Another, smaller cabin faces ours. The door is wide open, revealing multiple empty bunks. “My foremen sleep here,” my uncle explains. Up a slope is a large, rocky cliff dotted with brush and dried grass and the occasional stunted tree. At the base of the cliff is the dark opening to my uncle’s mine. It’s bolstered with huge wooden beams and guarded by the tallest man I’ve ever seen. He is cowled in black wool and carrying a rifle. The ghostly man. In a flat space to the side of the mine opening sits a crude mill. A mule tied to a post drags a huge grindstone around a stone-lined pit. Another of Hiram’s men shovels ore from a mine cart into the pit, where it’s crushed again and again as the mule circles around. The gold, being a heavier metal, settles to the bottom of the pit once free of the quartz. There’s not much at the moment; it feels like more of an itch than a hum. The air smells like a paste made from manure, sweat, and dust. “Welcome home, Leah,” my uncle says, and I swear he’s suddenly as cocky a rooster.
What do You think about Like A River Glorious (2016)?
