by Troy Howell
Would it be on the news?
What should I do next?
The longer I stayed in the tub, the more anxious I became, until, with the grime barely gone and some cuts still oozing, I got out. Marlene had taken the rest of my clothes, too, so I put on the terry robe she’d provided. It was thick like a winter robe, smelled slightly of mothballs, and had a red heart stitched on the front. The fit surprised me: It could not have been Marlene’s and it certainly wasn’t Max’s. Maybe they kept it on hand for guests. Or maybe it was Marlene’s when she was a girl.
Standing, dripping in the hallway, I called to her.
No answer.
“Max?”
I could hear the washer going from somewhere in the house. I could also hear the TV in the living room, giving the weather for the Teller County region.
Should I try to retrieve the jacket—and the gold— or use the phone again? It was probably too late for my jacket. I would use the phone first.
As I came into the living room, Max came in from the kitchen.
“That was quick,” he said.
“I need to call them again.” I said.
“Help yourself.”
I picked up the phone, dialed, and got the same message.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” said Max, who came and sat on an arm of the couch, leaning toward the TV. “At first, I thought you’d been struck by a hit-and run driver; then I thought … well, I won’t say. Then with the jacket and all …”
It was the “all” I didn’t like the sound of. But I didn’t ask. The local news was on. A reporter was talking. The jacket would have to wait. I stood fixed to the screen.
The reporter—a woman who looked as if she’d spent all week in Chic Hair ’n’ Nails—stood near the mine’s hoist house, where a crowd of onlookers had gathered behind yellow police tape. I was suddenly short of breath and scanned the blur of faces. Were Dillon and Dad among them?
I almost missed what the reporter was saying.
“… today in the Mollie Kathleen Mine. They’re still looking and believe they’re getting close. They’ve found evidence of a fall she might have taken, and rescuers are now descending an unused shaft. We’ll keep you updated on further developments. Back to you, Chet.”
In the newsroom, Chet continued with the state’s economy.
“Well, Katlin Graham,” said Max, turning to me with a look of awe and sympathy. “It’s no wonder you’re so banged up.”
WHAT HAPPENED FROM THERE RUSHED IN like a train.
Max asked whether I cared if he called the police, and I asked how far the mine entrance was from here. He said up several streets. I asked if he could take me to it. Marlene came in with an expression that I could only describe as astonishment, and she asked why I wanted to go there.
“To try to find my family,” I said, giving her a worried look. It was genuine, but I worried more about the gold.
“Your clothes are in the dryer,” she said quickly. Then she apologized for not mending the holes, and said if she’d had more time … “But give me a minute and I’ll find some others for you.” She gave Max a serious stare.
“I can wait,” I said, just as the TV reporter came on again, chic hair and cheeky smiles.
“They’ve found evidence that the girl was in the shaft. We’ve heard mention of a hard hat. Whether that is …”
Hard hat! At the bottom, in the tunnel! I had probably left footprints, leading right to Ye! He would be discovered! They’d capture him—or worse!
Turning to Max, I begged, “Please call the police! Tell them I’m safe!”
With Marlene standing behind him, tugging at her dress, Max gave me a long, patient look, wiggled his nose, and reached for the phone.
•••
Before the cops came blaring up to the house, we saw it unfold.
After a few commercials about cars, shopping sprees, and the state lottery, there was the mine again, with more people, more police, more excitement in the air. We saw emergency lights swirling in the background, heard sirens, saw cops conferring. In vain I looked for Dillon and Dad. The reporter, obviously loving her job, introduced an important-looking man as the chief of police. She held the microphone to his face.
Despite the man’s steely voice, he seemed camera shy. I heard the words, calling search off, and juvenile’s been found.
“How is she?” asked the reporter, chasing the chief’s cautious mouth with the mic. “Did she survive?”
“… think she’s all right … not saying … until her father …”
The reporter looked incredulous. “He hasn’t been notified?”
“As we speak.”
