Beyond the gate, the mine entrance was shaped like a hangar, about twenty feet high (6 m) and fifty across (15 m). The tunnel itself was wide enough for two ore cars to pass each other on parallel tracks, plus a catwalk along both walls. The air was chilly and damp. Fifteen or so yards in (14 m), a section of ceiling was braced with treated timbers. Beehymer shined his flashlight along it.
“There’s only a few spots that need cribbing on account of loose rock. This mountain is basalt, Chististone limestone, and Triassic Nikolai Greenstone, so the tunnels hold up pretty well on their own.”
Beehymer played his light along bare copper wires hanging from the ceiling. “I wired the place for power. We passed by the generator on our way in, but it looks pretty shot.” He wet his index finger with spit and raised it over his head. “Feel that breeze? There’s ventilation shafts throughout the levels and a main air shaft that goes all the way through to the other side high on the mountain. Air flows through here continuously by convection, so I never had to worry about foul air.”
An alcove on the left opened to a large, warehouse-sized chamber carved out of the rock. “This used to be a full machine shop when it was a copper mine. There’s still some machines that work, or worked the last time I was here, but I mostly used the room as a graveyard to park old, useless stuff.” He swept the space with the beam of his light, momentarily illuminating a clutter of steam drills, pipes, a portable boiler, compressors, a forge, and other metallic hulks of unknown purpose. “It was all coal and steam in those days.”
At a wide spot further along the tunnel, a second tunnel branched off and climbed a shallow gradient. “There’s three levels all told. We’re on the main one, which goes on for another half mile or so. Powder storage room and mess hall are that way. Up this ramp are the other levels.”
Beehymer led the way up the ramp, which doubled back in a broad curve. “Summer and winter, the air temperature stays pretty constant at thirty-eight degrees (3 C). I suppose if the government ever gets its claws on it, they’ll want to store cheese here.”
They visited a chamber on the second level that was so large that it dwarfed the machine room. It was so broad and so high that their puny flashlights couldn’t reach the walls or ceiling. “This is where they found their mother lode. After it petered out, it was pretty much all over for them.”
After exploring the second level, Beehymer led Poppy to the third. “Plenty of dead-end shafts and tunnels and pits hereabouts. Some are unstable. This ain’t no place to let kids run around in, but I wanted to show you one more thing. I think you’ll be impressed.”
The tunnel floor was wet there, and a little rivulet of spring water ran in a culvert chipped along one wall. Throughout the tour Poppy had let his host do all the talking, but when they entered the final chamber, he gasped and exclaimed, “Father God Almighty, all praise to You.”
“It’s something, ain’t it?” Beehymer said. “Over seven million gallons, as best I can calculate, of the sweetest, cleanest, coolest spring water you ever tasted. Go ahead, try it.”
Poppy knelt down on the rocky lip of an underground lake. He dipped his hand into the water, not to taste it, but to bless himself in thanksgiving.
THE PROPHECY FAMILY journey had been long, and every member had borne hardships and doubts with a trusting heart. Poppy had almost lost faith along the way, but Father God had come through in the end, as He always did. Although they were only renters, there was no doubt in any Prophecy mind that Father God intended for them to take dominion over the mine.
And so, when Beehymer returned unexpectedly less than a month later with the news that he had decided to sell the mine and that they might soon have to vacate the premises, they took it surprisingly well.
“Not right away,” Beehymer added, afraid they’d misunderstood him. “And the new owners might let you stay on anyway, as caretakers or something. So there’s no cause to panic just yet.”
“We’re not panicking,” Poppy said. “We’re giving praise.”
“Uh, what for?” Beehymer asked, truly puzzled.
“We’ve been praying that you’d sell us the mine, and Father God answered our prayer.”
“Now just hold on there, pastor,” Beehymer said. “I’d gladly sell you the mine, but I doubt you can meet my asking price.”
“Which is?”
“One million dollars. With ten percent down.”
