Sourdough Creek Page 20

  “I hear what you’re saying,” he said gently, nodding. “It’s pretty unbelievable what’s happened, I agree. But, I’m concerned about now. Right now. I need to go hunting. That may take hours, or the whole day.” He let his gaze drop to the ground where her boots made an indentation in the soft grass.

  “And?”

  “Thing is, I’m uneasy about leaving you working in the river alone. Can you wait to start panning until I get back?”

  Cassie let out a harsh laugh that Sam was sure was a result of dealing with the situation at hand. “Wait? I’m trying to beat you, remember? We’re not working together.”

  “What if you slip and fall in? No one will be here to pull you out.” He pointed to the rapids.

  “Who says you’re responsible for our food situation and that you have to go hunting? I have enough flour to keep making biscuits for weeks. And we have bacon and coffee.”

  “Just thought some fresh meat might be nice.”

  “Cassie!” Arvid yelled from camp. “My back is plum wore out from sitting. I need to get back to my bed. Come up here and help me.” Cassie clamped her eyes closed. “Girl,” he shouted louder, “can you hear me down there?”

  Sam had a hard time hiding his smile. He looked out to the meadow where the horses were grazing peacefully.

  “Go ahead, laugh all you want,” Cassie said as she walked away from him up the trail toward camp.

  “Cassie? Can you hear me, girlie?” Arvid called again.

  “I didn’t say a word,” Sam called to her back. “You need my help with him?” The chirping birds and rushing water were his only reply.

  After settling her uncle in his bedroll, Cassie took the better part of an hour to clean up the camp dishes and straighten up her own tent and belongings. Standing on the log that started the whole dilemma, she could see Sam down on the river’s edge, mining away. So much for going hunting. Oh, well. She’d be down there soon enough and was actually excited over the prospect of perhaps finding some gold. She plopped her hat on her head and started toward the river.

  “And she returns.” Sam pushed the rim of his hat up with his thumb; the only finger that wasn’t a muddy mess, and smiled. “How’d it go up there?”

  “Fine.”

  He’d rolled up his pants; his boots were soaked. He took a kerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow, leaving a few little wet blobs of dirt clinging to his temple. “This is harder than it looks.”

  “Mmhmmm.”

  He turned and sat with a plop on the edge of the bank, and set his pan down. “Come on, don’t be angry. We’re going to be working side by side for a month. No reason we can’t be friends.”

  Cassie struggled to hold onto her irritation. When he smiled like that all she could think about was the kiss. That first one in the hall. The one that had her body tingling from her crown to her toes, even now. How many women had he kissed like that? she wondered. His eyes gleamed, as if he had the greatest secret to tell her, and his brows arched knowingly over his thickly lashed eyes. Without a doubt, Sam Ridgeway was the most disarmingly handsome man she’d ever seen.

  “Truce?”

  She bent and rolled up the cuffs of her dungarees. “Why should I?”

  “Because it will make life so much nicer.”

  “I think life is as nice as it can get.” She carefully inched down the bank until she was standing on a rock in the shallow water. He seemed inclined to just sit where he was and watch her.

  “Hah! That’s a joke. Did you see I switched out the horses while you were helping Arvid?”

  “I saw,” she answered. She felt around the side of the bank, trying to decide where to start. “Thought you were going hunting?”

  “Guess I got involved. I’m planning to go in a while. Here.” Without getting up, Sam hoisted the pick and made a hole right where she was looking.

  “Sam! I want to do this on my own. Now if I find a big nugget I’ll feel responsible to give you half.”

  “Sorry.”

  Squatting, Cassie reached into the broken earth and took a handful of the cold dirt, setting it in her pan. She grimaced when a long, fat worm wriggled into view. Moving quickly, she plucked it out and dropped it into the river, averting her eyes. Then she dipped the edge of her pan down and took in a small amount of water. It turned the clump of earth instantly to mud. She gave the murky water a tentative swish, but in the process lost her balance momentarily. While righting herself, the mud spilled over the side of her pan into the rushing water.

