“It wasn’t fair that our parents couldn’t get along or that Mother had a nervous breakdown or that Dad drank too much or that I was taken away from the only person who really loved me. You.” Mariah touched Luke’s hand. “Lots of life isn’t fair. So what?” Her smile was a bittersweet curve of acceptance. “You offered me a home when I had none. That’s all I hoped for and more than I had any right to expect. Or accept.”
“You’ll by God accept it if I have to nail your feet to the floor,” Luke said, squeezing Mariah’s hand.
She laughed and tried to blink away the sudden tears in her eyes. “I accept. Thank you.”
Luke picked up the gold chain and dumped it back in Mariah’s hand. She tilted her palm, letting the heavy, cool gold slide back to the table.
“Mariah,” he began roughly. “Damn it, it’s yours.”
“No. Make it back into a watch chain and wear it. Or give it to Logan. Or to your next child. Or to whichever child holds the Rocking M. But,” Mariah added, speaking quickly, overriding the objections she saw in her brother’s tawny eyes, “that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a gold necklace of my own. So, with your permission, I’ll go looking for Mad Jack’s mine. I’ve always believed I would find a lost gold mine someday.”
Luke laughed, then realized that Mariah was serious. Smiling crookedly, he said, “Muffin, Cash has been looking for that mine for – how many years?”
“Nine.”
Startled, Mariah looked up at Cash. “You have?”
He nodded slightly.
“And if a certified, multi-degreed geologist, a man who makes his living finding precious metals for other people-” began Luke.
“You do?” interrupted Mariah, still watching Cash with wide golden eyes.
He nodded again.
“-can’t find Mad Jack’s lost mine,” Luke continued, talking over his sister, “then what chance do you have?”
Mariah started to speak, then sighed, wondering how she could explain what she barely understood herself.
“Remember how you used to put me to bed and tell me stories?” she asked after a few moments.
“Sure. You would watch me all wide-eyed and fascinated. Nobody ever paid that much attention to me but you. Made me feel ten feet tall.”
She smiled and said simply, “You were. I would lie in bed and forget about Mother and Dad yelling downstairs and I’d listen to you talking about the calves or the new colts or some adventure you’d had. Sometimes you’d sneak in with cookies and a box full of old pictures and we would make up stories about the people. And sometimes you’d talk about Mad Jack and his mine and how we would go exploring and find it and buy everything the ranch didn’t have so Mother would be happy on the Rocking M. We used to talk about that a lot.”
In silent comfort Luke squeezed Mariah’s hand. “I remember.”
She leaned forward with an urgency she couldn’t suppress. “I’ve always believed I can find that mine. I’m Mad Jack’s own blood, after all. Please, Luke. Let me look. What harm can there be in that?” Despite the need driving her, Mariah smiled teasingly and added, “I’ll give you half of whatever I find, cross my heart and hope to die.”
Luke laughed, shaking his head, unable to take her seriously. “Muffin, this is a big damned ranch. It’s a patchwork quilt of outright ownership, plus lease lands from three government agencies, plus water rights and mineral rights and other things only a land lawyer or a professional gold hunter like Cash would understand.”
“I’ll learn.”
“Oh hell, honey, if you found anything in Rocking M’s high country land but granite and cow flops, I’d give it to you without hesitation and you know it, but-”
“Sold!” Mariah crowed, interrupting before Luke could say anything she didn’t want to hear. She looked at Nevada and Cash. “You heard him. You’re my witnesses.”
Nevada looked up, nodded, and returned his attention to one of the old pieces of paper he held.
Cash was much more attentive to Mariah. “I heard,” he said, watching her closely. “But just what makes you so sure that mine is on the Rocking M?”
“Mariah said it was. It’s in her letter to the son who inherited the ranch.”
Luke looked up at Cash. “You were right. Damn. I was hoping that mine would never…” He shrugged and said no more.
Silently Cash took the single nugget from Mariah’s hand. A few deft movements returned the gold to its cylinder.
“What do you mean, Cash was right?” she asked. “And why were you hoping he was wrong?”
There was a pause before Luke said anything. When he finally did speak, he answered only her first question.
