Veins of Gold

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Her feet touched solid earth, and she leaned against him, tangling her fingers in his hair. The gusts stilled. Winn squeezed her waist, and Gentry pulled back with a sigh.

  Winn grinned. “I knew you did.” His eyes brightened, and he clasped her hands in his. “Gentry! You used magic!”

  She chuckled, her head still floating with the birds. “I did. I didn’t know how else to find you.”

  He tugged her forward and kissed her once more. “I would have come back eventually.”

  “We left, Winn.”

  He leaned back. “What?”

  “To Salt Lake City, where Rooster will work for Willard Hinkle—my friend Hannah’s husband,” she explained. “We left Dry Creek.”

  “And Hoss,” Winn added.

  She nodded, trying to resist the girlish smile blooming on her lips. “And Hoss.”

  He embraced her, lowering his chin onto her shoulder. Gentry slipped her arms under his, resting her palms on his shoulder blades.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “What I said, I didn’t mean—”

  Winn rested his forehead against hers. “You are more than forgiven, my lady. And I must apologize for acting out of turn as well.”

  “You didn’t . . .”

  “I recall a very angry Gentry Abrams storming away from that farm who would beg to differ.”

  Gentry stared into his gold-flecked eyes and grinned. “I jumped into a canyon for you.”

  He laughed. “You jumped into a canyon for me. But enough of this nonsense.” He stepped back and looked her up and down. “We need to settle things so this doesn’t happen again.”

  Gentry shrunk back. “I promise I won’t—”

  “In that I lay my claim and insist you marry me and only me, Gentry Abrams,” he finished.

  She laughed, a new lightness in her chest—or, rather, the absence of a pressure she hadn’t realized was still there. Like she was a child again, light and carefree and happy.

  Still, practicality nagged at her. “I don’t know if you’re the type of man who settles, Winn. You said so yourself. You haven’t found anywhere you belong.”

  He swept loose hair from her face. “I have. Salt Lake City. That is where you said you’re going, right?”

  Gentry blinked a tear from her vision and nodded.

  His hands cupped her cheeks. The tear must have escaped, for he brushed his thumb just under her lashes to wipe it away.

  She leaned into his hands. “I have so much to tell you. And California! I went back with the locusts. We made such a stir—”

  “That was you?”

  She grinned.

  He swept loose hairs behind her ear. “A bolder woman I’ve never seen. But you didn’t answer me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  He smiled. “Not that. I believe I proposed . . . in a manner of speaking.”

  Her skin tingled until Gentry felt sure she glimmered with magic herself. “A proposal requires a declaration, Winn Maheux.”

  He studied her eyes. Brushed her chin with his fingers. Bent down and brushed his lips against hers. The rest of the world fell away, and for an instant, Gentry forgot she was ever part of it.

  “A declaration that I am bewitched by you, Gentry Abrams,” he murmured. “And that I love you. Say you’ll have me.”

  She opened her eyes, and the goldness of him filled her vision.

  “I’ll have you.”

  “Oh my!” cried their next-door neighbor, a forty-something-year-old woman named Annabelle. She clutched a broom in her hands, paused in the sweeping of her porch. “Look at all of them! Shoo!” She waved her broom at the Russian olive.

  Gentry, planting some radishes in a sunny spot outside her rented apartment, followed Annabelle’s gaze and spied the shimmering bits clinging to a branch. If you’re going to come into the city, you have to stay out of sight, she chided them. “Oh, I’m sure they’re just passing through,” she called over as one of the insects climbed her skirt. She tucked a few stray hairs—their roots tinged gold—behind her ear.

  “You should have seen them in the summer!” Annabelle wailed. “Nasty things. There may be more. Goodness. Harold! Harold!” Annabelle dashed inside to find her husband.

  Gentry pinched a smile between her lips and glanced skyward, searching for seagulls, but she found none. Winn would be here soon, and these creatures needed to be gone before he arrived. Thank you, she thought. Now you, she looked at a distinct glimmer in the tree, hide in this bush, just for a little while.

  The locust shimmered in response.

