Auraria: A Novel (8 page)

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Bogan grabbed Holtzclaw’s arm and pulled him back. Holtzclaw’s lantern revealed a pit large enough to swallow up an inattentive miner.

“I near fell in that one myself,” said Bogan. “I was pushing a different cart along here, moving some rock out of my way. Well, the track had bent whenever this hole was made, and I didn’t see that. The cart flipped over. I had the good sense to not fight it, to let it go. The whole mine cart just disappeared. I never even heard it hit the bottom. A big heavy thing like that, imagine! Not even a clatter.”

Holtzclaw kicked a rock over the precipice. It bounced twice off the sides of the drop. He stood listening for a minute, but no sound reported the depth.

“I leave that cart there to remind me about the hole. Sometimes you get sleepy down here. Only takes one mistake.”

Bogan edged past the cart on the opposite side from the pit. They turned down a side passage. Holtzclaw placed his hand against the wall to steady himself. Its surface was cool, slick, and damp.

“Is there a spring here?” asked Holtzclaw.

“Springs everywhere. Painter’s Creek running over our heads, down the side of Sinking Mountain. All the mountains here are filled with water. It’s because there’s a layer of some hard stone above us that this tunnel stays dry. The water’s got to find a different way to go. Where the water goes, that’s where the gold goes too.”

A fat drop of water fell from a crevice over head. It plopped plumply onto Bogan’s face, leaving him sputtering, and from there rebounded wondrously over the glass of the lamp, which guttered and fizzled in an instant.

“Mules take it!” cried Bogan, and there followed a terrible crash of metal clattering over rock. Bogan had tossed his extinguished lamp in frustration. He skittered after it.

“Sometimes, it’s just so hard, don’t you know?” said Bogan, out of the darkness.

Holtzclaw held up his lamp so that Bogan could relight his.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Bogan. “It’s a sickness of the deep. Us folks that don’t see the light so much, sometimes we get a little wrathy. Not that I’d really want to give up digging. That’s me, you see. I’m a digger, or a miner, I should say. But sometimes, that sickness. It just makes you think—it would be nice to spend some time in the sun.”

Holtzclaw nodded. “Perhaps I can help with that.”

“Well, I’d hope so. Have you seen enough yet to make me an offer on the scrap?”

“Let’s get on back to the realm of the light,” said Holtzclaw. “It’s a bit hard to write a contract down here, in the dark.”

A bit of bluster came back into Bogan. “The way I figure it, while I got you down here, I might get another few bucks as a tip,” he said. “You know, for being your guide. There’s the rails, six big pumps—I’ll keep the one nearest my diggings—ten mine carts, then the statue, the beds, the huts, the chandelier, all of those cups and pipes and troughs.” Holtzclaw raised an eyebrow at the mention of such variety. “You would think there’s not much down here, but every tunnel is filled with so many things. Glance up and down the big tunnel, and it might look empty. Look down the side passages, on the other side of the mine cart, and it’s like the shelves of a store.”

“There is another matter,” said Holtzclaw. “To bring all this selection up to the surface, I will need room on land. Space for a camp, a smelting and refashioning operation, even as a staging area for some other reclamation projects in the area.”

“So you want to buy the land too? Couldn’t let that happen. I have ten years of digging here.”

“I don’t mean to buy your diggings. You’ll retain the mineral rights. I need only the trees, or rather, the earth on which those trees stand.”

“Well, my stars, I didn’t know that you could just buy and sell the outside and leave the innards. I wouldn’t have bought all that up there. Empty lake? Scrubby trees? What do I care? If you want it, Mr. Holtzclaw, you can have it.”

Bogan held both lamps, which provided just enough light for Holtzclaw, bearing down on the rusted pump, to perform his tallies. Bogan argued over the prices Holtzclaw assigned to the various pieces of scrap, most of which Holtzclaw had not seen, but he said not a word against Holtzclaw’s price per acre for the surface land. Holtzclaw regretted not reducing his offer to offset the concessions he was making for scrap iron.

