by Bill H Myers
When it was clear he had nothing more to say, Abby asked, “Did you tell Kat about Crystal Mountain? Is that where she went?”
Instead of answering, he took a final slug from his now warm beer and reached over to get another one. He looked up at me and asked, “Beer?”
I shook my head. I didn't want another beer. I wanted to find out where Kat was.
When he asked Abby if she wanted one, she said, “No, but you go ahead. You've earned it.”
He grabbed a beer and felt the side of the can. “They're getting warm. Okay if I go inside and get a cold one?”
Abby looked in my direction like she wanted me to answer, so I did. “No need to drink warm beer when there's cold ones inside. So yeah, go ahead, get you one.”
Digger stood, grabbed the empty beer cans and went back to his trailer, leaving the door open behind him. We heard him drop the empties into what we assumed was a trash can, followed by the distinct sound of him in the bathroom, peeing. That was followed by running water (we hoped he was washing his hands) and then the sound of drawers being opened and paper being shuffled.
A few minutes after he had gone in, he returned with a sheet of paper in his right hand and beer in his left.
He sat on the ground in front of his crystal collection and took a sip of his beer. Then he cleared his throat, looked up at me and tapped the sheet of paper in his hand.
“There's a place on Crystal Mountain that only a few people know about. People whose daddies were there during the war. Most of them are too old to dig. Their memories of the exact location of the site have faded, and it's not being passed on to their kids.
“But an old soldier took me up there and showed me where the army had been digging. He called it the Crystal Cave, a hole in the mountain where double terminated crystals could be plucked from clay walls. The cave floor was littered with crystals of all sizes, some with inclusions, some with hydro. All of them valuable.”
“I told Kat about this secret place. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. I told her about all the crystals that could be found up there; about how you didn't even need to dig for them. You could just pick them up off the ground.”
“I shouldn't have told her. I shouldn't have shown her the same crystals I showed you because it built a fire inside her. Something she wouldn't be able to quench until she went up there to see for herself.
“The guy she was with, he didn't believe me. He said there was no such place as the Crystal Cave or Crystal Mountain. No place where you could go and just pick up museum quality crystals right off the ground.
“I told him he was wrong. Crystal Mountain was real. So were the crystals you could find there.”
He laughed at me, and he laughed at your friend when she said she believed me. They argued, and he said he was leaving. Said he'd be back to get his stuff later on. He walked to the road, stuck out his thumb and got a ride from one of the Rainbow people.
That was Saturday, lots of people coming and going at the mine. I was here most of the day and didn't see him come back.
Digger paused for a minute then said, “Your friend, Kat? She seemed relieved the guy was gone. Didn't shed a tear about his leaving. She sat right there where Abby's sitting and said she wanted to know more about Crystal Mountain. Because she believed me.”
He took a long sip from his beer. His throat parched from talking so much. Abby and I wanted him to continue, to tell us more about Kat. We didn't want to give him any excuse to end his story, so we made no move to leave.
After about a minute of silence, he put his beer can on the ground and tapped the sheet of paper he had brought out of his trailer. “I shouldn't have told her how to get to Crystal Mountain. Not on that day. Rain was in the forecast, and the dirt roads up there can get pretty messy.
“But she wanted to know. She even offered me money to draw her a map. I felt bad about taking money from her, but I was broke and needed it to pay some bills. So I made her a map and showed her how to get there.
“I told her it was dangerous to go alone. Told her she'd need four-wheel drive. But she didn't listen.
“Later that same day, a guy showed up at her campsite driving one of them little Korean cars. Said it was a rental she had ordered.
“Next morning, she locked up her motorhome and drove off in that little car. By herself. That was Sunday. As far as I know, she hasn't been back since. I was in court Monday, so if she came back then, I missed her.”
He tapped the piece of paper he had been holding.
“I don't know if she went up to Crystal Mountain or not. Maybe she did or maybe she went off after her boyfriend. I don't know. I do know it rained hard Sunday afternoon and again Sunday night. If she was up there in that rental car, she probably got stuck in the mud.
“But maybe not. Maybe she went to Hot Springs and found her boyfriend. Could be they got a room at the Arlington and are taking those hot water baths. That's what all the tourists do.”
He paused and took another sip of his beer. Then he lowered his head and said nothing. Again, he was waiting for us to ask the next question. The question he knew we had to ask.
Abby didn't wait long. She pointed at the sheet of paper in his lap. “You drew a map for her. Is that what you've got there, a map to Crystal Mountain?”
He looked up from his beer, pretending to be ashamed of what he was about to say. But he said it anyway. “Yeah, it's a map showing how to get to Crystal Mountain and the Crystal Cave. But I can't give it to you. It's too valuable to give away, especially since I need money to buy food and pay bills.”
Abby nodded. “I understand. The map is real valuable. But we're not going up there to look for crystals. We just want to find our friend.”
Digger shook his head. He was holding firm.
“It don't matter whether you're going up there to dig or not. This map is too valuable to give away for free. Only a few people know about Crystal Mountain or how to get there, and I want to keep it that way. That's why I don't give the map away to anyone. Not for free.”
