Mesa Trail, ch. 13
Draft 3

Even if Inuna had not known of the these coins and the maps, she knew full well of the story of Zebulon Pike himself who had been sent by President Jefferson to seek the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers of Louisiana Territory, still owned by Spanish.  She knew that the expedition did not understand the Colorado Mountains as her own ancestors knew it.  Snow-capped mountains, 14,000 feet high, what was up there?  What the native Americans of old called 'Sun Mountain' and the Arapaho called 'Heey-otoyoo,' or Long Mountain, the summit was never reached by Pike and his men.  Two days without food or water, at the small village of Mt. Rosa, slogging through waist-high snow, they finally turned back to the lowlands, enough of the high country, but not without losing some of the men. What had the gold rush come to but a few mining camps scattered around the front range at Denver City, Boulder City, Saint Charles, and the ghost towns of Central City, Black Hawk, Georgetown and Idaho Springs, where now only the ghost of the thousands live in memory and tumbleweed.

And then she began to think as she looked out onto the spiny red rocks up above Bear Canyon Creek -- how permanent, how ancient they were– about the '59'ers of old, of the old Colorado Gold Rush, of the men who had packed up everything they needed and owned, the wagons, the mules, any off-hand equipment they could get their hands on, not anticipating the various regions of what was then considered the Louisiana Purchase, off across the country for the prospect of getting their hands on gold.  There had been a picture she held onto that always reminded her of the 59'ers, of three men in work clothes, beaten and tired, their hats dusty and floppy at the brim, walking around their home-made sluice box with pick axes and shovels in their hands digging away at the sides of the caved-in gulley seeking the veins of gold.  So many would find only pebbles of free gold and that would keep them going for years longer, but they could not get to the sunken veins for they did not have the mining equipment to strip the rocks clear of the precious metals.

Josh was the gold collector of this operation and had walked down from his stool at the top gate of the sluice box.  He showed it to the group of three girls by holding it up, "exactly the same as yesterday, about half a vial." He shook it up and down, keeping his thumb steady on the cap.  Hannah pulled out her charm. The afternoon sun caught it right off and it dazzled there in her fingers, clearly a more significant amount than what Josh held up.  The gold was what kept the operation running.  There was much more to be learned out there in the Flatirons, that was sure, but none of them could forget that it was the finding of the gold that kept them out there at the Oasis and out of school. It had become a great cooperative project and proceeds went to small charities of all kinds.  "What does yours look like Kitie," she said, her eyes shaped like almonds, wise at the corners and thin stark eyebrows and pointed upwards towards a long head of black hair.  Kitie pulled her own coin out of her pocket, rubbed it with her thumb as if to warm it and handed it to Inuna.  The markings were Spanish, that much was clear, but the tone of the coin was virtually yellow, bright as honey, and almost felt soft in the hand.  "Our father has two maps hidden.  They supposedly mark off where our great grandfather had buried all his own findings from up here in the creeks." Inuna, of course, also knew that there was more gold up in these foothills than the traces they collected each day at the box.  How much more, none of them would know for some time to come.