The astronomical figure didn’t faze Poppy. A number ten times as high wouldn’t have either. Their God was a mighty God. What was mere money to Him?
BY THE SUMMER of 2010, the world had endured two and a half years of the Great Recession, and though Beehymer advertised far and wide, few prospective buyers expressed any interest in a played-out copper mine. Unlike the town lots Beehymer owned, the mine property came with a U.S. mining patent, recorded in Washington, D.C., not Chitina, Alaska, and the title was solid enough to qualify for bank financing. At least it would have been in pre-recession times. Nevertheless, the only qualified buyer in the game was the National Park Service.
When the park superintendent heard about Beehymer’s intention to sell, she fired off letters, phone calls, and emails to her bosses in D.C., who lobbied Congress, which sat on its hands. The Secretary of the Interior testified about the rarity of such opportunities to reclaim large inholding tracts from private hands while at the same time extinguishing mining rights within a national park. Park Superintendent Rodgers enlisted the support of the Alaska delegation and conservancy groups alike in her campaign.
After much back-room dickering and arm twisting, the government encumbered enough money to at least partially meet Beehymer’s asking price. Superintendent Rodgers was cagey enough not to try to approach the land baron directly. Beehymer’s hatred for the park service was legendary, and Rodgers felt an indirect approach would have a greater chance of success. So she and headquarters worked out a secret deal with a major land conservancy organization, the Wild Lands Trust to act as an intermediary.
Orion Beehymer had no love for do-gooder, anti-development organizations like the WLT either, but at least they weren’t the government, and so he held his nose and looked at their offer, unaware that a sale to them would, after a bit of paper shuffling, turn his mine over to the feds. Meanwhile, whatever was compelling him to sell the mine in the first place was increasing in urgency, and though the WLT offer fell short of his expectations, all indications were that he would eventually ink the WLT deal.
However, Superintendent Rodgers had neglected to factor into her scheme the awesome power of prayer. The entire Prophecy family was on its knees day and night throughout the first week of Eighthmonth beseeching their Creator for the keys to Stubborn Keep.
On the ninth day of the month, the miracle happened. Alaska Governor Vera Tetlin announced a one-time Heating Cost Equalization payment to every resident of the state. The price of heating oil in Alaska had reached an all-time high the previous winter, exceeding $4.50 a gallon in urban areas and double that in the bush. Ironic for a state whose dominant source of revenue was from oil. Tetlin hoped to ease the pain on average Alaskans by paying every man, woman, and child a cool $2000. In addition, she combined this heating relief with the annual Permanent Fund Dividend payment, which was disbursed in October. The PFD was the portion of state oil revenues that then-Governor Jay Hammond decreed in 1976 should be shared directly with Alaska residents.
And so it transpired that on the morning of Firstday, the 25th of Tenthmonth, Mama and Poppy Prophecy showed up unannounced on the back porch of Orion Beehymer’s McHardy residence. They each bore a bundle. Orion invited them into the kitchen and made a fresh pot of coffee. Mama P’s bundle contained a platter of still-warm cinnamon rolls glazed with maple icing and sprinkled with chopped pecans.
They enjoyed an hour of small talk over their coffee and rolls. Then Mama P removed plates and platter, and Poppy lifted his bundle, a child’s backpack, to the table. Without a word he unzipped it, reached in, and pulled out a wrapp
ed $5000 bundle of hundred-dollar bills. He placed the money in front of Beehymer, reached in again, pulled out a second bundle, and stacked it on top of the first. He repeated this action until a tower of three hundred Benjamin Franklins teetered on the table.
Poppy paused to take a sip of coffee. The final state payout that year of the combined Heating Cost Equalization and PFD had totaled $3751 per resident. Multiply that by sixteen children and two adults, and Poppy continued stacking money until he had built two identical towers. Then he took another sip of coffee and a gander at Beehymer’s reaction.