Without another word, the police chief pivoted and left the scene, while the woman and two other reporters hounded at his heels.
• • •
A few minutes later, the neighborhood erupted with lights, cameras, action.
Max and Marlene and I stood in the doorway. I fretted more about getting the gold back than getting my clothes, and while scheming to figure out how, Max said, “Looks like the Fourth of July.”
The cops were arriving—two cars, blue lights flashing. Behind them, taking most of the street, roared a fire truck, red lights flashing. Behind them, an ambulance—more red lights. Behind that, a red luxury car with the reporter I’d seen on TV, in living color, taking the neighbor’s driveway. And behind her, in a mud-spattered Jeep, came more reporters; they took the neighbor’s yard. Last came the old workhorse, trailer in tow, tattered American flag on the antenna, Dad at the wheel and Dillon half out the window. They almost took the neighbor’s mailbox.
And the neighbors, coming from all points of the compass, with yapping dogs and screaming kids, filled in the gaps.
Everyone got out at once—four cops, three firefighters, two emergency technicians, three reporters, my brother, and Dad—scrambling up to the house as if they ran a free-style competition. The youngest-looking cop made it first, blocking Dillon and Dad from advancing, and me from going to them. His face was flushed and blotchy, which I judged as overenthusiasm. He whipped out his notebook and addressed Max.
“You’re Maxwell Warren?” he said, louder than necessary.
“That’s right,” murmured Max, in easy contrast. “I’m the one that called.”
Then, adding triumph to his tone, he looked at me and said, “You must be Katrina Graham.”
“Katlin,” I said, and took this as my cue. I stepped forward, brushed past him and whoever else got in the way, enveloping them in gusts of aromatherapy and bubble bath, and went to Dillon and Dad. Bathrobe and all—or I should say, bathrobe and nothing. But thick as it was, I looked more Egyptian mummy than water sprite.
With the whole world gawking, we locked in a three-some embrace.
“Kat! Kat!” Dad kept saying, and Dillon searched my eyes, trying to learn what he could in one steady look. I wanted to tell him everything.
Everything, that is, except Ye. He would be my secret for a while. Our secret—Ye’s and mine.
Everyone was looking me up and down as if I belonged in a sideshow. They saw the scrapes and bruises, the lump on my cheekbone. But they could also see me standing on my own two feet, clean (for the most part), and whole. The medics were standing by, ready to check me over. The reporters were chomping at the bits to question me. They had their gadgets out, recording and shooting.
“Miss Graham! How-did-you-end-up-here-is-there-another-way-out-how’d-you-get-past-everyone?”
“Miss Graham! Were-these-the-folks-who-rescued-you-do-you-know-each-other-what’s-the-connection?”
I ignored them.
Then the same metallic voice I’d heard on TV broke up our hug. It was the chief of police. What I had taken for nervousness on the TV, was a stutter.
“M-m”—he slapped his holster—“M-Miss Graham, we need to take you to the hospital.”
I turned to him and stared, while Dad echoed, “Hospital?”
“To see that she’s a
ll right.”
Nodding to him in assurance, I said quickly, “I’m all right. Nothing broken.” I gave them all a smile, then clamped my mouth shut: I had new reservations about my gold tooth.
“We need to be sure, M-m”—holster slap again—“Miss Graham.”
“No,” I insisted. “I’m good. Really.”
“Katlin Graham …” The chief was not budging.
I took Dad’s arm and gripped it tight.
“M-m”—slap—“Mister Graham—”
Dad was beginning to stir.
“—we have no choice,” said the chief.
The line between Dad’s eyebrows darkened. “What do you mean, no choice? You can choose to go now. She said she’s OK.”
The chief held up his hand. “I understand that, M-m”—slap—“Mister Graham. But you need to understand—”
“Understand what?” demanded Dad, in his weary-dad voice. “That my daughter’s been missing since ten o’clock this morning? That she managed to escape without your help? That we’ve all been to Hades and back?” (Dad had this thing about using bad words. But hell isn’t a bad word: It’s a bad place.)
