“Andrew, I must insist,” she hissed. “Please. Lower your voice.”
He picked up her hand, looking at each finger. “I figured you as a cultured woman, a woman of today. But you have a streak of innocence that is terribly provocative.” His eyes moved to hers, and she pulled her hand away. “Do you wish to leave your partnership with Knapp, Moira?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “There are other opportunities, you know. Other men of substance.”
Like me, he was saying. She was flattered and yet flabbergasted by the man’s forthright manner. But Gavin promised her a future, new adventures, not a dull life stuck in a town destined to fade in time. And yet this man owned the opera house in which she was to sing. She could not offend him or close this door yet. As if reading her mind, Gavin arrived at their table then, and Moira breathed a sigh of relief.
“Finished, darling? I thought I might escort you home.”
Andrew covered a smile with his hand and then looked up with a sober face. “It was kind of you to see to us. Yes, we’re quite finished. Although we just had the most illuminating discussion. I believe that Miss Moira might be up all night, thinking about it. Forgive me for getting her mind on other things besides the show. We all know how important it is.”
Gavin looked down at her, a slight frown in his brows. Did he have another of his headaches? “Come, Moira.” He reached for her hand. “You need your rest before tomorrow. Andrew is quite right about that.”
Andrew rose with her. She offered her hand and he kissed it, elegant and smooth in his movement. “Until tomorrow.”
Nic made it through thirteen days and nights, steadily making his way north via the narrow, winding trade roads, before the smell of roasting meat brought him to the edge of a village. The abuse from outsiders in these high mountain towns had made many a villager leery of newcomers, more apt to strike with an arrow than offer a cup of water. After two such experiences, Nic decided he was better off not encountering another.
He hid in the brush watching a native family preparing a meal. At the smell of roasting meat his stomach rumbled. He pressed a hand to halt the sound and his eyes widened, fearful that his body would betray his hiding place. After a few tight breaths, he watched in relief as two village women came to turn the goat on the spit. They moved on, back to tiny huts, apparently to tend to children whose voices he could hear.
The meat cracked and sizzled. Downwind, so the smell wafted over to him. His stomach rumbled again. Weeks aboard ship, well fed but constantly at work, had left him lean, taut. Nearly two weeks on this trail had him starving, on a diet of berries, leaves, and as of yesterday, bark he’d seen the green-faced monkeys eating. He had to have something more, something of substance, if he was to make it. He was slowing down, nowhere near his prior pace of twenty miles a day. He was lucky to make ten miles now.
I must have some food. He rose dizzily from his squatting position in the brush and looked, as if in a dream, left and then right. No men were in sight, just a couple more women. Just that leg from the charred side. I’ll leave the rest.
He moved forward on stiff legs, drawing very near one of the huts. A small child with big eyes came to the doorway and watched him, hand in mouth, as if Nic were some sort of exotic bird, landed among them.
Nic brought a finger to his lips and winked, hoping to keep the child in rapt, silent attention.
He was a foot away from the fire when the boy child looked over his shoulder and said something to his mother.
Too far from the forest for safety, too close to the meat to give up, Nic stepped forward and grabbed the hoof of the goat and yanked. But the meat was still partially raw and didn’t release in the moist, succulent manner in which he had fantasized, popping at the joint, tearing neatly away …
He frowned and tugged again, even as a woman screamed in outrage. He could sense others emerging from their huts, adding their cries. And that was when he heard the answering call of the men.
Grieving his loss, but certain he would be killed if caught, Nic turned and ran. He dived into the jungle and moved downhill. The one time he stopped, an arrow came whizzing through the trees, striking a trunk three inches to his right. Poison darts.
Nic ran until nightfall and the dense canopy above him kept him from navigating by the stars. Frightfully dizzy and with his knees collapsing beneath him, he edged under the wide, umbrellalike leaves of a low-hanging bush and curled up as tightly as possible.
