Chapter 2
After his Ecuadorian wife, Lani, died in a car accident in dense fog, Fred, originally from Maine, became a bit of a hermit. For the past seven years, he had lived alone in a small, white, lapboard-sided, tin-roofed house that was just off of NC 24/27 on Reed Mine Road between Midland and Locust.
Fred’s back property line was Little Meadow Creek, the famous gold-nugget-bearing, small, shallow stream that the Amerasian reporter was talking about on the news. It was where America’s first gold rush began. It was said that Little Meadow Creek had not a single unturned stone, as thousands of people over the following two centuries had picked through its well-rounded cobbles, hoping to see that lustrous yellowish reflection in the languid water.
Mark would often suggest to Fred that he should buy a metal detector. Fred would just laugh it off and tell him that all of the pieces of loose gold of any appreciable size surely must have been found by now, as the ground had certainly been turned over a hundred times by shovels, picks, plows and bulldozers.
But then one fine day, Fred saw a cheap metal detector at the local discount store. The price was super-cheap, so he went ahead and bought it. He didn’t find any gold, but he did find an 1851 three-cent silver in his back yard one Saturday afternoon that yielded twenty bucks at the coin store in Locust.
At 7:02 PM on Thursday, June 21st, the first full day of northern-hemisphere summer in 2012, Mark pulled into Fred’s driveway, which curled all the way behind the house to a workshed. The sun was still fairly bright in the hazy southwestern sky. Mark momentarily stopped about fifteen feet from the wooden outbuilding and looked around. Where’s he hiding? What is Fred up to now? Bet he’s making something somewhere.
Fred’s red Ford pickup truck was parked next to the large wooden shed. Mark thought this was a little odd, as he had never seen Fred park it there before. Why’d he park way down here? Unloading materials?
Mark parked the Dodge Neon in front of the large shed and walked up to the doors. Fred often worked and hung out back there. The doors were padlocked shut. Well, he’s not in there. Not unless he’s the newest Houdini.
Mark then wandered over to Fred’s old Ford F-100 pickup truck. Gnats, flies, mosquitoes and bees were whizzing around his head. He was thrashing his hands at them, nearly smashing the driver’s side mirror of the truck. He thoroughly hated hot weather. Ah, the joys of scummer [sic] are indeed here now: biting, stinging, and flying-into-an-eye insects. When is the first freeze? One hundred and twenty days? October can’t get here soon enough. Fast-forward, please.
He peeked through Fred’s darker-than-legally-allowed tinted pickup truck windows. Fred wasn’t passed-out in there. The truck’s doors were locked. That’s odd … Fred never locks his pickup truck when he parks it behind the house.
Mark decided to go knock on the house’s rear sliding glass door. There was no answer. The gold-colored curtain was only halfway drawn. He peered inside. No sign of life in there. Hmmm, where could Fred be?
Mark then reached in his left-front pants pocket and got his old slider-type cell phone out. He called a longtime common friend named Travis. After three long rings, he answered.
“Hello, is this Mark?”
“Yes, it is, Travis. How are things with you guys?”
“Oh, we’re doing ok. We could stand to win the lottery, though. Ha-ha. So, what’s up?”
“Well, I’m out at Fred’s right now. His truck is here, but he isn’t. I tried his cell phone, but no answer – not even an outgoing voicemail message. Do you know where he is, or what the hell is going on?”
“You’re out at Fred’s place right now?”
“Yes, has something happened?”
“You had better sit down.”
“Ok, I’m sitting in his back-deck lounge chair.”
“Fred is dead, Mark. I thought one of the old gang had told you. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of the bad news. Fred died of an apparent heart attack yesterday morning while working in his shed.” Damn. That totally freakin’ sucks ostrich eggs.
Mark was devastated and speechless. Fred had been his best bud, the one he ran with the most, and he had been the best man at Fred’s wedding. They had partaken in numerous adventures and misadventures on the Albemarle Road corridor of east Charlotte over the past two decades. How could this have happened? Fred seemed to be in great shape for thirty-eight. Not an ounce overweight. Fit as a fiddle. Very active. Even hyperactive.
“Mark, are you still there? Hello? Mark?”
“Yeah, I’m still here, Travis. Just stunned beyond belief. It seems so unreal. Still trying to digest and process what you just said.” There will never be a next adventure with Fred.
