The Boogens

by Robert Weverka

  “Or gold,” Brian said. “The average silver mine usually produces a little gold as a byproduct. The Hatcher mine always seemed to produce a little more than average.”

  She smiled. “I don’t think Mr. Loomis would be unhappy about that either.”

  They stopped for lunch at a small diner that had three or four diesel trucks parked outside. The attraction, however, proved to be a well-endowed blonde waitress rather than the quality of the food. They talked about the mining business in general, and Chris told him about three or four other Colorado mines Harold Loomis had bought. They all sounded much more promising than the Hatcher mine.

  It was raining harder when they started driving again, and Chris immediately curled up in the far corner of the seat and went to sleep. When she finally woke up, they were over Kramer Pass and climbing toward Summit Valley. “Sorry about that,” she said as she stretched and yawned. “I assure you it isn’t the company.”

  “Probably the altitude,” Brian chuckled. The rain had stopped and he turned off the wipers. “From what I gather, there are about twenty miles of tunnels in the Hatcher mine. Are you figuring on collecting samples from all of it?”

  She looked sharply at him. “Are you serious? Twenty miles?”

  “I couldn’t find any maps or even any rough sketches of the mine. But that’s what one of the old-timers at the Claims Office told me.”

  She laughed. “And they expected me to look it over in two or three days.”

  “Two or three weeks might be more like it.”

  They came around a long curve through an aspen forest, and the broad valley suddenly opened up beneath them. Everything was still wet from the rain, giving it a freshly scrubbed look. She frowned at the mass of new condominiums. “This is Summit?”

  “This is Pineglen,” Brian said. “Those are hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar hideaways for rich skiers.”

  “Nice,” she said as they skirted the edge of the valley. “But I think I would prefer the old town.”

  He laughed. “You might not after you see the hotel.”

  Halfway across the valley, a sheriff’s patrol car was parked at the side of the road behind an old car that looked like it had been abandoned. The sheriff was peering into the window. He straightened and gave them a hard look as they passed.

  Brian didn’t say anything, but it reminded him of what the man at the Claims Office had told him about Summit. The people didn’t like strangers, and they particularly didn’t like anybody poking around the old mines in the area. They could hardly object to someone from the Loomis Company looking at the company’s own mine.

  “You want to go up and take a look at the mine?” he asked. “Or would you rather check in at the hotel first?”

  “How far is it?”

  “A couple miles up that canyon in back of town.”

  “Let’s take a look at the mine first,” she said.

  The pavement turned into a battleground of potholes as they reached the outskirts of the town. Brian slowed to a crawl. Under the gloomy skies, Summit looked even more lonely and desolate than he remembered it. It looked like an old Hollywood movie set that had been abandoned fifty years ago. The only thing that destroyed the image was a small bar with a lighted Coors sign and the presence of three or four dusty cars and pickup trucks parked on the main street.

  “That’s the Summit Hotel,” Brian said as they reached the middle of town.

  The building was four stories high, clinging to the steep hill behind it—a delicate-looking assemblage of faded bric-a-brac and peeling paint. About twenty steps led up to the front porch, where four or five ancient wicker chairs were set close to the railing. The windows of the rooms above were all closed and hidden behind heavy lace curtains. A small, hand-painted sign hanging on the porch railing said OPEN.

  Chris smiled. “Charming,” she said dubiously.

  A mile and a half farther up the canyon, Brian took a right turn and followed a dirt road up through the pine trees. The massive, fan-shaped mound of tailings from the Hatcher mine cut a broad swath out of the pine forest high to their left. To the right on the same mountain, an old Victorian house was visible above the trees.

  “According to the papers in the Claims Office,” Brian said, “the original mine entrance is under that house. After Hatcher sold the mine, that shaft was closed and the other one opened.”

  “Is the house part of the mine property?”

  “No. That one portion was sold off, and the superintendent of the mine built the house sometime in the nineties. A man named Myer. It’s private property, but the mineral rights belong to the mine.”

