Chapter One
April, 1999, Patagonian Chile, near Punta Arenas

Patagonia, just as Stan remembered it – the never ceasing wind, the bleak landscape stretching to the horizon. A herd of rheas, the local ostrich-like bird browsing by the roadside, legged it off into the scrub brush when the truck appeared. Stan watched Jose Gomez fight the steering wheel, concentrating, the collar of his heavy winter coat turned up against the cold.

“How are things at the mine?” Stan asked.

Jose took a moment to reply.

“Bad, muy malo. We lose money on every ton of ore. The copper price is the shits. It seems hopeless. Sixty-five cents a pound and no one thinks she’ll ever come back.”

“Yeah, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Still, I believe prices will move up soon. That’s why I’m here.”

Jose gave him a quick smile.

“Don’t get me wrong, Stan. Claro. I’m grateful you are. The owners of the mine are ready to walk away. Just hand the mine to the banks. You know those bastards. They’ll close us down and sell off anything they can. Tough times ahead, senor.”

“Any interest from other buyers?” Stan glanced at Jose, but the response was immediate.

“Not that I hear. The big bosses are all in Santiago, and not much real information trickles down here. Maybe there is some local interest. But I don’t put much stock in the rumors – el correo de las brujas – the witches’ mail, as we say in Chile. You’re the only person who’s come to the mine to check out her production and look her over.”

“Remember the last time I was here, Jose? I liked what I saw. When I heard that the mine might be for sale, it got me thinking.”

“Tell me your plan.”

“Sorry, amigo, I’m keeping that to myself for the time being. Just don’t think of me as a threat. I want to find a way to keep this mine in business. Think you could live with the big bosses being in Vancouver?”

“No es problema.” Jose provided the universal Chilean response.

The four-by-four rolled up to the security fence. While Jose went to sign him in and get him a hard hat, Stan got out to take a look at the pit. Cobre El Condor, forty miles from Punta Arenas, and about as far south as one can go in Chile, was an open pit copper mine on the flat featureless landscape separating the Straits of Magellan and the Pacific Ocean. Not huge as open pit mines go. Still, it was a hole in the ground about a mile across and five hundred feet deep.

An open pit is like a wedding cake, only upside down. Each layer or bench gets smaller as the pit works its way deeper. The job is to scrape all the cake out of the hole and haul it to a mill on top. To the mining engineer, an open pit mine is an interesting mathematical puzzle. How big to make the hole? How deep to go? Just the first steps in a massive construction job with tons and tons of rock moved from the bottom of the pit to the top.

Stan felt the adrenaline begin to pump as he looked into the pit. The geological mystery unlocked. Fame and riches reaped by someone. He had always wanted to be that someone – a geologist who found a mine. Revered for the rare combination of geological savvy, perseverance, and yes – luck. He had thought the mine property in Mexico was the one. But the people around him were con artists and frauds. The result – not fame, but ignominy and financial disaster. At least Mexico had sharpened his Spanish. Now he had another chance, maybe his last. Here, at the uttermost place on earth.

Jose drove around the edge of the pit to the maintenance yard and shops. The shops were in a large high-ceilinged building, a bit like an aircraft hanger, painted olive green. Jose introduced Stan to the maintenance foreman – Cito, a big guy with a quick smile. Jose explained that their visitor wanted a look at the haulage trucks and the main haulage road before heading back to town.

“I got paper work, Stan. Cito will drive you down into the pit. Show you anything you want to see. Come to the office when you’re finished, and I drive you to the hotel.”

Cito explained that El Condor used two big shovels in the pit to load the broken rock into the haulage trucks which then took it from the bottom of the pit to the top, either to the mill or waste-rock dump.

“You like my pequeno truck?” asked Cito, waving his bear-like hand at the vehicle towering over them.

“I’m not sure I’d call it small, Cito. That’s a real climb to get to the cab.”

“Twenty high overall and carries fifty tons at a time. The really big ones stand twenty-five feet and haul two hundred tons and more,” Cito said, grinning broadly.

Stan had done his homework on haulage trucks and knew how big they were and how much time it took to complete a cycle from the bottom of the pit to the top, dump the ore, and get back down and load again. His plan would reduce the round trip from thirty-five minutes to twenty-five. By improving productivity, the mine would turn a small operating profit. He desperately wanted to confirm the details behind his calculation.

Driving the pickup like a true Chilean, Cito recklessly sped down the gravel road hugging the side of the pit.

