“Fire’s going here,” said Maggie, indicating a raised spot on the verge of the meadow. She pointed at Nora and Clive. “You all gather up some wood. Birch, alder, and oak—none of that fir or spruce! Jason and I are going to build a fire pit. Jason, let’s put some muscle on those arms of yours! You, too, Bruce.”

“Sorry, not in my job description,” said Adelsky with a grin as he settled down on a fallen tree, fumbled in his pocket, removed his vape, and fired it up. He leaned back and issued a stream of smoke. “I’ll watch you work.”

“Bum,” Maggie said. “By the way, Arizona recluse spiders just love to lay their eggs in dead trees like the one you’re squatting on.”

Adelsky leapt to his feet and brushed frantically at his jeans, vape falling to the ground, while Maggie’s belly laugh echoed across the field.

Nora and Clive headed into the trees at the edge of the meadow and started collecting wood.

“So far, so good,” Clive said. “Burleson seems to know his business. Interesting, though, that he gave up a lucrative practice to start this outfit. It makes you wonder if there isn’t more to his backstory than we’ve been told.”

“It’s quite an eccentric crew he’s put together,” Nora said. “Maggie, who talks a mile a minute; Peel, as silent as the grave; and Wiggett. He’s hard to pin down but he looks, well, hungry.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the kind of person who’s never satisfied, always looking for greener grass.”

“Nothing wrong with ambition. And you seem to be a striver, too, right?”

“I hope it’s not too obvious.”

“Why not be obvious?” He paused and gave her a big smile. “Isn’t that why we’re here, as partners? Ambition, thirst for knowledge, wanting to make our mark.”

Nora knew he was right but felt odd hearing it put so baldly. “There is one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’ve been wondering why, when you first told me your story—out there at my dig—you never mentioned the gold. I have to admit…that kind of bothers me.”

Clive chuckled. “I knew you were going to ask me that. First, Jason was there and I didn’t want him to hear it. But more than that—I wanted to see what kind of interest you had in the project before you heard about the gold.”

“So you waited until that meeting with Fugit to spring it on me.”

“Look at my position. It could screw up everything if word got out there was twenty million in gold lying around, just waiting to be found. Also…well, I wanted to make sure you had the—forgive the expression—stones for the job.”

Nora frowned in surprise. “What are you talking about? You know my credentials. You searched me out. This isn’t my first brush with controversy. I’ve even dealt with cannibalism before.”

“I know,” Clive said, picking up a piece of wood. “But this goes beyond even cannibalism.”

Nora straightened. “How so?”

“I’ve tried to deflect idle talk about some of the more salacious stories about the Lost Camp, as you might have noticed—but the fact is something truly strange and awful happened there.”

“What could be worse than cannibalism?”

Clive paused a moment, looking out over the meadow. “I mentioned that one person managed to escape and make it back to the Donner camp at Alder Creek—an itinerant preacher named Asher Boardman. He ran off, he said, because madness overwhelmed the Lost Camp. He later died of starvation—but not before Tamzene wrote down his story. When the lone rescuer, a man named Best, finally reached the camp, he found only one person still alive—Peter Chears. He was singing songs and playing with a pile of human bones, gore stuck to his cheeks and matted into his hair. Best hauled the man out with the last of Tamzene’s camp. Chears survived the trip back to civilization, but died soon after, hopelessly insane.”

“Jesus,” Nora said. “And how do you know these details?”

“The historical record. A lot of it is suspect—exaggerated newspaper articles, chapbooks written by people who weren’t directly involved—but the primary documents can’t be ignored. In addition to the details included in Tamzene’s journal, there’s the diary—admittedly sensationalized—of a survivor, Mrs. Horne, who described Boardman’s staggering into their camp. And then there’s the account of the rescuer, Best. Best himself didn’t write it down, but he spoke of it to a few people back in Tamzene’s camp. Best was a tough customer, but what he saw at that Lost Camp must have shaken him to the core. What remains of those horrific secondary accounts are viewed by historians as examples of ‘generation loss’ and the unreliability of oral tradition. The farther you are from the primary source, the harder it gets to be certain the details are one hundred percent accurate.”

“One hundred percent or not,” Nora murmured as these details sank in, “that’s a hell of a lot more than you told me that first day. No wonder Maggie’s so full of tall tales.”

“Some are less tall than others. I wanted to be certain of your gumption. As the excavations uncover the details of what happened, it might get…a little disturbing.”

“And?”

“I’m reassured.”

Nora shook her head. “I wish I’d known these details earlier. I don’t appreciate being blindsided.”

“Sorry. You’re right. I apologize.”

“Accepted,” said Nora. “But now that we’re actually searching for the camp—no more secrets between us. Agreed?”

“Wholeheartedly. But remember, that goes both ways.”

“Of course.” Nora wondered what exactly he meant by that.

They dragged a number of dead branches back, piling them up near the fire. The camp was in the last stages of coming together. Their wall tents were up, the fire was blazing, and Maggie was fussing with a wooden pantry box, unloading two Dutch ovens and organizing the pots, pans, dishes, and silverware in various compartments.

“Oak!” she said approvingly. “Good work! Jason, grab that ax and let’s chop this up.”

Wielding an ax herself, Maggie expertly chopped the oak branches into manageable lengths while Jason started hacking away.

“Hellaboy, you’re going to cut your legs off doing it that way.” Maggie came up behind and, wrapping her ample arms around him and holding his elbows in place, demonstrated how to aim and swing an ax. She glanced over at Adelsky. “See what you’re missing?” she asked with a salacious laugh.

“My loss.” Adelsky waved his vape.

Folding chairs had been stacked against a tree, ready to be placed in a circle around the fire. Jason Salazar pulled one over, opened it, and flopped down on the seat, his face red and covered with sweat. “That woman’s a slave driver,” he said.

“I heard that!” Maggie said while forking steaks onto the grill with a searing noise.

“I meant you to hear it.”

“I’m just putting some meat on those bones of yours. You’ve had your nose in books too long.”

The others came back from their tasks and gathered around the fire as the evening descended.