“You were interviewed several years ago by a local paper, and you mentioned a diary your father kept.”
She made a rude noise. “I ran off at the mouth to that beguiling young reporter, and I’ve regretted it ever since. No fool like an old fool!” she snapped. “I wish I’d shut up about the darned diary. You aren’t the first young whippersnapper to come sniffing around, thinking a good look at it would lead to gold. I’ve put the run on quite a few fortune hunters by now.”
“I realize that, ma’am.” Tom gave her a level look. “Only difference between me and them is that I’m totally professional about this. It’s my business. Also, I’d like to be the first to prove your father was right about that lost Klondike gold. He must have been disappointed not to locate it himself.” It was a blatant shot at sentimentality, and he should have known it was the wrong approach.
She scowled at him. Her face grew red, and she leaned forward and spat out, “My father spent half his misguided life clambering over that pile of rocks down the road and never found a plugged nickel. Nothing to find, I say. More fool him. He’d have been better off tending to his patients and paying some attention to his family. He was obsessed with that slide and whatever he believed was underneath it, and my mother and I suffered as a result.”
Her voice dripped with venom. “Professional treasure hunter, you call yourself? Hah. Hah. You’d be better off getting yourself decent training of some kind and settling down to earn an honest living.”
“What we do isn’t dishonest in any way, I assure you,” Tom said in a mild tone, even though her vitriol was wearing on him.
“There are strict rules about recovered treasure, and we follow them to the letter. We always apply for permission from the government of the area we’re interested in exploring, and a percentage of whatever we find goes to descendants or survivors, if there are any. And, of course, a portion is allocated to the state by law. I believe you call them provinces here.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He was getting tired of standing, but she hadn’t invited him to sit, and he’d be damned if he’d give her another chance to jab at his manners.
Sweat was pouring down his back, though, and he peeled of his heavy coat, flipping it across the back of the chair that held his Stetson, as he detailed his request.
“In this particular case, we’d be searching for a shipment of gold bullion, one of the last large shipments sent out of the Klondike, in early 1903. The gold arrived in Vancouver by boat where it was fired into gold bars and, with much secrecy, dispatched via Canadian Pacific Railway across the country to be deposited into banks in eastern Canada.” As always, even his preliminary research had been detailed and extensive. “For some reason, the theft of that shipment was never given the publicity it deserved.”
“I’ve heard dozens of different fairy tales about gold being buried under the Slide, and not one of them was ever proven true. You might as well amuse me with your version.” She settled herself on her pillows and waited a scant moment before she jerked her chin at him. “Well, get on with it.”
Tom cleared his throat. She was testing him, and although it was absurd, he felt like a schoolboy called on to recite a lesson.
He was determined to do well at it, too. “In the heart of these Rocky Mountains, in late April of 1903,” he began, “a spectacular and well-planned train robbery occurred.”
Without being conscious of it, he lapsed into the terminology of the moldy books he’d read and re-read until he had them memorized. His voice conveyed the sense of excitement the story still created in him. “Three bandits rode off with that fortune in gold bullion. The guards on the train recognized one of the men. He was a well-known train robber named Bill Miner. The second man was never identified. The third was a sometime partner of Miner’s called Lewis Schraeger. The bandits loaded the heavy boxes into a wagon and with the North West Mounted hot on their trail, they brought the gold to a location near here, the little coal mining town called Frank, where Bill Miner had been living incognito for some time.
“In a bizarre coincidence, the very night of the robbery was also the night the top of the limestone mountain near Frank gave way, sliding down and covering half the town and most of the surrounding valley. In the chaos after the Slide, it was assumed that the gold and the robbers had been buried as well. But then Lewis Schraeger was arrested months later in Montana for cattle rustling and charged with murder of a rancher. He was sentenced to twenty years in San Quentin, and questioned over and over about the train robbery, the fate of the other two men, and the whereabouts of the lost gold. He staunchly denied any knowledge of where his former partners might be, and he insisted, at least to the authorities, that there wasn’t any gold.”
“And I suppose you feel he told my father a different story.”
Tom nodded. He couldn’t tell whether or not he’d captured her interest. She sounded bored, and she just lay there like a beached whale, her glasses reflecting light from the overhead neon fixture, her hands folded where her lap should be.
Tom took a deep breath of the thick, overheated air. “As you know, your father, Dr. Lawrence, was one of the prison doctors at San Quentin at that time. Lewis Schraeger had tuberculosis, and before too long, he got pneumonia and died. But I’m certain he told your father something more about the lost gold, probably in return for special privileges” ---Tom’s voice held irony---“like decent food and warm blankets. Conditions at San Quentin were atrocious.”
There was no further response from her. Behind her glasses, Evelyn’s eyes had closed. At least she wasn’t snoring. Tom could only surmise she was listening and not sound asleep.
He cleared his throat and went on. “The reason I believe Schraeger talked was that Dr. Lawrence quit the prison service immediately after Schraeger’s death, telling no one where he was going, although I’ve learned that one of the guards insisted it had to do with the missing gold.”
He paused. No response.