The scene reminded me of the time he felt challenged by the insurance agents, who kept fending him off, hemming and hawing, giving him … well, Hades. “Who’s side are you on?” Dad would ask them. “What kind of protection is this? What’ve I been paying for all of these years?” It takes a lot to stir him up, but like a hibernating bear, once rudely wakened—watch out.
He was glowering.
The other cops closed in as if to rally around their chief, as if we were criminals, ready to run.
The police chief stood his ground. “To be blunt, M-m—”
“Mister,” I said helpfully.
“—Graham, it’s not just about you and your daughter—” A quick glance at me, then the reporters, then back to Dad. “It’s also about the M-m”—slap—“Mollie Kathleen M-m—”
“Mine,” I said.
“This is serious. Your daughter needs to be examined by the m-m—”
“Medics.”
“Then we can complete our report—”
“To avoid complications,” inserted the younger cop (whose name tag actually said young) obviously eager to be involved. “To avoid litigation …”
Litigation was the wrong word. Dad flinched—along with the police chief. Definitely the wrong word. Dad had had his fill of litigation. Now he was growling.
“So that’s what this is about! Money!”
The younger cop nodded. “We have to be sure—”
“Harold!” said the chief, sharpening the steel in his voice. “I’ll handle this.”
Harold the Younger retreated and began scratching in his notebook.
Dad was just warming up. “Money! Let me tell you about money! If they sue—”
“You have it wrong,” said the chief. “The m-m—” He glanced at me and I suggested, “Money?”
“—m-mine is concerned that you’ll sue them.”
Dad halted, eyebrows up, pondering this new thought.
“Now,” the chief said, turning to me. “Would you like to come along with us?”
“She would not!” said Dad.
“M-m—” He looked at me again, but I shook my head. How was I to know what word he wanted?
“Graham,” the chief said, bypassing the m word. “Back off everyone. Back off! Now … Graham, don’t make me call the child protection service.”
“Child protection service!” fumed Dad. “I am the child protection service! I’m her father!”
It was Marlene who provided intermission. She had come through the crowd unnoticed.
“Katlin,” she said in her gentle, domesticated voice, “Your clothes are ready.” She held out a clean, neatly folded stack. The jacket was on the bottom. “You can change in the house.”
I studied her rainy day eyes, trying to tell what she knew. They told me nothing. Nothing I hadn’t already known, nothing but compassion. I took the clothes (did they feel heavy?), making sure they stayed in a stack, wishing I could check the jacket, pat it to feel for the gold. But I dared not—not in front of everyone, specially the cops.
“Thank you, Marlene,” I said, and risked dropping the clothes by giving her a one-armed hug. To Max I said, “Thank you, Max. Thank you for all you’ve done.”
Leaning toward me as if to kiss my cheek, he whispered, “We had a daughter once. She was worth more than all the gold in the world.”
THAT EXPLAINED IT. IT EXPLAINED THE bathrobe. It explained why they’d been so kind, why I had no need to fret. Unless I had straight out misread them, the Warrens were making sure I was taking everything I’d arrived with.
Even if it included a mysterious, unbelievably large chunk of gold.
Now my dilemma was how to keep it from being discovered.
If I changed into my clothes, there was still the jacket, which belonged to the mine. I could stuff the rock into my jeans, but it was pretty big, and if they rushed me off to the hospital for a medical exam …
I didn’t blame Dad for not wanting me to go. He had passed an extreme stress test, had just recovered his missing daughter, and simply wanted to retire with his family and get back to being normal. Whatever that was.
And back on the road.
• • •
The verbal skirmish between Dad and the police chief was still in progress, stutter and holster slap on one side, arm flings on the other, and since I had triggered the whole thing by refusing the exam, I felt responsible. Something had to give, before we all ended up on the most wanted list.
