by Janet Dailey
“Thanks.”
“No problem. I’ll let Fargo know you’ll be up to use it.” Stepping away, he struck out for the trailer.
Amid nips and squeals, flattened ears, and flying hooves, the horses argued over the grain in the feed trough. Ignoring the equine squabbling, Luke pulled the last saddle and damp blanket off the corral fence and carried them into the timbered barn.
A side door stood open, letting in the flaming light of a slowly setting sun. Tobe slapped the milk cow’s bony hip, hurrying her outside, then closed the door and chased the barn cats away from the pail of fresh milk.
“Is that the last of ’em?” He nodded to the saddle Luke carried.
“All done.”
“In that case I’m heading to the house.”
“I’ll be right behind you.” Toting the saddle on his shoulder, Luke ducked into the tack room, swung the saddle onto its wooden tree, and draped the blanket over it to finish drying.
Before leaving the barn, he stopped and dragged its massive double doors shut, then headed for the trailer. He made a detour by the camper, but Angie wasn’t there.
There was no sign of her inside the trailer either, only Tobe at the sink straining the evening’s milk and Fargo at the stove stirring something simmering in a pot.
“Where’s Angie?”
“Dulcie decided Angie needed to see her bedroom. Like the woman had never seen one before.” Fargo placed the lid back on the pan and turned off the burner under it. “Everything’s done. Just got to dish it up.”
“Hold supper off a couple minutes,” Luke told him. “I’m gonna take a shower first.”
“Me, too,” Tobe chimed in as he emptied the last of the milk from the pail.
Fargo shook his head in disgust. “Happens every time you put a woman in a house. Nobody’s ready to eat when the food is,” he grumbled.
But Luke was halfway down the long hall to the master bedroom, located at the opposite end of the trailer from Dulcie’s. By the time he walked into the room, he had his shirt unbuttoned and tugged loose from his jeans. Crossing the room, he went straight to the adjoining bath and came to a dead stop the instant he set foot inside the door.
It had been years since he’d shared a bathroom with a woman. He had forgotten the traces of the presence a woman could leave behind. Traces more subtle than the beading moisture of leftover steam on the mirror or the damp towel hanging on the rack. It was the mingling scents in the air, scents of cream-laden soap; strawberry shampoo; and another fragrance more elusive, more evocatively feminine.
Luke had no idea how long he stood there, with the suggestion of her presence encircling him, before he finally reached in the stall and turned on the spray.
Chapter Seventeen
Angie and Luke were halfway down the trailer steps when Dulcie poked her head out the door. “Angie, I forgot to thank you for fixing my hair,” she called and touched a wondering hand to her flaxen hair—which Angie had French braided into a single long plait.
Pausing on the steps, Angie responded with an immediate smile. “You’re very welcome.”
“I love it,” Dulcie declared with a fervency in her voice. “It makes me feel special.”
“I’m glad, because you are special.”
“So are you,” Dulcie ventured shyly.
Before Angie could reply, Tobe yelled from inside the trailer, “Hey, Dulcie, where are you goin’? You’re supposed to help load the dishwasher.”
After a playfully guilty grimace, Dulcie wagged a hand in good-bye, then ducked back inside the trailer. With a lingering smile, Angie continued down the steps.
“You’ve made quite an impression on her,” Luke observed, matching her stride to stroll toward the camper.
“It’s mutual.”
There was no mistaking the warm note of affection in her voice.
It was not an idle response perfunctorily given. It was part of the basic honesty about her, a trait that Luke hadn’t encountered all that often. It drew his glance to her.
Like Dulcie, Angie wore her hair in a French braid. At the dinner table, when it had still been damp from the shower, it had been smooth and sleek. Now, as it dried, wisps had sprung free to curl about her face and neck, softening the style and giving it a touchable look. The discovery didn’t exactly please him.
Since his wife’s death, he had been physically attracted to other women, but Angie Sommers attracted him on a different level, a stronger level, the kind that involved emotions. It raised his guard.
“I guess, one way or another, you’ve made an impression on everyone you’ve met,” he remarked grimly.
“Something tells me that wasn’t intended as a compliment.” Her sidelong glance was full of teasing humor.
“You’re right; it wasn’t.” His mouth twisted in a dry smile. “In case you’ve forgotten, your being here has provoked someone into violence.”
With a brief shake of her head, Angie disputed that. “It wasn’t me, per se, but my knowledge of the gold’s location that provoked it.”
“True,” he conceded the point. “But like the Bible says, ‘money—or gold—is the root of all evil.’ ”
“Actually it says ‘love of money is the root of all evil.’ In and of itself, there is nothing evil about money.”
“In this day and age, I can’t think of many people who wouldn’t love to get their hands on a big chunk of it.” His glance cut to her, wry with accusation. “Including you, or you wouldn’t be so determined to find that outlaw gold.”
“I know it probably looks that way, but it really isn’t,” Angie replied. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this desire to look for the gold. It’s splitting hairs, I know, but I’m honestly more interested in finding it than possessing it.”
