Foreword:
Before I get started with this little tale, I'd like to explain a few things regarding my reasons for creating it.
First of all, for all of you who are patiently waiting and wondering, after a long hiatus I have officially restarted work on "Summertime Blues." Expect the next chapter to be posted sometime right after New Year's.
Secondly, as an avid history buff, I've often endeavored to include locations of historic significance in the stories I write. The inclusion of real-world places, I've always felt, lends a certain sense of connection between the reader and the narrative. And by describing locations that most readers are already familiar with, the impact of this connection becomes all the more potent.
But an idea recently took root in my head, planted by one of my many hobbies and nurtured by an innate sense of curiosity
You see, in my spare time, I have occasionally been known to engage in an activity that I tentatively refer to as "companion photography." In a nutshell, "companion photography" is a photographic study of change through time. The process starts within the pages of dusty books, searching for antique photographs and any other information relating to the subjects they depict. Form there you head out into the field, book and camera in tow, searching for the locations where these grainy black-and-white images were first captured on film. It can be a long process to be sure, sometimes taking multiple trips and hours of searching, but eventually, through a combination of meticulous research, careful observation and a certain amount of good old-fashioned luck, It's usually possible to place yourself in the exact position that the original photographer occupied, sometimes more than a century before.
And then you pull out your modern, digital, eleventy bazillion megapixel camera, and you go…
Click.
If you've done it right, what you're left with is two images of the exact same subject, separated only by time. And if you do it enough times you'll begin to see that in many cases, even after the passage of more than a century, there are certain features that remain recognizable. A peculiar bend in the road… A building with a distinctive roof… A mountain peek silhouetted in the distance… Landmarks to frame the image and provide points of reference.
But such visual retrospectives are not limited to locations with landmark status. History is all around us, along every road and on every street corner. For while it may look somewhat different today, we walk upon the same earth that the pioneers tread so many decades before us.
And this brings me to my salient point. For this story represents something of a literary experiment, you might say. My primary purpose here is to see just how far one can go with using historic fact in a fictional story… to test the boundaries of the concept, if you will. In this tale I will attempt to take a set of obscure locations, all of them 100% real, and weave them into a narrative, using as much real-world detail, both descriptive and historic, as I possibly can.
And hope against hope that the whole thing doesn't ultimately collapse beneath the weight of all that reality.
Let's see how well it works…
~ Chapter One ~
Under the Boardwalk...
Out of the sun...
Under the Boardwalk...
We'll be having some fun...
Under the Boardwalk...
People walking above...
Under the Boardwalk...
We'll be falling in love...
Lyrics from a song on the outer edge of recollection filtered through his mind: Faint echoes of a long forgotten Oldies show from some radio station buried deep within the AM dial. He couldn't remember the group that sang it or the era that spawned it, or much of anything else beyond fragmented lyrics and the simplest of tunes. But he remembered the larger theme, and it seemed to fit the current circumstances just perfectly.
Stretching himself out on the expansive blanket beneath him, the young blonde savored the sensation of warm coastal sunshine flowing across his entire body. Equally warm sand beneath him gave way to his motions, and the strangely comforting feeling brought a smile to his face. Meanwhile, the rhythmic crashing of the waves mingled with the shouts of children and the squawking of gulls, lending a soundtrack to a truly idyllic scene. For someone hailing from a land-locked and mountainous state better known for its skiing than for any sort of waterfront real estate, this was truly a treat.
...And of course the drop-dead gorgeous redhead lounging beside him didn't hurt matters either.
Lifting the sunglasses from his face and chancing a glance about the beach, Ron Stoppable had to admit that this had been a ferociously booyah-worthy idea. With long days of summer becoming shorter and the promise of fall right around the corner, the world's two favorite teen heroes had decided that one final summer fling was in order: A last chance to enjoy the simple pleasures of short sleeves and ice cream cones before waning daylight and cooler temperatures would bring falling leaves and entice wool sweaters out from their summer-long banishment in the cedar closet.
And so they had packed up the Sloth and headed west to California, eventually making their way to the seaside resort town of Santa Cruz with its famous sweeping beaches and Boardwalk amusement park. For two days so far they had been able to forget all the cares and worries that so often accompany those in the world-saving business. They had walked up and down the wooden planking of the iconic beachfront wonderment, experiencing every ride and trying their luck at every carnival game on the midway. They had explored some of the quaint shops that dotted the inland streets, shared intimate, candlelit dinners beneath the orange glow of a Pacific sunset, and of course, marinated on the beach as if there wasn't a care in the world to trouble them. As magic weekends go, things don't often get much more magical.
"So how are things over on your side of the world, babe?" Kim mumbled half into their shared blanket. Laying face down and with her head turned away, communication with her newly minted fiancé was difficult, but she wasn't about to make any sudden movements... Not with the back of her brand new two-piece undone and the base of a nice even tan already forming. "Let's see what little Miss Rockwaller thinks of THIS shade when we get home." she had quietly thought.
"Living it and loving it, KP." Ron responded enthusiastically. "You know, if I had realized that solar power was this enjoyable, I would've gone green years ago."
"And how's Rufus coping?" Kim prodded, thinking back to how easily the small creature could burn.
"Well let's ask him." Ron responded, shifting onto his side. "Hey Rufus! How you holdin' up, bud-eeeeeee-yowsers!"
