Page 66 of Falling for the Cowgirl
“I wish you would’ve.”
“I can’t chance anyone knowing what I’m doing here. It could ruin everything. And, worse, it could put you in danger.”
She watched him, questions flickering in her eyes. She likely had a thousand of them as usual.
“Don’t ask.” He’d already said too much and wouldn’t say anything more.
“You know you can trust me.”
“The less you know, the better.”
She pursed her lips, then began to tip the bag. Small pebbles slid out first, then larger uneven stones followed by a big piece. In the shadows of the cavern, the rocks didn’t appear to be extraordinary at first glance. But as Ivy lifted a flame above the heap, the specks in them glittered.
“Is it gold, Jericho?”
“Looks like it.” He picked up the largest of the chunks and held it up to the firelight. From all appearances, the odd-shaped stone was solid gold. Although he’d seen gold, especially during his year or so of mining with Nash, he’d never touched any. If he had to take a guess, he’d say the nugget was ten ounces, maybe more. The others were smaller but contained a mixture of granite and gold.
Ivy examined one of the medium pieces. “How much is all this worth?”
“Likely thousands of dollars.”
She released a low whistle, then she reached inside the hole and withdrew the second satchel. He helped her cut the drawstring again and dump the contents onto the floor next to the first bag, revealing more of the same gold-tinged rocks.
They studied the pieces for a short while, and Ivy remarked excitedly about them.
“We should put them back,” he finally suggested.
“Let’s take some with us.” Her hand hovered above a larger stone. “We deserve a share since we found it.”
He started depositing the nuggets back into one of thesatchels. “If the gold was stolen, then we can’t take any. We’d be just as guilty of stealing as the original culprits.”
“But if it was taken from the Spanish a long time ago, then it doesn’t belong to anyone now, does it?”
He scooped up more of the rocks. “I thought we already concluded that kind of treasure wouldn’t have lasted.”
“Even if it’s stolen, how would we trace who took it and where it came from?”
“We might not be able to, but we should at least try.” He buried the gold out of sight in the bags, where it wouldn’t tempt either of them to do wrong.
She snatched a medium-sized nugget before he could stow it away. “Are you sure I can’t have one piece? Just to prove to myself that I found it ... and maybe to use on buying Steele’s land?”
He hesitated in giving her permission. If anyone learned they’d discovered a treasure, they’d draw all kinds of attention—something he didn’t need. And he wanted the chance to find out more about any stolen gold in the area over recent years before they hauled the treasure away.
She turned the nugget over in her hand. “If we find the owner of this stash, I’ll do the right thing and give the gold on back. But you know as well as I do that’s gonna be real hard.”
The territory had always been rife with thieves and outlaws stealing silver and gold from stagecoaches and wagon trains. Even if he tracked down all the miners in the area who had lost gold at one point, how would he be able to narrow down which one of them the gold belonged to?
“Alright.” He finished stashing the last handful into the pouch. “But keep the nugget well hidden, and don’t tell asingle person you have it. We don’t want anyone getting wind of our find, not until I have the chance to come back for it and haul it down to Denver.”
“We’re not taking it with us today?”
“It’s safest here for now. As long as we don’t say anything, no one will find out about it.”
“What about Hance and Otis? Don’t you think they deserve to know and have part of it? After all, we wouldn’t have discovered it if not for them.”
“Let’s hold off.” Jericho lowered one of the satchels into the hole. “Something about them doesn’t sit well with me.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Reckon that something is called jealousy.”