“Lawrence came out here, which seems to substantiate the guard’s story, and you said yourself he spent a lot of time climbing over the Frank Slide. I think that, although he didn’t find it, the gold from that robbery is still here all right, and my partner and I likely can locate it. We use our own system of computer imaging and low-frequency radar waves to detect buried objects and identify them. Of course, to do that we need at least an approximate location, which I believe you said your father’s memoirs contained. If you could let me read them, and if they prove helpful in locating the gold, I’d of course have a legal document drawn up which would entitle you to a generous share of it, or a sum of money you feel is adequate to recompense you for the information.”
To Tom’s amazement, she tipped her head back on the flowered pillowcase and burst into laughter, hearty, rich belly laughs that shocked him.
A Distant Echo: Chapter Two
The rolls of fat on her neck quivered, the bed trembled, and her face turned an alarming shade of mottled red. She chortled and coughed and finally chocked. He grabbed a glass of water from a small table at the bedside and handed it to her.
“You okay, Ms. Lawrence? You want me to go get a nurse?”
Maybe she was crazy as a loon after all.
She shook her head and gradually regained her breath.
“You're good for me, Tom Chapman,” she wheezed after a moment. “I swear I haven’t laughed like that in weeks. A generous share of the recovered gold.” She shook her head. “That tickles my funny bone. You see, I’m already one of the wealthiest women in this area, thanks to wise investments and careful saving. I’m a spinster, eighty-two years old. I’ve got a shattered hip that won’t heal. I don’t have a relative left in the world, and my friends are all too old and senile even to remember who I am for longer than five minutes.” In spite of her show of bravado, her voice trembled.
“You’re my first male visitor in months, besides that confounded young idiot of a doctor. Just my government pension more than pays f
or this luxury hotel, and there’s nothing else for me to spend my money on. What in heaven do you think I’d do with a generous share of recovered gold anyway? Go on a cruise, buy myself jewelry and furs, have a facelift?” She slapped the bedcovers with the flat of her hand. “I can’t even get out of here without four strong orderlies and a crane.”
She reached behind her and punched her pillow into submission, and then looked straight into Tom’s eyes. “I finally bullied that idiot doctor into admitting I have bone cancer. No one comes out and says it, but truth of the matter is, I’m dying, Mr. Chapman. It’s slow, but it’s happening. I’ve no earthly use for gold. Can’t take it where I’m going. You ever see them towing a U-Haul behind a hearse?” She laughed again, but this time there was no real humor in it.
For a long moment, Tom felt mortified. He should have assessed the situation much better, handled her with more tact.
Then embarrassment slowly turned to anger, at her and at himself. He felt as if she’d deliberately let him make a fool of himself, standing here and spouting off what he knew like some slow pupil.
“Well, I guess there’s nothing more to say except sorry to have bothered you, ma’am.” He reached for his jacket, thrusting his arms into his sleeves. He recovered his Stetson and rebelliously plunked it on his head, tugging the brim low over his eyes. He was almost out the door when her voice stopped him.
“Mr. Chapman, come back in here.” The words were bossy, but the tone had a weary sadness in it. “No need to get on your high horse. Maybe we can make a deal after all.”
He hesitated, then shrugged deeper into his jacket. More than anything, he wanted out of this overheated room, away from this nasty caricature of a woman. To hell with the diary and the gold. There were other places to explore, other riches to uncover. This had been a long shot anyway.
“My father’s so-called diary was more a collection of scribbling,” she wheezed in a petulant voice. “There was reference to a wagon buried under the Slide.”
Knowing there was a good possibility she was playing him like a fat brook trout on a line, Tom still turned and retraced his steps to her bedside.
“Now take that fool hat off again and sit down this time. Makes me nervous, having you loom over me like that.”
Tom was through letting her call the shots. He left his Stetson in place and stood beside the bed, giving her a narrow-eyed look.
“Contrary as all get out, are you? Well, I always did favor folks with a touch of spirit.” She shoved her huge glasses up her nose with one thick finger and turned to stare out the window for a long moment, making a show of ignoring him.
“Maybe we can strike a deal here after all, Tom Chapman,” she said in a different voice when she turned to look at him. “I don’t need money, but I might like to hear more about some of these treasure hunts of yours.”
He frowned, trying to understand what she meant.
She turned over the fat book she’d been reading and tapped her finger on its cover. Tom tipped his head to read the title.
“A History of the Crowsnest and Its People?” He still didn’t understand what she was getting at.
“It’s a collection of the local people’s memoirs. I had a hand in getting it published. It’s history, Tom Chapman, the history of this area. History’s the only true treasure worth uncovering.”
That made sense to him, even though he didn’t fully agree that history was a treasure in itself.
Tom, too, had a passion for books and for history. It was what made him such a meticulous researcher; it was how he unearthed the stories and legends behind the very real antiquities and treasures he and Jackson had located over the years.
“I’ve spent a great deal of my life studying the history of this area and getting it preserved, including the true facts about that Slide down the road. The Frank Slide may not be important to you folks from Albuquerque, except for the gold you figure is under it. But having a mountain break off and cover half a town affected plenty of lives around here, believe me. And even now, we all live in the shadow of the mountains. They’re like family to us. For years, the coal we mined out of them was our major industry. I’m very fond of our mountains.”
