Mountain Rampage (23 page)

The plastic bag weighed down Chuck's hand.

“In fact,” Elaine went on, “that's exactly the process by which
gold becomes recognizable to the human eye. Over eons, air seeping through fissures into mountains oxidizes gold in its impure form, turning it into a black, slag-like material. The slow leaching action of water over millions of years turns that black slag into pure gold.

“The silver miners above Ouray unwittingly exposed just such a mixture of tellurium ore and gold to oxygen when they dumped the tailings down the mountainsides. The mixture went through the next steps of the process—oxygenation and leaching by rain and snow—in the years after the mines were abandoned. The first discovery of a large deposit of calaverite was in California in 1868. That was several years after the Pikes Peak gold rush petered out. Most prospectors were long gone, but the timing happened to be perfect for Walsh, who was still on the hunt, and still keeping up on the latest findings in the mining world. As soon as he crumbled that first handful of abandoned tailings between his fingers in Yankee Boy Basin, he recognized it for what it was.”

“Gold,” Chuck said.

Elaine pointed at the black material. “It looked just like that.”

Chuck hefted the baggie. “But this never has been exposed to the outdoors.”

She gave him time to figure it out.

“Oh,” he said. “Right. There's no need for sunshine. Just air. Oxygen.” He closed his eyes, remembering the current of air that flowed constantly into the mouth of the mine, as if drawn by a fan.

“I suspect,” Elaine said, “that the vertical shaft you told me about has helped speed up the process. I'd be willing to bet there's a fissure in the mountainside somewhere below the horizontal tunnel. Outside air flows into the tunnel and down the shaft and exits out the lower fissure. Essentially, the mine is one big air convector.”

“You think the shaft was gray-walled all the way to its bottom at first?”

“It couldn't have been dug if the stuff was as loose and crumbly as you say it is now.”

“But something made them turn and dig vertically.”

“They probably were following a small vein of pure gold ore that eventually played out.”

“When, in fact,” Chuck said, “the last of the pure gold died away into calaverite—that is, into gold in its less-refined state.”

“According to what I learned while poking around online this morning, that stuff you've got in your hand is probably ten percent gold.”

He held out the bag. “
This?
”

“Add cyanide and it leaches right out—which is exactly what Walsh did in Yankee Boy Basin. He bought up the old claims for the whole valley, hired the best miners in the area by paying them double what anyone else was paying, and set to work. In its day, Walsh's Camp Bird Mine was the most productive gold mine on earth, and it stayed that way for years.”

“A mother lode,” Chuck said.

“Made of coffee grounds.”

Elaine smiled, but Chuck did not. He looked down at the black crumbles that had hidden a skull all these years, with a bullet hole straight through from front to back.

T
HIRTY
-E
IGHT

Someone had been killed for the black, crumbly grounds in Chuck's hand. That much was obvious. The hole in the forehead was the smooth entry of a bullet fired from at least a few feet away; a shot from point-blank range by someone committing suicide would have resulted in a fractured entry point.

The homicide was a cold case—very cold—but it deserved investigation nonetheless.

The skull was stowed in his pack in the back of the truck. He looked across the parking lot at the Estes Park Police Department. Should he head over there right now and report his discovery?

As soon as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer: Of course not.

In the midst of the homicide investigation, there was no telling what Hemphill would make of Chuck's showing up with news of a gold strike and evidence in hand of yet another murder. The skull had waited, undiscovered, for a long time. It could wait a little longer.

Elaine waved her hand to catch his eye. “I'm still here.”

“I…I…,” Chuck stuttered, blinking himself back to their conversation.

“You don't sound very excited.”

Chuck shook the baggie. “You're the one who said this stuff's got bad juju attached to it.”

“I was joking,” she said, though something in her voice said she wasn't. Not entirely.

“What more do you know about the Cassandra Treasure that you haven't told me?” he asked.

She pinched the crease in one of the legs of her pantsuit and tugged it into place. “I called someone,” she admitted. “When you first showed up.”

“If there's something you know, I need to know it,” Chuck said. “I
deserve
to know it.” He held out the Ziploc. “That's why I brought you this.”

“I dated him when I first moved to town,” Elaine said. “You'd be surprised what this old girl can get up to.”

“I'm not sure I want to know.”

“It didn't last long; we wore each other out in no time. He's a mature guy, like me, from one of the oldest mining families in the area. His people worked claims all around here.”

“And you called him because…?”

“Because of your story. I hadn't thought about the Cassandra Treasure since the girl came in asking about it way back when. But you got me thinking—what if it was true?”

“You thought this guy might know something?”

“He answered right away, like he'd been waiting for me to call.” She smirked. “I have that effect on people.”

“You didn't tell him anything, did you?”

“Your secret's safe with me. I just said I'd had someone come into the library asking about this thing called the Cassandra Treasure, and wondered if he knew anything. He said he hadn't thought about it for decades, not since the fifties, when he was just a boy.”

“The 1950s?”

“That was the last time any real mining activity was going on around here. He said there was all this talk of a big strike by somebody or other back then, but no one seemed to know anything about it, and finally the talk just died away. He figures that's where the rumor of the treasure came from.”

Chuck furrowed his brow. Nothing seemed to fit. “That's all?”

Elaine shrugged. “As far as the mine's concerned.”

It took him a moment. “The slaughtered rams?”