“Que eso?” asked Cito, pointing to the black package the size of a cell phone that Stan took out of his pocket.

“A global position finder, a GPS,” said Stan. “It tells you within 25 yards where you are – anywhere in the world. Uses US military satellites. When I turn it on and point it at the sky it searches until it finds three satellites, and from the satellites it can than tell you your position. Neat, eh?”

Stan switched it on, holding it so Cito could see the display light up.

“This one gives the altitude too. I thought I’d practice in the pit. See if I can calculate the grade of the uphill section of the road. Let me off at the top of the next steep stretch. I’ll take some measurements and walk to the bottom.”

Stan also had another reason for the GPS; he was going to visit forests on Tierra del Fuego and he would need accurate locations. Cito stopped and Stan got out. The road was wide enough for two big trucks to meet and pass comfortably. The inside edge hugged the pit wall and rose sharply. The outside edge dropped away – a near vertical slope. Any truck that went over the edge would be junk when it hit bottom.

Stan stood on the outside rim of the road, waiting for the GPS to give a reading. He was aware of big trucks passing him, up and down the road, but was absorbed with recording the position and altitude.

Finished, he paused to watch a shovel at the bottom of the pit loading a truck. Its bucket was the size of a small house. Two shovelfuls and the truck was loaded for the long uphill grind. Stan started to walk down.

Over his shoulder, he saw a haulage truck coming straight at him dangerously close to the outside edge. The driver, just a shadow, was perched high in the cab. As the truck got closer, Stan could see black hair and a bushy beard. Surely, the driver could see him, coming closer and closer. No, it wasn’t black hair, but a black toque and a cigarette dangled in the full beard. He dropped the GPS and waved frantically with both arms. Why wasn’t the truck steering away?

Stan dodged toward the inside edge of the road, but the truck tracked with him. If there’d been a gun sight, he was in the cross hairs. The inside wall was vertical rock. Over the edge? Not an option: a deadly seventy-foot drop. As the truck bore down on him he could see the details of its rust-pitted grill. He tried to control the rising panic.

At the last moment he dropped and rolled. The middle, please, the middle. A tire tread loomed close. He twisted away, huddling in the fetal position. Tires scrunched on gravel. Then silence. The truck had passed right over him.

“Bloody hell,” muttered Stan, lying on the road, choking on dust and in pain. His scraped hand throbbed, but he could move everything. Turning, he watched the truck rumbling down the road in a cloud of grey dust. He shook his fist at the driver, but it was his whole body, not his fist, that shook. Shook uncontrollably.

Blood dripped from his hand, darkening the dust. Had that been deliberate? Or hadn’t the driver seen him? Maybe the sun had been in his eyes. Stan looked round and spied the flattened GPS. The truck had run over it. He shuddered. Electronic roadkill.

Chapter Two

Punta Arenas, Chile

Stan sat finishing breakfast in the ornate dining room of the Hotel Magellan. A Chilean breakfast – hard rolls, butter and jam, and cafe con leche. The coffee was good, real coffee. What Chileans call cafe cafe to distinguish it from the instant stuff that is, all too often, the norm in Chile. Somewhere in the dim distant past an advertising genius hooked Chileans on Nescafe, and an American fad from the 1950s was still running amok.

Stan was waiting for Rick Mackenzie, a helicopter pilot and friend he had met in the Yukon. Sipping his café cafe con leche, Stan reflected on his trip from Vancouver to Punta Arenas. He had flown Vancouver, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Santiago, with a stopover in Toronto for a couple of days. George Shepherd, his father, lived about fifty miles northwest of Toronto in the Caledon Hills. A retired electrical engineer, he had spent his working life with a large electrical utility.

Stan knew his father worried about him. George had worked diligently for the company all his life and never missed a pay check. Stan was always working on his own deals, and a regular pay check was always beyond his grasp. George couldn’t understand Stan’s gypsy lifestyle, as he called it. Get a job, settle down, and marry, was his often-stated advice. It was a long-standing source of tension between father and son, and remained undiminished with time.

Stan’s mother had died two years earlier, just after his dad retired. George had been shaken and depressed by his wife’s death; retirement had always been discussed in terms of what they dreamed they would do. The place near Caledon was a country retreat that was to be their retirement home.

George had confided to Stan in those dark days, “You know I’d like to get a dog, but I’m afraid a dog would outlive me. And then what would happen to the dog?”

