The Gold in These Hills

by Joanne Bischof

  “What are those scalawags up to?” Edie nods toward the men before sitting beside us.

  John has retrieved a crate of old tin cans from the barn, and together he and Santiago are walking out to the farthest fence.

  Edie’s words are warm, but her eyes are rimmed in red. She’s been crying. With her near, I swipe a hand across her back, and she brushes the side of her head to my shoulder. Dearest friend.

  “A competition is my guess,” I say in answer. “They started discussing revolvers, and now it looks as though we’re in for some entertainment.”

  In the distance, John and Santiago begin lining up several tin cans atop the fence. Beyond stretches the meadow and acres upon acres of open land. The heat of a September day is softening. Edie watches quietly, as do Bethany and I. Inside the cabin, a venison pie is bubbling away in the oven. It’s enough that I hope Edie and Santiago will stay for supper.

  With five rusted cans lined up, John backs away dozens upon dozens of steps. Finally, he turns and takes aim. After five shots, three of them have fallen. The men return to the fence to restore the numbers, and now it’s Santiago’s turn. He manages to take out four cans. John claps Santiago on the back, and together they seem to be discussing the final can and where the shot went. Santiago reloads but misses again.

  The blue ribbon ever pinned to the front of Bethany’s dress flounces as she tugs at Edie’s hand. “Come on, Edie. Show them!”

  Edie shakes her head, though a wry smile is forming. “Aw, no. Maybe some other time.” Her eyes still glisten as though tears began moments ago without a sound.

  I cannot begin to fathom the grief her heart is swimming in. It makes me admire her courage and strength all the more. If I have learned anything from this woman, it is how to be brave in the face of impossible loss.

  Bethany tugs again. “Show them!”

  Edie smirks and swipes at her eyes in such a fashion that Bethany doesn’t even notice. This little girl who will one day know a woman’s heartache. I pray the Lord will be merciful, and yet I am thankful she has such a woman as bold and beautiful as Edie to observe and learn from.

  Bethany tugs again, giggling now. The laughter rings out through the bright, crisp evening.

  Lowering her head in defeat, Edie inches to the edge of the porch. “Fine, little miss. But you tell them to set up more than five cans. If I’m gonna show them, it might as well be properly.”

  She rises, and as my daughter runs toward the men, hollering out for them to “Line ’em up good!” I rise as well. This I have to see. Edie unholsters her six-shooter and inspects that the cylinder is fully loaded.

  In the distance, John lines up six cans along the top rail of the fence. Bethany points toward three more waiting in the dry grass. “You forgot those ones!”

  Chuckling, he glances over his shoulder to his daughter, probably as intrigued by the spunk growing in her as I am. “How about you come and help me?”

  At his permission, she scurries over, gathers the rusty cans into her arms, and John hoists her up so that she can balance them beside the others. Finished, he settles her onto his shoulders. John returns to my side, where he cups the back of my head to kiss my forehead. I savor the feel of it.

  Since this is a competition about distance, we all stride back to the shooting point, Edie behind us all. Santiago slows so as to take her hand as they walk. Their fingers twine together.

  When we’re far enough away, Edie waits for everyone to step clear before cocking the revolver. From atop John’s shoulders, Bethany covers both ears. The fringe lining her pants rustles as Edie takes her stance, aims the pistol, and, after a breath, fires the first shot. The can flips backward. Then the second and the third. Breeze stirs her hair that’s as warm and brassy as a glass of whiskey. A shift in the air that she no doubt calculates into every aim. The rustiest of the cans shatters away, and the fifth follows a moment later. The sixth flies clean off the fence, and Edie reloads. She does this with the speed of the wind, and soon there’s not a single target left on the fence rail. Nine perfect shots.

  John’s eyebrows are raised in admiration.

  Santiago is grinning.

  Bethany cheers, and after bending to whisper something in her papa’s ear, he nods and lowers his daughter to the ground. At my daughter’s bidding, Edie takes a knee. As Bethany pins the ribbon to the front of Edie’s blouse, my friend’s eyes fill with tears again. She smiles at the young girl who is giving away her most prized possession. Arms open, Edie invites Bethany in for a hug. When my daughter leans into Edie’s embrace, she is once again the child who draped her arm around her father as he lay unconscious and freezing. I’ve come to understand that Bethany has a heart that sees people. Eyes that know others are in need of comfort. She is once again the child lending life. Even as the blue ribbon flutters on the breeze of a grown-up blouse, Edie’s eyes slide closed, holding tight to a little girl’s embrace as though the greatest gift of all.

  Chapter 44

  Johnny

  September

  Sonoma arrives right at ten as planned. I’m on the porch, down into the yard, before she’s even parked. The choir of birds in the pines dims as she climbs out of her truck. Rye gets to her first, nearly knocking her over with eighty pounds of Labrador.

  Sonoma laughs, ruffles his ears, and tries to keep from falling.

  I’m to them in two seconds, giving a tug to Rye’s collar so that all four paws hit the ground again.

  Sonoma brushes yellow fur from her black leggings, not in the least bit fazed.