Lifting his shades once again, Ron gawked openly at the elaborate sand castle that had seemingly sprang from nowhere in the sand beside him. Five levels high with peaked spires and a great onion-shaped dome at its center, it appeared to draw much of its architectural inspiration from the Taj Mahal, although as descriptions go, "awe-inspiring" would likely be more than adequate.
"Wow! I see the little guy's been busy." Kim observed, rising up to her elbows to see, but still taking care to cover her modesty.
"Always the little pink showoff." Ron groused. "Although I'm glad to see he's been reading that subscription to Architectural Digest that I got him last Christmas. Hey Rufus! Knock-knock, little man!"
It was a few moments before the structures diminutive occupant appeared on an upper-floor balcony, a plain white towel wrapped about his waist, a tiny cloud of steam trailing behind him.
"Hurk, wassup?" he squeaked.
"What? Oh don't tell me you've got a sauna in that thing?" Ron whined. "I've always wanted a sauna!"
"Since when?" Kim asked.
"Since just now when I saw that Rufus had one." Ron replied, matter-of-factly.
"Yeeeeeaaaaaaah..." Kim moaned with an obligatory eye-roll.
"So anyway, I see we're investing in beachfront property now, are we?" Ron inquired, turning back toward his pet.
"Nnnnn-huh. Flip it!" the tiny creature squeaked, thrusting an upward thumb for effect.
"Oh well. I guess it's official then." Ron sighed, lying back down on the blanket. "They'll give one of those sub-prime mortgages to pretty much anybody."
"And they wonder why people want to regulate Wall Street." Kim lazily added, returning to her original prone position as well. "Wake me when the rest of the economy crashes and burns, will you?"
"Will do."
Kim lifted her head and shot a glance in Ron's direction that threatened to turn the sunshine into snow flurries.
"I mean the concept! Not the person! Sorry!" Ron quickly added, flinching slightly as he did.
Kim's scowl quickly shifted to a smile as warm as the sunshine however, and both teens were soon deeply absorbed in utter nothingness once again, so content with their surroundings and their company that nothing in the world could disturb them.
*Beep-beep-de-beep*
Except for that.
"I thought you buried that infernal thing in the sand." Ron mumbled through gritted teeth.
"I did," Kim growled back as she reached for the Kimmunicator, "but Wade dug it out with the robotic claw attachment. I swear, next time I'm force-feeding it to a sea lion. Go Wade!" she said, all in one continuous breath, effortlessly switching from annoyed to professional at precisely the right syllable.
"Hey guys! How's the vacation going?" Wade's jovial face inquired.
"Ohhhhh... so far, so good." Kim replied, expertly matching his positive tone with her own.
"Which I'm guessing is about to change drastically." Ron not-so-cheerfully added, leaning into camera range from the side.
"Sorry guys," the young tech guru blanched, "but you know I wouldn't be bugging you if it wasn't important."
"Yeah, we get that." Kim sighed, her eyes downcast and sullen. She really was enjoying herself so far this trip. "So what's the sitch?"
"Drakken's on the move and headed your way." Wade replied without missing a beat. "Satellites showed his hover car heading due west over the Sierra Nevada Mountains about two hours ago. Shego's with him."
"You said that satellites 'showed' him heading west?" Kim clarified. "I take it that means we don't still have eyes on the target?"
"Unfortunately, no." Wade admitted. "I was able to track him across the central valley region, but when he got to the area of Pacheco Pass he dropped his altitude and I lost radar tracking amongst all the ground clutter."
"So we've got a madman operating somewhere along the Central California coast, but we don't know where. Super!" Ron grumbled. "And you interrupted my tan for this news, why, precisely?"
"Let him finish." Kim said with a scolding look before turning her attention back to the small device in her hands. "Continue, Wade."
"Well I was going to say," he continued, shooting a quick glare at Ron, "that there's another piece of intel I've dug up. Apparently, Drakken forgot to delete the messages on his answering machine before he vacated his previous lair. So I hacked the files..."
"Naturally."
"...and among all the miscellaneous domestic hullabaloo, there was one message where he told Shego that the new lair was rights."
"Rights?" Kim asked quizzically. "Don't you mean the lair is 'right'?"
"No, I mean 'rights.'" Wade confirmed. "It's clear as a bell on the tape. He specifically said 'rights' with an 's.'"
"Sooooo, maybe he misspoke.?" Ron offered from the sidelines.
"Maybe." Wade agreed. "But check this out. I did a search of some online databases, cross-checking for any local references that word."
"And you found a connection?"
"Yes and no. There were no references to 'rights,' or at least none that made any sense. But during the search I stumbled across a map that lists a local town called 'Wright's,' with a 'W.'"
"So you think that's where the gruesome twosome is headed?"
"It seems to fit."
"Got a location for us?"
"Don't I always?" Wade grinned. "I've already uploaded the relevant data to the Sloth's nav system. Just follow the yellow line and it will take you straight there."
"We're on it, Wade. And thanks for the heads-up on this. Really, we mean it." Kim smiled warmly at the young genius, who simply smiled himself before closing the connection and plunging the tiny screen into darkness.
"You heard the Wade, Ron." she said, re-affixing her top and rising to gather their things. "Playtime at the beach is over."
"Aw, man!" Ron whined. "And I haven't even got sand in my shorts yet. That's like the one Stoppable beach tradition."
