Firelight at Mustang Ridge (18 page)

“Oh, you didn't, and I really did.” Danny scrubbed both hands over her face, trying to erase the tension. “That's the best strategy when it comes to my parents—lob a grenade, watch it explode, and then retreat while the pieces are still falling. They'll stomp around and argue about whose fault it was for an hour or so. Eventually, one or both of them will go for a run or a bike ride or something, and when they come back, they'll be ready to talk about it.” Maybe. Hopefully. At least it looked like she had Charlie on her side. She wasn't sure if her sister had an ulterior motive or if she was legit, but right now she would take all the help she could get.

Krista crossed the room, slung an arm across her shoulders, and said, “Look on the bright side—at least you can cut the connection. Up until a year ago, my parents' bedroom was right down the hall from mine.”

“Me, too.” Danny's throat tightened at the thought of her old bedroom upstairs in the cabin, where a big bookcase overflowed with trophies and prizes and there was a picture on the wall of her father parading her around on his shoulders while she held up a medal and grinned like it was the best day of her life. “But,” she decided, closing the laptop and pushing away from the desk, “I'm not going to let it get me down. Are we all set for Gemstone Night?”

“We sure are! Thanks to Gran and her assistant, Dory, we've got stone-ground grits, Emerald City salad, orange-glazed Rock Cornish game hens, ruby-braised short ribs, rock shrimp quesadillas, gemstone
kale, and stone fruit cobbler with chocolate diamonds for dessert.” Krista linked an arm through Danny's, and steered them both out of the office, leaving the laptop behind. “Come on. It looks to me like you could use a drink. On the rocks, of course!”

*   *   *

Later that evening, stuffed to the gills with Gran's jewelry-themed food, Sam leaned in and brushed his lips across Danny's. “Wish me luck.”

She gave him a smacking kiss. “Good luck.” Though there had been shadows in her eyes earlier in the evening, put there by the call to her parents, she seemed better now. Wrinkling her nose, she added, “Though I don't think for a second that you need it. I bet you're a natural at this sort of thing.”

He went in for another kiss—he couldn't help it, she was too cute with her nose wrinkled up like that—and then headed for the front of the room, where a low stage held a microphone and a table he had loaded with his show-and-tell rocks, with a big screen behind and off to one side.

As he stepped up, a whole lot of heads swiveled around and the conversation died off, then Krista took the stage and did a
tap-tap
on the microphone. “So?” she said with a big grin that had a bunch of the guests smiling back at her. “What did you guys think of our first ever Gemstone Gourmet Night?”

That got a round of applause and, from the back of the room, a shout of “It totally rocked!”

Krista joined in the ensuing laughter, then said into the mic, “Well, then, to continue the theme, I'd like to introduce a friend of mine. Back in college, he worked
two jobs and lived on ramen. These days, thanks to his legendary luck and a huge find of blue diamonds, he lives in a mansion and is the brains and brawn behind Babcock Gems, which isn't just a prospecting outfit—it's also one of the top developers of cutting-edge, eco-friendly mining tech.” As a murmur went through the room, she cranked the volume and said, “So please join me in welcoming Sam Babcock!”

There was a wave of applause and a whole lot of enthusiastic faces as Sam snagged the cordless mic off its stand and said, “Hit it, Danny!”

She moved over to his laptop and cued up the attached projector so the screen behind him went live with an image of six perfectly faceted, deep blue stones that were polished to the hilt and backlit to a gorgeous hue.

Ignoring the tug that came from seeing the blue diamonds blown up on the big screen, he said, “Howdy, folks, and thanks for sticking around tonight.” He scanned the packed-full dining hall, which held most of the Mustang Ridge staffers and a smattering of neighbors in addition to the two dozen guests. “Before we ride out to the claim tomorrow, I wanted to go over some mining dos and don'ts, and let you get your hands on some of the stones we might be lucky enough to find.”

In fact, he and the guys had made sure of it, salting a couple of played-out sites with some low-grade stones, in case they didn't have any luck elsewhere. Not to mention that he had something big up his sleeve in the form of a crystal-lined cave they had stumbled on earlier in the week.

