Get Smart 9 - Max Smart and the Ghastly Ghost Affair (14 page)

“Almost,” the old prospector replied. “I will be as soon as I take care of you two so you can’t get at my gold.”

“Apparently I’m going to have to start at the beginning again,” Max said wearily. “It all started, you see, in Washington. Now, 99 and I—”

“Max, we don’t have time for that!” 99 said. “If Arbuthnot was giving a farewell speech, he and the other assassins will be leaving soon.”

“You’re right, 99,” Max replied. He addressed the old prospector again. “I’ll explain it afterwards,” he said. “But, right now—” He pointed. “See that lantern hanging on the wall,” he said. “I’m going to take it and light it and then follow this tunnel until I find the Coolidge-head penny. I promise that if I find any gold—”

“Don’t do that,” the old prospector warned.

“Max, you can’t do it, anyway,” 99 said. “You lost the lighter.”

“I just found it again a second ago, 99,” he replied. “It was in my other pocket all the time.”

“Then, quick, Max, let’s hurry.”

“Sorry old man,” Max said to the old prospector, getting the lighter from his pocket.

“It’s not me that’ll be sorry,” the old prospector said. “It’s you that’ll be—”

Max, having taken the lantern from the wall, ignited the lighter. There was a resounding explosion. It was followed by the sound of falling rocks.

“—sorry,” the old prospector finished.

Max and 99 stared at the entrance to the tunnel, which was now blocked by huge stones.

“That exactly the way it happened to me,” the old prospector told them. “I come in here with a lantern and when I started to light it I got this big boom. Then all them rocks come crashing down and clogged up the doorway.”

“Max!” 99 cried. “We’re trapped.”

“My guess is there’s a gas leak in here somewhere,” the old prospector speculated.

“Just a minute,” Max said. “We still have light. Why is it that your lantern doesn’t cause an explosion?”

“ ’Cause it’s not real,” the old man replied. “What would a ghost prospector be doing with a real lantern? Don’t you know a ghost lantern when you see one?”

“He’s right, Max,” 99 said.

“All right, he’s right,” Max said. “But, don’t panic, 99. All we have to do is find the Coolidge-head penny and signal to the Chief. Then he’ll send a squad of Control agents to capture the assassins, and after they’ve finished that they can free us.”

“Ha!” the old prospector said.

“What exactly does that mean?” Max asked.

“It means it looks like it won’t be long before I’m not the only human ghost in this here lost gold mine,” the old prospector replied, grinning. “And, let me tell you, it’ll be nice having you young folks around. Madame DuBarry is a good mule, but, no matter how you look at it, he’s not human. I crave the company of human people. Oh, Madame DuBarry can be a good talker—if you can hit on a subject that interests him. But, after you’ve discussed the various aspects of straw a couple or six times, it’s hard to find anything new to say about it. I’m truly looking forward to the chats I’ll have with you two after you get to be ghosts. Why . . . we’ll recollect old times. I can tell you how it was back in the days when a man was a man and a woman was glad of it. And you can tell me how things was yesterday and the day before. Yessirree! We’ll have many a good argyments, too. I remember the night I took on Hotfoot Luke in the bar of the saloon on the subject: Will the Iron Horse Ever Replace the Twenty Mule Team as the Primary Means of Trans-Continental Transportation. It was a debate like you’ve never heard the likes of before or since. Hotfoot Luke took the Affirmative. And I took both the Negative and the Maybe. I proved beyond a doubt that the Iron Horse was a rich man’s toy and it’d never get off the ground. When I finished my summin’ up, the roar of the crowd was deafening.”

“Yes, well, as it happened, you were wrong, though,” Max said. “The Iron Horse is still with us today, and it’s still a very important part of the transportation system.”

“Pshaw!” the old prospector said. “Where’d you ever get an idea like that? It didn’t last a week. Like I said in the debate, it was a rich man’s toy.”

“It just so happens,” Max replied, “that there are trains—”

“Trains? Who said anything about trains? I’m talking about the Iron Horse. It was invented by Abe Shuster, a rich fella here in town—before the town kind of petered out, that is. He had this idea for a machine that looked just like a horse. He got the local ironsmith to build it for him. Had an iron tail and iron ears. While he was at it, the ironsmith made up a whole bushel of iron corn for this iron horse to eat. But, I told them at the time, ‘It’ll never be anything but Abe Shuster’s toy,’ I said. And I was right. A couple days after the big debate—which I won hands down—that iron horse run off with the iron deer that Mabel Wamsutter had on her front lawn. Neither one was ever heard from or seen again.”

