Page 8 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)

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“What do you mean they’re gone?” Brody whipped his hat off his head and slapped it against his leg.

Ellie looked desperate with worry. “I stayed in the dormitory last night. On the girls’ side. Josh was on the boys’ side. When he woke up and started the youngsters stirring to get ready for breakfast, then church, he found your brothers’ room empty. He sent me running over here while he searched more thoroughly in the schoolhouse. I was so sure they’d be here!” Ellie grabbed at her hair as if she might tear it out.

“You lost my brothers?” Brody looked around.

Ellie’s panic flipped to anger, and she shoved Brody. “I didn’t lose them. They’ve done nonsense like this before.”

“Have you searched the barn and the chicken coop? Maybe they’re in one of these buildings.”

So many outbuildings and houses and woodlands near the house. Steep mountains rising, especially to the east. A person could easily get lost by accident, and if it was as Brody suspected, they could also get lost on purpose.

Ellie nodded. “Yes, we need to look everywhere. Josh sent one of the older boys running for the bunkhouse. We’ll have a small army searching in a few minutes.”

Brody froze in his rabbiting thoughts as he realized what she’d said. “What do you mean they’ve done nonsense like this before?”

“Um ... well, we’ve lost your brothers a couple of times before today. They seem to have a love for running off. They’ve never been gone long, but this is how it was before—gone in the morning. We searched then, too. But when we’ve had one child run off before, he went toward town, headed for the train. We found him and brought him back, then tried harder to help him get settled in. So I’ll have Josh send riders to Dorada Rio right away.” Ellie paused and gave him a hard look. “But why would your brothers run from you? What happened?” She jabbed him in the chest with one finger. “You’re not as worried as you should be. What do you know about this?”

Brody didn’t want to tell Ellie anything. It was just too stupid, too shameful. But she looked near frantic, and she would probably search for as long as she could. Or at least she’d search until his two foolish brothers came sauntering back in. He’d handled them wrong. If only he’d told them—

“Brody!” She grabbed his wrist and shook it. Her voice was sharp. “Why aren’t you worried?”

“Oh, believe me, I am.”

“What’s going on?” She plunked her fists on her hips.

Which set Brody free to let his face fall into his hands. Then he scrubbed his face, wishing he could avoid telling the truth to this woman who still hadn’t told him what kind of money he could make here at the ranch, what people there were to treat, and when exactly his brothers could leave with him. A woman who was soon going to believe the entire MacKenzie family was made up of fools. And she might be right. But the truth was, they were wasting time by searching in the wrong places.

He swallowed hard, his throat bone-dry. “My little brothers ... um, well, I think they engineered this whole business of being orphans—of coming to your ranch, even of running all the way across the country, because they...” He might as well get it over with and say it. “My brothers are searching for buried treasure.”

Ellie’s hands fell from her hips, and her forehead furrowed. Maybe she was worried there was something wrong with her hearing. “Did you say ‘buried treasure’?”

Nodding, Brody went on, “The whole thing is a mad scheme. Pirate’s treasure maybe. Ghosts. Gold doubloons. Lost mines or Spanish conquistadors.” Brody shrugged. “My grandpa’s journal is a little hard to decipher.”

“So they aren’t really orphans, hungry and cold, abandoned by their family to live on the streets?”

He shrugged. “I suppose they were hungry, and Ma died, and Pa was awful. But he usually calmed down after some time.”

“And they came here because...”

Brody wished she’d just finish it, so he didn’t have to. “Because they have a journal, written by my grandfather and sent to my father when I was about five years old. Pa ran off, and we didn’t see him for seven years. He came home for a while, but about the time my two brothers were done being born, he ran off again. He did that through the years, telling stories about how close he’d come to finding the treasure. The boys got caught up in the story. They got ahold of the journal, and with Lock’s map-reading skill, they figured the Two Harts Ranch was closer to the treasure than where Pa had been searching. So they took you up on your generous offer to care for them, give them shelter and food and an education. But their aim all along was to use the ranch as a base to hunt for my grandfather’s mythical treasure.”

“So where is it?”

Brody studied Ellie more closely. He was struck by her question. Was she going to throw in on the treasure hunt? Was she going to become obsessed with lost gold or whatever it was Grandpa had supposedly found?

He sure hoped she was a better person than that. “It probably doesn’t exist, but my pa believed in it to the extent he ruined our family. And now my brothers believe in it with all their hearts, especially Lock.”

