Part 10: Revelations

Our little party—Nick and Noel Norbert, Rex Jenner, Jim Kelly, Jake the Carpenter, with Andre and the two Russian computer geeks—stood at the roadside in silence, awestruck. Betty, still groggy from her bad fall, watched from the truck. The raging Empire River completely demolished the NovyZol computer plant. The building had stood on a meadow where the river emerged from a steep canyon. And now in front of us, the water from the upstream debris dams that had let go had spread out in frothing brown swirls, full of logs, whole trees, and lumber. The meadow was now an ugly sea of storm detritus.

The first to speak was Andre. “This is the end of our jobs,” he said woefully. His two friends were wide-eyed in wonder at the destruction. I could see the others in our little group—the Two River locals—wearing half smiles, rather satisfied to see the building wiped out. The computer company had been a great source of consternation. Its use of our utility’s water and power had resulted in higher bills for everyone and water rationing, too. Thanks to a disaster courtesy of Mother Nature, the economy of Two River had brightened considerably!

Remembering how Andre hesitated earlier revealing details about the business, I took a chance and said, “Can you now tell us exactly what was going on here?” I figured in one day, two mysteries could be solved—what Betty had been up to and what work the boys were doing.

Andre hesitated before saying, “We were mining bit coin.”

With disdain, Jim Kelley spat out, “Bitcoin! That’s crypto-currency! That’s not what the use permit said. The place was listed as cloud storage and computing.”

Andre smiled, “Well, bitcoin mining is cloud computing of sorts.”

“Ha!” Jim replied. “Well now you Ruskies have learned a lesson. Mining can be dangerous and Mother Nature has a way of upsetting things.”

“They can always rebuild,” I offered.

“That’s not likely to happen,” Andre put in. “We were having problems. People were hacking in, and federal agents had visited. Something to do with sanctions over the war in Ukraine.” Suddenly, his friends yelled. Pointing to the pooling water, they shouted, “Smotret! Smotret!” We saw it then, a bashed up, overturned carcass of a car—a white Tesla.

“Rustovski!” one of the tech boys said, eyes brightening. He smiled subversively, and I eventually found out why. Andre revealed to me weeks later that they thought Rustovski was a KGB agent sent to watch the employees.

Only after the flooded waters finally receded a week later did a rescue crew reach the car. They found Igor’s body inside. The day after that, sitting with our Gang of Four at Jeremy’s River Eats Café, Deputy Jack was happy. “One less thug to worry about,” he said. “That and the computer company. Both gone! You gotta love karma.”

This started a round of conversation about how the Two Rivers utility company should now be compelled to lower the rates raised when the computer farm began gobbling up our water and power.

“And if they don’t, we all here should run for the board,” Noel Norbert said. “A ticket of Carole Chukar, Nick, Rev. Steve and myself. If three of us win, we’d have a majority!”

Nick added, “Then we could also do something about Sandy Lavitch. That CEO needs to go!” This brought a round of “Hear, hears” from a few tables nearby.

Changing topics, Reverend Steve asked, “So how is Betty doing?”

“The doc hasn’t yet cleared her for work,” Nick said. “But I told her she didn’t have to go back. I’m a plumber! We have plenty of money.”

“Well,” Deputy Jack said, “if she does return to panning, she’ll have lots of company. People found out how much gold she had in that bottle.”

This was not a surprise. A Nevada City jeweler assayed the gold for Nick and declared the value at six thousand dollars. Obviously, word had spread quickly back to Two Rivers.

“I’ve had to chase a bunch of folks off claims up and down the river—including those computer geeks who lost their jobs,” Deputy Jack added. “The storm churned up more gold than we’ve seen in years. We could have another Gold Rush on our hands!”

When Betty was finally up for company, I visited, bringing a quiche from Sally’s Deli. And that’s when she spilled beans—or I should say the nuggets—about her secret hobby.

Still feeling dizzy from conking her head, Betty was propped up on a couch and told her story. “It started out so innocently last summer,” she said. “I got bored one Saturday. Nick was on a plumbing call. It was hot, so I thought I’d go dip my toes in the Empire River. You know, right where we all pick blackberries. It’s easy to get to. I brought along a gold pan, too. Just for the fun of it….”

Aha, I thought, that’s how all bad habits begin—just for the fun of it. This is what probably happened to poor Don Wyder a few years back. By accident, he found gold in his creek, then began looking for more in earnest, found a bunch, then began digging a mine into the side of the hill. He wasn’t careful, the tunnel collapsed, killing him and also darn near his teenage boy, Ritchie.

Gold fever, though, is what guys succumb to, not gals, so I wondered what had led a community pillar who is a sweet and generous wife into a deadly obsession that nearly killed her?

A native Californian, H.A. Silliman grew up in the Gold County and currently lives in the northern outback. Past stories from the Two Rivers Anthology can be found at hasilliman.weebly.com. All characters are fictitious or fictionally portrayed. ©2023 H.A. Silliman.