Deadly Lode (Trace Brandon Book 1) (3 page)

From E-Burg,
I
headed up
Highway
97
to Pateros,
hung a
left
,
and proceeded up
Highway
153
along the Methow River.
Just south of the town of Twisp,
I
picked up Highway
20
and rolled into Winthrop.

Too late to
start any field
-
work,
I
checked into the
Winthrop House
,
known locally simply as the W
. The
W
would be
my
base camp for the next few days while
I
scouted out the area
.

I
n my room
,
I
spread
topo and mineral management maps
out on the bed
and planned tomorrow
’
s attack.
The area
I
wanted to reconnoiter
lay near the confluence of Montana and Goat Creeks.
Historical mine p
roduction
records from the area
indicated good gold and copper values. One mine in particular caught
my
attention, the old Sullivan Mine.

Production from the Sullivan
had
ceased rather abruptly around
1893
. This could
simply
be due to ore zones petering out. However,
I
had a hunch the
culprit was the
Panic
of
1892
.

Early t
he next morning,
I
gassed up
,
bought
a pound of
summer sausage,
a six
-
pack of
Tumbleweed
,
and
a box of
crackers
,
t
he basic
field
geologist
’
s
lunch
;
and headed out.
Driving
northwest
along
the Methow River
on Highway
20
,
I
turn
ed
off to the right
on
Goat Creek
Road
.
I
’
d gone
less than a quarter of a mile
before
the road got bad. I stopped
, and
locked the front hubs of the Bronco
,
and continued on in four
-
wheel drive.
About t
wo miles later,
I
hit the confluence of Montana Creek and Goat Creek.
P
ull
ing
of
f
the track
, I
parked and locked the Bronco
,
grabbed
my
backpack
,
and
strapped on
my
Smith
&
Wesson .357
M
agnum.
I
’
d
run into bears
around here
before
. T
his time of year they
could
have cubs
,
a
nd be damned dangerous.
Backpack on, pistol loaded, I s
tarted up Montana Creek
.

On the topo map, it looked to be about a mile to the old Sullivan Mine site.
However,
th
e
spring
mega
-
flood
had
pretty much
destroyed the old mine road, slowing
my
progress
to a snail
’
s pace
.
A
fter about two hours
of working my way up the canyon
,
I
looked up the steep slo
pe to
my
left
and could make out part of a mine
entrance
.
I knew from Forest Service reports that the quake of
1946
had
triggered a landslide
,
sealing the portal.
I
t appeared
the talus
had
been washed away when Montana Creek flooded
.

Adrenalin
e
now in overdrive,
I
worked
my
way up the slope
until
I
stood at the mouth of the
old
mine.
I
took my flashlight, pointed
it
down the
dark
adit and
thumbed the on button
.
The adit looked open as far back as my light could penetrate.
It
’
s
always
a strange feeling to light up old mine workings
, a
nd the Sullivan was no exception.
I could feel goose bumps on my arms.

Normally, I won
’
t go into an abandoned mine when I am working alon
e
. It
’
s just too damn dangerous.
I could see the obituary now
:
D
umb
S
hit
E
nters
M
ine
A
lone
.
As usual, c
uriosity overruled common sense.
I need
ed
to see the
rocks and hopefully
grab a few samples
from the lode vein.

I took off my
red
CWU
baseball
cap
,
and dug my hard ha
t
,
light
,
and battery pack
out of my backpack
.
My
army
-
surplus
webbed pistol belt
carried
my Brunton compass, rock hammer
,
and
pistol. I also had a small
G
eiger counter
in my shirt pocket
.

Geared up, I started into the mine adit.
Most mines have a
damp
,
earthy smell to them
. N
ot this puppy. The
Sullivan
Mine
flat
-
out stunk.
A sick
ly
-
sweet smell of death and decay.
As I moved cautiously deeper into the adit, I found skeletons of
small
dead animals
I assumed
had been
trapped by the landslide
.

All geologists and miners have a sixth sense about danger
,
and right now my sensor was in the red. I couldn
’
t put my finger on it, but there was something wrong with this mine.
At a bend in the adit
,
I saw a small alcove and what looked like
a bunch of
very old
sampl
e bags. Kneeling down, I looked at the tags on several of the bags
. T
hey appear
ed
to be
vein
chip samples
.
The writing
by now
was
too faded to make out
the
exact
sample locations
.

Opening one of the bags, I removed several of the larger rock chip samples.
Even with my head lamp it was still too dark to identify
all the ore
minerals
. However
,
I could make out copper
oxides
, pyrites
,
and a dark
-
gr
a
y mineral with a dull pitchy luster.
The sample felt quite heavy for its size.
On a hunch, I pulled out my pocket Geiger counter
and held it to the sample
. The sample pegged the first
couple of
scales, each scale being ten times stronger.
I
went to higher and higher scales until I finally got a reading. T
wenty
-
thousand counts per second. Very, very
,
hot rock.
I re
-
bagged the
rock
chips and grabbed a
couple
of
the old cloth
sample bags and shoved them in my backpack.

The
mine
floor was covered
with
an inch or two
of water from seepage.
Moving down the adit,
I
kind of shuffled along.
The roof of the working was clean
,
and
I could pretty well make out the vein structure and geology
. The pay zone appeared to be a big
quartz
vein sandwiched between a
granodiorite, a type of granite,
and
schist
.

I pulled out my Brunton
c
ompass and
took
a bearing
down
the strike of the vein. Two hundred eighty degrees to the northwest. I followed the
overhead
vein
,
taking Geiger readings and knocking
off and bagging
fresh samples
.
I was already spending the money
when the floor disappeared
from under my feet
,
and
I was underwater.

I immediately
knew two things
. The first being
, that
I
had
stepped into a
flooded
vertical
winze
,
a shaft connecting one or more mine levels
. A
nd
secondly
,
I could be in
serious trouble.

B
obb
ing
back to the surface
, I
manag
ing
to hang onto my hard
hat and compass.
D
rown
if I must
,
but no way in hell
was
I
losing my
antique
solid
-
brass Brunton. Treading water, I pocket
ed
my compass and adjusted my hard
hat and light
and looked around
.
I
’
d stepped off into a
winze al
l
right.
W
alked right into it like a
first
-
semester
geology
student
.
I
’
d
made
a classic
amateur mistake of not cutting a walking stick to probe for holes as I be
-
bopped down the mine
. . . u
n
-
damn
ed
believable.

There was only one choice
. P
ull myself out. I kicked my way to the edge of
the
winze but could
n
’
t quite get a hold with my finger
s
.
My main malfunction was all the weight I was carrying. The damned samples in my backpack were threatening to pull me under.
One thing about uranium
;
it
’
s
a
seriously heavy mineral
.