The Mine (5 page)

His primary concern was bumping into that badass rattler's forebears. Snakes belonged on jagged rocks in Arizona, not unlighted gold mines in Montana.

Joel wiped a few sticky strands from his arm and brushed dirt off his shirt. He longed for clean clothes. But mostly he longed for something familiar.

He looked back toward the sun. It burned as brightly as before, albeit from a different position in the sky. It was a bit later in the day – maybe one o'clock – but still comfortably warm. The tops of nearby trees swayed under the pressure of a gentle breeze.

Joel smiled as he thought of Adam's whiny protests.

You were right, buddy. I should have listened. But have I got a story for you
.

He entered the mine and said goodbye to the Fabulous Forties.

CHAPTER 13

Joel had no difficulty navigating the first hundred yards. Sunlight guided him past the side shaft and a fractured beam that marked the halfway point to Studio 54. He tried to better gauge his progress by counting each tentative step. But it wasn't long before increasing darkness left him wistful for a flashlight.

When it became difficult to advance even a few feet without tripping, he drifted to the left side of the main shaft and maintained steady contact with the uneven dirt wall. He knew the next opening would lead to the illuminated chamber and hopefully his portal to the future. The wall became his anchor.

Joel nonetheless remained uneasy about touching things in the dark. He would rather have watched
Barney & Friends
for a week on a continuous loop than place a hand on a rabid bat. He heard wings flap more than once as he blindly worked his way through the passage.

His mind drifted to good times ahead. Once out of the mine, he would find a swimming pool, shave, put on fresh clothes, and order a frosty beer, though not necessarily in that order. He looked forward to seeing familiar places, hanging out with friends, and graduating.

As the minutes passed, however, optimism turned to concern. Joel had taken two hundred steps since entering the shaft but still could not see the magic chamber's signature glow. Had he misjudged the distance? Was the room on the other side? Then just that fast he found the void. Though he could see precious little with a pinprick of sunlight at his back, he knew the gap was the one he had sought.

Joel ran his hands along the low-hanging beam, making a mental note of its location, and entered the room. He listened for snakes, bats, and rats but heard nothing. The mine's indigenous species apparently had moved to greener pastures. That much was good. He walked along the perimeter of the chamber and found the walls as cold and smooth as he had remembered. That too was good. But the rock surfaces emitted no light, blue or otherwise. That probably was not good.

Joel began to question his phosphorescent-cell-as-time-portal theory. Had the room been nothing more than a dream? Was all this a nightmare without end?

He exited the chamber, remembering to duck his head, and stopped on a broken rail. He considered plunging deeper into the mine in hopes of finding another magic room but opted against it. The shaft was dark and getting darker. No need to add injury to insult. He leaned against a thick post and tried to sort it all out. He had expected to find more in this otherwise insignificant hole and now operated without a plan. For the first time in a long time, answers eluded him.

Joel commenced a slow, sorry walk toward the entrance. But on the way, he pondered another possibility – one that made all the sense in the world. Perhaps the magic room wasn't magic at all. Perhaps its luminescence was natural and fleeting and played no role in sending him to the past. Maybe the mine itself was the portal. Joel regained his lost optimism and picked up his step.

CHAPTER 14

The new theory succumbed to successive blows.

When Joel reached the entrance, he saw no boards. When he stepped out of the mine, he saw a rusted, bullet-riddled coupe and three sturdy buildings with unbroken windows. When he approached Gold Mine Road, he saw a late thirties pickup kick up a cloud of dust as it sped toward town. No log-and-stone mansion beckoned at the intersection. Trees, meadows, and roads remained unchanged.

Joel had not cried since a beloved grandmother died in 1995, but he felt like crying now. He was without hope and ideas, a modern man mired in a not-so-modern time. He tried to maintain a tenuous hold on what was left of his sanity.

