The day came when he decided to kill himself. But he was a coward, and he needed a way to die that would appeal to a coward.

Earlier, while cruising the Internet during a lunch break, he had chanced upon an article on old, abandoned mines. Such places were popular with explorers, some of whom would enter the mines to explore or shoot YouTube videos. The mines were dangerous, to be sure, with hazards such as rotting timbers, hidden shafts, old dynamite, and even wild animals. And there was always the threat of a cave-in. But what caught his attention was a phenomenon called “wet damp.” If a mine was sealed up for many years, carbon dioxide would build up in the lower levels. The carbon dioxide had no scent. Anyone walking down there without an oxygen supply might suddenly pass out. Death would follow in only a few minutes. He decided that this was what he needed to do.

There were thousands of abandoned mines in the state. Most were located in the desert, in lonely places far from inhabited areas. Information on them was scant or nonexistent. Still, he read up on them, finding out what he could. Many mines had been sealed by the state. The usual method was to block the entrance with an impermeable barrier made of metal or concrete. Other mines were sealed by dynamiting the entrance. Many had collapsed on their own, with the passage of time, and were no longer accessible.

Not all of the mines were suitable for his purpose. Some were mere tunnels that extended a few hundreds of feet into a hillside and then stopped in a dead end. He looked for a mine that had been worked for several years and would thus have multiple levels—deep, unflooded, unventilated levels, where carbon dioxide could accumulate.

At last he found an abandoned silver mine—the Jasper Mine—that seemed suitable. It was about a day’s drive from where he lived, in the northwest of the state, in an uninhabited area. The mine was surrounded by an old settlement called Silvertown. Because of its remote location and difficulty of access, the mine was rarely visited by explorers. Back in the 1990s, though, a father and son had been found dead in the main tunnel. As for the town, although it had once boasted a population of over forty thousand, no one lived there anymore, and evidently, despite its earlier size, nothing much remained of it. There were no recent pictures of it on the Internet.

Like anyone who is truly serious about committing suicide, he told no one of his plans. His last day of work, Friday, was a day like any other. He gave his input at the morning staff meeting. He laughed at the jokes of his coworkers and had the usual desultory conversations with them in the lunchroom. He sat at his workstation with the same focus he usually brought to the job, working silently and methodically. He left the building at the usual time.

On his way home, he filled up his SUV with a full tank of gas. His apartment was as dark and quiet as it had been when he left it that morning. No dog ran up and jumped on him, happy to see his master arrive. No cat brushed coyly against his ankles, begging to be fed. He had no wife and no kids. There was no need to lie to anyone about where he would be going the next morning.

He left his home early, bringing with him only what he thought he would need to get into the mine. He drove all day, stopping once for gas, guided by the GPS navigator on his phone. According to the map, no roads led directly to Silvertown, but he would be able to get close enough by stopping on a dirt maintenance road that led to a transmitter site on a nearby summit.

It was nearly dusk when he turned off the highway and headed down the dirt road, which led to a string of mountains surrounding a broad plain of sagebrush. The air was clear, and the sky was a deep blue. The sun shining against the mountains bathed them in an orange light. He drove on the road alone. A cloud of fine dust kicked up behind the SUV. He did not encounter another vehicle.

He headed straight toward the hills, behind which the town lay. Just as the earth began sloping upward, he reached a T-intersection. Checking the GPS navigator, he turned left and continued driving along a barbed-wired fence that hemmed the hills on the other side of a shallow, overgrown ditch. Eventually, he came to a gate, on which was fastened a rusty, bullet-ridden NO TRESPASSING sign. The barbed-wire fence stretched off as far as the eye could see in both directions.

He pulled up to the gate and shut off the engine, then checked his phone’s GPS. The town was somewhere in the hills on the other side of the fence, obviously not accessible from this road. He got out of the SUV. In contrast to the air-conditioned comfort of the car, the desert air felt oppressively hot against his skin. Almost instantly, he began to sweat. The air was dry and redolent of sagebrush that had been baking in the desert all day.

He walked up to the gate and shook it. It was chained shut and secured with a rusty padlock. Beyond the gate was a faint dirt track that led into the hills, nearly overgrown with sagebrush. Obviously, it hadn’t been used in a long time. Had it not been for the old gate marking its presence, he would have missed it.

There was perhaps an hour of sunlight left, at least on the side of the hills where he was located. He let out a sigh. He’d hoped to get there sooner. Behind him, the highway was visible in the distance, at the bottom of a long, broad slope. He watched a semi-truck moving slowly north.

