Thunder Mountain

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  “Wow, this is wonderful,” Madison said from the other side of the car, also breathing deep. “That’s almost worth the ride up here.”

  “Wait until you see the mine,” Duster said, going around back and opening the rear of the SUV. He took out Dawn’s pack, then Madison’s, and then started unloading some supplies.

  “Can we get it all in one trip?” Bonnie asked.

  “I think so,” Duster said. “Grab your packs, guys, and then some food or a case of water.”

  Dawn looked at Bonnie who nodded. “Trust us, we’re going to Central Idaho and Roosevelt. You’ll see.”

  Madison glanced at Dawn, shrugged and picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. Then he took a case of bottled water.

  Dawn swung her pack up on her back, and grabbed two sacks of what looked like groceries.

  Bonnie picked up a large pack and swung it to her shoulder, then tucked under her arms two huge bags of smoked jerky and turkey from Smokey Davis Meats.

  Dawn had no doubt there was enough jerky in those two bags to sustain a couple of people for a month or more with enough water.

  What in the world was going on?

  Duster took a large pack as well and the remaining supplies, locked up the car, and then said, “Follow me.”

  “I have to tell you that you two are worrying me a little right about now,” Madison said.

  “Same here,” Dawn said, trying to force the butterflies down in her stomach.

  “You’ll see shortly,” Bonnie said.

  “In about a hundred yards, actually,” Duster said as he led them through the trees and out onto a trail cutting across an open and fairly steep hillside.

  Dawn almost froze. She wasn’t afraid of heights by any sense, but that trail across that hillside looked darned thin. And way down the slope was the ghost town of Silver City.

  She could see beyond the ruins of the town the large War Eagle Mountain and the Treasure Valley in the distance. On a really clear day she had no doubt she could see parts of Boise from here.

  “Now that’s a view,” Madison said.

  “It gets better,” Duster said as he led them to what looked like the top of an old mine tailing. An old cabin with no windows or doors sat on top of the tailings, clearly long abandoned and leaning slightly into the hill. Its wood stained by weather into a light tan with dark streaks.

  Dawn had seen her share of old mining shacks and this one was authentic and more than likely over a hundred years old. A good snowstorm with a little wind one winter would turn it into a pile of wood in the next decade or so.

  Dawn could see an old small-gauge mining car track coming from the side of the hill and through the old shack and toward the edge of the tailings. That clearly had been used to bring ore and rock from the mine.

  The mine itself had been boarded up and looked like the mouth of it had collapsed in on itself just beyond the boards a long, long time ago.

  There was nothing more to see. She had walked on dozens of old mine tailings that looked just like this one.

  “Okay, here’s where the secret part comes in,” Duster said, putting down his pack and turning to them. “You can never tell anyone about what you are about to see.”

  “Way up here I find it hard anyone would care,” Madison said.

  Duster laughed. “Oh, they would care, trust me.”

  “Not a word,” Dawn said, getting annoyed at all the secrecy from her friends.

  “Not a word,” Madison repeated.

  Duster nodded and looked at Bonnie, who also nodded.

  Dawn could tell that this was clearly something the two of them had thought through a great deal and was important to them.

  Very, very important.

  Dawn just wished like hell they’d hurry up and get on with it, whatever it was.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DAWN WATCHED as Duster pulled what looked to be an old skeleton key from his pocket. He did something to it and a rock just to the left of the old mine entrance slid to one side revealing a very large steel door.

  “That’s nifty,” Madison said.

  Dawn had to agree with that.

  A moment later, with a thump the huge metal door slid inward and to one side.

  Duster looked around, scanning the hillside.

  Dawn could tell that where the door was in the hillside, no one from below could see it, but if someone was up on the hillside above the old mine, they might.

  “Follow me,” Duster said, grabbing his stuff and ducking inside.

  Dawn followed him, then Madison, then Bonnie bringing up the rear.

  Behind them the huge and very heavy metal door slid closed, plunging them into darkness for a moment before the lights came up.

  “Smart,” Madison said. “At night no one would see the lights.”

  “Exactly,” Duster said.

  Dawn was stunned at what she saw ahead of her. They were clearly in the old gold mine, with what looked like old wooden timbers. It stretched into the hill with a string of electric lights showing the way.

  The lights and the soil and the old wood gave everything a faint gold tint that seemed appropriate for an old gold mine.

  Down the middle of the tunnel was the rail for the old ore cars.

  “Is this safe in here?” she asked as Madison stared at the timbers above them.

  Madison nodded. “Perfectly.”

  Duster nodded at the same time. “All of these have been reinforced.”

  “And the work well-hidden,” Madison said, staring up between two timbers. “This looks very old and dangerous at first glance, but it’s not.”

  “Thanks,” Duster said, starting down the track deeper into the mine. “I did the work.”

  Dawn wasn’t afraid of caves and mines, either. But this just felt creepy. And honestly, she was getting more and more worried by the second. She thought she knew Bonnie and Duster well, but now she wasn’t so sure. There was no telling what she and Madison were walking into.

