Some Thoughts Will Win
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In the morning after their arrival, they all went into town for supplies. The men were anxious to get back and resume work, but Mr. Larkin seemed reluctant to leave. Finally, he did decide to return with the rest of them, promising that if anything came up which might call him back, he would send word by telegraph or telephone.
They had no reason to doubt his promise; so they took off again on the same trail they had followed in leaving the previous day.
It was early afternoon before they reached the next ranch where they stopped for lunch and a few hours rest. As soon as they ate, they saddled their horses, and when they returned to camp they found that the others had already made themselves at home there—the cook preparing food and washing dishes, and the children playing around the fire pit.
Mrs. Dinsmore was also busy getting supper ready; so she asked Mr. Larkin whether he wanted her to stay until he arrived later that night. He told her not to worry about it. But he didn’t feel comfortable staying without her, so he decided to go back with the men.
He said goodbye to everyone and rode away quickly. Mrs. Dinsmore waved at him from across the clearing. He waved back and continued on down the trail. After he disappeared around the bend, she watched him disappear for several minutes and then went over to where the women were talking.
“I think you could do a better job than that,” Miss Marston told her, nodding toward the man who had left them only an hour ago. “He’s certainly not good-looking enough.”
Mrs. Dinsmore smiled. “Not every woman likes handsome men,” she replied.
Miss Marston shrugged. “Maybe not. But I do.”
She looked pointedly at Mrs. Dinsmore. “You’re pretty, too,” she told her. “If any man should have chosen you instead of me…” She let the thought die between them. They both knew what she meant: “Instead of me, he would be a happy man!”
When Mrs. Dinsmore got back to the camp, she found Mrs. O’Leary stirring something in a pot. “What’s cooking?” she asked her.
“Stewed beef,” Mrs. O’Leary answered. “It’ll taste good tonight after we’ve eaten our fill of fried chicken this afternoon.”
The two women laughed together and went into the tent together to help get supper ready. When Mrs. O’Leary started to take some potatoes out of the bag, Mrs. Dinsmore stopped her. “Don’t bother,” she told her. “We’ll just eat the ones we brought with us.”
That saved time and energy. And although Mrs. O’Leary was disappointed at missing out on eating one of her favorite foods, she understood. So Mrs. Dinsmore helped her get dinner ready while Miss Marston and Mrs. O’Leary cooked stew. While they were doing this, Johnnie and Frank went to look for more wood.
While they were gone, Mrs. Dinsmore sat on the edge of the wagon seat beside the girl who had been sent to watch the children earlier. She picked up the little boy and held him against her shoulder.
For an instant, she wondered how she had ever managed with three boys of her own at once. Then she put the boy down and turned back toward the tent. Mrs. O’Leary was handing plates around and pouring coffee into cups.
“Let’s sit here,” Mrs. Dinsmore suggested, pointing to a low rock near the fire pit.
They sat down facing each other, and Mrs. Dinsmore gave Mrs. O’Leary a cup of coffee and a piece of the pie. She also poured another cup for herself, which she enjoyed drinking. The coffee, hot chocolate, and pie helped relax her body and mind.
But she still felt uncomfortable. She had never known anyone like Mrs. O’Leary before, but the older woman was pleasant company nonetheless.
Mrs. O’Leary offered to wash the dishes first, saying that she preferred to use clean water to wash the pots rather than using cold water heated over a fire. But Mrs. Dinsmore insisted that she help her.
Together, they scrubbed the dishes with sand and soap, rinsing them before hanging them on a line to dry. It was almost dark before they finished and then went back to the tent. Before she left, Mrs. Dinsmore told Mrs. O’Leary that she hoped she would get to see some wild animals soon.
“Wild animals?” Mrs. O’Leary echoed her words as she handed her a piece of bread. “Why, yes,” she said quietly. “There are many in these parts.”
Mrs. Dinsmore nodded. “I saw my first bear today,” she said. “A black bear that had killed a buffalo bull. We were following its trail. It led us to a herd of elk that were grazing along the riverbank.”
Mrs. O’Leary stared at her as if she were crazy. “Did you kill it?” she asked.
“No!” Mrs. Dinsmore answered sharply. “The beast is alive. Just so’s you know.”
“So did you kill those other four buffalo bulls?” Mrs. O’Leary continued.
“Four?” Mrs. Dinsmore repeated. “Oh, no! They were all dead and gone when we got there.”
“But you said you shot that bear,” Mrs. O’Leary reminded her.
“It was a mistake,” Mrs. Dinsmore told her. “I meant to shoot at the bear, but fired the gun by accident.”
Mrs. O’Leary looked unconvinced. “You’re sure it wasn’t an Indian?” she pressed. “Some tribes believe in the magic of certain animals and will send them out to attack.”
