“That ain’t natural,” Wallace observed. Kevin licked his pants and continued his tour of the house with the cats.
“Love is love,” Maggie told him.
Wallace harrumphed. “I found this at the library last night before it closed,” he said, producing one of several sheets of paper from a zippered folio embossed with the Kinship Historical Society logo.
Silas peered over Maggie’s shoulder at the photocopy. It was a page from a book with an illustration of a gold coin. “The coins that stage was carrying were freshly minted in a gold camp in Montana,” Wallace lectured. “Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Montana was in the midst of a gold rush. Mints that turned raw gold into currency were popping up like them there coffee shops today that set up on the same block. They weren’t very regulated, and mistakes were made.”
“What kind of mistakes?” Maggie asked.
“Well, rumor has it that the stage that was robbed was carrying a strongbox full of fresh coins made with a dollar dye on one side and a quarter dye on the other,” Wallace said.
“An entire strongbox of gold mistakes,” Silas mused. He’d never heard that particular bit of gossip. “Where did you hear that?”
“The gunslinger who shot Black Jack swears he took a gold coin off the man. During the poker game, Black Jack was said to have told the players it came from the stage robbery. Used it to up the ante on the last hand and won.”
“Where’s the coin now?” Maggie asked.
“In a museum in downtown Boise.”
“Wait a second,” Silas said. “Aren’t these mistakes worth more than the actual currency? Like the stamp with the airplane printed upside down.”
“You’re not as dumb as you look, my boy,” Wallace said with what could almost be mistaken for affection. “A mismade coin is called a mule. And that particular mule is valued at around fifty-five thousand dollars today.”
Silas let out a low whistle.
“And that’s the only coin ever recovered?” Maggie asked, eyes flicking to the mantel.
“The one and only. None of the other coins or bars ever showed up in any law-abiding establishments. People still go hunting in the canyons looking for the treasure today.”
He unloaded another stack of photocopies. Each one was a news article about people going in search of the gold. Silas and Maggie paged through. The most recent article was from two years ago when a group of geology master’s students, armed with commercial metal detectors and GPS systems, spent two weeks scouring for gold in and around the silver mine where the coach was found.
“None of them got lucky,” Silas observed. “And some of them were downright unlucky.” He tapped the copy of an article about an unnamed young woman who disappeared in the canyons just south of Kinship in the late 1800s after telling her stagecoach companions she was going to find the gold.
“By the by, you owe me ninety cents for the photocopies.” Wallace sniffed.
“I think we can swing that,” Silas said dryly.
“First things first,” Maggie said. “If this coin is from the robbery, what do we do now? Are there lost-treasure authorities we’re supposed to report this to?”
“If you want my advice, which you should,” Wallace said loftily, “we need to get that coin out of that mantel. If it matches Black Jack’s coin, then we go from there. Either someone brought that coin into Campbell’s family’s jewelry store and he recognized it or he came across the treasure. If it’s the latter, there could be other clues within these walls.”
“I’d imagine insurance was paid on the loss,” Silas guessed. “So who would the gold belong to?”
Wallace shrugged. “Whoever owns the land most likely.”
“Wallace, would you be willing to talk about this, share what you know about the robbery on camera?” Maggie asked.
“Like on the Antiques Roadshow?” He schooled his face into disapproval, but Silas heard a note of interest in the man’s creaky voice.
“Something like that,” she said with a smile.
He harrumphed. “Like anyone wants to listen to an old man like me. Let’s get that coin out of there and see what we find on the other side first.”
“Mags, how do we do that?” Silas asked.
She blew out a breath and crossed to the mantel. “Best I can tell, it looks like the mantel is in two pieces. This molding here at the bottom is a thin layer with the inlay just a hair smaller than the circumference of the coin. If we pry off the bottom layer, the coin should come right out.”