Dead in Dutcher's Mountain

http://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Raymond/e/B006MZUHUA

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DEAD on DUTCHER'S MOUNTAIN

Margaret Raymond

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Mom

with luv

NOTE: Dead on Dutcher's Mountain is based on fact, except for the sadist and the banker. The actual sheriff-coroner (M.D. and PhD) of Del Norte County, California, when I was there, is my only real-life hero. The people were friendly, brave, and undefeatable. The country has huge mountains, ancient redwoods, 3-foot salmon, Bigfoot and of course the pounding surf of huge Pacific storms. Everything about that country is bigger than life, including the official unemployment rate at the time: 32%.

I edited the newspaper. The jobs were gone. The salmon were gone. The giant redwoods were off-limits to the timber companies. Then came big, big news: the old chromium mine would be reopened and everyone could get off welfare. Didn't happen. Someone (I know but I'm not telling; it's still worth his neck) asked Sacramento what the mine would do to the forests and the rivers, and how long the mining jobs would last. Sacramento dug into it and found lies, corruption, graft, and the potential for environmental disaster. End of dream.

I can't forget that country or that sheriff. Dead on Dutcher's Mountain is the result.

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DEAD on DUTCHER'S MOUNTAIN

One

“Hit me.”

Del Norte County’s Sheriff-Coroner Earl McCoy sat at a blackjack table in a corner of the Whole Tribe playing quietly and drinking his whiskey neat. He was off-duty and out of uniform, but everyone in the card room knew him and most were being careful. His pile of chips maintained its height; no big wins, but no big losses; the dealer, a Yurok, saw to it.

“No, it just pisses me off,” McCoy was saying, “I try to cover the whole county twenty-four hours a day without enough deputies; lumber camps inland, the fishing at the port, and pot growers ‘way inside the Siskiyous. Not to mention wet-nursing all the tourists. And now with the mine coming on-line...”

The dealer shot him a glance; the others contemplated their hands. The room was low-ceilinged and dim above the brightly lit gaming tables, and that did a lot to hide the greasy cobwebs behind photos of loggers and Indians. The Whole Tribe relied on tourism; it was late fall; a howling Pacific storm was due, with heavy winds and maybe ten or twelve inches of rain; and it was Thursday; even the bar was slow.

McCoy was in his mid-thirties, smallish, and with the muscular build that would become stringy with age. He was blond, precisely featured, and his tannish eyes accented the initial impression of wary intelligence. Across from him and beside the dealer sat Dudmann Brock, boyish, pig-faced and overflowing his dry-cleaned coveralls. Between Brock and McCoy sat Harry Zuber, a skinny old man with blond-gray hair streaked across his scalp.

But McCoy watched a tall stranger at the bar and directed his running complaint to Gordon Altstock, who sat on his right. Altstock was manager of Dutcher’s Mining Company’s new operation. He was narrow-faced and tan-haired, so obviously Ivy-League that his oarsman’s shoulders and nasal drawl were unnecessary clues. Maybe it was the tattersal shirt. His eyes often referred to Brock, the fat man. McCoy wondered why, so he lingered. And silently speculated about the dangers of mining chromite, which came with radioactive Cobalt-90 and lethal asbestos.

He went on, aloud, “Plus there’s this nut laying bear traps--the kind in bad movies, been outlawed a long time. They‘re all over the county. Catch mostly deer.” Old man Zuber nodded. “Then the supes cut my gas money and moved the garage outside of town without even consulting me. So my people have to park out on Washington, and I have to cut back their patrols. Wow! You hit sixteen? Well, you can imagine what salt air and eighty inches of rain even in a dry year will do to a car that sits out. My men won’t have any vehicles left next spring, just rust piles.”

Altstock nodded. “The paper mentioned your formal protest. Beyond that, is there anything you can do, McCoy? Is there any contingency money? How about co-locating with the City? Or can you get a bigger piece of the block grant?” Altstock spoke fluent bureaucrat.

McCoy flicked the table with his cards for another hit. “The contingency money went for gasoline when the price went up. The City Manager hates me because I arrested his mother for dealing a controlled substance.” He eyed the tall stranger; blond guy with a ponytail. His forehead slanted back and narrowed from his brows, making him look exotic. McCoy said, “Speaking of cars, you see that silver Accordo parked out back?” The blond met his eyes in the mirror above the bar.

“No. I parked up on the road.”

“Sure is pretty. They’re hand-made, only about thirty a year. Italian.” The stranger nodded. “Shouldn’t be out in the weather like that. If it were mine, I’d keep it in my front room.”

