Danny California

Danny California.

To find him so easily — after ten days of effort, it felt almost like a waste. But I knew well enough that fretting over sunk costs was pointless.

I began to peel him back, little by little — this man who was trying so hard to hide a lie that was already plain as day.

"I see. Thinking about it, that makes sense. But if there were someone who knew the mine owner — would that person meet with him regularly? Or even just occasionally?"

Wary to the bone, he left no room for follow-up questions, answering in clipped fragments.

"I wouldn't know."

"Haha — just a hypothetical. I've gone so long without meeting anyone that I'm starting to go stir-crazy. What would you do, if it were you?"

"…"

He held the silence a moment, then answered reluctantly.

"I wouldn't meet him. Can't see why I'd need to."

A lie, of course.

"Then — and this is another guess — why do you suppose that mine owner is hiding like that?"

"Obvious, isn't it? He doesn't want anyone interfering with his work. He knows the state of this town and where he stands in it. Can't let go of past glory, so he keeps chasing empty desires."

That much was true. Even he didn't look on the mine owner with pure fondness.

"Well, if the man lives in town, we're bound to run into him eventually. …Do you think he lives here?"

Another brief pause, and then a sigh.

"He would. The kind of man who owns every mine in the place and still frets about digging deeper. At this rate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he'll keep at it till he dies — hell, even after he dies, his ghost will be wandering the veins of the earth."

True again. And sincere.

Have you heard the mine owner's name? His gender? Do you think he has a family? Is there anyone who knows him? Do you think well of him?

I kept at it — a binary sieve of yes-or-no questions, filtering and filtering.

The point wasn't really to gather information. It was grease on the gears: keep him talking about the mine owner, keep his attention fixed there, until his guard slipped.

And after all that work, when I finally put the one question I'd been aiming for back on the table—

"…It's already obvious, but I'll confirm it anyway. You know the mine owner, don't you?"

The old man ran back through every question in his head, then — as if he had no choice, and yet with a curious lightness — admitted it.

"I know him. An old friend. …Or at least, he was, once."

A feeling I couldn't quite name settled over me. Annie's worries were dissolving with every step closer to the goal — but mine weren't.

The choice I'd been putting off since we left the mines was being forced on me, harder and harder.

"I believed in him once. Worked alongside him. Helped him. Saved his life. Looked the other way at the side effects — understood them, even pitied them. …Will you sit?"

"Sure."

"Are you set on buying the mines no matter what? If you're taking this lightly, you'd best stop now. If you think money just rolls in while you sit on your hands, I'd recommend heading north."

"No. I'm buying the mines. I've never considered anything else. One way or another, I intend to take ownership."

"You're not saying that lightly, are you? I'm being serious. Can you take responsibility for those words?"

"If I have to, I'll swear it before God. One way or another, I mean to take those mines."

The old man frowned and fixed his eyes on mine. Looking into those pale, ash-gray irises, I almost felt my vision blur.

"…I don't intend to make a long speech. Write enough articles and you learn the hard way that only the core of a thing matters. I don't know what a young pair like you two will make of me."

He dragged a scrap of scrap paper from the edge of the desk and wrote something with a pen.

"If you're going to take the mines — shoot that friend of mine."

With those words he pushed the paper toward us. Three things were written on it: a name, an address, and a number.

A sudden leap forward. Moments ago he'd been denying the man even existed — and now he was telling us to shoot him.

He saw our faces and spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"I know. I must look strange. But it's the only thing I can still do for Danny."

Danny. Danny California. The word written at the top of the paper — the name of the mine owner whose very existence had been uncertain until now.

"Do you need an explanation?"

"Not necessarily. But a commentary would help. I'm not some outlaw who shoots people without a second thought."

"A rare young man. All right — what kind of person do you shoot? Is the gun just for self-defense? For honor?"

I gave him the same answer I'd once given Annie.

"Only when, after the barrel's gone hot and cooled again, there's still no threat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left to me. Only then."

"Then you've nothing to worry about. …When Danny dies, I'll go looking for him a few days later. After that, I'll write my last article. That a badly desecrated corpse turned out to be the hidden mine owner — and that he'd been dead for years."

"Passing the buck."

"That's all it is. Everything that's happened, and the black smoke choking this city — I'll say it wasn't the work of that legendary man who first struck gold. Pure deflection, nothing more."

"Is there any meaning in that? And what about ownership of the mines?"

"Ah — that."

He rose from his seat, walked to the doorway, rummaged through a stack of newspapers, and pulled out a single sheet.

"This is a contract. Simple enough. Two years as overseer of the mines. Want to read it?"

I took the paper from his hand. Just as he'd said — a contract. The location of the mines to be worked, the wages, the working days, all listed in order, with two signatures scrawled across the bottom.

"Is this… really about those mines?"

"Surprised? This next one will knock you flat."

I scanned the other paper he handed me. A receipt. Dated four days ago. Provisions for the slaves, overseers, and guards of Mine No. 12.

"…Why do you have these?"

"Aside from the slave papers and the mine ownership documents, I hold everything else. Can you guess why?"

"I can't even begin to."

"Because I act as Danny's agent. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I keep the city's eyes off him while endlessly supplying the mines with whatever they need from outside town. The distance between the village and the mines isn't small, after all."

Mines not run by their own owner — no wonder we'd come up empty on the streets.

