“I bet they stashed some,” Jonathan said.

“Explain your reasoning,” I said to my nephew, 17, visiting from Chicago.

As a backup,” he replied.

“A failsafe,” Bradley, his older brother by a couple years, agreed.

“I’m not disagreeing, but you need to back it up. What motive would they have? What real value is there in stashing something up in the mountains?”

“How would you find it?” Jonathan said, thinking critically of his own thesis, the one he advanced along with Bradley.

Their father was supposed to be with them on this trip but spent the day with his wife and daughters on a horseback ride on the other side of the mountain instead. Bradley, Jonathan and I hiked up into the high peaks. They wanted to see the gold mine that wasn’t on anyone’s list because it wasn’t in anyone’s guidebook. This abandoned, century-old mine, researched and rediscovered by my friend, Tern, may not have been played out after all.

Of course, we had to get there first. I had to remember exactly where Tern and I had left the trail when we first discovered the adit, then navigate boulder fields, meanwhile judging the sky for storms 11,000 feet up at the height of the monsoon, and then decide whether to creep the 60 or 70 feet down the drift to the split where the tunnels diverged.

Brad, Jonathan and I crossed a talus slope, composed of car-sized, sharp-hewn boulders. Rust seemed to grow on everything. So when I pulled at an old, decapitated shovelhead, at first I thought it was a rock.

“Whoa, where’d you come up with that?” Jonathan said as I stood up with the shovel in my hands.

We’d hit paydirt. The slope was littered with rusted parts from a wood stove, including the door. There were old glass jars and whiskey bottles, rusty nails (not the drink), broken dinner plates and the golden handle of a coffee cup.

“What would you do if you found it?” I asked them as I picked up a doorhandle complete with the plating for the skeleton key.

“I would hide it with some obvious markers so it couldn’t be discovered by anyone else, but so that I could find it myself,” Bradley, always the more cerebral of the sib pairing, concluded.

“Yeah,” Jonathan agreed. “Maybe a buried stick or a rock pile or something.”

“You still haven’t explained to me the most important question: why? What would be their motive for hiding gold up here?”

They picked through the artifacts and archaeological evidence like Tern and I had done our first time out. “Maybe they had to hide it from each other,” Jonathan said as he sifted through the midden and came up with an old Hills Brothers coffee can, sans coffee.

Bradley agreed: “Maybe they didn’t trust each other.”

“Hmm. Look at this. It’s cast iron. Breaks a little like glass,” I said, handing off a hinge from the door. What Tern had taught this city boy, I was teaching these city boys. “You ever heard of an old movie, Treasures of Sierra Madre?

“No,” Bradley said. Jonathan shook his head.

“It’s a good movie, and it’s exactly what you’re talking about. Three dudes down on their luck mine for gold in Mexico. They hit the mother lode, and then get paranoid that each of the other ones’ll try stealing it. It’s with Humphrey Bogart.” I eyed the sky. Jonathan was our weatherman. He’d been right about the storms the last few days. “Whatdya think?” He glanced at me and I nodded toward the sky.

“Hard to tell,” he said. “They look like thunderclouds but then when the wind takes them over the mountains, they’re not.”

The sky darkened. “C’mon,” I said. “We don’t want to get caught in this on the rocks.” We climbed up the boulders, picking through trash three or four young men had tossed here about 100, 150 years ago.

Bradley made it up to the top of the boulder field first. We’d made it to the entrance, where the miners had built a cabin.

I had a headlamp this time. When Tern and I explored this mine a few weeks ago, we just had the light of his Garmin route finder. Water flooded the drift the first few feet in, partly submerging metal rails for an old minecart upended a few more feet in. My brother’ sons wisely chose to stay out of the mine itself, so there was no argument, and no decision I’d later have to explain to my brother and his wife about poisoned air, rockfalls, or unexploded dynamite.

My nephews had been right. According to the geological survey and some news articles Tern had dug up from the 1930’s, a considerable lode of ore was left onsite. And Tern thought it might be worth trying to follow the lode along the walls.

Tern had discovered things since our first time out. An old geological survey showed three entrances, or adits. Tons of viable gold ore had been shipped on to Denver and yielded .75 ounces of gold per ton, a decent yield. Later assays showed much lower yield, and apparently, a second attempt at following the vein was futile. The mine was played out. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

But the trip was. I’d gotten to know my nephews a little better. We made it back over Sharkstooth Pass before the storms came.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within