“What kind of a dog?” Stan asked.

“Oh, not too big, not too small, just a mutt to walk with me for two or three hours at a time. Be an all around pal.”

The next time Stan visited, he brought a ten-week old English cocker spaniel with him, an enthusiastic bundle of black and white fur.

“He’s for you, Dad, and comes with a guarantee that if ever you can’t give him a home, I will.”

A Toronto Blue Jay fan, George still lamented the day they traded Joe Carter. He named the dog Joe, and they became inseparable.

***

On this visit, Stan, George, and Joe had walked a favorite section of the Bruce trail and talked. George at six-two was taller than Stan. Stan had to lengthen his stride to keep up.

“Have you talked to Sylvia?” asked George.

“No. She won’t return my calls.”

George shook his head. “You know you really messed up there, son. Your mother liked her. We thought …. Well, you know what we thought.”

Marriage. Grandchildren. He’d cocked that up.

“Didn’t you say you’re going to Chile again?” George asked, leaving further discussion of Sylvia behind.

Stan paused. He wasn’t sure he wanted this discussion either.

“Yeah. I’m going to look at a mine in the far south.”

“What’s the deal this time?” There was a hint of disapproval in his father’s voice.

“I’m gambling again, Dad, if you must know. There’s a mine for sale. The concept’s simple – buy it, increase productivity, and keep it going even with the low price of copper. When the price turns around, the mine will be worth a lot of money.”

“Okay, but you don’t have the money to buy a mine,” George said.

“True. I’m going to buy an option and sell it to someone else.”

George looked at Stan and raised an eyebrow.

“Remember my friend Sally Hughes from university days?”

“Sure. She was a real looker as I recall – tall and all that red hair,” George replied.

“Yeah. Well, she’s more than just a stunning redhead. She’s one of the shrewdest mining minds around. She’s president of a company called Red Bear Mines. The company has a copper mine in British Columbia – the West Kootneys, and Sally’s its biggest shareholder. But the mine will be out of ore in a year and a half. She needs another mine, and I think she’ll buy the mine in Chile.”

George shook his head slowly. “You and your schemes.”

“Please, can we skip the lecture?”

“You’re thirty-seven. Make your own decisions.”

George whistled for Joe, and men and dog walked in companionable silence. It was springtime and Ontario had finally shaken off winter. Trees, fields, everything was greening up with subtle shades of green everywhere.

A little later George asked, “How much is this option going to cost?”

Stan shrugged his shoulders. “Twenty thousand for four months, renewable for another four for another twenty thousand.”

“Where’s the money coming from?” asked George warily.

“Relax, Dad, I’m not here to hit you up. I re-mortgaged the condo. The increase in Vancouver housing prices in the last ten years is financing this scheme.”

The lie rolled off his tongue. He wasn’t going to admit to his father that he’d been conned out of $200,000 in Mexico. He was down to a $25,000 personal line of credit and a wallet bulging with credit cards.

“So, how much might you make on this deal?”

“Lots, I hope. I’m going for serious money. I’ll ask for $250,000 if a deal to buy the mine is made, plus a couple of bonus payments based on the future price of copper. A million dollars if copper reaches eighty-five cents a pound, another million if it gets to a dollar.

“If…,” said George, shaking of his head.

“Yeah. I know copper is only sixty-five cents a pound right now. But it will turn around. I can feel it. It’ll be a dollar ten within two years, maybe sooner.”

“You just can’t seem to get crazy mining schemes out of your system, can you?” George stopped his hands on his hips.

Stan ignored the statement. He didn’t want to argue. “Come on. Let’s head back. You can offer me a drink.”

George called the dog, and the trio turned for home.

His father had it right. He just couldn’t resist chasing a mining deal. He should have been born a hundred years earlier when he could have joined in the Klondike Gold Rush.

As a geologist, he had raised the grubstakes and spent every summer in search of the mother lode in some remote corner of Canada or Alaska. But the statistics on finding a mine are unforgiving: only one prospect in five thousand has ore rich enough to make a mine.

After ten years, and near death from black flies, he absorbed this brutal statistic. Or at least thought he had. He went back to university, and three years later had a Master’s in resource economics. He had a business card describing himself as a consultant specializing in mineral and energy resources, yet the addiction, the lure of finding a mine, was a strong as ever.

But the Copper Condor was different. It wasn’t the glitter in the rocks that drew him this time. It was turning a losing situation into a winner, for Sally and Red Bear, and for himself.

