Part 4
Nathan put the knife away. For a few seconds, all Gordon could hear was the faint rattle of metal against the post.
His nephew touched his shoulder.
“What did you remember?”
“Seven was one they talked about.”
“The survey crew?”
Gordon nodded, trying to force the old conversation into words. Orson had been speaking to another man. Something about winter. Stay clear after a hard freeze. Gordon could see the cigarette and the dent in the trailer door, but he couldn’t recover the reason for the warning.
Nathan waited until Gordon shook his head.
“Won’t come.”
“Then don’t force it.”
They followed the old cut for another few hundred yards. A short length of rail emerged from the snow, its upper edge polished by weather. Beyond it, a low opening lay beneath a heavy overhang.
The tunnel mouth was mostly blocked by fallen stone. What remained was a dark gap scarcely high enough for a man to crouch through.
Highback had been there.
His prints crowded the approach. Deep claw marks crossed a stone beside the entrance, and a dark smear stained the snow beneath it.
Nathan bent over the stain.
“That’s where he got hurt.”
Gordon examined the rocks above the opening. Several rested on top of the snow. Their fresh faces were bare of frost.
“Rock clipped him when he tried to get in,” Nathan continued. “Drove him out.”
“That stone hasn’t been down long.”
Nathan followed his gaze and stood.
Gordon looked back across the basin.
“One falling rock doesn’t tilt all those trees.”
“No. But if the workings collapsed, part of the slope could’ve settled.”
“And the empty place under the trail?”
“Same thing, maybe.”
Nathan rubbed snow off one knee, considering it.
“The air at the crack could come from these tunnels. Warmer underground.”
Gordon kept his eyes on the entrance. The scrape on the bear’s side had an explanation now. The way he listened to the entire mountain still did not.
He turned downhill.
“We’ve seen enough.”
Nathan’s flashlight remained trained on the opening.
“We could look from just inside.”
Gordon stopped.
“What would that improve?”
“I don’t know. We came this far.”
“That’s distance. It isn’t a reason.”
Nathan lowered the light and gave a reluctant smile.
“Fair.”
They had gone only a few paces when a pulse of air struck them from behind. Loose snow lifted at the tunnel mouth and scattered over the approach. Pebbles skipped down the frozen slope.
Nathan turned so fast that his snowshoe caught the other one.
A long cracking sound came from inside the workings.
Water began to thread between the stones at the entrance.
Gordon stepped toward it.
Nathan caught his coat.
“No closer.”
“I want to see—”
“From here.”
Gordon looked at the hand on his sleeve. Then he crouched where he was.
Two little streams had become three. Vapor rose from the water as it reached the frozen ground. Gordon watched it find the channels between stones and begin icing at the edges.
Nathan stood close beside him.
“How far back does it go?”
“Don’t know.”
“Enough water to push air out like that?”
Gordon took out the map. His old pencil mark gave him nothing beyond the tunnel’s approximate location. If there had been several workings, there should have been a field camp, a place where the crew kept plans and tools.
Nathan looked over the broad, empty slope.
“After all this time?”
“Hardware doesn’t walk away.”
They worked around the side of the hill, staying clear of the fresh debris. A shallow bench cut through the brush eventually led them to an old roadbed. Farther along, Nathan spotted a strip of roofing beneath the snow.
The exploration shack leaned toward its broken window. One corner had sunk into the ground, and the door dragged so badly they had to lift it while pushing with their shoulders.
Inside, their lights found a collapsed table, a bench, an iron stove, and boxes that had softened and fallen apart. Mouse droppings lay across the floor. The air smelled of wet wood and old metal.
A narrow cabinet remained attached to the wall.
Gordon pulled the crooked door open. Beneath a rusted sheet of steel lay a packet wrapped in heavy, grease-treated paper.
He carried it to the least damaged part of the table.
Nathan held both lights while Gordon unfolded it.
The sheet inside showed the hillside cut through from several directions. Gordon found the mark for seven first. Beneath it, a drainage line ran through connected workings toward a lower opening. Other notations identified natural chambers, elevations, and an underground stream.
Nathan leaned over his shoulder.
“That line comes out below us.”
Gordon measured roughly with a finger against the scale.
“Three-quarters of a mile. Give or take.”
Nathan reached to help fold the plan.
“We can take this to the station.”
Gordon kept one hand on the paper.
“I want to see the outlet.”
His nephew straightened.
“You told me to speak up.”
“I remember.”
“This is me speaking up.”
Gordon tapped the drainage line.
“If that water reaches the creek, where does it go after?”
Nathan looked down at the plan again.
For a moment, he said nothing. Then he took the packet and folded the outer paper around it.
“We look from outside. And then we leave.”
Gordon nodded.
They found the lower drainage near the creek, following the rusted remains of a metal trough. At first, the wall before them seemed to be part of the rock face.
Then Nathan’s light caught branches frozen inside it.
Ice filled the recess from side to side, rising higher than either man could reach. It was cloudy with trapped air and debris. Water seeped around its edges and froze in layered ridges below.
Gordon kept to the stone beside it.
Faded paint marked three old water levels on the wall. A fresh band of wet rock stood well above the highest one.
Nathan aimed his light along that band, then lowered it toward the ice.
“It can’t drain.”
Gordon placed his palm against the rock. Behind the barrier came a continuous low sound, more felt than heard.
He took his hand away.
“The outlet’s sealed.”
Nathan’s left hand went to his cuff, then stopped there.
“How much is behind it?”
“No way to tell from here.”
“What happens when it breaks?”
Gordon looked down the basin. The creek led past the outpost to the bridge. Below the bridge stood the winter road crew’s camp, occupied precisely because the road needed people there during weather like this.
Nathan followed his gaze.
“Curtis has a crew down there.”
“Yes.”
His nephew pulled out his phone, checked the empty signal indicator, and put it back.
Gordon folded the plan into his pack.
“We need the radio…”
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