He slept until the screech of monkeys and cries of the birds edged him awake. He knew he couldn’t keep on, couldn’t make it all the way up and out of Argentina, let alone through Central America and Mexico. Distantly, he considered the desire to allow himself to remain right here, to go to sleep to the jungle’s lullaby and never awaken.
Odessa. Moira.
Look after them. Make certain they are all right. His father’s voice echoed in his ears, years after the fact. Nic opened his eyes and stared at the spine of the broad leaf above him, now illuminated by the meek sunlight that infiltrated the canopy. He hadn’t written in months. Hadn’t been long enough in one spot to hear from Odessa in a year. What had happened with them? Were they all right? What would it be like for them if he disappeared? Would it be a relief? Or would they forever wonder about him?
He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, thinking of his sisters’ faces. He couldn’t stand the thought of them, either of them, fretting over him. Moira was likely busy with her own life, but Odessa would be wondering, wishing for a word. He’d doled out the inheritance from their father and walked away, only able to see his own path. But that had never been his father’s desire; his desire for Nic and the girls was that they might somehow, some way, remain connected. Family.
And Nic and Moira had run as far away as possible.
Failure upon failure. Dominic St. Clair could not allow it, could not allow himself to die with such a word ringing in his ears. He was a fighter. A fighter!
Wearily he rolled to his knees and forced himself to his feet.
In a day he made it to the coast. Half a day after that, he made it to a small port and begged for a small bowl of gruel. An hour after that, he grimly signed his name to an Argentinean captain’s log on a ship bound for California. He laughed at himself for going against his promise to never again walk a ship’s gangplank, but if he was to reach America, he’d have to trust his life to the frail confines of wood and steel and sail and steam. His clothes hung on him. He stared down at arms and legs wasted by lack of food and chronic dysentery. He ignored the taunts that came in Spanish and Portuguese in his direction, words easily translated by tone alone, even if he didn’t know the languages. Ghost. Dead man.
He trudged down the ladder to the hold, found an unoccupied cot, and pushed aside an insect-infected mattress stuffed with hay, preferring the hard, clean wood below. It seemed as if he had just drifted off to sleep when a man was shaking his shoulder, shouting to him in Spanish, obviously telling him to get up, to meet the “Capitan” above. The man turned at the door and then tossed a biscuit to him.
Nic, groggy from lack of food, barely caught it.
“Put some muscle on that skeleton,” he thought the man said, loosely translated, “or the captain will toss you overboard.”
Chapter 16
For the third time in as many days, Odessa, Bryce, and Robert talked over what they knew of the clues Sam O’Toole had left behind. “We find the treasure, it resolves our cash crisis and saves the ranch,” Bryce said, hands on his head, thinking.
“It’s a long shot,” Robert said. “If no one’s found it by now … think of all the shepherds that have wandered those hills and caves for decades now, to say nothing of prospectors. Seems as if that gold wants to stay hidden.”
“If it’s there at all,” Bryce said.
“May I see it? Sam’s Bible? The gold bar? For myself?” Robert asked.
Odessa and Bryce shared a look, silently asking if the other one agreed, and then Odessa went to fetch the Bible, wh
ile Bryce went to the door and locked it. After glancing out the window, he pushed the kitchen table to the side and lifted a floorboard. He pulled out a cloth-covered bundle, about the size of a brick.
Robert smiled and waggled his eyebrows. “There’s a bit of this that makes me feel like a boy playing pirate.”
Bryce smiled. “Me, too. That’s why I don’t want to get too carried away with it.” The three of them sat down at the table.
Robert finished unwrapping it and set it before him on the table. It was a dull color, and there was clearly a Spanish cross on the top, along with roman numerals, apparently denoting date and weight.
“It might be the only one,” Bryce said. “For all we know, Sam cashed the rest in, maybe even melted them down. He always seemed to have plenty of money. Or maybe it was his father who had found it and hidden it away for a rainy day. Maybe Sam never laid eyes on another gold bar himself, other than this one.”
