“So she’s the one who gave you the brochures?”
She looks back down at a faded pamphlet entitled The Homestead Mine—Staking a Claim in Our Future. “I just thought I should read up on it. That’s okay, right…?”
There’s a faint noise by the stairwell door. Like a crash.
“What was…”
“Shh,” I say.
We both check the breezeway, following the sound up the walkway. The stairwell’s at the far end. No one’s there. There’s another crashing sound. That’s when we see the source of the noise. An ice machine dumping ice. Just ice, I tell myself. It doesn’t make me feel any calmer. “We should…”
“… get out of here,” Viv agrees.
We head for our respective doors. Four minutes of ironing later, I’m dressed to go. Viv’s already waiting outside, her head once again buried in one of the old tourist pamphlets.
“All set?” I ask.
“Harris, you really gotta look at this place—you’ve never seen anything like it.”
I don’t need to read the pamphlet to realize she’s right. We have no idea what we’re getting into, but as I run up the walkway—as Viv chases right behind me—there’s no slowing us down. Whatever Wendell’s digging for, we need to know what’s going on.
From the stairwell, Viv and I rush out into the Gold House’s main lobby. Even considering the time, it’s emptier than I expected. The front desk is vacant, the soda machines have black tape over the coin slots, and the USA Today vending machine has a handwritten sign in it that says, Buy newspapers at Tommy’s (across street). Looking out onto Main Street, we see the signs in every window. Out of Business, it says at the gas station; Lost Lease, it says at Fin’s Hardware. Naturally, my eyes go straight to the barber shop: Gone to Montana—God Bless.
Across the lobby, I spot a metal display rack filled with the tourist brochures Viv picked up. See How a Real Gold Bar Is Made! Visit the Leed Theater! Explore the Mining Museum! But from the faded, yellowed paper, we already know the museum’s closed, the theater’s shut down, and the gold bars haven’t been seen in years. It was the same way when I had to clean out the house after my dad passed. Sometimes you can’t bring yourself to throw stuff away.
When we were heading here, I thought I’d be in my element. I’m not even close. This isn’t a small town. It’s a dead one.
“Pretty sad, huh?” a female voice asks.
I spin around, and a young woman with short black hair enters the lobby from the back room and steps behind the front desk. She can’t be more than twenty-five, and while her complexion identifies her as Native American, even without it, her high cheekbones would be a clear giveaway.
“Hiya, Viv,” she calls out, wiping some sleep from her eyes.
I shoot Viv a look. You gave her your name?
Viv shrugs and steps forward. I shake my head, and she steps back. “I’ll go check on the kids,” she says, moving for the front door.
“They’re fine,” I say, refusing to let her out of my sight. She’s already said enough. The only reason we should be talking to anyone is because we need information, or help, or in this particular case, some last-minute directions.
“Can you tell us how to get to the Homestead mine?” I say as I head for the front desk.
“So they’re reopening it again?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” I counter, leaning an elbow on the front desk and fishing for info. “Everyone seems to have a different answer.”
“Well, that’s what I hear—though Dad says they still haven’t talked to the union.”
“Have they at least been throwing some business your way?” I ask, wondering if she’s seen anybody in the motel.
“You’d think they would… but they got it all in trailers up there. Kitchens… sleeping quarters… everything. I’m telling you, they get an F in making friends.”
“They’re probably just mad they couldn’t find a Holiday Inn,” I say.
She smiles at the jab. In any small town, everyone hates the chains.
Studying me carefully, she cocks her head to the side. “Have I seen you before?” she asks.
“I don’t think so…”
“You sure? Not at Kiwanis?”
“Pretty sure. I’m not really from the neighborhood.”
“Really? And here I thought all the locals wore slacks and button-downs.”
I pull back the slightest bit. She’s starting to warm up, but that’s not my goal. “Listen, about those directions…”
“Of course. Directions. All you gotta do is follow the road.”
“Which one?”
