Chapter 1
“Put your back into it, girl!”
Lily O’Connor was 12 years old and never happier than when covered in mud. When she’d agreed to help Pa with his latest hairbrained scheme, she thought it might be like a vacation that the rich folk in the cities take. You know, a few days drinking lemonade in the sun and not having to worry about tending to the chickens. Or sweeping out the house. Or cutting up firewood. Or any of the thousand and one chores that Ma had her do all day. It was a break too from attending lessons in Miss Foster’s schoolhouse, which were always as dull as cowpats. Who cared about arithmetic when there were rabbits to catch?
“Searching for gold ain’t no walk in the park. It’s hard work! It’s the American way!” continued her pa.
“I can feel the muscles in my back twisting into knots and my arms are on fire!” Lily said.
“Good!” replied Pa. “Nobody got nothing without suffering. It’s character forming. You want to go off tracking on your own, show me you’re up to the task.”
Still, the hunt for gold wouldn’t last long because his schemes never did. Give it a few more days, thought Lily, and he’ll be back to being the town’s cooper. A job, he’d explain, there was no shame in having. Imagine a world without barrels (for that was what a cooper made). How would food be transported? Water? And he’d like to see the local tavern, The Lonesome Dove, store their drinks without barrels.
It had been a day’s journey from their home town of Coyote Ridge. Her feet still ached from the long walk. It would have been easier with horses, but Pa had sold his two months earlier, and some of the proceeds had gone towards the equipment he needed now. They still owned Simon, the donkey. That animal had a permanent sadness to his face and not only because he was a donkey. You should have seen the way Pa had loaded him up for the journey. If you screwed up your eyes, you’d have thought the bunch of bags and supplies were somehow moving themselves.
But they’d made it to the location on Pa’s map without too much trouble. And Lily pointing out a set of wolf tracks helped no end.
Despite Ma saying there was no chance that they were ever going to find gold so close to the town, Pa’s enthusiasm could sometimes make you feel like anything was possible. Even gold.
On the first night, lying around the campfire, they’d spoken about what they would buy if they were to strike it rich.
“A library of books!” said Pa. “I knew a man in Salt Lake City who had a room full of books. Imagine that.”
It was no surprise what Lily wanted. “A horse, and I’d call him Marengo, and we’d ride to the horizon and back.”
They slept well that first night, content with dreams of fortune and glory. The howls of distant wolves and growls of closer bears didn’t even keep Lily awake. Well, not for the whole night, anyway.
Chapter 2
Really, it was Pa’s enthusiasm that caused the accident. If he’d been more careful, it might never have happened. Ma was always saying he acted like a kid.
“Gold! Lily! Gold! Get over here, my little whippersnapper!”
They were in a grassy meadow, alongside a shallow running stream. Multicoloured butterflies fluttered through the air like falling gold leaf. It seemed a shame they’d ruined such a beautiful scene.
Still, Pa’s plan for finding gold was simple. First, you panned in the water. This meant filling your pan with grit and dirt from the riverbed, then