BLACKHAMMER

Hysteria began to overtake the mountain man as he faced being buried alive. The only other time he felt overpowered by the fear of death occurred during his flume ride many years ago. A blue feather in his hair and a soaring eagle brought him through that moment. Now he had nothing to protect him or assist his fight for survival. As Shorty dumped another wheelbarrow load of mix he said angrily, “He ain’t even screamed yet, Mister Berry. Maybe we should burn him some before he’s completely covered.” “Shut up and mix another load you stupid little Scot. I told you we gotta get this done and get outta here. Now move!” Shack shouted. The heavy, wet concrete now covered Wig almost completely. His head remained slightly above the oppressive weight of the fresh mix. I’m going to die and no one will know what happened to me he thought, and these two killers will, along with Gordon Kaye, get away with murder. He also knew Misses Kaye, Jenny and the boys would be in danger too. From the bottom of the dark, damp trench where he lay, the Legend of Lake Tahoe began a final, all or nothing struggle to push himself backwards to the corner wall of the footing. The gray sludge had not filled the gap behind his head so he thrust with his legs until his head bumped the clay wall. He could not feel his feet and struggled to get a purchase that might push him to a sitting position. Before he could shove himself free of the indurate gray marl, Shackleton Berry lifted the lantern over the trench, looked in and cursed. “Mac! Get over here with that load of mud and dump it right on his head.” Wig gazed up at an evil man holding a lantern, and an old enemy poised with a wheelbarrow, lifting the handles until the contents slid into the trench. This is my last breath, he thought. Chuckling to himself, Wig remembered the Latin name for his death shroud – caementum, meaning chips of stone. Jenny and I just wanted the boys to see San Francisco and meet our friends he thought. The Nez Perce mountain man suddenly broke into a prayer. He shouted, “Great eagle, wherever you are, guide me to my parents and my ancestors. Let me join them where the forests are green, the rivers and lakes are blue, and the plains are filled with game. Take me great eagle. Take me now.” A seagull crying far in the distance glided closer until it appeared in the glow of the lantern. It squawked a distressed ‘iiiieeeek, iiiieeeek’ and flapped furiously in a hover directly over the entombed Legend. Shackleton Berry and Shorty Macmillan swatted at the obdurate bird. As it flew away still anxiously crying its warning, a single white feather drifted down, and caught on the dirt wall of the trench. Through his pain and horror the mountain man smiled. “Hurry up and pour that mud,” Shack barked at Shorty. The pudgy healer grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and began to lift. At the bottom of the trench, Wig could see the front of the dray and readied himself for the end. Abruptly a rumble in the earth hit like a small detonation, causing Shorty to drop the wheelbarrow to maintain his balance. “Did you feel that?” Shorty exclaimed in a frightened voice. “Of course I felt it you idiot!” Shack yelled. “It’s an earthquake; they happen all the time. Now pour that load!” The fat little Scot looked about nervously as though some evil might jump out of the foggy darkness any moment. He grabbed the handles and began to lift again when a voice reached up and out of the trench as a ghost might call from the grave. “You are going to die Shorty.” The frightened slayer loosed his grip and shook as he screamed, “You shut up Blackhammer. You are going to die, not me!” Shack became furious and pushed his helper back against a towering stack of bricks. “Gimme that wheelbarrow you stupid moron.” He clutched the handles but before he could lift the sound of distant thunder began as though a hundred thousand horsemen pounded toward them. The ground chattered and trembled enough to knock the two men from their feet. The earth began convulsing like ocean waves lifting and falling with a terrifying, deafening roar. Wig, lying prone at the bottom of the footing, flew upward with each thrust and down again until he found himself free of the cement and sitting upright against the corner of the footing. He heard the screams of Shack and Shorty as thousands of pounds of bricks and timbers buried them with crushing finality. Much of the debris fell in the trench, but only a few bricks glanced off Wig’s shoulders and legs. From San Jose in the south to Santa Rosa in the north, the violence of the shuttering oscillations cracked, split, and tumbled brick and mortar buildings and foundations. It minced many wooden homes to piles of splinters while rows of homes in the heart of the cities fell off their foundations and lay on top of each other like fallen dominos. Thousands of people sleeping in their beds died as their homes collapsed on top of them. As the churning earth sent more bricks and boards into the trench, Wig began to think the entire world would soon end, that his beloved earth with its trees and lakes and mountains would bowl down into a maelstrom of mud like the wet concrete surrounding him. After what seemed an eternity of earth-born violence, the roaring and shaking subsided. A final brick struck the mountain man’s foot, and he suddenly felt reborn. He pushed and struggled up to stand on his numb feet. The glow from the oil lamp became a daylight blaze as the smashed radiance spilled burning oil throughout the fallen stack of timbers. Wig found himself in a race to loose his wrist and ankle bindings and escape his charnel house before the fire roasted him like a buffalo steak. He could make out the shape of the wheelbarrow dumped upside down several yards down the trench. Using the boards for support, the bound man drug his roped feet until he reached the metal frame of the cement hauler. Five minutes went by before the sawing motion of the soaked cotton cords on the metal frame edge caused them to part and fall away. Blood rushing into the veins of the big man’s hands brought a scream of pain, and a good ten minutes went by before his fingers worked well enough to loose the binding around his ankles. The pain in his feet easily match that of the hands. As the pre-dawn sun lightened the fog and drove the blackness of night to the nether world, the freed prisoner hobbled to the shallowest area of the footing. Two members of the construction crew that were in route to the building site when the quake hit, ran toward the fire to put out the blaze. They found a man struggling to climb out of the trench. “Hey, mister, what in tarnation are you doin’ in there? An’ how in tarnation did ya get covered in cement head to toe?” Wig answered, “I will tell you all about it after you help me out of here.” The men immediately pulled the mountain man out of the trench. As soon as Wig gained his feet he stumbled off in the direction of Market Street without speaking. “My name’s Wilbur and this here is Harl. You was gonna tell us what you was doin’ in the footing trench!” Wilbur yelled. Wig yelled over his shoulder, “Look under the brick pile and you’ll find two of the three men that tried to kill me - ask them.”