"Knowing you, I think you'll manage." Kim drolly remarked, hefting the bulging tote bag onto her shoulder. "There's five hundred feet of open beach between us and the car, and the world is full of possibilities."
"Are you sure this is the place, Wade?" a very confused teen heroine asked.
For the entire trip, the Sloth's integrated navigation system had appeared to function flawlessly. The heads-up display had directed them north along a rural highway into the mountains that separated Santa Cruz from the greater San Francisco Bay Area. They had made good time up to the summit, then exited onto a series of rural roads that steadily became narrower and steeper, descending ever deeper into the folds of the great Coast Range, until the path before them resembled a strand of dried spaghetti stuck to a wall. Finally, after negotiating more hairpins than you'd find at a convention of geriatric beauticians, they arrived at the spot designated by the computer with a large, red "X"…
And found themselves surrounded by nothing but forest.
"Positive." Wade emphatically replied. "According to the coordinates and your GPS readouts, you're there."
"Yeah Wade, but where's 'there?'" Ron interjected from the passenger seat.
"Huh?" Wade blinked in confusion.
"Here. There's no 'there' here."
"There's no there where?"
"Here! As in there!" Ron insisted, waving his hands around in a sweeping motion to indicate their surroundings. "There's no 'there' there!"
"Well according to my systems, all indications are that you're there."
"Yeah, but where?"
"Can we knock it off with the free-verse poetry already?" Kim broke in. "It's like listening to a couple of stoned beatniks at some overpriced coffee house."
"Well if that's what the cats are a-diggin' then that's what the cats are a-gettin'." Ron comically sang, adopting a low and smooth voice and snapping his fingers for effect.
The look on Kim's face told him that she was not amused.
"Sorry." He quickly apologized, shrinking back in his seat.
"Anywhooooo," Kim continued, looking back to the LCD screen in the center of the Sloth's dash, "Where does this leave us."
"You mean besides in the middle of nowhere?"
"So not the time, Ron. And same question, Wade."
"I don't know, Kim." Wade replied in utter confusion: A look that was highly unusual for him. "All of the data is saying that you're right on target."
"Except for the fact that we're not." Kim observed, opening her door and stepping out of the car. She had parked on a wide gravel turnout set within a sharp bend in the road. A few yards away, said road crossed a small creek via a concrete bridge with ornate, yet badly corroded handrails, then doubled back in an apparent attempt to climb out of the canyon which its surveyors had spent so much effort plumbing.
"I'm just not seeing anything." Kim lamented.
"And I'm going to go not see anything over there." Ron stated, indicating a clump of thick bushes a few yards away.
"What? Why?" Kim confusedly asked.
"Two hours ago I drank a extra-large slurpster and rode a roller coaster. Do the math."
"Ah! Well good luck then!" Kim quickly relented, exaggeratedly waving for him to go take care of his business and not press the conversation any further.
"Thanks. Back in a momentito." He replied, quickly retreating into the undergrowth.
Searching through the thick brush for a suitable place to do that which must be done, he soon found a promising spot and proceeded to answer nature's call. But it wasn't until he was finishing up that he noticed something odd about this particular spot: Something that didn't set right with the rest of his surroundings.
"Uh, KP! You might want to come over and check this out!" He called out.
"Seriously Ron! This is so not the time or the place for your stupid 'Adam and Eve' fantasy!"
"What? Jeez, no! It's not… just… NO!" he shouted back defensively.
"Oh, sorry." Kim briefly blushed before turning perplexed once again. "Wait, you didn't have another 'zipper' incident, did you?"
"And it's not that either! Although thanks for dredging up the memory again."
"Ooooh, double sorry." She apologized, cringing slightly at the memory herself. "But exactly what is your big beef then?"
"Just come over here already!"
Warily, Kim did as Ron asked and picked her way through the brush toward the sound of his voice. It took a few minutes, but before long she was standing by his side offering him a confused and slightly annoyed expression.
"So what's the big thing I needed to see?" she demanded.
"I think I found our town." He said cryptically. "Check it out."
Looking to the ground where Ron was pointing, Kim quickly realized just what it was that had so grabbed his attention. There, broken by tree roots and blanketed by a thick carpet of damp and mottled leaves, the remains of a concrete foundation could clearly be seen. The building that once sat atop it had obviously been gone for many years, but by the footprint it left one could tell it had been large: Far to large to be a simple residence. This was something that screamed "commercial enterprise" on a scale that was reminiscent of a large convenience store or a Club Banana retail outlet.
"Wade?" Kim warily asked, bringing the Kimmunicator up to her face. "Exactly how old is that map of yours?"
"Let's see now." Wade answered, squinting at the screen in front of him. "There's some small print in the margins... kinda hard to read... but if I zoom in and clean things up a bit... copyright says it was published… in… nineteen oh five."
"Oy!" Ron groaned, slapping a hand over his face while Kim shot a deadpan look into the device on her wrist.
"Sorry 'bout that guys." Wade admitted sheepishly, shrinking back in his chair. "I didn't realize it was a ghost town. Guess I should've checked the fine print a little closer."
"It's okay, Wade." Kim sighed. "Having a community vanish over time isn't really something you normally think about. We'll call it 'lesson learned' and move on."
"Understood." Wade quickly agreed. "But that still leaves us with the question of where Drakken has gone to ground."