***

“How are they hanging, Sport?”

Startled from his thoughts, Stan looked up to a Canucks baseball cap and a wide grin.

“Rick, it’s good to see you. Thanks for coming.”

Stan grasped the hand offered and pumped it.

“No es problema as we say in Chile. I’ve been looking forward to your visit. Jesus, what happened to your hand?”

Stan gave Rick a quick description of the events at the mine and the rundown.

“You dove right under a truck. Are you crazy?”

“Desperate. But I’ve been under big trucks before. I knew there was room. It was getting my body to believe my brain. I was scared shitless when I went under.”

Stan glimpsed the rust-pitted grill of the truck in his mind, and shivered.

Rick lowered his voice. “Think it was deliberate?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m seen as a threat. You know – foreigners buy a mine, dismantle it, makes some quick money, and everybody loses their job. Solution – run over the gringo.”

“Shit, you still seem to have a way of stepping into it.”

Stan shrugged. “How about you? How do you like it here? What’s it been – two years?”

“Almost three. Punta Arenas is okay. The flying’s interesting, and the money’s good. But I miss Vancouver.”

Stan had met Rick ten years earlier in the Yukon. Stan was supervising an exploration and diamond-drilling program, and Rick was the helicopter pilot ferrying men and materials in and out of the remote camp. They hit it off, sharing some memorable times that summer. A couple years later Rick turned up flying for a Vancouver-based company. Stan recruited him for his recreational hockey team, and they became good friends. Rick was a goalie, which made perfect sense to Stan. You have to be a little crazy to fly a helicopter or stop six ounces of rubber traveling ninety miles an hour.

“How’s Sylvia?” asked Rick hesitantly.

“We broke up,” responded Stan.

Rick waited, and Stan knew he’d have to elaborate.

“Okay. She left me. Said she was tired of living with someone who was never there.” The verbatim had been a little sharper – “tired of living with an immature asshole that chases one stupid mine after another.”

“Hum. I thought you guys were headed for the altar.”

“Yeah. Well, we’re not. We haven’t talked in three months.”

“What happened?” asked Rick.

“I messed up. I was in Mexico, looking over a silver property. I got caught by one of those Gulf of Mexico hurricanes and couldn’t get a flight out, and missed her thirtieth birthday. Missed the big party.”

“Bummer, Sport.”

“Yeah, bummer all right. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it.”

The missed birthday party and bust up were bad enough. Then there was the $200,000, and the whispers going around that his professional judgment was kaput.

“How’d the team do this year? Still got that fluttery backhand shot?” laughed Rick, moving the conversation to happier ground.

“Yeah, and I still can’t skate backwards.”

They talked on for a few minutes, bullshitting about games won and lost, shots made and missed, hangovers shared. Finally, Rick asked, “What is this flying you want to do?”

Stan paused to collect his thoughts before responding. “Two trips. First, I need to see a property owned by the Copper Condor Mine. It’s about seventy miles southwest of here, on the other side of the Brunswick Peninsula. There is a tote road, but it’s not very reliable at this time of year. The property dates from the early days. Placer gold was found in one of the streams, not long after the gold rush on Tierra del Fuego. There was some mining in the twenties and again in the fifties. Free gold associated with quartz veins. The reports say the gold petered out as the adit was driven further in.”

“So why are you bothering to look? Do you think something was missed?”

“No. I expect the reports are accurate. Just some old workings – nothing of real interest. I just need to kick the tires and cross it off my list. Part of my due diligence on the mine.”

“No es problema. When you want to do this?”

“I need about three days at the mine next week. How about next Thursday?”

“Sure, what’s the second one?” asked Rick.

“A forest on Tierra del Fuego.”

“Forest! What the fuck do you know about trees?”

Chapter Three

Brunswick Peninsula, near Punta Arenas, Chile

The waiting room of South Patagonia Helicopters at the Punta Arenas airport did not inspire confidence. An ugly gray couch sat against one wall. A coffee table in front of it held an ashtray full of cigarette butts. A couple of yellow plastic chairs plus a desk cluttered with paper in one corner completed the furnishings. The room’s highlight was a series of faded travel posters of Chilean volcanoes – Osorio, Puntiagudo, and Villarrica with a wisp of steam at its top.

