if you want to look at every boulder for a turtle, I won’t get in your way.»
Eve grimaced. The little valley was carpeted with boulders of all sizes and shapes.
«A burn scar on the north side of —» she began.
«Burn scars heal,» Reno interrupted. «Little trees grow into big ones. Big ones die and get blown down. Lightning starts new fires. Downed trees rot or are overgrown with brush. Landslides change the shape of the mountain.»
«But —»
«Look up there,» Reno said, pointing.
Eve looked and saw a pale scar on the mountain where rock and thin soil had sheered away, scouring down a ravine and finally filling it, burying whatever might have been a landmark before.
«That could have happened twenty years ago or two hundred and twenty years ago,» Reno said. «Without evergreens or aspen growing in the scar, it’s hard to tell. Fireweed and willow or alder can grow in a few seasons and regrow each season forever. Landmarks that rely on plants are damn near useless.»
«Then how are we going to find the mine?» Eve asked in dismay.
«The same way you found thearrastra. Look for something out of place, and keep on looking for it until it jumps up and slaps you in the face.»
For the rest of that day and all of the next, Reno and Eve quartered the valley like patient hounds, crossing and recrossing the area around the overgrownarrastra. They found a rectangle whose outline had once been logs and now was little more than a mulch in which various plants flourished. They found bits of leather nearly petrified by long exposure to the dry, cold mountain air.
They found no sign of the mine itself.
Eve scrambled up a rubble slope and found a shallow alcove tucked beneath a wall of rock, protected from all but the most violent storms. With an eye sharpened by hours of searching, she noted that the lines of rotting wood that came out from the alcove were too orderly to be accidental. Once there had been a lean-to or shed extending outward.
In the farthest recess of the alcove Eve found a pile of rubble and a crushed sack made of woven leather strips. Nearby were the charcoal remains of an ancient fire. Quickly she went to the ledge and called across the meadow.
«Reno! I’ve found signs of men up here!»
A few minutes later Reno came up the slope like a cat, fast and surefooted. He took in the alcove with a swift glance that missed nothing.
Bands of different rocks made faint patterns on the walls and ceiling and floor. He ran his fingertips over the surface of the ceiling, feeling the marks men had left when they used picks and hammer stones to widen and deepen the natural alcove.
The shelter could have been a mine head, a living space, or a storage area. Near the remains of the ancient fire were pieces of crude pottery and a rotted wooden shape that might have been a spoon. That suggested a cooking fire, which suggested that men had lived in the alcove rather than mined it.
Turning to the leather sack, Reno sat on his heels and poked at the stiff leather weave. Bits of white stone were caught between pieces of leather. Frowning, he looked again at the rock that made up the alcove’s walls and ceilings. No streaks of white caught his eye.
«Is it the mine head?» Eve asked when she could no longer stand the suspense.
«Could be, but it looks more like slave quarters.»
«Oh.»
«See this long strap attached to thetenate?»
«Tenate?What’s that?»
«A sack or basket for carrying ore. See this thick strap? The padded part rested on the slave’s forehead. The rest of the strap went back over his shoulders and attached to the sack.»
Eve frowned. «That’s an odd way to carry anything.»
«It works better than you’d think,» Reno said. «You lean forward and take the weight of thetenateon your forehead and back. That leaves your hands free for mining or climbing or balancing on the chicken ladders. You can carry a hundred pounds like that all day long.»
She looked dubious.
«In fact,» Reno continued, «I’ve carried more than that, back when I was young and foolish enough to try mining rich man’s gold with a poor man’s tools.»
«Maybe you could carry a hundred pounds all day,» Eve said wryly. «I’d be lucky to lug half that for a few hours.»
Reno’s mustache shifted over a quick smile, but he said no more. Instead, he sat on his heels again and began digging at the remains of the woven leather.
«What are you after?» she asked.
«Pieces of ore are still caught in the weave.»
Eagerly Eve bent forward. «Really? Let me see!»
He pried out a piece of the pale, opaque quartz. Whistling softly between his teeth, he turned the fragment of ore over and over on his palm. The jagged bit of quartz was no bigger than the ball of his thumb.
«Pretty, isn’t it?» Reno murmured.
«It is?» Eve asked, unimpressed.
Smiling, Reno turned and held his palm closer to Eve’s eyes.
«See the bright specks mixed in with the white?» he asked.
She nodded.
«That’s gold,» he said.
«Oh.» Eve frowned. «Goodness, it couldn’t have been a very rich mine.»
The disappointment in her voice made Reno laugh out loud. He tugged lightly on a stray lock of her hair.
«Sugar girl, it’s a good thing you dealt a gold prospector that pat hand back in Canyon City. You could have walked right over the strike of a lifetime and not known it.»
«You mean this is worth mining?» Eve asked, flicking her fingernail against the quartz.
«It’s one of the richest pieces of ore I’ve ever seen,» Reno said simply.
Eve gave him a startled look.
«If the vein was more than a few inches thick,» he said, «the Spanish priests had themselves one hell of a gold mine somewhere around here.»
«Somewhere. But where?»
Thoughtfully Reno tucked the ore into his pocket, went to his saddlebags, and pulled out an odd hammer. Shaped like a small pick at one end and a squared-off hammer on the other, the tool was handy for knocking off chunks of rock to see what lay beneath the weathered surface.
Steel rang against stone as Reno raked and gouged at various points along the alcove’s ceiling and walls, testing the different layers of stone. The unweathered fragments that came away were lighter in color than the surface rock, but none was as light as the fragment of ore.
Eve peered at one of the gouges Reno had abandoned.
«Look!» she said suddenly. «Gold!»
Reno didn’t even pause in his hammering. He had already seen and dismissed the flecks of shiny stuff that were exciting Eve.
«Pyrite,» he said. «Fool’s gold.»
Steel rang fiercely against stone.
«Not real gold?» she asked.
«Not real gold,» he answered. «Wrong color.»
«You’re sure.»
«It’s the first thing a prospector learns.»
Rock showered down like a sharp rain. Reno looked at the fresh gouges.
«Slate, through and through,» he muttered.
«Is that good?»
