Aurora's Gold

by K. J. Gillenwater

  “Yes, sure, I can do that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ben jumped into the water and saluted me at the same time.

  I hung up the phone feeling hopeful for the first time in almost two weeks. I slipped my cell phone in my back pocket and started up the sluice.

  The drone of its motor soothed me. So familiar a sound. It reminded me of all those summers I spent with Buck and Nate on the dredge. An odd place for a young girl to spend her summer, but it had been enjoyable. I had wanted to soak up every piece of knowledge my dad and his partner were willing to share with me. How to read the ocean floor. How to run the equipment. How to mark a good spot on the GPS. How to make a decent PB&J the way my dad liked. Butter on both pieces of bread, then jam, then a thick slab of peanut butter in between. Chunky, not creamy.

  I checked the gauges to ensure Ben received good air and that the hot water line worked properly. Then, I went back to the wheelhouse to see if he’d located where we’d left off the other day.

  “How’s it going down there?”

  Ben responded, “Just got to where we last worked. That big rock we turned over? I see a new path headed east, opposite direction.”

  “Great.” I turned the volume all the way up on my phone, so I could hear it ring no matter where I happened to be on the dredge. I hoped the doctor would call me sooner rather than later. My whole body had become tense. So frustrating to be on the dredge rather than on a plane. But what good would that do me? I needed to be here, keeping the dredge operating.

  After my dad and I had the falling out with Nate last summer, it had made it particularly hard to have a fully operational outfit for ice diving. Kyle, although he was a decent diver, flew to his parents’ place in Texas for the winter months, so we’d been left to fend for ourselves with no back-up diver. It had been too much pressure for Buck, so we’d chosen to scrape by until the summer. That one decision put us further behind the eight ball when we started up this summer.

  What I needed to find was one consistent source. One good spot where the gold was easy to find and quick to collect—like my dad’s fabled nugget field. Finding a spot like that in the well-traveled open claims offshore had grown even harder over the last ten years as word had gotten out about the gold to be found beneath the Bering Sea waves. Every summer more and more ‘outsiders’ showed up. Serious miners had to work harder to make ends meet, dive deeper, explore further from shore.

  “I think I found a new pay streak.” Ben’s garbled voice came across the comms.

  “Fantastic!” Kyle might’ve played out the original track we’d been following, but sounded like we’d stumbled across something viable. I marked the spot with a new purple dot on the GPS map. “Good visibility down there?” If the weather would hold, we could keep on the gold all day.

  “Not bad.”

  A dredge approached from the shore. It headed straight for us. The word had gotten out. A hot streak attracted a host of dredges who hoped to ride on the back of a more successful, knowledgeable dredger’s work. “We got company coming.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I walked out on deck to check the sluice box, which would tell me if Ben had really found a new gold spot worth working.

  Water rushed over the riffles. I dug through the deposited material in one of the tracks between the riffles. Specks of gold glinted on my finger. I also spotted a ‘picker’—a larger chunk of gold that could be picked out from the junk. Ben had definitely found a new streak of pay.

  Several dredges had arrived within 150 yards of where I’d anchored the Alaska Darling. I recognized one of the boats immediately—the Rough & Ready. I squinted in the brighter light of mid-morning. The waves had come alive with glints of summer sun. A tall, thinner man with scraggly hair appeared on the foredeck.

  Nate Frazier.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nate waved. An insincere smile on his face. I had an empty feeling in my stomach. He was the last person I wanted to see out on the water today. Couldn’t he go dredge somewhere else?

  I ducked my head and got back on the radio.

  “You are definitely on the gold.” The good news first. “I even found a couple of pickers.”

  Ben whistled. “Well, hot damn.”

  “But we’ve got about three or four boats setting up shop nearby.” I hesitated to tell Ben about Nate. What good could possibly come of it? I needed Ben in a positive mindset, and Nate had clearly set him off the other night. “They might try horning in on our streak. Let me know if anyone gets too close.”