“To get us started,” he continued, “I'd like to run through a few definitions, so we're all on the same page. There are three basic types of rock.” At his cue, Danny started forwarding through the slides, so the screen showed local scenes with good examples as he said, “Sedimentary rock is where you'll find most of your fossils. Igneous rock is basically cooled-down lava. When it solidifies around bubbles and empty spots, you get pockets where gemstone crystals can grow. Then there's metamorphic rock, which comes from deep in the planet's crust. Thanks to the pressure and heat down there, metamorphic rock can give you some big, valuable gems if you're having a lucky day.”

Hefting a one-pound chunk of shale, he handed it to Mindy Bright—a bleached-blond mother of two from Pittsburgh who hovered over her kids and wouldn't meet her husband's eyes. Krista had given Sam and Danny the rundown on the Reunion Week guests who had signed up for the overnight trip. Jon, Maura, and Abel were half siblings in their twenties who had recently connected through adoption records. Chase and Doug—mid-forties with football physiques and an extra layer of padding—were college buddies who met up every now and then for a guys-only vacation. And Mindy and Declan Bright were trying to put their marriage back together for the sake of their two kids, nine-year-old Kevin and his little sister, Sonja.

Sam didn't know how much use he was going to be on the reunion end of things—he did beginning better than he did reconnecting—but he wished Mindy and her husband well, seeing how there were kids involved.

As the chunk started going around the room, Sam
picked up his lecture. “All the rocks I'm going to pass out have labels on them, showing the identification and sampling location of each specimen. If you're going to get at all serious about collecting, you'll find that keeping good records is key. This first one I'm sending around is a piece of shale. You'll see how it's made of lots of layers stuck together. That's where you'll find your fossils—in between those layers.”

Kevin shot a hand up. All arms and legs, he was wearing a dinosaur T-shirt and an expression of barely suppressed excitement. “What's the biggest fossil you ever found?”

“Personally? A footprint this big.” Sam spread his hands about eighteen inches. “It was when I was little, and as far as I know the folks at the university are still arguing over what kind of dinosaur might've made it. As for the biggest that's been found in the area . . . Danny, can you skip ahead a few slides for me?” Moments later, the screen filled with the image of a huge mounted skeleton with a tiny, triangular head, a long neck and tail, and a big, humping back. “I don't know if this guy is the biggest,” Sam said, “but he's certainly up there. This is an Apatosaurus—what they used to call a Brontosaurus—on display at the university. It was found not that far from here.” He could've talked dinosaurs for the rest of the hour, but they had a lot of ground to cover, so he handed Kevin a fist-size chunk of granite. “This is an example of an igneous rock. You're going to see plenty of granite out there tomorrow, but when you're prospecting for gemstones, there are certain signs you can look for that tell you you're getting warmer.”

He spent the next twenty minutes passing around samples and talking about the differences between vugs and veins, semiprecious and precious gemstones, and going over safety procedures, interspersing the information with historical snippets and stories of hunting rocks alongside his dad. Eventually, he said, “Now it's time for some hands-on stuff. Who wants to take their first crack at prospecting?”

A big paw on a thin arm shot up immediately, then a bunch of others.

“I saw yours first.” He pointed to Kevin. “Come on up here. First, help me haul this to the front of the stage.”

“Woo-hoo!” The boy took the other end of the big, heavy Tupperware container and did his best with it, tugging like a puppy on the end of a rope toy as Sam pushed from the other side. The rocks inside rattled with the peculiar high pitch of shale.

“Okay,” Sam said once they had the bucket out in front of the crowd. “What we've got here is a load of sedimentary rock from a washout near my house. I've gotten some little fossils out of the deposit over the years—leaves, coprolites, that sort of thing. I'm not making any promises, but in a minute I'm going to invite you all to come on up and pick a rock, and we'll see if there's anything interesting about it.” He nodded down at his junior assistant. “Kevin here is going to show us how it's done.”

The boy bounced in his sneakers, but kept his hands behind his back as he peered wide-eyed at the rocks. After a long moment, he looked up at Sam. “How do I know which one to pick?”

