But Mama says we hid it because taking so much gold to the mint would attract attention. She’s right. Whenever we bring in more than a pinch or two of dust, word gets out, and strangers start crawling all over our land like ants on a picnic, looking for the mother lode. In fact, I’ve earned my daddy a nickname: Reuben “Lucky” Westfall, everyone calls him. Only the three of us know the truth, and we’ve sworn to keep it that way.

In the meantime, the barn roof is starting to leak; the cellar shelves are still half empty, with the worst cold yet to come; and we owe Free Jim’s store for this year’s winter wheat seed. A big nugget like the one I found could take care of it all. It’s a lucky find, sure, but not so lucky as an entire flour sack of gold dust worked from a played-out claim.

“So, Leah,” Daddy says, and I look up from wiping the stock. He never calls me that. It’s always “Lee” or “sweet pea.”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“Where exactly did you find that rock?”

“By a new deer trail, west of the orchard.”

“I heard the rifle shot. Sounded like it came from a long ways off.”

“Sure did. Longer still before I got him. I nicked him in the flank, and he ran off. I tracked him down the mountain and across the creek to . . . Oh.”

I had crossed over onto McCauley land.

Daddy’s rocking chair stills. “It doesn’t belong to us,” he says softly.

“But we need—” I stop myself. Jefferson and his da need it as bad or worse than we do.

“We’re not thieves,” Daddy says.

“I found it fair and square!”

He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. If Mr. McCauley came by and ‘found’ our peaches in the orchard, would it be all right to help himself to a bushel?”

I frown.

“She should put it right back where she found it,” Mama says.

“No!” I protest, and Daddy gives me the mind-your-mother-or-else look. I swallow hard and try to lower my voice, but I’ve never mastered the gentle firmness of Mama’s way. I’m a too-loud-or-nothing kind of girl. “I mean, if we can’t keep it, then the McCauleys should have it. Their cabin is in bad shape, and their milk cow died last winter, and . . . I’ll take it back. I’ll give it over to Jefferson’s da.”

Mama carries her pot to the box stove and sets it on top. “What will you tell him?” she asks, giving the stew a quick stir.

“The truth. That I was hunting, that I tracked my wounded buck onto his claim and chanced upon a nugget.”

Mama frowns. “Knowing Mr. McCauley, the story will be all over town within a day.”

“So? No one needs to know I witched it up.”