CHAPTER 6
Bull Creek Pass, Henry Mountains, Utah
June 23, 2011
We left the pickup truck and the trailer at the Lonesome Beaver Campground and took only the four-wheelers from there. Cody rode double with me because Mom had her easel and painting stuff on the back of her vehicle. Dad pulled a small trailer loaded with lumber and fencing with his, and Grandpère’s four-wheeler was loaded with tools and stuff.
Dad found a little two-track road near the top of Bull Creek Pass. It led off the main road for several hundred yards and stopped on the top of a ridge that provided Mom with a spectacular view of Mt. Ellen to the north. It was pretty amazing. At more than eleven thousand feet, Mt. Ellen was the highest point in the Henry Mountains. Even this late in June, the peaks were still snowcapped.
I watched Mom while she helped Dad get her stuff off the ATV and set up. I noticed that when he wasn’t looking, she kept looking around. I walked over to her. “Mom, why don’t I stay here with you?”
Her head reared back. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Just so you have some company.”
She peered at me with those wide, gray eyes of hers, searching my face. “I’m all right.”
“Really, Mom, I don’t mind.”
“Or I can stay,” Dad said, coming over.
“What is this? A let’s-babysit-Mom conspiracy?” She looked around. “I ...” She shook her head angrily. “In all the years we have lived here, I have never felt unsafe before. I hate it.” But before Dad could answer that, she waved him off. “No. I’m all right. You know how I hate having people hanging over my shoulder when I’m painting.” She smiled at me. “No offense intended.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, pretending to pout.
“Really,” she said to Dad. “We’ve got our satellite phones, so we have coverage up here. I can call you.”
“And we’ll check in with you, too. We’ll probably be gone a couple of hours.”
“Perfect,” she said, smiling and looking more comfortable now. “So go.”
The turnoff to the faint two-track that led up to the mine was another four or five miles on. We nearly went past it because someone had cut down a five- or six-foot-high pine tree and laid it across the entry.
Dad gave Grandpère a strange look but said nothing. He dismounted, dragged the tree out of the way, then motioned for us to come through. To my surprise, he put the tree back in place before we started forward again. We hadn’t even gone a quarter of a mile up the road when Dad pulled to a stop again, holding up one hand. The track was too narrow for us to pull alongside one another, so we stopped in single file. Dad got off and, to my further surprise, reached back and got his rifle from the scabbard attached to the side of his ATV.
Goose bumps in places I didn’t know it was possible to have goose bumps suddenly popped up all over my body. I instinctively clutched at the pouch, which was over my shoulder. “Dad! What is it?”
He didn’t answer. He walked a short distance up the track, staring at the ground. I saw immediately what had gotten his attention. We had last been up this road on my birthday. That was now ten days ago. But the tire tracks here were fresh, not more than a day or two old. Dad dropped to one knee and touched the side of one of the tracks.
“Today?” Grandpère asked.
That question started my pulse pounding, but Dad shook his head. “No. I’d say yesterday.” He turned his head and quietly asked, “Are you feeling anything, Danni?”
You mean other than a serious case of the creepies? But I didn’t say that. I knew those feelings were just a normal reaction to my seeing Dad going for his rifle without warning. I focused inwardly for a moment, then shook my head. “Nothing.”
He straightened and moved forward a little, little pinch lines forming around his mouth now. “Look how deep the tracks are. They were heavily loaded, either with people or something else.” He pointed to another place. “It looks like a dozen or more ATVs came through here, but if you look more closely, you can see that several of the tracks are made from the same tires. I’m guessing it’s two or three vehicles that made several trips in and out.”
“Kids just exploring?” I asked.
“Hopefully. People are always looking for new places.” He didn’t sound convinced. And yet, as I focused inward, I still didn’t feel like anything was out of the ordinary.
He stood there for a long moment, staring up the trail, then made up his mind. “Grandpère, you wait here with the kids. Give me ten minutes. If it’s clear, I’ll fire one shot and then you come up. If there are any concerns, I’ll fire two. If I do that, call for help immediately. But don’t come up before then.” He looked at me and Cody. “You hear me?”