After a few moments he came to a decision. He pulled out a pair of bolt-cutters from the back of the SUV, cut the chain on the gate, and then began driving up the weed-choked dirt track that sloped gently toward the mountains. The SUV swayed and jolted sharply. Some sections of the track were washed out, forcing him to slow to a snail’s crawl. As the grade increased, the track became patchy and disappeared in some places. Soon he was driving on what was little more than a goat path. Dry, waist-high sagebrush scraped noisily along the underside of the SUV. He pressed on anyway, following his intuition, hoping that the track would reappear between the washed-out sections.

He was descending a hillside when his front wheels hit a depression in the ground. The underside of the SUV struck something hard, with a loud bang. The collision was so strong that it jolted the steering wheel and resonated in the cab of the vehicle. A few seconds later, the oil-pressure warning light on the dash lit up, and the engine began to make an insistent rattling sound. He cursed and turned off the engine.

He opened the driver’s side door, which was difficult because of the sagebrush surrounding the vehicle, and smelled hot oil amid the ubiquitous bitter scent of the sagebrush. He looked underneath the engine area, but couldn’t see anything because of the fading light. After retrieving a flashlight from his backpack he looked again, and this time he saw hot oil flowing out of the engine. It covered the sagebrush beneath the engine and soaked into hard-baked desert soil. The engine’s oil pan had struck a large, half-buried granite boulder.

He stood up and looked around. He had been driving the SUV across a rocky, overgrown field. There was no sign of a road or anything else that could give him any bearings. He had managed to traverse a few miles of hills. According to his GPS, the town should be a bit further southwest, but it was not. It was obvious at this point that the GPS had sent him to the wrong location.

Direct sunlight, blocked by the hill he’d just traversed, no longer touched the ground where he stood. To the east he could see the moon rising and a bright object, perhaps Jupiter or Saturn. The crickets were starting to chirp.

He cursed himself for damaging the engine of his SUV, not because he valued the vehicle but because he was now stranded in this wild area. The highway was too far away for him to walk back to. He was stuck, and he would be spending the night here. Tomorrow, perhaps, he could look for the mine.

He got back into the SUV and closed the door. It was quiet in the vehicle after being surrounded by the crickets’ chirping. He stared out the window. The seat he had been sitting in all day felt acutely uncomfortable. His body rejected it. Without the AC running, the cab of the SUV had quickly become hot and stuffy. He rolled down the window, but it didn’t help. He dreaded the prospect of sleeping in the SUV that night.

Then it occurred to him that the town might be nearby but out of view. There was another hill not far ahead. Maybe the town lay just beyond it. Grabbing his backpack, he got out of the SUV. He considered taking the keys, then reasoned that he would not be coming back, provided he found the mine. So he left the keys in the ignition, ready for anyone who found the vehicle. He left the signed title to the SUV in the glove box.

He walked up the next hill, occasionally looking back at his car, which appeared to grow smaller and smaller as he climbed the hill. Finally he reached the top, where he caught the last few rays of sunlight as the sun dipped below the hills behind him. The other side of the hill dropped off steeply into a gully with a sandy bottom. Across the gully was another hill. To descend into the gully and climb up the other side would be too treacherous to risk in the dark.

Feeling defeated, he moved back down the hill he had just climbed, returning to the SUV. He was now in the shade, and it was getting darker by the minute. The ground was rough, and it took all of his energy to prevent himself from tripping and tumbling down the slope.

When he was halfway down the hill, he spotted two people below him on horseback, wearing cowboy hats, riding along the base of the hill at a meandering pace. They looked like ranchers. From his angle he couldn’t tell whether they were male or female, because their hats obscured their faces.

He waved his arms at them and shouted, “Hey!”

The figures continued riding, appearing not to have heard him.

“Hey there! Stop!”

Still they continued riding. Surely they must have heard him amid the chirping of the crickets, noisy though they were. Now he caught their voices. Perhaps they were ignoring him for some reason. The figures rode behind an outcrop of rocks and vanished from view.

Gingerly he scrambled down the hill. He slipped once, skinning his knee and nearly taking a tumble. At last he reached the path where the two people had been riding. It was well-worn and covered in recently made hoof prints. Although he had crossed over that very spot earlier, just before climbing the hill, somehow he hadn’t noticed the path. He couldn’t fathom how he had missed something so obvious.

The riders were no longer in sight. He ran down the path in the direction they had taken. This area was woodier than the place he’d been before, and darker. He finally spotted them again about fifty feet up the path, and stopped, nearly out of breath.

“Hey!” he called out.

This time, the riders stopped and turned their horses around. They didn’t call back to him; instead, they simply waited, watching him. He walked toward them. He could see now that they were two men, cowboys or perhaps ranchers, dressed in long-sleeved, pin-striped shirts and soiled leather vests. He wondered how they could stand to wear such clothes in this weather. Then he realized that it was much cooler in these woods. A slight breeze blew through the trees.

