Only 06 - Winter Fire

know that no Indian left it here. They didn’t have metal.”
    She turned and looked at him with wide, radiant eyes.
    â€œThe Spanish did,” she whispered.
    â€œSo did a lot of others since them,” Case said. “It’s a long way from a scrap of harness to three hundred pounds of silver.”
    But the heightened gleam of his eyes told Sarah that he was excited, too.
    She started forward to see what else might be behind the low, crumbling wall. Then she hesitated.
    Be there , she prayed silently. For Conner. He deserves better than life has given him .
    â€œSarah?” Case asked, touching her arm. “Is something wrong?”
    â€œSo many hopes,” she said simply.
    Pain twisted through him.
    â€œDon’t let hope get to you,” he said. “All it will do is hurt you.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Memory hurts. Hope heals. Without it, we would spend our life in pain.”
    Saying nothing, Case let go of her arm.
    Sarah crawled around the low wall and peered into the darkness beyond.
    Darkness looked back at her.
    She dug beneath her poncho and carefully pulled out a tin of matches. After a moment, flame leaped at the end of a tiny wooden stick.
    There was nothing behind the ruined wall but more rectangular chunks of rubble.
    Disappointment went through her like black lightning.The match burned down, flickered, and died, scorching her glove. She didn’t notice.
    For a long time she didn’t move. Then she sensed Case crouched in the gloom just behind her.
    She turned toward him.
    â€œThere are other canyons,” he said quietly.
    Though she nodded, she made no move to turn and go. Her hand was clenched so tightly around the fragment of harness that even her glove couldn’t soften the bite of metal against flesh.
    â€œWere there any other ruins in this canyon?” she asked.
    â€œI didn’t see any.”
    â€œThen there aren’t any.”
    He didn’t disagree.
    â€œIt was a long shot,” she said after a time. “There isn’t a red finger nearby. I thought maybe it came down in the last big flood a few years back.”
    â€œWhen your husband died?”
    â€œYes,” she whispered. “Hal told Conner that he would never find the silver until the old ones came back and opened their hiding places, and the red finger would point the way.”
    â€œDid Hal talk much about his treasure hunting with Conner?”
    â€œHe only talked about it once,” she said, “when he was dying. He was always tormenting Conner.”
    Hal baited him once too often , Case thought.
    But he didn’t say it aloud, for he had promised Conner.
    â€œIs this the canyon where it happened?” he asked after a moment.
    â€œI think so. From what I saw when I was gathering wood…” Her voice died.
    Case looked at Sarah sharply. She didn’t realize it. She was staring out at the snow with eyes that saw only the past.
    Suddenly she shuddered.
    â€œDead man’s silver,” she whispered. “Just like you said. I’d never touch it but for my brother.”
    For the space of several breaths he looked out at the snow, thinking about the huge mound of flood debris they had climbed to get to the insignificant ruins. The fingers of red stone that stuck up all over the wild land looked permanent, but he had seen proof in more than one canyon that even stone gave way over time.
    â€œHow far back do the ruins go?” he asked, looking into the darkness.
    â€œI don’t know. There’s a lot of rubble about five feet in front of me.”
    â€œMay I see?”
    Wordlessly she crowded against the solid stone that formed the back side of the crevice.
    There was just enough room for him to squeeze by her. He set aside the shovel and eased forward. As he moved, his poncho scraped and snagged on the ragged ruins, dislodging a rectangular stone.
    The rock tumbled out of the crevice and vanished into the thickly falling snow. From the sounds that came back, the stone struck the steep side of the canyon a few times, then hit the top of the flood debris and stopped moving.
    Snow muffled all echoes with silence.
    He struck a match and looked into the darkness just beyond the fitful flame. Once the floor had been smoothed by hands long dead. Now it was buried by broken stone once more.
    Silently he measured the height of the ruins, the depth of the crevice, and the size of the pile blocking his way.