by Tonia Brown
“That’s it!” Clem exclaimed as he tossed his losing hand at the deck. “I’m tapped out.”
“Me too,” Buford said. The big man stood, removing his hat as he bowed again to Gabriella. “Thanks for the game, Miss Upstairs. I ain’t been beat that bad in many a moon. And never by no woman. It was an honor to play ya.”
Clem and Buford were the last men left playing, the rest of them having lost all of their shares long ago. Six others rotated in and out of the game, some not lasting more than one hand before giving up on her. Now, no one wanted to play her.
“Thank you, Mr. Buford,” Gabriella said. On the one hand she was delighted to have proven herself to these ruffians. Yet on the other, she was disappointed that they gave up so easily. Maybe she should have strung them on a bit longer. “Well, pooh. I was just beginning to enjoy myself.”
“Guppy,” the captain called from the bar. “Gather your winnings and come over here.”
Gabriella eyed the pile, wondering how she was going to carry it all, when Buford offered the use of his broad hat. She thanked him, scooping the piles of shares and her own money, which she had won back within the first few hands, into the hat. After thinking about it for a moment, she pulled out a few of the shares, offering them to Buford, as she explained, “For the hat.”
“Oh no,” he said. “Consider it a gift. For a pretty lady. I’m just sorry I ain’t got flowers for ya.” He smiled wide, revealing a woeful lack of teeth.
“Never be sorry for what you have, Mr. Buford,” she said. “A gentleman always makes do with what God gives him. Thank you again.” Carrying the lot to the bar, she handed it to the captain.
“You did good, Guppy,” the captain said as she passed the hat to Dot, who fell to counting the plunder with a voracious greed.
Gabriella beamed with pride.
“But good doesn’t get you out of a month’s worth of kitchen duty,” the captain added.
The grin fell into a frown.
“At least you’ll have good company,” the captain said. “Jayne got two months.”
Gabriella didn’t think that would be very good company, not at all. Speaking of good company, she glanced around, but couldn’t spy Atom. “Where did Atom go?”
The captain nodded to the door. “After he got a gander at the way that big man’s been flirting with you, he decided he needed to go for a walk.”
“Really?”
“Really. Jax went to keep an eye on him.”
“But Buford wasn’t flirting with me.”
“Honey,” Dot said between counting handfuls of shares. “Trust me when I say a man in the West doesn’t give you his hat, ’less he’s after something.”
Gabriella blushed at the very idea. She chanced a glance at Buford, who indeed was leering at her. He smiled again, wiggling his fingers in the air. Gabriella smiled in return, wondering what she had gotten herself into by accepting his gift. The sound of the saloon doors opening snatched Gabriella’s attention. She hoped it was Atom returning.
Instead of Atom, through the doors came a strange man in a long white coat, followed by a man in gray. The moment the first man entered the bar, all the miners in the room let out a simultaneous groan. Gabriella had to assume, based upon the conversation over the last hour of cards, that this was the mysterious professor.
A man whom everyone in town seemed to loathe.
* * * *
“You,” the professor said as he barged across the room toward Rose. “Why are you still here?”
Leaning against the bar as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Rose took her time before she answered. “I told you, I need a load of coal.”
“And I thought I made myself clear. You don’t have anything I want. Why would I part with a precious load of fuel when you don’t have anything I need in return?”
Rose jerked her head to Dot as she said, “I think I have something you’re going to want.”
“Oh, and what would that be, ladies? A nice cake you’ve baked? Or perhaps a pair of socks you’ve knitted?”
“Try a hundred and fifty shares of your mine,” Dot said, holding out the hat for his inspection.
The professor almost swooned the moment he spied the shares. Weak at the knees, he snapped for his servant to bring him a seat, into which he sank. “How…how did you get that?”
“Our Guppy won them,” Rose said. “From your men, who seemed all too happy to give them away.”
“Won them?”
“It would appear, sir,” Thaddeus said, “that the men have been using their payments in games of chance.”
The professor’s weakness was short-lived. He leapt to his feet and turned to face the roomful of men as he yelled, “You heathens! That was a temporary payment. How could you gamble away your very livelihood like that?” He paused and narrowed his eyes at the group before he asked, “It’s the booze that led you to this, wasn’t it? Get out! All of you. Go on. I’ll see that each and every one of you dries out before I’m done with you. You’ve just earned yourselves a curfew. As of now, it’s lights out for the lot of you!”
Rose half expected a riot, but the men did as asked, each one rising and leaving the room without question. Including the barkeep.
“Why do they abide by him?” she asked Thaddeus in a low voice.
The man sighed, then said just as softly, “Because they all have mining in their blood, and the professor controls one of the last free-operating mines in the West. These men would follow him to the ends of the earth just for the chance to dig beneath her surface.”
“And why do you obey him?”
“I have my own reasons.” He didn’t elaborate.
“Now,” the professor said, his anger somewhat abated by the obedience of his men. “What will it take to persuade you to hand over those shares to me?”
“Sell me some coal,” Rose said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s impossible.”
“Then perhaps the Mechanics would like to sell me some coal for the shares?”
The professor went white at the suggestion as he mouthed the word “No.”
Rose nodded, hoping her bluff wouldn’t be called. There was no way she would ever deal with the likes of the Mechanics.
