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

himself. Not say anything disparaging about the boy’s dad.
    “That’ll do it?” Claude asked.
    “Better stop there, or I’ll owe you my horse too, and I need her to get all this stuff up to the claim.”
    Claude smiled and began ringing up the purchase on his cast-brass register. Nic leaned over and studied the keys. “Didn’t have anything so fancy when I ran a shop a few years ago.”
    “Ah, so you were a merchant once, eh?”
    “For a short time. Didn’t suit me.”
    “What sort of store? If you don’t mind me asking.”
    “A book shop. My father was a publisher.”
    “Oh? Which one? We carry some books in back—”
    “St. Clair Press. It was sold a few years ago.”
    “I remember St. Clair Press. Fine operation, fine publications.”
    Nic nodded, not really caring to get into a lengthy conversation about the place. It had been his father’s business, not his.
    “So a publisher’s son, once a merchant, now a miner?”
    “And a few things in between,” Nic said with a small smile. “What do I owe you?” he asked, cutting off Claude’s next question.
    “Thirty-nine dollars and twenty-five cents,” he said, looking at his register.
    Nic coughed. Thirty-nine dollars. He was worried about arriving at Odessa’s with nothing in his pockets. But he was about to spend most of what he had left.
    Claude, seeming to note his hesitation, said, “You know, I do a good deal of grubstaking around here. In exchange for a portion of the mine’s profits, you can take all this out of here now, without paying me a cent.”
    Nic glanced at Everett. The boy gave him a tiny shake of the head. Claude was making an offer because he knew it was a reasonable risk.
    Nic shrugged. “We’d better be pulling gold out of your dad’s mine soon if we care to eat anything but venison, eh?” Or earn back enough money to pay me back.
    Claude raised a brow as he collected Nic’s carefully counted cash. “And most of the deer and elk are pretty well hunted out ’round here. Don’t go counting on those. Rabbits, squirrel, we still have a fair number of those.” He studied him a moment. “But you won’t be hunting much, with a mine to dig.”
    “Probably right,” Nic said. He gathered an armful of goods, went to put them on the horse, and stood back. “We’ll have to lead her up,” he said to Everett. “No room for us.” He glanced at the sky, filling with dark gray billowing thunderheads. “We’d better hurry if we want to beat that. I’ll be right back.”
    Claude handed the egg basket to Nic, but he held onto one handle when Nic reached for it. “Nic, these hills have given a fair number of boys some serious trouble. You watch yourself now, you hear me?”
    Nic gave him a smile, and he finally released the egg basket. “Hopefully I’m up for the task.”
    Claude shook his head and began wiping the counter again. “You just watch yourself. I can’t afford to lose a good new customer like you.” He smiled then, but his eyes were on Everett, who waited on the front porch. The smile quickly faded. “That boy out there’s counting on you, now.”
    Nic stifled a sigh. “I’ll watch myself,” he said gruffly. He turned and left the mercantile then, a shroud of worry covering him. It felt heavier than a wet blanket in a rainstorm. Which, he thought grimly, staring at the sky and then his new Hudson’s Bay, he might soon be wearing.
    The claim was a good hour’s hike up the narrow, serpentine trail that wove in and out of low-lying scrub oak and groves of aspen and fir—what the locals referred to as the Gulch. In about an hour they reached the creek, Nic ever conscious of the rumbling thunder that drew nearer and nearer. He looked over his shoulder once and saw a fierce bolt of lightning cascade down from the sky. It was followed by a crack of thunder that rumbled in his chest. Had anyone been struck by lightning up here?
    The wind came up then, huge gusts that threatened to push them to their knees. The