Wicked Woods by Steve Vernon

starry-eyed youngster. They staked out a claim and dug as deeply as they could into the stubborn New Brunswick dirt. When the digging proved too difficult, Joshua stepped in and blasted it free with a judicious application of black powder and fusing.
    After the dirt was loosened, the two scoundrels, Bill and Tom, leaned back on their shovels and let Joshua do the majority of the digging. They found silver, not gold, but it would spend just as readily, and when it came time to divide it up Bill and Tom were happy to do the counting and the double-checking.
    The three men prospered. They dug for silver in the spring, summer, and fall. In the winter, when a blanket of snow covered the New Brunswick forest, they boarded with local residents. It seemed they would make a go of it.
    Tom and Bill took easily to their prosperity. They ate well and drank when they could. However, Joshua caught a fever of sorts. He forgot all about fun and took to the notion that the degree of their success depended solely on his effort. He began to skip meals and spend his spare time digging in the mine. He forgot to shave and wash and wore the same suit of clothes for digging as for sleeping.
    Conversations around the campfire circled around the next day’s digging.
    â€œWe should be at it,” Joshua would say. “We should be up and digging. There’s no time to sleep.”
    â€œThat silver’s been there a long time,” Tom and Bill would tell him. “It’ll wait for us to catch a little shut-eye.”
    â€œSilver runs away like a dog in the night if you don’t keep at it,” Joshua said.
    â€œIt’ll keep,” Tom said.
    Joshua wasn’t so sure of that. He began to imagine that his partners were stealing away while he slept, digging the silver and pocketing it for themselves. It was foolishness on his part. What need did they have to pocket what he dug for them so freely?
    Now silver is a tricky thing and a vein can disappear into the darkness of the dirt just as readily as water spilling through sand. After a time the vein ran out, and the three men were left rooting about in a played-out mine.
    â€œShe’s done for,” Tom decided one night.
    â€œShe doesn’t hold any more silver than a hoop full of hope,” Bill agreed.
    Joshua didn’t like the sound of that thinking.
    â€œYou’re trying to cheat me,” he said. “There’s plenty of silver left down there.”
    â€œCheat you? How, boy?”
    Joshua stared at them angrily. The glint of the fire danced in his partners’ eyes. Their eyes looked like silver dollars running away, to Joshua.
    The three men argued until Joshua picked up a small keg of black powder and held a torch close to it.
    â€œYou two are trying to rob me blind,” he said. “I’ll blast us all to kingdom come if you don’t stay away from my mine.”
    The two men stared at their young partner. They had been so busy spending their profits that they hadn’t seen how far Joshua had disconnected from reality. They tried to talk a little sense into him, but he called them names and cursed at them. Finally, they’d had enough.
    â€œThe mine is yours if you want to keep it,” they told him.
    â€œThat’s fine by me,” Joshua answered.
    The two men packed their kit in silence and left the camp to the silver-obsessed Joshua. After walking a few miles towards the shoreline, they had second thoughts. It seemed they had a con–science between them.
    â€œWe can’t leave him out here,” Tom said.
    â€œA little space and time will do him good,” Bill replied. “We can come back in a day or so when he’s had time to regret his rash temper.”
    Just then a gout of smoke and thunder roared up from the direction of the keyhole mine. The two men raced back franti–cally, but when they got to the mine site it was too late. There was nothing to be seen but a flooded pit of rubble.