The men stared fixedly at him as he approached, seemingly surprised by his appearance. Their unshaven faces were dark and weathered from having spent a lot of time outdoors. One of them adjusted a sweat-stained tan hat. Both were dirty and unkempt, and there was something oddly rustic about their appearance. They looked like outlaws from an old-school western.

When he was about five paces away, he spoke again. “I’m sure glad to see you guys!”

At his words, one of the men yanked a revolver from a holster on his hip, and the other took out a shotgun from a holster affixed to his saddle. He heard the metallic clicks as they cocked the hammers and immediately stopped in his tracks, raising his hands.

One of the horses whinnied nervously, as though expecting something unpleasant. “Whoa!” its rider said, pulling hard on the reins.

“Don’t shoot!” he pleaded, his upheld hands trembling.

“Who are you?” demanded the man with the shotgun.

“I’m—I’m just a visitor to this area.”

“A visitor? What kind of visitor?” The man aimed the shotgun at his head.

“Don’t! Please! I’m sorry if I’m on your land. My car broke down back there, and—”

“This ain’t my land.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I was just—”

“You following us?”

“No, I’m—”

The one with the revolver stared into the woods behind him. “You alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your horse?”

“I don’t have a horse.”

“You ain’t got a horse?”

He shook his head, and the men looked genuinely surprised. They scrutinized him from head to toe.

“What do you want?”

“Actually, I’m lost.”

“You must be. From the way you’re dressed, you ain’t from around these parts.”

“I’m not.”

“You got a gun?”

“No. I don’t own any guns. I don’t like them.”

“Then what’s in your pack?”

“Just a few personal things. A flashlight and some letters I’ve written. There’s a CO2 monitor too, and a few other things. It’s hard for me to think with a shotgun pointed at my head.”

“You got money?” asked the man with the shotgun.

“Just a couple of bucks. I mostly use my card.”

The men narrowed their eyes.

“Look, guys,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “I don’t want any trouble from you. If I’m on your land, I’m sorry.”

“I told you—this ain’t our land,” said the man with the pistol.

“Then why are you pointing your guns at me?”

The men turned to each other. “What do you think?” one asked.

“I think we should shoot him,” the other replied. “He’s already seen us. We don’t know who he’s with or why he’s following us.”

“He said he was lost.”

“I heard him. But what’s he doing wandering around with no horse, no provisions, dressed like that?”

The man with the pistol turned his horse back around. “Where you from, boy?”

“Seattle.”

“Well, I’ve been to Seattle, and they don’t dress like you.”

“Maybe he’s a gentleman,” the man with the shotgun suggested.

“If he’s really a gentleman, he’d have a horse. Right?”

“That’s true.”

“How did you get out here if you don’t have a horse?”

“I drove here.”

“Drove what?”

“My SUV. It’s back there. I left the keys in it. You can have it, but I busted the oil pan when I drove over a rock.”

The two men looked at each other.

“What the hell is he talking about?” asked the one with the shotgun.

“I have no idea.”

“I say we shoot him.”

“Just hold on. Now—you said you were lost. Where’re you headed?”

“Silvertown.”

“Silvertown? See, Jess? He’s going to Silvertown. What’re you plannin’ to do there?”

“It’s…personal.”

“Personal business, huh?” Jess aimed his shotgun more carefully. “He’s hidin’ somethin’, Bill, I just know it.”

“What are you going to do there? Somebody waitin’ for you?”

“Actually, I’m not interested in the town,” he answered, his voice quavering. “I’m going to the mine.”

“The mine?” Bill smiled, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth. “Oh, so you wanna work in the mine?”

“They’ll break your back before you get rich,” Jess added. “Old Man Jasper don’t pay shit. Ain’t you heard that?”

Their crazy assumption that he wanted to work in a derelict mine perplexed him. Still, he was glad to let it ride, since it relieved him of having to explain the true nature of his visit. “Look, guys,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, “it’s almost dark. Is there any chance you two are heading to Silvertown?”

The two men looked at each other again.

“He thinks we’re going to Silvertown,” Jess said.

“Yeah. And maybe we should. Maybe they’ll throw a party for us.”

“You mean a hangin’ party?”

They laughed.

“That’s a good one, Jess.”

“All right,” he said patiently. “If you’re not going there, could one of you point me in the right direction?”

“Sure. Why not?” They uncocked the hammers of their guns. “You just gotta head down this road in the direction we’re going,” said the one named Bill, holstering his pistol. “You can come along with us, but you gotta keep up with the horses.”

