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Tim Desmond First North
American
6524 N. El
Capitan Serial Rights
Fresno, CA
93722-3540
(559) 431-6475 5300 words
THE MINE
by
Tim Desmond
Ron
Mueller slashed the rusty hickory knife through the blue and orange painting of
Mary Magdalein washing the feet of Jesus.
He slashed stroke after stroke then turned and slashed the other acrylic
landscape of green and white and blue.
He stood shaking looking at the shredded canvas. It cut and tore with
ease. He wiped the sweat from under his
red eyes. He was already sorry that he hadn't
just painted over the crappy paintings, yet he was still shaking with
rage. He hated stretching new
canvas. "How have I come to this
point to do this," he thought, "to be this god damned frustrated and,
and." He found no further words
would explode from his mind and he slashed one more time through a piece of
dangling orange canvas.
He thought it started a week ago on
Friday. He was working late in the
afternoon in the bedroom studio of
their apartment. Ron splashed yellow paint
on the white watercolor paper. He
worked fast and moved the color around.
He grabbed a towel and blotted the paper in several areas, then set the
painting aside to dry. Michelle would
be home soon and he needed to check the chicken in the oven.
He had the table set. No candles or flowers. A bottle of Chenin Blanc was in the
refrigerator. He started the vegetable
steamer. He heard the front door open.
"It's me, Honey," Michelle called from the living room.
They had a quiet dinner of a tomato
sauce, with no meat, with chunks of various peppers of all colors in it, all
topped onto a baked potato that had been sliced on the plate. They had this every night with some
variation of the sauces which were all vegetable and poured over potatoes or spaghetti,
or noodles or shells or rigatoni or those curly cue little things. Ron fixed dinner most nights. He also fixed other vegetables, and tried to
serve a different fruit too.
They had the news on the TV while
they ate. He poured more wine for them
both. The table was a parfaits of wood
venire that was protected from the artsy craftsy stoneware plates by woven
place settings and grass woven hot plates.
"How was work today,"
he asked Michelle.
"It went very well. I'm behind where I want to be with two
classes and the others are right on schedule." Michelle sipped her wine from their Libby stem ware, not feeling
the mold seam at her fingertips. Her
nails were short and plain. "The
sociology kids are all writing their Spring research papers and are very
excited. Some were lost at first when
we went to the media center, but Jonesy there, you remember Barbara don't you,
she gave them her little seminar. She
does a good job getting them all started."
"Sounds great," Ron said.
"what's a media center?"
"Library, " she said. "Anyway, the commute was terrible
today. I was trying to get away earlier
but couldn't. Get much work
done?" she asked.
"I finished three and started a
fourth watercolor while dinner was cooking," he said. "I sketched some ideas for the Roberts
commission. He told me what he wanted,
but I don't want to rush it."
"Good."
"I went down to the
gallery. Nothing has sold this week,
either."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Darling. Things will turn around. You'll see."
"I hope so."
"I was thinking," she
said. "Why don't you think about
taking a part time job or something. At
least until things pick up."
"We've had this argument
before," he said. "If I do
that I'll be too tired to paint and won't have time to paint."
"I'm getting tired of being the
sole breadwinner around here Ron."
"Save it for the Republicans,
Michelle. You aren't being fair. You are doing what you want to do. I'm doing what I want to do."
"Yes. Well, what I'm doing is earning some money, Ron.
We need money. We need more
money. I don't know if I can keep going
on this way. My friends at work are
buying their homes, making their investments in Tax Shelters, going on trips
every summer to Cancun or Italy. What
am I doing? Living in an apartment on
old Macarthur Boulevard and teaching summer school to some little bastards that
have to take summer school or they don't graduate. Half of them are felons."
That evening they watched the news
on TV. She read through Psychology Today, and he read the newspaper. The news team on the TV began their story on
the big gold nugget found at the Jamestown mine.
"Well, look at this,
Honey," he said. She looked up and
watched the story too. The News anchor
continued. "This nugget mixed with
quartz is about sixty pounds, we were told."
"What is the price of gold now
Michelle?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said as she resumed reading here
article. "You've got the newspaper
there. Look it up in the commodities
section."
He looked at her a moment and
blinked his brown eyes once. Then he
turned to the stock pages and found the gold market. "Three-hundred sixty eight dollars," He said.
