Chapter One The Returning Cavalryman

Before the war, Crowe had come through the country promising that rail would bring wealth and civilization. Then Walker land had been measured again. Then his father had become a debtor. Then the letters had stopped. Jack turned the pages. "They do not want the farm. They want what lies in the northern waste. I should never have told anyone, but I thought cooperation would protect my family. That was my sin." A map was folded between the next pages. Along its edge his father had marked symbols: a canyon, a seasonal creek, and a field of red rock shaped like a broken hand. Deep inside those rocks, a charcoal circle marked one point. Beside it were two words: Gold vein. Jack's breath thinned for one instant. His father had found gold.