Everything she’d worked for, finally coming to fruition this last year, could fade to nothingness. Even if she went back weekly to visit, would it be enough?
“Sometimes,” Mike said gently, “you’re most needed in the place that defined you.”
He, she knew, felt that way. Ten years ago, he’d been finishing med school. The only one from his family of ten kids to go to college. She’d been a high school senior talking to colleges about a rodeo scholarship. Cooper was doing the exact same thing.
Then Cindy, Mike’s little sister and Elise’s best friend, died in a car crash caused by Cindy’s drunken boyfriend.
Mike had transferred to a Bible college.
Elise had changed her dreams.
* * *
A royal blue truck with the Lost Dutchman Ranch logo drove by AJ’s Outfitters, slowed down, and then sped up. Cooper Smith stopped listening to the sales pitch coming from his cell phone and watched the truck. He wondered if it were Jacob Hubrecht wanting to stop by and see how Garrett was getting along, if this were a good time.
There was no such thing as a good time anymore. His mother had had a hard time rousing herself from bed to come in this morning to watch the store while Cooper was out looking for his brother.
Luckily, just an hour into the search, the school had called. They were handling it. Garrett wasn’t getting suspended. The vice-principal used words like intervention and group meetings during the phone call, but he hadn’t been willing to share anything concrete about the school’s disciplinary plans. Cooper wasn’t the parent and privacy laws were more stringent than during Cooper’s tenure at Apache Creek High School.
There’d be a parent meeting next week. His mom needed to call the man back. He hoped she’d feel up to it.
He turned his attention back to the phone. “Really?” Cooper said. “You do realize that I’m located in Apache Creek, Arizona. We do have tourists, but honestly we cater to a more serious crowd.”
He truly questioned the knowledge of this particular supplier who had called with an offer.
A lame offer.
“Keep in mind,” the supplier said, “tourists like to take souvenirs back, and they want something affordable and easy to transport.”
“I just don’t think practice panning gravel is something that will go over well with my clients.” Cooper’s biggest complaint about being a storekeeper, aside from it taking time away from his being a guide, was dealing with frivolous details. “No, thanks.”
Before the man could continue, Cooper ended the call. Outdoors he could see the shrubs, cacti and an occasional Joshua tree or two that peppered the landscape. In the distance were the Superstition Mountains, looking regal and daring and glistening from the rain.
It seldom rained in November. But this was proving to be the wettest that Cooper could remember. The newspaper claimed Apache Creek was going through a ten-year cycle.
Cooper wanted to be outdoors!
His mother came from the back, slowly opening and closing the fingers of her right hand. “Who was that on the phone?”
He hadn’t told her about the call from school. He knew he’d have to eventually—she still needed to set up that parent meeting. But something about the pinched look on her face made him want to protect her for a little while longer. “Just a salesman trying to convince me we needed something we didn’t need. Did you hurt your hand?”
“Just some pain in the joints. I dropped a box I was trying to put away.”
His mother’s hands did look a little swollen and red. She’d been complaining that they felt stiff.
“You need to go to the doctor, Mom. Figure out what’s going on.”
“It’s just age. Speaking of which, I think I’ll go home and lie down for a while. We’re not busy.”
He watched as she headed out of the store and got in her car. She’d come in thirty minutes after he’d reopened the store.
“Excuse me, do you have a book that’s like a biography of someone who spent time mining in the Superstition Mountains?” It wasn’t the first time Cooper had heard this request. The man wanted to read about Jacob Waltz, the Lost Dutchman, who’d started the whole “There’s a treasure in them hills” mentality.
“Not really.”
The customer’s face fell. He spent a few minutes going through the books Cooper did have on display and then left, but not before saying, “You need to put out some Christmas decorations or something.”
Christmas?
Every time the holiday knocked on Cooper’s mind, he refused to open the door. Too busy.
Looking around the shop, he realized the customer was right. Cooper needed to start putting out his yuletide decorations. Dad had always claimed that Santa was a gold panner. He’d needed money to fund his shop and pay the elves, right? And, the North Pole had to have gold. It was in Alaska! Now that would be a reality show. Santa and his elves maneuvering an excavator and suffering make-or-break decisions.
Yes, Thanksgiving might be next week, but turkeys didn’t help sales much. But he knew that Christmas trumped every holiday, and the store needed to increase sales so that Cooper’s first year as co-owner wasn’t his last.
Somehow, he also needed to get Garrett through high school and into college. And then when he’d done all that, maybe he’d cure cancer or institute world peace. Those tasks couldn’t seem any more difficult than the ones ahead of him now.
Putting his phone in his shirt pocket, Cooper went back to work. He’d had goals for today before Garrett interrupted them. He started counting his supply of metal detectors. His most expensive kit was over two thousand; his cheapest came in at two hundred. That was on sale.
He hadn’t sold one in over two weeks. How many customers had he missed while out looking for Garrett?
He checked his list for tomorrow’s outing. He had eight; he needed ten; he could handle fifteen. Five of the people signed up were teenagers from his church. He didn’t charge them. The three tourists would be a boost, but he wished there were more of them.
Outside, gravel crunched as another customer pulled into the parking lot. Cooper paused, metal detector in hand, almost like a weapon. It was back, the Lost Dutchman’s royal blue Ford truck.
The sight of one—and old Jacob Hubrecht probably owned four—always made Cooper Smith want to run out the front door and shout, “Wait for me!” Ten years ago, he hadn’t run fast enough, shouted loud enough, and Elise Hubrecht had driven away without a backward glance or goodbye, taking his heart with her.
Since that day, the sight of a blue Lost Dutchman truck in his parking lot meant one of Elise’s sisters or her dad. Today, judging by the brown-haired boy scrambling out of the passenger-side door, he’d be dealing with Eva, Elise’s big sister, and Eva’s stepson, Timmy.
“Hey, Cooper.”
