13

May 4

THE MORNING HAD dawned in crystalline perfection, an ideal send-off for their expedition, Nora thought as she loosely held the reins of her horse. They were following a mountain stream that burbled among smooth rocks, the banks lined with alders and willows. Birds chirped in the thickets and a golden eagle soared overhead, making a whistling noise. Burleson had been right: they were less than a mile from the ranch, but it already felt like they’d entered another world. Ahead, above the trees, she could see mountains upon mountains rising in the distance, their peaks patched with snow.

Burleson led the group, riding a seventeen-hand gelding named Blackie. Nora followed, riding a brown-and-white paint called Stormy, although his docile demeanor didn’t seem to live up to his name. Clive rode behind her, and Nora couldn’t help but notice the easy way he handled his horse, his back straight as a preacher’s. She would have to ask him where he’d gotten his riding experience.

Maggie brought up the rear of the train with Jason Salazar and Bruce Adelsky. Salazar seemed comfortable enough with horses, but Adelsky was another matter. He had actually put the wrong foot in the stirrup and started to get on the horse backward, to the great hilarity of Maggie. Behind the train, Wiggett and Jack Peel led the five pack horses carrying their supplies and equipment in plastic panniers and buckled-on top packs. Among the supplies was a padlocked strongbox carried on a mule, to hold any jewelry or other valuables that would be discovered during the dig, but also to store the legendary gold—if it existed…and if they found it.

Nora could hear Maggie telling Salazar and Adelsky a story, punctuated by gusts of laughter, about a disastrous expedition she’d been on the year before. Nora could only catch parts, but it seemed to involve drunken idiots falling off horses, a man shooting himself in the foot, a helicopter rescue, and a bill for twenty thousand dollars.

The trail started out well used, but about five miles in it began to peter out. At a certain point Burleson stopped. He and Clive consulted a map.

“This is where they got off the trail,” said Clive. “They should have gone left, but for some reason—probably confusion caused by the snow—they went right.”

The fateful right turn started up a broad canyon between gray cliffs. The going was easy at first, but then the canyon walls began to narrow and loom higher above them until they were riding in shadow. The air was increasingly chilly. In a few places—passing through deep woods, or in shady spots at the bottom of rocky cliffs—Nora could still see patches of snow. Amazing how quickly they’d left civilization behind and entered a primeval landscape.

They stopped for lunch near a pile of fallen rocks. The pack train had fallen behind, but Burleson was in contact with Peel over walkie-talkie. Nora checked her cell phone and found that, as expected, they had gone out of cell range. For the next month they’d be relying on the sat phone Nora carried in her saddlebag—with Skip hopefully manning the other end.

Nora munched on a roast beef sandwich while Burleson finished his conversation with Peel over the walkie-talkie. He pulled out his own sandwich and took a deep breath, looking around. “I love these mountains,” he said. “Every time I come up here, I feel renewed.”

“So you just gave up a lucrative career as a lawyer, quit the rat race to come out here?”

“A divorce lawyer. Not a fun line of work, representing some bloodsucking young woman intent on breaking a prenup and prying money out of some rich old bastard of a husband. Or vice versa. You rarely meet good people in a business like that, either as clients or opponents. The decision to get out wasn’t entirely mine; I became crosswise with the California Bar Association and was given a nice, unfriendly push out. Every time I’m up in these mountains, I send them my silent thanks.”

“Crosswise?”

Burleson laughed. “I’m not a good rule follower. Perhaps I represented my clients a little too well, you might say.”

Nora was pleasantly surprised by his candor. She had done some basic searching on Burleson before hiring him, but none of this had turned up. It was probably one of those things that didn’t reach the level of news, she thought.

They mounted up after lunch and rode past yet another scree slope of gray rocks, spilling down a steep ravine and into a dark forest of towering fir trees, with more snow in the shadows. As evening came on, the trees gave way to a meadow surrounded by cliffs.

“Those Donners were really lost,” said Maggie, looking around.

“Here we are, at our first campsite,” Burleson said, dismounting.

Nora halted her horse. It wasn’t a particularly welcoming place—a bedraggled field cut by the stream—but she reminded herself they would be here only a couple of days. When they found the Lost Camp, they would move closer to that location.

The others dismounted. Burleson and Drew Wiggett went around, helping here and there, unsaddling horses and hobbling them in the meadow. As they returned, Peel arrived with the pack train. He parked it at the far end of the field, and he and Wiggett began unpacking, lining up the boxes in rows.

