Aurora's Gold

by K. J. Gillenwater

  I missed where the Goldfinger had docked. But why did I care? Our buckets were full, we’d had a productive day. It was inevitable someone was going to find our spot before too long. Kind of sucked it had been Kyle.

  Ben headed to my truck laden with two buckets. I carried a third, which I left at the side of my truck. Then, I went toward the dumpster at the other end of the parking lot to dump the trash. When the heavy lid clanged shut, I turned to see Ben engaged in conversation with Kyle.

  Red alert.

  Not good. Kyle was a decent guy, but I worried about anyone poaching my diver. Better to keep Ben’s skills a secret and make people think he was a typical dredge rookie.

  I hustled back to the truck.

  “Hey, Kyle.” He wore a t-shirt I’d given him a couple of Christmases ago. “See you met Ben here.”

  Ben set the last of the buckets in the truck bed.

  Both men turned my way at the same time. Kyle lanky and thin; Ben monstrously huge and intimidating. An odd emotion rushed through me—something like pride? I was inwardly glad that Ben, scary, muscular Ben, had agreed to be my diver.

  “Yeah, he was just telling me about his background a little bit.” Kyle knew that would bother me. “Navy diver. Impressive.”

  Kyle said those last words as if he really wasn’t impressed. Not sure what he thought about Ben, but it didn’t seem like the usual, relaxed Kyle I knew. He was tense. Defensive, maybe, about being replaced by a stronger, bigger man.

  I nodded. Not sure what else to say.

  Ben’s expression remained blank. His hooded eyes were dark, which reflected the darkening gray skies above.

  I wondered if, in the few minutes I’d been gone, my relationship with Kyle had come up. I don’t know why I cared if it did, but I did. I squirmed at the thought of Kyle revealing to Ben where I’d been last night. It might appear as if we were still together.

  “Looks like it’s going to rain.” I jangled my truck keys. “We’d better get going.”

  “Right.” Kyle’s lips curled up slightly at the corners. He knew I was uncomfortable. “Weather doesn’t look too good for the next couple of days. But maybe we both need to spend some time scouting for new ground.”

  The signal that, yes, Kyle had been aboard the Goldfinger, and that the streak we’d been following could possibly be played out. I took my smart phone out of my pocket. “I thought we were supposed to have a few clear days this week.” I hadn’t looked at the latest weather reports. I swiped to get to my weather app.

  “Winds at 25 miles per hour, rain.”

  My weather app displayed exactly the forecast Kyle described. “Damn it.”

  “No diving tomorrow?” Ben asked.

  I might have been slightly better today at reading his immutable expressions—possibly a bit irritated or disappointed we couldn’t go dredging. Maybe if he were clean-shaven I’d have a chance, but with his full beard it made it hard to know if he was angry, sad or bored.

  I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Kyle nodded. “I’ll be at my place tonight, in case you forgot anything, Rory.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I told myself to keep it cool. “I think I got it all.” I patted the tarp. “We’re good.” I hope that saved me. Maybe Ben would think Kyle’s reference was about the equipment he’d seen in the truck.

  Kyle laughed. “Gotcha. All right. Just didn’t know if you might need something.” He winked then, giving a very lascivious feel to the whole thing and left.

  Ben stood in silence. I didn’t know what he thought of the exchange, maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “Follow me,” I instructed. “We’ll head back to my place. No rush on the clean up now, but I can take you to the assayers in the morning, so you can get your gold turned into cash, if you want.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Kyle drove off in a wave of dust and gravel.

  I was grateful Ben said nothing about Kyle’s statements. “I’m in town. Not too far from the Polar Cafe.”

  “See you there.” Ben climbed on his ATV, started it up and waited for me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nome had several streets lined with aging, decaying buildings. Most were various shades of brown, tan and gray. Due to the harsh weather conditions during most of the year and the direct pummeling by wind, rain, snow and sea water from the Bering Sea, the exteriors didn’t remain in good shape for long.

  I pulled up in front of my father’s apartment. Ben parked behind me.

