Dee nodded, swallowing her anxiety. She’d brought Jeff along for this ride and owed him a positive attitude. “Not a problem. And I’ll have more income from my tenant’s rent in a few weeks.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeff said, half-listening, focused on his phone. “Ooh, I like her.” He roused himself from the couch and padded over to Dee in his bare feet. “What do you think? Swipe left or right?”
Dee took his phone and glanced at the bleached blonde on Jeff’s screen pouting for the camera. “Duck-lips-enhanced-with-fillers selfie. Swipe left. You really do have questionable taste in women.”
“I married you, didn’t I?”
“Proving my point,” Dee said with a chortle. She and Jeff had met, instantly fallen in love, and impulsively married at the end of their senior year at UCLA. Three months into their ill-fated marriage, they were forced to admit it was an epic fail. But the short union had resulted in a lifelong friendship, for which they’d be forever grateful.
Dee handed the phone back to Jeff. “There’s no point in connecting with her anyway. Now that you’ve moved here, you’re geographically undesirable.”
“Argh.” Jeff plopped down on the couch, which emitted a flatulent creak. “Living here is going to seriously cramp my dating life. Where do we meet people?”
“Not in Foundgold, that’s for sure. The Welcome sign said the population was sixty-eight, and I think that’s optimistic. Maybe in Goldsgone? There’s way more going on there.”
“I don’t get it,” Jeff said. “You’d think it would be the reverse. That a place called Foundgold would be way more prosperous than a town with the depressing name of Goldsgone.”
“The lady at the general store explained it to me. Once miners found gold, they left. But the ones who didn’t find it wound up broke. They didn’t have the option of leaving, so they had to make their town a decent place to live. Then someone realized they could market the fact it looks pretty much exactly like it did a hundred and fifty years ago, and a tourist trap was born.” Dee snapped her laptop shut. “A trap I want to tap into for future guests.”
She rose to her feet and stretched. Her worn T-shirt, decorated with the logo from Thanks a Latte, a failed sitcom about baristas she’d worked on, popped out of her jeans and she tucked it back in. “Speaking of the general store, I’m going to head over there and pick up something for dinner.”
She removed a leash from the hook, where it hung by the front door, and motioned to a mutt, who’d been sleeping at her feet. Dee had happily adopted Nugget, the pet pup of the late motel owner, Jasper Gormley. Her furry new friend was a midsize mix of beagle and terrier, with a touch of basset hound, and a possible dose of Doberman. One ear folded over itself, while the other stuck straight up. A doggy smile or yawn revealed a broken canine tooth, leading Jeff to joke Nugget had incurred the damage in a bar fight. The dog’s age was anyone’s guess.
The mutt rose to his feet. Seeing the leash, he gave an appreciative bark and nuzzled Dee’s calf as she clipped the lead to his collar. She gave him an affectionate pet. “That’s my boy. You want anything besides dinner and a six-pack of IPA?” She addressed the question to Jeff.
He shook his head. “Be careful. There was another bear sighting.” He put down his phone. “Which reminds me, the one thing we do have to pony up for ASAP is security cameras, at least for here and my cabin and our first guest room. I’ll hunt some down on the internet I can install myself. The kind with a phone app that’ll alert us to any visitors of the ursine persuasion.”
Dee shuddered. She hadn’t given much thought to bears prior to purchasing the Golden and couldn’t say with confidence she would have gone through with the deal if she had. What’s that old saying? She tried to remember, and then it came to her: Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision.
She wondered if black bears had good eyesight. And if there was any way to decrease the appeal of her and Nugget as potential snacks.
* * *
Foundgold was a postcard-perfect collection of nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century homes nestled in the hills of a pine forest undulating upward from the winding two-lane road that led past the Golden. Like the motel, the homes were built from local redwood and ranged from log cabins to bungalows whose porches were made of stone scooped out of the countryside’s creek and streams, one of which meandered its lovely way north into the Sierras.
Williker’s All-in-One General Store stretched out along the road like an expanded wooden telescope. The building was a haphazard blend of additions in different architectural styles, each one representing the time period when it was added to the original building. A faded plaque marked the center section as dating back to the 1849 Gold Rush and was built of the same stone used on Foundgold homes.
