“Well, then, I doubly hope you ain’t too heavy,” Howell said.

  One would have thought Len was light as a feather, the way Howell pulled him up once Lucas had fixed the rope around him. The boy rose up and up and then disappeared out of the opening. Lucas felt his stomach clench when the boy left his sight. What if he was wrong? What if . . . ?

  But a moment later, Len’s head popped back into view. “Your turn!”

  “I have to pull you up too?” Howell asked.

  Lucas shook his head. “I can climb.”

  But even so, Howell helped heave him up as Lucas climbed. The man didn’t even look winded when he was done. He must have been strong as a bull.

  Lucas climbed to his feet and stretched out his neck and arms, joints cracking as he did. “Can I bother you for some water?”

  Howell jerked his head toward Len, who had a canteen in hand, already drinking. The boy handed it over—reluctantly, Lucas thought. Lucas guzzled down a couple of mouthfuls, then made himself stop.

  “Thank you,” he said, handing the canteen back. “For the water. For your help.”

  Howell accepted the thanks with a tip of his head, then laughed. “I cannot for the life of me understand how you got stuck underground with only a lantern and a cow bone to get you to safety.”

  “It’s a long story,” Lucas said before Len could answer. “How did you happen to find us?”

  “My horse thought your rope was a snake,” Howell said, gesturing to the horse. “Nearly bucked me off. Then I realized it was no such thing.”

  “This isn’t Ames land,” Lucas said, trying not to sound accusatory. But it felt suspicious, Howell coming upon them, even with the rescue he’d given.

  “It ain’t,” Howell confirmed. “Fallen tree brought down a fence. I’ve been on the lookout for a pair of cows that done escaped.”

  A strange thing for the foreman of a ranch to do himself but Lucas nodded sympathetically. “No sign of them?”

  “Not one. Seems bad luck is contagious.”

  Lucas’ eyes flickered to Len to see if the boy would take offense like Olivia or Zachary surely would have, but he didn’t seem to notice the comment. He’d dropped down to his knees, poking his head back down the hole.

  “You’ll fall back in if you’re not careful, boy,” Howell said, following Lucas’ gaze.

  Len plopped back on his behind with a sheepish smile.

  “So what were you doing down there?” Howell asked again.

  “Looking for treasure with the boy. Got ourselves into a spot of trouble, but made it out okay. With your help at least.”

  “I heard you found a treasure map,” Howell said. “You follow that down there?” he asked Len.

  “Nah, our map ain’t for that cave,” Len said, climbing back to his feet. Then he looked at Howell askance. “How’d you hear about that?”

  Howell laughed. “Old Charlie. His last night on Earth, God rest his soul, he was out at Ada Mae’s talking about you boys and your treasure map.”

  That much was true enough. He’d been there just before they headed out to the woods. Lucas bottled his suspicion and put it back on the shelf. “We ought to be getting back. The boy’ll need to see the doctor for that arm.”

  Howell huffed skeptically. “The doctor, eh?”

  “You don’t care for him?”

  “I been suspicious of that man since the day we met. Good doctor, though, I hear. I’m hale and hearty. No reason to ever see him myself.” Howell tipped his hat in farewell, then turned back halfway to his horse. “You folks need a hand getting back to the ranch?”

  “Nah, we’ll be all right. Not too far to go.”

  Howell rode off. They stood and watched him go. He headed east, back toward the Ames land. Lucas guessed he was done searching for those cows.

  “You didn’t tell him someone blew up the cave,” Len said, looking up at Lucas. He squinted in the sunlight, face dirty from being underground.

  Lucas nodded. “Figured we should tell your ma first.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “Let’s go get your hat and my horse.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The entrance of the cave was rubble now, and covered where Len’s hat and treasure sack had been. Lucas’ horse was not where he’d left her, and he hoped that Cap had gone on the run when the blast happened instead of being taken. He’d have hated to lose her, and that explosion would have scared any animal into bolting. Without a horse, they were stuck walking back, and neither of them had a hat. The sun glared down at them from the edge of the horizon. Lucas only hoped they’d make it back by dark.