She ignored him and he open the drawer on the night stand that served as
their end table. He found the
calculator and multiplied the ounces, and price of gold per ounce. "Michelle. That is nine-hundred sixty ounces. Almost a thousand ounces."
Saliva slipped out of the corner of his mouth. "It's a little over three-hundred and fifty-three thousand
dollars for the one nugget."
"Amazing," she said, not
looking up.
"I'd like to have a piece of
that," he said.
"It can't be that
much," she said. "It's mixed with quartz, they
said."
"Still I'd like to find a chunk
a fraction of that size."
"Forget it," she
said. "The Sierras are all mined
out. If there were any gold left up
there, that's where everyone would be in this state, instead of the Bay Area or
L.A."
"I suppose you're right,"
he said. He said it to her that way but
he didn't really believe it. He thought
that there might be a lot of gold left.
His history teacher in high school had told him that several years
ago. He didn't want to argue with her. He did not carry on the argument about his
not making much money either. He could
argue with her about lots of things.
They were supposed to go to her cousin's wedding in Manteca. He wasn't looking forward to being around
her family. They were ultra
conservative types.
He could argue politics with them
too, but to what ends. He did not know
them well. They were hunters and
shooters. Michelle had told him some
things. Her brother had built a stock
car in one of the barns on the farm. His
vision of her family was that they were like the Dukes of Hazard. Yet, they seemed to have money. How could she have come from them, he
wondered. Maybe the wedding will be
fun.
The next day they drove east on 580
to Manteca. The wedding was over
quickly and all drove to the reception at the groom's parent's large house
south of Louise and Souza. Ron went
right to the bar. He admired the size
of the bar. A man with a beard came up
to Ron.
"Name's Tom," the man said
sticking out his hand.
"Ron Mueller." They shook hands.
"Are you Michelle's
husband?" Tom asked.
Ron laughed. "That's me. Do they have a bartender around here?"
Tom looked around the room in all
directions. "Guess not right
now. Oh, hell, I'll do the
honors." He walked behind the bar. "What'll you have?"
"Make mine a bourbon and
soda." Ron paused and looked at
all the bottles of the well stocked bar.
"Just as well make it Wild Turkey."
Tom laughed. "Now you're talking." Well, at least we have this in common."
"What do you mean?" Ron sipped his drink.
Tom was quiet a moment, then waved
his hand and waved his drink in a circle in the air. "We must both like a good drink." He sipped his drink, too. "You know
we're not exactly alike, you and me."
"I don't really know anything
about you," Ron said. I've just
met you."
"But, I've known about you a
long time, my friend. After all, you
married my cousin. We're a friendly
family. I couldn't make it to your
wedding, but everyone else was there if you remember." Tom
sipped his drink. "Then,
people just told me things as time went along."
"OK, OK, " Ron said. "How are we different?"
"You're a democrat for
one. Of course that isn't completely
your fault. Your whole family are
democrats. Farmer democrats like most
farmers are around these parts. Let's
see, you went away to art school, Art Institute in San Francisco, right? How am I doing?" Tom waved his drink in circles in the air.
"Pretty good."
"Then you met my cousin, got
here pregnant and you married her. You
both became vegetarians. But, later she
lost the child with an early miscarriage."
"Now, wait a minute," Ron
said. He got up from the stool."
"Sit down, Ron. Your glass is empty. Let me fix you another drink." Tom poured more Wild Turkey. "Truth is, it wasn't a
miscarriage. You two went and got an
abortion."
"That is none of your
business," Ron said.
"True," Tom said. "Michelle must have needed to
talk. But, to continue, you both are a
product of the Berkeley crowd. You
regularly support the Sierra Club. The
one story about you that really made me bust up was when the Exxon Valdez went
aground, you cut up your Exxon Card and
sent it back." Tom started
laughing.
Ron gulped part of his drink. "You know so much about me, what about
you?"
"That's fair. I teach biology," Tom said.
"Oh, that's cute," Ron said.
"You teach biology and you ridicule me for supporting Sierra Club
and the environment."
"I was just pointing out
differences, not meaning to ridicule you.
Have another drink. Look, I
can't teach something without checking it out.
What I found out is that what is being rammed down the public's throats
is not true."
"Such as," Ron said.
"Such as the ozone depletion,
global warming, animal rights, you name it."
"You don't believe those things
are true? Everyone knows those
things."