“When Mother cleaned out the family heirlooms, she overlooked a fat poke of gold, all that was left from Case’s saddlebags. I showed the poke to Cash. He took one look and knew the gold hadn’t come from any of the known, old-time strikes around here.”
“Of course,” Mariah said. “The MacKenzie gold wasn’t found in placer pockets.”
Cash looked at Mariah with renewed interest. “How did you know?”
“I did my homework.” She held up her hand, ticking off names with her fingers. “The strikes at Moss Creek, Hard Luck, Shin Splint, Brass Monkey, Deer Creek, and Lucky Lady were all placer gold. Some small nuggets, a lot of dust. Everything was smooth from being tumbled in water.” Mariah gestured toward the necklace. “For convenience we call those lumps of gold ‘nuggets,’ but I doubt they spent any real time in the bottom of a stream. If they had, they would be round or at least rounded off. But they’re rough and asymmetrical. The longer I thought about it, the more certain I was that the lumps came from ‘jewelry rock.’”
“What’s that?” Luke asked.
Cash answered before Mariah could. “It’s an old miner’s term for quartz that is so thickly veined with pure gold that the ore can be broken apart in your bare hands. It’s the richest kind of gold strike. Veins of gold like that are the original source of all the big nuggets that end up in placer pockets when the mother lodes are finally eroded away and washed by rain down into streams.”
“Is that what you think Mad Jack’s mine is?” Luke persisted. “A big strike of jewelry rock?”
“I wasn’t sure. Except for the chunk you gave me-” Cash flicked his thumbnail against the cylinder “-the poke was filled with flakes and big, angular grains, the kind of thing that would come from a crude crushing process of really high-grade ore.” Thoughtfully Cash stirred the chain with a blunt fingertip. Reflected light shifted and gleamed in. shades of metallic gold. “But if these nuggets all came from Mad Jack’s mine, it was God’s own jewelry box, as close to digging pure gold as you can get this side of Fort Knox.”
Luke said something unhappy and succinct beneath his breath.
Mariah looked at her brother in disbelief. “What’s wrong with that? I think it’s fantastic!”
“Ever read about Sutter’s Mill?” he asked laconically.
“Sure. That was the one that set off the California gold rush in 1849. It was one of the richest strikes in history.”
“Yeah. Remember what happened to the mill.”
“Er, no.”
“It was trampled to death in the rush. So was a lot of other land. I don’t need that kind of grief. We have enough trouble keeping pot-hunters out of the Anasazi ruins on Wind Mesa and in September Canyon.”
“What ruins?” Mariah asked.
“They’re all over the place. Would you like to see them?” Luke asked hopefully, trying to sidetrack her from the prospect of gold.
“Thanks, but I’d rather look for Mad Jack’s mine.”
Cash laughed ruefully. When he spoke, his voice was rich with certainty. “Forget it, Luke. Once the gold bug bites you, you’re hooked for life. Not one damn thing is as bright as the shine of undiscovered gold. It’s a fever that burns out everything else.”
Luke looked surprised but Mariah nodded vigorously, making dark brown hair fly. She knew exactly what Cash m
eant.
Looking from Cash to Mariah, Nevada raised a single black eyebrow, shrugged, and returned his attention to the paper he was very gently unfolding on the table’s surface.
“Smile,” Mariah coaxed Luke. “You’d think we were talking about the Black Death.”
“That can be cured by antibiotics,” he shot back. “What do you think will happen if word gets out that there’s a fabulous lost mine somewhere up beyond MacKenzie Ridge? A lot of our summer grazing is leased from the government, but the mineral rights aren’t leased. There are rules and restrictions and bureaucratic papers to chase, but basically, when it comes to prospecting, it’s come one, come all. Worst of all, mineral rights take precedence over other rights.”
Mariah looked to Cash, who nodded.
“So we get a bunch of weekend warriors making campfires that are too big,” Luke continued, “carrying guns they don’t know how to use, drinking booze they can’t hold, and generally being jackasses. I can live with that if I have to. What I can’t live with is when they start tearing up the fences and creeks and watersheds. This is a cattle ranch, not a mining complex. I want to keep it that way.”