“We only got but one,” she says, tossing me another grin. “Left outta the driveway, then a sharp right up the hill.”
I smile instinctively.
With a quick hop, she boosts herself over the front counter, grabs my arm, and leads me to the door.
“See that building… looks like a giant metal teepee?” she asks, pointing up the mountain to the only structure on top. “That’s the headframe.”
She immediately reads the confused look on my face.
“It covers the mine shaft,” she adds. My look stays the same. “… also known in some circles as the big hole in the ground,” she explains with a laugh. “It protects it from bad weather. That’s where you’ll find the cage.”
“The cage?”
“The elevator,” she says. “I mean, assuming you wanna go down…”
Viv and I share a glance, but neither of us says a word. Up until this point, I didn’t even think that was an option.
“Just follow signs for The Homestead,” the woman adds. “Won’t take you five minutes. You got business up there?”
“Not until later. That’s why we figured we’d check out Mount Rushmore first,” I explain. “How do we get there?”
It’s a pathetic bluff, but if Janos is as close as I think, we at least need to attempt to hide the trail. As she gives us directions, I pretend to write them down.
When she’s done, I wave good-bye and head for our Suburban. Viv’s right next to me, shaking her head. “Is that on purpose or is it just natural?” she finally asks as we pull out of the parking lot.
“I don’t understand.”
“The charm thing: leaning into the counter… her swooning at the small-town flair…” She stops a moment. “Y’know, who we are now is who we always were and who we’ll always be. Is that how you’ve always been?” she asks.
The Suburban swings wide around a sharp right turn, pinning me against my door, and Viv against the armrest. As we weave our way up the hill, we’re focused on the two-story triangular building that sits on top. Turning the final corner, the trees disappear, the paved road ends, and the ground levels off and turns rocky. Up ahead, a space the size of a football field spreads out in front of us. The ground’s dirt, flanked by some jagged rock outcroppings that circle the entire field and rise about twenty feet in the air. It’s as if they shaved off the top of the mountain and built the flat encampment that’s directly ahead of us.
“So you have any idea what we’re even looking for?” Viv asks, studying the terrain. It’s a fair question—and one I’ve been asking myself since the moment we stepped off the plane.
“I think we’ll know it when we see it,” I tell her.
“But with Matthew… you really think Wendell Mining were the ones who had him killed?”
I continue watching the road in front of me. “All I know is, for the past two years, Wendell has been trying to buy this old middle-of-nowhere gold mine. Last year, they failed. This year, they tried to cut through the red tape by sliding it into the Appropriations bill, which according to Matthew, would’ve never gotten anywhere—that is, until it showed up as the newest item up for bid in our little Showcase Showdown.”
“That doesn’t mean Wendell Mining had him killed.”
“You’re right. But once I started digging around, I find out Wendell not only completely forged at least one of the lett
ers endorsing the transfer, but that this wonderful gold mine they supposedly want doesn’t have enough gold in it to make an anklet for a Barbie doll. Think about that a second. These guys at Wendell have spent the last two years killing themselves for a giant empty hole in the ground, and they’re so anxious to get inside, they’ve already started moving in. Add that to the fact that two of my friends were killed for it and, well… with all the insanity going on, you better believe I want to see this thing for myself.”
As we pull toward the edge of the gravel-covered makeshift parking lot, Viv turns to me and nods. “If you wanna know what the fuss is, you gotta go see the fuss yourself.”
“Who said that, your mom?”
“Fortune cookie,” Viv whispers.
At the center of the field is the teepee-shaped building with the word Homestead painted across the side. Closer to us, the parking lot is filled with at least a dozen other cars, and off to the left, three double-wide construction trailers are busy with guys in overalls going in and out, while two separate dump trucks back up toward the building. According to Matthew’s report, the place is supposed to be abandoned and empty. Instead, we’re staring at a beehive.
