Chapter 18

We got out of bed and I dressed for working in the mud. Opal Anne and Pauli joined me out in the sun. It was a beautiful day on the plain and I was able to seal both gates with enough earth to make them permanent before taking a break for lunch with my girls.

“Well, the river is doing well in its new path and in a couple of days the old bed should begin to dry up and allow for digging.”

“OK. Paul, I was thinking. Instead of going at the riverbed with a shovel, why don’t we rig up a plow of some kind? There may still be one in one of the hogans we haven’t been in. After lunch why don’t we all go for a walk over to those hogans buried in the woods. There are several that we still haven’t looked into.”

“Sure.”

My answer was much shorter than I would normally make. Opal Anne’s words, about my leaving her after a time, because I was giving up many things I enjoyed in order to make her happy, seemed to be boiling inside me. We’d been together for more than a year and yet we still didn’t know each other that well. Lose her? Apparently, we were together enough for Opal Anne to recognize something was bothering me.

“Paul, I’ve never seen your face look like it does. And I’ve never heard your voice as harsh.”

I had to pause to form the words in my head. I certainly didn’t want to hurt her.

“Opal Anne, I’m bothered, deeply, that you would think that you would ever lose me. I married you for life when I married you. I can’t think of anything that would happen to cause you to lose me.”

Opal Anne took me in her arms and held me from behind. She scratched my back, giving me much pleasure. I turned in her grasp and kissed her, careful to not crush Pauli who was giggling at the attention of both parents.

“Opal Anne, don’t you ever say or think or expect that I could ever, under any condition, leave you. Never, Opal Anne. Even if you leave me, I will always love you.”

“Paul, I’ll never leave you either. My goodness, if I’d known that the thought of going to the city would affect us like this, I would have never brought it up.”

“I don’t think it’s the idea of living in the city, dear. I was all for the idea when we were living at the camp and in the cabin. But living here, on the plain ... I just can’t imagine a better place to raise a family and to teach them all of the things that we talked about.”

“Give me another baby,” she said with tears in her eyes.

By the time I had taken off my gear, she was presenting herself and I did my best to make her happy.

Opal Anne decided to bring Pauli with us when we went to look into the last three hogans that we knew of. The trees back in that portion of the plain were as dense as any I’d ever seen. Pauli loved being with us and I carried her in my arms most of the way. Opal Anne had purchased a small bonnet for Pauli. It kept the hot sun off her head and the bright light out of her eyes. She would occasionally sneeze and giggle and coo. I truly believe that every sound she made said, “I love you, daddy”.

The first of the three hogans was a simple dwelling, smaller than ours, and the inside showed the scorch marks on the walls and ceiling indicating that it had been burned to cleanse it of the pox. The Second hogan was the same small size and showed the same scorch marks. There were a few unbroken clay pots and bowls.

The third hogan was unburnt and was the same size as ours. It had the same exact features of our hogan except for one really interesting feature.

“Paul! A window!”

“I see it, dear.”

The still intact wavy glass window looked out over a thick stand of trees. Like all windows I’d ever seen the glass was wavy and the trees shapes were a bit distorted, but it got me to wondering why someone would put a window in a place to look out at a mess of trees.

“Stay here, Opal Anne. I want to take a look past those trees.”

“Why can’t I go too?”

“Because you have the baby and I have no idea what’s out there. I’ll be careful.”

I kissed Opal Anne and walked out the door, looking back to see her beautiful face looking at me through the window. The trees were not old, but they were thick as could be. They’d obviously grown wild. I wondered if this ground had been used to grow crops. I wound my way into and through the dense forest coming out to a vision of natural wonder.

Off in the distance was a range of mountains, several had water falling from near the peaks. The view was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. The entire range was still snow covered and the tallest mountain had a ring of clouds around its peak. I quickly scanned the area for any dangers and finding no snakes, bears or pumas, I paused to take in the view.

