The next morning, Juliet got dressed and made two braids in her hair so that there was one on each shoulder. She’d learned the trick from one of the Indian women she’d met in Texas a year back and had used it often ever since. When she braided her hair, her hair was softer and stayed clean longer. And out here where there was no one but Carl, she didn’t have to worry that someone might find it odd for a white woman to style her hair in such a way.
She didn’t think Carl would care. Yesterday, he’d kept quiet about her wig. He hadn’t asked questions, and that was a huge relief because she didn’t want to make up lies to hide the truth. Since he was willing to let her keep her secrets, she would honor his request and not mention the difficulty he’d had last night in bed. She also wouldn’t ask why he didn’t sleep in the cabin. She had no idea where he’d slept, but it wasn’t her business. Her business was to help him find any gold that might be on this property.
With that in mind, she left the cabin and went to the barn, thinking this was the most logical place to search for him. As it turned out, she made the best choice since he was throwing hay into the horses’ troughs.
“Good morning,” she called out.
He stilled and looked over at her, his eyebrows furrowed as if he expected her to say something that might hurt him. It was probably about last night. If she had trouble forgetting how awkward things were in bed, then he must be having trouble with it, too.
She cleared her throat. “Will we be looking for gold today?”
As she hoped, his expression relaxed. “You want to pan for gold with me?”
“Sure. I’ve never done it before, though, so you’ll need to teach me.”
“I don’t mind teaching you.” He turned to put more hay in the trough. “But it’d be easier to do it with some pants because you can roll them up to your knees. I have a pair you can use. I’ll give you a belt so they won’t fall down.”
“There’s no need for that. I got a couple pairs already.” Before he could ask her what kind of woman had pants, she asked, “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to make for breakfast? We should eat so we have energy to pan for that gold.”
After a pause, he said, “I haven’t had pancakes in a long time. Do you know how to make those?”
“Those are easy. I’ll have those ready in no time.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she went back to the cabin and made breakfast. She had opened the window so it wouldn’t get hot in the little cabin.
When she was done, she changed into a shirt and a pair of pants. She added a pair of old leather boots to the ensemble then left the cabin to tell Carl breakfast was ready. Thankfully, he wouldn’t wonder what she was doing with such an odd assortment of clothes. She had everything from what an older boy would wear to regular clothes pioneer women had to that fancy dress a wealthier woman would own. Then she had that blonde wig.
Certainly, he had to know she had done something terrible to need so many disguises. She only hoped he was able to trust her enough to know she would share the gold with him. She wasn’t going to run off with everything they found. That was, of course, if they did find as much gold as he was hoping for.
This time when she reached the barn, she found Carl sitting on a stool by one of the stalls. He was staring straight ahead of him, seeming to be lost in thought.
“Carl?” she asked.
He jerked and looked at her.
She offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to let you know that breakfast is ready.”
He hesitated for a moment then rose to his feet.
Since he didn’t say anything, she waved for him to follow her. She wondered if it would always be this awkward between them. Probably. She had so many things to hide, and he had shadows in his own past. There was no way they could enjoy a close relationship. They would just have to make the best of things as they were.
“I didn’t see any syrup to put on the pancakes,” she began as they made their way to the cabin, “so I put some sugar into the batter and put berries on them. You can take the berries off if you want.”
“I like berries. I picked them off some bushes.”
“Berries grow out here?”
His steps slowed as he pointed to the south. “The trees down there are the best for picking berries. There aren’t any poisonous ones to worry about, so you can gather any that you want.”
“That’s wonderful. I’ll have to do that sometime.”
Unable to think of anything else to say, she grew quiet and led him to the cabin. Once there, she poured him a fresh cup of coffee and sat across from him at the little table. The cabin was really only big enough for two people. She didn’t know if one of his goals had been to have children with his first wife, but it would be difficult to fit more than a young child and two adults in here.
