Liberty

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Look at that! We gotta have time to do some bouldering, and some of those are V10 problems.”

Bones gestured to the huge rocks and small cliff faces that surrounded them, glistening with the melting snow. In stark contrast to the blizzard of two days earlier, the early afternoon sun had raised the temperatures north of fifty degrees and the ground was nearly clear.

Dane decided to push back a little bit. “Nah, V7 at the hardest. Though I understand how you might think it’s harder than it actually is.”

He and Bones were talking about the difficulty ratings scale for the sport of bouldering, a form of rock climbing targeting small rock formations. A “problem” described the route a climber would take.

Bones let out a belly laugh. “Oh no, Maddock is talking smack. I forgot you were into this stuff.”

“I’m more into real climbing, but bouldering has its appeal.”

“Dude, we have got to go climbing once we’re done solving two hundred year old mysteries and running from killers.”

“You’re on.”

They had just left the marked trails in Wissahickon Valley Park, and despite being less than a mile from the city streets, Dane felt like he was in the wilderness. The sound of the nearby Wissahickon Creek heavy with runoff drowned out almost all the sounds of mankind.

They had spent several hours at the library after leaving Marshall’s apartment. They still didn’t know the nature of the secret of Edmund Randolph and Ben Franklin, nor did they have an exact location for this afternoon’s search. Nevertheless, they had learned enough to give them hope.

The easiest clue to resolve was the setting of Poe’s story, “The Elk”: Wissahickon Valley where they now stood. They found some information about the original Library of Congress as well. Founded in 1800, it was burned by the British in 1814 and the official Congressional record concluded that its entire holdings were lost. Afterward, Thomas Jefferson provided a large number of volumes to begin a replacement. But they also found several reports that suggested some of the items may have been saved.

Bones had been convinced of a conspiracy. “I’m telling you, Maddock, this guy Patrick Magruder, the Librarian in 1812, reported that they had taken a whole wagon-load of stuff out of the city to a secret location. Another guy mentions a couple years later that some of the books were saved, but Congress concluded they weren’t. This has cover-up written all over it.”

“But why would they do that, Bones?”

“Who knows? Maybe to protect the secret of Ben Franklin.”

Dane wasn’t inclined to agree with him, not until they stumbled on the answer to another piece of the riddle by accident. The information on the original library of Congress showed that it was founded with seven hundred-forty books and three maps. This had to be what Richard Bache’s letter referred to when it said to look for one of the three not the seven-hundred-forty. They were looking for one of the maps from the original Library or Congress.

When they looked for more information on the Wissahickon Valley, they found at least part of the answer to the riddle about where the lover and the hermit meet. Lover’s Leap was a well-known cliff in the park where a tragic Native American couple supposedly jumped to their deaths due to a tribal dispute. Not all that far away was a deep chasm known as Hermit’s Glen.

However, the park contained several other hermit references due to the fact that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a lot of mystics and others who wanted to drop out of society gravitated towards Wissahickon. The most notable of these was a man named Johannes Kelpius, for whom a cave in the park was named. There was even a modern Kelpius Society dedicated to a combination of mysticism and Kelpius history.

Satisfied that they could start looking near the area of Lover’s Leap and Hermit’s Glen, Dane and Bones had been ready to leave the library when Bones spotted something in a report from the Parks Department. A structure known as the Lauriston Cottage, which the city had torn down some years earlier due to dilapidation, was known to have some ties to Kelpius. This seemed like an even better place to start.

Finding it proved difficult. Standing by the creek and looking up at the rock formations near Lover’s Leap, Dane still didn’t know exactly what they were looking for. A document? The lost Library of Congress? Something else? It was a little like searching for a needle in a haystack, but he wasn’t going to give up without at least looking. He knew Bones felt the same way.

“Let me know if you see a really old bald eagle, dude.”

“Bones, somehow I doubt that’s what Bache was referring to.”

“I don’t know, this mystery did involve Edgar Allen Poe. Eagle, Raven, almost the same thing.”

Dane shook his head. Sometimes it was better just to ignore him.

Before long, they came to the cave that Kelpius was said to have used for meditation. Outside about a four foot square entrance low to the ground was a stone marker. Bones read the following on it:

Dane moved in closer. “You see that Bones?”

“You mean the cross?”

“Yeah. Sort of like the symbol the Sons of the Republic. Or the sign of the Lord referred to in the riddle.”

“Maddock, you know I’m all about conspiracies and secret societies, but crosses aren’t exactly thin on the ground. And this wasn’t put here until the sixties. The Rosicrucians are into all kinds of weird stuff, though. Maybe Ben Franklin’s secret is how they’re taking over the U.S., infiltrating every level of government.”

