by Sara Orwig
Silas laughed. “Where did you learn to speak the lingo?”
“I’m Tigre Castillo, remember? My father had a Spanish heritage. Two hundred years ago the Spanish explored and settled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.”
“Come with me,” Silas urged, returning to his argument. “Men are finding gold all over the West. I promised Mary I would strike a vein and come home a millionaire, rich enough to give her a life of ease.”
“Mary must be the most beautiful woman on this earth. I’ve never seen a man so damned loyal.”
“She is. She has the biggest green—”
“I know. The biggest, greenest eyes that make you feel as if you’re tumbling into a lily pond. Red hair like flames dancing in the night, skin like peaches in the spring, a waist so tiny you can circle it with your fingers and have room left over,” Tigre said dryly, stacking coins.
“That’s right,” Silas said, staring into space, his voice wistful.
“There’s a stage going through tomorrow, and they’ll take mail to Sacramento. You could write to her.”
“No, I can’t. I don’t write well.”
“Well, I can write. Tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it.”
Silas ran his slender fingers over the covers. “No. Mary’s accustomed to not hearing from me. She knows I don’t write.”
“She might lose interest.”
“Not my Mary.”
“Aw, hell, Silas, you ought to have some fun in your life. Come down to the Oro Cantina and let me show you the girls. There’s Lolita and her friends Carmen and Cayena, and I’ll tell you, they would make you forget all about Marvelous Mary.”
“Impossible. Mary is prettier, more fun, more intelligent.”
Tigre laughed. “I’ll give you that one! When it comes to brains, don’t count on the cantina girls.”
“Mary is sweeter.”
For an instant Tigre’s smile vanished while he thought of Melissa Hatfield, whom he had left behind in Albuquerque. He still carried the gold ring she had returned. Sweet. Melissa was sweet, intelligent, and beautiful, and it hurt badly when he thought about her. “Dammit,” he swore, and scooped up the money. “I’m going to the bank.”
“Tigre, come with me when I go.”
“Maybe I will,” he answered, thinking he might cause his brother’s family trouble if he went to Texas. He’d already had two bad encounters with bounty hunters, and he didn’t expect them to be the last. He gazed around the small, sparsely furnished room with its crudely made wooden furniture and bare earthen floor. “What’s a grubstake cost?”
“You’ve got more than enough,” Silas said dryly. “I’ve got it down to where I figure twenty-five dollars is all you’ll need. Rubber hip boots, a couple of woolen blankets; you have your rifle, pistol, and ammo. You have plates and eating utensils. You’ll need a shovel, a miner’s pick, a gold pan, and food. That’ll get you started.”
“You know what folks around here call us?”
Silas grinned. “I can’t imagine.”
“Gringos pálidos. Pale gringos.”
Silas laughed. “You’re a damned sight less pale than I am.”
“Next to most of the locals, we’re both oddities.”
Silas chuckled. “Sometimes that works to my benefit.”
“So I’ve noticed. They think that’s why I’m winning at faro, that I’ve got supernatural powers.”
“Maybe word will get out to the bounty hunters, and they’ll leave you alone.”
“Most bounty hunters aren’t scared of anything, including the supernatural,” Tigre said, scooping his winnings into a bag. He saw the curious gleam in Silas’ eyes and knew his friend was too polite to ask questions. Tigre jingled the bag. “This goes to the bank. I always keep my money in the bank until I move on. I’ve got my cash under another name.” He paused, his face flushed with embarrassment. “I’ve been thinking about it. I might start using another name all the time.”
“Hell, that’s not so bad. Lots of men have done that.”
“I didn’t make much of a change: Dan Castle,” he said, tucking his blue chambray shirt into his faded denim pants.
Silas knotted his forehead a moment as if considering the name, and he nodded. “That’s fine. Want me to call you Dan instead of Tigre?”
