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Thunder Mountain
Copyright © 2014 by Dean Wesley Smith
Published in a different form in Smith’s Monthly #2, November, 2013
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Philcold/Dreamstime
Smashwords Edition
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Table of Contents
About the Author
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PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
DAWN EDWARDS STOOD on the edge of the narrow trail, staring at the metal plaque attached to a flat stone among the tall pines. She couldn’t believe she was actually here, at the Roosevelt Cemetery, one of the most remote and difficult to find cemeteries in all of Idaho.
Maybe in all of the United States.
Around her the day was going to turn hot before it was finished, but the sun had yet to clear the tall mountains towering over her and there was still a chill to the crisp, clear air under the tall pines. Monumental Creek ran about twenty feet below her, the beautiful mountain stream filling the air with a relaxing sound of water over rocks.
This August morning couldn’t get any more perfect as far as she was concerned. The smell of the dried pine needles seemed extra strong. She had managed to get into one of the most remote places in the country, a long distance inside the River of No Return Primitive Area. And she had found a tiny cemetery she knew existed, but never thought she could find.
A perfect morning.
She had on jeans and her old comfortable hiking boots. At the moment she still had on her parka, even though it was early August. But she would shortly shed that and the light sweatshirt under it as well for the white hiking shirt and sports bra under that.
She and two old friends from college were camped back up the stream above the lake about a half-mile. She had wanted to come down to the lake and cemetery on her own this morning. They hadn’t cared and were both still sound asleep in their tents when she left.
She kneeled down and brushed some pine needles reverently away from the plaque.
The engraved metal plaque had been installed in 1949 by the Pioneers of the Thunder Mountain Gold Rush. That gold rush had happened from 1901 to 1909 with the peak years being 1902-1907.
Five very short years.
The small cemetery was roped off between trees framing a small square area of brush and dried pine needles not much bigger than a small front yard on a suburban street. The rope looked to be only a few years old, brown, but not frayed yet, so someone still sort of took care of the place. She wondered who that might be and if she could find that person or group.
There were still a few wooden grave marker boards, all weather-beaten and brown with names long worn away. They marked a few graves and she could see a few other unmarked graves where the ground under the needles had settled in. One grave kept drawing her eye, the depression closest to the stone, but she didn’t feel it would be right to cross inside the rope and get closer.
There would be nothing to see.
She knew so much about this area and had been studying it for two years for her new book The Great Secrets of the West. The remains of the Roosevelt mining town under the lake between her and her camp was one of those secrets. It would be a great chapter in her book.
The problem was there was very little to research. Very, very little, actually was known or written about this area. Even though as a college professor, she had special privileges at the Idaho Historical Society and access to the records of papers of towns that no longer existed, including the few copies of the Roosevelt Avalanche that managed to survive, she could find very little.
Now she was lucky enough to actually get in here and see it for herself.
For some reason, this area really had pulled her more than any other place she researched. It felt magical.
And special.
Which is why she had funded this camping trip into this wilderness and paid for two of her old college friends to come with her.
It had taken them a two-hour drive yesterday to get to the recreation town of Cascade, Idaho, from Boise where they all lived. Then it took another three hours to get to the remote old mining town of Yellow Pine on mostly dirt roads.
They had had lunch there in an old bar that looked right out of 1900. Everything in it seemed authentic right down to the two horses that were tied up outside and the dried smell of old cigars inside. There were guns and animal heads hanging on the walls along with old rusted mining equipment and a large wagon wheel.
She found it wonderful and familiar. Her friends found it “quaint” but they loved the fantastic cheeseburgers made on an old grill. Dawn had to admit, her cheeseburger was one of the best she could remember. And the fries were greasy and covered in salt, just as she liked them.
From Yellow Pine, it took three more hours of horrid driving on a one-lane winding dirt road to get through another ghost town named Stibnite and up to the Monumental Valley Summit.
The road had switchbacks so tight, she had to back the van up to get around them. The road scared the hell out of her two friends and if she hadn’t been driving, it would have scared her as well.
Her research made vague references to a grand hotel that stood on that summit at one point, but there was no sign of the ruins now, and no record was really sure where it had been.
Or even if it had existed at all.
Sometimes history could be so elusive. Especially history of the Old West.
She had walked among the trees on the flat top of the ridge, getting the strangest feeling that she really knew the place. Yet she had never been here before.
Weird. Not creepy.
More like she had come home. It was so beautiful. You could see seemingly forever in all directions. And the views of the mountain ranges going on and on just took her breath away.
That ridge summit marked the edge of the River of No Return Primitive Area, but a mining claim inside the primitive area had managed to keep a road open, so she could drive down the two thousand foot drop on a frighteningly steep road into the Monumental Creek drainage.
