grandson.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountain, blasting has begun on the Ark. With the dynamite in place, the mining team gets ready to detonate. Boom! The loud blast seemingly shakes the entire mountain as the first wave of dynamite is detonated. Boom! Boom! Boom! Three more ignite, and the blasts rumble throughout the entire area, leaving the residents stunned by the sheer force. The blasting continues for about an hour with the blasts getting further apart before they completely stop. Everyone on the mountain comes to a standstill as they wait for more explosions to occur, but their anticipation is met with dead silence.
A call goes out on the radio from the lead miner. “Mr. Angelite, it’s Beau. You need to get down here and take a look at this asap!”
“Copy that, Beau. I’m on my way. Is everything alright?”
“You just need to get down here pronto, sir.”
“On my way,” John answers. “Mom, can you take the kids? We gotta go.” Once she agrees, he and Kate leave the room immediately and run down to the stables and jump on their horses. It takes them about fifteen minutes to get over to the blast site. When they arrive, all of the miners are just standing around waiting.
“What the hell is going on? Why is everyone just standing around?” John raises his palms as he walks by everyone.
“It’s best I just show you, sir. Come with me.” Beau leads them up to the mineshaft. “When we blasted through the first layer of granite, we came upon something.” They get close to the mouth of the blasting hole, and Beau pulls out a tablet, which displays a camera image that shocks them both.
“What the hell am I looking at? Is that what I think it is?” John grabs the tablet, trying to see it better.
“Yes, sir, that there is most likely one of the largest gold deposits I’ve ever seen, and by the looks of it, possibly one of the largest finds in decades.” He starts to control the camera with his device, displaying even more of the mineshaft on the tablet. “I figured I should show you instead of telling you over the radio, but in all my years of mining I’ve never seen that much gold in my entire life, and that’s most likely the tip of the iceberg.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Would you look at that?” John hands the tablet to Kate. “Honey, if that’s not a sign that we are doing the right thing, well then, I just don’t know what is.”
“I—I—I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say. How is this possible? I mean oh my God!” Kate stares at the tablet with her mouth agape.
“Alright, we need to rethink some things. How is this going to affect you guys? Do we need to get different men or equipment?” John taps his chin.
“No, sir, all my men are fully capable of excavating that gold. Hell, most of these men have spent the majority of their lives doing just that. As far as equipment, nothing new is needed. We just need to take a different approach to our mining, but you don’t worry about that, sir. We’ll take care of all the details, but you may want to get the Army Corps of Engineers here a little sooner as they are going to want to start building the support structure as we pull this gold out.”
“Not a problem. I’ll get them here as soon as possible. In the mean time, you get that gold out of there, and we’ll figure out what the hell we’re going to do with all of it. But plan on building a much larger bomb shelter. What was going to be a modest shelter with bare essentials will now be a massive, highly advanced structure. Excellent job today, by the way. How often do you get to yell, ‘We stuck gold!’” John laughingly shouts.
“Well not that often, sir, not that often at all. Well good day to you, sir. My men will get going on this right away, and I’ll keep you updated on our progress, and of course let me know about the new plans as soon as you have the schematics.” He shakes Johns hand and tips his hat to