The sweat tracks across John’s face glistened and his breathing stopped. Alarm should have jolted Priscilla into some quick acton. Instead, she leaned forward   and grabbed an already wet cloth. Gently, a wiping motion brought a flushed redness to both cheeks.  He gasped.  The breathing smoothed and became regular for the moment.  She rose from her chair beside his bed and walked across the doctor’s small sick room.  Five steps across, five steps back.  Forward.  Back again.  She wrung her hands and lapsed into idle wondering again.  How many steps across this floor had she taken the last seven days?  Where was the doctor?  He should be right here, attending to John.
      Rebecca idly stirred hot ashes in the pot-bellied stove and the fire flamed again.  She glanced up.  “It’s been a week and he’s still awful weak.”
      Priscilla glanced at her daughter then made two more trips across the room.
     “The bleeding’s stopped," Rebecca said. "Reckon the Doc’s gonna let the Sheriff come out and get him?”
     “I don’t know, Child.  The shot is still close to his heart, and it might work its way on down and kill him, if he doesn't heal proper.  He’ll die in the jailhouse for sure.”
     “But, Momma, he’s killed a man.” Rebecca put the poker down.  “What are we gonna do?”
     “Nothing we can do.  Soon as he’s well enough the Sheriff’s going to put him in jail until there’s a trial.   There are men going to swear your Pa killed that Ikey Joe and tried to steal his gold.”
      “But, — ”
      “I know the gold was ours and the man needed killing, but we can’t prove anything.  Besides, no one has found the gold yet, anyway.  Wasn’t but a few coins on that fellow.  Your father’s poke was never found.”
      “Suppose, they’ll hang Papa?”
      Priscilla hung her head and sobbed softly.
      Rebecca stood up.  “I’m going to get work so that we —”
      The sound of boots across the outside wooden porch caused Priscilla to pull up short and look down at John.  They’re coming for him, she just knew it.  A hard knock like that made by a man on the door leading into the main room.  The brief silence became marked with the sound of an opening and closing door. More boot steps thumped across the floor in the main room.  She stiffened even more as the door to the sick room opened slowly.  A man walked into the small room without a beckoning, his hat held by the brim in both hands.  He stood in front of Priscilla.
      “Good day, Mrs. McCairn.” He held the hat high over his chest, almost covering his white collar. 
      “Good morning, Preacher.  Thank you and the church for praying for my man.  Must have done some good because he’s living still.  We’re doing fine now you didn’t have to come.  What brings you here?”
     “Well, I . . .”
     He reached his right hand into his vest and drew out a piece of paper folded into a small square.  He kept it folded and stared down at it, as if maybe he didn’t want to give it up.
     “Yes?” Priscilla raised her eyebrows and waited.  The Preacher continued to gaze at the small piece of folded paper and it took up an awful lot of his thinking.  Her hands began to sweat even in the cool room. The Preacher acted all reverend-like.  Like when he had to tell folks someone in their family had passed away.   Was it going to be bad news from the Sheriff?
      “Well, I believe it’s all right to do this.” He handed the paper to Priscilla.  She took it in one hand but placed the other over her stomach.  The red stains on the edges brought revolusion.  They had to be be blood. 
     “It was on the body of the fellow who was killed by your man.  I went to pray over him just after he was shot. I looked for a picture or something to tell me if he had kin I oughta notify and this was stuffed in his shirt pocket.”
    The tightness in her throat brought on a hard swallow.  When she turned it over in her hands she noticed the creases had been there for some time.  The paper unfolded without tearing.   She stared at it.  No words.  Scribbled lines of a sort or maybe it was a drawing to which she put no recognition or reason.  She looked up at the Preacher, and held out her hands.  “What — ”
     “Looks like a drawing of a map to me,” the Preacher said.  “You’re God-fearing folks and I figure what your man said about that gold is the Lord’s truth.  Don’t know if this will help or not, but my vision is the Lord is on your side.   Go with God.”  He put his hat on and held her hand in the palm of his right hand and placed the other one on top of hers.  He smiled and nodded, then dropped her hand and left the room.
     Priscilla waited.  The front door didn’t close.  The Preacher came back into the room.  “Oh, another thing, Mrs. McCairn, one of the men of the church heard Sheriff Biglow say he was coming after John tomorrow.  Figures your man is past dying or at least he’s gonna take the chance your man will heal in the jailhouse with Doc looking after him.  Thought you ought to know.”
     This time the front door closed softly.
     Priscilla placed the paper on a flat surface on a table beside John’s bed.  She ran her fingers over the drawn lines, trying to make since of them.  Rebecca joined her.
     “What is it, Momma?”
     “A map of some kind.  I think that fellow your father killed didn’t want to chance having all that gold on him.  He hid it out someplace.  Buried it.  But where?  I can’t make hide nor hair of this.”
     Rebecca stared down at the map.  “Look here, Momma, see that drawing of a rock and the three dead trees lined up?”
      Priscilla looked at her daughter and nodded.
     “Well, that curved line just below the trees could be a path to the dark circle, maybe a cave.  And the long wavy lines at the bottom is probably a river.”
     “I suppose you could be right.”   She looked Rebecca in the eye.  “This makes sense to you, Daughter?
     “Well, there’s these three old chestnuts trees like that out south of town. I . . .”
Priscilla narrowed her eyelids as she stared at Rebecca.
     “Well, I meet Tommy Hopkins there sometimes.”
     Priscilla stood, placed her hands on her hips and glared.  “That boy on the next farm from our place that I warned you about?  Rebecca, you didn’t —”
     “No, Momma, nothing like that.  We didn’t do anything.  Well, we kissed one time.  I promise that’s all.”
     Priscilla turned back to the map and smoothed it out again. “What else do you see?”
     “See how these trees point toward the river and the black hole in the left bank?”
     “Yes.”
     “One day not long after we got here Tommy and me, by accident, pushed aside some thick laurel bushes and there was a thin ledge of rock going around side of the cliff.  Well, you know how me and Shaun liked to go exploring back home.”
     “Best as I remember caves used to put the fear of the Lord in you.”
     “I know, but I couldn’t let Shaun know how scared I was ‘cause he’d leave me home.  And I couldn’t let Tommy know I was scared.  There isn’t a frontier man going to marry a scaredy-cat.  Besides, coming all the way through those tunnels from Spook Mountain with the Chattanock sort of cured me, I guess. ”
     “We’ll talk about going off to yourself like that later.  Go on.”
     “We worked our way through more laurel bushes and hugged the wall. We . . .  (more, read the book)

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