Once in the bottom of the valley, the road wound leisurely along the stream among the tall pine trees. They passed a lot of ruins once they got to the valley floor.
They camped about a mile above the lake that marked the death of Roosevelt, Idaho in 1909.
Now, this morning she had seen the lake and taken pictures of the remains of the old ghost town under the water.
And now she had been fantastically lucky and found the cemetery below the lake on a small hillside.
The plaque attached to the rock on the edge of the cemetery read:
Roosevelt Cemetery
In Memory Of
The Thunder Mountain Dead
Of Whom Thirteen Are Known
To Rest In This Cemetery
There were ten names on it with an inscription about three unknowns that were also buried here.
Two of the names were only last names.
She had a picture of this plaque blown up and framed on her office wall at Boise State University and she knew those names by heart.
She had managed to find family history on eight of the names, but the two without first names remained elusive as well as the three unknowns.
Again, she reverently brushed away more pine needles, then she t
ook a few pictures of her own of the plaque.
And a few pictures of the sunken grave closest to the rock.
Then she stood and looked around, taking long deep breaths of the clear air, enjoying the smell of pine and forest.
What was it about this place that had her so fascinated?
What kind of connection? It had been with her since the first moment she heard of this valley and the lost town.
She sat again next to the plaque on the dirt beside the trail, her back against the base of a large tree and pulled out a bottle of water.
The peacefulness of the forest and the tall mountains around here just seemed to relax her, like she belonged here in these high mountains. She took a drink, savoring how the water took the dust out of her mouth.
Then slowly and carefully, she looked around, studying the trees, the hillsides, and the stream below her, trying to memorize every detail of this perfect morning.
She could almost imagine this valley alive with people instead of forgotten by all but a few.
She wished she could see this valley when it had seven thousand people in it, when the town of Roosevelt was a booming mining town, when the sounds of the pianos playing in the dozen saloons and two dance halls along Main Street echoed through the trees and the high peaks at all hours of the day and night.
For over six years, until a mudslide blocked Monumental Creek and backed water up over Roosevelt, this valley had been alive and booming, one of the great secrets of western lore.
And then it had died.
Quickly and without anyone really remembering it.
Or writing about it.
Now, legend had it that on a calm night sitting beside Roosevelt Lake with the remains of the town visible through the clear water, you could still hear the pianos from the saloons.
Tonight, as the sun dropped behind Thunder Mountain, she planned on sitting beside that lake and listening.
And maybe, just maybe, if she listened hard enough, she would hear the music.
At least she hoped she would.
CHAPTER TWO
DAWN EDWARDS SAT in her office on the Boise State University campus working on the lesson plan for an honors program on western history she started teaching in September. She had on a t-shirt with the logo “Read a Book, Save a Mind” and jeans. She had kicked off her tennis shoes when she came in. Today, since she had walked down to her office from her apartment, she had her long brown hair pulled back off her head.
On her desk she had a large glass of iced tea with too much sugar as far as her friends were concerned. But she exercised enough to keep her weight level, even at thirty-two. No kids, no marriage, no relationship. She figured she could do what she darned well pleased.
She loved her office, tucked in a corner on the third floor of one of the older buildings in this sprawling campus. She was closer to Capitol Boulevard than the wild football-stadium-side of campus. The building used to be an old administration office and they had converted a break room on the third floor to her office.
Two large windows looked out over a wide stretch of lawn that ran to the edge of the Boise River. Beyond the trees that framed the river and filled the park beyond, she could see the Capitol Building and the tops of a few of the taller downtown buildings.
She had installed dark wooden bookcases on three walls and had her grandfather’s old wooden desk brought in to command an area of the room.
She had found some used couches and a couple of chairs to form a sort of sitting area with a scarred-up wooden coffee table that was now normally covered with books.
In one corner sat a small fridge and microwave and a shelf of various teas.
The place always smelled like a library and her tea, even after she had been gone for a time.
She had spent many a late night up here reading. She tended to like her office more than she did her small apartment up the hill just off Vista Avenue. Her apartment seemed lonely and sterile, mostly because she had never bothered to fix it up. Her office, on the other hand, was warm in the winter and comfortable in the summer. And close to a couple of her favorite restaurants as well.
She had more than enough family money to buy herself a nice house somewhere. Three or four houses, actually, but so far the desire just hadn’t struck her. Her office was enough of a home for now.
A knock at her open door startled her.
In early August there just weren’t that many people on campus beside football players practicing and she hadn’t heard any steps coming down the hall outside.
She looked up into the smiling face of Bonnie Kendal.
