The Regulators (36 page)

Moonlight streamed through the living-room windows. Beyond them, Poplar Street was gone. It had been replaced by the Main Street of Desperation, Nevada, as it had been in 1858, two years after the few remaining gold miners had realized the troublesome blue clay they were scraping out of their claims was, in fact, raw silver . . . and the declining town had been revitalized by disappointed wildcat miners from the California goldfields. Different land, same old ambition: to grub a quick fortune out of the sleeping ground. Tak had known none of this and had certainly not picked it up in
The Regulators
(which was set in Colorado, not Nevada); it was information Seth had gotten from a man named Allen Symes shortly before he had met Tak. According to Symes, 1858 was the year the Rattlesnake Number One mine had caved in.

Across the street, where the Jackson and Billingsley
homes had been, were Lushan's Chinese Laundry and Worrell's Dry Goods. Where the Hobart house had been the Owl County General Store now stood, and although Tak could still smell smoke, the store wasn't showing so much as a single charred board.

Tak turned and saw one of the Power Wagons on the floor. It was poking out, almost shyly, from beside one end of the couch. Tak floated it into the air and brought it across the room. It stopped before Seth's dark-brown eyes, hanging in midair with its wheels slowly turning while Tak ate the rest of its sandwich. It was the Justice Wagon. Tak sometimes wished it was Little Joe Cartwright's Justice Wagon instead of Colonel Henry's. Then Sheriff Streeter from
The Regulators
could move to Virginia City and drive the blue Freedom van instead of riding a horse. Streeter and Jeb Murdock—who'd turn out to have been only wounded, not really dead—would become friends . . . friends with the Cartwrights, too . . . and then Lucas McCain and his son would move in from his spread in New Mexico . . . and . . . well . . .

“And I'd be Pa,” it whispered. “Boss of the Ponderosa and the biggest man in the Nevada territory. Me.”

Smiling, it sent the Justice Wagon around Seth Garin in two slow, beautiful circles. Then it swept the fantasies out of its head. They were lovely fantasies, though. Perhaps even attainable fantasies, if it could gain enough essence from the remaining people across the street—the stuff that came out of them when they died.

“It's getting to be time,” it said. “Roundup time.”

It closed its eyes, using the circuits of Seth's memory to visualize the Power Wagons . . . especially the Meatwagon, which would lead this assault. No Face driving, Countess Lili co-piloting, and Jeb Murdock in the gunner's turret. Because Murdock was the meanest.

Eyes closed, fresh power lighting up its mind like Fourth of July fireworks bursting in the summer sky, Tak began the job of powering up. It would take a little while, but now that things had gotten this far, it had time.

Soon enough, the regulators would come.

“Get ready, folks,” Tak whispered. Seth's fists were clenched at the ends of its arms, clenched and shaking. “You just get ready, because we're gonna wipe this town off the map.”

[Allen Symes worked for the Deep Earth Mining Corporation in the capacity of Geological Mining Engineer for twenty-six years, from 1969 to late 1995. Shortly before Christmas of 1995, he retired and moved to Clearwater, Florida, where he died of a heart attack on September 19th, 1996. The document which follows was found in his desk by his daughter. It was in a sealed envelope marked
CONCERNS STRANGE INCIDENT IN CHINA PIT AND READ AFTER MY DEATH, PLS.

This document is presented here exactly as it was found.—Ed.]

October 27th, 1995

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this for three reasons. First, I want to clarify something that happened fifteen months ago, in the summer of 1994. Second, I am hoping to ease my conscience, which had settled down some but has been considerably stirred up again ever since the Wyler woman wrote me from Ohio and I lied to her in my response. I don't know if a man can ease his conscience by writing things down in hopes they will be read later, but it's worth a try, I guess; and I may want to show this to someone—maybe even the Wyler woman—after I retire. Third, I can't get the way that little boy grinned out of my mind.

The way he
grinned
.

