Alvarado Gold (3 page)

“What’s that down at the bottom?” Mel looked closely at the fading print.

“Barnesville, 1869,” I read.

“No kidding. Does it say ‘dig here’ anywhere?”

“We ought to go there and look around; we might find something. At least, some answers to our questions.”

“And the gold?”

“Get serious, Mel. No one else has ever found it. Why would we?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

Mel managed to put the box back together just as Clay and Susan walked in. “You’ll never guess what we found while you were gone.”

Susan squeezed in next to me. “We weren’t gone long enough for you to find much.”

Mel pointed to the table. “No, but we discovered a map of Barnesville.”

Clay peered over her shoulder. “Wow. Looks like it’s somewhere south of Alvarado. Clear across the state.”

“We’re in south Texas now, Toto, anything is clear across the state. Mel and I were thinking we should try to find it. Maybe that’s why the box was at Mr. Darrow’s. What do you two say? Sometime we’ll all get together and go to Barnesville.”

“And look for the gold?” Clay asked.

I nodded my head and smiled. “And look for the gold.”

****

Later in the evening, after a delicious prime rib dinner, I headed up to bed. “My compliments to the chef.” I saluted. Then, as almost a second thought, from one of the living room’s cherry-wood tables, I scooped up the box. Sitting near it was an old Bible. “If no one else cares, I’m going to read the rest of these letters tonight.” Since I wanted to look up the verse used at Grandpa’s funeral, I took the Bible, too.

Everyone waved me on, absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Susan was on the phone with her husband, Brad; Mel, her nose in her daily planner, probably mentally making her next sale; I could hear Clay whistling some unknown tune as he cleaned the kitchen.

I climbed into the old feather bed. I loved those things. I’d had one as a kid. It brought back memories of Mom and how she used to fuss over me before we traded rolls and I became the caretaker. The bed surrounded me in its soft warmth. I opened the box, shuffled through letters from Grandpa’s children and found nothing more than family news. I laughed at the childish print on my letter and a picture I’d sent. I’d made a rainbow and asked Grandpa to come see me in California. I wondered why but was pleased he’d chosen to keep it.

I quickly resolved there was nothing more of interest in the box and turned my focus to the Bible. My grandparents were strong in their faith, their beliefs passed down through the family; however, when it came to the grandchildren, none of us were churchgoers.

I thumbed to Ecclesiastes to find the text. I read beyond the verse the minister used to,
A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.
The phrase fit my life perfectly. I’d wept over the passage of my elders. Grieved over their loss and the path my mother’s frail state had taken my life down. Now it was time to laugh.
Time to dance
.

I marked my place with a worn, hand-crocheted cross. I sat cross-legged in the middle of the cloud of feathers. The verses jumbled together in my mind and brought everything back in full force–the stories my grandpa had told me and the teachings from my childhood Sunday school lessons, where I’d learned cause and effect–good and bad. I hadn’t thought what I did was bad or wrong but it definitely had an effect.
A time, at what time did I quit listening? Quit hearing? Quit praying?
Long before my mother had died. I’d tried one more time and my request went unanswered. Then, I was alone and shut out. I decided to shut people out of my life before they, too, could hurt me. My secret settled in my heart where most of the time it simmered quietly, hidden in the corner.
I do want to dance. I do want it to be my time
.

The verses had been important to my grandparents; my grandmother had stitched a sampler from them. Where was it now? I’d seen it in Eric’s daughter’s bedroom. She said that it was some old song, implying it belonged to another generation.
A time and a place for everything. Was it really that easy?

As I flipped through the tattered pages, I could tell by the feel and smell the book was old. Turning to the center section, I found a record of the births, deaths and marriages of my family. The entries were of my great-great-grandparents and their children, and then the handwriting took on the tremble of age to record Grandpa and Grandma’s marriage and listed the births of my mother and her brothers. Thumbing back to the first page, I discovered, this was great-great-grandmother Annie’s Bible. The records stopped but I knew the reason. My own grandmother’s Bible picked up from where this one concluded. As I’d felt many times before, the past reached out.

When I added another pillow behind me, several pieces of paper fell to the floor. The missive, written on personalized stationery. Annie Barnes, Barnesville, Texas, embossed across the top. I propped myself up and began to read.

May 1, 1889

We left Barnesville at dawn this morning. Harold insisted I come along and bring the children. We’ll be gone for several years. Moses will be able to help the men but the others are too small. Eva can help me cook and care for the little ones.

The first day out was exciting for all of us. A great adventure for the children. We should be in Oklahoma Territory tomorrow night, then we’ll cross over into New Mexico.

I ruffled through the pages and realized I’d found her entire account of the trip. I couldn’t keep this to myself. Knowing I’d share it with the others, I placed the papers on the nightstand. Shutting my eyes, I could see my great-great-grandmother, Annie, standing by a wagon train in the middle of open, barren land, her children at her side. I let out an audible sigh. Even though I was a fervent genealogist, there was so much I didn’t know about my family.

Chapter Three

The next morning, I awoke to the buzz of a lawn mower. Clay had either found or borrowed one. The sweet smell of newly cut grass greeted me as I peeked out the window. Two young, teenage boys coaxed the weeds from the dehydrated flower beds as Clay marched behind the revolving scythe.

I brushed my long hair back into a clip and slid into jeans and a T-shirt. Grabbing my tennis shoes I headed downstairs, a glimpse of myself in the mirror stopped me. There I stood, twenty-eight years old. The last time I remember seeing myself in that mirror I was seven. My life was uncomplicated and my days were unworried and free. Addison Nicole Brown. I was teased about that moniker my whole life. It had opened a few doors for me, though. The interview for my last job as a conservator at Docurestore offered because they thought Addison N. Brown was a male. Good conservators were hard to come by. Ones who knew the ins and outs of the scientific techniques to restore old documents were few. And even fewer of those were female. I’d quit my job days before the funeral, much to Eric’s dismay.