“Well, that’s very sad, but—”

“Sadder than that even,” the old prospector said. “It was due to that—the coincident of his iron horse running off with her iron deer—that caused Abe Shuster to first take notice of Mabel Wamsutter, although they’d been living side by side—him in the big white house on the hill, and her in the little hovel in the valley—for nigh onto a good long while. The tragedy that resulted shook the whole town to its very roots. I recall—”

“Max,” 99 said, “if we’re going to find that Coolidge-head penny—”

“Just a second, 99. I want to find out what happened to Abe and Mabel.”

“Max!”

“You’re right, 99. Duty first,” Max said.

“Sure, that’s right, you go on ahead and waste your time looking for that penny,” the old prospector said. “We’ll talk about Abe and Mabel later. We’ll have plenty of time after you’re bona fide ghosts. Centuries and centuries and centuries. Maybe even a whole decade.”

“Fine,” Max nodded. “Now, if you’ll just excuse us . . .”

“Sure.”

Max and 99 started off into the dimness.

“Just yell when you get hopelessly lost in one or more of them branch tunnels,” the old prospector called after them.

Max and 99 returned.

“Branch tunnels?” Max said.

“Yup. Go on ahead if you want to go out on a limb and take a chance on getting lost in one of them branch tunnels,” the old prospector said. “There’re hundreds of them. More than that even. I counted up to a hundred, then I stopped counting. When you two get to be ghosts along with me and Madame DuBarry, maybe we’ll take that up as a hobby—counting all them branch tunnels. Time hangs a little heavy on your hands when you’re a ghost and you’re haunting a long lost gold mine. I’ll tell you the truth, you don’t get much traffic through a long lost gold mine. A couple of Dairy Queen fellas stopped by here one day about a dozen years ago to survey the place and see if it’d pay to put up a stand. Well, they stood here and counted, both pedestrian passersby and mule teams, and after they’d counted up to zero they quit. That’s how busy the place is.”

“Why are there hundreds of branches?” Max asked.

“That long lost gold has been lost for a long time,” the old man answered. “And every new prospector that looked for it struck out in a different direction. The old prospectors have an old saying. It goes: Never trust an old prospector. So, every time some new old prospector would come along to look for the long lost gold, he’d dig the opposite way the last old old prospector’d dug. And, after a time—”

“I think I get the idea,” Max broke in. “Look, I wonder if we could make a deal with you? It seems that in order to avoid getting lost we’ll need a light. It seems, further, that you are in possession at the moment of the only reliable means of illumination. Are you following me?”

“Into that dark? Not me. I’m going to stay back here with the lantern—even if it
isn’t
real.”

“What I was getting at is, I wonder if we could borrow your lantern?”

“You don’t know any more about ghosts than you do about iron horses,” the old prospector replied. “How can I loan you the borrow of my lantern if it isn’t real? Oh, I could loan you the borrow of it, but how would you carry it? Wait a few days, though. Then, you’ll be a ghost, too, and you won’t have any trouble at all carrying it.”

“By then, I won’t need it,” Max said.

“Could you do this?” 99 said to the old prospector. “Could you guide us? We can see fine as long as you’re around with the lantern.”

“Guide you?” the old prospector said. “I’d be a fool to do that. Why should I guide
you
to that long lost gold when I can’t even find it myself? I might be dumb enough to strike a light around a gas leak, but I’m not so dumb as to guide a couple of complete strangers to a place I don’t even know where it is myself. Try me again in a couple days—after we know each other a little better.”

“You still don’t understand!” 99 said woefully. “Honest, we’re not after your gold. All we want is that Coolidge-head penny.”

“You’re wasting your time. I been in every tunnel in this mine—almost—and not once have I ever seen a Coolidge-head penny.”

“We know that,” Max said. “We only lost it a couple days ago.”

“Please!” 99 begged.