If his first wife had had a child, then would he have added another room to the cabin? The child would eventually grow to the point where more room would be needed. Did he even consider these things with his first wife? It didn’t matter, she supposed. He hadn’t had any children with her, so the space worked well enough.
It was just hard to imagine anyone being married without children coming along. Between her and her three brothers, her father had often commented that all he had to do was look at her ma and another little one would be on the way.
Forcing her mind off of the past, she cut into her two pancakes. She never could eat more than two at a time, even without syrup.
She glanced at Carl who was eating the meal with surprising gusto. The poor man must have been starving. Why didn’t he tell her he was hungry? Why did he wait for her to come out to the barn and ask him what he wanted? Maybe he was patient. Her brothers wouldn’t have been that patient, but maybe Carl wasn’t like them.
“Did I make enough pancakes?” she asked. “I can make more if you want.”
He shook his head. After he swallowed his food, he said, “No, this is enough. It’s just that it’s been a long time since I had anything this good.”
He didn’t look at her as he spoke, and she suspected he was embarrassed. Not that he should be. He’d just paid her a nice compliment, after all. “Thank you,” she replied. “It’s my ma’s recipe. My pa used to swear by it.” Then, hoping to ease some of the discomfort between them, she added, “I’m glad you like it.”
She smiled, but it went unnoticed since he still didn’t look at her. She might have taken offense had she not picked up on the way the fork shook ever so slightly in his hand. He was afraid. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what she might have said or done at any point since they met that would make him afraid of her.
Maybe he was afraid she would mention last night. He’d specifically asked her not to. Given how difficult it’d been for him, she could certainly understand why he’d be nervous she might find him lacking in bed. Even though she had been a virgin, she knew things were supposed to be better than that.
She wanted to assure him that she wasn’t going to say anything about the previous night, but then, that would mean she’d have to mention it. So really, there didn’t seem to be anything she could say or do to make him feel at ease with her. The only thing she could do was ignore the issue.
Well, maybe she could also talk about something that he was interested in. She finished a forkful of pancakes then said, “I’m looking forward to learning how to pan for gold. Is it hard?”
He drank some of his coffee then set the cup down. “It’s hard to find enough gold to do much with, but the process of panning isn’t hard. It can be tiring. If you’re not used to it, your arms can get sore because you’re swirling the black sand from the gold flakes. Most of the time, I gather a couple loads of dirt from the stream and work on finding some gold either by the stream or in the barn.”
“Doesn’t it get heavy to carry all that dirt out of the stream?”
“No. I use a classifier to get rid of the rocks.”
“A classifier?” she asked.
“It’s easier to explain if I can show it to you, but a classifier is a strainer that captures the big rocks so only the smaller material gets into the pan. I’ll show you the process when we’re at the stream.”
“It sounds like this will be fun.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it fun. When I first got here, I thought there was gold all over the place in that stream. Over the years, I realized that wasn’t the case. It feels more like a chore than something I do to have a good time.”
“How long have you been panning?”
“Fifteen years.”
Fifteen years? And he was still trying to find gold in the stream? Shouldn’t he have been able to find a sufficient amount of gold by now if there was as much there as he believed?
As if he could read her mind, he explained, “I don’t pan in the winter, and the winters can be long out here. I own twenty acres’ worth of stream, and I still have some left to pan. My father swore up and down there is a lot of gold there.” After a moment, he sighed. “He might have been wrong. There might not be anything more than enough to get me through each winter, but I need to find out for sure.”
Hope. Hope was what compelled him to keep looking. At least he was willing to work for it. That in itself was an admirable trait. And it only further demonstrated how patient he was. It was a shame her brothers had never developed that trait.
“I look forward to helping you find whatever is there,” she said. Anything was better than trying to get money through dishonest means. “I’m not afraid of hard work as long as it’s honest work.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and before he could ask her why she’d phrase things that way, she stood up and collected their plates.
“I’ll wash these while you get everything ready for panning,” she said then went to the bucket to wash them.