Cowboy Christmas Guardian

by Dana Mentink

  She cocked her head and drew her slender legs up underneath her, tucked her hands into the long sleeves of her sweater. “He’ll change his mind. I’m sure of it.”

  “But if he doesn’t and there’s no other easy way in? After hearing what Oscar said about that college kid, are you willing to possibly risk your life over this thing?”

  “It’s not just a thing, Barrett,” she said, hugging her knees. “I wasn’t exaggerating about my uncle’s financial position. He needs this mine to work out.”

  Barrett felt the old familiar anger at the mention of Ken. “He’ll land on his feet,” Barrett couldn’t stop himself from saying. “He’ll sell some property and bail himself out.”

  “He’s already spent most of what he had trying to help Devon.”

  Anger flashed through him. “Helping him avoid prison was expensive, huh? Maybe if he’d have stopped enabling his kid to escape responsibility, they’d both be better off.” The words flew out like poison-tipped arrows. He breathed deep, trying to get some control.

  She stared at him and he could see his own ire reflected in her eyes. “He lost his wife,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Barrett growled, wishing immediately that he hadn’t, but the floodgates were open. “Did you know that I fished Devon out of a ditch two months before the accident? He was drunk, wrecked his motorcycle. I took him home, talked to your uncle. Told him he ought to make sure the boy was straightened out before there was real trouble.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Know what your uncle did to punish him? Bought him a car to replace the motorcycle.”

  He heard her expel a breath. “Aunt Opal, his wife, died in childbirth after losing five babies to miscarriages. I know it’s not an excuse, but Uncle Ken tried to be everything to Devon that he’d lost, to fill up the holes. He made mistakes. He knows that.” Her voice broke.

  “We all make mistakes,” he said, “but a real man takes responsibility for them. Devon has tried to do that and he’s still practically a kid, but Ken can’t face the fact that he failed as a father.”

  She took his hand, her fingers silk soft on his roughened ones. He wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t.

  She gazed into his eyes. “I thought a real man was one who could forgive.” She hesitated. “Like Christ did.”

  He sighed heavily, his inability to beat his own anger defeating him. “I’m nothing like Christ.”

  “Both your mother and my Aunt Opal would probably have said that’s the point, that we’re supposed to become more like Him, through all the troubles and tragedies.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t.” He felt her hand caressing his cheek and he kept his eyes closed in hopes she would not stop.

  “I’m not sure I can either,” she said. He opened his eyes to find her kneeling in front of where he sat on the couch, expression so earnest it took his breath away. “But I...I’m going to go see my mother and say the things I should have said earlier, even if it doesn’t change anything.”

  “What made you decide to do that?”

  “Being here, with your family. Seeing what my mistakes have cost me.”

  He looked into her jade eyes, so rich and deep, and he wanted more than anything to say that he could forgive Ken Arroyo. But the hard stone in his heart would not be broken, and it had taken the place of the soft flesh that used to beat there.

  “I am glad for you,” he said.

  She wanted more, and so did he, but he could not give it. Her hand fell away and he realized the truth. His anger was a mountain between them that could never be crossed. He’d followed God all his life, he knew that he should do what God demanded of him, but he was too wounded, too weak.

  He got up, shame weighing him down like a rockfall. “I should go.” She walked him to the door, standing on the porch. He was torn with the intense desire to leave, yet his feet would not let him.

  Her phone buzzed and she answered. Barrett was grateful for the distraction. He gazed up at the stars, hands jammed in his pockets, trying to accept the gulf that lay between them, that always would.

  When she disconnected, her smile was jubilant.

  “Oscar said yes. He’ll meet us at the entrance at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

  He nodded. At least he could help her find the answers in the mine that would put her life in order, and maybe Ken’s, too. If that was all he could offer, so be it.

  “Dogs will keep watch tonight and I can look over your cabin from my window. I probably won’t sleep much, so text me if you hear anything. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. He let himself out of Granddad’s cabin and trudged back to the house.

  * * *

  Shelby kept her focus on the task as she packed supplies into her backpack and double-checked that she had extra flashlight batteries and some food and water just in case. The memory of her conversation with Barrett intruded anyway.

  Ken lost his wife.

  Me, too.

  In those two words, there was such a flow of hurt that had hardened over the years like igneous rock. In his voice, she’d heard the underlying message. He was unchangeable, immovable, frozen in his pain and unforgiveness, just as Uncle Ken was frozen.

  “Lord,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t deserve to ask, but please help them both out of this darkness.”

  The prayer did not dull the edge of her unhappiness, but for some reason it felt right to say it, just as it had the moment she’d told herself it was time to go and see her mother. Would unburdening herself before her mother change anything between them? No, but perhaps it would change something inside Shelby’s soul.

  More like Jesus.

  Her breath came out in a rush. Like Barrett, she had a long way to go.