Maybe he was right. Making decisions too quickly was one of my faults, just as I’d done with my relationships with men. My last boyfriend, Jim, and I dated for five years. Time, now, I feel I wasted. I thought we were meant to be together until I realized we had totally different goals. I always found myself fighting with Eric. He knew exactly where all my buttons were and he continued to push them. Would we ever be close?

I reached the bottom of the stairs to find Mel in the kitchen. Dressed in white shorts and a blue tank top, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a television commercial. She consigned each dish to yesterday’s newspaper before she placed it carefully into a packing crate. “Hi, sleepy head. Did you stay up all night reading those letters?”

“No. Just tired I guess. I did dream about the cattle drive, though.”

“We left you some breakfast there on the plate. Stick it into the nuker and warm it up.”

“Thanks. What I really need is coffee.” I sat in my spot at the table and heard thumping noises over my head. “Susan already in the attic?”

“She and Clay woke up early and started their assigned tasks while I’ve finished the living room.” Mel put the last of the Waterford glasses in a box. “The lawyer called.”

“What did he want?” I asked. “Do we have more papers to sign or is there something else?”

“He wanted to know if we’d found the map.”

I shook my head. “He knew? Grandpa must have told Mr. Darrow about the false bottom in the box.”

“He gave me the name of an agent at the Bureau of Land Management.” She pulled down a stack of dinner plates, set them on the counter and crossed the room to the phone. Quickly tearing a page from a notepad, she read, “Here’s his name, Gary Wright.”

“The BLM,” I said. “I thought of going there myself but at least now we’d have a connection.”

“Addie. There’s one more thing.” Mel looked at me pensively. “Mr. Darrow has a lead on Donnie.”

“Really! It would be great if we could find him. I haven’t seen him since I was eight.”

“Well, you probably won’t now, either. I guess Donnie doesn’t want to be found.”

“Oh.” Deflated, I drank my coffee, set the cup in the sink and climbed the stairs to the dusty expanse about the same size as the house below but without walls. Old, torn cardboard boxes brimmed over. There were two large dome trunks with patterned, hammered tin lids. Susan knelt in front of one of them. 

“Sorry. I slept in. Have you been working long?”

She looked up at me and grinned, dirt smeared across one cheek and her hair pulled back into a ponytail that took several years off her face. She looked like a teenager and not the mother of two young boys. “About an hour is all,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, I’m here now. What are you doing?”

“I’m just going through this stuff to see what it is. If it’s important, I put it under the window there.” She pointed to a slated vent. A pile of papers were illuminated by a shard of light where dust motes danced. “Otherwise, we’ll have Clay and the boys cart it down to give to charity.”

A time to keep and a time to cast away
.
I felt as if we were invading our grandparent’s memories. Their life stored aside, now exposed. “What did you say was over there?”

“Mostly old papers but things I thought you should see.” She continued to rummage through the old trunk. “Addie. Look at this.” Susan pulled a yellowed, lace dress up to her size five frame and it looked as if it would fit.

“That’s Grandma’s wedding dress.” My thoughts went to the photo on my dresser back home in San Jose. Grandma stood tiny and slim, on Grandpa’s arm. Their smiles revealed the happiness they saw in their future together. “I recognize it from Mom’s pictures.”

“Do you want it, Addie?”

“No. You and Mel decide which one of you will keep it. It’s beautiful and in fair shape to be as old as it is.” A wedding dress, I’d probably never need one, especially one that size. The last time I fit into a size five I might have been ten-years-old.

“What else is in there?” I dug into the trunk. I removed more pictures and their marriage certificate, carried each item over and increased the stack under the window. I found a box of old jewelry, evidently costume, but I’d let Mel take a look. I added it to the collection.

After we emptied the contents of the trunk, we decided the chest itself wasn’t good enough to keep and proceeded to the next set of boxes. This went on all morning. We were almost finished and the stack of things under the window grew larger. Susan lifted the lid of the second trunk. This one was in better shape with tiny roses indented in the top. A small object sat squarely in the middle of Grandpa’s folded cardigan sweaters.

“Addie. This little box looks a lot like the one from Mr. Darrow’s office.”

I walked over, knelt beside her, and took the small case from her hand, a miniature of the one in my bedroom. I pushed on the sides and bottom to see if it, too, would come apart. It didn’t. I opened the hinged top to find a brittle envelope almost the same yellow color as the dress.

Embossed on the outside was the shape of a key. In heavy, thick strokes written with an old-fashioned pen were the date and words –
June 12, 1869. Trunk Key.
I handed it to Susan.

“They returned from the cattle drive in 1869, Addie, the one where they buried the gold. Do you suppose ...?”

Her hands trembled as she opened the envelope. Empty, except for a tiny scrap of paper. Something was scribbled down but the ink was old and barely visible. “I can’t make this out. Can you?”

“Wait. I brought something with me. It’s in my suitcase.” I scurried down to the landing where our bedrooms were located. As I slid my hand into the side pocket of my suitcase, I found what I was looking for–a portable ultraviolet light.

When I returned, Susan quizzically looked at the contraption. “What’s that for?”

“I can decipher old writings with this.” I had to admit, “I also use it for drying my nails.” As soon as I placed the light over the paper the inscription appeared:
32215N 97911W, Near the cave. Ben Barnes, 1869.

“Addie, what do you think these numbers mean? And near the cave?”

Suddenly, everything clicked. The map, the letter. Clues to where the gold was hidden. But where was the key? Who had it? And why hadn’t they taken the note? More secrets.