"Then let's go back to what we know." Kim said as Ron moved in beside her. "We know that Drakken was last seen headed in this direction. He made a verbal slip on his voice mail that may have been nothing more than that, but also seems to correlate with where we are now."
"Except where you are is a ghost town." Wade pointed out. "Now that I know what to look for, I just dug up some old news clippings. Turns out that the community there disappeared sometime back during World War Two. According to the census data I looking at right now, there's no permanent residents within a mile of you... in any direction."
"Hmmmm." Ron pondered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Now granted, logical reasoning has never been one of my strong suits, but isn't that the sort of thing that would make a place perfect for setting up a lair?"
For several seconds, both Wade and Kim stared blankly at Ron, then turned to share a meaningful glance between each other.
"You know, he's got a point there." Wade shrugged.
"I know… I know." Kim agreed, the wheels in her mind turning furiously. "Tell me, what did this town used to do? You know, before it up and vanished."
"You mean like 'what was their primary industry?'" Wade asked as his fingers renewed their intricate dance across the keyboard. "Why? Where are you going with this?"
"I'm thinking subterranean operations." Kim explained. "Some sort of mining or quarrying business. Anything with a lot of tunnels that a bad guy could hide in. We are in California after all."
"Good thinking, Kim." Wade admitted. "But you're sort of in the wrong area for that. The Gold Rush of 1849 took place mainly in the eastern part of the state, up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Coast Ranges have an entirely different geology to them. Not much in the way of usable minerals."
"Okay then. So what did they do here?"
"Mostly logging, in that neck of the woods." Wade informed, squinting at his screen. "Back before the coastal redwood became a protected species, there was a pretty sizable timber harvest in that region."
"Anything else?"
"Well, it looks like Wright's itself was somewhat unique in one respect. Apparently there were a lot of small orchards in the area back at the turn of the century. The station at Wright's was a shipping hub where the crops would be brought down from the hills, loaded into boxcars and sent north to ferry landings along the southern end of the bay. From there it was just a short trip by boat to the big produce markets in San Francisco."
"Time out!" Kim suddenly broke in. "'Station?' 'Boxcars?'"
"Oh, right! I forgot to mention." The young webmaster backtracked. "Wright's actually grew up around a railroad station. Part of something called the South Pacific Coast Railroad. It looks like the tracks came up from San Jose following the creek on your right, turned past a point just across the road from you, and headed west toward the coast. There were several more towns along the way of course, but the tracks ultimately went to all the way to Santa Cruz."
"Okay dude... I'm officially confused." Ron admitted, scratching his head as he mentally sketched out what Wade had just described. "I see the creek you're talking about, and the road is kinda hard to miss, but beyond that there's nothing but trees and one really big, really steep mountain. We'd have a tough time getting up and over that hill with repelling gear. There's no way anyone could drag an entire freight train over that ridge."
He turned his perplexed expression toward his red-haired companion: An action that only left him more confused when he saw the knowing grin that she was shooting at him.
"Which means there's gotta be a tunnel somewhere back in there." She stated, her agile mind already thinking like a civil engineer.
"You called it, Kim." Wade confirmed, pulling up another page on his monitor. "The old Summit Tunnel is about eight hundred feet west of you, according to an old plot map I just found. Just head across the road and follow the small stream up the ravine on your left until it dead-ends against the mountain. It should be easy to spot."
"Understood, Wade. We'll call you back once we're in position." She informed the young genius before closing the connection and moving back toward the Sloth.
"Grab the gear, Ron." She instructed. "We're going spelunking."
The short hike upstream was like an expedition to another world.
Climbing through a decaying fence of rusted barbed wire, they left the road behind them and entered the realm of the surreal. Towering redwoods, so ancient that they already boasted six centuries of growth rings when Columbus first struck his sails for the new world flanked their path to either side, their evergreen boughs turning an otherwise bright day into a world of creeping shadows and muted green hues. Somewhat lower, stands of live oak and madrone trees spread their limbs wide to link arms, creating a nearly solid canopy overhead. Six-inch tendrils of Spanish moss dangled from every branch, while blankets of wild ivy spread unrestricted across the ground and up the hillsides, climbing rocks and trees and pretty much every stationary object in sight. A long-toed salamander scurried for cover as they probed ever deeper into the primordial forest, diligently following the tell tale sound of running water.
It wasn't long before their search was rewarded, as they emerged from the tree line to find a small brook running across their path, gurgling merrily as it made its way down to the larger creek at the bottom of the canyon. Decades of erosion had cut the stream bed deep into the earth, leaving a steep-sided trench that varied between five and eight feet deep in spots. Along the far bank, a collapsed stone wall indicated a failed attempt by humans to contain the flow's destructive force, while just a few feet away a wooden timber jutted beyond the edge, a portion of its length cantilevering out over six feet of thin air while the remainder lay entombed within the bank.
Pausing to inspect the scene before them and plot their next move, Kim was surprised when Ron stepped forward and knelt at the stream's edge, closely inspecting the wooden beam whose flat sides and squared edges told the clear story of an object shaped by human hands. It seemed strange behavior, even by Ron's standards, and her curiosity only grew when he glanced to his right, then his left, and began stretching his arms to draw imaginary sight lines through the forest, as if looking down a street that existed only in his mind.