  The sky was dark, the horses munching their morning meal, when she let herself and Grits out of the cabin. Grits lamented their early departure with a low moan and a full body shake that sent his long ears whirling around his snout.

  “I know, sweetie,” she said, giving him a pat. “But the early dog gets the bacon, right?”

  Grits did not look convinced as he trotted off toward the main house.

  Barrett showed up wearing a Giants baseball cap.

  “No cowboy hat today?”

  “Don’t want to lose a second one,” he said. The words were light, but his eyes did not have their usual sparkle. He wore hiking boots and a jacket, a small pack over his shoulder. He sported his usual style of shirt in a different color and she hid a smile. She’d seen him exploring the ground around the perimeter of the cabin, and his scowl told her he was unsatisfied with whatever he had or had not found.

  “Did you get breakfast?” she said. “There’s time if you want to grab something.”

  “No, I’m okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  Over with. The phrase stuck in her ears as they headed up the road. A wall was up between them now, and it was clearly Barrett’s desire to keep it that way. Grief cut at her heart. He was right. The only thing left to do was get the job done so they could each go their own ways. She tightened the straps on her pack and quickened her pace.

  It was much faster to hike to Oscar Livingston’s property than to drive the truck, so they took a narrow path cut through a grassy hillside.

  Barrett finally broke the silence. “I told my brothers and Dad what we’re up to. If for some reason they don’t hear from us by noon, they’ll come running.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Keegan really wanted to come, but he’s working with a new horse today. He’s kind of unpredictable.”

  “Keegan or the horse?”

  “Come to think of it, both of them.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence until they let themselves through the gate
onto Oscar’s property. Since Oscar lived at the inn, the small house was empty, showing signs of wear and weathering. The land itself was overgrown with tall grasses on the low, flat plain, which eased down into a gorge peppered with old, gnarled trees poking out at odd angles.

  Oscar waved a meaty hand, the other clutching two hard hats, which he presented to them.

  “Got lights on them, too, so you don’t brain yourself hopefully.”

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Livingston.”

  “Call me Oscar.”

  They put on the hard hats and Barrett shoved his cap into his back pocket.

  Oscar led the way to a wood-framed entrance, wedged into a scrubby hillside on the near side of the gorge. It was boarded over, but the plywood was beginning to rot, the rusty nails popping free from the wood. Oscar handed Barrett a crowbar.

  “Here you go, son. Better your strapping young back attacking this thing than mine.”

  “Yes, sir,” Barrett said. It did not take him more than five minutes to pry loose the boards. The black maw of the mine opened before them. A ripple of excitement raced up Shelby’s spine.

  Oscar put a hand on each of their shoulders, his face troubled. “I have a bad feeling about this, and so does Hazel. Is there any way I can talk you out of it?”

  “No, Oscar, but we’ll be fine, I promise.”

  “You both need to be careful, extra careful.”

  “We will,” Barrett said, and Shelby nodded her agreement, pressing a kiss to Oscar’s round cheek.

  He shook his head. “I’ll just never forgive myself for what happened to that young fella, Charlie. I wonder sometimes if I had just been stronger with him, told him louder, forbidden him from going prowling around this place.” He shuddered as if the frigid air from the mine had chilled him. “That hunger for gold,” he said, “can get a person dead.”

  You’ll Die. The memory dripped like blood through her thoughts.

  You won’t scare me off, Hatcher. No one will.

  She squeezed Oscar’s hand. “Nothing will happen to us, I promise.” She turned toward the entrance and Oscar gripped Barrett’s arm.

  “I’m old-school, son,” he said. “In my day, a man looked out for a woman’s safety.”

  “In my day, too,” Barrett said.

  “Okay, then. You bring her back safe and sound.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “All right. I have to go help Hazel with the breakfast service. We still haven’t got cleaned up from yesterday’s Christmas tea, even though she hired on extra help. Hazel works too hard unless I’m there to share the load, but I will come back when I can.”

  Barrett nodded, shaking hands with Oscar as if they were concluding a business meeting.

  Shelby was grateful that Barrett still intended to keep her company, in spite of the distance between them. With Barrett right behind her, Shelby switched on her headlamp and eased into the crypt-cold darkness.

  EIGHTEEN

  The hard hat was not comfortable, but Barrett figured it was better than getting bashed on the skull again. He tried to edge up in front of Shelby, but true to form, she led the way.

  The mine had obviously been worked at one point. Busted-up tracks indicated there had been a system to move carts back and forth.

  “The rails were for the ore cars,” Shelby said, as if she read his thoughts. “They must have found a workable vein here. The miners would dig out the ore and haul it outside where it was put through a crusher to extract the gold.”

  He breathed in a damp lungful. “Air seems okay.”

  “They dug a shaft for ventilation and to release any dangerous gases.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She grinned. “I spent the wee hours poring over your granddad’s maps. There’s one that shows the entrance and the shaft. That’s about it.”

  “Sketchy.”