Stan waited inside for Rick to finish the final checks on the helicopter. He had spent three days at the Copper Condor working through the data – operating results, machinery capabilities, financials. Most importantly, he spent part of each day timing the haul trucks as they made the circuit from the bottom of the pit to the mill on top and down again.

Rick stuck his head in the waiting room and announced they were ready to go. Stan hefted his pack and followed. The pack had his essentials – a geologist’s hammer, a new GPS, a camera, a twenty-six ounce bottle of Famous Grouse scotch, and an old report and map of the mine workings provided by Jose. Stepping outside, the wind hit him. It was blowing hard, but when wasn’t it in Patagonia?

Stan was familiar with the Bell Ranger and the routine – buckle up and put on a head set.

“Look at the map,” Rick said. “I’ve marked where I think the old mine should be.”

Stan flattened out the map and found Punta Arenas. The mine was on the opposite side of the Brunswick Peninsula. Jose’s instructions were to follow a long narrow inlet to a small bay. There was a ranch house on the north side of the bay, the old mine on the south side. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Rick checked the weather and the flight plan with the airport traffic controller. Then switched on the fuel and pressed the ignition button. The rotor blade began a slow rotation and the engine fired. Stan smelt a whiff of turbo fuel as the blade rapidly picked up speed and they lifted off.

“What do you know about this place?” Rick asked.

“Not much. Jose spoke on the radiophone yesterday to the rancher, so we’re expected. The rancher’s name is Hector Paz. Jose says he’s a good guy, a bon vivant.”

“How’d things go at the mine?”

“Okay. It’s a good mine. Well run. It’s just the price of copper is the pits.”

“What about the truck that ran over you?”

Stan looked toward Rick and frowned. “I talked to the driver. A big uncommunicative son of a bitch named Milo. Said he didn’t see me. Thought maybe the sun was in his eyes. What a load of bull. I rode a couple of circuits in one of the trucks yesterday, and there was no sun in my eyes.”

Rick held the helicopter about five hundred feet off the treetops, climbing they reached the top of the hills that formed the spine of the peninsula. Dropping down the other side, Stan spotted the inlet, and Rick followed it south until a bay appeared on the left-hand side. A river flowed into it, a river in a broad valley bordered by low hills.

Rick brought them in low and set down on a grassy patch beside the river. A single story ranch house nestled into the hillside with a windbreak of trees protecting its west side from the ever-present wind.

Stan noted a tall athletic-looking man with a head of wavy gray hair standing at a cautious distance from the helicopter. Rick quickly killed the engine, and the rotor slowed to a stop. Stan climbed out and walked over, offering a smile.

“Benvenito. Welcome to the Estancia Cordova. Hector Paz, a sus ordenes.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hector. I’m Stan Shepherd. And this is Rick Mackenzie.” Hector grasped Stan’s hand, delivered a firm handshake, and then grasped the hand Rick offered.

“Come, we go inside. Jose tells me maybe you buy the Copper Condor. This is good, no?” Hector said.

“You know Jose well?”

“Si. He comes to see the old mine. Now he comes to fish the trout in the lakes up the valley.”

“Really. Good fishing?”

“Muy buena. Trout, a kilo or more, on the dry fly in the summer. Brown trout, two kilo, three even, on the wet fly, even now as winter approaches.”

Terrific, thought Stan, trout fishing. Sally won’t be able to resist this deal.

“Come.” Hector turned toward the ranch house.

Stan admired the house as they walked toward it. It was typical of the Spanish style popular in Chile. Plastered cream colored walls. A verandah across the front with scalloped arches between posts supported a shake roof, and windows flanked by shutters between the arches. A building to admire for its perfect proportions.

On the verandah, Hector turned and pointed to the hillside across the valley. “About half way up, see the ruins of the bunkhouse and the mill. And above, to the right, the entrance to the mine.”

Stan shaded his eyes, spotting the black hole that must be the entrance of the adit. Hector turned and led them into the house. Inside was a handsome entrance hall – a wool rug in earth-colored tones on a plank floor and a large cupboard for coats. Two portraits of what Stan assumed were Hector’s ancestors looked down from one of the walls.

“Come, we go through to my room. There’s a fire, and you can warm up.”

The room was comfortable – a stone fireplace with a massive slab of light mahogany-like wood for a mantel, stuffed chairs facing the fireplace, bookshelves along one wall, and guns and photos on another. Rick went immediately to the gun display.

“Tell me about these, Hector?” Rick asked.