I'd had enough of his talk. I pulled out my wallet, opened it and asked, “How much?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
He didn't answer right away. He looked at the map and shook his head. “People who make a living digging and selling crystals would be happy to pay big bucks for this map. It shows them exactly where to go to get museum quality specimens. The kind they can sell for top dollar. It's hard to put a price on something like that.”
I figured Digger already had a price in mind and he was just baiting us, hoping that when he told us the amount, it'd sound reasonable. Or maybe he was hoping I wouldn't wait for his price and I'd make an offer. He saw the motorhome we were in. He had to figure we had money.
But I didn't fall for it. I didn't offer anything. Instead, I repeated the question I'd asked before. “How much for the map?”
He looked down at the sheet of paper, rubbed his nose and looked back up at me. He smiled and said, “Just for you, because you said you wouldn't be digging any crystals, a hundred dollars.”
The price surprised me. A hundred dollars was a lot of money for a hand-drawn map that may or may not be worth anything.
But Digger had already given us more than the map. He had told us about Kat's movements from the time she arrived in camp until she disappeared. He told us about her boyfriend leaving and the car she rented, and maybe where she took it to dig crystals.
If I paid him his asking price for the map, he might be willing to tell us more, he might even agree to keep an eye on Kat's RV when we couldn't. So, without trying to bargain him down, I reached into my wallet and pulled out five twenties. I handed them over, and he gave me the map.
I thought it would be a hand drawn original, but it wasn't. It was a copy of something that had been created on a computer. The top half of the page had a map from Google, with a tent icon marking our location in the campground. From there, a jagged line led across the map to a large X.
Below the map,
the following instructions.
From Castleberry's store, go north on highway 7 for six miles until you see the national forest sign for FR 132.
Turn right at the sign onto the dirt road and stop.
Reset your trip odometer to 0.0.
Go east on the dirt road for 3.7 miles and go left at the fork. At 4.8 miles, go right.
Keep going east until your trip odometer shows 13.3. Don't turn, keep going straight.
Just before the 14-mile point, there will be a wide spot on the right side of the road. Pull over and park there.
Get out and cross the road to your left. Look up the hill. There won't be a marked trail, but if you look closely, you'll see a narrow path going up.
Follow the path for about sixty feet until you see a white quartz outcropping.
Follow the base of the outcropping to the east (your right) until you reach the Crystal Cave.
It's a hand dug mine, not a cave. When you see it, you'll recognize it.
Whoever had created it had been precise. Every turn and bend had been noted. If it were accurate, it would make it easy to find Crystal Mountain and the Crystal Cave, but only if they really existed.
I had to wonder, though, since the map was obviously a copy and easily duplicated, how many had he sold and at what price?
Was the story he told us the same one he told to every tourist who showed up at the campground? Did they all buy copies of the map from him?
I handed it to Abby and looked at Digger. I crossed my arms and asked, “How many copies have you sold?”
He smiled nervously. “Not many. Maybe twenty.”
I nodded, not sure I believed him. Then I asked, “When was the last time you were up there, at the Crystal Cave on Crystal Mountain?”
He shook his head and looked over at his Pathfinder. “Been a few months. Truck broke down last time I tried to go. I don't trust it to make the trip no more.”
Having driven it, I could believe it broke down on him. It almost broke down on me, and I'd only gone a few miles. I nodded and asked, “So if I get something reliable to get us up there, you going with us?”
Instead of answering right away, he looked down at his feet. Then he looked up and said, “I can't go up there no more. They got a T.O. on me.”
I was pretty sure I knew what a T.O. was, a Trespass Order. Usually filed by store owners to keep shop-lifters and trouble makers off their premises. I’d never heard of one being filed by the Forest Service.
“Tell me about the T.O.”
Again, Digger looked down at his feet. When he looked back up, he said, “It weren't really my fault. I was up there with some friends, and they'd been drinking and had a fire going, and, well, it got out of hand. Burned about thirty acres before the rangers got it put out.
“They couldn't prove it was set on purpose, so they got our names and let us go.
“Next time I was up there, the guy I was with, he took a shovel and dug some pretty deep holes looking for crystal. The Forest Service, they don't allow you to dig holes. But this guy did anyway.
“He was about five feet down when the ranger walked up on us. They wrote both of us tickets and told us not to come back.
“Two weeks after that, I was up there again, this time with three other fellows. They had used a winch to pull this big crystal out of the ground and then up into the bed of their truck. On the way back down the mountain, they was smoking pot, not paying attention. We come around a curve and run right into the ranger's Jeep.
“No one was hurt. But the driver was ticketed, and we all got wrote up. Since there was damage to a government vehicle, we had to go to court.
“The Forest Service, having cited me four times within two months, asked the judge for a Trespass Order. The judge wrote it up and said I was lucky I was getting off so easy. He said next time I got caught up there, I was going to jail.
“That's why I can't go with you. If I go back up there and violate the order, I go to jail. I been in jail and don't want to go there again. So while I'd like to go up to Crystal Mountain with you, I can't. They'll arrest me.”
