A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar Read online

  Doug paused to take a breath, and Lee mistakenly supposed that the wrong turn Doug had made into Suffolk, England, offered an opportunity to cut the story short.

  “That’s fascinating,” Lee began, looking at Rayna. “But we should probably get going.”

  “Anyway,” Doug resumed, not hearing him or, more likely, just ignoring him, “thespian Edith, front-loaded in a way that never failed to be enthusiastically remarked upon by theater critics of the time, also had a considerable but lesser-known talent involving her pubococcygeus muscle that Creede’s wife could not, in her wildest fantasies, which were decidedly demure, have conceived. Still, Creede’s wife was capable of her own apparently serial infidelities, and Creede hired investigators to chronicle and present to her an accounting of her trysts in the form of an eight-page dissertation, resulting in their mutual agreement to end intimate relations. Unfortunately, pregnancy and childbirth did irreparable damage to the actress’s love muscle, and since Kegel maneuvers had yet to be invented and actresses are never given to admitting their failings, Creede soon sunk into depression. His estranged wife, meanwhile, had come to learn that the twenty thousand dollars she’d accepted as a marital buyout was an insignificant penalty compared to Creede’s aggregate net worth and was insufficient to support her chosen lifestyle, which explains why she was back in Denver meeting with Creede on that fateful July day to suggest that they attempt a reconciliation. She was feeling frisky and had booked the Bridal Suite and had already removed many of her undergarments. For a man who had left his wife for a livelier procreation to now have to reveal to her that the drawbridge no longer rose was simply unacceptable to the proud Nicholas Creede. He wept, rose, excused himself, went back to his own apartment, imbibed in an elephantine dose of morphine, stumbled out into the garden, and died.”

  Doug took a can of Diet Pepsi from a stack of cases nearby, popped the top, and drained nearly all of it.

  “Hmm,” Rayna said, numbed.

  “So exactly how does this relate to our not being able to find the mine?” Lee asked irritably.

  “I’m getting to that,” Doug said, and then belched some Pepsi gas.

  “I guess being dead would make it challenging,” Rayna said.

  “That’s not the point, no.”

  “Is that dynamite?” Lee asked Rayna, pointing to a crate in the corner.

  “Under the parachute?”

  “Yeah. Wait. What? You have a parachute?”

  “He was one hundred and fifty percent Western archetype . . . ” Doug went on, talking over and around them.

  “I know.” Rayna shrugged to Lee, ignoring Doug pointedly. “I know.”

  “ . . . who lived a dime novelist’s plot’s worth of hardship, hell-raising adventure, speculation, and lightning-strike riches. His name was a watchword among western financiers, and his success as a prospector was honored by the naming of one of the richest mining towns in Colorado after him.”

  “Somebody gave it to me when I broke up with my old, well, ex,” Rayna continued to Lee. Her cheeks colored. “Yeah. Parachute. Ha ha, funny and symbolic, right?”

  “But it was the Holy Moses that was legend-to-be Creede’s coup de grâce, strike-wise . . . ”

  “Yuck, yuck. Some of Rayna’s old so-called friends,” she told Lee, chagrined.

  “ . . . and he kept its location a closely held secret. And even burned the assay documents after they were delivered and the man who performed it mysteriously took sick and passed away. The mine opening itself was blasted and filled in. Creede’s intention from the get-go being to wait until the price of gold peaked and then cash in, but before that could occur, his wife showed up with her crafty plan to reensnare him with her charms, and, well, I already relayed to you how that turned out.”

  “Who says she was there to seduce him?” Rayna asked, suddenly interested. “Creede was dead, and I don’t believe that his wife would tell that story.”

  “Again, that’s not my point,” Doug insisted.

  “What if he was trying to get her back since the actress had lost her, you know, talent?”

  “No.” The cords of Doug’s neck got tight.

  “All right.”

  “No. That’s not how it went down.”

  “Fine.”

  “Um. Doug? How is the situation we’re in a ‘Holy Moses’ thing?” Lee asked again.

