TALES FROM THE FIELD Fear and Loathing. Not Far From Las Vegas
Vic Ridgley, CPG-5138 Vic Ridgley worked 15 years in hard- and soft-rock uranium exploration, and 34 years in gold, includ-
ing 20 years at four producing Nevada mines. He is now semi-retired and freelances in technical writing and editing.
The Rules: Maintenance of lode claims used to
require documented ‘annual assessment work’ amounting to $100 per claim car- ried out in a claim year ending August 31. Lapsed claims could be cured (rein- stated) by resuming assessment work later, providing there were no interven- ing claimants…
The Players: •Dennis, a short-order cook who had
filed claims in the Rawhide Mountains south of Kingman, AZ in 1969 and done no assessment work since.
•George & Vic (G&V), two eager
young geologists aspiring to make their mark in exploration.
•Jim, the voluble and gregarious landman.
•Dean, their personable, affable boss. •Frenchie, their corporate employer. •Two unnamed security guards and
their unnamed boss, the Guard Service Owner (GSO), in Kingman.
The Story: G&V’s uranium reconnaissance pro-
gram in the Arizona desert (summer, 1974) persuades them to stake claims in the Rawhide Mountains, near the appropriately-named Fool’s Peak. They descend on the site on August 28th, and find no evidence of competing claims or current activity except for Dennis’ original 1969 claim posts. Jim goes to
check courthouse records in Kingman and mentions, upon his return, that while chatting up the county clerk (who happened to be Dennis’ girlfriend), he let slip the fact that G&V were picking up where Dennis left off…
Panicked (and furious), G&V spend
the 30th holed up in a Wickenburg motel, drawing up a claim map, writing several dozen discovery notices, and ‘Dumpster-diving’ in and around the dry bed of the Hassayampa River to obtain discarded aluminum soda cans suitable (and legal) to use as containers for the claim notices to be attached to new posts. A frantic dawn-to-moonlight campaign on the property ensues to establish dis- covery lines for the claim block, followed by a daily grind: install the corner and side-center posts as well. Days later, a directive from Frenchie: Repaper the claim posts with new discovery notices, so as to have documents dated before and after Aug. 31, the end of the assessment year (This is supposed to strengthen the chain of title???).
Beginning on September 14th, G&V
repeat their earlier ordeal – Dumpster- diving, notice-writing, and revisiting all their old discovery posts with new soda cans and new notices. During this episode, a scowling, beer-bellied Dennis shows up on the 17th and declares his anger at Frenchie’s behavior. G&V smile sweetly, provide him with Frenchie’s
Denver corporate address and phone number, and resume repapering claims. Dennis leaves. Confident that the pend- ing problems have been shelved for now, G&V resume paperhanging. But Dennis is evidently not finished making state- ments; he reappears a couple of hours later, with a .22 (!) starting a target practice session in the general direction of the paperhangers. G&V stare at each other in disbelief and decide, without any basis in fact, that Dennis really couldn’t be stupid enough to KILL over this, so they meet the challenge by slithering from post to post, heads kept low, in the hope that Dennis would run out of ammo or treat his target practice as his own quiet victory. That night, G&V telephone Dean to report on their excit- ing afternoon. He allays their concerns by stating that, In the event of deaths by .22, the company will look after the wives and children.
G&V hire drilling contractors to
begin an assessment-cum-validation- hole (depending on which edition of the claim paperwork you are inclined to believe, pre- or post-Aug. 31) program on the 20th, and they work unmolested for a week. Then a guard hired by Dennis from a Kingman security service confronts the G&V show (geos, drill, cat) on the 27th at the property line. He declares: “I am serving notice. You are trespass- ing on Dennis’ property. If you persist, I will put a bullet in the radiator of the drill rig, and you will be subject to the full penalty of the law. I am authorized
Continued on p. 39
www.aipg.org Apr.May.Jun 2019 • TPG 33
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