  “Thank you for meeting me.” I brush the same fur from the front of my T-shirt then flip my backward ball cap around.

  “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

  I like her faith in me. In this outing. I still haven’t told her what we’re on the hunt for. “Got everything you need?” I hardly notice what she’s wearing—but the colors are earthy, and she’s ready to hike. The distraction comes not from a lack of interest, but because it’s hard to look away from her bright smile and brown eyes. There’s an energy there that’s impossible to ignore, that’s hard to not want to be around.

  “Should I bring more than water?” Her voice muffles when she retrieves a water bottle from the center console of her truck.

  “I think we’ll be fine. It shouldn’t take too long to get there.”

  I’ve spent the last few weekends scouting out where we’re headed, and after cross-checking the spot once more with John Cohen’s journal, I’m 99.9 percent certain it’s the place. Sonoma explained to me once that tracing her exact family line has been nearly impossible due to the drastic changes Native Americans experienced in the previous century. As part of that, it sounds like very little of her family tree has been traceable beyond the forming of the nearby Cahuilla reservation. Now, I hope change unfolds around that. Even if only a little.

  Nerves now make it hard to stand still while I zip up my CamelBak. The weight of what Sonoma is about to find is a sobering anticipation. There’s no use stalling when someone’s past and future are about to collide.

  We head off across the farmyard to where the town of Kenworthy used to reside. The actual townsite isn’t on my property, but it’s a cinch to access. We only have to step around an old stretch of fencing that crumbled some decades ago. There the land opens up into the series of grassy patches where long-ago buildings stood. Since I don’t mean to lead us toward those old sites exactly, we walk out beyond them, across the dusty land. Sonoma is quiet as we stride through tall autumn grasses and past fragrant sagebrush. I’ve got too much nervous energy for small talk. Maybe it has to do with this place.

  I couldn’t begin to count the things I’ve learned here in Kenworthy. I’ve grown more patient watching the sun set between towering trees. I’ve grown wiser in knowing that my footsteps are not the first to dent this soil.

  I want to know them one day. The Cohens and the Del Sols. These couples who overcame more than I ever have. If there’s not a seat beside th
em in heaven, I’ll just have to summon up the courage and walk over and say hello. Something tells me it would be like meeting old friends.

  And now, the woman beside me has come to have her own experiences through them. She doesn’t know this terrain to the degree that I’ve explored it, but she knows its heart. Maybe we teamed up well for that. I scarcely know where my ancestors came from because I never put enough thought to it. So today, it’s incredible to fathom that her very ancestors once walked this exact stretch of land. And right now we have the honor of walking side by side, me trying to figure out how on earth to make small talk and her quietly soaking in the sights. How is it that caring for someone works that way? We’re only friends, she and I, but to know that something is about to touch her heart in a way that can’t be measured has me anticipating these next steps so much more than if they were for me.

  “I think . . .” I begin, slowing so that she does as well. “I think this is the spot.”

  “I’m so curious as to what it is.” With a hand, she swipes at her ponytail, then glances around at the outcropping of boulders we’ve arrived at.

  “Well. I want to show you something.” I pull out the copy of one of the journal entries from John Cohen. “Take a look at this.”

  She accepts the page, and it’s impossible not to watch her lowered face as she reads. A loose tendril of brown hair stirs against her cheek, and her lashes move with the words.

  September 1903

  Juniper should be walking down from the cabin any minute to fetch Bethany and me. The smells of her supper has me craving to be there at her side, but I’d be wanting it, meal or no. Beth’s here in the hayloft, playing paper dolls in the straw. I ought to fashion her something for them. Maybe a box to hold them proper. I’m sitting beside her now for no other reason than the soft sound of her humming, and the way the evening light catches her blond hair.

  Santiago and I spent most of the day stalking deer—two does and a forked horn. We came home empty-handed, but the conversation was as good as the company. We seem to be made for that—he and I—this cause to keep one another on the higher path. The path that leads home. He’s gone off now to sit with Edie at the place where she kneels most every evening. I can just make them out from here. With sunset coming, their shadows stretch as long as the boulders bookending them. At dusk, like this, the hues of this landscape are deep as the sorrow they have faced together. A sorrow I can only imagine, but one that lives on their faces, and in their every step. I pray that God continues to cover them with His grace. Most especially in the hard. In the waiting and the yearning.

  Listen to me now, talking like I’m some kind of poet. I think June’s gone and rubbed off on me. I don’t mind so much. If anyone were to draw the world in a way that I can somehow see it more clearly, it’d be her.

  John

  Sonoma inhales softly. “Everything is beautiful here.” Her eyes move over dirt and stone. Cactus and manzanita, then to the sky overhead. This woman also has a way of seeing things that others might miss.

  Her focus lowers to my face, and her question is soft. “I feel like you are telling me something, but I don’t know what it is.”

  I grin. Here’s a first—me piecing something together for once. “Well, I’m not telling you something. They are.” I touch the paper again.

  As she reads it a second time, her fingertip traces the names. Is the answer unfolding for her? Her brow is pinched now. She’s close to putting it all together. I could just tell her, but this woman has a way of unearthing things, and this is too big to spoil for her.