It was an odd dance to be sure, but not one without purpose: For while most would never suspect it, Ron Stoppable was something of a closet train buff. Perhaps it was the mechanical eccentricities of a steam locomotive that appealed to his inventive nature, or maybe it was just his way of finding yet another means by which to never be normal, but there was something about the equation of steel wheels and iron track that appealed to him. He found the subject fascinating, and when this interest was coupled with a natural penchant for looking at the world somewhat differently than most, the most amazing observations became possible.
"Railroad tie." He finally declared, pointing at the rotted and moss-covered beam. "The tracks came right through here. The creek's eroded the bank on this side, so the original rail bed is about half-gone now, but it came in through that cut down there." He pointed to a shallow trench about twenty feet away, nearly invisible amongst the undergrowth. "They would have swung through here, roughly following the line of the stream, and gone right up through that clump of trees there." He pointed to their left, indicating a small grove of fir trees that upon closer inspection appeared slightly younger than the majority of their neighbors.
"If we go that way and stay on this line, we should wind up right on top of it." He finally concluded.
All in all, it was probably the most well thought out and coherent plan that he had concocted in some time, and Kim was quick to agree.
Pushing deeper into the woods, their path began to take on a serpentine shape as they weaved back and forth between trees and over the shifting remnants of small landslides. The ground was so uneven and overgrown that it was difficult to believe something as substantial as a railroad could have ever negotiated passage. But whenever the idea seemed like so much crazy talk, Ron would find a rust-encrusted piece of rail protruding from the ground, and the fact would be driven home once again.
"Man, this place gives me the creeps." Ron admitted, clumsily mounting a small rock pile and nearly sliding down the far side. "It's like something out of 'Jurassic Park' back in here."
"Well when you stop and think about it, this is what it's supposed to be like, Ron." Kim pointed out, pausing to take in the overall surroundings. "This is what the entire west coast once looked like. For thousands of years… before human beings ever arrived on scene... this is what nature had built."
"Well I'm just saying that if a velociraptor comes charging out of the brush, I am so out of here!"
"You and me both." Kim agreed. "Now let's keep moving. If Drakken's actually holed up in here, he's not going to foil himself."
Slowly and carefully, they pushed onward, using caution as they scurried over piles of loose rocks and vaulted over fallen trees. The forest itself seemed to close in around them, the mossy tendrils reaching toward them like tentacles of some unknown monster. Meanwhile, the sound of the creek gradually became louder, slowly approaching the level of a dull roar. Then, as they looped around yet another tree and stepped through a clump of brush, both teens confronted a sight that stopped them dead in their tracks.
There, rising out of the hillside before them, was a concrete monolith nearly twenty feet tall with its ends angled outward to buttress against the hillside beyond. To the left, the gaping maw of the tunnel portal lay in ruins, a large portion of its parapet-like lip and about ten feet of its roof having long ago collapsed; undermined by the activities of the small creek which now cascaded down in a pair of waterfalls flanking each side of the shadow-filled chasm. Creeping vines flowed freely over the shattered edge and dangled playfully, forming a leafy green veil across the cavernous bore. To the right, a defunct spillway put forth not a torrent of water, but a flowing carpet of moss, indicating yet another ultimately futile attempt at containing nature's hydrological fury.
And within the bore of the tunnel itself, murky shadows offered faint glimpses of graffiti-covered walls: Evidence that they were not the first modern explorers to discover this incredible place.
"So what do you think?" Ron asked uneasily. "Early-industrial wreckage or portal to another dimension?"
"Hmmmmm… I'm gonna go with option 'A' right now," Kim admitted, stepping forward and leaping across the frothing water with cat-like agility, "but i reserve the right to revise my position later."
"That's what I was afraid of." Ron responded, jumping across the torrent himself, but with far more screaming and arm flailing than his fiancé.
One they both were safely across the small torrent, they began a careful examination of their surroundings with Kim studying the left-hand side and Ron inspecting the right. Slowly and methodically they started from the collapsed entrance and worked their way back into the dank interior, searching for any sign of a concealed entrance.
Although defaced by the work of multiple vandals, the walls of the tunnel still maintained a certain old-school charm in the way than most historic structures do. The line of the walls started narrow at their base, briefly widening out before arcing back inward and meeting overhead in a gracefully vaulted arch. Looking back toward the outside world, the overall profile was reminiscent of a horseshoe, Ron quietly noted to himself.
He also noted that the elevations involved were highly deceiving, as a cursory glance back down the bore revealed that the path they had taken to get there was in fact two to three feet higher than where he currently stood. Decades of landslides had buried the original grade of the railroad beneath multiple tons of earth and rock, and the overgrowth had served to blend the spoils seamlessly with the surrounding environment. Nature was clearly fighting to reclaim that which human beings had wrested from it, and for all the evidence he could see, he concluded that nature was winning that fight.
"Got anything yet?" Kim called out from the shadows, her voice echoing off the cement walls and startling him somewhat.
"Not yet," he admitted, quickly regaining his composure, "although they sure could make this easier. With all these lines, it's kind of hard to see anything that might be a door."
"That's how they used to cast concrete." Kim shrugged, not diverting her eyes from her own section of wall. "They hadn't learned how to pour the stuff all at once without developing air bubbles and all sorts of other bad things, so they built everything up slowly, one layer at a time."