“I know, brother. It doesn’t get any heavier than this. I had a dream about him last night. He wanted me to help him get out of some dark room. It felt so real. I won’t be forgetting him anytime soon … probably never.”
“Yeah, man, it doesn’t get any more real than death. I know that I’ll miss him every day, Travis. So many wild and wacky times with him. It feels like a chunk of my psyche has been ripped out and rinsed away.” Mark was staring at Fred’s pickup truck. There was mud in the fender wells. Looks like he had been off-roading recently. Maybe with Mike?
“I know, man. All those places. All those crazy situations that he somehow got us into and then got us out of, almost magically. Hey, listen, you had better get out of there. The neighbors and the police are probably still watching the house.”
“Yeah, ok.”
“I mean, really, who wants to be detained and interrogated for something they are oblivious to?”
“I got ya. I’m getting out of here now. Take care, Travis. Send my regards to the misses.”
“Will do. Hey, the memorial service is at Mimosa Funeral Home in Locust on Sunday at 1:00 PM. Fred will be cremated. I guess I’ll see ya there.”
“Ok. Later.” Mark slid his phone shut and just stared out at the swollen creek. Normally you couldn’t see the water from the deck, but it had rained almost two inches the night before. There was a lot of flooding in the low-lying areas, and even some mudslides on the bare slopes.
Mark felt for his sunglasses, which he thought he had hooked through the top buttonhole of his Hawaiian shirt. They weren’t there. That’s weird; I don’t remember taking my shades off.
He began to retrace his steps. He walked to the rear shed first. They weren’t there. He walked over to Fred’s pickup truck and began to walk around it. When he was directly behind it, he saw his shades in the tall sweet-flag grass. They must’ve fallen off when I bent down.
He put his sunglasses back on and looked towards the roiling creek, just twenty feet away. The motion of the turgid stream mesmerized him as he walked up to the edge of the bank, still thinking about his deceased dear friend. The memories of Fred were freely flowing.
His standing reverie was startled by a sparrow that was trying to scare a crow away from her nest. When he looked back down in that direction, he noticed an undercut section of the grassy bank about fifteen feet upstream. There were a couple of flat stones under an overhang of red-clay earth that had a luminous glow about them in the evening light. He walked down the creek bank until he was directly across from the yellowish semicircular objects. Wow, that looks like gold!
Mark began to take his shoes and socks off. The creek was only about twenty inches deep in the middle. The biggest hazard would be broken glass from the Reed Gold Mine Site, a mile upstream. (The visitors’ glass beverage bottles often got shattered on the rocks after they realized they were going home empty-handed.) He would take his chances, even if he didn’t have his waterproof flip-flops.
The fast-flowing creek was the color of heavily creamed coffee. As the water rushed over the rounded rocks, numerous small eddies formed. They spun for a while then dissipated. My life is spinning away, spiraling down in an endless whirlpool. I so need a lucky break, so desperately. Share with me some golden serendipity, cosmic all-knower.
Mark was wearing his old, frayed, Bermuda-length denim shorts. I bet that I can cross this creek without getting my shorts wet. He quickly waded across the stream and reached for the smaller kidney-shaped, gold-colored rock. Wow, this is heavy as hell! This has got to be at least fifteen pounds. [It was actually sixteen pounds, seven ounces.] He remembered the Periodic Table as best he could. That’s right – gold is heavy – almost as heavy as lead. This is a good sign. An aurispiciously [sic] good sign!
He recalled the Mohs mineral hardness scale from an introductory geology course that he took his freshman year at Appalachian State University. Pure copper is 3.0 on the scale and pure gold is 2.5. The lower the number, the softer the material. If his copper-plated 2010 penny could not scratch the yellowish rocks, then they weren’t gold. To his anticipatory amazement, the shiny penny left a groove in each slender rock. Excellent. Gold is slightly softer than copper. We passed the first big test.
Then he struck them with a hunk of white quartz that was adjacent to it. They didn’t break or chip. It just left a depression. Excellent! It’s not pyrite. We’re two for two, my boy. We’re off to a good start.
He looked closer and noticed that the quartz strike left a soft indentation, like a skinny bike tire that had passed through some thick mud. Ah, another great sign: It’s malleable. We’re batting three for three. Yey! Just one more test. One more at-bat. Don’t strike out in the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded.