“And what about the mineral rights?” said Bogan. Holtzclaw appended a standard clause to the contract, asserting that any minerals to be discovered below the described property would remain the property of Bogan. It was a powerful clause not because of what it asserted, but what it lacked. The wording did not compel Shadburn to conduct any mining operation or even to let Bogan enter his tunnels.

Bogan and Holtzclaw began to retrace their steps out of the tunnels. “Did you see the bats?” said Bogan. “They always come back to the same place every year. If one is missing, it’s not because he’s found a new home.” Bogan held up his lantern three inches from a crevice. Inside was a small warm creature, softly breathing.

“You’re going to wake him up,” said Holtzclaw.

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

#

At the threshold of the outside, Bogan bid farewell to Holtzclaw and turned back into the mines. Holtzclaw stepped alone into the sunlight, then crossed over the rocky slope again to inspect his new lake and shake off the dank of the mines. The sun had traveled behind a high ridge of Sinking Mountain and its thick cover of trees, bringing a premature afternoon to the hollow. The cobalt blue water took on a deeper hue. It was an unusual lake, to be sure, but Holtzclaw was glad that the oddities in Auraria were not all eerie and unpleasant. Nature and dynamite had made a lovely work here. Neither could have done it without the other.

His next purchase was halfway back to town, and Holtzclaw was certain that it would not call for another underground excursion. On the plat map, the property was listed as a small farm containing a cabin, barn, and springhouse. As he neared, he was struck by a chill. The weather had turned cold; Holtzclaw wished he had brought an overcoat to guard against the wind. Strange, that an eastern exposure site should be cooler than its neighbors! The suddenness of the chill reminded him of the bathers from the previous night, but the air felt different. The teeth of the wind gnawed at his fingertips, and he shoved his free hand into his pocket. The other hand gripped the walking stick.

Holtzclaw reached a break in a split-rail fence that marked the property; the fence was rimed with frost, a remnant of cold dew. The ground was crisp, and a hundred paces onto the property, Holtzclaw slipped on snow.

The farm resembled a Currier and Ives winter scene, but without the human comforts. No roaring fires or sleds or roasting chestnuts. The roof of the farmhouse was layered with snow several feet thick, and its walls groaned under the weight. Only a few of the thickest tree branches remained intact, and even these bore a load of ice. A drift of snow had piled against the sides of the barn so high that one could have walked up on to the roof; a few chickens had done so, but now they were frozen ornaments. A lean mule roamed the farmyard, digging holes in the snow with a scrawny hoof.

Holtzclaw was dumbstruck. He pushed his gold-panning hat low down over his ears, which were already complaining of frost. He tried to turn up the collar of his traveling cloak, but it wouldn’t stay. Nothing in his wardrobe was suited to tundra in the Georgia mountains.

But he should have been prepared for it. A good traveler is prepared for anything, including the unseasonable weather that one may find in the higher elevations, sheltered coves, more northerly latitudes, and complex terrain of the mountains, which might conduct Arctic air this far south. This seemed an extreme example of such phenomena—and one nearly beyond belief—and yet Holtzclaw still should have been prepared.

Holtzclaw knocked at the farmhouse, but there was no answer. He braved the icy blasts and continued across the property, searching for the owner. The source of the cold was a small structure in a grove of ice pillars that had once been trees. He recognized this as a springhouse. Rural people, lacking iceboxes, dig down several feet around a spring, then build a small hut over their diggings. Inside are shelves filled with turnips, potatoes, apples, peaches, and other produce. Some even pack up winter ice in layers of straw. As long as the door of the springhouse is shut, the dark and damp conditions keep the food cool.

The door of this springhouse had a gaping hole in it. Holtzclaw could not approach to investigate. Looking at the springhouse was like turning toward the storm. A well-equipped polar expedition could come nearer, but Holtzclaw could not. He pressed on to find the owner.

The creek in the rear of the property flowed at a trickle among the ice-covered rocks. A reedy figure dipped a pan into the feeble flow, swirled its contents, and then tipped them out with disgust.

