crying herself to sleep.
LIGHT FILTERING in the window woke Hayley before 5:00 a.m. At first it seemed she’d barely gotten to sleep, and she tried to burrow under the pillow. Almost as fast it struck her that she’d successfully spent the first full night in her new home. Not one bad thing had happened. She derived an immense satisfaction from that. Greeting the day seemed far more desirable than lolling about in a hot trailer.
She showered in the cramped hollow carved in rock behind the waterfall. Refreshed, she hummed “Carrying Your Love with Me,” a once-popular George Strait tune, as she started a fire and put on water for tea. She ate a bowl of berries and cottage cheese while she waited for the water to boil. In this heat the ice in her cooler would soon be history. “I can’t be driving into town too often.” She spoke matter-of-factly to her unborn child. “Fresh fruit and veggies are not going to be very plentiful after what I have in my cooler spoils. Maybe some farmer around Arivaca will sell me a milk cow and a few laying hens next time I go to town for supplies. I don’t have a lot of the thousand dollars left after laying in prospecting tools and stuff. But if the price is right, junior, it’ll be worth the money.”
She patted her stomach. “Dr. Gerrard said in a few months I can have an ultrasound done at the hospital to show how far along you are. It might also tell us if you’re Junior or Juniorette.” Hayley chuckled, but soon her laughter faded. “I’m not sure I want to know. Life needs some nice surprises.” For the first time since learning of her condition, Hayley wondered if Joe would care that he’d left her pregnant. Probably not, but he deserved to know he’d fathered a child. If the law found him, she’d tell him.
Pouring herself a second cup of tea, Hayley firmly rejected further thoughts of Joe and set out to wander the low-lying hills beyond the waterfall. What she hoped to find was a stream that might indicate Gramps had been panning for gold. Swishing water around in a sieve would be much easier on her than blasting rock and hauling heavy ore down from a mountain.
Instead of flattening out into a valley that would support a stream, the terrain beyond the spring grew hillier. There were signs in numerous places that her grandfather had used his rock hammer to split rocks. Since some pieces were missing, Hayley surmised he’d taken sections to assay.
At the top of the second rise, she turned in a tight circle and surveyed the area all the way to her campsite. What had her grandfather expected to find?
Sighing, she hopped from rock to rock and picked her way back to the trailer. This would be a beautiful place to build a home. The trees were green, the water sweet and the sky so blue it hurt her eyes. But Hayley was no stranger to the laws governing mining claims. A miner could throw up a tent or move in a motorhome, but any attempt to erect a permanent structure on land open to claims was illegal. And each year the rules got stickier.
At her camp again, Hayley hauled out a couple of her grandfather’s mineralogy books, plus the copies she’d made of his yearly filing papers. Each year he’d listed a different mineral. None were valuable. Mica, pyrite and chalcopyrite, all names for fool’s gold. He’d once reported streaks of copper. Not a big deal. The area around this site was rife with small deposits of copper.
“Gramps was nobody’s fool,” Hayley muttered, pouring herself more tea. He knew that if a person wanted to preserve a claim until he made a big find, it was best to feed the county recorder unimportant facts. His last report included quartz and chalcedony. Totally negative geological findings.
Hayley settled into a chair with her tea, the books and a small journal she’d found in the strongbox. Her grandfather had never been much for writing. In fact, Hayley doubted he’d gone past sixth grade in school. Yet he’d painstakingly cataloged everything he’d found when he worked this claim. She noticed his last entry differed from the report he’d given the county recorder.
Was that significant? Hayley sipped her herb tea and stared into space. He’d written coordinates, and in a shaky hand penned in hydrous silicon oxide. Hayley wasn’t familiar with the term. Did his unsteady writing mean he was excited, or was it simply a sign that he was growing older?
His death was sudden and unexpected. Hayley, as well as others, assumed he’d recover from his nagging bout of pneumonia. Would he have told her about this spot if he’d had more warning? Hayley liked to think he would’ve taken her into his confidence. However, the old man really detested Joe, so maybe he wouldn’t have breathed a word, after all.
The thought saddened her, but Hayley could only be glad Ben had kept his counsel. Otherwise Joe and Cindy would have converted the truck and trailer to cash and sold this claim to the highest bidder. Probably to Jacob Cooper, if he’d been telling the truth.
To keep from sliding into gloom, Hayley set Ben’s mineral books on a low camp stool and opened the first to page one. She might not know what hydrous silicon oxide was, but she had a lot of spare time to find out. If need be, she could drive into Tucson to the library. Although Tombstone was closer, everyone there knew her. The first time any local prospectors suspected she was on to anything, this place would be overrun with scavengers.
The thought had no more than entered her mind when a horse and rider and a black-and-white dog exploded from the trees between Hayley and her trailer. She tried but failed to scramble from the chair. She spilled tea everywhere. Her heart tripped over itself. Darn, she’d meant to keep one of the firearms with her at all times. She’d already forgotten and had left both guns in a closet in the trailer.
Before she could panic or even take a levelheaded look at her situation, a familiar voice rang out. “Don’t go for your shotgun until you see what I’ve brought you.” A gunnysack dropped into Hayley’s lap, and the fright it gave her slammed her heart up into her throat. The bay gelding she’d only seen in twilight kicked sandy soil all over her fire ring as he danced in front of her. The dog, at least, seemed civilized. He ran up and licked her hand.
“Well, open it. It won’t bite,” said the man who’d introduced himself yesterday as Jacob Cooper. Hayley finally caught her breath, although she continued to eye him warily as he dismounted.
Her hands tugged at the string holding the sack closed even as she noted the changes between this man and the stranger from last night. Still dressed in the working clothes of a cowboy, yesterday’s saddle bum now wore a clean shirt and jeans. His hat, instead of the battered Stetson was the summer straw variety, and it was as clean as his newly shaven face. The engaging smile he wore exposed a dimple in one cheek and a cleft in his chin.
Jake dropped on his haunches next to her chair. With a quick flip of his wrist, he spilled the sack’s contents into Hayley’s hands. Four vine-ripened tomatoes, an ear of fresh corn and two thick slices of ham. “It’s home-cured,” he said of the ham. “My brother, Dillon, has a smokehouse. Smoking ham, bacon and turkey is kind of a hobby for him.”
Hayley met the twinkle in the man’s gray eyes with a look she knew must reflect her incredulity.
“I know there’s a thank-you on the tip of your tongue,” Jake said, rising and barely holding back a grin. “It’s not so hard once you get the hang of it.”
“I do thank you,” she finally managed. “It’s just…it’s more like…you took me by surprise. You don’t even know me!” she blurted. “Why bring me food?”
Jake removed his hat and slapped it a few times against his right knee. “No one ever asks why. Neighbors out here share, that’s all. Now you’re supposed to reciprocate.”
This time Hayley clasped the sack to her breasts protectively. She flattened herself tight to the back of the lawn chair.
“Coffee,”
