Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

I returned my focus to the path ahead and judged the bedrock—by its silky golden sheen and crinkly foliation—to be phyllite, a rock one metamorphic step beyond slate, not the rock we were hunting but perhaps a close neighbor.

  Ahead, Shelburne had reached a hackly break in the bedrock where a ladder of switchbacks ascended the wall.

  Shadows moved across the rock. I looked up. I didn’t much like the bruised cumulo-nimbus claiming the sky. The weather report had not forecasted a storm but in the Sierra Nevada mountains bad weather was not out of the question, especially in September’s dying days.

  By the time I reached the switchbacks, the breeze had begun to bite.

  Two switchbacks up, as I was mulling over the idea of digging a poncho out of my backpack to have at the ready should the skies open up, there came a clattering sound like rain—no, like hail hitting a sidewalk—and Shelburne up above shouted “look out” and I flinched. Rock fragments fell, shotgunning the bedrock trail. A slaty sharp-edged piece impaled itself in the tongue of my right boot. It was nearly the size of my fist. It stung my foot. I was glad it missed my head.

  Walter, still below on the traverse, called, “Cassie, what happened?”

  “Dislodged talus,” I called back. “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t. Shelburne in his haste was courting recklessness. I hollered up to him, “Be more careful.”

  He called down, “It wasn’t me.”

  “What?”

  “It came from up there.”

  I tipped my head way back. Several switchbacks above Shelburne there was a ledge, slightly overhanging the trail. You don’t get talus unless it’s been wasted out of a rock face and that meant this bedrock sheet we were climbing continued above the ledge. The ledge was a false ridge, with a debris field hanging on its lip, just waiting to be dislodged.

  Shelburne shouted, “Henry!”

  No sound from the ledge above.

  Down on the bedrock trail, the three of us waited.

  No answer.

  My foot throbbed. I bent to extract the rock fragment. It had torn the leather skin of my boot tongue and bruised the top of my foot.

  Conceivably, nobody was up on the ledge flinging rocks at us. There was the obvious alternative. A scampering ground squirrel could have done it, although those were a good number of big rock frags for one small squirrel. Could have been a bear. I once encountered a shifty California black bear patrolling a ridge, waiting for hikers to arrive and shuck their packs and open the trail mix. I didn’t mind a bear. I knew bears. I’d ditched the trail mix in deference to the bear and we each pursued our own paths.

  “Come on,” Robert Shelburne yelled down at us.

  I straightened up.

  Hell if it was a squirrel or a bear.

  Odds said that it was the man who’d left the bandana to flag the trail. And now he’d found himself a vantage point to watch for us. And I dearly hoped he’d dislodged the talus by accident.

  If not…what the hell, Henry Shelburne?

  2

  The Shelburne case had begun on the other side of the mountains.

  California’s Sierra Nevada range showed two faces—the severe steepled eastern side and the gentler lusher western side. Our home base was the mountain town of Mammoth Lakes, on the eastern side.

  Day before yesterday, Robert Shelburne showed up at our door.

  Normally, our business didn’t come from droppers-by. Most of our work came from law-enforcement referrals and defense-attorney requests. Still, we had a Sierra Geoforensics sign over the door and a working website, and someone looking for world-class forensic geologists could find us easily enough.

  It was mid-morning when Shelburne came into the lab, giving it the once-over, tossing us a smile and an inquiry. “Might I steal fifteen minutes of your time?”

  Walter rose from his workbench. “That depends on what you intend to do with them. Mister…?”

  “Robert Shelburne. And if I’m addressing Walter Shaws, I’ve come to the right place.”

  “I am,” Walter said. He gestured at me. “Cassie Oldfield’s partner.”

  “Ah, partners, even better.” Robert Shelburne stuck out his hand and crossed the room to me.

  I rose from my workbench and accepted the handshake. I knew what he was seeing. Junior partner, clearly. Given that this man had come looking for Walter, I expected him to assess my age and status and possibly gender and pass quickly on to Walter. He didn’t. He held my hand a moment longer than pleasantries required. Firm handshake. Direct eye contact. No flirtation; direct and professional.

