The Regulators - Stephen King [125]
And I might as well say that I still have a few funny ideas about Rattlesnake Number One. I'm not going to say it was haunted, not even in a 'backstage report' no one may ever read, but I'm not going to say it wasn't, either. After all, what place would be more likely to have ghosts than a mine full of dead men? But as to the other side of that slide of rock, if I actually did see something there — those dancing red lights — it wasn't ghosts.
The last hundred feet were the hardest. It took everything I had in me not to just shove past Mr Garin and sprint for it, and I could see on his face that he felt the same way. But we didn't, probably because we both knew we'd scare the rest of the family even worse if we came busting out in a panic. We walked out like men instead, Garin with his boy in his arms, fast asleep.
That was our 'little scare'.
Mrs Garin and both the two older kids were crying, and they all made of Seth, petting him and kissing him like they could hardly believe he was there. He woke up and smiled at them, but he didn't make any more words, just kind of 'gobbled'. Mr Garin staggered off to the powder magazine, which is a little metal shed where we keep our blasting stuff, and sat down with his back against the side. He laced his hands together between his knees and then dropped his forehead into them. I knew just how he felt. His wife asked him if he was all right, and he said yes, he only needed to rest and catch his breath. I said I did, too. I asked Mrs Garin if she'd take her kids back over to the ATV. I said maybe Jack would like to show his brother our Miss Mo. She kind of laughed like you do when nothing is funny and said, 'I think we've had enough adventures for one day, Mr Symes. I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but all I want to do is get out of here.'
I said I understood, and I think she understood that I needed to have a little talk with her man before we picked up our marbles and called it a game. Not that I didn't need to collect myself some, too! My legs felt like rubber. I went over to the powder magazine and sat down beside Mr Garin.
'If we report this, there's going to be a lot of trouble,' I said. 'For the company and also for me. I probably wouldn't end up fired, but I could.'
'I'm not going to say a word,' he said, raising his head out of his hands and looking me in the eye. And I don't think anyone will hold it against him if I add that he was crying. Any father would have cried, I think, after a scare like that. I was near tears myself, and I hadn't ever set eyes on the lot of them until that day. Every time I thought of the tender way Garin looked, slipping that tiny boot on his boy's foot, it raised a lump in my throat.
'I would appreciate that no end,' I said.
'Nonsense,' he said. 'I don't know how to thank you. I don't even know how to start.'
I was starting to feel a little embarrassed by then. 'Come on, now,' I said. 'We did it together, and all's well that ends well.'
I helped him to his feet, and we walked back toward the others. We were most of the way there when he put his hand on my arm and stopped me.
'You shouldn't let anybody go in there,' he said. 'Not even if the engineers say they can shore it up. There's something wrong in there.'
'I know there is,' I said. 'I felt it.' I thought of the grin on the boy's face — even now, all these months later, it makes me shiver to think of it — and almost told him that his boy had felt it, too. Then I decided not to. What good would it have done?
'If it were up to me,' he said, 'I'd toss a charge from your powder magazine in there and bring the whole thing down. It's a grave. Let the dead rest in it.'
'Not a bad idea,' I said, and God must have thought so, too, because He did it on His own not two weeks later. There