I lied to Mrs. Wyler to protect the company, and to protect my job, but most of all because I
could
lie. July 24th, 1994 was a Sunday, the place was deserted, and I was the only one who saw them. I wouldn't have been there either, if I hadn't had paperwork to catch up on. Anyone who thinks being a mining engineer is all excitement and travel should see the tons of reports and forms I've had to plow through over the years!

Anyway, I was just finishing for the day when a Volvo station wagon pulled up out front and this whole family got out. I want to say here that I have never seen such excited people who weren't going to the circus in my whole life. They looked like the people on the TV ads who have just won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes!

There were five of them: Dad (the Ohio woman's brother, he would have been), Mom, Big Brother, Big Sis, and Little Brother. L.B. looked to be four or so, although having read the Wyler woman' s letter (which was sent in July of this year), I know now he was a little older, just small for his age.

Anyway, I saw them arrive from the window by the desk where I had all my papers spread out. Clear as day, I saw them. They dithered around their car for a minute or two, pointing to the embankment south of town, just as excited as chickens in a rainstorm, and then the little guy dragged his Dad toward the office trailer.

All this occurred at Deep Earth's Nevada HQ, a double-wide trailer which is located about two miles off the main drag (Highway 50), on the outskirts of Desperation, a town known for its silver mining around the time of the Civil War. Our main mining operation these days is the China Pit, where we are leaching copper. Strip mining is what the “green people” call it, of course, although it's really not so bad as they like to make out.

Anyway, Little Brother pulled his Daddy right up the trailer steps, and I heard him say, “Knock, Daddy, there's someone home, I know there is.” Dad looked surprised as heck at that, although I didn't know why, since my car was parked right out front, “big as Billy be damned.” I soon found out it wasn't what the little tyke was saying but that he was saying anything at all!

Father looked around at the rest of his clan, and all of them said the same thing, knock on the door, knock on the door, go on and knock on the door! Excited as hell. Sort of funny and cute, too. I was curious, I'll freely admit it. I could see their license plate, and just couldn't figure what a family from Ohio was doing way the hell and gone out in Desperation on a Sunday afternoon. If Dad hadn't got up nerve enough to knock, I was going to go out myself and pass the time of day with him. “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back,” you know!

But he knocked, all right, and as soon as I opened the door, the little tyke went running in right past me! Right over to the wall he went, to the same bulletin board where Sally put up Mrs. Wyler's letter when it came in, marking it CAN ANYONE HELP THIS LADY in big red-ink letters.

The tyke tapped the aerial photographs of the China Pit we kept tacked on the bulletin board, one after the other. Maybe you had to be there to understand how strange it was, but take my word for it. It was like he'd been in the office a dozen times before.

“Here it is, Daddy!” he said, tapping his way around those pictures. “Here it is! Here it is! Here's the mine, the silver mine!”

“Well,” I said, kind of laughing, “it's copper, sonny, but I guess that's close enough.”

Mr. Garin gave me a red-faced look and said, “I'm sorry, we don't mean to barge in.” Then he barged in himself and grabbed his little boy up. I was some amused. Couldn't help but be.

He carried the tyke back out to the steps, where he must have thought they belonged. Being from Ohio, I don't guess he knew we take barging around pretty much for granted out in Nevada. The tyke didn't kick or have a tantrum, but his eyes never left those photos on the bulletin board. He looked as cute as a papoose, peeking over his Daddy's shoulder with his little bright eyes. The rest of the family clustered around down below, staring up. The bigger kids were near bursting with excitement, and Mom looked pretty much in the same emotions.

Father said they were from Toledo, then introduced himself, his wife, and the two big kids. “And this is Seth,” he finished up. “Seth is a
special
child.”

“Why, I thought they were all special,” I said, and stuck out my hand. “Put 'er there, Seth; I'm Allen Symes.” He shook with me right smart. The rest of the family looked flabbergasted, his Dad in particular, although I couldn't see why. My own Dad taught me to shake hands when I was just three; it's not hard, like learning to juggle or floating aces up to the top of the deck. But things got clearer to me before long.

