Tainted Gold (18 page)

Ahead of her through the overhanging limbs and branches, Quillen could see a jumble of large rocks and fallen trees and moved toward it without hesitation. Bracing her hands on a fallen pine trunk, she leaned over it and looked down a fifty-foot cliff that hadn’t been here when she’d last walked this trail. The creek, gushing down the timber and rock-strewn drop-off, had already cut a new channel on the ground below that spewed into another fork of the same stream, which ran like a crooked silver ribbon through the mouth of the small canyon below. On the opposite bank soared an ancient cottonwood tree, its roots exposed by a deep bend in the streambed.

Almost directly beneath her, standing in calf-deep water in the middle of the creek, bent Tucker. He wore rubber waders over his jeans and a bush-style hat on his head—and he was panning for gold.

Chapter Eight

For a long time, kneeling behind and leaning against the toppled pine, Quillen watched him. What, she kept asking herself with all the impartiality she could muster (not much, admittedly), did panning for gold have to do with studying a fault? Over and over again she came up with the same answer—not a damn thing.

That decided for the umpteenth time, she pushed herself to her feet and started walking, looking for a way down to the creek. She hadn’t gone far when a flash of reflected light in the midst of a swirl of dust caught her attention. Shading her eyes with both hands, she looked past the cottonwood down the road her father had mortgaged Granddad McCain’s house to build so he’d have easy access to his long-fallen-down sluice. A vehicle of some sort was moving toward the creek at a rapid rate of speed.

Quillen wasn’t overly surprised when a yellow Cassil Construction four-by-four became visible at the forefront of the gravel-smoke cloud. It stopped beside Tucker’s Jeep, and a hard, angry, frown tightened her mouth as she saw Desmond Cassil swing out of the driver’s door.

Just faintly she could hear water slosh as Tucker waded toward the bank to meet him, and though she could hear the ring of their voices, the roar of the creek as it tumbled over the edge was too close, and she was too far away to make out the words. Cassil helped Tucker onto the bank and they shook hands. Still shading her eyes, Quillen watched them inspect the contents of the pan, and her heart began to pound furiously between her ribs.

Guilty, guilty as hell, and now she knew what of—collusion with the enemy. No, wrong, he
was
the enemy. A spy, a Judas, a Benedict Arnold. One lone tear squeezed out of her right eye and trickled down her cheek as she realized how patently perfect his sudden appearance in her life had been.

I kept trying to warn you, her little voice sighed sadly. I’m sorry it worked out this way, though. I was genuinely hoping he was just something simple and straightforward like an ax murderer.

“Oh, shut
up
,” Quillen snapped viciously as she whirled down the hill looking for a way off it.

There wasn’t one. Within a few yards in any direction the underbrush and trees grew thickly, impenetrably together. Retreating to the fallen pine, Quillen glanced down at the creek. Tucker and Cassil were still standing near the cottonwood, talking.

“Stay,” she prayed, “just this once, Cassil,
don’t
get the hell off my land—wait for me.”

At a steady, loping jog, she started back up the path the way she’d come, but couldn’t keep the pace for long. She alternated then between trotting and walking on rubbery, shuddery legs, and had to stop three times to rest and catch her breath as she made her way out of the festival grounds.

Her throat ached, and so did her lungs when she finally panted up to the Blazer and fished her keys out of her pocket. Rivulets of sweat, cold, not warm, trickled down her rib cage inside her sweater, and her arms were shaking as badly as her legs when she hauled herself behind the wheel.

Although she knew better, Quillen sucked air through her mouth, started the engine, and jammed the floor-mounted shift lever into gear. Her teeth rattled and twice she bit her tongue as she pushed the Blazer hard down the rutted lane. At the intersection with the access read she turned right instead of left, and the truck streaked down the narrow blacktop road toward the county line highway.

The tires squealed as she took the corner at the junction and floored the accelerator. As the Blazer mounted a hill she looked down the slope on the other side and saw the gravel mouth of the canyon road—and the Cassil Construction four-by-four turning right away from her toward The Cascades.

