The Boogens Page 4

  “Where are we?” Roger asked, his chin now resting on the back of the seat.

  “About ten more miles,” Trish said.

  “Yeah,” Jessica sighed. “And then we’re going to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere in a lousy rainstorm. Look at those clouds.”

  “We’re going to love it,” Trish said. “And we’re going to have a terrific time.”

  “Without a car?”

  “I’ll only be gone twenty-four hours, love,” Roger said. “In the meantime, you and Trish can wash windows and scrub floors and do all those things you women love to do.”

  “I’ve got news for you, Roger. I’m not even going to fry an egg in the next ten days.”

  “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. I prefer mine poached.”

  Jessica sighed and shook her head. “You’re hopeless, Roger. Some day you’re going to say something serious, and everybody’s going to laugh. It’ll be the first legitimate laugh you’ve ever gotten.”

  Roger grinned and sat back in the seat. “I can’t wait.”

  Trish eased the car down to thirty-five as the road made a sharp curve and started climbing through the aspen again. As much as Jessica moaned and groaned over Roger’s bad jokes, she would probably be very disappointed if he suddenly turned serious. They would probably get married some day, and Roger would show up at the wedding in a gorilla suit.

  It had been Trish’s idea to rent the house in the mountains. She had seen the ad in the Denver Post last week, and for some reason she had found it intriguing. Charming two-bedroom mountain house in secluded forest. Near Summit. By week or month.

  She had never heard of Summit, so maybe it was the word charming that intrigued her. Mountain houses were usually advertised as “rustic” or “spacious,” and they always turned out to be in a state of collapse, or to be big barns with bunk beds and icy winds blowing through the cracks.

  When she called the owner, he had sounded like he was trying to talk her out of renting the place. It was very old, he had told her. It was two miles from any stores, and he wasn’t sure if there was any bedding up there. The more he talked about the place’s shortcomings, the more intrigued Trish became. In the end, he had given her the ten days for only a week’s rent, and he had dropped off the keys and a map at the office where Trish worked.

  Roger and Jessica had not been so enthusiastic when Trish described the place to them. But with Roger’s joking and Jessica’s countering jabs, it was hard to tell what they really thought.

  The only mildly depressing note when Roger and Jessica had shown up at Trish’s apartment this morning was that Jessica had brought along Tippy, her mongrel terrier. Tippy was the only dog Trish had ever seen who barked at friends, wagged his tail at strangers, and preferred eating shoes and slippers over dog food. And he didn’t care if he found the shoes and slippers in a closet or on somebody’s feet. At the moment, he was curled up on the seat between Trish and Jessica, probably dreaming about a new pair of Florsheims. Understandably, Jessica’s mother refused to take him for the ten days.

  “Is this Summit?” Roger asked as they came over the crest of a hill. A light sprinkle began to splatter the windshield and Trish turned on the wipers.

  “I think it’s Pineglen,” Trish said.

  Jessica unfolded the map. “Yep. Four more miles to Summit. Then two to the cabin. My God, you mean we’re going to be two miles from a store, and we won’t have a car for two days?”

  “Well, the guy told Trish the house is on a hill. Maybe it’ll snow and you can slide down to town.”

  “Funny,” Jessica said.

  “Pineglen,” Roger said as they circled the development. He was sitting forward now, his chin on the back of the seat again. “I’ll bet there’s not a store in the whole place. They’ve got boutiques and shoppes, and tobacconists and sports chalets, but no stores. They buy all their junk at K-Mart and triple the prices. Look at that. Even the supermarket is called a “food emporium.” Hamburger meat, five dollars a pound. You want a steak, you gotta give credit references.”

  Jessica shook her head. “Sometimes you’re very depressing, Roger.”

  “That’s why I’m so much fun to be around.”

  Jessica glanced at the canvas over her head and made a sour face. “Did you know your top leaks?” Water was beginning to drip from a frayed spot, splattering in her lap.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But only when it rains.”