“Fire’s going here,” said Maggie, indicating a raised spot on the verge of the meadow. She pointed at Nora and Clive. “You all gather up some wood. Birch, alder, and oak—none of that fir or spruce! Jason and I are going to build a fire pit. Jason, let’s put some muscle on those arms of yours! You, too, Bruce.”

“Sorry, not in my job description,” said Adelsky with a grin as he settled down on a fallen tree, fumbled in his pocket, removed his vape, and fired it up. He leaned back and issued a stream of smoke. “I’ll watch you work.”

“Bum,” Maggie said. “By the way, Arizona recluse spiders just love to lay their eggs in dead trees like the one you’re squatting on.”

Adelsky leapt to his feet and brushed frantically at his jeans, vape falling to the ground, while Maggie’s belly laugh echoed across the field.

Nora and Clive headed into the trees at the edge of the meadow and started collecting wood.

“So far, so good,” Clive said. “Burleson seems to know his business. Interesting, though, that he gave up a lucrative practice to start this outfit. It makes you wonder if there isn’t more to his backstory than we’ve been told.”

“It’s quite an eccentric crew he’s put together,” Nora said. “Maggie, who talks a mile a minute; Peel, as silent as the grave; and Wiggett. He’s hard to pin down but he looks, well, hungry.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the kind of person who’s never satisfied, always looking for greener grass.”

“Nothing wrong with ambition. And you seem to be a striver, too, right?”

“I hope it’s not too obvious.”

“Why not be obvious?” He paused and gave her a big smile. “Isn’t that why we’re here, as partners? Ambition, thirst for knowledge, wanting to make our mark.”

Nora knew he was right but felt odd hearing it put so baldly. “There is one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’ve been wondering why, when you first told me your story—out there at my dig—you never mentioned the gold. I have to admit…that kind of bothers me.”

Clive chuckled. “I knew you were going to ask me that. First, Jason was there and I didn’t want him to hear it. But more than that—I wanted to see what kind of interest you had in the project before you heard about the gold.”

“So you waited until that meeting with Fugit to spring it on me.”

“Look at my position. It could screw up everything if word got out there was twenty million in gold lying around, just waiting to be found. Also…well, I wanted to make sure you had the—forgive the expression—stones for the job.”

Nora frowned in surprise. “What are you talking about? You know my credentials. You searched me out. This isn’t my first brush with controversy. I’ve even dealt with cannibalism before.”

“I know,” Clive said, picking up a piece of wood. “But this goes beyond even cannibalism.”

Nora straightened. “How so?”

“I’ve tried to deflect idle talk about some of the more salacious stories about the Lost Camp, as you might have noticed—but the fact is something truly strange and awful happened there.”

“What could be worse than cannibalism?”

Clive paused a moment, looking out over the meadow. “I mentioned that one person managed to escape and make it back to the Donner camp at Alder Creek—an itinerant preacher named Asher Boardman. He ran off, he said, because madness overwhelmed the Lost Camp. He later died of starvation—but not before Tamzene wrote down his story. When the lone rescuer, a man named Best, finally reached the camp, he found only one person still alive—Peter Chears. He was singing songs and playing with a pile of human bones, gore stuck to his cheeks and matted into his hair. Best hauled the man out with the last of Tamzene’s camp. Chears survived the trip back to civilization, but died soon after, hopelessly insane.”

“Jesus,” Nora said. “And how do you know these details?”

“The historical record. A lot of it is suspect—exaggerated newspaper articles, chapbooks written by people who weren’t directly involved—but the primary documents can’t be ignored. In addition to the details included in Tamzene’s journal, there’s the diary—admittedly sensationalized—of a survivor, Mrs. Horne, who described Boardman’s staggering into their camp. And then there’s the account of the rescuer, Best. Best himself didn’t write it down, but he spoke of it to a few people back in Tamzene’s camp. Best was a tough customer, but what he saw at that Lost Camp must have shaken him to the core. What remains of those horrific secondary accounts are viewed by historians as examples of ‘generation loss’ and the unreliability of oral tradition. The farther you are from the primary source, the harder it gets to be certain the details are one hundred percent accurate.”

“One hundred percent or not,” Nora murmured as these details sank in, “that’s a hell of a lot more than you told me that first day. No wonder Maggie’s so full of tall tales.”

“Some are less tall than others. I wanted to be certain of your gumption. As the excavations uncover the details of what happened, it might get…a little disturbing.”

“And?”

“I’m reassured.”

Nora shook her head. “I wish I’d known these details earlier. I don’t appreciate being blindsided.”

“Sorry. You’re right. I apologize.”