He sat on a large boulder near the Mine guidepost and tried to think of what he had missed. He thought of the snake, Adam's sunglasses, Grover Cleveland, even an under-the-table carpentry job he had done for a neighbor in August. Had God punished him for cheating on his taxes? It was only six hundred dollars. Then he recalled his lunch at the Canary and the cable news piece about a planetary alignment. The incident had coincided with his trip to the mine. There had to be a connection.

Joel replayed the story in his mind. Alignments were rare but not unprecedented. Nor were they the flashiest of celestial events. He remembered Hale-Bopp. The comet had lit up night skies for weeks in 1997. But it had not empowered abandoned mines or hurtled college students back in time, at least none that he knew. There had to be more. He got up and paced in a circle before the truth hit him like a low-hanging beam.

"For twenty-four hours, beginning about noon Eastern Daylight Time, six planets from our solar system will fall into a rough alignment with the sun."

Twenty-four hours. Noon Eastern. Ten Mountain. It could not be that simple, but it probably was. When Joel first visited Colter Mine, the time portal had just opened. When he went back, it had just closed.

He returned to the boulder, sat down, and put a hand to his forehead. As blunders went, this topped the charts. Joel could not believe his luck, or the injustice of it all. A good night's sleep, a decent breakfast, and a leisurely stroll through Helena, Montana, had cost him his world.

CHAPTER 15

Joel mourned his loss for five minutes. Never a fan of pity parties, he quickly accepted his predicament as permanent and regrouped. He did not know what he would do or where he might go, but he would not dwell on things he could not change.

He headed south on Gold Mine Road, toward the highway, and tried to figure out his next move. He had just twenty-five spendable cents and the shirt on his back. But he also had marketable skills and a gift that defied valuation: knowledge of things to come.

Because he had fully and, in hindsight, naively, expected to return to 2000 when he revisited the mine, Joel had not thought much about using that knowledge. He had focused exclusively on getting back home. But now that he was stuck in 1941, he gave the matter its due. And given the gravity of the times, there was a lot to consider.

With the possible exception of the Japanese high command, Joel alone knew that war was coming to the United States. He knew that thousands of placid American towns like Helena would soon send their boys to fight in places like Guadalcanal, Anzio, and Omaha Beach. He knew that goods and services would be rationed for years and that wondrous technological and medical advancements were on their way. He knew that Whirlaway was about to win the Triple Crown and that Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were headed for banner seasons. This knowledge could be both a blessing and curse. He could enrich himself and benefit others. Or he could muck things up for multitudes.

Joel recalled "A Sound of Thunder," a short story he had read in high school. In the work by Ray Bradbury, a twenty-first-century hunter traveling back in time to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex had subtly but profoundly altered the future by literally leaving his footprint on the past. It would not take much to make a mess of things. For that reason, he would have to weigh every word and action carefully.

On the afternoon of May 30, 1941, however, Joel had more pressing concerns. He needed food in his belly and a roof over his head. He needed identification and a job and direction. All the knowledge in the world would not be worth much if he had to dive in dumpsters and sleep in cardboard boxes.

A mile into his trek, Joel stopped to rest on a stump and gazed at the valley below. Yet another freight train slogged its way west toward the Continental Divide. If only he could be as driven and focused as the iron horse. With nothing better to do, he left the road and walked to a stretch of tracks in a clearing a hundred yards away. He could hear the dull, steady drum of steel on steel. As the train began its eight-mile push to the pass, Joel peered down the tracks and saw the locomotive spew a black funnel toward the sky. He shook his head and laughed.

Steam!

When the train drew closer, Joel saw something else: people. More than a dozen individuals sat atop boxcars. Others clung to the sides of flatcars or poked their noses out of open doors. Young men who looked old wore drab, dirty, ragged clothes. Many stared blankly at Joel. Some with hardened faces appeared fresh out of Walla Walla. But a few smiled and waved, including a leprechaun of a man who shouted from a flatcar.

"Hey, Johnny, headed our way?"

Several men laughed. Joel shook his head. But the more he pondered the question, the more he questioned the wisdom of heading back to Helena. The town meant nothing to him. He could go anywhere. There was no reason he could not go to Missoula, Spokane, or Portland.
Or Seattle.

