The Legend of Goldstadt

Dear Lee,

If you're reading this letter, I'm dead.

I left you some land and some money, don’t tell your grandmother or, she'll dig me up and kill me again. Love you forever, kid. - Papa

Just like that I was crying again, but I was smiling this time. I could hear my granddad's voice in every word and, it made me feel like he wasn’t so far away.

My granddad was always there for me, hell, he's the one that taught me to be a mechanic. He took me fishing in the summer and pulled my sled behind the tractor in the winter. He was my hero, and now, he’s gone.

I folded the letter up and stuck it in my wallet.

I refocused my attention on the deed, expecting it to be back in my home town of Lexington, Kentucky.

But, to my surprise it was for 20 acres somewhere in Idaho named Waylenville.

I got out an old road atlas and found the town after about 20 minutes of searching. It was in the panhandle of Idaho, very near the Canadian border.

Strange. He never mentioned a word about this place before, maybe it was his insurance policy in case him and grandma ever split or something?

I began looking through the papers again and found a small envelope, enclosed was $20,000 cash.

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

My granddad had given me a very good start on life.

I knew then, that I had to repay him the only way I could. By accepting his gifts and building myself a life he would be proud to see me live.

The following week, I put my home and business in Alabama on the market, loaded up my 1986 Ford Ranger, and headed for Idaho.

I arrived in Waylenville after about 3 days on the road. It was a town of just 500 people.

However, it had most everything a person could need, a general store, a tavern, a gas station, and a post office.

It seemed to be a sleepy little mountain town, like the countless I had driven through to get there.

I stopped at the general store and bought a few essentials, coffee, toilet paper, a case of water, lunch meat and bread.

I asked the guy at the store if he knew whereabouts the address was and he said he'd never even heard of the road.

When I showed him the road on the Atlas, he turned kind of hostile saying,

"Mister, I don’t know what kind of joke you're trying to pull here but it isn’t funny. I've lived in these parts all my life and I've never seen that road. Now you best get what you need, and get on." He told me sternly

"Okay.. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble or anything.. I'll be on my way then." I said awkwardly before walking out the door.

And I thought mountain folk were supposed to be sweethearts, I joked to myself walking out to my truck.

I made my way up the southern slope of the mountains to the north.

After about 45 minutes of twists and turns down a rocky halfway paved road,

I approached where the atlas had suggested the road was. Despite what the old clerk said, it was there.

Surrounded by thick pine forest on either side, and barely a dirt path to follow, I could see how someone could miss it if they weren't looking for it.

I made my way down the trail slowly, cautious that I wasn’t about to get my only means of transportation stuck almost an hour from anywhere.

The path narrowed and narrowed and just when I was thinking it was time to start praying I can get turned around, it opened up into a clear cut about an acre in size. It was completely surrounded by the same thick pine forest as the path to get there was.

There in the edge of the clear cut, was a little cabin. It looked, isolated, but cozy enough. I could see a small metal lean-to style garage behind the house.

I parked my truck and took a good look at the house. It looked old but well maintained. The tin roof didn’t have any holes and the windows and door all sealed tight.

Inside, there's a ladder to a small loft just big enough for a mattress, a small kitchen area consisting of a wood stove, 3 counter tops with cabinets below and windows above, and a wash tub, I assumed was for laundry as well as dishes.

Up against the back wall, under the loft, was a wooden writing desk with a matching chair.

On its surface was a small, leather bound, black book.

I wrinkled my brow at it, picked it up, and began thumbing through the pages.

It seemed to be a journal, written in the same sloppy cursive, that letter was in.

From the journal, I learned, my granddad had bought this place a few years before meeting my grandma.

Apparently, after his time in the army, he decided he would take his savings and purchase this 20 acre parcel.

He wrote about his dreams of being a real mountain man, being able to sustain himself without the conveniences of modern life.

I set the book down, and gathered some firewood for the wood stove.

I rifled through the cabinets and found an old coffee percolator, and brewed a pot.

It was starting to get dark, when I poured my first cup of coffee.

I added a pinch of salt, like my granddad always did.

I took his journal and my beverage and adjourned to the lumpy, old mattress in the loft. I laid my sleeping bag out, and began to read again.

He writes about some of the locals not being very friendly to him. He figured maybe they just didn't trust outsiders.