  Past Pineglen, they climbed the final grade and came into sight of Summit at the far end of the valley. When they reached the town the rain was pelting them harder; Trish slowed down to fifteen and steered carefully around the potholes.

  Roger shook his head. “Would you look at this place? Welcome to the nineteenth century. You girls should have brought your sun-bonnets and high-button shoes.”

  Tippy rose and stretched, then jumped on Jessica’s lap. He put his paws on the windowsill and barked at nothing in particular. At least there were no dogs or cats or other signs of life visible on the streets.

  “Look for a sign that says ‘Hatcher Mine Road,’ ” Trish said.

  Roger finally spotted it, a weathered piece of wood full of bullet holes nailed to a crooked post.

  “Now, we take a right at the fork,” Jessica said, glancing at the map. “The road on the left goes to a mine shaft.”

  As Trish made the turn, a crack of thunder exploded somewhere behind them, then rumbled off into the canyons.

  “Ahh,” Roger said, “A one-gun salute for our arrival.”

  “And a million buckets of rain,” Jessica muttered.

  As if to herald their arrival, the rain suddenly turned to a pounding downpour. The car bounced and slithered up the muddy road. Then Trish smiled with relief as the house finally came into view. The description “old, but charming” hadn’t been totally convincing to her, but the tall, slender windows and all the bric-a-brac around the porch and under the gables were authentic nineteenth century. Even the old garage off to the side had a little cupola on the roof.

  Jessica smiled with surprise. “Huh,” she said, “not bad for a rustic mountain cabin.”

  “Not bad at all,” Roger agreed. “In fact, I’d describe it as . . . old but charming.”

  Tippy was the first one out of the car. He leaped past Jessica, sniffed the air for a minute, then scampered up the steps, shook himself off and barked at the front door. The others piled out, and Roger extracted the luggage, placing it on the top of the car to keep it out of the mud. He shut the car door, then grimaced as the bags abruptly dropped six inches and a foot-long rip appeared in the canvas top.

  “Nice going, Roger,” Jessica sneered, holding a newspaper over her head. She grabbed two small bags and hurried for the protection of the porch. Roger followed with the other bags, then went back down the steps. “I’m going to put the car in the garage,” he shouted.

  “Don’t forget the groceries in the trunk,” Jessica answered.

  Trish fumbled in her purse for the key, but Jessica tried the knob and pushed the door open. “It’s not locked,” she said. “And all the lights are on.”

  Tippy squeezed past and trotted inside. “Hello!” Trish called out. “Is anybody here?”

  The living room had an assortment of ancient furniture standing on a fringed rug. Two tasselled lamps were burning, and the lights were on in the kitchen and in the hallway. They moved inside and Trish closed the door.

  “God,” Jessica said and clutched her arms around herself, “it’s freezing in here.”

  Trish nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think the heat’s on.”

  They crossed the living room into the hallway. On the left a bedroom had a big brass bed and a marble-topped dresser. Jessica peered in and grinned. “A brass bed! I love brass beds. I’m claiming that little number for Rog and me.”

  “Sex maniac,” Trish muttered and moved on.

  “You know,” Jessica said as she followed along, “the guy who opened this place up for us must be really out
of it. He leaves the door unlocked and the lights on, but he doesn’t turn on the heat.”

  “Yeah,” Trish said, “not too swift.” She opened a door and peered down a dark staircase. “This must go to the cellar. I’m gonna go look for the furnace. It must be down there.”

  “Okay,” Jessica said. “I’ll get those bags in and start unpacking.”

  Trish snapped the light switch at the top of the stairs, but nothing happened. She moved cautiously down the steps, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. When she reached the bottom, she dug through her pockets and found a half-used book of matches. She struck one and held it above her head. At the back of the room was a big steel box with vent pipes rising from the top. That had to be the furnace. The flame on the match died, and Trish moved carefully through the darkness until her hand touched the steel box. She knelt and struck another match. The instructions were on a small plate at the bottom of the furnace. Trish dropped to her hands and knees, then stretched out on her stomach.

