Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
THE MOUNTAIN CODE
On the far eastern side of town, and going slightly around a mountain base, they crossed the river on an old wooden bridge with no guardrails, which led to a dirt road with three houses on it.
The last of these was the Nelson property, where the mountain lion had been pilfering chickens.
Just beyond the Nelsons’, before the road came to a turnaround dead end, was a wooded area where Peter pulled over.
They got out and walked about thirty yards inland to the fence, then Peter, wearing his backpack, began snipping away.
Once they were through, they trudged their way uphill through some woods with a lot of exposed rock where the powdery snow had been blown away by the wind, so there was practically no evidence of their tracks.
They eventually came up to the bend in the dirt road of the Maynard site, between the director of operations’ house and the sealed-up mine entrance.
As they quietly neared the mine, Goldie heard the generator and saw that the three short ore cart railroad ties, which had once been stacked up to look like part of the sealed entrance, had been moved aside.
“Oh my God,” she quietly said, grabbing Peter’s coat sleeve. “Somebody’s in there!”
“Good,” he said, unconcerned. “Time to get to the bottom of this.”
She looked down the dirt road toward the chained gate that led to the covered bridge. The gate was chained tightly shut, and there were no footprints in the snow coming up the dirt road, other than a few windblown traces of her previous visit and encounter with the mountain lion.
“Whoever they are, they came up another way,” she determined. “Let’s go hide in the office and watch to see who comes out of the mine.”
“They’ll see the tracks in the snow going to the office,” he observed. “Go wait there if you want to, but I’m going into the mine. I’ll have the element of surprise.”
“You’re gonna leave me out here alone?” she protested.
“Then come with me,” he said. He pulled his .45 caliber army-issue pistol out of his winter coat pocket. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Goldie. I promise.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she said.
He put the weapon away, and they moved carefully toward the mine entrance as the day was getting brighter. They bent down, stepped over a couple of permanently affixed ties, and went into the mine.
“Whoa,” Peter whispered, seeing the seemingly endless string of lit electric lights that hung from spikes on the left-hand side of the mine wall. “How far does this go?”
“Pretty far,” she answered softly. “We’d better keep quiet. Who knows how much voices carry? Just follow the lights.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “Lead the way, since you’ve been here before.”
They silently descended deeper and deeper into the mine, passing a maze of interconnecting tunnels on either side for both miners and push carts with numbers painted on the walls outside of them. After several minutes, they came to a connecting tunnel where the lights turned left into tunnel “22.”
“We just keep followin’ the lights?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“The air’s getting thin,” he said, breathing heavier.
“Tough it out, Mary,” she cracked. “You’re the one who wanted to come down here.”
After about a minute’s walk in tunnel “22,” Peter noticed little trickles of water dribbling down the rock walls to the wet ground.
“We’re goin’ underneath the river,” Goldie quietly explained.
About fifty yards beyond that, she suddenly stopped.
“There are people up ahead,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed in a normal voice. “Time to go meet them.”
“Sshh,” she urged, turning to him. It was at this point that she noticed he had pulled the pistol out of his pocket again. He cocked it, then pointed it at her.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, still whispering.
“Move!” Peter said, sternly, gesturing with the gun that she should keep going.
Suddenly realizing she’d been betrayed by her leap of faith in Peter, Goldie expelled a deep breath, closed her green eyes, then reopened them with a wiser perspective.
“You’re in this with your father, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” he confirmed. “Keep moving. Let’s go.”
She shook her head regrettably, then continued on.
“Oh, Peter—and you were such a good writer.”
“I still am. I’m just not going to be a poor one.”
“What an idiot I was,” she admitted. “You and Charles were playin’ good cop, bad cop.
You, the kind, considerate reporter who doesn’t like to air people’s dirty laundry, writes beautiful obituaries, and aspires to be a novelist, pitted against the autocratic father who bullies others and wants to prove to everyone that he’s the boss. ”
“He is,” Peter agreed. “And a very effective one. Under him, the town’s tourism business has grown substantially.”