Viv motions to the side of the building, where another man in overalls is using a mud-covered forklift to unload a huge piece of computer equipment from the back of an eighteen-wheeler. Compared to the muddy forklift, the brand-new computer stands out like a Mack truck on a golf course.
“Why do you need a computer system to dig a giant hole in the ground?” Viv asks.
I nod in agreement, studying the front entrance to the triangular building. “That’s the hundred-thousand-dollar question, isn’t—”
There’s a sharp tap as a knuckle raps against my driver’s-side window. I turn and spot a man with the filthiest construction hat I’ve ever seen. He puts on a smile; I hesitantly roll down the window.
“Hiya,” he says, waving with his clipboard. “You guys here from Wendell?”
34
SO WE’RE DONE?” Trish asked, sitting back in her chair in the House Interior Committee’s hearing room.
“As long as you have nothing else,” Dinah said, shuffling the thick stack of loose pages together and drumming them into a neat pile on the long oval conference table. She wasn’t thrilled to be stepping in for Matthew, but as she told her other office mates, the job still had to be done.
“No, I think that’s—” Cutting herself off, Trish quickly flipped open her three-ring binder and shuffled through the pages. “Aw, crap,” she added. “I just remembered… I got one last project…”
“Actually, me, too,” Dinah said dryly, thumbing through her own notebook but never taking her eyes off her Senate counterpart.
Trish sat up straight and stared back at Dinah. For almost twenty seconds, the two women sat there, on opposite sides of the conference table, without saying a word. Next to them, Ezra and Georgia watched them like the spectators they usually were. Samurai standoff, Matthew used to call it. Happened every time they tried to close the bill. The final grab at the goody bag.
Dinah tapped the point of her pencil against the table, readying her sword. Even with Matthew gone, the battle had to go on. That is, until someone gave up.
“My mistake…” Trish finally offered. “I was reading it wrong… That project can wait till next year.”
Ezra smiled. Dinah barely grinned. She was never one to gloat. Especially with the Senate. As she well knew, if you gloated with the Senate, they’d always bite you back.
“Glad to hear it,” Dinah replied, zipping her fanny pack and standing up from the table.
Enjoying the victory, Ezra hummed Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah under his breath. Matthew used to do the same thing when his office mate would come in and throw around her weight. Someone’s in the kitchen I knoooow…
“So that’s it?” Georgia asked. “We’re finally finished?”
“Actually, Matthew said you should’ve been finished a week ago,” Dinah clarified. “Now we’re in a mad scramble with a vote at the end of the week.”
“The bill’s on the Floor at the end of the week?” Trish asked. “Since when?”
“Since this morning, when Leadership made the announcement without asking anyone.” All three of her colleagues shook their heads, but it really wasn’t much of a surprise. During election years, the biggest race in Congress was always the one to get home. That’s how campaigns were won. That and the individual projects Members brought home for their districts: a water project in Florida, a new sewer system in Massachusetts… and even that tiny gold mine in South Dakota, Dinah thought.
“You really think we can finish Conference in a week?” Trish called out.
“I don’t see why not,” Dinah replied, lugging the rest of the paperwork to the door that connected to her office. “All you have to do now is sell it to your boss.”
Trish nodded, watching Dinah leave. “By the way,” she called out, “thanks for taking over for Matthew. I know it’s been hard with everything that’s—”
“It had to get done,” Dinah interrupted. “It’s as simple as that.”
With a slam, the door shut behind her, and Dinah crossed back into her office. She was never one for the falsities of small talk, but more important, if she’d waited any longer, she might’ve missed the person who, as she looked across the room, was waiting so patiently for her.
“All set?” Barry asked, leaning against the short filing cabinet between Matthew’s and Dinah’s desks.
“All set,” Dinah replied. “Now where do you want to go to celebrate?”
35
YEAH… ABSOLUTELY… WE’RE from Wendell,” I say, nodding to the big guy in overalls standing outside our car window. “How’d you know?”
