by Clyde Witt
The beer joint seems to be the only game in town, Mike thought. He paused before entering and looked both directions. A hardware store a hundred yards up the road was the busiest business on the street with three pickup trucks parked in front. Next to it, a display in some sort of clothing store attracted the attention of two women, and a grocery store next to the bar featured a dog asleep in its doorway.
He nodded at the old man drinking beer and said, “Afternoon.”
“Yep, it is that,” came the reply.
Inside, a short fellow behind the bar wiped his hands on a towel. The guy’s belly hid his belt. The man was outfitted in what once might have been a white shirt and a string tie, like a movie-version of a bartender. The bartender slapped a paper napkin at a clean spot and gestured with his nose for Mike to take a seat. Mike surveyed the room. A dozen booths, half-dozen tables and eight bar stools. All empty. He sat, then tensed as floor planks creaked and he turned to his left. An elderly woman, dressed and built to match the bartender approached. Stains on her apron negated the need to ask for a menu.
“He take yer order as yet?” she asked.
“Ah, no. I was hoping I might get a beer and something to eat.”
The waitress turned and used her nose to point to a sign on the wall: ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ She started to laugh, which digressed into a cough that made her eyes water. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she said. “Damned cigarettes are gonna kill me. Now, what can I fix you?”
“Well, I see you have Coors on tap. I’ll go with a glass of that and maybe a ham and cheese sandwich.”
“Comin’ up, Bub.”
Mike glanced at the bartender who watched him from the far end of the bar. As the woman walked away, the man wiped the bar and worked his way toward Mike. “She git yer order okay?”
“That she did,” he answered.
“Anything else?”
“Ah, well, I could use a little information. I’m a journalist, doing a story on old mines in the West. I was wondering what you can tell me about the Custer Mine, back there in the hills?”
The man wiped hard at a nonexistent problem on the bar. “Well, I can tell you this: It’s closed.”
“Yeah, I sort of figured that. I was wondering what it was like, back in the day. That sort of thing. Maybe talk with someone who worked there.”
The man did not look up from his task. “Only one I know still alive is old Ben Wilson. Least I think he’s still alive. He tells stories about working the mines. ’Course, you can’t believe anything he tells you, especially if he says, ‘It’s the god’s truth.’ For sure that’d be a lie. Good fellow, though.”
“Great. Where would I find him?” Mike asked as the waitress slipped a plate with a sandwich, hidden under a stack of potato chips, in front of him.
“Get the man his beer, Garner,” she said and turned to Mike. “We don’t get many paying customers these days, unless it’s a tourist bus, so he sometimes forgets his manners, and what he gets paid for doin’.” The last words were shot in the bartender’s direction.
“Well, thank you. Do you know if this Ben Wilson fellow is alive and where I might find him?”
“That’s two very different questions, young man,” the woman said. “First, you passed him on the way in, sunning himself like a lizard out there on our porch. Now, whether he’s alive or not is hard to tell.” Again, she laughed so hard at her own joke she began to cough. She walked to the door and looked to the left. “Well, he’s still alive. He just ordered another beer. Damned freeloader.”
Mike finished his lunch, laid a twenty dollar bill on the counter and ordered two more beers. When the bartender brought the beers Mike asked, “That cover it?”
“Yep. More than enough.”
Mike took his beer, and one for the old guy out to the bench. “How ya doin’?” He asked as he offered the man the beer.
The old guy reached out and said, “Thanks. I’m doin’ anybody I can,” and laughed himself into a coughing fit. Then he said, “Ya got a cigarette?”
“Nope, I don’t smoke, Mr. Wilson.”
“Shit, guess I’ll have to smoke one a my own. Cost of these cancer sticks is getting so high I can’t hardly afford ‘em,” he said as he shook an unfiltered Camel from the mashed pack in his vest pocket.
The beer and the conversation was interrupted by occasional passersby. Everyone seemed to know the man, who said his name was Bradley Davis, not Ben Wilson.
