Blogathon 2006: Chapter 12.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post
"Gold."
It was always about gold. All gold was fool's gold as far as Dove was concerned. You couldn't take it with you when you were six feet under and it was as likely to help you get that way a lot faster than if you didn't have any to start with. If every preacher he'd ever tried to ignore was right, all gold was just street covering anyway.
Brand nodded. "Is there anything else, when you get to the root of the matter?"
"Women."
"Women tend to flock towards the gold, anyway, so really, it's all about the gold. And not just a little bit of prospectin' gold, but a huge amount. We're talking about the mother lode."
"Cattle."
Brand sighed. "Have you met some of the women out here? They're like cattle. It's always, always about the gold."
"Someone's got it and Solitaire wants it."
"Well, that's just it - someone has it, he wants it, but no one is sure who has it."
Dove shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't it be obvious who has found that much gold?"
"No. Someone dropped of a small piece here at the paper with an inquiry on how to go about selling it. I may have let it slip when I wrote it up in the next edition. You can't blame me," Brand said defensively, seeing Dove's eyes grow a bit cold. "How can I respond to an anonymous person except by the only method I know how? All I said was that there wasn't a single person in this town I'd trust with given a person a fair exchange on gold much less shooting you when you turned to leave."
Dove had had enough. "You must know why I'm here, what I'm needing to do. I aim to misbehave and that aim is fixed on Solitaire."
Brand walked over to his desk and, pushing aside stacks of raggedly torn paper filled with scratchings, pulled out a blank sheet. "You need to go see Bliss Lomax. I have a feelin' she knows more than she lets on, particularly in this area. I'm also suspicious that Solitaire knows that, too."
"Her husband recently got dead?"
"It's the way of Crossfire Trail, unfortunately." Brand had finished drawing a crude map on how to get to the Lomax ranch. "You'll have to pass through some rocky country to get there, but if you leave now you might not have much riding in the dark to deal with."
Dove turned to leave, but Brand stopped him. "I mean to wish you good luck. I'm not quite the coward you might think I am." He paused before finding words. "I've been working on this problem the way I know, and my way is with ink, not with a gun."
Dove nodded. He could understand.
Brand went on. "Watch yourself. You've already started something in motion and you're caught up in it, whether you're feelin' it or not."
Dove saddled up his horse at Zane's, stopping by Jubal's General Store for a few provisions to carry with him. He didn't know how long he'd be gone or what he'd find in store for him once he hit the open country; being prepared as best he could was all he could do.
He looked down at the map Brand had given him and noticed with some dismay that the name of the trail through the buttes and open country was called the Last Trail. Funny how names were coming into play lately; that wasn't a name he was wanting to play with. And though he didn't like it when he was wrong, he hated it even more when he was right: a short two hours later he found himself cowering behind a rock outcropping, a pistol taking pot shots at him from across the trail.
Labels: blogathon
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 7/29/2006 02:29:00 PM
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4 Comments:
Is Christopher Walken going to be in this story? Because, you know, it could use ... more cowbell.
-- Corrine
By 
, at
29/7/06 14:57
I was actually going to mention in yesterday's pre-Blogathon post that no, Christopher Walken would not be making an appearance.
Then I thought, "Only a true pest would be so pesty. No one will hassle me like that."
Voila! Lo and behold, my friend Corrine comes through for me.
Thank you.
By 
Julie, at
29/7/06 15:05
Julie, you are a friggin' genius. Just when I thought there was no way you could outdo your work from last year...
My goodness.
Wish I could stay around and wait for every post, but that's not my lot this time around. I'll have to read them all later/tomorrow.
Awesome!
By Jim, at
29/7/06 15:08
*shakes fist* Bastards. Oh - you were featured over at bSpies!
:-)
By Sara, at
29/7/06 15:16