  Annabelle burst out of her small home, hand clutching her husband’s sleeve. She spun, eyes wild. “They were here! They were just here. Gentry! You saw the locusts, didn’t you?”

  “One or two grasshoppers,” she said.

  Snorting, Harold pulled free of his wife’s grip and retreated back into the house. Gentry did likewise.

  Breakfast awaited.

  “So he’s trying to get it done fast to prove he’s worth keeping,” Rooster spoke around a mouthful of potato hash, “and he pulls the ink roller too far back and gets it on his pants.”

  John, Rooster’s colleague and bunkmate, snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep his half-chewed food behind his teeth. Gentry rolled her eyes and smiled, piercing her fork into the center of her egg, watching the yellow liquid seep out over the tines. For now, Rooster kept his separate apartment down the road, but they’d taken to having breakfast and supper as a family, often with one or two of Rooster’s friends attending. Hannah, Rachel, and Caleb joined them this week as well, Hannah having come to Salt Lake City to help Gentry with wedding plans.

  “Could you pass the pitcher?” Winn asked while wiping a napkin across his chin. He often joined the meals as well, albeit sporadically. Once he found steady work nearby, his attendance would grow more regular.

  Gentry handed him the pitcher and laughed when he grabbed her wrist instead of the handle and refilled his cup in a somewhat sloppy manner.

  Pearl asked, “Did it ruin his pants?”

  Rooster swallowed another bite of hash. “What do you think? Best part is he didn’t realize he’d done it till Willard said something. He was walking around all day with a black streak across his trousers!”

  John coughed and drank some water before saying, “How do you not feel that?”

  Rooster shrugged. “I think he’ll stay on, though.” He leaned forward and peered out the window. “Probably should set out soon.” He shoveled the rest of an egg into his mouth before grabbing his dishes—and one of Hannah’s scones—and taking them to the sink. His friend followed suit. Rooster called, “See you,” and hurried out the door.

  “Bye!” Hannah shouted after him, waving even though Rooster wouldn’t see her.

  “More.” Caleb banged his fork against the edge of the table. Hannah broke off a piece of her scone and handed it to him.

  Winn took Gentry’s plate when she was finished and set to washing the dishes as she wrapped the meager leftovers from the meal. She was starting to get used to having a full belly every morning and every night. Pearl began packing her bag for school—the Mormons had assembled a real school here, though Pearl would attend for only another year or so. Hannah handed Caleb a book to entertain himself with and took to feeding Rachel.

  Gentry moved to the sink and rested her cheek on Winn’s shoulder. “I have a surprise for you,” she murmured as he scrubbed the rim of a cup.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her, the earring in his right ear glimmering—the same earring that had held up the side of the old Dry Creek house. Gentry excavated it the morning of the move. She’d managed to convince the wall to stay upright by offering it gold scraped off the mouth of a cup from her mother’s china—one Pearl had hidden in a chest before Gentry had taken the rest to American Fork.

  “Oh?” he asked.

  Straightening, she tugged on his elbow. “Dishes later. Come.”

  Stepping around him, she stooped and opened
a low cupboard door, pulling from it a simple paper box. She hurried outside ahead of him, searched for the creature in question, and quickly caught it beneath the box’s lid.

  Winn stepped out of the house and walked to her. “What’s this? My birthday is three months away, Gentry Sue.”

  “Here.” Gentry grinned, her ribs quivering just a little. She wasn’t entirely sure what Winn’s reaction would be—hopefully good. Hopefully.

  Lines wrinkling his forehead, Winn took the box and lifted the lid to see a long locust inside, its antennae wiggling.

  His lip turned up at one corner. “Oh, Gentry,” he said, tone dry. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Winn.” She cupped his hands in hers. “This locust thinks it knows where your father is.”

  His brown eyes flitted to hers, wide and searching. His lips parted ever so slightly. For a long moment he didn’t speak, and neither did Gentry. She worried the inside of her lip.

  “I . . .” he croaked. “How?”