“Damn!” she swore, punching her right fist on the steering wheel as she took her foot off the gas pedal.

There was no point chasing him; he had at least a quarter-mile on her and was gaining distance rapidly. No, she’d settle with Cassil later, she decided as she let the Blazer slow, and then made a sedate turn onto the canyon road. The truck tracked easily through a scrubby meadow, past the McCain family cemetery, and around a long curve toward the creek. Over the gravel dust swirling around the hood, she saw Tucker in the creek again, and watched him turn toward her as she parked the Blazer beside his Jeep and shouldered her door open.

Her knees nearly folded as her feet hit the hard, rocky ground, but she willed her legs to stay firm and strode purposefully toward the cottonwood tree. She shivered as she stepped beneath the cool shade puddled beneath its spreading, dusty-leaved branches, and saw Tucker’s bow and quiver leaning against the deep-scarred trunk.

“Hi, love!” he called, grinning at her and waving his hat as he waded toward the bank.

The bright, midday sun cast jeweled reflections across the surface of the water, and diamondlike splashes spewed around his churning knees. He looked so happy, so genuinely glad to see her, that despite her rage, Quillen felt her throat constrict with longing. Hardening herself, she struck a spread-footed stance on the rocky, muddy bank and folded her arms across her diaphragm.

“Have a nice chat with your Uncle Desmond?”

As if someone had frozen a frame of film, Tucker stopped, his left arm in midwave, his face suddenly ashen. The only thing that moved was the water, falling in sparkling rings around his immobile legs. His grin crumpled and he stared at her, stricken and openmouthed.

“Who told you?”

“Who do you think?” she returned bitterly. “Dear Uncle Desmond himself.”

“He isn’t my
dear
uncle,” he retorted sharply.

“Oh, really?” she taunted, thrusting her weight onto her left hip. “You two looked very chummy to me.”

A ruddy wash darkened his cheeks and his eyes narrowed. “Have you been spying on me, Quillen?”

“Have you been spying on
me
?”

“What do you mean? When—”

“How about from day one when you shanghaied me into your magic show? How about ever since?”

“What are you—” He drew a sharp breath and his left arm fell limp to his side. “Do you think I’m in cahoots with him or something?”

“If you’re not, then what are you doing panning my creek?”

“I’m looking for gold,” he retorted angrily. “I’m trying—”

“I rest my case.” She pivoted on one heel and started toward the Blazer.

“Damn it, Quillen”—over his shout she heard water splash—“will you listen—”

“You,” she cried, whirling around and flinging a pointed index finger at him, “should have told me, Tucker!”

“You’re right, I should have.” He stopped a foot shy of the bank. “And looking at your face right now, I wish to God I’d taken my chances and done just that.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“If I had, would you have looked at me twice?”

“Not even once.”

“Then I rest
my
case.”

“That’s not a case,” Quillen countered, tears seeping into her voice. “It’s a cop-out. I trusted you, I believed you, and you betrayed me—”

“How did I betray you?” he demanded, taking the last few steps in one giant stride as he hauled himself up on the bank. “What the hell is this, Quillen? You don’t trust me anymore, you don’t love me anymore just because Desmond Cassil is my uncle?” He rose to his feet and water sluiced off the slick, green rubber waders covering his legs. “That’s pretty damn flimsy.”

“It is not—”

“Yes, it is,” he cut her off coldly, “as flimsy as your not-so-subtle suggestion that I’m in league with him to wrest this land away from you.”

“Why shouldn’t I believe that? All you’ve done is lie to me!”

“Did you give me a choice? Hell, no, you didn’t. There’s no gray with you, Quillen, only black and white. If I’m not for you, I’m against you.”

He didn’t raise his voice but she knew he was furious. Blue ice glittered in his eyes and the striped suspenders holding up his waders snapped angrily against his upper arms as he jerked them off his shoulders.

