Immense boulders dwarfed the truck, and jagged shoals of limestone rock extended right across the entire valley floor. Tom slowed and stopped, and after a silent moment, he and Jackson got slowly out of the truck.
Jackson limped a few paces down the road and looked around at the millions of tons of rock. He squinted up at the scarred, forbidding face of the mountain looming over the valley.
“How many people died when this sucker came down?” His voice was awed.
“About seventy.” For some peculiar reason, Tom’s chest ached with emotion, and he had to swallow hard against the thickness in his throat before he could continue. “There wasn’t any exact number. The majority of the bodies were never recovered.”
“I can sure as hell see why.” Jackson shook his head, and his long blond ponytail switched on his shoulders. “Moving this mess would be next to impossible.” He gestured at the mountain, which seemed close enough to touch in the twilight. “They figure it was mining that caused this, right?”
Tom nodded. “It was a contributing factor, all right. The limestone was unstable, and apparently they mined huge chambers which they figure weakened the mountain at its base.”
Jackson nodded. “I remember reading in one of those pamphlets you had about the miners trapped inside that night and thinking how it must have felt, entombed in the guts of a damn mountain. Where’s the old mine entrance supposed to be?”
“It’s gone now. There’s nothing left of the old town of Frank or the mine?”
“Just this gigantic tombstone.” Jackson gestured at the piles of rock, and a chill shivered its way up Tom’s spine.
He felt the hairs on his nape and his forearms stand on end, and he was suddenly icy cold.
Someone walking on my grave? Or me, standing on the bones of all those still buried under here?
For several minutes neither spoke, and then Jackson broke the silence. “If that shipment of Klondike gold is under here, Tommy, we’d better hope this old doc had some idea where it was located, and that he wrote it down in that journal of his. A man could spend a lifetime and a good supply of shoe leather clambering around this mess.”
“Ms. Lawrence said her father did exactly that,” Tom said. “According to her, the doctor spent most of his spare time tramping around out here. Seems to me if old Schraeger told Lawrence exactly where to look, he’d have dug up the gold and given up hiking. So he probably didn’t know just where it was. We’ve likely come all this way on a wild-goose chase.”
Jackson shrugged, unperturbed. “So what? Won’t be the first or last. In our line of business, chasing wild geese is the rule rather than the exception. Besides, like I said, I always wanted to visit this part of Canada. I saw a travelogue on it one time.”
“Yeah, and I’ll bet they suggested you stay at the Greenhill Hotel in downtown Blairmore,” Tom jibed. “This area’s not exactly on Fodor’s list of spectacular places to visit.” He stared out over the rocks and added softly, “Although maybe it oughta be.”
The peculiar, sick foreboding rose in him again, and in spite of the evening chill, sweat dotted his forehead. “Maybe we should hit the road first thing in the morning, Jackson, and forget about this damned Klondike gold idea,” he suggested. “We’ve got other irons in the fire. There’s that story of buried artifacts at the Alamo.”
Jackson shook his head. “We came all this way, might as well stick around and see what happens. Hell, you’re just tryin’ to avoid this old lady Lawrence, my friend. Sound of her, can’t say I blame you.” Jackson knuckled Tom’s shoulder with a friendly fist. “C’mon, partner, let’s head back to the nice warm saloon and you can fortify yourself against the morning.” He hunched his shoulders deeper into his jacket. “This rock pile gives me the creeps.”
They climbed back in the truck, and Tom turned the vehicle in the direction they’d come. It was growing dark rapidly, and he turned the lights on. He also pushed the button on the heater to banish the chill that had snaked up his back and was still making him shiver. Immense relief filled him when they were out of the rocks and back on the highway. He kept his hands tight on the steering wheel, embarrassed because they were trembling.
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been in places where tragedy had struck in much vaster proportions that it had there. Although he’d often felt sad and sorry for the victims, he’d never experienced the soul-wrenching reactions he’d felt in the past few minutes, looking out over the Slide.
