THE LEGACY IS A BARREN ROCKY HOLLOW ATOP THE HILL THE ONLY PLACE HOLDING WARMTH AND MIRACULOUS LIFE WHEN THE GREAT BLIZZARD WIPES OUT EVERY ROAD
THE LEGACY IS A BARREN ROCKY HOLLOW ATOP THE HILL
THE ONLY PLACE HOLDING WARMTH AND MIRACULOUS LIFE
WHEN THE GREAT BLIZZARD WIPES OUT EVERY ROAD
Wyoming Territory, 1886.
The auction notice was nailed straight into the oak door of the barn with cold, deliberate blows. I spotted it at six-twenty on a Tuesday morning; the white paper fluttered violently in the biting January wind, while behind me, hundreds of longhorn cattle bellowed for feed.
“PUBLIC AUCTION – MARCH 14
184 ACRES OF VALLEY LAND – CATTLE RANCH – FACILITIES – RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL”
My name appeared nowhere on that paper.
I stood there, still clutching my hay fork, reading the notice over and over—three times in all—as if reading it once more might make the words rearrange themselves into something less insulting. Behind me came the familiar sounds of the restless herd. The ranch had awakened, and my brothers had apparently decided to put an end to it. I tore the notice from the door and strode toward the cabin to send a telegram.
Wade, my eldest brother, was in Cheyenne. When I rode to the telegraph office in town to use the newly installed line, his voice came through dry and clipped, without a word of greeting:
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Silas?”
“I’m holding it in my hand right now,” I replied.
“Then you know. We’ve hired a land brokerage firm.”
“You put the ranch up for sale without saying a word to me?”
“We’ve been talking about this for three years,” Wade sighed.
I closed my eyes. Wade lived hundreds of miles away in Cheyenne, owning two saddle and wagon shops. As for Vernon, my older brother, he had moved to Denver after his divorce and only showed his face at the ranch when someone died or he had a craving for venison. I was the only one who had stayed behind. I was the one who kept the herd going through Father’s stroke, managed the breeding records, paid the hay bills, fought off cattle rustlers, and learned to keep the water troughs from freezing solid by smashing the ice every winter morning with an iron bar.
When Father passed away last November, the ranch was divided equally among the three of us. Ownership was equal, but the memories and the labor were not.
“What about the herd?” I asked.
“Sell it all off.”
“And the hired hands?”
“They can find other work. There’s no money in this pig trough, Silas. A representative from the Union Pacific Railroad is ready to pay eleven thousand dollars for the valley land.”
My stomach knotted. Eleven thousand dollars was a fortune in those days. For the past five years, the railroad company had been buying up land around Black Throat Valley to build a depot, a freight yard, and resorts for East Coast aristocrats eager to experience the “Wild West.” Our valley land was flat, beautiful, and situated right next to the planned rail line.
“What about the hillside?”
“They don’t want it,” Wade said. “Of course not. The hillside up there is nothing but rock, scrub timber, and sheer limestone bluffs. We’ll carve that part off. You can keep your share up there if you like, plus a third of the proceeds from the valley sale. You’ve always loved the woods and mountains, anyway.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “You sell off the fertile land, make a killing, and toss me a pile of rubble.”
“Don’t act like we’re robbing you. You’re getting paid in cash.”
By noon that day, I had made two decisions. First, I wouldn’t sign a thing until I had a clear picture of everything. Second, I would ride up to Uncle Amos’s dig.
Uncle Amos was my grandfather’s brother, a Civil War veteran who had returned from the conflict with a crippled hand. He never married, and throughout the 1860s, he wasted a decade digging into the side of Treadwell Hill, searching for something no one could name. My father called it “Amos’s Hole.” When we were kids, Wade used to scare me by saying that the ghosts of miners lived inside it.
The climb took over an hour. My mouse-colored stallion huffed and puffed as he struggled over the jagged, rocky slopes. Reaching the summit, I found a structure that had seemed enormous in my childhood memories but was, in reality, no bigger than a small shed. Uncle Amos had carved into an existing limestone recess and built a stone façade across the cave entrance. Thick oak beams supported a rustic roof tucked beneath the natural rock overhang; grass and moss blanketed the top. The wooden door had rotted and collapsed inward.
I ducked my head and stepped inside.
The change in temperature was immediate. Outside, the thermometer surely read no higher than fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, with a biting wind whistling fiercely. Yet inside, my breath didn’t even mist; the space was surprisingly warm. The main cavern extended about fifty feet into the hillside. A narrower passage led off to the left. I lit a torch.
Venturing deeper, I heard the sound of trickling water. And then, I saw it: an underground pool of clear water.
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