“Next you’ll be trying to convince me that you plan on giving it away to some charity—assuming, of course, that you find it.”
“Let’s just say that I have plans for it.” Her lips curved in a smugly secretive smile. It intensified the disappointment he felt at her answer. He had expected something better from her. “But first, we have to find it,” she added.
“We?” Luke challenged the choice of pronouns. “I don’t believe that’s been decided yet.”
“Not yet,” she admitted, but her voice had a confident lilt to it.
With twilight’s shadows lengthening and darkening, the yard light flickered on, then grew steadily stronger and brighter, casting a pool of light around the camper. Automatically Luke scanned the darkness beyond it as they neared the vehicle.
When they rounded the side of the camper, his glance swept to the door she had left hooked open. “You really should keep it locked when you’re gone,” he told her.
“Locking it didn’t do much good the last time someone broke in,” Angie reminded him, then shrugged. “Besides, it gets too stuffy inside when it’s all closed up.”
After opening the screened door, she climbed into the back of the camper and advanced toward the sink area and the built-in boothlike table and bench seats directly opposite it. Luke followed her, instinctively removing his hat.
“Would you like me to put on some coffee?” She reached for the glass carafe to the drip-style coffeemaker, wedged into a narrow stretch of counter next to the sink.
The camper’s close confines made Luke acutely aware of everything about her. She stood only inches from him, near enough that he could separate the scents of strawberry shampoo and soap and the tantalizing fragrance of her perfume.
“You don’t have to make it for me.” As far as he was concerned, there was more than enough stimulation without the addition of caffeine. Turning, he tossed his hat on a bench cushion and took note of the folded map lying on the table. “This discussion about whether I’ll help with your search probably won’t take very long anyway.”
“I wouldn’t count on that so I’ll just go ahead and fix some coffee anyway.” She held the carafe under the faucet and turned on the tap. A pump kicked in, an
d water pulsed from the spigot.
There was something homey about watching Angie go through all the steps to brew a pot of coffee. Too homey. Abruptly Luke looked away and decided what he really needed was a good, strong drink. With a shock he realized it had been two days since he’d had one.
“Have a seat.” She nodded toward the cushioned bench seats as she finished filling the coffeemaker with water.
“Thanks.” He slid onto the bench next to his hat. Needing a distraction, he reached for the map. “What’s this?”
“A topography map of this area.” Turning from the sink, Angie absently brushed her hands over her jeans, wiping off the water splatters. When Luke unfolded the map, she leaned across the table, using her elbows as props. “I took it with me when Dulcie and I rode out to the canyon today. I was hoping I’d be able to identify the location of the canyon on the map, but I couldn’t tell from the terrain if it was here, or here.” She pointed to her two choices.
After studying the map and orienting himself to known landmarks, Luke tapped the first choice. “It’s this one.”
“I was hoping it would be. It lines up almost perfectly.” Pushing off the table, Angie straightened and reached up to open an overhead storage area.
“Lines up with what?” Luke frowned.
“With the route I think the outlaws used.” She took down a folder containing more topo maps and riffled through them until she found the one she wanted. After laying the folder aside, she opened the map and spread it before Luke. “According to the robbery reports, the train was held up approximately right here.” She placed her finger on a spot, then began to trace an imaginary line. “Initially, the outlaws fled south—probably in hopes of misleading the posse into thinking that’s where they were going. Then they swung back north and crossed the tracks about here.”
“Are you guessing, or do you know that for a fact?” he challenged in dry skepticism.
She flashed him a quick and faintly triumphant smile. “I know it for a fact. As I mentioned before, I researched this thoroughly, read every single account I could get my hands on—reports filed by railroad officials, the Pinkerton detective on the case, and the sheriff, as well as the transcript from the trial. I have copies with me, if you’d like to read them yourself.” The impish gleam in her eyes all but dared him to ask for them.
Rather than give her the satisfaction of dumping them in his lap, Luke dismissed the suggestion. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Good, because it would have taken you most of the night to read through them. It’s quite an impressive stack I’ve amassed.”
“Why?” he wondered.
“Why what?”
“Why would you bother to do all that research when you claim the letter gives you directions to the gold?”
“For a variety of reasons, I suppose,” Angie replied after giving his question some thought. “Partly to verify different things that had been told to me, partly to satisfy my own curiosity about the sequence of events, and partly to see what documents I could find about the entire episode. Do you know I actually have copies of the interview notes from a newspaper reporter who talked to some of the participants nearly thirty years after the robbery took place?”
“Interesting,” Luke murmured, and he meant it.
“It was very interesting,” she agreed. “A few were hazy about the details; a couple distorted the facts; but most told the same story from different viewpoints and managed to draw a clearer picture of not only what happened, but when and how.” When she at last met his gaze, her eyes started to twinkle. “So you can see, I really am an expert on this subject.”
“All right.” For the time being, Luke accepted her claim. “What happened after the outlaws swung north?”
Again Angie directed his attention to the topo map. “The posse trailed them until they hit this rough country over here.” She shifted to the first map, then aligned the two maps together. “Then the rain washed out their tracks. Some of the posse members wanted to give up and go home, but by then, the sheriff and one of his deputies were convinced the outlaws were heading for Hole in the Wall.”