Why in hell should a long-ago tragedy in an obscure Canadian valley affect him this way?
“Well, at least you’re prompt,” Evelyn Lawrence greeted Tom the next morning, setting aside the inky pages of a newspaper she was reading.
It was three minutes before eight, and she was wearing a fluorescent pink bed jacket over a canary-yellow gown. Her sparse white hair resembled a messy bird’s nest, and her glasses were perched firmly on her minute nose.
“Are you a drinker, young man? Because your eyes are bloodshot and you look hung over. Drink can be the utter downfall of a man. I hope you realize that.”
Tom decided not to honor that crack with an answer. The truth was, he was simply weary. He’d slept badly, which was unlike him.
He’d had unsettling dreams about that damned Slide, and each time he woke, he remembered that he was going to have to come here and entertain Evelyn Lawrence.
“Put all that stuff down, and stop hovering.”
He was carrying the video camera and a box of tapes. He set them on the floor.
“Morning to you, Mr. Lawrence.” He removed his hat and hung his coat over the back of a chair and sat down, determined not to let her get under his skin. “Nice morning.” It was still windy, but the sky was washed denim blue, and the sun had already tipped the snowy mountain peaks with a pinkish glow. Their beauty had actually brought a lump to his throat.
She nodded, turning to look out the window. “I’ve always liked mornings. Years ago I used to get up at five or six and go for a walk, all by myself.” She turned from the window and caught him eyeing her bulk. “I wasn’t always this heavy, you know. As a child I even did my share of climbing over the Slide, imitating my father, I suppose.” She shook her head and her chins jiggled. “I never liked being there, though. I always felt I was disturbing ghosts, but then a girl will do almost anything to gain her father’s approval.”
“Did it work?” Maybe if he could get her talking, he wouldn’t have to.
The humor faded from her expression, and her jowls jiggled as she shook her head. “Not for a minute. My father barely knew I was alive, or my mother, either. She was a convenience to him, hot meals, clean clothing, tidy house. He didn’t even remember her birthday, not once that I ever recall. Or mine, either, for that matter.” There was enormous bitterness in her tone.
“Oh, he was an adequate doctor. In those days doctoring was a matter of setting bones, delivering babies, and handing out remedies for rheumatism. I pity the poor person who ever went to him for anything else, because he hadn’t a clue what made people tick.” She shook her head, her mouth pulled into a little knot. “All he cared about was getting away by himself to wander over the Slide.”
Tom felt distinctly uncomfortable. He really didn’t want to know about her childhood; he didn’t want to imagine her being a young girl and unhappy. It was enough that he’d been forced to recognize that she was lonely and old.
“We drove up there last night to have a look at your Frank Slide,” he said, hoping to divert her.
Her gray eyes lost their unfocused look and sharpened behind her glasses. “And what did you see?”
He shrugged, uncertain how to answer. “A monstrous pile of limestone rocks and the mountain, of course. Turtle Mountain, that’s its name, right?
She nodded, waiting for him to go on.
He felt like a schoolboy, unprepared to answer a question. He struggled to put something of what he’d felt into words. “It was twilight, pretty gloomy, but then I guess it’s not a ver
y cheerful sight at any time. It was cold and sort of spooky.”
It wasn’t very descriptive, but his answer seemed to satisfy her. “You’re right, it is. I always felt that myself. It’s historic, though. If you’re going to spend time here, you should understand that Slide and the effect it had on this area.”
She waved her hand at the window. “There’s an Interpretive Center up on the mountain, overlooking the Slide. Go on up there and walk through the museum. Watch the movie they’ve made about the night the mountain fell. It’ll give you the history of the area. And speaking of history, young man, you’re here to enlighten me about the world outside these Rockies, so let’s get on with it.”
Tom’s heart sank. This was the part he’d dreaded. He loved what he did while he was doing it, but it made him feel self-conscious and foolish having to talk about it afterward.