The blond nearly smiled. Altstock snorted and threw a look to Dudmann Brock. Brock grunted. “Bust,” McCoy said.

The dealer threw out another hand. Altstock called for a hit, got a queen, and stood. McCoy doubled on a pair of tens. He rechecked the stranger, then Brock. Altstock checked Brock too. Zuber, showing a two, was dealt a Jack and folded. Brock was happy with a five showing. McCoy resumed.

“Isn’t your production man at the mine some kind of racing driver?”

“That’s what they say,” Altstock allowed. “I haven’t met him, except over the phone. He’s not due until Friday; can’t be his car out there.” His pile of chips had grown. Brock signaled a hostess with a stubby forefinger, passed her a fifty, and received chips. The dealer dealt.

McCoy contemplated his new hand. “I still think the original mine was sabotaged,” he finally said.

Zuber nodded. “Any engineer’ll tell you that.”

“What do you mean?” Altstock asked. He leaned forward to see around McCoy. “I thought they determined it was taken in a flood.”

Zuber said, “I was home sick that day, or I’d be up there dead like the rest of them.”

“But why do you feel it was sabotaged?”

“There’s a granite ridge right over the vein we were working. Goes right through the mountain.”

“Yes, but with an aquifer beneath it. I’m Altstock, the manager of the new operation.”

“Zuber.”

McCoy leaned back as the men shook hands.

Alststock said, “I’ve been looking at that mountain pretty hard for a month. It looks like a straightforward thing to me.”

“Then you’d better take another look, Mr. Altstock,” Zuber said, and sought agreement from Brock, who nodded. The old man waxed pedantic. “There’s limestone up on top, and even some sandstone, but they’re bedded on that granite that makes the ridge going south, the one you’re thinking about. But if you’ll go a couple miles around that south end, along the creek bed to where the other creek joins it, and hike from there up past the big azalea patch, there’s another layer of granite sticking out. It’s laid under that first one, with the sandstone and the aquifer between them. Can’t see it from anywhere else, but there has to be an old study of some kind, has it marked down.”

“I see.” Alstock picked up his hand, thoughtful.

McCoy won the hand, re-anted and finished his drink, signaling for another. The blond ponytail had turned on his bar stool to listen. Big guy, McCoy noted again. Very big guy.

“Not that it doesn’t make a nice story, that mudslide,” Zuber resumed, “but the granite I’m talking about, just over that old shaft and all that nickel we were after back then, it’s a good thirty feet thick, and there’s not a fault anywhere near it.” He leaned back and surveyed the room, having made his point. His rheumy eyes flickered when they reached the blond, continued to the bartender, then flicked back to the blond.

Brock joined in. “There’s no reason for that top stuff to slide the way it did, either; even with heavy rain,” he said. “McCoy’s right. But you can’t prove any of it.”

The table got quiet again. The blond went into the men’s room, came out, then left with a nod to the bouncer. Zuber watched him all the way.

Altstock won three hands straight and began to squirm like a kid. McCoy eyed the dealer, who shook his head. The play continued. The first rain tapped on the shingled roof.

Altstock broke the quiet. “I understand you plan to raid the marijuana growers, sheriff.”

Brock said, “Yeah. They say you found some weed not far from the mine.”

The two men’s complicity was so transparent that McCoy wanted to hug them. He thumbed the corner of his hole card. “Sometimes I wonder why they even bother with a newspaper up here,” he said. “Yeah, we found some bales of grass close to the road, ‘way up in a pin oak. But we couldn’t follow up just then. It’s at the edge of my territory, anyway.” He raised the bet with a chip. “I’d like to personally catch this guy, though. There must have been a couple of hundred pounds of it up there, still dry.”

“Can’t you?” It was Brock, betting another red chip.

Yes, huggable fools. “Not personally, I’ve got two men sick.” McCoy indicated Altstock with his head. “The mine has a security man up there with a CB, though. He and the others are watching the stuff.” He assumed cockiness. “Whoever comes for it will have to leave his vehicle somewhere near the road while he packs it out. And there’s traffic up there all the time now, with the mine about to start up.”

Altstock nodded earnestly.

Brock asked, “Your men carry CBs?”

“Sure. That way we hear the tourists when they get stuck in those bogs.” He shook his head. “That Dutcher’s Mountain is no-win territory.”

“What makes you say that?” Altstock drawled. “It’s full of chromite, and now you say it’s covered with marijuana.” He stood up, ready to quit, and grinning. He scooped his chips into a pocket. “I’ll buy you a drink when you’re through, sheriff.”