"Kind of like Leggos for grown-ups then?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Huh. Interesting, I guess. Although it sorta puts your mind to a layer cake too."
"Actually, I'm pretty sure it just puts your mind to a layer cake."
"Occupational risk of being a 'foodie.'" He shrugged, dragging his gaze up the wall to the ceiling above where dark streaks danced across the pitted surface. From a distance they looked like shadows, but his observant nature was quick to pick up on a truth far more interesting.
"Whoa! Check it out!" he exclaimed, pointing to the roof above them.
"Huh. And just what is that?" Kim pondered, craning her neck upward. "Tar? Were they sealing the roof for leaks?"
"Soot." Ron pointed out, showing all the confidence of a forensic scientist who had just nailed a serial killer dead to rights. "That's the calling card of a steam engine." He tilted his head and stared deeply at the surface above, seemingly transfixed by the presence of such a simple and ordinary substance.
"Seventy years on and their mark is still here." He sighed in amazement.
"Yeah, let's hear it for longevity." Kim panned. "Now can we focus ourselves a little bit lower in elevation? I don't know about you, but I haven't seen too many doors in ceilings."
"Yeah, but have you ever really looked for one there?"
"Jeez, Ron. That's… that's…" She paused for a moment as she considered the statement.
"That's actually a fair point."
They continued their search in silence, inching their way farther and farther into the mountain, pulling out their flashlights when the world simply became too dark to see. Further in, a great mound of earth completely blocked the path ahead.
"Remind me again… Exactly when and why did they seal this thing?" Ron inquired.
"Wade said it was dynamited back during World War Two." Kim related. "Something about local folks being worried that saboteurs would use it as a hideout."
"Sort of like what Drakken's doing right now then?"
"Once again, pretty much."
"Oh well, then that plan worked out really well, didn't it?"
"Easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, Ron."
The search continued in silence once again, inch by inch, crevice by crevice. They were starting to run out of room, knowing that if they reached the end of the bore without success, they would be forced to retrace their steps back to the entrance and start over.
Then, just as Kim was becoming truly frustrated and Ron was beginning to give up hope, Rufus spotted something. Being a member of a predominantly subterranean species, evolution had gifted him with certain advantages when it came to working underground. The rodent had at his disposal a highly specialized tool kit, and he now put it to good use, leaping out of his owner's pocket and scampering over to a nearby section of wall. His keen eyes had spotted something amiss amongst the shadows.
His suspicions were confirmed when his whiskers detected a faint draft of air emanating from the unusually deep set of cracks within the wall, and his animated chittering echoed loudly through the subterranean concrete tube which they now occupied. It wasn't long before both of his favorite humans were at his side.
"Jackpot!" Kim enthused, placing her hand over the crack that the mole rat had indicated. "We've got pronounced air flow. There's an open space behind here somewhere."
"That's gotta be it." Ron agreed. "Good job, little buddy."
Rufus simply shrugged and waved off the praise. In his mind, he was simply contributing to the mission, just as all team members should.
"So what now?" Ron asked after several seconds. Asking the obvious question was always part of his forte.
"Now we figure out how to open this concrete canister." Kim said, activating the Kimmunicator on her wrist.
"Wade, we found the entrance." She spoke into the small device. "Can you run a scan and tell us what sort of locking mechanism we're dealing with?"
"Could Shego use a splash of color in her wardrobe?" Wade jauntily replied. "Just hold the Kimmunicator at arm's length and we'll know everything about this thing in just a few ticks."
Kim did as she was told, and a yellow beam lanced out against the wall. Slowly sweeping the beam up, then down, it was only a few seconds before the scan was complete and Wade was divining conclusions from the newly-acquired data.
"Well it's not optical, so the de-scrambler comb won't be of much help." He pondered, placing a thoughtful finger against his chin as he scrolled down through pages of information. "There's no keyhole that I can see and there's no peripheral devices linked to the system so it's not biometric either. From what I can tell, I'm guessing it's voice activated."
"So what then? It's like one of those vocal signature things, programmed to respond to specific speech patterns?" Kim prodded.
"I don't think so." Wade replied, shaking his head. "The processor they've installed just doesn't strike me as having enough juice to run that sort of program. I'm guessing it's just a simple password system. No specific voice recognition: Just a set of syllables that it can recognize and respond to."
"So all we have to do is guess the password?"
"That's pretty much it in a nutshell, yeah." Wade nodded.
"Well that's not so bad then." Ron said, eagerly clasping his hands together. "I mean, how many words can there be?"
"In the English language? About half-a-million." Wade answered.
"Ewwww… That many?" Ron responded, his face falling. "So what you're saying then, is that this may take a while?"
"It would have to be something that Drakken would find easy to remember." Kim theorized, looking thoughtfully toward the ground as tapped her chin. "And knowing Drakken, that's bound to be a pretty short list."
"Maybe it's something simple like 'evil?'" Wade offered, causing everyone to glance hopefully at the door, which much to their collective disappointment, did not budge.
"'Villainy?'" Kim offered.
Still nothing.
"'Total global domination?'" Ron volunteered.
"Actually, that's three words, but nice try just the same." Kim encouraged.
"'Doom?'"
"'Diablos?'"
"'Conquer?'"
"'Shego?'"
"'Marigold?'"
All queries met with naught.