We nodded, and Dad started away. But then he had another thought. He unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to Grandpère without a word, climbed back on his four-wheeler, put it in gear, and started moving forward. If the pistol was meant to comfort us, it wasn’t working.
The next ten minutes seemed more like half an hour, but finally we heard a single rifle shot. Grandpère, who had said nothing during all that time, motioned to us, and in moments we were back on our vehicles and headed up the two-track path.
The mine was a little over a mile up the road. When we came out of the last of the pines into the small clearing, I was hugely relieved to see Dad standing by his four-wheeler. He still held the rifle, but it was in the crook of his arm and the muzzle was pointing at the ground. He was scanning the hillside above him where the tailings from the old mine were clearly visible.
As we shut off our vehicles and dismounted, I looked around quickly. It was a familiar scene—lush meadow grass, lots of wild flowers, the old tree stumps scattered here and there, and pine-clad mountains all around us. Here there were a lot of tracks, far more than we had made on my birthday. But I could see only one old campfire site, and that was ours. It didn’t look like anyone had camped here. That was good. Maybe it was just kids.
I scanned the ridge directly ahead of us. This was the one where earlier I had felt like someone had been watching us. I was touching the pouch with my left hand. Listening. Everything was perfectly still. Our coming had even silenced the squirrels for the moment. But there was also no inner tingling.
“What do you think?” Grandpère asked.
Dad didn’t turn. He raised his free hand and pointed at the slope above us. “You can see that someone climbed up to the mine, but from here the fence looks like it’s still intact. Can’t say about the locks till we get up there.”
“Then let’s go,” I said, anxious to put this to rest.
Dad led, Cody and I were behind him, and Grandpère brought up the rear. Though it was only about a hundred feet up the slope, it was pretty steep. And we were loaded. Grandpère carried an armful of short two-by-fours. Dad had a forty-pound sack of cement on his shoulder. I had a small bucket of water in one hand and a shovel over my other shoulder. Cody was carrying our toolbox and three burlap bags. So we were all puffing pretty heavily by the time we reached the top.
Dad immediately went to the chain-link fence he and Grandpère had put across the entrance to the shaft a month or so before. The gate was closed and the lock was in place. He rattled it with one hand, then grunted in satisfaction. “It’s not been cut.” Taking keys out, he unlocked it, and we swung the gate open. Moving through it, he went right to the heavy plank door that sealed off the shaft. Here, too, the lock was in place and the door secure.
Setting the rifle down, Dad unlocked the second padlock, then stopped and looked around. “What do you think, Jean-Henri?”
Squinting, Grandpère looked around. I could see him calculating things in his mind. “I’d say the first thing is to reinforce the door. Put in those U-bolts to secure the metal plate around the lock so no one can pry it off with a crowbar.” He turned. “And I think we need to cement in the fence posts
so someone can’t just rip them out of the ground.”
“And double padlock the gate?”
“Definitely. With tempered steel locks. Maybe bring up some razor wire the next time we come and string it along the top of the fence. That should help.”
Dad was nodding as Grandpère spoke. “Okay. Then let’s get to work.” He turned and unlocked the door and pulled it open. It squealed in protest. “All right. Danni, you and Cody take those mining picks and start cutting out enough ore to fill the three bags. Come on. I’ll show you the best place to start.”
We stopped a few feet inside to let our eyes adjust to the darkened tunnel. I was directing my headlamp at the ceiling above us, looking for spiderwebs. There hadn’t been any when we were here before, but spiders were hard workers. No telling what they could have done in ten days.
Cody started to push his way past Dad, but Dad’s arm shot out and held him back. “Jean-Henri,” he cried. “Look!” He was pointing forward, directing his light at the floor. I moved up to see better. Suddenly the chills were back, only this time they were hitting every cell in my body. The dirt floor was covered with footprints. No, not footprints. Boot prints. And none of us had worn that kind of boots when we were in here before.
Dad moved quickly forward, swinging his headlamp back and forth to illuminate the floor of the tunnel ahead. He called back over his shoulder, “I’d say at least three men. Maybe four.” We were into the tunnel now, probably two hundred feet or more.