He found that idea comforting. Seattle would not be anything like the city he left, of course, but it was still home. Maybe a trip west was just what he needed. If he had to make his way in 1941, he might as well do it in familiar environs.

Joel studied the slow-moving train and more dirty faces as the last ten cars rolled through the meadow. A skinny teenager, clad in overalls and a gray beret, pointed to an apparently unoccupied boxcar behind him.

Oh, what the hell.

Joel stepped closer to the tracks and started jogging toward the open car. His jog soon turned into a sprint. He saw a ladder but wasn't sure he could grab it securely. As he followed the train through the stretch, he peered ahead and saw that the shoulder dropped off and that the tracks passed through a narrow opening of blasted rock. Joel's legs began to tire. This was more difficult than it looked. He considered waiting for the next train when a large, scruffy man, sucking on a cigarette, stuck his head through the door. He motioned furiously toward the back of the car.

"You can make it, kid. Just aim high on the ladder."

Joel regretted canceling his fitness club membership in March. He looked at the man, the oily, uneven railroad ties, and the jagged rocks ahead. This would be close. With one final burst, Joel sprinted toward the ladder and threw himself at forged steel. Hands, feet, face, and body smashed into unforgiving rungs. Pain shot down his spine. But he managed to hold on and quickly pulled himself out of harm's way.

"Yeah! Take that, Spiderman!" Joel shouted, not caring who heard him.

He smiled and glanced toward the boxcar's open door. Scruffy smiled back.

"Not bad." He pulled the cigarette from his mouth. "Welcome aboard, cowboy."

CHAPTER 16

Seattle, Washington – Saturday, May 31, 1941

Grace could not decide what she liked more: the room, the table, or the view. Even from the fifth floor she could see most of the waterfront and Elliott Bay. In the distance, an orange-red sun began to slide behind the snow-capped Olympics.

Slender white candles, spring flowers, Waterford glasses, and origami napkins on bone china plates sat atop a linen-covered table. Forks outnumbered spoons three to two. A few feet away, a white-jacketed waiter offered a man in a tux and a woman in a silk dress two bowls of lemon sorbet to cleanse their palates. He returned minutes later, to Grace's table, with a couple of menus and a bottle wrapped in cloth.

"Good evening. My name is Gerard, and I'll be your server tonight." Tall, slender, and burdened with a wire-thin mustache, he spoke with a haughty continental accent that was probably honed in Tacoma and not Toulouse. "Could I interest either of you in a glass of wine? This is our most recent acquisition, a 1921 Bordeaux."

The waiter addressed both patrons but zeroed in on the one who looked younger than the wine. Grace, suddenly pale, cast Gerard a sheepish glance. She had not expected his question.

"Madam?"

"I suppose," she said. "Was 1921 a good year?"

Gerard let his eyes wander as he kept a firm rein on a tight smile. He looked again at Grace and provided more information.

"The very best, madam."

Grace appealed to the man holding her hands.

"It's your night, baby," he said. "Get what you want."

"All right, then," she said, cheery again. "I'll have some!"

"And you, sir?"

"Make that a double." Paul patted his wallet. "Ah, hell, leave the bottle."

The waiter poured two glasses, left the bottle, and disappeared. Grace looked over her shoulder and then at Paul.

"I thought he was going to ask for identification," she whispered, as if sharing a secret. She smiled and took a sip of the sweet red wine. "I wonder why he didn't."

"It must have been the uniform," Paul said. He straightened the collar of his dress whites, mostly for effect, and grinned. "I'm sure he figured there wasn't a chance in hell a Navy officer would corrupt a minor in a place like this."

Grace smiled warmly and put her hands on her hips.

"Your
'minor'
is almost a major."

"Oh, yes. I haven't forgotten."

"You're not upset, are you?"

"Upset that your friends get you on your twenty-first birthday? Oh, no. I know how important that stuff is. Besides, I don't think I could compete with the sisterhood."

She laughed.

"You're probably right about that."