Haunted Waters (5 page)

Chapter 13

This was like seeing Pikes Peak for the first time.
I closed my eyes and let the scene etch itself in my memory.

We headed back to a visitors center for cookies and hot chocolate. Bryce was staring at pictures and exhibits of pioneer life, but I knew his mind was somewhere else. We got in the Land Cruiser and backtracked to some curvy roads. I thought I was going to get sick, and I was even more scared that Dylan would upchuck his fruit snacks. But Sam put down the windows, and we all took a breath of fresh air. Once I looked straight down a cliff, which made me want to roll my window back up.

I’ve always been afraid on bridges, scared that the car would plunge into the water and we wouldn’t make it out. One time I dreamed we all got out except Dylan, who was trapped in his car seat, and I spent the rest of the night in Mom’s room. I couldn’t believe how glad I was to see him the next morning and give him a hug, Pop-Tarts crumbs and all.

“So, you kids have been here more than a year now,” Sam said as we passed some kind of reservoir. The water was right next to the SUV so I could see swirls on top from where fish swam. A sign said Scenic Overlook Ahead.

Sam looked at me in the rearview mirror. “What do you think so far?”

I shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Sam frowned.

I know he wanted me to say Colorado was the best place on earth, that I was “happy as a raccoon in a cornfield,” as my grandfather would say. But my real dad was dead, my mom was busy, and I just hadn’t “connected” with Sam yet—which confirmed my suspicions about the weekend.

“It’s cool we get to ride the ATVs to school,” Bryce said.

“I like my waccoon and monkey.” Dylan looked around and found his stuffed raccoon and Chunky Monkey, which was made out of a sock. Sam had bought the monkey at the grocery store.

After a few wrong turns we made it to the driveway of the cabin. Sam got out and unhooked a chain. Then we drove into the woods. Even though it was morning, it looked like night because there were so many trees. The road was muddy, and we lurched up the hill in four-wheel drive.

Bryce gasped when he saw the place. It was a big A-frame surrounded by trees, except at the back where the house overlooked a cliff. Just like earlier, it felt like you could see forever.

We made two trips to bring our backpacks and all the groceries inside. Before we could explore, Sam handed us both tiny walkie-talkies and showed us how to work them.

“How far will these reach?” Bryce said.

“A few miles, depending on the mountains.”

Sam must have seen the look on my face. “I don’t plan on us splitting up this weekend. This is just to be safe.”

Chapter 14

The cabin was incredible.
Ashley and I walked around the main floor and found the kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a huge living room with a fireplace in the middle and windows big enough for Godzilla. There was also a loft, and Sam carried his and Dylan’s stuff up there. The view out over the mountain took my breath away, and the first thing I wanted to do was draw it for Mom. Ashley took a shot with her digital camera.

Ashley claimed the best bedroom, the one with bunk beds. She said since she didn’t get to ride up front, she had dibs. I threw my backpack in the next room.

Then we headed to the lower level. Not only was there a Ping-Pong table and a pool table, but there was also a real Lord of the Rings pinball machine with lights and bells and buzzers. At one end of the room a TV was hooked up to the satellite, and there were a bunch of movies in the cabinet underneath.

“Guess that’s for if we get snowed in,” Ashley said.

“I wouldn’t mind getting snowed in here for the rest of my life,” I said. “Wish we’d have brought the dogs.”

On the wall by the pinball machine was a picture of a weird-looking woman. She wore a red dress and stared at the camera. Her face gave me the willies.

Ashley opened a cabinet and found a screaming-fast computer. “We can e-mail Mom my picture!”

“Let’s go shoot some more.”

But Sam said it was time to see Gold Town. The pictures would have to wait.

Chapter 15

Gavin Winkler parked the dark green rental car
in the gravel at the end of the Gold Town parking lot. He lit a cigarette and flicked on the radio, skipping through music, talk shows, and news reports.

Gavin had checked out of his hotel in Denver in the wee hours, leaving his key in his room and a mountain of room-service dishes. He couldn’t leave a trail here, so as inviting as it looked, he wouldn’t be staying at the little bed-and-breakfast nearby. This would be a quick job. In and out. Get the goods and take off. He wanted no one to see him.