“Whether it exists or not isn’t the question.” She sounded impatient. Like she really, really wanted to know where it was rumored to be hiding. He watched her for signs of a fever—gold fever. “Where do the boys think it is?”

Sighing, Brody turned to the east and stared toward the mountain peaks. Miles and miles of mountains, millions of acres of rocks and forests, canyons and rivers. All of it was wasteland compared to this beautiful grassy valley in which he stood, this vast ranch. He waved a hand to encompass it all and answered, “They think it’s out there somewhere.”

Ellie tore her eyes from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She knew them. Knew how far and wide they were. As vast and unexplored as any stretch of land in the world. She looked at Brody and blinked. “How far will they go?”

“You said they came back before, but...”

She frowned at his strange tone. “But what?”

His shoulders slumped. He walked forward two paces across the front porch of the doctor’s office and sank down on the top step. “But this time I’m here, and I told them their treasure-hunting days were over. This time they’ve got their helpful, encouraging, sensible big brother at hand to tell them to give up, hand over the stupid journal, and stop being treasure mad.”

Ellie came down to the ground so she could look at him sitting there, demoralized beyond belief. “They may not come back because you as good as forbade them to search anymore?”

“I took the journal away and told them I was going to burn it to cinders. Just like my pa wanted to do when he tossed it into the stove. Before he could light it, though, my brothers snatched the journal out of the stove and ran away from home. Not that I blame them for that. Pa was terrible to them.”

“Did you make them watch you burn it?” Ellie asked.

“I didn’t burn it. They made me promise not to before they handed it over.”

“Do you think they snuck into the house last night and snatched it away like they did from your pa?”

Brody shook his head. “No, I’m sure they didn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Brody reached inside his shirt and pulled the journal out. “Because I told them I was going to sleep with it and carry it with me at all times. I told them they’d never get it away from me, not ever. I told them Pa was crazy and that I wasn’t going to stand idly by and watch them act like Pa did. I wasn’t going to let them ruin their lives.”

“You’re saying you had a bad fight with your brothers?”

“Hoo-boy, was it a fight.” Brody, who’d been studying the tips of his worn-out city-slicker boots, looked up at her. “I don’t think they were as happy to see me as they had been at first.”

His lips tightened, and his eyes dropped again. The very image of a man who was purely downcast. “And they weren’t that happy to begin with.”

Ellie sat beside him on the steps and rested her hand on top of his.

He glanced sideways at her. She ached for the sadness she saw in his eyes.

“They were happy to see you,” she said. “I watched them whoop and holler, hug you, disrupt class.”

“But I wanted them to come with me, head back east where I’ve got a job waiting for me, and they didn’t want to go. Yes, they were happy to see me, but they still picked treasure hunting over me. They knew I was finishing college last May. They knew I was coming home. They could have waited for me. They didn’t just run from New York City to search for gold. They ran because they knew I was coming home. They ran away from me.”

Ellie felt sorry for the lunkhead. Unable to resist comforting him, she slid her arm across his back. “Brody, how long were you away at college?”

“Three years. I had class all the time besides needing to work. I had to send money home to Ma. I should never have gone. I abandoned her with the boys. She wanted me to go, though. She was so sure it was the right thing to get us all out of being poor for good.”

“And she was right,” Ellie said, edging closer to him on the step.

“If you think dying gets a person out of poverty, I guess you’d be right.” With a humorless huff of a laugh, Brody turned to look at her. His face was so close to hers, she was a little surprised. Yet she didn’t pull back. There was too much pain in his eyes.

“What did she die of?”

Brody blinked a bit too rapidly and then straightened away from her. “I don’t know. Ma died last fall, and the boys never told me what took her. I just now realized I don’t know how or why she died. They never wrote to me the whole time I was gone, and Ma didn’t write often. I sent money every month and always included a letter, but I didn’t get much back. When she didn’t write at Christmastime, I got worried. But getting her hands on paper wasn’t easy, and Ma was no great hand at reading or writing. I didn’t get home for Christmas, either. The train was expensive.

“The boys managed to hang on to the apartment after she died. Then Pa came home and made things so miserable for them that they took to living on the street. When I did get home, after college was over, all flushed with triumph and ready to take care of my family properly at last, I found Pa alone and practically bedridden. I had to work hard to find out what had happened to the boys, but I did it. And I followed them out here. And now, two days after I get here, they’ve run away.” He turned to look past her at the rising mountains.

