Here Be Monsters (Tyler Cunningham)

by Sheffield, Jamie

  I came across my first wilderness mine shaft almost ten years ago, while exploring another chunk of wilderness a bit south and east of this spot, closer to Lake Champlain. I did some online, library and physical research, and found that there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of them scattered throughout the Adirondack Park, some only a few yards from mouth to terminus, some going unbelievably deep into the Earth. Over the years I'd found some, explored a few, mapped more for future exploration, and even thought about building a home or retreat inside one; which prompted more research and learning about caves and the special circumstances and care and procedures for spending time in what I had heretofore considered to be just holes in the ground. It was another example of mapping unknowns to expand my world, in this case into the subterranean. In cataloging and examining my world map, this was the best cave that I could think of for the use that I had for it today.

  I didn't think that Barry and Justin were trackers, but even though they would expect to see some sign of my earlier passage, I wanted to minimize my impact on the forest around the mine opening, so that they wouldn't be thinking of me; just a walk in the woods to get another set of coordinates in a colossal waste of time before they could meet, and most likely kill, me. I had parked the Element far enough away (and on a side road leading away from the coordinates) so they wouldn't pass or see it when trying to find the closest spot on the road to the coordinates that I had given them. I walked up to the yawning and hungry mouth, dark in the bright woods, carefully picking the spot that each footfall would land, and thinking my way ahead through the next few hours (equally carefully picking the spot where each future action/reaction would take me).

  I had picked this mine because my memory of it indicated that it would meet my needs perfectly. It was on private land, which would discourage trespassing, but the owner was an Italian mineral exploitation consortium that had been sitting on the property for years. They had fired the property manager years ago when they realized that he cost more per year than any damage done by vandals could possibly amount to over the course of a decade. The mine opening was big enough that it wouldn't threaten Barry or Justin too much, unless they were severely claustrophobic, in which case I was counting on their allegiance to (and fear of) George to keep them moving inside. The opening went into the side of the hill at a few degrees below the horizontal for about twenty feet before it began sprouting smaller side-passages to the left and right and came to a T-junction about a hundred feet in. The tunnel going to the left from the T-junction went about thirty feet before ending in a wall, the one to the right went the same distance before the floor dropped away; as I remember, the pit was roughly a hundred feet deep (a dropped rock took a touch more than two seconds to splash into the water at the bottom). The pit was about ten feet across, with a single ancient plank across it making a bridge to the far side where the tunnel continued for another ten feet before a turn in the shaft ended my knowledge of what came next (I was exploring alone, and had no desire to test the plank's strength after who knows how long in the mine). I emptied my Gatorade, re-checked my gear, pee'd against a nearby tree, turned on my headlamp, and headed into the mine.

  I paid special attention to the floor of the mineshaft as I picked my way in, mostly smooth but with some rocks and sticks in places. I didn't leave footprints so much as disturb the stuff on the floor, and since I couldn't avoid doing that, I decided not to worry about it. When I was most of the way down the shaft, I scouted the remaining side-tunnels, and picked one about twenty feet before the T-junction and put my shoulder bag and gear a few feet in behind a pile of ancient boards and wire. I continued down to the T-junction, cracked a chem-light, placed it gently on the floor, and placed another one eight feet back from the edge of the pit, on top of a Ziploc bag containing the note for George and Barry and Justin. Mission accomplished, I retraced my steps, grabbed my gear, and prepared myself for the next stage of this plan.

  I spent a few minutes wondering if I should be concerned about my lack of guilt, or if I should worry about trespassing, or any of the other, more serious, crimes that I was about to commit. I concluded that, while perhaps I should, nobody blames a snake or a pig or a dove for being a snake or a pig or a dove (certainly not the snake/pig/dove), and so I wouldn't blame me for being me. This was almost certainly a specious argument, but I had an easy time convincing myself (which is, at the end of the day, the wonderful thing about specious arguments). I enjoyed some more philosophical games and riddles, and was able to ignore the wet and cold for a while, until I heard Barry and Justin twig-snapping and huffing and cursing their way through the woods towards me.