“Don’t know why or how that ‘Ben Wilson’ crap got started. Long time ago. I got tired of correcting people since it didn’t seem to make any difference.”
Mike jotted both names in his notebook. When he got around to asking about the mine, Bradley looked off toward the mountains and slumped against the wall of the restaurant. Mike feared that this would be the end of the story.
Bradley turned and said, “Can’t tell ya much. Back in the day, I’m talking about before the war, the real war, maybe around 1940 or so, they had dug out most of the good stuff—gold, silver—that kinda stuff. Had maybe five hundred men working here, don’t have even half that number of bodies in this whole town, now, even if ya count the dogs.”
“But the mine ran for another twenty-five or thirty years, didn’t it?” Mike said.
“That it did. One owner after the other. After the good stuff was gone they dug out lead, some copper, even molybdenum.”
“What about platinum?”
Bradley started laughing until he coughed up a wad of phlegm and spit it into the street. When he got control of his breathing he said, “Yeah, that was a big joke around these parts for a while. The know-it-all managers thought they had platinum, but it turned out to be something else. Wasn’t worth shit, so they thought. Except for one guy who thought they should save the stuff.”
“So, what happened to it? Who was that guy? What was it?”
“Oh, by the time they figured out what to do with the stuff I was ranching over near Bozeman. I heard they tossed a lot of tailings back into the hole until somebody, some engineer, figured that you could extract something out of it and use it for jewelry—white gold they called it. Palladium. The guys who owned the mine by then hired anybody they could and had ‘em dig it all back up.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, must have been in the mid, maybe early seventies. Yeah, I remember I was about fifty years old and they called me an old guy and wouldn’t hire me. All them assholes are dead now and I’m pushing a hundred.”
Mike studied the man. “You don’t look that old. Except for that cigarette cough and too much sun, I’d peg you closer to seventy-five or eighty, tops.”
Bradley smiled but did not look at Mike. “Thanks, I guess. Send me a birthday card so’s I can remember you.”
“What happened with the palladium?”
“I guess they sold it off. There was a big rush to dig up more in the late nineties. I’s told they use it in those exhaust systems of cars.”
“And did they find more?”
“Naw, long gone. The story goes that there was some stored in some of those falling down buildings back then.”
“Ever hear of any being stolen?”
Bradley’s eyes shifted toward Mike then back out at the mountains. He straightened on the bench. “Oh, might have been a rumor or two about that.”
“Tell me. I thrive on rumors.”
“Well, as I heard it, one of the mining company execs—the one who figured out the stuff was worth saving—stashed some of the stuff someplace. Figured someday, somebody would figure out a good use for it, and if not, it would still make a lot of nice wedding rings. He was paying bush pilots to carry it off, small quantities, after it was extracted, mind you, to his place in Mexico.”
“I don’t suppose you knew any of those bush pilots.”
“Knew plenty of them. All dead now. Mos
t of ‘em were pilots in ‘Nam. Crazy bastards. They’d come down the valley there, twenty feet off the ground and scare the shit out of every man, woman, child and dog in the street. Crazy. As the story goes, one of ‘em crashed with a load of that palladium crap someplace in the southwest. I’m surprised not more of ‘em didn’t crash. Maybe they did. Crazy bastards.”
Mike let his eyes follow a dog down the middle of the street until it curled up in a sunny spot next to the bar’s parking lot. “So, Bradley, what else can you tell me about the Custer mine, or the guy who figured the palladium might be worth something, someday?”
“Can’t tell ya much. If I did I’d have to kill ya,” he said through a fit of coughing and laughter.
“Well, thanks for your time, sir,” Mike said and handed him a business card. “If you think of anything else, my cellphone number is right there. I’m particularly interested in those bush pilots, as you call them.”
“Ain’t we all.”