  And with that huge metal door, there was clearly no way out at the moment.

  One thing for certain, without Madison here, she never would be doing this. But that put a lot of trust in a guy she had never met.

  “Can you open that big door from the inside?” Madison asked.

  “Button right beside it,” Bonnie said, pointing to a wall and a red button there. “It’s only locked from the outside. Not the inside.”

  “That’s good,” Madison said.

  Dawn nodded her thanks to Madison for asking that question.

  They started off deep into the hillside, following the rail tracks on the floor.

  Dawn was happy that Madison was thinking along the same lines she was. And the deeper into the mountain they went, the more worried she got. She was about to say something, her stomach twisting into a tiny knot, when ahead of her the tunnel turned to the right, but Duster didn’t.

  He just kept walking straight and went right through the wall without a word of warning back to them.

  Dawn damn near choked and just froze, staring at the wall where Duster had gone.

  “Hologram,” Bonnie said from behind her. “Pretty nifty security trick, huh?”

  Dawn eased forward like she was sneaking up on the edge of a cliff and put her hand out where Duster had vanished.

  She felt nothing but air where her eyes told her the damp rock wall should be.

  “Close your eyes and step forward,” Bonnie said, “and you’ll be all right.”

  Dawn took a deep breath and did as she was told and found herself in more of the mine tunnel on the other side.

  Duster was a few steps away, smiling.

  She looked back and could see Madison and Bonnie. Clearly Madison was having as much trouble with it as she did, easing up and feeling the air and looking worried.

  That made Dawn feel only slightly better.

  “Still gets me at times and I’m the one that put it there,” Duster said.

  She stepped forward as behin
d her Madison stepped through, his eyes also closed.

  “I’ve seen a lot of illusions,” he said, looking back at Bonnie, “but that’s one of the best.”

  “Just more levels of protection in case anyone got in here,” Duster said.

  He pointed to a hidden panel on the wall beside him. “If either of you are in here for any reason alone, flip this switch. It shuts off the hidden alarm that is sent to our homes and to our car.”

  Duster flipped it off, then turned and headed deeper into the mine.

  “Wow, really protected,” Madison said, glancing at her.

  All Dawn could do was nod.

  Not a damn bit of this was making any sense to her yet. She felt like she was still dreaming or had stumbled into a strange Twilight Zone episode or something.

  Bonnie followed as they went forward to where it looked like the mine had just flat dead-ended. Duster didn’t even hesitate and stepped through the wall.

  Another hologram.

  “Amazing,” Madison said from behind Dawn.

  This time Dawn was a little quicker, but still stepped forward into what looked like a solid rock wall with her eyes closed. He stomach was twisting so hard, she felt like she might be sick at any moment.

  Something about all this felt very wrong. She wanted to turn and run, but where could she go?

  On the other side of the second hologram was a large cavern full of all sorts of supplies and such scattered around the walls on tables and shelves. The cavern itself looked natural and from what she could tell, the mine had broken into it.

  It echoed slightly, had a flat dirt floor, and smelled of dry dirt. Lights had been strung in set places around the big cavern with low wattage bulbs making it feel comfortable. They must have turned on when someone came in.

  There were period dresses and all sorts of men’s period clothing and hats on hangers and a ton of supplies, mostly dried, stacked on shelves.

  For the life of her, Dawn couldn’t think of a reason for such a cavern to exist and be stocked like this.

  Duster dropped the supplies and bags he had been carrying on a long table and indicated that Dawn and Madison should do the same thing with their things.

  Dawn did, staring around at the clearly natural cavern. There were enough supplies in here to last for a very long time. That bothered her more than she wanted to admit. She wouldn’t let herself think that maybe Bonnie and Duster were going to keep them prisoner here.

  “This is really something,” Madison said, echoing part of what Dawn was thinking. “But why?”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Duster said, his broad grin seeming to want to burst off his face.

  “From this point forward your life will never be the same,” Bonnie said.

  “Now that’s scary,” Dawn whispered to Madison as Bonnie and Duster turned toward what looked like another mine tunnel.

  “Yeah,” Madison said softly.

  Dawn glanced at Madison and he again shrugged. “We’ve come this far. Might as well see what all this craziness is about.”

  “Famous last words,” she said.

  He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I sure hope not.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  She and Madison followed Duster and Bonnie into a mineshaft that left the cavern on the far side. Duster was working to open a huge metal door at the end of the tunnel. He pulled it back showing only a solid rock wall about ten feet beyond the door. He walked forward and then stepped through yet another hologram.

  Bonnie followed him, leaving her with Madison.

  She glanced back. They could cut and run now. Whatever was beyond that third hologram was very, very protected in some very creative and effective ways.

  What could be so important?

  So she stepped through just ahead of Madison and into a sight she could never have imagined in all her life.

  Ever.

