She smiled and said simply, "You were. I would lie in bed and forget about Mother and Dad yelling downstairs and I'd listen to you talking about the calves or the new colts or some adventure you'd had. Sometimes you'd sneak in with cookies and a box full of old pictures and we would make up stories about the people. And sometimes you'd talk about Mad Jack and his mine and how we would go exploring and find it and buy everything the ranch didn't have so Mother would be happy on the Rocking M. We used to talk about that a lot."
In silent comfort Luke squeezed Mariah's hand. "I remember."
She leaned forward with an urgency she couldn't suppress. "I've always believed I can find that mine. I'm Mad Jack's own blood, after all. Please, Luke. Let me look. What harm can there be in that?" Despite the need driving her, Mariah smiled teasingly and added, "I'll give you half of whatever I find, cross my heart and hope to die."
Luke laughed, shaking his head, unable to take her seriously. "Muffin, this is a big damned ranch. It's a patchwork quilt of outright ownership, plus lease lands from three government agencies, plus water rights and mineral rights and other things only a land lawyer or a professional gold hunter like Cash would understand."
"I'll learn."
"Oh hell, honey, if you found anything in Rocking M's high country land but granite and cow flops, I'd give it to you without hesitation and you know it, but-"
"Sold!" Mariah crowed, interrupting before Luke could say anything she didn't want to hear. She looked at Nevada and Cash. "You heard him. You're my witnesses."
Nevada looked up, nodded, and returned his attention to one of the old pieces of paper he held.
Cash was much more attentive to Mariah. "I heard," he said, watching her closely. "But just what makes you so sure that mine is on the Rocking M?"
"Mariah said it was. It's in her letter to the son who inherited the ranch."
Luke looked up at Cash. "You were right. Damn. I was hoping that mine would never…" He shrugged and said no more.
Silently Cash took the single nugget from Mariah's hand. A few deft movements returned the gold to its cylinder.
"What do you mean, Cash was right?" she asked. "And why were you hoping he was wrong?"
There was a pause before Luke said anything. When he finally did speak, he answered only her first question.
"When Mother cleaned out the family heirlooms, she overlooked a fat poke of gold, all that was left from Case's saddlebags. I showed the poke to Cash. He took one look and knew the gold hadn't come from any of the known, old-time strikes around here."
"Of course," Mariah said. "The MacKenzie gold wasn't found in placer pockets."
Cash looked at Mariah with renewed interest. "How did you know?"
"I did my homework." She held up her hand, ticking off names with her fingers. "The strikes at Moss Creek, Hard Luck, Shin Splint, Brass Monkey, Deer Creek, and Lucky Lady were all placer gold. Some small nuggets, a lot of dust. Everything was smooth from being tumbled in water." Mariah gestured toward the necklace. "For convenience we call those lumps of gold 'nuggets,' but I doubt they spent any real time in the bottom of a stream. If they had, they would be round or at least rounded off. But they're rough and asymmetrical. The longer I thought about it, the more certain I was that the lumps came from 'jewelry rock.'"
"What's that?" Luke asked.
Cash answered before Mariah could. "It's an old miner's term for quartz that is so thickly veined with pure gold that the ore can be broken apart in your bare hands. It's the richest kind of gold strike. Veins of gold like that are the original source of all the big nuggets that end up in placer pockets when the mother lodes are finally eroded away and washed by rain down into streams."
"Is that what you think Mad Jack's mine is?" Luke persisted. "A big strike of jewelry rock?"
"I wasn't sure. Except for the chunk you gave me-" Cash flicked his thumbnail against the cylinder "-the poke was filled with flakes and big, angular grains, the kind of thing that would come from a crude crushing process of really high-grade ore." Thoughtfully Cash stirred the chain with a blunt fingertip. Reflected light shifted and gleamed in. shades of metallic gold. "But if these nuggets all came from Mad Jack's mine, it was God's own jewelry box, as close to digging pure gold as you can get this side of Fort Knox."
Luke said something unhappy and succinct beneath his breath.
Mariah looked at her brother in disbelief. "What's wrong with that? I think it's fantastic!"
"Ever read about Sutter's Mill?" he asked laconically.
"Sure. That was the one that set off the California gold rush in 1849. It was one of the richest strikes in history."
"Yeah. Remember what happened to the mill."
"Er, no."
"It was trampled to death in the rush. So was a lot of other land. I don't need that kind of grief. We have enough trouble keeping pot-hunters out of the Anasazi ruins on Wind Mesa and in September Canyon."
"What ruins?" Mariah asked.
"They're all over the place. Would you like to see them?" Luke asked hopefully, trying to sidetrack her from the prospect of gold.
"Thanks, but I'd rather look for Mad Jack's mine."
Cash laughed ruefully. When he spoke, his voice was rich with certainty. "Forget it, Luke. Once the gold bug bites you, you're hooked for life. Not one damn thing is as bright as the shine of undiscovered gold. It's a fever that burns out everything else."
Luke looked surprised but Mariah nodded vigorously, making dark brown hair fly. She knew exactly what Cash meant.
Looking from Cash to Mariah, Nevada raised a single black eyebrow, shrugged, and returned his attention to the paper he was very gently unfolding on the table's surface.
"Smile," Mariah coaxed Luke. "You'd think we were talking about the Black Death."
"That can be cured by antibiotics," he shot back. "What do you think will happen if word gets out that there's a fabulous lost mine somewhere up beyond MacKenzie Ridge? A lot of our summer grazing is leased from the government, but the mineral rights aren't leased. There are rules and restrictions and bureaucratic papers to chase, but basically, when it comes to prospecting, it's come one, come all. Worst of all, mineral rights take precedence over other rights."
Mariah looked to Cash, who nodded.
"So we get a bunch of weekend warriors making campfires that are too big," Luke continued, "carrying guns they don't know how to use, drinking booze they can't hold, and generally being jackasses. I can live with that if I have to. What I can't live with is when they start tearing up the fences and creeks and watersheds. This is a cattle ranch, not a mining complex. I want to keep it that way."
"But…" Mariah's voice faded. She began worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "Does this mean I can't look for Mad Jack's mine?"
Luke swiped his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. "No. But I want you to promise me two things. First, I don't want you telling anyone about Mad Jack's damned missing mine. That goes for Nevada, too. And I mean no one. Cash didn't even tell Carla."
"No problem," Nevada said. He looked at Cash with blunt approval. "You've been looking for nine years, huh? I like a man who can keep his mouth shut."
Cash's lips made a wry line and he said not one word.
"No problem for me, either," Mariah said, shrugging. "I don't have anyone to tell but you and you already know. What's the second thing?"
"I don't want you going out alone and looking for that damned mine," Luke said. "That's wild, rough country out there."
Mariah was on the verge of agreeing when she stopped. "Wait a minute. I can't tell anyone, right?"
Luke nodded.
"And you, Nevada and Cash are the only other ones who know. Right?"