Poppy started a third tower but built it only a third as high as the first two. He turned the backpack over and shook it out. It was empty. Seventy thousand cash dollars now stood on the breakfast table. Beehymer gazed at it for a long time. Eventually he tore his eyes away and said, “This is almost a down payment. But what about the rest of it? A million dollars; that’s my price. I’d rather sell it to you than anyone else I can think of. It would make me feel good to know that you and your precious family were out there. But there won’t be another PFD payout as rich as this year again. You can count on that. Where will my mortgage payments come from then?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Poppy said as though it were a trivial matter.
“Why shouldn’t I worry?” Beehymer insisted.
“Because it’s in Father God’s hands. It’s always been in His hands, from sending us up here to your taking us to the mine. Even this money is all part of His plan. He wants us to possess the mine. Why would He change course now? Have a little faith.”
“Excuse me if my own faith requires verification. But I’ll tell you what. I will take this as down payment, and I will work out a private mortgage arrangement, but only on one condition — you agree to an iron-clad reversion clause. If you fall behind in your payments, I have the option to summarily repossess the property, keep all your payments to date, and evict you. No foreclosure procedure, no court case, no muss or fuss. Fall behind and you’re out, and I’m back in.”
“Deal,” Poppy said, and they shook on it.
ON THE WAY home, flush with success, Poppy wondered out loud, “Just who is this governor, this Tetlin?” Until then, neither he nor Mama had paid much attention to politics. Now they made room in their prayers for a state governor.
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Sidebar: The Kitten of Our Discontent
KD1 1.0
Excerpted from the Liberty Frog Blog
ANOTHER REPORT FROM the Bizarro File about that government assault on innocent campers at Big Pine National Park with more details and perps’ names. The perps are E.P. Masterson, a ranger for the NPS, and Deputy Sheriff Lloyd Pattison from Apgar County Sheriff’s Department (although he says he was acting as a civilian and not in any official capacity). Seems that these two heroes of the nanny state took it upon themselves to stamp out a flagrant violation of the park’s strict nuisance pet rule. The pet in question was a 3-month-old calico kitten, whose name we have yet to uncover. The instigating incident, according to reliable witnesses in neighboring campsites, occurred at approximately 2 a.m. when two young campers, J.A. and J.J., both from Portland, were making sweet love in their tent. Though they took great effort to muffle their lusty cries of hot-blooded ecstasy, the frenzied rubbing together of their nylon sleeping bags broadcast their activity to the whole campground and was probably what set their kitten off in the first place mewing like a house on fire.
We don’t know if anyone climaxed before Masterson and Patterson launched the raid with ear-piercing blasts from a marine horn and blinding lights from their 4-wheelers. They rousted the couple from the tent with nightsticks — Show me your hands! Show me your hands! — and forced them to lie face down in the dirt. The boy was completely naked except for a condom dangling from his limp organ. The girl wore a cotton t-shirt but was bottomless. The boy was screaming too — Show me your badge! Show me your badge!
But witnesses say there were no badges in sight. The two officers had entered the campground in plain clothes and failed to identify themselves as law enforcement. And they were driving non-official 4-wheelers. The only answer the boy got to his demand was a swift kick to the kidney and zip cuffs. The girl went berserk and started wailing for help. Masterson crouched down to scream in her face to shut the blank up, you sick blank. When that and cuffs didn’t calm her down, he maced her at point-blank range in the eyes and mouth.
Deputy Patterson reportedly stood to the side during much of this and let his partner do the peacekeeping, but he did jump in to help when Ranger Masterson arrested the kids on charges of public indecency, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, as well as the original charge of violation of being in possession of a nuisance pet.
Here is the regulation in question taken from the NPS website:
— Allowing a pet to make noise that is unreasonable considering location, time of day or night, impact on park users or frightens wildlife by barking, howling, or making other noise is prohibited.
This last charge had to be dropped when further investigation of the tent failed to produce the kitten, who had wisely fled during the melee.
The rest of the charges were dropped the next day and the miscreants released with a warning. They immediately launched a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s dept. and the NPS. We wish them well in this.
