Holland Suggestions

by John Dunning

  Everyone had. We made a semicircle around the fire and Gould turned off the lights.

  “Probably no region on earth has more legends and stories than this part of the Rocky Mountains. The legends come from three main sources—from Indians, who lived here for thousands of years; from the Spanish conquistadores, who raped the land and the people in the sixteenth century; and from the pioneers of the late eighteen hundreds. All of them left something here. Often what they left was gold, treasures more valuable and vast than anything ever invented in fiction. Let me tell you about a few of them.”

  The red-orange light of the fire flickered on his face as he told us his first tale. It was an absorbing little drama about an old miner of the 1880s named Jeremiah Horn. After twenty-five years of poverty-level grubstaking, Jeremiah struck a fat vein of rich ore. Every spring after that he took a pack mule into the mountains, disappeared for three months, and came back in late summer with enough gold to carry him through the winter. Many people tried to track Jeremiah to his mine, but the old man was an expert tracker and backtracker and he always lost them.

  One spring Jeremiah Horn rode away into the hills and never returned. “Nobody knows what happened to him,” Gould said; “and nobody ever found his mine, either. My guess is, Horn either got bushwhacked or was lost in a spring storm.”

  “Is that likely? About getting lost, I mean,” Jill said. “If he was such an expert tracker…”

  “The weather in these parts can change in a minute, Miss Sargent. Even an old-timer can lose his way in a high mountain snowstorm. People still get lost, a few every year. In the case of Jeremiah Horn, who knows? Maybe he fell from one of those early mountain trails you see in pictures. Maybe someday somebody will find his bones in the bottom of a ravine, and that might open a clue to the location of the mine.”

  Gould moved on. His tales were short and earthy, and he knew just enough about each to whet my appetite for more. Next he told us about a train robbery, when gold worth more than two million dollars was stolen and stashed somewhere in the mountains. Within twenty-four hours of the robbery the bandits were captured, but the money never was found. “It’s out there somewhere, buried under some rock,” Gould said; “it’s just waiting for somebody to find it.”

  He sipped his drink. “What I’m telling you now are stories based entirely on fact. Some of the legends are really wild, but everything I’m telling you now actually did happen. There are records proving that Jeremiah Horn lived, and that he made a fantastic strike. We know the loot from the train never was found. All three of the robbers were dead within a year, and all of natural causes. None of ’em ever told where the money was. Call it coincidence or fate or whatever, but that’s what makes these mountain tales so fascinating. You look at this country and you know that anything can happen here. There must be two or three dozen documented cases of treasures found and lost again.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Why were they lost? You’d think anyone who found something like that would be careful to map it out.”

  “You’d think so, but it wasn’t that way. This territory was a melting pot in those days, Mr. Ryan; not at all what TV has made it out to be. There wasn’t often a face-to-face gunfight; it was far more ordinary to find someone shot in the back. If people knew you had something valuable, why, they just took it away from you if they could do it. So when a man struck it rich he kept his map in his head and he kept his mouth shut. When he died—and that was usually at an early age—the location of the mine went with him.

  “There’s another factor too, and that’s the land itself. This country changes all the time. We get heavy snows here every year, and landmarks have a way of disappearing from one winter to the next. I know of several reliable stories of miners who struck it rich, marked their claims, and came back the next spring only to find the whole landscape different. I can see you find that hard to believe, but ask Mr. Max; he’s seen it.”

  Max nodded. “Tell them about Caverna del Oro, Harry. You were talking about wild legends, and that’s the best of them all.”

  “Please, not tonight; I’m not used to talking so much. Let’s save Caverna del Oro for another time.”

  The party dissolved quickly after that. Gould turned on the lights and Max excused himself. Jill stepped outside for a breath of air and I followed her out.

  “How long will you be here?” she asked.

  “A few days; maybe a week. How about you?”

  “Until I’ve finished my work. I want to hike up into the hills…”

  “I was thinking of going out tomorrow too. Will you come with me?”

  “Yes, I’d like that. Right now I’d better get up to bed.”