“Not to mention, his pocketbook,” she said, still walking. “Skimming from vendors, taking a little from historical society dues, maybe even taking a cut from the community dance, huh? But it all paled in comparison once that old geology report showed up, didn’t it?”
“Got it all figured out, don’t you?” Peter concluded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” she agreed. “Except for a few details.”
They fell silent until they met up with Charles, Tully, and Crosby standing near the entrance to tunnel “12” that turned left and went off into the darkness.
Running across its entrance was the continuous string of clear lightbulbs.
About ten feet beyond the entrance, continuing down tunnel “22,” was the area where the tunnel floor had collapsed, leaving only that small ledge.
Goldie knew from her previous visit that there was a several-hundred-foot drop from where the floor had given way.
Tully and Crosby were wearing their usual blue-collar clothes, and uncharacteristically, so was Charles.
“Hey, boys,” she greeted, mustering her courage.
From her time with Markie, she knew tough guys were only incentivized by fear.
So, she was determined not to show it. She took a stick of gum out of her winter jacket pocket, unwrapped it, then stuck it into her mouth.
Charles looked her over with her black rubber-clip boots, blue jacket, and burnt orange stocking cap.
“Good morning, Goldie,” he greeted. “I imagine, right now, you’re pretty frightened.”
“Not really,” she said, cracking her gum. “I’m disappointed in junior over here, but glad to finally get some answers.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Tully observed.
“You’ve already met Tully,” the mayor said. “His red-headed companion is Crosby.”
“How ya doin’?” Goldie nodded with her distinct Bronx accent. She cracked her gum again and looked around. “Where’s your other pal, Eli?”
“The Boy Scout? He’s not a part of our little group,” Tully huffed.
“Ah…” she said, thinking. “You just answered one of those details for me.”
“Really? What was that?” Peter said, still pointing the gun at her while slipping off his backpack.
She looked at Tully and Crosby. “Well, I’ve seen the sheriff with you two gentlemen, so I was never sure if he was part of the gang.
” She turned to Charles. “But now I get it. You hired him because he didn’t have any experience and was physically challenged.
When he returned to Sparkledove, he was still usin’ his cane.
You could take advantage of his inexperience, mobility, and still get complimented by the community because he was a decorated war vet. ”
“You’re smart, Goldie,” Charles smiled. “Smarter than the average woman.”
“She can’t be all that smart,” Crosby scoffed in his Scottish tongue. “Look where she is.”
“I am sorry, Goldie,” Peter admitted, “that I used you.”
“Fuhgettaboutit,” she shrugged. She looked at Charles. “So, when did you buy this old mine?”
“Right after I commissioned ore samples from not one, but two different out-of-state mining geologists,” Charles answered.
She looked behind her. “And when did the floor give way?”
“According to the final geology report of 1882, some of it had fallen away even then,” Peter said. “No doubt it was a reason to abandon the tunnel. But it’s nothing a bridge can’t fix with today’s modern engineering.”
Goldie recalled what Harriette Noise had told her. “The geology report came to the historical society in late 1939. It’s nearly Christmas of 1942. So, you’ve been workin’ on this scheme for a long time.”
“Years,” Charles admitted. “I’ve invested everything I have. There’s no turning back.”
“How much silver do you figure is down here?” she asked.
“Could be as much as a hundred tons,” Peter replied.
She paused, calculating. “Wow, that’s over $4,000,000.00 in 1942… $55,000,000.00 in current mon…” her voice trailed off. “If you hit gold, even more. And, of course, since you own a realty company and are the mayor, you knew how to keep the purchase quiet.”
“We’ve answered your questions, Goldie, now answer one of mine,” Charles said. “Who originally put you on the trail that something was going on?”
She took a couple of steps and looked beyond the men standing near the entrance of tunnel “12.” Figuring she might try to escape down that way, Crosby warned, “Don’t even think about it.”
She turned back to the men. “Bucky Eggleston had been working a lot of long hours. There was a manpower shortage at his office because of the war. The day he died, he told his wife he’d been drinkin’ coffee all day. So, he didn’t fall asleep.”
“He could’ve been drinking decaf,” Peter suggested.