Ellie shuddered at the determination in his eyes. “Does that journal give you any idea where they’d go?”

Brody looked down at it. “The writing is garbled. Nonsensical at times. I think Grandpa must’ve had a fever or something. Lock thinks it’s some kind of code or just deliberately opaque so no one could find and steal his treasure. Trying to make sense of this stupid book had been the work of a lifetime for my pa. I’ve read it, but I never really studied it. But my brothers know the book inside and out.”

He punched himself in the forehead with the side of his fist. “What kind of fool idea did I have, thinking that taking the journal away from them would put a stop to their stupid treasure hunt? Besides, they probably got most of it memorized by now. I need to read it again. Try and decipher it, try to—”

“Stop!”

Brody looked up. Silently waiting. He wasn’t punching himself anymore.

“You don’t have to crack the code on a ... what is it, a ten-year-old journal? Twenty?”

“Grandpa came out here a year after the forty-niners arrived.”

Ellie’s eyes went wide. “It’s 1874 ... 1849 was twenty-five years ago. And no one’s figured out what your grandpa was writing about in all this time?”

Brody gave a sigh. “Well, my brothers think they know what it says.”

“We’re not going to solve such an old mystery right now.”

“We have to find them, Ellie. They’ve gone off before and always came back, but we can’t count on that. They could be in danger.” He turned to stare at the mountains again, his eyes showing fear.

“You’re in the West now, Brody, and you’re on a cattle ranch. When things get lost around here, we track them. And we’ve got some fine trackers on this ranch. Honestly, none of them is better than Josh. Let’s have him track down your runaway brothers before they come to grief.”

The fear seemed to be replaced by hope. There was plenty of doubt too, but at least a little hope mixed in. “Let’s go find Josh,” said Brody.

A note was stuck on Cordell Westbrook’s door when he arrived at his apartment after church.

Cord read it and groaned aloud. Grandpa had the bit in his teeth again.

Cord stepped inside and stared wistfully at the small piano he kept in his apartment. He’d had a vision of himself playing the afternoon away. Playing alone. Instead ... he glanced at the note again and sighed.

He could have lived with Grandpa in his mansion and had access to Grandpa’s beautiful Steinway grand piano. In fact, Grandpa had bought it and had it shipped by train all the way from New York City just to try to lure Cord to live with him.

Cord had felt honored by that. He loved that old man—even more than he loved that Steinway. But he’d learned he could only get along well with Grandpa if they had some distance between them—different floors of a mansion wasn’t enough. Living in the same house would have put them at loggerheads.

So Cord had his own cramped apartment and had saved until he could buy the beloved, battered old piano. And he fulfilled his duty as Grandpa’s only grandchild by visiting often. Or stopping by when requested. Like today.

Turning his back on the piano and stepping outside again, he hailed a taxi. Being it was Sunday, Cord had attended church like always and looked forward to his weekly day of rest as God commanded. Grandpa, of course, thought he knew better than God.

Sure, there was nothing wrong with visiting an elderly relative on the Sabbath. But calling Grandpa an elderly relative was like calling one of the powerful California earthquakes a little tremble. It was like calling the Rocky Mountains a bump in the road. And the terse, commanding tone of the note told Cord that Grandpa was up to something—something to do with a lost treasure. A hoard that was supposedly half his, although that portion had shifted over the years.

It used to be that Graham MacKenzie had borrowed money from Grandpa and never paid him back. A simple loan taken out from Grandpa’s bank. Now Grandpa said the loan was personal, between himself and MacKenzie. As the years passed, the treasure—which Grandpa had allowed to grow in his mind into a huge gold mine—had become more and more Grandpa’s. And his anger at the long-dead Graham MacKenzie and his fool of a son, Frasier MacKenzie, had turned into a grudge that bordered on obsession.

Mayhew Westbrook, for his part, never forgot a slight, never forgot a cent he was owed, and never forgot a broken contract. And he never, ever accepted defeat.

Cord had received many summonses like today, and almost always they meant that Grandpa had found some hint or heard a rumor that the MacKenzie family was on a gold hunt again. Graham must be dead by now, but his son, Frasier, had been a thorn in Grandpa’s side for a quarter of a century. And there was a younger generation now, too. Like Cord himself who was twenty-eight. He’d heard his share of stories of hidden treasure and wealth.