  Doug looked at him. “The mine is hidden,” Doug told them. “Not just caved in, but hidden.” Doug said that, consequently, they needed to think not like men looking for a forgotten, fallen-in maw, but like men looking for a forgotten, hidden maw.

  “Huh.”

  “What about tracks?” Rayna asked.

  “We need to look where we don’t think it is,” Doug said. “Where we don’t even think it will be.”

  “No tracks?” Rayna asked, mostly of Lee since asking Doug was pointless.

  Now both men looked at her blankly.

  “What?”

  “Tracks. Mine cart tracks.”

  “What about them?”

  “Mine carts, you know, run on tracks. Tracks. Tracks that run out to the end of the tailings where the mine carts dumped their slag. Even when the mine collapses, the tracks still run out, to the end of the, you know, tailings, and if you can locate the tracks, you can just follow them back to where they go into the mountain, and there’s your adit.

  “Or so I’m told,” she added.

  Lee and Doug traded frowns.

  “Creede would’ve had the tracks removed,” Doug sniffed, looking somewhat annoyed that the grocery girl was getting involved now, and telling himself: This can only be a bad omen.

  FIVE

  -Grant?

  —Yes, sir.

  (handshake)

  —Hi. Ken Lightfoot. Sorry about the wait.

  —It wasn’t bad.

  —What?

  —Don’t worry about it.

  —Understaffed and underpaid. Follow me. You want some coffee?

  —No, thank you.

  —Or we’ve got bottled water here somewhere.

  —I’m good.

  —’Kay. You’ve probably figured out we are not a Jefferson County operation; we’re a private sector contractor. More and more, local governments are outsourcing parole and probation services to for-profit operations like ours.

  (gesturing)

  —Sit.

  —Thanks.

  —So . . .

  (shuffling through a file)

  —Howzit?

  —I’m good.

  —Damn straight. You’re out.

  —What?

  —Out. Out. Am I right?

  —Yes, that’s right.

  —First time in?

  —Yes.

  —Hard?

  —Yeah.

  —You don’t want to talk about it?

  —No, sir.

  —Fair enough. A winner listens, a loser just waits until it’s his turn to talk.

  (reading:)

  —Felony assault. Guilty plea. Three years knocked down to twenty months. Certificates of completion, anger management and substance abuse. No issues inside?

  —No. Other than being inside.

  —I hear that. You want to talk about the crime?

  —I got mad. I hit a guy. More than once. The whole thing just got away from me, and . . .

  —. . . drinking?

  —No.

  —’Kay. It says here you were under the influence.

  —Yeah, well. That’s a convenient excuse, but no. The drinking was an afterward.

  —So what is the excuse?

  —I don’t have one. It was stupid. I was stupid.

  —Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

  (a moment’s thoughtful reflection)

  —Between us. The guy you messed up. He deserve it?

  —No.

  —No?

  —No.

  —You didn’t even hesitate when you said that.

  —No.
<
br />   —C’mon.

  —Categorically no.

  (pause)

  —I see that you’re from around here.

  —Evergreen, yeah.

  —Family?

  —Brother.

  —Parents?

  —Deceased.

  —Right. Yeah, that’s here too. I’m sorry.

  —It was a while ago.

  —Still.

  —Okay. Thanks.

  —Your brother’s a schoolteacher.

  —Yes.

  —And you’re planning to stay with him.

  —Until I get on my feet, uh-huh.

  —You got a job lined up?

  —Um . . . no.

  —I see a college degree here.

  —Yes.

  —Vassar?

  —Yes.

  —The girls’ school.

  —Coed since 1971.

  —Connecticut?

  —Poughkeepsie.

  —Gesundheit!

  —Ha. Yeah. It’s a weird-sounding place all right.

  —How the heck’d you wind up at a girls’ school?

  —They let me box.

  —Heh.

  —Seriously. I was Eastern Collegiate Middleweight Champion.

  —No shit?

  —No shit.

  —Bachelor of Arts, it says here. Good for you, man. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. What’d you major in?