  But we stood there for a few more moments, listening to the mountain noises and feeling the sting of the cold air. I did not say anything. I was thinking again of Amy, and now I had to admit it: I was beginning to worry. Jill sensed my preoccupation and soon turned away to go in. I escorted her upstairs. At her door she turned to me and said, “What time tomorrow?”

  “Let’s go early. Six o’clock?”

  “Fine.”

  “And maybe tomorrow night we can hear the rest of Harry’s tales. His Caverna del Oro interests me.” She nodded slightly. “Good night, Jim.”

  8

  LONG BEFORE FIRST LIGHT I was awake, but I did not get up. I forced myself to lie still until I heard the sounds of birds outside. It was five-fifteen. The air was pale, with a foggy predawn glow that I used to love but have grown to hate. I swung my body out of bed and looked through the window toward the rim. I was surprised to see a man standing in the front yard of the old house. He stood so still, watching the inn with such obvious intent, that I almost passed over him in my quick scrutiny. From my perch he was fully two hundred yards away, and I could not make out his features at all. I saw that he wore a red shirt and dark pants, but the facial characteristics probably would have been blurred at that distance in broad daylight, let alone the gloom of early morning. A telescope was mandatory; that was unquestionable now. I would get away to Pueblo in a day or two and bring one back with me.

  While I was watching, the front door of the old house opened and the vague form of a woman appeared behind a screen door. She remained in the darkness, coming only to the door to speak briefly with the man before stepping back and closing the door. He remained outside for perhaps another ten minutes, and I watched him for as long as he was there. He went in just as the sun was breaking the sky in the east.

  I was full of insane notions these days; now came the wildest yet. For all of fifteen minutes I calmly weighed my chances of prowling around the old house without being caught. Of course it was mad; something like that always is to a man who has lived his life within the law. Yet somehow I would have to clear up this matter of the black Oldsmobile, and if that meant employing unconventional methods, so be it. The telescope would be a first step in countersurveillance. Beyond that, I did not know at this point how far I would go. A lot would depend on what they did, and when.

  I came down into the lobby at exactly six o’clock. Already Harry Gould was up and on the job. He stood behind the bar, grinning broadly, as if anticipating another flood of guests. “I thought you might be going out this morning,” he said quietly. “I wanted to give you some pointers about the country before you go.”

  “Great.” I pulled up a barstool.

  He poured coffee from a pot simmering behind the bar. “People who have never been in the high Rockies can’t appreciate how fast this weather can change. I know I told you that last night, but I could see then that it didn’t make much of an impression. Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating it, Mr. Ryan. Right now it looks like summertime outside. That can all change in an hour; we could be buried under snow again by tonight. We’re due for a few more good snowstorms before summer really comes anyway. I’ve even seen it snow in July.”

  “So I should watch the weather?”

  “
You bet. If it starts to cloud up, get on back here. Don’t fool around with storms in this country. Up there, when everything is white, it’s so easy to wander off the trail and get lost. If that does happen, don’t walk around. Find some shelter and build a fire, if you can; wait it out. We’ll find you.”

  I nodded and sipped from the steaming cup.

  “That’s the sermon,” Gould said. “There’s just one more thing: Stay out of old mines.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “Yeah, well, you never know what might attract people. Some of these old mines have been here for ninety years. A lot of them are half filled with water. And watch out for shafts.”

  “Shafts?”

  “That’s a hole sunk straight down into a mine to give it air. Some of them are a hundred feet deep. I don’t have to tell you what would happen to a man who fell into one.”

  I shivered. “Jesus, does that really happen often?”

  “Once is too often. Sure, I run across a newspaper story now and then about a hiker who’s fallen into a mineshaft. It’s easier than you think. Some of them are boarded over with rotten wood; some are overgrown with weeds. Once in a while a man just disappears in the high country and never is found. When that happens, I figure he probably fell into a shaft.”

  I heard Jill’s soft footsteps and gulped my coffee as she came down. “My hiking partner arriveth. I appreciate your help.”