He’d also been on a lot of wild goose chases, and it sounded like he was going on another one. The trouble was, Cord had his own plans now. He’d been putting in long hours at the bank to get ahead on his work, hoping he’d be out of the office for a while. He was tired of the city. Tired of Sacramento. City life had never suited him. His grandfather’s house didn’t suit him, either.

His mother’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Rivers, had farmed south of Sacramento, and Cord had grown up there after his father died. He’d loved the four years he’d lived there. But there wasn’t land near them to homestead, and Grandpa Westbrook had summoned him to Sacramento, offering him tutors and a chance to work at his bank. Cord had suggested college, hoping to study music, but such an artistic pursuit was frowned upon.

For years, Cord had bent to Grandpa’s will, living in the mansion Grandpa called Hill House until it all became too much. Despite how badly he wanted to save up to buy land, Cord had moved to his apartment before reaching a breaking point with Grandpa. But he’d since worked hard and saved with an eye to moving back to the country. His two loves were music and the country. Cord wanted both, and he wanted no part of the dull business of banking.

Of course, Grandpa didn’t approve of the apartment, but Cord was adamant, and so Grandpa had allowed it, albeit with ill-grace.

Now he was nearly ready to buy his own land. Soon the time would come to make his break. He’d planned to spend the next two weeks searching for a likely place to set up his future. Grandpa wasn’t going to like it.

Cord had intended to send a note to Grandpa’s house on his way out of town to avoid a fight, but now he might as well face his grandpa with the news he was going to visit his mother, and that too annoyed Grandpa. Cord wasn’t about to mention buying land as well.

He approached the main entrance of Hill House, hoping there would be time for him to play a few songs on Grandpa’s Steinway. Fletcher, Grandpa’s longtime butler, opened the door before he could knock. Cord had obviously been expected.

“Good afternoon, Fletcher.”

“Welcome, sir.” Stoic, tall, unbelievably self-contained, and seventy if he was a day, Fletcher led the way inside. “Mr. Westbrook is waiting for you in his study.”

As if Grandpa wasn’t always in his study at this time of day. And as if Cord needed to be led to where that room was located in the mansion. But Fletcher observed the established proprieties of the house and never wavered from his duty.

Cord had never seen Fletcher smile or frown. The man was down to only wisps of hair on his head, but those he had left were always neatly in place. Fletcher, who seemed even impervious to a breeze, gave two perfectly correct knocks on the oak door of Grandpa’s study, then waited.

“Come in, Cordell.” Grandpa knew Cord would come.

The time to be less predictable was fast approaching.

One last time . Cord promised himself he’d start as soon as he obeyed whatever order Grandpa planned to give him this time.

Fletcher opened the door with a flourish, then stepped back. Cord entered the study, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Grandpa sat behind the expansive oak desk he’d owned since before Cordell could remember.

“About time you got here.”

Used to Grandpa’s gruff manner, Cord reached across the desk, and Grandpa gave a sheepish smile and shook his hand.

“It’s good to see you, Cordell.”

No one called him Cordell except Grandpa. “Your note was waiting when I arrived home from church.” Grandpa knew he attended faithfully, so he knew exactly when Cord would get the note and exactly when he’d show up over here. Cord didn’t bother to point any of that out as he faced Grandpa across his desk. “So then, what’s happened?”

Grandpa had a sheaf of papers on the silken smooth desktop. Beside the papers was a little book with an oddly marked leather cover. Cord thought the marking was an X inside a square, but it was so worn, he wondered if he was seeing it right. He’d never seen the odd book before and couldn’t begin to guess where it came from.

Grandpa twisted the papers around for Cord to see but didn’t give him time to read anything. “I’ve had a man searching old records, and he’s come across rumors of a mining claim, or maybe it’s a purchase of land. The rumors aren’t clear, but it was owned by Graham MacKenzie. My investigator got word that Frasier MacKenzie has died. Frasier’s youngest sons have vanished, but his oldest has recently arrived in the West and has taken up the treasure hunt. The MacKenzies are at it again. Trying to sneak into the area, find their grandfather’s gold, and leave with it. They’re planning to steal it right out from under my nose. The whole family is a nest of low-down vipers.”

Cord was confused. “Whole family? You know that Graham, the old man who borrowed money from you, is dead. He has to be. You’ve searched and never found him. It’s always been Frasier who’s been the thorn in your side. What other family is there?”

