A curse

“So… how long you all been out here?” Sitwell asked as John served her dinner.

“About 16 years actually.” Roger said

“Sixteen?” Bigly asked “and you’ve just stayed here the whole time?”

“Yes… Andrew was born just before the mine accident… he never got to know his mother. He’s the youngest person here.”

“Mama was the mine forewoman…” Andrew added.

“She…” Roger continued “um… she said they should have stopped digging… but old woman Ravenswood… she wouldn’t listen… The ground shook… steam hissed… there was a loud crash… and… We never saw the women again…”

“Wow…” Bigly said…

“When we arrived here… there was a couple of Natives living nearby… they… warned Ravenswood not to go anywhere near the mesa… but she was greedy as sin… she’d heard rumors of the massive amount of gold beneath this mountain and she wanted it come hell or high water…”

“What did the natives say?” Sitwell asked.

“The story they told Ravenswood and my wife said that many years ago… a young man was running away from an arraigned marriage with another tribe. The woman he was to marry was cruel, horrible… downright evil… He prayed for help as her wife’s tribe approached and a creature known as a Thunderbird flew down and took pity on him. He lifted the ground beneath him into the sky where he’d be safe… this Mesa. From that day on, the legend goes, the Thunderbird has kept the boy’s spirt safe… letting no woman near the mesa… less tragedy strike.

“When the old woman heard the story, she laughed in the native’s faces. My wife tried to reason with her. Stories like this exist for a reason… but… Ravenswood just so stubborn from her greed. Within a week the mine was up and running. Then… things started getting strange.”

“What kind of strange?” Sitwell

“My wife parked a train of mine carts on one track one night. Comes back the next day to find them moved.”

“Did someone else move them?” Bigly asked

“Sure… if they had the key to the lock and chains that she used to tie them down to the tracks. But there was only one copy and she had it in her pocket all night.”

“That does sound strange… still, someone could have picked the locks. Maybe… maybe a rival of the Old Woman you mentioned. Wanted to scare you all away.”

“It’s possible that could have been true… but still, that was ages ago now… doesn’t make much of a difference.”

The two women finished their meals in silence, too shocked to ask any more.