“How about we look inside the cave?”

Bones had to fold his frame nearly in half to get inside. Calling the structure a cave wasn’t really accurate. It had a dirt floor, but the walls and curved ceiling were built with a combination of stones dirt and some sort of mortar. The area was large enough for a number of people to gather.

Dane and Bones turned on their flashlights and examined the walls and ceiling with care. Neither saw any sign of a noble bird or even a cross other than those spray-painted in the twentieth century.

“Looks like a dead end, bro.”

“True, but the ruins of that cottage are what we need to find. We should be pretty close.”

Bones grimaced. “That parks commission report said that they had filled in the area after demolition. It was a long time ago, but it still ought to look different than the surrounding area.”

“I don’t think it could be the cottage itself. The clue said near the spot.”

“Best clue we’ve got, though.”

They tried to follow the river, but several times they had to detour backwards or away from its meandering course to avoid wading in the near-freezing water. They didn’t cover ground very fast, especially not knowing what they were looking for. After a bit, they sat down on a flat, bluish slab of the schist which made up much of the rock formation in the area.

“It’s not looking too good, Maddock. We need more to go on. I bet some of those local Kelpius society people know where the ruins of the cottage are.”

Dane couldn’t argue with Bones, but he wasn’t willing to stop yet. “I bet they do. But let’s take a step back. What are we looking for?”

“My question exactly.”

“Well we’re probably looking for the Library of Congress.”

“Bache’s letter didn’t exactly say that. It talked about a clue to Ben Franklin’s secret. For a secret, there seem to be an awful lot of clues floating around. It’s just that most of them suck.”

“If it’s not the lost Library of Congress we’re looking for, it’s hopeless. We’ll have no idea. So let’s assume it is. Why would they have hidden it somewhere in here?”

“No idea.”

Dane sighed. “I think we’re back to trying to find the ruins of the cottage.”

“Since you ruled out my ancient bald eagle idea, yeah.”

Thirty minutes later, after searching by walking parallel tracks thirty yards apart, Dane stumbled on one of the ever present stones. He avoided a face-plant, but when he put out his hand to steady himself with one knee on the ground, something sharp sliced through his glove and gouged his palm. A curse had barely left his mouth when he realized it was a brick. He jumped to his feet.

“Bones, I’ve got something!”

Bones came over and looked at the brick. After scanning the area, he slapped Dane on the back. “Paydirt. See how the contour of the land is smoother, like a mound?”

Dane scanned the surrounding area. “Yeah, so we’re now looking for a noble bird.”

“Don’t forget the sign of our Lord, too.”

“Right. So we need to start walking some grids out from here. How about we start with about four hundred yards?”

They had already been at it for almost three hours, but finding the clue energized Dane. And this time, they didn’t have to go far before they found something else. On their second grid out from the center of the mound, near the river, Bones found an old grindstone. He and Dane zeroed in on the area and it became clear that they were standing amid the ruins of one of the many old mills that had once dotted the landscape.

Their initial search revealed three grindstones. When Dane caught sight of the third one, he sucked in his breath. Chiseled near the hole in the center of the round stone slab was a cross with each of its four points wider than the center.

“A Celtic cross.” Bones looked at Dane, eyes wide. “I gotta admit I thought you were leading us on a wild goose chase.”

Dane grinned. “Not a wild goose. We’re looking for a nobler bird than that.”

Bones squatted down and wrapped his fingers around the edge of the three foot diameter stone. “First place we look is on the other side of this bad boy. Give me a hand, Maddock.”

Dane joined him and they attempted to turn the stone over. Between the two of them, Dane estimated they could probably lift at least seven hundred pounds off the ground in a weight room, but their first attempt with the grindstone didn’t move it at all.

Bones snapped his fingers. “I know what this is! This is Thor’s hammer. Only someone worthy of Thor can pick it up.”

Dane raised an eyebrow. “Thor’s hammer was round with a cross in the middle?”

“Those old myths usually get some details wrong, it’s true. Let’s give it another shot.”

“Sure, but I’m betting you’re not the God of Thunder.”

“Are you kidding? You’ve been around me after I’ve eaten Mexican food.”

They tried again, this time straining with everything they had. Dane felt it shift slightly to the right then back to where it started, but it was a sliding motion, it didn’t come even a millimeter off the ground.

“Did you feel that, Bones?”

“Yeah, this thing must be made of some alien element with the density of a neutron star. No other explanation makes sense.”

“I thought it was Thor’s hammer. But I meant how it moved to the side.”

Bones raised an eyebrow. “The side? How about we trying rotating it rather than lifting it?”

