Alvarado Gold by Victoria Pitts-Caine Page A

put it away but decided to place it on one of the end tables in the living room. Fingering the worn leather on the edge of the cover started me thinking about my relationship with God. How long had it been since I’d darkened a church’s door? It wasn’t as though I didn’t believe; organized religion just wasn’t part of my routine any more. It had been once, though, before Dad died and everything started to fall apart. I sighed, set the Bible down and returned to the table.
    I sat there nearly an hour going over newspaper articles, old letters, and documents, but nothing provided information about our gold finding expedition. I was slowly progressing through the pictures when I found two snapshots of churches. One marked the Old Barnesville Church and the other, the New Church. These could be of interest to Mr. Wright. Maybe Mr. Darrow had told him something about us. I should at least hear him out. Then the phone rang. Maybe it was the BLM guy. Why do I care?
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, Ad. It’s Eric.”
    “Yeah. Hi.” Do I sound disappointed?
    “You didn’t call,” he said. “When did you get in?”
    “Yesterday. I meant to call you this morning.” Sure I did.
    “Anything happen after I left?” I could hear Eric tapping at his keyboard. I knew he wasn’t paying attention.
    “Yeah. We worked our fannies off. You’re going to get sixteen grand for our efforts.” I felt the old sibling irritation rising in my veins.
    “Addie, you know I’m involved here and don’t have time for that stuff.”
    “You’ll have time to take your part of the money though, won’t you?”
    “Anything else?” he changed the subject.
    “There was a private investigator who had a run-in with Mel and Donnie threatened me. Nothing too special.”
    Eric stopped tapping. “Threatened you about what?”
    “The gold.” I knew that would get his attention.
    “What gold?”
    I unwound the story as detailed as I could. He had a few questions and then I asked, “Do you want to go with us?” That sent him off on another one of his outbursts of how his job kept him busy.
    I cut him off. “I’ll be in touch.” I’d let him get to me again.
    I went back to my papers. I slid my hand back into the stack and recoiled with a paper cut. A small, yellowed note floated from the top of the stack to the floor. The old paper crumbled as I opened it. Great, it is written in Spanish . Even though I wished I’d paid attention to my classes in high school, one word stood out on the page I didn’t need a Spanish class to interpret. The fourth word in on the first line. Oro–gold.
    I picked out a few other words, numbers of some sort but needed to find someone who would translate for me. I also wanted to call Jack, my old boss at Docurestore. First, I wanted to know why he’d called and second to see if he could date the letter and the piece of paper with the coordinates on it. I knew C-14 carbon dating wouldn’t be good because the intensity of radioactivity had hardly begun to decline in something this “new” but maybe Jack would have another suggestion.
    I glanced at the clock, noon, two in Houston. “Should I call Mr. Wright? No, I’ll call Jack first.” Mollie looked up at me with an expectant gaze but she lay back down on her pillow and closed her eyes.
    I dialed Jack, and after the sixth ring, I took the phone away from my ear, ready to hang up, when he answered. “Peterson,” came the same old, gruff voice.
    “Hey, Jack. It’s Addie. How’ve you been?” I tried to sound nonchalant but I was secretly dying to see what he wanted.
    “Not so good, Addie,” he confessed. “I need some help from you.”
    Now he had my interest. “Me? I thought I was always pretty dispensable.”
    “You remember the big job I bid on for the museum in Cairo? Well, we got it. Then Judy quit and Sandy left to get married. I’m the only one here with enough experience to work on the restoration project.” He sounded tired and overwhelmed. No