  “Darn, there goes my gold nugget…”

  Sam picked up his pan and stood. Bending, he took a fist full of the gravelly dirt off the bottom of the river where the water ran shallow and put it into his own gold pan.

  “Like this.” He dipped his edge and swished the water so a small amount escaped over the lip. “It takes a while to get the hang of it. The trick is not to try to drain the pan too fast. Slowly, she goes…”

  Cassie watched him carefully as he moved the gold pan around and around. It really was quite beautiful how he did it, rhythmic and slow. He made it look easy. The water took a little more dirt out of the pan with it each swish. Soon there was only a tiny bit of gravelly soil left as the lighter dirt had been washed out. “As you know, the density of gold makes it very heavy. It stays in while the other gets washed away.”

  She came closer and looked into his pan. “Have you had any luck so far?”

  “Not yet.” He brought the pan up close to his face and poked around at the leftovers with his finger for several long minutes. “Nothin’.”

  He tossed the dregs out and dipped his pan into the river, washing it out.

  “Just like that?” Cassie said, under her breath. “Doesn’t seem too hard. How many times have you done it already?”

  Sam pointed to a big hollow in the side of the bank where his pick lay on the green grass. The aroma of rich, dark soil pervaded the air. “More than you’d care to know.”

  He laughed and she couldn’t help but smile. “Are we crazy?”

  “Could be.” He nudged her with his elbow. “You give it a try.”

  Sam stood by her side as she worked pan after pan, giving her suggestions and encouraging her whenever she got disheartened. A good hour elapsed without the hint of a sparkle, as Cassie’s teeth began to chatter like the dice in a gambler’s cup before he threw down. For what seemed like the millionth time, she peered at the bottom of her pan. Then she gasped.

  “Sam! What’s that?”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Sam crowded close to Cassie and looked into her gold pan. Concentrating on her task was difficult with Sam’s hard body smashed up close to hers. His warm breath caressed her cold face. He scooted in a bit closer still. “Let me see, Cassie. Where?” A moment passed. “I don’t see anything.”

  Their heads bumped together as they examined the inky black soil. “There!” she exclaimed. “There! Do you see it? Is that gold?”

  “Eureka!” Sam shouted, smiling into her face. “You found the first flake. Congratulations.” He patted her back several times, as she laughed. “Get your vial out and open it up.”

  Once the vial was open, he took her shaking hand in his own and pressed her little finger onto the tiny flake, pushing down hard. They brought it up together. It was so small she was hard pressed to see it on the tip of her pinky.

  “Scrape it off in here,” he said, holding up her vial. “Careful. Careful. Go slowly now. You don’t want to lose it.”

  “Are you teasing me?”

  “Heck no! This is exactly how fortunes are made. One itty-bitty flake at a time.”

  Cassie scraped it off her finger and into the container half-filled with river water and screwed the lid on tight. She shook it and held it up to the sun, turning it back and forth. The flake floated around ever so slowly in the bottom of the vial.

  “Isn’t it pretty, Sam? So shiny. So—gold.”

  She was so excited she could hardly stand it. Her dream was actuall
y coming true! She and Josephine would open a modest bakery in some little town. With the profits, Josephine would have all the finer things in life—an education, a cozy home, plenty of food on the table each and every evening…all the things her little sister deserved. This little flake of gold was the beginning of all that.

  “You might not want to keep it in your pocket, do you think? Might fall out.”

  “You’re right.”

  Cassie proudly carried her reward up to the top of the bank clutched in her hand, and looked around.

  “Just set it over there, where we can see it easily, and where it won’t get lost. Tomorrow I’ll bring something down with us that will keep our vials safe.”

  Cassie bounded back down the riverbank so fast that her foot caught on a rock and she slipped onto her backside. When Sam reached down to help her up she was shaking from the cold. Her blue lips encased chattering teeth and her hand felt like a chunk of ice.

