The Project 01 - White Jade

cloud passing below . She thought about her uncle and her parents.
    She could remember her parents , but s he couldn ' t quite remember their voices. The day everything changed, she ' d been playing by the window at home . She wasn ' t supposed to . S he was sick and supposed to stay in bed while her brother and her mother and father headed down Highway One toward Big Sur.
    When her Uncle came into the room she ' d known something bad had happened . He ' d started to tell her but s he wouldn ' t listen, drowning his words with a song she ' d learned in school the week before.
    The engines droned outside her window. I should have been with them in the car , she thought . If I ' d been there it would have been all right. We would have stopped somewhere, to get something to eat or so I could go to the bathroom or something . T hen they wouldn ' t have been there when th e truck came around that curve.
    Her fault.
    She 'd buried the guilt and armored herself against the world . She knew she'd done it, she wasn't unaware. er armor was B e t he best in everything. Sports, dangerous hobbies, martial arts, academics. All that success, all her training, hadn't prepared her for this. S he was n't in control anymore. She couldn't make things work the way she wanted.
    It scared her , and that was something new. She didn't like it.
    She took a few deep breaths and glanced again at Nick. This man doesn ' t scare, she thought. Maybe he ' ll make it right, if anyone can.

Chapter Eleven

    Carter watched the crowd as they walked through the airport terminal. Nothing seemed out of place. Nobody paying any attention. The shuttle dropped them in the lot and they walked over to his Silverado . A light coating of dust lay on the windshield.
    He opened the door for her. " Climb in . Not like your Merc, but it's pretty comfortable. "
    He took them out of the airport onto I-5, then moved onto 99 North and headed for the Sierra foothills. It was a classic June California afternoon, clear and in the eighties.
    " Tell me about where we ' re going. "
    " Connorsville, " she said. " In Gold Rush days it had saloons, hotels, fifty bordellos and five thousand miners and Chinese living in shacks and tents. "
    " T he Chinese again. "
    " T hey did the heavy work. There are stories that they dug secret tunnels leading away from Connorsville and the mine . They did that in Marysville and Sacramento. W e never found any , though . My uncle always warned me not to go into the mine. It ' s not safe. "
    She looked out the window. " M y uncle had a metal detector. We ' d walk around where the town used to be and find all sorts of things. It was fun. "
    " Did you find gold? "
    " A coin and a couple of nuggets. O ne was almost as big as my hand. "
    At Marysville they picked up Highway 20 and turned east, past flat, green rice fields and wide pastures spotted with cattle. A flight of white herons exploded into the air from one of the ponds alongside the road.
    After a while, they crossed the Yuba River . A few minutes later Selena pointed ahead.
    " The turnoff is up there on the left. The bridge looks bad, but it ' s safe to drive over. Just go slow. "
    He turned onto a short stretch of rough pavement and across the bridge. It looked like it was ready to collapse . Signs warned off trucks and trespassers. They bumped across and followed a gravel road in. On the right a tall, brick chimney rose from the weeds and brush, a ghost from California ' s golden past.
    " Is that what ' s left of the town? "
    " That was the Wells Fargo building . Follow the road down, over there. "
    The ground sloped away through a field of tall grass dotted with blue oaks. In the spring it would be green as Ireland , ablaze with orange poppies and wildflowers in white and yellow and purple. Now, as the heat of summer built, the flowers were gone . T he grass was turning golden brown and dry.
    The road curved and dropped down. The house came into sight between two large outcroppings of rock rising out of the grass . T he river was a hundred yards beyond.
    The building was single story with a green metal roof, stained log siding and a pillared porch in the old country style. A broad swath of gravel lined with white rock spread out in front. Tall camellia bushes bursting with red blossoms lined and crowded the porch. In the yard he saw the ore cart.
    " Where ' s the mine? "
    Selena pointed through the windshield. " Down there on the left toward the river, on the other side of the hill.