Old-timers still talk, as old-timers do, about how the little town used to be, before the brewery, and the sapphire hunters, and the moneyed outsiders looking for their own private mountain getaway. In the before days, bars and churches vied for top billing. A grocery store anchored one corner of Main Street, balanced by a feed store on the other. A clothing store, doctor’s office and pharmacy stair stepped up the mountain on one side of the street, opposite a car dealership and hardware store. Instead of tourists, the streets bustled with local ranchers and their families going about the business of life in a dusty cow town. Then came the sapphires.
Sapphires. Rarer than diamonds, and some would argue, more desirable. Formed from the slow cooling of molten rock and magma deep under the surface of the earth. During a different age, when the earth’s crust was unstable and magma boiled and lava flowed, the colorless mineral corundum blended with other minerals to form prized crystals in a variety of colors. Sapphires. The most coveted of these, a mixture of corundum, titanium, and iron resulted in shades of blue. Sapphires flowed to the surface of the earth on rivers of magma which, when cooled, became granite. So precise are the chemical and physical requirements in the formation of sapphires that few places on earth have yielded these crystals. Trained geologist search in vain for the volcanic source of Montana sapphires. For some treasures there is not an earthly explanation. Stone County.
Unlike most western towns, Anderson began as a ranch outpost. The landowner held high standards in regard to behavior, and that attitude held through the many decades. Anderson residents, many with deep roots tracing back to the original family, prided themselves on a high code of ethics. Crime was low among locals and most disagreements could be solved with a few phone calls from sheriff’s office.
Peter Elliott sat looking out the window of his spacious office in the historic courthouse of the lively little town. His town. As sheriff of Anderson, Montana, he felt more than a small amount of pride over the quaint and pretty place. Tucked up against the Moonlight Mountains in southwest Montana, Anderson was nestled in pine covered slopes, it’s base washed in the deep pools and river rock covered stream beds of Flint Creek. Anderson was as beautiful as it was charming. Many old mining towns, behind the brick façade of the grand Main Street buildings, were scattered with decaying shacks and piles of ‘historic’ garbage. Anderson’s Historical Society had a tendency to swoon every time a gardener turned up a rusted tin can or brown glass tincture bottle. Often the town council had to intervene when the Society, as it was locally known, tried to declare a resident’s backyard an historical landmark and rope it off for further research. The elders of Anderson had the foresight to tear down and clear what could not be saved and preserve what could before the Society arrived to shut down any progress in that department. Left was a tidy town with minimal decay and room to grow where the lots of rubble were cleared.
Treasure hunters in days gone by came to Anderson in search of wealth in the form of silver and gold. Modern day treasure hunters are parents and their children hunting sapphires and a day’s entertainment. The Sapphire Pit offered that opportunity. With the window open to let in fresh mountain air, Peter heard rather than saw a commotion at The Sapphire Pit. Sliding the paperback he was reading under the pile of paperwork he was avoiding; Peter stood, smoothed his unruly mahogany hair with one hand and donned his required Stetson with the other. Early in his career he learned that tourists, if not locals, gave him more credence as a small-town western sheriff if he looked the part. He walked to the window and studied the sorting lot located at the bottom of a steep hill, directly below his window. There was indeed a group of angry customers on the verge of an altercation. Peter sighed. At times he felt more like a school principal than a law enforcement officer.
