Forty Acres: A Thriller

by Dwayne Alexander Smith

  Jesus, exactly how old is this mine? Martin wondered. A day ago when Damon mentioned that there was an old working gold mine on the property, Martin assumed that the mine would be a fairly modern operation. He pictured shaft elevators, conveyor belts, maybe even a few dump trucks. Martin never imagined that he’d be hiking down a ramshackle hole that could have come straight out of the Old West.

  The passage doubled in width as Damon and Martin arrived at another guard shack standing before a formidable steel wall. The wall cut off access to the deeper sections of the mine like a big steel plug. It had no windows or view ports, just one reinforced door at its center. A white number two was painted on the door. The guard shack was twice as big as the one up top and appeared to be far more sophisticated. Martin noticed several bundles of electrical cables that ran from the shack and disappeared through the steel wall, headed toward some destination deeper in the mine. Martin came to the conclusion that the windowless structure had to be the nerve center for the entire mine. This was confirmed when the door swung open and Roy stepped out. For the brief instant that the door remained open, Martin spotted another man inside the shack seated at a bank of surveillance monitors and a tall rifle rack loaded with weapons.

  Roy, with his unshaved face and a stogie clamped between his teeth, didn’t look like the other guards. He didn’t dress like them either. There was no firearm hanging from his hip, just a walkie-talkie, and instead of wearing all black, he sported jeans and a stained blue sweatshirt. Printed on the front of his shirt in big, bold letters was the unlikely phrase Obama Is My Homeboy. Martin couldn’t help wondering what Roy’s homeboy would think of Roy’s chosen occupation.

  Roy plucked the cigar from his mouth and raised his walkie-talkie. “I got ’em. We’re all good.”

  “Copy that.”

  Wearing a big smile, Roy held his arms out wide, and his deep voice boomed off the walls. “Welcome to hell, my brothers. My name is Satan and I’ll be your tour guide today.”

  Damon greeted Roy with a warm hug. Roy turned and pulled Martin into a hug next. “Just so you know, I’m not really Satan. It’s Roy Cooper. I’m in charge down here.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Martin Grey.”

  Roy snorted. “Shit, I know who you are. You’re the brother who beat the unbeatable Damon Darrell at his own game.” Roy goaded Damon with a mocking smile.

  Damon scoffed, “As you can see, the foul air down here has affected his mind. Roy’s been running this mine forever.”

  “Thirteen years, four months, and three days,” Roy said with a swelled chest. “My little way of making a difference in this fucked-up world.”

  “Nice shirt,” Damon said.

  Roy grinned. “Yeah. I’m convinced that our work at Forty Acres is a major reason why brother Obama slam-dunked it. Good shit ripples out, you know?” He glanced at his watch. “Shit. We should get going. It’s almost noon and I’m sure you guys didn’t come down here to see the slaves eat lunch.” Roy ushered them over to the door in the steel wall and unlocked it with another four-sided key. He pushed the door open but paused before walking through. “I forgot to ask. If either of you are armed, you have to leave your weapon here. No guns allowed beyond this point.” Martin and Damon both assured Roy that they were unarmed, then followed him through the door.

  The mine tunnel funneled back to its narrower proportions as the trio followed it downward into the earth. The grade began to increase sharply and Martin found himself leaning backward and reaching for the wall to maintain his balance. They encountered several more overturned mine cars, including a few that impeded the passage and had to be climbed over. Occasionally Martin spotted other relics on the cave floor. An old dented bucket, a broken pick handle, even a small pile of dust that held the distinct shape of a boot. “Exactly how old is this mine?” Martin asked.

  “Old,” Damon replied with a laugh. “Close to two hundred years, right, Roy?”

  “Close, but no cigar.” Roy frowned at the fading embers of his spent stogie, then tossed it away. “All this goes back to around 1829. There was a big gold rush back then.”

  “I’m no history expert,” Martin broke in, “but I’m pretty sure the gold rush was in California in the 1840s.”

