Chapter 3

“You haven’t seen the way I am marked. That will change your mind and damned sudden, too.”

“Well?”

“What do you mean, well?”

“You could show me and see how I react.”

“As if I would ... or could.”

“Okay.” I walked over to Mary sitting on the edge of her bunk. I just lifted her face and kissed her gently on the lips. I turned and started preparing supper in the kitchen area.

I got involved in browning the hamburger and caramelizing the onions. I didn’t look at Mary, concentrating on my cooking. I was ready to make this into a hearty gravy and had the toast in.

“Pete, look at me.”

I looked. Mary had removed her shirt and bra. “You want to see a freak, well look at me.” I shut off the stove and ignored the toast when it popped up. I walked over, took Mary by the hand and sat her down at the table. I brought the lamp we used to read by and put it where it shone directly on Mary. I sat down across from her.

I could tell she wanted to fold her arms across her chest to cover her breasts. I wouldn’t have stopped her but would have been disappointed if she had. I began to speak, “That’s a crazy tattoo you have there that is in the shape of a cross. I can see why you always wear clothes high enough to come up to your throat.”

“It’s not a tattoo. I was born with it.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. May I come closer and examine it?”

“I won’t stop you. It is a horrible disfigurement. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“Yes. Not so many on a woman, but the guys in the army often have tattoos. Some are not done well and on some the subjects are terrible.” I went closer. “Can you tell if this has faded as you got older?”

“Yes, my first awareness of it was that it was bright red and way smaller than it is now.”

“That’s because you skin stretched as you grew. May I touch it?”

There was a long hesitation. “I guess so. I may tell you to stop and I will insist that you do.”

“I promise to.” I turned Mary in her chair and brought the lamp close so I could again inspect this image. My first thought was that it was too regular to be grown from the time of gestation. It looked like the stem of the cross was three times the length of the arms. The ends of the arms were positioned such that they went up the swell of each breast and stopped at the top with the nipple just outside the outline. Before puberty, they would have been flat across her body.

I examined the image before me. It looked, as if the cross arm was mortised into the upright. Standing back, it was just an outline, brown for the vertical and a little darker for the cross piece. I thought at first there was little color and blank between the lines of the image. Peering closer, it seemed like this was less than blank and would be consistent of faded wood grain.

I was making Mary nervous and I hoped she wouldn’t stop me from my examination. I resumed and up near her neck there was more indication that this had a splintery wood grain likeness to it. It was almost silver colored like aged hardwood would be if weathered. The ends of what would have been a cross made of timber were not regular like being cut off by a saw. These were somewhat irregular as if chopped off by a sharp axe.

I asked, “Was there any color to this when you were young?”

“Oh, yes. there were some black colored splotches down on the bottom of the upright and some dark red near the ends of the cross piece ends, near where those black dots are positioned. There is a lone black dot that is a little larger about four inches from each end from the cross piece. All there is left now from the red splotches are the two black dots and these are fading too. Why is that?”

“Probably a poor brand of ink. In another few years, this whole image will fade from sight.”

“I’m okay with that. I have thought about having the whole image removed. I gave most of my inheritance to my brothers so I’ll have to wait until I’m rich again.”

“I like you just the way you are.”

Mary’s skin was fine and very smooth. This mark was the same. I put my fingers on the mark above her breasts, feeling the skin where it rose to her throat. Below her breasts, the mark went as far down as her belly button, but not into the knot. I traced the mark from top to bottom and across her chest. She shivered and goose bumps appeared everywhere. I didn’t point it out, but there were some black dots down near the bottom end of the upright.

“Pete, please stop.”

“Are you going to insist?”

“I should. I will if you keep doing that.”

“Okay.” A look of disappointment crossed her face. She looked into my eyes and then down, just waiting.

I slowly leaned forward and took one nipple between my lips. My fingers went to the other and I caressed around the nipple. “Pete, we should stop. I’m not prepared for this.”

“Mary, I’m not either.”

“I’ll bet. You’re a man aren’t you?”