That brought a tug. He had asked his father the same thing back in the day, when they used to pack a lunch and head out with picks, shovels, and a whole lot of optimism. So, just like his dad used to do, he answered, “Sift through them—watching out that you don't get your fingers squashed—and pay attention to what your body is telling you. Does one feel warmer to you? Maybe give you a funny feeling? That's the one you should try first. It's not a guarantee, mind you. But it's a place to start.”

Looking deadly serious, the kid shifted a couple of rocks, poked a couple of others. Then his expression cleared, and he grabbed a flat, plate-size chunk of shale from the edge of the collection, and held it up two-handed. “This one.”

“You sure?”

That got him an emphatic nod. “Positive.”

“Can I take a look?” Sam took the stone and held it up for the crowd to see. “You might not be able to see in the back, but this is a nice piece of shale with good seams along the sides. That means two things—one, you've got layers of fine silt that got added over the years, and two, you've got a chance to pop it open and see if there's anything inside.” To Kevin, he said, “You ready?”

The kid gave a head-blurring nod.

“Okay, then.” Sam held out one of the butter knives Gran had donated to the cause, deeming them ready for replacement. “Be careful with the blade. Find a good-size crack that looks like it runs most of the way along the long side, and work your knife in there. Careful, though—you don't want to chip it. You're trying to
open up the whole thing, not bust off a corner. Yeah, that's it. Now give it a little wiggle.”

“The rock or the knife?”

“Whichever one feels right.”

The kid went with the knife, rocking it back and forth and then giving a sharp twist that had Sam wincing. But the rock gave a satisfying
click
and the crack widened.

“Would you look at that?” He grinned at the kid. “You've got the touch. Now go ahead and open it up, and see whether you picked a winner.”

Kevin opened his rock like a comic book, and his face lit like a switch had flipped. Encased in the stone was a perfect relief image of a palm-size bony fish that seemed caught in midswim, with its fins extended and its tail curved off to one side. “It's a fish!” He held it up. “Mom, Dad, look. I found a fish!”

There was a round of applause, and his sister hopped up for a closer look.

When the buzz died down, Sam said, “It's called a Knightia, and believe it or not, it's the state fossil of Wyoming. And, congratulations, Kevin! It's yours!” To Sonja, he said, “Do you want to go next?”

She glanced over at her mom, got the parental okay, and nodded solemnly. “Yes, please.” The words were super soft, more just a motion of her tiny lips.

Behind him, Danny started organizing a line.

Hunkering down to little Sonja's level, Sam said, “Pick a rock. Whichever one you like best.” He coached her through the process and helped with the knife. And when the stone came up blank in the fossil department and her face fell, he showed her how a swirl of light
and dark at the fracture plane sparkled ever so slightly when she turned it in the light. “And see how this dark part looks like a face? With the eyes here, and the nose. The ears.”

Her expression lit. “It's a bunny! Look, look! Mommy, I found a bunny rabbit!”

“You did! Let me see.” Mindy opened her arms to her daughter, and together they studied the plain gray rock.

From the safety of her mother's lap, Sonja stuck her tongue out at her brother. “Nyah, nyah, Kevin. I found a bunny, and you just found a stupid fish.”

“Sonja,” their mother chided, “that's not nice. Tell your brother that you're sorry.”

The little girl pouted for a second, then said contritely, “I'm sorry you only found a stupid fish, Kevin.”

Chuckling, Sam said, “Next!”

He went on down the line, answering a rash of questions ranging from “What kind of rock is Kryptonite?” to “So how much did you get for those diamonds, anyway? Are there any where we're going to be mining?”

Finally, when all of the guests were armed with their own shale samples and butter knives, he stood back, slipped his arm around Danny's waist, and nuzzled her hair, already thinking about the night ahead. They were staying in the apartment over the barn so they would be ready to ride out bright and early in the morning. It already felt like he was on a mini-vacation, and he was damn glad to be sharing it with her. “I think that went well, don't you?”

She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You rocked it,” she pronounced. “I wouldn't be surprised to
hear that a few more people add themselves to the camping trip after tonight. In fact . . .” Her voice went teasing. “You'd better watch out, or Krista's going to try to hire you away from that tyrant boss of yours.”