Abby had been listening to his story and nodded like she believed him. But she had a question. “Digger, how many rangers patrol that part of the national forest?”
He squinted, thinking about the answer. I could see him counting numbers, whispering to himself. Finally, he said, “There's four of them that I know of.”
She nodded. “And how big is the district?”
He grinned. “It's big. Take a day to drive from one end to the other. Runs from Mt. Ida all the way to Benton. Couple hundred square miles at least.”
She smiled at his answer. “So they have four rangers covering two hundred square miles of forest roads. What makes you think they're going to find you if you go up there with us?”
He shook his head. “They’ll find me because they’ll be out in force watching them Rainbow people. Those hippies are camped out on the main road leading to Crystal Mountain. The rangers have checkpoints up and down that road and they stop every car; checking IDs, looking for drugs, guns and what not.
“I'm on their list. They stop us and find me; I get arrested. No way around it. And there ain't nobody going to bail me out. Not this time.”
Abby nodded like she still believed him. She looked at me and asked, “Anything you want to ask him?”
“Yeah. Digger, you said Kat took off Sunday morning in her rental car. She talk to you before she left?”
He shook his head. “I usually don't get up that early, but that morning I did. I wanted to get over to the mine before it rained.
“I saw her putting a few things in the car, so I went over to talk. She didn't have much to say. Just that she was going to look for crystals and hoped it didn't rain before she got back.”
I nodded. “So she was planning to get back that day? Sunday, right?”
He nodded. “That's what it sounded like. But she didn't come right out and say when she was coming back. Just that she was going to go look for crystals.”
“You said she was putting things in the car. What kind of things?”
He shrugged. “I don't know. Just things.”
Then he thought for a moment and blurted out, “Boots, I saw boots! And water, two six packs of bottled water. And jeans and a sweatshirt. Maybe a backpack.”
I gave him a minute to see if he could remember anything else. But he didn't, so I asked, “It didn't bother you when she didn't come back Sunday evening?”
He shook his head. “Come Sunday evening I wasn't thinking too straight. A couple of buddies come over that afternoon, and because it was too wet to dig, we went inside and finished off a bottle of Old Crow. She could have come in with a marching band and I wouldn't have heard her.”
I nodded. I had one last question. “Do you know who she rented the car from?”
He shook his head. “No idea. They just came and delivered it. That's all I know.”
We'd gone over to Digger's trailer around two in the afternoon. We'd been there two hours and gotten as much information from him as we figured we could. It was time to leave.
Abby stood first. She said, “Digger, we appreciate your help. If you think of anything else, let us know, okay?”
He nodded. “I will, I promise.”
I stood and took Abby's hand. “We'll be next door if anything comes up.”
We left his campsite, walked over to our motorhome, unlocked the door and went inside.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bob met us at the door with a howl. He wasn't happy we'd left him alone in a new place. But he was glad we were back. He showed it by closely following in our footsteps until we sat on the couch. Then he jumped up and joined us. He rubbed his body against my shoulder then moved over to Abby and settled down onto her lap.
We'd been gone half the afternoon, most of it spent listening to Digger tell us stories about Crystal Mountain. I wasn't sure whether they were true or not, but I was pretty sure he was in the busine
ss of telling the story to anyone who would listen so he could sell maps for a hundred bucks each.
I looked over at Abby. “What do you think? You think she went up there, to Crystal Mountain?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. His story sure made me want to go. If he did the same show and tell for her, she'd probably want to go there too.”
I nodded in agreement. “So, we going up there?”
Abby moved Bob over to my lap and stood. She pointed to the back and said, “Before I do anything, I'm going to change into warmer clothes. Then I'm going over to Kat's to check her phone. It should be charged up by now.
“If it is, I'll see who she called about a rental and see if they can tell me where the car is. Some of those places have GPS trackers, makes it easier to find their cars if they get stolen.
“If we're lucky and find out where the car is, that's where we'll go next.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. What do you want me to do?”
She didn't answer. Instead, she headed to the back. A few minutes later, she came up front wearing one of my gray sweatshirts. It was a bit too large, but somehow it looked good on her.
She stopped in front of the couch and said, “Don't do anything until I get back. If the rental company says Kat's car is up on Crystal Mountain, I'll see if we can rent something with four-wheel drive. We'll need it if we go up there looking for her.”
She headed for the door but stopped before opening it. She asked, “You think of anything else I need to do while I'm over at Kat's?”
I nodded. “Yeah, leave her a note. Tell her we're looking for her and, if she shows up while we're out, to call us.”
“Good idea. I'll do that.”
She grabbed her phone and headed out. I stayed on the couch with Bob, mostly because he wasn't letting me up. Not without delivering some pain first.
He had been kneading my leg the way cats do, making donuts, pushing and pulling his paws against the fleshy part of my thigh. When he saw Abby heading for the door, his claws came out, pushing against my leg, claws in, claws out. He was telling me it would be in my best interest to stay with him for a bit, not to leave him alone again.