Page 21 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)

T WENTY -O NE

“I can’t believe we’re so close to finding Grandpa’s treasure.” Thayne grabbed Brody’s arm and shook it.

All Brody could think was that every move, every breath, ached. And Lock had to feel worse than him. He sure acted like he did. How were they going to get him home?

“Ellie went south.” Thayne pointed. “Josh is going east. I’ll go north, and you west.”

Brody looked up to see Ellie disappearing around a tree, headed for the cliff he’d fallen over yesterday. Not much searching to do there. In fact, Josh was moving east along the face of the cliff while Brody was to head west alongside it.

“Get to hunting.” Brody could barely think of the treasure for worrying about Lock. “Keep an eye out for anything Grandpa would have left as a marker—a pile of rocks that looks like it was stacked by hand, a carving in a tree trunk, those kinds of things. Even after thirty years, they might still be visible.”

“I’m going to ask Ellie if she’ll let me search along the cliff face. I want to stay close to Lock.”

Thayne nodded and headed off to have a quiet little look at hundreds of acres of forest.

Brody couldn’t help but feel pessimistic about their chances of finding anything. Minutes later, he caught up with Ellie, who was standing, hands on her hips, glaring at millions of small rocks.

She heard him coming, gave a wild wave of her hand at the rocks, and said in disgust, “How am I to search all of that?”

“Let me do the searching for a nonexistent treasure in a mountain of broken granite. I think it’s best I stay close to Lock.”

Ellie nodded. “Where were you supposed to search?”

Brody gestured in a westerly direction, to his left along the cliff face. “That’s my assigned area.”

Ellie peered hopelessly toward the west. “We know your grandpa found that journal. And he wrote of treasure, so there must be something around here.”

Brody tried to imagine where Grandpa had been. “Do you suppose he fell over that cliff, too? How in the world could he ever find the green pool otherwise?”

“It’s impossible to know which direction he came from. He might’ve hiked in from an old trail that led to the pool. No falling over a cliff required. But he must have found it somehow. Which means, if he wrote of a treasure, there was more than just the journal.”

“And he wrote in ink. Almost no chance he had ink with him. So he found something, went to a town for ink, and started writing about it. Now that I think of it, you can tell his writing begins early in his search, but that’s just because once he had the journal to write in, he started taking notes about all he’d seen and done.”

“Is there anything else in that journal to give us a clue?”

Brody could tell she was stalling, avoiding a Herculean task, but then so was he. “I don’t have it memorized like my brothers do. I hardly read it before I got to the Two Harts.” He stared through the bushes as if he could see Lock. “My brother is lying over there and battered half to death because of the journal. I’ve always hated that book. I blamed it for Pa wrecking our lives. Now I’m blaming it for Lock being so badly hurt.”

He shook his head and turned back to Ellie, who’d done nothing to earn his grumpy discontent. “The little bit I read since we got here focused mainly on that line about Captain Cabrillo and the bay he mentioned. I thought that line and others similar to it held the best chance of clues. And I did it all while not really believing in the treasure until you said the journal was old. Lock could probably recite the stupid book line by line, while I don’t remember anything after the Loch Uaine line. If we don’t find anything before Lock regains his strength enough to ride home, I’ll go over it more carefully before we come out here hunting again.”

Ellie rested a hand on his arm, and he felt her strength and warmth. “There is something here, Brody. Your brothers know that now, so we can’t pretend otherwise. They’re going to want to search this land and search that journal and never stop. Maybe we can just think of it as a hobby. Like some men play cards. Like some women ... oh, I don’t know.” She threw both arms wide. “Play the piano or read a book? What hobbies do women have? I myself don’t have time for hobbies.”

Brody grinned. “I don’t spend much time playing cards either.” He turned toward the rockslide. “Is it possible this slide happened after Grandpa was here? Could the treasure be buried under there?”

“I have no idea.” She took a couple of steps to the west. Brody caught her arm, and she faced him.

“Ellie, we need to find time to talk about ... well, about what might be going on between us. I’ve got to return to Boston. I’ve got to see to my brothers and learn to be a proper doctor, but there’s something—”

“Beth Ellen?” Josh’s voice had Brody dropping her arm and Ellie turning to her brother. Who was closer than Brody realized. The man had snuck up on them for a fact. Brody wondered what Josh had seen or heard. From the glint in the man’s eyes, Brody figured he’d seen and heard enough to think he needed to interfere.

“Yes?”

“Can you come with me for a bit?”

Ellie gasped, and her pulse sped up. “Did you find something? Evidence of a treasure?”

“No, I just want your company while I hunt.” Josh crossed his arms and glared at Brody.

Brody figured he knew what Josh was about.

Ellie glanced at Brody, her cheeks flushed.