  “Aye-aye, captain.” He paused and then grunted. “Oh, heck, yeah.”

  “What you got?” I looked out across the water at the Rough & Ready anchoring south of our position. The direction Ben had been headed. Those bastards. Nate could read the positioning of the Alaska Darling and the run of the air hose and water lines to make an educated guess as to where my diver would be. Plus, he knew my dad’s methods. Easy enough to pick up on where the gold might be.

  “Mega boulder. Just flipped it.”

  “Sweet.” I did my best to keep my voice light, unaffected by the rivals about to suck up our gold. “I think you’ve got it, Ben. Can you keep it up for a few more hours?”

  “No problemo.”

  The sight of Nate Frazier had set me off in a bad direction mentally. Old friendships had been ripped apart. Out here on the Bering it was every man for himself. Nate didn’t care if he destroyed my father’s business. He’d set course on a path of revenge for some unwritten promise I’d never heard of. He felt he deserved half the business but had nothing to back it up. All based on feelings and his own need for payback. My father chose me over his long-time business partner, and Nate had a very large chip on his shoulder about it. A dangerous chip, perhaps.

  My phone rang. I pulled my gaze away from the Rough & Ready just as Nate was suiting up for a dive.

  The hospital again.

  “Hello?” My hand trembled.

  “This is Dr. Leskiv. The nurse told me you’d only be available by phone for a few hours today. I hope I didn’t call too late.”

  “You’re fine. This is perfect. How’s my father doing? Can you tell me anything?” I turned away from the Rough & Ready to focus on the conversation. “This morning the nurse implied that they’d need time to assess his consciousness.”

  “Although your father is currently unable to speak with you, I wouldn’t be alarmed. He’s slowly coming around. These things take time. He went through a major trauma.”

  Tears welled up and blinded me. “That such a relief to hear.” I had trouble finding words. “Will he be fit for surgery?”

  “We’re going to do the work up later this afternoon. Once he’s more lucid.”

  “Okay, okay, that’s good news.” God, I wish I could be there. See him. Talk to him.

  “I know it’s tricky being so far away. But we’re used to this down here. Lots of patients get flown in to Anchorage during a crisis. If you’d like, we can hook you up with a patient care coordinator who can help you navigate what’s going on with your father and help you understand the process going forward. Even after his surgery and release from the hospital, we don’t recommend he return to Nome for at least two or three months so we can monitor his condition and help him learn about how to make effective changes in his daily living to give him the best outcome. That includes dietary changes, exercise, and even mental health counseling.”

  I sorted through the information the doctor had unloaded on me. So beyond the deductible I’d need to come up with, I’d have to prepare myself for finding my dad a place to live in Anchorage while he recovered. My shoulders sagged. “Thank you, Doctor. I’d love to get in touch with a coordinator. That would really help.”

  The crackle of the radio interrupted the conversation. “Rory, can you give me more hose? I can’t move.”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Leskiv asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, doctor. I’m at work.”

  Ben tried again “Ro
ry? Hose?”

  “Can you text me the number of the coordinator? I’ll get in touch as soon as I can.”

  “Of course.”

  “And could you let me know as soon as my dad is lucid enough for a phone call?”

  “Sure.”

  “Rory!” Ben’s voice went up an octave.

  “Sorry, doc, gotta go.” I hung up the phone and picked up the radio. “I got it! More hose. I’ll see what I can do. I might have to move the dredge.”

  “For fuck’s sake, what the hell took you so long?”

  I dropped the radio and let the irritation at Ben’s interruption roll off my back. Only a few feet of hose rested on the foredeck. Not enough to help. “Hold on, I’m gonna have to move the dredge.” From the wheelhouse I could see the hose stretched quite taut and lead in the direction of rival dredges. Screw that. We were here first. “I’ll take it slow. Keep an eye on your hoses.” The last thing I wanted was to have the complex set up of air, hot water and suction hoses get tangled around my diver.

  “Roger.”