  That should have impressed me. It nearly did.

  It certainly gave me the time to assess him.

  He had the air, and look, of a man who took charge. He had a strong face with a bladed nose and black brows that cambered like bird wings. His green eyes were narrow, his face all angles. He looked to be in his mid thirties. His black hair was diked with a single silver ray, slicked back and feathered at the neck. He wore a multi-pocketed khaki jacket over black hiking pants. Power grooming, mountain style. He carried a stylish and very large leather satchel.

  I thought, this guy is accustomed to success.

  He released my hand and moved on to Walter.

  They shook hands. Brief, cordial.

  Walter gave a nod, ready to give our visitor those fifteen minutes. “How can we help you, Mr. Shelburne?”

  “If I may?” Shelburne dipped his head, indicating our big map table, raising his satchel.

  “Please.”

  Shelburne set it on the table and removed a box. The box was metal, the size of a lunchbox, scratched and dinged. “My brother went missing,” Shelburne said. “Because of this.”

  I said, “You mean, because of what’s inside?”

  “Yes, of course.” He flashed a bear-with-me smile. “I’m nervous, I must admit. I’ve come a long way and my hopes are pinned on what’s inside. On gaining some help here.”

  “You could have phoned first. Made an appointment.” That came out harsher than I’d intended. “I mean, to be certain you’d find us in the lab.”

  “My story is a bit irregular. I decided I’d do better presenting in person.”

  Walter said, “You have our attention.”

  Shelburne laid a hand on the box. Fingered the latch. Snapped it open. Lifted the lid.

  Inside was an ore specimen. Not in the least irregular, I thought, bringing an ore specimen to a couple of geologists. It was a chunk of rock with a reddish-brown hue, rough and lumpy, a gravel of pebbles and small cobbles cemented together. Unlovely.

  Shelburne’s eyes were on us, not the rock. “You understand what that is?”

  I nodded.

  Walter grunted.

  I knew that grunt. Walter was interested.

  I was wary.

  Walter took out his hand lens and bent over the specimen, giving it a close inspection. He said nothing. He kept his nose to the rock for an inordinate amount of time.

  I shifted. I could have done a full mineralogical and chemical analysis in the time he was taking to do this hand-lens study. Was he going to take until lunchtime? I could have gone into our mini-kitchen and eaten my lunch, in that time frame—turkey sandwich, nectarine, decadent brownie, the whole nine yards. Geological epochs have passed in less time. I glanced at Shelburne.

  Shelburne waited. Perfectly still.

  My stomach growled. I said, finally, “And so?”

  Walter straightened and passed me the lens.

  I put my own nose to the lunchbox, playing the twenty-power magnifier across the rough face of the rock. Right off the bat I could say that this was a conglomerate that consisted of well-rounded rock fragments, primarily quartz and diorite, cemented in a matrix of sandy clay. There were a few angular black pebbles, potentially of more interest, but my focus skipped to the sparse freckling of another color. A deep golden yellow. These tiny grains were flattened, irregular, their surface pitted, so unobtrusive that when I set aside the hand l
ens they were invisible to my naked eye. I snatched up the lens again, looking again, and now the grains stood out in sharp relief because I understood that I was looking at pure gold. Perhaps only a few dollars’ worth but striking enough to silence my stomach and make my pulse leap.

  I tore my attention from the specimen and found Walter looking at me. His blue eyes had gone brighter, bluer.

  For Walter, the rock in the lunchbox was a thing of joy.

  For me, it was a thing of the past. Or so I thought.

  When I was kid—summer job in Walter’s lab doing scutwork—he had tried to hook me on his hobby, puttering around with the geology of precious ores. He claimed to be in it for the history, prowling old mining sites, bringing back chunks of quartz-studded rock not unlike this one. When I came aboard officially after grad school, Walter was still taking jaunts in the field, following old maps and his vast geological knowledge. By the time I became a partner, Walter had pretty much transferred his interest to the internet, posting in the relevant forums.

