Solitaire (15 page)

Pleasure shone in his eyes as he looked down at her. “That took a lot of courage, Cat. I was hoping you’d ask.”

He guided Cat to the kitchen and gave Pilar the basket. Then Slade poured them some fragrant coffee and stole some date-nut bread that Pilar had just baked. He sat down next to Cat on the back porch, his long legs spread out in front of him.

She cast a glance over at him. “Why were you hoping I’d ask?”

“A long time ago, Cat, I found that people really didn’t want something unless they asked for it. My mother used to shake her finger at me and tell me to hold my own counsel, opinions and advice unless someone asked for them.” Slade gave her a little-boy grin as he polished off his chunk of warm bread. “Over the years, I’ve found my mother to be right–as usual.”

“Wise words from your mother,” Cat agreed solemnly. She wanted to rest against him and smiled to herself. “Tell me about your mine, oh weaver of spells and fables.”

Slade nodded and settled back. “A long time ago, back in 1531, the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, landed on the coast of Peru. To his delight and greed, he found fabulous emeralds there, and in Chile and Ecuador. He became entranced with where these emeralds had come from and tortured countless Indians to get this information.

“Finally, in 1537, the conquistadors had the answer they sought: Chivor, Colombia. There they found emeralds in feldspar-rich veins of yellow-gray shale or limestone. Chivor’s crystal-clear emeralds made the conquistadors bend the backs of every Indian they could find and put them into slavery to work the mine. Twelve hundred Indians were kept caged in Chivor’s tunnels on a food ration that even a rat couldn’t subsist on. Spain’s monarchy couldn’t tolerate the conditions the Indians were placed in, and ordered them freed of further enslavement. Eventually, production dropped off and the jungle reclaimed Chivor. The mine became ‘lost.’

“Then, in 1896, Chivor was rediscovered by a Colombian mining engineer who used a three-hundred-year-old map he had found in an old manuscript. Chivor now operates as one of the largest privately owned emerald mines in the world.”

Cat smiled wistfully. “You sound as if you wished you had been that Colombian mining engineer to have found Chivor again.”

Slade nodded, thinking how beautiful Cat looked when she was relaxed. “You’d better believe it. There’s another well-known emerald site in Colombia. Chivor sits up where a breeze will stir and the temperature is cooler on the slopes of the jungle-capped mountains. The Muzo Valley, which sits in the Cordillera Oriental, an extension of the Andes Mountain chain, is hot, humid and insect-infested. The emeralds at Muzo are found in white calcite veins between beds of black shale.

“At Muzo, the emeralds are flawed heavily with inclusions, making them look cloudy. Chivor’s emeralds are clear in comparison but lack the range of color that Muzo’s hold. Muzo’s emeralds are considered far more valuable because of this color range. Personally, I disagree. I’ll take a less-inclusioned emerald over a cloudy one with color any day. Anyway, Muzo’s reputation is that of greed, murder and thievery run amok. It got so bad that it was shut down in 1970 because of the number of murders and crimes. The mines of Muzo had been privately owned up until that time. The owners feared for their lives and the yield of their mines. They begged for government protection in the form of soldiers. The private companies agreed to lease their mines to the government in return for protection and guarding of their emerald treasure by the national police.”

Slade glanced over at Cat. “The guaqueros, or treasure hunters, went on digging their rat tunnels into the emerald mines anyway. Cave-ins kill a lot of them. So does suffocation, because these rat holes aren’t properly ventilated. The guaquero who manages to tunnel into one of the emerald mines then begins to steal. If he finds a stone, he must risk his own life trying to get it to an emerald dealer, known as an esmeraldero, who waits at the Rio Itoco, the river at the bottom of the Muzo Valley, to sell it.”

“And have the police stopped some of the bloodshed, Slade?”

He grimaced. “To a degree, they have. But what has happened is that the police are either paid off by the guaqueros to look the other way while they steal from the mines or they just plain feel sorry for the tens of thousands of starving humans who have flocked from the squalor of Bogotà out into the field in search of their personal fortune.”

“That’s the history. How do you fit into this interesting puzzle?” Cat asked, watching his blue eyes grow warm with a smile. Slade made her feel good and she couldn’t conceive of being away from his sunny presence.