“Indian magic?” Mrs. Dinsmore scoffed. “You mean the kind where Indians ride horses?” As she said this, her tone made clear that she thought Mrs. O’Leary was a silly, uneducated woman. Her voice grew louder and stronger until Mrs. Dinsmore stopped her with a warning look.
“Well, what do you think about that bear, anyhow?” Mrs. O’Leary persisted. “Do you think it was trying to warn us off the buffalo herd or something?”
“Who knows? I guess it could have been,” Mrs. Dinsmore conceded.
Mrs. O’Leary smiled at her and sipped her coffee as if they were best friends who knew everything about each other. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what tribe that bear belonged to?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Dinsmore said. “We won’t be coming back this way for a long time to come. Besides, it’s getting late. Let’s go back inside and get ready for bed.”
Mrs. O’Leary seemed disappointed but not surprised when Mrs. Dinsmore declined to talk more about the bear. After they retired to their sleeping bags for the night, Mrs. O’Leary rolled closer to the fire than Mrs. Dinsmore; she kept one eye on the flames while the other followed Mrs. Dinsmore, who lay on the opposite side of the tent.
The next morning, Mrs. Dinsmore woke before anyone else in camp, although she tried to sleep longer. Mrs. O’Leary was already up too. They walked together outside. The sky was gray and the air smelled like smoke.
The horses were saddled and readied to move on, and Tom and his men were busy tying up the wagons and packing up their things. They exchanged nods, and Tom gave them a thumbs-up sign as he rode away from camp.
“How much farther do we need to travel?” Mrs. O’Leary asked Mrs. Dinsmore.
“Another two hundred miles to Fort Laramie,” Mrs. Dinsmore answered without hesitation. “That’s our destination.”
“Fort Laramie!” Mrs. O’Leary exclaimed. “Why, that’s in Montana! You can take the train from there!”
Mrs. Dinsmore shook her head in response to the obvious question. “Not anymore,” she said. “Railroads have gone bust in several states now. We’ll have to travel by stagecoach from here to Denver and then by rail across Nebraska to Cheyenne.” She glanced around as if making sure no one was nearby. “I’m afraid we won’t meet you in Denver,” she added.
Mrs. O’Leary nodded. She couldn’t believe how easily Mrs. Dinsmore admitted defeat. “What will happen to your ranch after you leave it?” Mrs. O’Leary wondered. “Will you stay in town?”
Mrs. Dinsmore sighed. “Yes, I’ll probably buy a house near the business district of Denver, but I’ll always visit here and take care of my land. It’s part of my heritage.”
She seemed proud of her inheritance as she spoke. This made Mrs. O’Leary wonder why Mrs. Dinsmore didn’t just sell her ranch for cash and live in town instead of moving back home. If she was going to be stuck with it anyway, wouldn’t it make more sense to put the ranch to use, even if only part of it?
Why was she so determined to stay in Kansas where she had little family and few acquaintances? And why should Mrs. Dinsmore be expected to care about Kansas and its problems when she herself was living somewhere else?
As they started to walk toward the wagons, Mrs. O’Leary asked another question. “When do you plan to leave?”
Mrs. Dinsmore looked at Mrs. O’Leary with an expression that suggested that she would rather not talk about it. “We must hurry now,” she said. “If you want to join us, you’d better get ready.”
***
“Let’s stop for a bite before we go any farther,” Tom shouted over the roar of the wheels and wind. He pulled the reins and swung off the buckboard. Mrs. Dinsmore stepped down beside him as he dismounted. Tom handed his rifle to Mrs. Dinsmore, who held it firmly.
The three men unloaded their supplies and set up their cookfire as Mrs. Dinsmore stood guard over the wagon. Tom sat on his horse while Tom and John took turns stirring a pot of beans with a ladle while Mary and Mrs. Dinsmore ate sandwiches. A cloud covered the sun.
The wind whipped against them; it blew smoke into their faces and stung their eyes. They finished eating quickly and began rolling the cookware and other gear back into the wagon. As they worked, the cloud broke and the light returned.
Tom noticed something glinting at the edge of the road ahead. He nudged his mount forward until he reached it. “Look, look!” he cried out to Mrs. Dinsmore. “Gold coins.”
He bent down and picked up a coin as he yelled again for her to come and see. With a single stroke, he flicked the coin through the air. It landed in the mud beside the buckboard, leaving a black streak behind.
The others stopped working and stared at the coin as Mrs. Dinsmore approached, holding her pistol in front of her. “Where did you find this?” she asked Tom. “Did you pick it up along the trail?”
Tom laughed. “No, this was dropped in the wagon.” He turned and motioned at John. “John, bring up one of those shovels from the wagon bed.” He pointed to the ground where the gold had been lying.
