldn’t atold who was if they did know, after all that. And you know, nobody ever did figure out who he was, but the general consensus was that he was the murderer, maybe a fallin’-out between thieves, those two strangers to us. The story that the sheriff finally put out was that these fellers had discovered the silver and planned to keep it for themselves, as much as they could manage to harvest, without tellin’ anybody, and somethin’ we’ll never know happened to make ’em fall out. ‘Course it was whispered that the Turner boys probably had a lot more to do with the whole thing than came out, but since they was gonna open the mine back up after the clean-up, everybody was so pleased they wasn’t gonna rock the boat.
As to what caused that there cave-in that nearly finished me and the Jenkins boy off, folks pretty well agreed it was the irate spooks of the mine, finally havin’ their revenge on somebody. I coulda wished they chose the Turner boys rather than me and the kid, if they wanted to pay somebody back that bad.
But in my private reveries, I sometimes wonder . . . If you’ll recall, I just stumbled into this place, several months ago now, and right away, some strange things commenced to happenin.’ The mines closed, Suze showed up, the stranger rode in and then got himself killed, the cave-in, the mines reopenin’ . . . mighty strange. And nobody ever questioned who I was; in fact sometimes I wondered if they even knew I was around . . . except for the Jenkins kid and maybe Mam, I coulda well-nigh been invisible.
So I wonder . . . was I mebbe one of those spooks?
The End
(This concludes The Old Country Store and Post Office, which has run in installments, posted on Sundays over the last seven weeks. The actual old country store and post office exists only a few miles down the road from where I live. It has always aroused my curiosity because it sits alone out in the country, with no town, farms, or evidence of a settlement nearby to give a hint as to why a country store and post office should have existed in such a place. I had great fun entering into an imaginary time and space for a few weeks, and hope you had fun reading it. And who knows?? Could be true! And maybe sometime I’ll go back to find out what happened to all the people there!)