Page 67 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
Chapter Seventeen
Virgil stood to stretch out the crick in his back. His head swam. He’d only had a cup of coffee for breakfast, he realized. His feet were so cold they’d long gone numb. The rest of him was sweating, making the cool breeze on this cloudy day get under his clothes.
“Boss?” There was such a tone of foreboding in Buster’s voice, Virgil snapped his head around. Buster nodded. “Tornado comin’.”
“Tor—” Virgil shifted to see over the edge of the ditch. The “tornado” was Marigold.
She was stalking up the lane the way one did when they had a score to settle. Her knees were swishing her short skirt this way and that. Her feet were kicking back the dirt.
Behind her, in the open door of the office, Ira stood with Tom.
Tom’s back, was a fleeting thought, but much as Virgil wanted to know what news their partner had brought, he was also taking in the fact Ira was holding Nettie’s hand. Tom held Harley. Emmett had stopped his work with Levi in the field near the storehouse. They had moved to the fenceand were staring in Virgil’s direction. So was Yeller. Owen whistled to get Bing Sun’s attention, thumbing toward where Virgil stood.
The whole damned valley was stopping to see why the hell Marigold was charging through the camp like a stung bull, carrying— Was that his chamber pot?
“Oh, fuck.” Virgil closed his eyes. He knew what was coming, and it was going to hit him like a train. Or rather, like a chamber pot upside the head. How had the kid swallowed it without any of them hearing him nearly choke to death?
Marigold reached the edge of the ditch and looked back and forth along it.
“Trail’s there, Missus Davis,” Buster pointed out helpfully. He was smiling a greeting and taking off his hat.
Virgil shot him a glare while Marigold scampered down, then lost height on her air of superiority while she negotiated the loose gravel, skittering her way across to Virgil.
“I’m guessing the nugget turned up?” he said.
“When I asked you how big it was, you might have said it was the size of a lemon drop.” She dumped three turds at his feet. “Take the shortest road to Hades, sir. And take that nugget with you.”
She spun to walk away with twice as much resentment as had carried her here.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Virgil stepped on the biggest poop, scraped his foot across the gravel, and yup, there it was. Funny, he didn’t feel near so excited to see that glint of yellow as he had the first time.
“Marigold,” he called.
She was up on the path and swung around to say with loud wrath, “Don’t you dare punish that baby for eating it. I will slit your throat in your sleep if you say one cross thing to him.” She sailed away with her nose in the air.
He supposed he deserved that slander after throwing groundless accusations at her, but it stung to have her even suggest he would lift a finger against any child, especially his own.
“You didn’t think she took it, did you, boss?” Buster’s voice was squeaky with hurt on Marigold’s behalf. “Missus Davis would never.”
Virgil ignored him and used his shovel to throw the shit-covered nugget onto a screen. He moved to run it in the stream, rubbing it with sand until it was clean. When every crevice was gleaming, he dropped it back into his pocket where it belonged.
Somehow, though, he didn’t think it would turn his luck around. In fact, he suspected his luck would be bad for a while.
…
Marigold was still shaking, still incensed. Now, she was also deeply embarrassed for staging a Shakespearean play for every pair of eyes in this valley.
Emmett and Levi had joined Tom and Ira outside the office. Owen was trotting toward their group with a wide smile of enjoyment on his face.
“Are you going to leave?” Levi asked with a wary look.
Nettie stood close to him, holding his hand in both of hers. Her mouth was trembling.
“No.” What sort of monster could abandon these innocents? Besides, she still had nowhere to go. All she’d done was lift the cloud of suspicion Virgil had placed on her. It didn’t mean another wouldn’t descend tomorrow.
“That was the best thing I’ve seen in years,” Owen said as he arrived.
“Shut up, Owen,” Emmett said out of the side of his mouth.
