When Eve realized he was staring at her, she gave him an odd, bittersweet smile.
«Don’t worry, sugar man. You’re safe. I’ve seen ships made of stone and a dry rain, but even the smallest light casts a shadow.»
Before Reno could think of an answer, Eve urged her horse forward, heading deeper into the mountains, searching for the only thing the man she loved would count on.
Gold.
For two more days they followed a trail that was so old it appeared only to the half-focused eye or very late in the day, when sunlight slanted steeply and was the color of Spanish treasure. The valleys they rode through became smaller and steeper the higher they rode in the mountains. Every afternoon thunder rumbled through the mountains while first one peak and then another played host to the elemental dance of lightning. Rain came down cold and hard, running off the trees in veils of silver lace.
Between storms, aspens on the highest slopes lifted their golden torches to the indigo sky. Deer and elk were everywhere, fleet brown ghosts that withdrew before the horses. Creeks of startling purity abounded, filling shadowed ravines with the sound of running water. Only game trails were visible. There were no tracks of wild horses or man, for there was nothing on the steep slopes or in the rugged mountain canyons that couldn’t be found more easily at lower elevations.
When Reno and Eve came to the last, high valley described by both the shaman and the Spanish journal, they rode its length silently, looking all around.
There was no sign of Cristobal Leon’s lost mine.
19
«It's hard to believe we aren’t the first people to see this land,» Eve said as they came back to the mouth of the small valley.
«Feels that way,» Reno agreed, «but there’s plenty of signs that men have been through here.»
He reined in, hooked his right leg around the saddle horn, and lifted the spyglass again, but not to look at the meadow. Slowly he surveyed the green patchwork of forest and meadow falling away to the dry lands below, seeking any sign of the men he was certain were following them. The brass casing of the spyglass glowed in the muted light with every shift in direction.
«What signs?» Eve asked after a minute.
«See that stump at the edge of the meadow, right in front of that big spruce?»
Eve looked. «Yes.»
«You get close enough and you’ll see ax marks.»
«Indians?» she asked.
«Spaniards.»
«How can you be sure?»
«Steel ax marks, not stone.»
«Indians have steel axes,» Eve said.
«Not when that tree was chopped down.»
«How can you tell?»
Reno lowered the spyglass and gave his attention to Eve. He had come to enjoy her curiosity and quick mind as much as he did her feline grace.
«That big spruce has roots that were shaped around the fallen log that came off that stump,» Reno said. «Since the spruce has been there a long time, the log must have been there, too.»
«Why would someone go to all the trouble of chopping down a tree and not take it?»
«Probably they were forced to leave by weather or Indians or news that the Spanish king had double-crossed the Jesuits and they could look forward to going home in chains.» He shrugged. «Or maybe they only wanted the top of the tree to use as thatching or to make a chicken ladder for the mine.»
Eve frowned. «What’s a chicken ladder?»
«If I could find the damned mine, I’d probably be able to show you one,» muttered Reno, putting the spyglass to work again.
«If you stopped looking over our back trail, maybe you’d find the mine,» she said dryly.
With an impatient movement, Reno collapsed the spyglass and straightened in the saddle.
«There’s nobody there,» he said.
«I think you’d be happy about that.»
«I’d be a lot happier if I knew where they were.»
«At least they can’t be preparing an ambush up ahead,» Eve pointed out. «There’s only one way into this valley.»
«Which means there’s only one way out.»
Distant thunder rumbled from a peak that was buried in a mound of clouds. Wind twisted through the forest like an invisible river, stirring everything within reach of its transparent currents. The air smelled of evergreens and an autumn chill sliding down from the heights, riding the crest of a golden wave of aspens.
Reno looked around with narrowed green eyes, bothered by something about the high valley that he couldn’t quite define.
Yawning, Eve closed her eyes, then half opened them, enjoying the rich color of the late afternoon light and the knowledge that they would be making camp soon. Lazily she looked around, trying to guess if Reno would choose this place to camp or press on beyond the head of the valley to see if there was a way through the massed peaks.
An odd pattern of meadow growth caught Eve’s attention, plants arrayed in a nearly perfect circle. She knew that natural outlines were rarely geometrical. Man, not nature, had invented formal gardens with precise curves, right angles, and hedges pruned into unlikely shapes.
The circular patch of plants lay near one of several small springs that formed the headwaters of a branch of the creek that drained the valley. Eve reined the lineback dun closer to the plants. Dismounting, she went to check the circle on foot. At its edges the ground was bedrock covered by a thin skin of soil. Yet in the circle itself, there was a profusion of plants that usually preferred richer ground.
When Reno turned to say something to Eve, he saw that she was on her hands and knees at the edge of the meadow. In the next instant he realized what had seemed wrong to him about the landscape.
Beneath the growth of grass and trees, there were angles and arcs that suggested man had once cut, cleared, and built in the meadow.
Reno dismounted in a rush, grabbed a shovel from the outside of one of the pack saddles, and headed for Eve. She looked up as she heard him approach.
«There’s something odd about this,» she began.
«There sure is.»
He positioned the shovel, rammed it home with his boot, and struck stone six inches down. He went to another part of the circle and then another. Each time it was the same — six inches of plants and soil, and then solid stone.
Reno walked slowly toward the center of the circle, testing the depth of the soil every few inches. When he got to the center, the shovel bit deeply but didn’t find stone.
«Reno?»
He turned to Eve with a slashing grin and pure excitement dancing in his green eyes.
«You found yourself anarrastra, sugar girl,» he said.
«Is that good?»
Reno’s laughter was as bright and golden as the sunlight.
«It sure is,» he said. «Next best thing to finding the mine itself.»
«Really?»
He made a purring, rumbling sound of satisfaction.
«This is the center hole,» Reno said, gesturing with the shovel for emphasis. «It supported the mill that dragged the stone over the ore, crushing it as fine as sand.»
Before Eve could ask a question, Reno bent and began digging once more, working methodically until he had bared a section of rock.
«They worked this crusher long and hard,» he said. «The millstone wore the bedrock down so much that it left a circular trough for plants to grow in once the mine was abandoned.»
«What turned the millstone?» she asked. «Even with a dam, there isn’t enough water in the little springs to do the job.»
«No sign of a dam anywhere nearby,» Reno said.
The shovel scraped against bedrock, gouging away dirt, leaving bare stone behind. Cracks and seams in the surface were marked by soil that was darker than the stone.
«They could have used horses to turn the mill,» Reno continued. «But likely it was slaves. They had more of them than they had horses.»