by David Haynes
“You can have coke next time, Puckett. We’ll get you a straw if you like?” Mercer wiped a chunk of bread around Puckett’s plate and slid it into his mouth.
“Screw you,” Puckett replied. He didn’t look up.
“I think I’ll have a nice juicy pork chop,” Mercer started, a mischievous smile on his lips. “I’ll ask them to take the fat off and serve it separately. Keep it like jelly so I can suck on it. Maybe I’ll follow it up with...”
Puckett grunted and jumped off his seat. He ran straight to the bathroom.
“You’re a bastard, Ray.” Meg was laughing. They all were.
Draper felt the vibration in his pocket slightly before his phone rang. It had to be Burgess calling again.
He stood up and walked to the door, dragging the cell out of his pocket. The screen showed a number he didn’t recognize.
A minute later, he came back to the table.
“Burgess?”
“No, just the fuel company. They’re delivering today.” It was a day earlier than he’d thought.
“Everyone ready to get back to it?”
They all nodded. “Not sure about him though.” Flynn hooked a thumb at the bathroom. “Think I’ll take those corners a little faster than I did on the way down here. See if I can’t shake him around a bit.”
The others left before Draper and Mercer. Draper settled the bill and Mercer wanted a last bath before they drove back. Puckett looked green but at least he could bear to lift his head now and again. It was an improvement.
“I want to stop somewhere on the way back,” Draper said as Mercer pulled out of Chicken.
“Stop somewhere? There isn’t anywhere to stop.”
They drove in comfortable silence until they turned off the main highway, when Draper asked,
“So how come you haven’t done one of your disappearing acts? You normally like to take a couple of days on your own... Well, not on your own exactly.”
Mercer shrugged. “Things are different this time.”
“How so?”
“They just are. You coming back from the dead, so to speak, Meg coming up here. I just thought you might need a little time to settle in.”
Draper nodded. “Well, I appreciate it. That first day, I felt like the new boy in class. It’s been a long time since I felt like that.”
“That’s what I thought. Not taken you long to get back in the swing though.”
Draper leaned forward and peered up at the sky. “That sky looks like it’s getting ready to drop on us.”
“Maybe.” Mercer leaned forward too.
“I missed too much of the season. We started too late.”
“We did but nothing we can do about that now. We’ve just got to make the best of the time that’s left.”
They both sat in silence for a while. Draper looked out of the window. The pines stretched high into the leaden sky on either side of the track. The air was cooler now, fresher and full of an earthy smell that was tinged with the slight sourness of decay. The season was coming to an end too soon. Even now, he knew he was going to struggle to recoup the investment he’d made in Black Pine Creek. Everyone would have to be paid, bills settled and Burgess given his share. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be so far behind at this stage. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to.
He needed to take his mind off it for a while.
“So, in two years, Ray, you met anyone?” It was a ridiculous question. Ray was always meeting someone, but they both knew what the question really meant.
“Oh, plenty. One or two nice, respectable ladies too. Just nobody I really took to.”
“You mean, you didn’t give yourself the time to take to them.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I didn’t give them chance to take against me.”
When they first met as eager greenhorns, Draper was already married to Claire, his high-school sweetheart, and Meg was on the way. They hadn’t planned it that way. A baby was supposed to come after he was managing his own claim. Maybe Meg coming so early was part of what drove him on so hard in those early years. Maybe. Mercer wasn’t married but he was attached and a more devoted man would be hard to find. He would write or call her almost every day.
It was a shame she wasn’t quite as besotted by him. And on one visit home, he came back with a nasty case of itching down below. A visit to the clinic told him everything he needed to know about what she was doing while he was away mining. And that was it for Mercer. Love gone bad was a permanent condition and not one he wished to ever fully recover from.
“I am getting too old for it though,” Mercer said, keeping his eyes on the uneven and narrow track.
“For chasing girls?”
“For all of it. You ever think we’re chasing something that might not exist?”
Draper stared out of the dirty side-window. The creek fizzed away at the edge of the road.
“I have done this season. We’ve done everything right, everything by the book and we’ve still got nothing.”
“A couple more seasons and I’m done.”
“What’ll you do? All you know is mining,” Draper said.
“I don’t know. Driving, maybe. I can drive a truck better than anyone I know. Good money to be made if you know what you’re doing” He paused, smiling. “And I’ll get to travel a bit more. The girls up here are getting picky nowadays.”
Draper laughed and shook his head. It wasn’t until a year ago that he’d been able to even think about mining. Before that, he never wanted to set foot on a claim ever again. He knew how Mercer felt. Jaded.
They trundled along the track for another hour until a road branched off to the right. Through the trees, a bright yellow excavator was visible, its arm bending into the earth.
Draper pointed at it. “Up there, just drive up there, please.”
Mercer swung the car onto the track. It was well worn, in places crumbling away. It showed the signs of a season’s worth of mining traffic passing over it.
