Spanish Gold (7 page)

“I don't understand,” Emma Crockett said. “If you don't believe the story, why did you bother to search for me?”

Travis, sitting at the table, the remains of the meal in front of him, said, “Your father asked me to tell you what happened to him. I thought it was only right that someone brought you the information.”

“You think he was a crazy old man,” she said. She held up a hand to stop the protest. “No, I can see it in your face. You think he's crazy. Think he was crazy.” Her voice caught as she said that. “That anyone who believes in stories of Spanish gold is crazy.”

“It's not that,” said Travis.

She dropped into the chair opposite him. Once again Travis realized how pretty she was. Light olive skin, long black hair, and dark, penetrating eyes. He wondered why there wasn't a husband and then wondered if there had been but he was off fighting in the war.

“My father was not crazy,” she said. “I can prove it to you if I want.”

“Maybe I should be going,” said Travis, not wanting to leave.

“Did you ever see the map?” she asked.

“He said that he had it in his head.”

Now she smiled. “He did. But there was a map drawn long ago. A real map. Would you like to see it?”

“That'll tell me where the gold is,” said Travis, grinning. “I could get it all for myself.”

“No, there is too much for that. Besides, in two hundred years the landmarks have changed. The riverbed has shifted slightly, trees have died and new ones have grown, and the names of places have changed.”

“Then what good is the map?” asked Travis.

“It puts you into the right place and makes it that much easier to find the gold. You wait right here.”

She got up and crossed the room and knelt in front of the cedar chest where she had put the saddlebags. She dug through them until she came up with an old book. Standing, she waved it at him. “This will prove that my father wasn't crazy.”

“I never said he was.”

She set the book in front of him. Travis opened it and found that it was a handwritten document. A diary. “Where'd you get this?”

“It was in my mother's family. When she died, the only thing she left was that trunk and a few things in it. Among them was the diary.”

Travis scanned it but couldn't read it. “It's all in Spanish.”

“Of course. Alverez, the man who wrote it, was Spanish. Had come to the New World from Spain.”

Travis flipped through it, able to decipher only the faded writing of the dates. It was started in March, 1692 and was kept until August, 1694.

Travis pushed it toward her. “Can you read it?”

“Of course.” She took the diary, turned, and flipped through it. Slowly, she read the passages that dealt with the Spanish convoy that was taking the gold from the mountains in the north, toward the coast in the southeast. She read of the attack and Alverez's escape. And she read of the Apaches moving the gold from the wagons to a cave.

While she read, Travis studied the shape of her face and the line of her jaw. She had perfect teeth. As she turned the pages, he noticed that her fingers were long and slender. He was glad that he had gone out of his way to find her.

When she finished reading, she looked up at him. “See? We're not crazy.” She returned his stare.

“A diary doesn't prove a thing,” said Travis. He reached out for his coffee cup but had finished it with his meal.

“In the back is the map.” She opened to it. “See? You recognize it?”

Travis studied it. There were references to places he thought were now in New Mexico. Bottomless lakes far north of El Paso. He pointed to one point and said, “Part of the Guadalupe Mountains?”

“Lots of caves in that area,” she said. “That was the real problem. Finding the right cave near a shallow river.”

Travis looked up at her. “So that was what your father was doing. Poking into caves until he found the right one.”

She closed the diary and stared at him. ‘There are clues outside it. The river and the burned wagons. The cave is in a cliff to the north of there.”

Travis shook his head. “There's no gold no matter what that diary says. It's the dreams of a man who watched as his brother and his friends were killed.”

“No,” she said. “No. There is gold.” She hesitated for a moment. “We could go get the gold. You and me.”

Travis sat quietly. He looked first at the old diary and then up at the young woman. As he stared at her, he realized that the gold wasn't important. She was asking him to help find it. She trusted him enough to confide in him and show him the diary. There was nothing else that he had to do. No place that he had to go now that he had left the army after Gettysburg. They would be moving deeper into the territories and away from the war waging in the States. Away from the maneuvering armies who were searching for one another to eliminate one another. All he had to worry about were Indians, snakes, and scorpions. He was getting the better end of the deal.

“You don't know where to begin,” said Travis.

Now she grinned broadly. “But I do. My father kept track of where had looked. No sense in covering the same ground twice. He hadn't seen the gold on his last trip. I know where he was going on this one. If he was telling others that he had seen the gold, it means he found it this time.”

Travis studied the interior of the cabin. A dirt floor that had been swept a hundred times, a thousand, until it was as hard as brick. Windows without glass in them but with shutters to keep out the rain and the wind and even the snow. A large bed, big enough for two. It was a comfortable cabin. A place that Travis could learn to enjoy.

“Once we have the gold,” she said, “you could go wherever you wanted. You could buy whatever you wanted.”

“And you?” asked Travis.

“I want to return to Mexico. I want to show them that I'm more than a half-breed with no refinement. I'll show them that they were wrong about me and my mother.”

“It's not going to be easy,” said Travis.

“But it's something that we could do,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm.

Travis felt a spark of excitement and tried to suppress it. He thought about what he was saying, and for the moment he could think of nothing he'd rather do.