Dee parked her Honda Civic, picked up a couple of reusable grocery bags resting on the passenger seat, and exited the car with Nugget. She and her furry friend strolled past the store’s two gas station pumps and up a ramp to the store’s entrance.
What began as a nineteenth-century one-room store catering to a gold miner’s needs had grown into an enterprise that earned the added appellation of “All-in-One.” But the original rustic space still retained its status as a general store. Items on the well-stocked old wooden shelves ran the gamut of essentials, showcasing everything from canned goods to paper goods. Freezer and refrigerator cases lining the walls offered such a wide range of local beers and wines it led Dee to assume imbibing was the primary form of entertainment for locals—and probably for tourists on their way to Majestic.
The store also featured a hefty display of souvenirs, most of which celebrated the national park, although Dee did notice an enameled key chain shaped like a gold nugget that was emblazoned with the proclamation, “I Foundgold!” The east end of the All-in-One contained a café and a bar, which also served a wide range of coffee drinks. A post office and laundromat were housed in the west end.
Dee had only met proprietor Elmira Williker once, and their brief interaction had been limited to subjects like whether the Golden’s septic tank would buckle under the weight of two-ply toilet paper. Elmira, a sturdy woman in her mid-forties who gave off the vibe of not being someone you wanted to mess with, had been courteous, but aloof, with Dee. The nascent motelier attributed this to a general wariness on the part of locals to Angeleno interlopers who’d discovered the region during the pandemic lockdown and driven up housing costs.
Determined to break through the shop owner’s reserve, Dee greeted her with an extremely cheery “Good morning!”
Elmira responded with a taciturn nod. Then she saw Nugget, who was busy sniffing the worn old wooden floor for errant snacks, and a warm smile replaced the wariness. “Nugget? Old buddy, is that you?”
Nugget glanced up. He barked an affirmative and wagged his tail. Elmira came out from behind the long wooden cash register counter and went to him. She bent down and stroked his head.
“He was being boarded at the shelter,” Dee said. “As soon as the deal closed, I brought him home.”
“Good. We weren’t sure what the new owners would do. We were worried about him.”
Dee wasn’t sure if this was a royal “we” or if Elmira was speaking for the whole village. Knowing that the shopkeeper was the mayor of Foundgold, Dee assumed it was the latter. “Well, the new owners being me and my friend Jeff, you don’t have to worry anymore. I’ve always wanted a pet, but when I was a kid, my mother had severe allergies. And then when I was working in TV, my hours were endless, which wasn’t fair to an animal—or a human for that matter.”
“We all miss old Jasper, but no one more ’n this guy, huh, fella?” Elmira ruffled Nugget’s fur. “Jasper’s family went back far as mine in Foundgold.”
“Your ancestors were miners?”
“Started that way. Yes, there were Black miners. People are like this when they hear that.” Elmira mimed shock, then rolled her eyes. “My great-greats figured out they’d make more selling to miners than mining, so they started this place.”
Nugget whimpered and pawed Elmira. “I know what you want.” She stood up and went to the counter, where she extracted a desiccated long brown stick from a jar next to the register. She brought it back to Nugget, who responded with ecstatic yelps. He devoured the stick. “Venison jerky,” she explained to Dee. “I’ll give you a dozen of ’em. Housewarming present. You’ll like ’em too.”
“Thank you so much,” Dee said, knowing she was about as likely to eat venison jerky as she was to play quarterback for an NFL team. “That’s so kind of you. I plead guilty to stereotypes of the country. I was always afraid some guy with no teeth and an ax would jump out from behind a tree and start chasing me.”
“Oh, he died years ago.”
Dee’s eyes widened.
Elmira shot her a look. “I’m joking.”
“Oh,” Dee said, embarrassed. “Ha. Sure. Good one.” She paused. “It’s just . . . I’ve heard what sounds like footsteps in the woods a few times.”
Elmira returned to her position behind the register. “That’s probably just Stoney.”
“Stoney?” Dee repeated.
