Free HisBootsUnderHerBed by Unknown Page A

that is your desire.” Father Chavez opened the thick ledger he had showed Garth earlier, and traced the registration.
    “The site with the coordinates nearest to the O’Grady one was claimed by a Herbert Forsen fifteen years ago.” Deep in recollection, Father Chavez nodded. “Ah, yes, I remember the man. Señor Forsen left here to return to his claim and was never seen or heard from since then.”
    “Maybe he’s still working the claim,” Garth suggested.
    “I think not. The need for food and supplies would have made him return.”
    Father Chavez went back to checking coordinates on the quadrant against the registration ledger. “As you can see by the markings, there have been several other claims filed in the area, but they did not yield any gold and have long been abandoned.”
    “What about here?” Garth asked, pointing to the area on the map directly beyond his uncle’s claim.
    “No claims have been filed on the rest of the area above it. If anyone attempted to mine there, they have either disappeared or left empty-handed. Señor Forsen was the last one to show any interest in that area.”
    “Well, I’m not going to let Mr. O’Grady and his daughter get away with stealing my uncle’s mine. I intend to follow them.”
    Father Chavez frowned. “I pray you do not intend to harm them, Garth.”
    “I’m not a violent man, Father. But I will not step aside and let them get away with this.”
    “You have no way of knowing if Henry was right. That mine could be worthless.”
    “Then I’ll have to find that out for myself.”
    Father Chavez shook his head. “Is the desire for gold so great that you people are willing to die for it? The mountain has claimed many before you.”
    “I’ve had worse challenges and managed to stay alive, Father. I survived four years of war when those around me were falling in battle, and I came to California from Virginia. I can’t imagine anything harder than that trek across the Rocky Mountains.” Garth shook his head. “After all that, why should a single mountain present a challenge to me?”
    The priest walked to the window and gazed at the distant mountain peak.
    “Because, my son, you will not be challenging a single mountain; the mountain will be challenging you. Many have climbed it, never to be seen again. It is called Montaña del Diablo.”
    He turned around and looked at Garth. “Mountain of the Devil.”

7
    A single lantern atop the gatepost of the mission glowed like a beacon in the darkness that encompassed the town. Inside the mission, Father Chavez and Elena whispered in the deep shadows of the wall.
    “He must be warned, mi hermana,” Chavez murmured. “Tell him there can be no delay. He must go at once.”
    Elena nodded, and after wrapping a shawl around her head and shoulders, she slipped through the gate and was swallowed by the night.
    Father Chavez returned to the rectory and stole quietly across the floor. First the O’Grady couple, and now the arrival of Garth Fraser. It could all lead to disaster. He frowned in thought. Are not we told that what we sow, we reap? The walls of Jericho had begun to tumble.

    “Mountain of the Devil,” Garth murmured as he lay with his hands tucked under his head. “What kind of bullshit is that?” Having accepted Father Chavez’s offer to spend the night, he was unable to sleep as the priest’s ominous warning played on his mind.
    Never one to dwell on superstitions, he now found himself at odds with a tenet he’d always lived by: when it was your time to go, it would happen whether you were in your bed or the middle of a battlefield.
    If all of this portentous legend was to be believed, then how had his uncle made repeated trips without incident between his mine and the mission? And even though ill with consumption, he had managed to reach the mission unmolested before he died.
    More than likely, a few accidental deaths had been magnified into those mysterious disappearances .
    Now the O’Gradys