Black Gold Deception

by Jess Walker

  “There’s nobody scheduled to be camping in this section of the park for the next week. And besides, this parking lot is for day visitors only, the long-term lot is off a different road. Parking is prohibited past dusk without a permit.”

  He turned the engine off, and they both got out of the truck. Charlotte walked over to the car while Jessie finagled the ATV off the truck bed. She tried the car door. It was locked. A thin film of frost covered the windows. She pressed her hand against the driver’s side window to melt the thin layer of ice until she could see through. The luminescent glow of the lamppost overhead provided enough light to get a good look. She saw nothing. It was clean. There were no bags or loose items lying about.

  Jessie sat on the ATV waiting with her helmet in hand. “You see anything of interest?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. The interior is clean.”

  “Just as well. Let’s get going.” He handed her the helmet.

  She squeezed it on and tapped his shoulder.

  “I’m ready.”

  The ATV lurched into the darkness, following the single beam of light projected from its headlight. The night slowed their speed, but they eventually came to a stop a mile south of the cabin. The sweeping flow of headlights and the motoring buzz of the ATV would alert anyone within earshot.

  “This is where we get off. We got a mile to go before we reach the cabin,” Jessie said.

  Charlotte followed Jessie into the darkness. After a couple of minutes, their night vision kicked in as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. The light of the half-moon lit the area up in a dull glow as they made their way along a foot trail, which snaked through the trees.

  Jessie stopped and stooped to get a better view through the brush. “I see the cabin. Let’s skirt to the outside of the trail and make our way through the bush. We don’t want to be seen if somebody is still there. Keep your head on a swivel and stay alert. Got it?”

  “Sounds good,” Charlotte whispered.

  A little way up, they found a thick area of bush surrounded by pine trees with an unobstructed view of the cabin. They crawled inside and studied the shelter from a distance. After keeping their eyes glued ahead for fifteen minutes, they saw nothing. There was no activity inside or outside of it.

  “I don’t know about you, but it looks clear from here,” Charlotte said.

  Jessie nodded his head. “No smoke, lights are off, no one lingering about—looks about as quiet as a church on a Friday night.”

  They crept toward the cabin until they were outside one of the windows, and Jessie looked inside. “Nobody’s inside by the look of it. Follow me.”

  Charlotte followed him to the front door. He took out the key and inserted it into the lock, twisting the doorknob. The door screeched open, and they stood still in the doorway listening before taking another step. No sound. Jessie took a step forward but froze when they heard something creak. Someone, or something, was moving on one of the bunks. Then he heard a rustling sound of sheets followed by a pair of feet landing on the wood floor. Somebody was in the bunkbed. Whoever it was, had just jumped off!

  Jessie stumbled back and bumped into Charlotte, knocking her clean off her feet. He yanked her up with a sharp tug, dragging her out the door. They bolted toward an area of overgrown bushes and crashed through. Tree branches whipped by and thorny bushes ripped at their jackets as they careened through, willing themselves to go faster and faster.

  Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. Through the mass of branches, she saw the light of the cabin flicker on. She heard a door slamming shut. Jessie was ten yards behind her, struggling to keep up. She stopped and waved her arms at him, urging him to hurry. When he was five paces behind her, she set off again. Twenty yards ahead, she stopped at a foot trail unsure which way to go. Twenty seconds later, Jessie broke through the bushes. He stooped beside her, slouched over, hands on his knees struggling to catch his breath. He was drenched in sweat and looked like death itself. Charlotte looked at him worriedly.

  “Are you going to make it or am I going to have to carry all three hundred pounds of you out of here?”

  He half chuckled in-between breaths. “To carry me, you’d need a forklift or three strong men. We don’t have either. I got this. I can do it.”

  “Which way?” Charlotte asked.

  Jessie pointed to the left.

  “That way.”

  Charlotte was off again. Jessie stumbled behind her as she made her way along the winding trail. A quarter mile down the path, she could see the ATV. She was almost there. She looked behind, but there was no Jessie.

