The Gold and the Mountain

By John Edwin Parkes

On a spring day in 1941 Will Bodie, a young teenage boy, is fishing on a dock on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida, while reading in a magazine about a lost gold mine. His fishing buddy, old Mr. McRae, soon joins him and this sets up a turn of events about Mr. McRae's gold find on a mountain in Mexico. He tells Will where it is on his death bed.This sets Will on a quest to find the gold on the mountain in Mexico.

There is Will's sweetheart, Agnes, and his father, a shrimper, and his mother, soon to be a widow. Will studies Spanish in high school. Will is smart. Too, there is a war going on.

On graduating from high school, Will goes to the mountain in Mexico to search for the gold, and is attacked by wild pigs. Of this, Maria, a Mexican Maiden, washing clothes in a stream, sees him and saves him from bleeding to death of his injuries. Will eventually returns home and has to go to war. In battle he gets a serious head wound. Agnes rethinks her commitment and marries another.

Will recovers, goes to mining school, becomes a degreed mining engineer. He searches again for his gold in Mexico, is attacked again by wild pigs, kills two, and later encounters Maria. At night, they eat roast pig, have coffee and tequila, and have sex under a poncho in the desert chill. The next day Maria is gone.

Will is hired by a Canadian mining company and is a successful mining engineer, working in South America for 10 years. He obtains a share of ownership. However, the mines are ultimately nationalized.

Will gets the company to venture with him on his quest to find the gold in Mexico. They agree, and Will, looking for his gold, encounters Maria again, and she has a son, his. At first, it seems, no gold is there, and the company abandons their interest.. But by happenstance, Will finds that it is there, as refractory gold, secret gold. Ultimately, Will finds his place, with Maria, his son, and the mountain with its gold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483502649

Book preview

9781483502649

CHAPTER 1

Jacksonville, Florida

1941

Riverside Avenue runs from downtown Jacksonville south on a high along the west side of the St. Johns River. Just a mile south is Stonewall Street, a short street that connects with Riverside Avenue, runs down to the river, and ends here at a landing. From the landing, a dock with no railing extends out over the water. The overview of the river here reveals it more than a mile wide. A sharp rise, formed from an ancient bluff, works up from the water. Stonewall Street makes a cut through this rise in its run to the River. For support, the cut on each side has a high retaining wall made of heavy stones. Hence, the name Stonewall Street.

Near the landing of Stonewall Street, just to the south along the toe of the rise is a giant mulberry tree and nearby, five fully-grown fig trees. Off a ways here from the dock, near the river’s edge, sets a small wood frame house. Near it is a chicken pen. Adjacent to the landing, to the north side and up from the dock, is a small brick bungalow. It has around it a small garden.

It is springtime. On this midafternoon day the sky is azure blue, the sun is bright, the air is still, the river water is calm, hyacinths are floating in the water near the shore, the chickens are loose from their pen and are running around, the mulberries are ripe, the figs are coming along, and out on the dock a boy in his mid-teens sits fishing. He holds his cane-fishing pole out over the water, sitting quietly, his legs hanging over the dockside. His fishing line is limp and the cork at its end floats motionlessly. He is turned slightly to his right side, reading a magazine. The magazine is tattered and dirty.

Suddenly the door of the bungalow opens and an elderly man steps out. He is lean, his hair, full and grey. He steps around to the side of the house, takes hold of a cane-fishing pole, walks out onto Stonewall Street, to the landing, and onto the dock. He continues then until he reaches the boy, and stops, takes a seat nearby, puts his legs out over the dock, and slowly unwinds the line on his pole, and, in so doing, he says to the boy, How are you this fine day, Will?

The boy turns from his magazine, looks at the man, and says, I’m doing fine, Mr. McRae, just fine.

Mr. McRae looks at the boy inquisitively, and says, Now, Will, tell me, where did you get those four big freckles across your nose, and your big blue eyes, and your sandy hair?

My freckles, Will says, they‘re from my dad. My eyes, well, they’re from my mom. My hair, I reckon, from both.

Mr. McRae smiles, and says, And your mom, how’s she doing?

She’s doing, fine. The boy turns away, looks out over the water, and holds back.

And you dad, how’s he doing?