  They did, if only just. Olivia was in the yard, just swinging down from her horse when she saw them.

  “Mama!” she bellowed. “They’re back!”

  She ran to meet them and caught her little brother in a hug. “Don’t you go off by yourself in a cave, you little monster,” she scolded. She looked up at Lucas and frowned. “None of that, Mr. Avery. I ain’t never run off to no cave.”

  He tried to wipe away whatever expression had affronted her. He must have succeeded, because she smiled.

  The door banged open and Jessie rushed down the steps toward them.

  “Your horse came back a couple hours ago,” Olivia explained as Jessie ran over. “Zachary said you were out trying to find Len, but when you didn’t come back . . .”

  “You take care of my horse?”

  “Of course I did,” Olivia said. “If you didn’t come back, I was going to take her as my own.”

  “She might prefer that,” he said with a smile of his own.

  “Where have you been, Leonard MacGill?” Jessie demanded. “Both of you look like you went and rolled in the mud. We don’t have any pigs on this farm.”

  “It’s a long story,” Lucas said. It was no less true now than when he’d said it to Howell. Only this time, he intended on telling all of it.

  * * *

  * * *

  Jessie mercifully let them both change out of their mud-covered clothing before sitting them down for their explanation. It was mostly Lucas talking, while Len slurped up a bowl of beef stew that smelled so good, it set Lucas’ stomach to rumbling and his mouth watering. He’d have his after the explanation was over, he supposed, and didn’t move to get a bowl of his own.

  Jessie held her temper well while Lucas explained the cave-in and their trek underground. Olivia looked green when they talked about squeezing through the tunnels and making pirate hooks out of bone, but Lucas thought it was green with envy and not queasiness. Surprisingly, Zachary looked jealous too, but only when they described their jellyfish cavern.

  When they were done, Olivia was the first to speak. “Someone blew it up?” Her brows were drawn together. “Do you think . . . ?” She swallowed down the rest of her question.

  Lucas could guess what it was. Was the explosion of that cave mouth somehow related to that dam being blown? Her envy had turned to guilt. Olivia looked over at Len, shadows in her eyes, and he wondered whether or not she was remembering what he’d said about his family. About never getting to say goodbye. All deaths hurt; the surprise just gave the unexpected ones more sting.

  “I think it’s time for you children to be getting off to bed,” Jessie said.

  All three children groaned in unison, but Len at least looked like he was ready to tip right into the dregs of his stew and sleep there.

  Jessie reached over and squeezed Olivia’s arm with a soft smile. “Will you take them up, love?”

  Olivia nodded and stood. “Come on, little monsters. Let’s wash up and say prayers!”

  Lucas wondered what they’d all pray for.

  “You should eat,” Jessie said into the silence after the children’s voices had disappeared upstairs.

  Lucas rose to his feet and helped himself to the delicious stew. He was hungry enough that the turnips tasted as good as the beef; he likely would have eaten a bowlful of raw milkweed if it had been set in front of him. But Jessie was a good cook; she’d probably somehow make that taste good, even if it killed him later.

  He looked up from his bowl to compliment the stew, only to find her staring at him. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It was so lucky you were there,” Jessie said, and then started to cry.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her with tears in her eyes, but it was the first time she’d let them take over in his sight. She buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking.

  “You know, I think this land really is cursed.” She brought her head back up but didn’t look at him. “Maybe it’s Frank’s ghost who haunts it. Angry that Zachary’s sick, that Olivia’s got the run of the place, that I took Len in when his folks died. This was his land, and I just feel like I’ve done everything wrong.”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong.” Lucas scooted his chair closer to hers and tilted his head, staring at her until she made eye contact with him. “Your children are strong and smart, and this is your land now. Your husband doesn’t seem like he was a fool, so why would dying make him one?”

