Petra Page 5

  *Colorado Gold Heist, Western Settler Saga Book III

  Where Adam built a home for their eldest brother, Mitchell started mining after chance discovery of gold and silver pockets in a seam almost out his rear door generating unseemly profit and nearly ran itself under careful eye of Mitchell’s partner. Thousands of acres bought or claimed for graze land or building brought added prosperity to the clan as they sold lots for homes and shops creating in the doing an energetic bustle in the dusty little, one-time outlaw town. Eyeing a bold, black cloud scutter across the sky, he reflected how each of these efforts started from no more than his desire to work hard and rare ability to see opportunity few others did.

  Only a few weeks after leaving home, an encounter given by grace with Sheriff Rankin in south Minnesota led Adam to join Bob Patterson’s Running BP cattle drive where all basics of handling ranch work was gathered. There, too, was the beginning of his reputation for sly thinking in face of trouble, Adam managing to recover Patterson’s horses from an unruly band of Sioux while contributing several useful ideas to difficulties occurring natural when established ranchers like Patterson uproot a generation of living to relocate from Iowa to Nebraska.

  Pike sipped his coffee, curious about how his first boss was doing closing in on sixty years of age drifting then to wondering if the old cook Charlie still walked about. Like Patterson’s foreman Tucker and several other hands, Charlie knitted together much learning for the youngster by accident or design and

  Adam remained intensely grateful for having known them. Of many trails he had crossed for good or bad none meant as much to him inside as those from the Running BP, even his brutal fist fight with Brad Caulfield near the end of the drive delivering lessons well remembered.

  Frowning, he brushed a clod of dirt from the porch with the toe of his boot, idly wondering if it was left by Step or some other. Untidiness in every form irked him, suggesting a lack of attention he was never wishful of accepting. It wasn’t his nature to miss details, errors in his ledgers notwithstanding, nor had he missed many. The chance discovery of abandoned goods when he worked a warehouse in Santa Fe, leading to a frenetic day of selling with his employer’s permission and sizable additions to his own modest cash pile, had been such a detail. Among Spanish there stories were still told of his good work with only a few knowing truth about his rescue of the Don’s niece Consuelo or her real role in his hotel room or their battle against French invaders in Mexico.*