Claim: A Novel of Colorado (The Homeward Trilogy) by Lisa T. Bergren

to his care? A clergyman?”
    “No!” Everett shouted, rising to his feet, his small hands in fists at his side. “No! My dad asked you to work the mine with him. He’s not here. But I’m here! I’ll help you. You promised. You promised .”
    Nic sighed. “I didn’t promise, Everett. You said yourself you didn’t think I was coming. And I’m not the father type—”
    “I don’t need a father. Or a mother!” The boy looked over to the sheriff and back to Nic. “My dad’s dead. That means I have to man up. I’ll work the mine with you. I will. Please, Nic, don’t leave. Not now! My dad … all he wanted was to strike gold, and then he did, but then there was the cave-in. You gotta help me. We gotta see it through.”
    Nic frowned. “Everett, listen. I came to your place against my better judgment. I was counting on your dad to teach me what it meant to be a miner. Promising vein or not, I’ve never dug, not a day in my life. I’m not going in there without another full-grown man. I’d be a fool.”
    “My dad chose you . We talked to lots of men in Gunnison. But you were the only one he asked. So you might not have thought it was a good idea. But my dad did.”
    He was the only one Peter had asked?
    Nic clamped his lips shut. To argue against the child was like arguing with the dead. Futile. Dishonoring Peter’s memory, the last thing Everett needed.
    “By rights, you could claim the mine,” the sheriff said casually to Nic. “There aren’t many claims producing quality ore that a man can get to on his own. Most are the big operations, with manpower and machinery that can go thousands of feet. I wouldn’t walk away from it. Why not give it a week and see how it goes?”
    “That’s crazy,” Nic said, shaking his head. “The mine should go to Everett. Then he could sell it to someone else, use the funds for a college education or something.”
    “Everett’s too young to inherit the claim.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    “Only way around it is if you pull out that ore, sell it, or claim it and sell interest in it. Give a portion to Everett, here, in exchange for his help. That’d honor his daddy.”
    “So I can get myself injured or killed like Peter?”
    Both the sheriff and the boy stilled. Once more, Nic wished he could take back his words.
    “It doesn’t belong to me,” Nic said in a conciliatory tone. “It’d feel like stealing.”
    “Peter offered you half the claim. Gambler’s luck, arriving to find you might get more.” The sheriff stared at him, hard, as if he were crazy even to think of leaving, but then shrugged his shoulders. “As for folks who could take Everett in, I’m afraid there aren’t any. The preacher has a brood of his own. They’re bursting at the seams over at the parsonage. Any other women are—” his voice dropped—“not who you’d want the child to be living with.”
    “Except Sabine,” Everett said.
    The sheriff looked to him. “Think she’d take you?”
    “Maybe,” he said.
    “And you’d want to stay with her?”
    “Maybe,” the boy repeated.
    The sheriff cocked a brow and glanced at Nic. “It’s Sabine,” he said, tilting his head to one side, “or I’m afraid it’s the orphanage down in Buena Vista.”
    “Orphanage!” Everett blurted. “No, no, no.” He looked over at Nic with pleading eyes. “Give it a week. Please. Let me show you what I know. See what you think of the work. Please. In honor of my dad.”
    Nic stared at the child, then closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. What had he gotten himself into?
    He puffed out his cheeks, exhaled sharply, and said, “You know enough? To show me the ropes?”
    “I know enough.”
    “Gold mining isn’t hard to figure out,” the sheriff said. “Just hard work.”
    Nic knew he couldn’t leave, not without giving Everett at least this. “One week.”
    The boy’s eyes lit up.
    Nic put up a hand. “Calm yourself. You understand that after a week, I might be taking you down to