  “My ma’s necklace.” She nearly whispered. Salt Lake City was so much more crowded than Dry Creek; she never knew when someone was eavesdropping. “I thought . . . well, he’d be getting older now, maybe not travelling as much. And these locusts are small and common; they can get into places your gulls can’t. I sent them out when I started looking for you. Last night, they came back.”

  They both looked down to the locust at once, to the faint shimmer of magic coating its body.

  Winn swallowed. “Where?”

  “North,” Gentry answered. “That’s all I know. You don’t . . .” she paused, trying to read his face, but she only saw confusion and surprise there. “You don’t have to go.”

  “No, I . . . want to.” He lowered the box. Nodded. “Today. Come with me.”

  “Now?” Gentry asked.

  “We’ll take the gulls.” He gingerly set the locust down and clasped both of Gentry’s hands in his own. “Who knows how long we have until we lose him again.”

  “It might not be him, Winn.”

  “Maybe not. I’ve been disappointed before.” He looked down at the locust and grinned. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  Gentry lifted her nose. “I do try.”

  “You’re amazing.” He kissed her. “I love you. Let’s go.”

  “But Hannah—”

  “She can pick out tablecloths for the supper or whatever it is she wants.” Winn waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll saddle Turkey, you pack lunch. We’ll have to walk a bit to make sure we’re not seen.”

  Gentry laughed. “All right. North we fly.”

  Gentry wouldn’t have guessed they were in Canada if Winn hadn’t told her after they landed. Southeast Canada, in a town Gentry couldn’t find the name for. A town that, while a little on the cold side, made her think of Virginia.

  The locust led them to a rather well-to-do home with white siding and dark shingles that was surrounded by a white-painted porch and a door with faded blue trim. The windows all had glass, shutters, and tawny curtains. The home wasn’t on as much land as Gentry would think a three-story house would demand.

  “This is where you grew up?” she asked, tucking loose hairs beneath her bonnet.

  “No,” Winn answered, and he left it at that. Squeezing one of her hands, he led them up three stairs to the front door, where he rapped loudly with his fist.

  Gentry bit her lip. Seconds passed. What if no one answered the door?

  But a moment later the knob turned, and out peeked a woman of thirty years or so, a white lace cap over her dark hair, a long white apron covering a yellow dress. “Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” Winn said, “but is this the residence of Ira Maheux?”

  The woman looked startled.

  “If not—”

  “No, I mean, yes, it is,” she said, and Gentry detected a slight accent to her words, but one she couldn’t place. “It’s just . . . no one ever comes for Ira.”

  Her pulse quickened.

  Winn’s grip tightened. His skin lost some of its coloring, and for a long moment he didn’t reply. The woman frowned and fidgeted with a button at the front of her dress. Gentry was about to break the silence when Winn asked, “May I see him? I’m . . . his son.”

  The woman—a nurse, perhaps?—startled once more, but she tried to cover it with a nod. “Of course, he’s upstairs. Might be sleeping, but I’ll check. Come in.”

  She stepped aside to let them in. When Winn didn’t move, Gentry kissed his shoulder and gently pulled him through the doorway.

  The house was as nice inside as it was out, with smooth floorboards and woven rugs. A few candles compensated for the evening light. Two other men, one old and one young, played cards at a far table. Gentry wondered if this was some sort of retirement home. She wasn’t sure how old Winn’s father was, but she knew Winn had no siblings.

  Up one flight of stairs, then another. The woman stopped at the first door they reached on the third floor and knocked lightly before cracking it open.

  “Mr. Maheux?” He must have been alert, for the woman opened the door farther. “Your son is here to see you.”

  “Son?” the man within repeated.

  Winn released Gentry’s hand and pushed past the nurse. Gentry followed him, entering a wallpapered room with a canopy bed and white night table with matching dresser. A reading chair sat in the corner. Both the shutters and the curtains on the window were open. The man on the bed was balding, his hair half white, half pale blond. A thin beard in need of trimming covered the lower half of his face. Gentry guessed him to be about sixty-five.

  His eyes, dark just like Winn’s were, fell upon his son before switching to Gentry. He looked back and forth a few times before focusing on Winn. A crease dug its way between his eyes.