“But…” Mariah’s voice faded. She began worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “Does this mean I can’t look for Mad Jack’s mine?”
Luke swiped his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “No. But I want you to promise me two things. First, I don’t want you telling anyone about Mad Jack’s damned missing mine. That goes for Nevada, too. And I mean no one. Cash didn’t even tell Carla.”
“No problem,” Nevada said. He looked at Cash with blunt approval. “You’ve been looking for nine years, huh? I like a man who can keep his mouth shut.”
Cash’s lips made a wry line and he said not one word.
“No problem for me, either,” Mariah said, shrugging. “I don’t have anyone to tell but you and you already know. What’s the second thing?”
“I don’t want you going out alone and looking for that damned mine,” Luke said. “That’s wild, rough country out there.”
Mariah was on the verge of agreeing when she stopped. “Wait a minute. I can’t tell anyone, right?”
Luke nodded.
“And you, Nevada and Cash are the only other ones who know. Right?”
“Carla knows,” Luke said. “I told her myself.”
“So five people know, including me.”
“Right.”
“Tell me, older brother – how much time do you have to spend looking for lost mines?”
“None,” he said flatly.
“Nevada?”
He looked toward Luke, but it was Cash who spoke first. “Nevada has cougar tracking duty. That takes care of his spare time for the summer.”
The satisfaction in Cash’s voice was subtle but unmistakable. Luke heard it. His smile was so small and swift that only Nevada saw it.
Mariah didn’t notice. She was looking at Cash with hopeful eyes, waiting for him to volunteer. He didn’t seem to notice her.
“No one prospects the high country in the winter,” Luke said unhelpfully.
Mariah simply said, “Cash?”
“Sorry,” he said. “That country is too rough for a tenderfoot like you.”
“I’ve camped out before.”
Cash grunted but was obviously unimpressed.
“I’ve hiked, too.”
“Who carried your pack?”
“I did.”
He grunted again. The sound wasn’t encouraging. Inspiration struck Mariah. “I’ll do the cooking. I’ll even do the dishes, too. Please?”
Cash looked at her luminous golden eyes and the graceful hand resting on his bare forearm in unconscious pleading. Desire shot through him at the thought of having her pleading with him for his skill as a lover rather than his expertise in hunting for gold.
“No,” Cash said, more roughly than he had intended.
Mariah flinched as though she had been slapped. Hastily she withdrew her hand from his arm.
For an instant Luke’s eyes widened, then narrowed with a purely male assessment. Soon his mouth shifted into a smile that was both sympathetic and amused as he realized what Cash’s problem was.
“If I were you, Granite Man,” Nevada drawled calmly, “I’d change my mind.”
Cash shot the other man a savage look. “You’re not me.”
“Does that mean you’re volunteering to go gold hunting?” Mariah said to Nevada, hoping her voice didn’t sound as hurt as she felt by Cash’s harsh refusal.
“Sorry, Muffin,” Luke said, cutting across anything Nevada might have wanted to say. “I’m too shorthanded as it is. I can’t afford to turn loose of Nevada.”
“Damn shame,” Nevada said without heat. “Hate to see a good treasure map go to waste.”
“What?” Luke and Cash said together. Silently Nevada pushed a piece of paper toward Mariah. Cash bent over her shoulder, all but holding his breath so that he wouldn’t take in her fragile, tantalizing scent.
“I’m a warrior, not a prospector,” Nevada said, “but I’ve read more than one map drawn by a barely literate man. Offhand, I’d guess this one shows the route to Mad Jack’s mine.”
5
With a harshly suppressed sound of disgust and anger, Cash looked from the age-darkened, brittle paper to Mariah’s innocent expression.
No wonder she was so eager to trade her nonexistent rights of inheritance in exchange for Luke’s permission to prospect on the Rocking M – she has a damned map to follow to Mad Jack’s mine!
Yet Mariah had looked so vulnerable when she had pleaded with Cash for his help.
Sweet little con artist. God. Why are men so stupid? And why am I so particularly stupid!