  He nodded amiably. “Coffee, Miss Sargent?”

  “I had some instant in my room,” she said. “I think my heart is beating now.”

  “You’ll need some breakfast and a lunch,” Gould said.

  “I’m not big on breakfast,” Jill said.

  Gould insisted. “The mountains are high and the day is long.”

  Over eggs and toast, I asked where we might hike.

  “Are there any ghost towns nearby?” Jill asked.

  “There is an excellent ghost town called Taylor’s Gulch, about three hours from here. I told Mr. Ryan something about it yesterday—that’s the town where the owner of the mansion keeps a cabin. There is a jeep road up there, but it’s a fairly steep hike; it might take you half a day if you’re not used to the altitude.” He took a pencil from beneath the bar. “I’ll draw you a map. Use it if you want; if not, you’ll have it for another time.”

  He explained the landmarks to us as we walked outside. I put the map away in my pocket and hoisted my backpack up on my shoulders. Jill had a smaller bag, which she carried in her hand, and she had brought two cameras, slung around her neck. The weather was beautiful; neither of us wore heavy coats. We splashed along until the muddy street became a dry path that turned upward along the stream’s bank. Jill led the way between the vehicles parked at the stream’s edge, and one at a time we crossed the rope bridge. The sight of the hippie camp brought back my worry about Amy, even though in the warm sunlight her disappearance did not seem nearly so sinister as it had last night. Now I thought it quite possible that she was playing musical beds; she might well be shacked up with someone in the camp. I decided to have a closer look at the camp and its people.

  “Would you mind if I stopped here for a minute?” I asked Jill.

  “Do you know someone here?”

  “I might; I’m not sure.”

  She followed me down the path. At the first cabin a man was cutting wood with an ax. He looked up as we approached; his expression was neither friendly nor unfriendly. A partly clad girl came out of the cabin and for a few seconds I thought she was Amy. But she stopped and looked directly at me and I saw that she was not. This girl might have been her sister. She stopped in her tracks, turned around, and went back inside. The man, meanwhile, had put aside his ax and was waiting for us to approach him. He was older than most of the kids you find in these groups; at least older than my preconceived idea of what a hippie was. This man was at least my age, possibly even in his early forties. His shoulder-length hair was streaked with gray and so was his beard. From the neck down he blended perfectly with the others; his plaid shirt was full of patches and so were his jeans. A brute of a Great Dane stood nearby, growling menacingly and following us with his eyes. It was a relief that the dog was chained to a heavy tree.

  The man never made a move. He kept his eyes on me and did not offer any greeting, spoken or gestured, until I spoke.

  “I’m looking for somebody; a girl who was riding with me. She came up here last night to look around and didn’t come back.”

  He shook his head. “She must have changed her mind. I haven’t seen anybody new for three, four days.”

  “She was young, looked a lot like the girl I just saw come out of this cabin.”

  Again he just stood there, offering nothing.

  “If you see her, would you ask her to come down to the inn?”

  He nodded and terminated the conversation by turning away and taking up his ax. We climbed out of the hippie camp and were well above the rooftops before Jill said anything. Soon we were above the hippie camp and the town proper; the path climbed steeply for a few hundred yards before leveling off in a slow ascent along the mountain face. It went like that: long and straight for the first hour. At the end of the trail we could still see the town; a few specks and occasional flashes of light against glass far below. We were at the top of a small mountain, with the entire range ahead of us. There were snowcapped peaks that dwarfed this one, and a stiff wind whipped the snow from the peaks into swirling white mists. But that was perhaps two thousand feet higher; here the wind died to a fine spring breeze.

  We rested there and shared some talk about ourselves. But each of us wanted to learn about the other, so the talk didn’t go anywhere. From the top the path dipped a bit and the town was lost to view; we began the tough climb that Gould had promised. We tackled it with gusto, but soon I had to stop and rest.

  “How come you’re in such great shape?” I asked. I was blowing hard and frankly jealous of her stamina.

