When the Wind Blows

  “I see,” the old woman said softly. Her eyes were sad as she touched Christie’s face once more, but she knew what she had to do. No one must ever be able to tell the Ambers’ secrets. “Come along,” she said, taking Christie by the hand. “We must find Diana.”

  With Christie stumbling along beside her, she started toward the dark entrance of the mine.

  Esperanza Rodriguez hurried through the night with Juan at her side. Ever since they had left the Crowleys’, she had been talking to him, questioning him, trying to find out what he had been doing at the mine.

  Now she knew that the dynamite had been laid, and that tomorrow, unless she did something about it, it would be set off.

  The spirits of the children would be locked in the mountain forever.

  She must see that it did not happen.

  The wind pulled at her long dress, and she clutched her shawl tighter around her head. They were close to home now. In the distance she could make out the dark shape of the mine.

  Would they be coming to the mine tonight? Would tomorrow be too late? She forced herself to move faster.

  As they drew near the mine the wind suddenly stopped, and Esperanza stopped, too. In the sudden quiet of the night, she listened.

  There was no sound coming from the mine, and yet, in her heart, Esperanza knew that there were people there.

  And the children.

  She could sense the presence of the children. She could feel them waiting—waiting for something to happen.

  “You must go in,” she whispered to Juan. “You must go in and take away the wires. We must save the children.”

  Juan nodded and, leaving his mother behind in the darkness, he started toward the mine.

  The three men stood in the grove of aspens, trying to accept what they had found. Jeff’s body lay on the ground, his face battered and covered with blood. Matt Crowley stared at his son, then gathered the limp body into his arms, cradling it against his chest.

  “Why?” he murmured. “Why?”

  Neither Dan nor Bill had an answer for him. As they watched Matt silently grieve for his son, each of them wished that this night would end, that they could go home and leave Matt to comfort his wife. But each of them knew that the night was not over. Somewhere, Christie might still be alive, but for how long?

  “We’d better go,” Dan said softly. “Diana’s out here, and she’s got Christie with her.” Matt carried Jeff’s body as Bill and Dan led him out of the aspen grove.

  Bill listened to the wind as he walked down the gentle slope toward the car, and suddenly he was sure he knew where Diana had gone. “The mine!” he said. “She’s at the mine!” Dan started the engine and gunned the car back down the hill.

  Edna Amber, with Christie by her side, moved through the darkness. Ahead of her, she could hear Diana whimpering, calling to her. By her side, Christie was crying softly.

  “I want to go home,” Christie pleaded. “Please, can’t we go home?”

  “We are home, child,” Edna whispered. She stopped and let go of Christie’s hand. “Stand still,” she said. “Just for a moment. Can you do that?”

  “Why?” Christie protested.

  “It’s only for a moment,” Edna told her, her voice gentle. “Can you do it?”

  “I-I guess so,” Christie replied.

  Edna stepped back in the darkness and took her cane in both hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  The cane lashed through the blackness. There was a dull thud as it struck its target. Then, only the pitiful whimpering of Diana crying out to her.

  Eddie Whitefawn opened his eyes.

  His head hurt, and for a moment he couldn’t remember where he was, or what had happened. And then it came back to him.

  He was in the root cellar. Miss Edna had tried to kill him.

  He lay still, listening, but there was nothing to be heard except the creaking sounds of the toolshed as the wind battered at it.

  Eddie shifted on the cellar floor, then decided that except for the pain in his head, he wasn’t hurt. He groped around and found the ladder, then slowly began climbing it. Feeling his way up, he touched the trapdoor and pushed.

  It gave way.

  It was night, and Eddie wondered how long he’d been in the root cellar. Then, over the wind, he heard another sound.

  A siren.

  They were looking for him. His grandmother had missed him, and now the marshal was looking for him. He went to the toolshed door and pushed it open.

  A few yards away, the Amber house blazed with light. Eddie slid around the corner of the shed into the shadows. He could still hear the siren, but it seemed to be going away from him. He looked up the hill, and far away he could see lights, the moving lights of a car as it ground up the road toward the mine. They were looking for him there.

  Glancing back toward the house once more, Eddie began running across the fields, his eyes fixed on the taillights ahead of him.

  Edna Amber moved carefully through the darkness, using her cane and her daughter’s voice to guide her.

  It seemed to float out of the darkness, strangled and low, crying one word over and over again.

  “Mama … Mama …Mama …”

  “I’m coming,” Edna muttered. “I’m coming …”

  Only inches from the edge of the main shaft, Diana had sunk to the floor of the mine, her knees drawn up against her chest, her thumb in her mouth. She was rocking herself gently when the tip of Edna’s cane suddenly touched her. She jerked her thumb from her mouth.

  “Mama? I’m a bad little girl, Mama.”

  “I know,” Edna said, her voice quiet and calm. “You’re a very bad little girl.”

  Diana nodded in the darkness.

  “I killed my baby, Mama. I’m a bad girl, and I killed my baby.”

  Edna sighed and moved closer to Diana, then prodded her with her cane. Diana didn’t resist; instead she only huddled further into herself and whimpered.

  “You have to get up, Diana,” Edna said.

