Something More (23 page)

“Not tonight,” she murmured, distraught over her husband's absence and no longer able to conceal it.

“Where'd he go?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Didn't he tell you where he was going?” Tobe asked, growing more and more confused.

“No.” Ima Jane pressed her lips tightly together, fighting back the tears.

Incredulous, Tobe stared. “Well, when's he coming back?”

“I don't know.” Ima Jane broke down and wailed, burying her face in the folds of her raised apron and weeping in earnest.

Momentarily at a loss for something to say or do, Tobe sat there with his mouth open. Worried that she was going to collapse right there at his feet, Tobe got up and helped her to a chair, awkwardly trying to comfort her.

“Don't cry, Ima Jane.” He patted her shoulder. “He'll be back.”

“No, he won't,” she declared, with a wild and weeping shake of her head.

“You don't know that for sure.” He tried to sound confident, a difficult task when he was feeling far from confident about anything, including the right way to console her.

“Yes . . . I . . . do,” she said between hiccoughing sobs.

“How?” The word was out before Tobe could question the wisdom of asking.

“Because he sa . . . said so,” Ima Jane replied and wept afresh.

“Why? What did you two argue about, anyway?”

“We di . . . we didn't argue.”

“You must have fought about something,” Tobe insisted. It was the only thing that made sense.

“But we didn't. That's what's so awful.” Sniffling back tears, she lifted her head, the sobs subsiding as she scrubbed at the salty wetness on her face with the heel of her hand. “He said . . . he hated this place . . . that he'd always hated it. As soon as he . . . gets the gold, he's leaving here and never coming back.”

“Gold? What gold?” Even as he asked, Tobe knew what the answer had to be.

“The outlaw gold.” Her lower lip began trembling again.

Dumbfounded, Tobe forgot all about comforting Ima Jane and sat down in the nearest chair. “He's going after the gold, too,” he murmured in amazement, then frowned. “But he doesn't know where it is.” He looked at her again. “Does he?”

Ima Jane stared back at him for a long, blank second before concluding rather lamely, “He must.”

But how? That's what Tobe wondered. Then the unfairness of it hit him all over again. Here he was stuck being chore boy while everybody else was out looking for the gold. He envied Griff for walking off and saying the devil with the restaurant. He had half a mind to do the exact same thing.

“Who's gonna cook my hamburger then?” Dulcie asked in a small, worried voice.

For Ima Jane, the question was a prodding reminder of her new responsibility. “I will, sweetheart.” Her quick smile was a bit strained, but back in its usual place, as she rose from the chair. “And what would you like me to fix for you, Tobe?”

“Same as her, I guess.” With visions of shiny gold bars dancing in his head, food was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

 

 

The rock formation stood like a giant stone finger, rising some fifteen feet from the top of the hillock. The afternoon shadow it cast angled in an easterly direction toward the far side of the valley.

On a level stretch near the foot of the knoll, Angie kicked free of the stirrups and slid to the ground. She felt the betraying quiver of leg muscles that weren't used to so many hours in the saddle yet. Giving them a chance to recover their strength, she idly stroked the sweaty neck of the bald-faced roan and ran an admiring glance over the rough and rugged country.

The vastness of it dwarfed her, yet it invigorated her, too. It was wild and untameable, which Angie suspected was its greatest lure. She lifted her gaze to the incredible blue of the sky arcing from horizon to horizon. A scattering of clouds floated across it, plump and white as the distant snow-capped peaks.

“What's the verdict?” Slouching in the saddle, Fargo leaned a forearm on the saddlehorn. “Is this the pillar?”

Luke glanced toward the lengthening shadow, then flipped a stirrup across the saddle seat and began loosening the cinch a notch. “It's a little early to tell, but it doesn't look promising. I'd say the shadow will end up pointing to that far slope, but it'll be a while before we can tell for sure.”

“So, what's the plan?” Fargo dismounted to stretch cramping muscles. “Are we givin' the horses a breather and ridin' on to the next, or what?”

Luke threw an assessing look over the area. “This is a good place to camp: level ground, the creek nearby, and plenty of deadfall for firewood. It's your call.” He directed the statement to Angie. “We can stay or move on.”