  “Yep, but that’s the fun of it, right?”

  He shook his head. “If you say so.”

  “Actually, reading the topography, I’m guessing this shaft connects to Hatcher’s somewhere north of here. If we follow these tracks, I’m sure we’ll get there.”

  “Does your uncle own the mineral rights to this whole area?”

  “No, mostly just what lies under Hatcher’s property, unfortunately.”

  Barrett was secretly relieved. If Arroyo wound up in the gold mining business, at least he wouldn’t disrupt Oscar’s land, too.

  Shelby was busily taking pictures and writing notes on a spiral pad. He stayed quiet, allowing his vision to adjust to the gloom. The entrance was no more than ten feet high and maybe twice that wide. A rusted, overturned ore car lay on its side and something, he suspected rats, rustled in the recesses of the space.

  At least the floor was dry and for that he was grateful. It was his mission to get them both in and out with no more plunges into icy underground lakes. He noted the timbers wedged into the rock to support the overhead portions of the tunnel. “So what’s the shelf life of a support beam?”

  She joined him in examining the wood. “I don’t see much in the way of rot. Fortunately, it’s dry and you don’t get termites down here.”

  Awesome. At least they didn’t have to worry about bugs.

  His light caught on a metal box covered with dust. He could read enough that his heart skipped a beat. “TNT,” he said.

  She stared. “Reminds me that someone tossed a stick at me shortly after I arrived in this town.”

  He nodded, stomach muscles tight. “I remember.”

  “Barrett?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Those boards came away pretty easily from the entrance, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As if they could have been removed and then nailed up again, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I might.”

  “As much as I hate to admit it, someone could have grabbed themselves some TNT from this mine, instead of Hatcher’s.”

  “Or a million other places. This is Gold Country. The place is riddled in every nook and cranny with leftovers from the mining industry.”

  “The dynamite, those red marks in the tunnel and the mysterious disappearance of Charlie, Oscar’s guest at the inn. What’s going on in Gold Bar, Barrett?”

  “I wish I knew.” Then again, maybe he didn’t. Just keeping her safe was all he could think about.

  She grew quiet as she stepped past the dynamite and followed the tracks. “Okay. It’s six thirty already. We’d better start moving if we’re going to get in and out before the Thorn cavalry arrives.”

  They crept into the narrow tunnel, and he had to hunch to keep his hard hat from scraping the rock. No need to generate any sparks, he thought uneasily. Debris covered the floor along the rails so they had to step carefully to avoid twisting their ankles.

  She stopped, beaming her lamp at a patch of rock that looking like nothing special to Barrett.

  “What? Something sparkle at you?”

  His comment caused her to chuckle. “I’m looking at the quartz veining here in this fracture.”

  Her index finger traced something that must be significant, though it looked like more rock to his ignorant eye.

  “Not gold?”

  “No, but it can be a good indicator.” She pulled a hammer from her pack and began to whack off some rock chips, which she slid into a heavyweight bag. The sound echoed and boomed down the tunnel. “Certain elements are telling, too. Arsenic, antimony, mercury, selenium, thallium. It’s like being a detective, in a way. The lab will give us the final verdict.”

  He whistled. “Well, you certainly got the smarts for this job, I’ll say.”

  He thought she might be pleased by his compliment, and that made him feel good.

  “Than
k you. I studied hard every moment and worked two jobs, but I still couldn’t have done it if my uncle hadn’t paid most of my tuition.”

  Her uncle. Somehow they always came back to him. It had not occurred to Barrett that Ken Arroyo had been supporting anyone but his spoiled son. He tucked the information away to examine at a better time.

  Right now, Shelby was making her way to a spot where the tunnel forked into two shafts. One was considerably larger than the other, which was no more than four feet high, the air chilled as a tomb.

  “If I’m right,” Shelby said, “one of these tunnels will connect with the main shaft on Hatcher’s property. That’s the one I need to sample to get the best reading.”

  He looked hard at both. “I don’t imagine we’re headed into the roomy one, huh?”

  She slung her pack on her back and got onto her knees. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” she said.

  “I never liked that expression,” he grumbled.

  “Come on, cowboy.” She unwrapped a light stick and snapped it to life. The green glow cast an eerie color on the black walls. She set it just outside the entrance. “So your brothers can find us. See? Safety first.”

  Barrett didn’t bother to mention that if the whole place caved in, her little green light was as good as useless.

  He hadn’t realized until he peered after her into that narrow opening that he might be a touch claustrophobic. Claustrophobia or not, there was no way he was going to stay back and leave Shelby unprotected. On hands and knees, he squeezed his shoulders through the opening.

  This had to be the craziest thing he’d done since he was a teenager, all because Shelby Arroyo had got under his skin and into his heart. If he could just get through this wackadoodle adventure and bring her out safely, she would have everything she needed.

  He began to squirm his way past the rock that seemed to be trying to smother him. “In for a penny.” He sighed.