Then, one day while tracking a moose through a particularly thick portion of his property, he discovered, the remains of an old mining town. He couldn't read the moss covered sign but he gathered from the architecture it was built sometime in the early 20th century.

He asked around Waylenville, but no one seemed to want to talk about it.

Until late one night, while in the local tavern, drinking and telling stories with an old timer who happened to be there. He told the man about the mining town, and how strange everyone acts when he brings it up.

At the mention of the town, the man became noticeable nervous.

Taking his hat off and rubbing the sweat from his bald head.

He looked around the mostly empty barroom like he was checking for witnesses, despite the fact there was 5 people in the whole place, including the bartender, who stood wiping the bar at the far end.

The man leaned in and told my grandfather, The Legend of Goldstadt.

The story goes, two German brothers, Mark and Harold Degenhardt, moved to the area, way back in the late eighteen-nineties, they struck gold and built their own town around the mine. Goldstadt. Life was great for the brothers until about 10 years later when the mine went dry. The town died with it.

Mark turned on Harold. Blaming their financial troubles on Harold and his wife's extravagant lifestyles. Killed him. Shot him and his wife while they were in bed. Then he took the gold they'd stashed together and hid it somewhere in the town, but no one knows where.

My grandfather found this story very interesting. He began to semi regularly search the town, going building to building thoroughly searching but couldn't find any clues regarding the activities of the town's past inhabitants.

He mapped out the area where the town was located and copied it into his journal. And added the road to the atlas I had originally used to find the property, which I only then realized had also belonged to him. He had given it to me before I left home for Alabama.

He had planned this. He wanted me to find this town. He wanted me to find the gold. My grandfather had given me a literal gold mine.

The next entry after the map was about his frustrations with not finding anything in the town thus far, and how the only place left to check were what he assumed to be the brother's private homes near the mine itself. His outlook seemed pessimistic he doubted whether this search would be any different than the others.

“Perhaps that old man had just been spinning a yarn. A tale designed to drive fools mad with greed.”

The next entry he made was also his last, it seemed like it was jotted down with haste.

"Went to check out big plantation place, someone took a shot at me from a good distance away, and nearly took my head off. Going back down the mountain today, for good."

I put the journal down, and sat back to think about what I had just read. I could hardly believe it but, there it was in ink, and my granddad wasn’t a liar by any stretch of the imagination.

With that in mind and my grandfather's journal in hand, I set out for Goldstadt the next day. I walked straight up to where the plantation house stood. I could see the mine, and smell the dank, cold air coming out of its mouth.

It gave me a chill, but, I continued. The building itself was an imposing force.

A large rundown white plantation house with 4 massive columns of mossy stone.

I made my way through its rotten door. Throughout the house, everything had been smashed and destroyed by some deranged force of nature.

The portrait that hung above the mantle in the parlor was of what I assumed to be the two brothers. Curiously, one of their faces had been burned from the picture.

The portrait gave the already macabre atmosphere an overtone of dread.

I made my way up the grandiose staircase and down the left hand hallway. At the end of the hallway was the only closed door, it had something scrolled across it but I couldn’t make it out until I got closer. Written on the outside were the words "Es tut mir leid, Bruder."

When I pushed the door open I saw a blood stained mattress, with what looked like buckshot riddling its surface. At the end of the bed was an old trunk, the trunk was opened but facing away from me. My eyes moved to the window and had to refocus from the light coming into the dark room, but when they did they were met with a grizzly sight.

In a leather armchair in the corner, was a man's skeleton still holding a shotgun under what would have been his skull. "Jesus." I said under my breath.

I began to examine the trunk, as soon as I did, I realized it was filled to the brim with gold ingots and huge fist sized nuggets.

I was stunned. There it was, mine for the taking. I smiled a greasy, greedy smile, but then, something caught my eye outside the window.

There, in full view of the window, were two graves, each was marked with a cross.

With that I began to put the pieces together in my head.

Mark must have been so over come with guilt for what he'd done that he killed himself, returning his brother's share to him before he did so.

After thinking about it, I left the gold in the house. I didn't take a single nugget with me. But I haven't sold the land either.

I left my granddad's cabin just as I found it. Took the $20,000 and opened my own auto repair shop in Oregon.

But I think that, when I die, I'll keep the property in the family.