She didn't hesitate. “We'll stay.”

Within an hour, Fargo had a kettle of water boiling over an open fire. Stripped of saddles and gear, the horses grazed on some nearby grass, their legs hobbled to prevent them from straying far. As Angie returned to the campsite with an armload of wood, Luke pounded a ground stake, securing the last pup tent in place.

She dumped the load onto a pile of previously gathered branches. “Do you think we'll need more?” she asked Fargo and paused to dust off bits of bark and dirt from her hands and arms.

“That should do it.” He began ladling the boiling water into an enamel coffeepot. “Coffee'll be ready in a short snort.”

“Sounds good.” Tired, Angie sank onto a flat boulder a few yards from the stone-encircled campfire.

“Was a time when a body could drink the water straight from the stream without needin' to boil it first,” Fargo recalled, then smiled at another memory. “Last time I tried that, everybody got such a bad case of the trots, we had genuine traffic jams around every bush. That was one miserable camp, I'll tell you.”

“I believe you.” She swept off her ball cap and shook her hair free.

“You'd better,” Luke told her, joining them. “It's true. As one of the victims, I ought to know.”

Angie clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. “Poor guy.”

“Got the tents up, have you?” Fargo surmised and took the kettle off the fire, then hung the coffeepot in its place.

“All done.”

“It seems a shame to sleep in a tent when it looks like it will be a perfect night for sleeping under the stars,” Angie murmured with a touch of wistfulness.

Fargo snorted in disagreement. “You won't think so when the bugs start flying and the snakes come slithering out of the rocks.”

Angie shuddered expressively. “Let's don't talk about snakes.”

“All right.” Luke grinned. “Instead of snakes, how about shadows? Want to see if we can tell where this one's pointing while we're waiting for the coffee to get done?”

Before Angie could respond, she was distracted by a rattling in the brush to her right. Thinking it was one of the horses, she turned and found herself staring into the bearded face of Saddlebags Smith.

With dark eyes glowering beneath the floppy brim of his hat, he challenged, “What're you doin' here?”

Calm once again after that first skitter of surprise, Angie rose to face the scarecrow-like man in baggy clothes. “The same thing you are,” she replied, with a smile. “Looking for the gold.”

“Ya think the shadow from that rock'll guide ya to it?” He aimed a skinny finger at the tall boulder atop the knoll. “If ya do, you're wastin' your time. It ain't gonna point you to nothin' but heartbreak. Ya think I ain't followed it? Ya think I ain't looked in every direction? I scoured every canyon, an' it ain't here. An' if I can't find it, you won't either!”

But Angie wasn't about to admit defeat before the search had begun. “We'll see.”

Pain and anger twisted through his expression. “You won't see nothin', I'm tellin' ya!” His ill-fitting dentures clicked and clattered, creating an odd background cadence to his near shout. “Open up them ears o' yours an' listen!”

Recognizing the futility of arguing, Angie tried another tactic. “I'm willing to listen,” she told him. “We were about to have some coffee. Why don't you join us?”

“The coffee ain't ready yet or I'da smelt it,” Saddlebags retorted, back to glowering with narrowed, accusing eyes. “You weren't about t' drink it. You was goin' to see where that shadow pointed. I heard ya talkin'.”

“The sun's still too high. I was about to tell Luke that when you showed up,” Angie replied.

He grunted his doubt. “But you was plannin' on checkin' it out.”

“Later.” She sat back down on the rock and patted the broad space next to her. “Come have a seat. The coffee will be ready soon.”

Saddlebags shot a wary look at Luke, questioning his welcome. “Like she said, have a seat.” Luke motioned to the rock. “I'll rustle another cup out of the pack.”

Still chary, Saddlebags sidled closer to the fire but steered clear of the flat boulder and rested his haunches on a rotted log instead. “You shoulda done like I told ya an' gone back home. What was your folks thinkin' anyway, lettin' you come out here by yourself? You do got folks, ain'tcha?”

“My mother's still living. I lost my father a few years back,” Angie replied.

