Turnback Creek (Widowmaker) (22 page)

The mule shook its shaggy head and took a step forward.

“Good girl,” Hagen said. “Let’s get back over our mountain.”

Hagen and Henrietta walked down into the basin, where they sloshed through the water that was waiting for the sun to evaporate it. This close, he could see that the sun was reflecting off small pieces of something lying at the bottom.

“What have we got here, girl?” he said. He stopped, dropped the reins to the ground, then leaned over to pick something out of the water.

“What the hell—” He stared at the gold coin lying in the palm of his hand. He bent over and picked up another one, then a third. These were already minted coins, not nuggets, so they hadn’t come out of the ground.

He kept picking them up until he had a handful of them, then turned to show them to Henrietta.

“I don’t know how much these are worth, girl,” he said, “but somebody dropped ’em, and we found ’em, and it’s definitely finder’s keepers on this mountain. We’re gonna eat good soon as we get to town.”

He walked around and dropped the coins into one of his saddlebags, then looked around to make sure he had not missed any more.

“Looks like the basin took somethin’ from somebody, girl,” he said, picking up the lead again, “but for once it gave us somethin’. Yessir, it sure did give us somethin’.”