eight the previous night, and I was going to need eight or better this night as well. Tomorrow promised to be another long and anything but stress-free day for me, too.
Â
9
Thursday morning was a bust.
For whatever reason I still couldnât find Alana Farmer; she wasnât at or expected at the Sunshine Hair Salon, nor did anybody answer the door at her apartment. Gene Eastwell didnât call, and he wasnât at the mining company offices; I couldnât get past the receptionist this time, and all sheâd say was that Mr. Eastwell was busy at the main mine today. Neither of the first two rape victims would talk to me. They both knew who I was and why I was in Mineral Springs before I approached them, Estella Guiterrez at her home and Margaret Simmons in the auto parts store where she worked; the Simmons woman was openly hostile, accused me of trying to âfree a filthy rapist so he can terrorize other women,â and threatened to call the sheriff if I bothered her again. The third victim, the widowed Shoshone crafts maker, Haiwee Allen, wasnât home.
Iâd skipped breakfast, so I went to the Horseshoe restaurant for a hot and not very good lunch. No sense in intruding on Cheryl at her job and causing any more tongue-wagging. Afterward, I made another pass into Haiwee Allenâs neighborhood. Still nobody home at her trailer.
Out to Cherylâs house, then, and another exchange of my car for Codyâs Jeep. It was nearly one-thirty by then. Lost Horse and Max Stendreyer? A run out to the Eastwell Mine? Try to track down Derek Zastroy? Stendreyer was the most tempting prospect, but I still didnât know enough about him and his relationship with Cody to make bracing him feasible just yet. Zastroy was due at the Saddle Bar at four oâclock; trying to chase him down before that would only add more frustration to the day if I couldnât find him. The same was true of Eastwell, but at least I could have a look at the mine and either get in to see him or find out if he was ducking me.
The two-lane road out there was paved all the way, though the asphalt was pocked and broken in places from the passage of ore trucks and other heavy equipment. I passed one of the trucks on the way, a massive vehicle that roared like a beast and made the Jeep shudder as it came lumbering by. There was no other traffic on the road, and the only thing I saw moving on the lumpy, serrated desert flanking it was a jackrabbit bounding through big clumps of gray-green sage.
After about eight miles, I came on a fork. The left one, paved, leading into low foothills, bore a sign that said E ASTWELL M INING C OMPANY in big black letters, and below that, P RIVATE R OADâ A UTHORIZED V EHICLES O NLY ; the section I was on became what appeared to be a little used dirt track that curved off to the right and petered out in the desert flats. I took the left fork, climbed up and down for a ways, and then up again and over a rise, and from there I had my first look at the mining operation.
Not that there was much to see. The road ran up through a wide cut between two large hills, where it was blocked by a guardhouse and bar gate. Beyond, you could make out portions of what was an even larger operation than Iâd expectedâa huge mill, at least two other buildings, ore dumps, men and equipment moving on a network of roads and narrow-gauge rail tracks, the top of a towering gallows frame that would contain the hoist mechanism for raising and lowering minersâ cages into the depths of the mine. The mine openings themselves were invisible from this vantage point.
The closer you got to the gate, the more warning signs there were. P RIVATE P ROPERTY . A UTHORIZED A DMITTANCE O NLY . T RESPASSERS W ILL B E P ROSECUTED T O T HE F ULLEST E XTENT OF T HE L AW . As I rolled up, a brace of uniformed men came out of the guardhouse and stood side by side like soldiers on sentry duty. Both wore holstered sidearms and
Â
9
Thursday morning was a bust.
For whatever reason I still couldnât find Alana Farmer; she wasnât at or expected at the Sunshine Hair Salon, nor did anybody answer the door at her apartment. Gene Eastwell didnât call, and he wasnât at the mining company offices; I couldnât get past the receptionist this time, and all sheâd say was that Mr. Eastwell was busy at the main mine today. Neither of the first two rape victims would talk to me. They both knew who I was and why I was in Mineral Springs before I approached them, Estella Guiterrez at her home and Margaret Simmons in the auto parts store where she worked; the Simmons woman was openly hostile, accused me of trying to âfree a filthy rapist so he can terrorize other women,â and threatened to call the sheriff if I bothered her again. The third victim, the widowed Shoshone crafts maker, Haiwee Allen, wasnât home.
Iâd skipped breakfast, so I went to the Horseshoe restaurant for a hot and not very good lunch. No sense in intruding on Cheryl at her job and causing any more tongue-wagging. Afterward, I made another pass into Haiwee Allenâs neighborhood. Still nobody home at her trailer.
Out to Cherylâs house, then, and another exchange of my car for Codyâs Jeep. It was nearly one-thirty by then. Lost Horse and Max Stendreyer? A run out to the Eastwell Mine? Try to track down Derek Zastroy? Stendreyer was the most tempting prospect, but I still didnât know enough about him and his relationship with Cody to make bracing him feasible just yet. Zastroy was due at the Saddle Bar at four oâclock; trying to chase him down before that would only add more frustration to the day if I couldnât find him. The same was true of Eastwell, but at least I could have a look at the mine and either get in to see him or find out if he was ducking me.
The two-lane road out there was paved all the way, though the asphalt was pocked and broken in places from the passage of ore trucks and other heavy equipment. I passed one of the trucks on the way, a massive vehicle that roared like a beast and made the Jeep shudder as it came lumbering by. There was no other traffic on the road, and the only thing I saw moving on the lumpy, serrated desert flanking it was a jackrabbit bounding through big clumps of gray-green sage.
After about eight miles, I came on a fork. The left one, paved, leading into low foothills, bore a sign that said E ASTWELL M INING C OMPANY in big black letters, and below that, P RIVATE R OADâ A UTHORIZED V EHICLES O NLY ; the section I was on became what appeared to be a little used dirt track that curved off to the right and petered out in the desert flats. I took the left fork, climbed up and down for a ways, and then up again and over a rise, and from there I had my first look at the mining operation.
Not that there was much to see. The road ran up through a wide cut between two large hills, where it was blocked by a guardhouse and bar gate. Beyond, you could make out portions of what was an even larger operation than Iâd expectedâa huge mill, at least two other buildings, ore dumps, men and equipment moving on a network of roads and narrow-gauge rail tracks, the top of a towering gallows frame that would contain the hoist mechanism for raising and lowering minersâ cages into the depths of the mine. The mine openings themselves were invisible from this vantage point.
The closer you got to the gate, the more warning signs there were. P RIVATE P ROPERTY . A UTHORIZED A DMITTANCE O NLY . T RESPASSERS W ILL B E P ROSECUTED T O T HE F ULLEST E XTENT OF T HE L AW . As I rolled up, a brace of uniformed men came out of the guardhouse and stood side by side like soldiers on sentry duty. Both wore holstered sidearms and
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