JULY HARVEST

"Dear Jim, your letter just arrived. It was such a relief to get word after so many months of silence. I realize, of course, that there aren't any mailboxes that you can drop a letter out there in the wild. But that doesn't keep me from worrying about you. Little Jimmy is fine, but he misses his daddy almost as much as I do. He keeps asking, 'When's Daddy coming home?' You say if you do not make a real find this time you'll never go again. I cannot begin to tell you how my heart rejoices at those words, if you really mean them. Now I feel free to tell you I've never thought any material treasure no matter how great, is worth the pain of these long separations. The country is especially lovely this year. It's been a perfect spring. Warm rains and hardly any frost. The fruit trees are all in bloom. The upper orchard looks aflame and the lower, like after a snowstorm. Everybody looks forward to big crops. I do hope you are back for the harvest. Of course, I'm hoping that you will at last strike it rich. It is high time for luck to start smiling upon you. But just in case she doesn't remember we've already found life's real treasure. Forever yours, Helen.

Curtin had lost count how many times he'd read the letter from Cody's widow in the past few weeks of his life. Her words had the effect on his soul like a glass of water in the desert. He'd been in arid terrain not unlike a desert himself, searching for gold in the mountains of Sierra Madre with the now deceased Dobbs and his gold prospecting mentor, Howard, a true king amongst men. It was Howard who'd made the suggestion that he should go to Dallas and visit Cody's widow and as Curtin sat on the train watching the landscape change from copper bronze to emerald green, he felt blessed to have taken the old man's good advice.

There was something strange, though, about taking advantage of a man's misfortune in dying to make contact with those living he'd left behind. He still regretted what had happened to the stranger. Cody followed Curtin who'd been stocking up on supplies in the nearby town to take back up into the mountains; he'd found out about the gold prospecting expedition Curtin, Dobbs and Howard were arduously carrying out. Though murdering the man who posed a threat to their fortune was something they seriously considered (especially Dobbs), fate had other ideas and Cody ended up fighting bandits in solidarity with them all before getting shot dead by a raider. That was how Curtin found the letter on his person which he read out loud before they said some words over his body before finally burying him.

Cody's death was a turning point in all their destinies, for everything subsequent to his demise only brought greater jeopardy for them all with great rewards in some regard and severe punishment in others. Howard had called Cody's death a harbinger but Curtin had forgotten what exactly that meant although he had a sense of what it might signify. He would miss Howard. All those long days and nights watching Dobbs's increasing paranoia had been exhausting up in those mountains and Howard was the only one who offered any sensible advice and solutions, kind of like the father he never had.

As much as he like to dream about seeing Helen and the fruit harvest while he was awake on the train journey to Dallas, he had nightmares when he slept in fitful bursts, seeing images of Curtin's dead face and Dobbsy's dead corpse over and over like they were stuck on a loop in one of those zoetrope devices. Remembering how he and Dobbs had spent all those nights in homeless shelters together in Tampico getting ripped off by contractors and looking for any way to break out of their poverty, only for Dobbs to wind up dead wandering the dusty foothills of Sierra Madre pained his heart. Dobbs became increasingly hostile during their expedition but Curtin couldn't bring himself to forget that he had also once been his only true friend in the world. Besides, it wasn't as if both himself and Howard hadn't tried to put his restless mind at ease while he worried about losing his portion of the gold. But he guessed there was no telling some folk so deeply hypnotised by the chattering of their own mind.

A day away from reaching Dallas, Curtin tried to focus his thoughts on the future and less on the past. There was nothing he could do about what had transpired over the past months; it had blown away like those bags of gold in the wind.

Stepping off the train onto the platform, Curtin almost half expected Cody's widow to be there to greet him so intensely had he been thinking of her on his journey. Then he remembered they'd never even met and questioned his own mind for a moment. Perhaps it wasn't that hard to see how Dobbs had gone mad so quickly in Sierra Madre back there.

He felt a guilty sort of nervousness and his throat felt as dry as sand as it had those days when they'd been breaking rocks with their pick axes and constructing platforms for their sluices all along the mountain. Finding a water fountain nearby, Curtin drank so much water it hurt his belly then ran a whole load through his hair as it cascaded in rivets down the side of his face and down the back of his neck.

The temptation would be to waste a whole load of time avoiding heading up to the farm where she would be but that would only make his first approach even harder. Better he just head on up there and tell her straight. It would break her heart to learn Cody had died and he would have to assume that she might not want him to stick around in her state of grief.

Noticing a flower seller close by, Curtin bought a bouquet of lillies and japonicas. He remembered something his mother had told him once about lillies for funerals and japonicas for weddings but wasn't sure it was such a good idea to mix them both up. But by the time he'd thought about it, he'd already paid for them so kept on walking to find a nearby hansom cab to take him to the address on the letter that he already had memorised.

The driver tried making small talk as they drove to the farm but Curtin was so nervous he could barely keep his mind straight. What was it he was so worried about? There was no getting round he felt responsible in some way for Cody's death, even though he knew he didn't die at his hand. They'd thought about it though, all three of them and he would never forget the atavistic depravity the gold had brought them all to in that moment. He wouldn't have even made it here to Dallas if that had been the way things had ended. It took a lot to search his conscience to know he could feel justified in some way to just turn up and say  howdy to a perfect stranger.

She was perfect alright. At least in his imagination she was.

Helen saw the carriage approaching through the wind-tilted wheat while she was lying under the shade of an old oak tree and didn't even dare to hope it was Cody. She knew better by now than to get her hopes up given the hellish intervals between each communication they'd shared in recent months.

Little Jimmy lay next to her asleep after filling his tiny belly full of food from the improvised picnic she had prepared from the several donations she'd been given by various members of the local community.

With no expectation of a miracle, she didn't even think to get up from where she was sitting to greet the oncoming carriage. Instead, she closed her eyes so as not to endure any false hope and tried to remember Cody's face in her mind. She often did this as a sort of memory exercise so she wouldn't forget her love. Nothing scared her more than thinking she would forget what he looked like entirely.

Listening intently, she heard the carriage pull up to an abrupt stop on the dusty road close to the tree and heard the slow crunching sound of a man's boots approaching.

"Afternoon, Miss? I hope I didn't disturb you."

And as she put her hand above her eyes to block the sun she saw through the hazy heat both her past and her future combined in the face of a handsome stranger doffing his hat and holding it to his chest. At first, she thought it was a trick of the light but she could almost swear the man looked just like Cody, even sounded like him. But after a few seconds allowing her vision to settle, she saw it wasn't her man.

"It's about Cody, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so lady. I didn't want you to suffer any delay in hearing what I got to say."

"Don't tell me in front of the boy. He's sleeping. I don't want him to have a fright."

Curtin nodded as the woman, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, fainted and fell to the ground.

Rushing to her aid, Curtin supported her in such a way that she could breathe easily while she came slowly to.

"There now. Don't fret, miss. You've had a shock and that's why I'm here to make it better for you. And the boy there."

She could hear Curtin's deep voice bringing her slowly back from oblivion and it reminded her of when she was a little girl resting in her father's arms. She almost didn't dare to open her eyes again for the fright of what further bad news the stranger might tell her. So instead, she submitted to the strange atmosphere of repressed grief inside of her and relaxed her body against his broad frame, hoping better times would return once again for her and little Jimmy.

God knows she'd prayed for that.