  That got her to laugh through her tears. She wiped them away, then took a sip of her cider. “Eat your dinner, you clown,” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I daresay my day was better than yours,” she said while he ate, though she didn’t look like she believed it. “But not by much. I don’t think Denton believes us about Coplin, and he barely believes me that none of us blew up that dam.”

  “Olivia thinks what happened at the cave was retaliation,” he said. She nodded; of course she’d noticed it too. “And it sure is funny, one explosion on his land, one on yours.”

  “Hardly seems a coincidence. But I’d give up any dam in the world before I’d give up my son.”

  “Maybe Ames knows that. Wants to hit where it hurts.”

  “You don’t believe that,” she said. “You think there’s something else going on.”

  “So do you,” he replied. “You never believed it was Ames.”

  “Not completely. He wants this land—that’s certain—and he’s done his fair bit to drive us out. He seems to already think it’s his—he put up those barbed fences and then sent one of his men onto our land.”

  “Howell claimed the fence came down and let out some cattle.”

  “Howell claimed.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Think I’ll go see Coplin in the morning. See if he would like to talk a little more about what’s been going on around here.”

  “Anything to get away from fixing that barn, I see.”

  He laughed. “I told you,” he said around a bite of stew. “I don’t care for heights.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  When Lucas got to the deputy’s station the next day, it was empty except for the deputy himself.

  “Where’s Coplin gone off to?” he asked before the deputy had even gotten a word out. “The sheriff already come to drag him to the county seat?” Lucas had a sinking feeling before the deputy even spoke that that was not the case.

  Denton confirmed it with a shake of his head. “I cut him loose for now.”

  “The man’s caused all sorts of damage, but you cut him loose?”

  “For now,” Denton said. “Look, son, I’m not sure how the Pinkertons do things—”

  “I wasn’t a Pinkerton,” Lucas snapped, then took a deep breath, trying to rein in his temper. Arguing with this man would do no good, not as an outsider, and not as someone he thought might be lording city law over Denton’s head. “I’m worried about the children,” he said as steadily as he could, casting his eyes back to Denton’s face.

  “Aw, hell, Avery, I know that.” Denton ran a hand along the back of his neck, and Lucas wondered if he was worrying at that trouble spot he’d been complaining to Pierce about. “Does Jessie MacGill really think old Sam Coplin would try to kill some kids? She was madder than a hornet yesterday. I know you ain’t from around here, but we all know the man’s harmless.”

  “He’s not harmless; otherwise, why would he have been skulking around their land?”

  “Mrs. MacGill must have told you—he and Frank had history. I would never put some mischief past him, especially when he’s got liquor in him, but luring a bear to kill ol’ Charlie? And he was here, in this room, when that bridge went down.”

  “He wasn’t hiding under it, sawing, when Olivia rode over it.”

  “I do not like your tone.” Denton’s face set in a scowl, and Lucas wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get that scowl to dissipate this time. “I think I know this town better than you do. I think I know my people. I very well might know the business of the law better, even if you worked at some fancy detective agency. What, were you busting unions when I was catching outlaws?”

  The last time this man had caught an outlaw, Lucas reckoned he’d been about sixteen years old and interested in nothing other than Felicity Ridley and learning to shoot. But he held up a hand in surrender. “I apologize. I know you know how to do your job. Can I sit?”

  Denton pointed to the chair across from him. He was still scowling, but Lucas was perhaps luckier than he deserved that he wasn’t tossing him out on his ear.

  Lucas took the seat and swept his hat off his head. “If it ain’t Coplin, then Mrs. MacGill still has a big problem.”

  “I reckon her problems don’t have much to do with the law, except that business with Ames.”

  “It ain’t a ghost causing all this trouble,” Lucas said, trying to keep his voice even.

  “I know that. Some of those fool ranch hands might believe it’s a ghost or a curse, but I believe the answer’s somewhat simpler. That quake dried up more than half their water supply, damaged those buildings—and the bridge! It may have helped poison that well. Jessie’s too stubborn to admit that land isn’t worth it anymore.”

  “You said somewhat simpler.”

