Catch up!
When I got back to the Big Mammoth, I found John Gregory leaning up against a tree next to the mineshaft, chewing on a wheat straw. The impatient look on his face was made all the more menacing by his bushy beard, and animal skin attire.
I glanced down to see that the steel grate was still shut, and the thick padlock still fastened. I figured the caretaker would be inclined to unlock it after he ate.
“Did you bring it?” he asked gruffly.
“Yeah, I have it,” I replied, raising the paper bag in my right hand for him to see.
Sitting with the aroma of fish ‘n chips in the car on the way up from Millie’s Restaurant had my stomach rumbling. Lunchtime was quickly fading into memory, and I still hadn’t eaten anything.
Gregory was staring at my t-shirt as I walked up, the scowl on his face growing deeper and deeper with each step I took. When I was finally within a few feet of him, he growled, “That s’posed to be a joke?”
I looked down at the depiction of the gremlin-looking creature on my shirt–
He was caught in the act of stealing a sandwich, a flashbulb reflecting in his eyes. The words “Tommyknockers stole my lunch” were written in stylized font over the image, and according to the words below, the design was a “Colorado Legend, Cryptids Edition“.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess so?”
Suddenly, the smell of food caught Gregory’s attention, and he started sniffing the air. His steely blue eyes flashed like lightning to the bag in my hand.
“Is that what I told you to bring?” he snarled. “That a chicken filet roll?”
I shook my head with just the right amount of ‘attitude’ for an eighteen-year-old punk rocker, with a healthy disrespect for authority, before retorting, “It’s fish ‘n chips. That’s all they had.”
The wildman glared at me for a few moments until finally, his lips curved into a cruel half-smile. Then, with a devious twinkle in his eye, he said, “Your funeral! Knockers don’ like nothin’ that ain’ Irish.”
At that, he turned to walk into the woods – away from the padlocked grate. I quickly ran to catch up.
“You mean Tommy–knockers?” I called out with a clumsy tremble.
But, Gregory was silent as he went gliding through the forest with the stealth of a mountain lion on the prowl.
I thought back to what Maude told me at Millie’s; that Tommyknockers preferred Cornish food. According to her, they’d be upset if anyone tried serving them an Irish dish.
Of course, I let it go in one ear and out the other at the time because deep down, I didn’t think anyone actually believed that Tommyknockers were real. Instead, I just assumed it was one of those stories that people go along with, like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.
In the years since this all happened, however, I’ve learned that legends have that quality… The power to endow people with a sense of belief. After all, it’s the very possibility that a story might be true that gives a legend its magic.
Tommyknockers are no different.
And when we got to the level entrance of the mine, the caretaker made it clear that he very much believed in the Tommyknockers. He also made it clear that Maude may very well have known what she was talking about after all.
That moment came when he leaned up against a time-worn timber just outside the tunnel. Gregory flicked his finger toward the pitch-black emptiness of the tunnel, and said, “Once we go in, we’ll be in their world… The world of the ‘knockers.”
I squinted my eyes as best I could to see through the darkness, but my pupils were still adjusted to daylight, so I couldn’t see more than a few feet in. Still, I knew where it led, and I was in no rush to get there.
“Ok,” I said reluctantly, “I mean, don’t you want to eat first? I brought you this food, and–”
“Ha! That ain’ for me… It’s for them,” Gregory interrupted.
Seething in disbelief, I said, “Oh come on, you’re not serious! Tommyknockers don’t actually exist… That’s crazy!”
But, the caretaker scoffed at me, and snapped back, “Even crazier thinkin’ they don’t!”
With that, he shot me one last evil-eye before ducking into the mine.
The instant I stepped through the portal after him, I was greeted with the cool, damp air of the underground world. The scent of damp rocks and rusty iron infused the air as it swept past my face, a welcome reprieve from the cruel, dry heat of summer.
Moving with fluid familiarity, Gregory took an oil-burning lantern from a nearby hook in the wall, and lit it with a single strike of his flint and steel. Then, he silently flicked his chin into the tunnel, my cue to follow.
“I thought Tommyknockers were Cornish,” I muttered half-mindedly as we made our way, footsteps reverberating through the tunnel.
Silence filled the air for just long enough for it to start feeling uncomfortable, at which point Gregory let out a dry chuckle, and said, “Guess we’ll find out with those fish ‘n chips, won’t we?”
I didn’t reply.