  —Women’s Studies.

  (a spit-take)

  —Is that a joke?

  —No. Well, yes. It’s what I really majored in. But I guess the joke applies.

  (Lightfoot’s salacious grin as it dawns:)

  —Lotta pussy.

  —There you go.

  (requisite forced laughter)

  —Okay, Grant. Okay then. You signed the contract of your parole; I assume, college degree, you read it, you understand what we call the parameters but I’ll just go over them briefly anyway: Stay clean, stay sober, stay employed, regular contact with me, no contact with the victim, you can’t leave the state for 180 days without written permission. Don’t let your victories go to your head, or your failures go to your heart. The only difference between try and triumph is a little umph.

  (a perplexed silence)

  —How often am I required to call you, Mr. Lightfoot? Or do I come into town for office visits?

  —Make it Ken, Grant. Mr. Lightfoot is my dad. And you will be phoning me once a month for the first six months. Unless we, you, got a problem, by all means, let me know, ’kay? Thereafter an email or a text’ll do me, just to let me know you’re there. I will contact you about a yearly review, and I would remind you that I am permitted to show up unannounced from time to time to check on you in your environs. But, this being a for-profit enterprise, I carry a pretty heavy caseload, Grant, and you strike me as a one-off, so you’d be doing me a big favor if I never had to think about you again. If you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the cure. If you catch my drift.

  —I do. You won’t.

  (the file closing)

  —Women’s Studies qualify you for any particular line of work?

  —No.

  —Gynecology?

  —Ha ha, yeah, that’s another funny variation on that rich double entendre you’ve already mined, Ken.

  —What?

  —Nothing.

  —What’d you do before you went in?

  —Taught some boxing to rich women. Construction. Sales. I biked across Africa, backpacked through Asia, worked in a free clinic in Turkmenistan, couple of winter seasons lift-wrangling at Copper Mountain. Summer camp counselor in Estes Park. You know.

  —Follow your bliss.

  —I don’t think about it. I’m not career-oriented.

  —That sounds like an excuse. The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them, Grant. Opportunities slide away like clouds.

  —I’ll keep that in mind.

  —Plus the job market’s shit right now.

  —So I’m told.

  —And you got a record. It’s not going to be easy, Grant. What I’m saying is, circumstances don’t make or break us, they simply reveal us. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.

  —I won’t.

  —Make sure the juice is worth the squeeze.

  —I will.

  —You got a girl? Someone special you been thinking about, thinking she’s been faithfully waiting for you to get out?

  —No.

  —Good. Because they don’t. Wait. Typically.

  (sigh, stretch, chuckle)

  —My old man would of beat me like a redheaded stepchild if I’da come home from Durango saying I was gonna major in Women’s Studies.

  —Mine was dead, so . . .

  —Right.

  —Plus I don’t like getting hit.

  —Right.

  —Anyway.

  —Mmm. ’Kay, well. I guess that’s it. Any questions on your end?

  —No, sir.

  (sliding back of chairs)

  —Thank you.

  —Good luck, Grant.

  (shaking of hands)

  —Remember: A winner is a loser who never gave up.

  (frown)

  —Um . . . Wouldn’t that more likely be a longtime loser?

  (Lightfoot already opening the next file:)

  —’Scuse me, what?

  SIX

  It didn’t take long for Lee and Doug to unearth the parallel bands of steel, thick with rust in the sharp ore rubble and flatly sloping away from the natural grade of the mountainside a few hundred feet south and uphill from the buildings they’d already found. Simple geometry was in play, just as Rayna had predicted; the tracks stretched straight and parallel back into the mountain (how inefficient it would be to put a curve in it, since the whole point was to push the cart out and back taking the shortest path possible), and only a short section needed to be uncovered to enable them to sight back and find the presumed opening of the Blue Lark, a shallow hollowing almost indistinguishable from the natural terrain, but, once they saw it, clear evidence of a man-made event. They shucked their shirts and started digging, shovels clanging, strained intakes of breath, the squeak of wood handles twisting in soft hands. Doug’s massive white gut undulating as he hacked at the rock and dirt, he sang at the top of his lungs a song whose words he only partially knew:“Ohhhhhhhh . . .

  do you remember Sweet Betsy from Pike?

