Something More (24 page)

Angie shook her head. “I can't.”

A look of pure rage blazed in his eyes. “By God, I'll make you go!” he roared and took a threatening step toward her.

Luke moved into his path. “Careful, old man,” he warned quietly.

“You have a care,” Saddlebags snarled right back. “An' get her outta here!” He flung a hand in Angie's direction, then took off, vanishing into the brush only yards from camp.

Although she was reluctant to admit it, the fury in his expression had left Angie a bit shaken. She tried to cover it with a show of casual indifference as she sipped at her coffee.

“I wouldn't discount him as being totally harmless. There was some truth in what Saddlebags said,” Luke told her. “I hope you realize that. For years, he's lived out here like an animal. And animals are very territorial.”

“Yes, but his bark strikes me as being too loud and too ferocious,” she remarked, thinking back over the encounter. “He wanted to scare me, I think—and he almost succeeded,” she acknowledged with a wry smile.

“Maybe it's too bad he didn't,” Luke mused.

Determination lifted her chin. “I am not about to give up before I've even begun to look.”

Luke made no comment and glanced instead at the rock formation. “Saddlebags certainly didn't give any credence to the shadow thing.”

“He mighta been tryin' to throw us off the scent, too,” Fargo suggested.

“Maybe.” Luke nodded slowly and swung back toward the fire. “We'll know for ourselves in a couple more hours.”

With the sun sitting atop the rim of the western horizon, Luke and Angie climbed to the base of the stone pillar and halted in its shade. The long shadow it cast stretched far across the valley, its black finger pointing toward a treed slope on the far side. Through the binoculars, Luke scanned the area.

Lowering the glasses, he informed Angie, “There's no entrance to any canyon over there. Which means this isn't the right pillar.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Look for yourself.” He offered the binoculars.

“Oh, I believe you,” she assured him.

“Then what are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed in puzzled confusion.

Angie hesitated, then smiled ruefully. “I have a confession to make, Luke. I wasn't entirely honest with you the other evening.”

“About what?”

“When I let you believe there wasn't anything particularly significant about the postscript that was underlined in the letter,” she replied. “You see, I'm ninety-eight percent certain that it's really the key to the entire message.”

“What? How?”

I
gnoring his questions for the time being, Angie asked, “Do you remember what the postscript said?”

“Not exactly, no.”

She dug the folded copy of the letter from her jeans pocket and handed it to him. With the sinking of the sun, a breeze had sprung up. It tugged at the edges of the letter when Luke unfolded it.

He turned, using his body to shield it from the playful wind, and reread the postscript aloud.

“ ‘Remember. Always remember God's way is not man's way.'” He arched a questioning glance at Angie. “Which means what?”

“Which means . . . God's way is usually the exact opposite of man's way—or woman's, for that matter.” But Angie could tell that Luke didn't follow this line of thought. “For example, the three things most people want are money, power, and position. But the three things that God values are generosity, service, and humility. In other words, a person with a giving heart, someone who puts the needs of others before his or her own, and someone who doesn't think he or she is better than anyone else.”

“I see.” Frowning thoughtfully, he examined the letter again. “So you think this postscript was deliberately underlined to indicate that—”

Angie jumped in with the answer, “All the instructions in the coded message need to be reversed. Instead of an evening shadow, it's a morning one; instead of following the right wall of the canyon, you go left.”

“It sounds reasonable.” But there was a note of reservation in his voice.

“It has to be that way. It's the only thing that makes sense.”

“Why?”

“Because my grandfather knew about the twelfth-word code. He had deciphered the message before he came out here, yet in his last letter he wrote that it was all confusing—nothing made sense. Which can only mean the instructions in the message didn't lead him to the gold.” Eager, excited, energized—she was all those things. The animation in her face and eyes fascinated Luke. “When I realized that, I knew there had to be something more in the letter. Something more than that kindergarten-level code.”

“And you're convinced it's the underlined postscript,” Luke stated.