Odessa unfolded a piece of paper. “This was the poem he left for me. He referenced ‘treasure that burns, and that which is eternal,’ which we assume refers to some sort of real treasure here—whether it is this one gold bar or a stack of them—and here, here’s Louise’s Bible.” She turned it toward him and slid it across the table.
“Gaelic?” Robert asked, flipping it open.
“We believe so. You’ll see seven bookmarks inside—I’ve been through every page. And it’s the only thing I could see that might be a clue for us.”
Robert went to the first, then the others, seeing the hand-drawn symbol of a cross with three small drops beneath each arm.
“Sangre de Cristo, blood of Christ,” Bryce said, tapping on one. “It’s why we believe it’s in our mountains, rather than in the Wet Mountains near Sam’s claim.”
“It was our thought, anyway,” Odessa said with a sigh, sitting back in her chair. “But it could take twenty years to check each of the caves up there. And when you find a cave, how far do you go back? It’s rather dangerous.”
“I would imagine,” Robert said.
“And there are many that are overgrown with shrubs, even trees,” Bryce said. “You could pass within three feet and never know they’re there.”
“You’d need quite a few men searching,” Robert mused, scratching his chin, “in an organized fashion.”
“My thought too,” Bryce said. “But I just can’t justify tying up my men on such duty, not on top of all the duties down here …”
Robert turned back to the old Gaelic Bible and randomly opened it. “Anns an toiseach bha am Facal agus bha am Facal Maille ri Dia …”
“Do you read Gaelic?” Odessa asked, hope surging in her heart.
“I can read it,” Robert returned ruefully. “I just can’t translate it.”
“We compared it to our Bible in English,” Bryce said. “We’re reasonably sure that every cross and blood drop mark is near a reference to the word gold.”
“Okay, Mr. O’Toole,” Robert muttered, looking from one reference to the next. “What were you trying to tell us? Genesis …”
“The first book?” Odessa put in, standing to pace. “Meaning, ‘Begin here’?”
Bryce went to the corner of the den and fetched their English Bible. “Here are the verses we found,” he said. The pages were still marked. He read them all aloud to Robert and Odessa. But the words gave up few clues. Most had to do with jewels and gifts of gold.
Robert blew out his cheeks and leaned back in his chair. “Go back, Bryce. Read that second reference.”
Bryce turned several pages back. “The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold,” he read.
“Start earlier,” Odessa said. “Maybe we need more context.”
He looked to the previous verse. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from then it was parted, and became into four heads.” He looked below the reference. “And the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.” Odessa moved to the window, ignoring the sounds of Samuel waking from his morning nap.
“What’s bdellium?” Robert asked.
Odessa moved back to the bookshelf and pulled out a dictionary and read the definition. “It’s a plant, producing a gumlike resin.” She lifted her head. “Ever seen anything like that?”
“Seen anything like a river, parting in four?” Robert asked. “High up, where you take the herds in late summer?”
Bryce pressed on either side of his head, as if he intended to squeeze out a memory. “No,” he said, shaking it. “I’ve been all over the place up there, and I can think of places the river divides into two or three, but not four.” He rose and padded off to his study.
Odessa turned to the definition of onyx. In mineralogy, it referred to straight, parallel bands of alternating colors. It also meant a pure black, ebony. “Have you seen any black rocks or bands of rocks?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Bryce said. He unrolled a map of the Circle M atop the table. It was old, but fairly comprehensive.
Odessa thought back to rides through high canyons and over ridges. No, most of what they saw was iron-rich granite and limestone. Hues of rose and salmon and sand, but no black.
She sighed, then spoke reflectively, “Sam, what did you want to tell us? How to discover the treasure or focus on the treasure we have here, now? Or both?” She stared up toward the mountains. Maybe the notations were his mother’s.
