Page 48
CHAPTER 48
H ere we were, back at the trees blocking the trail, armed with two chainsaws. Marley and I handled those as Dmitri took charge of the remote for the winch on the front of the snowcat to pull aside what we cut.
We could have used Luke and Tanke, but Marley was a hard worker. I knew I’d be sore as hell tomorrow because I’d tried to keep up with him. Because I am a man’s man. But I wasn’t a twenty-year-old man.
It took a few hours to clear away the last of the trees and open up a path just big enough for the snowcat to scrape through. When we finally shut down our chainsaws, we heard the drone again. It was high, out of gunshot range, slowly circling.
Apparently Herc no longer felt the need to be discreet.
“Our friend is back,” Dmitri said.
“He never left,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We stored the gear and climbed into the snowcat. Dmitri pushed it forward, tree branches scraping the side. I could see Marley wincing at the damage done to the paint job. Dmitri was treasure-focused.
I noticed that while Oz had sealed off the way when he was done doing whatever he had done, he’d originally had to blast his way in here, as there were twisted and broken trees on either side of the narrow way for almost two hundred meters. It had taken Oz a lot of time, energy, and explosives to make his way in here. And the same to keep anyone else from doing it after him.
Finally, we ended up in a small clearing that Oz had blasted out on top of a knoll. We got out. Marley pointed ahead, where the ground dropped off precipitously. We walked over there and looked down. There was a gulley descending as far as we could see.
“The location we marked is down there,” Marley said.
Dmitri was staring down the slope, perhaps hoping for a magic carpet. I’d studied the map and knew this was what we’d encounter. There was a winch on the front of the snowcat and several coils of rope in the cargo compartment. Which got me thinking.
When Oz had come up here, he’d been in the Pathfinder. In non-snow conditions. He’d been alone. He had a winch, but I hadn’t seen a remote, just a normal wired control for it. He had to have tied off to go over the edge, probably in two places for redundancy since he was alone. One would be the Pathfinder. And the other?
“Hey,” I called out, getting Dmitri and Marley’s attention.
They came over and I pointed to a tree about ten feet to the side. A rusting steel cable was wrapped around it, secured by a double bolt on the free end. It was covered in rotted padding.
“Oz used this as an anchor point,” I said. “He had to double-anchor because he was alone.”
“Very good,” Dmitri said. “Very, very good. We are definitely in the right place.”
“Dude,” Marley said. “I told you that.”
Dmitri nodded and patted Marley on the shoulder. “Yes. You did. Very fine work, young man.”
I looked over the edge. With a rope one could clamber down. Getting back up would be hard, very hard. “Let me see the map,” I said to Marley.
We gathered around. I checked the contour lines. “Six hundred feet,” I said.
“We have that much rope,” Marley said.
“Yeah, but the scramble back up would be helped a lot if we use the winch,” I said.
Before I could ask, Dmitri supplied the answer. “Seventy-five-foot steel cable.”
Then Marley explained how we could still use the winch with the rope we had, segmenting the rope, stopping every seventy-five feet and adding rope, or taking away, unwinching on the way down and winching on the way up. It wasn’t particularly complicated, but he knew exactly what to do.
“Who first?” Marley asked, looking between me and Dmitri.
“I will—” Dmitri began, but I cut him off.
“I’m younger, in better shape, and better looking.”
Dmitri laughed. “You are younger, yes. That is all. If younger, better shape, and better looking are criteria we go with our young engineer.”
“It’ll be me.” I didn’t bother to argue; the kid was not going down there. I quickly made a Swiss seat out of a twelve-foot length of rope. Inserted a snap link. Clipped a couple more on my side. I clipped to the end of the winch. “Marley, you’re on the controls. When you get to the end, give me time to tie in a length of rope. I’ll call out to let you know when I’m ready. Winch the cable back up to the rope I tied in. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll start down again.”
“No sweat,” Marley said.
“Reverse on the way up,” I said.
“Roger that.”