  When she got to the ATV, she jumped on and looked down the trail again for him but didn’t see him. “Oh great, it looks like I’m going to have to drive this thing.”

  She twisted the key and pushed a red button on the console. The ATV fired up. After she let the clutch out and gave it some gas, it shot out, nearly knocking her off her seat from the sudden acceleration. With white knuckles, she drove along the trail until she came across Jessie around the second bend. He was lying on the ground, unmoving.

  Fearing the worst, a million thoughts raced through her mind as she drew nearer. When she saw his back rising up and down, she let out a sigh of relief, stopped the ATV, and jumped off.

  Coming to her knees beside him, Charlotte placed a hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear me? You awake?”

  He half-mumbled a yes.

  “Are you injured?”

  “No, don’t think so. I tripped over a tree root, fell, and it knocked the breath clean out of me.”

  “Well, get up, then. Suck it up and climb onto that ATV! I need a driver. I don’t drive these things very well.”

  He dragged himself off the ground and slumped onto the driver seat. Charlotte climbed onto the back.

  “You got it from here?”

  He mustered a thumbs up as he cranked the handlebars to the left. The ATV turned on a dime and sped back down the trail. On their way back, Charlotte couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like sirens going off in the distance.

  Meanwhile back at the cabin…

  James and his girlfriend, Ashleigh, panicked when they heard someone enter the cabin. They had snuck into the building, braving the cold, to have a little alone time and weren’t expecting visitors, especially at that time of night. It caught them off guard.

  Ashleigh remained in the top bunk huddled underneath the blankets with her knees pinned to her chest, rocking back and forth.

  “James, I thought you said the cabin was vacant. Who was at the door? They had keys.”

  James stood below the bunk. “When I took the keys off the rack, I double checked the rental list to make sure it was vacant. This cabin isn’t scheduled to be rented for two weeks. It was rented a couple days ago, but not anymore.”

  James was a part time employee for the parks department and had managed to take a cabin key when his boss wasn’t looking. He thought it would be a good place to go to that was private. Their parents’ places and the backseat of the car wasn’t cutting it anymore. The cabin seemed like the ultimate answer. He now regretted it.

  “It better not be one of your immature friends like Trevor and Dave. Do they know you’re here?” Ashleigh asked.

  “No, they don’t. Nobody does.”

  “Did you see who it was or get a look at them?”

  “By the time I got out the door, they’d already taken off into the bushes. It’s a good thing they got away. The site of my white ass against the half-moon would have given them a heart attack.” James laughed at his own joke.

  Ashleigh didn’t find it funny. “This place is giving me the creeps. Let’s get out of here,” she stammered.

  They both threw on their clothes and their outdoor gear. James did a quick inspection of the cabin to make sure it was clean, with everything left the way it was when they had arrived
.

  “You ready?”

  She glared at him, annoyed by the whole ordeal.

  “I take that as a yes.” James picked up their helmets from the table and opened the door.

  They walked around the back of the cabin where the motorbike was parked and got on. James kick-started it, and the engine coughed to life. He put it into first gear and hightailed it out of there. He could only shake his head at the unexpected turn of events. It would be a long time before he would see any action again. Back to the drawing board, he thought.

  CHAPTER 19

  November 6, Late Evening—On-Route to Porcupine Mountain

  Sam made the four-hour trip to Porcupine Mountain on a gas tank that was three-quarters full. With night touching down, he pulled into the long-term parking area near the park border. He knew the location of the cabin and guessed that his hike would take him at least three hours if he moved at a fast pace. Grabbing his backpack with his gun stored securely inside, he set off with Silver in the lead.

  A thought struck him, and he stopped mid-stride. If they caught him caught him still wearing the eagle pendant necklace, he would be in a world of trouble. After all, that was what they were after. He would have to hide it somewhere. Weighing his options, Sam glanced around the parking lot, trying to determine the best place to hide it. The car.