  “On” valve must be held to the extreme right until pilot is ignited. Then release valve and turn on burner.

  The match died in her hand and she fumbled for another one. Then she held herself still, listening.

  She could hear Roger and Jessica’s footsteps on the floor above, and there was the steady drumming of rain outside. But there was another sound, a faint rustling or murmuring coming from somewhere even closer. She held her breath, trying to determine what it might be or from which direction it was coming. Then she felt a tingle of fear raise goosebumps on her arms and down her back.

  She had a strong sense of some presence, something alive and very close to her. Her heart raced wildly, and she quickly struck the match and held it up, looking behind her. She stared at the lumber pile and then at the shadowy recesses between the dusty cartons and crates stacked along the wall. There was nothing visible. Then she smiled.

  A tiny mouse, no bigger than an inch and a half from nose to tail, came out from behind a dusty carton and stared at her, the beady little eyes glimmering with alarm. Then it whirled and scampered back into its hiding place.

  Trish let out a sigh of relief and struck another match. She thrust it through the little hole marked pilot and turned the valve. A two-inch flame popped into life. A second valve brought a muffled thump as the main burner ignited. She lifted herself from the floor and brushed the dust from her pants.

  The peephole at the bottom of the furnace cast an orange glow across the room. Trish stood for a minute looking into the shadows again. About six feet from the furnace, a heavy grating was fitted into the floor. At one side, a large area of the floor glistened in the light, as if yellow-colored soap suds had been left to dry. Trish stared at it, thinking how similar the markings were to the trails left by snails and slugs. She made a broad circle around the area and moved back to the stairs, taking them two at a time. The appearance of the mouse had calmed her fears somewhat, but she still felt uneasy. She paused at the top of the stairs and gazed down into the shadowy room.

  The flickering light from the peephole of the furnace gave the illusion of dancing figures bounding back and forth across the floor. And the flames reflected something below the grating that gave the appearance of two orange eyes staring up at her. She smiled, realizing her imagination was getting out of hand. She closed the door and took a look at the back bedroom, where Roger had put her suitcase.

  It was small, but cozy—a single bed, a straight-backed chair and an old-fashioned wardrobe standing in the corner. She glanced into the bathroom and circled back through the living room.

  Roger and Jessica were in the kitchen, Jessica putting the groceries away, Roger sitting with his feet on the table drinking a beer. He was wearing a red cap that said Massey-Ferguson on the front.

  “My God, Trish,” Jessica said, “What happened? Did you have to crawl through a heater vent or something?”

  Trish looked at her shirt and pants. They were still thick with dust. She grimaced and washed her hands in the sink. “Where’d you get that sexy hat, Roger?”

  “I found it on the table. Our mysterious cabin opener must have left it.”

  “Where do you suppose he went?” Trish asked.

  Jessica snorted. “He probably ran out the back door when he saw Roger get out of the car.”

  “You’re mean, Jess,” Roger said, “really mean. What’s on the entertainment program for tonight? Cocktails at the Summit Hotel? Dancing at the Red Dog Saloon?”

  Trish smiled and opened a beer. “I think the altitude is making me dopey. For me, it’s a nice warm bath and then to bed.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jessica said.

  Roger finished his beer and shook his head. “Jeez, what a couple of deadheads. I drive a hundred and fifty miles to a beautiful mountain resort, and all anybody wants to do is take a bath and go to bed?”

  “You mean you slept for a hundred and fifty miles,” Jessica answered. “And if you weren’t such a twit, you’d have gotten the two days off so you wouldn’t have to drive back tomorrow night.”

  “And pick up a paycheck. Don’t forget that, dear heart.” Roger grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap, running his hand under her blouse.

  Trish walked slowly through the hall out to the front room, looking at the old-fashioned striped wallpaper and the disconnected gaslight fixtures on the walls. The warm air coming through the heater vents was finally taking the chill out of the rooms.