“Beth Ellen?” Brody said quietly. He hadn’t heard that name before today.

“Only my family calls me that,” she explained. “I’ve been trying to break them of it.” She looked at her brother. “And thought I had.”

“Which means you’re in trouble. My ma would use my full name only when a scolding was coming: ‘Brodick Graham MacKenzie, you get yourself over here!’”

“Brodick?”

“Aye, lassie. ’Tis a fine Scots name.” Brody added a thick burr he’d learned from his grandpa. “And my ma could wield it like a claymore.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes and gave her brother a mean little smile. “Just guess who’s not my mother or father?”

“At least he didn’t call you Elizabeth Ellen. Nay, he’s not your da or ma, just your big brother. He cares about you, even though he shows it by treating you as if he has no trust in your judgment or respect for you knowing your own mind.”

“Yes, even though...” She headed toward Josh, a militant light in her eyes.

Brody didn’t watch her go because he was afraid of what might gleam in his eyes right in front of Josh. Instead, he turned to the fall of rocks and walked along the cliff face, trying to think of what sign might survive thirty years. Surely Grandpa would have left something behind.

Ellie went to Josh’s side, then turned without saying anything and tromped through the underbrush.

She wanted a fight. Of course, she didn’t want her big brother to scold her, so she wanted a fight where she did the fighting while he kept his mouth shut.

“I saw a dark shadow behind a tree,” said Josh, “right at the base of the trail we rode down. I want to see what’s behind that tree.”

But she needed him to be grouchy and bossy and a generally annoying brother before she could start her shouting. And he wasn’t helping her.

Josh led her to a gnarled, stunted oak tree growing out of a jumble of boulders. And he was right—there was something behind this tree.

“You like the doctor?” he asked. “He seems like a good man. If he heads back east with his brothers and his treasure, and you go along with him, I’ll miss you.”

Ellie stopped right where she was and closed her eyes. She brought her hand up to cover her face, suddenly weary. “I haven’t slept out on the hard ground for a long time.”

“That’s no answer.”

It most certainly wasn’t.

Both of them stood there studying the tree, the boulders around it, and that shadow.

“I’m not going to fuss at you, little sister. But I remember how things were after you broke things off with Loyal. I came home before you were over him.”

“I was over him the day I found out he kept a mistress while we were engaged, and he told me directly he had no intention of sending her down the road after our wedding.”

Josh turned from the tree and rested both hands on her shoulders. His hands were so callused they felt like leather. He’d been at sea. Through the years of hard work, setting sails, battling winds, and tying off rope aboard ship, his shoulders had broadened, his frame had been whittled down to pure, corded muscle, and his skin was weathered a bit too much for a man of his age.

When he’d come home for good, he’d thrown in to work the ranch and that had only honed his strength, though the regular meals kept him from looking gaunt.

He was a pair with her, or so everyone always said. They were the blond-haired, blue-eyed children to match Ma, while Zane and Annie, the two eldest, looked more like Pa.

Josh was one of her favorite people in the world.

“Your love might have died, and the breakup was absolutely final, but you hurt for a long time. It’s been three years, Ellie, and I’ve never seen you so much as flutter your eyes at one of the cowhands.”

“Flutter my eyes?” She swatted him on the upper arm.

He grinned. His white teeth shone amid his tanned face. Long hours in the California sun had darkened his skin and bleached his hair. “Whatever it is that you women do to cast a lure.”

Ellie closed her eyes in pain at her brother’s oafish talk of lures and fluttering lashes.

“Whatever you do,” he went on, his hands tightening and then loosening on her arms, sincerity shining bright in his eyes, “you haven’t done it before. Why now? What is it about him that so draws your attention?”

Ellie wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist and held him tight. “I don’t know what it is about him. I haven’t flirted with any cowhands because it never occurred to me to do so. None of those men has interested me, even mildly. I suppose that has its roots in distrust. Loyal taught me that hard lesson. He seemed like an upright and decent man—until I found out he wasn’t. How could I trust my judgment after that? But Brody brings something out in me. Something good that is nothing like what I felt for Loyal.”

Josh snorted. “What a terrible name for that low-down, disloyal coyote.”

“Brody has a lot to do before he can turn his attentions to a woman. He’s a near stranger to his brothers. He’s got to stick with them while he tries to solve the mystery of this treasure. And he insists he’s honor-bound to return to the east. He owes some doctor money, which his family used to survive. Loaned with the promise that Brody would return and be his partner in the doctor’s practice. And I have no interest in moving to Boston, far from my family.”

“ He would be your family, Beth Ellen. That’s how it works. The Bible says ‘a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife.’”

“Stop. I’ve just had a moment or two with Brody that were ... intriguing. I’m in no way ready to talk about any cleaving, for heaven’s sake!”

