Native Gold by Glynnis Campbell Read Free Book Online

dirt. "You can’t just..."
    They cut their quibbling short when they heard someone coming through the trees. Mattie squinted in the direction of the noise, against the orange light of the setting sun. She could make out the silhouettes of a pack of men, pickaxes slung across their shoulders, hats slanted atop their heads. They kicked up little clouds of rust-colored dust as they came, their noisy arrival punctuated by barks of laughter and the clank of gold pans.
    Mattie straightened and nervously chewed at her bottom lip. He must be with them, she thought—her new husband. Her eyes flickered over the band of prospectors, searching for the face she’d drawn in her mind a hundred times.
    The lead man stopped abruptly when he saw her, and all the others bungled into him, tainting the air with clattering tools and cussing. Then they grew quiet, keeping their distance, but spreading across the path so everyone could get a good look at her. A few of them had the presence of mind to doff their hats.
    They were the sorriest bunch of souls Mattie had ever laid eyes on. Their clothes were filthy. Most of them were soaking wet from the thighs down, and their march through the dust had made a muddy, brick-colored mess of their pants and knee-high boots. Their wrinkled shirts bore dark sweat stains along the collars and deep under the arms, and their hats were as lumpy as the crust of an overstuffed pie. Those who could grow beards had done so, it seemed, with nary a scissor or comb to keep them the least bit presentable.
    "Well, don’t just stand there like a bunch of no-counts," Swede scolded. "Where’s your manners?"
    Mattie froze to the spot, though she wanted to turn and run. She’d just as soon not move an inch closer to the growing mob. If they looked that foul, God only knew what they smelled like.
    But her father had raised no shrinking violet, to faint away at the slightest insult to her sensibilities. After all, Lawrence Hardwicke had rubbed elbows with pirates and ruffians and all manner of savages. If he could do it, so could she.
    Summoning up a brave smile and holding her breath, she stepped forward to greet her new neighbors, feeling as out of place as a mouse in the parlor. "How do you do?"
    They only stared at her, silent, awestruck, as if she’d just stepped off of a cloud into their midst. There were about two dozen in all, mostly young men, a few old enough to be grandfathers, a couple of olive-skinned lads, a man as black as a crow, and one who looked suspiciously female.
    "Well, dang it," Swede said, crossing powerful forearms across his belly. "Ain’t anyone gonna say hello? Where’s Frenchy?"
    "At your service." A handsome, stubble-chinned man with a feather in his hat stepped forward like an elegant fop asking her to dance. He took her gloved hand in his callused one, roguishly winked one of his brandy-brown eyes, and bent over it with the suggestion of a kiss. "Allow me to apologize for these mannerless pigs," he said, his voice thick with a French accent. "I am Lucien Lafayette, ma cherie , known as Frenchy to mes amis . Welcome...to our little slice...of Paradise." He seemed surprised and pleased with his awful rhyme, and Mattie had to smile.
    "Thank you," she murmured.
    Frenchy lifted one brow in challenge to the rest, and they edged forward to make her acquaintance.
    She met young Billy and Bobby Cooper, whose hands shook as they tipped their hats, Jasper Colton, who looked as dangerous as a gunslinger, and Red Boone, who sported a fiery beard. She met two Welshmen who gave her a Gaelic greeting she couldn’t decipher. Four strapping lads introduced themselves as the Campbells. Amos, the black man, contented himself with a polite, but cautious nod. And Granny, the only other woman in the camp, showed her with a stern glare that there’d be no feminine camaraderie between the two of them.
    She met them all and remembered about a quarter of their names. None of them were Dr. James Harrison. She was