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CHAPTER 1
He stopped on the sidewalk even though he promised himself he wouldn't — not that tired cliché; he stopped, took a deep breath of the fresh air, and squinted up uncertainly into an ashen sky burned partway through by an uncertain sun.
It was true, he thought, what they said about getting out.
Light mist slicked the buff stone walls of the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility and caused the chain link to glisten like polished silver. Next to the big wire-cage drive-through gate, a smaller pedestrian passageway had opened for him, and the stolid guards in the tower had made a passing note of him as the system kicked him free, debt paid.
He crossed the road and didn't look back.
"My brother bought a gold mine."
Allie, waitress at the Whistle Stop, leaned on the counter, her long legs pulling the stretch hem of her uniform, one sneaker foot turned in, swaying absently, and she gazed, ensorcelled, into the icy eyes of the coffee-black-lots-of-sugar man who smelled faintly of soap and regret and wore the boxy secondhand pants and shirt and navy pea coat of a day laborer (which he totally wasn't) but that nevertheless worked on him, and she decided, then and there, he had that kind of dreamy, dangerous electricity that women tend to ruin themselves over.
Allie was always looking to get ruined.
"A lot of people thought it was midlife crisis," the coffee man was saying, "triggered I guess by this prank his senior shop class played on him with their midterm woodworking projects right after Lorraine moved out."
"Your brother teaches high school?"
"Two dozen or so sanded and shellacked head-racks of wooden antlers," the coffee man continued, ignoring the interruption. "Handmade with varying skill. He sent me a picture." The waitress just stared at him with a retriever's empty hopefulness. "You know. As in: cuckolded. Having the," he made two points on his head with his fingers, "horns hung on you?"
"What's your name?"
"Grant."
"Grant. What kind of name is that?"
"Famous general."
Her face, blank again.
"Civil War? My parents were ..." he began, then stopped. "Anyway. It's a long story, and I'm telling you a different one now, okay?"
"Okay." She cracked her gum, flirty.
"It was kind of funny," Grant resumed, "and snarky but droll, in that arrested adolescent way that weblogs and reality TV and comic book pop culture reduces other people's pain to a punch line; it was funny if you weren't my brother, Lee, or you'd never read Ulysses, which, of course, his senior boys hadn't, but my brother Lee has ... four times, front to back."
"I'm Allie."
"But people are so wrong, Allie. That old backhoe from hell he took home from the highway department auction after Lorraine moved out? That was his midlife thing." Allie thought: Lorraine?
"Rumbling through those shake roof split-levels of Hiwan Meadows like, I don't know, a mutant mustard-yellow shellfish in a Japanese horror film or something, all dust and exhaust, the one big scorpion-tail shovel-claw thing poised to make hash of all the terrified mole-people Priuses multiplying in every driveway."
"Oh."
"Personally, I expected a boat, but ..."
"A boat?"
"Oceangoing vessel. Something with a motor, not sails. Lee's got a seafaring bent. Maybe a trawler. He belongs to a boat club."
"Does your brother live near the ocean?"
"No. Evergreen."
"Evergreen, here in Colorado?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." The waitress frowned.
"They get together in Broomfield the third Saturday of every month and talk about nautical stuff."
"They live in a state that gets, what, gee ... about, oh, three inches of rain, annually?"
"Some can dream."
"I guess."
"Anyway, the mine is, was, well — could just be that Lee believes happiness is something you gotta dig for. I don't know," Grant said.
"You got a way with words, Grant."
"I kissed the Blarney Stone, Allie."
"Oh." Again, she had no idea what he was talking about.
"Ireland. I was eight. It's a stone, actually part of the wall in this iron-age castle; you lean back over a gaping hole, turn your face upside down, kiss the stone, and you get the gift of gab. It's about a hundred fifty feet up — the hole you can fall through — so some fat Mick, who smells of Guinness and old jeans, sits there and for, say, a euro, buck and a half U.S. thank you very much, he holds you up over the drop, and then washes the stone off afterwards with this scuzzy rag and some Scrubbing Bubbles cleaner. We were there with our parents. Lee wouldn't do it, but I did, and, ever since, you actually can't shut me up. True story."
"Huh. More coffee?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Allie's ass was her best asset, and she could tell, pivoting to the coffee machine, that Grant's grey eyes were on it.
"Where you from?"
"I just got out of Territorial Prison."
Allie nearly spilled the coffee. Grant reached out, steadied her hand. His fingers were warm and unexpectedly soft.
"Yeah. Everything you think, don't even ask. And yes, I am horny as a dandy, but you, do not worry, are safe as milk." Not surprisingly, Allie was conflicted about whether she wanted to be safe as milk. She put the coffeepot down on the warmer. How long was he in —?
"Can we, um, talk about something else? Because ... well, I am my brother's brother, and he —"
"Snap. Horny as a dandy!" she said. "Now I get it! Mousse T. and the Dandy Warhols! I have the 'So Phat!' mash-up; it's off the hook. I can't believe you knew about that!"