  “So we have the right to tunnel under the house?”

  “You don’t have to. The old shafts are still there.”

  The road twisted through a couple of switchbacks, then brought them to the top of the mound of tailings and the entrance to the mine.

  The shaft was no more than six feet high and seven or eight feet wide, set in the center of a vertical facing of rock. Nailed across it were a dozen weathered planks, sealing it off completely. Fixed to the planks was a metal sign full of old bullet holes. Brian parked the Bronco next to a rusted stampmill and they both got out.

  DANGER, the sign said, NO TRESPASSING. This mineshaft is extremely dangerous and susceptible to cave-ins. Entrance is strictly forbidden, and violators will be vigorously prosecuted. R. Tolivar, Sheriff.

  Chris read the sign and moved close to the planks, trying to peer between the cracks. Then she looked more closely at the rusted nails at the sides. “You don’t happen to have a crowbar in the car, do you?”

  Brian smiled. “No. But I’ve got a hammer and a tire iron.” He opened the back of the Bronco and fished out the tools. Five mintues later they had the two center planks pried off, leaving a twenty-inch gap. Brian got a six-volt flashlight from the car and Chris put on a pair of hiking boots. Then they both squeezed through the opening.

  Chris felt her heart trip a little faster as she recognized the familiar smell of dust and dampness. The top of the shaft was thick with cobwebs, and the beam of the flashlight dissipated into nothing as Brian directed it deep into the shaft. They both stood quietly, as if listening for a minute. Then Brian turned the light on the overhead beams, checking the corner joints.

  “My God, these must be the original beams. It’s the old post-and-lintel construction. But they look solid.” He struck one of the supports with the end of the tire iron. The sound echoed hollowly through the shaft. The wood didn’t splinter or show any sign of rot. Brian smiled and nodded toward the interior. “Shall we?”

  The ore tracks beneath them were half-buried in the accumulation of dust. Chris walked on one side, Brian on the other. They moved cautiously forward, Brian checking the overhead timbers now and then to be certain they were safe. They passed several side tunnels only two or three feet in diameter, indicating there had been some probing for new veins.

  Several hundred feet inside, the shaft divided, the larger one going off to the right. They followed it another hundred yards and found themselves at the entrance to a large stope, a cavernous chamber that widened to fifty or sixty feet and rose thirty feet above their heads. The purplish-green walls with the crystalline gray streaks suggested a high content of lead sulfide. The floor of the cavern slanted downward to a small pool of water on the far side. Chris moved forward and Brian followed, playing the light over the rocky floor.

  Chris knelt at the edge of the pool and Brian eased himself down beside her, turning the light beam into the water. It was thick with slime and algae. Chris took the tire iron and gently scraped the scum away from the surface. Five or six small, almost transparent fish darted back and forth in a frenzied burst.

  “They’re blind,” Chris said. “They’ve adapted to the darkness. Shine the light over there.”

  Brian turned the light to the far side of the pool and moved it back and forth. Then he froze as something flashed through the light and plopped into the water. A moment later
the thing pushed its way through the slime and climbed onto a flat rock.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  The thing was about ten inches long and might have been a frog except for its pale white, elongated body. There was a spiny growth on its head, and where the eyes should have been there was nothing more than two skin-covered lumps. It perched itself tensely on the rock and craned its neck from side to side, as if listening. It looked like some kind of miniature dinosaur.

  Chris shook her head, as surprised as he was. “I don’t know,” she said.

  As quickly as she spoke, the animal leaped to the side of the pond and scrambled off. Chris came to her feet and moved along in pursuit.

  The animal followed the trickling of water until it disappeared in a narrow crevice at the end of the cavern. The thing squeezed itself between the rocks and was gone.

  “Was it a frog? Or a lizard?” Brian asked.

  Chris shook her head. “Maybe a little of both.”

  “Whatever it was, I don’t think I’d like it for a pet.”

  Chris laughed and moved back toward the mine shaft. “There are all kinds of things in caves you wouldn’t want for pets.”