“But how did they get in?” Grandpère asked. “There were no signs of forcible entry.”
Dad started to shake his head, then gave a low cry and raced forward. He trained his light on the side wall and groaned. I knew exactly where we were. This was the place where Dad had shown Rick and me the long, diagonal vein of rhodium. I moved forward slowly, not sure what Dad was seeing.
It didn’t take long for me to find out. There was a pile of rubble on the floor below where the vein was. The pile was much deeper and longer than the one we had made when we were here last week. Then I saw something that hit me like a blow. Where the vein of rhodium had been visible before, there was now a deep channel cut out of the solid rock. It was about three feet in width and cut at least two feet into the wall. The channel followed roughly the same angle as the vein had before.
Dad stood there, as rigid and lifeless as the heavy timbers around us. Slowly, he reached out one hand and felt along the channel. He turned around, and in the light of our lamps we saw that his face was white with shock. “They’ve stripped the seam.” He focused the light onto the pile of rubble. “They must have taken thirty or forty bags of ore out of here. Maybe fifty.”
I rocked back. Fifty bags! I had to reach out and steady myself against the wall.
“How much would that be worth, Dad?” Cody asked.
Dad didn’t even hear him. He just stared blankly at the wall in front of him. Grandpère came over. “Danni,” he said quietly, “take Cody outside. Wait for us at the entrance.”
Too dazed to protest, I took Cody’s hand and we started back the way we had come.
We had only gone a few steps when Dad’s cry stopped us. “What’s this?”
When we turned back, he was leaning in, looking at the wall just above the channel. I hurried back and shined my light on the same spot. There, chiseled into the stone wall, were two words. PHASE TWO.
Dad let his fingers run across the letters as he read them aloud. Then he turned to Grandpère. “Did you do that?”
“No.” He was peering at it too. “Could it have been here before and we just missed it?”
“No way,” Dad said. “It’s freshly cut. Like the channel.”
“What’s it supposed to mean?” I asked.
He shook his head. Grandpère motioned with his head for us to go again, so we turned and headed for the entrance. Suddenly, I was very eager to get out of there.
Once outside, Cody and I found a couple of large rocks to sit on. Still reeling, we settled in to wait for Dad and Grandpère. It was a beautiful summer afternoon. Azure blue sky. An occasional puffy, white cloud. Mountainsides lush with towering pines. And yet it felt like there was this huge black cloud hovering right over our heads.
I could tell that Cody had a thousand questions as we sat there, but I guess he sensed that I didn’t feel much like talking. I was asking those questions of myself. Who did this? And why? (Well, that was a pretty stupid question. If our four bags were worth half a million dollars, then forty or fifty were worth ten times that.) But who? El Cobra and his gang were in prison. My head came up with a jerk. All but three of them.
I shook that off almost immediately. That didn’t make sense. They were on the run. And this had happened probably just yesterday. I finally gave it up. There were no answers, and asking the question only made me feel worse.
The sound of footsteps brought us both to our feet. A moment later, Dad and Grandpère appeared, walking slowly, heads together in deep conversation. When he saw us, Dad came over. I had never seen him quite this shaken before.
“Who do you think did this, Dad?” I asked.
His face was grave. “I don’t know, Danni. Nothing makes sense.”
“Could it be those three men who are still missing? Think about it. We cost them twenty million dollars. Why not come and get some of it back?”
“I wondered that too, but it’s highly unlikely. Whoever did this had at least three ATVs. You can take only three or four bags of ore at a time on those machines, which means they probably had someone down at the road waiting with a trailer or a panel truck to get it out. This was preplanned and carefully orchestrated. Doesn’t sound like something three men on the run could do.”
“Well,” Grandpère said, “whoever they were, they’re gone now. Nothing here is fresher than yesterday.”