"Hey, maybe we're going at this the wrong way?" Ron suddenly piped up, giving all appearances of being a man with a brainstorm. "Maybe Drakken wasn't thinking 'evil' when he programmed this thing?"
"This is Drakken we're dealing with, Ron." Kim chided. "He's always thinking evil."
"Yeah, but maybe in this particular case he went another direction with it." Ron continued to press. "Maybe he went with another theme? Something still connected to the sitch, but not necessarily evil on its own?"
"Like… what?" Kim prodded.
"Oh, I don't know…" Ron pondered aloud. "Off the top of my head, maybe something simple like…say… 'All aboard.'"
Suddenly, the earth around them began to shudder and the whole of the tunnel was filled with a mighty groan that put one's mind to the call of some great beast, and left Ron glancing wildly about for approaching dinosaurs. Slowly and haltingly, a large section of tunnel wall retracted inward, then slid to one side, revealing an open space beyond, just large enough for a person to pass through.
"But of course that's only just a theory." Ron grinned proudly, rubbing his knuckles against his shirt.
"Some theory." Wade gawked in utter astonishment.
"And the dumb Stoppable luck strikes again." Kim smiled, sticking her head through the opening and shining her light into the pitch blackness of its depths.
"It goes this way." She indicated, stepping through the gap and forging ahead. "Now stay behind me and stay sharp. We don't know what surprises the good doctor has left for us."
"Okay, you're in charge." Ron agreed, dutifully following into line behind her. "But if we get in there and Drakken's wearing striped bib overalls and an engineer's cap, I'm totally gonna bounce."
Author's Notes:
I guess that seems as good a place to break as any. I sincerely hope that I haven't bored you to frustration so far.
To this point, all of the locations mentioned are real places I have personally visited. From the famous Boardwalk in Santa Cruz to the overgrown remnants of Wright's Station, living a scant two hour's drive away has placed me in the unique position of being able to effectively explore these regions at will.
To be honest, Wright's has held a special place for me since I first learned about it in one of the many books I've read over the years. The story of how such a thriving and vital community could be born from nothing and return to the same, and all within the span of eight decades, strikes a sentimental chord and begs further study. Visiting the ruins and exploring the collapsed tunnel was an almost spiritual experience for me… An experience that I have since repeated twice. I hope I conveyed at least some of that sensation to you through my words today.
And speaking of said words…
Wright's: Just over the line into Santa Clara County from Santa Cruz and about as far from civilization as you can get, the town of Wright's Station is one of the most fascinating California ghost towns this side of Bodie, (at least in my own humble opinion), and sadly one of the least known.
The community here can trace its roots back to the early 1870s when California as a state was barely 20 years old. That summer, a small-time farmer and part-time pastor by the name of James Richards Wright arrived from Ohio with his sizable family in tow. Quick to settle in the town of Burrell near the summit of the Coast Range along the Santa Clara/Santa Cruz County line, Wright planted orchards and vineyards, and built a well-appointed hotel, which he called "Arbor Villa."
It wasn't long before change came to the coastal peaks however, as 1877 saw the construction of a three-foot-gauge railroad known as the South Pacific Coast. Intended to supplant a toll road that had been built just five years prior, the proposed survey called for the tracks to crest the summit via a 6,208-foot tunnel with its northern terminal a mere stone's throw from the good Reverend's hotel and orchards.
Quick to seize upon an opportunity for fast and efficient shipment of his produce, Wright donated a portion of his land to the railroad, providing enough space for a depot, section house, passing track and service facilities. In recognition of the Reverend's self-interested generosity, railroad management voted to name the new community in his honor, and the town of Wright's Station, (or simply "Wright's"), was born.
By the turn of the century, Wright's had become something of a regional transportation hub. In total it boasted two hotels, a general store, a pair of produce packing sheds, a livery stable, post office, schoolhouse, blacksmith, telegraph office, railroad depot, locomotive servicing facilities and a section house for railroad maintenance crews. Meanwhile, across the waters of Los Gatos Creek, Sunset Park was a favorite site for family picnics and civic events, and was served by a 1,500-foot spur track that branched off from the main line and ran upstream to a wooded glade where passengers could be safely let off. Train time during this era was a colorful and chaotic sight with literally dozens of horse-drawn carriages and wagons jamming the crowded Main Street, exchanging passengers and freight with waiting railroad cars while brightly painted and brass trimmed steam locomotives lazily hissed and percolated, patiently awaiting the order to proceed.
And through this choreographed chaos rolled the products from dozens of similar communities along the line: Fresh-cut redwood from the Hihn Mill at Laurel… Sand and gravel from the quarry at Olympia… Tourists bound both to and from the mineral springs at Glenwood… Families heading either to Sunset Park for a picnic or the Big Trees Grove at Felton for an afternoon of communing with nature… Explosives from the powder works at Rincon… Processed mercury from the quicksilver mines at New Almaden… Sun-worshipers and amusement-seekers bound for the beaches of Santa Cruz… Commerce rolled and profits flowed all along the South Pacific Coast Railroad, and all of it passed through Wright's. The town had reached its zenith.
But prosperity is a fleeting thing... as impossible to contain as time itself. It can be maintained for a certain period of time… perhaps even steered in one general direction or another. But eventually… in fact, inevitably… it will fade and move on. Decline is an unavoidable fact of life; as relentless and ever-present as the tides, and in due time, the residents of Wright's too would learn this lesson.