Well, we got a telegram from him yesterday. He just left Key West to go out into the Gulf, shrimping for two weeks. Mom always worries when he’s out in on the Gulf waters for so long.

Oh, your dad will be okay. Don’t nobody know the shrimping business like your dad does. He’s been in the business a long time. I bet when he gets back with a big catch there’ll be good times and he’ll buy your mom a lot of nice things.

Yeah, I expect so.

Mr. McRae, with his line now unraveled, checks the hook, then turns to Will, and asks, Got any worms?

Yeah, I got a whole lot here in the can. He points to an old smudged, dented fruit can, his bait can, containing moist muck with worms.

I’ll give you two pennies for two good sized ones.

Okay. Here, you can pick out what you want, Mr. McRae. Will pushes the can over to Mr. McRae, who feels around in the can, gets a worm, and baits it on his hook.

You haven’t been fishing in my spot have you?

No, Mr. McRae, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t fish in your spot.

Mr. McRae cast his line down near one of the dock piers and waits. He watches the floating cork, as he says, How long now have you been fishing?

Just a while.

No bites, eh?

No, no bites. Not even one, Will says, preoccupied with his magazine.

What ya got there?

This? Will says, looking up. Oh, it’s just an old magazine that I found this morning up on Riverside Avenue. It was laying there off the side of the road.

Looks like trash.

Yeah, it’s kind of dirty and wrinkly.

So what were you doing up there?

Oh, my mom had me get some flour from the old Syrian lady’s grocery up there across Riverside Avenue, you know. Well, when I come back with the flour I saw this magazine laying in the curb to the side. So I picked it up.

Must be something interesting that you’re looking at?

What? Oh, yes it is. It’s about gold.

My, well, that’s an interesting subject.

Yeah, they say here, there’s this lost gold mine. And anyone that finds it, well, they’ll be rich.

Ha-ha, and where is this lost gold mine?

It’s in Arizona, in the Superstition Mountains. It’s there, it says here. Will looks over the magazine article, and continues, It’s the Lost Dutchman mine.

Oh, yes, I’ve heard tell of that mine. Yep, I’ve heard tell of it. Now when I was a young man – long before I married the Missus, God rest her soul – I worked the mines out west. Why, when I was in California – oops, hey, got a bite, he states, as he reels up on his fishing line. Yep, got ‘em. Hey, he’s a big one, a right, good sized Red Bass. He yanks the pole up into the air and the hooked fish, flapping about, is brought into the dock. He unhooks the fish, puts it on a fishline removed from his pocket, and drops the fish now tethered to the fishline to the water below, and the fish swims about below the surface. He ties the fishline to a pier post, then says, Now, I’ll get another one of them worms. With another worm from the bait can, he baits his hook, then casts his fishing line to the water near the pier as before. Now there should be another fish down there just like that one, he says, as he watches the cork. Moments pass, then abruptly he says, Oh, yes, where was I. Yes, as a young man, I worked the gold fields of California.

You did! I didn’t know that. Did you get rich?

Ha-ha! No, Will, to be sure, it was a lot of hard work, running the water pumps, shoveling the gravel, running the sluices, from sunup to sundown. Oh, yes, I heard that some people got rich, a few of them. That was right after the gold got discovered. Mostly, though, people worked to get by from day to day. Course lots of folks didn’t make it, so they hired themselves out to others.

So you didn’t get rich?

No, Will, I didn’t get rich.

Maybe you should’ve found this lost Dutchman Mine in Arizona. Then you would’ve got rich.

Ha-ha. Well, perhaps. Mr. McCrea remains silent, while he muses, looks over his fishing line. The line is still. The silence continues. Will remains fixed on the magazine. Shortly, Mr. McRae works his lips and mouth around a little, reflecting, and he lifts his head up, and looks out over the long stretch of water. Then he speaks out into the air, There was a gold mine.

Will looks up from the magazine. He turns to Mr. McRae, and asks, Your gold mine?

Yes, my gold mine, he says, reflecting.

Really?

Yes.

Where is it?

It’s in Mexico, Old Mexico . . . not far from the U. S. border.

Why don’t you go there and get it?