“Maybe I should go back to my SUV to get a few things.”

“You ain’t goin’ back to nowhere,” Bill said, with menace in his voice. “You’re comin’ with us. You said you wanna go to Silvertown, and we’re takin’ you on your word.”

So he went with the two men, walking behind them as they rode their horses down the path. They spoke to each other in vulgar language about two prostitutes they knew, one named Trudie and another named Sally. Jess kept turning around to eye him suspiciously. Bill seemed more interested in a watch that he pulled several times out of his vest pocket. Once he held it up to his ear. “This damned watch don’t work.”

“You found it on a Chinaman. What did you expect?”

“Yeah, and he only had sixteen cents on him. Sixteen cents!”

“He put up a good fight, though, didn’t he?”

“That’s right. And he ended up gettin’ cut over sixteen cents and a broken watch. What kind of a man is that?”

“That’s why I don’t like Chinamen. They fight even when they ain’t got nothin’ on ’em.”

Bill put the watch away and spat on the ground.

As the last vestiges of sunlight left the evening sky, they reached a clearing illuminated by a white sliver of a moon. The heat of the day had dissipated, and now a bluish haze filled the air, as though a bonfire were burning somewhere. Curiously, the smoke had no odor.

The men stopped their horses and turned to face him.

“Okay, stranger,” Bill said. “It’s time we part ways.” He pointed. “Follow that path to Silvertown.”

“Thank you, guys. I really appreciate the help.”

He had taken no more than three steps when he heard the now-familiar snick of hammers being cocked.

“Hold it right there,” Jess said. “Hands up. Turn around.”

He turned. In the hazy moonlight, he saw that both men had their guns trained squarely on his chest.

“You didn’t really think we believed your story about coming from Seattle to work in the mines?” Jess said. “Anyway, I think you owe us a little something for our hospitality.”

“What hospitality?”

“We didn’t kill you, did we?”

“Look, if it’s money you want, I’ll give you whatever I have on me. But I left my wallet in my SUV.”

“Then give us your pack,” Jess said. He raised the shotgun, using the sight to aim.

Bill spoke up. “You’d better listen to him, boy. He ain’t gonna ask you again.”

“Okay, okay!” He took off the backpack and held it out for them. “Here. Take it.”

“Put it on the ground,” Jess said, motioning with the shotgun. “Drop it!”

He did as he was told.

“Now turn around and get moving. And don’t look back. If I see you lookin’ back, I’m gonna shoot you. Go!”

Stripped of all his belongings, he walked down a rough, moonlit path toward the town below the clearing. In the feeble light, he could make out the jagged walls of a partially collapsed building. Then he passed a few more structures in similar states of decrepitude, with weeds and tree branches jutting through open doorways, windows, skeletal roofs.

The air was filled with the sound of crickets. Occasionally he heard small creatures moving in the grass and shrubs, startled by his presence. Amid these sounds, he thought he heard snippets of people’s voices too, and the clatter of machinery. Once he caught the sound of horses’ hooves a short distance behind him, but he didn’t dare turn to look in case the robbers were following him.

The further he walked, the more numerous the ruined buildings became. The smoke, or fog, or whatever it was, still lingered in the air. It seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Then, straight ahead, a feeble light came into view—a yellow, flickering light that might have been made by a candle or a kerosene lantern. He followed it until he found himself standing in front of a tall wooden building. A large sign above the porch read, “Boarding House.” Amid all the dilapidated buildings in the town, only this one seemed to be in habitable condition, despite its antiquated style. The light shone behind a white lace curtain on the second floor. He walked up the steps toward the front door.

The overall concept behind THE SHADES OF SILVERTOWN can be summed up as a combination of Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, and the stories of Bret Harte.

At the beginning of the story, we have a protagonist who has decided to commit suicide by suffocating himself in an abandoned mine. The story of his life before this point is a blank canvas. We know nothing about him, his reasons for wanting to kill himself, or even his name. He makes his way to a ghost town near the mine, arriving at nightfall. The town was supposed to be long abandoned, but he finds people living there—or at least that’s what he thinks at first. It soon becomes apparent that these are the ghosts of people who lived in the town in different eras of its 140-year history. The protagonist drifts through time, encountering ghosts “living” in what seem to be distorted recreations of their lives in the town. Some of them do not even realize that they’re dead, and simply carry on as though they were still alive.

By means of the protagonist’s interactions with these ghosts, like brush strokes appearing on a canvas one by one, the portrait of his life is gradually revealed. And as he witnesses the hardships in these long-dead people’s lives, sharing in their pain, he slowly comes to question his assumptions about his own life up to that point, and asks himself whether his reasons for coming to the town were valid.