The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,206

needed supplies.

The first time they’d found color, Letty had been absent. She’d taken a break and gone into the bushes to pee, leaving Eulis ankle deep in water. He scooped a fresh pan of sediment from the bottom of the creek, then began circling the grit and water, letting the silt and rocks sluice out with the assumption that the gold, which was heavier, would stay on the bottom. But it called for a sharp eye and the knowledge of how to tell floss from dross. More than one man had made a fool of himself over iron pyrite, often called “Fool’s Gold”, by running into town waving a poke of the stuff. By the time the assayer’s office had verified the ‘strike’ as worthless, the miner’s face was red, and he was sneaking out of town a lot quieter than the way he’d come in.

Eulis’s hands were cold, but his feet were colder. The water was getting colder and colder by the day. Panning was soon going to be impossible once the water froze, but they had yet to find even a nugget. If something didn’t happen soon, they would have to leave. They’d never make it through the winter without food and shelter, and at the present time, they had no money for either.

With her bladder protesting, Letty tossed her pan onto the creek bank and stomped out of the water.

“Headin’ for the bushes. Be right back.”

Eulis nodded without comment. Letty’s frequent trips into the trees to pee, was a common occurrence, and no longer a source of amusement for either. He was too busy watching the bottom of his pan and the circling water as it washed out the dirt and pebbles, when it suddenly dawned on him that this time, there was something in the bottom that hadn’t been there before.

He straightened abruptly and almost ran out of the creek, afraid that he was mistaken, and then afraid if he’d really found gold that he would spill it back into the water from which it had come.

“Oh man,” he muttered, as he dug through the tiny grit and sand, then pulled out the small nugget. It was a bright spot of color, and appeared as if it had once been liquid before hardening somewhat flat.

He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, then laid it in the palm of his hand and tilted it toward the sun. It didn’t exactly sparkle, but there was a slight glimmer, and that was good enough for him. He curled his fingers around the rock and yelled.

“Letty!”

“Just a minute!” she yelled. “I’m busy.”

“Letty! You gotta come here!”

“For pity’s sake, Eulis! I said… I’m busy!”

“Leticia!”

She stood up from behind some bushes, holding up her pants with one hand, as she parted the bushes with her other.

“What?”

He held out his hand. “I think I found gold!”

Letty gasped as she ran from the bushes, forgetting that her pants were not fastened. Two steps later she was flat on her face, with her pants around her ankles.

Eulis ran to her.

“Dang, Letty! Are you all right?”

Ignoring the fact that Eulis had a more than ample view of her bare butt, Letty rolled over and got up, pulling her pants as she went.

“Let me see! Let me see!”

Eulis grinned. “Soon as you button your britches.”

“Eulis!” she begged, and then began fumbling with the buttons.

He laughed again, filled with joy, and a hope that he’d thought himself too far gone to ever know again, and opened the palm of his hand.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

Letty extended her hand as Eulis laid the nugget in her palm.

“Oh lord,” Letty whispered. “Just look! Oh, Eulis… just look!”

“I’m lookin’,” Eulis said, but he was no longer looking at the nugget. He was looking at Letty.

She was bone thin, with a scrape on her nose where she’d just taken a fall, and her hands were callused and rough, even cracked and bleeding in places from the water and the cold. There was a bit of red leaf stuck on the braid down her back, and she was about the prettiest woman he thought he’d ever seen.

Letty turned the nugget over and over, mentally marking and weighing it in her mind.

“Reckon it’s some of that Fool’s Gold?” Eulis asked.

“No. I looked at that stuff real close in the assayer’s office. This is the real stuff, Eulis! The real stuff!”

Then she threw her arms around his neck and started jumping up and down.

Eulis grabbed the back of her britches to keep them