Grandpa tapped the papers impatiently. “It’s all in there. Frasier MacKenzie sent his son out here. Word has reached me that he arrived in San Francisco only days ago, and he headed straight for ranch called the Two Harts. Rumors suggest that’s where my mine is. He’s no doubt using the Two Harts as a base of operations while he looks for my gold to steal. Get down there, Cordell. Find Brody MacKenzie and squeeze him until he hands over the gold money.”

“Where is it?” Cord asked, though he knew the general location. He’d heard of the Two Harts. A huge ranch, one that made Grandpa Rivers’s farm look like a backyard garden. Cord’s interest was piqued because he’d like an excuse to go see it. And he had cleared his calendar by working night and day. But he’d not yet told anyone he’d be gone. He’d planned to stop by the bank tomorrow to inform them he’d be away for a time. If he gave notice of his being away too much ahead of the date, suddenly the bank would be so busy, they couldn’t do without him. It’d happened before when he wanted time for himself to go visit his ma and his other grandparents.

“Grandpa, how much money did Graham MacKenzie actually borrow from you?”

Grandpa’s face screwed up in a way that told Cord exactly how he’d gotten all those wrinkles. They fell into deep lines to match his scowl. “He borrowed one hundred dollars back in 1850. At a rate of ten percent interest.”

“Doesn’t the interest payment end when a man dies? The last you’ve heard of him was almost twenty-five years ago. If you assume Graham died about that time, he owes you one hundred and ten dollars.”

“The loan doesn’t die when a man dies!” Grandpa slammed his fist on the desk. “And that interest has been building for going on thirty years.”

“Ten percent is ten dollars per year times thirty. His descendants owe you four hundred dollars by your reckoning.”

“No, it’s been compounding. The first year, yes, he owed ten, but the next year it was ten percent of one hundred and ten dollars, and so on. It’s far more than four hundred, and besides, he promised me a portion of the mine if he failed to pay it back.”

“Grandpa, you know Frasier was a penniless old man. If there is a mine, it should go to his heirs. But there’s no evidence Frasier MacKenzie could find it. You know that. Frasier was a penniless drunk who abandoned his family to live in poverty back east. He’s never produced a penny out of that supposed mine or whatever he meant by treasure. If you foreclose on him, you’ll get a full portion of nothing, or maybe a lost treasure—which will probably never be found. So once again, a full portion of nothing.”

That set Grandpa off.

Cord backed away and sat down in one of the wing-back chairs Grandpa had centered in front of his desk. The chair didn’t usually go there. It belonged to Grandpa’s right, by the fireplace. But Fletcher always directed two footmen to move it into place, so that Cord could be comfortable while Grandpa demanded and dictated.

“Just so you know, I’m going to stop and see Ma on my way.”

Irritation flashed in Grandpa’s eyes. “I want this taken care of, Cordell.”

Cord couldn’t hold back a smile. “I work hard for you at the bank, and I don’t see Grandma and Grandpa Rivers very often, nor Ma. If I’m going to be traveling, I’ll stop and spend a few days with them.”

With an impatient jerk of his head, Grandpa said, “Just don’t forget what you’re supposed to get done.”

“I won’t, sir. I suspect I’ve got plenty of time since that family has been searching for nearly thirty years. A couple of weeks at Grandpa’s won’t matter much. I hope we can finally settle this MacKenzie business to your satisfaction.” Cord doubted it would ever happen, but one of these times, maybe he’d find enough to give Grandpa some peace.

“Now, remember I want...” Grandpa began.

Since Cord wasn’t setting out on this journey until he’d gone into work tomorrow and made sure the bank knew he was going away, he was in no hurry. And Grandpa seemed to enjoy issuing orders at the top of his lungs.

Cord settled in, hoping this wasn’t the time Grandpa’s temper tantrum gave him heart seizures. The man was in his mid-seventies, after all. He really ought to calm down.

When Grandpa finally settled down, Cord said, “I’ll leave first thing in the morning. Would you like to listen to some music before I go?”

A bit of the red color faded from Grandpa’s face. “Yes, I’d like that.”

“I play the organ at church every Sunday. It’s a majestic, finely made pipe organ. You should come with me. It’s beautiful music, and it might soothe your soul, along with the preaching.”

Grandpa managed to smile. “I will one of these days. It will be suppertime soon enough. Stay for the evening meal with me.”

Grandpa really did love his only grandson. Cord knew that, and he returned that love.

He noticed Grandpa struggling to get to his feet. Cord knew better than to offer assistance, but he walked alongside his grandpa and prayed for the stubborn old man while they proceeded to the music room.