  Mineshaft, near Tahawus, 10:13a.m., 9/9/2012

  I had kept my mouth slightly open to listen and breathe; it has been my experience that I can hear slightly better this way (and breathe more quietly to boot), but it proved unnecessary, as, according to plan, Justin and Barry expected that this was simply another stop along my annoying scavenger hunt route, not our meeting place.

  I could hear Barry clomping his way up the hill, puffing and snapping sticks and cursing as branches slapped and poked him, long before I ever heard Justin; but either the shape of the valley that the mine was in, or the preternatural quiet of the mine, helped to focus and deliver the sound to me about five minutes before I heard them step into the mine. I saw their bright lights reflected and dancing on the walls and ceiling of the main tunnel outside the side tunnel that I was crouching in. They seemed to have bought into the plan as well as I could have hoped. They sounded pissed off and tired and anxious to get out of the woods (and particularly this mineshaft). They both seemed to notice the chem-light at the end of the tunnel at the same moment. Even if they had not literally been in a tunnel, they had now been programmed (by me) to have tunnel vision (I wanted to smile at this thought, a number fourteen, gently amused at the turn of events, but quelled the altogether inappropriate impulse).

  I had to pee... all of a sudden I had to pee more than I had ever needed anything in my life. I started to stand up to unzip and let loose and then nearly giggled at the absurdity of it, but stifled the urge to do both. Instead, I just did my imitation of a rock in the dark (a rock in the dark that had to pee!). I had been lying on the floor of the side-tunnel for long enough that I was cold and stiff. I wanted to stretch and stand and could almost taste a big bowl of piping hot oatmeal (oddly the maple sugar version instead of my standard, raisins and cinnamon, was what tickled my taste-buds' fancy while I waited for Justin and Barry to make their way down the mineshaft and past me). The last urge that came and went, as the footsteps got closer and their lights flickered up and down and from side to side, was to check my headlamp and Cynthia's shotgun, both of which would be at least noisy, and possibly deadly (if either Barry or Justin heard me). The last of these self-destructive impulses was chased from my brain when one of the guys scuffed a rock and it skittered into my side tunnel.

  I can't imagine that it made any difference, but I closed my eyes down to mere slits to try and reduce any possible reflections if they shone their lights down my side-tunnel. I was dressed in dark earthen tones and muddy/dirty from the day I'd been having so far, but if either of them decided to check my tunnel out too carefully, they'd likely see me without too much trouble. I saw Justin first, and then Barry, as they continued shuffling down their tunnel and past me; each with a flashlight in one hand and a hiking pole in the other. They seemed to be alternating between tapping the floor to insure that it was still there and sweeping the ceiling to needlessly ward off spiders that hadn't bothered to set up webs this far into the tunnel (no insects, apparently). They were both looking down and ahead, at the point on the floor where I had left the first chem-light... just as they were supposed to. Once they reached the T-junction, I could hear Barry point out the next and final chem-light to Justin, his voice rumbling oddly in the wet/cold/dark.

  It was at this point that I stood as quietly as I could, wincing when my knees popped loudly in the tomb-quiet of the
mine as I straightened up. I crept around the corner, and into the main body of the tunnel, using the reflected waste-light from Barry and Justin, as well as the dim glow from the chem-lights to follow/find them, first to the T-junction, and then around the corner to the right. I could see the two guys, standing a few feet from the edge of the pit, reading the detailed note that I had left for them by the light of their flashlights, and mumbling to each other in turn as they tried to figure out my directions to the next stop on the treasure hunt. The note had coordinates and driving directions and route numbers and suggestions for lunch spots and cautionary warnings about a stream crossing; neither of them had finished the note when I fired the shotgun... I kept pumping the action and firing the shotgun until Cynthia's 870 was empty, my ears were ringing like the bells at Notre Dame, and nobody was left, standing or otherwise, at the edge of the pit.

  Mineshaft, near Tahawus, 10:36a.m., 9/9/2012

  CRAP!

