The soil was familiar enough, as were the rocks, but the layout and appearance were different. The layer of topsoil and loess on top of the rock was not what I was used to and in my professional capacity, I would have to call it an obstacle, a problem to be worked around. The simple fact was that anything between you and the stuff you are looking for is a problem, no matter what intrinsic value it had. This soil was of unimaginable value but not to a miner. They sneered at farmers or ranchers, the ones who would be amazed at this resource, and in may cases the feeling was reciprocated. Where farmers and ranchers were seen as simpletons who lacked the wisdom to see the real value in their land, the miners were seen as wreckers and salvagers, best kept away from a piece of land unless it had no other value, since it would be worthless when they finished.
So how to see further under the surface? The stream had cut three or four feet into the ground, but the soil took up half that. I couldn’t see as much of what lay underneath as I wanted to. I reached over and pried out a couple of small stones, and weighed them in my palm. Looking at them, they were as familiar as anything else I had seen in a stream-bed. I straightened up, stretching, as I looked for Derwin. We needed to find some other place to look for what I wanted. I didn’t think setting up a test mine was going to be a popular idea, even if I had the tools and equipment.
The boy came back quickly, when he noticed me looking for him, and when I asked if there was a deeper or wider cut, he thought a moment before he recalled one that might do. We would need to head downstream a bit, but there was a place that might suffice. It was called the Rock Fork for some reason. I was sure it would make sense when we got there.
As we walked to the new place, I enquired about Therian, to learn more about how he was regarded. Derwin was taken aback, a bit, as he had little to do with the bear-man, as he called him. He knew of him, as everyone did, and had fallen prey to some of his impulsive jokes, like his false raid on the settlement the other day. He scowled as he recalled that. Even though no one was hurt, he was not pleased with the excitement and confusion, the terror and panic that ensued. He wondered why Therian was unable to simply talk to people, rather than act through the various forms he could take on.
I suggested that he found talking ineffective in some cases, and in others he found a more direct method was more effective. There were ways to make someone feel like a decision was their own idea, thereby giving them ownership of it. Rather than a suggestion or remonstrance, it became their initiative. I had used the same methods myself, though without the shape-changing aspect. I could think of many times that I could have used that, but perhaps not as effectively.
Derwin looked thoughtful as he listened. “I think I know what you are saying, but I don’t know that I agree, with all due respect. You may think his methods are premeditated and planned around some objective. My impression has been of someone using his gifts as an excuse to draw attention to himself.”
“Well, it might look that way. If his little outbursts lacked some purpose, I would have to agree with you. But they seem to be rooted in some action he wants taken or a point he wants made.”
We let it go, but Derwin seemed to be considering my impressions, and I suspected his ideas would be changed when he had worked through them and re-considered his old beliefs. He gestured ahead and cupped a hand to an ear as we walked and I could just make out an increase in the sound of the water, a rippling sound different from what we were hearing. The water rushing over the shallow shingled bottom was slowing and the sound dying off a bit, as it was replaced by this new sound. The stream’s course turned slightly and the banks rose, exposing more of the structure I needed to see. We climbed a low rise and I saw the origin of the name.
Just ahead, where the banks rose yet again, the stream had been split by a large rock, perhaps 20 feet tall. The water had cut two channels, one on each side, and the sound I had noticed before was the water collected in a large pool just above the divided channels. The water slowed as it collected and then rippled through the channels and rejoined on the other side with the same vigor as before.
I walked down to the water’s edge and looked up at the exposed underlayers. The dividing line between the soil and rocks was a couple of feet over my head. This was familiar now. I saw the concentrations of different rocks, clays, and stones, and started to think this might work. I worked loose a few stones and peered into the resulting hollows, like a dentist looking at a tooth socket, wondering what it would take to fill that.
Derwin was watching me, with a quizzical look on his face. He plainly wanted to know what I was looking for, what I was doing, but I couldn’t tell him yet. I tossed aside the rocks I had extracted and looked up and down the face of the exposed ground. It would have to do, but there was so much more to learn about. For that Therian was needed.
* * *
Rodrigo was uneasy with the knowledge of what he had done. He knew suspicion would grow around Jackson’s disappearance and he knew better than to trust Cranby to keep it to himself. If he felt Rodrigo was becoming a problem, he could easily tip off some Jackson loyalists with an embellished version of what happened, and Rodrigo would be unable to turn his back on anyone. Justice delayed was justice denied for the rougher types, and there was little difference between justice and revenge for most of the offenses to be found out here.
Why had Jackson followed me? What had he been afraid I would find? Rodrigo endlessly replayed those few minutes from his realizing he was being followed to Jackson falling backward into . . . what? Had that been what he had been hiding, some trick that allowed him to disappear? He meant to get back out there and explore the place once more, perhaps this time without being followed. If he noticed any pursuit, he wouldn’t stop. No sense in tipping anyone else off about whatever it was.
He wondered if Cranby had let Jackson in on his assignment? Not directly, of course, since that would look like a restoration of status. No, he might do it indirectly though, through some intermediary, like a tavern keeper. But he discounted that as he thought it over. He didn’t see any reason why even the inscrutable Cranby would run the risk of both of them getting into a scrap and perhaps losing one of them. Like most businessmen of his stripe, Cranby didn’t necessarily like any of his underlings all that much as individuals but found it made sense to have a selection of them, in case of accidents or performance issues, things he could use for leverage. One was too many, but half-a-dozen wasn’t always enough.
He looked around at the other men on the job, a new working with a lot of the work being done above ground, and saw that while most of the men were putting their backs into it, there were a couple who had managed to find a position far from their erstwhile supervisor and close enough together to talk surreptitiously. They were leaning on their shovels now, looking at him. He straightened up and looked at them, and saw them hurriedly get back to work. He was uneasy with the sight of them feeling relaxed enough to loaf so openly, and with the fact it was a couple of older hands, the kind who impress the younger ones with their cynical and worldly observations on things, generally obvious things, but not to the uninitiated.
To have a malingerer or slacker or two was nothing unusual, but for it to be the ones with attitudes that didn’t always match the goals of the crew, that could be a problem. He was going to have some trouble with them. It might be today, might not be for a week, but they would be waiting for an opportunity. They have sufficient motive — the loss of a reliable job boss, someone who could be counted on to keep them up topside on the crummy digs or have first crack at the water barrel — and could let the confrontation take any form, from a fist and foot drubbing to something more dangerous, something involving shovels and picks. He didn’t trust them, never had, and he knew the feeling was mutual. And they were well-established enough that they were guaranteed to be on every kind of job. He had no allies of his own he could recruit to watch his back. He resigned himself to some sleepless nights and exhausting days.