Eve looked. The nature of the walls seemed unchanged.
«Why did they suddenly take a notion to dig deeper?» she asked.
«Oldest mining technique in the world,» he said. «Find a vein, follow its drift, and leave tunnels wherever you take out ore or look for new veins.»
Wherever a tunnel branched off, there was an arrow pointing away from it. Each time Reno took a tunnel, he marked the shaft of the arrow so that he wouldn’t explore the same opening twice.
Some of the tunnels were numbered. Most weren’t. The result was a three-dimensional maze bored through rock that was hard as steel in some places, and nearly as soft as fruitcake in others.
«Why do all the arrowheads point away from the tunnel mouths?» Eve asked.
«In a mine, everything points to the way out. That way if you get lost, you don’t wander deeper and deeper.»
Just before the steep descent, there was a place where supporting beams had been brought in. The timber was roughly hewn. Some pieces still had fragments of bark clinging. Others were simply small logs that had been cut and dragged underground.
Small side tunnels branched out in all directions and levels. Two of them had caved in. Rubble in the bottom of the others warned of unstable ceilings or walls.
«What are those little holes I keep seeing?» Eve asked. «Most of them don’t seem to go anywhere but a dead end.»
«They’re called coyote holes. They were dug to find the drift of the vein. Once the miners struck the vein again, or found a better one, they abandoned the side tunnels and concentrated on widening the one that led to ore.»
«Such narrow tunnels. I’d barely fit in one. The Indians must have been even smaller than Don Lyon.»
«Only the children were. They’re the ones who dug the coyote holes.»
«Dear God,» Eve said.
«More like the devil’s work, despite the presence of Jesuit priests. Watch your head.»
She ducked and continued walking bent partway over. Reno had to bend much more deeply to avoid the ceiling.
«The boys would dig the holes, loadtenates, and carry ore up to the surface,» Reno said. «This must have been a wide vein, because they didn’t dig an inch more than they had to.»
Reno paused, examined the face of the tunnel carefully, and went on, crouching to avoid the ceiling.
«When the ore was brought to the surface,» he continued, «girls and smaller boys would hammer on it with rocks until everything was in pieces about as big as the ball of your thumb. Then it would go into thearrastra, to be ground into dust by the adult slaves.»
Black, ragged holes radiated out again from floor, walls, and ceiling.
«Lost the drift again here,» Reno muttered.
«What happened?»
«The vein took a turn or was pinched off or was displaced by a fault line.»
«I always imagined veins as being straight.»
«That’s every miner’s dream,» Reno agreed, «but damn few are straight. Most gold deposits are shaped like a maple tree or like lightning. Branches every which way in all directions for no reason a man can see.»
The lantern swung as Reno bent over one of the yawning mouths set into the floor of the tunnel. Light washed into one of the coyote holes that was at waist level off to the right. The hole had been clogged with debris that had since dribbled out into the main tunnel.
«What’s that?» Eve asked.
«Where?»
«Hold the lamp a little higher, where the side of the coyote hole collapsed. Yes. Right there.»
Eve peered into the crumbling side tunnel. When she realized what she was looking at, she swallowed convulsively and backed up so quickly she bumped into Reno.
«Eve?»
«Bones,» she said.
Reno stepped around her and held the lantern up to the coyote hole. Something gleamed palely inside. It took a moment for him to realize that he was looking at fragments of a leather sandal wrapped around a foot bone that could have been no more than six inches long. The dry, cold air of the mine had preserved the bones very well.
«Is it one of Don Lyon’s ancestors?» Eve asked quietly.
«Too small.»
«A child,» she whispered.
«Yes. A child. He was digging and the wall gave way.»
«They didn’t even bother to give him a decent burial.»
«It’s less dangerous to fill in the front of a bad tunnel than it is to dig out a dead body,» Reno said. «Besides, slaves were treated worse than horses, and even a Spaniard didn’t bury his horse when it died.»
The lantern swung away, returning the coyote hole to the darkness of the grave it was.
Eve closed her eyes, then opened them quickly. The darkness was unnerving, now that she knew it was inhabited by bones.
«You asked what a chicken ladder was,» Reno said a few moments later. «Take a look.»
A long log poked up from one of the holes. Notches had been cut into the sides of the log to serve as footholds. The shaft wasn’t straight up and down, but the slant was so steep that passage wouldn’t have been possible without the log.
«Some of them are made with branches poking out instead of notches cut in,» Reno said. «Either way, they work.»
The wood felt rough and cool beneath Eve’s hand, except where the notches were. So many feet had passed over the notches that they were smoothed to a satin finish.
«Hold the lantern,» he said.
Eve took the light, then watched with her breath held while Reno tested the chicken ladder. Soon she could see only his broad shoulders and hat.
«Solid,» Reno said, looking up into the golden light. «Unless water is around, wood lasts a long time at this altitude.»
The primitive ladder led to another level of the old mine where more coyote holes branched off in all directions. Many of them were too small for Reno’s shoulders to fit in the opening. A few were so narrow that Eve barely could find room to shove the lantern ahead of her.
«Anything?» Reno asked.
He hadn’t wanted Eve to go poking into every coyote hole, but the logic of it was inescapable. She could go farther, and do it faster, than he could.
«It keeps going,» she said, wriggling out breathlessly. «But once you’re past the bend, another tunnel comes in. It’s twice the size of this one.»
She stood and brushed herself off. «There’s something funny about that big tunnel, though. The arrows point the other way. At least, they used to. Someone scratched out the head of the old arrows and put a new head on the tail.»
Reno frowned, pulled out his compass, and checked.
«Which way does the coyote hole turn?» he asked.
Eve pointed. «The other tunnel comes in from that direction, too.»
Reno turned to orient himself with the hidden tunnel and its twice-drawn arrows.
«Same angle, or does that change, too?» he asked.
«It goes up about like this,» Eve said, holding her hand at a slant.
«Are you bothered by those tight tunnels?»
She shook her head.
«You sure?» Reno pressed.
«Very. I’ll take tunnels over ledges perched like God’s eyebrow over a thousand-foot drop,» Eve said wryly.
Reno’s smile flashed in the lantern light. «I’m just the opposite. I’d rather be on God’s eyebrow than down in coyote holes any day of the week.»
She laughed. «Want me to see where that double-headed tunnel leads?»
He hesitated, then reluctantly agreed. «But only if the walls are rock. I don’t want you crawling through any of the crumbling stuff we’ve seen. Understand?»
Eve understood perfectly. While the coyote holes didn’t bother her the way heights did, she had no desire to end as the slave child had, buried alive.
«Go on, then,» he said reluctantly.
Before she turned to leave, Reno pulled her close and kissed her hard.
«Be careful, sugar girl,» he said in a rough voice. «I don’t like this one damn bit.»
Reno liked it even less as the sounds of Eve’s passage through stone faded into silence and the minutes crawled by as though nailed to the stone floor. The third time he dug out his watch, stared at it, and discovered that less than thirty seconds had passed, he swore and began counting slowly.