The Magic Hour

Chapter 11: Missing Persons

 IT WAS A cold morning. Nathan welcomed the warmth that struck him as he opened the door to the sheriff’s office. It was heated by a wood-burning stove set in a short corridor leading to the two jail cells.

     “Nate, there you are. Sierra said you were fine now. Good thing. We have some unexpected business to attend to and you’re right on time.” As he spoke Harry Turner came out from behind his oversized desk and grabbed his coat.

     “Let’s go,” he said.

     Nathan was relieved that Harry wasn’t going to ask him about the episode. He wondered if he would mention it to Oberson in his report, but there was nothing Nathan could do about that. No point trying to second guess anything.

     “What’s up?” he said as they got into the sheriff’s four-wheel-drive jeep, where a grid separated them from the back seat. Like old times, he thought, only in his former life he’d usually been driving his unmarked sedan. Still, it felt good to be in an official capacity doing something that just might involve real work.

     “We’re heading up to Boise Canyon. There’s an old abandoned mine there, left over from forty years ago. Someone found a body when they were doing some cross-country skiing nearby.”

     “Any ID? Who found it?”

     “That would be Jim Clovelly. Lives on his own and rarely visits Canyon City. Says we’re too crowded. He came by just before dawn to report it. I figured you’d want to come along so I waited. He said the body was frozen stiff, no surprise there. He didn’t check for any identification.”

     The jeep sped along the icy roads without effort. When Harry took a turnoff after ten miles they hit several snow banks that the vehicle plowed through and then they were on a steep incline heading toward the top of a massive hill.

     Nathan noticed there were no trees on either side of the narrow road. He turned his head and saw that the tree line stopped a hundred yards behind them, yet they weren’t that far up.

     “You should see it in summer,” Harry said, glancing at him. “Empty as sin, a real wasteland. The mining company didn’t believe in reclamation, and as we know, no one in government is going to make business pay for anything they do to shaft the people. That’s the job of the rest of us, picking up the leftovers.”

     “I thought most people here were Republicans, not Democrats,” Nathan said.

     “Some are, some aren’t. I’m neither. I don’t believe in politics. It’s just another word for stepping on the people who do the hard work and rewarding the ones who do nothing much at all, but are real pros when it comes to playing the shell game.”

     He was quiet after that and Nathan held on to the passenger door as the jeep jolted its way forward to the summit.

     “Oh, my God,” he said when they reached the top. In front of him lay the rest of the mine, a spiral of roads down into the center of the earth, or so it seemed. As far as he could see the landscape was barren of life. It occurred to him then for the first time that he hadn’t heard any birds at all, though down in Canyon City there were a fair number he’d recognized, including dark-eyed juncos, jays, and red-winged blackbirds. It was like looking at the end of the world up here, he thought.

     “Okay, we’re headed just part way down, to that second layer over there,” Harry said, pointing down and to the right at a small entrance hole. “Jim was skiing the loops here, and that’s why he spotted it.”

     “A real fluke,” Nathan said. “Whoever it is wasn’t meant to have been found at all.”

     “Agreed. Body would have stayed here forever, and no one the wiser. Good old Jim.”