Only 06 - Winter Fire

said.
    A cold, smooth weight settled onto her palm. Like Case, she knew instantly that no stone was that heavy.
    Nor was a handful of reales .
    â€œBullion,” she breathed. “Dear God. It’s a bar of silver bullion!”
    Disbelief and excitement raced through her. Her fingers clenched around the precious silver bar.
    â€œThere are more,” he said.
    â€œMore,” she repeated in a daze, afraid that she wasn’t understanding him. “I can’t believe it.”
    â€œGive me room to dig. You’ll believe it.”
    â€œI’ll help you.”
    â€œHoney, there’s not enough room for us to light a match wedged in like we are, much less dig together.”
    â€œBut—oh, blazes, you’re right.”
    Dragging the heavy silver bar, she eased back through the tight passage. Then she crouched a step away from the base of the rubble, balancing the bullion in both hands.
    â€œI’ll pass the bars back to you as I find them,” he said.
    â€œHow many are there?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He grunted and pushed a bar into her hand. “Start counting.”
    â€œOof.”
    â€œOof?” he said dryly. “I make it two bars so far. Here comes number three.”
    â€œWait!”
    There was a muted, almost musical clatter as Sarah dumped the first two bars against the back of the crevice. She pulled on her glove and reached forward again into the gloom.
    â€œReady,” she said.
    Another heavy, tarnished silver bar smacked against her palm.
    â€œThree,” she said.
    Without pausing she chucked the third bar off to the side.
    â€œReady,” she said.
    By the fifth bar Case and Sarah established a rhythm that varied only when the silver was difficult to drag out of the rubble. Then she would rest while he muttered under his breath and lit a match and shoved rock aside until he freed more bars.
    Shivering, cold without realizing it, she waited for silver wealth to be shoved into her hands so that she could toss it aside and hold out her hands for more.
    Rock shifted, grumbled, and filled up the hole where Case had been digging.
    â€œHow many?” he asked.
    â€œForty.”
    â€œThat’s more than we can take in our saddlebags. Especially with this added on.”
    He backed out of the hole and turned. Black coins spilled from his hands. The tarnish didn’t change the sweet chiming of silver against silver when the coins tumbled to the ground.
    â€œEnough to fill my saddlebags, and yours in the bargain,” Case said. “We’ll have to leave the bars for later.”
    â€œWhat about the packhorses?”
    â€œNo time,” he said.
    â€œWe can’t just leave the bullion here.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œSomeone might find it,” she said impatiently.
    â€œNobody has up to now.”
    â€œI’ll guard it. You go back for—”
    â€œNo,” he interrupted. “Anywhere I go, you go.”
    â€œWe can’t both stay here.”
    â€œUh huh. That means we’re both going.”
    â€œBut the rest of the silver—”
    â€œBetter hustle,” Case said, turning back to the leather sacks of reales that lay within the rubble. “It’s going to be a hell of a scramble carrying saddlebags of silver down those snow-slicked rocks.”
    Sarah’s teeth clicked as she shut her mouth. Some of her excitement ebbed when she eyed the pile of bars and the crumbling leather bags that he was gently easing from the rubble.
    Silver was unreasonably heavy.
    Like lead.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?” he said.
    â€œWings.”
    â€œYou’ll freeze to death first. Get moving, honey. You’re already shivering like a sick hound.”
    Clumsily at first, then more easily, she helped him get some of the bars down the steep side of the canyon, and then carry the empty saddlebags back up.
    Case wanted to stop with the saddlebags.
    Sarah refused.
    She wasn’t leaving until every last bar they had foundwas loaded on. She had hunted too long and too hard to leave anything behind.
    The snow had almost stopped falling by the time Case finally heaved heavy saddlebags onto Cricket’s back and buckled them in place. Sarah’s little mare was carrying her share as well.
    The packhorses had their ears laid back. The dead weight of metal was the hardest kind of load to carry.
    Cold settled over the land like a second kind of silence. Veils of snow