“I am. I do respect you. Please would you finish making supper? I have some things I want to say about your tattoo.”

“Undressed like I am?”

“Your choice.” Mary stood and turned into my arms. Her arms went around me and she hugged me very hard. She put her lips up to be kissed. It was a closed lips kiss, but these were pressed hard against mine. Suddenly she pushed me away and went to the stove. I sat down and feasted my eyes as Mary moved around ignoring me.

“Pete, we have to talk. First, though, tell me what you think about my disfigurement. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Mary. I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world. I’m glad though, that what happened this evening happened. I feel very close to you. I can understand why you are uncomfortable dealing with other people. In fact I believe I am falling in love with you.”

“Even when I made a mistake by seeking revenge on your behalf?”

“Just another bump in the road for me. I’ve had a few in my short lifetime. We’ll put it behind us. About the mark on your chest that I’m staring at while you stand there with your hands on your hips and grinning at me. I suspect your mother had this done to you by some unauthorized tattoo artist and I suspect she paid a lot. She didn’t tell anyone until she went to confession and told her priest. This had to have happened before you were two years old when permanent memories are remembered.

“What her reasons were we probably will never know. We’ll have to talk about your mother and father sometime. I can’t believe he would go along with this. No man would knowingly do this to his child. If your mother did this, he must have hated her. Maybe best if we don’t know. It has screwed your life up and it must have done that to your parents. That is so far. They say love can take away the pain. I’m here if you need that love.”

“Pete, I’ve loved you since Sam brought you home for dinner that first night. At first I thought you were a loser, especially when I found out why you lived the life you were living. I was so pleased when Sam sent you out here with me. This is all so new to me. I don’t know what to make of it. I have never had love before.”

“Then if you love me, why don’t you feed me?”

“You don’t want to be serious anymore?”

“Not now, later.” Mary put a sweat shirt on. Supper was excellent and I didn’t open the wine. Not the time for it. The dishes were done and Mary came back to the table and sat facing me.

“Pete, what about us?”

“I think we should keep on the way we were. I don’t know if your vandalism is going to be a problem yet. It may and if we get into trouble it is because you were wrong. Best we not dwell on it.

“Mary, have you forgotten that you have a gem of unknown value that we have to remove from its prison of stone? We should combine our knowledge of how we are going to accomplish it. Do you have any ideas?”

“Not really, have you?”

“I do know that the least pressure against the prism may shatter it. I bought several small diamond tipped drills. My idea is to use my battery powered drill to drill holes in the stone as close together as I can. About an inch and a half deep should do it. When that is completed, we’ll see if we can hammer out the little remaining stone still between the holes until there is nothing left. It should chip out easily.

“When I say hammer, I mean slowly with extremely light blows. I have hardened steel putty knife for this. I’ll angle these holes in so there shouldn’t be more than a quarter inch of stone left at the bottom. I have a hard block of wood. I’ll lay it flat against the prism and strike outward away from the crystal with the hammer. Wood will absorb most of the surrounding shock so it doesn’t go into the prism and set up a vibration like metal would.

“The piece of stone that I strike with the wood should break the stone away, leaving the prism visible. Hopefully we can free it from there with our hands. It may take several hours to do this. What do you think?”

“I have no plan. I’ll take my camera and take several pictures of it so we can at least show people what we found if it does shatter.”

“Okay, that’s what we will do tomorrow. We’ll pray for success.” We sat there both running this through our minds of how to proceed. I couldn’t see any other way and Mary was in agreement.

“Mary, you know I was just about to call you to look at something when you called me to look at what you found.”

“What was it?”

“A hole under a ledge outcropping. I really didn’t have time to inspect it.”

“We’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Not important and only if we have time. I think we should go to bed early ready for tomorrow, and it has been a busy day.”

“Pete, are you going to think about me tonight. I have never willing shown my body to anyone before. You don’t seem to care that I am ugly--or not.”

“First, I don’t think you are ugly. Your breasts are beautiful and perfect shape. Your skin is smooth and flawless—

“How can you say that when it has a cross etched on it?”