Bradley watched the taillights of Mike’s car turn toward the highway before he walked back into the bar. “Ain’t we all,” he said to the business card. “Winona, can I use that cell phone of yours? My battery needs recharging.”
“Is it long distance, Ben?”
“Shit. Every place is long distance from here.”
“Ain’t it the truth. Like it makes some sort of difference. Go ahead, but no free beer ’til tomorrow.”
He had two calls to make, the first to a number he knew by heart. For the second call he had to open his wallet and remove a piece of paper wrapped in waxed paper. He looked at the phone number belonging to the man he’d call, only if there was anything new, or, to just rattle his chain a bit.
“Hello? Let me talk to Mister Conrad.”
“What?” Gabby growled into the phone, two thousand miles away.
“Game’s getting interesting, pal,” Bradley said, then pushed the red button ending the call.
The Deseret News in Salt Lake City was Mike’s next stop. The archivist was more than happy to help a fellow journalist in his quest for stories of airplane crashes throughout the southwest in the early 1970s. Within thirty minutes Mike had a three-paragraph story about one Russell Starke III who crashed an old, twin-engine aircraft, a DC3/C-47, about one hundred miles north of Georgetown, Utah. Witnesses to the crash said the plane, one engine smoking, was flying so low that one of its wings clipped a thirty-foot tall giant saguaro cactus. The impact sent the plane spinning like a Frisbee. Explosion and fire were so intense the body was never found.
While he waited for his flight at Salt Lake City International Airport, Mike looked at the notes written over the past two days. Not much, but something, he thought. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Aston’s number.
“Hey, Aston, it’s Mike.”
“Sorry, I don’t date my girlfriend’s boyfriends.”
“You should be so lucky. Anyway, she tells me you got the hots for your boss—”
“Fake news, buster. Besides, he’s got a girlfriend. Why are you bothering me at work?”
“This is work related. I need to speak with your retired DEA guy again, the one who—”
“I only know one DEA guy so it shouldn’t be too tough figuring out who. I can set it up. When do you get back?”
“Late. I’m taking a red eye back from Salt Lake City. Let’s say some time tomorrow afternoon.”
“He’s kinda shy about where he lives. Let’s make the meeting here, in the office, say around three.”
Chapter Sixteen
Phyllis watched two small birds toss seeds from the platform feeder. Larger birds on the ground, doves, picked up the seeds and circled the post that held the feeder array at eye level. She jumped when Gabby rolled into place beside her and touched her arm.
“Oh! Give a girl a fright why don’t you?”
“Sorry. I enjoy your intensity when you’re looking at birds.” He paused to clear his throat. “Phyllis, there’s some things we need to discuss.”
“Well, for a guy whose been married more times than a porcupine has quills, I can’t believe you’re shy about asking a girl for a dance.”
Gabby smiled and looked out the window. “Ya know, sometimes I wish I had paid more attention to what you were saying to me back there in the Lizard Cafe all those years ago, and less time looking down your blouse. If I coulda stopped the clock. Time sure has moved on, hasn’t it girl?”
Phyllis looked at her wrinkled hands in her lap. “Well, time only seems to stop for the crap we leave behind us. In real life we just get swept up and dropped someplace new, I guess.”
“True enough. Nothing we can do about it. That is, until something like this buried treasure and Starke thing comes back into our lives. I got a call from him yesterday. He didn’t identify himself, just said, ‘Game’s getting interesting’ something like that.”
Phyllis smiled. She’d had a call, too. “Well, that is strange. Wonder what that crazy guy is up to, now.”
“Not sure we’ll ever figure it out.”
Gabby watched the birds for a while and thought about the meeting he was going to have later that day with Aston and the reporter guy.
“You met that reporter friend of Aston’s yet,” he asked.
“Nope. Nice guy?”
“There’s something shifty about him.”
Phyllis smiled. “You sound like a father protecting his sixteen-year-old daughter. She can take care of herself.”
