Fallout!: a Novel by Lawrence Dunning

Author:Lawrence Dunning [Dunning, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504028950
Publisher: Open Road Distribution
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

“May I help you, sir?”

The small nameplate over her plump right breast identified her as Mrs. Elise Forester, Bureau of Land Management. Pollack consulted the notes he had jotted down during a telephone conversation with someone in their information office. “Is this the Engineering and Survey Records Office?” he asked her.

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Then I guess you can help me. I’d like to dig through some old mining claim records but I’m afraid I don’t have much to go on. Just a name—Eubanks, Oliver Eubanks.”

“Are you Mr. Eubanks?”

“No,” Pollack said, “he’s my father-in-law. My wife and I are trying to locate some mining property that’s been in her family for years.”

Mrs. Forester looked slightly skeptical. “Well, sir, we have no way of running a locator by name. Mining patents aren’t filed alphabetically. Perhaps if you have the section, range, and township … ”

“No, I’m sorry—I see I should have come better prepared. The only thing besides the name that I’m sure of is the approximate location, somewhere north of Central City in the direction of Rollinsville.”

“Oh, that should be a help,” Mrs. Forester said. She went to a filing cabinet and brought back a large-scale platted map showing all the townships in the area he had mentioned. “These ought to do it,” she said, jotting down the numbers on a slip of paper. From under the counter she brought a huge book that contained a chronological listing of the mines patented in the particular geographic area he had asked about.

“I’m afraid this may be quite a job,” she apologized. “You’re welcome to look through the book for your father-in-law’s name—what was it, Eubanks?—but of course you realize only the original claimants, the person or persons filing the original patent on the discovery of the lode, will be shown. Some of these old mines have been bought, sold, traded, and subdivided ten or fifteen times since the original ownership.”

“That’s fine. Thanks for your help,” Pollack said, and took the book to a table off in a corner of the room reserved for just such laborious research.

When he returned the book to Mrs. Forester almost two hours later he had managed to find four different mines in the Central City area originally staked out by Oliver Eubanks; two of them were filed under “Oliver and Corinne Eubanks” and one of these was named “Letitia #1.” Letty, he concluded. He had written down the exact location of each mine, down to the quarter-section. Now what he needed were some good topographic maps of the general area, and the place for those was the U.S. Geological Survey.

On the way downtown to the Federal Building in the red Mustang he realized that he felt good; it even seemed possible that he might be getting some answers soon. It bothered him, though, that there were so many people involved in what should have been a simple, straightforward case—Reitzman, Dr. Welles, Henry Richardson, George, Letty, Andres Kudirka and his wife. All of them were linked together

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