And he was also fed up with her calling him “young man,” he decided irritably. “Why not just call me Tom?”
“Well, Thomas, then you might as well use Evelyn. ‘Ms. Lawrence’ and all that Yankee ‘ma’ming’ of yours makes me feel too much like a spinster schoolteacher, God forbid.” There was something almost roguish in the grin that split her chubby cheeks and bared impossibly white dentures.
“Evelyn it is,” he agreed, answering her smile with a weak one of his own. There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and then he blurted, “See, I don’t know exactly how to start, or what it is you want to know.”
“This isn’t an exam!” she snapped. “Just tell me about one of these so-called treasure hunts you’ve been on. Or better still, tell me what ever started you on this preposterous business in the first place.”
He thought back to that period of his life. It had been a long time since that first expedition. As he tried to sort out how much to tell her and what to leave out, he must have taken too long because she smacked her hand down on the mattress, and said, “You may have all the time in the world, Thomas, but I thought I made it clear mine is limited. Talk, for heaven’s sakes.”
Startled, he began in the middle of a thought. “I guess it was seven years ago now we went on our first expedition, just after Jackson got his leg hurt. Both of us had been in the hospital, but all I had was a shattered collarbone. He was the one with the serious injury.”
She frowned at him. “What on earth from? Were you in a wreck of some sort?”
He grinned. “You could say that. We worked for the U.S. Army Intelligence, Special Squad, and the last assignment we had was in the Middle East. It wasn’t what you’d call a success, and we both figured maybe it was time to get into some other profession.”
He didn’t want to get into details about how they’d been injured. Even now, he didn’t want to remember the horror of that botched assignment, so he hurried on before she could start asking questions. “Anyhow, we’d had a job offer some months before that, while we were in Singapore, and after the, ummm, the accident, we decided to take it. We’d met this crazy little man, Harold Woo, one night at a club, and he talked for hours about mounting an expedition to recover the treasure from a pirate ship sunk during the seventeenth century off the coast of Portugal. For some reason, he took a fancy to Jackson and me and decided he wanted us to mastermind the whole operation. We found out a little more about him, to be sure he wasn’t just a loonie shooting off his mouth. When we found out he was on the level, we got in touch with him and said we’d do it.”
“I take it you found out he was wealthy,” she interjected dryly.
Tom nodded. “He wasn’t just wealthy. Harold was filthy rich. But he wasn’t too good at the practical shit. Sorry, Evelyn.”
She waved a hand at him impatiently. “Four-letter words are allowed, as long as you use them in the proper context. They add color. Go on, go on.”
“Well, Jackson and I also figured that he had more money than brains, and that this was just a Disneyland dream of his, this pirate-ship caper. So when he offered us either a share in the profits or generous wages, we didn’t even blink. We chose wages.”
She grunted her approval. “That’s the first sign I’ve seen that you’ve got a practical nature, Thomas,” she said.
“Yeah?” It felt so good to puncture her smug, little balloon. “Well, it was probably the single biggest mistake either of us ever made. See, that pirate ship was right where Harold figured, and it had gold and silver artifacts worth a fortune. If we’d taken even a small percentage, we’d be even wealthier men today.”
“So you decided to go into the salvage business on your own,” she prompted. She‘d folded her hands on the sheet that covered her legs, and she was obviously paying attention to every word.
This wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared it would be.
“Yeah,” he went on. “We did. We figured if there was one sunken ship out there, there had to be more. So I started doing research.”
“And where did you attend university, Thomas?”
“I didn’t,” he said shortly.
“And why was that? You obviously have a good mind.”
Damn, he hated this probing. He didn’t mind talking about pirate ships and treasure so much, but when it came to his personal business, it riled him to have her question him.
“I didn’t finish high school until I joined the Army.” Grade school, either, if the truth was told. He was seventeen before he even discovered how much he liked to read. “They let me take college courses.”