  We lived on the second floor of an ugly, brown, two-story apartment building with six apartments. My father had rented the place for about a year. We’d started out in a house outside of town. He’d shared it with Nate for a while before I showed up. I had ended up with my own bedroom, and Nate had moved out into the insulated garage space.

  When he and Nate had their falling out last summer, we’d moved into the first place available. My father didn’t plan things in advance. There’d been the ruckus with Nate, and we’d needed to get out. My dad had moved us into the apartment within days. I hadn’t spent much time here, though, as most of my nights I’d spent at Kyle’s.

  “Come on in.” I unlocked Buck’s apartment and snapped on the lights.

  As one-bedroom apartments go in Nome, it was the typical saltbox boring square—living room and kitchen combo in front, one window next to the door looking out at the street, a bathroom on the same back wall as the bedroom. I slept on the pull-out couch when I stayed here.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t bothered to make the bed the last time I’d slept in it. My dirty clothes were strewn across the rumpled sheets and couch cushions lay on the floor.

  “Um, let me clean up a little bit.” I scooped up the clothes and dumped them in a half-full laundry basket near the bathroom. Then I quickly folded the bed into the couch and replaced the cushions.

  Ben handed me the last seat cushion. “You don’t need to go to any trouble.”

  I rushed over to the recliner my father usually sat in and removed an old newspaper and an empty Chinese food container. “This is the best seat in the house.” I patted the worn leather. “I’ll make us some grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  I hustled into the cramped kitchen. An L-shape that ran from the bedroom door around the outside corner of the apartment. I grabbed the bread and a frying pan. I started the stove, and then hunted in the fridge for the block of cheese I knew was in there. If I didn’t have any other food in the house, I could usually find cheese in the fridge, bread and peanut butter. Sandwiches were mostly what I was good at making. Buck hadn’t been much of a cook when I was younger—or even now—so I’d learned out of hunger how to make a few things I liked. Beyond that, I was hopeless.

  “That’d be fine.” Ben tipped my father’s chair back and let out a sigh. “Not bad.”

  I cut slices of cheese and put some butter into the heating pan. “My dad’s.” I put two slices of white bread in the pan and topped each slice with the cheese. I was grateful for the company of someone who didn’t know my father, didn’t ask more questions, didn’t wonder about what happened.

  I got a beer out of the fridge and offered one to Ben.

  He held up his hands as if to receive a football pass.

  I threw the can to him underhand.

  “Thanks.” He popped the tab of the beer. Foam hissed out and leaked over the edge of can into his hands. “Damn.” He held the can over the laminate floor. A few flecks of foam landed on the dark planks.

  “Here.” I tossed him a roll of paper towels.

  The roll spooled out as it flew through the air.

  He caught the mess of paper towels and ripped off a few from the tail end. “Thanks.” He wiped up the mess.

  “Sure.” I opened a can of beer for myself and leaned back against the counter sipping while the sandwiches fried. I topped them with more bread and turned down the heat so they’d brown and not burn.

  “So you said you’v
e been working on the dredge since you were a kid?” Ben balled up the soaked paper towels and set them on the coffee table.

  “That’s right.” I opened the cupboard and took out the second to last can of peaches, opened it, and dumped them into a big cereal bowl with a serving spoon from the dishwasher. “My dad taught me everything I know. About diving, running the dredge…”

  “Seems dangerous.” Ben took a gulp of beer and ran a hand through his shaggy hair.

  “When I was younger I just worked up top.” I left the sandwiches frying, scooped up the heap of wet paper towels and dropped them in the kitchen trash. “Didn’t start diving until I was, oh, maybe sixteen, seventeen.”

  “Impressive.” Ben said.

  “I’m sure your training was a lot more rigorous than mine.”

  “It had its moments.” Ben stripped off his sweatshirt “Is it hot in here?”

  The tattoo of the eagle and the flag on his bicep caught my attention. “So you got that when you were in the Navy?”

  “What?”

