Tabitha Read Free Page B

time, but its treasure
was long gone when Cray paid good, cash money for it.
    Disheartened and with little cash left, we bought what
supplies we could in a disreputable boomtown called Fullman. Then we walked on
into the desert where rumors promised better prospecting. Sassy carried our
tools and tent, a couple of weeks’ of food—if we were careful—and two large
casks of water.
    When we arrived at this spot, two weeks back, weary
in foot and heart, I spied a patch of green at the base of the hillside over
yonder. I called Cray’s attention to it because the green was so out of keeping
with the bleak shades of brown surrounding us.
    We searched for and found the spring that fed the green
patch. It was not much more than a slow seep, really. The tepid liquid
dribbling up from the ground was likely the only water source for miles around.
Cray studied the rocky hillside above the water and decided the looks of it
suited him.
    “That there rock face has gold in it, or m’ name ain’t Cray
T. Bishoff,” he had muttered.
    We dug a basin in the earth to catch the water from the
seep, and each day I strained what pooled in the hole through a scrap of
canvas. It was not much, that little bit of water, but it was enough to keep us
and Sassy alive day to day.
    Cray erected our tent on a low mound nearby, one of the
thousands of mounds just like it dotting the desert around us. Then fourteen
long, scorching days dragged by.
     
     
    As the sun drooped closer to the horizon, I stood and put my
hand to my eyes to shade them. In every direction I turned, the view was the
same. Undulating dunes and gullies. Sparse cacti and brush. The same landscape
in every direction except for the hillside Cray had climbed with Sassy this
morning.
    The low hill just west of our tent, the one Cray had staked
our futures on, was the lone geographical variation within sight. Not another
marker stood in the wild, barren land to hint at where we were. Not another
vestige of human life stirred.
    I again stared into the distance. Not for the first time did
the notion of being left alone and adrift in this bleak wasteland cause my
breath to hitch in terror.
    “Where is he?” I whispered.
    Cray never missed an evening meal, little though it was.
     
     
    Cray had been enthusiastic when we had arrived at this
place. “I’ll find gold here. I know I will—that hill has the look of it,” he
boasted. “And when I’ve made my fortune, we’ll go back to Texas. I’ll buy me
some land and some cattle.”
    He had stared with fierce determination at its rocky face.
“Yep. I’ll get the gold first. Land and cattle next.”
    “And then we’ll get married?” I had demanded. My words were
sharp. The shine had worn off our relationship in the few months we had been
together. We quarreled more than once during our fruitless travels, and I often
gave Cray the rough side of my tongue.
    “Oh, sure, sweetheart. Sure. We’ll get married.” But he had
frowned and seemed distracted as he said it.
    Cray had left off reciting the promises by which he had
lured me into coming with him. The very absence of such assurances frightened
me.
    “Like you promised,” I insisted, my temper—and
apprehension—ratcheting up another notch.
    He had rounded on me then. “Y’know, Tabitha Hale, no man can
abide a nagging woman. You’d best consider that.”
    His cold, detached tone and the way he had clenched his jaw
shocked me. I recoiled as surely as if he had slapped me.
    Later, after my distress calmed, I finally admitted to
myself that I had made a mistake—a horrible mistake. Cray was not the man I had
thought him to be, any more than I was the sweet, biddable woman he had thought
he was getting.
     
     
    Cray had begun his prospecting that first morning with
optimistic energy; he returned that evening wordless. The next day he clamped
his lips together and, with Sassy in tow, hiked up the hill again. That night
he came back to camp, dour and uncommunicative.
    I did