The Key West Citizen

WESTPORT
By
Homer Hatten

LANDING

Chapter 23

THERE were great dark clouds sweeping across the sky when they resumed the search the following morning, so that they worked in a dark, funereal atmosphere that depressed their already lagging spirits even more.

In mid-afternoon the storm broke, and great sheets of water, borne on cold, hard-charging gusts of wind, swept down upon them, hiding the land and sky so that a man could not see another who stood only a dozen feet away.

Darkness had fallen, but still the rain drummed down like rifle fire upon the taut canvas wagon cover. Defeated, Clay took cover with the rest, and as he sat there in the dark, wind-swept night his thoughts followed a bitter, endless treadmill of despair.

Here in the darkness there was no escape from the brutal realization of complete and utter failure.

He slept a little, fitfully, just before dawn, and awoke cold, stiff, and uncomfortable. The rain had stopped and the sky was as clear as if the storm had never been.

He climbed stiffly out of the wagon to find that Lopez had started a fire and that there was a cheery aroma of bubbling coffee in the air. The men stood glumly about the tiny fire like soldiers who had lost a battle, and even Lopez did no more than grunt a monosyllabic greeting until he had downed a cup of the steaming black coffee. Then he turned to Clay inquiringly.

"Do we leave today, Don Clay?" he asked. "We have caught water enough to stay a little longer, but—"

"There is no need to stay."

Pedro broke in impatiently.

"What can we do that we have not already done?"

A murmur of agreement went up from the other men about the fire, and as they looked at Clay for his reaction he nodded glumly.

"You're probably right," he agreed reluctantly. "There's no use going back over the same ground we've already covered twice. Catch up and we'll be starting back."

He turned his back on the preparations for departure and walked over to the foot of the butte to take one last look at the barren stretch of sand running down to the creek. It was just as it had always been except for the new gashes cut across it by the torrential waters of the night before. One began almost where he stood and ran straight south for more than a hundred feet.

At that point it cut sharply to the right as if it had been deflected by a buried rock.

As he stared at it a faint vestige of hope began to stir within him, and almost before he realized it he was striding forward toward the point where the watercourse had been turned aside. It had cut a channel more than two feet deep, and as he neared it a wordless exclamation fell from his lips and he broke into a wild run.

There at the bottom of the channel, just where it swung aside, his eye had caught the sharp gleam of metal, polished by the sand and water, reflecting the slanting rays of the morning sun.

He dropped to his knees and began to throw the sand aside, digging furiously to uncover the buried metal. The sand flew beneath his clawing fingers, and as he threw it aside he saw that the metal was a wagon-wheel rim and that the entire wheel lay buried in the dull gleaming sand.

He jumped to his feet and began to shout, almost wordlessly at first, and then, as startled faces turned toward him from the camp, he called for shovels, spades, and picks.

In an instant the men were gathered about him, chattering questions and exclamations. But he had no time for answers now as the shovel he had jerked out of Pedro's hands sent the sand flying to disclose a heavy prairie-schooner wagon wheel, lying flat on its side well below the surface of the sand.

"What is it, senor?" demanded Lopez. "This wheel—you think it is"

"THINK!" Clay roared. "I don't think anything about it! This is one of our circles that's been covered by drifting sand. There's bound to be another one around here somewhere, and halfway between them we'll find old Jake Meisendorf's cache. Here."

He thrust shovels into the eager hands of the men about him.

"Spread out and start looking. Chances are you'll find the other wheel buried just about as far down as this one."

It was well past mid-morning when they did find it, and the sweat was pouring off them when Lopez's younger brother Miguel broke into a triumphant shout that brought the others running to him.

The two wheels were not more than fifty feet apart, and before the second one was completely uncovered Clay had stepped off a distance halfway between them and was digging furiously with great strokes that sent the water-soaked sand flying.

The sweat was pouring off his face and the sun had turned the open stretch of sand into a steaming inferno when he felt his shovel strike hard against some buried object. Swiftly he widened the pit, and there before him, five feet underground, was the top of a heavy, brass-bound wooden chest. His fingers trembling, he fumbled at its lid, and as it swung open he saw that it was filled with the tightly sewn rawhide bags that were the customary containers for coin on the Santa Fe trail.

Laughing, he picked up one of the heavy buckskin bags and tossed it up to the ring of men who were standing around the edge of the hole.

"Break it open," he shouted. "Break it open and take a look at it!"

He vaulted out of the hole and watched as Miguel split the rawhide lacings with a quick stroke of his knife. Heavy, rough-edged silver dollars spilled out on the sand in a shining cascade that set the men shouting and dancing.

There was no dearth of eager hands now, and long before sundown five of the great oak chests had been recovered and securely stowed away in the wagon.

That night, under the light of the stars, the bare reaches of the Jornada rang to a roaring chorus of song, while the Pass brandy that Clay had produced dropped lower and lower in the jug as it passed from hand to hand. For the grim Jornada, challenged and defeated, had delivered its treasure into their hands.

(To be continued)