Cash shrugged, but his eyes were intent as he went from nugget to nugget on the old necklace, touching, probing, measuring the malleable metal against his own knowledge and memories. Then, saying nothing, he took Mariah's hand and heaped the necklace in it. Gold chain whispered and moved in a cool fall over both sides of her palm, but the weight of the nuggets that remained in her palm kept the necklace from falling to the table.
Cash pulled a key from his jeans pocket. Dangling from the ring was a hollow metal cylinder about half the size of his thumb. With a deftness that was surprising for such big hands, he unscrewed the cylinder.
"Hold out your other hand," he said to Mariah.
She did, hoping that no one else sensed the sudden race of her heart when Cash's hand came up beneath hers, steadying it and cupping her fingers at the same time. Holding her with one hand, he upended the cylinder over her palm. She made a startled sound when a fat gold nugget dropped into her hand. The lump was surprisingly heavy for its size.
Carefully Cash selected a strand of chain and draped it over her palm so that one of the necklace nuggets rested next to the nugget he had taken from the cylinder. There was no apparent difference in the color of the gold, or in the texture of the surface. Both lumps of gold were angular and rough rather than rounded and smooth. Both were of a very deep, richly golden hue.
"Again, without an assay it's impossible to be sure," Cash said, "but…" He shrugged.
Mariah looked up at Cash with eyes the color of gold. "They're from Mad Jack's mine, aren't they?"
"I don't know. I've never found the mine." Cash looked down into Mariah's eyes and thought again of golden heat, golden flames, desire like a knife deep in his loins. "But I'd bet my last cent that these nuggets came from the same place, wherever that is."
"You mentioned that Case kept a journal," Mariah said, her voice a husky rasp that made Cash's blood thicken.
"Yes," Luke answered, though his sister hadn't looked at him, having eyes only for the gold in her hands – and for Cash, the man who hunted for gold.
"Didn't he say where the mine was?" she asked.
"No. All we know for sure was that Case had saddlebags full of gold from Mad Jack's mine."
"Why?"
"He was going to give it to Mad Jack's son. Instead he gave it to Mariah, Mad Jack's granddaughter." That caught Mariah's attention. "You mean it's really true?" she asked, turning quickly toward Luke. "You weren't just joking? We're really related to Mad Jack?"
"Sure. Where else do you think the nuggets in that necklace came from? It used to be a man's watch chain. Mariah had it made for Case as a wedding gift. The chain came down through the family, staying with whichever son held the Rocking M. Until Mother left." Luke shrugged. "I guess she thought she had earned it. Maybe she had. God knows she hated every minute she ever spent on the ranch."
Mariah looked at the gold heaped on her palm, shining links infused with a legacy of both love and hatred. Yet all she said was "That explains the modern clasp. I assumed the old one had fallen apart, but watch chains don't need clasps, do they?" Without hesitation she poured the long, heavy chain and bulky nuggets into a heap in front of Luke. "Here. It belongs to you."
He looked startled. "I didn't mean-"
"I know you didn't," she interrupted. "It's still yours. It belongs with the man who holds the Rocking M. You."
"I've been thinking about that. Half of what I inherited should be-"
"No." Mariah's interruption was swift and determined. "The ranch was meant to be the inheritance of whichever MacKenzie son could hold it. Mariah's letters made that quite clear."
"That might have been fair in the past, but it sure as hell isn't fair now."
"It wasn't fair that our parents couldn't get along or that Mother had a nervous breakdown or that Dad drank too much or that I was taken away from the only person who really loved me. You." Mariah touched Luke's hand. "Lots of life isn't fair. So what?" Her smile was a bittersweet curve of acceptance. "You offered me a home when I had none. That's all I hoped for and more than I had any right to expect. Or accept."
"You'll by God accept it if I have to nail your feet to the floor," Luke said, squeezing Mariah's hand.
She laughed and tried to blink away the sudden tears in her eyes. "I accept. Thank you."
Luke picked up the gold chain and dumped it back in Mariah's hand. She tilted her palm, letting the heavy, cool gold slide back to the table.
"Mariah," he began roughly. "Damn it, it's yours."
"No. Make it back into a watch chain and wear it. Or give it to Logan. Or to your next child. Or to whichever child holds the Rocking M. But," Mariah added, speaking quickly, overriding the objections she saw in her brother's tawny eyes, "that doesn't mean I wouldn't like a gold necklace of my own. So, with your permission, I'll go looking for Mad Jack's mine. I've always believed I would find a lost gold mine someday."
Luke laughed, then realized that Mariah was serious. Smiling crookedly, he said, "Muffin, Cash has been looking for that mine for – how many years?"
"Nine."
Startled, Mariah looked up at Cash. "You have?"
He nodded slightly.
"And if a certified, multi-degreed geologist, a man who makes his living finding precious metals for other people-" began Luke.
"You do?" interrupted Mariah, still watching Cash with wide golden eyes.
He nodded again.
"-can't find Mad Jack's lost mine," Luke continued, talking over his sister, "then what chance do you have?"
Mariah started to speak, then sighed, wondering how she could explain what she barely understood herself.
"Remember how you used to put me to bed and tell me stories?" she asked after a few moments.
"Sure. You would watch me all wide-eyed and fascinated. Nobody ever paid that much attention to me but you. Made me feel ten feet tall."
She smiled and said simply, "You were. I would lie in bed and forget about Mother and Dad yelling downstairs and I'd listen to you talking about the calves or the new colts or some adventure you'd had. Sometimes you'd sneak in with cookies and a box full of old pictures and we would make up stories about the people. And sometimes you'd talk about Mad Jack and his mine and how we would go exploring and find it and buy everything the ranch didn't have so Mother would be happy on the Rocking M. We used to talk about that a lot."