Here’s how it was going:
dad: Don’t I have the right to resist?
chief: I’m not arresting you.
dad: Then I resist.
chief: Then I’ll have to arrest you.
dad: Arrest me for a non-arrest resist?
For the sake of truce, I was ready to give myself up. Though compared to the condition I could have been in—like, broken in umph-teen places or silent as the skeleton stretched out in Ye’s cave—I didn’t think I needed a medical check.
The emergency techs had been murmuring between themselves, and one of them got the chief’s attention. With an apologetic look, she said, “Chief Huffman, Mr. Graham? We can examine her here. It won’t take long. If she checks out all right—”
“Here?” shrieked Dad. “In front of all these people?”
I looked around at their faces: cops, reporters, neighbors, dogs, even an old gray cat in a window next door. All anxiously waiting.
“No, sir. In our unit. We’re equipped.” Without waiting for anyone’s approval, she motioned to me. “Katlin, can you hold off getting into your street clothes? It would be easier—”
“OK,” I said, clutching the bundle as if my life depended on it. I stepped between the chief and my dad and as calmly and cheerfully as I could, said, “Dad, it’s all right. They can check me over.” To reassure him—and myself—I added, “They won’t find much.”
Why would I be so lucky?
A DESPERADO. THAT’S WHAT DILLON SAID he felt like, that he couldn’t improve on the word.
“Desperate in Colorado,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
It was stampede and gold rush rolled into one split second.
It was Calamity with a capital C.
As I stepped into the unit, everything white and antiseptic, one of the attendants reached for my bundle. I gripped it so tight—I don’t know, I must have squeezed the gold out of it, or maybe it was jostled. However it happened, the scene was shown godzillion times on TV and the Internet for months afterward. Hundreds of millions of viewers and still counting.
Here it is:
A glorious gold nugget, lying on the blacktop, circled by groping, human hands, hands of all ages and sizes and shapes and colors, all of them contorted, like the tentacles of an octopus ready to catch its prey. I think a dog’s nose was in there, too, sniffing to beat the band.
; One of those hands was Dillon’s, shooting out from of the rest. He grabbed the gold, grappled with a few fellow fortune hunters, and took off running. He held his fist high the whole way, yelling, “Pretty paperweight! Pretty paperweight!”
How he came up with that is beyond me. Later, he explained, “At first, I thought souvenir, then fool’s gold, but ‘pretty paperweight’ landed in my head and stuck.”
Now I know a recipe for instant mob rule:
• Take lots of people.
• Throw in a gold rock.
• • •
Dillon made it to the car, scrambled in, slammed the door and hit the power lock. One man had his finger in the door when it slammed, and performed a waltz before yanking it out. Blood spurted onto the window, which Dillon sat beaming behind.
It was a good thing the cops were there, or I think we would have declared the car totaled without being in a collision. Explain that to the insurance company. The medics took a moment to bind the man’s finger inside the ambulance, while he stood scowling at me.
After they checked all my vital statistics and treated my cuts and scrapes, they had Dad sign a release and said I was free to go. By then, the crowd had increased. The reporters were grouped on the front porch, interviewing Max and Marlene.
As Chief Huffman accompanied Dad and me to our car, I heard Max say, “You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.” And I thought, Good for you, Max—tell them nothing, the snoops.
I laid my journal aside and stared at the blank TV screen.
So what was I supposed to do? Give the gold to the poor? We were the poor. Though you wouldn’t know it at first glance. I mean, our clothes were worse for wear and our car was a scratch ’n’ dent, but we weren’t in rags and begging rides.
Not yet anyway.
On second thought, maybe you would know it at first glance. As of yesterday, when I stepped out of the medical unit for all the world to see, the holes in the knees of my jeans mouthed words when I walked, I kept covering the bald spot on my seat with my shirt, I wore butterfly-bandaged glasses with sand-blasted lenses—which the rescue workers had found and exchanged for the jacket—and my shoes had been waxed with Mollie Kathleen Muck.