Tigre nodded. “I feel peculiar with it right now. I might not answer you, but I ought to start getting accustomed to it. If the wrong person hears you calling me Tigre, or word gets around about Tigre Castillo, it’ll be easy for bounty hunters to pick up my trail.” He knotted a bandanna around his neck, hiding the old scar.
“Okay, Dan Castle it is. I’ll start gathering up supplies. Go to the bank and then to work.”
“Here’s money for my share of the supplies,” Tigre said. Then he left, striding down the wide dusty street lined with adobe structures. Saloons were more prevalent than any other businesses.
Tigre climbed rafters, nailing boards in place, watching Enrique when he could. While it wasn’t sheep ranching, his first love, he liked the work in the open, using his hands. There were moments he was tempted to stay until he knew more about building. And Enrique Cordoba had already made Tigre a good offer.
They waited three more weeks before Silas felt ready to travel. At dawn one December morning they left town, heading north, and in another week they stopped in Sacramento to get the rest of their supplies. Facing the prospect of winter in the mountains, they decided to stay in Sacramento, where Tigre went to work for another builder, discovering techniques and styles that were far more intricate than those used by Enrique Cordoba. In late February they left town with two pack burros trailing behind them. By now Tigre was accustomed to the name Dan Castle.
“We’re looking for placer gold,” Silas said, pronouncing the word in a rasp, “plass-er.”
“What’s placer gold?” Dan asked, thinking of the dance-hall girl he had left behind.
Silas ducked his head beneath a low-hanging limb. “Placers are deposits washed down from a vein. It’s ore on top of the ground, covered only by a thin layer of soil or a stream. For some reason—erosion or rivers—lodes get exposed. The gangue, worthless minerals mixed with ore, will crumble, and rain or melting snow will carry it downhill. The best placers should be in foothills where swift-running mountain streams level off and drop their treasure. Watch for gravel bars or transverse ridges, rim rock protruding from streams, anything that becomes an obstacle where specks of ore will lodge.”
“You can see it?”
“No. In that pack your burro is carrying is a pan. You scoop up dirt and swish it around in the water. The dirt will wash out, and hopefully you’ll find a scad of gold remaining.”
“Sounds like hunting a diamond in a gravel pit,” Dan said dubiously.
“Wait until you find your first nugget.”
“Bucking the tiger might be more certain,” Dan rejoined, thinking about his faro winnings.
When they reached Stockton, rumors of gold began to crop up. Six weeks later they found a prospector panning for gold in a clear stream. They headed east, camping by a swift-running stream in the Sierra Mountains. Both of them worked, icy water sloshing over Dan’s hands until they became numb while he fanned out the drag, looking for color.
Once he gazed down and his breath caught as bits of shiny rocks glittered in the sunlight.
“Silas! Silas!”
Silas dropped a pick and came running through the middle of the creek, slipping and splashing until he gazed down at Dan’s find, and his hopeful expression faded. He bit on the stone.
“Sorry. Pyrite. Fool’s gold, my friend. Look at it. It winks in the sunlight. Gold always looks the same from any angle; this doesn’t. Bite on it. Gold doesn’t feel the same, and gold won’t break. Go back to work.”
2
Denver, Colorado Territory, April 1866
East of the Rockies, a growing town lay nestled at the junction of Cherry Creek and the Platte River. Patches of snow dotted the
roofs and streets, smoke spiraled from chimneys, and lights burned brightly in the windows. Music drifted out from the city hall, where a town celebration was under way. Inside, banners draped from the walls, festooned with red bunting, proclaimed: “Denver City and Auraria United; Denver born April 1860” and “Happy Sixth Anniversary, Denver!”
On a platform made by planks on blocks of wood, fiddlers tapped their booted toes while they spun out a song. Dancers swirled around the floor as older couples sat watching. Women congregated in clusters at the south end of the room, and men gathered beside the serving tables at the north end. Heat came from two glowing potbellied stoves.
Dressed in blue gingham, Mary Katherine O’Malley gazed over her dance partner’s shoulder while his brow furrowed in concentration. He stepped on her toe.