“Oh, some old, some modern. The flintlock is a family heirloom. My father’s family comes from Spain; the musket was booty taken from the French at Salamanca in 1812. The shotgun belonged to my father, a gift from his father. The lever action Winchester is for the pumas. Those big cats, they like my newborn calves. I lose three or four every spring.”

Stan moved over to the photos – pictures of the ranch house, of cattle being loaded on a barge, and of the mine. Hector joined him.

“That’s the mine in 1923. Those boys come from all over the world – some were miners, but most were ex-solders drifting from job to job. The first gold, she is found in the river in 1905, but the placer miners moved on when the river had no gold upstream. The quartz veins were discovered in 1920 and a tunnel started. You can see that it was a lively place in 1923 – a mill, bunkhouse, track and dump cars.”

“What about the estancia?” asked Stan.

“I was born here. My father bought this property, all 30,000 hectares, in 1928. It was a sheep station, owned by one of the big land holding companies. My father was more interested in cattle.”

“The corrals I saw as we came in are for cattle?” asked Stan.

“Si. I, too, am a cattleman.”

A young woman walked into the room, and conversation stopped. She was dressed simply in a white blouse and blue jeans, with a multi-colored vest over the blouse. She was pretty, the white blouse accentuating her dark hair and eyes. Stan stole a quick glance at Rick.

“Papi, I expect you’ve been talking and haven’t offered our guests anything to drink,” she chided.

Hector turned to her and smiled. “Senores, may I present my daughter, Estela.”

Stan and Rick introduced themselves, Rick with the Chilean greeting shaking the hand offered and lightly kissing the offered cheek. Dammit, Rick was way ahead of him.

Estela was on holiday from her nursing post in Punta Arenas. Stan watched the shy glances between daughter and father as Hector described her accomplishments. Hector obviously took great pride and pleasure in his daughter.

Breaking the cozy atmosphere, Stan asked if they could check the mine out first. He feared the weather might turn nasty. In Patagonia, one could never trust the weather.

***

Stan and Hector walked briskly along the track from the old mine toward the estancia. Rick and Estela lingering ten yards behind in animated chatter. The mine workings held no surprises. The adit was not safe; about thirty meters in, a rock fall blocked further access. He took a series of chip samples across the quartz veins. On the hillside he traced the veins up the hill about five hundred meters until the vein pattern became erratic with numerous smaller veins widely separated. No point arguing with the old report – the vein structure had petered out.

“Tell me about your cattle, Hector.”

“I breed two hundred and fifty cows. Every year I round up. I bring in a barge, and the yearlings go to market.” Hector waved his arm toward a ramp at the water’s edge.

“When’s the round up?” asked Stan.

“Late summer. This year was two months ago. Is hard work getting those damn cattle to move. They have their own minds after a summer doing what they like. But we have some fun too. I have a hauso, a rodeo. Is not like an American rodeo. We do not throw the ropes over calves or ride the bucking horse. The hauso celebrates the skill of the horse and the horseman herding cattle. People come from other estancias and from town. The road is still okay then.”
“What about the cattle I see in the corral?”

“Ah, those are my bulls. Plus two bull calves I keep. I want to buy a real champion bull. But I can not afford, so I keep the best calves. Maybe someday….”

Chapter Four

Tierra del Fuego, Chile

High clouds and a weak sun showed through from time to time, much like the previous day and the flight to Hector’s estancia. Today they were flying a Sikorsky twin. Stan could feel the bigger, heavier helicopter lurching about in the unrelenting wind. Punta Arenas behind them, they were following the coast of the Brunswick Peninsula south.

“I’m going to start the climb now,” said Rick. “I’ll take her to 5000 feet before we turn east, over the water toward Tierra del Fuego. We’ll go via Dawson Island to keep the open water stretches to about ten miles.”

The Straits of Magellan were about 42 oF year round, and ditching a helicopter in the Straits meant hypothermia and death. The Sikorsky had two engines. Safer, but, hell, safe is just a relative term in a helicopter. Stan could accept the usual quick killers – power lines and mountains, but the idea of a cold lingering death in the water brought on a nervous sweat. Safer meant maxing out the credit card, but if the cold water and the inevitable were the alternative….

“Tell me again. What happens if we lose power?” Stan asked.

“We can still fly on one engine. If we lose both – you pray, and I stretch the auto-rotate glide as far as I can. With this wind at our back we could lose power and still make it across,” said Rick, holding up crossed fingers.