“I
am
on your side. I just can’t believe that Uncle Des, as ruthless and grasping as he is, would resort to mayhem to get his hands on this land. He
is
my uncle—he always has been and he always will be. I have very little affection for him, Quillen. I don’t like the way he operates, and I’d like to slug him for what he’s doing to us, but that’s his method—divide and conquer—and if you’d stop with your how could you-do-this-to-me outrage and look beyond the end of your own nose, you’d see that and try to help me figure out what he’s up to.”

“Figure it out yourself,” she told him, and added, with a bitter glare over her shoulder as she wheeled away from him, “Dr. Ferris.”

He didn’t answer, but Quillen could feel him watching her as she stalked toward the Blazer, flung the door open, and climbed into the seat. She started the engine, gripped the wheel, and jammed the gearshift into reverse. The Blazer cut a squealing, dusty about-face and shot down the road. Glancing in the rearview mirror, through the gravel smoke swirling behind the truck, she saw Tucker throw his hat on the ground, punt it into the creek with a sideways, soccer-style kick, and then wrap his hands around one of the lowest branches of the cottonwood tree. He half-stood, half-hung there, his head lowered.

Tears swelled in her eyes, the road swam, and Quillen’s right foot slackened on the accelerator. She hadn’t really given him a choice—no more of a choice than he’d given her, she thought as she pushed the pedal to the floor again and wiped the back of her left hand across her eyes.

This isn’t his choice, it’s yours, her little voice pointed out harshly, and you can make another one right now. You can stop punishing yourself and him for things that happened twenty years ago, things that have no more to do with what’s going on here now than do the phases of the moon.

Quillen stepped hard on the brake, the rear wheels locked, and the truck fishtailed. It came to a stop broadside in the road midway through the long curve, less than a mile from the creek. Gravel dust filtered through the open passenger window, and she sneezed and coughed as she batted it out of her face and listened to her little voice.

Just for the sake of argument here, let’s say he’s Al Capone’s nephew instead. Would that automatically make him a gangster, too? He’s guilty of only two things—not telling you himself about his relationship to Cassil, and panning the creek. He seemed more than willing to explain the latter, but you hardly gave him the chance. Think about what he said, particularly in regard to Cassil—just think about it for a minute.

Quillen did, for longer than a minute. She thought about it until the dust had settled into a fine, milky film across the dash, until her fingers ached from gripping the wheel and her right leg cramped from depressing the brake.

She let go of the wheel then. Sighing and flexing her fingers, she nudged the gearshift into park, looked up, and caught a glimpse of the stone cemetery wall in the rearview mirror. She stared at it, remembered Saturday night, and asked herself, as Tucker had suggested, if she really thought this was what her father had wanted for her. The answer was no, and her eyes brimmed slowly with tears as she put the truck in reverse and turned it toward the creek.

The stream and both banks as far as Quillen could see were deserted. She left the Blazer parked near the Jeep and walked toward the cottonwood. Tucker’s bow and quiver had disappeared with him. A faint breeze stirred the broad, dusty leaves overhead, and a shiver crawled up her back as she looked down at the pan, half-tipped on the ground.

Squelching the memory of his remark about taking potshots at the person who’d smashed his seismometer, Quillen squatted beside the pan and idly stirred one finger through the silt in the bottom. Even in the shade, glittery yellow flecks showed in the muddy, pebbly sludge. Big deal, she thought, frowning as she stood up and tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. Gold dust is as common in Colorado as wheat seeds in Kansas.

Now she had another choice. She could wait for Tucker or she could leave. If she left, she’d probably never screw up courage enough to come back, yet the idea of moping on the bank with her heart in her hand didn’t appeal to her, either. When he returned (and because his Jeep was here she knew he would), she didn’t want to look so obviously apologetic. She glanced at the pan again, sighed, and sat down to take off her socks and loafers. The water would be cold—it always was—but at least she’d have something to do, and it was an opportunity to investigate the gold claims for herself.

With her jeans rolled up to her knees and the pan in her hand, Quillen rose and picked her way across the rocky ground to the creek. Lowering herself onto the muddy, slippery bank, she gritted her teeth and eased her bare feet into the icy water. A shiver of reaction made her shudder. While she gave her body a moment to adjust to the change in temperature, she gazed at the cliff on the opposite bank.