Free Pale Rider by Alan Dean Foster Page A

“I’ve been sort of takin’ care of Sarah and Megan ever since. Not that I mind the chore, understand. If it wasn’t for me they’d be long gone from here. Carbon’s no place for a single woman with a child.”
    He went quiet as they reached the bank of the stream. There he pretended to be studying the ground until a bored Megan sauntered off upstream. When she was well out of earshot he continued.
    “It ain’t that we’re livin’ in sin, and it ain’t as if I don’t want to marry the woman.”
    “I can see that. What happened?”
    “One day a few years back her husband—Megan’s father—just lit out. Wasn’t because of Lahood or anything like that. He just wasn’t much good. Left her with a half-growed child. Since then, gettin’ her trustful of any man has been,” he hesitated and smiled slightly, “well, it plain ain’t been easy.” He eyed the Preacher speculatively. “When we do get hitched, how about you doin’ the hitching?”
    “If you’re waiting on a woman to make up her mind, it might be awhile. Especially going on what you’ve just told me.”
    “I know.” Hull faced the creek resignedly. “It ain’t as though I haven’t been trying.”
    The Preacher reached over and took the sixteen-pound sledge from the miner’s grasp. “While you’re waiting, why don’t you put me to work?”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t ask that. You’re a guest here. I mean, maybe if there was something of a spiritual nature that needed taking care of in Carbon, that’d be different.”
    “The spirit ain’t worth spit without a little hard work to firm it up. A man’s body needs firming up just as much as his soul does.” He swung the hammer easily with one hand, testing its heft. “You brought this down here for something besides a decoration. Tools were meant to be used. The good book’s a tool. So’s this. Where do we start?”
    They’d reached the place where Hull’s claim began. The miner led his companion over to the huge boulder that marked the center of his diggings. He let the fingers of his right hand trail over the night-chilled granite.
    “I always thought that if I could split this rock and get to the gravel that’s accumulated underneath I might find something. It’s smack in the middle of my claim. No telling what’s sifted down under it. Every time the creek floods in the spring, there’s got to be a lot of stuff that gets swept under it and hung up against the base. That’s how I see it, anyways.
    “I figure maybe there’s gold been waitin’ to be found under here since the beginning of time. Big as it is, it could’ve been sittin’ here that long, too. I’ve crawled all over it, and I swear there’s a hairline fracture running through the whole structure. Every day for two years now, usually after Sarah and me have finished with supper, I’d come down here with the sledge and bang away at that fracture. If it is a fracture. See?”
    He pointed out the spot where he’d labored so hard for so many evenings. The Preacher leaned close for a better look, and put his fingers in the shallow, uneven depression. A pitifully small portion of the giant boulder had been chipped away.
    “You’re right about one thing. There’s sure enough a fracture there. Looks stubborn. Kind of like Sarah?”
    Hull laughed gently. “They do have something in common, don’t they?” He wore a fond expression as he inspected the unyielding surface of the monolith. “It’s like this rock and me have kind of an agreement. It’s gonna do me in or I’m gonna do it in.”
    “I’d be willing to lay odds on who’s going to win.”
    “Yeah, well, I thought of drilling it and blasting the sonofabitch. That’s what Conway says I should do.” He nodded down the creek. “Spider Conway. I think I told you about him.”
    “You mentioned his name.”
    “He’s been here longer than anybody else. Knows more about dirt-pan and sluice mining than anyone on this side of the Sierras, I expect, and