But there’s a happy ending. Someone recovered the missing kitten and returned her to her owners. Saucers of milk all around!
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Sidebar: The Man in the Skiff
MS1 1.0
An American Maverick
Copyright © 2009 by Vera Tetlin
Little Brown Jug Publishers
New York
Chapter Six — The Way Forward (excerpt)
WHEN I RETURNED to Alaska in November 2008, after John’s and my “thumpin’ at the polls,” I was exhausted, depressed, and confused. It was more than losing the White House to the Democrat party that got me down. Golly, I know how to lose with grace. That’s one of the lessons that school athletics will teach you. No, it was more than that; I was experiencing a full-on crisis of faith. And I was angry too. As self-centered as it may sound, I felt like God had set me up to knock me down. “Why, Lord,” I would pray, “if You didn’t intend for me to be vice president, why did You open that door if You didn’t want me to charge through it?”
Bradd understood my pain, but he chalked it up to the stress of the national campaign. “You’ve been going non-stop since September,” he told me. “No wonder you’re worn out. Take a breather. People will understand, and you earned it.”
Good advice, but not very practical when you’re the sitting governor of a state as dynamic as Alaska. In fact, my detractors in Juneau were already complaining that I had been away on the campaign trail for too long and had left the state “rudderless.”
Here was something else I didn’t understand. When I accepted the VP nod at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis only a few month earlier, my voter approval rating in Alaska was at a staggering 85%. It meant that Alaskans from all political persuasions approved of the changes I spearheaded in the first year of my administration. And what was not to love? In that short amount of time we crushed the good-ol’-boy Republican Corrupt Bastards Club and ushered in a new era of bipartisan ethics reform. We broke the chokehold that Big Oil has had on our state politics since the first well was drilled in Prudhoe Bay, and we replaced its sweetheart tax structure with a clear and equitable formula for maximizing Alaska’s share of the returns. It’s our oil, after all; the oil giants might pump it, but they don’t own it. We also hammered out a framework for bringing North Slope natural gas south to energize the economies of both our state and the nation. We privatized the state-run dairy and put it on sound financial footing. And we broke ground for the new, privately owned state prison.
These were major accomplishments, and I was justifiably proud of them.
Yet, when I returned after the election, it was as thou
gh all of it had been forgotten. During the heat of the campaign, the national lamestream media had hurled buckets of hyper-partisan mud at me. Had my fellow Alaskans taken their lies for fact? The usually cordial Alaska press corps grew confrontational. My return also spurred the haters to spread new lies about me and my family. They took advantage of our reformed ethics laws to file a string of bogus ethics complaints against me. Some of these complaints were laughable, and all of them were false, false, false. Without exception they were tossed out of court, but in the meantime they compounded the stress I was under. And because the law required me to mount my own legal defense, my family was drowning in attorney fees. By June 2009, we were over a half-million dollars in hock to the lawyers. This bloodletting could not continue.
Things came to a head one day when my closest advisor, Kris Derry, made an offhand remark to me during a teleconference. She said, “At least we don’t have to worry about another campaign till you run for re-election.”
I was puzzled. We had never talked about taking another swing at national office. But then I realized she was talking about the next gubernatorial election.
But a second term as Alaska’s governor was the last thing on my mind. I wasn’t even sure I was capable of making it through my first term, which was less than half over at that point.
Kris’ innocent remark threw me into a tailspin, and for the next several weeks it was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning, let alone fire up enough enthusiasm to run a state.
I prayed, of course. Boy, did I pray. But looking back, I’m sure it sounded to the saints more like a three-year-old whining, “Why? Why? Why?” Finally, it got to be too much, and all I wanted was the whole mess to go away. Bradd knew what I was going through as much as anyone could, and he promised to stand by any decision I made, but even he was surprised on July 1, when I told him I was going to resign my office as governor. He insisted I give it some more time and offered to pray with me, but my mind was made up, and that very evening we broke the news to Taiga. She was as surprised and upset as her father. But it was my decision to make, and I made it. End of story.
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