  “You’re talking about the gold rush of 1849. That’s the most famous gold rush that took place in the United States. But there were others. Ever hear of Reed’s gold mine in North Carolina?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Not really. Gold was struck there in 1799. That’s considered the first real gold rush in the United States. The second was in 1829. That’s when these tunnels were dug—and all by slaves.” In reaction to Martin’s quizzical look, he added, “Don’t tell me you think that slaves were only used to pick cotton.”

  Whenever Martin thought of American slavery, the standard image of Africans stooped over in cotton fields always came to mind. Of course it made perfect sense that slaves would have been used for even more arduous tasks, he just never gave the subject much thought. “Of course not,” he said. “I just didn’t know that slave labor was also used for mining in the South.”

  “Oh shit yeah,” Roy said. “Slaves were used for every fucked-up job imaginable. And believe me, there were a lot of fucked-up jobs back then. Mostly they were forced to work the coal pits, but slaves were used in all sorts of mines, including gold mines like this one.”

  “How did Dr. Kasim come to own it?”

  “The mine was shut down right after the Civil War. It was just abandoned for over a hundred years. Then Dr. Kasim came along.”

  “I’ve heard Dr. Kasim say that the reason he built Forty Acres here is because of the mine,” Damon added.

  “But if the mine was abandoned,” Martin said, “doesn’t that mean that the gold had run out?”

  “Damn right,” Roy said with a laugh. “I doubt they’d leave money just sitting in the ground.”

  Martin’s brow furrowed. Either Roy wasn’t making sense or Martin had missed something. “But if there’s no more gold to be mined,” Martin asked, “what are the slaves digging for?” He saw Roy and Damon exchange an amused glance, but neither man volunteered an answer.

  “Just wait until we get to the dig,” Roy said. “It’s easier to explain if you see it for yourself.”

  They continued their trek farther and farther down the tunnel. The dank air grew colder and somehow the tunnel seemed quieter. Martin felt a chill. He wasn’t sure if it was the dropping temperature or his rising fear. The idea that he could be walking willingly to his grave entered his mind, but Martin held back paranoia with reason. If they were onto him and planning to kill him, why bother with the history lesson?

  The grade became even steeper and Martin wondered how deep into the earth they were. Oddly, the light in the tunnel seemed to grow dimmer the deeper they went, but the frequency and size of the lamps remained constant. Martin could not remember passing even a single blown-out bulb. He decided that there was nothing wrong with the light. Nerves were just playing tricks on him.

  Martin noticed that, strung up in one corner of the cave’s roof, the neat bundle of cables that originated from the upper guard shack still ran along the length of the passage. Then in the opposite corner of the roof he noticed something odd. There was another cable trailing away into the depths. But unlike the bundled cables, which were mostly black and white, this orphaned cable was bright red. Otherwise it looked exactly like the others. So why go through the trouble of stringing this cable up separately? And why so far apart from the other cables? Before Martin could raise the question, they reached a fork in the tunnel. The left branch continued downward while the right branch appeared to level off. Roy explained that he’d quickly show them the slave quarters, which were just a few yards away down the right tunnel, before taking them farther down to the actual dig. He led them through another thick, steel-plated door into a low-ceilinged chamber.

  The approximately nine-hundred-square-foot space was not a natural cav
ity; instead it had been dug out of the earth and shored up with wooden planks that were now sagging and cracked. In spots the wounds in the wall bled loose soil. The dirt floor was crowded with what looked like human nests. Dozens of filthy bedrolls and blankets, each with its own pile of meager relics from the slaves’ former lives—wallet photos of children, broken watches and jewelry, even a pocket Bible. Shielded video cameras were mounted in each corner so that even while they slept, the slaves were kept under constant surveillance. And then there was the stench. Martin struggled hard to conceal the horror he felt over the meager living conditions, but he could not disguise his revulsion at the foul odor that infected the room—a dense, living human funk that stung his eyes like ammonia. Martin and Damon both raised the collars of their shirts to cover their nostrils but Roy showed no reaction as he moved farther into the room and began to speak. “When the slaves are not digging in the mine, they’re kept here. Everything they need is in this room.” He pointed to a screened-off section of the room. “Back there, there’s toilets and even a place for them to wash their clothes. All their meals are taken in the mine, so there’s no need for cooking or storage. Every day after they do their fourteen hours in the mine, they get two hours of free time, then it’s lights-out and a good night’s sleep, and then it starts all over again. Sundays are half days and they get Christmas, Dr. Kasim’s birthday, and Martin Luther King’s birthday completely off.”

