Cranby had assumed Angstrom was just one more, and like the other land holders, he had engaged his services to ferret out some as-yet unexhausted lode of something, anything. And he would have been right. Angstrom had no other plans in mind, not other expectations. He had had some luck in some earlier forays, some modest returns, which with his Army pension and some savings, had bankrolled a trip out here to the ungovernable New Lands.
But he had been drawn to the bleakness of the canyonlands, the sun-blasted plains with their irregular tailings, looking not unlike fossilized coproliths. He didn’t find it beautiful, but there was some attraction nonetheless. The expansiveness of the wastelands, the lack of large details, the monochromatic tonality all made each small nuance worth a second look. It was unlike the softer, more richly detailed places he was used to nearer the coasts. The wide variety of greens, blues, blacks, and browns in the ground details, to say nothing of the rainbow variety in the flowers and leaves, was almost overwhelming. The beauty he saw there was of a textbook quality, It was a received idea of beauty. This harsh monochrome landscape with its rich palette of browns forced the eye to really see, to analyze and dissect as one would a flower, to understand the component parts that made the scenery what it was.
Cranby mistook this penchant for deep seeing, for drinking in details, for some kind of magic. He was convinced that Angstrom was weighing up clues that would lead him to some unworked hoard he would exchange in the cities for a fortune, a reward that Cranby felt was his by right. Had he not worked — or paid others to work — these lands more completely than anyone? Had anyone caused more earth to be turned, more stones to be broken, more caves to be explored and excavated? And as he narrowed down the places where he could count on finding what had been overlooked by others, this ambitious showboat with his shiny tools and curious experiments was on the verge of taking it all. If not for that fool Jackson he might know where it was, and with the help of a backdated claim document, it would be his, even if Angstrom had already produced something of value.
He stormed over to a large table and pulled out a rolled-up map from a round bin, untying the red tassels that held it closed, and spread it on the table, displacing an inkwell and some papers. The ink flowed across the floor as he stared at the map, measuring with his thumb and smallest finger the distance from where Jackson claimed he had lost his quarry and any unexplored holdings. There were not that he did not own outright or have knowledge of how others had fared. Even given the ruthless competition, where anything short of killing was fair play, most of them let slip where they had turned up nothing. They could be cagey about it — Cranby almost never revealed his lost chances — and most only under the influence of a late night session in one of the taverns. Cranby’s secrets were always about places where no one would have expected anything to turn up. This had the advantage of making Cranby look like one of the regular guys without giving anything away, and by revealing that he had wasted time and money on an unpromising spot, made him look no wiser than the rest of them. He never let slip how little he put into these deliberate failures, preferring to keep those facts to himself. His various hired hands — the likes of the unpopular Jackson — never knew themselves if he really expected to find something or if he was just going through the motions.
He kept poring over the map, trying to see something he had missed. Why had Jackson persisted in such an unbelievable lie? That hedgerow was flanked by a sheer stone wall. Even if Angstrom had somehow jumped it, he would have broken his horse’s neck on the rock and likely his own into the bargain. A faint smile played over his usually pursed lips at the thought. What if Jackson had spoken a partial truth? What if Angstrom had somehow tried to jump the hedgerow and he and that horse were lying dead between it and the cliff face? That was a fine horse and he wished he had known it was going to be in the auction. The Army usually unloaded swaybacked old care horses and various superannuated nags that cost more to feed than they could be counted on to haul. That mount was an exception and he wondered how the Army had come by it.
Perhaps there was something in Jackson’s tale after all. If Cranby hadn’t over-reacted, he could have asked Jackson to return to the spot and take a closer look, perhaps see if they were lying there, maybe find some other clue.
No, he would leave Jackson out of it. Better to let another do that, make Jackson aware the task had to be finished by someone else, and let it be known by all that there is always work for trustworthy men who can follow instructions.
Rodrigo was the best choice. He had not been lying low after an unfortunate accident with another treasure seeker, his pack mule, and some explosive chemicals. Parts of man and beast had been found all over El Dorado for days afterwards, and Rodrigo had been lucky to escape a legal proceeding. If his former employer had not had a reputation for being sloppy with dangerous materials, it might have gone badly for him. No one had engaged his services since, but that was more a circumstance of there not being any work available than a punishment.
Cranby resolved to look up Rodrigo in the morning and see if he could put him on the job of validating or disproving Jackson’s story. How would he explain what he wanted? He couldn’t tell him that Jackson had been following Angstrom and lost him and that majestic mount. He had to come up with some convincing reason why he needed someone to look along and if need be behind the hedgerow for — what? He would need to work that out.
He walked back to the cabinet for another drink, remembered what had happened to the glass, muttered an oath, and poured himself another. He dropped into a large chair, closed his eyes, leaned back and tried to work out his reasoning for Rodrigo’s assignment.
* * *
Therian and I walked on across the prairie, following paths that led this way and that, occasionally climbing a small rise to look at some distant spot, now a mountain peak, now a distant glittering lake. As the day wore on, it became quite warm. Looking back I couldn’t see any trace of the village, and began to wonder about little luxuries like food and drink. All this walking was thirsty work, and breakfast had been some time ago as well.
“You need not look back. No one will follow us out here.”
“Not what I was worried about at all. But that is the only place I know of where I can be reasonably sure of a meal . . . ”
“Oh, well, if that’s what you’re after,” he said with a booming laugh. The big man reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and hauled out some packages in greasy, stained wrappings, and tossed me one. I gingerly opened it and found more of the mixed paste I had had when I arrived, together with some spongy, tangy bread. It was solid and easy enough to eat, so long as you didn’t mind sticky hands.
From the top of another rise, Therian pointed as a wavy contour just ahead.
“Behind that is a small stream, fast, clear, and cold. You can drink from it if you’ve a thirst to go with your food. We’ll be there shortly.”
We walked down to the prairie floor and I followed as he broke a path through the long grasses. The dissonance between what I was seeing and the red stone canyon lands was jarring. The ground was soft underfoot, springy and full of life, not hard, sharp, and often given to sliding out from under my feet. The stream could be heard now, some riffling sounds from water washing over rocks and dropping into little pools, and regular drips as dew fell from the grasses and twigs that hung over the stream.
It was in front of us so suddenly, I nearly fell in and would have had not Therian stopped first. I stood on the bank and looked down into the clear, fast-moving water. It was clear as glass, smoothly covering the rounded rocks, with lacy edge of foam around the downstream edges. The stream banks were sheer, about three feet tall, and topped with the grasses we had walked through. The banks were white and rocky from the waterline to about a foot higher, then the ground turned a deep chocolate brown, a rich soil, right up to the surface where I could see some roots cutting through.