“It’s terrible weather we’re having, isn’t it?” said the man. “Name’s Moss.”

“Holtzclaw, delighted to meet you. The weather is peculiar to your property, Mr. Moss. Down in the valley, it’s a pleasant day.”

“Well, don’t that beat all. Seems like it’s been snowing hard ever since I can remember. It’s that springhouse, I reckon. Always cold in there, and I know I let it out. It’s that door. I’ll fix it someday, but I’m always too busy.” He held up the pan.

Realizing that the conversation was turning against him, Holtzclaw changed tactics, hoping to make a deal; the explanation and solution to this bizarre weather would have to wait. Holtzclaw gestured to Moss’s pan. “How’s your luck today?”

“Not so good right now. The funny thing about luck is that it likes to change on you. The more bad luck you get, that’s just the more certain you’ll get some good luck soon. The Five Forks Creek hasn’t given up all that it’s got.”

At the edge of the creek was a hole cleared in the ice. Moss scratched in it with clumsy blue-tipped fingers and loosened a few handfuls of half-frozen black mud, which he transferred to his pan and worked with practiced motions. But either the creek was overzealous in its work and carried away the gold downstream, or more likely, there was no gold to find in the black mud.

“I have a business proposition that you might consider a turn of luck,” said Holtzclaw. “Is there a warmer place we can discuss it?”

“I’m fine here,” said Moss.

“Yes, but I wasn’t prepared for a blizzard.”

“That’s a personal problem.” Moss was intent on his work.

Holtzclaw shivered again as he watched Moss dip another pan into the creek and wash its contents downriver.

“Do you care to hear my business proposition?” asked Holtzclaw.

“Will it cost me anything to listen?”

“Of course not. I would propose to buy from you, at a fair price, your farmlands and pay immediately in federal notes, or if you prefer, gold coins.” He spoke quickly, hoping to get back to more seasonable weather.

“Buy the farmlands? You want to get in before the harvest. We have a good crop of corn coming up this year.”

Holtzclaw had not seen any corn, frozen or fresh. “We can make allowances for future crop yields, structural improvements, and mineral rights.”

“You’d buy the gold still in the ground?”

“I haven’t seen any gold. But if you had other provable minerals, like coal or iron, those can be considered.”

“What do you need my farm so bad for that you’d just walk up and buy it?”

“It is a convenience, not a necessity. I deal in scrap metal, and we are excavating a few of the abandoned mines here in the Lost Creek Valley. To move the scrap, we need a right-of-way, and it would be easiest to run through the land of your farm.” It was nonsense, but it would have been more convincing if Holtzclaw’s teeth were not chattering.

Moss did not look up from his panning. “What do you think you’d pay for a place like this? Only because I’m curious.”

Holtzclaw began his ritual of tabulation. He may as well have been quoting tonnage rates on cotton or rainfall rates in the desert for all the impact that the figures had on Moss.

“I just couldn’t do it,” said Moss, interrupting. “One good strike here in the creek and I’d have half again as much as that.”

“You’ve been digging here for how many years? Five? Ten?” said Holtzclaw, his frustration rushing out. “And what have you found? I don’t even see how there could be gold here. Where would the vein be? How would it wash into the creek? Yet it doesn’t stop you from looking. Your crops are dead, your trees are bare sticks, your farm is frozen over because your head was so filled with saw dust that you couldn’t remember to fix the door on your springhouse. Here comes a rare chance, a piece of good fortune such as you haven’t had in all your years. I am offering you gold, man, gold! You can pretend that you found it digging and panning because it’s almost the truth. Instead, you tell me that you’re going to keep the property, all this ice and dirt, because you’ve found nothing.”

“Yes, that’s why I can’t sell. Because I’ve found nothing yet.”

Furious and freezing, Holtzclaw stormed away. Of all the owners that Holtzclaw had met, Moss should have been the most eager to sell his worthless frosted property. And the absence of gold was not evidence of a future reward—that’s the gambler’s fallacy. But Holtzclaw couldn’t persuade Moss by pointing out his irrationalities. Moss lived in the midst of one.