Grant didn't. It was just the way his life worked, things always falling into place. Allie felt his eyes on her again, eyes you could drown in, a sweet, soft, long, wet goodbye, worth it. Totally worth it, she supposed.
Although.
Prison.
Grant sipped his coffee, stirred in more sugar, tasted it. Now, he realized irritably, it was too sweet. And it was as if he could read Allie's look:
"Assault," he told her. "I did just two years of a possible five. Look, Allie, we're just here talking, okay? I'm not angling for anything, just some civilian conversation, with a pretty girl is good, it's been a long time, but —"
"Okay."
"Okay?" Grant thought: Okay. He slipped into neutral. Okay.
"You don't look like an ex-con. We see a lot of them coming through. You know. You're different."
Grant just stared at her.
"I get off in an hour," she said.
Grant just stared at her.
She shifted her hips, self-conscious, the hem of her skirt stretching, and again she was aware of her ass. "What happened to Mr. Sweet Words?" she teased him. "I mean, a minute ago you were yakking like a talk show, and now ...?"
"There's this Navajo superstition about balance in the universe, Allie. Well, actually, it's probably Zoroastrian, which predates the Navajo by about fourteen hundred years if you want to get all formal about it — but, hey, we're in Navajo country so — well, actually, no, Colorado, what, Pawnee? Arapaho? Ute? Ouray? I can never keep the Southern Plains tribes straight. It doesn't matter. The Navajo, they have this superstition, it goes: If you're evil, you've got to do some good. But if you're too good, well, you gotta get a little evil. You know. Just to even things out."
Allie was thinking about where they could go after work. Motels were depressing; her sister was probably already at home watching The View; she most certainly was not going to do it in the car, her Scion, with an ex-convict, on the fabric seats and the stale smell of her boyfriend's cigarettes. Oh Allison, please, no, no, that would be, God, so low.
And condoms. She was definitely going to insist on using protection.
"But Lee?" Grant shook his head and pushed the coffee cup away. "Lee. My brother. Has spent just about his whole fucking life being good. So ... I suppose ... that's where I come in."
He looked up at Allie, and his beautiful, sad, apologetic smile torched all that remained of her self-respect.
CHAPTER 2
A land listing on eBay:
COLORADO GOLD MINE.
$32,300.00 USD
Buy It Now!
What a sensational opportunity for the right person!
Forgive the casual nature of my pitch, but I'm not one who goes in for all that fussy, starched formality, which may be why I'm in the mining business, under open skies, and not some windowless box behind a desk!
THE PITCH: My Blue Lark Mine is a United States Patented Gold Mine that received its certificate way back in 1878. Technically, it's three overlapping lode claims: the Phoenix, the Griffin, and the Unicorn — all mythical beasts, but there's no myth in these mines; they're the real thing.
WHAT THE PATENT MEANS: In order for a mine to be patented back in the old days (and even now), prospectors had to prove to the U.S. Government that there was, as they used to say, in fact, "gold in them thar hills." Uncle Sam eyeballed all claims pretty carefully since tax money was at stake. These poor miners had to pull something to the tune of one thousand tons of ore out and process it right there in front of a federal patent agent to prove there was a viable opportunity for an ongoing business of mineral extraction and not just some devious landgrab going on.
THE LAW OF THE LAND: All U.S. citizens eighteen years or older have the right under the Mining Law of 1872 to locate a lode claim (hard rock) or placer claim (sand or gravel, usually along a river or stream) on federal land. Locatable minerals include, but are not limited to, your gold, your silver, your platinum, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, and tungsten ores. Patent approved, the mine became the property of the person who first applied for it, and the proved patent, and the land that was the government's, becomes the personal property of the person who claimed it, in perpetuity. Even if you later build a house on the land and live there, the land is still considered mine property and the taxes will reflect the unimproved property status. In other words, you could have a many-acred parcel of land for the incredible yearly tax of maybe $200! (Don't you wish your property taxes were that low? I do!) The only way for a patent to be removed is to have the land revert to the government by the owner selling it or trading it to them.
I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING: You're thinking the same thing any sane, sensible person would: If the Blue Lark Mine's loaded with gold, then why are you looking to sell it, ya doddy old coot? Well, let me just say that owning a mine and mining a mine are two completely different propositions. Mining, without a doubt, is a young man's game! The work can kill ya! I have been a miner for fifty-three of my seventy years, and I have made some hay, raised a family, put food on the table, and can say with all humbleness that I have had my fair share of good fortune. But the Blue Lark was a recent purchase, made in the flush of excitement that follows the rush of discovery, by a gentleman who wakes up most mornings feeling all of eighteen until he looks in the medicine cabinet mirror and sees the grizzled old coot staring back at him. Me! And, sad to say, but true, I have come to realize that that old coot will not be the man to make the Blue Lark pay.