“Let me tell you about my colorful partner who lives in Houston. Once upon a time, there was this grizzled old Texas diehard. His name was Alvin Moody and he made his fortune gambling on oil wells instead of dry holes. Pretty soon, his oil discoveries outweighed the dry holes he found, so he became one of the Texas elite money-wise. He’s about six-foot-four and even taller in the stories told about him. Alvin’s a meek name, and it doesn’t fit him as far as I’m concerned. That aside, Alvin got restless with the gas-and-oil game. He wanted to stretch himself and had always had a fascination for gems. He’d heard of Chivor, Cosquez and Muzo in Colombia. And being the street-smart, junkyard dog that he was, he figured there were more emeralds than just in those three areas.”

“How old is Alvin?” Cat asked, enjoying Slade’s story.

Slade rubbed his jaw. “Let’s see…somewhere around seventy-three. He’s got snow-white hair, squinty blue eyes that’ll drop you at thirty feet if you cross him the wrong way and a voice that booms like a bear.”

“Sounds like a real character,” she said with a chuckle.

“I think Texas glories in them,” Slade agreed. “I was down in a sleazy bar at the bad end of Bogotà when I ran into Alvin.”

“I won’t ask what you were doing there,” Cat said dryly.

“Same thing he was: looking for stories about the emerald-rich mountains of Colombia. I’d been there seven days and picked up quite a bit of bull. In between, I’d play rounds of poker with the emerald dealers, listen, learn and store it.”

“You a good poker player, Slade?” Cat knew the answer to that without asking, but couldn’t resist teasing him.

Slade grinned. “Wait and see. Alvin came into this dirty, smoky bar, twice as big as life, all decked out in a khaki safari suit, Texas cowboy hat and boots. He spotted our game and invited himself to sit down. There were four scruffy-looking esmeralderos who smelled of the Rio Itoco, plus me in my usual grubby geology gear and Alvin. Everyone in the bar stopped talking and gawked when he rolled on in and invited himself to our table. It was a hell of a sight.”

“And so you all played poker?”

Slade hedged and held up his hand. “A fifth esmeraldero sat down. Juan Cortez was his name. He was a slimy-looking character; looked as if somebody was hunting him. He didn’t have any money but we let him join the game because he said he owned three hundred and forty acres near Muzo and had a map where he knew emeralds were located. Whoever won, and believe me, he was planning on winning, would get the map. Cortez was hungry for some capital to start his venture into the area. That’s why he wanted into the game.”

“How did Cortez get this map?”

His eyes darkened. “Cat, you never ask an esmeraldero where he got anything or you’re liable to be lookin’ down the barrel of his pistol.”

“Oh.”

“The stakes got high. A lot higher than the cash I was carrying on me. I saw that glimmer in Alvin Moody’s eyes. He, like I, believed that Cortez had the real thing by the way the guy was acting. I didn’t want to fold my hand and Cortez wouldn’t take my American Express credit card as a promise of cash.”

Cat laughed. “Smart man! You might not be paid up or it could be stolen for all Cortez knew.”

“Fortunately, Alvin came to my rescue. He didn’t have to stake me but he said he’d loan me the money I wanted. If I won, he’d get half the mine.” Slade’s eyes twinkled. “Alvin had a busted card hand, so he was smart enough to sense that I was holding some pretty good ones or he wouldn’t have made the offer.”

“It wasn’t out of the generosity of his heart, was it?”

“Hell, no. Alvin’s a businessman. I’d have done the same thing.”

“Cortez must have been holding some good cards, too.”

“He was,” Slade admitted, flashing a smile. “Alvin staked me. By this time, there was twenty thousand dollars on the table. Everyone in El Toro Posada was crowded around our table: farmers, miners and drifters. It was getting pretty tense, so I laid my pearl-handled Colt .45 revolver on the table close to my right hand where everyone could see it. The crowd stepped back a couple of paces. Alvin grinned. Cortez sweated. The other four esmeralderos all bowed out with a curse as the ante continued upward. In another ten minutes, there was forty thousand dollars lying on the table with just Cortez and myself still in the game. Alvin kept peeling off thousand-dollar bills from that wad of money he had pulled out of his pocket; cool as hell.”

Cat sat up, rapt. “Well, what happened?”

Slade pushed an errant lock of hair off his brow. “I called Cortez’s hand. He grinned that evil little smile of his. He had pointy teeth that reminded me of a weasel’s. He said, ‘
Señores
, I’m happy to take your money,’ and laid out a ten of clubs, jack of diamonds, queen of clubs, king of spades and an ace of clubs.”