  Her demeanor shifts, and she absorbs the sight of the two boulders bookending where we stand now, glances back toward the farm, squinting in the direction of the barn. Of the eastern window.

  She’s almost got it . . .

  She looks at me, her eyes wide. I nod.

  “Oh, my goodness . . .” Stepping back from the outcropping, she lowers the paper at her side. It’s as though the wind has left her sails. Now it is a tide that brims not beneath her but in her every glance as she looks around with wet eyes. “Are you serious?” The words are whispered.

  Struck by her emotions, I can only nod.

  This is the place. The place where a tiny infant was once buried. If there was a marking—a cross—it’s gone now. A hundred California years will do that to an exposed piece of wood. Her eyes scan the ground as though trying to find a remnant. I did the same thing this morning, but it’s only earth now.

  Sonoma sinks to her knees. Dust taints her leggings as she sits back on her hiking boots. Her shoulders slump, and she draws in a shaky breath. “I can’t believe it,” she says with matched softness. “They stood here.” Edie and Santiago Del Sol. “They . . .”

  “Knelt here.”

  Hands that are a few shades lighter than those of the man with four names touch the earth. Sonoma’s fingertips graze the pale grit as she arcs her hand slowly in a half circle. “Hello, little one,” she whispers, and I realize that we’ve yet to come across a reference to the child’s name.

  I’m not much of a crying man, but I have to blink quickly to keep dry eyes.

  Far behind us twines the highway where travel trailers meander toward local camping spots and tourists have come up for a day in the mountains. Not a soul who crosses this land today will know that the woman kneeling here is glimpsing not only a piece of her past but a new window into the heritage that has been slowly fading over the centuries.

  A heritage that is in the process of being preserved as Sonoma pulls out her notebook and flips to the page she’s sketched up about the Del Sols. There she has already penciled in information about Santiago and Edith, and now she draws several fresh lines with her pen. As she writes quietly, she pauses every few words to examine the surroundings as though making as much a note about the location as the tiny infant who is a valued part of this family’s tree. The Del Sols’ legacy.

  Finished, Sonoma caps her pen and slowly closes the notebook. She touches the ground again, and her voice is soft. “Your mama was very brave.” She sits quiet for a while. “I have spent so many years trying to make sense of this. To piece together what I can of my heritage. Not just of my own, but for others as well.” Judging by the notes she has in hand, including what look like links, dates, and more, she would have spent countless hours at it. “So much of it has been misunderstood or forgotten entirely.” Her eyes rise to mine, and it takes no effort to recall the way Sonoma stood at the Cahuilla museum and addressed a roomful of people.

  When she rises, it’s to step closer to the dried brush and autumn flowers lingering in the craggy ground where the boulders give shade. She gathers several and lays them on the spot where she just knelt. When the wind stirs them, unsettling the stems, I shift a rock into place so as to brace the flowers securely. It’s now a marking—an offering—that won’t again be lost. At least not by us, and if I know anything about Sonoma, she’ll make sure that the world knows the story of a precious Cahuilla baby, the parents who loved her, and the legacy that such a family left behind.

  “I know this doesn’t solve the mystery for you. The connection,” I say at her side. “But I believe along with you that this was where you came from. Until you know for certain—and even if you never do—I think . . .” I search her teary expression, seeing the depth of bond and care she has for these people. These lives, including her own, somehow rooted in Kenworthy. The place I have the honor to call home. A place I hope she will return to many more times. “I think it’s obvious where you belong.”

  She smiles, swiping at her cheeks, and I cave, braving a reach around her shoulder. The first time I’ve hugged her. I pull her in to my side, and she carefully brushes her head to my shoulder. Though I want to hold on a little longer, I let her go.

  Her smile is shyer now, but there’s a look in her face that says she didn’t mind the hug at all.

  “I’m glad we’re friends,” I say and wish I could explain all the ways she has blessed me, but slow is
good. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen here, the heart beside me matters. It matters to me and this place more than I can say.

  Epilogue

  Juniper

  July 1905

  Facing the camera, I try to smile at the apparatus, but it feels unnatural. “I don’t think I can hold a smile,” I say to Mrs. Parson.

  “No need to.” Her voice is muffled from where it’s draped beneath the dark cloth just behind the camera. “Just stand still and steady. Don’t move.”

  Ten minutes ago, I was hanging laundry on the line, and now I’m standing here, posing for the first photograph I’ve ever taken. Mrs. Parson is leaving Kenworthy today and asked if we would allow her to photograph us. She’s taken a position at a school in San Bernardino, and we are all going to miss her. Bethany, who has blossomed these last several years under her tutelage, most of all.

  I remind myself of Mrs. Parson’s instruction to be still.

  Be still.

  Is that not the very thing God asked of me in John’s absence and even beyond? Be still. Wait. Such a decree is hard for me. When it came to the adventure of leaving my home to join John here on this mountain, I was ready and willing for the risk. To step into the unknown. But when the unknown requires stillness? When the unknown calls for submission and surrender? A much harder calling for me. When we cannot act or take or do enough to gain what our heart desires—I believe that being still is the greatest challenge of this life.