"Not everyone. Not every scientist, either," Tom said
"I don't believe you."
"Fine. Don't.
But, I'll give you an example.
Global warming," Tom said.
"There are two groups of meteorologists, guys who study the weather.
One group are the statistical meteorologists. The other group are the computer model meteorologists.
The
statistical group can't support a global warming theory, because their data
doesn't indicate that. Also, a leading
Russian meteorologist, a computer model guy too, came out a few months back,
maybe couple years now, and has said
that all computer weather models can not possibly predict something like
that. He says they all fall short
because of the complexity of atmospheric variables."
"Well it's all
interesting," Ron said. "But I'll go along with the current
theory."
"Now being an artist, I thought
you would be a little more rebellious, a little different instead of going
along with the crowd."
Ron didn't have a come back for that
one and just sipped his drink.
"If you don't believe me, read
Crichton's Jurrasic Park."
"I saw the movie."
"No, no, no. You have got to read the book. They skipped over so much in the movie. Read page
seventy-five, Ron, page seventy-five.
Oughtta be an eye opener for you.
You know Ron old buddy, I think
I'm getting a little drunk. When are
they going to sit us down to eat?"
Michelle came up to them both. "Here you are." She walked him to the patio. Tom followed them. Ron leaned to Michelle's ear and whispered, "do we have to
sit with them? This guy Tom is going to
drive me crazy. You wouldn't believe
the crap he has told me."
"Be nice, Ron." They found Tom's wife Carolyn sitting at a
round white table and joined her.
Others sat with them and at the other eleven tables around the pool. Ron leaned to Michelle and whispered to
her. "You look beautiful in this
knit vermilion dress."
She leaned to him. "Thankyou, Hon, but I think you are a
little drunk."
"Maybe just a
little." He spoke up to the others
at the table. "Champagne
anyone?"
"That's for the toast,
Ron," Michelle said.
"Well, how about wine
then? Wine anyone?" Ron poured his wine and passed the bottle
around. Michelle shook her head. Everyone smiled.
Ron leaned to her again. "How is it, sweetheart, that everyone
knows about your abortion?"
"Ron for God's sake," she
said. She looked around the table. She smiled quickly, trying to, then
frowned. Others at the table sipped
wine, pretended not to hear, but stopped talking.
"You haven't answered me,"
he said. He leaned toward her, but
everyone heard him. She turned to him
and whispered. "Not here,
Ron."
The best man stood at the band stage
in his burgundy tux. He began telling a
story about the groom meeting the bride, Tom's youngest sister Liz, before
making the toast. Ron began pouring
champagne at their table. Later, they
danced. Then Michelle visited while Ron
continued to drink.
Michelle drove him home. While on 580 she busted out with her views
of the evening. "You were
disgusting tonight," she said. Ron rolled his head left then right against
the head rest.
"I don't think so," he
answered.
"How could you cause such a
terrible scene?" she said.
"I didn't cause any scene. I was just talking with my wife, who happens
to be you. If there was any scene it
was in your head."
"I was so embarrassed. Then you have to get so drunk and behave
like a slob."
"It's a wedding for Christ's
sake," he said.
"How could you talk about the
abortion in front of those people?"
"They all know about it,"
he said as he rolled his head over to the window on his right.
"How could they," she
said. "That's crazy."
"That's not what Tom
says," he said.
"Tom?" she asked.
"That's who told me. Said you needed to talk."
"I never talk to Tom," she
yelled.
"See what I mean? Who did you talk to?"
"No one." She paused.
"I only told my sister Marlene."
"I rest my case. By the way you better pull over. I think I'm going to throw up."
"We're on the freeway,"
she yelled. She pulled over as Ron
opened the door. He vomited onto the
asphalt shoulder before the Nissan came to a stop.
"I don't know how I can keep
hanging on," she said.
"Well hang on to this,
sweetheart." Ron unzipped his
black slacks.
"You are disgusting," she
said.
"I'm your husband."
"You are becoming mentally
exhausting to deal with," she said.
"Things are moving kind of
fast, aren't they," he said.
"Actually they are going round and round, too." She didn't talk the rest of the way home. He didn't mind.
The next morning she had actually
thrown a sauce pan of water on him to wake him up. She was still going on about the reception. He blamed her too, for blowing things out of
proportion. Then she said to him,
"You're not making any money, you're not working, you're living in some
kind of dream world. Get money, get a job, or I am leaving you, Ron."