  When the reverberations of sound and smell and light died down a bit, it occurred to me that I'd been a colossal dumbass. A microsecond later, I noted that I didn't really feel bad about what I had done, just stupid that I had blown the car keys (and money) down into a hole that might as well have been a mile deep. I could see the scene replaying perfectly in slow motion: my first shot caught Justin lower than I had meant to shoot (I had estimated him to be a greater threat with a gun, assuming that both had them), catching him with the hand-sized pattern of double ought buckshot a few inches above his belt; with the next shot I overcorrected like crazy and it went into the ceiling of the tunnel about halfway between us, peppering them with rock and shot debris; the third shot caught Barry somewhere in his upper torso; my fourth round missed when I swung the barrel right to try and get Justin as he seemed (to me) to be reaching for something in his jacket; the fifth shot missed them altogether as Barry had tripped or fallen backwards (perhaps in an attempt to move away from the noise and light and ouchiness at my end of the tunnel). The light from the fifth shot caught Justin with pin wheeling arms as he tumbled down into the darkness of the pit before I cycled and fired the last shell. I had fired the last round anyway, amp-ed up and scared and angry, muscles working faster than my brain at that moment. By the time I could hear anything again, they must have already hit bottom, because I never heard a splash. I had a moment of ridiculous terror when I remembered a scene from an Austin Powers movie that I had watched with Cyn, where a somewhat bad guy called from the bottom of a pit that he wasn't dead and needed medical assistance; neither Justin nor Barry survived the fall, or if they did, decided not to call for help.

  I reached up and clicked on my headlamp and shuffled up to the edge and looked down into the pit. I could see some dim colors at the bottom, likely from their jackets and packs, but couldn't make out any details. I didn't have any rope or rappelling gear, and wouldn't have the knowledge or skill or desire to use it if I had, so I dropped Cynthia's shotgun down after the guys, walked back down the tunnel, grabbed my gear, and walked out into the midday brightness and colors and bird noise. I looked around for police and/or forest rangers, eager to arrest me for trespassing or illegal discharge of a firearm or murder, but didn't see a thing except trees and rocks, marching off to the horizon in every direction. It was as if the mine, and Barry and Justin, and what had happened only 100 feet and three minutes ago, had never happened; so I walked down the hill to Justin's truck, to try and figure out what to do about it.

  Upper Works Road, Cty. Rt. 25, 11:28a.m., 9/9/2012

  I sat in the woods and watched Justin's truck for a couple of minutes before moving closer, unable to tell if there was anyone in the backseat, behind the tinted glass (George or another of his guys). It was sitting in direct sun with all of the windows up, so it would have to be hot inside if there was anyone. I threw a pinecone and watched for the truck to sway on its springs for another minute before I walked down, listening hard all the way for traffic from either direction... I couldn't hear anything mechanical besides a jet way up and flying north across the sky. I tried the truck's doors and found them locked; I felt around the bumpers explored the truck-bed, looking for an extra key... no luck. I found a good-sized rock and listened again for traffic, and then broke his passenger-side window, listened again, and climbed in.

  I had no idea how to hotwire a car, and assumed that if I tried I'd cripple the car permanently, so I looked in places where I'd seen people leave extra keys before: under the driver's seat, in the ashtray, above the visors, and finally... in the glove box. I was positive that I would strike out. I found the plastic folder that the Toyota dealer had stuck in when delivering the car to Justin filled with the new paperwork and manuals and... VALET KEY! I dumped the stuff out onto the floor and the last thing to tumble onto the rubber mat was a valet key for his truck. It wouldn't have been the end of the world if Justin's truck had to stay here. I could throw sufficient logs and rocks down the mineshaft hole to cover the guys, and safely assume that nobody would ever find them. The truck would likely get towed by the Town of Newcomb in a week or two and eventually sold at auction. I doubt that anyone would file a missing persons report on either of them; drug dealers move and/or go missing, but without a body, nobody would look too hard at the truck.