“Naw, it’s not that. The guy is a friend of Aston’s girlfriend. Nothing going on like that. He just—I can’t put my finger on it.”
Gabby was silent as Aston drove across town to the office. “Cat got your tongue today, Gabby?”
“Naw. Bird Lady and me was talking early this morning and it started me thinking. Something you should do more of, and less riding that damned skateboard, young lady.”
“I think I liked it better when you called me Sweetie. Easier to ignore what you say. When you call me ‘young lady’ I feel like something important is about to land in my lap.”
He looked at her braided hair while they waited for a traffic light to change. “This is important, gal. I’m thinking, I got this bad feeling. Maybe not bad, just strange. You need to go back to Arizona to check that box before we start production on the puzzle.”
“No way. I’m through with spiders and snakes.”
“Look, Aston—”
“Whoa! You used my name—”
A car behind them honked and cut her off. She stomped on the gas pedal and pinned them both to their seats. At the same time, Gabby raised the middle finger of his right hand. They laughed the rest of the way to the office. When she parked the car, Aston said, “As I was about to say before we rudely interrupted that guy’s burger he was eating, what’s so important that it would force you to use my real name?”
“Okay, let’s go back to Sweetie. I’ve been thinking, what if we’re wrong and there’s no palladium in that box? What if we’re being played?”
“Modern-day kids say, being ‘pranked’. Yeah, Mike sort of hinted that might, or could, be the case. Plus, he’s having second thoughts about the dude he talked to out in Montana. Wants to go back and talk with the old codger some more. This is all getting complicated.”
“That it is, Buttercup.”
“Oh god, drop that one or you’ll be hauling your own ass around town from now on.”
Eric’s car rolled to a stop next to them. “What’s this? Meetings in the parking lot?”
“Just getting our story straight, Boss,” Aston said.
“Story?”
Gabby started to climb out of the car. “Yeah. The story about what we did last night,” Gabby said.
“Spare me the fake news,” Eric said as he lifted Gabby’s wheelchair from the trunk of the Boxter.
Inside, Eric tap
ped his pencil on his desk as he listened to Gabby’s rational for another trip to Arizona, and Aston’s refusal to go. “You make a good point, Gabby. The thought of what happens if the box is empty crossed my mind a time or two.” He straightened in his chair. “A couple things: First thing is, this is costing way more than I thought it might. But, this is a treasure hunt so what if there’s no gold, so to speak? That’s always a gamble on the part of a treasure hunter.”
“And if the box is empty when the person finds it, the company reputation just goes into the shiter. Is that part of the deal?” Gabby said. “No, we have to know if that damned Starke is pulling our leg on this one.”
“Let’s send Mike,” Aston said.
“Bad idea,” Gabby said. “Something about that guy gives me the creeps. Ever notice how small his teeth are? I was good at sorting people out, back in the day, and Mike is one I would’ve tossed on the questionable pile after I turned him upside down and shook out his pockets.”
“Hey, my friend Diane trusts him.”
“Yeah, like I said, Sweetie.”
“Okay,” Eric cut in, “let’s sort this out. The only people we can trust are the three of us, right? Which means, one of the three of us has to go check it out, right? Since you’re the one who knows where the box is, Aston, and I have a business to run, and Gabby is, well, less physically able, I only see one way to play this.”
“Ah shit, Boss. If they catch me, again—”
“I’ll bail you out,” Gabby said, and reached over to pat the back of her hand.
Eric’s eyes followed the contours on the map in front of him. “What about that Border Patrol guy you met? Can he be trusted?”
Aston stared at her shoes. “Not sure. He’s a Fed. Seemed like a straight arrow. He’d bust us, I’m sure.”
Gabby cleared his throat. “What if you go back with a bird watcher friend. Your excuse is that you want to show her those special birds you found. Nobody’s gonna give two bird watcher ladies any trouble.”
“Wait, ladies?” Aston said.