  They were at least a quarter of a mile from the entrance now. A number of smaller shafts branched off in various directions, some of them no larger than exploratory crawl holes. Finally the main shaft came to an abrupt halt in front of them. Apparently the timbers had given way, and tons of earth and rock had dropped from above. Brian climbed up the slope of debris and looked at the bracing that was still intact.

  “These don’t look bad,” he said. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and find that only a few of them collapsed.” He moved down the slope again and turned the light on the upper corners. “Maybe we can even dig a crawl hole past it.”

  Chris nodded, not particularly anxious to do any crawling just now. “Maybe tomorrow,” she said.

  Brian grinned and slapped the dust from his pants. “I agree. I’m inclined to think we’ll find the most promising ore somewhere beyond this cave-in. At least these ore-car tracks suggest it was the last place anybody did any digging.”

  “It sounds reasonable,” Chris said.

  Brian played the light over the debris again. Then he stepped forward and picked up a shattered piece of timber about a foot long. “Is this the culprit?” he asked, looking at it closely.

  Chris suddenly looked behind them. She sensed it more than she felt it—an almost imperceptible vibration that seemed to shift the air in the mine shaft. An instant later a fine haze of dust drifted down from the overhead timbers. “Brian?” she said and looked up. He turned the light on the beams.

  Then the sound came—a muffled rumble that rolled ominously through the shaft. Brian smiled. “Thunder,” he said. “Did we leave the windows open in the car?”

  Chris stood perfectly still, gazing at the overhead timbers, still not certain it was thunder she had heard. “Listen,” she said.

  The sound was so faint, it was hardly discernible. A rustling? Or the soft scraping of something sliding through the dirt? Maybe rats scurrying around, frightened by the thunder.

  Brian grinned at her. “Probably rain,” he said. “I think we might be getting a cloudburst outside.”

  “Do you think we’re that close to the surface?”

  “I don’t know. But I think we’d better go find out.”

  Halfway out of the shaft, Chris stopped and listened for the sounds again. The thunder boomed and rumbled outside, but she could hear nothing else.

  When they reached the entrance and stepped through the gap in the planks, the ground outside was still dry, but a massive black cloud was hanging low overhead. Brian smiled, then grimaced as he looked off toward the car. “Uh oh,” he said.

  The same patrol car they had seen down on the road was now parked behind the Bronco. The driver, a stocky man with close-cropped gray hair and a good-sized paunch hanging over his belt, was leaning against the car smoking a cigarette. When he saw Brian and Chris, he tossed the butt away, reached inside the car for his hat and came strolling toward them.

  “You folks break open that mineshaft?”

  Brian smiled. “I’m afraid we’re guilty, Sheriff. You see, Miss Hurley and I . . .”

  “Well,” the sheriff interrupted, “how about if you just go over there and nail those planks back up where you found them.” He hooked a thumb in his Sam Browne belt and rested his other hand on the butt of his pistol. From the way he looked them over, Brian and Chris might have been a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. Brian half-expected a command to spread-eagle himself against the patrol car.

  “You don’t understand, Sheriff,” Chris said. “The Loomis Company bought this mine two months ago. And I’m one of the company’s geologists.”

  The sheriff was not impressed. “That so?” he said, “You got any identification?”

  “In my purse,” Chris said. “In the car.”

  “Okay, miss. Then you just go get it.” He gave Brian a narrow look. “And you just go over there and put those planks back up, mister.”

  Brian stared at the man. “Why?” He felt like he was in some backwoods town in Arkansas.

  “Because I said so,” the sheriff said. “You can read, can’t ya? That mine is dangerous, and there’s kids around here. I don’t want ’em goin’ in that shaft. What’s that you got in your hand?”

  Brian had forgotten he was still holding the piece of broken timber. “It’s a piece of wood.”

  “You get it from the mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you just toss it back in there before you close it up.”