I went to the edge and then over, Marley playing out the winch. It was awkward at first, but then we got in a rhythm and I went down the steep slope. After seventy-five feet it jerked to a halt. I braced myself against a tree trunk, unclipped from the winch, cinched a rope into it, tied a loop on the end, and clipped into that. I yelled out. The steel cable was pulled upward along with that rope while I waited. I pulled out the slack and went down until I reached the end of the rope, then waited until Marley once more unspooled, letting me go down. It was slow and tedious and I wondered how Oz had done this all by himself. He’d been a tough old coot, and I imagine if he had just laid in six hundred feet of rope, he could have made it down. And even made it back up, but that would have been very, very hard.
As I went down, I looked left and right because it was as likely the bundle had landed in a tree on the slope as at the bottom.
I heard water rushing when I got halfway down. A half hour after starting I was three-quarters of the way down when I saw something off to the right. “Hold!” I yelled.
It took a few seconds, but then Marley stopped the winch. I had to pull myself up around a couple of trees on the slope as I crabbed my way in that direction.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Wrapped in the tatters of a faded green parachute was a bundle, jammed up against the trunk of a tree. It was lashed to the tree by several pieces of rope and covered with a tarp.
Oz’s bundle.
Using the rope and the tree to brace myself, I carefully untied one of the ropes so I could pull a part of the tarp aside. Pushing it aside, I could see the OD green of the bundle. I tapped on it. There was a wooden box inside.
“You okay?” Marley’s voice sounded far away even though he was only about four hundred fifty feet above me.
“Hold on,” I yelled.
I slipped a couple of times, but I managed to use one of Oz’s ropes to secure the bundle to the end of rope just below me. Then I cut the rest holding it to the tree. As I cut the last one, the bundle fell free and pulled me sideways a few feet, then stopped about ten feet below me.
“Up!” I yelled.
And as slowly as I’d gone down, Marley winched me, and the bundle, up. I had to tug on it a number of times as it got caught up. It took a while since I had to stop and secure both me and the bundle every so often as Marley swapped out the rope and reset the winch cable.
Finally, I clambered over the edge and up to the snowcat where Dmitri and Marley waited. I unclipped from the rope.
“Well?” Dmitri demanded.
I pointed to the rest of the rope being winched up as the bundle slid over the edge.
“At last!” Dmitri exclaimed, running to it and dropping to his knees.
“Hold on,” I said.
I used my knife to cut away the bundle that had been secured around the contents. What we were left with was an old wooden box about three feet wide, two deep, and two high, secured with a padlock.
“That is it!” Dmitri said. “My box! Oz put his own lock on it, but that is my box!”
I guess when you’ve been thinking about something for over three decades it’s a bit of a thrill to finally find it. I handed him the bolt cutters; he deserved this last bit.
He cut the lock and tossed it aside. Then with great fanfare he swung open the lid.
“Whoa,” Marley said.
I kind of hadn’t really believed there was treasure. Perhaps it’s my generally optimistic outlook on life. But the glittering hoard inside the chest proved me wrong. It was impressive. Bracelets and rings and necklaces and crowns and other ancient jewelry; a lot of gold and precious stones. Dmitri ran his hands through it, and Marley picked up pieces and then put them down under Dmitri’s eagle eyes. I guess if you find treasure, you want to touch it. I just wanted it out of my sight, out of Rocky Start, no longer making us ground zero for Outsiders.
And besides, I had higher priorities. “Dmitri. Pay up. We got you your treasure. What information do you have for us?”
Dmitri ran his hands through the top of the pile inside the chest, muttering something in Russian, as Marley dropped the last piece he’d been holding, the one he’d been looking at longest, back in the box.
“Dmitri!” I snapped.
He reluctantly looked up. “There is much you don’t know.”
“Which is why we just rescued your treasure. Talk.”
He looked back at his gold and then nodded.
“Much of what you thought was true,” he said, “is wrong.”
Table of Contents
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- Page 48 (Reading here)
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