"An agent? Then what is that mine owner — this Danny — doing, and where?"

"I wrote you the address. But Danny… is already a dead man. Might as well have been dead for decades."

He said it in a cold voice, as if the matter were already settled in his own mind.

"Go on. You've got my interest."

"So you're ready to listen now. In that case… better to start from the first time I met Danny."

And so the old man's story began — about the mine owner, about this town, about a legend.

"Danny was an ambitious young man. He believed everything he touched was bound to succeed, and that failure was just thrift toward a greater triumph. Prospecting for gold was no different.

And ambition was the basic virtue of that age. An age when people without ambition couldn't find a reason to keep living. Which is to say… Danny was just an ordinary man.

I was a merchant who sold to people like him. Picks and pans, clothes and meals, equipment for detecting metal — I sold and rented it all for a profit. That's when I first met Danny.

He said he was the eldest son of a poor family. Among those people clawing at the dirt like termites chewing through the roots of a house, he was thrashing about, desperate to find gold and climb out of poverty.

Somehow we started traveling together, and I began to see promise in the boy. He'd scrape soil from the lower reaches of a river, shake it out, count the flecks of gold dust, move on, sift again, count again…

Then he turned his eyes to the mountains. Digging into the earth, planting flags, hunting for places that yielded more gold — not mere dust, but ore from the rock itself.

As rich men so often do, Danny succeeded. Somewhere on the mid-slope, climbing a peak and starting down the far side, he'd dug maybe three meters into the ground when the pickaxe struck something hard — a vibration unlike anything he'd ever felt, ringing up through his hands.

My God. That's what Danny shouted. I was in the woods at the time, setting traps for supper, and the moment I heard that cry I knew something was about to happen — and I ran toward him.

I just didn't know that 'something' would be something bad. By the time the pit Danny had dug came into view, someone was standing over it. A man even I — who'd sold goods to everyone — had never seen before.

With his back to me, he drew a gun from his pocket and stretched his arm forward. …I can't forget it. Danny shouted then: Red, my dear friend! Come look at this light! I did it—

Did it. And there Danny's words cut off. He must have turned his head upward from the bottom of the pit. Can you picture it? Weeks of unbroken shovel-and-pick work, the patience and effort of panning for dust —

And the instant that effort bore fruit, it turned to nothing. To powder.

A gunshot that belonged to neither Danny nor me rang out. After it, a gun was in my hand too, arm extended, and a similar sound cracked once more.

Two men lay in the pit. One was Danny. The other was the fox who'd tried to steal Danny's claim.

I lost myself. I pulled the trigger until the cylinder was empty — and kept pulling after it was empty. That bastard never got up again.

Danny came to about a week later, but he didn't wake with a sound mind. It's my gold mine — those were the first words out of his mouth when he opened his eyes.

He asked me: Where is that man, Red? I told him: Dead. I threw him in the pit so he'd never covet another man's claim again.

But Danny said: Liar. He's still alive. I asked what he was talking about. He's coming for me. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He's going to take my gold mine. From that day on… Danny never met another person.

Danny became a shadow, and I became his agent in his place — an agent who never revealed his existence. Having watched him take a bullet with my own eyes, I couldn't leave the man alone.

He wasn't fit for physical labor. There was a hole through his gut. So we had to gather workers for the mines — but every time he saw a laborer, he'd say the same thing: He's here, Red. He's come to kill me.

In the end we couldn't hire humans. We had to use slaves and dwarves and the like, just to keep Danny calm. The overseers probably didn't give much thought to working conditions after that, I suppose.

Ironically, once we'd built a decent mine, money poured in hand over fist even with Danny in that state. I won't pretend my own skill had nothing to do with it.

I remember when he said he wanted a second mine. The reason was simple: I need a mine to throw to that bastard, so he won't touch mine. Simple — and yet impossible to understand.

But what was I supposed to do if we didn't expand? I was only his agent, and it wasn't as if we were losing money.

After the second, it all went smoothly. Dig a mine, buy a mine, dig another. He never showed his face, but before long he'd become a symbol. The face of the gold rush. The self-made man. Master of the mines…

And no one had ever seen him. A man whose existence was certain but whose substance no one knew — a figure who'd vanished from the world.

No one could even dare imagine what the man behind those epithets looked like. Danny became a legend. For a time he was even praised for keeping the town from turning into a ghost town after the gold rush ended.

But it went too far. Far too far. Once mines ringed the entire city, the complaints began.

Smoke blotting out the sky. The perpetual acrid stench. Plagues becoming part of daily life. The more mines Danny built — the more mines he had to throw to 'that bastard' — the more those things became one with this place.

That was maybe ten years ago. What came after is the present you already know. You've spent a week or so walking this town — I expect you understand how people feel about a Danny whose face and age no one knows.

No one here wants the mines. Not the gold rush, not the chance at sudden fortune — none of it. A stable life and the small joys of ordinary days. That's all this world needs now.

In this city, the mines that once meant something have become filthy pens for rounded-up slaves, and Danny is turning into a pestilence that fouls the town.

…I can't bear it. Watching our history — a legend — be defiled, and doing nothing. I can't stand it.

A legend should remain a legend. Even if that age is over, its true face must never be revealed.

Danny is nothing but a madman now. Whatever he once was. No — because of what he once was. The age of the shovel ended long ago. He should leave without regret, preserved as legend.

…Will you make that happen?"