“You asked me to do some thinking about that, too.”

“I'd almost forgotten.”

She tapped the side of her head with her finger. “Not me. You did a good job, as far as you got with your thinking.”

“That whoever's doing it is a park regular?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

She took her cigarette from her mouth and held it up between her thumb and forefinger, watching the smoke curl from its tip. “We all rotate through the library,” she said, lowering the stub. “Two hours at a time, from the research desk to the children's desk to the front desk. Last night, after you left, I moved to the front desk for the end of my shift. There's a view of Elkhorn Avenue out the front doors. It occurred to me that anyone who regularly enters and leaves the park is going to have to drive up and down Elkhorn, too.”

Chuck pressed his lips together. Elaine was right. “It's the only route through town.”

“I watched the traffic and thought through the various vehicles that pass by the front of the library,” Elaine went on. “I tried to figure out which ones would go on into the park for whatever reason.” She dropped her cigarette into the can at her side and looked down at it longingly. “It took me a while,” she said, raising her eyes, “but I figured it out.”

Chuck held his breath.

“Jake's.” Elaine quoted the words stenciled on the doors of a vehicle Chuck had seen in the park several times over the course of the summer: “
Only Wrecker Service in Estes Park
.”

“Of course,” Chuck said. He nearly dropped the baggie. How could he not have come up with the answer on his own?

He'd passed cars stalled on the side of Trail Ridge Road numerous times throughout the summer because their oxygen-deprived engines, tuned for sea-level driving, couldn't handle the high rate of speed that inexperienced, flatland
drivers demanded of them while ascending the highest paved through-road in North America. The result was a shortwave radio call for aid by a passing ranger followed by a visit from Jake's wrecker service.

Chuck stood and clapped Elaine on the shoulder. “That's got to be it.”

Elaine beamed. “I'll leave it to you to pass that information along to the right people.”

Chuck nodded. He would—soon enough.

“But first,” Elaine said. She arched an eyebrow at the baggie in his hand. “A few backpack loads of that stuff, before you tell the rangers, would make you a very wealthy man indeed—and no one would ever have to know.”

Chuck stepped back. “Don't tell me you're looking for a handout.”

She raised her shoe with the three-inch lift attached its sole. “Do I look like I'm in need of a pile of money to run away somewhere and live the high life?” She settled her foot back on the pavement. “Nope. I already have everything I want.”

“I have everything I want, too.”

“Maybe you should give it a little time, just to be sure.” A corner of the librarian's mouth twitched. “You have to promise me one thing: that you'll think long and hard about that little girl of yours. You and I both know she deserves the best.” Elaine paused, then said, “Who's going to pay her medical bills?”

“Rosie? What are you talking about?”

Elaine took hold of her cane, her knuckles turning white. “I don't mean to be nosy,” she said, “but I couldn't help overhearing. After your wife delivered the bag to me, your little girl asked her if they were going to the hospital next, to see her doctor.”

T
HIRTY
-N
INE

Chuck drove straight to the medical center, fighting the unreasonable fears Elaine's comment had unleashed in him. Logic said all was well with Rosie—he'd received no text from Janelle. Nonetheless, he couldn't help punching the gas as he drove across town.

He spotted the pickup parked in the hospital's visitor parking lot. Gregory's SUV was nowhere to be seen. Chuck slotted the van into a space and marched across the pavement.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the four of them upon rounding the corner of the hospital building. Janelle, the girls, and Gregory sat at a window table in the hospital's ground-floor cafeteria. The edge of the table rested against a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass overlooking a small, street-side courtyard. Janelle and Gregory sat opposite one another, the girls beside them. Carmelita, next to Janelle, nudged a balled-up paper napkin around her cafeteria tray with a plastic spoon. Rosie nestled beside Gregory, her shoulder pressed against the doctor's beefy bicep.

Rosie was the first to catch sight of Chuck. She leapt from her chair, a picture of health, and waved frantically at him through the plate-glass window.

Chuck stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Gregory caught his eye and froze, a paper cup halfway to his mouth. Janelle twisted in her seat and glowered at Chuck. Rosie glanced at her mother and returned to her seat.

Chuck squared his shoulders and resumed his approach, entering the cafeteria through a side door.

It was past one o'clock. The room was quiet, most tables empty after the lunchtime rush.

He couldn't help but notice how natural Janelle looked with the young physician. Chuck touched a finger to one of his
sideburns, where gray hairs sprouted. More than once, in the months since he'd become the girls' stepfather, strangers had told him how cute his granddaughters were.

Gregory, wearing blue hospital scrubs, rose from his seat with his hand outstretched. “Chuck, right?” They shook. “Here, let me pull up an extra seat for you.”

While Gregory grabbed a chair from a neighboring table, Janelle fixed Chuck with an icy glare. When he shrugged in self-defense, her glare turned icier. Gregory returned with a straight-backed chair. Chuck nosed it up to the end of the table between Janelle and the doctor. The tabletop was littered with the remains of their meal. How long had Janelle and Gregory been relaxing and talking here together?

The doctor cleared his throat. “I was just telling Janelle, er, your wife, uh, how well Rosie's doing.”

Chuck nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”

“Do you think…would you like to grab some lunch? This place is pretty popular. Good prices, great food.”

“No, thanks.”

Gregory swallowed. “So, what brings you downtown?”

“Errands.”