“Sorry, Miss O’Malley. I ain’t very good at dancing,” Leonard Wilson said, blushing deeply, his freckled face turning crimson.
“That’s all right, Mr. Wilson,” she answered politely, smiling encouragement at him, grateful that he had asked her to dance. “I’m not so good either,” she added softly.
Stumbling his way through the dance until the end, he escorted her to a bench along the wall and thanked her politely.
“Thank you,” she answered. “I enjoyed it.”
“I don’t see how you could have, I stepped on your toes so many times,” he said, shuffling his feet and pushing a stray lock of brown hair off his forehead.
“I did enjoy it,” she answered with sincerity.
“Would you like some punch, Miss O’Malley?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You sit right here. I’ll bring you some.”
He left and she was alone, aware she had danced only once the whole evening. Yet she knew that at sixteen she was younger and plainer than most, with her simple gingham dress and her red hair in a braid wrapped around her head. The fact that she had a slight limp seemed to make some men hesitate to ask her to dance. She looked at the other girls. Her friend, sixteen-year-old Bessie, whose golden curls shone, wore a fancy blue faille dress, an achievement of hours of sewing by both Bessie and her mother. Louisa Shumacher danced past. She was the belle who had men lined up to dance with her, her blue eyes sparkling, her black curls caught up behind her head and fastened with a sprig of holly. Only seventeen, Louisa had been educated back east until this year. She had a figure and enough charm to attract any man she wanted. Mary watched her dance past. Her coral grosgrain dress with a cluster of silk roses at the neck was the fanciest dress in the room.
The dance finished and Mary stood up, leaning forward to see what was keeping Leonard. He was in a line congregated at the punch table, probably too shy to move ahead.
Music commenced and she glanced around to see Dewar Logan heading toward her, a gleam in his black eyes. His bulky shoulders strained his rough woolen coat, and he towered over her.
“Evening, Miss O’Malley,” he said, the fumes of strong whiskey assailing her, and she was surprised he was going to ask her to dance.
“Getting lonesome?”
“I’m fine,” she said quietly.
“Guess you miss Eustice.”
“Yes, I do,” she admitted, surprised Dewar would pay her any attention. He was darkly handsome, and usually danced with the older girls.
He stepped closer, taking hold of her wrist. “I can show a lonesome little gal like you a good time. Come outside for a buggy ride.”
She stiffened, insulted by his invitation and the lusty gleam in his eye. Stepping back, she shook her head. “No, thank you, Mr. Wilson is bringing punch,” she said stiffly.
Dewar glanced toward the punch table, where Leonard was still behind a crowd. “He won’t be back for another three dances. C’mon, sugar. I know you’re lonesome. You been sitting here all alone the whole evening.”
“No, thank you,” she said, moving back another step.
“Come on!”
“No!” she snapped, her patience wearing thin. He wavered, and she realized he was drunk. His dark eyes narrowed.
“You cold mick,” he said in a loud voice, “you can sit here alone until that freak Eustice comes back!”
Mortified, she burned with embarrassment. People stopped and turned to stare, and Mary knew they would think she had refused to dance with him.
“Little wonder men don’t ask you to dance!” he added loudly.
Her cheeks flamed, and she turned to flee as Bessie came up. “Dewar Logan, you leave Mary alone!”
“Bessie, never mind!” Mary said.
“C’mon, Bessie, you’re a sport. You’ll dance with me,” Dewar said, sweeping Bessie onto the dance floor, laughing as her brow furrowed and she glared at him.
Mary gazed into curious and amused eyes, and humiliation engulfed her. The room seemed hot, the walls closing in. She locked her fingers together nervously, wanting to escape the curious stares. As soon as attention shifted from her, she searched for Michael and Brian, her younger brothers. Finding them in the hall with the other boys, she pulled them with her.
“We have to go home right now.”
Protests arose, but she hurried them to the door, taking their coats down off hooks.
“Please, Mary.” A pair of eyes as green as her own gazed beseechingly at her as Brian tugged on her arm. “Michael was going to arm-wrestle Sam Hopkins.”