“Accepted,” said Nora. “But now that we’re actually searching for the camp—no more secrets between us. Agreed?”

“Wholeheartedly. But remember, that goes both ways.”

“Of course.” Nora wondered what exactly he meant by that.

They dragged a number of dead branches back, piling them up near the fire. The camp was in the last stages of coming together. Their wall tents were up, the fire was blazing, and Maggie was fussing with a wooden pantry box, unloading two Dutch ovens and organizing the pots, pans, dishes, and silverware in various compartments.

“Oak!” she said approvingly. “Good work! Jason, grab that ax and let’s chop this up.”

Wielding an ax herself, Maggie expertly chopped the oak branches into manageable lengths while Jason started hacking away.

“Hellaboy, you’re going to cut your legs off doing it that way.” Maggie came up behind and, wrapping her ample arms around him and holding his elbows in place, demonstrated how to aim and swing an ax. She glanced over at Adelsky. “See what you’re missing?” she asked with a salacious laugh.

“My loss.” Adelsky waved his vape.

Folding chairs had been stacked against a tree, ready to be placed in a circle around the fire. Jason Salazar pulled one over, opened it, and flopped down on the seat, his face red and covered with sweat. “That woman’s a slave driver,” he said.

“I heard that!” Maggie said while forking steaks onto the grill with a searing noise.

“I meant you to hear it.”

“I’m just putting some meat on those bones of yours. You’ve had your nose in books too long.”

The others came back from their tasks and gathered around the fire as the evening descended.

“Some wine?” Burleson asked, fetching a bottle out of the basket and drawing the cork. He poured it into tin cups and offered them around. “Good Napa Valley cab. Might as well take advantage of the bounty of our great state. No roughing it in my camp.”

The dinner was everything Nora could have asked for, and more: the steaks perfectly grilled, the potatoes crisp, the salad just right—and key lime pie for dessert. Unexpectedly, Jack Peel led them all in a blessing before dinner, which seemed oddly appropriate in the vast wilderness setting. When the dishes were done, Maggie pulled a guitar from among the gear and sang “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Lovesick Blues” by the crackling fire, her surprisingly pure contralto rising into a vast black sky filled with stars. She finished up the mini-performance with an atmospheric rendition of “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

“Plenty of ghost riders in the sky around here,” she said, lowering her guitar. “I grew up in Truckee, and I could tell you some stories.”

“You implied as much back at the ranch,” Adelsky said eagerly, leaning toward the fire. “So what are you waiting for? Put your money where your mouth is.”

“You pint-sized little varmint,” Maggie said amiably. “Okay, you asked for it. Ever heard the story of the ghost of Samantha Carville?”

Peel rose abruptly and disappeared in the darkness, heading for his tent.

“What’s with him?” asked Maggie, turning to Burleson.

The man shrugged. “Damn good wrangler, but he’s not much for conversation.”

“Go on,” said Clive. “What’s a campfire without a ghost story?”

“Well,” said Maggie, her voice growing hushed, “in my hometown, the old-timers still tell stories of what really went on out here. Like Samantha Carville. She died of starvation up at the Lost Camp, aged only six.”

Clive nodded. “There was a family by that name in the party.”

“They buried her body in the snow. And there Samantha stayed. For a while, anyway. As the starvation time began, two men snuck out one night, dug up her body, chopped off part of her leg, and ate it.”

“There’s nothing about this in the historical record,” Clive said. “It’s hard to believe they would have started with a child.”

“You hush!” Maggie scolded him. “You’ll ruin a good story.” She turned back to Adelsky. “Those two men were bad ’uns, but after starting in on her leg, even they couldn’t finish. They threw away the bone and covered Samantha’s body back up again.”

She paused, her voice deepening.

“And so they say, even today, that on a moonless night, deep in the forest, you can still hear her wandering around, looking for her leg bone. You can’t mistake the sound—a kind of shuffling, knocking, like a one-legged person hobbling on a stick.” And in a sudden, chilling display of mimicry, Maggie put her hands to her mouth as if preparing to yodel, and made a peculiar hollow sound: Ssshhhhhh-KNOCK. Ssshhhhhh-KNOCK.

Nora felt her skin crawl.

Maggie’s voice trailed off, and there was a moment of silence as everyone seemed to be listening in the dark. Then Adelsky began to laugh.

“Wow! Now, that’s a ghost story! We’ll all be lying awake tonight, listening for little Samantha knocking about the trees, searching for her leg.” Huffing and blowing, Adelsky tried to imitate the sound but failed. Then he laughed again, only this time without quite the same gusto as before.