He then picked at the thin golden boomerangs, trying to get their surfaces to flake; they wouldn’t. Wow, this isn’t mica, either. Wow, we went four for four! I think I’ve found a stockpile of real gold! My lucky day has arrived at long last! Thank you, Fred, for guiding me here. May your spirit rest in eternal peace, bro. How I wish you were here right now.
He would cross the creek twice, bringing one half-circle nugget across each time. The larger crescent moon nugget weighed twenty-one pounds, nine ounces. It was heavier and longer than the famous Reed nugget of 1799. How in the world did these pair of gold nuggets go undiscovered for over two centuries? How did everyone miss them? How did the thousands of rain/flood events over the past two hundred years not expose them?
The total weight of the two curved nuggets was an astonishing thirty-eight pounds. This stunning pair of golden boomerangs would fetch at least $1.3 million on the collectors market, as raw nuggets commanded a much higher price – often 20 to 40% higher than the going ounce rate. Since these were going to be famous nuggets – famous enough to be named – Mark knew that he was going to be at the very high end, probably even 50% over the ounce rate. ‘Ladies and gentleman, feast your eyes on the Carolina Count and the Carolina Countess.’ He could already hear it.
Elation was playing on every radio station in Mark’s mind. He was nervously ecstatic. He just hoped that no one had been spying on him as he transported the gold across the stream.
Mark laid the two thin gold nuggets down in the tall grass behind Fred’s pickup. Then he walked up to his blue Dodge Neon and backed it up next to his golden stack. He loaded the pair of curved nuggets in the back of the trunk, laying them on the three-person tent that Susan had left in there from the ill-omened camping trip.
He then rolled the two curved gold nuggets up in the tent and pushed it deep into the trunk, all the way against the back of the rear seat. He looked at it to make sure there was no gold showing or any peculiar bulges. It all looked very ordinary – just a rolled-up camping tent.
Mark closed the trunk softly, started the engine, and slowly exited the driveway. He didn’t see anyone. Though not much of a religious man, he prayed like a priest in a sex-toy shop that no one saw him. Lord, if you are there, please let me leave unobserved. Grant me safe and unreported passage.
No one had seen him. He was in the clear. He had been granted his lucky break.
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The drive back to Charlotte was largely uneventful, yet every mile without a mishap felt like a small victory. Traffic in the inbound direction was fairly light. Mark drove a few miles per hour below the posted speed limits. Please, no auto wreck tonight. Everyone stay away from my car; I’ll stay far away from yours. Faraway. Please don’t break down on me tonight, little car. Keep on going, nefarious Neon. Don’t fail me now. Don’t crap out in the clutch!
The purple-based, orange-red sunset was surreally awesome, and he was driving right into a slew of curious cumulus faces. There must’ve been a lot of dust kicked up today. The gods are cheering for me. I’ve just won the Giro d’ Oro. He could hear Ennio Morricone’s Ad Ogni Costo playing in the cloud-story. This parade was for him. He had just hit the grand slam. The gold trophy was his. He had won the golden jackpot.
Staring straight ahead with eyes squinting, he was almost in a trance. Wow, I’m driving into a new life. I feel different. I can’t believe that I found that gold! I won’t be mega-rich, but if I play this right, I’ll never have a house or car payment ever again. Just don’t blow it, Mark. You must stay smart. You still have Susan to deal with. God knows what she’s capable of doing.
The twilight was, in a single word, golden. All of the shadows seemed to have a golden hue. He could not believe his luck. However, his happiness was tinged with sorrow, as he remembered what Travis told him on the phone: “Our Fred is dead.” It kept repeating in his mind. A vicious loop. How he wished Fred was alive. I can’t believe Fred is dead. I surely didn’t see that coming. Not a hint of a bad ticker.
These pristine, uniquely shaped gold nuggets could carry him for the rest of his life if he lived cheaply. And, he was already good at that. He savored the thought of not having any balances owed to any bank.
Both he and Fred were fairly frugal men. He would’ve loved to have shared it with him. He actually wished they would’ve discovered it together. The fun and interesting times they could have had. That trip to Amsterdam will never happen now. Ah, life is so fickle. So tenuous. So uncertain. So incomplete. So broken. So suddenly severed.