“A straight, ace high,” Cat acknowledged, breath lodged in her throat. “And then what happened, Slade?”

“Cortez grinned wider and threw his hands over the pile of money and raw emeralds sitting in the middle of the table. Alvin said, ‘Hold it, snake breath.’ And he gripped both of Cortez’s hands and then looked straight at me. ‘Your turn,’ he told me. So, I began laying out my cards one at a time. I started with a ten of hearts, jack of hearts, queen of hearts, king of hearts and finally, the ace of hearts.”

“My God,” Cat whispered, “a royal flush. What a time to get one.” And then she gave him a hard look. “You didn’t cheat, did you?”

Slade looked momentarily wounded. “Me?” A devastating smile pulled at his mouth. Slade held up both his hands. “Sweetheart, I’m the luckiest damn bastard you’ve ever seen. Even luckier than Alvin, and he’s not too shabby, either.”

Cat laughed with him. “So what did Cortez do? Cry?”

Slade snorted. “I can tell you’ve got a lot to learn about these snake pits in Colombia. No, he lunged for my revolver. Alvin jerked him up like a rat out of a lab jar, holding him while he screamed all kinds of curses at us. I put all our hard-earned money into every pocket I had. I even stuffed it into Alvin’s safari jacket and into that ten-gallon hat he was wearing. I knew we were in a hell of a lot of trouble. Any moment, any one of those men could jump us. I grabbed my revolver, firing it three times into the air. Everyone stepped back, eyeing us like a pack of wolves.

“Alvin held Cortez by his ragged clothes at each shoulder while I searched the little guy for his map. I found it, opened it up to make sure it wasn’t a blank piece of paper. It wasn’t. As far as I could tell, it was genuine. Cortez grudgingly signed the land deed over to us. We really didn’t have the time to stop and check it out. We had to get out of there or we’d be dead meat. Alvin dropped Cortez and then unpacked that big, evil-looking .360 Magnum, Dirty Harry type of revolver he carries, and pointed it at the crowd while we backed out of the bar.

“Outside, we hightailed it for my Jeep and dug holes getting out of there. Alvin was staying at the Tequendama Hotel, so we went over there to rest up, have a tall, cool one and see if the deed had been worth all our efforts.”

Cat stood, suddenly excited and unable to sit still any longer. “This is all true, Slade?”

“Yes. It gets better. Want a drink?”

“I could use one.”

Slade slowly uncoiled from his relaxed position and guided her back into the house. Cat sat on the stool while he went behind the bar to mix up a pitcher of margaritas. She put both elbows on the polished cedar.

“How could you verify if the map was genuine?”

“We went to the deeds office in Bogotà and checked it out. Cortez had been as good as his word. As to the possibility of emeralds on it, we had to go to the location and find out. For all we knew, Cortez could have sold us a bunch of jungle with nothing but mosquitoes and anacondas crawling all over it. We packed up the Jeep the next day and took off for the Silla de Montar Valley.”

“Where was it located?” Cat wanted to know, thanking him as he handed her a margarita.

Slade rested easily against the bar, sipping his drink. “How about two valleys over from the Muzo mines?”

Cat’s eyes widened. “That close to another emerald field?” she gasped.

“Yes, ma’am. When we located Cortez’s landholding, it was in the saddle between Caballo and Lazo Mountain. That’s how the valley got its name. Alvin and I spent a month out there.”

“What kind of rock base, Slade?”

He had her, he thought, seeing the sudden interest in Cat’s eyes. Now she was starting to ask a mining engineer’s questions.

“Calcite limestone. Prime sedimentary rock for emeralds. But then, you know that.”

“Not the black shale of Muzo?”

“No. From the core samples I took, there is a thick base of limestone just beneath the topsoil and subsoil strata.” He took a pencil from his pocket and reached for a small notepad, drawing her a quick illustration. “Perfect limestone for emeralds here,” he said. “Beneath it, black shale. My guess is that it’s the same stratum that has been pushed to the surface at Muzo.” He tapped the limestone stratum with the pencil. “Here, at our location, it’s still buried pretty deeply.”

“Why are you saying calcite limestone when all evidence points to the shale bearing the emeralds instead, Slade?”

He straightened up. “Wait here,” was all he said, and he disappeared out the door through the kitchen.

Cat sat there for what seemed a long time. By her watch, it was only five minutes, but it felt like hours. Slade came back, an enigmatic look on his face and a kidskin leather pouch in his left hand. He gently handed her the pouch.