by David Haynes
Farther along, the road sloped upwards and he was inside a tunnel with black pine crowding around and over him, blackening an already dark sky. The creek appeared on one side, spitting water up at the Ford and keeping pace with him, goading him into putting his foot down harder on the gas pedal, just a little more.
After nearly two hours of difficult driving, he knew he had seen the last of bright yellow trucks, bulldozers and excavators. He was as far away from the world as he had ever been. The track grew narrower until it was barely wide enough for the Ford, and then abruptly ended.
He stopped and cut the engine. In front of him was a bank of trees, beyond which he assumed was the Black Pine Creek claim. Pine grew fast and although the trees looked well established, he knew they were only five or six years old. He’d been caught out by them in his early days. He’d found a stretch of land on a claim he thought was untouched, virgin ground, dug it out and processed dirt for a week. He found just over two ounces of gold on it and discovered later the ground had been worked ten years before he got there. Pine trees liked to trick you.
He got out and pushed his way through the trees. Their smell instantly took him to another place. A place he cared not to think about. He was right. On the other side was a clearing, right where the map said it should be. He smiled. He was at Black Pine Creek. He was on his claim.
Now he was out of the truck again, his senses were filled by this new world. The sound of the creek rumbling away down to his left, the melancholy whistle of the golden-crowned sparrow on its way north for the summer, and a plethora of other noises vying for dominance. As well as the scent of the pine, which he knew he would barely notice within a week of starting work, was the smell of the earth; the rich, spicy smell of an earth awake after a long winter. The creek smelled too. It was the fresh scent of melting ice, of snows in the mountains where there were no men with earth-raping machines.
Apart from the trees, he could see none of the other things that tickled his senses. Everything was cloaked in that same lifeless shroud of fog that had followed him for the last twenty-four hours.
There was no indication of how much farther it was to the camp, to the plant that Burgess told him was already here, but he had to walk anyway. Damaging the Ford by trying to go through or around the tree-barrier was too much of a risk to take. It had to be at least seventy miles back along the track to the nearest mining operation. That was one long walk he didn’t want to have to take.
Draper closed his eyes for a moment until he was startled by a scurrying sound coming from down near the creek. He needed to go back and get some protection before he went any farther. Visibility was not much more than ten, fifteen yards and he was alone. That wasn’t a good combination out here.
He opened the passenger side and pushed his hand to the bottom of the duffel. Out of sight, out of mind was the Beretta 92FS inside its holster. He checked the clip, put the gun back inside the holster and slipped it under the waistband of his jeans. He hated it, despised it with a passion, but right now it might save his life, and that was the only reason he had it. It wouldn’t stop a grizzly at full lick but it might be enough to put some distance between them for a while. He grabbed the map from the dash and pushed back through the trees.
Samples had been taken all across the claim, stretching from just over two miles across the other side of the creek all the way across to about three hundred yards from where he was standing. He walked toward the river and found a row of birch trees blocked his way and his view. But from what he could see, the ground banked away quite steeply. Across the other side was a high bank with enormous boulders jutting out every which way. He decided not to climb just yet but over the other side of it, the samples looked least promising of all. It wouldn’t be his first choice for opening a cut anyway.
He carried on walking in a straight line away from where he had left the truck. The undergrowth was sparse here and beneath his feet he could hear the crunch of gravel and dirt. Someone had made a track of sorts in the past.
As he walked, he looked down at the map and then up at the landscape. Occasionally he would pause and make a mental note of what the land was like in a specific spot. He scrambled down the bank toward the creek at one point to see what the earth was like on the far side. The best drill holes seemed to be at the farthest points on the claim. They were also the most heavily covered in black pine. It wasn’t the largest claim he had ever worked and certainly not the simplest, but his mind was already thinking about the best place to start and the best place to locate his wash-plant. That was always supposing Burgess was telling the truth and there was already one here.
The ground sloped away gently in front and the hissing sound of the creek rose up to meet him. Even though the fog kept the day away from him, it grew darker still as he made his way down into a clearing.
Burgess had been right. Through the fog, shapes as bright and as yellow as the sun shone through the gray cloud. Two 420 excavators were lined up side by side, their arms resting in perfect symmetry. He walked toward them and saw more shapes emerge. A couple of D9 bulldozers and three rock trucks stood sentry over the clearing, pointing toward the creek.
Draper put his hand on the excavator. It looked pretty new, maybe a season old. Two at most. There had to be close to five million dollars’ worth here. He walked past them all, touching each one as he passed, dwarfed by their bulk, until another shape emerged.
The front of it looked just like the gift shop in Chicken, like something from the turn of the last century. It wasn’t that old though, he could see that. The pine frontage hadn’t aged and the sign above the door looked to have been painted only yesterday. ‘Black Pine Saloon’ it announced in printed letters. A covered porch stretched across the front of the building, with two overturned camping chairs tumbling onto the dirt at the foot of three steps.
He walked over and pushed down on the first step – solid as a rock. He took the other two and pulled the door. It swung open with barely a creak. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior before he stepped across the threshold. Meeting and surprising some of the local wildlife who might be hiding inside was at the top of his thoughts.
