To do anything particularly interesting with the story I feel like you'd need to rewrite it an awful lot, but then that really isn't the purpose of this exercise. At any rate, here is my rewritten, transposed synopsis:
Tinderbox synopsis transposed
In 1939, a soldier is returning home from war. He is returning home to America, where he was born to spanish immigrants, from Spain, where he had been fighting in the civil war on the side of the Republicans. It's a long journey, but he's almost home to the quiet town in middle-America where he spent most of his life.
He stops at hotel to spend the night, and at the bar he starts talking to the only other guest, an attractive middle-aged woman, eyes full of secrets. She tells him about a mine nearby, closed down years ago when the miners started disappearing. Inside are a wealth of mineral riches: silver, gold, even diamond. It is said the miners were touched by something, some ancient evil that lurks beneath the earth and were transformed into creatures, cursed to toil amongst the rock for eternity. The woman tells him that together they can enter the mine through an old abandoned shaft, hidden by a tree that had grown into the mine. It's a dangerous place and to venture through she'd need the help of another - the soldier certainly looked the part and was surely not averse to danger. All she wants from the cave is an old cigarette lighter her father left down there before the mine was closed down.
The soldier has always been a poor man and has seen how poverty and greed had torn Spain apart - the chance to be free of that and start his life anew tempts him dearly. He agrees to help the woman in the morning.
The next day, true to her word, the woman is waiting outside the hotel. She leads the soldier off the road, across fields and to a wretched looking tree. The woman shows him a hole amongst the branches and they descend into the tunnels beneath. The soldier ties a rope around his waist and the woman lowers him further in. Inside he finds a vast cavern, chiselled rock reflecting back his lamplight. The walls look as if they had been carved by a thousand pickstrikes.
Away from the central chamber are three distinct tunnels leading each in a different direction. The soldier sets forth into the closest and though it snakes its way through the earth eventually finds his way to its conclusion. A vast pile of minerals lies in the centre arranged purposefully but carelessly. Silver glistens in the feeble light of his lamp.
The soldier hears behind him a shuffling sound, a scraping of bone against stone. He turns to see a wretched abomination, a cruel imitation of a man that seems pained by its very existence. It lunges at him but his time fighting in Spain had prepared him; with a volley of fire from his rifle he sends the creature scurrying away into the darkness. Filling his pack with lumps of silver he moves back to explore the rest of the tunnels.
He finds a similar situation in the second and third tunnels. At their end are vast piles of precious minerals untouched by human hands. Again he encounters nightmarish creatures guarding their loot. He dissuades them with his rifle, and fills his pockets with the most valuable items he can find, until he is ready to leave the dank cavern with his pockets weighed heavy with diamond.
He calls to his accomplice but she reminds him that before she will pull him out he must find her the cigarette lighter she asked for. After a few minutes searching the dusty floor he finds it: an ornate, worn lighter. The pair return to the surface.
The soldier offers the woman some of his loot - with his pockets full he must surely be the richest man for miles. She refuses and demands he give her the cigarette lighter they agreed. The soldier is confused: why would someone want such an odd device instead of riches beyond imagining? There must be a trick, or more value to it than he originally thought. With the woman looking more and more frustrated, he refuses to give her her prize unless she make her intentions clearer. The woman goes for the lighter, drawing a previously concealed blade in the process. In the ensuring struggle the soldier wounds her fatally with the bayonet of his rifle; embedded in her neck it almost severs her head clean.
With noone around to see his actions he quickly carries the body back to the tree and drops it into the darkness below.
The soldier travels back to his hometown and reinvents himself as a wealthy man. He lives the comfortable life he had always dreamt for himself and his family and gives generously to the poor in the town. He mixes in the affluent circles he had only heard about previously, and even becomes an acquaintance of the mayor, a rich businessman, whose family had owned land in the area since before the United States were formed. He becomes infatuated with his wife, a woman much younger than the mayor whose parents had arranged her marriage to secure their status and wealth. She is very much taken with the soldier herself, and confides with him about her unhappiness with the mayor - he is a drinker and a violent man. As the years go by they begin an affair.
Eventually the mayor discovers his wife's betrayal and vows to ruin the soldier. He succeeds and soon the soldier finds himself bankrupt.
One night as he considers how best to rebuild his fortune, the soldier goes to light a cigarette. Realising he has used the last of his matches, he searches his apartment and finds the old ornate cigarette lighter, still dusty from the accursed cave. Unwilling to dwell upon the events that transpired that day he hastily tries the flint, and to his surprise a flame bursts into existence.
While contemplating his situation and drawing the last embers from his cigarette, the door is flung open. In the shadowy corridor stands the unmistakable shape of one of the abominations he encountered in the mine. The soldier grasps for a weapon but notices the beast kneel towards him. Its head hangs down, the unmistakeable posture of servitude. A long rasping breath fills the room. "Orders..?" The creature looks up, two misshapen yellowed eyes searching the soldiers face quizzically.
The soldier instructs the beast to fetch him more precious stones from the cave to which it dutifully obeys. The soldier learns he can summon all three of the monsters through lighting the cigarette lighter - something binds them to it inextricably.
He rebuilds his fortunes but the Mayor and his men continually try to ruin him, both financially and through attempts on his life. The mayor locks his beautiful wife away, out of possessive fear his trophy will be spoilt. The soldier longs to see her and sends his newly aqcuired guardian to bring her to him. They meet regularly and she agrees to escape with him and start a new life far away.
Eventually the mayor discovers his attempts at stopping his wife's infidelity have been unsuccessful. He sends his men out to track her as she is helped from her room in the mansion and carried safely by the monster outside the grounds. They follow her to the soldier's home and inform the mayor of the soldier's whereabouts.
The following day the police raid his apartment arresting him on charges of colluding with an enemy of the state. His past fighting with the republican forces in Spain is twisted against him and his is accused of spying for communist Russia.
The trial rigged and jury bought, the soldier resigns himself to be electrocuted the next day.
As he is marched towards the chair he sees the mayor and his wife in the viewing booth. He implores the guards to allow him one last luxury before his death: a cigarette lit from his own lighter - 'the last possession he now owns'.
They agree. The soldier strikes the flint: once, twice, three times.
The concrete walls are shattered as three terrible monstrosities force their way into the chamber, towards their master. The soldier commands them to save him, to kill those who would seek to end their master's life. Although composed of little more than sodden rags, stiffened sinews and jutting bones they tear the crowd to pieces - prison wardens, the mayor and his entourage alike.
The solider escapes the carnage with his lover and together they leave the town to start a new life far away. On the way they stop by the tree and throw the cigarette lighter into the thick black emptyness below.
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