“Right or wrong it is the mark of God.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do?”

“Go to bed, Pete.” I took off my clothes and climbed up to the top bunk. “Pete, I think we should make some changes in our cabin. Could you widen the top bunk for two people? Maybe you could build the bunk into a loft. That would leave the other bunk for company.”

“Company? Friends? I don’t have any friends.”

“Pete, you know I don’t either. I just thought someday you might want to lay with me.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Pete, can we squeeze onto the lower bunk together for a little bit? You could get into it with me. I don’t want you to do anything and I trust you enough to know you won’t.”

“That doesn’t do much for my manly image.”

“I think you are a good man, Pete. Too good the way you treated that Chloe woman, that’s for sure.”

“Mary.”

“I know. I won’t mention her again.” I watched Mary’s silhouette get into her pajamas. “Is there any room for me?”

“If you lie on my arm there is.” Mary got in and turned with her back to me. There was no room for the other arm except to put it over her. She was cramped. I tried not to let it touch her, but it was awkward. She soon realized it and took my hand and brought it over her shoulder. I pulled it back when my fingers touched her breast.

She then pulled it down and squeezed my hand to it, “Christ Pete, I’ve heard you say something that makes me laugh every time you say it and I’ll repeat, ‘I read a book onetime.’ Well, I read a book onetime and I wondered if this ever happened to me what it would feel like to have a man squeeze one of my breasts. Damn it man, I want to experience what people write about.”

“Damn it yourself, you’ve been giving me mixed signals today. Right now I figure you’re fair game. Tell me what you read and wondered about. I’ve never claimed to be any great lover, but I can follow directions,” It was a damned explicit book Mary had read!

At ten o’clock she said, “No more.” I had enough, too.

I crawled up into my top bunk figuring I never would get to sleep from lack of relief, but I was almost asleep when Mary who had stayed in the bunk claiming she was too weak to get up, said, “Pete, the next time we play like this I want to know what was in the books you have read about what I can do for you.”

We were up early. Nothing was said about last night, but we did smile at each other a lot. I had two of the three batteries for the drill charged. I hoped we wouldn’t need the third. We had backpacks and I had a canvas prospector’s bag over my shoulder.

Mary looked askance at me, “The rock around the opening I was telling you about on my claim looks interesting. I may grab a few samples to bring back and have the assayer’s office look at them. That’s why the flashlights are with me. If I can enlarge the opening and crawl in, I will get samples from inside as well. “First, though we will tend to your find of yesterday.

We reached Mary’s claim before the sun had gotten too high. “Mary, I have to calm down and I’m nervous as hell. My heart is pumping pretty fast” Mary did some work in preparation by digging away the small rocks and dirt so I wouldn’t have to stand on my head to work.

“How is that, Pete?”

“Much better.” She dug a pillow out of her back pack and built a nest for it. This was in case the gem fell just the few inches below where the it was attached to the rock. “You did some planning too.”

“I try.”

I was working on my knees up close, but that was fine. I could use a steady pressure on the drill to force the bit to bite into the stone that held the gem in its grasp. First I used a pointed prick punch to make a line where I wanted the drill holes. This prevented the drill from walking off line when starting the cut. We had brought water in a pump bottle to keep the drill cool and to move the stone dust from the head of the drill.

I walked the holes from the top right down and a little below the crystal. I went back and curved a slant line across the top ... three holes because it wasn’t any great distance to match those on the bottom. I then took the hardened putty knife and hit the tiny section between the holes. It snapped off without jarring either side of holes. When I had all of these chipped out, I was shaking because I had been so tense.

“Sit, Pete, and I’ll pour a drink of water. What’s the next move?”

“The move that breaks the crystal or the one that gives us a huge payday.”

“Either way, I know you have done everything possible. Would you like something to eat? You have been concentrating for almost four hours.”

“Sure, I could eat something, but don’t you want to know now?”