Black Pine Saloon wasn’t really a saloon. Maybe that was wishful thinking on behalf of the last residents. Along one side was a kitchen with a group of four tables at one end and closest to Draper were shelves. Shelves full of cans, cans of untouched food. Beans, corn, ham, peas, peaches and pears. All of it stacked neatly along the shelf. Farther down the room he could see a stack of toilet paper, batteries, a couple of flashlights and a crate of beer. All of it completely untouched. He picked up the nearest can and looked at the date stamp. It was good for another year yet.
The bare wooden floor was dirty with footprints, so many as to create one huge brown mass. It was to be expected but the rest of the place looked like it had been cleaned only yesterday. Compared to some sites he’d worked at, anyway.
The door slammed behind him and he spun around. His hand instinctively dropped toward the Beretta’s grip. The door banged shut and then bounced on its hinges, giving a glimpse outside.
Was that a dog out there? No, too big. A wolf? Shit.
He released the safety and slid the gun out of its holster. The heft of the grip in his hands was an awful feeling. He kicked the door with his boot and it swung outward. A warning shot should send it packing. It usually worked.
He raised the Beretta and put his shoulder against the door to stop it rebounding again. There was nothing there. No sign of dog, wolf or anything else moving around out there. He scanned in an arc as far as the fog would allow and listened. Birds, creek and his own heartbeat. That was it. Nothing more.
He turned, flicked the safety and holstered the Beretta. At the rear of the saloon was another door which Draper kicked before he entered. On the other side was a gloomy room with one window to the side. Through it he could only see trees. This was the weighing room. There were scales, a hot plate and a whole bank of unused c
ontainers for gold that was never found, still in the ground. Again everything looked new, which was good to see because the less they had found, the more he would find.
He pushed through the back door beyond the table and stepped outside again. A huge tarp had been thrown over something bulky. He lifted it up and saw it covered the shaker table. It was used to separate the gold from the slurry they generated in the wash-plant. He traced his fingers over the green plastic top. This was where they would start to see exactly what they had found in the earth. He looked at his fingers. They were clean. Nobody had left any gold.
A huge white shipping container had been placed just on the treeline, and cables ran from it to the saloon and farther down the site. Draper walked over to it. The container was big, forty feet long and eight feet wide. It would have taken one hell of an effort to bring it all the way up here.
It was clearly where the generator was kept, and if it worked they would be in good shape to start. If he could get a team, that is. The metal doors were closed but he wasn’t strong enough to pull them open. He looked around for something to use but after two sticks snapped, he gave up. If Mercer called back, he’d have to lie about seeing the generator working.
He kicked the bottom of the door, about to walk away. On the ground, half-covered in dirt and pine needles, was something shiny. He bent down and picked it up. A used shotgun shell. Nothing unusual there. Except as he let his eyes drift across the dirt he saw another, and then another and another until he counted sixteen shells all within this one small area. Shooting practice? Maybe they found a bunch of ptarmigan wondering around, just waiting to go in the pot.
He shrugged and stood up. He still hadn’t found the wash-plant and time was ticking on. He checked his cell. It was approaching noon and there was no signal.
The previous occupants had made a road over the creek. A concrete culvert had been dropped in place to allow the water to flow beneath, then tons of dirt had been dropped on top of it to form the track. Draper walked across it and along the road they’d formed through the trees.
And there it was. His heart rate quickened and his mouth went dry. It was one of the largest wash-plants he had ever seen. Mist swirled around and through it like it was on stage in a magic show. He exhaled and walked over.
As he got closer he could see a cut had been opened adjacent to it, and next to the plant was a high mound of dirt ready to be sluiced. The cut ran into the mist and the far reaches were invisible, but it was as at least as wide as a football field. He peered over the edge. It looked like they were down to bedrock. It was perfect – ready to go.
He examined the map and located the area he was in. The samples were good and only got better the farther west he mined. Mercer wouldn’t believe his eyes when he saw this. Someone had thrown one hell of a pile of cash at this and then just left. Nobody left a pile of paydirt like that unless they had a guaranteed lease for the following year. Not even greenhorns would do that. Unless of course it was just some rich guy playing around? Whoever it was had lost millions of dollars worth of machinery, not to mention gold.
Somewhere out of view, they must have a pond for the wash-plant to extract the millions of gallons of water it would need to run. He didn’t need to see that. They could change that quite easily if they had to. His head was spinning with the potential of the claim. If he had a good team, he could process four hundred tons of gold-rich paydirt an hour with a plant this size. A couple of seasons working here and he wouldn’t have to go groveling to men like Burgess again.
A sharp clang jolted him from his thoughts. His hand hovered above the Beretta. The noise had come from behind him, on the enormous red wash-plant. He waited, watched and listened. The air was still and with the mist, the silence was eerie. Another loud crack echoed followed by the sound of a thud as something heavy hit the ground near by. It was probably just rocks thawing and dropping from the top of the plant where they had been left. Why was he so jumpy? He’d dealt with wolves and bears before, admittedly not on his own but they had never made him feel so nervous. He was vulnerable out here where he wasn’t the apex predator anymore, and not just physically – he knew he was psychologically vulnerable too. He was alone.