  Diana didn’t move.

  “Diana, I’m your mother, and you must do as I say. Get up!”

  Diana got unsteadily to her feet. Her hair had come loose, and she instinctively brushed it away from her face, though there was no one to see her. “Are you going to punish me, Mama?”

  “Yes,” Edna said sadly, “I’m going to punish you. You were a bad girl, and Mama has to punish you.”

  “All right, Mama,” Diana said. She stood still as Edna raised her cane and groped in the darkness until its tip came to rest against Diana’s breast.

  A moment later, with Diana offering no resistance, Edna shoved hard on the cane.

  Diana staggered slightly, then fell backward into the mine shaft.

  Edna stood still, her cane still hovering in the air, and listened as Diana, falling through the darkness, cried out to her once more.

  “Maaaaa-maaaaaa …”

  And then, as Edna waited in the darkness, the lights in the mine came on. Edna blinked in the sudden brightness, then turned and began walking back toward the mine entrance.

  Juan threw the power switch and stared into the mine. He saw Christie Lyons lying in the dirt twenty yards away, and beyond her, Miss Edna walking toward him.

  He stood still, watching her, as she approached him. She pointed to the roll of wire.

  “Help me,” she said.

  Juan looked curiously at the old woman. Was she here for the same reason his mother had brought him here? She must be—she was trying to do something with the wire. He went to her and picked up the roll.

  “Bring it here,” Edna told him. She began walking deeper into the mine, and as he followed her Juan carefully wound the wire back onto the roll. Soon they were at the elevator, and as Edna directed him, he set the roll of wire into the cage. But when he started to get in, Edna stopped him.

  “Go away,” she said. “Go away now and leave me alone.”

  Juan hesitated. His mother had told him
to save the children. Then he remembered Christie Lyons. That must have been what she meant.

  He went back toward the entrance and stooped to pick up Christie’s body. Holding her gently in his arms, he carried her out of the mine.

  When Juan was gone, Edna Amber made her way slowly back to the equipment box, opened it, and found a pair of wire cutters, which she slipped into the bodice of her dress. Then she picked up the blasting machine.

  Her bones aching, and her muscles weary, she dragged herself back toward the elevator.

  Dan saw the faint glow of light ahead and pressed the accelerator. The Chrysler leaped forward, spitting gravel from its rear wheels.

  In front of the mine, Esperanza Rodriguez stood with her son, who was holding Christie Lyons in his arms. Esperanza looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  Dan glanced around and saw the old Cadillac parked near the cabin. His face grim, he started into the mine.

  Bill Henry took Christie from Juan’s arms and started toward the cabin, with Juan trailing after him. “What happened to her?” he asked.

  “I saved her,” Juan said proudly. “She was in the mine, and I saved her, just like Mama told me to.” He unlocked the cabin door and opened it for Bill, then looked uncertainly at Christie. “Didn’t I save her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bill said quietly. “We’ll see.” Gently he lowered Christie onto Esperanza’s bed.

  Dan Gurley paused just inside the entrance to the mine.

  “Miss Edna?” he called. “Diana?”

  He listened for an answer, but all he could hear was a low, whining sound. He stood very still for a moment, his imagination hearing the mine’s long-silent machinery groaning into life. Then he realized that it was no ghostly echo he’d heard but the clanking of the elevator.

  He reached over and threw the main switch. The lights blinked out, and the whining of the elevator faded into silence. He picked up a miner’s helmet, switched on its light, and started into the darkness.

  When he came to the edge of the shaft, he looked down. Thirty yards below him he could see the elevator cage, and inside it, Edna Amber.

  “Miss Edna? It’s Dan Gurley.”

  “Go away, Daniel.”

  “Miss Edna? What are you doing?”

  There was a silence, and when Edna spoke again, her voice floated up quietly, as if she were very tired.

  “It doesn’t concern you, Daniel. None of it concerns you. Just leave me alone.”

  “Where’s Diana?”

  There was another long silence, and Dan was afraid the old woman wasn’t going to answer him. Then she looked up at him, and in the eerie glow of his miner’s lamp he could see her smiling.

  “She’s gone away, Daniel,” she said, her voice echoing. “I’ve sent her away.”

  The old woman got slowly to her feet, and for the first time Dan could see what she was doing.

  At her feet was the blasting machine. Wires leading away to the depths of the mine were attached to its terminals.

  “Jesus,” Dan said softly to himself. “Miss Edna …?”

  “Go away Daniel,” the old woman said again. “Please.”

  She leaned down and grasped the plunger of the blasting machine with both hands.

  As she began putting her weight on it, Dan Gurley turned and fled.

  Eddie Whitefawn felt the first rumblings of the explosion as he reached the top of the slag heap. He saw Esperanza Rodriguez standing in front of the mine entrance and called to her, but she seemed not to hear him.

  And then he saw the marshal charging out of the mine.

  “Run!” Dan bellowed. Eddie froze for a moment, then started scrambling back down the tailing, Dan Gurley at his heels.

  The earth shook beneath their feet, and the explosion burst from the mine entrance, belching black filth mixed with fire and the acrid fumes of dynamite.