She turned her head and looked out at the view of the snowcapped Rockies her window provided. “But I’m also fond of hearing about other people’s history,” she declared, turning back to him. “I never traveled much, and now I wish I had. Seems to me you must have picked up at least a smattering of interesting stories, poking your nose into other people’s business and backgrounds the way you do.” Her words were still acerbic, but her tone this time was almost pleading.
Tom didn’t trust her. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you’ll let me see your father’s memoirs in return for…” He left the sentence hanging. He still wasn’t at all sure what the bargain was, and he was damn certain he wasn’t going to like it once he got it straight.
“Don’t be obtuse, young man, it doesn’t suit you!” she snapped. “I’m offering you a look at my father’s precious notebooks in return for a few paltry hours of your time and some of your recollections of places you’ve been. You seem to have a good memory and you tell a story well enough. You must have taken pictures and I’d like to see them, too, if you’ve got any handy. Give me something new to think about, lying here flat on my back.”
Tom’s heart sank. Flowers, chocolates, a reasonable fee, even a share of the gold, if they found it---he’d give here any or all of them gladly. But to have to spin stories in return for a look at the damned journals…wasn’t there some story about a woman who had to beguile a king with a series of stories to keep herself alive? And didn’t it take a thousand and one nights to spin enough to satisfy the old codger?
Even if this only took him a few days, it wasn’t worth it. He looked at Evelyn Lawrence and opened his mouth to tell her politely to go to hell, and all of a sudden, he realized what this was really about.
Tom had no family, and apart from Jackson, no close friends. He’d been lonely at different times in his life. He understood loneliness, and knew he was looking straight at it. Evelyn was bargaining the only thing she had of value for a few hours of human contact.
Tom had grown up rough. He’d been on his own since he was fifteen years old, and he had few illusions about altruism or the goodness of the human spirit. He was honest, because he’d found in the long run it was easiest to tell the truth. He was friendly and affable, because it wasn’t in his nature to be mean, but he was basically a loner. He didn’t know how to get close to other people.
He and Jackson had worked out a relationship that allowed both of them plenty of privacy. The rules were simple: They never put the moves on each other’s women; they didn’t delve into each other’s psyches, and they covered one another’s back when the going got rough.
Spending an extended period of time talking to anyone, male or female, wasn’t something Tom had ever done. His relationships with women had been basic, superficial, and physical. Talking hadn’t been a priority, and he didn’t fancy spending hours doing it now, particularly in a room this small with a gal like Evelyn Lawrence.
Still, to his own amazement, he heard himself agreeing to her proposal Maybe it was her mantle of lonely pride, or maybe it was just her cussedness.
“I don’t have photos, but I’ve got a video camera and film I can hook up to your television set. When should I come?”
“Tomorrow morning will be fine. Breakfast is at seven. Come around eight.”
He thought there was anticipation and even excitement in the watery pale eyes behind the glasses.
“And you’ve got the journals? You’ll let me read them?”
“I’ve got them, although why I’ve kept them is beyond me. I’ve glanced through them now and again.”
Strange, for a woman obsessed by history, not to study her own father’s records, Tom mused. “I understand,” he agreed, even though he didn’t. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”
A Distant Echo: Chapter Three
The moment he was out of her room, Tom cursed himself for being ten kinds of an idiot. By the time he’d walked the few short blocks to the Greenhill Hotel, his temper was frayed tissue-thin.
“Hell, maybe you could work up a regular patter,” Jackson jibed when Tom told him about the bargain he’d made with Lawrence. “We could probably get you gigs in rest homes all over the country. We could call it Chapman’s Bedside Chats.”
“Put a sock in it, Zalco.” Tom gave him a narrow-eyed, warning look, but he still had to endure more of Jackson’s good-natured teasing during the dinner.
Afterwards, when Jackson suggested they spend the rest of the evening in the saloon, Tom rebelled.
“I’m going for a drive. I want to have a look at this Frank Slide. You stay here if you want to.”
“Why the hell leave a nice warm pub to go look at a pile of rocks?” Jackson grumbled. “It’ll be dark soon. We can see the damned thing a whole lot better tomorrow when it’s daylight, can’t we?”
Tom shrugged. “There’s still enough light to have a look. The guy at the hotel desk told me about an old road that goes through the middle of the Slide, near where the town of Frank used to be. I want to drive down there. He says there’s nothing there now except a meadow and one old fire hydrant, but it’ll give us an idea of the magnitude of the thing.”
Jackson grumbled, but in the end he came along.
Around them, the Rocky Mountains rose, lowering sentinels protecting the small mining towns that lay strung like grimy beads along the valley floor. The twilight was rapidly fading, but the Slide was only a mile down the road.
Tom turned off the highway near a sawmill, crossed a set of railway tracks, and found himself on a narrow, bumpy dirt track. He drove past a grassy field intersected by a stream swollen to over-flowing by the spring runoff and through a stand of poplars and evergreens. Then, between one breath and the next, he and Jackson found themselves in a landscape that might have been lunar in its rocky barrenness.
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