The track snaked through the trees. At some time it had probably been wide enough for two vehicles to pass but now there was only room for Mercer’s truck. The bank sloped steeply on either side, dropping down into thick undergrowth. If their vehicle went over the edge, they weren’t coming back up in a hurry.
Finally they came out into an opening; a great bowl, banked by dirt on almost every curve. It resembled an amphitheater. Mercer spotted the long cabin at the far end and drove toward it. The structure was the only building on the plot. Everything else was hidden behind the treeline.
“You know who runs this?” Mercer asked, turning off the engine.
Draper shook his head and climbed out. “No. I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”
“About?” They stood between Mercer’s truck and the cabin.
“Maybe they know something about the dead guy.” Draper banged on the door and waited. “Someone knows who he is,” he added.
There was no reply to another bout of knocking so Draper tried the handle. The door opened slowly.
“Can I help you fellas?” A voice came from behind and they both spun around.
A man several years younger than both of them stood a few feet away. He looked to be in his late twenties and was tall and skinny. His hair was an unruly shock of curls the same color as Puckett’s – blond, almost white. He scrutinized both of them.
Draper stepped forward with his hand out. “Scott Draper and this is Ray Mercer.”
The man took their hands and shook them in turn. His expression remained wary. “Joey Lewis. What can I do for you? We had an inspection last week so you can’t be from Fisheries.”
Draper smiled. Inspections were a pain in the ass. He was glad nobody had come up to inspect him, although they still had time.
“We’re up at Black Pine Creek. Thought I’d come and visit my neighbors.”
Lewis nodded slowly, the realization of who he was speaking to dawning on him.
“You’re the guy from Delta Junction, right?
”
Draper’s heart sank. He expected another comment from Lewis but instead he pointed at the open door. “Come in, I’ll make us some coffee.”
*
“No, not as good as I’d hoped.” Draper answered a question from Lewis about the land at Black Pine Creek.
“We’ve had some problems down here too. Some of it’s been off the charts and some it’s been the worst dirt I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it.”
“Same up there,” Mercer said. “Drill holes are consistent throughout but the gold just isn’t there. Couple of off the chart days would suit us down to the ground right now.”
They sipped their coffee. The building was multipurpose just like theirs. At one end was a canteen and pool table and at this end was Lewis’s work space. His charts were laid out on the desk.
“First season up here?” Draper asked.
Lewis shook his head. “Third,” he replied. “And last.”
That was what Draper wanted to hear.
“Did you meet the men who worked Black Pine a couple of years ago?”
“Never actually met them. Saw them taking all that gear up there though. They must’ve spent some serious dollar.”
“It’s still got the shine on it,” Mercer said. “Couldn’t have done much with it once they got it up there.”
Lewis shrugged. “That I can’t say. I looked it over last summer, saw it all there. I was interested in it for a while. Until...”
Mercer finished his sentence. “Until you heard who owned it.”
Lewis laughed. “Yep, pretty much. Dave Burgess isn’t the easiest man to do business with.”
“Tell me about it,” said Draper. “I think we found one of them.”
“Who?” Lewis looked confused.
“The crew who worked Black Pine,” started Draper. “Locked in a storage container. Looked like suicide.”
“Jeez,” Lewis hissed. “What did the cops say?”
“Now that’s where the fun starts.” Mercer drained his cup. “By the time they got there, the body was gone.”
“We think a wolf took him.”
“Nasty. Not had any down here, couple of brown bears wandered through last week but not seen any wolves up here this year.” Lewis paused. “Or any year we’ve been here. You spoke to Burgess about it?”
Draper tapped his pocket. “Been trying to get hold of him.”
“I’m surprised you got signal all the way up there. It’s patchy down here.”
“We haven’t. We were in Chicken last night so I tried from there.”
“One of your men come back early, yesterday?”
Draper looked at Mercer. They both shook their heads.
“No. Why?”
“Someone driving like a fool nearly wiped out one of my boys on the track down there. Someone driving a truck same color as a canary.”
“Not one of ours,” Mercer said.
“Whoever it was, he was heading up to Black Pine Creek and he was in a hurry.”
Draper thought for a moment. When he’d met Burgess in Haines it had been dark but even under the parking lot lights, his truck had been bright. If Burgess was up at the claim, it would also make sense why he couldn’t be reached.
“Could be Burgess.” Draper turned to Mercer who rolled his eyes.
They stood up and shook hands with Lewis again. Before they climbed back into Mercer’s truck, Lewis stopped them.
“I hear the weather’s coming in later this week. Don’t get caught out up there.”
“It is?” Draper asked.
“So they say.” Lewis waved and walked back to the cabin.
“Best go and face the music,” Mercer said and winked.
21
Puckett’s voice went through Vinson like a knife, jerking him out of an uncomfortable half-sleep. They were back. A day early. Not that it mattered especially. He’d been up most of the night walking back to the claim. There hadn’t been a moon to speak of and his flashlight had failed a mile or so back along the track. He walked the rest using whatever night vision God had given him. As it turned out, that wasn’t a hell of a lot.
