Distant thunder rumbled from a peak that was buried in a mound of clouds. Wind twisted through the forest like an invisible river, stirring everything within reach of its transparent currents. The air smelled of evergreens and an autumn chill sliding down from the heights, riding the crest of a golden wave of aspens.
Reno looked around with narrowed green eyes, bothered by something about the high valley that he couldn’t quite define.
Yawning, Eve closed her eyes, then half opened them, enjoying the rich color of the late afternoon light and the knowledge that they would be making camp soon. Lazily she looked around, trying to guess if Reno would choose this place to camp or press on beyond the head of the valley to see if there was a way through the massed peaks.
An odd pattern of meadow growth caught Eve’s attention, plants arrayed in a nearly perfect circle. She knew that natural outlines were rarely geometrical. Man, not nature, had invented formal gardens with precise curves, right angles, and hedges pruned into unlikely shapes.
The circular patch of plants lay near one of several small springs that formed the headwaters of a branch of the creek that drained the valley. Eve reined the lineback dun closer to the plants. Dismounting, she went to check the circle on foot. At its edges the ground was bedrock covered by a thin skin of soil. Yet in the circle itself, there was a profusion of plants that usually preferred richer ground.
When Reno turned to say something to Eve, he saw that she was on her hands and knees at the edge of the meadow. In the next instant he realized what had seemed wrong to him about the landscape.
Beneath the growth of grass and trees, there were angles and arcs that suggested man had once cut, cleared, and built in the meadow.
Reno dismounted in a rush, grabbed a shovel from the outside of one of the pack saddles, and headed for Eve. She looked up as she heard him approach.
«There’s something odd about this,» she began.
«There sure is.»
He positioned the shovel, rammed it home with his boot, and struck stone six inches down. He went to another part of the circle and then another. Each time it was the same — six inches of plants and soil, and then solid stone.
Reno walked slowly toward the center of the circle, testing the depth of the soil every few inches. When he got to the center, the shovel bit deeply but didn’t find stone.
«Reno?»
He turned to Eve with a slashing grin and pure excitement dancing in his green eyes.
«You found yourself anarrastra, sugar girl,» he said.
«Is that good?»
Reno’s laughter was as bright and golden as the sunlight.
«It sure is,» he said. «Next best thing to finding the mine itself.»
«Really?»
He made a purring, rumbling sound of satisfaction.
«This is the center hole,» Reno said, gesturing with the shovel for emphasis. «It supported the mill that dragged the stone over the ore, crushing it as fine as sand.»
Before Eve could ask a question, Reno bent and began digging once more, working methodically until he had bared a section of rock.
«They worked this crusher long and hard,» he said. «The millstone wore the bedrock down so much that it left a circular trough for plants to grow in once the mine was abandoned.»
«What turned the millstone?» she asked. «Even with a dam, there isn’t enough water in the little springs to do the job.»
«No sign of a dam anywhere nearby,» Reno said.
The shovel scraped against bedrock, gouging away dirt, leaving bare stone behind. Cracks and seams in the surface were marked by soil that was darker than the stone.
«They could have used horses to turn the mill,» Reno continued. «But likely it was slaves. They had more of them than they had horses.»
Eve rubbed her hands over her arms. Though she wore one of Reno’s dark shirts over Don Lyon’s old gambling shirt, she felt chilled. It was as though the very ground were infused with the cruelty of the Spaniards and the misery of the slaves.
Reno went down on one knee, used the shovel blade to ream out a crack, and made a triumphant sound.
«Quicksilver in the cracks,» he said succinctly. «No doubt of it. Thisarrastrawas used on metal ore.»
«What?»
«The Spaniards used quicksilver on the crushed ore. The mercury stuck to the gold but not the ore itself. Then they heated the amalgam, vaporizing the quicksilver and melting the gold. Then they poured the gold into molds.»
Brushing off his hands, Reno stood and stared around intently.
«What are you looking for?» Eve asked after a time.
«The mine. The Spaniards weren’t stupid. They didn’t move the ore one more foot than they had to before they refined it.»
«There’s supposed to be a trio of big fir trees just to the left of the mine opening when you’re standing with the sun at your back at three o’clock on the third Saturday in August,» Eve said eagerly.
He grunted and kept looking.
«Reno?»
«There are a lot of big fir trees growing three to a bunch no matter what time of the day or month it is,» he said after a few moments.
Frowning in concentration, Eve tried to remember the other clues from the journal. She and Don had once taken turns reciting them to each other while Donna sat nearby, smiling and shaking her head at the dream of wealth that wouldn’t die.
«There’s a turtle carved on a gray rock fifteen paces to the right of the mine,» Eve offered.
«A pace can be anywhere from two feet to three, depending on the height of the man doing the pacing. But if you want to look at every boulder for a turtle, I won’t get in your way.»
Eve grimaced. The little valley was carpeted with boulders of all sizes and shapes.
«A burn scar on the north side of —» she began.
«Burn scars heal,» Reno interrupted. «Little trees grow into big ones. Big ones die and get blown down. Lightning starts new fires. Downed trees rot or are overgrown with brush. Landslides change the shape of the mountain.»
«But —»
«Look up there,» Reno said, pointing.
Eve looked and saw a pale scar on the mountain where rock and thin soil had sheered away, scouring down a ravine and finally filling it, burying whatever might have been a landmark before.
«That could have happened twenty years ago or two hundred and twenty years ago,» Reno said. «Without evergreens or aspen growing in the scar, it’s hard to tell. Fireweed and willow or alder can grow in a few seasons and regrow each season forever. Landmarks that rely on plants are damn near useless.»
«Then how are we going to find the mine?» Eve asked in dismay.
«The same way you found thearrastra. Look for something out of place, and keep on looking for it until it jumps up and slaps you in the face.»
For the rest of that day and all of the next, Reno and Eve quartered the valley like patient hounds, crossing and recrossing the area around the overgrownarrastra. They found a rectangle whose outline had once been logs and now was little more than a mulch in which various plants flourished. They found bits of leather nearly petrified by long exposure to the dry, cold mountain air.
They found no sign of the mine itself.
Eve scrambled up a rubble slope and found a shallow alcove tucked beneath a wall of rock, protected from all but the most violent storms. With an eye sharpened by hours of searching, she noted that the lines of rotting wood that came out from the alcove were too orderly to be accidental. Once there had been a lean-to or shed extending outward.
In the farthest recess of the alcove Eve found a pile of rubble and a crushed sack made of woven leather strips. Nearby were the charcoal remains of an ancient fire. Quickly she went to the ledge and called across the meadow.
«Reno! I’ve found signs of men up here!»
A few minutes later Reno came up the slope like a cat, fast and surefooted. He took in the alcove with a swift glance that missed nothing.