Carol would have laughed at this as being stupid. But Carol died of cancer years ago. I always blamed the mountain for her death. I suppose now it is responsible for mine. But I am old and don’t have much time left anyway. If she were still alive she would have known where I would have gone. She would have tried to stop me. But she is no longer with me. Has not been for years. Now I would rather just be left alone.
I think she would have understood that.
I park the van near the road beside what had been an old gas station. The bright yellow of the van stands out against the dull gray of the dust. They will have no problem finding it.
I leave tracks into the gas station and then out the other side, letting my prints blend into others I have made over the years. Then I move out onto the road and start walking toward town, staying within the tracks the van has left during my hundreds of visits. My footprints will never show.
I walk slow, taking my time. I am old and the hills around this little city are steep. Besides, I am in no hurry.
SIX
Boise, Idaho
August 16, 1913
Harold Gilet stood against the back wall of the hot courtroom and watched Clarence Darrow stride back and forth in front of the jury of twelve men, all dressed in suits, all looking very uncomfortable in the heat. Hundreds of reporters and spectators jammed the room, their notepads held at ready, some scratching down what Darrow was saying, others using the pads as fans.
The huge open windows of the courthouse let in the street noise and once in a while a breath of breeze, but not near enough to suit Harold. He used today’s newspaper to fan himself, but even that didn’t seem to help. The heat and the smell of packed human flesh was overwhelming.
But he couldn’t leave. He had to stay to get his suspicions confirmed one way or another. The Governor had been killed because of a gold mine outside of Moscow, not because of the union problems in the silver mines farther north.
But as yet, in all the days of the trial, not one word of the old gold mine had been spoken. It was as if no one knew about it.
Senator Borah, the Boy Orator as they called him in Washington D.C., sat peacefully at a table in front of the judge with Idaho State’s Attorney General. Harold could tell that the Senator was listening intently to every word Darrow said. Darrow was considered the hottest young attorney in the nation. When he had offered to defend John Stevens for free in the bombing death of the Governor, the Attorney General had called Washington and asked if Senator Borah would come home and help in the prosecution for the state.
Of course the case had brought the press. Besides having a Governor assassinated, the future of the unions in the silver mines of Northern Idaho rode on this trial. And the future of a lot of mining unions all over the country.
If Stevens could be proven to have union connections and the Governor was killed on the orders of the unions as everyone suspected, the mine’s owners would win. The unions would be dead. But if Stevens was just a lone wolf, taking his hatred of the mines, and what they had done to him and his family, out on the Governor, then that would not hurt the unions. And the fighting would continue.
But Harold Gilet was sure the Governor’s death was because of another mine completely. A lost gold mine outside of the northern town of Moscow. He had overheard the wildest conversation possible two days before the Governor was killed.
He had been up in Idaho City, courting Mary, his soon to be wife. Her dad had a small placer claim there and had built Mary and her mother a cabin just above the creek. Harold had camped down and across the creek in a small grove of pine trees. Somewhere in the early morning hours he woke to the sound of a horse just beyond the grove. His fire had died down to nothing more than embers and through the trees he could see the faint flickering of a light.
With gun in one hand, he crept from his bedroll and moved silently toward the light. Beside the creek trail a man stood, holding the reins of a horse with one hand and a small lantern with the other. He seemed to be staring off down the trail in the direction of Idaho City.
So Harold settled in and waited. In this part of the country, unless you wanted to be shot, you never sneaked up on another man. Too many claim jumpers still working the mountains.
In a very short time another rider approached and dismounted. He was wearing the clothes of a gentleman even at this time of the night. Harold could even see the chain of the man’s pocket watch hanging from his vest. He was obviously from Idaho City or Boise.
“You got the caps?” the gentleman asked the other, who was dressed like a dirt miner and wore a rain slicker, even though it wasn’t raining. Harold now wished he had gotten closer because he couldn’t see either of their faces in the flickering lantern light.
The miner patted the horse’s saddle bags. “All set. I’ll pick up the dynamite down on the river.”
“Good,” the gentleman said. “Make sure you make it look right. Then get back north to Moscow.”
“Don’t you worry. The union will take the fall. You sure about this?”
Harold could see the gentleman nod. “Absolutely. We can’t let word of the gold mine get out. Outside of Moscow he’s the only one who knows about it. It was a mistake to tell him about it. With him gone and the mine on the back side of that mountain, no one is going to find it. Better that it stays lost.”
Without a handshake or another word both men mounted up and rode off in different directions. Harold went back to be wondering what that had been all about. The next day Mary agreed to be his wife and two days later he heard about the Governor being killed by a bomb.
He and Mary were married in Idaho City and then moved down to Boise When the trial started, Harold crowded into the courtroom every day with the reporters. He had thought about going to the Attorney General with what he had heard, but he couldn’t identify the men and the more he thought about it the more none of what he had heard made sense. He decided to wait and see if anything about a lost gold mine came up in the trial. If it did he would then tell what he had heard.