  “You’re frozen. I think we’ve done enough for our first day out. Arvid’s got to be hungry by now, and we’re both going to be sore in the morning from all this bending and digging. If you go fix him something to eat, I’ll take Blu and see if there’s any game close by.”

  “But it’s still early, Sam, and you haven’t found any gold yet. I think we should just try a few more pans before we call it quits.” She reached down and grabbed a handful of mud.

  He knew if he pushed the point she’d get all huffy and stay on her own, fingers miniature icicles or not, just to be stubborn. Her jaw clenched over and over as she tried to stop the chattering, but it wasn’t working.

  “Okay, one more,” he said.

  “Two?”

  “I’m just thinkin’ of your uncle. Poor fellah can’t even move.”

  Her eyes turned dark and she glanced toward the camp. “All right, just one more try. But tomorrow I think I should make up some lunch and put it in with Uncle so he can eat when he’s hungry, and not have to depend totally on me.” She swished her pan with confidence and familiarity now, smiling up into his face. One thing was certain: Cassie Angel had been bitten by the gold bug, and he wasn’t going to be able to squash her enthusiasm very easily.

  On his knees, Arvid peeked from between his tent flaps to see if the coast was clear. The top of the shabby structure sagged down, touching his head like a hat, and his belongings were lying all around in a messy heap. The air inside was hot and pungent from his being inside for so long.

  He needed to relieve himself in the worst way, but didn’t want his niece, or Sam Ridgeway, to see that he was capable of taking care of himself. Actually, this arrangement could work out quite well, if he played his cards right. Cassie was as stubborn as they came when she set her mind to something. She’d win this contest for him without him having to lift a finger. He’d done some mining when he was a younger man, when he had more brawn than brain, and knew what backbreaking, freezing work it was. He hadn’t been looking forward to standing in that frigid spring runoff for hours on end, picking through the mud and gunk.

  No, he’d rather relax on his bed doing nothin’. Young’uns were supposed to earn their keep. He laughed, marveling at his cleverness. It was too bad he’d never had a chance to run for a public office of some sort. He’d have made a wonderful politician.

  Since the camp was deserted, he slipped from his tent and slowly made his way into the bushes. He relieved himself and was just starting back when he heard Cassie’s humming as she came up the trail to the camp. She laughed once and said something he couldn’t hear under her breath and resumed humming. He’d miscalculated! She would be in camp in seconds. He froze, trying to decide what he should do.

  “Uncle Arvid, are you awake?” Cassie said quietly next to his tent opening, not fifteen feet from where he lay, stomach down on the ground, between the manzanita and shrub brush.

  “Uncle?”

  “Aaarrrggg. Help me, Cassie! Please! It hurts somethin’ awful!”

  The cry pierced Cassie like a hot poker, sending her heart straight up her throat. She’d been ready to pull back the tent flap to make sure her uncle was sleeping. Turning in the direction of his voice, she ran a short ways and found him. Uncle Arvid writhed back and forth, gasping and whimpering. His hands clawed at the sky and his back arched up in a bow so far that he was supported only by his heels and his head. His eyes were squeezed closed.

  It was a full minute before he finally grew quiet. Cassie dropped to her knees but was apprehensive about touching him, fearful she would cause more pain.

  “Uncle, what happened?”

  One eye slowly opened. Then the other. Spittle had collected on his beard, and he was drawing deep, shaky breaths.

  “I couldn’t wait another minute. You’ve been gone so damn long a turtle could crawl to town and back.” He reached for Cassie’s arm, but his arm fell back onto the earth with a thud. “I just couldn’t wait no more, honey. I hope you will forgive me for being a foolish ol’ man. I thought I could make it on my own. On my way back my wobbly legs gave way and I fell. Now, every dang limb I have has gone numb again.”

  Cassie looked around.

  “Can you get Sam to come help me back to my bed?”

  “I can’t. He’s gone hunting. We’ll have to make it on our own.”

  His bottom lip wobbled as his face beseeched her.

  “We can do it, Uncle.”