  “The tattoo. It’s pretty cool.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, my dive buddy and me. Matching ones.” His jaw tensed.

  Somehow I’d hit a nerve with a simple question. “Did it hurt?”

  He shrugged. “We were both blitzed.”

  I stepped closer to get a better look at the artwork. “Is it okay…?” I wanted to roll up the sleeve of his t-shirt to get a better look at it.

  “Go ahead.”

  I pushed up his shirt sleeve to expose the whole piece of art. “Wow. This is really well done.” I traced along the edge of the eagle, its wings spread wide. It clutched the American flag in its talons.

  “Got it in Florida right before we shipped out to Iraq.”

  Iraq. Interesting new tidbit of information. My mind flicked to the scar and what may have happened to Ben. I pulled away. Too intimate. Too close.

  “After we eat, I’ll show you how I set up for the clean out,” I explained. “We don’t have any space in here, so we have to do it out back in the alley. There’s a hose back there we can hook up to.” Although cleaning up the concentrates outside was not my ideal, I didn’t have any other choice tonight.

  Ben brushed down his sleeve. Something strange hovered in the air between us.

  I returned to the kitchen to flip the sandwiches. Both had a nice golden brown color on them. I added another pat or two of butter to the pan.

  Whatever that was—that moment—must’ve been my imagination working overtime.

  Ben joined me in the kitchen. He appeared even bigger in the apartment than he did outside. Maybe because I was used to my dad’s size. Buck was only a few inches taller than me—maybe 5’9” or so.

  “Jeez, you are one big dude.” I handed him a plate and then flipped a hot grilled cheese onto it. “Peaches?” I offered him the bowl. “Hope one sandwich will be enough. I don’t think I have enough cheese to make more.”

  “This is fine.” He took a huge bite. The sandwich was half gone. “Gotta fork?”

  The peaches slipped around his plate. He set it on the table next to my dad’s recliner.

  “Here.” I handed him one.

  I put the other sandwich on my plate, turned off the stove, and scooped peaches. A barstool stood near the kitchen sink. I have no idea why. I didn’t remember putting it there. I slid it over and munched my food. “So the first step is going to be moving the equipment from the truck to the alley. Then, we have to clean the concentrates out of the mats, so we have material to run. Then I’ll show you how to set up the spiral. That will separate the gold from the black sand.”

  Ben had finished his sandwich and had moved on to the peaches. Beer and peaches didn’t seem the best combination, but he ate and drank them together anyway. “I guess I thought it was more of a one-step process. Seemed like the stuff in the sluice was pretty refined.”

  “It takes a lot of work to go from sluice concentrates to refined gold.” I ate the crusts of my sandwich first, saving the cheesy, crunchy middle for last. I’d eaten grilled cheese that way for as long as I could remember. “But the hard work is definitely the dredging part. The refining is the reward.”

  “But tomorrow, no dredging?” He’d finished what was likely a meager meal for his body size and set his plate next to his beer.

  “Not if this weather doesn’t change. Too dangerous.” I took out my phone and tapped on it to look at the weather app one more time. I prayed that somehow the weather forecasters had made a mistake and, really, the conditions would be clear and sunny tomorrow. “Nope. Still bad. At least three days of downtime.”

  “I like to keep busy,” Ben explained. “Not good when I have too much time on my hands—to think.”

  We all had our secrets, didn’t we? Things we didn’t want to share. Embarrassments. Disappointments. Mistakes. With Ben’s military background and time spent in a war zone, I’m sure his history was much worse than mine. He had been kind enough this morning not to press the issue with me about my mother, I offered up the same courtesy to him and let his statement lie with no response.