Luke nodded. “A logical assumption, especially in those days.”
“Definitely. In fact, initially the train robbery was thought to be the work of Butch Cassidy and his gang. Anyway, the posse continued on, taking a route they thought the outlaws would choose, and hoping to cut their tracks.”
“Instead, they ran into the outlaws.”
“Right here.” She pointed to the location he had identified as the canyon, then marked it with a red felt-tip pen. “So, we have the trail lost here and the outlaws caught here.”
“And a lot of country in between,” Luke reminded her. “For that matter, what makes you so sure they still had the gold when they entered that first patch of rough country?”
“Because the tracker with the posse commented on the deep imprints the horses left. Imprints that indicated they were carrying something heavier than single riders. And gold is very heavy. One ingot can weigh ninety pounds, and that’s dead weight, the kind that can tire a horse quickly. Not only that, but the imprints in the canyon, where the outlaws were captured, weren’t nearly as deep. Which means, they hid the gold somewhere between these two places.”
“That brings us to the letter, right?” Luke guessed.
“Right.” Abandoning the maps, Angie pulled a photocopy of the letter from her jeans pocket and passed it to him. “I’ll pour some coffee while you read that. You’d like a cup, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s fine.” He nodded absently, his attention already absorbed by the contents of the letter.
Her own was divided between sneaking peeks at Luke and retrieving ceramic mugs from the cupboard to fill them with coffee. All the while, her blood hummed with excitement, sending little tingles of anticipation dancing through her.
She placed one of the mugs on the table before him, but Luke took no notice of it or the aromatic steam that rose from the coffee’s surface. A furrow of concentration creased his forehead when he read the letter through once, twice, then a third time. Angie sipped at her coffee and waited, half holding her breath.
At last he lowered it and raised the narrowed study of his gaze to her. “You say there’s a coded message in this letter?”
“Yes.” Eager to show him, Angie sat on the bench seat next to him, shoved her coffee aside, and leaned closer. “See this date of 12 July in the corner?”
“That’s the date the letter was written, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure it is. But what makes it significant is that it’s underlined,” she explained.
“And why is that significant?” Luke was unconvinced of its importance.
“Because it tells his wife the cipher method he used.”
“Which is?”
“Every twelfth word is part of the message.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it works. And, because if he had underlined only the day of the month, it would have meant every twelfth letter made up the message. It’s a very rudimentary code, really,” Angie informed him. “There are many more sophisticated ones he could have used, but fortunately he didn’t. To a trained cipher, this would be a kindergarten exercise.”
“You researched that, too, did you?” he murmured, the first glimmer of belief visible in his side glance.
“I did,” she confirmed, beaming a little at the subtle approval in his glance.
For a moment, Luke was distracted by the radiant sparkle in her eyes. He shook it off and dragged his attention back to the letter. “So, the message is every twelfth word.”
“Starting with the letter itself, not the salutation,” Angie clarified quickly, then rose from the seat. “Let me get you a paper and pencil. It’s easier to write it down as you go.”
She was back with a pen and notebook. Hurriedly she flipped the book open to a blank sheet, then handed both to him. Luke began with the opening sentence, counting the words as
he went. It read:
It grieves my soul to write this to you, my love. Gold (the twelfth word) is a curse. I regret that my crime cannot remain forever hidden (twelfth word) from you . . .
Luke stopped, jolted by the sight of the two words he’d written on the lined sheet: gold hidden. He felt his doubt disintegrating with a rush and struggled to hold on to some fragment of it.
In barely restrained haste, he transcribed the rest of the letter, then stared at the resulting message.
Gold hidden bell hole pillar evening shadow points canyon entrance right eagle rock bury under shelf reward for return.
“Well? What do you think?” Angie prodded when he remained silent.
It was more than sheer coincidence that every twelfth word seemed to provide directions, and Luke knew it. But he couldn’t bring himself to admit it yet.
He avoided her question for now by asking one of his own. “This postscript he wrote: ‘Remember. Always remember God’s way is not man’s way.’ He underlined that as well. Is that significant?”
“In this case, I think he did it for emphasis.”
“Probably,” he agreed thoughtfully. “It definitely doesn’t have a twelfth word in it.”
Angie gave him a couple more seconds to study both the letter and its coded message, then offered her own interpretation of it. “This is the way I think the message reads,” she began. “The gold is hidden, and Bell’s hole—which is a western term for a mountain valley—is the starting point. Somewhere in that valley there is a pillar, probably of rock. The pillar’s evening shadow will point to the entrance to a canyon that opens from the valley. After you enter the canyon, you go along the right side until you get to Eagle Rock. The gold is buried below a shelf. He wants his wife to return it and get the reward that was offered. Is that the way you read it?”
“That’s the most logical.” Luke switched his attention to the topo map, pulling it back in front of him. “There is no Bell’s Valley in this area, but there is Buell’s Basin. Several canyons empty into it.”