“Opal Anne, come along with me.”

“Did you find something?”

“Oh, I found ‘something’,” I said with an emphasis on the last word.

I led her through the least overgrown path and to the sight of the mountains. She let out a soft gasp and squeezed my hand. She turned her head and with her free hand pulled my face to hers and kissed me.

“I know what you’re thinking, Paul. I won’t be seeing this in Denver.”

“I wasn’t going to say it, but I was hoping you’d think that I was going to say it. Do you know what my first thought was when I saw this?”

“Let me guess, cut down the trees and move into the last hogan.”

“Sometimes you scare me. Do I have any thoughts that you can’t read?”

“I’m not going to tell you that. But in case you haven’t thought about it, I will mention the distance from the river and the stable.”

“We can move the stable to one of the closer hogans, and it might not be a bad idea to move away from the area we’re going to mine. If we had visitors looking for gold, we’d be far enough away from the river and the mining to have some warning.”

“What would you do with all the trees?”

“Keep them. Cut a path back through for easy access to the river and cut the ones in front of us to keep the view. We should make the path back to our current hogan winding in case we have to dodge bullets or arrows. We can use the other hogan for a work crew to live in if the operation gets too big for you and me.”

“You thought of all this in the last twenty minutes?”

“Amazing, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Actually, the truth is that I looked at this,” I waved my arm across the vista. “And wondered how I could leave it. Maybe we can move to the city for the winters and come here for the summers.”

Opal Anne took a breath and moved Pauli, so she was looking at the same view as us.

“Look Pauli, all of this is going to be yours someday.” Opal Anne looked at me and smiled before she spoke. “OK. It’s settled. We continue to live here. We can ship the gold to Fountain City or Denver and have supplies shipped in.”

I looked at Opal Anne, a little stunned. “Say that again, my dear.”

“You heard me, Paul. There is nothing in the city that looks and feels like this. Plus, surrounded by trees like it is, this hogan is better sheltered from the wind and snow. The trees provide shade, so the sun doesn’t bake the hogan in Summer. You’re right about having to cut a path back to the old hogan and I think another one to the trail down from the plain. It’s all doable by you and me ... and Thumper.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and now we really need to come up with a name for the place.”

“How about the OA&P Plain and Mining Company?”

That answer brought out a peculiar expression from my beautiful wife.

“Why that?”

“Because that is the name of our mining company.”

There was that expression again, this time a cute head tilt was added.

“We have a mining company. Since when?”

“Since my meeting with Mr. Banks and Mr. Howe this trip. Mr. Howe suggested that it was the best way to protect our assets. O’Dell Enterprises will own the plain, but OA&P will operate the physical mine, the actual mining of the gold, and the hauling companies that will take out the gold to the processor and return with supplies for us.

“You and I will be the sole shareholders. No one knows the exact location of the claim, but they’ll know where the homestead is if they look at the public records and they’ll be able to figure out where the gold is coming from.

“I was thinking of hiring guards, but then I thought it would be best to hide in plain sight. If we don’t live a flashy life, and if we keep to ourselves, with a small circle of trusted friends, I think we can keep from drawing attention to ourselves. Dewey said that we need the company to have a group called the Board of Directors. They oversee the way the business is run, so I named you, I, Dewey, and Cody as the Board and I’ve listed you as the Chairwoman.”

“What about your brothers, Paul?”

“If the trust things work out with Mick and Rory, I’ll bring them in and give them shares in the company as well. I don’t know that I want Raylene and Betty Mae to have too much knowledge of things yet. After they suggested that they have sex with me and you have sex with my brothers, I still don’t trust them completely. Time will tell.

“We, Mrs. Opal Anne O’Dell, are going to be the richest people in the entire western United States. Let’s go back to the hogan and make some hard plans. We need to figure out what to do and in what order we need to do it.”

“I know what we need to do first,” Opal Anne said with her evil grin.