That was it. She was off to work at Piedmont High. He stood over the slashed canvases then put
the knife on the watercolor table. "Maybe
I should work with oils instead of acrylics," he asked himself. "Maybe I should find another theme of
some kind."
He went for a walk around Lake
Merritt. He walked from the lake to
the Oakland Library. While there he
remembered the pictures of Jack London hanging on the walls years ago, on the
second story, near the stacks. He
looked up a copy of Jurassic Park. On
reading page seventy-five about chaos theory, he decided to take it home to
read. Maybe Tom is correct. He looked for the books by London. He went from the library back to the
apartment.
Ron took his large drawing pad and went to the Marina at Jack London
Square. He sketched the boats. He worked there for two hours. Later that week, he painted a large canvas
of a square rigged ship in oils. He
kept his style loose and worked fast.
Michelle didn't like it and told him so. He took the painting to the gallery and it sold the next
week. He painted more ships at
sea. Some seas were blue, others green,
and still others almost black. He
always painted clouds in. He was great
with clouds. They all didn't sell, but
some did. Michelle wasn't really
excited about all this because she was hoping he would get a real job, like
managing a Payless drug store.
Ron's father died. It was an accident. His father was a flat land corn farmer west
of Modesto. Dad Mueller had been
driving his tractor in the field, when he got off to check something. As farming accidents go, this one seemed
just as stupid as it is actually common.
The tractor, without warning, slipped into gear and rolled over
him. His hip was broken, but it didn't
kill him. Later that night, while
hospitalized, he suffered little as blood clots from his fractured pelvic
bones, traveled up through the vena cava to his heart.
Michelle didn't really want to go to
the funeral, but she knew she must. She
knew Ron was devastated. He hadn't
talked much for three days. He cried a
lot at first. Then he went to his
mother's the one day and one night. He
was better, but still quiet when he got home.
At the funeral, Ron was surprised to see Michelle's cousin Tom had shown
up with his wife. Michelle was happier
then, but tried not to show it.
Ron showed Tom around the place.
"I didn't know you came from a
place like this," Tom said.
"Well I did," Ron
said. "You want a beer?"
"I'm ready."
They sipped their bottles of Michalob.
Ron told him a lot of the family history. There was a lot of the talk of the family history all day. Michelle's great grandfather Brandson had
been an early grain farmer around Stockton.
Later, he went to Alaska in 1900.
He hiked over Chilkooth Pass and found a place to stake a claim. He got claim jumped and worked a year at
another claim. He returned to the
States and California and began raising sheep east of Modesto. Ron showed Tom papers and pictures of all
this.
"Ron," Tom said. "This is all just incredible. Tom continued to look at the
photographs. He picked up a photo of a
small cabin near trees and a creek.
"Where is this?" Tom
asked.
"It's on some family property
up the hills east of here," Ron said.
"Haven't been there in years."
"I'd like to see that some
day."
Later they were all parting ways and
said their good-byes. Tom's wife leaned
out of the car window at the last minute.
"Would you and Ron like to go to Tahoe with us?" Michelle was surprised and didn't know what
to say. This was the friendliest Tom's
wife has ever been.
"Sure," Michelle said
while she thought it was just one of those things that would never come
about. But, the following week Tom
called to invite them and agree on a weekend to go, and it was going to be
on. Ron was excited because he had
always wanted to go to Lake Tahoe, but he and Michelle had always had to watch
their spending.
It was after midnight. Harveys was still crowded with
weekenders. Tom and Ron sipped drinks
at the poker bar near the garage overpass entrance. Bells and machine noises drifted from the main floor.
"This is really great,
Tom. I'm having a great time."
"Yeah. The girls are too," Tom said.
Tom lit a smoke.
"I never would have thought
that Michelle could sit at those slots for hours like that," Ron
said. He fished in his pocket for
money. He tried to get the bartenders
attention. "Could I get a couple
rolls of quarters?" he asked. Tom laughed and started playing the quarter
poker machines at the bar. At three o'clock
they all walked down Stateline Boulevard back to the Shamrock Inn. The ice cold air from over the lake hit
their flush faces and felt good. The
drinks felt good still.
"I have a plan," Tom
said. "Tomorrow, lets check out a
little earlier than we planned and go over to Virginia City."
"Oh, that would be fun,"
his wife said. "Have you guys ever
been there?"
