The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) (9 page)

“I vote for lunch,” Pap said. “That was the worst crumb cake I ever ate.”

“I agree,” Dave said. “So why did you take a second piece?”

“I was trying to be polite,” Pap said. “Besides, Margaret and I had a nice little chat. She said old Teddy is quite the greener. He still has his men log steep slopes but leave enough trees for the canopy to shade the slope and slow the snowmelt. They don’t have a single stream in their woods that’s been silted in or flooded out.”

“There’s a rarity,” Tully said. “This whole county used to be prime fly-fishing, but most of it is gone now. Take a thousand years for it to come back.”

“What good will that do?” Dave said. “We’ll all be dead by then.”

“That’s why it will come back.”

A SIGN ON
the door of Jake’s Café advertised that lunch was served between eleven and two. “This look okay to you guys?” Tully said.

“No, but it will do,” Dave said.

“Must be the hot place to dine in Angst,” Tully said. The café was empty. All the tables were covered with red-checked oilcloths, most of which had bare spots that had apparently been peeled by bored diners. They sat down at a table in the middle of the room. A chubby waitress in a dirty apron came over and gave them menus. “What’s good?” Dave asked.

“Nothing, actually,” she said. “But most everything is edible. The Canadian stew ain’t bad. I recommend it along with the vegetable medley.”

“What roughly is the Canadian stew?” Tully asked. “I can guess at the vegetable medley.”

“Sliced potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, and other stuff plus slices of something that passes for beef and all of it covered with gravy so you don’t have to look directly at the ingredients.”

All three took the Canadian stew, vegetable medley, and beer. The beer was cold and good and served in the bottles without any glasses to fuss with. Pap said it dampened down the remnant taste of the crumb cake. The waitress brought them a plate of rolls and a dish containing a slab of butter.

They were sprawled back in their chairs drinking their beer and waiting for their Canadian stew when the two loggers came in, or at least two husky young guys who looked like loggers.

“We got somebody sitting at our table, Stubb,” one said.

“They’ll just have to move, Gordy.”

“Afraid not,” said Tully. “There are plenty of empty tables left. Make one of them your special table.”

Stubb said, “Either you move or we’ll move you.”

The waitress came over and said, “Stop causing trouble, you clowns. Go sit at another table. These guys ain’t bothering you.”

Stubb said, “Mind your own business, Bev.”

“Okay, I’m moving this one,” Gordy said. He bent down, grabbed Dave around the waist, and started to lift. Tully became interested. Dave gave him a questioning look.

“I’ll give you a hand,” Stubb said, bending over to grab
Dave around the neck. A second later both loggers were out cold on their backs, bleeding about the face. Dave hadn’t risen from his chair. Tully wasn’t even sure he had seen him move.

“I hate it when somebody ruffles my shirt,” Dave said. “I have to iron them myself and it’s a big nuisance.”

“Remind me not to help you out of your chair,” Tully said.

“You didn’t learn that move in no army,” Pap said. “I was in Korea and we never learnt nothing like that.”

“Different time, different army,” Dave said.

Bev brought out the Canadian stew and vegetable medley and another round of beer. She stepped over Stubb, set the tray on the table, and distributed the plates and silverware. The cook came out of the kitchen. “I’m Jake,” he said, wiping his hands on what may have once been a white apron. “Lunch and beer are on the house.” He nodded at Stubb and Gordy. “I never seen nothing like that before, a guy who could put Stubb and Gordy out cold without even getting up from his chair.”

“Thanks, pardner,” Tully said. “We appreciate the offer, but we’ll pay. This stew is delicious.”

“Don’t think too bad of them,” Jake said. “Logging around here has totally tanked. Stubb and Gordy haven’t worked in months. It makes some guys stupid or crazy, I don’t know which. They’re not bad boys.”

Stubb and Gordy, occasionally emitting groans, remained on the floor until lunch was finished. As Tully got up to leave, both loggers began to shows signs of life, much to his relief.
Pap left fifty dollars on the table to pay for the stew and tipped Bev a hundred dollars. “This is for the nuisance,” he said, indicating the two bodies. From her expression, Tully guessed Bev had never before been tipped a hundred dollars. He thought she was about to cry. For a good three or four minutes, Tully felt somewhat fondly toward Pap.

