Spanish Gold by Kevin Randle Page B

map.”
    â€œWhich he didn’t have,” said Crockett.
    â€œHe told them he had it memorized. There was nothing written down.”
    â€œAnd you chased them away,” she said.
    â€œWell, when I stepped into the alley, they took off. Your father had been stabbed.” He didn’t tell her that he watched them stab her father, or that he had been wandering the streets without his pistol. If he’d had a weapon, he might have prevented the stabbing. He didn’t want her to know how inept he had been.
    He picked up a thin stick and stirred the coals of the fire. If he’d had his pistol, he could have prevented the death of the old man. But he had chosen to leave it because he’d used his pistol too often at Gettysburg. There he had killed men because they were wearing gray uniforms. He’d killed on order and had been sickened by it. He didn’t want to have to kill again, and by leaving his pistol behind, he had managed to avoid having to kill, but someone had still died.
    â€œYou couldn’t get a doctor?”
    â€œNo time,” said Travis. “He told me to tell you, take his belongings to you, and let you know what had happened. No time to get a doctor. He knew that. Told me that there was no time to get a doctor.”
    â€œWhy would they kill him?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Travis. “Maybe they were just trying to scare him. Learn where the gold was hidden and somehow it got out of hand. Gold does that. It makes people do stupid things.”
    She continued to stare at Travis. “Gold didn’t do that to you.”
    â€œMaybe because I still don’t believe it.”
    â€œThen why are you here?”
    Travis shrugged again. What could he say. He was there because he had nothing else to do. He was there because he felt he owed the old prospector something because he hadn’t stopped the men from stabbing him. He was there because Emma Crockett was a good-looking young woman who needed his help. He was there as a way of paying back the prospector. He hadn’t been able to save him, but he might be able to save his daughter. There was no good answer to her question. Or at least no answer to her question that he cared to give her.
    He reached out and pulled the pot of beans from the fire. He looked down into it and said, “Looks like dinner is ready.” He used a wooden spoon to stir it.
    She ignored that and asked, “What was my father saying? I mean, what did he tell the men about the gold?”
    Travis set the pot on the ground. He rocked back so that he was sitting there, looking at her. “He was in a saloon getting the men to buy him drinks by telling them about the Spanish gold. He’d tell a little bit of it and stop until someone bought a drink. He told them everything including the fact that he had seen the gold himself.”
    â€œDid you see the two men there? Listening to his stories?”
    â€œI saw them.”
    â€œThen you could recognize them,” she said.
    â€œIf I saw them again, I would recognize them,” he said.
    She nodded and said, “Then we should find them and see that they are hanged. They murdered my father.”
    â€œWell,” said Travis.
    There was now steel in her voice. “They should be hunted down and jailed. They murdered a man.”
    â€œYou don’t want to let revenge color your thinking,” said Travis. “It could turn you into a bitter woman.”
    â€œAll I want is justice. Once we have the gold, we’ll have the money to search for them.” She looked up at him and said, “That’s what I’m going to buy with my gold. Justice for my father.”
    Travis wiped a hand over his face. He reached out for the pot with the beans. They were still bubbling slowly. “That’s a job for the marshal.”
    â€œMy father was a gentle man. He might have told tales for free drinks, but what’s the harm in that?