"No. But, we'd love to,"
Michelle said.
The next morning they drove from
South Lake Tahoe east into Nevada, down the steep eastern side of the Sierras
into Carson City. It was already in the
desert. The road east of Carson City
took them to an intersection and a road that led north and climbed through some
rocky desert hills. Soon they found the
long famed ghost town Virginia City.
Their first encounter was not finding a place to park. The streets were paved and they drove slowly
down the main street then turned downhill to the right and squeezed into a dirt
lot crammed with cars.
Virginia City was no longer a ghost
town and hadn't been for some time. Ron
was fascinated. Michelle loved all the
shops. They had lunch on the back patio
that overhangs the hill above where they parked. Ron and Tom found a lone Twenty-one table in a saloon
casino. They played there awhile and
walked away with fifty dollars
ahead. Next to a corner was a short
weathered fence with a gate. The sign
read "Gold Panning." They all
walked down the steps to a small yard with a wood trough with water running
through it.
They paid the five dollars to a
clean shaven man in plaid shirt and suspenders, and panned for gold from the
small pile of sand in the black plastic pans.
"Where does this gold come from," Ron asked the gold man.
"Not from Virginia
City," the man said. "No sir. Virginia City gold is all hard rock ore. This gold you're panning comes from
California. That's right, California.
Place called Mariposa. This gold is
placer gold, settled into the cracks and bottoms of streams and rivers."
"Look at this stuff,
Michelle," Ron said. Tom chuckled at Ron.
"You never did this
before?" Tom asked.
"Never," Ron said, while
he swirled the pan and never looked up.
Tom chuckled some more. Ron had
the fever. He didn't know it but Tom
did. On the drive home they stopped in
Placerville for lunch. Tom took them to
a prospectors store. Ron bought his
green pan, a crevice tool, a classifying screen and sample bottles. He was about to spend twenty-seven dollars
on a No. 2 shovel, but Tom stopped him.
"You can get a new one on sale at Home Depot," Tom told him, "for three
dollars."
"That's a good idea. Thanks, Tom." Ron had really thought he was going into the gold matter too
deep. Michelle shook her head when she
looked at the dredging apparatus. The
cheap one was a three inch diameter hose for two-thousand dollars. She and Carolyn tired of browsing blue
handled pick hammers, aluminum centrifugal pumps and yellow pontoon suction
dredges. The two of them hopped next
door to a crafts shop. "I'm so
glad Ron has taken to Tom," Michelle said. "We've really enjoyed doing this and it means a lot to me
that he has changed about our family."
"Maybe it's because he lost his
dad," Carolyn said.
"Could be," Michelle
said. "He doesn't talk much. He gets so moody, though."
During the next year, Tom and Ron
went gold panning. They went to
Jamestown and paid to pan there. They
drove up Italian Bar Road to Italian Bar.
The following February, the wives got together for Liz's baby shower and
the two men went gold panning on the Stanislaus under the new bridge on
Parrotts Ferry Road. There was a light
drizzle as they drove down to the old bridge at the bottom of the canyon. They waited awhile for it to let up. When it didn't, they got out and started
panning. They worked their way
upstream. They found a little flour
gold mixed with the black sand.
"Let's go up by those gravel
bars by the bend," Tom said.
"I heard they've been bringing panning classes or groups up to
those bars." They went upstream a
half mile. It was turning into real
rain, but they kept panning. Ron's
hands felt frozen and his parka was soaked.
The voice behind him was serious and it was not Tom.
"That's my hole your diggin'
in, asshole. Don't you see my gear
there?"
Ron looked for the voice and at a battered
plastic bucket at the same time. He
found the image coming to him from the brush beyond the bank. The camouflage quilted vest over buffalo
plaid arms flew at Ron, landing a fat fist into his chest. They both fell into the river with Ron
landing a weak defensive blow to the man's face. The whiskers felt strange on Ron's knuckles. The man stood to swing and slipped on a
rock, sending him to the bottom of the two foot depth rapids. His yellow Honda hat slipped off yielding a
bald head in it's late twenties. In the
rain, Ron squinted to see better and saw standing before him the man armed with
an AR-15 slung across his back, a shoulder holster slung the opposite way with
a large, long revolver, and a web belt around his waste with a Glock holstered
in Black nylon Cordura.
Ron stepped to the bank, grabbed his
pan and bucket and headed down stream.
