“Uncle me all you please,” grinned Peter. “And Nevada is down on all the school maps. If you don’t mind, when you do meet father, let it be as George Rawlins. Your last name might or might not recall a family quarrel. But—we spare him excitement as much as possible. And while you’re here, the outfit will call you—Rawlins.”
“Well, then I’ll explain to Aunt Gladys,” said Nevada, as if they were planning a secret for fun; and yet there was a certain look of anxiety, too, in her face. “I think I can manage her—but then she never says much to Grandfather, anyway. They don’t like each other very well,” she explained to Rawley. “Grandfather was angry when Uncle Jess married her, and while they never quarrel, it is merely toleration. Aunt Gladys won’t tell.”
Rawlins then lay for a long time thinking how strangely the pattern is woven into the woof of Life. With the sun shining and the noise of playing children outside, the unexpected turn of events seemed more natural. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours that Rawley found himself checking up, as he called it, on events and emotions engendered by the sudden crises. He glanced across at the other bed and found Johnny Buffalo awake and seemingly comfortable; wherefore he made bold to ask a few questions.
“Johnny, I thought I had those women hidden around a bend in the trail. How did Queo manage to spot them so as to try a shot? I’ve been wondering about that first rifle shot. Are you sure it was fired at us?”
“I am sure. You were not hidden altogether. I, myself, could see heads, though I could not see the trail. Queo was higher. I think that little point was too low.”
“Well, that accounts for it. I lost my bearings down there, then. Part of the ridge was hidden, I know. I thought it was the place where he was located. He shot wide, anyway.” He lay looking at a Las Vegas merchant’s calendar, reviewing still the immediate past.
“There’s another thing that just struck me this morning. How did Grandfather know that Jess Cramer was located here on the river? Jess was a soldier at the fort, I thought, when Grandfather saw him last. It’s in the diary.”
“I think you should read again more carefully, my son. My sergeant spoke to me often of Jess Cramer. He had found gold here at this canyon. He was often at the fort, spending his gold in the games of chance. Jess Cramer played not for sport, but to win. A sergeant’s pay was not large, and my sergeant spent many hours in searching for such gold as Jess Cramer brought with him to the fort. My sergeant had won a little. He kept it and searched for more of the same. It was not only for Anita that the two quarreled. A woman and gold make hatreds that do not die. He did not tell me all. He longed for a son who would take up the search. Or so I believed. I did not know that he had found his gold. I thought that the nuggets he gave to you he had won at cards from Jess Cramer. He told you that he picked them up. My sergeant does not lie. So I know that he had found the gold he had sought, and that if you obeyed him you would learn the secret he had kept from me.”
“He had a son,” Rawley muttered, “and he’d have been proud of him if he had known about him. Johnny, I can’t help thinking that Peter is more Grandfather’s son than my father was.”
Johnny Buffalo meditated, staring at the ceiling.