Page 15 of Inventions of the Heart

CHAPTER

FOUR

ZANE STARED AT THE CEILINGwhile he tried to fall asleep. He was surprised his house didn’t burst at the seams. It was a wonder, really, that he didn’t have both his sisters in his bed while he slept on the floor.

At least his brother hadn’t come home. But Josh loved the seafaring life and only came by every year or two for a few days.

It was nice to have his sisters home. Zane loved them dearly. But they were both distraught. He’d’ve never wished them back under such circumstances. One with her husband murdered, and the other betrayed by her cheating beau.

Zane felt terrible for his sisters. At the same time, he felt helpless.

It seemed like Michelle should handle all this. Jilly was busy building. He had to give her credit, that woman didn’t settle for a boring square of logs. The cabins she was working on were simple, but they had three rooms, besides an entrance, plus a pantry and two closets. And they really werewell constructed. Jilly had a flair for somehow making them nicer than most cabins.

Though she was working hard at it, Gretel couldn’t speak enough English to help with Annie’s and Beth Ellen’s grief, and the rest of the females around here were either married or on their way to it. That left those women with little time to supply a shoulder to a pair of women who seemed prone to breaking into tears with little notice. Except for taking care of three babies, Michelle wasn’t doing anything.

As Zane awoke the next morning, still pondering his troubles, he decided Michelle was the answer. She had few if any womanly skills in the kitchen or anywhere in the house. She was doing a decent job chasing babies, but she was often confused about just what was necessary to care for them. He suspected her skills were being grossly underused.

He shoved back the covers and dressed quickly, determined to make Michelle handle all weeping women from now on. He was giving her a roof over her head, so she oughta pay him back somehow.

He strode out of his room and down the stairs to find Michelle slipping out the back door, dressed for a long ride judging by the bedroll and sack of food.

“Stop right there.”

She glanced back with a grimace, then went on out.

Zane was after her quick as a flash. “Where are you going? Not San Francisco. I’ll lock you in the cellar before I let you do that.”

“No. Jilly, the Hogans, and some of your men already rode out to the cabins they are building over by—” she glanced around—“you-know-what.”

He knew. He just didn’t know how he was ever goingto gather up that gold without causing a huge problem. Considering all the building going on around here and the fact that he’d bought two houses in the nearby mining town of Dorada Rio for the two remaining families that had been settled in Purgatory, he probably oughta round up that gold.

Purgatory was where Caleb’s mission group had been, and Laura had found gold in a deep part of the forest near the ramshackle settlement. Before they could even tell Zane about the vein, a mob had stormed through Purgatory. They’d burned down Jilly’s newly built church and nearly killed Caleb. Had been bent on it, in fact, when Laura, who turned out to be a highly trained chemical engineer, had used her handy supply of dynamite with great precision to knock out most of the mob.

Then Zane had come and rounded up the rest of the rabble. The sisters eventually told him of his gold. So he’d bought houses in town for the two remaining families who were down on their luck. Afterward, he’d burned down the shanties so no newcomers, looking for shelter in times of dire need, would come onto his property.

“Ride along with me,” Michelle said. “I think I’ve figured out how to solve your gold problem.”

She was so sure. So organized. So convincing that he found himself saddling his horse and riding out with her.

“Tell me what we’re going to do.” He noticed she had a large, carefully wrapped packet behind her saddle.

“It’s simple. One of the reasons it’s hard to go forward with any plans for the gold is because we really don’t know what we’re dealing with. If it is a deep vein of gold, it’s going to have to be properly mined. It’ll take machinery andmen and maybe years to get it all. That’s a big job and a big headache, but a lot of wealth.

“If it’s only a pocket of gold, we can gather it up and be done with the whole thing ourselves. No miners to hire. No gold rush because there’s no gold. With the men so close out there building already, I can slip up to Purgatory and do a day’s worth of mining, and no one will realize I’m up there instead of working on the cabins or surveying the nearby land for other buildings. Since you’re coming along, you can help me.”

“I can?” Zane gave up hope that Michelle would be good for his sisters. She wasn’t even babysitting anymore.

“We’ll spend a day digging. We’ll know a lot more when we’re done. Honestly, it’d be best if it was a pocket of gold. You could get it all out, then take it to Sacramento, or maybe San Francisco. Word would probably get out that you’d found gold. But if at the same time, you could say this was the lot, then maybe no gold rush would start.”

“I have nightmares about a gold rush. A crowd shoving me, pushing past me, overrunning my land, eating my cows, all while wielding pickaxes. In the end, I get trampled, and I wake up swinging my fists. Fighting for my land as I get crushed, along with you and my sisters. Oh, everyone’s wandering into that dream.”

“Today will tell us more. We’ll get what gold we can in a long day’s work and hide it somewhere.”

“Hard to hide gold.”

“We’ll put it in the saddlebags.”

Zane frowned. “Men in gold country notice things like bags that hang heavy or hoof marks that sink in deep.”

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