  “Hello, Da.” Winn slid his hands into his pockets. His shoulders trembled ever so slightly, despite the casualness pressed into his tone. The nurse retreated from the room, and Gentry hovered near the door, unsure of her place. “It’s been a long time.”

  Ira Maheux pushed himself up on his pillows, rubbed his eyes, and stared at his son. “Winn? By God, Winn, is that you?”

  Winn managed the smallest of smiles.

  Ira tried to get up, but he winced and settled back against the pillows. “Forgive me, this arthritis won’t let me be.” He glimpsed Gentry, but she would be a later question. “Winn, I barely recognize you. You’ve . . . you’ve grown up.” He paused. “We haven’t met before, have we?”

  The question sent a shock through Gentry. How would he not know? But then it dawned on her. Ira Maheux’s ailments were not purely physical. His mind must have lost its sharpness too.

  Winn must have noticed. He shook his head. “This is the first time.”

  “Thought maybe . . . you were dead.”

  “Not dead.”

  Ira glanced at Gentry before speaking again. “No . . . you’re too smart to die in no man’s land.” He coughed. “But I . . . Lord in Heaven, boy. Where have you been? I-I went back for you, but they said you’d run off . . .”

  Careful not to creak the hinges and draw attention to herself, Gentry slipped back into the hallway to give the men some privacy. There was a window seat down the way, and she sat on the cushion, peering out over the greenery of Canada, wondering for a brief moment if it were even legal for her to be sitting there. Someone had left a children’s book titled Pip’s Daring Escape on the cushion. Gentry picked it up and thumbed through the illustrations.

  Time passed—enough for the light coming through the window to take on a blue hue—and the door to Ira’s room opened. Winn stepped out, looking around until his gaze found her. He motioned for her to come, so Gentry set the book down and hurried over. Taking her hand, Winn pulled her into the room.

  “This is Gentry.” He pulled her closer to his father’s bedside, leaving the door ajar.

  Ira offered Gentry a faint smile she couldn’t help but return. “And that other lass?”<
br />
  “I believe she’s the nurse,” Winn answered, and Gentry bit the inside of her lip to keep from frowning. Was the woman who had led them to the room new, or did Ira simply not remember her?

  Winn’s father nodded. “And you two are getting married, hm?”

  “That’s the plan.” Gentry beamed.

  He squinted at her. “What was your name again?”

  “Gentry,” Winn and she said in unison. Winn tightened his grip on her hand, and Gentry wondered what they had spoken of while she was gone. His mother, obviously. Maybe what had been happening the last decade in their individual lives. Did Winn tell him about the magic? Had he needed to repeat himself? She’d have to ask later.

  Ira raised a hand—it tremored slightly—and pointed to the dresser across the room. “There, mm, one of the drawers. Under some handkerchiefs. Black box.”

  Winn passed a quick glance to Gentry before releasing her hand and following Ira’s instructions. He shuffled around the contents of the first drawer before pulling out the box in question. As he did, the room shook, rattling a glass left on the night table. Gentry moved to the doorway, grabbing it for support, waiting for the earthquake to intensify—but it lasted only a moment before fading.

  Here too, she thought. Repercussions from California are reaching the other side of the continent.

  “Oh.” Ira covered a cough, eyeing the black box. “What’s that?”

  Winn didn’t show any signs of discomfort, but Gentry thought she could feel uncertainty dripping from him like condensation. She stepped away from the doorframe, closer to him. “You asked me to fetch it.”

  Ira cocked his head, squinting. “Oh. Winn. Winn, yes. Open it.”

  Winn glanced once to Gentry before lifting the small lid from the box. When he did, he paled. “This is mother’s.”

  “Kept it all this time. I do have some sentiment in me.” He cleared his throat, then coughed again. “Might need to be resized, though.”

  Winn met Gentry’s eyes, and Gentry saw a shimmer there that wasn’t the gold flecks of magic. She guessed the small box held a ring, though Winn closed it before returning to her side and taking her fingers again, weaving his own between them like their hands had been created to fit together.