  “Unfortunately, with the weather looking as bad as I think it’s going to be, we can’t risk going out there.” I took both our plates and set them in the half-full sink. If I was going to be living here full-time, I needed to start doing the housekeeping. “But you’re more than welcome to meet me in the morning, and we can go to the assayers’ office together. I can show you how that part works. Nome might accept gold as payment, but if you want to spend your earnings anywhere else, you’ll need cash.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Let me throw on some pants and a sweatshirt, and we’ll get going.” I glanced over at the sweatshirt he’d left on my father’s chair. “You might want to do the same.” The change in the weather pattern also meant colder temperatures in the evening. Although a native Nome resident wouldn’t think twice about wearing shorts and t-shirts in the middle of summer, I still couldn’t handle the evening’s drop in temperature when the wind shifted. I paused. “Do you want to borrow one of my dad’s jackets? We might be out there for a few hours.”

  “I’ll be fine.” His eyes crinkled up at the corners.

  I thought he might chuckle at the notion. But just as quickly as the expression appeared on his face, it disappeared.

  I snatched some clothes from one of the cardboard boxes I used as a dresser and slipped them on over my t-shirt and shorts right in the middle of the living room. “All right. Let’s get this done.”

  *

  I’d gotten a small bonfire going in the shared fire pit out back. The evening air had a crisp snap to it. Even though it was late July, I could feel autumn racing toward us. Soon enough ice would begin appearing in the Sound, and we’d be racing against the clock to haul in our last gold for the summer season.

  After that it would be months before the ice grew thick enough to gear up for ice dredging. These remaining days and weeks of summer were so important to the overall financial picture for my dad and me. The loss of several days of mining due to weather hovered over me like a dark cloud of doom.

  I held my hands to the heat of the fire and reined in my scattered and frightening thoughts. I had no time to worry.

  Ben had helped me set up the Spiral Wheel Concentrator or, as most miners liked to call it: the Spiral. The main piece of the machine was a green dish-shaped wheel with a spiral of tracks starting on the outside and working toward the middle. In the middle of the wheel was a hole. A small container attached at the back. Gold would accumulate in it as the wheel spun and gravity did its magic. The Spiral sat at a slight angle and, once the water turned on, spun at a slow speed a bit like a water wheel. Gold, being heavier than dirt and sand, remained in the tracks and moved toward the hole in the middle with each turn. The lighter material washed away. At the end of the process, the container would hold all of the gold. I clicked the wheel into place on the stand and then made sure the collection container was securely in place.


  We’d beaten our neighbors to the hoses. A split valve existed so we could run two hoses at once and share the water pressure. Out of the six residents of our apartment complex, half of us were dredgers.

  I turned on the spigot. The flow coughed a couple of times before the water sprayed into the Spiral as it turned.

  “So what next?” Ben appeared eager to learn and understand the process.

  Most people I’d worked with over the years showed up for the diving and then sat slack-jawed while my dad and me ran the refining equipment. I appreciated his interest. “Get that first bucket for me,” I instructed.

  We’d already rinsed out the mats inside the buckets and now had fine gravel, sand, and gold dust all mixed together that needed to be separated.

  “We take a scoop of concentrates.” I took a trowel and dug into the bucket. The hose put out a steady stream of water into the Spiral, which spun slowly. I added concentrates a little bit at a time at the top using the trowel. “As the wheel turns, the water flushes the lighter material away, and the gold remains on these tracks.” I pointed to the swirl of ridges that made up the wheel. Then, the gold ends up back here.”

  Ben peeked behind the wheel.

  I liked his curiosity.

  I added another trowel of gold-filled concentrates. “Watch. As the wheel turns, the heavier materials—like gold—moves around and around traveling to the center of the Spiral.” I indicated the catchment box in the back. “The lighter material, like the sand and gravel, get washed away.”

  Already a stream of tailings ran toward the ditch that drained into the alley. We apartment dwellers had to clean out the ditch occasionally to keep the water flowing away from the clean-up area we’d created. Old piles of tailing surrounded the fire pit area. A lot of times we used the tailings to fill in potholes in the dirt driveway and parking area.

  It was hard to believe such a simple contraption could work so well. But these gold panning wheels had been around for a while and were very reliable. Larger versions existed, which the big operations used. They could be fed more material more quickly, but for our purposes, the size of my father’s Spiral worked well.