The four men used their picks to dig through the dirt, and soon the gold came spilling out in small handfuls.
“You mean all that was lost?” Mrs. Dinsmore asked. “Lost along the road?”
Tom shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But we’ll never know for sure unless we follow these trails deeper into the desert. Come on, let’s try to find the owner.”
They started off, walking in silence among the low shrubs and rocks. At times, the path was easy enough to follow; at other times, it went astray and they had to backtrack to find it. The sun climbed high overhead and grew hotter and hotter.
The sand rose up beneath their feet like waves on the beach as they walked. In addition to their shovels, each man carried a rifle and their ammunition pouches hung on their hips. After two hours of walking, they were still no closer to locating the owner of the coin than they had been when they started.
Mrs. Dinsmore looked exhausted as she struggled to keep pace with the others. She seemed to be carrying her weight equally between two shoulders. Her hat flapped against her face. “I think you should rest awhile,” she suggested. “Perhaps I could carry your gun and ammunition for you.”
Mary shook her head. “That won’t work. You can’t expect me to give up my gun. We’ll need to watch our backs every minute out there, just in case someone might be following us.”
Mrs. Dinsmore looked away and muttered something under her breath as she continued to walk. Mrs. O’Leary felt sorry for the woman. Tom and John were so wrapped up in their pursuit of the gold that neither paid much attention to what was going on around them.
John was too busy digging holes for his shovels to notice anything else happening. And Tom kept turning his back to Mrs. Dinsmore, so he didn’t see what kind of expression Mrs. Dinsmore was making or the way her mouth formed a line.
Tom had a hard time remembering to watch his back either; he was far more concerned about keeping an eye on John as John kept trying to sneak glances at his wife.
After another hour of hiking, Tom found a place that looked promising and stopped his search. He and John sat on their horses while Tom showed him what he had found. The area where they had stopped was surrounded by tall sagebrush.
In some places, the grass was knee-high; in other places, it was almost waist-tall. Tom pointed to a cluster of trees off in the distance. “See here,” he said, pointing at a thick clump of branches sticking out of the ground. “This is a tree and the trunk must have broken off because you can see part of it sticking up above the grass.”
He led his horse closer to the trunk. The ground surrounding it had been trampled down and covered with a blanket of dead vegetation. “If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t have found it,” he explained. “It must have fallen in a rainstorm recently and since then, we’ve had nothing but clear skies.”
John nodded his head and said he thought Tom might be right. “We’ll have to take a closer look around here,” he added. “Maybe we’ll find some of that gold.” He got ready to mount up, but Tom motioned to stop him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Just wait.” He reached over and lifted John’s hat off his head and handed it to him. “Here, put this on.”
John took the hat and looked down at Mary, who was seated on her horse next to Tom. “I hope you don’t mind, John,” Tom said, “but I told your wife to wear her hair up like a lady so no one would suspect her of being a stage robber.”
John stared at Mary and his eyes narrowed in anger. Tom noticed that John wasn’t looking at Mary anymore; instead, he glared at Tom. His lips were drawn back in a snarl. With a flick of his hand, he pushed Tom’s hat away and tossed it across the sand, sending it crashing to the ground, scattering the coins along with it.
Tom quickly retrieved his cap from the sand and returned it to his head.
John mounted up, swung his rifle onto his back, and turned his back to Tom again. They set off once more into the desert, leaving behind their shovels and picks and heading toward the clump of trees where Tom had discovered the buried tree.
It was a good two hours before they finally came upon the buried tree and the coin box beneath its roots. As they rode up to the tree and dismounted, Tom dug his shovel into the soil beside it and brought out what remained of the coin box.
He pulled the lid open, revealing the treasure inside. “Come and see,” he said. John bent over for a better look. “Look at this,” he said, holding a silver dollar out to him. “It looks old.”
“You’re right,” Tom agreed. “The date on it says 1866, which means it was minted the same year the Civil War ended.”
John’s eyes lit up as he picked up another coin, a dime. “This is even older than the dollar,” he said. “Look, it’s dated 1859. If you want to go through the others, you’ll probably find more of them.” Tom removed a few coins from the box and placed them into his shirt pocket, then replaced the coin box back into the ground and covered it up.
“There are still several things we have to do before we leave here,” he said, pointing at the coins scattered on the ground. “We have to get them back inside the box and take them home.”
John picked up a half dozen coins and slipped them back into the box. “I think that will be enough,” he said, handing the box to Tom and getting ready to mount his horse. Before he could turn his horse toward their camp, Tom stopped him with his hand.
“One last thing, John, we’ll have to bury your shovel and pick in the same hole where we hid the treasure.”
John looked puzzled. “Why?” he asked.
Tom smiled and winked. “Because we’ll never come back here again.”
The End