know. I did when I was young and foolish.”
“But how come nothing is growing?” he asked, indicating the clearing around the town. It was actually quite huge, extending in an oval that looked as if the ground had recently been cleared.
“Tailings from the mines,” she said. “They were removed maybe fifteen years ago because they contained so many heavy metals. Poisonous stuff, and it was getting into the groundwater.”
“What kind of poisonous stuff?”
“Uranium for one thing. Some of that ground is still radioactive, and nothing grows on it. Then there’s arsenic, lead, zinc, bunches of stuff.”
“How radioactive is it?”
“Probably not that bad or we wouldn’t be allowed to get even this close.”
“I guess.” He looked at her. “How did you learn all that?”
“There was a lot of discussion when they wanted to clean it up, and I did a little research on my own.”
“Always the reporter, huh?”
She didn’t know whether to smile or frown. “Some things are ingrained.”
“Well, natural caution suggests this wouldn’t be a great place for our picnic. But I would like to look around a bit before we find a better spot.”
A picnic? She hadn’t expected that, and the thought delighted her. Clearly he was in no hurry to take her back. Feeling lighter, she walked around the edge of the clearing with him.
“This is fascinating,” he said as they paused to look at the small town from a different angle. “Imagine how hard folks must have worked up here to dig all these mines. What were they looking for?”
“Gold. It played out fast from what I hear. You can find isolated mines all over the mountain, though. They’re all barred up now.”
He nodded. “I don’t think any sensible person would want to risk their necks in one of them. Timbers must have rotted. Water may have destabilized the ground.”
“Obviously. Look at the cave-ins. So far they’ve been in areas where the mines are shallower, but can you imagine how deep some of these must go? And back when the tailings piles were here, you could really see how hard those guys worked. Huge mounds of broken rock, all pulled out of the ground with a bucket, a pulley and maybe a mule.”
“I’m almost sorry they cleaned it up.”
“You can see pictures of it in the library. But I know what you mean. When they took the tailings, they took away history. All sense of what this place used to be. Now it could be almost any old ghost town.” Her eyes were drawn to a bit of faded cloth flapping in a window. Somebody’s curtain from over a century ago hadn’t quite rotted. “Evidently in its day it was a pretty wild place. No law, claim jumping, a few murders. A saloon that collapsed years ago. Just imagine, men brought their families to a place like this.”
He nodded, studying the town. “Everybody was hoping to strike it rich and then get the hell out of here, I suppose.”
That surprised a laugh from her. “I guess so. I hadn’t thought of that. It never became big and grand like some mining towns, so there wouldn’t be much to hold anyone here except a hope and a prayer. A very basic, very difficult life.”
“And what about Conard City? Did that come before or after?”
“About the same time, actually. Cattle ranching was already underway, as I recall, when they found gold up here. And with those big ranches, you still needed a town for other things. Some central location for a blacksmith, a church or two—”
“And don’t forget bars. I can’t imagine cowboys without bars.”
“When I was a kid I saw the tail end of that. They’d come to town on Friday nights with their pay, and for a little while the cops were very busy, although they tried to look the other way. I hear it was even rougher when my parents were kids. Rougher but contained, the way they told it. My mother joked that she never needed a calendar to know when the weekend came. The streets filled up with pickup trucks.”
“It seems like a quiet town now.”
“It always mostly was, I guess. If you’re interested in local history, you should talk to Miss Emma.”
“Who’s that?”
She looked at him and found him looking right back at her. Those polar-ice eyes snatched her breath away. There was a noticeable pause before she answered. “Emmaline Dalton. Everyone calls her Miss Emma, although I don’t know why. Anyway, she’s the librarian, and her family was one of the very first to settle here. Her father was a judge, so she probably has lots of interesting stories apart from the library archives.”
“Dalton? Any relation to the sheriff?”
“His wife.”
“Ah.”
He nodded, glanced back to the town. “Well, since we can’t safely explore, I guess it’s time to move on and find a good place for a chilly picnic.”
This time when they mounted the bike she put her gloves on. It didn’t matter. He grabbed her hands and tucked them up inside his leather jacket. Warmth from his body, and a marvelous sense of intimacy filled her. Even through her gloves she could feel hard, rippling muscles as they bounced back down the rutted track to the paved road.
“So where is it they want to put this new resort?” he shouted over the bike’s roar.
“Just up ahead about two miles.”
When they reached the pavement’s end, he pulled them off into a small glade where a few late wildflowers blossomed in red and gold. The air smelled so fresh up here, scented with pine and mulch, and the trees were close enough to swallow the breeze. A few deciduous trees edged the small glade, their leaves like golden teardrops.
The cloudless day was so beautiful that she couldn’t help but let go of all her curiosity and suspicion. Max was just another guy, albeit damned attractive, and there didn’t seem to be one thing about him to arouse her curiosity. Not now, not today.
She was content to sit on the ground and lean back against a log while he pulled out sandwiches and bottles of water. She could tell by the packaging that he’d picked up the sandwiches at Maude’s diner, and her mouth watered.
“So,” he said, “this Dexter guy has been bearding me about saving the wolves up here.”
“He got me, too.”
“Are there many of them?”
“There’s a pack, maybe two. I guess all of a dozen or so.”
He nodded and settled beside her, also using the fallen log as a backrest. “Down from Yellowstone?”
“They must be. There’s no place else left for them to come from.”
“Is Dexter a pain in the butt?”
She