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When he pulled into the driveway off Arnold Drive, the long shadows were merging together in the advanced twilight. It was almost dark. And so was the house. Not a single light on. Just a muted blue glow from the TV cast on the dusty, off-white, vinyl mini blinds. Ah, she’s probably passed-out again on the couch.
Mark unlocked the front door and entered the living room. Sure enough, Susan was lights-out on their thrift-store sofa. She was snoring in three-part disharmony. I’ll be glad when I don’t have to come home to these sights and sounds anymore. And that day will soon be here – very soon.
Mark tiptoed past her slumbering body and found the TV’s remote control on the floor. He turned the TV off and went into the kitchen. He flipped the light switch on and grabbed a Guinness Extra Stout out of the fridge. He wasn’t really much of a beer drinker; a six-pack could often last a week or more.
Then he exited the kitchen and retired to their bedroom. He was content to let Susan sleep on the couch until eight or so in the morning. It had become the usual routine.
He began to ponder his golden situation. When can I get that gold out of the trunk? When will it be safe to make the transfer? Should I just do it now? I could hide it in the shed? No, Susan might wake up, or a neighbor might see me. It’s too risky right now.
He sat on the bed, mindlessly staring out the window through a crack in the secondhand red velvet curtains that Susan had scored from some odd-lots store on Central Avenue. It was now dark outside. Yet, he was able to notice a small sparrow that was silently resting on a dogwood tree limb. Mark continued his gold planning. Anyway, I’m too tired to move the gold out of the car right now. And, heck, where would I put it? I don’t want it anywhere in this house or in the yard. Second thought, the shed is out, too. Nowhere on this property. Susan can’t find it. I’ll just let it stay right where it is for tonight. It should be safe. I’ll go out tomorrow and stash it somewhere. Maybe I’ll bury it somewhere in east Charlotte. Yeah, somewhere near the house. The woods behind Evergreen Cemetery would be a good place. Yeah, that’s it; I’ll take it back there and bury it tomorrow evening. I just need to remember to bring a small shovel.
After his sixth gulp of beer, he fell asleep on the bed with his clothes on. He forgot to turn off the overhead light. He was dead-beat exhausted. Sleep came down like a ton of tiny Canadian geese feathers.
He dreamed that Fred saw him find those slender, curved gold nuggets. Fred walked down to him. His face was gaunt and gray. He spoke to Fred, but Fred never replied. Fred just vanished into the stream. He wondered if it was a harbinger as he walked away with the gold boomerangs, one in each hand. A policeman suddenly appeared asking him where he got the two gold nuggets. Suddenly, he was mute in the dream; he couldn’t answer. More police arrive. Then he is completely surrounded. He is going to be arrested. He sees the nearest police officer taking the handcuffs from his shiny black belt. The policeman looks at him. He is all business – very serious. But then Fred re-emerges from the stream. He’s got a plan. The policeman is suddenly frozen in time; he can’t move. Fred points towards the red horizon. They are now being sucked towards the glowing horizon line. Faster. And faster. Mark turns to look back. Earth is disappearing. He looks forward again. Where did Fred go? Mark is falling now. Falling back to Earth. He is falling at a great speed. The impact with the ground will surely kill him. But, he never makes contact with anything. The dream ends in darkness with the sounds of coal being shoveled.
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At 5:22 AM Susan got up to use the bathroom. She noticed the light on in the bedroom and saw Mark sound asleep on the bed. He was snoring some heavy timber. She turned the light off and closed the door. I’m going to rattle his world. He thinks that he’s the only one who can just drive off. Why, I’ll show him!
In the kitchen, Susan found a piece of get-rich-quick junk mail and began to write a message to Mark on the back of the yellow envelope with a black crayon. The entire note read:
Need some time alone.
Going to the beach.
And that was it. Just two simple sentences that didn’t even identify the beach she was going to, or when she would return. She thought it was sufficient, though. This will teach that bastard! Look who is driving off now, Mark. Me – I’m outta here! Have a nice walking weekend, dearest hubby. Ha-ha.
She gathered a duffel bag of clothes and her handbag, and was out the door at 5:33 AM. The neighborhood was quiet. A black cat slinked across the old asphalt street. When her car key touched the door lock, there was a small spark. Wow! Static electricity. So unusual for this time of year.
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Back inside the house, Mark never even stirred as Susan quietly closed the door and drove away. He was still deeply immersed in a jaw-dropping golden dream. He would never know how close he came to swallowing a wolf spider.