“With you in a minute.”

McCoy circled the table to stand behind Brock, leaning over his shoulder and speaking low. “I’d stay away from that mountain, Brock. They’re very busy looking for you.” Zuber and dealer listened without expression.

Brock got very still, holding his cards tightly. “You trying to tell me something, McCoy?”

“Only that you’re a dumb gambler, and a dumb pot grower. You’re betting heavily again, and that stuff in the tree was tied with your knots, just like the last time. You show up within ten miles of Dutcher’s Mountain, I’ll haul your ass to jail.” McCoy straightened and left the table, winking broadly at the dealer.

McCoy and Altstock hunched over drinks at the bar, paying with chips and talking about McCoy’s professional budget. After a while the bartender moved to the other end, polishing glasses. Brock left, returned, and left again. McCoy put down his drink.

“Do me a favor, Altstock,” he said, low. Altstock nodded. “Take me to the Brookings cop shop.”

Altstock lifted his eyebrows. “Of course.”

“You said your vehicle’s out front, didn’t you?”

“Every time, since that Jeep slid into the river from the parking lot.”

At the door McCoy told the hostess, “Back soon,” and gave her his chips. “Keep these for me ‘till next week, will you?”

The men crossed the road in the rain, got into Altstock’s truck and drove without conversation up the coast road. After a while Altstock asked, “What’s wrong, sheriff?”

“You saw all Brock’s activity at the back door, didn’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Pot farmer. Probably owns that stuff we found on the mountain. Mean little bastard.”

Alstock grunted.

McCoy explained. “I think he was after my car. I set him up, actually. So if he did what I think he did, we have his fingerprints all over my hood and engine block. Anyway, I’m a little nervous about driving fifteen miles of cliffs and curves before I get home.”

They stopped at Brookings’ only signal, drove for another block, and pulled up at the police station. There the sergeant put McCoy through to the police chief, then took the phone and listened to instructions. Within minutes a tow truck pulled up outside.

“I’ll take you back and the tow can follow,” Altstock offered. “Maybe you can use some extra help.”

By the time they returned to the card room the rain was sheeting in heavy wind and the Smith River was audibly at the edge of the low parking lot. McCoy slogged over to the tow truck; Altstock followed.

“That tan sedan,” McCoy yelled through the wind.

“Which one?” the driver yelled back.

McCoy looked again, squinting. A car like his own sat next to the river bank. “The one over by the building.”

Harry Zuber came out of The Whole Tribe, wrapping himself in a yellow slicker and running in an old man’s shuffle. McCoy lifted his hand to salute, but Zuber didn’t see him; he hunched quickly into the other sedan.

A mechanical wail split the noise of the storm. “Jesus!” the mechanic began through his open window. “His transmission? ...”

He was cut short by the rest of the noise. Zuber’s car slithered crazily forward, then sideways across the mud, accelerating with the engine at full bore and screeching.

McCoy ran toward the car. “He’s going in!” He dove for the bumper, missed and sprawled onto the muddy river bank. With another squirm Zuber’s car dove into the water and kept going. Then it bobbed, half afloat.

“Jump, Zuber!” McCoy yelled, scrambling to his feet.

The car spun; the old man’s face was a momentary blur. The engine roared; smoke rose from under the hood. The tow truck approached.

“Back off!” McCoy yelled, waving at the driver. “We’ll have to chock your tires!”

The truck stopped, its headlamps eerily lighting Zuber’s predicament. The sedan was now a car-length from shore, one front wheel scarcely anchored by the river bed, and the river was running fast.

Altstock had been transfixed, but now he came to life. “There are some timbers by the building,” he called, and disappeared into the rain.

“Get some men from inside!” McCoy yelled. “We’ll make a chain!”

“Right!” he heard.

“Isn’t that Harry Zuber?” the mechanic in the truck wanted to know, and leaned out of his window to search through the rain. “This won’t do his ticker any good.”

“Oh, Jesus,” McCoy said, and whirled again toward the river.

There was a heavy crash and the crunch of splintering glass. A ten-foot root system thudded across Zuber’s hood and shattered the windshield, then moved the car into mid-stream.

“Yeah. Real bad heart,” the mechanic said, “And that’s not going to help it, either.”

Zuber’s car went under the tree, and the river poured through the windshield. Men ran from The Whole Tribe, but they could never have beat the rising water in the car, or the swift, erratic tick of Zuber’s failing heart.