Before heading up to the Finch Mine, Tully pulled into a parking lot and went in to a small grocery to pick up a few staples to tide them over the next few days. He put his selections in a shopping basket and set the basket on the counter in front of the cashier. She seemed tired and worn down by life, but her face brightened when she looked at him. “You’re Sheriff Bo Tully, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am he.”

“Oh, what I would have given to have you in here this morning! I tell you, I never felt so close to pure evil! It was standing right where you are right now. Cold as ice, he was, and I figured he was about to ask for all the money in the cash register. Well, he didn’t. He just counted out a bunch of rumpled dollar bills and coins ’til they covered his bill. I couldn’t say a word, I was so scared. After he left, I had to go set down, to settle my nerves, and it wasn’t ’til then I noticed the smell, I had been so unnerved. It was ghastly, Sheriff! I don’t think that man, if that’s what it was, ever had took a bath in its entire life!”

Tully tugged on the droopy corner of his mustache. “I think I know the individual you’ve described. Was he by any chance wearing a cap with earmuffs tied up on top?”

“Come to think of it, he was! That had plumb slipped my
mind but you’re exactly right, he was! Is he some criminal you’re after, Sheriff?”

He looked at her tag. “Yes, he is, Shirley. You would make a good detective. I guess you don’t get the
Blight Bugle
this far north.”

“Oh, we get it here at the store but I don’t read it. Mostly newspapers just upset me.”

“You’ve got a point there, Shirley. I may give them up myself. By the way, can you tell me what the man bought?”

“Now that you mention it, yes. It was kind of weird. He bought a big bag of dried beans, another one of rice, and about ten pounds of salt.”

He thanked her for the information, picked up his sacks, and walked out to the truck.

“Guess what, boys,” he said to Pap and Dave. “Kincaid was in the neighborhood. From what he bought, though, I think he may be heading back in the mountains to stay. He bought ten pounds of salt for one thing, which makes me think he’s planning on making jerky, probably smoking it over a willow fire. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has two or three wickiups hidden away back in the Snowies.”

“Wickiups?” Dave said. “What are those?”

Tully explained they were a bunch of poles stacked together in the shape of a teepee. “They’re not as classy as a teepee, but you can still build a fire inside. Anyway, my plan may be working. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in this area. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but you fellas better be on your toes from now on.”

“Why did that bit of news just send a chill down my spine?” Dave said.

“What worries me is nobody has heard from Brian in days,” Tully said. “I’ve expected him to call, but nothing.”

Pap said, “You think Kincaid might have killed him?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Tully said.

THEY STOPPED IN
front of the chain at the Finch Mine. Beyond it, up a hill and a dusty road, they could see a large structure open on three sides. It contained massive vats that were staggered down the slope, apparently so the top vat could feed into the next one down, and it into the third.

“What’s that little building with the big pile of stuff alongside it?” Dave asked Pap. “The mine’s privy?”

“Naw, it’s the assay shack.”

“That’s a relief. What’s the big pile of stuff?”

“Slag.”

“Look at those vats!” Tully said. “They must have processed the gold right here.”

“Yeah, they did some,” Pap said. “I think they concentrated it before it was hauled to the smelter. They had sulfuric
acid or something in the top vat to separate the gold from the rock.”

“I didn’t expect such a big operation,” Tully said. “I really hate this.”

“You hate it?” Dave said. “How come?”

“Because it diminishes my whole idea of gold. It’s the only legal currency you can find in nature. You reach down and pick up a tiny piece of it and you can walk into a store and use it to buy a loaf of bread. A forty-niner in California could wash up a pan of the stuff and go buy himself a farm. To tell you one of my secret desires, Dave, I’ve always wanted my own little gold mine, nothing atrocious like this—something where I could whack a chunk of ore out of a mountain, crush it up and pan out the gold, take in a few hundred dollars a day without too much work. It’s a one-to-one ratio for making a living. Otherwise you’ve got to go to school and then to college and then go to work for some giant corporation with folks hounding you night and day, something like we’re looking at right here.”

Dave nodded and smiled. “Or you could take up painting and sell your pictures for thousands of dollars. That’s pretty much a one-to-one ratio for making a living.”

