to look at her mother. And Hazel had seen the abject hopelessness in the eyes of Stephanie Rousseaux, who summered in Mystery with Jacquelyn. Not exactly the ideal role model for a daughter reeling from emotional disaster.
But the plan was much bigger than Jacquelyn Rousseaux, even though it began with her. Hazel’s fires might be banked, but not her big ambition. Her idea, in fact, was literally as big as an entire town.
Again her Prussian-blue eyes sought those majestic white peaks on the horizon. For her plan to work, Hazel needed women to match those mountains. Strong, beautiful, proud, enduring women. Women just like Jacquelyn Rousseaux, broken heart, Southern drawl, disillusionment and all.
Or am I wrong this time, Hazel wondered. Mistaking hope for reality, a plow horse for a racer?
She would find out in about three hours, when Jacquelyn finally understood what the older woman expected her to do.
Two
“Jake wasn’t an educated man,” Hazel confided to Jacquelyn. “Swore like a trooper, when he thought there were no women or children nearby to hear him. Used to joke that he spoke only two languages—American and cussing. But he sure did have what they call money smarts.”
The two women sat near each other in the parlor’s nineteenth-century gilt chairs. Jacquelyn’s microcassette recorder included a tiny but powerful high-ambience remote microphone, so she could tape Hazel without rudely shoving anything into her face.
“Before he died,” Hazel resumed, “Jake even became part owner in the Comstock Lode. That was a rich deposit of silver and gold ore discovered by his old partner, Henry T. P. Comstock, near Virginia City, Nevada. Jake’s side ventures eventually allowed my grandpa to be the first cattleman in these northern ranges to develop Shorthorn and Hereford breeds. Better meat than the Longhorn stock from the Texas ranges. Sold higher, too.”
While Hazel spoke, Jacquelyn again admired Mystery Valley’s oldest and still finest ranch house. Built in the 1880s, it had replaced the original settlers’ cabin.
Its hand-hewn hemlock beams had been transported cross-country by cumbersome freight wagons. Other materials, too, had been selected to reflect success, not frontier frugality: a carved cherrywood staircase, hard-maple flooring, fireplaces manteled with blood onyx, marble and slate. On the wall behind Hazel, bright buffalo-hide shields flanked a beautiful wash drawing in a gold scrollwork frame. It depicted a small herd of Shorthorns splashing across a river, whipping the water to spray.
“Jake was a tough man,” Hazel reminisced in her deep, still-vibrant voice. “He insisted that all his children be educated, even his daughters, which was unusual in his day. That included my grandma, his daughter Mystery.”
Hazel fell silent, thoughtfully studying her young interviewer.
Jacquelyn felt as if she towered over the petite older woman, even seated, though she was only five-four. She waited for the next goldmine of information and was embarrassed to find the conversation again focused on her.
“You know I don’t cotton to short hair on women, but I think I like yours. In my day we’d call your hair color platinum. Marilyn-Monroe platinum. Quite glamorous. And I do believe your eyes are sea-green, aren’t they?”
Puzzled at the inspection, Jacquelyn quickly thumbed off the recorder. Something in the old girl’s determined visage signaled that the interview part of the visit was over. She supposed they were going to get around to the “slightly unusual request.”
“You know, Jacquelyn, at my age a woman can’t help warming her hands at the fire of the past. But while we should always recall our dead, this world belongs to the living.”
Jacquelyn raised an interrogatory eyebrow, waiting for more. “Yes?” she encouraged.
But Hazel kept her waiting, as if she was mulling possible explanations for the old matriarch’s secret.
Finally she said, “You told me last time that you want to capture the true feel of Jake’s pioneer experience, remember?”
“Of course. I hoped my articles were doing that.”
“Your articles are wonderful, dear. Quite honestly, I expected the usual twaddle and bunkum about grizzled pioneers. But you’ve captured the essence of Jake McCallum better than any other writer who’s tried. And many have.”
Hazel snatched up a copy of last week’s Mystery Gazette from a pedestal stand beside her chair.
“‘Jake McCallum,”’ she read out loud, “‘was a man who went a great distance while others were still debating whether to leave today or tomorrow.”’
The corners of her eyes crinkled deeply when Hazel laughed. “Jacquelyn, you do understand that old rascal’s basic nature. But for your own sake I want you to go that great distance, too. Or at least part of it. The important part.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I’d like you to actually repeat Jake’s original journey. Not the entire trip, of course. As you already know, his original plan was to travel from his home in St. Louis all the way north to the Yukon to mine for gold.”
Jacquelyn smiled. “Yes. Until he was waylaid in a beautiful Montana valley to help a rancher with some straying cattle, right?”
“Right as rain. Because that rancher had a pretty daughter of marrying age named Libbie. One look at her, and Jake wrote back home that he was settling in Montana. The part of his journey that Jake’s journal mentions most was the hard, but beautiful, five-day ride through the mountains and Eagle Pass to this valley. Called McCallum’s Trace to this day.”
“And that’s the part of the journey you’d like me to make?” Jacquelyn mulled the odd suggestion for a few moments. Well, so what if it was a bit…eccentric of Hazel to suggest it? After all, Jacquelyn didn’t want to be one of those journalists who never left the office to find a story. And it really was an important piece of American history.
“All right,” she finally agreed, her face brightening. “It sounds like fun. My family has a Hummer at the summer lodge here that usually just sits in the garage. I’ll borrow it. I could also—what?”
She broke off, confused at the way Hazel was shaking her head to silence her.
“Jacquelyn, we’re talking about the ‘true feel,’ remember? Your own words. My lands, Jake didn’t cross those high-altitude passes in a Hummer—nor was there a highway, just an old Sioux Indian game trail. That’s still all there is up there.”
Jacquelyn’s jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes widened. “Hazel. You want me to ride across the original trace? Five days on horseback?”
“Well, you do ride, don’t you? I’ve seen you in your fancy riding britches. And there’s horses at your place.”
“Well…yes, I ride. But—”
Hazel dismissed her objections with a careless wave. “I rode that trail myself when I was about your age. Never in winter, of course, as Jake did. In August, just like you’ll be doing. Gets a bit nippy at night, especially up in Eagle Pass. Sure, you might even see some snow, but it’s quite exhilarating.”
“Hazel,