“No, I want you to relax. I’ll take some pictures while you are eating.” I watched Mary move around. She did have a nice figure. “You have a nice butt, you know?”

She paused and looked at me, put her camera down and came over and pushed me flat from where I was sitting.

She followed me to the ground and kissed me. “Just what I needed to calm me down.”

I laughed, and Mary said, “Not me, kissing you gets me excited.”

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Pete, I told you I loved you last night. I love you more this morning.”

I smiled and kissed Mary again. “Well, let’s find out whether we have something of value or just some pieces that might have been.” We got up silently. I picked up the block of hard wood and a two pound hammer. I sat Mary down with the pillow between her legs, not wanting the lovely gem to roll onto the ground if it did come loose. “Are you ready?” Mary nodded.

I took a deep breath and hit the stone that was surrounded by the holes I had drilled. The piece broke and fell on my left foot. The gem didn’t fall. I tossed the hammer aside and bent to examine the nest of gems. The largest smoky quartz crystal looked to be perfect. I looked close to where it lay against the side of the fissure. There seemed to be a minute crack opened between the gem and the stone near the top.

“Mary, put your hands up because I believe it will come loose. I can get my fingers just a little bit over the point. I could pry on it with something solid, but I hate to.”

“Try it.” We got in position. I barely touched it when it came away from the bed that had formed it. I held it there, not letting it drop until I could get my hand onto it and help lower it between Mary’s legs onto the pillow. There were tears streaming from Mary’s eyes.

“Pete, you’re a genius. Shall we leave it and go look at your claim?”

“No, not today, I don’t want to let this out of my sight. Let’s pick up and go home. I feel as I’ve done a week’s work.”

We were very careful coming off the mountain. The gem-set got awful heavy to carry walking to the Subaru, but we didn’t care. When we reached the car, I asked what we were going to do with it. Mary, said, “I’m going to call some of the prospectors and take it to where they meet. I want someone to appraise it and I want to insure it before we go to bed tonight.”

We cleaned up a little. Mary wanted to get to the prospectors meeting place early. There was always someone there in the evening for people to view what had been found that day. Curiosity was rampant as Mary began to open the box that she carried. When it came into view phones came out for everyone wanted to tell other prospectors about this beautiful find. Soon others came in. There was a pedestal on a turntable so the gem could be viewed.

“What is it worth?” Mary asked the crowd. There were guesses anywhere from $800 to a couple of thousand. One person from the rear said if people would let him look at it up close he would estimate and give Mary official figures. He soon had it in his hand. He produced a loupe to inspect it. There was a vertical line on the main crystal and Mary explained that was the line made by the stone that held the Gem in its grasp. She then explained how I had removed it.

“I’ve seen these sets of combination gems before. They are quite rare. I don’t know as I have ever seen one in this state of perfection. I’m estimating that it is worth anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 at auction. Are you planning on selling it?”

“I don’t know yet. We only got it out of the fissure this afternoon.”

“Does the fissure look like it would have generated more of these?”

“Again I have no idea. I guess a geologist would have to look at my claim to tell.”

“Have you found any other crystals?”

“Yeah, last year I found a few different ones but no large one like this and many more small common ones. When we got to the claim this year there had been a landslide and Pete has been sifting through the slide. He has found a few pounds of broken and scratched gems of no great value. I will say and I thank him for his suggestion that I follow the fissure below ground level. Two feet down I saw the smoky quartz point. I couldn’t believe it.

“Pete had gone over to his claim and I can tell you I immediately screamed for him to see what I had discovered.”

“For him or for him to see what you had discovered?”

“I’ll never tell.” Everyone laughed. Mary got serious, “Where can I store this where it will be safe?”

“Tom will store it in his vault, won’t you Tom?”

“Who is Tom with a vault?”

“He’s the banker. He’s done this before, haven’t you, especially for a pretty lady.”

“Well I can. And I would be honored. That sure is pretty.”

“Mary or the gem, Tom?”

“Come on guys, don’t you be making trouble for me with my wife.” Everyone laughed for Tom had to be approaching seventy. Mary was eating this up. I had never seen her interact with people before. I do believe she was enjoying herself.

