Mesa Trail ch. 39
Draft 2

By the end of it all, looking back, Hannah had known since the very first day that Josh had brought her that vial full of those gold flakes from the Bear Canyon Creek mine, that she would need an accountant.  There were plenty of things that she liked to do if she was honest with herself, and she often found herself going over the list:

She liked to cook (even though she wasn't particularly good at it, she worked hard at it, and someday her potato soup would in fact become famous in the town of Boulder)

She liked taking care of her brother and sister (she could never admit to this to anybody but herself, but she was good at it. She liked to keep tabs on them, help with homework, cook them dinner, oh my!)

She liked to take care of the house and the outpost. She became the youngest store owner on Pearl Street.

She liked to be inside the woods as often as possible.  Listen to the day pass.  Watch the sun coat the Flatirons.  

She liked making a living giving a living, as she would say.

But she would tell you in a minute that she didn't really like to count the money, weigh it all up, put it in on a scale, pack it, bring it into the bank. No sir-ree, there wasn't much fun for her in that. But she had found out that to put all that work into collecting it, you don't want it to go to waste, that was just as bad as anything else! So that day when she found Bunkledon at the cave high up there on the summit of Flagstaff, after he had "seen a ghost," his eyes so wide open, so seemingly gleeful, smiling, giddy, she knew she had her help.  He had asked her right on the spot about her business proposition again.  All those little dreams that he had concocted for himself, to come back up into these rocks and mine for himself, to find that big old mother lode, well, something happened to all that. He wanted to put all those counting skills to good use.  "You mine it, and I'll take it in to the bank and make sure it comes out as money to spend on all those causes you talked about." And so it did.  The creek mine turned into a western attraction, a case study, for goodness sakes.

Who were these kids up there on the side of the mountain working all day long under the sunshine, running a non-profit business?  People came to volunteer from around the country. The gold kept coming, if slowly, surely.  The original outpost, Element 79, got a face lift, and became the gourmet shack it always wanted to be, the one with a great view of the rushing stream, and there was Hannah, dressed in a cook's outfit, seasoning the Biggalow mushroom burgers on demand for the passing hikers.  At night they lit the trail with lanterns.  As you walked up from the Mesa Trail trailhead, you could, in one brief peak, see the city of Boulder behind you wrapped inside its half dome of mountains, dark and mysterious.  Up ahead, a bonfire burning outside of the outpost.  The flicker of flames shot shadows out under the boulders.  On some nights, those rocks became moving dinosaurs every agreed. On others, it looked like bears dancing to the moonlight.