“So you’re self-taught.”
“Yes, ma’am, uhh, Evelyn. I guess you could say that.”
The now-familiar scowl contorted her features. “Where did you grow up, for goodness’ sake? What kind of parents did you have, not to recognize you were bright and encourage you to get an education? There must be scholarships and bursaries, even in the United States.” Her schoolteacher persona was activated, and her parochial attitude toward Canada would have amused him if he hadn’t been uncomfortable with her questions.
She went on, “There’s a line on television. ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste.’ They repeat it so much it’s tiresome, but it’s also true.”
“My folks were poor,” he said briefly. It was all he intended to say, and she must have properly interpreted the tautness of his jaw and the warning in his eyes, because she let it drop.
“Well. So you learned to do research.”
Immense relief flooded him. They were off dangerous ground, at least for the moment.
“Yeah. I started looking for stories of lost treasure and found they were endless, but lots of them aren’t based on much factual information. I try to sort out which ones seem to be the most promising, and then Jackson and I go after them. Not all the time,” he corrected. “Not even most of the time. About seventy percent of our work is funded by somebody else, wealthy individuals or organizations. It makes the business viable.”
“And how often are you successful?”
His grin was both wide and rueful. “About once in every twenty attempts,” he admitted. “That’s why we usually work for wages, for somebody else. But one in a while, we can’t resist chasing something down on our own.”
“Like the mythical gold under the Frank Slide.” She looked straight at him. “My mother was quite insane for years before she died, you know.”
He couldn’t figure out for the life of him what the hell she was talking about. Her mother, the Slide. What the hell had one thing to do with the other?
“You could say it was this same wild-goose chase that did it. You see, she loved my father. She never stopped loving him, even after all the years he neglected and ignored her, and all he loved was a dream, a fable.” There was weary resignation in her tone. “He traded his marriage and his daughter for a treasure hunt, Thomas. Don’t let that happen to you.” She turned again to the window, and the sounds from the corridor filtered in through the closed door, a television tuned to a game show, a petulant voice asking over and over for orange juice.
“Money’s cold comfort, when you�
�re old and alone,” she went on at last. “I wish now I’d married, had half a dozen children. I’d be a grandmother. A great-grandmother, probably. Most girls marry young around here. It’s the fresh mountain air.” A trace of her mischievous grin came and went again. “There was a man once, a decent man. But loving has to be learned, just like any other skill. I never learned, and I drove him away. I got to thinking money was the important thing.”
Tom was distinctly uncomfortable with all this talk of love. He shifted in his chair, wondering how much longer before he could escape, with or without the diary he was trading his life’s blood for.
She noticed and abruptly changed the subject. “Enough of all that. Show me slides, tell me stories.”
For the next two hours, he did his best to entertain her.
There were pictures of the South China Sea in the Philippines, and the artifacts from a forgotten civilization that he and Jackson had unearthed. There was the ill-fated expedition to the Arctic, and their futile search for the remains of a Viking ship supposedly frozen in the ice. They’d come close to death on that one. And there was the eerie exploration of a series of caves in Mexico, funded by a wealthy archaeologist, which had resulted in the discovery of human skeletons, skeletons so large they could only have come from a race of long-dead giants.
She asked dozens of eager questions, and he did his best to answer. Time passed much more quickly than Tom had dared hope, but it was still an enormous relief when a tap came at the door and a pink-smocked aide appeared with a trolley.
“Lunchtime, Miss Evelyn. Fish and chips and chocolate sundaes for dessert.”
Tom sprang to his feet. “Think I’ll go have some lunch myself.” The sun shone outside the window like a beacon signaling freedom.
“I sleep in the afternoon, Thomas, and then they use some confounded machine on my hip in the misguided belief that they’re doing some good. So you’re off the hook until this evening. I’ll expect you at five. You might as well leave all that video equipment here until then.”
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 64