They squatted back down and were able to spin it about an inch in either direction, sort of like turning a massive steering wheel. After a few attempts to get it to move further, Bones dropped onto it, elbows on his knees.

“I hate to admit defeat, but we need to try something else. Maybe that noble bird is somewhere else around here.”

“Agreed,” Dane said. “It’s odd that the grindstone is set up like this, though. Flat on the ground, it wouldn’t be any use for grinding, yet the little bit of rotation and lack of movement in other directions suggest it was done on purpose.”

They resumed searching the area. Very little of the old mill remained, though Dane spotted the occasional stone or piece of mortar that clearly didn’t fit in naturally. He could feel the tingle of anticipation as he looked. They had followed all the clues thus far, and only one remained.

“Score one for the red man!” Bones’ voice boomed from twenty feet away, startling Dane. Bones had uncovered a flat stone on the ground, one of those omnipresent pieces of blue schist. Carved in the middle was a logo of a bald eagle with outstretched wings. The logo contained words in a circular pattern around the center of the eagle, with some sort of figure inside the circle of words.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Bones laughed. “Well I imagine it’s supposed to be an eagle, but it kinda looks like a turkey to me. You know, I remember now that Ben Franklin once called the turkey a more noble bird than the bald eagle. Of course, he probably had the munchies when he said it.”

“That’s true, but that’s not what I meant. I know this logo. This is the logo of the Society of Cincinnatus. Want to guess who was an honorary member?”

“Pete Rose?”

“Nice try. Not only Ben Franklin, but George Washington and several other Founding Fathers.”

Bones scrutinized the stone. “I can’t make out those words in the middle.”

“Neither can I, but I think I know what they say. Most versions of this logo don’t contain the words, but their motto is ‘Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam.’ It means ‘He gave everything to preserve the Republic.’”

“Sounds like something our friends in the Sons of the Republic could twist to serve their own ends.” At the mention of the Sons of the Republic, Bones open and closed his hands, as if ready to choke someone. “So what do we do now?”

“Good question. I guess we could try to move it.”

Attempts to move the stone didn’t fare any better than they had with the grindstone. It simply wouldn’t budge. Eventually they gave up, and Dane stood and stared at the logo.

“You know that turkey is mocking us.” Bones frowned at the offending bird.

Dane knelt again and ran his hands over the logo. He could feel the ripples and lines of the carving, but he also noticed an indentation around the outer perimeter. He tried moving just the carved logo, which didn’t work. Then he pressed down on it and he detected about half an inch of movement. A couple of additional attempts achieved the same result.

“Bones, I have a thought.”

“First time for everything.”

“Funny guy. Here’s the thing. Whatever we’re missing here can’t be something someone would stumble on easily. We only know about the relationship between the cross and the logo because of Bache’s letter, but otherwise we’d never assume there’s a connection. We were able to move each of them a tiny bit, but only in a single direction.”

Understanding dawned on Bones’ face. “So you think we need to move both of them at the same time?”

Dane nodded. “It’s worth a try. Go over to the grindstone. I’ll start by pushing the logo down and then you see if you can turn the stone.”

When Bones was ready, Dane pushed down the logo and held it in the depressed position. Bones let out a grunt as he put his back into turning the grindstone.

With a grunt of surprise, Bones fell forward as the grindstone spun easily. As they watched, the logo under Dane’s hand dropped six inches.

Then the ground under Dane’s feet began to vibrate, a steady feeling as opposed to the shaking of the minor earthquake he and Bones had experienced a few months back during their training in southern California. A grinding noise accompanied the movement. Dane spun around, unable to place the source of it.

Until he looked at Bones. Next to the grindstone and the location of Bones’ unexpected face plant, the earth had started bunching up as if an invisible plow were carving a five foot wide furrow. Dane watched with a slack jaw until the sound and the movement both stopped.

Only a few seconds had passed. Bones jumped to his feet and stared down at the ground without a word. Then he looked up and dipped his chin in Dane’s direction. Dane walked towards the disturbed earth, stopping in disbelief when he reached it.

A hole in the earth had opened up, about five feet by five feet. The rumbling and movement had been caused by a slab of stone sliding away to expose it. Steps led from one edge down into a cave of sorts with rugged walls that appeared natural in the first couple of meters, which was all Dane could make out before darkness took over.

Bones was already on the first step with his flashlight out. “Dude, that was awesome. The combination of pressing the logo and turning the grindstone triggered it. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. I just asked myself what Indiana Jones would do.”

“Yeah, all you need is a whip. Mind if I go first?”

Dane nodded. “I’m right behind you.”