Stone Cold Gold: Dan Mason Series Book #3

By Darren G. Burton

A gold miner falls to his death from a gorge in the Alaskan wilderness, but what was he doing out there in the dead of night, and was his death really a tragic accident?

Mine owner, Ben Cashman, isn't convinced that the police have got it right, so he hires troubleshooter and investigator, Dan Mason, to work on unravelling the mystery. Going in undercover as a gold miner so he can get close to Cashman's crew, Dan soon discovers a web of deceipt and greed within the industry that is worth far more than one man's life.

As he gets closer to the truth and unveiling the perpetrators, he soon finds himself caught up in that web himself.

Solving the mystery could just cost Dan his own life.

**Please Note** - Stone Cold Gold is a long short story of roughly 20,000 words. It is not a novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darren G. Burton
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463746646

Darren G. Burton

I have been a writer for over 30 years. I've written numerous full length works of fiction and non-fiction, as well as many short stories and [e-mail]

Book preview

Stone Cold Gold

Darren G. Burton

Published by Darren G. Burton on Smashwords

Copyright © 2020 Darren G. Burton

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

Chapter One

Eddie had always loved kayaking. Even though he was less than two years shy of forty, he still felt as fit and powerful as he did in his early to mid twenties; a time when people were considered to be at their physical peak.

His muscular arms bulged as he repeatedly dug the paddle into the water and propelled the small yellow craft downriver. At the moment he was cruising through a calm section of the river and he took time out to glance above and take in the awesome beauty of the gorge he was travelling.

On the left the cliff face rose on an angle of roughly sixty degrees. The rocks were bare in most places, but there were thickets of trees and smaller shrubs here and there. To Eddie’s right it was nothing but a sheer vertical wall of stone. No greenery, just hard rock.

While kayaking was his number one passion, just getting out into nature always made him feel alive. It was good for the soul, and he’d spent as much of his life as he could getting outdoors exploring the great unknown.

Sometimes he despised the fact that he had to actually work and earn a living, as it took time away from what invigorated him the most. He’d even contemplated living off grid and just seeing what happened, but as yet he hadn’t committed to that.

Maybe deep down he loved modern living and technology almost as much.

He smiled at that thought as he paddled slowly through the placid water. It was a paradox, for sure.

The air was crisp and clear, but also very chilly. If there was a breeze about he’d be freezing right now. The long Alaskan winter wasn’t far away. As if to emphasize that last thought, Eddie’s kayak bumped into something hard that he’d failed to see. At first he thought the craft must have nudged a rock, but when he looked into the blue green water he saw it was a sheet of thin ice roughly two feet square. Up ahead he saw several more smaller pieces of frozen river.

No doubt this would be his last kayak adventure of the season, he thought. In Alaska at any rate. If he wanted to do any more during the American winter, he’d need to travel quite a ways south.

As he continued to paddle he heard the distinctive churning of water over rocks up ahead and knew he was approaching a section of mild rapids. He glanced up again to take in the scene. The sides of the gorge were not as high now and he realized he was entering the foothills of the White Mountains. From memory there were several sections of rapids to come, then he’d be out of the gorge altogether, which ended at a small waterfall.

Eddie forced himself to focus on the line he had to take through the first section of approaching rapids. They weren’t anything dangerous at all, but he knew the water was freezing cold and he didn’t fancy ending up in it. If he flipped, he’d be forced to beach, start a fire and get warm.

He aimed his kayak towards the left of the river as it started to narrow and slipped easily through a gap in the rocks. Next he paddled hard to the right and chose a line through the rapids that presented the least resistance and safest route.

A few minutes later and Eddie’s kayak was bobbing around in calmer water again. For a minute or two everything was quiet, but as he traversed the river a few hundred yards further, once again he could hear the sound of the water rushing over rocks ahead. He was within fifty feet of the start of the next rapids set when he saw something unusual on the left hand bank. It was the color that caught his attention, as the bright red simply just didn’t fit in with the nature that surrounded him.

Before the approaching rapids could suck him into their maw, Eddie paddled hard for the left hand riverbank and beached his kayak on a field of smooth pebbles. He got out onto solid ground and crunched over the rocks as he approached the red object. A few feet away he paused and put a startled hand to his mouth to choke back a gag, then sucked in a deep breath and knelt down beside the crumpled figure of a man.

Eddie touched the man’s neck, searching for a pulse, but the guy was stone cold dead.

Chapter Two

The sun in Miami, Florida, could be a brute even in late September. Dan Mason had just hauled himself out of his backyard swimming pool not two minutes ago and already his tanned skin felt half dry. Sometimes he wondered why he lived in such a hot, tropical climate.

But what was the alternative? Live somewhere cold, bleak and