  He bent over to examine underneath the front seat of the car. The red faded leather stretched all the way to the underside of the seat. With his knife, he cut a tiny slit in the leather, took the eagle pendant off the necklace with the card stored safely inside, and shoved it as far up the seat cushioning as it would go. Satisfied, he locked the doors to the car, put the necklace back on, and was off.

  The cool night air bit at his face and numbed his cheeks as he made his trek to the cabin. If Lawrence was in the park, there was a good chance the men with the dragon tattoos would be there, too. He had to remain alert. Luckily, Silver was with him, his own personal body guard. The wolf would be the first to spot danger.

  Near midnight, he reached the cabin. On his belly, Sam scanned the area ahead through the veil of pine trees. Seeing no sign of smoke coming from the cabin and noticing the lights were off, he walked cautiously up to the cabin, surveying his surroundings with each step. He peered through the windows of the cabin and saw nothing. Inside, the room was pitch black and cold. As he edged his way to the center of the room, he felt the kerosene lamp and quickly lit the room up, casting the room in a dull glow.

  The room was vacant and sterile without any signs of human activity. It was clean, too clean, no gum wrappers, cigarette butts or the tiniest speck of litter. He found this troubling. It was as though whoever was there last wanted to erase all tracks of their presence. He searched the room, looking for any clue that would lead him to Lawrence but came up empty. He walked outside and surveyed the perimeter and discovered boot prints in the thin layer of snow travelling away from the cabin. Silver bolted ahead and followed the tracks to an outhouse. Approaching the small building, Sam saw a splotch of what appeared to be dried blood along the outside of the trail leading around the outhouse.

  Silver darted ahead and stopped at the edge of the trail. The wolf burrowed his nose into the needled ground and nudged a wooden handle. Sam retrieved the item, immediately recognizing it as the snow shovel Lawrence kept at the cabin. There was no logical reason for it to be this far from the cabin. Lawrence was in trouble. Sam’s intuition had been right all along. He held the handle to Silver’s nose, hoping it retained enough of Lawrence’s sent in the grain of the wood.

  Confident that the wolf had a strong scent to work with, he stuffed the piece of fabric back into his pocket. He was ready to go.

  “Go find him boy!”

  Silver bolted away. Sam tried hard to keep up, but the wolf easily out distanced him.

  “Slow down boy!” Sam hollered.

  The wolf responded to his command, trotting at a slower pace with his sniffer glued to the ground the whole time. The full moon blanketed the countryside in a dull light casting shadows off nearby trees. For the remainder of the night and into first light, Sam followed Silver through heavily wooded areas, partly frozen swamps, and a river with a makeshift bridge. He entered at the base of one of the smaller mountains and ascended a well-traveled trail across increasingly barren vegetation and rock-covered ground.

  He was about three-quarters of the way to the top of the mountain when Silver stumbled onto an abandoned mine entrance. He followed the wolf inside the dark shaft. Once inside, he opened his rucksack and retrieved a flashlight and turned it on. The beam of light swept across tools and boxes scattered all over the place. It looked to be some kind of utility room. Silver continued down the shaft. Sam followed. The wolf stopped suddenly and let out a low whine. When he got to him, Sam could see why. The ground gave way. The descent down was at a steep angle.

  How to get down, Sam thought. A spool of old cable cord was next to the hole. He unwound the wire and tied one end to a metal shelf affixed to the shaft wall and looped the wire at the other end around his waist before tying it into a knot. He walked backward, maintaining enough tension on the rope to counterbalance the steep decline. Silver crept slowly down on his belly, sliding part of the way beside him. Sam had to grab him around the collar to prevent the wolf from sliding past him. Sam stopped at a metal grate, which hung loosely off its hinges. He bent down and shone his flashlight through. The beam lit up a huge mound of crushed up rocks below. Silver jumped down, followed by Sam who landed directly on top of the mound and slid down feet first until he came into contact with something. He shone his flashlight on it to take a closer look.