Well, I’m old now. And well, I married the Missus a long time ago – God rest her soul – I got a job and we took up to housekeeping and we worked on a family, but only God knows, that didn’t happen, and well, before I knew it the Missus was gone and I was getting on in age.

Will thinks on this for a moment. He then asks, But when you found it in Mexico, why didn’t you get the gold then?

Mr. McRae takes a moment and answers, "Well, during the depression times – when times were hard – there was this fellow, Bruno was his name. Well, me and him, we went down into Old Mexico to look around and see if we could find some gold, maybe do a little panning. It’s awfully dry there, you know. No streams at all, just desert. I have to say, Bruno was kind of mean, not to be trust, but a good miner. So one day, him and me, we saw a little color, a little gold, along this dry wash that ran along the base of this big mountain, and so we decided to go up the side of the mountain to scout around and have a look-see, as to where that color came from. Well, before long, Bruno and me, we found ourselves in this great big ole box canyon, so Bruno said to me, lets scout it out, for me to take one side of the canyon and for him, the other side, to check for that source of gold, you see, the outcrop. Well, there we was. He was on the one side of the canyon looking and I was on the other side looking and lo and behold I found some outcrops that looked pretty good. So, I took my pick and I chipped away at the rocks. Now me being a man of the trade, I had a little fire test kit in my pack. So, I fire tested ‘em, the outcrops, and they tested right smart, like positive, for gold, a bunch of them.

There was a lot of gold. So, right then I got all excited, and I got nervous too, because Bruno had a Colt-45 on his belt, he said for rattlesnakes. As it was, he’d killed a man some years back over a gold claim. I didn’t trust Bruno. So, I covered up those outcrops and pretended to keep on looking around and so when we come back together that evening, he asked if I had found anything and, so, I didn’t let on like I’d seen anything. No, sir, I didn’t let on at all. Else, he would of killed me right then and there. So we eventually come back across the border and left Old Mexico. Then sometime later, about two years, Bruno got himself killed in a bar fight.

So what happened? Didn’t you go back and get the gold?

Well, ah, no, Will, in them days I needed a stake for the mining equipment and I needed somebody I could trust. You got to remember it was in Old Mexico. That’s a foreign country. So, by and by, the years passed and I worked my way back east here, and in time I met the Missus and . . . . Well, we got married, and time changed things, and now being as there’re no kids to, that is, pass it on to, but it’s still there and it’s my secret and – Then abruptly he says, Whup-whup, oh, got a bite here, as his cork sinks and his line pulls tight. He immediately yanks upward on the pole, pulling out of the water a large, flapping fish. He brings the fish in, saying, Oh, that’s ‘bout a two-pound Black Bass. He then unhooks it and says, Now you take this fish to your mom for tonight’s supper.

Oh, I couldn’t do that. That’s your fish.

Now you do what I say. I’ve already got my fish here in the water. Mr. McRae starts to pull the fish in the water up as it wiggles about. Will then secures the Black Bass and puts it on his fishline.

Thank you, Mr. McRae.

You’re welcome.

Mr. McRae gets his fish, stands up with his pole, wraps the line around and starts to walk on the dock back to land. Will, calls out, Mr. McRae, here’s your penny back for the worm.

No, that’s all right, you keep that penny, Mr. McRae says, as he walks away down the dock, to the landing, and into his house.

CHAPTER 2

Later this day, in the wood frame house, Will’s mother is in the kitchen preparing dinner. She takes the bacon grease left over from breakfast and heats it up in the skillet on the wood stove. Shortly, she puts into the hot grease the filleted fish that Will brought home. She puts into it, also, two finger-sized fish roes. On a table nearby sets a pan of congealed grits, which, too, is a left over from breakfast. The fish now fries, sizzles, in the deep grease, giving off a pungent fish smell. In minutes, the fish and roe are cooked and she puts these in a platter on the dining table. The fish aroma permeates the air in the room.

She cuts the congealed grits now into bite-sized squares. She drops these into the remaining hot grease in the skillet. They steam, and sear, as she flips them over several times. Then, browned and ready, she takes them from the skillet, and places them while hot on a plate on the dining table. Will, she now says, can you take the bread out of the oven for me?

