A Daughter's Quest (15 page)

Constance glanced down the street toward the smithy. Hans was out front shoeing a horse. Since he hadn’t been back long, he should be occupied for a while. She needed to test out her theory that the gold was buried on the farm.

She hurried to the boardinghouse and put on her riding clothes. After stopping in the kitchen to tell Mrs. Barker that she would be gone most of the day, she headed to the livery. Soon she rode Blaze back to the boardinghouse to get a large tow sack that contained the shovel and a rope. She hadn’t wanted to take them to the livery with her because Charlie might notice and ask questions.

Feeling at one with the horse, she spent the ride to the farm in a pleasant lope. After she arrived, she led him to the spring quite a ways into the woods behind the house. Constance tied the rope to a small tree, giving the horse plenty of room to graze and reach the water when he was thirsty. Taking the shovel and sack, she went back to the front porch, where she sat down on the edge and glanced around.

If I were a man, where would I hide the gold?
There were plenty of places. Would Jim Mitchell have wanted to keep it hidden from his parents and even his brother? Maybe he would bury it in the edge of the woods behind the house. She left the sack on the porch and walked around the building, carrying the shovel.

It had rained often this spring, bringing forth a multitude of plants and flowers. That also helped keep the ground from being so hard. The loamy soil under the trees turned easily. She dug at the base of one tree then another. When she didn’t hit a strongbox very soon, she moved on to other trees.

Dirt streaked her hands and arms, and the work caused sweat to pop out on her brow. She swiped it away with her forearm, then noticed the muddy smear on her arm where she had pushed up the sleeve when she first felt the heat. Probably there was one on her face, too. At least no one would see her like this. She went back to the spring and knelt on a rock ledge beside the pool. She reached into the cold water and rinsed her hands and arms before splashing some on her face.

Why didn’t she wait until she had a drink before she did that? Now the water in front of her was dirty. Constance moved along the side until she came to a spot where the water was clear and clean before she cupped her hands to bring the soothing liquid to her mouth. Most of it drained between her fingers. She stooped farther down, with her face almost at the surface of the pool and tried again, hoping she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall in. As wetness trickled down her throat, the cool liquid soothed her thirst.

“So, Blaze, are you enjoying your rest?” Constance walked over to the horse and patted his neck.

The shadows thrown by the trees around her gave her a lonely feeling. If only she could find the gold soon and be on her way.

She returned to the clearing that contained the house. Maybe he hid it in the root cellar. After the fiasco of the last time she had entered the house, she didn’t look forward to going in there again. But she had watched the way Hans carefully tried out each board before he put his full weight on it. She could do that.

After taking a deep, fortifying breath, Constance walked into the dim interior. She tested every board that was left in the floor of the main room. None of them gave way. The trapdoor to the cellar was in one corner of the room, near a window. She pulled back the curtains, and sunlight streamed through the space, highlighting the hole in the floor. She lifted the trapdoor and placed a tentative foot on the steps cut into the rock supporting the house.

Constance tiptoed down and bent her head so she could move around. She felt like an old woman the way she had to walk. She plunged the long shovel straight down into the dirt over and over, trying to find the treasure. The only hard thing she hit was the rock foundation.

When her back ached so much that she couldn’t stand it another minute, she went back to the opening and climbed out. After letting the trapdoor down over the hole, she turned around in the sunlight.
What a mess!
Dirt covered every inch that she could see of herself. She felt sure there were no clean spots on the part she couldn’t see either.

Now what should she do? Maybe Jim Mitchell hid it in front of the house. After hiking the shovel onto her shoulder, she went back outside and started to work. She turned over some dirt, pushed the shovel deeper into the soil several times, then moved on to another place. Methodically, she made her way back and forth across the meadow.

When Constance finished, she hadn’t found anything but rocks, roots, worms, and bugs. What a waste of time. If she had been back home with her father still alive, he would have made use of the worms and bugs to go fishing.

She went back to the porch and dropped to sit on the front edge. Where had Jim Mitchell hidden the gold?

She tried to figure out reasonable things that could have happened. Perhaps he had other men help him, and one of them hid the gold. Maybe they all wasted their ill-gotten gain in riotous living. She had heard that ungodly men often did that. Since she had done everything she could to try to fulfill her promise to her father, maybe it was time to give up and get on with her life.

Constance smiled at the last thought. What would getting on with her life entail? The question brought a familiar face into her mind. Sparkling blue eyes that had darkened almost to navy when they were last in the mercantile. The only blond hair that she had ever wanted to run her fingers through. That man was too disturbing for her peace of mind.

When he lifted her hand and took a bite of the stick of peppermint she held, for a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her fingertips. Just as quickly, she wanted him to, even though there may have been other people near them. She didn’t know if there were because all of her attention concentrated on the tall, brawny man whose eyes haunted her dreams, whether she was sleeping or awake.

She relived his full lips closing around the candy, and Constance wondered what it would feel like to have them touching hers. When that thought entered her mind, she touched her fingers to her mouth, and a sigh escaped from her soul. These thoughts were too disturbing, so she jumped up and started toward the spring. She might as well clean up and prepare to ride Blaze back to town. After glancing around the clearing, she knew that she couldn’t leave without filling in all those holes, but first she needed a cool drink of water.

What was I thinking?
How often had Hans asked himself that question since Constance fell out of the stagecoach into his waiting arms? More times than he wanted to count. She was constantly in his thoughts, making a home for herself that he didn’t want to disturb.