  It was a dead body.

  The first thing he noticed was a tattoo of a dragon on the deceased man’s neck. Sam searched the body for any items that might prove to be of use and came across a couple of energy bars, a flask of water, and a rifle. He wolfed down the energy bar and sucked back the water, downing it to the last drop. He picked up a rifle and slung it across his back before he followed Silver.

  He came to a metal caged door at the foot of a shaft. Light spilled out from his flashlight down the length of the tunnel, casting shadows off the wall, as he walked straight ahead. Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at a gaping hole. He sidestepped around it, with his back flat against the wall and his feet shuffling from side to side.

  Further down the shaft he stopped when he saw another dead body. The tell-tale mark was easily distinguishable on the deceased man’s neck: a tattoo of a dragon. A bloodstained handle of a pickaxe stuck out of the man’s stomach, and his face was contorted in an expression of shock and rage. Dried blood spilled down either side of his mouth.

  Sam’s stomach felt queasy as he walked past the body.

  He followed Silver down the shaft and was relieved when he saw light at the end of the tunnel. It was his exit out. When he stepped outside, Sam kissed the ground. He was thankful that he made it out in one piece and breathed in deep gulps of fresh air. The cool air burned his lungs on the way down, but it felt good. The midday sun felt soothing against his face.

  He traversed down the mountain along a well-used foot trail. Eventually, he reached the bottom and entered into a deep wooded area. He wound his way through the endless mass of trees until he hit a dirt road that led past foothills and farmers’ fields to a mailbox at the foot of a long driveway, which disappeared over a hill.

  “Bingo,” Sam muttered. “I think I’ve reached the end of the road. Lawrence should be close now.”

  Keeping parallel to the driveway and close to a wooden fence lined with old maple trees in case he had to find cover, Sam walked along the outer edge of the field. He wanted to remain out of sight and as far away from the road as possible in case a vehicle came along. As he rounded the hill, a farmhouse came into view. He flattened himself to the ground and lay on his belly, perched on his elbows. He saw smoke coming from the chimney a
nd three vehicles parked out front.

  After removing the rifle that was slung around his back, he aimed the optic, zeroing in on the house until he had a clear view. All but one window had the blinds down. Through the one window, he spotted a man sitting on the couch, watching television with a rifle perched against the arm.

  “Looks like I found the right house,” Sam muttered. “That or the owner is a die-hard gun owner.”

  His attention was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle turning up the driveway. Sam set his scope on the SUV: a lone driver occupied it.

  When the vehicle stopped outside the house, a middle-aged man, robust and round in stature, hopped out and walked to the front door. A man with a rifle slung over his shoulder opened the door to let him in.

  Sam set the optic through the open window again and saw the plump man saunter into the room where the man sitting on the couch promptly got up. An exchange of words took place, before the plump man left the room. The man went back to his seat to watch television while he drank a can of something, probably a beer, Sam couldn’t be sure. Sam did another sweep with the sight of his rifle, across the house and perimeter, trying to spot a guard or a lookout man, but failed to see anything. He saw a barn, which looked to be unoccupied.

  He mulled over his options. If he approached the house during daylight, it would be sheer suicide as the perimeter surrounding the house was wide-open space. He would be spotted for sure. The nearest wooded section was two hundred yards east of the house behind the barn. He could get to the barn easily enough without being spotted, he thought, as he had the woods to hide in. Not moving and standing still was giving him serious chills. His best bet would be to bunk down in the barn, a place that would provide some shelter against the elements, and when night settled in, he would make his move on the house. It might not be the best plan, but at least it was a plan.

  Edging his way along the perimeter of the field, Sam slipped into the woods. He slowly made his way through the trees, until he was twenty yards away from the barn. Knee-high grass encircled the building and drifted to the edge of the forest where he lay. On the other side of the barn sat the house. He lay down on his belly and surveyed the structure, trying to see if it was safe to enter. He saw nothing, no red flag, nothing out of the ordinary.