Catch up!
Ah, Central City…
That shining mountain town, home to illustrious casinos, hotels and restaurants, all standing as monuments to the “boom and bust” heritage of the Centennial State. If Golden is the gateway to the Rockies, then surely Black Hawk and Central City serve as their foyer.
In the early days, these rustic mining camps were known as “The Richest Square Mile on Earth.” A moniker made famous after John Hamilton Gregory discovered paydirt near the Vasquez Fork, on the South Platte River in the winter of 1859.
Of course, I knew none of that when I pulled into town a hundred and forty years later. Not because I wasn’t interested in the rich history of my home state, but because John H. Gregory wasn’t mentioned in any of my schoolbooks.
It was as though the man had no history of his own, but existed solely for the benefit of making Colorado a state.
Besides that, I had other things on my mind as I drove my old Chevy Corsica through town that day… I was there to inspect my family’s holdings:
The Big Mammoth gold mine.
Glancing over at the open map book sitting in my front seat, I silently cursed Rand McNally for not including the dirt road I was searching for.
My stomach rumbled…
Lunch would have to wait.
After making a few wrong turns, and blowing past a few “no trespassing” signs riddled with bullet holes – one of which depicted a loaded revolver and the words “We Don’t Call the Police” written on it – I finally found the landmarks my uncle Raymond told me about–
“You’ll see a rock that looks like a cow,” he said. “Turn right. Go ‘til you see an ole’ bent-over pine, with branches shooting up like harp strings. You can’t miss it… If you see a construction gate, you’ve gone too far.”
Sure enough, the old cowboy was spot on. The harp-shaped tree was as obvious as a mouse in a breadbasket. I quickly pulled over, into a makeshift parking space.
As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed the shocking silence of the place; a stark contrast to Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’, which I’d been blasting on the way up.
It took a few seconds for my ears to stop ringing.
The scent of pine needles, mushrooms, and sunbaked granite started swirling together in my nose, like hidden veins of ore from within the mountainside. It was the kind of day that was both hot and cool depending on which way the breeze was blowing at any given moment.
In the distance, I could see naked rocks through the trees on the next ridge over. It looked as though a construction crew had been busy excavating, though there were no workers present at the time.
“That must be where the casino’s going,” I told myself, remembering what Auntie Beth had said earlier that morning.
According to her, the project was stalled until they decided where to put the parking lot. The whole reason I was up there at all was to see if our land would provide an adequate solution.
I could see why she was optimistic about a deal, given the proximity of our property to the building site. After all, they were right next to each other.
Still, Uncle Raymond was adamant that the project would never be completed due to some mysterious secret he claimed to exist within the tunnels of the mine. He said it was something that only the ‘caretaker’ could help me understand.
I looked around, wondering where this caretaker guy might be. Raymond insisted that I would recognize him when I saw him.
Between you, me, and the fencepost, though, I was starting to wonder if my great-uncle wasn’t going senile in his old age. Auntie Beth swore that there was no such man at all, and since there were no signs of anyone other than me in the vicinity, I couldn’t help but to agree.
Either way, caretaker or not, I’d made the trip up there, and was determined to find out whatever I could about the mine. So, with no other options, I started walking by myself, aimlessly into the woods.
The forest was thick, with a good amount of deadfall around, so there was really no way of knowing if I was heading in the right direction. But somehow – I can’t explain how – I felt like I knew where I was going.
It’s like there was this instinct coming alive inside my gut as I traipsed along. Like two willow branches clutched firmly in hand, I felt the “witcher” in me being drawn toward something akin to an underground river. I followed that feeling until finally, the branches crossed.
At that point, I tripped over a large rock that had no business being there. As my foot stomped painfully onto the ground on the other side, barely catching myself from falling face-first, I looked down…
Aghast.
There, below me, was a steel grate, covering a pitch-black hole in the ground. The echo from me stomping on it was still reverberating inside the abyss below me, betraying its true depth.
The back of my tongue started tingling with a fear of heights that I’ve grappled with ever since I was a kid. I reactively jumped off the grate as frantically as a cat on tin foil. As I stood there, trying to calm down, the realization hit me…
I’d found it; the Big Mammoth.
Suddenly, a man’s voice called out from behind me, “Whatchu doin’ out here, boy?”
Startled, I spun around to face one of the most feral-looking men I’ve ever seen in my life.
He resembled a cross between man and animal, with a bushy red beard and pale blue eyes. He had what I can only guess to be bear fur draped over his shoulders, and a ‘coon-skin cap on his head.
Yet as alarming as his clothes were, my eyes were instantly drawn to the hunting knife on his right hip. It looked like it was made out of deer antler.
I was well aware that my jaw was hanging open, but there was nothing to be done about that. A dribble of word-like sounds came tumbling out of my mouth, like a two year old just learning how to talk.
“Uh… Ah… Are you… Caretaker?”
“I said whatchu doin’ out here?” the man repeated in an even harsher tone. His voice sounded like rolling thunder on a stormy day, if only thunder had a southern accent.
“I… I’m here to see the mine,” I replied slowly. Hesitantly.
“My uncle said you’d show me.”
Now, I don’t know if I forgot to blink for too long, or if the man in front of me was in command of the trees themselves, but I swear on my eyes that he walked through the bushes without touching a single branch. The closer he got, the heavier his gaze weighed on my soul as he looked me up and down.
Then, he said something I’ll never forget–
“Ya didn’t bring any dinner wit’cha. How’m I s’posed to show ya a mine without no dinner?”
I swallowed hard. “I-I don’t know, “ I stammered. “I can go back to town and–”
“Yeah, you best do that,” he interrupted, “an’ if it ain’t no chicken ‘filet’ roll, then don’t come back at all.”
With eyes wide open, I nodded as obediently as I possibly could. Then, I watched as the mountain man turned, and started walking back to wherever it was he’d come from.
Just before he disappeared into the forest, I found the bravery to ask his name.
The wind stopped blowing as he turned just enough to look at me out of the corner of his eye. Then, in a voice that sounded like an echo from inside the mineshaft itself, he said “Greg’ry… John Greg’ry.”
Truth be told, friends, I don’t remember how I got back to my car after that.
I don’t remember speeding down the dirt road, back into town.
I don’t even remember walking into the Gold Coin Saloon…
All I remember is thinking to myself that I wasn’t hungry anymore. Yet, I’d never wanted a chicken fillet roll so badly in my life. Nor have I wanted one so badly since.
I only hoped that “John Gregory” was the man I thought him to be at that particular moment in time-
The caretaker of my family’s gold mine.
I would soon find out…
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