“Seth wants to know if he can see the mountain,” Mr. Garin says, and pointed at the China Pit. The north face
does
look a little like a mountain. “I think he actually means the mine—”

“Yes!” the tyke says. “The mine: Seth want to see the mine! Seth want to see the silver mine! Hoss! Little Joe! Adam! Hop Sing!”

I busted out laughing at that, it'd been so long since I'd heard those names, but the rest of 'em didn't. They just went on looking at that little boy like he was Jesus teaching the elders in the temple.

“Well,” I says, “if you want to look at the Ponderosa Ranch, son, I believe you can, although it's a good way west of here. And there's mine-tours, too, some where they ride you right underground in a real ore gondola. The best is probably the Betty Carr, in Fallon. There's no tours of the China Pit, though. It's a working mine, and not as interesting as the old gold and silver shafts. Yonder wall that looks like a mountain to you is nothing but one side of a big hole in the ground.”

“He won't follow much of what you're saying, Mr. Symes,” his big brother said. “He's a good brother, but he's not very swift.” And he tapped the side of his head.

The tyke
did
get it, though, as was easy to see because he started to cry. Not all loud and spoiled, but soft, like a kid does when he's lost something he really likes. The rest of them looked all downcast when they heard it, like the family dog had died. The little girl even said something about how Seth never cried. Made me feel more curious than ever. I couldn't figure out what was going on with them, and it was giving me a hell of an itch. Now I wish I'd just let it go, but I didn't.

Mr. Garin asked if he could talk to me private for a minute or two, and I said sure. He handed off the tyke to his wife—the boy still crying in that soft way, big tears just rolling down his cheeks, and I'll be damned if Big Sister wasn't starting to dribble a little bit right along with him. Then Garin came inside the trailer and shut the door.

He told me a lot about little Seth Garin in a short time, but the most important thing was how much they all loved him. Not that Garin ever came out and said so in words (that I might not have trusted, anyway). It just
showed
. He said that Seth was autistic, hardly ever said a single word you could understand or showed much interest in “ordinary life,” but that when he caught sight of the north wall of China Pit from the road, he started to gabble like crazy, pointing at it the whole time.

“At first we just humored him and kept on driving,” Garin said. “Usually Seth's quiet, but he does go off on one of these babbling fits every now and then. June calls them his sermons. But then, when he saw we weren't turning around or even slowing down, he started to talk. Not just words but
sentences
. “Go back,
please
, Seth want to see mine, Seth want to see Hoss and Adam and Little Joe.”

I know a little about autism; my best friend has a brother in Sierra Four, the state mental facility in Boulder City (outside of Vegas). I have been there with him on several occasions, have seen the autistic at first hand, and am not sure I would've believed what Garin was telling me if I hadn't seen some of it for myself. A lot of the folks in Sierra not only don't speak, they don't even move. The worst ones look dead, their eyes glazed, their chests hardly going up and down so you can see.

“He loves Western movies and TV shows,” Mr. Garin said, “and all I can figure is that the pit-wall reminds him of something he must have seen on an episode of
Bonanza
.”

I thought maybe he had even seen it in an episode of
Bonanza
, although I don't recall telling Garin that.
A
lot of those old TV shows filmed scenic footage (what they call “second unit”) out this way, and the China Pit has been in existence since '57, so it's possible.

“Anyway,” he said, “this is a major breakthrough for Seth—except the word that really fits is
miracle
. Him talking like he is isn't all of it, either.”

“Yes,” I said, “he's really in the world for a change, isn't he?”

I was thinking of the people in Lacota Hall, where my friend's brother is. Those folks were
never
in the world. Even when they were crying or laughing or making other noises, it was like they were phoning it in.

“Yes, he is,” Garin says. “It's like a bank of lights went on inside him. I don't know what did it and I don't know how long it's going to last, but . . . is there any way at all you could take us up to the mining operation, Mr. Symes? I know you're not supposed to, and I bet your insurance company would have a fit if they found out, but it would mean so much to Seth. It would mean so much to
all
of us. We' re on kind of a tight budget, but I could give you forty dollars for your time.”