I suggested that everyone belly up to the bar and I’d buy them a drink. That went over big. Mary had a cocktail. It was probably the first one she had ever had. She immediately was flushed. Tom said, “We had better get this into my vault. Pete, you carry it.” I wrapped it up in the bubble wrap and sealed the box we had brought it in. The bank wasn’t far. The town didn’t have street lights so we took the Subaru and followed Tom to the bank. He made out a receipt and handed it to Mary

“This part of the vault isn’t on the time lock, but it is secure. Your find will be all over town by morning. You had better get yourself a geologist to see if there is a possibility of finding another one of these.”

“I may. Can you suggest someone reputable?”

“Sure, I’ll give you his name and address. He is connected with one of the mining companies located about forty miles from here. He won’t tell anyone what he finds if you ask him not to. Come in during office hours to get the address. Too late tonight to it look up.” We left Tom to lock up and headed to the cabin.

“Sleepy?”

“No, you? Too much excitement. I guessed you were excited when you bought a round at the bar. I’ll reimburse you for the bar bill.”

“No you won’t, my treat.”

“It costs an awful lot to drink, doesn’t it?” This struck me as hilarious and I had a laughing fit. Mary grabbed me and started kissing me. It was last night all over again.

In the morning we decided to not go to the claims. Mary went into the bank and got the geologist’s address and phone number. When we got back onto the street, we were stopped by three different people asking about the gem Mary had discovered. She was giving me all the credit. When she got the geologist on the phone, they made a date for a week from tomorrow which was a Thursday.

Then she got on the phone and talked to Sam and two of her other brothers. One ran an insurance agency and there was another who was a lawyer.

“Sam, why don’t you fly the family out and have a mini vacation? The kids are all out of school. I want to display it to all of you. Edgar will need to see it so he can insure it. I’ll make all the arrangements. I know of a motel that will be glad to rent out most of one floor.

“Pete, my family is coming out. I’m going to share a few revelations with them. The geologist will be here the second day after they get here so we can all go up to the claim. Wouldn’t it be great if he says there might possibly be more gems in that fissure?”

“It would. He’ll also look at some of those other cracks. Those are a definite possibility too. I’m going over to my claim tomorrow and see if I can enlarge that opening under the ledge. It would be interesting if it was a cave. From what I saw of it, the dirt might be just some that had blown into the entrance by the wind. I’ll take a long handled shovel, a hoe, and a rake. Maybe I had better take a bar of some sort in case it is packed hard.”

“You’ve got me interested. I want to see this too.”

“It’s kind of in a difficult place among a jumble of large rocks and stones. It took me a little time for me to reach that big ledge. Right now I don’t know why I wanted to look at it. I could have walked around the whole tumbled up mess. I almost fell off the stone I was standing on when you shouted to me about the find you uncovered.”

“Did you plan on going there today? You said we were going to take the day off.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Let’s go because it will be interesting and I want to come down from the excitement of yesterday.”

“You know the picture of your crystal will be all over the country by now. Most everyone was taking pictures of it to show their friends. I’ll bet some newspaper or magazine will show up to interview you.”

“More the reason to escape the notoriety. I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”

My mind ran through what I wanted to take to my claim. All the tools we were using were rolled up in a tarp near where Mary had discovered the Smoky Quartz Gem. When we reached her claim she didn’t want to leave, walking around looking at the various cracks and fissures to see if they were anywhere near like the one that had produced the find a couple of days ago.

I picked up the piece of stone that I had knocked off to relieve the gem. Hey, that was a fine piece of work! It was a nice memento. A magazine, if interviewed, Mary would love to see it displayed with the article.

Finally, I said I was going over to my claim. Mary said she would carry something for me. I handed her the rock pick and a heavy hammer and the straight drill to make a hole in case the entrance was too hard to break up with hand tools. I had no idea if it was needed, but it would save climbing over the rough terrain again if it was.