  And now Robert Shelburne walks into our lab with a gold-flecked rock and sets it in front of Walter like catnip.

  Walter cleared his throat. “Mr. Shelburne, this ore specimen is connected to your brother?”

  “That’s right. And now he’s missing.”

  “Did you file a missing persons report?”

  “The police have no interest. Henry—my brother—left voluntarily.”

  There was a brief catch in my chest. I’d had a little brother named Henry. I took in a long breath. No doubt the world was well-populated with little brothers named Henry.

  Walter asked, “In what sense is your brother’s disappearance connected with this specimen?”

  “Everything in Henry’s life is connected with this. With gold.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let me give you a backgrounder. Here’s where we get into the irregular—my family.” Shelburne paused, as if selecting, and rejecting, family details. He continued, “Henry and I grew up in a small town in the gold country foothills. Our mother died of cancer, leaving us to our father’s care. Dad was an auto mechanic during the week but he lived for the weekends. A weekend prospector, you’d call him. Chasing gold. Soon as Henry and I were old enough, Dad would drag us along. Following the veins, panning the rivers. Henry went for it big-time. He still does. He’s not comfortable living in the present. He’s a throwback to the nineteenth century, to the Gold Rush.”

  “And you?” Walter asked.

  “I took a different path. I’m a venture capitalist. I help companies get a start. I suppose you could say my gold country is Silicon Valley—although I’d never put it that way to my brother. Gold country is gold country for Henry, pure and simple. And this,” Shelburne tapped the rock, “is what sent Henry into the wild three days ago. And what brought me to you.”

  “Why us?” Walter asked.

  “Well, you specifically. I found you online.”

  “Our website.”

  “First, I found you on the forums. You appear to be the go-to guy for anyone following the legends.”

  Walter said, “I debunk the legends that deserve debunking.”

  “And those with merit?”

  “I add my expertise.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Mr. Shelburne, I must clarify that I am not, professionally, a mining geologist.”

  “But you have the itch.”

  After a long moment Walter said, “Let me give you a backgrounder. Did you ever watch a television program called Dogtown?”

  “Sure, when I was a kid. One of those old shows you can stream on the Net.”

  “It lives on,” Walter said, brittle.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “My mother was script supervisor. My father was production manager.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Walter confirmed. “When I was a boy I haunted the set, which was a false-front mining camp. For me, it was faux-gritty enough to pretend it was real. There was a consultant, a mining geologist, and one day he took me aside and scraped the gold paint off a ‘nugget’ and explained how that quartz pebble could be associated with real gold. And then I no longer had to pretend. I knew how to make the false real—become a geologist. In graduate school, however, my thesis advisor was called in to consult with the FBI about a murder, in which sand was found in the pant cuffs of the victim. I came along. And here I am, today. A forensic geologist.”

  Shelburne said, “Then for my purposes you’re the best of both worlds.”

  Walter pretended not to be flattered.

  Shelburne turned to me. “What about you? You’ve been quiet.”

  “Just waiting to get back on topic.”

  Shelburne lifted his palms. “Shoot.”

  I shot. “Was it your brother who found this chunk of ore?”

  “No. Our grandfather found it, so the story goes. It turned up at our father’s house. Dad died a month ago. My brother and I had a reunion—Henry still lives in the old hometown—and I drove up and we went through Dad’s things. There was a lot to go through. Family things, going back to my grandfather’s day. An attic full of junk, mostly. That’s where we turned up this ugly customer. I would have tossed it but Henry recognized it for what it was. That was three weeks ago. Day before yesterday I got a message from Henry’s landlady. He lives in a boarding house, real old-timey place. She said he’d disappeared. She wouldn’t have taken notice—he went off on his wanderings all the time—but this time he’d left the sink faucet running. When she checked his room she found a note. ‘Call Robert.’ I got there in three hours. He’d gone hunting the source of granddaddy’s ore.”

  I wasn’t getting it. “But he left the specimen behind?”