A friend had introduced Gavin to the man who had set up their little operation. The man wanted someone slick, someone clean-cut, who had never been to jail. Gavin had lied about his past. He had spent time in prison—a lot of it actually. But the man didn’t need to know. Things had been stolen. People hurt.

Gavin scrunched down in his seat and watched the parking lot fill with vehicles. Mostly SUVs. Moms and dads with little kiddies who wanted to see the golden trinket and the sparkly room. The radio gave the weather: a chance of snow Saturday in the higher elevations. Perfect. He’d be out of town and on to Las Vegas before anyone knew what had happened.

He focused on the shiny trailer by the wooden building. Inside were photos and artifacts of the gold rush. People had traveled here more than 100 years ago hoping to change their lives, to get rich.

Gavin was going to do the same, only he wouldn’t even have to get his hands dirty.

Chapter 16

We made it to Gold Town that afternoon.
The exhibit trailer and General Store were packed. Sam let us out and parked in a muddy area next to the parking lot. Bryce held Dylan’s hand so he wouldn’t break away and run toward the fake mine shaft up the hill.

The black-and-gold trailer with the vug inside was parked near a rock looming above the town. I snapped a picture, then followed the others inside the store.

Ropes were set up to show people where to walk. Sam put Dylan on his shoulders so he could see over people’s heads.

The shop smelled musty, like Mrs. Watson’s basement, and on the walls were black-and-white pictures, mostly of bearded miners with burros. One showed a woman in a white dress on a wooden sidewalk, shielding her eyes from the sun. Another was of a man inside a mine, his face dirty. I wondered what had happened to these people. Had they spent their entire lives in Colorado or moved farther west chasing some dream? Had they stayed poor or struck gold and become rich?

Soon after we entered, the store owner began his presentation. “From the late 1850s until almost 1900, newspapers carried stories of people like you see in those pictures, poor and lonely, who came to Colorado, saw a glint of light in a stream or off a rock, and came back millionaires. Most didn’t strike it rich, and the ones who did were usually the ones who set up stores and saloons. But every now and then someone found gold.”

The man looked around the room. “I don’t suppose any of you younger people have heard the story of Horace Tabor?”

Every middle schooler in Colorado had to have heard the story, so I was surprised that no one but Bryce raised a hand.

“Yes, young man. What happened to him?”

“Um . . . wasn’t he the g-guy wh-who traded his store for a silver mine?”

“Yes, but not the whole store,” the man said, pointing to a picture of a man with a large mustache. “Born in Vermont in 1830, he and his wife heard of the riches being found in Colorado, moved here, and opened a general store much like this one. One day two grizzled miners came into his business and asked him to ‘grubstake’ them, which meant if Tabor would supply them with picks, shovels, and food, they would give him one-third of the share of the mine. On May 15, 1878, Tabor rushed up Fryer Hill from his store after hearing the two men had hit pay dirt. The silver mine made Tabor rich.”

People smiled and shook their heads.

Before the shop owner could continue, Sam said, “Tell them how the story ended.”

The shop owner frowned. “He died in Denver in 1899, leaving a wife and two daughters penniless. He went from rags to riches and back to rags.”

The owner then told the story of the gold nugget on display, how a poor prospector named Jedediah Maxwell, who had nearly frozen to death and had been attacked by bears, finally struck it rich in a nearby mine. He held up a glass-encased nugget that looked like it weighed a ton. “This was one of the first nuggets Jedediah discovered, and he vowed that no one would touch it. He kept it hidden, and only after his death did a friend find it in a secret compartment under his desk.”

People gawked at the gold, and I wished I could hold it.

The owner went on. “A few years later, some miners were blasting about 1,200 feet down when they discovered what geologists call a vug. The room was about 23 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 36 feet high—exactly the same as you’ll see inside the exhibit.”

The man paused dramatically. “No one but those miners ever saw what that room looked like. Armed men guarded it day and night. No pictures were ever taken. But artists have gone over the miners’ eyewitness accounts of that room, and when you’re led in, you will see what they might have seen almost 100 years ago.”