  First, I headed out on deck to pull up our anchor. The current toward shore even during calm weather meant a dredge needed to be anchored well to ensure the boat didn’t drift and the diver could work the ground with the least amount of interference. Then, I slowly throttled the Alaska Darling southeast, parallel to the shoreline, and closer and closer to the Rough & Ready and a few other dredges behind them. I took special care to keep the hoses to starboard so I wouldn’t entangle any of the lines in my prop.

  I sensed Nate’s eyes on me. Watching, watching, watching. Ready to pounce at any moment. My failures, my mistakes were to his benefit. The Alaska Darling chugged along a little bit at a time until Ben’s lines were behind the dredge.

  I shut off the motor and set the anchor for a second time off the port side.

  We were now settled in a spot that might be considered within the dredging area of the Rough & Ready. But I didn’t care. This is how one established a presence on the water. Take your territory and make others shove you off. Like a game of King of the Mountain. We’d been dredging here for an hour before they’d showed up. Early bird gets the worm and all that.

  I caught sight of Nate. He took a step and jumped into the water.

  I calculated the distance Ben would cover in the next several hours. Most likely he would exhaust the lines again and be within range of Nate. I bit my lip. It would be my shift soon.

  I had to knock the worries out of my head. I was making an assumption about what might happen under water, and I didn’t even know if it would be true. I’d heard stories from my dad—and Nate—about underwater battles involving heavy suction hoses and twisted air lines. Even though everything slowed down under water, there were other ways to win a fight besides throwing a few punches.

  While I waited for Ben to finish his dive, I searched through what I had in the wheelhouse to use as a defensive weapon—a wrench? A screwdriver? Maybe a hammer? I scrounged in the tool box in the back. Then I stopped myself with a laugh. What was I doing? Did I really think it would come to blows? Ben would be up top. He could handle the captain of the Rough & Ready if I needed help below. I dropped the hammer and shut the tool box.

  *

  The cool silence surrounded me. The current buffeted against my body as I set up the suction hose to continue where Ben left off. The trail of overturned rocks and missing cobble led me straight to unworked ground. Although I thought Ben could’ve created a wider path, he’d done a good job for a rookie.

  Confidence underwater took time to build, but Ben had arrived with experience I could only dream of having. It made him an especially good dredger. Typical scuba diving took more training and skill. Using pressurized air tanks and keeping track of depth, time, and tank levels. As a diver in the military Ben’s training most likely went beyond pure scuba training and involved other aspects of diving most civilians would never experience. To pick up on how to work the ground, the power of the suction hose, and being able to spy gold-containing cobble rather than previously worked areas or areas that held very little value was the biggest part of the job here in Nome.

  When I’d begun learning to dive, I’d been around seventeen. My dad hadn’t wanted to teach me. Too dangerous, he’d said. Too many things could go wrong down there, and Buck had seen his share of accidents and stupid moves. He didn’t like the idea of me taking any risks. Until he caught me asking Nate for help one day when the water conditions were too choppy to dive. That’s when my dad realized he’d better teach me, so he could keep an eye on me.

  Nate used to be reliable. He’d be the one down at the docks prepping the equipment, checking the hoses and lines for any damage, topping off the tanks with fuel. He’d been an affable guy who’d make dumb jokes and tousle my hair. But as I got older, something shifted between us.

  I drifted closer to the area of ground I’d wanted to work and turned my mind off to negative thoughts. They weighed on me up top. I didn’t need them to follow me down here to my refuge. I straddled the suction hose, grabbed hold of the metal handles and directed the nozzle at the cobble. Back and forth. Back and forth. A pattern and rhythm I’d learned over the years working the ground. Each sweep of the hose gave me a sense of accomplishment. We’d managed to hit an ounce an hour in our old spot, I hoped for the same amount or better on this new one.

  “Did you find it?” Ben’s voice came through loud and clear over the comms.

  The noise broke my concentration and peaceful mindset. “Yes. I’m on it.”

