Black Hills
Welcome Ukrainians from the Ukraine.
The old miner
The wind had carried me into these hills,
with the rumble of thunder beneath me and unlimited power released at the twist
of my wrist. Adventure, wild women, rowdy bikers and booze had been on my mind.
Now here I was with an eighty something old man, toting buckets of sludge from
deep within a hole in the earth. The sludge might offer up our first pay check
after a week’s work of adding new timbers to the shoring of the shaft. The
tunnel is illuminated by the sun’s light diverted with mirrors, a lesson in low
tech. My Heritage Softail sits by the old prospector’s cabin, silent for the
week. The final twelve miles into Sturgis had yet to be traversed. The old man
is a third generation claimant, originally filed in the eighteen hundreds by
his grandfather. Touching history, I felt it, it had caught my imagination.
This old man was real, the valley unspoiled by tourists. Our group had stopped
to ask if we could camp in his yard.
The intensity of the sun seemed
accentuated at these higher altitudes or maybe it was just the contrast of
emerging from the cool, damp mine shaft but never the less its rays were
drawing on the exposed flesh of my arms and back. Slowly we descended the
gravel path to the creek, two buckets of muck straining at my arms. Placing the
buckets at the stream’s edge I scooped sludge into a pan. My boots kicked off,
the frigid waters rushed around my ankles, my feet settled into the sandy
bottom as I dipped and rotated the pan.
"Lordie son, ya move like an old
woman! If'n there were still hostiles
about they'd have yer scalp!"
Looking back over my shoulder I could make
out the silhouette of my antagonist against the blazing sun. The glare behind him blocked details of his
eighty five year old frame. His broad shoulders were evident, the suspenders
that draped over them weren't. His tattered broad brimmed hat formed a halo
that shadowed his grizzled ruddy complexion. Crystal clear blue eyes were
watching me from somewhere beneath that rim. They weren’t visible but I knew they
were there.
Across the grassy meadow, the Hills looked
Black. The valley hadn't changed in eons; the sound of Custer's buglers mixed
with the war cries of Sitting Bull’s warriors still hung in the air, at least
so it seemed. The smells, light breeze, intense sun and this old prospector who
had actually known men of Custer’s era, it was surreal. Never in a million
years could I have planned a time like this, it just happened.
"Git in the creek boy. Move like ya
got ambition."
"It’s freezing, this water is like
ice. My legs are so numb I can't even feel the pebbles that I'm walkin'
on."
"It’s the truth, Boy."
"What? What'd you say?"
"It’s the truth. It comes down from
the mountain. Look at it, so clear! You can see every rock and pebble in it,
ain't it so?"
"It’s downright painful, Gus."
"They say it can be. Use it boy, take
that pan I throwed ya, put yer muck in it, then dip and swish. That water will
take away everythin’ ‘cept what yer lookin' fer. The truth has the same way
about it. Ya gotta clear away the muck."
"My hands ache from the cold."
"Nobody said it'd be easy. Let the
water do its work, be patient son."
Looking into the pan I see my first
glimmer of gold. I hear the old man snicker as he stumbles down the bank to see
the glitter for himself. It was about a billionth of an ounce.
"Sure is pretty son. Ya gotta wash
off a lot of muck to find a little bit of gold like that. Ha, ain't that life?
What ya just found is priceless boy…priceless."
"It’s the truth, Gus." I look at the
gleam in his ancient eyes, I breathe in the clean air and somehow the pain in
my legs subsides.
"How's them aching legs and hands
doin'?"
"Don't feel a thing." While looking
at the old man whose scripture quoting had caused my buddies to avoid their
camp site as much as possible, I see that his eyes still hold the sparkle of
youth.
"Well, ya wanna take yer gold and
head over to Sturgis? It’s the perfect time to go find yer buddies and raise a
little hell. Its yer pay for a week’s worth of work. Them boys are probably
raisin’ hell. "
"Naw, how 'bout I help ya stack some
wood, Ol' Man?"
“It’s up to you, Boy. You worked for about
two cents an hour, you know.”
“Ha, two cents, best two cents I ever made.”
There truly was gold in these hills, I had found it.
Based on a true event.