  “I play tennis every morning. It helps build my wind.”

  “And I work out three times a week. So what? None of that seems to matter in this altitude.”

  “Oh, I feel it too, but I like it; let’s go on.”

  “Oh, please!” I was still gasping. “Sit down, will you?”

  She laughed cheerfully and sat beside me on a rock.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “it must be old age.”

  “Yes, yes, you must be all of what? thirty-two?”

  I didn’t answer her. My eyes had picked up some movement on the trail far behind us and I was scanning the slope for signs of life. I saw a brief flash of light, as though the sun had reflected against metal, but again I could not pinpoint it I looked until my staring became obvious, and when she too began to look I shrugged it off. We climbed higher. Gould’s estimate was almost perfect; it took us all morning to reach Taylor’s Gulch. Jill alone might have done it in three hours, but I stopped once more before we reached the town. The path rose to a plateau, and even before we reached the top we found remnants of what must have once been a boomtown. It was built on three levels, much rougher than Gold Creek but of about the same era. The mountains rose all around us, leaving the town in the bottom of a giant cup. The buildings were badly weatherworn, much worse than those in Gold Creek; many had been completely crushed by the heavy mountain snows. Often only a heap of rotted wood remained to show that a building had once been there.

  Like Gold Creek, the town had only one main street, but there the resemblance ended. The street twisted its way up the plateau to the top, crushed and crumbling houses and piles of rotted wood following it up. I tried to imagine what life here was like, but I could not. At the top the street widened and leveled off. This had been the town’s business section, where the saloons and gaming tables and whorehouses were, while the section below probably had been residential. At the head of the plateau another road joined the street, a jeep trail that wound down the opposite side of the same mountain we had just climbed. The land slo
ped upward on both sides as the plateau blended with the mountains; built into the slope about fifty feet up was the cabin Gould had described to me. It was new and obviously well maintained, with fresh paint all around. The opposite slope was dotted by two semiboarded holes in the rock, dark mines that once had played a major part in the town’s economy.

  Jill already had taken several pictures. She mumbled something about needing another lens and a tripod and wanting to shoot the place in the early morning when the sunlight would be pouring in and everything would be pink and wet. It was an impressive performance to someone who had never watched a photographer at work. It impressed me, anyway. Jill worked as if she knew her business, and I felt good about that.

  But it was easy to believe in anything up here. It was even easier to brush aside all my thoughts of intrigue; of Robert Holland and the mountain pictures; of Amy; of the man of the black Oldsmobile. There were a lot of things to consider before making any character judgments of the people who had suddenly come into my life. The last of those considerations, I told myself as I watched her, was a beautiful face and a vibrant personality. It seemed to me that I was the star player in some unfolding melodrama, and everyone had a script but me. They had all been waiting, banded together like a pack of vultures, for my arrival, and perhaps nobody was what he seemed to be. In Jill’s case it was easy to check. I made a mental note to call her publisher in New York the next time I got to a telephone.

  For now I was content just to watch her. Either her infatuation with Taylor’s Gulch was real or she was a talented actress. Until I knew better I assumed that she was just what she claimed to be. She fitted it so well. She must have taken fifty pictures in thirty minutes. Everything she did looked genuine to me. Soon I forgot about it and moved deeper into the town for a closer look. As I walked through the ruins I felt the same stirrings of old ashes that I had first noticed opening those mountain pictures: I had been here. Then a funny thing happened, that experience you read about but never expect to go through yourself. People call it ESP, but I had never had anything faintly resembling ESP and never expected to. I came to a corner where all four buildings were partly standing. Three boulders as large as houses lined the cross-street to my right, making it an effective blind corner, yet I knew what was there before I turned it. There were deep ruts in the alley, and two buildings faced each other from opposite sides. One of the buildings was stone, still standing and in good shape; the other had been a saloon. The saloon was a frame building and, like the others, had surrendered to the elements. Inside was the wreckage of a platform that had been a stage, but the roof had caved in and the stage was piled high with rotted timbers. The alley became a trail leading off into the hills.