  The gold flake caught the light even fifteen feet down. A precious metal for which many had died or been injured, like my father, in the Bering. What did they call it? A harsh mistress. So true.

  Every summer, if it had been a good summer for us financially, my father would say, “Let’s go to Arizona. I’ll sell the dredge, you could be a normal kid.” We’d talk about it over the winter when the snow piled up and the thermometer dropped below zero, when the bank account grew lighter and lighter, when I needed dental work or he needed physical therapy on his arthritic knees. But it never lasted—the desire to escape. It never had been as strong as his desire to find that motherlode he believed existed. One more summer always turned into another one and another one.

  And I never had any ideas of leaving. Where would I go? My friends, limited though they may be, were here. My best memories were here. I wanted nothing more than to stay with my father, please him, do what he wanted, because deep down I thought it was a way to make him stay. If I went along with his plans, no matter how crazy, he’d keep loving me.

  In the murky distance another diver appeared. Straight ahead about 30 yards away. Right in the path of our find. Because of the distance, I couldn’t tell who it was. Although my gut told me to be cautious, as it could be Nate, I kept on with my work. I sucked up a few nuggets the size of rice grains that I’d uncovered beneath a medium-sized rock. The day would end up being a good one by the looks of it. As much as I hated the idea of someone else using our work to make themselves some money, all of us dredgers had done it at one time or another.

  The best situation would be to own my own piece of it. Have enough money someday to buy a claim. That had been one of my father’s dreams. He’d had his eye one or two, I think. Never really mentioned which ones, though. There were a few claims available, but hard for us small operators to scrape enough money together to buy one. But if my father and I had our own claim, the battling for every nugget, every ounce would be over. We could hunt undisturbed. A dream, for sure, but one we’d both shared, both obsessed over, both focused on. I and my father were of one mind on that topic. No matter what, I’d keep this dredge going for as long as it took until Buck could come back and be by my side again. Like old times. Buck and Rory Darling. An unbeatable team.

  I ignored the diver coming toward me and did my job. Gold was what I needed to put in the box. And this was the way to do it—through hard work and effort. If this gold streak played out, we’d find
another. And then another. And another. With about two or three weeks left until the season ended and ice began to form, I’d have to work extra hard to look for unworked ground.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We neared the breakwater. A heavy silence had settled between Ben and me. I’d pulled on my sweat pants and a ratty Budweiser t-shirt of my dad’s. We both were tired, cold and ready to call it a day. Ben would climb on his ATV and head to who knew where. I’d go back to my apartment and make some macaroni and cheese and probably fall asleep while streaming old episodes of The Office.

  I’d probably watched each episode a dozen times. Could quote lines by heart. Kyle used to roll his eyes when he walked in on me watching it.

  “So predictable,” he’d say. “You have a whole internet, and this is what you want to watch?”

  I smiled at the stupid annoyances I caused him. I had to admit there were parts of Kyle I really missed.

  Ben, on the other hand, was a whole different kind of man. Intense, fierce, and, even though he hardly knew me, loyal. He’d taken my side on several things in the few days we’d known each other. Not sure what I had done to deserve it, but I appreciated it nonetheless. To confuse things, the news story about his fiancée had been downright disturbing. I set these two things in my mind and could not match them up. Was Ben a killer or a man I could trust?

  I went for it. “So why are you being nice to me?”

  He gave me a quizzical smile. “What?”

  “I mean it, why are you being nice to me? You barely know me.”

  “Do you want me to apologize for being nice?” He focused on the water.

  “No, it’s not that…” I sighed. My words came out all wrong. “I appreciate you being nice and helpful and gentlemanly and whatever, but I want to know why. Why are you doing it?”

  “Isn’t that what a man’s supposed to do?” He shrugged.

  “But what if I’m a total bitch?” I crossed my arms and stood legs apart, so the ripple of the waves under the dredge wouldn’t knock me over. “What if I take advantage of all of this politeness?”