He motions to my button-down shirt. Under his overalls, he’s sporting a Spring Break ’94 T-shirt with neon orange letters. Doesn’t take a genius to know who’s the outsider.
“Shelley, right?” I ask, reading the name that’s written in black magic marker across the front of his banged-up construction helmet. “Janos told me to say hi.”
“Who’s Janos?” he asks, confused.
That tells me the first part. Whatever’s going on down there, these guys are just hired hands. “Sorry…” I say. “He’s another Wendell guy. I thought you two might’ve—”
“Shelley, you there?” a voice squawks through the two-way radio on his belt.
“ ’Scuse me,” he says, grabbing the radio. “Mileaway?” he asks.
“Where you at?” the voice shoots back.
“They got me up top the whole day,” Shelley says.
“Surface rat.”
“Mole.”
“Better than deep-level trash,” the voice shoots back.
“Amen to that,” Shelley says, shooting me a grin and inviting me in on the joke. I nod as if it’s the best mining barb I’ve heard all week, then quickly point to one of the few open parking spaces. “Listen, should we…?”
“Uh—ya… right there’s perfect,” Shelley says as the guy on his two-way continues talking. “There’s gear in the dry,” Shelley adds, motioning to the large brick building just behind the metal teepee. “And here…” He pulls a key ring of round metal tags from his pocket and undoes the latch, dropping four of the tags in my hand. Two are imprinted with the number 27; the other two have the number 15. “Don’t forget to tag in,” he explains. “One in your pocket, one on the wall.”
With a quick thanks, we’re headed for our parking spot, and he’s back on his radio.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Viv asks. She’s sitting up slightly taller in the seat than yesterday, but there’s no mistaking the way she stares anxiously in her rearview mirror. When I was listening to Viv’s conversation with her mother, I said that strength had to be found from within. The way Viv continues to eye the rearview, she’s still searching for it.
“Viv, this place doesn’t have a single drop of gold in it, but they�
�re setting up shop like that scene from E.T. when the government shows up.”
“But if we…”
“Listen, I’m not saying I want to go down in the mine, but you have any better ideas for figuring out what’s going on around here?”
She looks down at her lap, which is covered with the brochures from the motel. On the front page, it reads, From the Bible to Plato’s Republic, the underground has been associated with Knowledge.
That’s what we’re counting on.
“All my friends’ dads used to mine,” I add. “Believe me, even if we do go in, it’s like a cave—we’re talking a few hundred feet down, max…”
“Try eight thousand,” she blurts.
“What?”
She freezes, surprised by the sudden attention. “Th-That’s what it says. In here…” she adds, passing me the brochure. “Before it was closed down, this place was the oldest operating mine in all of North America. It beat every gold, coal, silver, and other mine in the country.”
I snatch the brochure from her hands. Since 1876, it says on the cover.
“They’ve been shoveling for over a hundred and twenty-five years. That’ll get you pretty deep,” she continues. “Those miners who were trapped in Pennsylvania a few years back—what were they at, two hundred feet?”
“Two hundred and forty,” I say.
“Well, this is eight thousand. Can you imagine? Eight thousand. That’s six Empire State Buildings straight into the ground…”
I flip the brochure to the back and confirm the facts: Six Empire State Buildings… fifty-seven levels… two and a half miles wide… and three hundred and fifty miles of underground passageways. At the very bottom, the temperature gets to 133 degrees. I glance out the window at the road beneath us. Forget the beehive. We’re standing on an entire ant farm.
“Maybe I should stay up here,” Viv says. “Y’know… sorta just to keep lookout…”
Before I can respond, she glances back to her rearview. Behind us, a silver Ford pickup pulls across the gravel, into the parking lot. Viv anxiously eyes the driver, checking to see if he looks familiar. I know what she’s thinking. Even if Janos is just touching down right now, he can’t be far behind. That’s the choice: the demon aboveground versus the demon below.
Gideon’s Sword Page 46