Mariah glanced from the paper to Nevada and smiled wryly. “I got all excited the first time I looked at it, too. Then I looked again. And again. I stared until I was cross-eyed, but I still couldn’t make out two-thirds of the chicken scratches. Even if I assume Mad Jack drew this – and that’s by no means a certainty – he didn’t even mark north or south in any way I can decipher. As for labeling any of the landmarks, not a chance. I suspect the old boy was indeed illiterate. There’s not a single letter of the alphabet on the whole map.”
“He didn’t need words. He read the land, not books.” Nevada turned the map until the piece of paper stood on one chewed corner. “That’s north,” he said, indicating the upper corner.
“You’re sure?” she asked, startled. “How can you tell?”
“He’s right,” Cash said an instant later. He stared at the map in growing excitement. “That’s Mustang Point. Nothing else around has that shape. Which means… yes, there. Black Canyon. Then that must be Satan’s Bath, which leads to the narrow rocky valley, then to Black Springs…” Cash’s voice trailed off into mutterings.
Mariah watched, wide-eyed, as local place names she had never heard of were emphasized by stabs of Cash’s long index finger. Then he began muttering words she had heard before, pungent words that told her he had run into a dead end. She started to ask what was wrong, but held her tongue. Luke and Nevada were standing now, leaning over the map in front of her, tracing lines that vanished into a blurred area that looked for all the world as though someone long ago had spilled coffee on the paper, blotting out the center of the map.
“Damn, that’s enough to peeve a saint,” Cash said, adding a few phrases that were distinctly unsaintly. “Some stupid dipstick smudged the only important part of the map. Now it’s useless!”
“Not quite,” Luke said. “Now you know the general area of the ranch to concentrate on.”
Cash shot his friend a look of absolute disgust. “Hell, Luke, where do you think I’ve been looking for the past two years?”
“Oh. Devil’s Peak area, huh?”
Cash grunted. “It’s well named. It has more cracks and crannies, rills and creeks than any twelve mountains. It looks like it’s been shattered by God’s own rock hammer. I’ve used the
line shack at Black Springs for my base. So far, I’ve managed to pan the lower third of a single small watershed.”
“Find anything?”
“Trout,” Cash said succinctly.
Mariah licked her lips. “Trout? Real, free-swimming, wild mountain trout?”
A smile Cash couldn’t prevent stole across his lips. “Yeah. Sleek, succulent little devils, every one of them.”
“Fresh butter, a dusting of cornmeal, a pinch of-”
“Stop it,” groaned Cash. “You’re making me hungry all over again.”
“Does Black Springs have watercress?” she asked, smiling dreamily.
“No, but the creek does farther down the valley, where the water cools. Black Springs is hot.”
“Hot? Wonderful! A long day of prospecting, a hot bath, a meal of fresh trout, camp biscuits, watercress salad…” Mariah made a sound of luxuriant anticipation.
Luke laughed softly. Cash swore, but there was no heat in it. He had often enjoyed nature’s hard-rock hot tub. The meal Mariah mentioned, however, had existed only in his dreams. He was a lousy cook.
“Then you’ll do it?” Mariah asked eagerly, sensing that Cash was weakening. “You’ll help me look for Mad Jack’s mine?”
“Don’t push, Muffin,” Luke said. “Cash and I will talk it over later. Alone.”
“I’ll give you half of my half,” she said coaxingly to Cash, ignoring her older brother.
“Mariah-” began Luke.
“Who’s pushing?” she asked, assuming an expression of wide-eyed innocence.”
“Moi? Never. I’m a regular doormat.”
Nevada looked at Cash. “You need this map?”
“No.”
“Then if nobody minds, I’d like to pass it along to some people who are real good at making ruined documents give up their secrets.”
Cash started to ask questions, then remembered where – and for whom – Nevada had worked before he came to the Rocking M.
“Fine with me,” Cash said. “The map belongs to Luke and Mariah, though.”
“Take it,” said Luke.
“Sure. Who are you sending it to?” Mariah asked.
“Don’t worry. They’ll take good care of it,” Nevada said, folding the map delicately along age-worn creases.
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