Page 36 of Riches Beyond Measure (Golden State Treasure #3)

Twenty-Seven

The next couple of days gnawed at Cord. He was ready to see where the future would take them. He was planning to bring Grandpa Westbrook to live with them, and Annie had agreed with her usual kindness. So he’d ride along with them to the new Westbrook Ranch.

Because Josh had good-naturedly fired Cord when he and Annie announced they were moving, he wasn’t riding herd anymore.

Instead, he spent his time in the laboratory, often with help, sorting through their findings as Michelle continued to fight her way through translating the old Spanish writings, which were on paper so delicate she was afraid to touch it.

Cord found the dagger Hardy had dropped among the rocks along the trail, and he and Lock looked it over.

They were frustrated to think of all the artifacts Hardy and Rombauer had gotten away with.

Cord hadn’t found the badge with Cortés’s portrait on it, yet he suspected that Hardy had taken it from the laboratory.

What else had been stolen that they didn’t yet know about?

While they looked over the dagger, Grandpa came into the laboratory along with Brody, Thayne, Lock, and finally Ellie, who had a faint smile on her face.

Cord saw the MacKenzie brothers exchange serious looks, and then Lock gave a nod to Brody.

Brody said, “Mayhew, my brothers and I have discussed it.” He took the dagger from Cord and offered it to Grandpa. “We want you to have this. We also want you to have half of the artifacts and the gold we found, but this special knife is a token of our gratitude.”

“No, thank you, Brody. I’m not taking one bit of this treasure from you and the family.”

Cord had wondered, when it came down to it, whether Grandpa would decide to refuse any of the artifacts or the gold.

Brody shook his head firmly. “My grandpa promised you half of whatever he found. Your loan made this discovery possible. We don’t intend to break that promise. Thanks to the treasure map he gave me and the one you had, I didn’t just find earthly treasure but I found a loving wife as well.”

He took Grandpa’s blue-veined hand, which trembled a bit these days, and pressed the handle of the dagger into the older man’s palm.

“We insist you take this. Besides, there’s no amount of treasure I can give you compared to what the search for it has given me.

” Brody paused and smiled. “I’m home again with my brothers.

I’ve married the love of my life, and we’ve got a child on the way. ”

Ellie came over to Brody’s side and added, “Your money made it possible for Graham MacKenzie to purchase the claim where he found the treasure, and you’ve given Brody, his brothers, and me riches beyond measure. We want you to have the dagger ... and more.”

Nodding, Grandpa looked down at the knife clasped tightly in his right hand.

“This is no regular knife. It’s unusually heavy.

In fact, of all the things you brought back from the dig site, this knife looks to be the strongest, even more so than the armor.

Nothing about it has rotted away. It’s pretty much like it was the day those sailors ran aground three hundred years ago. ”

“Half the gold is yours too, Mayhew,” Lock said. “For now, though, at least take that dagger. And, well...” Lock hesitated, then reached inside his shirt and pulled out a sheath that held the other dagger.

Cord couldn’t hold back a smile. He hadn’t known Lock was carrying the dagger around with him the whole time.

Grandpa laughed. “You’re carrying a three-hundred-year-old knife.

Lock, my boy, you’ve got more sense than the rest of us.

Such sturdy, useful things—if we can still use them, we ought to.

But you should wear it so it shows. It’s a shame to hide it away like that.

” Then Grandpa looked at the dagger in his hand again and turned to Cord.

“What do you think, Cordell? Should we accept this one little piece of the treasure?”

“If you do, you’ll need a sheath so you can wear the knife at your waist properly.”

Grandpa gave an inelegant snort. “It would ruin the line of my suit coat.” He then extended the dagger to Cord. “But as a western man, a cowboy, you could wear this and make it look right. It’ll help you to remember the search for MacKenzie’s Treasure. And I’ll see it every time I’m with you.”

Cord took the knife from his grandpa, then glanced at Lock, who was busily tying his own sheath and dagger around his waist. “Do we dare carry around something this old?” he asked.

Lock finished putting his on and then looked up at Cord, his eyes bright with excitement. “The two of us with these daggers is like a bond between the MacKenzies and the Westbrooks, a symbol of the old bond between our grandpas. I like the idea.”

Cord smiled. “I like the idea, too.”

“I’ve got a sheath in the ranch house that I think will fit,” Ellie said to Cord. “Just be careful with it when you’re hugging my sister.”

Cord laughed, and the others joined right in, erupting into laughter as well.