  At the front window, she sipped her beer and watched the rain, wondering if it would ever let up. On a sunny day, there was probably a beautiful view from up here.

  It was strange how that man had left the house open and the lights on. She wondered if he might have gone outside and slipped and hurt himself somewhere. But he must have had a car to get up here. So he must have driven off somewhere, intending to come back.

  4

  The inside of the Summit Hotel turned out to be as funky as the outside. The lobby had two expiring rubber plants, brass spittoons beside each of the imitation leather chairs, and a desk clerk who looked like an elementary-school dropout. After he checked Brian and Chris in, he carried all their luggage up to the two rooms on the third floor. Then he shuffled around Brian’s room, showing him where the bathroom, the bed and the dresser were. Brian gave him two dollars and the boy blushed and nodded, saying “thanks” three times before he got out the door.

  The rooms were painted all white, with pegwood floors, lace curtains and framed magazine pictures of national parks. The bathrooms had white hexagon-tiled floors, big pedestal-washbasins and standing tubs with lion-pawed feet. After he unpacked, Brian called his partner in Denver. Freedman agreed to get copies of the claim transfers first thing in the morning and have them delivered to the hotel by rush messenger.

  “It’s funny about that Hatcher mine,” Freedman said. “I talked to a guy at Consolidated Mining today who said he worked up there when he was a kid back in the early forties. There were about a hundred and fifty miners working there at the time, but they all came to work one morning and found the place boarded up with a layoff notice posted outside.”

  “Why?” Brian asked.

  “That’s the odd part of it. Nobody seemed to know. The mine was producing good lead and silver, and even a fair amount of gold. And that was during the war, so prices were high on all three ores.”

  “And he never found out why they closed it?”

  “Nope,” Freedman said.

  “Who owned the mine at the time?”

  “An outfit called Western Mineral Development. I checked it out at the library, and the company was voluntarily dissolved about three weeks after the mine was closed.”

  “So who got the mine?”

  “Well, that’s a little muddy. It became an undivided asset belonging to about twenty people—the former stockholders of Western Development. About ten years later, in 1954, a man named Trippett sold the mine to those two guys, Hitchings and Thomas. So I guess Trippett, or somebody before
him, bought out the twenty stockholders.”

  “But there’s no record of anybody working the mine after it was closed?”

  “Not that I could find.”

  “Does anybody have any idea if Hitchings and Thomas ever went up to look at the mine?”

  “Apparently they did. At least they were here in Denver and filed papers transferring the claim. I thought I’d check the assay office tomorrow and see if there’s any record of them bringing in any ore samples.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you get anything.”

  Brian hung up and took a long, hot bath, trying to make sense out of things. There were a lot of reasons for suddenly closing a profitable mine: cave-ins, noxious gases, flooding. The Santa Eulalia, one of the largest lead mines in Mexico, was flooded so badly back in the thirties it never did open again. But if that had happened in the Hatcher mine, there certainly was no reason to keep it secret. And from what he and Chris had seen this afternoon, there was no evidence of serious flooding.

  At seven-thirty, Brian knocked on Chris’ door and found her ready and waiting for dinner. While they went down the stairs, he told her about his conversation with Freedman.

  “Maybe the government closed it down,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t they do that if some mine inspector found it was unsafe?”

  “Yes,” Brian agreed. “But they also would have posted a notice saying so.”

  The dining room was at the back of the building and looked more like a recently added coffee shop than a nineteenth-century restaurant. From the number of customers, it must have been the only eating place in town. Most of them were men who had the rough look of mine workers.

  “We’ve got pork chops and meatloaf tonight,” the middle-aged waitress said after they slid into a booth. “Mashed potatoes and peas, and apple pie for dessert.”

  Chris ordered meatloaf.

  “You want an end cut, honey?” the woman asked. “And how about a draft beer?”