Berry - Claw

CLAW

Katie Berry

Copyright 2019 Katie Berry

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-9994112

No portions of this book may be reproduced without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by Canadian copyright law.

Published by Fuzzy Bean Books

Cover Art Copyright 2019 Fiona Jayde Media

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For Frances Amelia, who always believed.

CHAPTER ONE

The towering bonfire crackled in the centre of the large clearing, the fresh-cut firewood drying out as it burned. Huge plumes of smoke billowed into the cold night air, blending with the thick fog that surrounded the camp, adding to the limited visibility. Every once in a while, a new pocket of resin in the unseasoned wood would explode, shooting out yet another red-hot ember seemingly in search of the first flammable thing it could find.

Jerry Benson noted with frustration that he still seemed to be one of those flammable things and scooted his camp chair back from the blazing fire another metre. He cursed under his breath and brushed the remains of the latest smouldering, red fleck from his neon-blue parka, not wanting it to burn through the fabric and ruin his new winter-wear.

Hey, Jer! You look low! Incoming! Tyler said, lobbing another beer. Jerry snapped out of fire suppression mode and deftly caught the canned beer in one hand. He placed it in the snow beside his chair, next to the other beer hed barely touched.

Gotta keep up, bro! This booze isnt going to drink itself! Tyler took a large gulp from the huge bottle of bourbon he held. He placed it into the snow next to his chair and picked up a fresh can of beer that had been chilling in the snow next to his chair. Cracking it open, he washed the burning remnants of whiskey down his throat in a long, thirsty swallow. After a belch loud enough to shake the snow from the overburdened trees around them, Tyler smiled contentedly, closed his eyes for a moment, then took another small sip of beer, savouring his barley beverage.

Jerry shook his head slightly in disbelief, saying, Thanks, Ty, but I think Im okay for now. Im not in the mood tonight.

Tylers eyes popped back open, and he leaned drunkenly toward Jerry, almost falling out of his chair in the process. A look of incredulity crossed his face, and he said, Not in the mood? Were out here in the great Canadian outdoors, bombing around on our sleds, enjoying nature and getting drunk! How in the hell can you NOT be in the mood?

Jerry yawned. Just tired, I guess. It was a long drive.

Tyler belched loudly at this news, then settled back into his chair once more.

When Jerry had learned that his college brothers were heading out on a snowmobiling expedition into the Kootenay region of BC for their yearly vacation, hed been all over it and jumped at the chance to join them. But his excitement this year wasnt because he still enjoyed coming along on these annual booze-fests with the boys. No, it was for a different reason this year. After a decade and a half, he was tired of coming home from a week of drunken debauchery and feeling like Ray Milland from The Lost Weekend for several days afterward. This year was supposed to have been the year he told the guys he was done with the party animal thing.

But it seemed as if fate was egging him along on this particular frat-brother vacation in spite of his reservations. The real reason hed been excited this year was the fact that their destination just happened to be near the site of a recent seismic event in the interior. And this event was in a region with a rich history of gold strikes, making it an opportunity too good for him to pass up.

As a Professor of Geology at The University Of British Columbia, Jerry Benson had been studying the Cascade Mountain Range for over a decade. The amount of gold mined from the area in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth had been phenomenal. As a geologist, Jerry also knew there was still much more just waiting to be discovered in the region. Thanks to a significant earth tremor that occurred in the Cascadia subduction zone just after the new year, he hoped that it might have exposed some potential new sites in which to hunt for the valuable yellow metal.

***

Earlier that afternoon, with camp set up, GPS unit in hand and a few other tools of the trade thrown into his backpack, Jerry had set out looking for the fault line at the epicentre of the recent earthquake on his rented snowmobile. The machine was equipped with an eye-poppingly bright paint job that seared the eyeballs on contact. Hed dubbed it the Waspmobile as soon as he'd laid eyes upon it, thanks to its neon-yellow and black colour scheme along with its high-pitched, droning engine. Just looking at the damned thing made his temples throb.

Departing much later than hed wanted, Jerry knew he was operating under a time constraint the hours of daylight left to explore were precious few. But he praised serendipity once more, when, only five and a half kilometres along, at the base of the Kootenay Glacier, he discovered the opening to a promising cavern in the cliffside. According to his GPS, it was centred almost directly over the new, quake-causing fault line.

Gold Ridge was usually spared much of the fog and low cloud that had been socking-in the city of Lawless and the valley below for the last few weeks. Up until now, Jerry had enjoyed a beautifully clear afternoon as hed searched for the source of the fault. But his delightful day came with a bit of a caveat: despite being located high above the valley cloud, quite often in late winter, just as the sun set behind the local mountains, rapidly dropping temperatures created a freezing ice fog. It crept down off the Kootenay Glacier, a pellucid presence that coated everything it touched in a slippery crystalline crust any attempts at travel were a very difficult and dangerous time. The last thing Jerry wanted, was to be caught off-guard by the freezing frost. He knew he needed to leave enough time to get back safely to camp to avoid this hazard.

Tumbling out of the caverns entrance was what appeared to be a geothermal aquifer. Jerry knew there were already several hot springs located around Lawless, making it a popular destination for people looking to soak away their aches and pains. This new hot spring would add to the Province of BCs already impressive total, which boasted eighteen out of the twenty-one confirmed to be in Canada.

Kneeling, Jerry measured the aquifers temperature. At just a hair under one-hundred degrees Celsius, it was an excellent example of the provinces true volcanic nature. It was far too hot for human use, and anyone unfortunate enough, or stupid enough, to try using this hot spring for skinny dipping would find their skin sloughing off like a blanched tomato before canning definitely a look but dont touch situation.

He took one last, quick look into the aquifer before entering the cavern and froze in his tracks. Glinting enticingly in the middle of the boiling stream was several of the largest looking gold nuggets hed ever seen, some of them easily the size of golf balls. He grabbed a broken branch from the base of a nearby tree and fished a few of the nuggets out, examining them once theyd cooled enough.

As a geologist, without even having to break the ore open, Jerry Benson knew that what he held in his hands wasnt pyrite, but real gold. The rounded edges and corners of the nuggets in his hands were the telltale sign of authenticity as they had none of pyrites harder, more angular surfaces.

Jerry was now officially more than a little bit intrigued as to what lay inside this cavern. Standing, he added the nuggets to a plastic sample bag, then placed them almost reverentially into his backpack. He adjusted the shoulder straps of the pack and prepared to enter the steaming black underworld in the rock face before him.