  Rode west in a wagon with her husband Ike!

  Duh duh duh duh dum dum dum . . .

  and a big yellow dawwwwg . . . !”

  Doug’s pertinacious participation in what began as Lee’s singular adventure was beginning to bug Lee; as he shoveled slag, he contemplated the various ways he might be able to escape from what he could only vaguely describe, in quantum terms (and only to himself), as a Dougian Decoherence, in which the gold mine was the environment, and Doug was a system that had become irreversibly entangled with it. Of course, if he was right, Lee knew that Doug could never be dislodged. Which would be, Lee admitted ungenerously, a real fucking problem.

  For the first time in a long time, Lee missed his brother.

  Half a day’s work yielded a faint progress: maybe five linear feet, all told, into the stubborn mountain. By one o’clock, Lee was the only one working. Doug, rosy with sunburn and exhausted, was flopped out on a flat rock, snoring, his head wrapped in his T-shirt to keep the sun off. At three, Lee stepped back to inspect their—his—work, and a huge slide of dirt and rock cascaded down and backfilled everything they’d accomplished.

  So the following Saturday, a mustard-yellow backhoe on a flatbed trailer pulled by a jeep rolled down the main street of Basso Profundo, bringing Rayna to the stoop of her store and rattling the doors and windows of the mostly boarded-up or broken-down buildings between which empty lots left gaps like pulled teeth. Minutes later, Lee at the wheel, the backhoe itself was rolling down ramps from trailer to street, vo
miting blue exhaust, and making a godawful racket as it lurched back past Rayna and the General Store and up the access road to the mine. With Lee at the controls and Doug, foam earplugs stuck fast in both ears, guiding him with hand signals, the beast quickly clawed out a vertical crater several yards into the mountain, and Doug was frantically signaling for Lee to stop.

  “Good Lord, we’ve hit something!”

  Lee killed the engine and hopped down as Doug eased himself into the trench and brushed dirt away from a thick beam of wood.

  “We’ve hit something! Crossbeam! Part of the mine’s original entrance, no doubt. See? Here.” Doug brushed more dirt away. “Here’s the side support.”

  “I wonder how much farther we’ve got to dig?” Lee killed the diesel and swung down from the cab of the backhoe, looking around for and finally seeing what he wanted: a length of ancient, rusty pipe. He told Doug he didn’t want to knock the old timbers apart with the blade of the backhoe.

  “Well, lookit the slope.” Doug was busy getting all technical and pedantic. “We got another ten,” he guessed, “or twenty feet before we get past the caved-in part. And that’s being conservative. Hopefully that timbering further in held.”

  “Which is what I’m talking about,” Lee said.

  He walked into the trench and stabbed the pipe into the wall of dirt that they presumed was the mine opening. The concussion stung his hands. Again and again, putting his weight against it and pushing and pushing, and then all of a sudden the pipe plunged right in, like a straw going through a Big Gulp go-cap.

  Lee said, “Whoa.”

  Doug, lecturing, rambling really, talked right over Lee’s worried surprise, unaware: “You know, they used to get Welshmen to come in and open these mines. Just the men, though, never the women, oddly. Your Welsh being the only ones crazy enough to risk getting buried alive. Lle bynag y bydd pobl, bydd yno Cymry, a lle bynag y bydd Cymry, bydd yno rai o Aberdar,” Doug mangled. He said it meant: “Wherever there are people, there will be Welshmen, and wherever there are Welshmen, there will be men from Aberdare.”

  “It’s kind of a motto of their kith and kin,” Doug added. “Or one of them.”

  Water spat from Lee’s pipe. Gurgled. Died to a drip. But there was a deeper rumbling; Lee felt it through his boots, motel Magic-Fingers on the mountainside, and Lee knew that it wasn’t right.