  It was a huge cavern that seemed to tower over her and stretch off into the distance toward the center of the mountain. She could see no end to the cavern.

  Almost every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered in rose crystals of various sizes and shapes. Some were huge, upwards of four or five feet long, others tiny, almost too small to see. Most were growing in clusters and some clusters seemed to grow on each other, easing out into the room a little.

  The floor was flat dirt and twenty steps inside the door there was an old wooden table with a device in the middle of the table with wires running from it along the floor toward one wall.

  Dawn blinked, trying to clear her mind, but the cavern around her and the fantastic beauty of all the crystals didn’t go away.

  They seemed to be lit with their own power and the entire place sort of sparkled. She could see no lights or source of energy. The crystals themselves were glowing.

  The crystals were the energy.

  Bonnie and Duster stood to one side of the table, smiling like proud parents showing off their new child in a hospital.

  Madison was clearly as stunned as she felt.

  He stood beside her gazing around, his mouth open.

  She walked about thirty steps farther into the cavern, right down the center, past the long wooden table. There was no end in sight. The cavern just went on and on, slanting slightly downward.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath to calm her nerves.

  She then turned back to Bonnie and Duster.

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s all of history,” Duster said.

  “And all of time,” Bonnie added.

  Dawn had no idea what they had just said.

  And honestly she was scared to death to ask.

  But the fact that this place was very, very special was clear.

  And it was fantastically beautiful.

  Madison hadn’t said a word.

  She just went back to staring and attempting to grasp just a tiny bit of what she was seeing.

  And after a moment she decided that was impossible. No one could grasp this place.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MADISON JUST COULDN’T seem to wrap his mind around the crystal room.

  The crystals covering the walls seemed to glow with a life of their own, giving off a faint, soft light. Every inch of walls was covered and the cavern was huge. It stretched downward into the distance as far as he could see.

  He started to move toward one of the walls and Duster said, “Don’t touch any of the crystals.”

  “Why,” Madison asked, glancing first at the shocked look on Dawn’s face, then back at Duster and Bonnie.

  “Each crystal represents a timeline,” Duster said.

  “A what?” Dawn asked.

  “A timeline,” Duster said, but Bonnie put a hand on Duster’s arm. “We have to show them before they will really understand what this room actually is.”

  Duster nodded. He moved over the table and indicated that Madison and Dawn should join him.

  Madison stumbled in the direction of the table, not really looking away from the fantastic beauty of the cavern of rose-colored crystals.

  On the table was a metal box that looked like it was more of a kid’s idea of a control panel. It had two terminals on one side with nothing hooked to it and a face with a number of dials and read-outs that made no sense on first glance.

  The entire thing was about the size of an old-fashioned large computer tower without any monitor or keyboard.

  Duster took off an expensive Rolex watch and sat it on the wooden table beside the box. He put on thick leather gloves, then strung the two cords over to a smaller crystal on a nearby wall and carefully attached the ends to the crystal with small soft clamps that looked like they could expand and not fall off.

  “Okay,” he said, pointing to the front of the big box. “See the date?”

  Madison glanced at the date May 1st, 1878 that was on the side of the machine.

  “Why that date?” Dawn asked.

  “That’s a date just about one
year after we built all this protection for this place and put in this machine,” Duster said.

  “And started stocking that other cavern with supplies,” Bonnie added.

  Madison was about to ask the first in about a billion questions, but Duster stopped him and smiled. “You’ll understand more after this quick little trip.”

  Madison glanced at Dawn. Her beautiful eyes looked as puzzled as he felt, and worried as well. He wished he could just reach over and hold her hand, but again, he didn’t. He was in the strangest place he could remember being in and still focused on her.

  Duster picked up the two wires that were attached to the crystal. “Everyone touch the box, please.”

  Madison wasn’t certain, but he leaned in beside Dawn, who sort of leaned against him slightly. That felt great. Having her experiencing this at the same time gave him more strength.

  Bonnie leaned in as well.

  Duster attached one wire to one terminal.

  “Black to black,” he said to them, pointing to the black wire and the black terminal as if expecting they would be doing this at some point in the future.

  Then with one hand on the box beside Bonnie’s, he attached the red wire to the red terminal.

  Nothing seemed to happen. Maybe a slight shimmer, but that was it.

  Duster and Bonnie stepped back, smiling.

  Madison and Dawn both took their hands off the box and looked around. As far as Madison was concerned, nothing in the big crystal room had changed in the slightest.

  The two wires were still attached to the box.

  “Welcome to 1878,” Bonnie said, smiling.

  “Yeah, right,” Dawn said, shaking her head.

  Madison looked back at the box and then noticed that the Rolex was gone.

  “Where’s your watch?”

  Duster smiled. “In the summer of 2014, where I left it, of course.”

  Madison again couldn’t grasp what Duster was talking about, but that watch had vanished and Duster had been nowhere near it.

  “Come on, we’ll show you,” Bonnie said.

  She turned and headed back for the outer cavern followed by her husband.