The Miner

Approx. 3,623 words

The children were gathered around the table, listening with excitement and wonder as Sara McCloud’s clear voice spoke the words from Grimm’s Fairy Tales; her Irish accent making the tale all the more enchanting.

She enjoyed reading from this book or Gulliver’s Travels or 1001 Arabian Nights. The stories, written in far off lands, ignited the children’s imaginations, causing wonderment and curiosity of the world outside of the small mining camp of Grantsville.

The desire of discovery was palpable; especially in the older children and her heart went out to them. Life in this small, remote mining town could seem so stifling.

********************

A year earlier, Sara McCloud had been living comfortably in Philadelphia, teaching well behaved, well to do, first through third graders. The children kept her busy, yet she was dissatisfied.

She had come to this country in search of something she had not yet found; some challenge that would test her abilities, not only as a teacher, but as a human. A friend brought to Sara’s attention an ad placed in the Philadelphia Herald.

Newly constructed school house needs teacher for approximately 15 children. 28 dollars a month with room and board. Please respond with credentials to, Roy Travers, Grantsville, Nevada.

On impulse she wired her credentials to Mr. Travers. Two weeks later she received a reply, asking her when she could start.

Heath, the man she had been walking out with, begged her not to leave. He even asked for her hand in marriage, even though he was totally unprepared to take care of a wife. Sara thanked him for his consideration but she could not be dissuaded from leaving.

Her friends ferreted out horror stories from every source they could find, of the mining camps of Nevada and California. But their tales had an opposite effect on Sara. Instead of frightening her, they beckoned.

Six weeks after her wire from Mr. Travers arrived, she stepped from the stage into the chaotic life of a booming mining camp. Grantsville, Nevada was far from anything she had experienced since coming to America, four years earlier.

********************

She shook her head. It seemed so very long ago.

Michelle broke her reverie. “Miss McCloud?”

“Yes, Michelle.” She replied.

Michelle, red faced, asked, “Is it true you and Mr. Travers are getting married?”

“Yes, we are. This coming June, as a matter of fact.”

Michelle turned to her friend Mabel and stuck out her tongue. “Told you!”

With a hidden smile, Sara admonished Michelle. “Ladies do not behave in such a manner. Now run along outside and play before recess is over.”

She followed the two girls to the door and stood on the steps, looking toward the mountains; never tiring of the view that surrounded this small valley. They were remote and strong. A short walk west and she could look out over the windswept, Ione Valley; with the tall peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains shimmering in the far distance.

Here, in this place, she had discovered her challenge and had met it face on. She had found herself and finally her home, in Grantsville.

********************

A commanding voice from the kitchen blared, “Sara Jean Edwards, get upstairs and clean that room, or you’re not going anywhere today.”

Instead of doing as she was told, she yelled toward the kitchen, “You know Mom, Great Aunt Sara must have really been some kind of woman. She left Ireland as a teenager. Crossed the ocean to America, starts out as a cleaning girl for a rich family, put herself through school and became a teacher.”

Gail Edwards walked up and looked over her daughter’s shoulder at the journal she was reading. “She was one hell of a woman. I was only seven when she died. I remember that her eyes were so green and alive with mischief. Her red hair was long and she kept it tied back with a green ribbon. I don’t think she even had any gray in it. She used to make up stories of people in far off lands and creatures that didn’t exist.” Gail smiled in fond remembrance. “Get your room clean, now. Or you’ll be sitting here while your friends go skiing.”

Sara giggled and ran upstairs to do as she had been told.

Gail sighed. Her daughter was almost twenty-two years old, but acted like a pre-adolescent much of the time. She picked up the worn journal and thought about Sara McCloud Travers. Yes, she may have young when she had left home, but probably much older and wiser than her namesake. Oh well, she thought, so much for progress.

Three months later, Sara and her friends Joyce and Donna took a trip to Lehman Caves, Ione, The Berlin-Ichthyosaur Park and Grantsville. Sara wanted to see the mining town her great aunt had made her home. Donna’s folks had bought her an Exterra and they wanted to go somewhere.

Gail stood on the front porch, waving to the girls as they left. “Have fun, and call to let me know how you’re doing.” She shouted, as if they were paying attention.

The drive to Fallon went quickly. The three ladies chatting and having a good time, barely noticed the small town until they reached the south end; F-14 jets could be seen rocketing into the sky from the Fallon Naval Air Station.