He saw Tom who was still busy panning in the rain and who did not see
what just happened. Ron was panting
when he got to Tom. While Ron explained
what happened, Tom looked up stream through the rain at the man who was
unslinging the AR-15. Tom and Ron
called it a day at that spot.
They got to the pickup and sat
inside a few minutes. They opened a
couple beers and ate some cold chicken.
"I guess we'll have to be more careful," Tom said. "There are probably all kind of crazy
guys on these rivers."
"Tell me about it," Ron said.
On driving out of the canyon to the
top and onto Parrotts Ferry Road, they ran into snow. They could see the mountain tops covered with white above
them. It didn't seem real. They were soaked with the rain from the
bottom of the canyon, shaken by the crazy
miner and now it was colder and snowing.
They drove south to Columbia, Sonora and old Jamestown. There they found the corner bar with the pot
bellied stove. They ordered whiskey
shooters and coffee. Their hands shook
as they were still cold. After a while
they drove north on Rawhide Road to Tuttletown.
They went into the nice clean bar
there and had more beer and bowls of chili and popcorn. They shot some pool. A young prospector came in still wearing his
rubber boots. He started drinking and
telling the bartender he was almost arrested by the deputy sheriff down the
road. "I was just digging and
panning in the creek on the other side of the culvert," he said. "I started to argue with him that I had
every right to pan there. I wasn't
dredging or nothing. The deputy kept
telling me that it was private property and not public and I don't know what
all. Finally I left." Everyone listened and nodded. The young man soon was feeling a lot
better. Country music was playing on
the TV over the back wall. Country
videos were on. Two couples were
dancing . The young prospector then
began dancing by himself, out in the middle of the bar which you could say
served as a dance floor, it was that roomy.
Before too long, he was laying on the floor, kicking and yelling to the
beat of Dwight Yoakum singing about a long, white cadillac.
"Some kind of miner's break dance
I guess, Tom," Ron said.
"I guess," Tom said. They all smiled at the young man. As Tom and Ron left, the prospector was
still kicking and hooping and hollering
to a new song. They headed home. "You know, Ron, I have an idea. Remember you were telling me about that old
cabin on your folks property?"
"Yeah."
"Since your great grandfather
went to Alaska to mine gold, do you think he prospected that land?"
"I don't know," Ron
said. "No one ever said. As far as I knew, he only ran sheep on that land."
"Well suppose he mined it and
didn't tell anyone?" Tom
said. "You know that's gold
country."
"I never thought of that,"
Ron said.
"Is there a creek by that
cabin?"
"Yeah, there is." Ron and Tom just starred for awhile.
"Why don't we check it
out. If it's OK with your family?"
When they got to Tom and Carolyn's
place, the wives were furious. It was
nine o'clock, the pizza was cold, Ron and Tom were still drunk, and Michelle
wanted to drive home to Oakland. On the
way home Michelle told Ron what she thought again. "You are the most inconsiderate and selfish man I have ever
known. We were worried about you two
and you didn't even call. I've had it,
Ron. This is absolutely it. This is driving me over the edge. You are going to ruin a good thing. If it weren't for me I don't know where we
would be. Lately, this past year has
been wonderful with us spending time with my family. If it weren't for all that and my cousin's wife Carolyn's sake, I
am almost sorry you ever took up with Tom.
I don't know where your mind is.
You are out there in some other world of yours. You are not thinking of us and what we need
to do to get ahead in this life. Tom
has a career. Why don't you?"
Ron listened and began to argue but
didn't.
That Spring Tom and he went to the cabin on the property near La
Grange. They found gold in the
creek. They bought a high bank machine
to sluice more gold. They took out six
ounces that year. Both families went
camping there and had picnics there in
the Spring. Ron painted landscapes of
the cabin and the area. He painted
well, and they sold well at the gallery and in Modesto. He got a few more commissions. He was working hard as an artist. He wasn't making a killing, but doing well
enough that Michelle was proud of his work and liked it too. Tom and Carolyn had their first child the
next year and didn't get to the mine.
But, when they did get together at the mine the following Spring, it
meant everything. Tom picked up samples
of plants or bones for his classes, Ron
painted, and they both shoveled into the high banker. It was always a thrill to keep looking in the riffle bars,
finding gold and pan out the concentrates.
Maybe they would look for a new claim some place.
END
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