“We have to go now.” She raced outside into the cold night. Humiliated by Dewar’s outburst, she rushed down the street, the boys in tow. At the boardinghouse she sent her brothers upstairs to bed, scurrying down the darkened hall to her room at the back of the first floor. Behind a closed door she cried, vowing silently she wouldn’t go to a dance again until Silas came back to town. No matter how lonesome she got, she wouldn’t give Dewar or anyone else a chance to humiliate her again.
3
Montana Territory, 1867
The woody scent of Douglas firs spiced the fresh mountain air as Dan moved in the sunlight up Rabbit Creek. After six weeks in California with little success, Silas had heard a rumor of big gold discoveries in Montana Territory and they had ridden north. Now it was early fall, and the quaking aspen leaves were a golden color, shimmering in the sunlight. Dan worked in the icy water, patiently searching, deciding that if they didn’t have success soon, he would pull up and go back to Last Chance Gulch.
A bird’s whistle sounded, the clear melodic cry mingling with the whispery rustle of wind through the leaves and the gurgling splash of water. The silence was suddenly broken by a yell, and Dan’s head snapped up to listen.
“Dan! Dan!”
Dan dropped his pan and started running, his hand going to the revolver on his hip, although they hadn’t seen another person since they had made camp.
Silas ran toward him, stopping to jump up and down with eagerness, his hat tossed aside, white hair falling over his forehead. “Dan, I’ve got a scad! Look!” Silas thrust out the flat pan with drops of water clinging to it while chunks of metal sparkled in the sunlight. “Bite on ’em.”
Dan did, rubbing his hand over the metal, looking at it glisten in the sunlight, and both of them began to whoop. “C’mon. I’ll show you where.”
Dan ran behind him, and soon both of them were working swiftly, yelling when the gold specks would appear, Dan’s pulse jumping when he found a nugget as big as the end of his thumb.
“Holy Mother,” Silas breathed as he turned the nugget. “We’ve hit a big one.”
“When do we stake our claim?”
Silas’ eyes narrowed. “We’re working this first. We haven’t seen another man, and we’ve got supplies. This is our secret.”
Dan slapped Silas on the back with such a resounding whack the nugget bounced out of the pan. Instantly they searched until they retrieved it, then went back to work in earnest.
“We could have snow anytime now,” Silas said. “We better take time to build a cabin.”
“I’ll start on the cabin,” Dan offered.
They commence
d a race against the weather, building a sluice of six boxes twelve feet long, each box having a fall of four inches, which made a trough to wash placer gold.
Silas talked while they sawed lumber. “We shovel soil into the sluice; the creek will provide a steady stream of water. Each of these boxes will have cleats or riffles, and the nuggets and specks will be caught against them.”
“And my hands won’t freeze off,” Dan remarked dryly. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
“We didn’t know it would be worthwhile until we found something.”
Dan thought about the nuggets and specks they had collected so far. Their find was growing with wondrous speed, and he now knew why Silas had gold fever. It made his pulse race to think about the money he was scooping out of the stream.
“What are you grinning about, compadre?” Silas asked.
“You know damned well.”
“We’re going home rich men. I want to give Mary the world.”
“Do you ever forget Mary? Never mind! I know the answer.”
“If we find a vein, we can name it the Mary Katherine Mine.”
“I have to see this woman,” Dan said as he leaned down to pick up a log, rolling it out of the way, while his muscles bulged with effort.
They found enough large nuggets to indicate a vein, but they continued working the area where they were as long as it yielded a good return. Snows came and they rode back to town, spending time in the saloon, both of them claiming to be trappers. Silas even bought traps in the general store so they could keep their discovery a secret.
In the spring, as soon as the weather permitted, they went back to work, moving upstream, taking pannings at every possible outcropping. When Silas found a blowup, the protruding end of an underground vein of cloudy quartz, his excitement was as great as it had been with his first discovery.