“Great. What about fighting the wind on the way back?”

Rick shrugged before replying. “If the wind is really blowing, we may have to stay over in Porvenir.”

Twenty minutes later, the Straits were behind them, and Rick had dropped the helicopter to 500 feet. Rick held a course along the shoreline on the Tierra del Fuego side. Bahia Intil, Useless Bay, no doubt named by a frustrated mariner, on the left-hand side and Tierra del Fuego stretching endlessly on the right. Gustavo Radic was supposed to be waiting at a river crossing on the road east of a hamlet called Cameron. Spotting the bridge, Rick swung the helicopter in a wide arc to bring the machine into the wind.

Stan could see a compact, powerful-looking man dressed in a worn winter coat standing beside a battered four-by-four. Rick came in low, setting the helicopter a short distance from the vehicle. As the rotor swept slowly around, Stan jumped down and sketched a wave at the man.

Under the fur hat Stan saw a bushy moustache and eyebrows framing a ruddy face. He shook the outstretched hand and shouted, “Let’s get on board. We can talk there. Watch your head.”

The man looked apprehensively at the rotor and followed Stan’s example – head down in a crouch. Rick gave Stan a hand, and he clambered into the helicopter and a rear seat. The man followed and Rick helped settle him in the front seat and handed him headphones, and explained how they worked. After some unnecessary shouting, he understood that he could use a normal conversational voice.

“Stan, maybe you can take over now.”

“Okay, I’m Stan Shepherd. And our pilot is Rick – Rick Mackenzie. Gustavo, right?”

“Si, Gustavo. A pleasure to meet you. Let me warn you, I have never been in a helicopter before. So excuse me if I am a little … uneasy.” A partially suppressed nervous laugh followed.

“You are in good hands, Gustavo,” said Rick. “I’ll take it up gently.”

Rick turned back to his controls and the machine rose with a slow turn, and headed east.

“I’d like to see the forest you contacted Pablo Reyes about.” Stan said. “We’ll fly over it and land in two or three spots.”

“Claro, follow the road, and I show you where to turn and go south. Such a wonderful view from up here.”

They followed the road. His nose right up against the Plexiglas, Gustavo pointed out landmarks and provided a running commentary on the countryside. Stan could sense the man’s wonder and excitement of his first helicopter flight. Gustavo pointed to a rutted track off the main road, and they turned south.

The flat, open pampas quickly gave way to a gently rising slope and forest. It was almost as if there was a demarcation line – open range to their left, forest on their right, mountains beyond. Gustavo pointed to a clearing and a rudimentary hut.

“Can you put us down there?” Stan asked.

“Sure, Sport, wherever you want.” Bringing the helicopter into the wind, Rick eased down to the clearing.

“Will we be long?” asked Rick.

“About an hour, maybe less.”

“Let me shut down before you get out. We seem to be protected from the wind here. There should be no problem.”

The rotor at rest, Rick jumped down, came around to the passenger side, and helped Gustavo with the headphones and seat belt. Gustavo climbed down and Stan followed. Stan could hardly believe what he saw. Huge trees reached into a high canopy – open, hardly any undergrowth. Tall with a rough ribbed bark – the trees looked like elms. Their straight trunks led to a dense overhead canopy of branches. An overnight snow had created a forest fairyland, and the clean crisp smell of the outdoors hit them hard. Tendrils of moss hung down from their branches. They reminded Stan of the wispy beards of ancient oriental gentlemen. Not moss, Gustavo corrected him, but mistletoe, a serious parasite. It drained a tree’s vigor and even killed in some instances.

“Wow,” said Stan. “How old are they?”

“For the big ones, one hundred years. Then they grow no more and begin to die. At one hundred and fifty years they are like that.” Gustavo pointed to a rotting log lying on the forest floor.

Stan slowly turned round absorbing everything. So this is the forest that Pablo thinks will make him a fortune.

“I want some photos, Gustavo. Stand in front of that one over there with your arms out. It will show the size of the trunk.” Stan pointed to a tree at the edge of the clearing. He pulled out his camera from his backpack, and walked over to take a picture of Gustavo – arms out-stretched and a big grin on his face. Stan quickly framed a series of shots, catching different views of the trees and forest.

“Okay, now to work. I want to do a survey line and measure individual trees so Pablo can estimate volume,” Stan said.

“Tell me what you want done,” responded Rick.

“Okay. Walk in that direction as far as you can but still keep the helicopter in sight,” said Stan, pointing between two trees.