“Why else did he underline it?” Angie reasoned. “Something tells me there isn't a single thing in the letter that's there by accident. Ike Wilson carefully thought through every word and every stroke in it. I've often wondered how many drafts he made. I know he must have been worried that someone other than his wife would read the letter and stumble onto his simple, twelfth-word code. Somewhere along the way, he came up with the idea of flip-flopping the direction. After that, it was probably an easy step for a minister's son to make the connection with God.” She paused for a breath, her eyes sparkling. “So, in a way, I was truthful when I told you that I thought the postscript was underlined for emphasis. But what I didn't tell you was that it's the second—and vital—key to the message. Without it, we could look for years, just like Saddlebags, and never find the gold.”

“If you're right,” Luke tacked on the qualification.

“Like I said, I'm ninety-eight percent sure I'm right. Let's find out if I am.” Her smile radiated confidence when she reached for his hand and led him around to the other side of the towering boulder. “Look.”

With the sun's red blaze directly in his eyes, it was a moment before Luke could block off enough of its glare to see where she was pointing. There, half hidden by the long shadows of sundown, was the entrance to a canyon.

“I'd bet anything,” Angie said, “that the rock's morning shadow will be aimed directly at the mouth to that canyon. What do you think?”

He checked the stone pillar behind him, gauged the placement of the sun, and nodded agreement. “I think that's a safe bet.”

“So do I.” The certainty of it smoothed her expression and brought a glow to her eyes. “Plus, the pillar is close enough to the entrance that Ike Wilson would have noticed the reach of its shadow when he and the gang rode out of the canyon in the morning.”

“It sounds like you think they camped there the night before.”

“It would have been logical.” She turned from the canyon entrance and the setting sun's blinding glare. “After all, they'd ridden long and hard to elude the pursuing posse. Their horses had to be exhausted from carrying the double burden of the gold. And, it had to take them some time to stash the gold where it couldn't easily be found. I don't think they just dumped it somewhere and tumbled a bunch of rocks over it.”

From somewhere off in the distance came the putt-putting rumble of an idling engine. Luke turned an ear to it, trying to discern the direction of it, but it had bounced and rolled off too many rocks and hills to make any accurate determination.

“What's that?” Angie wondered.

“It sounds like the neighbor's ATV. He must have been out fixing his fence this afternoon,” Luke guessed.

“On an ATV?” Angie considered the choice of transportation curious, to say the least.

“Bob claims he can haul more with an all-terrain vehicle,” Luke replied, then added with a grin, “but the real truth is, he can't stand horses.”

“A rancher who hates horses?” Angie repeated incredulously. “Isn't he in the wrong line of work?”

“He probably was until they came out with ATVs.” A faint smile continued to crease his cheeks. “Now, he does just about everything but rope off of one.”

“It might be a bit difficult to dally a rope around the handlebars,” she remarked, amusement dancing in her expression.

“More than a bit, I'd say,” Luke agreed with a smile, then glanced toward the west. Only the top half of the sun remained above the rim, staining the sky around it with its crimson hue. “We'd better head back to camp while there's still some light.”

Without conscious thought, Luke placed a hand on the back of her waist and guided her toward the campfire's flickering light. Far off, an engine revved. The breeze stiffened, carrying the noise of it to them and making it seem much closer.

Astride the ATV, Griff Evans roared along the bed of the coulee, steering well clear of the camp Luke and the Sommers woman had set up near the base of the valley's first stone pillar.
The wrong pillar,
he thought and smugly smiled to himself.

Perfect timing, that's what it had been, reaching the valley while there was still enough daylight to see that the shadow from the first pillar pointed to a solid slope; there wasn't a canyon within fifty yards of it. Now the Sommers woman was stuck in camp for the night while he checked out the other formation. Luck was still running with him.

The coulee bed roughened before him, forcing Griff to ease back on the throttle, reducing the engine's roar to a steady rumble. Sunset's shadows thickened around him, the gathering darkness warning him there wasn't much light left. He pulled down his protective goggles, letting them hang about his neck, and increased the speed a notch, ignoring the jolting bumps it caused.