In silent comfort Luke squeezed Mariah's hand. "I remember."
She leaned forward with an urgency she couldn't suppress. "I've always believed I can find that mine. I'm Mad Jack's own blood, after all. Please, Luke. Let me look. What harm can there be in that?" Despite the need driving her, Mariah smiled teasingly and added, "I'll give you half of whatever I find, cross my heart and hope to die."
Luke laughed, shaking his head, unable to take her seriously. "Muffin, this is a big damned ranch. It's a patchwork quilt of outright ownership, plus lease lands from three government agencies, plus water rights and mineral rights and other things only a land lawyer or a professional gold hunter like Cash would understand."
"I'll learn."
"Oh hell, honey, if you found anything in Rocking M's high country land but granite and cow flops, I'd give it to you without hesitation and you know it, but-"
"Sold!" Mariah crowed, interrupting before Luke could say anything she didn't want to hear. She looked at Nevada and Cash. "You heard him. You're my witnesses."
Nevada looked up, nodded, and returned his attention to one of the old pieces of paper he held.
Cash was much more attentive to Mariah. "I heard," he said, watching her closely. "But just what makes you so sure that mine is on the Rocking M?"
"Mariah said it was. It's in her letter to the son who inherited the ranch."
Luke looked up at Cash. "You were right. Damn. I was hoping that mine would never…" He shrugged and said no more.
Silently Cash took the single nugget from Mariah's hand. A few deft movements returned the gold to its cylinder.
"What do you mean, Cash was right?" she asked. "And why were you hoping he was wrong?"
There was a pause before Luke said anything. When he finally did speak, he answered only her first question.
"When Mother cleaned out the family heirlooms, she overlooked a fat poke of gold, all that was left from Case's saddlebags. I showed the poke to Cash. He took one look and knew the gold hadn't come from any of the known, old-time strikes around here."
"Of course," Mariah said. "The MacKenzie gold wasn't found in placer pockets."
Cash looked at Mariah with renewed interest. "How did you know?"
"I did my homework." She held up her hand, ticking off names with her fingers. "The strikes at Moss Creek, Hard Luck, Shin Splint, Brass Monkey, Deer Creek, and Lucky Lady were all placer gold. Some small nuggets, a lot of dust. Everything was smooth from being tumbled in water." Mariah gestured toward the necklace. "For convenience we call those lumps of gold 'nuggets,' but I doubt they spent any real time in the bottom of a stream. If they had, they would be round or at least rounded off. But they're rough and asymmetrical. The longer I thought about it, the more certain I was that the lumps came from 'jewelry rock.'"
"What's that?" Luke asked.
Cash answered before Mariah could. "It's an old miner's term for quartz that is so thickly veined with pure gold that the ore can be broken apart in your bare hands. It's the richest kind of gold strike. Veins of gold like that are the original source of all the big nuggets that end up in placer pockets when the mother lodes are finally eroded away and washed by rain down into streams."
"Is that what you think Mad Jack's mine is?" Luke persisted. "A big strike of jewelry rock?"
"I wasn't sure. Except for the chunk you gave me-" Cash flicked his thumbnail against the cylinder "-the poke was filled with flakes and big, angular grains, the kind of thing that would come from a crude crushing process of really high-grade ore." Thoughtfully Cash stirred the chain with a blunt fingertip. Reflected light shifted and gleamed in. shades of metallic gold. "But if these nuggets all came from Mad Jack's mine, it was God's own jewelry box, as close to digging pure gold as you can get this side of Fort Knox."
Luke said something unhappy and succinct beneath his breath.
Mariah looked at her brother in disbelief. "What's wrong with that? I think it's fantastic!"
"Ever read about Sutter's Mill?" he asked laconically.
"Sure. That was the one that set off the California gold rush in 1849. It was one of the richest strikes in history."
"Yeah. Remember what happened to the mill."
"Er, no."
"It was trampled to death in the rush. So was a lot of other land. I don't need that kind of grief. We have enough trouble keeping pot-hunters out of the Anasazi ruins on Wind Mesa and in September Canyon."
"What ruins?" Mariah asked.
"They're all over the place. Would you like to see them?" Luke asked hopefully, trying to sidetrack her from the prospect of gold.
"Thanks, but I'd rather look for Mad Jack's mine."
Cash laughed ruefully. When he spoke, his voice was rich with certainty. "Forget it, Luke. Once the gold bug bites you, you're hooked for life. Not one damn thing is as bright as the shine of undiscovered gold. It's a fever that burns out everything else."
Luke looked surprised but Mariah nodded vigorously, making dark brown hair fly. She knew exactly what Cash meant.
Looking from Cash to Mariah, Nevada raised a single black eyebrow, shrugged, and returned his attention to the paper he was very gently unfolding on the table's surface.
"Smile," Mariah coaxed Luke. "You'd think we were talking about the Black Death."
"That can be cured by antibiotics," he shot back. "What do you think will happen if word gets out that there's a fabulous lost mine somewhere up beyond MacKenzie Ridge? A lot of our summer grazing is leased from the government, but the mineral rights aren't leased. There are rules and restrictions and bureaucratic papers to chase, but basically, when it comes to prospecting, it's come one, come all. Worst of all, mineral rights take precedence over other rights."
Mariah looked to Cash, who nodded.
"So we get a bunch of weekend warriors making campfires that are too big," Luke continued, "carrying guns they don't know how to use, drinking booze they can't hold, and generally being jackasses. I can live with that if I have to. What I can't live with is when they start tearing up the fences and creeks and watersheds. This is a cattle ranch, not a mining complex. I want to keep it that way."
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