Free Within the Candle's Glow by Karen Campbell Prough

downward, marring her good looks.
    Josh whispered, “I brung somethin’ for your ma.” He made a vague movement with his hand. “My pack—get it.”
    “My ma?” She started to protest, but it dawned on her—Josh thought Velma was her mother. “Josh, she’s not my mama. Years ago, the dead miner you found wasn’t my pa. I only live with Velma.”
    A perplexed look shadowed his thin face. “Doesn’t matter.”
    “It does in some ways.” She went around the narrow bed, lifted his stained saddlebag from a straight-backed chair, and brought it to him.
    “Open it. Pull out the leather pouch.” He ran his tongue over cracked lips. “Undo it.”
    She tugged at the drawstring and tilted the gathered opening to the light from a single square window. In her palm, the thin leather bag felt lumpy but not heavy. She peered inside, drawing an uneven breath.
    “Josh, what’s this?”
    “What’s it
look
like?” A gleam of a smile lit his eyes but not his colorless lips.
    “Gold. This is
gold
.” Confused, she shook her head. “Why? What’s this have to do with Velma Clanders?”
    “It’s hers.” He fingered the bruise and old cut on his cheekbone. “I brung it to her.”
    “
Hers?
” She choked on the short word.
    “Yeah.” He took an uneven breath and blew it out over his thin lips. “All of it.” He closed his eyes and his face twisted. He gritted his teeth. “Gold ain’t as plen … tiful.”
    “You in pain?”
    “Yes, jest pains in my gut. Guess I’ve been emptied like a hibernatin’ bear. Got the growls.”
    “Why do you say it’s Velma’s?”
    “It jest is.” With eyes closed, he clutched the blanket’s top edge. His nail-bitten fingers were dirty. “When we came by her man’s legs an’ boots danglin’ in the creek, we both dug him out of the collapsed river bank. That’s where he mined for gold traces. There were a knapsack buried with him, under the dirt that smothered him. I saw my partner paw through it—pocket the leather bag. Later, he stashed it in the holler of a lightnin’-struck tree. I seen him. Follered him there.” He swallowed, groaning. “I didn’t dare cross him or tell no one. He’s dead, now.”
    “Who’s
dead
?”
    “Lance. The man with me the day we come here—years ago.” Josh opened his pain-narrowed eyes. One of his hands rubbed the heavy blanket covering his stomach. “He got hisself kilt by another miner, one who didn’t take to his bullyin’. He weren’t nothin’ but a stupe. I fetched this bag once I knew no one cared ‘bout followin’ me. I came down sick, hit hard times, an’ then watched sixteen of my Cherokee friends torn from their rightful land. They were hauled away … to the west. I heardparts of their kin struck out for southern territory Spaniards called
Florida
.” He ran his fingers through his black hair and tugged. Anguish bunched his face and eyes. “They was all I had for friends.”
    Ella drew in a breath. His poignant words touched her. She knew the pain surrounding the roundup of the Cherokees the winter before. Her thoughts often dwelt on Mama’s Indian friends—dear people who gave up their farms and homes and hid in wilder, higher parts of the mountains. She often wondered if they were still up there.
    “I have no one to give gold to.” Josh rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I hate even God.”
    “Don’t speak like that.” She was horrified to hear him voice such blasphemy. “
Shh
, you
mustn’t!
”
    “Why not? Not Him—not nobody ever cared ‘bout me. My pa kilt my ma when I was near ‘bout ten. Nobody cared ’cause she were called a
half-breed
. Trapper’s squaw.” Josh swallowed. “I ran. Ain’t no one followed an’ no one cared.” His eyes cut to the bag. “That there gold is Velma’s. I ain’t spendin’ it. Ella Des … sa, you give it to her. I saw right off—years ago. She cares ‘bout her young’uns.” He paused, closing his eyes. His breath came in gasps.
    Worried, she