It was slow going and we both slipped and stumbled several times. “Almost there.” We came in from above and walked around the corner. Really, standing up you wouldn’t know the hole was there. You had to get down below to see under the lip of the ledge to see it.

Mary crowded near me. “I’ll bet I can crawl under there and see how far back the hole goes under the ledge.”

“Let’s dig the hole bigger and then we both can see at the same time.”

“Gotcha.”

The barrier was of sifted sand and dirt. It was packed very hard. I drove the drill into it and found it was crusted. I could then pry up and hammer on the crust. It would break a section off and we grabbed it and tossed it behind us. Underneath the crust, it could be shoveled and raked out of the way. The crust didn’t extend in very far and we could see it sloped down on the far side after we reached a crest of blown sand about four feet in.

“Are you ready to investigate? You take one flashlight and I’ll take the other.”

We crawled together and when we got where the pile of sand sloped away from us we turned the light on. It was a cavern that opened to our eyes before us. It spread out wider as it went into the mountain. I flashed my light at the ceiling. It looked solid and not apt to fall. We crawled further until we could stand up but still touch the ceiling in places.

It seemed the cavern extended for ever. It was rough with the sides jutting out in some places. The floor had some free rocks on it and was as rough as the sides. Actually the ceiling was the smoothest part of the cavern. “Mary, I’m going back out and get my prospector’s bag and knock off some samples so I can take them outside to examine them. You stay right here until I get back.”

“Okay, Pete. This is exciting isn’t it? If the cavern goes far enough into the mountain you can have tours and charge for them.”

“I can think of a hundred reasons why that wouldn’t be profitable.” I turned and crawled outside. I picked up the canvas ore bag, my hammer, and a pick. I was soon again inside. Fear, went through me for Mary had disappeared.

“Mary, where are you?”

“I’m here, I didn’t go far. I’m behind this jut out. Pete, come here and look at this. There is rock of a different color or a vein that runs along the walls that looks much different than the walls themselves. Some places there are two regular strips with different looking wall between them.” Mary was speaking rapidly and finished just as I reached her. “See what I mean?”

I could see this plainly. She asked, “What is it?”

“Mary, I don’t know. It isn’t as solid, and close up you can see minute grains of something in it. It could be lead maybe and worth mining. I’ll see if I can get a sample. I drove my miner’s pick into it and tried to get a sample. Not much luck until I hammered on the edge of the wall and chipped out a hunk that had a sample of the strata that came with it. I looked around the floor and found a spike in the floor that was tipped with this different color. One blow of the hammer and I had a bigger sample.

“Pete, can we see how far this goes. Just think we may be the first humans who have walked here since the world was formed.”

“It well could be, but I think these mountains were formed later than that. I read a book one time that the mountains move around due to the earth plates crashing into each other and even sliding atop one another. The earth’s crust is pushed up and molten rock from below the earth’s crust follows the folds. That may be why we see different strata in the rock such as what we are looking at.”

“What about the gems we found? Did you read about those in a book too?”

“I did. That has something to do with the gasses given off by different elements and as they cool the gems grow and take shape. I really haven’t studied it so I may be all wrong. After all, I never had much interest in this until Sam hired me to keep you safe for the summer.”

“Yes, and you’re not only keeping me safe, but I’m actually having a lot of fun.”

“You even made a profit too.”

“Well so have you. I’ve decided that I was going to increase your share above the 10% you were promised.”

“Not necessary. I’m more than satisfied with the 10%. I’m not demanding the 10% either. I mean how are you going to give me 10% of the gem if you don’t sell it?”

“You don’t want me to sell it?”

“Not unless you need the money to live on. Your name will go with it as long as you own it. If you sell it, you will only be referenced as founder. You are famous now and I want you to stay that way. Hey, let’s get out of here and go contact a geologist to find out what I have here. You made a date with one to come next week. Maybe if you asked he might come within the next couple of days. Let me grab a few more samples. Look at some of the rocks scattered around and see if they have any with the same make up of what we see in the walls.”