But not one word was ever said about a lost gold mine outside of Moscow. Stevens was convicted, without a connection made between him and the unions. Over the next year Harold couldn’t seem to shake the idea of there being a lost gold mine outside of Moscow. A mine that had gotten the Governor of the state killed.
So with the help of Mary’s father, the following summer they moved to Moscow with the idea that Harold would get an engineering degree. That summer Harold helped with the wheat harvest around Moscow and that fall he started school at the new land grant university there.
On weekends, without telling anyone, he explored the back side of Moscow Mountain.
SEVEN
Moscow, Idaho
October 21, 1999
Carol ended up knowing a great deal more about mountain hiking than I did. She discovered that fact over dinner Friday and later at her apartment. I didn’t much care. By Saturday morning I was in love with the short, brown-haired grad student. She could lead me into any wilderness area she wanted, any time she wanted.
But where she did lead me first thing Saturday morning was to the local outdoor supply store. She had me buy a good pair of boots and a thick pair of gloves. We picked up a pack, a small ax and a folding shovel. Also three flashlights and a good lantern, just in case. By the time we added food, matches, and toilet paper, I was out two hundred bucks.
We left my car at my Grandfather’s place where Dad joined us. After I introduced him to Carol he whistled at my new boots and gloves and nodded thoughtfully at the sight of the shovel, ax, and flashlights. I had told Dad the day before what we were planning on looking for and when. He had gotten really excited and decided to join us. At first I had been annoyed at that. I had hoped to spend the time alone with Carol. But after spending the night with her, it now didn’t matter. I just knew we were going to be spending a lot of time together for years to come.
Dad had packed us a large knapsack of lunch and when we reached the
mine sight he dropped the sack on a stump and sat down beside it. I could tell he was breathing hard, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the climb or the excitement. Carol was fine, not even winded. I thought I was in good shape from football, but that climb had still made me suck a little air. Carol just kept on impressing me.
Carol dropped her small pack and moved over in front of the old mine entrance. She climbed in around the bushes, studying the old entrance to the mine and then the rocks around it. “Looks to me,” she said, pointing at the angle of the rock outcropping, “that they followed the vein in here and went down at a slight angle and to the right.”
“So we look down there?” I asked, pointing in the direction of the old road.
She shrugged. “Seems as logical as any place to start. Remember, chances are it won’t look like a mine entrance. And it might go straight down to start and then turn inward.”
“So what exactly should we look for?” Dad said.
Again Carol shrugged. “Anything that looks odd. Maybe nothing more than a slight depression in the side of the hill.”
“Simple enough,” I said.
Carol only laughed.
Of course, she was right. It turned out anything but simple. We spread out and slowly angled our way down the hill to the right of the mine, climbing over logs, slipping on loose sticks, scratching our faces and arms on sharp brush.
Two hours and two breaks later it was Dad who finally spotted the entrance.
“Gary. Carol. Over here,” he called out and I scrambled up through some thick brush to reach his side just as Carol came down through the trees above him.
At first I couldn’t see what he was looking at. But then slowly it became clear. Behind some branches and slightly to the side of a huge pine there were some old wooden planks covered with dirt and rock. Actually the only reason he had even found it was that a deer had used the area to bed down and had knocked off some of the layers of rock, dirt, and pine needles, uncovering one of the boards.
“Wow,” Carol said, studying the old board and the area around it. “Someone really didn’t want this found, did they?”
“Sure seems that way,” Dad said. “Actually, the more I read the old journal, the more I think this place was something much more than a gold mine.”
“Well,” I said. “Let’s open it up and find out, shall we? Carol, any suggestions as to how we might go about this?”
“Carefully, would be my suggestion. Very carefully. These old mines can be very dangerous. Wood exposed to the elements for seventy or eighty years will be completely rotten.”
We spent the next hour slowly opening up the hole. The one thing we hadn’t remembered to bring was a hammer, so the shovel and ax served for most of the duty.
The second entrance turned out to be a hole about five feet square that went straight down into the ground about ten feet. An old wooden ladder was secured against one wall. The shaft of the mine turned directly into the hillside. Obviously this entrance had been built to be covered easily and hidden. Carol said she was impressed that there were no signs at all of tailings. She said they must have hauled all the dirt out by bucket and then by wheelbarrow.
It was two in the afternoon before we finally had the entrance cleared enough to go in. Carol was getting as excited as Dad and I. It was fun watching her and her radiant smile as she worked at cleaning back the brush and old wood.
Dad had brought a short rope with him, so we tied it to the closest pine and tossed it down into the hole. “Chance are the old ladder is rotted. But we might as will try to use it. Just keep hold of the rope.”
“Let me try first,” Carol said, “since I’m the smallest.”
