Silver Dreams (30 page)

"What's your point, Cassidy? Why do you think we’ve found the tear?"

Max pointed to a section of the mountain wall. The sun glinted off the smooth surface, making it appear shinier than the area around it. "See how this part of the mountain, the part under the ledge, looks different? It's been worn smooth from centuries of some form of minimal friction, water perhaps. Eons of trickling water could have caused this."

"So? Lots of the mountain has probably been worn by water."

"True, but when we were walking up to this formation, I thought it looked odd. That's why I suggested we stop here. I needed a moment to figure it out. Then it hit me and I walked back to check out my theory.”

He stood on his toes and patted the overhang above the worn surface. "When you go far enough away to get a clear picture, this could resemble a brow. Assuming an eye would be under the brow, then the snow run-off created Clyde Faraday's tear." He tapped his foot on the ground and pointed with his right hand to a jutting rock formation a few feet away. "This area where we've just had lunch is the old man's shoulder, and I'll bet that outcropping is the guy's nose."

Elizabeth stood as well and examined the glistening section of granite. "I'm going to walk back and look, just as Max did."

"Me, too, girlie," Dooley said.

They retraced their steps until they got a clear view of the profile Max had described. "He's right!" Elizabeth called back. "This has to be it...the old man's tear! Come see, Ross."

When Ross and Ramona joined them, Ramona agreed with the findings.

"Anyone can make a lucky guess," Ross mumbled.

Leaning casually against the old man's nose, Max called out, "What's that you say, Ross? Were you admitting I was right."

Ross stomped back to the makeshift camp. "Well, come on, everybody. We've obviously found the first marker, so let's get going while we still have daylight."

Minutes later, Elizabeth slung her pack on her back and fell in step beside Max. "That was pretty amazing."

He grinned at her. "Hold off your praise,
girlie
. We've got three more to go."

She picked up the pace and walked a few steps ahead of him. "The next one's mine."

Watching the rounded curve and enticing sashay of Betsy's hips inside the baggy britches, Max had to remind himself to keep his eyes on the path ahead of him. If he wasn't careful, he'd slip on some crumbling rock and have to explain to her just how he happened to land flat on his back.

"You don't have to make everything between us a challenge," he called to her. "We can work together on some things."

She never faltered in her forward stride while she glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a grin. "Oh we can? What do you have in mind exactly?"

Noticing the sultry glint in her eyes, Max realized that her innocent question was anything but innocent. It suggested a challenge even bolder than the one to find the next marker. And Max’s blood pumped with the anticipation of satisfying her. But then he remembered his pledge to leave Betsy as unsullied as he’d found her.

"What I have in mind, Miss Sheridan," he lied, "is locating this so-called silver mine as quickly as possible."

Her grin widened. "That may be what's in your mind, Max, but it's definitely not what's in your eyes."

When did she get to be so darned perceptive, he wondered.

They'd walked about another forty-five minutes when Betsy suddenly stopped and grabbed Max's arm. Her voice trembled with excitement when she asked, "Max, why do you suppose Clyde Faraday said to look for a
horse thief's
heel?"

"I don't know. I guess he had a reason. Otherwise he'd have said a cowboy's heel or a prospector's heel."

"Exactly. What do they do to horse thieves out here?"

"They kill them, vigilante style by hanging or shooting."

"So it's possible Clyde Faraday's horse thief would be a dead man, right?"

"Possible, yes."

Her voice rose with excitement. “I found the horse thief's heel!" She squeezed his arm and waved her finger at a vague spot that could have been anywhere in the Rocky Mountains.

“Whoa, Betsy. You’re pointing at the entire horizon.”

She steadied her finger. "See that round rock and the part that juts up a few feet behind it. Couldn't that be a man's rump and the heel of his boot?  And those jagged pieces sticking up...that's his spur."

It seemed improbable at first, but when Max finally picked out the formation and studied it, he was convinced. While he'd wondered, too, why Faraday had picked a horse thief to be his marker, he'd never thought the fictional outlaw would be lying prone on the side of the mountain. But there he was, on his stomach, dead as a doornail with his boot sticking up in the air. "By golly, Bets, I think you've done it."

She waved at the others. "I found the horse thief!" She soon had everyone persuaded she was right.

