The Regulators - Stephen King [117]
'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 Fallen. 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