  “Not entirely. He left this half behind.” Shelburne indicated the rock in the lunchbox. “It was on his table, along with a microscope and tools and a lot of rock dust. He’d split the rock. Hammer and chisel, bam bam bam. He took half, left me half. Very melodramatic. That’s Henry.”

  “And you’re certain he went looking for the source?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’d know how to do that?”

  “My brother is something of an amateur geologist—if you’ll pardon the expression. All those years tramping around the gold country, he’s schooled himself in the kind of things he needs to know. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure he’s gone hunting. Figuring where does take a geologist. At least, for me.”

  I said, “We don’t do treasure hunts.”

  “How about to save a life?”

  “That we do.” I folded my arms. “Should there be a life in danger.”

  “Henry’s note was a suicide note.”

  It took me a moment. “You just said he was hunting the source of the rock.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Doesn’t sound like somebody who intends to kill himself.”

  “You don’t know Henry.”

  Walter asked, “Did you bring the note?”

  “I did.” Shelburne took a folded paper from his jacket pocket and passed it to Walter.

  Walter opened the paper and read. “This does not necessarily say suicide.” He passed it to me.

  I read. It was two short lines. Shaky writing. I’ve had it, for keeps. And below that, Call Robert, with a phone number.

  “There’s one more item Henry left for me.” Shelburne took another, smaller metal lunchbox from his satchel. He opened it and withdrew a plastic dish and set it on the table beside the ore sample. He withdrew a small vial, unscrewed the cap, upended the vial, and let the contents slide into the dish.

  I thought, whoa.

  Silvery drops found one another and congealed into a puddle.

  I wanted to stick my finger in it. I wanted to scoop it up and roll it around in my palm. I’d done something of the sort in college chem, although it was officially discouraged.

  “Mercury,” Walter said. “This is part of your brother’s message?”


  Shelburne turned over the small lunchbox. Crudely etched into the bottom was Property of Henry Shelburne. “He collected the stuff, as a kid. I didn’t know he still had this, until I found it sitting on the table beside the microscope.”

  “Still, that does not necessarily say suicide.”

  “I fear it does. I know my brother.” Shelburne’s eyes seemed to take on a metallic glow. “We’re a pair. We’re like gold and mercury—numbers seventy-nine and eighty on the periodic table of the elements. Side by side, brothers and fundamental opposites. But when they come into contact, they mix.”

  I said, “Please put the mercury away, Mr. Shelburne.”

  “It’s not toxic, in the elemental state.”

  I said, “It oxidizes upon exposure to air. In its vapor phase, it’s very toxic.”

  “Not quickly. In a small overheated room, yes.”

  “Nevertheless, please put it away.”

  “Certainly.” He took a large eyedropper from the lunchbox. He suctioned up the puddle and expelled it into the vial. He screwed the cap back on, tight. He returned the vial and the dish and the dropper to the small box.

  Two metal lunchboxes, side by side.

  “Gold and mercury,” Shelburne said. “One precious. One poison.”

  3

  Walter said, “Tell us why your brother is suicidal.”

  “Let me introduce him first.” Shelburne took yet one more object from his satchel. It was a padded envelope. He removed a photograph and laid it on the table beside the lunchboxes.

  The photo was an eight-by-ten studio portrait. Black and white with a faux burnt border, clearly meant to evoke an Old West vibe. The subject sat in a saloon chair with a rough planked wall as backdrop.

  The subject was a very young man. Slender as a quill. Left thigh tied to a low-slung holster holding a six-shooter, hands resting on thighs, fingers loose, ready to outdraw you. He wore a high-collared white shirt, too short in the sleeves, thin wrists sticking out, looking breakable. Over the shirt he wore a pickaxe bolo tie and a vest with shiny stripes in silver and black and a folded silver bandana tucked into the vest pocket. He wore baggy woolen pants and cracked leather boots. He stared somberly at the camera. He was a smooth-faced wet-combed teenager whose only marks of experience were two sculpted lines beneath his eyes, as if he were squinting at the far horizon.