The third bald head was easier. A series of three nearly barren knobs pointed toward the first prong of the devil's fork chain, and the prospectors followed the direction they indicated. When they stood on the third top, Dooley pointed out that the mountain vegetation had thinned out considerably. "The third bald head,” he said. “We’re on it, and we’re so close I can almost smell the ore. Old Clyde said the mine was near to the tree line. Look sharp for the spinster's bonnet. We’re about to find us some silver!"

Ramona, being familiar with hats and other devises for keeping the sun off her face, was the first to spot the bonnet. The granite 'brim' swept dramatically away from the bowl of the 'bonnet' which was a solid part of the mountain wall.

"It makes perfect sense," she said. "Look how huge the bonnet is. No wonder Clyde Faraday called her a spinster. No one can even see the old lady's face, so how could she ever attract a suitor?"

"Or perhaps Clyde fancied that some poor sap did see her face one time," Ross suggested, "and that explains why she's a spinster and keeps it covered all the time."

Dooley ended the conversation by keeping them on track. "We're wasting time here. It ain't a real woman! It’s the Fair Day Mine!" He raced with amazing alacrity across the rocky ground separating him from the bonnet.

Betsy started to follow, but Max held her back. "Let him go. It seems only fitting the old guy get there first."

“You’re right, Max. It’s his claim after all.”

“Well, true. But I was thinking he’d need the most time to accept that there’s no rich ore left in this mountain.”

Chapter Sixteen

It was the end of the line. If the Fair Day Mine was not inside the spinster's bonnet, there were no more clues to follow. Feeling her pulse beating in her throat, Elizabeth trailed behind Dooley, Max, Ross and Ramona. What if Ross never realized his fortune and had to go back to New York admitting his failure? Then he would have no money to pay his legal expenses. What if their father refused to help him, and Ross went to jail for his arrest at Dixie Lee's and his involvement with that horrible Frankie Galbotto? Maybe Ross had made some mistakes in his life, but surely he didn't deserve a fate that horrible.

And what if Elizabeth was about to find out that the Fair Day Mine never existed in the first place? Maybe it was only a figment of a disillusioned old man’s imagination all along. She would still write her story but the ending would be much different than she’d planned.

She glanced at Max and suddenly a calm overcame her. Something good had come out of this venture, and she could no longer deny it. She'd gotten to know Max, almost as intimately as a girl could know a man, and just remembering their night in the abandoned hotel sent waves of desire through her body. Certainly this journey had taught her a lot – about life and independence and love.

And Elizabeth had become a reporter, a viewer and interpreter of life. She was now a person who lived her life, one who had left Manhattan a sheltered, pampered, inexperienced debutante, and would return a woman in every sense of the word. She looked at Max, anticipating their next time alone. Indeed, whether they found the silver or not, a big part of Elizabeth Sheridan had become Betsy. Max took her hand and brought her up beside him. Together they followed the others around the edge of the bonnet's brim to whatever fate held in store.

What they found was more of the same. Craggy mountain wall, tumbled boulders, scrub pines and scrawny bushes were exactly like the ones she had traipsed over all morning. With her hand on the withers of one of the burros, she avoided eye contact with Ross. But she knew what he must be thinking when his backpack hit the ground with a thud.

"That cuts it, old man," Ross spat out. "Say your prayers because you're about to meet your Maker, or in your case, the devil. And we're on just the right mountain to send you straight to hell."

"Give me your best shot, you little pipsqueak,” Dooley said feinting left and right to avoid Ross’s air punches. “I'll make you rue the day you was born."

"Was this a lark for you, you crazy old coot?  You took me just as surely as Grant took Richmond, and now you're going to pay."

Elizabeth nudged Max. "Do something!"

"I am. I'm watching them."

"Someone's going to get hurt!"

"Probably. But I don't particularly fancy the notion that it could be me."

The daggers she shot from her eyes must have worked because he finally stepped up to the men, ducked his head, and placed a palm firmly on each one’s chest. "Now come on, boys. Is this the example you want to set for all the little miners who'll come along after you?"

"Cassidy," Ross sputtered out of clenched teeth, "do you have any idea what I've gambled on this little holiday of Mr. Blue's?"

"Like I told you on the train days ago, Ross, I have a very good idea what's at stake here."

Elizabeth looked from one to the other of the men, not quite certain what they were talking about. "We all have a lot at stake, don't we?” she said. “Time and money, and..."

As if he hadn't heard her, Ross fixed Max with a beady glare. "Look around you, Cassidy. There's no mine. There's no damn mine!"