Driving as close to the airfield as they could, they parked and watched the pilots practice what is called ‘touch and go’. Just as the wheels were about to touch ground, the jet would soar back into the air. The three girls decided they would stay in Fallon on their return trip. At least long enough to find out where the sailors hung out.

They continued on Highway 50, as it unrolled in a lazy turn across a salt flat. A ‘house of ill repute’ stood defiant against the backdrop of gray-white powder. An old salt mine, rippled with heat waves, rose from the flat, looking vacant and forgotten.

A sign proclaiming ‘Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America’ stood proudly, as the black ribbon descended across a wide shallow valley; before disappearing several miles later, over the next hill. Signs, warning of low flying aircraft, made tourists and locals slow down in anticipation of seeing fast moving jets.

The next stop on their journey was the small settlement of Gabbs, which looked more like a ghost town than it should have. The only motel and gas station were closed and many of the shelves in the only grocery store were barren. Much of the housing was single wide trailers and nearly all were abandoned and falling into disrepair. It was a depressing place. They drove down the road another five miles to get gas, at Tommy’s Tavern.

Arriving at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur Park shortly before dark, they quickly set up their tent, gathered what little wood they could find and built a small fire. The night was cool and they huddled close to the flames, roasting their marshmallows on the ends of clothes hangars.

One other campsite was occupied but the tenants were shut within their camp trailer and the girls did not see them.

The sun had not yet given its full light and warmth to the campground, when Sara woke and slipped quietly from the tent. She walked to the edge of the camp and gazed out over the long valley. In the far western horizon, she could just make out the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The Berlin-Ichthyosaur Park was established in 1957 and contains the largest complete fossil of an ichthyosaur ever discovered. These aquatic reptiles could grow to sixty feet in length, had six inch teeth and lived in just about every water body on earth, 180 million years ago.

While the ichthyosaur fossil was interesting, Joyce was more interested in the park ranger that managed the place. His Basque heritage was apparent in his
black hair and green eyes. She flirted unashamedly with him, to the embarrassment of her two companions.

Donna and Sara left the building to meander along well marked trails that weaved in and around rocks, trees and fossil fragments. Signs along the way gave them a history of the ichthyosaur, the area in which the fossil was found and warned them not to remove anything.

Rounding a bend, they spotted a young man dressed in black pants and light blue shirt; a sketch pad lay open in his lap and he was so engrossed in his work he hadn’t heard them approach.

Sara spoke first. “Excuse me. Are we interrupting?”

Startled, he spoke a few quiet words they could not hear, and closed his sketch pad.

“Good morning, ladies.” He stammered. “Uh, name’s Roy.” He held out his hand while staring at Sara. “Sorry, miss, but you look familiar.”

Sara smiled and shook his hand. “I’m Sara and this is Donna. Pleased to meet you. Do you work here?”

“Here at the park? No miss, I work in the mine over yonder. I was just doing some sketching of the surrounding hills. I like to draw the mountains at different times of the day.”

Sara was becoming uncomfortable under his stare, when Donna asked to see his sketches. He refocused his attention and opened the sketch pad. Drawing only with a pencil, he managed to bring shadow and light together, unveiling the life in the mountains and valleys.

“This is beautiful!” Donna exclaimed. “Sara, look at this. He’s very good.”

Roy’s faced reddened with embarrassment. He seldom showed anyone his drawings. The men he worked with considered him eccentric and ridiculed him unmercifully when they saw him with a sketch pad.

“Thank you, miss.” He said.

“I didn’t know there was a working mine in the area.” Sara said. “The park ranger, Frank, said there was Berlin and Grantsville, but both are ghost towns.”

“No, miss. Grantsville is not totally abandoned. It’s easy to get there. Just follow the road around the edge of the hill and it will take you right to the main street.”

“Okay. We’ll maybe see you over there. We’d better get back for now.”

Donna handed Roy his sketch pad. “You draw beautifully.”

“Thank you, miss.” He touched his hat and walked up the trail.

“Sara, he’s cute. And he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you! Are we going to go over to Grantsville?”

Sara smiled. “Sure, why not?”

Joyce was impatiently waiting outside the building when the Sara and Donna arrived. “I thought you’d never get back!” She exclaimed. “I’ve got a date
with Frank tonight. He’ll be here any time now and I didn’t want to just leave a note on the window of the car.”