  Since I could now move the truck though, I decided to do just that. I gave a final listen, then started the truck up and drove back along Upper Works Road until I got to a turnoff that lead deeper into the absentee owners' defunct mining facilities. There was a gate across the section of road that turned away from Upper Works Road, but if I didn't mind scraping Justin's truck a bit, which I didn't, I could get around the barrier easily. Once on the smaller road, I quickly made for a tailing pond that I had seen while exploring a couple of years earlier. An abandoned mine makes for an ugly moonscape when compared to the natural beauty of the rest of the Adirondacks, so not many people get back this way, which would work out fine for me (I hoped). The tailing ponds in and around Tahwaus had been excavated more than a century ago by various mining concerns that came and went. They were used to dump/contain the liquid or sludge waste and by-products of the mining process; some of the ponds look like regular Adirondack lakes and ponds, others did not.

  It was to one of the nastier tailing ponds that I was driving Justin's truck. The pond was an iridescent milky green, roughly 200 yards across, and there was a cement dock-like jetty that extended out about fifty feet towards the center of the mostly round pond. I stopped short of the jetty, and walked out to inspect it, top and bottom. It looked fine, and I couldn't feel it move or sway when I walked partway out and jumped on it, so I thought it was worth a try. I opened the door to the truck, got all of my stuff out and left it on the ground next to the truck. Then I got all of the loose junk out of the glove box and map pockets and door slots and put it all in a USPS priority mail envelope I found in the truck (Tyvek, useful, free... why not). I left the envelope by my gear and climbed back into the truck. I opened all the windows and started rolling the Toyota slowly down the dock. My thinking was that if things got splashy and wet before I wanted them to I could likely swim to shore before the toxic junk in the pond melted me (or gave me superpowers). I stopped the truck about halfway down, dropped it into neutral, got out to look and listen for any sign that I wasn't the only human within ten miles (I'm pretty sure that I was). I leaned in through the window to move the shifter from N to D, and then pulled back out of the truck as it rolled down the last little bit of the jetty.

  The truck made a tremendous splash when it went off the end of the jetty and fell into the water, but in five minutes I couldn't even see any more bubbles coming up, much less the truck. The pond water was deep and opaque, and it was my sincere hope that whatever toxic soup mining companies had chosen to violate this pond with over the years would eat the truck before anyone found it. I felt that there was a pretty good chance of this happening, as I wouldn't have dreamed of swimming in it... it barely qualified as water. Feeling better than I had in days, I got up, grabbe
d my stuff and Justin's, and walked back toward where my GPS receiver indicated my car was. I walked overland, both for a more direct route, and to distance myself from the yellow truck that had been trespassing and gone swimming a little while ago. I didn't see (or hear) a soul the whole way back to my Element, and didn't even pass another car until I was most of the way back to Long Lake. I stopped in Long Lake to gas up, buy and down a couple cokes, eat a few eerily fresh donuts, and gobble more of Dorothy's dog pills.

  Campsite #6, Little Green Pond, 3:18p.m., 9/9/2012

  The drive back to my neck of the woods was both relaxing and nerve-wracking at the same time. I've made the drive from Long Lake to Saranac Lake at least a hundred times, and it is lovely and wooded, and passes lots of lakes and streams, but very few people; it is possible to relax almost into a dream-state on the rolling hills and straight road. I was glad to have some cool (if slightly too warm, and clearly inferior) cokes to give me a sugar and caffeine boost. I kept expecting a roadblock or pursuit or helicopters to stop me. I kept switching around to the local radio stations (mostly repeaters of North Country Radio, a public radio station based up in Canton, NY) anticipating/dreading APBs and descriptions of my crimes. The farther that I drove from the mine and pond up in Tahawus, the further from reality my crimes seemed. I had no physical evidence of the crimes on my person/vehicle, having double-bagged my shoes and the papers from Justin's car, and dropped them into the nasty dumpster behind Stewart's in Long Lake. My only lingering (and likely pointless) concern was remaining on one of the “big roads”, and I couldn't fix that until the Wawbeek turn at the bottom of Upper Saranac Lake, about halfway between Tupper Lake and Saranac Lake.