A minute or so later, Gregory started explaining the biggest problem with the Big Mammoth mining claim…
He said that there was still plenty of gold inside, which he called “red”. It was down around the ‘sump’. The problem was that it was all bound up inside quartz deposits, like stars speckled across the night sky. Apparently, getting it out would be a monumental task.
First, they’d have to extract all the quartz, and bring it up to the surface. At that point, they’d have to figure out how to get the “red” out… He said it was a tedious process that still hadn’t quite been “figured out”.
Not only that, but since the mountain was permeated with so many sand and gravel pits, the risk of cave-ins was extraordinarily high. All too often, a miner would be extracting a quartz deposit in a ‘rise’, when he would suddenly be met with ten tons of gravel crashing down on top of him.
It was a great enough risk to make finding good, experienced miners nearly impossible.
According to Gregory, the only way to avoid almost certain death was to leave just enough quartz behind to preserve some of the mountain’s structural integrity. He said it was difficult to do, however, with the lure of “pure red shinin’ at you from inside the quartz.”
“You can’t be greedy,” he explained, “or the knockers’ll smell it on you. They’ll let you work your way straight into your own grave if you’re not careful…
“But, if they like you, then they’ll give you a little knock from the other side, to let you know when to stop diggin’. If you take even a single flake more after that, then the whole mountain’ll come crashing down on you.”
I stood there for just long enough to convince myself that he was telling the truth before asking, “So… Do the knockers like you?”
The rasp in his voice sounded like pebbles sloshing around in a gold pan as he laughed, “‘Course they do! They damn well love me. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.”
Not long after that, we reached the end of the tunnel, where a beam of sunlight was pouring in from overhead. There was something surreal about the way the steel grate worked so well to separate the worlds of darkness and light from each other.
From the outside, I had no idea that the tunnel was there, just beneath the surface. Even though there was an entire elevator system inside of it, and plenty of room to walk around.
Likewise, from the perspective of the tunnel, I couldn’t see anything past the grate. The world outside was all but completely washed away by the blinding light of day.
In front of us, there was a large, wooden bucket, big enough to stand in. It was attached to a pulley system with thick-gauge wire cables. Somehow, the cables were connected to a giant wheel to our right, which worked to raise and lower the bucket.
The wheel itself was at least as tall as me, and appeared to be mounted directly to the mountain wall. It had an axle in the middle, as big around as a tree. There were a series of smaller, wooden gears connecting the wheel to a hand-crank, about the length of my forearm. It, too, was made out of wood.
John Gregory pointed to the hand crank, and said, “Goin’ up ‘n down is a two man job. You lower me, then I’ll lower you.”
I gave him a single nod, and then watched him hastily light a second lantern, which he handed over to me. After that, I took my place in front of the hand-crank while Gregory climbed into the bucket. As soon as he was inside, I began cranking the wheel.
To my surprise, it turned easier than I thought it would, though I could easily imagine it being more difficult with a bucket full of rocks. The sound of creaking wood, clanking gears and groaning cables echoed into the abyss, where they quickly blended into a single, ambient noise.
Although it seemed like I cranked that wheel for an eternity, it probably wasn’t longer than five or ten minutes in reality. When the wheel finally smacked to a halt, I heard a distant rumble up from the bottom of the shaft.
A few seconds later, the cable to start moving again and I knew that John Gregory had made his way to the lower hoist. I shook my arms for a few seconds before returning to my own hand crank, where I helped him raise the bucket back to the top.
Now, I’ll admit, a surge of adrenaline shot through me when I saw the bucket pop up, knowing that it was my turn to drop into the mine. Still,I swallowed hard and made my way to the platform. Once I was securely in the bucket, I waved my lantern over the side to signal down to Gregory that I was ready to go.
The cables slowly started creaking, and I soon found myself descending through the mountain. As the already scant daylight started fading into the gradient darkness of the mines, my imagination kicked into high-gear.
My senses seemed to be going haywire. Every time I went past a new tunnel, I swore I saw something inside…
A bat, maybe?
Or a rat?
Maybe it was a Tommyknocker…?
Fortunately, I had food for the last one… Or, at least, I thought I did.
Yet, when I looked down, into the bucket, I suddenly realized that the only thing in my hand was the lantern. Apparently, I’d left the takeout bag up at the top, next to where I was cranking the elevator.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Just then, the cart came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the mine, and a loud boom rang out. When the echo finally died away, I realized that the bag of food wasn’t the only thing missing…
John Gregory was nowhere to be found.
Be sure to subscribe to be alerted when the next installment of Mineshaft Marauders comes out! What happens in the mine still haunts me to this day…
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