Still, he’d made it back in one piece and even managed to wash the blood off his skin in the creek. The water was cold, damn near freezing, and it had stung his flesh but it felt like a good, deep cleansing. He was glad to be rid of the stench. Burgess smelled as bad on the inside as he did on the outside.
All the way back he’d felt eyes on him; piercing his skin, driving through him, looking inside him. And yet he hadn’t felt afraid. Well that wasn’t quite true, he had been terrified initially, but the feeling soon departed. Something had tracked him all the way back, staying back in the shadows, in the darkness, pervading its foul reek through the air. But it hadn’t attacked him, threatened him or done anything to suggest it was hungry. No, he felt regarded by it and nothing more than that.
It had been a shame to get rid of Burgess’s truck but there was no other way. The truck was new but the inside smelled of stale cigar smoke. It was so strong it almost made his eyes water. Someone else who didn’t know how to look after things properly, who didn’t appreciate how good they had it.
In hindsight, he probably should have driven the truck farther away before getting rid of it. Nevertheless it rolled down the bank, through the trees and hit something solid at the bottom of the hill. Something that stopped it dead. There was no way anyone would find it and even if they did, he was in the clear. Without a body, there was no evidence Burgess had ever been there.
He sat up and yawned. Sooner or later someone was going to knock on his door. He felt calm but would they know what he’d done? Would they be able to see it in his eyes? He shook his head. It was a stupid thing to think. Of course they wouldn’t. They weren’t interested in him anyway.
He dropped off the bed. Could he smell cigar smoke? No, that was just in his imagination, not real. He looked out of the window. The smiling face he’d drawn was now warped beyond recognition. Long bloody threads hung from it like dried snot but nobody would know what it was.
Burgess had gone fairly easily in the end. His body had been taken away even easier but the image of his face pressed against the glass – the bloody, pleading, terrified eyes and the open mouth in a silent scream – had been with him every step of the way back last night. That hadn’t frightened him either. He drew the image from his mind’s eye and examined it in intricate detail. He had never seen terror like that before. He wondered if his own expression had been similar when Bluenose held the drill and threatened to trepan him. It was a powerful and alluring image to carry around.
He reached into his pocket and held the nugget. This was what pushed him on last night. The gold was what drove the doubts away, out of his mind and back into the shadows. The gold was all that mattered.
He still didn’t know what he was going to do with it, but he knew he was never going to let it out of his possession again. And that, he knew, would bring about some serious problems. Draper had left it in his van, and Vinson was the only man here when it went missing. There would be no prizes for guessing who had stolen it. He couldn’t take them all on in one go. No, he had to distract Draper for a few days. The man had already forgotten where he’d put it once, it wouldn’t be difficult for that to happen again. Maybe he’d be so hungover this morning he wouldn’t remember anything about it.
Vinson opened the locker, located the false backing where his jar was safely concealed, and put the nugget inside. It was safe again.
*
Draper expected to see the bright yellow truck parked up on the claim. He was relieved to see that wasn’t the case but knew that wasn’t the end of it. He would have to drive back down the track at some point in the next couple of days and try Burgess again. Perhaps it wasn’t him who had been here after all. He discounted the thought. Things weren’t as easy as that this year.
He climbed out and stretched his back. Flynn and Meg’s trucks were parked up under their campe
rs again. He could hear them through the open door of the saloon. Puckett seemed to be back up to full speed. His voice carried the farthest and the loudest.
“Wonder who it was?” He turned to Mercer, setting off toward the noise.
Mercer shrugged. “Inspector?”
“Could be,” he replied. “Let’s see if Vinson had any visitors.”
They stepped inside. The smell of coffee was pungent. Puckett was frying eggs on the stove top.
“Feeling better, Puckett?” Draper asked.
“Never better, boss. Want some?”
Draper shook his head.
“He threw up three times on the way back.” Flynn winked at him.
“Because you were driving like a fool,” Puckett said and turned to Meg. “You were behind us, you saw him. He hit every corner at fifty and drove through every damn hole he could find.”
Meg bit her lip and shook her head. “Looked okay to me. You need to wipe my windshield, Luke. It’s got last night’s dinner all over it.”
It didn’t escape Draper’s notice that she called him by his first name. Nobody called Puckett ‘Luke’. He doubted whether his own parents called him anything other than Puckett.
Vinson was sitting at a table with Flynn. Draper sat on the opposite side of the table.
“Mike, how’s it going?”
Vinson stirred his coffee but didn’t look up. “Good, thanks.”
“Miss us?” he asked.
“You weren’t gone long enough to miss.” He looked up. “Haven’t got much done, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for holding the fort. The fuel’s coming in later so we cut the vacation short.” He nodded at Puckett. “Not sure he could’ve managed another night anyway. He didn’t look quite so chipper first thing.”
Vinson just nodded and looked down at his coffee.
“Any problems?”
“No. Same old.”
It was like talking to a lump of bedrock. “What about visitors?”