“You just met him!” Sara exclaimed. “What if he’s a nutcase of some sort?”

Joyce retorted. “The national park system wouldn’t hire a nutcase. He’s a nice guy.”

Donna giggled. “Speaking of just meeting someone, there was this guy on the trail, he was drawing pictures and he couldn’t take his eyes off of Sara.”

“Grantsville’s a ghost town, isn’t it?” Joyce asked.

“I don’t know. This guy says he works at a mine over there.” Sara said. “We’re going to find out for sure. Right now I just want something to eat.”

Frank drove up about that time. Sara eyed him, warily. She thought he was too good looking, probably a shallow ass. Oh well. She wasn’t the one going on a date with him.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

He glanced over at her. “There’s a place just down the road from Gabbs, called Tommy’s Tavern. The food is pretty decent and he has a couple of pool tables. We won’t be real late.”

Donna laughed at his uncomfortable look. “Don’t worry, Frank. We won’t come hunting you with shotguns or anything. Will we, Sara?”

Instead of answering, Sara asked him if there was a working mine in Grantsville.

“I don’t think so. There was one in Ione a few years ago, but the man who ran the place closed the doors. I haven’t heard of anything else in the immediate area. Why do you ask?”

Donna piped in. “We met a guy on the trail today that said he was working at a mine in Grantsville. I think he liked Sara.”

Sara just gave her a dirty look. “Is anyone living in Grantsville that you know of?” She asked him.

“Could be. These miners come and go with the seasons. It’s possible someone is working the tailings.”

At the girl’s blank stare, he explained. “The tailings are what’s left over after the ore has been processed. Nowadays, with new methods of extracting gold and silver, the tailings can be reworked. Some people have done pretty well.”

“That must be what he’s doing then.” Sara said. “Let’s go eat, I’m hungry. See you later.”

Donna built a fire in the outdoor grill at the campground. The small camp trailer was gone, leaving the two girls alone. It was quiet and the stars started winking on, one at a time. The smell of roasting hotdogs on the grill made Sara’s mouth water.

Later, when the sky was full dark, Donna got out her star map and binoculars. The two wiled away the hours, finding constellations and star clusters.

Frank and Joyce came in around midnight and the four sat around the small campfire, roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories that have been around as long as there have been kids and campfires.

The next morning, Sara and Donna drove over to Grantsville in search of Roy. There were only several dilapidated buildings and the foundations of others that had long since disappeared.

“This is weird.” Donna whispered. “The mine must be somewhere else. He just used Grantsville as a known location. Let’s take a ride up the road.”

Just as the road curled around the corner of a hill, a tunnel opened up and they could see a man standing at the mouth of it. Donna stopped to ask him about Roy, but before they got close enough to yell, he had vanished into the darkness.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Let’s go. This was a dumb idea in the first place.” Sara said.

As they turned to leave, Roy emerged from the tunnel entrance.

Smiling, he waved and touched the corner of his hat. “Hello! I was hoping to see you again.”

Sara smiled back. He may have not been the handsomest man she had met, but there was definitely something about him that made her want to know him better.

He invited them in to his cabin. It was a one room affair and very old, but it met his needs. Several drawing pads lay neatly stacked on a corner table and Donna asked if she could look at them.

“Go ahead, Miss. It’s nice to have someone look at my art and appreciate it. Would either of you like water or coffee? I’m afraid it is all I have.”

“Do you have anything cold?” Sara asked.

“Afraid not, miss. I don’t have electricity.” Roy said.

“Water would be fine, then. And please call me Sara, okay?” She smiled.

Donna was engrossed with Roy’s drawings and didn’t see the other two walk out the door.

“It’s pretty up here; and so quiet. How long have you been here?”

He chuckled. “It seems like I’ve been here for an eternity. But I’m not that old, yet.”

Sara was quiet. She was watching this young man, and beginning to realize that she really liked him. All through high school and into college she had dated but had never really became interested enough in the men she dated to go out more than just a time or two.

“Where do you live, Sara?”

“Oh, I live in Reno, with my mom. I was going to UNR. I thought I wanted to be a geologist, and I am most of the way there but I dropped out last year and have been in a sort of limbo, ever since. I keep thinking I’ll go back and finish getting my degree. I just can’t seem to get motivated, though.”

Then she laughed. “I shouldn’t dump on you that way. I hardly even know you!”

