To Eve’s right a small ravine opened, choked with brush and rubble from an old rockslide. To Reno’s left lay the valley itself. Ahead of them and around a rocky nose was the alcove where an Indian slave had laid down histenatefor the last time.
Silently, intently, Reno and Eve worked their way along the edge of the valley. Rarely did the needles come apart, despite the rocky, uneven terrain and the detours around trees or fallen logs. With each step, the metal sticks shivered almost visibly.
«Stop pulling to the right,» Reno said.
«Stop pushing,» she retorted.
«I’m not.»
«Neither am I.»
As one, Reno and Eve halted and looked at the needles. Here was pointing almost straight ahead instead of lying along her hand. His was at a right angle, as though pushing — or being pulled.
Slowly Eve turned to her right. Reno followed, matching his movements to hers as though he had spent his life sharing her breath, her blood, her very heartbeat.
When the needles were straight once more, the debris of the old landslide confronted Reno and Eve. Step by careful step, they walked along the landslide’s raggedly curving edge. The needles pivoted slowly, as though pinned to a point uphill and beneath the pile of rubble.
«Up,» Reno said tersely.
Together they scrambled up the slide, moving in unison despite the uneven terrain, like two cats chasing the same mouse with sinuous, nearly matched strides. Despite that, it should have been impossible to keep the needles in touch.
It proved to be impossible to keep them apart.
Suddenly the needles dipped, jerked, and pointed down, vibrating so fiercely, it was all Eve could do to hang on to hers.
«Reno!»
«I feel it. My God, I feel it!»
He slipped the hammer from a loop on his belt and jammed the handle into the rubble where the needles pointed, marking the spot.
«Keep going up,» Reno said.
They clambered up the last ten feet of the landslide. The needles grew calmer the higher up the slope they were carried.
«Back down to the hammer,» he said.
When they were back at the hammer, Reno looked around, orienting himself.
«Left,» he said, pointing with his free hand. «Toward the alcove, but stay as much on a line with this part of the slide as you can. Ready?»
«Yes.»
As they stepped forward, Eve’s tawny eyebrows came together in a frown of concentration that made Reno want to pull her close and kiss away the small lines. But he knew better than to reach for her while they were holding the Spanish dowsing rods. The one time he had put his hand on her when the rods were touching, desire had flooded through him so hotly it had almost brought him to his knees.
Although Reno didn’t understand the energy that coursed so fiercely through the slender metal sticks, he no longer doubted it. Sunlight wasn’t tangible either, but when focused through a magnifying glass, it could set fire to wood. In some uncanny way, the Spanish needles focused the intangible currents flowing between himself and Eve.
As Reno and Eve moved away from the rockslide, the pull on the needles diminished, but not as quickly as it had in the uphill direction. When they retraced their steps and walked in the opposite direction, the pull fell off quickly, leaving the metals sticks feeling almost lifeless in their hands.
In silence they walked out into the meadow and looked back at the rockslide.
«It felt strongest to me about two-thirds of the way up the rockslide,» Eve said finally.
«Same for me.»
Reno checked a compass reading.
«Going toward the nose is the next best pull,» she added.
He nodded and took another compass reading.
«What does it mean?»
He put away the compass and looked at Eve. Beneath the shadow of her hat brim, her eyes glowed as golden as a harvest moon. The curve of her lower lip reminded him of how sweet it was to run the tip of his tongue over the soft flesh and feel the shiver of her response.
«Well, sugar girl, I’ll tell you,» Reno said in a deep voice. «I’m damn glad it was Jesuit priests who used these needles before us. Otherwise I’d worry about pacts with the devil and my immortal soul.»
Reno smiled wryly after he spoke, but Eve knew he was quite serious.
«Me too,» she said simply.
He took off his hat, raked his fingers through his hair, and put his hat back on.
«If we can believe the needles,» he said, «there’s a concentration of pure gold somewhere under that rockslide.»
Eve glanced at the rubble. «Does it look like ore to you?»
«It looks like what was above the mine head before the king of Spain double-crossed the Jesuits and they blew the mine’s entrance to hell.»
20
For the third time that day, the sound of man-made thunder reverberated through the valley, battering the two people who were crouched behind a tree, their hands over their ears. Pulverized stone boiled up into the air and then fell in a jagged, dusty rain over a quarter of the small meadow.
When the last echo had faded and no more rocky debris pelted down, Eve cautiously lowered her hands. Despite the fact that she had covered her ears, they still rang from the force of the blast.
Reno straightened and looked out at the ravine that had been choked by rocky debris. As he watched, a ragged black hole in the mountainside emerged from behind veils of dust. Elation speared through him. He took off his hat and threw it into the air with a whoop of triumph.
«We did it, sugar girl!»
He pulled Eve to her feet and into his arms as he spun around and around until she was dizzy with laughter. He kissed her hard and fast, then set her on her feet and held her until she found her balance once more.
«Come on, let’s see what we have,» he said.
Grinning widely, Reno grabbed Eve’s hand and headed for the mine, moving with a long-legged stride that had her half running to keep up.
As he had hoped, the blast had removed most of the debris from the mouth of the mine tunnel. A tongue of jagged rubble stuck out from the opening. Grit and dust still hung in the air inside. Reno dropped Eve’s hand and pulled his dark bandanna over his nose.
«Wait here,» he said.
«But —»
«No,» Reno said, cutting off whatever Eve was going to say. «It’s too dangerous. There’s no way of telling what shape the mine was in before the blast, much less after it.»
«You’re going in,» she pointed out.
«That’s right, sugar girl. I’m going in. Alone.»
Reno lit the lantern, ducked low, and stepped into the opening. Almost immediately he stopped, raised the lantern, and began examining the walls of the mine.
They were solid rock. Though seamed by natural cracks in the rock beds, the tunnel seemed strong enough. When he used his hammer on the surface, very little stone came free.
Cautiously, bent nearly double, Reno went farther into the mine. Very quickly the walls of the shaft changed. A vein of pale quartz no wider than his finger appeared. Tiny flashes of gold embedded in matrix answered every shift of the lantern.
Had the quartz been a creek, the gold within would have been panned as dust. But stone wasn’t water. Getting the tiny specks of gold free of their quartz prison would take black powder, hard labor, and a man who was willing to risk his life in dark, rock-bound passages beneath the earth.
«Reno?» Eve called anxiously.
«It looks good so far,» he answered. «Stone walls and a small vein of gold ore.»
«Rich man’s gold?»
«Yes. And not a whole lot of it.»
«Oh.»
«Don’t get disappointed yet. I’m only fifteen feet into the mine.»