«Only if you’re building a house. Some people fancy a roof or a floor of slate.»
«Do you?» she asked, curious.
He shook his head. «More trouble than it’s worth, far as I’m concerned. Wood is easier, prettier, and smells better.»
Reno went to the back of the alcove where the ceiling sloped sharply down to the rubble pile. He kicked at some of the smaller stones. They were a mixture of the same rock layers that made up the alcove itself.
Putting his fists on his hips, Reno looked at the unpromising stone layers and the equally unpromising meadow beyond the alcove. He and Eve had found all the proof anyone would need that Don Lyon’s Spanish mine existed — except the mine itself. That had eluded them. Nor had Reno been able to find any promising outcroppings of rock.
And during the night, the aspens just above the head of the valley had turned gold. If he was going to find the mine this season, he would have to be quick about it.
«Now what?» Eve asked.
«Now we go over the perimeter of the meadow again. Only, this time, we’ll use the Spanish needles.»
CLOUDS billowed upward in seething mounds turned gold by the afternoon sun. Lightning licked delicately over the face of a distant peak while rain fell in a shining veil. Over everything, even the storm, arched a cobalt blue sky. In the sunlight the temperature was hot enough to raise a sweat. In the shade it was as cool as quick- silver rain.
Reno and Eve appreciated the shade. They had already made one circuit of the valley, to no avail. Walking and keeping the rods in contact had proven to be exacting work. It was also oddly exhilarating, even though nothing had been found. The intangible, eerie currents kept Eve and Reno alert and aware of both each other and the sensuous riches of the high mountain day.
«Once more,» Eve said.
Reno looked at her, sighed, and agreed.
«Once more, sugar girl. Then I’m going to try my hand at catching trout for dinner. That way the whole damn day won’t have been wasted.»
Hobbled horses grazed at the mouth of the meadow, standing sentry even as they ate. When Reno and Eve stepped from the lacy shadows cast by a small stand of aspen, the lineback dun threw up her head to test the air. She quickly recognized their familiar scents and went back to cropping grass.
«Ready?» Eve asked.
Reno nodded.
They moved their hands slightly. Metal notches met. Ghostly currents flowed.
No matter how many times it happened, the tingling, shimmering sensation made Eve’s breath catch. It was the same for Reno, a hesitation in breathing as the world shifted with immense subtlety, making room for the impossible merging of self with other.
«On three,» Reno said in a low voice. «One…two…three.»
Slowly, with carefully matched steps, Reno and Eve worked their way down the margin of the small valley. Hours ago they had started working with the needles here, then had gone on to other parts of the valley.
Only in retrospect had this section of the valley’s perimeter seemed different. Here the needles had been fairly humming. Here they had kicked and shivered and jostled.
Reno and Eve had assumed it was their own lack of skill rather than anything else that had made the needles so twitchy. Now they wondered if it might have been the presence of hidden treasure that had animated the slender dowsing rods.
To Eve’s right a small ravine opened, choked with brush and rubble from an old rockslide. To Reno’s left lay the valley itself. Ahead of them and around a rocky nose was the alcove where an Indian slave had laid down histenatefor the last time.
Silently, intently, Reno and Eve worked their way along the edge of the valley. Rarely did the needles come apart, despite the rocky, uneven terrain and the detours around trees or fallen logs. With each step, the metal sticks shivered almost visibly.
«Stop pulling to the right,» Reno said.
«Stop pushing,» she retorted.
«I’m not.»
«Neither am I.»
As one, Reno and Eve halted and looked at the needles. Here was pointing almost straight ahead instead of lying along her hand. His was at a right angle, as though pushing — or being pulled.
Slowly Eve turned to her right. Reno followed, matching his movements to hers as though he had spent his life sharing her breath, her blood, her very heartbeat.
When the needles were straight once more, the debris of the old landslide confronted Reno and Eve. Step by careful step, they walked along the landslide’s raggedly curving edge. The needles pivoted slowly, as though pinned to a point uphill and beneath the pile of rubble.
«Up,» Reno said tersely.
Together they scrambled up the slide, moving in unison despite the uneven terrain, like two cats chasing the same mouse with sinuous, nearly matched strides. Despite that, it should have been impossible to keep the needles in touch.
It proved to be impossible to keep them apart.
Suddenly the needles dipped, jerked, and pointed down, vibrating so fiercely, it was all Eve could do to hang on to hers.
«Reno!»
«I feel it. My God, I feel it!»
He slipped the hammer from a loop on his belt and jammed the handle into the rubble where the needles pointed, marking the spot.
«Keep going up,» Reno said.
They clambered up the last ten feet of the landslide. The needles grew calmer the higher up the slope they were carried.
«Back down to the hammer,» he said.
When they were back at the hammer, Reno looked around, orienting himself.
«Left,» he said, pointing with his free hand. «Toward the alcove, but stay as much on a line with this part of the slide as you can. Ready?»
«Yes.»
As they stepped forward, Eve’s tawny eyebrows came together in a frown of concentration that made Reno want to pull her close and kiss away the small lines. But he knew better than to reach for her while they were holding the Spanish dowsing rods. The one time he had put his hand on her when the rods were touching, desire had flooded through him so hotly it had almost brought him to his knees.
Although Reno didn’t understand the energy that coursed so fiercely through the slender metal sticks, he no longer doubted it. Sunlight wasn’t tangible either, but when focused through a magnifying glass, it could set fire to wood. In some uncanny way, the Spanish needles focused the intangible currents flowing between himself and Eve.
As Reno and Eve moved away from the rockslide, the pull on the needles diminished, but not as quickly as it had in the uphill direction. When they retraced their steps and walked in the opposite direction, the pull fell off quickly, leaving the metals sticks feeling almost lifeless in their hands.
In silence they walked out into the meadow and looked back at the rockslide.
«It felt strongest to me about two-thirds of the way up the rockslide,» Eve said finally.
«Same for me.»
Reno checked a compass reading.
«Going toward the nose is the next best pull,» she added.
He nodded and took another compass reading.
«What does it mean?»
He put away the compass and looked at Eve. Beneath the shadow of her hat brim, her eyes glowed as golden as a harvest moon. The curve of her lower lip reminded him of how sweet it was to run the tip of his