“Welllllllll . . .” the old prospector said. “It’ll take a little while for you to turn to ghosts. I suppose, just to kill a little time—if you’ll pardon the expression—I could show you around the mine. You’ll be interested in seeing where you’ll be living—though, that’s not exactly the word for it—the rest of your life—though, that’s not the word for it, either.” He motioned. “Come on.” Then, followed by Madame DuBarry and Max and 99, he led the way deeper into the mine. “Now, on your right,” he said, “you’ll see a long scratch along the wall about belt buckle high. There’s a very interesting story that goes with that scratch. It seems that one day—”

“You can just skip the commentary that goes along with the tour,” Max said. “We’ll be looking for the Coolidge-head penny, and we don’t want to be distracted.”

“Oh, there’s no commentary,” the old prospector said. “I just want you to hear about that scratch on the wall about belt buckle high. It’s an interesting story, and you’d be after me to tell it to you sooner or later. This way, if I tell it to you now, you won’t have to ask later. It seems there was this nosy old prospector who came wandering in here one day, looking for a long lost gold mine, more than likely, and what did he run into but the ghost of the previous old prospector—him and his mule and his lantern. Well, this trespassin’ old prospector got so all-fired scared that he didn’t even take time to turn around and run. No, sir. He only took time to half-turn. And that put him facing the wall. And that’s how he run out, too—facing the wall. That’s how come that wall’s got that long scratch on it belt-buckle high. It was made by that old prospector’s belt buckle. Now, coming up on the left here, you’ll see an entrance to another tunnel. The history of the mine would not be complete without the telling of the story connected with this here tunnel. It has to do with a love story. I recall the incident as clear as if it’d only happened maybe twenty or thirty years go. There was this rich old man that lived in a big white house on the hill. He went by the initials of A. S. He was the fella in the story. The girl in the story was a woman that went by the initials of M. M. Well—”

“Her initials were M. W.,” Max corrected.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the old prospector nodded. “I have a little trouble remembering all the details, it happened so long ago. Be that as it may, though, this couple, this crazy old man that had his mind set on inventin’ the railroad steam engine, and this beautiful young lady that lived in the hovel in the valley, they—” He halted and looked questioningly at Max. “You know this story, do you?” he said.

“No. But, frankly—”

“If you don’t know it, how come you know it’s about Albert Senagalese and Marybelle Wastehanger?”

“I don’t,” Max replied. “I thought it was about Abe Shuster and Mable Wamsutter.”

“It is,” the old prospector said. “You don’t think I’d use their right names, though, do you? We don’t mention them around here any more—not since the tragedy.”

“That’s understandable, I suppose,” Max said. He pointed ahead. “That tunnel up there,” he said, “have you ever explored in there? If my calculations are correct, that’s the direction we should go to get to the spot under the saloon.”

“The saloon is the other way,” the old prospector said.

Max pointed in the opposite direction. “That way?”

The old prospector shook his head. “Nope—the
other
way.”

Max pointed forward. “
That
way, you mean, then?”

“Keep trying,” the old prospector said.

“The only other way is the way we just came,” Max pointed out.

“Right. You go back to the entrance and, by super-human strength, you move all them big rocks out of the way, then you walk back to town and just on the other side of the bakery you’ll find—”

“Max, he’s stalling!” 99 said. “He has no intention of trying to help us.”

Max peered at the old prospector challengingly. “For your information,” he informed him, “I happen to think you’re trying to stall us. Furthermore, I’m beginning to suspect that you have no intention of trying to help us.”

The old man sighed. “You seen through me like a brick wall,” he said. “I confess—you’re right. The truth is, it’s been so long since I had anything like human company that I was just stringing you along to keep you from leaving. But, I can see it won’t work any more. Why, a couple of young, handsome folks like you can’t be expected to stand around in a dark and dank old mine and listen to an old prospector like myself run off at the memory for very long. You got things to do. You got corn to plant. You got ears to shuck. You got grain to grind. You got flour to bag. You got cakes to bake. You got icing to mix. You got coffee to brew. You got a sugar bowl to get down off the cupboard shelf. You got a cow to milk. You got—”

“A cow to milk?” Max broke in.

“Oh . . . you want that coffee black? I thought you’d take cream in it. But, in that case, you got—”

“Hold it!” Max broke in again. “Look, old prospector, we’ve wasted enough time. Unless you cooperate, I’m afraid I’m going to have to get nasty.”