  Esperanza Rodriguez did not move from where she stood.

  As the force of the explosion moved toward her, and the ground quivered beneath her feet, she began praying softly for the souls of the lost children.

  As the entrance of the mine crumbled in front of her, a boulder came loose and rolled toward her. Even if she had tried, she would not have been able to get out of its way.

  In the cabin, Bill Henry heard Dan Gurley scream, and felt the explosion. He decided it would be safer to stay where he was.

  Christie Lyons, her chest heaving, was beginning to wake up. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Bill.

  “Mama?” she whispered. “Where’s my mama?”

  “It’s all right,” Bill whispered to her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  But as rocks and debris from the mine rained down on the roof of the cabin, and Christie—fear etched deeply into her face—began to cry, Bill wondered if anything would ever be right for her again.

  Only when the last echoes of the explosion had faded away, and silence hung over the night, did he pick Christie up and carry her outside.

  By dawn, all the people of Amberton had gathered at the mine. They stayed there long into the morning, clustered in small groups, murmuring among themselves. Over and over again Eddie Whitefawn told what had happened to him, and over and over again Bill Henry tried to explain Diana Amber’s strange sickness. The townspeople put the story together as best they could, but in the end they could only agree on one thing.

  Everything had begun and ended with the mine, and now the mine was gone.

  And the Ambers, who had started everything so many years ago, were gone, too.

  At last there would be an end to tragedy, and the people of Amberton could put their fears away.

  Epilogue

  Christie Lyons was twenty-nine when she came back to Amberton.

  As she drove into town she realized that little had changed. It was as neat and tidy as ever, frozen in time like a tintype from the past. Penrose’s Dry Goods, its sign freshly painted, was still open for business, and Christie thought she recognized Steve Penrose’s father leaning against the door, chatting with a woman whom she was almost sure was Susan Gillespie’s mother.

  The people, like the town, had an eternal quality to them. They looked not much different from the way they had looked twenty years ago. It was as if Amberton were a play, and as the set remained the same, so also did the cast.

  In a way, Christie was glad the place still looked familiar, but in another way, it saddened her. It brought back those strange weeks twenty years before, when her life had suddenly come apart at the seams.

  She hadn’t realized it then, of course, but now she knew that what had happened to her then had damaged her permanently, and that the scars engraved on her personality would never heal.

  That was why she had returned to Amberton—to try to erase those scars.

  She smiled at the little girl who sat beside her.

  “What do you think of it?” she asked.

  Her daughter, whom she had named Carole, for Christie’s own mother, looked around without interest. “I want to go back to Los Angeles,” she said, her voice sullen.

  In some ways, Christie shared her daughter’s feelings. She had liked Los Angeles, liked the bigness of it, and the way no one there ever noticed her. But as Carole began to grow up, and Christie began to think about what might happen to her in the schools, she had come to a decision.

  Christie wanted her little girl to grow up normally. She didn’t want to come home one day and find Carole staring blankly at the television screen, her eyes glazed over from an afternoon of pills and grass.

  It had happened to a friend of hers only a month ago, and it had frightened Christie.

  She had known since Carole was born that one day she would leave Los Angeles and come back to Amberton. But when Carole was a baby, there would have been too many questions and not enough money.

  Now there would be no reason for anyone to question her story of a divorce—no one need ever know that she had never married Carole’s father at all. br />
  Now there was enough money, and she wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job as well as taking care of the ranch. She had saved scrupulously, and she had enough to get by for a year. By then the mine, leased out to one of the oil companies, would be producing again.

  The ranch, left to her by Edna Amber, had been held in trust for her, the taxes paid by leasing the grazing rights to the land. When she was twenty-one, it had been turned over to her, and she had continued leasing it, but always, in the back of her mind, she had believed that one day she would come back.

  Today was that day.

  She passed Bill Henry’s office but didn’t stop. She was in a hurry to get out to the ranch, to see the house in which she had lived for only a few weeks, but which held so many memories for her.

  Painful memories that she knew she had to confront.

  She left the town behind and drove along the bumpy road that led to the Amber ranch.

  No, she said to herself. The Lyons ranch. The Ambers are gone, and it’s mine now.

  “Is that our house?” Carole said, interrupting her thoughts.

  The house stood bleakly against the hills, its paint long ago scrubbed away by wind and rain. Christie had a sudden urge to turn the car around and drive away, but she knew she couldn’t run away anymore.

  She parked in the driveway and, taking Carole by the hand, led her up the steps to the front door. She fished in her purse and found the key that had been sent to her by the last tenant, who had moved out a month ago.

  The house smelled musty, and as her daughter looked around curiously, Christie hurried to open the windows. She wished, fleetingly, that the wind would blow and flush the stale air from the house.

  She put the thought from her mind.

  Ever since she was a child, she had had trouble with wind—it brought nightmares, and when the Santa Ana blew in Los Angeles, she would often find herself waking up at night, crying softly and sucking her thumb.

  She knew it was connected to what had happened here when she was only nine, and she knew that when the wind roared down out of the mountains, she was going to have bad spells—spells when she wouldn’t remember exactly what had happened.