Thurston House

Chapter One The sun sank slowly onto the hills framing the lush green splendor of the Napa Valley. Jeremiah stood watching the hot orange streaks across the sky, followed by a pale mauve haze, but his mind was a thousand miles away. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and a straight back, strong arms and a warm smile. At forty- three years of age, there was more salt than pepper in his hair, yet his hands still had the same strength they had had when he worked in the mines as a young man, and when he bought his first mine in the Napa Valley in 1860. He had staked the claim himself and was the first to find quicksilver in the Napa Valley. He had been seventeen years old, barely more than a boy, but for years he had thought of nothing except mining, just as his father had done before him. His father had come from the East in 1850, and for him, the promise of gold in the West had been fulfilled. He had sent for his wife and son six months after he arrived, his pockets full of gold, and they had come. But when Jeremiah arrived, he was alone. His mother had died on the way. And for the next ten years he and his father had worked side by side, mining gold, then silver when the gold ran thin, and then when Jeremiah was nineteen, his father died, leaving him a fortune far larger than even Jeremiah had dreamed of. Richard Thurston had saved everything for him, and Jeremiah was suddenly richer than almost any man in the state of California. But for him, it didn't change anything. He went on working in the mines, beside the men he hired, buying mines, buying land, building, growing, mining. His men said that he had the gift of gold, everything he touched succeeded and grew, just as the quicksilver mines he established in Napa, when the silver mines ebbed. He made the transition swiftly and wisely, before others understood what he was doing. But it was the land he loved best. The rich brown soil he would run through his fingers and then hold lovingly in his hand...he loved its warmth, its texture, and all that it represented, as he looked as far as the eye could see, at the hills, the trees, the tidy- looking valley, the lush green carpet of grass stretching ahead of him. He had bought vineyards too, from which he produced a pleasant little wine. He loved everything that the land produced, apples, walnuts, grapes...ore...this valley meant more to him than anything...or anyone.... He had spent thirty- five of his forty- three years right here, looking out at the same gently rolling hills, and when he died he would be buried here. This was where he belonged, the only place in the world he wanted to be. Wherever he went in the world, and Jeremiah Thurston had been far, this was the only place he wanted to live, in the Napa Valley, standing here at sunset, looking out over his hills. And yet, as he stood there, the sky turning a velvety purplish gray, his mind was far from here. There was a business deal in Atlanta he'd been offered the day before, for close to a thousand flasks of quicksilver, and the price was one he liked, but there was something about the way he had been approached...for some odd reason, he had a peculiar feeling about it all, and yet he couldn't understand why. There was nothing wrong with the deal, and he was having his bank investigate the consortium. There was something about the letter he had received, about the man's style, that bothered him. He seemeSteel, Danielle is the author of 'Thurston House', published 1990 under ISBN 9780440185321 and ISBN 0440185327.