While the others cleaned up from the noon meal, Davis sat astride his horse, watching. Kincaid's story of raiding Indians had him worried. Hostile Apaches could keep him from finding the gold. They could keep him from living to find the gold.

Bailey approached and looked up. “I think we're about ready now.”

“El Paso tonight,” he said. “We keep riding until we reach El Paso.”

Bailey stood there thinking about the wife he'd left in Sweetwater. She was a good woman who didn't nag or fuss and who cooked his meals and treated his injuries. A solid woman who knew that he would run out on her someday. Now he was wondering if he shouldn't abandon the search and just ride on home. There were some things more important than gold.

“You sure you know where to find the treasure?” he asked again.

Davis leaned down, his elbow on his thigh. He lowered his voice. “I told you. That old man talked. I gave him whiskey and he gave me information. I know where to look. He told me exactly where to look.”

Bailey glanced at the others. “You really want to share it with them?”

“George, from what that old man said, there is no reason to worry about it. There is enough gold there for all of us and another hundred if we cared to ask them. There's more than we could carry off in a year. There is no reason for us to be greedy.”

“Not greedy,” said Bailey, “cautious. One man can keep a secret. Two can if one of them is dead. You have a dozen men and there will be no secret.”

“Except that I'm the only one who knows what the old man said while we were alone.”

Bailey took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his face. “You said he had kin.”

“Daughter who doesn't know anything. She's no danger to us. None at all.”

“We don't know all these men. We could lose some of them in El Paso. They're not our friends. Not like Culhaine and the others from Sweetwater.”

“I tell you, George, you're worrying about nothing. That old man told me that there was a wall of gold in that cave. Even if we wanted to try, we couldn't get it all. We couldn't carry it all off in a year.”

Bailey saw that the others were ready to go. They were sitting on their horses, staring into the bright morning sunshine.

To Davis he said, “If you're sure about that.”

“I'm positive. Besides, the extra guns might come in handy if we run into that raiding party.”

“I'll trust you on this one,” said Bailey.

“Thank you, George. Now, if you'll mount up, we'll get the hell out of here.”

Travis had not spent a comfortable night. The evening meal served by Emma Crockett had been good, some of the best food he'd had in months. But as they sat there eating, and as she talked about the diary, he realized that he wasn't sitting there just because of the promise of Spanish gold. He'd been sitting there for any excuse he could think of, watching as the flickering of the firelight highlighted her high cheekbones. The lamplight reflected from her eyes, and Travis had to force himself to concentrate on something other than the top button of her dress that had worked itself free.

Crockett, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking only of the diary and the gold. She rarely mentioned her father, but Travis felt him in the room like another person. He was in the comer watching them, protecting his daughter. Travis tried to force his mind to the gold.

Finally she had stood and asked, “Where do you plan to sleep tonight?”

Travis shrugged but didn't speak.

“You can stay in here, near the fire, if you'd like,” she said.

Travis thought about it. Thought about being in the same room with her and decided that he'd be safer outside. The temptation to say or do something he'd be sorry about would be too great if he stayed inside.

“I'll check my horse and the mule, and then spread my blanket outside.”

“If that's what you want,” she said shrugging. “Be more comfortable in here.”

That hadn't been what he wanted, but it was what he had done. He had told himself that her invitation was nothing more than an act of kindness. He had told himself that she needed help to go for the gold, and that was the only reason that she wanted him to stay around. That was why she had invited him along.

So he'd gone outside, walked all around the cabin, studying the ground. That was something else he had learned in the army. Check the terrain in case the enemy arrived during the night. Be ready to fight or escape, depending on the situation.

Travis had spread his blanket but had not felt comfortable. Something was wrong, but Travis didn't know what it was. He had gotten up a couple of times and scanned the hills around the cabin. He searched for signs that someone was out there but couldn't see a thing. There were no campfires and there was no movement.

Just before the battle at Gettysburg he'd felt the same way. There had been nothing he could put his finger on at Gettysburg either. Just a feeling of impending doom. Maybe it was something he sensed in the air, or something that he had heard, or something that he believed. Now that feeling was back.

But the night had slipped away with no trouble. Travis had been awake through most of it. He had laid on his back, his hands under his head, and stared up into the night sky. He had watched as the moon had tracked through it, a bright white light that washed out some of the stars. And he had used the light as he had searched the ground around him without result. There was no enemy in the hills around him and he began to think that the sense of unease was the result of the woman sleeping no more than fifteen feet away. He hoped that she was having as rough a time as he was, and then hoped that she wasn't. She'd just lost her father. Sleep was the best thing for her. He wished her a quiet night with only the best of dreams.

Finally, it was morning and Travis had gotten up. He'd walked around the cabin again and then checked his horse. Satisfied that the beast had made it through the night safely, he had sat down on the wall and watched the cabin, waiting for Emma Crockett to let him know that she was awake and that it was time for him to come inside.

The door opened a few minutes later and she stood there, a hand raised against the sun. She was fully dressed. “You ready for some breakfast?”

Travis hopped off the wall and walked toward the door. “Of course. But then we've got to leave. It'll be a couple of days to El Paso.”

“I'm ready now,” she said. She stepped back and let him enter the cabin. “There's nothing here for me now. Not with my father gone.”