The wind was whipping dust and dirt into our faces as the figure staggered through the swirling vortex. King Arthur was barking his head off, but he stayed with us, positioning himself exactly between the figure and Stumpy, myself, and Gabby Johnson. Whatever was coming, King Arthur was going to do his best to protect us from it.
The figure held his right hand away from his body, pointing it at the ground. He wasn’t holding anything. A thick vine wrapped around his arm and twisted around his entire body several times. As the figure stumbled out of the swirling wind, we could begin to see him more clearly.
He was a man, quite tall, but definitely only a man. He was wearing a suit, but it was filthy and torn, and his pants were nearly shredded below the knees. He didn’t so much walk as stumble. His right hand was tangled in the vine and he stretched it in front of him, as if to catch himself if he fell. We could now see that the vine was attached to something on the ground. It was leading him out of the vortex. There’d be a sharp jerk of the man’s right arm, and then he’d stumble to catch up with himself. In this way he was able to stagger out of the swirling wind.
As he pulled clear of the vortex, we could see that the other end of the vine was attached to a skunk! And a rabid skunk, by the looks of him. His fur was patchy, and the moment we could see the skunk, we could also smell his scent in the wind.
King Arthur continued to bark, and Gabby Johnson yelled over the sound of the wind, “It’s a bum!”
Stumpy grabbed the newspaper from my hand and pointed sharply at the front page. He looked back to the figure attached to the skunk and said, “That’s Mr. R. H. Peabody of the Amalgamated Mining Trust!”
And, sure enough, it was Mr. Peabody. Here in front of us, emerging from the center of a small tornado stood the richest man in Colorado, Wyoming, and probably a couple other states, too. He was filthy and tattered, and he was being led out of Eldorado Canyon by a skunk.
Soon the wind began to die down, and it seemed like the whole town was gathered around in a big circle with Mr. Peabody and the skunk in the center of it. King Arthur had stopped barking, and the wind stopped so quickly that a silence fell over the entire scene.
The silence was immediately pierced by Gabby Johnson pointing and screaming, “Skunk!”
Almost on cue, the skunk broke loose from the vines and shot Mr. Peabody directly in the chest with one final spray before scampering off into some bushes near South Boulder Creek. Mr. R. H. Peabody wobbled, but stayed upright. From the look and smell of him, that wasn’t the first skunk spray that he’d endured during his trek out of the canyon. Still, no one approached him.
Finally, we could hear him croak, “Some water… Ahh, the pool.” And he turned to stumble toward the Eldorado Springs pool. This startled the crowd -- the folks of Eldorado Springs were quite proud of their swimming pool. And there was no way they were going to let a man wash off his skunk spray in their pool, even if he was the richest man between here and California. This prompted a deputy carrying a blanket to approach him.
“Ah, Mr. R. H. Peabody, I presume,” the deputy said.
Peabody simply nodded in acknowledgement.
“Welcome to Eldorado Springs, Mr. Peabody,” the deputy said as he wrapped the blanket around the shoulders of the tattered man. “Let’s take you down by the creek here and start to get you cleaned up. I’ll have the conductor telegraph Denver to let them know we got you. There’s a heap of folks looking for you, you know.”
With the crisis averted and pool protected, the townsfolk began to disperse and murmur amongst themselves. Several were holding bandanas up in front of their noses because the stench was terrific. I found myself wishing that the vortex had left just a little breeze to move the stench of Mr. Peabody out of town, but there was no such luck. The sun was baking the mouth of Eldorado Canyon now, and the ripe smell of Mr. R. H. Peabody of the Amalgamated Mining Trust lingered throughout the town.
We took our leave of Gabby Johnson, which wasn’t difficult because she’d already scampered down to the creek edge to keep an eye on Mr. Peabody.
Stumpy, King, and I hiked back up the scrub oak on the ridge to take the mining tunnel back to Broomfield, but we couldn’t find the mine entrance anywhere.
“Where’s the tunnel entrance, King?” Stumpy asked the dog. And King just looked at him as if he didn’t comprehend a word that Stumpy was saying.
“Where’s the tunnel, boy?” I asked. King just tilted his head at me. He was back to acting like a normal dog instead of the experienced leader that Grandma had put in charge of our little gang of spies.
Stumpy kept beating the scrub oaks back with a long stick, trying to find the opening. He figured that even if we couldn’t see it, it could still be there. Just like the opening in the wall of the tunnel that King Arthur had run through on the way here. But there was no such luck this time.
After a couple minutes, King Arthur got up and started trotting home. There was nothing Stumpy or I could do except follow King east into the rising sun toward Broomfield for what should be about a five hour hike, if we didn’t lollygag.
After about a mile on the trail, we could see Grandma’s gig on the road, and we all scrambled down and hopped in. King Arthur snuggled on top of Grandma’s feet, the way he always did. And Stumpy and I took turns telling the whole story, being sure not to leave out any minor detail or exaggerate anything beyond what actually happened. I don’t think I’d be able to overstate the stench that came off of Mr. Peabody. And this made Grandma laugh and laugh everytime we mentioned it.
“So you met old Gabby Johnson, did ya?” Grandma said smiling. “Oh, she’s a real pill.”
“She knew everything about Mr. Peabody’s disappearance, Grandma,” I said excitedly. “She had every newspaper, and she said she knows people who know things!”
“Ah, she doesn’t know spit!” Grandma cackled. “And good on you boys for keeping it that way. Lord knows what kind of tale she’ll spin about today’s incident. I can’t wait to hear how it’s related to President Harding’s death. Ha!” And with that Grandma belly-laughed and snapped the reins down on Maisey to increase our pace home.
# # #
In a basement room of the Colorado state capitol building in Denver, three men hunched over a series of unrolled United States Geological Survey maps of the land northwest of Eldorado Springs, Colorado. There was no light in the room except for a metal hanging light fixture that swung slightly on its cord directly above the table. The sway of the light caused a shimmering motion in the shadows the men cast on the walls. The room housed thousands of rolled up survey maps of the entire state of Colorado.
“There,” said Mr. R. H. Peabody of the Amalgamated Mining Trust, pointing to Eldorado Springs on the USGS map. He traced the map with his index finger through Eldorado Canyon and past Rattlesnake Gulch. He followed the thin blue line of South Boulder Creek up near Kentucky Gulch. Then he traced in a northwesterly direction past Winiger Ridge and into Forsythe Canyon, where he stopped and bent down very close to the map to examine every contour line and landmark. He closed his eyes for an uncomfortably long time, and then whispered, “What’s this place called?”
“That’s the southern end of Forsyth Canyon, Mr. Peabody,” said George Myers, the engineer for the state of Colorado. George Myers leaned in to get a better view of the topographic map. As he did so, he could smell the faint, yet distinctive scent of skunk emanating from Mr. Peabody. George Myers suppressed a grin as he thought to himself, “So the stories must be true. I can’t wait to tell Marge!”
But any amusement that Engineer Myers may have felt at that moment disappeared when, much to his horror, Mr. Peabody pulled a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and scribbled a line back and forth several times directly on the USGS map. He scrawled the line directly across South Boulder Creek between two peaks near Winiger Ridge.
“There.” Mr. R. H. Peabody of the Amalgamated Mining Trust grunted, still reeking of skunk from his journey through the valley of the Broomsquatch. “That’s where we’ll build the dam.”