Stan now took the global positioning unit from his pack and turned it on. A hatchet, a notebook, two pieces of rope, and a roll of florescent orange survey tape followed as the GPS sought its satellites and Stan answered Gustavo’s questions. The GPS had just found their position as Rick shouted and waved his arms in the distance. Stan took a bearing with his compass and waved Rick to his right until the bearing was due east.

“Gustavo, take the hatchet and the tape and mark the line from here to where Rick is. Blaze the trees and tie bits of tape to the smaller stuff. Watch me and I’ll try to keep you on line.”

Gustavo headed toward Rick. Checking the GPS, Stan pushed the button to record the position. Gustavo was doing a good job, looking back from time to time and correcting his bearing as directed. Reaching into his pack again, Stan pulled out beer coasters from the Magellan Hotel. On their backs were numbers starting at 1. Following Gustavo’s markings, he paced his way toward Rick, placing a coaster every fifth pace. A skill developed from his geological mapping and prospecting days. Each double pace was five feet. Twenty beer coasters later he beckoned Rick and Gustavo to him.

“Okay. We have a 500-foot baseline. Next, we measure the circumference of the larger trees within 30 feet of the baseline. Gustavo, you measure the trees at chest height, with the small rope. It’s marked in feet. Rick, you use the longer rope to measure the distance to the baseline.” Stan handed each a rope.

The first couple trees were a learning experience, but they quickly developed a rhythm. Gustavo selected the trees and shouted the circumferences. Rick stretched the longer rope and reported the distance as Gustavo held the rope to the tree, and Stan jotted in his notebook. They worked their way toward the helicopter on one side of the baseline and back to the starting point on the other. Stan picked up the beer coasters and bits of survey tape as they walked back to the helicopter. He didn’t want to leave any evidence of his interest in the forest.

“So let me understand this.” Rick grinned. “It took you twenty beers to figure out this little scheme.”

“More. Every time I got to six beers, I couldn’t remember what I was doing.”

“Will this work?” asked Rick.

“I hope so. I’m used to setting survey line to record chip samples, not trees. But this is what Pablo asked for. Let’s go. I want to do two more locations.”

Two hours later, they sat on a log beside a small lake, the third baseline completed. The lake had a skin of ice near the shore, but there was open water further out. Winter was beginning to grip the landscape. The packed lunch from the hotel disappeared quickly.

“Tell me about the Indigo Group, Gustavo?” Stan asked, as he meted out the last of the coffee.

“Ah. We are four plus me. Three live in Punta Arenas and one in Porvenir. We are two lawyers, a doctor and a guy who owns trucks. They are speculatores. They buy the forest from the government five years ago. And some is private land from old grants. Is about 60,000 hectares within twenty-five miles where we stand. And 25,000 more further east near the Argentine. The first place we go – has been my family’s for many years, is twenty thousand hectares.”

“So the Indigo Group has 85,000 hectares for sale. How much is forest?” asked Stan.

“When you subtract the bog and the lakes, about sixty, maybe sixty-five thousand. We want to do a deal with a forest company – someone with experience and money. We think a fifty-fifty joint venture.” Gustavo looked at Stan for a response.

“Gustavo, I’m just doing Pablo a favor. I don’t know what he plans. By the way, how do you know him?”

“I don’t. Professor Cortez of the Universidad de Chile told him to contact me. The professor, he studies these forests for many, many years. He comes every summer, measures the trees, puts the holes in them. He thinks lenga forests make fine lumber. Floors. Furniture.”

“That professor may be right,” said Stan. “Yesterday, I saw a wooden mantel over a fireplace. A great slab of cherry-like wood. I was told it was lenga.”

Gustavo nodded. “Si, es muy bonito.” His eyes swept over the forest, and he shrugged his shoulders before continuing. “I have four children, all big, three boys and a girl. They all go from Tierra del Fuego. Is no future here. No jobs – always boom, always bust. There was – how you say – the placer gold, then sheeps and cattles. Twenty years ago, the oil and gas. Now is nothing. I have my cattle and I scratch for the living. But the forest when is cut, she grows, especially lenga. We need to cut the trees, make lumber, and grow the forest back. Then we have boom with no bust.”

“I think I understand, Gustavo.”

Stan stood, slowly turning round, fixing the image of the trees and forest in his mind. Who would believe that this magnificent forest existed in this uttermost place?