Denver

Denver Read Free Page A

Book: Denver Read Free
Author: Sara Orwig
Tags: Romance, Western
Ads: Link
scooping his winnings into a bag. He saw the curious gleam in Silas’ eyes and knew his friend was too polite to ask questions. Tigre jingled the bag. “This goes to the bank. I always keep my money in the bank until I move on. I’ve got my cash under another name.” He paused, his face flushed with embarrassment. “I’ve been thinking about it. I might start using another name all the time.”
    “Hell, that’s not so bad. Lots of men have done that.”
    “I didn’t make much of a change: Dan Castle,” he said, tucking his blue chambray shirt into his faded denim pants.
    Silas knotted his forehead a moment as if considering the name, and he nodded. “That’s fine. Want me to call you Dan instead of Tigre?”
    Tigre nodded. “I feel peculiar with it right now. I might not answer you, but I ought to start getting accustomed to it. If the wrong person hears you calling me Tigre, or word gets around about Tigre Castillo, it’ll be easy for bounty hunters to pick up my trail.” He knotted a bandanna around his neck, hiding the old scar.
    “Okay, Dan Castle it is. I’ll start gathering up supplies. Go to the bank and then to work.”
    “Here’s money for my share of the supplies,” Tigre said. Then he left, striding down the wide dusty street lined with adobe structures. Saloons were more prevalent than any other businesses.
    Tigre climbed rafters, nailing boards in place, watching Enrique when he could. While it wasn’t sheep ranching, his first love, he liked the work in the open, using his hands. There were moments he was tempted to stay until he knew more about building. And Enrique Cordoba had already made Tigre a good offer.
    They waited three more weeks before Silas felt ready to travel. At dawn one December morning they left town, heading north, and in another week they stopped in Sacramento to get the rest of their supplies. Facing the prospect of winter in the mountains, they decided to stay in Sacramento, where Tigre went to work for another builder, discovering techniques and styles that were far more intricate than those used by Enrique Cordoba. In late February they left town with two pack burros trailing behind them. By now Tigre was accustomed to the name Dan Castle.
    “We’re looking for placer gold,” Silas said, pronouncing the word in a rasp, “plass-er.”
    “What’s placer gold?” Dan asked, thinking of the dance-hall girl he had left behind.
    Silas ducked his head beneath a low-hanging limb. “Placers are deposits washed down from a vein. It’s ore on top of the ground, covered only by a thin layer of soil or a stream. For some reason—erosion or rivers—lodes get exposed. The gangue, worthless minerals mixed with ore, will crumble, and rain or meltingsnow will carry it downhill. The best placers should be in foothills where swift-running mountain streams level off and drop their treasure. Watch for gravel bars or transverse ridges, rim rock protruding from streams, anything that becomes an obstacle where specks of ore will lodge.”
    “You can see it?”
    “No. In that pack your burro is carrying is a pan. You scoop up dirt and swish it around in the water. The dirt will wash out, and hopefully you’ll find a scad of gold remaining.”
    “Sounds like hunting a diamond in a gravel pit,” Dan said dubiously.
    “Wait until you find your first nugget.”
    “Bucking the tiger might be more certain,” Dan rejoined, thinking about his faro winnings.
    When they reached Stockton, rumors of gold began to crop up. Six weeks later they found a prospector panning for gold in a clear stream. They headed east, camping by a swift-running stream in the Sierra Mountains. Both of them worked, icy water sloshing over Dan’s hands until they became numb while he fanned out the drag, looking for color.
    Once he gazed down and his breath caught as bits of shiny rocks glittered in the sunlight.
    “Silas! Silas!”
    Silas dropped a pick and came running through the middle of the creek,

Similar Books

Step Across This Line

Salman Rushdie

Flood

Stephen Baxter

The Peace War

Vernor Vinge

Tiger

William Richter

Captive

Aishling Morgan

Nightshades

Melissa F. Olson

Brighton

Michael Harvey

Shenandoah

Everette Morgan

Kid vs. Squid

Greg van Eekhout