  As Martin listened, the words that Roy uttered when he first emerged from the guard shack echoed in his head: Welcome to hell.

  “Do they ever get any sunlight?” Martin asked. He regretted the question as soon as he saw the stare it drew from Roy. Damon also appeared flummoxed.

  “Sunlight?” Roy said with a snort. “Hell no! They lucky they got lightbulbs in this goddamned pigsty.” Roy glanced at his watch again. “Come on, let’s get down to the dig.”

  As they were exiting the room, Martin spotted something that made him pause. That strange red cable again. It was strung up flush in the corner between the walls and the ceiling and ran around the entire room. He tried to spot a termination point but there was none. The cable entered the room through a hole over the doorway, circled the room, then disappeared back out the same hole. What the hell?

  Roy led Martin and Damon back to the fork, and then they all started down the left tunnel. Martin had begun to track the mysterious red cable after exiting the slave quarters, and now he was continuing to track it as they descended toward the dig. The isolated red cable was strung up along the roof of the cave everywhere he looked. Martin had failed to notice the strange cable in the first tunnel before they reached gate two, but he had a feeling that it was there. Something told him that that oddball red cable, whatever its purpose, ran throughout the entire mine. Martin was hesitant to ask about it for fear of raising suspicion, especially after his sunlight question, but his curiosity still gnawed its way to the surface. He directed the question to Roy. “I see this place is wired up with cameras and electric gates, but tell me something: what’s that red cable for?”

  Roy stopped in his tracks and turned to face Martin. “Why would you ask that?”

  Martin shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks different from the other cables. It’s isolated, and it seems to be everywhere.”

  Damon stared up and down the tunnel at the red cable, his eyes puzzled. “Son of a bitch. I never noticed that before. What is that?”

  Roy teased Martin and Damon with a mysterious smile. “I don’t know if I should tell you guys. Might freak you out.”

  “Quit screwing around,” Damon said. “What’s it for?”

  “Mr. Lennox had it put in recently,” Roy replied. “He called it an extra level of security.” Then Roy lowered his voice as if he were afraid someone might overhear him. “Ever hear of Primacord?”

  Damon shook his head but Martin felt a sudden chill race through him. “That’s a type of explosive, isn’t it?”

  “That’s an affirmative,” Roy said in a manner that, to Martin, seemed way too casual for talking about high explosives. “The whole mine is wired with it, top to bottom. The plan being that if something goes wrong, ka-boom! No more evidence.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Damon said, with a measure of alarm. “You mean we’re walking around inside a fucking bomb?”

  “No need to worry,” Roy said coolly. “Primacord is very stable. It has to be detonated just so, and that can only be done from two places. The office at gate two and the main house. Trust me, it’s perfectly safe.”

  “I sure as hell hope you’re right,” Damon said. Then he addressed Martin. “Like I told you, around here they take security seriously. Maybe a little too seriously.”

  Martin said nothing as they resumed their descent. He knew speaking then would expose his true emotions. Damon, meanwhile, was anxiously glancing at the red cable, and Martin realized that Damon’s concern was not for the dozens of people who would be murdered if the mine imploded; Damon was solely concerned about himself. It troubled him that despite spending so much time with Damon during the last three months, he had never realized that Damon, like the other members of Forty Acres, was a monster.