When Charlie came back to pick up his horses, he mentioned that Constance had rented Blaze for a ride. Now Hans raced down the road toward the Mitchell farm. He had become complacent, and Constance had just been biding her time. What was so important that she had to keep going out there and endangering her life? Was she looking for something? If so, what could it be?

Maybe her father had given Jim Mitchell something that he wanted Constance to retrieve. It made sense. Even though sometimes Hans had thought something wrong was going on, the explanation could be as simple as that. Why hadn’t he trusted Constance? Given her a chance to tell him in her own time?

Hopefully, his haste wouldn’t be needed, because she wasn’t in any danger, but something pushed him on. For some reason, he felt that Constance needed him today. Surely it wasn’t because she was in peril again.

When he approached the farmhouse, he slowed Blackie to a walk. Fresh tracks led toward the house, but when they turned off the dirt road, they were swallowed up in the thick grass. He looked up from the tracks and couldn’t believe his eyes.

The meadow in front of the farmhouse was pockmarked by many places where someone had been digging. He walked Blackie between them, being careful to keep the horse from stepping in one of the holes. Even by the porch was evidence of more digging. At the bases of the trees on the edge of the woods that surrounded the meadow on three sides, holes looked like some kind of open wounds in the earth.

Hans dismounted and stepped up on the porch. The recesses of the house weren’t as dark as they had been the last time he was there. He glanced around inside and noticed that some of the curtains had been pushed back so that sunlight poured into the room.

“Constance, are you here?” His words echoed in the empty space.

Through the hole in the floor, he noticed that someone had been digging in the cellar, too. After carefully making his way around the opening, he opened the two doors that led off the main room. Both of the other rooms looked undisturbed. All the furniture, as well as the floor, wore a heavy coat of dust.

Where can she be?

Outside once again, Hans took a deep breath and walked toward the edge of the cliff.

Before Constance tried to get all the dirt off her hands and face, she made an attempt to remove the soil from her clothing the way Hans had before. A branch from a nearby bush worked fine on the front and sides, but she couldn’t reach the middle of her back. She must look a sight with most of her clothing freshened and a streak running down one side. She’d make a pretty good skunk, wouldn’t she?

That thought introduced the idea that these woods could contain one of those notoriously malodorous creatures. Hadn’t she heard somewhere that they were nocturnal animals? Hopefully, any that lived near here were. Being on the receiving end of a spray from one of the black-and-white-striped animals would completely ruin the day.

What about her problem with her clothing? Constance walked over to a sturdy tree and rubbed against it with her back. Maybe that would help some.

Since she had done everything she could to clean off her dress, she knelt beside the clear pool. She had been so preoccupied when she was here earlier that she hadn’t noticed the abundance of smooth pebbles that lined the bottom. Varying shades of browns, black, and white—some with shiny specks—formed a beautiful mosaic created by nature. Constance dipped one fingertip into the water, and ripples spread in ever-widening circles.

Her life was like that. She had spent so many years settled into her home in the Ozarks, but now her life spread across two state lines. Who knew where it might lead? She hoped that she presented to the world as pleasing a picture as the rocks in the bottom of this spring.

Another picture whisked into her mind, blurring out the pool and bringing a catch to her breath. Scenes played one after the other. Hans catching her in his strong arms with a startled expression in his blue eyes. Hans working in the Community Garden, taut muscles rippling with the rhythm of his work. His white teeth sinking into the peppermint stick with his lips wrapping around it, barely missing her fingertips. These thoughts did nothing to cool off Constance from her previous labors. If only she had her folding fan that rested in the top drawer of the chest in her room at the boardinghouse. She would put it to good use.

Constance shook the thoughts from her mind and concentrated on washing her hands, arms, and face. Then she pulled her sleeves back down and buttoned her cuffs.

She walked over to the grazing horse. “Blaze, it won’t be long until we start back to Browning City.”

As Constance approached the edge of the woods, she thought she heard a male voice. Were there other men? She only heard one. Who could that be? Did she need to hide from the man?

She carefully worked her way between the bushes and trees without making a sound. When she peered around the trunk of one of the last large trees between her and the meadow, she saw a man standing near the edge of the bluff. Immediately, she recognized his clothing and the way he stood proudly with his head flung back. The sunlight glinting on his hair gave his locks a golden glow. What was Hans doing here?

He hadn’t noticed her, and he continued to talk with a loud voice. She wondered if he was calling to someone across the Mississippi. Surely the river was too wide for him to be heard, even though he was shouting. Then she heard him say, “Lord.” She stealthily moved closer to the house until she could understand every word.

“Lord, what am I going to do about Constance? You know how I feel about her, but is it Your will for me to spend so much time with her? How can I keep her safe if she won’t tell me the truth? What is she looking for, and why won’t she let me help her? Lord, I need some answers from You, and I need them as soon as possible.”

Hans stared at the patchwork of cultivated ground across the river. Some farmer over there had started his spring planting. Too bad no one was working this farm. This year’s planting season would soon be over. He thrust his hands into the back pockets of his trousers. Trying to take his mind off Constance only worked for a few seconds.

“Help me here, Lord. I really need You.”

The snapping of a twig cut into the silence at the end of his sentence. He whirled and stared straight into the face of the woman who caused him so much unrest.

For a moment, her eyes widened. “Hans,” she called to him. “What are you doing here?”