  Denton shook his head. “You know not a single building in town was damaged. Eamon was cleaning up broken glass for a few days in the general store, but other than that . . . How do you explain God’s own hand coming for a square of land, and not what’s next to it? That’s the part that doesn’t feel simple. Luck, I suppose. Bad luck.”

  Lucas thought of walking down the street in Haywards. The damage there hadn’t been equal. The earth in some places had opened right up, leaving flowers intact but still shivering from the motion. The houses next to his hadn’t been undamaged; no, the entire block had been rendered unlivable. But it was their house that had come down. Their neighbors hadn’t died. Jane, seven years old, was the youngest to lose her life that day. Bad luck, was it?

  Lucas took a breath, tried to push the pain away. He’d gone years swimming in that pain, believing that somehow fate had taken them and not him for some reason he couldn’t understand. Some punishment. But it wasn’t Jessie’s fault the quake had chosen to strike her land. It wasn’t those children who had done something wrong. Maybe it was just bad luck. Chance.

  “But bad luck doesn’t explain that bridge. It doesn’t explain a trail of blood and coffee leading right to Ghost Hollow.”

  Denton’s brows creased. “You’re sure that bridge was sabotaged?”

  “One hundred percent, Deputy. You come out, I’ll show you.”

  “Well, confound it. I suppose I can pick Sam up again. Throw some more questions at him, see if he talks. That man talks only when you want him to shut up. I just don’t see what he could be after, besides revenge. And what sort of revenge would he get by siccing a bear on Charlie?”

  “Charlie had a theory,” Lucas said, “that this all somehow came back around to those two outlaws twenty years ago. That whoever’s doing this is looking for that treasure. And since you only ever caught one . . .”

  Denton scowled, but for the first time since Lucas had entered the room, it wasn’t directed toward him. “I still can’t believe we caught only one. That second man, he might well have been a ghost! Never got a good look at him, disappeared into the wild. Probably with that loot folks think he stashed somewhere. He’s probably living hog wild in San Francisco.”

  “So you don’t think there’s any loot hidden in the caves.”

  Denton shrugged. “I think we searched best we could all that land. Those caves go back a ways, and deep. If that outlaw went in there to hide it, maybe that’s why we never saw him again. The gold might be lying right next to his bones.”

  The thought gave Lucas a chill. How close had he and Len been to becoming a pile of bones underground?

  “But that other one! Gave us a merry chase over hill and hollow, and when we finally caught up, he made us work for it. Shot Frank MacGill in the arm, barely missed my own noggin . . . But we got him, Frank and me and the sheriff of that time. Brought him back for a right proper hanging. I kept that handbill they sent round hanging for ages. I wanted to make sure we’d know if the second bandit came back. And . . .” Denton looked down and said almost bashfully, “Things like that, they don’t happen around here. I never got rid of it.”

  Lucas blinked. “You still have it?”

  Denton let out a laugh. “Somewhere.” He walked to a trunk in the corner, opened it, and shuffled around a bit. Lucas crept closer, trying to peek over his shoulder, and had to hop back when Denton straightened.

  The deputy didn’t seem to notice, walking back to his desk with a sheaf of papers. “Got a commendation for bringing this one in, even if we never found the gold.” He spotted what he was looking for in the sheaf, and passed it to Lucas. “My eyes have gone a little dim, but I’ll never forget that man’s face. Mean as that grizzly you tangled with the other day, and just as deadly.”

  Lucas looked down at the paper. The handbill was so old, it felt like it was going to break apart in his hands, yellowed from its time hidden away in the chest. It was barely larger than the paper a letter might have been sent on, and the sketches of the two men had faded. The one on the right was the one they’d caught; a red mark sliced across the man’s face, cutting his scowl in half. Addison Hawley, it read beneath his picture. Sharp dresser, the description read. Spends most of his time and money in dance halls and theaters. Brawler. Crack shot. Reward: $100. He almost looked familiar, but Lucas couldn’t quite place him.

 

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