I have, admittedly, not sunk my good money into the engineers, engineering firms, and geologists. But others have been there and done that, and let's just say, an analysis done by the School of Mines in '46 is encouraging. Very encouraging. Cut through the high weeds, what it all boils down to is a measured, indicated, and inferred gold yield of 1.63 OPT (gold per ton) or approximately 774 thousand ounces! It also showed silver running about three to four ounces for every one ounce of gold in the Blue Lark, so it's conceivable you could also have about three million ounces of silver down there. That's closing in on half a billion dollars, all told!
Sound too good to be true?
Well, they always say that if it seems too good to be true, it usually is! Me, I don't trust those numbers, and, I'll be honest with you, my expert guess is the Blue Lark Mine dump will show more like 0.59 OPT, on the high side. That's half an ounce of gold per ton of ore. Now, this is still a pretty respectable figure. A few years back, when commodity gold was priced at $500 an ounce, professional speculators were reopening mines on the promise of as little as three grams a ton! Now it's what? $1500? $1800? Sweet Jesus. And what did the Rev. Sen. W. J. Bryan say? "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." That old windbag didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
A WORD OF CAUTION (AND I DO MEAN
CAUTION): Do not presume to go out and locate my mine and think you can do your own assay or a little weekend prospecting on the sly. First off, you would be trespassing, and I would be hard-pressed not to prosecute or worse (a load of double-aught buckshot upside your hairy ass, for example). Secondly, this is an underground mine. Yes, veins may come up to the surface of the property (you will have to tender a real offer to have that disclosed), BUT (and this is the certified lifesaving "but") all the exploration and blasting that have occurred over the last hundred and thirty — odd years have left the property highly unstable. I will tell you I near lost my brother-in-law down a hole that I couldn't see the bottom of with a high-beam halogen spot aimed straight down it. (When you drop a rock down something like that and you don't hear it hit the bottom, you know death is very close to your feet! I'd not have missed him, my in-law, but my sister would not have abided it, and she's considerably meaner than me, so I managed to hook his belt with my claw hammer and haul him back from the brink.) Stay Out and Stay Alive! It's not worth it; trust me, it's really not.
FOOLS NEED NOT APPLY: Anyone that is a scammer, crook, charlatan, land shark, thief, felon, yuppie, illegal immigrant, liberal Democrat, con man, or otherwise unsavory of character will not get anywhere with me. I've seen it all. I've been hustled by flimflam artists, and even the FBI couldn't believe what these characters were trying to pull off! Furthermore, if you have no sense of humor, I really don't care to truck with you. It's serious business, surely, but I say if you can't have fun with it, then go to hell.
You think I'm sniffing glue? The numbers speak for themselves. Just as a for instance, without revealing too much, let's say that the Blue Lark offers 0.59 ounces per, and let's say you put a 300-ton-per-day mobile stamp plant on the property to process the ore; you should, on average, come out with around 175 ounces of gold and 500 ounces of silver per twenty-four-hour day (three eight-hour shifts of loud, hard labor, but you and your friends are young!). Figure a six-day week, and you'd have, at the end of one month, 12,600 ounces of gold and 36,000 ounces of silver. Sold at yesterday's closing mineral market prices, that's $22,865,220 in gold and $1,469,880 in silver, or a combined gross of about 24.3 million dollars in just one month!
You've got to admit, with gold at record prices again, this mine seems ripe for the picking. You would be right. But there is one more thing you might want to know.
FULL DISCLOSURE: The individual who originally prospected it was a Swedish immigrant who hiked back and forth from Silverton, over Loveland Pass, because his wife was sickly and couldn't tolerate the additional altitude. Well, after a couple of seasons, you can guess what happened: He got caught by an early blizzard and that was all she wrote. Six days in, cold and delirious, he tried to walk out, got turned around, and they found his frozen body thirty miles in the other direction, down mountain, clutching a tintype photograph of his bride and newborn child. His widow pulled up stakes and moved back East to her family, and the Blue Lark subsequently lay fallow for forty years. When she passed, a mining consortium bought the claim from her estate, but that operation went belly-up in the Great Depression. The mine was forgotten and fell into tax arrears and got purchased for pennies on the dollar at auction by a Denver man who never even set foot on the claim, bided his time, and sold it at a fair profit, he believed, to me.
I know what you're thinking now: bad luck. There must be a curse on this mine. Well, that's not unheard of. God only knows, gold does things to people, brings out the worst in most. If you're a superstitious person, this is NOT for you, and I would go as far as to propose that you do not belong in the mining business at all because it takes a great deal of faith and optimism to go down into a mountain every day and look for your future.
Not for the faint of heart!
Not for the doubter and his close cousin, Mr. Despair!
Truth is, this mine's just sitting there, waiting for the right someone to come along with a little cash and a lot of gumption and to start pulling that precious metal out.
Maybe it's you.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Daniel Pyne.
Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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