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“It’s light.” He hefted the bag in his palm. “No pieces of eight in this pirate chest.”
“Let’s see what’s inside.” She dropped beside him, the freshly turned earth soft beneath her knees.
“Hold out your palm.” He tipped the pouch above her outstretched hand.
A small gold nugget and multiple flecks of the same glittering hue tumbled onto her palm, and her pulse quickened. “Is it all real? Real gold?”
He picked up the nugget and raised it to the light, bleeding through the tree canopy above. “I do believe it is.”
“We actually found gold.” She shifted and sat cross-legged beside him. “I just thought it would be fun to look, but I didn’t think we’d find any.”
“You and me both.” He flashed her a smile. “I think we might have an ounce, maybe a little more. That’s at least a couple thousand.”
She grinned. “That’s a very nice night out.”
Tyson looked amused as he dropped the nugget and flakes back into the pouch and set it at the bottom of the box. “That’s a whole week.”
“We’ll find something to do with it.” She patted the ground beside her. “Let’s take a look at our other treasure.”
He settled beside her, both with their backs against the rock close to the hole. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it didn’t matter right then.
Haylee looked at the top tintype photograph of a young woman that was as clear as if someone had just taken it. “I learned about tintypes in a photography course at ASU. Photographers used thin metal sheets for the images and could produce them fast enough to hand to customers at a carnival or studio.” She looked up. “That’s the quick and easy version of the process.”
She ran a finger along the side of the image. “I wonder if this was the girlfriend or wife of the man who buried this box.” She glanced at Tyson. “Considering men did most of the prospecting back then, I think it’s safe to assume it was a man.”
“It’s amazing how clear tintypes are.” Tyson took the top image from her, revealing a second image with the same woman and a man. The couple sat stiffly together, yet Haylee recognized that these were two people in love.
Three children posed in the image on the third and last tintype. “These must be their kids.” Haylee held the metal photograph in her hands. “I wish I knew more of his story.”
“This looks like a letter—the year at the top is 1899.” Tyson carefully unfolded the century-old paper, but pieces of the edges fell away. “The writing is so faint, but I think it’s addressed to someone named Warren and signed by Sylvia.”
The letter was so challenging to read that they had to fill in assumptions-based gaps.
Warren had come to Bisbee during the copper mining boom, leaving Sylvia and the kids behind in St. Louis. He had intended to make enough money for them to move out West.
From what they gathered, Warren must have found the nugget and flakes of gold while he worked in the copper mine and secreted it away to save for their family. It would have given their family a good start in Arizona.
“There were small amounts of gold in the mines as well as copper.” Tyson looked up from the letter. “This much would have been an absolute fortune in those days.”
“He must have buried it here.” Haylee frowned. “I wonder what happened and why he was this far from Bisbee. And why he never reclaimed it.”
Tyson shrugged one big shoulder. “It’s not likely we’ll ever know.” He folded the letter, tiny pieces drifting down from the edges, and set it on the tintypes in the box. When he closed the lid, more damp earth fell away from the corroded surface.
He peered up at the sky through the trees. “It won’t be long till it’s dark. We’d best be getting to the B & B before we go out to dinner.”
Haylee took the box from him and got to her feet while he stood and gathered the shovel and gold detector. The box’s surface felt rough from the corrosion of over one hundred years in the earth.
They chatted about the letter and photos on the way back to the truck, the love story seeming more important than the gold.
Haylee hugged the box to her chest, getting rust and dirt all over her T-shirt. “Maybe Warren had more gold that he took with him to St. Louis to get his family, and he left this box behind to retrieve when they got back to Arizona.”
“He could have forgotten where he buried the box.” Tyson lifted a branch for her to pass through.
“I like to think Warren had enough gold left to start a good life for him and his family somewhere out here. Maybe they were able to acquire a homestead.”
Tyson cast a smile over his shoulder. “That’s a good thought.”
She nodded. “It makes sense that he wouldn’t have taken it all to St. Louis. If he’d been robbed, he would have lost everything.”