“It’s okay but not nearly as good as picking gold up off the ground. Ever since I first heard about them I’ve envied those forty-niners.”

“You could rob banks,” Pap said. “That’s pretty much a one-to-one ratio for making a living.”

“The field’s too crowded,” Tully said. “It’s hard to find an
opening. Anyway, I’m amazed and disgusted at the size of this operation.”

“Oh, yeah, it was big,” Pap said. “When we lived here they must have had at least a hundred men working the mine and the processor. It was a pretty exciting place, with lots of fights and the occasional shooting. Those boys were a tough lot. I loved living up here. I’ll get out and snip the lock. I’ve had a lot of experience with bolt cutters.”

“Needless to say,” Dave said.

They drove in past the shack with the large gray pile.

Dave said, “Old Jack Finch must have taken tons of gold out of here to have an operation like this.”

“It don’t look much different from when I was a little kid,” Pap said. “Been closed down over fifty years and it’s hardly aged a bit.”

“Where’s the entrance to the mine?” Tully said.

Pap had him drive around to another large structure on the far side of the site. They followed a set of wooden ties Pap said had once supported the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad track. “The tracks were for the ore cars. They hauled the ore from the mine to the processor.”

They came to a timber-framed tower. Pap said it was a Galena shaft hoist for hauling the loaded ore cars back to the surface. A large two-sided building stood next to the hoist. It was filled with huge engines, winches, and wire cables, all thick with rust. Tully parked the truck, and they walked up to the edge of the shaft, which appeared to have been dynamited shut. Far down below they could hear the sound of running
water. Pap said the winch would lower the workers on a kind of elevator and bring up loaded ore cars. The tracks took the cars to a crusher, where an auger of some sort carried the crushed rock up to the top tub.

“Good thing they blasted the shaft shut,” Pap said. “After all these years I imagine the whole thing is loaded with rot.”

“I never heard of rot in mines,” Dave said.

“Well, that’s what I’ve heard happens in these old mines. You want to test it, Dave, wiggle your way down through those broken timbers and give a loud yell.”

“Naw, I’ll take your word for it, Pap. So where are the cabins you lived in when your dad worked the mine?”

“I thought I’d see them by now. It’s been over sixty years since I’ve been up here. Maybe they’ve all been torn down. Let’s go look up behind the processor building.”

“You go look, Pap,” Tully said. “See if you can find your gold bottle. Dave and I will wander around for a while.”

Pap went off grumbling that he didn’t know why he had to do all the work and if he did find his gold he wasn’t sharing any of it as he had intended.

“Yeah, right,” Tully said. “Here I’ve been holding my breath waiting for Pap to share his gold.”

Dave chuckled. “Probably not a good idea. Holding your breath, I mean.”

Tully and Dave walked back to the vat structure and explored it. It appeared to have deteriorated little. “Why do you suppose they shut down the mine?” Dave said.

“Don’t know. Probably ran out of good ore. Back in the
fifties I think they were getting only about thirty-five dollars a troy ounce for it.”

“Troy ounce?”

“Yeah, there are only twelve troy ounces in a pound instead of sixteen.”

“How come? Seems kind of unfair to miners.”

“Beats me,” Tully said. “You think I’m some kind of mining engineer? What I can’t figure out is how anyone knows where to put a mine. Do they just start digging and hope they hit something? Maybe nowadays they have something that sniffs out gold from an airplane, but I’m sure they didn’t have anything back when they dug this mine. According to Pap, the shaft went down hundreds of feet before it tapped into the ore.”

“Let’s climb up and look in the vats,” Dave suggested. “Maybe they forgot and left some gold in one of them.”

“Good idea!”

They were still examining the vats when they heard Pap shout. He climbed up to them, wheezing but grinning. “I found it!” he gasped. He held up a ketchup bottle half full of dirt. The bottom third of the jar glinted with gold.

“The way I remember, I had the bottle practically full of gold, but I guess if anyone had found it, they would have taken all the gold instead of just two-thirds of it.”

Dave bent down to examine the bottle. “Looks like a bunch of little gold beads.”

“That’s what it is. It’s from the assay shack.”