  Brian laughed. “This is ridiculous, Sheriff. The mine was bought by the Loomis Company. Miss Hurley is an employee of the company, and they’ve hired me as a consultant.”

  “I don’t know that for sure yet, mister. So you just put the thing back and close up the mine until I check it out.”

  Brian shrugged and went back to the mine entrance. Chris brought her purse back and handed the man her Texas driver’s license and her identification card from the Loomis Company. The sheriff looked them over, at the same time watching Brian put the planks back in place. He waited until Brian came back. “You got some identification?” he asked.

  Brian pulled out his wallet and handed over his driver’s license and a business card. The sheriff took his time looking them over, then handed them back. “Okay,” he said. “Now either of you got anything to prove the Loomis Company owns this property?”

  “All you have to do is call the Claims Office in Denver,” Chris said.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be good enough, miss. If they got documents down there, I want to see certified copies of ’em. Until then, nobody goes in that mine shaft.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Brian muttered.

  Chris smiled and hitched her purse over her shoulder. “That’s all right. Let’s go, Brian.”

  When Brian swung the Bronco around and headed down the road, the sheriff was still standing by the patrol car, lighting a fresh cigarette. “Welcome to Summit, Colorado,” Brian said. “Home of law and order.”

  Chris laughed. “Well, I, suppose we should be grateful for such devotion to duty.” She shrugged. “We can call the Claims Office and arrange for a messenger service to bring up copies of the documents. More important, what are we going to do about that cave-in in the main shaft?”

  “Hire somebody to dig it out, I guess,” Brian said.

  3

  Around a broad curve, a long, straight stretch of highway opened up in front of them, and Trish Hallberg pressed the throttle to the floor, finally passing the ancient pickup truck they had been stuck behind for the past three miles. A half minute later she eased the car back into the right-hand lane, settled down to fifty miles an hour and glanced at the rearview mirror. She caught her breath and stared at the mirror for a moment, then smiled and looked back at the highway.

  A strange face was rising over the back of the seat.
The eyebrows were wide pieces of black tape attached to horn-rimmed glasses. Below the glasses were a false nose, another four-inch strip of tape simulating a mustache and a rubber cigar. Roger Lowrie, the twenty-three-year-old nut, apparently had awakened from his nap and turned into Groucho Marx. The eyebrows waggled and he took the cigar out of his mouth. “Driver,” he said, “take me to a roadhouse. Take me to a roundhouse; they can’t corner me there.”

  Trish laughed. Sitting on the passenger side of the front seat, Jessica Ford didn’t think it was so funny. She gave Roger a sour glance and sighed wearily. “Roger, will you please take those stupid glasses off?”

  “I don’t know,” Trish said, “I think he looks better that way.”

  Roger flicked an imaginary ash from the cigar. “She thinks I look better this way.”

  “Anything would be an improvement,” Jessica said and stared out the side window.

  “Are those pine trees?” Roger said. “Good grief, we’re in the mountains! I thought we were going to the seashore. I’ve been kidnapped! Call the police. They’re trying to take my money. But you’ll never get it. I keep it in a vault.” He waggled the eyebrows again. “A pole vault. It’s all in Warsaw.”

  “Knock it off, Roger,” Jessica said tightly.

  “Knock it off? Right here in the car? If that’s what you want, you’ll have to get in the back. Vault over the seat. The vault, dear Bratus, is not in our stars.”

  “Oh, God,” Jessica moaned. She reached back, pulled the glasses off his nose and tossed them on the floor.

  Roger grinned. “God, you’re beautiful when you’re angry, Jess.”

  Trish glanced in the mirror and smiled. Roger really did look better with the glasses and mustache. He wasn’t exactly homely without them, but she had never liked the bushel of curly hair he had been cultivating for the last few months. If it were blonde, he would make a good Harpo Marx. That was one of the contradictory things about Jessica and Roger’s relationship. Jess was a willowy redhead who could probably get any man she wanted. Trish wasn’t certain there was another girl in the world who would put up with Roger’s nonsense.