Another thought took him away from too much self-examination. If there were rocks up there and dirt waiting to be processed, had they left anything else? Like say, gold in the boxes?
He made his way around the plant to the sluice boxes and crouched down. The dirt was loaded in at the top of the plant and then quite simply it was washed through a series of processes; shaken, rolled, sprayed until the fine material was separated out. This fine material contained the gold they all searched for. Because gold was heavier than both water and the sediment, it sank down into the traps they set for it. The traps were called riffles and as the water passed over them, the gold sank down inside them. Beneath them was the miners moss where even finer gold was caught.
Each riffle on this plant was rammed full of sediment and in places Draper could see the flakes of gold caught inside. The plant had been run and then left without being cleaned up, with gold still waiting to be picked out. He ran his finger through the dirt and looked at it. A beautiful golden color coated the tip. Something was off here. Something Burgess wasn’t telling him. Whatever it was, he hoped it wouldn’t bite him on the ass. It could take a chunk out of Burgess, he didn’t care about that, but he couldn’t afford another mistake.
He walked back up the track to the camp and had another look around before making his way back to the Ford. He shouldn’t allow himself to be overly cautious here. Lots of people had big ideas about mining and about how easy it was to catch gold, but the reality was entirely different. His first couple of years had taught him that. Maybe whoever it was that had started mining here went bust? Or maybe some rich rookie had realized it wasn’t quite as much fun as he’d anticipated? Sleeping in a cold trailer for four months and working fifteen hours a day wasn’t for everyone.
He climbed into the cab, removed the holster and buried it deep inside the duffel. There were lots of reasons why someone would just get up and leave like that. One of which could be Burgess himself. Giving him twenty-five percent of the gold wasn’t going to be easy.
Draper backed up a little way until the track was wide enough for him to turn, then he started the long drive back to Haines. If he hadn’t heard from Mercer before he got back to his hotel room he was going to call him, and he was going to keep calling him until he answered. Whatever had gone on at Black Pine Creek wasn’t his business, it was in the past. What mattered now was that he was back on track and had been given another shot.
6
Mercer’s head hurt. Someone had taken a baseball bat and popped a home run with his head. He groped at the night-stand, hoping to find a bottle of something to ease the pain. There was nothing. This clearly wasn’t his night-stand.
He opened his eyes. This wasn’t his room or his bed either. The woman lying asleep next to him didn’t look familiar, but it was hard to tell when the room was dark and his eyes were struggling to find a point of focus. Where the hell was he?
He rolled out of bed and stood up. It took a moment for the room to stop tilting but experience told him not to fight it, just let the world right itself before he took a step. The room was dim, dim and grim, but he could see his clothes balled up by the door.
“Where you goin’?”
He turned slowly, not wanting to disturb the earth’s axis again. The woman, whoever she was, was on her side looking at him.
“To get cigarettes,” he answered and smiled.
Her face brought back some memories of the night before. A bar. A band. Bourbon, beer, more bourbon and yet more beer. A pretty face and some kind words. They both knew he didn’t smoke.
She smiled back. “Enjoy the smoke,” she said and rolled away from him.
He waited a few seconds then picked up his clothes and took them down the hall to the bathroom. The light hurt his eyes but he kept them open and
stared at the faint sunlight until the pain subsided. Coffee and eggs were what he needed to straighten himself out, sooner rather than later. He pulled his jeans on and tapped his pocket – keys and cell were both there. That was good.
His t-shirt smelled like stale beer and sweat but he pulled it over his head anyway. He had no choice. He finished getting dressed and stood at the top of the stairs. Where the hell had he left his truck?
He stood for a moment, rubbing his hands over his stubble. Forty-five was no age to start forgetting where you left things.
“You wanna ride into town to get those cigarettes?” The woman padded naked down the hallway toward him.
“Sure, that’d be great... err...”
She pushed past him to get to the bathroom. “Amanda, but don’t sweat it. I won’t be seeing you again so no harm done. Gimme me a minute, would ya.” She closed the door.
Mercer nodded and walked downstairs slowly. Very slowly.
Amanda, as it turned out, couldn’t remember his name either and usually went for girls. She called him Roy in their brief conversations but he didn’t correct her on the half-hour ride into Dawson. She dropped him outside Downtown Hotel, said her goodbyes with a wave and then drove away whistling.
It wasn’t his first visit to the hotel. The first time he’d come here with Draper had been about fifteen years ago, when both of them had been inducted into the Sourtoe Cocktail Club. Although when the stubby brown toe touched Draper’s lips, he gagged so hard Yukon-Jack came out of his eyeballs. Mercer looked up at the hotel and smiled. Good days.
He saw his truck parked up along the side of the hotel and pulled his keys from his pocket. His cell got tangled up in the chain, both falling to the floor.