Louise. She’d been a sheepherder over in the Wet Mountains, but they had brought their sheep west, through what was now the Circle M, and high up into the Sangres during late summer. It would’ve been thirty, forty, even fifty years ago, back when they were the only white people for miles, fighting off Indians and loneliness.
Odessa studied the map that showed the high meadows Bryce and the men favored for taking the horses for summer grazing. “Bryce … read that second reference again, would you? The one about Havilah and something?”
Bryce turned the page in the Bible and read, “‘The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.’”
Odessa smiled and tapped the map. “Havilah—could that not have become Avilla Canyon in time? And look—No Sip Creek. What’s No Sip backward?”
“Pison,” Bryce whispered. He grinned and then came around and picked her up. “That’s it, Dess! That’s it! The clue we needed!”
Odessa blushed, embarrassed under Robert’s warm gaze. “Put me down, Bryce. We have plans to make!”
But Bryce was already ahead of her. “I’ll set off at sunup. Nobody knows that high country like Tabito and Dietrich—I’ll take them with me.” He looked to Robert. “I’d feel better if you stayed here, to watch over my family. Bannock doesn’t appear to be turning our direction again, but I don’t like the idea of them ever being alone again.”
Odessa let out a little sound of frustration. “I want to go with you! It will be the death of me, sitting here, wondering if you’ve come upon it!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Bryce warned, sobering. “I still doubt it will be easy. We only know we’re bound to be in the right canyon. We still could be searching a hundred caves.”
“We’ll hope there aren’t as many,” Robert said. “And that you’ll see black rocks or odd plants that help you find your way.”
Bryce smiled. “I’ll go talk to the men now. And ask to see if any of the others have seen anything like it.”
“Just make sure you don’t make them suspect what you’re up to,” Odessa said.
Robert laughed. “If you do, you might have your own gold rush right here on the ranch.”
After supper Odessa settled on the settee with a cup of tea. Bryce was down at the stables, due back any moment. She drew her afghan across her lap and looked over to her brother-in-law, who held Samuel, smiling at him, trying to get him to smile back. The baby only stared dolefully back at his uncle. He held him up so Odessa could see, and they laughed t
ogether. “So … you’re the eldest. Expected to carry on the family name. Why haven’t you married, Robert? Had a family?”
He paused for a long moment, as if frozen.
She instantly regretted the intimate question, was formulating a polite way out, when he said, “I never met the right woman like Bryce did. Thought I had once, but …” He shook his head, letting the words trail away, as he looked her way.
Odessa shifted in her seat, uncomfortable under his intense, longing gaze. She had to get his mind on something else. “Care to tell me about her?” she asked lightly. “What kind of woman steals Robert McAllan’s heart?”
Samuel began to fuss, so Odessa reached for him. Robert’s fingers were warm as they touched. He stayed where he was, leaning forward, and rested his forearms on his thighs. “She looked a bit like you, and she had the most marvelous laugh.… There was much I enjoyed about her.”
“So?” Odessa probed gently. “What went wrong?”
“She fancied herself in love with my best friend.”
“Oh,” Odessa said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
Robert forced a smile and looked into her eyes. He shrugged his shoulders. “As I said, just not the right woman.”
Did his eyes linger on her just a little too long? Odessa frowned, at a loss for words. She longed for an escape.… Oh, why couldn’t Samuel choose to cry now, demand his mother put him bed?
He smiled then, breaking the tension in the room. “Take your ease, Odessa,” he muttered. “What am I going to do, snatch you from my brother’s arms? I think not.”
Her eyes moved back to his. After a moment, she gave him a slight smile, as if she were in on the game from the start. But it wasn’t a game. There was something real, moving in a swift, warm undercurrent, sending a shiver up her spine.…
He took another sip of tea and regarded her. “Dess, as lovely and enticing as you are, it is foremost in my mind that you are my brother’s wife. I will always treat you as a sister.”
“Thank you for that.” Dess. No one called her that but family. But Robert was family. Her brother. Trustworthy. It was all right, was it not?
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