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Maddie bit her lips together. Lucky hadn’t mentioned any of that.
Jack scraped the bottom of his plate with his spoon, gathering the last bits of stew. “Cole’s other uncles are helping her, but they lost a lot, too. One grows cotton, the other sugar beets, so I guess that leaves it up to Cole and Trig.”
“Leaves what?” she asked before remembering she was pretending to already know all this.
“Getting enough gold to rebuild the docks and warehouses.” Jack shrugged. “Trig’s ships run under DuMont Shipping. Half the South got their supplies from those shipyards. It’s gonna take a lot of gold.”
“I imagine so,” she murmured, understanding much more than before.
His chair scraped against the floor as he stood and walked to the stove to refill his coffee cup. Jack held the pot toward her, but she shook her head. He set it down again. “That’s how it is,” he said. “Once a man builds a house, he has to stay there, take care of that house. Even when it all gets blown away.” Sitting down at the table again, he took a swig from his cup. “That was never the life for me. Houses are for men who want to stay in one spot. That’s not miners, or sailors.”
The tiniest of shivers tickled Maddie’s spine.
“Cole sure was lucky to find a wife similar to his grandma. She never tried to make Belmont stay put, and she gladly handed over money to those boys of hers to build their businesses,” Jack said. “Seems only right they all help her out now.” He sighed heavily then, and set his cup down with a thud. “I didn’t know any of that when I invited Cole up here to go mining, but now that I do know, I’ll be heading out with him, taking all the gold I can down to Annabelle to rebuild. She deserves it.”
With so many things twirling inside her head, Maddie wasn’t sure what to focus on. What to think. Other than what made her stomach turn. Directing her attention to Jack, she asked, “Heading out with him?”
“Yeah, I hope we hit Dabbler while ships are still sailing in and out.”
Too frozen to do much, Maddie nodded.
“If only this rain would stop so I could investigate my one last hunch.”
Not overly interested due to her concentration being on other things, she asked, “Oh, what’s that?”
“I didn’t tell Cole about it today, I wanted to wait until I’d panned a few more specimens, but since it’s still raining, and I just dried out—” he gestured across the room “—and since Homer’s set in a good roost on your bed post, I’ll tell you. Considering we both want to help him.”
Drawing her gaze off the big red bird perched on the log making up the headboard of her bed with his head tucked beneath one wing, Maddie turned back to Jack. All this time she’d thought about Lucky helping her, not the other way around. Yet that appealed to her. “What is it? Your hunch?”
Jack shoved aside his plate to use a finger to draw on the table as he started, “The river runs like this, with all these little tributaries coming into it.”
She nodded.
“There used to be other tributaries, too, ones that were covered up by landslides over the years.” He made two imaginary x’s on the table. “I figure the hills behind your place and mine, well, that’s where a couple of those creeks used to be, and I believe those were the ones that carried the gold into the river. If a man dug deep enough, he’d find those old creek beds and the gold lining them. Real pay dirt. More than enough to help Annabelle.”
Maddie was intrigued. One of the books she’d read back on the Mary Jane suggested the most gold would be found underground, but she also knew, just as Jack said, it would take money to get it out, and time. Not even two people digging all day and night would be able to sluice all the dirt and process it in one season.
“If it panned out, I’d have to hire men to help dig.” Jack sighed then. “But it’s getting late in the year.”
Growing excited, Maddie insisted, “Not too late. How many men do you think it would take?”
“Well.” Jack drew the word out as he scratched his chin. “Let’s see...”
The two of them talked for a long time, and when Jack finally took his leave, the rain had stopped. He’d offered to stay, but she assured him that she’d be fine. The brothers were just a shout away.
Maddie prepared for bed and banked up the fire with new dreams dancing in her head. Which died quickly when she climbed into bed. Lucky had never been gone all night before. A fleeting thought of Mad Dog formed, but she ignored it. She wasn’t fearful, just lonely, and that was worse.