Bonnie and her fantastic husband, Duster, had been friends for two years, since they discovered at a lecture how much Dawn loved the Old West and the history of the people of the west.
It seemed that both of the Kendals were experts on western history and lore and often gave her directions to explore with her research that she would have never found without their advice. In fact, she was thinking of adding them to the acknowledgements of her next book.
Bonnie was a striking woman, with deep brown eyes and long brown hair, almost as long as Dawn’s. Bonnie stood a good three inches taller than Dawn’s five-eight. And Dawn loved how Bonnie carried herself, as if she were in charge of everything and everyone around her, even though she was the nicest and most unassuming woman Dawn had ever met.
Bonnie just had a confidence about her that seemed to go far beyond her 35 years. Dawn admired that and hoped that some day she could command that same feeling in people around her. But most of the time she just felt insecure.
“How was the trip into Roosevelt?” Bonnie asked as Dawn motioned for her to come in.
“Grueling, long, and just flat-out wonderful,” Dawn said, smiling as she stood and came around the desk to hug Bonnie. She indicated Bonnie should take a seat on the couch. “Water? Diet Coke?”
“Water,” Bonnie said, smiling as she sat down. “It’s getting warm out there.”
“Who would have thought?” Dawn asked. “August in Boise.”
Bonnie laughed. “So tell me about it. Not many people have ever seen that valley you were in.”
“There’s something magical in that valley,” Dawn said, getting a cold bottle of water from the fridge, then grabbing her own ice tea from her desk, and joining Bonnie in the seating area surrounded by high shelves of books.
“Magical?” Bonnie asked, smiling and looking intently at her. “Never heard it described like that before.”
“Magical.” Dawn could feel herself being pulled back into the sensations, the smells, the visions of that area as she talked. “Monumental Summit felt like the top of the world and the entire valley felt like it could come alive for me at any moment. My two friends who went with me thought it creepy, but I loved it.”
She then continued on for the next five minutes, lost in the wonderful memories of being in that valley, describing everything she had seen, and what she wanted to have the time to see on future trips. For example, she hadn’t made it down the valley the extra couple of miles to the site of the old Thunder Mountain City mining town. There seemed to be more information surviving on Thunder Mountain City than its much larger neighbor Roosevelt.
Bonnie smiled all the way through and nodded until Dawn finally came back to the world of her office and realized she had been talking for a while.
“Sorry,” she said, feeling embarrassed as she took a sip of her tea and didn’t look Bonnie in the eyes. “Just not many people I can talk to about that kind of history and actually getting to see it.”
Bonnie laughed, the sound filling the office and making Dawn smile and feel less embarrassed. “Oh wow, do I know that feeling. Duster and I hoped you might feel that way.”
Dawn took a drink of her very sweet tea. “I’m so in love with that area and the history around it, I’ve decided that only one chapter in my book isn’t enough. I’m thinking of doing an entire book on the area.”
“Wonderful,” Bonnie said. “There
really isn’t one.”
“I know,” Dawn said. “How well I know.”
Bonnie suddenly looked more serious. “So you going back in there again this summer?”
Dawn shook her head, feeling sad. That was the one major disappointment she was going through. She had over a month before classes started. She had the time and the money and the desire. “Can’t find anyone to go with me.”
Then she looked at Bonnie’s now smiling face. Something was going on. She knew Bonnie well enough to read that much.
“So what do you and that gorgeous hunk of a husband of yours have dreamed up?”
“Just a little trip,” Bonnie said. “Back to Roosevelt. But you are going to have to keep something about the trip very, very secret. Is that possible?”
Dawn damn near came off the couch and floated in the air in her excitement. Her mouth went instantly dry and her mind just wouldn’t let the idea in much. She had resigned herself to not being able to get back into Roosevelt for another year. No one she knew even slightly would go with her, and she wasn’t going into that wilderness by herself.
“I can keep a secret,” Dawn said, smiling. “With the best of them. So you and Duster thinking of taking a trip in there?”
“We are,” Bonnie said.
“Oh, my, oh, my,” Dawn said, trying to catch her breath.
Bonnie just kept smiling and talking, thankfully ignoring how Dawn was suddenly acting like a kid promised a new toy.
“And we’re going to pay all expenses. We hope to bring along one other friend. Have you ever met Professor Madison Rogers from the University of Idaho?”
Now Dawn’s heart leaped even more and her mouth got even drier if that were possible.
She took a quick drink to clear some of the dryness.
“I heard he is working on a book on the mining wars of Montana and Northern Idaho,” Dawn said. “And I’ve read two of his books on Utah history. He’s a good researcher. I’d love to meet him.”
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