Dad nodded and Carol dropped on her stomach and then slowly inched her way over the lip of the hole and down. The ladder held her and the floor of the hole was solid dirt. I didn’t bother with the ladder. I just lowered myself over the edge and dropped to the bottom. Then with Carol on one side and me on the other we helped Dad down the old ladder.
“Lights,” Dad said, clicking on his light and ducking inside the old tunnel.
“Not too fast,” Carol said. “Let me check out the timbers. We don’t want this caving in on us.”
Dad stopped and Carol eased around him, shining her flashlight on the beams and old support timbers. It was clear to even my eye that whoever had built this had made it to last.
Not one ounce of dirt was in sight. The ceiling, walls, and floors were all covered completely by wood after a few feet inside the entrance. Carol could stand up straight in the tunnel, but both Dad and I had to duck.
“Wow!” Carol said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. No reason to build all this unless you planned on living in here.”
“This place gets stranger and stranger,” I said.
Dad agreed and pointed his light down the tunnel. It curved to the left about twenty feet ahead. With Carol in the lead we worked our way underground along the wooden corridor, Carol walking slowly and cautiously, testing each step. Dad and I bent over, following her.
We must have gone a good hundred yards, with two turns and a slight downward angle before we hit another tunnel.
“Main tunnel,” Carol said. She pointed her light back up the incline. “This heads right in the direction of the meadow.”
In the main tunnel I could stand up completely without even coming close to the high ceiling and my back was very glad that I could. But on top of the back ache I was starting to get a real uneasy feeling about this place. The main tunnel was also completely enclosed by wood and every twenty feet there was an old lantern hanging on a peg from a support beam. Someone had spent a huge amount of time and money in here. And not recently. I shined my light around the wider main tunnel.
“Carol, any reason they would shore this up like this?”
“Not if this was a regular gold mine. No.” She shined her light at the wood planks of the floor. “No rails or any other way to get the gold ore out of here. And there is no reason to have a gold mine shaft this wide and big. My guess is that if this was a gold mine, then it was expanded and the flooring and walls were put in after the mining was finished.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Dad asked.
Carol shrugged. “Never heard of it before,” she said. “But I imagine the answer is down there.” She pointed the flashlight down the tunnel. “Maybe someone really did live here.”
“You as creeped out by this place as I am?” I asked.
Both Dad and Carol nodded. Then Carol led the way, again going slow and cautious.
About two hundred feet later we found the answer to our question. The mine shaft ran smack into a solid metal wall. The tunnel branched both left and right, following the curve of the metal off in both directions.
“What the hell is this?” Dad said, rubbing his hand along the metal. “It’s manufactured. Why...?”
Carol and I both were running our hands along the smooth gray metal. It felt cold and polished to my touch, like the hood of a car. And the curve into the distance in both directions was exact, with no markings or anything else. “Carol?” I asked, “How far underground would you think we are?”
Carol kept running her hand over the surface of the metal, as if not really believing that it was there. I didn’t believe it either. After a moment she looked over at me and pointed upward. “In that direction I would say a good thousand plus feet.” She pointed at an angle back along the main tunnel. “In that direction more like five hundred.”
I looked off in both directions. “Why would someone build this down here? And for what reason?”
Carol walked a few feet to the right, running her hand along the metal. “You might want to consider that they found this here while digging for gold.”
Dad turned and walked away from the metal, back up the tunnel, then turned around and sat down on the wood planking, facing the metal wall. “Not possible,” he said. “That would make this, whatever it is, over a million years old. These are young mou
ntains around here, but not that young.”
Carol nodded. “At this depth it would be at least that old. Maybe much more.”
We stood there in silence, our flashlight beams glued to the metal surface. My mind was just not accepting what I was seeing. None of this could be true. None of it. My Grandpa had been a crazy old man. And in the later years his laugh had driven me nuts. For some reason he had built this down here and all we had to do was keep exploring until we found out why. “Dad, let’s keep going.” I pointed to the right. “Might be some answers.”
Dad nodded slowly and climbed back to his feet. This time I led the way. Not a seam in the metal, nothing, as we slowly curved down and to the left. For a short time I thought we were just going to end up circling around and ending back up at the junction of the main tunnel.
But then I found the open airlock.
And there was no longer any doubt as to what we had found.
No wonder Grandpa had joined the Lost Wheelbarrow Mine Association to keep the mine hidden. This discovery would blow the lid off of the current world, let alone the world of 1915. Of that there was no doubt.
EIGHT
Moscow, Idaho
October 21, 2035
I carefully placed my boots in the exact same footprints as I always had as I started down the street. Nothing had changed in the months since I had been here. Of course, it never did. This street was frozen in time, locked in death by my family’s stupidity.
The gray dust made no noise through my protective suit and in front of my parents’ house I stopped and looked around. I could imagine the times when we used to play football in that street. I could remember the laughter and the fun. I had always played receiver, so I got to duck in and out of the parked cars, trying to get free to catch the pass. I usually did. I was always good at football.
Smith's Monthly #31 Page 8