“Is that all?”
Well that answered that. He’d already seen it. And it wasn’t enough. Okay then, I’d make it enough. “Somewhere around here, Henry, you’ve got hornfels intersecting an auriferous channel. Maybe near the existing tunnel, maybe a deeper or parallel channel. Maybe somewhere out here.”
Henry listened.
Walter jumped in. “That’s right, Henry. The channels were laid down in different ages. You can have later channels intersecting earlier channels, channels occupying different positions laterally as well as in elevation — all in the same general area. You understand the geology, son?”
Henry shifted his fevered gaze to Walter. “Not like you do.”
“Nevertheless, you’ve had a couple of days to look around.”
Henry said, “A couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks?
Walter and I exchanged a look. Had we misremembered Robert’s story, back at the lab? I could have sworn Robert had told us that his father died a month ago, and then a week later he and Henry got together to go through their father’s things. Which was when they’d found the ore specimen in the attic. And then — two-plus weeks after that—Henry had gone off hunting, leaving the so-called suicide note.
Robert had not said what Henry was doing in those two-plus weeks in between finding the rock and setting out to find the source.
Shit.
Robert gaped at his brother. Surprised as we were.
Henry stared back.
“Hey Bro,” Robert said, finding his voice. “What the hell?”
“What the hell,” Henry echoed.
“You want me to put two and two together?” Robert looked at the sky, looked at the ground, taking the time to do the math, struggling to catch up. And then he faced his brother. “Well shit, Henry, looks like that equals four. You went looking for the source right after we found the rock. Right? And you found it. You found this place. You spent a couple of weeks at it. And then three days ago you went home and left me a note and half the rock and then you took off again. You left me clues and expected me to follow.”
“You followed,” Henry said.
“Damn straight I did.”
“You found me.”
“How could I miss? I read you loud and clear. Found the bandana on the hike in. Smelled the mountain misery — you build a little campfire up top? I assume kicking the rocks over the edge was an accident. And then down in the pit, I found the dime. I played it out. And then that flask in the river. I understand. It’s all cool, Henry. I’m here now. I’m listening to you.”
“And I’m listening to you,” Henry said.
I thought, this is isn’t going anywhere good.
“Why didn’t you just talk to me, Henry? That day in Dad’s attic. We could have talked.”
“No we could not.”
“Meaning what? We need to play games to talk?”
“That’s how we roll.”
Robert gave a short laugh, a bark. “Where’d you pick up that phrase?”
“From the movies.”
“It’s a little cliched. I wouldn’t use it if I were you.”
“How should I talk, R?”
“R?”
“You call me Bro, I call you R. It’s cool.”
“You’re playing games with my head, Henry.”
“That’s right.”
“So what’s this game called? Bro.”
“It needs a name.”
“How about brothers?” Robert said.
“That’s good.”
“How does it start?”
“You apologize.”
‘No problem,” Robert said. “I apologize.”
“Do you know for what?”
Robert said, “For whatever I did to offend you.”
Henry’s hands began to shake. He shook out his arms, gun bobbing in his clenched fists like a jackhammer. He pressed his hands back onto his knees and steadied himself. Steadied the gun. He repeated, “Do you know for what?”
“I just said I…” Robert lifted his own hands, spread them wide. “Sure, I know. For being a bully of a big brother. All the times I put you down.”
“That’s when we were kids.”
“I don’t recall being a shithead to you as an adult.”
“Do you know for what?”
Robert said softly, “Not just being a bully. Enabling you to mess around with the mercury. I’m truly sorry Henry.”
“That’s when we were kids.”
Robert blinked. “Then I don’t know what you want me to apologize for.”
“Think.”
“If I was a shithead as an adult, I apologize for that too. We good?”
Henry didn’t answer.
“Henry,” I blurted, “your brother came to us to help you.”
Henry turned to me. “Thank you Cathy.”
And then he looked beyond me, beyond us all, to the hillside that bordered the mine works canyon.
17
I looked where Henry was looking. Thinking, what’s over there?
I’d come down that way, following the sluiceway path down the slim canyon from the mine works — albeit on the opposite side of the sluiceway. Seems that canyon now deserved a name. Sluiceway Canyon. Up top, I’d found the hornfels. Down here, in Notch Valley, the hillside met the high southern wall that caged the valley and rose to a ridge far up above.
I stared hard but could discern nothing remarkable about that hillside.
Henry stood and, with his gun, urged us to stand.
It seemed we were going to find out what was over there.
He steered us to the bottom of the sluiceway where the climb upcanyon began. This was the side without an established path, and the ground was rough. We carefully hiked a short distance and then Henry turned us to walk toward the hillside. We halted just short of it. The footing was uneven, the slope gradient noticeable.
We stood in a line, ducks in a row, me at the uphill end, Henry at the downhill end, with a fine position in which to cover us with his gun.
I examined the hillside. Now that I was facing it straight-on, I saw that its gravelly face appeared to have been eroded, perhaps by a hidden spring, some long-ago finger of flowing water. Indeed, a shallow trough ran out of the cavity and cut the slope between Walter and Robert. The cavity itself looked to be about twenty feet deep and twenty wide and ran a good twenty feet high. It was nearly overgrown by vegetation. It looked like a grotto. It looked like a good place to hide.
It looked, actually, like the miners had claimed it as a storage space. Old timber was piled in there, castoffs from the sluiceway.
Robert spoke. “Got a pile of dimes in there, Henry?”
“No.”
I shifted. What, then? Not certain I wanted to know.
“It’s under that… That…” Henry frowned.
“Bracken,” Walter said.
“Bracken,” Henry repeated.
I didn’t know if this was another word Henry had forgotten or if he simply didn’t know the proper name. I would have just said fern. Tufted ferns sprouted in crevices on the back wall of the grotto. It was a day for ferns, lacy mountain misery and spreading bracken and I could live happily for the rest of the day without encountering another variety of ferns.
“Look under the bracken,” Henry said. He added, “R.”
Robert didn’t move.
Henry adjusted the aim of his Glock so that his brother was squarely in his sights.
Robert Shelburne gave a shrug, as if he had no real worries — no expectation, certainly, of finding anything of note in there under the cover of the ferns. Gold nugget, snake, turkey baster. Whatever. Robert strolled over to the grotto and stepped inside.