Chapter 114

I went back to pedaling my trike. I pedaled a while then let the motor pull me a while. when I was rested I pedaled again. It took me another fifteen minutes to reach home. I stored the trike in the shed and plugged the charger in to get the batteries ready for the next day.

I went to my part of the barge house to retrieve some cut off baggy pants with lots of pockets. I took a black tee shirt with a silkscreen drawing in red for the clear plastic box I used for storage. The drawing on the shirt was of a scrawny looking wolf. I had found it on line and bought five of them. The tee shirt reminded me of the swamp dog compound. I hadn't shown it to any of the residents of the compound. I wasn't in the mood during my last visits.

I was in the cut off uniform pants and the black tee when Wilson came in carrying a pizza box. "I got a three meat pizza," he said.

"Good it's my favorite," I replied'

"Yes I know," Wilson said.

I had a glass of chemical iced tea and a slice of the pizza when I spoke next. "Okay Wilson what have you learned?" I asked.

"Two totally unrelated things," Wilson said but he could hardly contain his excitement. "I learned that gold from the mountain's erosion makes it's way to the streams. The water washes it down stream. It rolls along the bottom till it get trapped some where along the way to the sea."

"Yeah that's sorta what I had guessed from the pictures of the California gold fields," I agreed. "So any stream that runs off from the mountains might have gold?"

"Potentially yes, somewhere else totally unrelated, I read about the state's conservation efforts to restore the environment. It seems that the group bought up a bunch of old 1900's hydro electric dams that were not in use. They demolished them. They reduced what had been and eight or ten foot river to a stream."

"And this is of interest to me why?" I asked.

"Because those dams had been a place where I think gold was deposited along with the sediment. Right now that sediment is growing grass. I think there is a significant amount of gold buried there." Wilson said with a confident smile.

"How do you propose we get permission to mine it," I asked. That land is owned by the people who owned the land on the banks of the river. If a person owned land on both sides they own the stream now. It they owned only on one side they own up to the stream bed. So I spent last night on one site. I researched it and found the owner's name and address."

"So now we know who owns the land that may or may not have gold on it. So what do I do now have Rita contact them for mineral rights lease?" I asked.

"The easiest lease to obtain is one for a minimally intrusive search for precious metal for a flat fee. If we find anything we share it with the owner of the land. Then we will have to renegotiate the mining lease. Frankly I expect everything of value to come out in the first few months," Wilson suggested.

"Do a cost analysis for me," I suggested.

"I have read that the lease goes for about $50 an acre. We are going to have to lease the whole stream area to get to that one spot. So we are looking at about $500 for the one year least. Then there is the equipment. Probably under a thousand. We are going to need a place to live, so I don't know about that."

"We can most likely find a motel nearby for our exploratory expedition," Wilson said.

"Well keep working on it," I suggested. "But don't call Rita. Let's take a look at this thing before we get her involved. But do find the name and address of the owner. Also anything you can about their financial status."

"Well," Wilson said, "We have finished the pizza and we had our little talk. It is time to go fishing."

"Since nothing has come up, I am totally agreeable." I was finding that the fishing relaxed me. I didn't feel the need to deal with Liam's death while I was fishing. I also didn't think about who might have been in the Villa I bombed.

Since its owner was a drug lord whose their life expectancy isn't long, no one gave the bombing of his home any particular significance. Just figured it was one piece of thrash taking out another piece of trash. I suppose that description fit me as well as a drug lord. There are those who tell themselves that we have higher standards. I wondered how different we really were.

"We are going to go see the owners of that piece of property aren't we?" Wilson asked.

"Yes, but first I need to know how to go about exploring for gold?" I asked.

"Okay we have to have the sediment from the dam. For that we need to dig," Wilson said.

"Okay we dig a few five gallon buckets full of sediment, then what?" I asked.

"Then we have to run it through a processing sluice," he said. "The sluice separates the gold from the sand. That's pretty much it."

"Most of the stuff we buy has to have another use as well as gold digging. I won't waste our resources even though we can afford it. We are going to work like we don't have any extra money."

"Okay we need shovels I think we can probably reuse those," Wilson said with a smile. "We will need a water pump in addition to the Sluice box. It take lots of water. That stream may not have enough. But we can recirculate the water. I saw that on one of those gold rush type shows."