  “I don’t think so. It’ll hurt too much.”

  “I can’t just leave you here,” Cassie said softly.

  He stared at her for a moment. “Give me a stick to bite on like Sam did yesterday. Then when you lift me I won’t scream in your ear and break your eardrum.”

  “Okay.”

  Cassie found a strong stick and placed it between his teeth.

  “Well, let’s get going,” he said with difficulty, gripping the branch in his mouth. “If it hurts I’m sure it won’t kill me.”

  “Please, don’t talk like that.”

  He spat the wood from his mouth, and glared, fairly shaking with anger. “Geez, girl! Just get moving and get me to my bed.” His tone wasn’t soft and sorry anymore, but irritated and impatient.

  “Yes, of course.” Her defiance wanted to rear its head, tell him to be quiet, but she beat it back with a mental shove. He was hurt! He had a right to be short with her. How heartless could she be?

  Cassie bent down, and with surprisingly little effort on her part, helped her uncle stand and regain his balance.

  “Here we go.” She tried to smile.

  Arvid hobbled next to her as she held his arm. Every once in a while his foot would drag, causing him to teeter dangerously to one side.

  “Almost there, thank goodness. I bet you’ll be glad to be back on your bed.”

  Before he could answer, he cried out sharply and spun out of her arms. He landed in a heap, screaming in pain. “See what you done to me, girl! See what you done! I’m never gonna be the same. I’m gonna be a cripple. A cripple!”

  The tears that had been pooling behind Cassie’s eyes since finding her uncle on the ground now came out in force. She sobbed once, then pushed the tears away with the back of her hand as she went to help him up.

  “No! Get away. I’ll crawl in on my own.”

  Cassie stood in silence as Uncle Arvid creped inside slowly on hands and knees until the flap closed behind him. There was a rustling sound and then nothing more. She stood for ten minutes just staring at the flap and listening to the sounds of the wilderness. The rushing river. The call of a hawk. A dark cloud of gnats passing over her head and were gone. She wished Sam was here. She felt completely alone.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Easy, girl,” Sam soothed. The small deer carcass draped across the back of his saddle made his mare more skittish than a youngster at bath time. Dangling on both sides of her flanks, the young buck’s legs jiggled with each step Blu took. Eyes wide with apprehension, Blu flicked her ears back and forth, and she snorted repeatedly. Sam smiled to himself at the th
ought of her trusting him so implicitly and reached down to scratch her withers. The mare slowly made her way through the trees and came out of a copse, just over the rise from the camp.

  The stallion, once again, crept into Sam’s mind. From what he’d seen, the animal’s conformation was flawless. He’d make any ranch an outstanding foundation sire. Plus, his intelligence was evident, outwitting the number of men trying to capture him so far. Wouldn’t he love to have a horse like him?

  Cassie would be pleased with the deer. The thought of fresh venison, thick and hot straight from the fire, made his mouth water and his stomach clutch with hunger pangs. After it was smoked, would keep them well fed for days to come.

  Sam had had more luck than just bringing down a buck, too. He’d also run into a miner who was pulling up stakes. Tired of living like an animal, the man was heading back to civilization. Besides providing some helpful information, he’d sold Sam the remainder of his provisions.

  The two large bags hanging from either side of his saddle horn contained beans, salt pork, bacon, oatmeal, some moldy white cheese, flour, and the like. He’d even procured a small bag of sourballs, a pouch of tobacco, and small jug of apple brandy.

  Tonight, they’d celebrate. Their first flake of gold from the mine, lots of fresh deer meat to last them for days, and a sip of apple brandy to delight the taste buds before retiring. He was looking forward to it.

  He pulled up in a quiet camp. Dismounting, he looped his reins around a scrub oak, and looked around. It was still light enough that he could see Cassie down by the river’s edge, sitting on a rock.

  Gosh, he’d hoped there would be at least a little something cooking. He hadn’t eaten since morning and his stomach was achingly hollow. But the fire was out and there was no sign of Arvid.