Will is sitting at the dining table, engrossed in his magazine. On hearing his mother, he looks up, puts his magazine to the side, picks up two nearby cloth pads, opens the oven door of the stove, and removes the two hot, fresh-baked loaves of bread. Their fresh baked aroma fills the room. He puts the bread on the wood board on the table. Will’s mother reaches into the icebox, removes from its dark interior a bottle of milk and sets it on the table. Later, with a glass of milk at their places, the two eat dinner, silently. Will looks at his magazine at the tableside.

It was very nice of Mr. McRae, Will’s mother says, smiling, to give us this fish, and it’s a big one. There’s a lot to eat here.

Yeah, Will says, studying his magazine.

The fish had two good sized roes, too. That’s very nice.

Yeah.

Will’s mother looks contented, as she eats. From time to time, she looks at Will. He continues to read his magazine. Then she asks, What are you reading, Will?

Oh, I’m reading about this lost gold mine in Arizona. It’s somewhere in the Superstition Mountains there. Will looks up from the magazine at his mother and then turns back to it, saying, It says here that it’s the Lost Dutchman’s Mine and there’s a lot of gold there, and if anyone can find it, they’ll be rich.

His mother smiles. That’s nice, dear, she says.

And you know something?

What, dear?

Mr. McRae knows where there’s a lost gold mine. It’s there in Mexico.

Is that so, she says, but not seriously.

Yeah, and he says, there’s a lot of gold there.

Well, Mr. McRae is a very nice man, but I think he sometimes is known to spin some yarns. I’ve already heard Mr. McRae’s big fish stories.

No, really, he tells me, he knows where there is a lot of gold in this big mountain in Mexico.

That’s nice dear, she says. She takes her dirty plate and puts it into the nearby kitchen sink. Now, before it gets dark, I want you to go up to the mulberry tree and pick us a good quart of mulberries. We’ll eat these for desert later, with milk and sugar. Can you do that for me before it gets dark?

Sure, Mom. Will gets up, picks up a nearby quart jar, leaves the house, and goes across and up the yard to the mulberry tree. He picks good, ripe, juicy mulberries from the lower branches, and puts them into the jar. Shortly, the jar is full, and he returns to the house.

Later, the two eat mulberries, bowlfuls, with milk and sugar. A hot cup of coffee sits before his mother. She occasionally sips from it. The house soon darkens and she pulls out the coal oil lamp and lights it and a dull, yellow light brightens the kitchen. They continue to sit. They eat their mulberries next to the dull lamp light. She sips her coffee. A silence ensues.

Shortly, the silence is broken, when Will asks, Mom, when is Dad coming home?

She looks seriously at her son, holds a moment, then answers, Well, your dad said he’d be gone about two weeks. Now he left four days ago. So that would mean that he’ll be gone about, maybe, ten days more.

Why does he have to be gone so long?

Well, that’s how long it takes for him to take the boat down along the Atlantic coastline, around over to Key West, and then out into the Gulf of Mexico. That’s out into the deep water there.

But why so far, Mom, why to the Gulf of Mexico?

Well, dear, your father’s a good shrimper. He knows the business. He says, the Gulf is where one can get the most shrimp, and he says, that’s where the biggest ones are. Your dad knows that pound per pound you get the best price for the biggest ones. Your dad says, that if one can get a good catch of shrimp there, and if that’s where the big ones are, then it’s good business to go there.

Oh, okay

That’s what your dad tells me. . . . But I don’t like it

How come, Mom?

Well, if he shrimps inland, in the estuaries, or just out in the ocean but near the coast, and if there’s a storm, then he can find a nearby port or cove to come into and tie-up. But out in the deep water of the Gulf, so far away – well, I just don’t like it.

Dad’s been shrimping a long time, ain’t he Mom?

Oh, yes, more than twenty years.

Well, Dad’s an expert, he knows his stuff, don’t he, Mom?

She looks at Will and thinks about the question a while, and answers, I pray he does. She now cleans away the desert bowls and puts them in the kitchen sink, and says, Now you get your study books together and you do your homework here at the table. You want to learn something and be somebody someday.

But Will holds back and says, When dad comes home and takes his catch to market, we always have good times, don’t we, Mom?

She smiles, and says, Yes, we have good times then.

"What, with going to a lot of picture shows, and going to J.