“How come she didn't come with you?” His gaze darted about, alert to every move Luke and Fargo made.

“She's busy on the farm.” A smile tugged at a corner of her mouth. “And, to be perfectly honest, she thinks it's sheer foolishness to look for the gold.”

He nodded, his glance falling to the ground near his feet. “You shoulda listened to her. You really shoulda,” he said with a kind of ache in his voice.

“What about your family?” Angie wondered, certain the old man was thinking of them.

“I ain't got no family. Not no more,” he said, without looking up.

“Where was your home?”

His head came up, his gaze slicing to her. “This is the only home I got. An' it's the onliest one you'll have, if you don't get outta here quick.”

“Why?” In her side vision, she saw Fargo when he wrapped a towel around the handle of the enameled pot and lifted it off the fire. Steam rolled from the spout, aromatic with the scent of fresh-brewed coffee. One by one, he filled the tin cups that Luke had set out.

“Because lookin' for that gold'll make you crazy.” The wildness of it was in his eyes—and in his dirty, unkempt appearance. “It'll get to where you can't think o' nothin' else. You'll forgit t' eat, t' sleep”—Saddlebags noticed his grimy fingers and nails as he reached for the cup Luke held out to him—“and t' wash.”

She watched when he took the cup from Luke and drew it quickly close to his chest in an attempt to hide his dirty hands from her sight. “I don't think you're crazy, Mr. Smith.”

Fargo breathed out a scoffing snort and muttered, “Not much, he ain't.”

“A crazy person wouldn't notice how dirty he was,” Angie pointed out, as much for Fargo's benefit as the old man's.

“She's right, Saddlebags,” Luke inserted. “A bath, a shave, a haircut, and a clean set of clothes that fit, and nobody would recognize you.”

“Just a bath would be an improvement,” Fargo stated and spat into the fire. There was an instant sizzle and hiss.

Glaring at him, Saddlebags raised his tin cup. “This coffee'd taste a sight better if'n ya put an egg in it t' settle the grounds.”

“You're danged right it would,” Fargo agreed, bristling with offense. “But the only eggs them packhorses can tote are the powdered kind. And they don't taste too good in coffee.”

Without another word, Saddlebags threw a contemptuous look at Fargo, set his cup on the ground, and stood up. Fargo started to rise as if to meet the old man's challenge. But Saddlebags turned and left the campsite at a trot that more closely resembled a fast, side-to-side waddle.

Angie was instantly on her feet. “Saddlebags, wait,” she called after him. “Come back. You haven't finished your coffee.”

When she took a step after him, Luke laid a detaining hand on her arm. “Let him go,” he advised.

“But”—she frowned in confusion—“why did he take off like that?”

“Don't be lookin' at me,” Fargo declared. “It couldn't a been nothin' I said. He was the one makin' insultin' remarks about my coffee.”

“I know, but . . .” She looked in the direction Saddlebags had taken, but he'd disappeared into the brush. Sighing in regret, Angie turned back toward the fire. “There were so many questions I wanted to ask him.” Questions like, What did he know about the rock pillar and the significance of the shadow? and Had he found her grandfather's effects, including a copy of the letter? “I wish he'd stayed longer.”

“It looks like your wish is about to be granted.” Luke looked beyond her at the spindly-legged old man hurriedly waddling back to the campsite.

He walked right past Angie, straight to Fargo; grabbed his hand; and placed a small, speckled egg in his palm. “Put that in the coffee.”

Fargo stared at it. “It's a bird egg.”

“A chicken's a bird, ain't it?” Saddlebags challenged, then waved at the egg. “That'll work the same as a chicken's.”

After a moment's hesitation, Fargo cracked the egg open, checked the yolk, then tossed the egg in the coffeepot, shell and all. Saddlebags nodded in approval.

“The next cup'll taste a lot better.” He picked up his cup and slurped at the hot coffee, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat and shot a quick look at the sun, measuring its distance from the horizon. “I'd best be goin'.” When he turned to leave again, he leveled a hard glance at Angie. “Mind what I said. That rock ain't gonna point ya to nothin' but heartbreak. Go home.”