We followed the cable spikes and Chickie’s soil along the ridge. I watched for gouges in the earth that would say something was hauled along the cable line here, but any and all markings had been erased by days of rains.
We reached an intersection of sorts. Below, Cherokee Canyon dead-ended. Ahead, our ridge bent northeast and arched across the head of Disappointment Canyon to reach the drainage of the next canyon east.
Cable spikes led the way. Old road scars crisscrossed the canyon.
This new canyon, at its head, was broad where an alluvial fan spilled down between the framing ridges from an upper canyon I guessed at, but could not see. Below the fan, the main canyon narrowed as it descended the Funerals, its skinny body slipping into shadow. The canyon walls gleamed where rain had slicked outcrops of green and silver schists. Get enough rain and that skinny part looks like a flood waiting to happen. My eye traveled back upcanyon, just shy of the fan, and came to rest on the steep northeastern hillside. Pockmarking the flank were black-eyed hollows. Heaps of ore tailings spilled across the slope. Below, scattered across the valley, were the tumbledown workings of the mine camp.
“I got a name for this one,” Dearing said, arching his back. “They-Don’t-Pay-Me-Enough Canyon.”
We shifted into the routine.
Oliver and Dearing went first to secure the area. They followed the cable road down the canyon wall and across the valley floor to the mine camp. Now Oliver unholstered my Geiger counter and took the lead, sweeping the wand the way I’d taught him, the way Scotty taught me. Dearing looked more comfortable with his weapon. They sidestepped quartz tailings and rusting rail tracks. They probed collapsing buildings and an iron tank. Dearing peeked into a big stone oven, while Oliver disappeared into the rotting mill that climbed three stories up the hillside. Finally, they signalled, and Walter and I trudged down to the Town of Wood and Iron.
We sampled a patch of ground and found it not inconsistent with Chickie’s boot soil — good enough to want to sample the mine entrance.
There were three entrances, actually, climbing the hill. The lowest opened onto a long wooden ore chute, which dumped into the slope-hugging mill. The second was obscured by rubble, perhaps a past collapse. The third was deeply recessed, with overhanging outcrops like Walter’s eyebrows.
Cable roads made separate ascents to all levels.
We switchbacked up the steep hill to the sturdy ledge of the lower entrance. We ran the scenario: can he winch a trailer up here? Check. Can a telehandler, or some similar beast, fit into that tunnel? Check. Is there room on the landing to transfer a cask in and out of the trailer — and for tires to spin and spatter mud on the cask? Check. Check — this site fits the criteria, as did three other sites before it.
This was clearly the business entrance. Rail tracks came out of the tunnel and ran over the edge on an elevated bridgework that ended in mid-air. The way inside was barred by a locked gate. We’d brought the master Park Service key but it didn’t fit.
Oliver said, “Rangers could’ve changed the lock.”
Dearing said, “Or the perp did.”
They gripped their subguns while Walter and I sampled the soil, which proved inconclusive.
As we resumed the climb, it began again to rain.
The second-level entrance — once we’d skirted the rubble of the old collapse — was gated, locked, and inconclusive.
We switchbacked up. I scanned the valley below. Nothing moved but rainfall.
The topmost entrance was the most inviting of the lot, a horseshoe arch bored through blue-gray schist. I eyeballed the quartzite-schist soil and envisioned it attaching to the crevices in Chickie’s boots. Walter, already sampling, grunted. He liked it too.
My pulse quickened. If she indeed walked here, then how had she got inside? I moved to the gate inset in the tunnel walls. I took hold of a crossbar and leaned into it.
The gate swung open.
38
Walter shined his flashlight. “That’s worth a closer look.”
We stood at the open gate. His beam had caught a bull quartz vein, creamy and white, deep in the throat of the tunnel. Where the tunnel took a turn, a streak of silver intruded the white.
“Look all you want from here,” Oliver said. “Soliano says you don’t go in.”
Walter waved his flashlight. “I believe he meant, don’t go exploring. I don’t believe he’d say, don’t nip in there and collect a critical mineral sample.”
I said, “I’m willing to stipulate that’s a telluride.”
“You’ll stipulate? When the answer’s fifty yards away?”
I said, “We don’t have a gas detector.”
Walter shifted his beam to illuminate a shaft that cut through the ceiling like a stovepipe. “It’s ventilated.”
“I don’t care if it’s air-conditioned,” Oliver snapped, “you don’t go in.”
“Mr. Oliver,” Walter said, “my feet hurt. I’ve been running around all morning. So you’ll understand that I want to sample that vein, and if there is any justice to be had we will ID this place and turn it over to Scotty so he can clean up the damnable mess and we can go back to the Inn and soak our feet.”
“Amen,” Dearing said, lifting the toes of his boots.
Walter opened his pack and retrieved his headlamp.
I sighed and got out my own headlamp.
Oliver stiffened. “Hold on just a goddamn minute.” His obsidian face turned rock-hard. “Why am I here? I’m here because you’re looking for the mess. You go in there, I’ve gotta go too.”
Walter shook his head. “I’ll just nip in and out.”
“I’ve seen guys like you. They make it personal.”
Walter fitted his headband.
“You’re not the goddamn bad guy,” Oliver said. “You got nothing to do with the mess.”
Walter considered. “Strictly speaking, I do.”
“The hell’s that mean?”
I fitted my headband. It means Walter makes it personal. It means he’s Walter. I said, “He consumes power. Nuclear’s part of the nation’s power grid.”
Oliver just shook his head. He told Dearing, “Take the watch and call Soliano.” He switched on the flashlight built into the forward grip of his submachinegun. He shoved around Walter to take the lead. “So you wanna live in the Stone Age?”
No we don’t, I thought. They didn’t have French press coffeemakers and scanning electron microscopes in the Stone Age.
Or Geiger counters. I took it out, just in case. We’d brought it along because Scotty told us to monitor outside every mine and if the count rose above background to get the hell away. We hadn’t expected to be going into a mine, which was why we hadn’t brought hazmat suits. And even if we’d wanted to bring that heavy equipment we’d have needed a couple of RERTs to schlep it, and RERT was tied down at the Inn.
Well, we’ll just nip in and out.
We entered the tunnel, abandoning day for night. At first the rain-gray light seeped along with us but within a few yards it yielded to the dark. We traveled on three thin beams. My hair stirred as we passed the ventilation shaft. As we penetrated deeper into the tunnel, I glanced back. The entrance seemed to have shrunk, like the mine was shutting down for the day. Closing time, everybody home to soak their feet. I turned to peer ahead. Maybe half a minute to the bend, couple minutes to sample, then another couple to get the hell out. That Clementine song started up in my head. In a cavern, in a canyon.
“Here we are,” Walter said.
Oliver pointed his light and his ammo uptunnel while Walter inspected the silver-flecked vein and I sampled a stretch of thin ground soil. I did not take the time to search for grains of sylvanite in the decomposed quartz. I did think mechanics. Chickie comes in here with wet boots and wet soil plugging the waffle soles. She is a walking glue stick.