  A murky green glow bathed the tunnel directly ahead, and now Martin could hear the distant clank of steel pounding stone. A moment later Roy led them into a large open cavern illuminated by harsh work lights. Along the perimeter of the cavity about a dozen shackled workers pecked at the stone wall with pickaxes. Another team of workers shoveled the dirt and rocks into wheelbarrows and carted the load over to a massive rock-crushing machine, where several more workers panned the resulting coarse soil in several troughs of clear, running water. Martin estimated that there were about three dozen slaves in all. Mostly men, but a few women as well. Their emaciated bodies were draped in the soiled and ragged remains of whatever clothing they had had on when they were abducted. One slave wore a tattered Star Wars shirt, another a dirt-caked John Deere ball cap.

  Martin wanted to learn where these slaves came from and how they were captured, but he worried that probing too deeply too soon could make him look like he was gathering evidence instead of simply asking innocent questions. Damon had already made it clear that the most sensitive details of the compound’s operations would only be revealed to him “when the time is right.” So Martin decided that for the time being, he’d keep his questions light. Just scratch the surface for now, then later, after the initiation, after he’d gained their trust, he’d dig deeper.

  Six big guards armed only with steel spring batons patrolled freely, barking at faltering slaves to keep up the pace. A few of the slaves attempted to steal a glance at the strangers who had just entered their work area and were promptly warned, “Keep your white asses working!” Directly in the center of the space stood a steel bell-shaped structure with several gun slots. To Martin it looked like a mash-up of an igloo and an armored truck. “What is that?” he asked, pointing.

  Roy smiled as if he were just asked to demonstrate his favorite toy. “We call it the death dome. There’s a man inside there armed with an AA-12 assault shotgun, the most powerful handheld weapon in the world. If things ever got out of order in here, he could fix it real quick, if you know what I mean.”

  Martin stood studying the work flow of the mine. He watched the digging, the carting, the crushing, and finally the panning. Martin was hardly an expert on mining, but it did appear as if they were looking for gold, despite Roy’s saying the mine had been abandoned a century before. Why would anyone abandon a gold mine if it was still bearing fruit? He turned to Roy. “So if they’re not digging for gold, what exactly are they digging for?”

  Roy screwed up his face. “Well, that’s kind of a tricky question.” Roy led Martin over to one of the water troughs, where a balding man, about forty years old, was busy filling his pan with a fresh load of ground soil. They watched as he submerged the pan in water and began to shake and swirl it around, gradually separating the light soil from the heavier sediments.
The slave was a master at this task, and soon just a teaspoon’s worth of black soil remained at the bottom of the pan. The slave used his fingers to sift through the dark soil; finding nothing, he frowned, washed out the pan, and then turned to scoop up another load of dirt.

  “Ned, stop work and turn around,” said Roy.

  “Yes, sir,” Ned replied with a feeble voice. He put down his pan and turned toward them but kept his eyes trained on the ground. His face was nonexpressive except for his eyes, which were full of misery.

  Roy pointed to Martin. “This is Mr. Grey, your new master.”

  “Hello, sir,” Ned said, without looking up. It was obvious that, unlike the house slaves, the mine slaves were not allowed to look their captors in the eye.

  “Find anything today?” Roy asked.

  “Yes, sir. Doing pretty good so far.”

  “Show Mr. Grey.”

  Roy picked up a small white plastic jar, about the size of a cold cream jar. He twisted it open and handed it to Martin. Inside the jar there were just a few tiny flecks of gold, none larger than a grain of rice. “So then,” Martin said to Roy, his voice still uncertain, “they are mining for gold.”

  Roy paused. He raised his hand, then turned to Ned and ordered him to get back to work. Martin handed Ned back the white jar and said, “Thanks.” The kind word made Ned pause as if he were basking in a fleeting spring breeze. He picked up his pan and continued working. Roy led Martin and Damon out of earshot of the slaves before finally supplying Martin with an explanation.

  “You see, the people who used to run this mine didn’t shut down because the gold ran out. They shut down because they reached a point where the gold ran low. Once the cost of digging is greater than the value of what comes out of the ground, it’s time to pack up and leave. So yes, technically the slaves are mining gold, but they only find a few ounces a year. Not even enough to keep them fed. Gold is not what’s important here.”