He spotted the second rock tower just ahead and slowed the vehicle again. This time the long shadow stretching from it wasn't as distinct in the dimming light. The edges of it blended with the surrounding darkness. But there was a canyon on his left. As close as he could tell, the shadow fell about five feet to the right of the opening to it.

Deciding that was close enough, Griff drove out of the coulee and swung toward the canyon. Camping there tonight would put him a jump ahead of the others. If his luck held, tomorrow he'd locate the eagle rock and the gold before the Sommers woman reached the canyon.

Suddenly everything smelled sweet to him.

After making a final check on the horses, Luke headed back to the camp, the boot scuff of his steps sounding loud in the evening stillness. Behind him there was the companionable chomp and rip of a horse tearing off another mouthful of grass, while from the campsite came the muted clank of the coffeepot as Fargo puttered about, readying things for the morning.

The fire burned low, throwing off a dim and wavering glow that deepened the shadows surrounding it and cast a flickering highlight over the nearest tent canvas. Automatically Luke scanned the outer ring of the fire circle as he drew near camp. He identified Fargo's bulky shape right away, but there was no sign of Angie.

He glanced toward the tents, thinking she might have turned in for the night, but all three appeared empty. He checked the path to the latrine area next, then caught a glimpse of her silhouette, outlined by the star-studded night sky. She faced the canyon, but her head was tilted toward the heavens.

Altering his course, Luke crossed to her. “Star gazing, or thinking about the gold?” he asked, a whisper of amusement in the question.

Her lips curved in a warm and easy smile. “Actually, I was thinking about my grandfather, trying to imagine how he felt the first night he spent in this valley.” She spoke in soft tones. The evening quiet seemed to dictate it. “Was he nervous, excited, eager? Was he thinking about the gold, or had his thoughts turned to home?”

“Assuming he was ever here,” Luke inserted, his mouth quirking.

“Oh, he was here.” Angie was positive of that. She could almost feel his presence. “It's funny,” she mused idly. “Even though I never knew my grandfather, my grandmother talked about him so much that it feels like I did. I guess it's true that memories can keep people alive long after they're gone.” Her glance strayed to him, soft with understanding. “But you know that better than I do.”

“Yes.” Luke was jarred by the unexpected reference to the loss of his wife and son. He hadn't wanted to be reminded of them, not at this particular time.

But Angie didn't appear to notice. “One thing I'm certain about, though—my grandfather was as awed by this sky as I am.” Once again she lifted her gaze to the multitude of stars strewn across the night's velvet-black curtain like one-carat diamonds across a jeweler's cloth. The sight drew another sigh of admiration from her. “I keep telling myself these are the same stars that shine every night over Iowa, but they seem more beautiful, more magical here.”

“There's no competition. No streetlights, no houselights, no headlights, no yard lights.”

“You're right, I know,” Angie agreed grudgingly. “But logic somehow takes away the wonder of it—the mystery. I don't want to know why. I just want to look and marvel. That probably sounds silly to you. No doubt you've seen so many night skies like this, you take them for granted.”

“Probably,” he agreed, but it was her profile he was studying, the pale radiance of her face in the starlight, and the dark, almost black, shine of her auburn hair. Her nearness livened his senses, making Luke aware of the stirrings inside. “I was dead to a lot of things for a long time.”

She threw him a side glance, her dark eyes alight with approval and amusement. “That's encouraging.”

He drew his head back in genuine puzzlement. “What is?”

“You used the past tense,” Angie replied, making a quarter pivot to face him, all confident and vibrant.

His glance drifted to her lips, lying together in a faintly curved line, their rounded contours soft and inviting. He felt the pull of them—of her—but resisted.

“I'm not sure that's a good thing,” Luke stated a bit more harshly than he intended.

That hint of a smile vanished from her face, her expression taking on a sad and somber tone. “No, I don't imagine you would think it is, would you?” she said, then murmured, “poor Luke. Being careful not to care too much about anyone or anything probably seems the best way to protect yourself from being hurt again.” Angie cupped a consoling hand to his face. “I'm sorry.”