Dad took out his phone and punched in a couple of buttons. A moment later, he was talking to Mom. “Hi. How’s it going?” Pause. “Oh, good. I’m glad. Yeah, Grandpère was right. You needed this.” Then, very casually, “Had any company?” Another pause, then relief lit up his face as he shook his head at us. “No. We’ve seen no one either. Uh ... Angelique? Securing the mine is going to be a bigger job than we thought. We’re going to have to come back another day. Yeah, I’m sure. We’ll unload our stuff and come on back down. Probably be there in about ten or fifteen minutes. Okay. Love you too. ’Bye.”
“Is there even any need to secure the shaft now?” Cody asked as Dad put his phone away.
Dad didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at the dark square of the mine shaft entrance. So Grandpère answered for him. “They got the richest ore, Cody, but that doesn’t mean they got it all. Yes, we need to secure it.”
Dad turned back. To my astonishment, he was smiling. It was pretty sickly, but it was a smile. “Not our best week ever, eh? Twenty million dollars one day, and another five million a week later. This keeps up, and first thing you know, we could see some serious losses.” Then he clapped Cody on the shoulder. “Let’s go eat.”
We unloaded the rest of our stuff from the ATVs and carried it into the trees where it couldn’t be easily seen. Finally, Dad looked around. “All right, let’s mount up.”
While we worked, I had removed the pouch from my shoulder and laid it on the seat of my ATV. Now I reached over, picked it up by the rope strap, and slung it over my shoulder. As I did so, I froze. The pouch was warm through my shirt. I jumped to my feet and jerked it around to the front of me, grasping it with both hands. It wasn’t warm, it was hot.
I spun on my heels. “Dad! Something’s wrong.”
Both he and Grandpère jerked around. “What is it?”
It wasn’t just Le Gardien that was hot. In one instant, my whole body felt like it was on fire. Every cell seemed to be aflame.
Dad raced to his ATV and grabbed his rifle. Grandpère strode over, taking me
by both shoulders. “What are you feeling, Danni?”
I gasped as the answer came with perfect clarity, like a jolt of electricity. “We have to go!” I cried. “Now! Hurry, Dad. We have to go.”
“Is it Mom?” he cried.
“No. It’s here. We’re in danger.”
Bless my father for trusting me when he had every reason to stand there and demand to know what in the heck I was doing.
“On the machines,” he cried. “Go! Go!”
The next thought burst into my head. “No! Not the machines. Run! Run for the trees.”
Dad grabbed Cody’s hand, nearly yanking him off his feet as he broke into a hard run, keeping low, darting back and forth, as if he were dodging bullets. Grandpère was between me and the trees, but he waited for me to pass him, waving me on and shouting at me. The four of us raced across the meadow, dodging tree stumps. In moments, we plunged into a thick stand of old-growth timber and were instantly in deep shadow.
“This is far enough,” I cried when we were about twenty or thirty feet in. Dad darted behind the trunk of a large pine tree, pulling the rifle up to cover our retreat. Grandpère pushed Cody behind another tree, keeping him close. Using a tree trunk as a shield seemed like a good idea, so I found one where I still had a clear line of sight to the meadow.
We held our breath, trying to hear anything over the sound of our hammering hearts. I kept my eyes pinned on the mine shaft, expecting men with rifles to come running out. Thirty seconds went by, and suddenly I was feeling like an absolute idiot. There was nothing. Not a sound. No movement. Nothing. I reached down and touched the pouch. It was cool again. Dad lowered the rifle and stood up. He turned to me. “Are we okay?” he said in a low voice.
“I ... I’m not sure. I just had this awful—”
KA-BOOM!
The deafening blast and its accompanying shock wave came so closely together as to be one simultaneous experience. At the same instant as I saw the hillside disappear in a billowing cloud of smoke and dust, the shock wave came crashing down the mountain into the meadow almost more quickly than the eye could follow. I saw one of the four-wheelers tossed violently onto its side. I ducked just as the concussion slammed into our grove of trees. Smaller trees sheared off at the base and went tumbling wildly through the air. Bushes were flattened. Above us, baseball-sized rocks zipped through the trees like bullets, cutting off whole pine branches or gouging out great chunks of bark from the trunks. A deluge of smaller rocks and rock fragments began to shower down on us from the sky.