Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 42549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Seven days after the fire started, they pulled out two men alive. They’d sheltered under an air vent nearly a full mile below the surface, breathing shallowly and praying as tendrils of dark, poisonous smoke ebbed and flowed less than twenty feet away.
Boonie’s stepdad was one of them.
The New York Times plastered a picture of the survivors across the front page, showing them as they stumbled out into the light for the first time. Afterward there were congressional hearings on mine safety, although according to the local union it didn’t change anything. The Laughing Tess shut down for six months. Then she was up and running again, business as usual because the price of silver was rising.
None of this mattered to Boonie and me. His stepdad announced on live TV that he’d never go underground again. Then he packed up the family and they left Callup for eastern Montana.
I didn’t see Riley Boone again until my junior year of high school. By then I’d been dating Farell Evans for nearly eighteen months
Chapter Two
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
DARCY
“Get your ass up here!” Erin yelled, laughing so hard I could barely understand her words. She’d already scrambled to the top of the embankment ahead of me. My boyfriend, Farell, boosted me up behind her, and I didn’t miss how his fingers slipped under my jean skirt to grope my ass. Someone was horny. He’d started drinking before the graduation ceremony, although I hadn’t realized how much until we were driving up the gulch toward Six Mile Cemetery for the after party. He’d nearly gone off the road twice, scaring the hell out of me.
I hated it when he got like this.
Fortunately, we made it okay and I was definitely ready to party. There were only forty-two students in the class of 1992, so they were more than happy to have us juniors along for the ride. I’d probably be here even if my boyfriend wasn’t a senior. Half the high school was.
I’ll never forget the first time he’d asked me out—it was one of those Cinderella moments. He was tall and strong and smart. Not only that, he played quarterback on our football team. His family had lived in the valley for a hundred years and they owned the White Baker mine. Practically royalty by Silver Valley standards.
My mom already had my wedding dress picked out, although I had my doubts. Farell would be heading to the University of Idaho in the fall and I’d seen way too many couples break up when that happened.
Fortunately, I’d only have to get through another a year before joining him. My family was broke, but I’d always worked hard in school. I wanted to get a business degree. The school counselor told me that between my grades and our family income, I’d have lots of scholarship opportunities.
I planned to make the most of them.
Popping up and over the top of the bank, I staggered to the side. Farell, Colby, and Bryce followed, then we all started across the darkened cemetery toward the party.
Six Mile had close to ten thousand graves, although you’d never guess it. Back during the gold rush, thousands of people flooded the valley. Callup might only have eight hundred residents now, but in those days we’d been the biggest city in north Idaho—home to a strange mix of miners, whores, gunfighters, and preachers. Even a bunch of nuns. You name it, they came here and when they died, they’d been buried on the steep hillside above Six Mile Creek. Now pine trees had taken over. From the road you couldn’t even see the place.
I loved it here.
Peaceful graves stretched along the thickly forested hillside in every direction, covered in moss and brush. Stone markers, wooden crosses, statues, and crudely built crypts . . . thousands of memorials for people long forgotten.
At night it turned into something else entirely.
“This place is creepy as fuck,” Erin whispered with thrilled glee. She clutched my arm as the boys whooped and wandered off. I couldn’t argue with that. We stumbled along the slope toward the party, which was back behind the memorial for the men who died fighting the 1910 wildfires. A terrace overlooking the grounds had been built out of smooth river stones, and was lined with benches. A rough concrete bowl sat in the center. I think once upon a time it was supposed to be a pond or something. Tonight it would be our fire pit, with the terrace itself providing the perfect place to set out the kegs.
Yeah, I know. We were horrible kids.
We were also the third generation of Callup residents to party up here, so at least we came by it honestly. Everyone in town knew where the graduation party would be, of course. Same place it’d been for the last twenty years—traditionally the cops gave a free pass on graduation night.