Josh laughed. “Well, if you do want to talk about it, pick Annie, not me. Now let’s get on with the treasure hunt.”

Ellie sighed, shaking her head. “That journal had to have come from somewhere. And to mention that pond?”

“That means it’s most likely pointing to something around here, but that’s a long way from certain. For now, let’s keep looking around. We have a slow trip home ahead of us. We’ve got work tomorrow, as does the good doctor, and those boys have school. Thayne and Lock agreed to short trips. Finding the pond is a good first step. We can search until the sun is overhead. I hope by then Lock will be rested enough to ride. I can rig a travois if he’s not.”

“Agreed, whether the MacKenzies like it or not. We’ll go home and study the journal for further clues, then come back here. Because without more clues, we’re never going to find the treasure in this wilderness.”

Loyal snatched up the weathered document. “I’ve found it.”

Sonny tossed aside the stack of papers he’d been combing through. “Finally.”

“The Two Harts Ranch was the clue we needed.” Loyal read the description of the claim written on the water-damaged document. “We can find this. It must be where MacKenzie discovered the gold mine.”

Loyal still had his fine suit on. He’d realized he missed dressing this way. He had just the smallest twinge of regret for punching his father. Oh, he’d enjoyed it. No doubt about that.

But there was no going back now. He should have at least strung the old man along. Let him hope there was a chance Loyal would reform and come home.

It had been too tempting, and Loyal knew he was a miserable failure at resisting temptation. Now he in his fine, if overly tight, suit, and Sonny in his rough western clothes stood in a claims office near the Two Harts Ranch, sorting through old records.

“It’s a treasure, Loyal. He staked a claim for mining, but don’t get your head stuck in the rut of thinking it’s a gold mine. We don’t know what exactly he found. An old rumor called it ‘MacKenzie’s Treasure.’ And there were no gold mines in this whole area. Why then would he stake a claim up there in the mountains? No. I think he found something else. A stash that he wanted to legally own. There are all sorts of stories in the West of lost gold, lost diamonds and other jewels. Whole lost cities of gold, for heaven’s sake.” Sonny licked his lips as he listed all the possible wealth to be had.

Loyal had to admit he liked thinking of it himself.

“Old Graham MacKenzie showed up out of the wilderness, headed straight for the claims office, and filed this exact claim. There was a story that he mailed off a package, then vanished back into the wild. Like a puff of smoke never to be seen or heard from again. Next thing you know, his son came out west and searched, and he was here for years.”

“Those rumors you heard were stirred up by this?” This was the most Sonny had told him so far. He’d given out information in dribs and drabs, just enough to keep Loyal strung along. It was maddening, and yet at the same time Loyal had to admit that Sonny knew him well. Knew better than to trust him.

That old saw about honor among thieves was laughable.

“That’s right, but the son, Frazier MacKenzie, was poking around Sutter’s Mill. He had whatever he’d learned from his pa lumped in with the California gold rush, only now we know his pa was farther southeast. Right around here, in fact. That’s what this here claim tells us.” Sonny slapped a hand flat against the paper Loyal had set on the table.

Loyal jumped at the loud slap, then looked around. The man behind the desk watched them, a small frown on his face. How loud had they been talking? Had the agent heard too much?

They were in a land office in Cornerstone, California. A tiny town that hadn’t grown with the rest of the state, partly due to the rugged land around it. It was the third small town they’d searched that was near the Two Harts. Around here there was no ranch land, no fertile farmland, no river, and no gold mines, ever. It didn’t even have a particularly beautiful view to attract tourists. The train had passed it by.

But it hadn’t descended into a ghost town as some had. The land office, with its moldering records, remained still.

When Loyal and Sonny had asked if they could comb through the old mining claims, the land agent had shrugged and gone back to reading his book.

“Keep your voice down,” Loyal hissed. “Now, how do we make our way to this claim?”

“There should be a map in this office somewhere.”

Loyal’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The agent is watching. We don’t want to draw any more attention. No sense starting a brand-new gold rush.”

Sonny nodded. Then, with a quick glance at the agent, he shoved the claim toward Loyal. “I was hoping to slip this into my pocket and take it with me. Instead, you’d better copy down the description of the land. He’ll notice if we try to steal it.”

Loyal knew Sonny could read and write, but they weren’t his finest skills. “We don’t want him chasing after us, maybe kicking up a fuss. In a town this small, the less attention we draw, the better. We don’t want anyone coming looking for us.”

Loyal knew it was probably too late. There probably weren’t many who came into the land office asking for old records to search through. But that couldn’t be helped now.

“Then we’ll see if we can locate this mining claim on a map and head for our pot of gold.” Loyal grinned as he wrote. He knew he was already counting his money, and that wasn’t wise.

But like resisting temptation, no one had ever accused him of wisdom either.