Did anyone realize that the bloom was off the rose? It seems likely that the moment of the community's greatest glory came and went without any real notice being taken. People went to bed on that anonymous evening not knowing that when the sun rose the next morning, it would do so without the promise of the new day being better than the last.
And so the long process of decline came as a thief in the night, striking its first blow with the opening of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Route on New Year's Eve of 1900. Although traffic volumes would remain high throughout World War One and well into the "Roaring Twenties," the competition posed by a straighter, faster track just a scant few miles to the east would cut deeply into the flow of through freight.
And from that point on, the misfortunes would only compound.
Damage wrought by the Great Quake of 1906 would close the line for three years, driving even more traffic into the clutches of the Coast Route. Then, with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, the economic reality shifted from merely bad to downright dismal. Businesses were shuttered and families abandoned their homes; some of which had been occupied by said families for generations.
And finally, on the eve of war, a devastating double-whammy: Winter storms in 1940 brought massive landslides thundering down the mountains and across the tracks in the canyon of Zayante Creek, while at the same time, construction crews to the west were putting the finishing touches on the newly built State Route 17. Flanked by competition on both sides and beset by an economic climate gone mad, the railroad finally called it quits. Official "notice of abandonment" papers were filed on March 25th of 1940, and by September the rails were gone.
And then, in a turn of events so symbolic of the town's demise that it almost seemed pre-ordained, the historic Arbor Villa Hotel… the very establishment that had given birth to the town 70 years before… the structure that was still owned and occupied by decedents of James Wright himself… burned to the ground amidst the bluish-gray haze of a cool autumn evening, never to be rebuilt.
For the colorful town of Wright's, it was the last straw. Forsaken by the railroad that had built it and bypassed by the highway that had ignored it, the town was reduced to an isolated backwater, hidden from view amongst the timeless redwoods and offering little to nothing in terms of economic opportunity or advancement. With heavy hearts, the few remaining residents packed their worldly possessions, took one final look at their homes, and departed, leaving little more than a few dilapidated buildings and a trunk full of memories in their wake. It was the end of the line.
Today, the crumbling foundations of the general store and a half-buried swimming pool from one of the hotels are the only physical traces left from the town of Wright's. Meanwhile, further away at the base of the hill, along the banks of tranquil Los Gatos Creek, two concrete piers rise like ancient obelisks from the muddy banks. Reaching skyward to mingle with the treetops, they once carried the tracks of the South Pacific Coast across the lazy current, but now appear more like forgotten monuments to the railroad's passing. At its base, one pier still bears faded stenciling, warning passers-by to beware of loose rocks falling from the trains above.
And in the opposite direction, at the top of the dead-end canyon that Wright's was once so snugly tucked into, the ruins of the massive Summit Tunnel lay hidden amongst the trees. No longer used by anything more than the occasional hiker seeking shelter and salamanders seeking a damp place to nest, this once vital link in the region's transportation infrastructure now lies neglected and forgotten, slowly being torn apart by tree roots, flowing water and the occasional seismic jolt: A ghostly echo of an economic boom gone bust, and of a golden age too wonderful to last.
Getting There is Half the Fun: Visiting Wright's today is something of a chore. Being the virtual definition of "off the beaten path," it's not the sort of place that one would simply stumble across on their way to someplace else, and very few contemporary maps bother to mark its location. You just need to sort of know where it is… and you have to go out specifically looking to find it.
Perhaps the easiest way to find Wright's is to take the exact same approach chosen by our heroes. Driving north from the city of Santa Cruz, take California State Route 17 into the Santa Cruz Mountains, passing through the town of Scott's Valley along the way. Stay on CA-17 until you see the signs for Summit Road, at which point you should exit the freeway and head east, running along the spine of the Coast Range.
After about ten minutes of driving, hang a left turn onto Morrel Road, followed by another left onto Wright's Station Road. Use caution from this point on, as the road becomes steep, sharp and narrow. (Calling it "one-and-a-half lanes" would be overly generous.)
After several minutes of steep descent you'll reach the bottom of the canyon. At this point the road makes a sweeping right-hand curve past a wide gravel turnout and crosses Los Gatos Creek on the ornate bridge mentioned previously. Pull over and park along the gravel, making sure to be well off the road. Welcome to Wright's!
And if you're still curious after everything I've mentioned here… Well, you're obviously a bigger history buff than me… But you can also learn more by going to Wikipedia and typing "Wright's California" into the search window. There's a well-written article with photos and a lot of good historical detail. Or if you're on "Facebook," run a search for "Steven Cope," (that's me), and then look for a photo album called "The Tunnel Rats of Santa Cruz." There's several dozen pics in there, both old and new, documenting some of the hidden historic treasures that these mountains still conceal.
Oh, and before I forget entirely, the song "Under the Boardwalk" was written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick, and famously rendered by the group "The Drifters" in June of 1964: Yet another in a laundry list of hits to be produced under the Atlantic Records label. Although the lyrics were technically written in deference to the famous boardwalk amusement park at Coney Island, New York, generations of music fans since have come to associate the song with Santa Cruz as well.
And so, having left you all sufficiently bored for one day, I will bid you adieu. Stay tuned for Chapter Two, which should be hitting the shelves in very short order.
Take care, one and all!
Nutzkie…