“Not to worry, Miss…uh…Sara. I know about being in limbo. I keep thinking one of these days I’ll be an artist and people will buy my drawings. That way I could live in Reno or even San Francisco. Someday I’d like to learn oil painting, too.” He looked embarrassed.

She looped her arm through his and said, “Let’s take a walk. I want to see more of this place.”

They walked around the ruins of the old town. Roy spoke of the people that once lived there as if he knew them.

Sara had lost track of time. She started feeling misplaced and out of step. “I guess we had better get back. Donna’s probably wondering where we went to. And you have to get back to work.”

Roy laughed. “If the men hadn’t seen you they would figure I had fallen down a shaft.” He stopped and looked intently into Sara eyes. “But they knew I was meeting a pretty girl.”

Sara was about ready to be kissed when he turned away, mumbling something about getting back. Puzzled by his behavior, she kept quiet while they walked back to the cabin.

Donna was sitting on the steps of the porch when they returned. “Glad you decided to come back.” She said sarcastically. But in another tone, “It’s so peaceful up here. The noise and rush of the city just seems so faraway, it’s almost like living in another world.”

He looked out over the small valley. “Sometimes it’s too quiet.”

Shaking himself loose from a place faraway, he reached out and took Sara’s hand. “Thank you for coming, both of you. It’s been a pleasure, but I should be getting back to work. I hope I see you again, soon.” And with that he walked quickly away toward the mine tunnel.

Sara watched until the darkness of the tunnel swallowed him. “Let’s go.”

Winter set in and Sara went back to school. She seemed focused and determined. She graduated the next spring with a respectable 3.9 grade average.

The snow had vanished into streams and rivers when the three young women decided to take another trip. This time they stopped over in Fallon long enough to find out where the sailors hung out. But Sara couldn’t keep her mind off Roy and Joyce was still seeing Frank. They decided to keep going.

The three of them drove to the Berlin Ichthyosaur Park and stayed at the same campgrounds in the same spot. They had it to themselves again. Building a small fire, Donna handed out coat hangars for hotdog and marshmallow roasting.

The next day they took a drive to Grantsville. The road looked abandoned and in a sad state of disrepair. As they drove out of the canyon and in to the clearing, Sara could see the cabin where Roy had lived; and the tunnel he had walked into when she last seen him.

The cabin’s roof had been gone for many a winter and summer. The windows were shattered fragments and much of the walls were missing.

Donna stood beside Sara. “What in the hell is going on?” She whispered.

They wandered around the ruins looking for any trace or hint that someone had lived there in the past year. There were none.

As they were leaving, Sara spotted a group of men heading in to the mine tunnel, Roy was among them.

Shouting his name she hurried in his direction; Donna close on her heels. They were brought up short by a broken down door with ‘NO TRESPASSING’ written in bold red letters.

Retrieving a flashlight form the car they squirmed over and around the broken door; ignoring the ‘no trespassing’ notice.

Like old sentinels, large timbers held the bulk of the mountain in check. But small piles of sand and rocks scattered over the tunnel floor had made the footing precarious.

Donna whispered, “I know I saw them come in here.”

Sara only nodded her head in reply.

When the tunnel made a sharp turn and they could no longer see the opening, they decided to turn back. As Sara turned, the flashlight caught the darker shadow of an old wooden box. Apprehensive, she picked it up; she suddenly knew what it was.

Out in the sunlight once again, she gently set the box down. It had been carefully made and ornately carved; the initials R.T. engraved in the lid. Sara held her breath as she unlatched the lid and opened the box.

Inside were four, sealed metal cylinders. Wax had been poured inside each lid to keep out moisture. After carefully removing the wax from one of them, Sara withdrew several sheets of tightly rolled, heavy paper. With trembling hands she unrolled the paper.

Beautiful pencil drawings burst out at her; drawings of the mountains and valley’s surrounding Grantsville; each having the initials R.T. inscribed on the bottom right corner. Further inspection into the other cylinders brought forth more drawings, each as grand and detailed as the one before.

Tears were forming in Sara’s eyes as she awakened to the fact of what she was seeing. R.T. stood for Roy Travers, the man whom her Great Aunt Sara had married. However, the last two drawings sent her into a dizzying spin. One was of her great aunt, obviously when she was very young, dressed in the fashion of the time.

But, as she looked at the second drawing, she saw herself, also dressed in the fashion of her time, as seen through the artist's eyes the previous year.