Before the professor could speak again, the manservant cleared his throat, then stared at his master in silence.
The professor stared in return.
Some silent conversation happened, some quiet arguing that Rose would have given anything to have been privy to. Years ago, she had seen her father’s butler give her father a similar silent dressing-down. It was bound to mean the professor was too ashamed to ask for help that the servant was desperate enough to beg for.
When both of the men seemed satisfied with the staring contest, the professor said, “What I mean to say is, I have troubles of my own.”
“Troubles?” Rose asked. Seeing a window in the discussion, Rose opened it, then propped it wide as she asked, “What kind of troubles?”
“You don’t want to know,” the professor said, pulling the window closed tight again. It seemed the man would rather suffocate beneath his own problems than place himself at the mercy of outsiders.
“Sir. I know it is out of place for me to say.” He lowered his voice a little then added, “But may I remind you they are willing to help when no one else will?”
“We certainly are,” Rose said, a genuine smile creeping to her lips for the first time since they met the professor. “If it means we end up with a full complement of fuel for our efforts.”
The professor smiled. “One hand washes the other, eh?”
“Of course. And you’ll get your shares back as well.”
The man considered their offer for a moment. “I can’t sell you coal, because I don’t have any coal.”
Rose had expected almost anything, but not this. “What?”
The professor leaned forward and shouted, “I don’t have any coal!”
She winced at his shout. “Thank you, professor. That’s what I thought you said. Now can you explain why?”
“You won’t believe me, but if I must. Four weeks prior to your arrival, the miners opened a new pocket of coal. While everyone was pleased by the new find, within hours those working this new section began to complain of strange experiences. At first it was small things such as hearing unusual noises or seeing things lurking just beyond their halo of light.”
“What kind of noises?” Dot asked.
“The crying of small children or the baying of cattle.”
“That’s perfectly frightening.” The woman shuddered.
“Indeed. Yet as the weeks progressed, the noises became worse and were soon accompanied by nightmarish visions. The men began to fight about who had to go into that section of the mine, because no one wanted to face the strange occurrences. Just last night, one of the men ran screaming for his life from the depths of the mine, collapsing at the entrance in the arms of his fellow workers.”
“He was quite the sight,” Thaddeus added.
“Wasn’t he though? His hair had turned solid white, his body covered head to toe in cuts and bruises. Broke three fingers on his right hand. When he finally came around, he claimed the ghost of his dead brother had just attacked him. Tried to kill him.”
“Ghost?” Rose asked.
“Yes. Preposterous I know, yet that’s what he claimed. Well, the rest of the men declared the whole mine haunted, and they refuse to go back to work.”
“You can’t blame them.”
“I certainly can!” the professor shouted. He looked down at his shaking hands, taking a moment to calm himself before he continued. “Here I sit on a mine full of coal I can’t reach, with a lab full of experiments that need the coal that I can’t get my hands on. It’s frustrating, to say the least.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Yes.” The professor looked up to face her with his worry. “What do you intend to do about it?”
Rose knew what they needed to do, she just didn’t want to be the one to do it. While she by no means feared of the idea of crawling around in the belly of the earth looking for supposed spirits, that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I suppose one of us needs to go and see if this haunting is as real as your men seem to think it is.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“Why? What else do you propose?”
The professor cocked his head at her question, but didn’t answer.
“I suspect,” Rose continued, “that it will turn out to be nothing more than an elaborate plot by your men to seek higher wages. But in order to prove it, one of us will have to make the journey below to see what all the fuss is about.”
Everyone tried to speak at the same time. Rose raised her hand, at which her crew fell silent.
“I shall go,” she said.
The ensuing uproar was predictable. Rose waited until everyone had her simultaneous say. While it was difficult to pick apart the various pleas and warnings, Rose did her best to seem as though she heard each woman’s worry. As soon as they realized she wouldn’t be talked out of it, they fell quiet again.
The professor, however, grinned wide. “You’re quite serious, aren’t you?”
Rose tipped her head in reassurance. “Someone needs to find out what is going on down there. I trust my crew, but I would never ask them to do something I wouldn’t.”
“Marvelous philosophy,” he said. “I would go myself, but I have a medical condition that prevents my crawling into small places. I tried to get Thaddeus to go, but he said…well…what was it you said?”
The manservant admitted, “I said no, sir.”
“That was it.” The professor clapped then rubbed his hands together. “Well then, there you have it. In the face of the fear of full-grown men, the fairer sex steps up to take the reins. You find the cause and I’ll give you as much coal as your ship can carry. And you will give me back my shares. Have we a deal?”
Rose smiled, pleased by the offer. “Yes, we have a deal.”
“Excellent! In the morning I will have Thaddeus ready some lanterns and—”
“Tonight,” Rose interjected.
The professor paused, looking quite confused by her statement. “Excuse me?”
“Captain?” Dot asked. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Rose eyed the woman into silence. “I shall go tonight. The quicker we get this done, the quicker we’ll be out of your hair.”
The professor nodded. “Very well then. Tonight it is. I will say that, ghost or not, that last man ran into something down there. Let us pray, for your sake, that whatever it was, it’s long gone.”
Rose, not normally a praying woman, found herself moved to the act.
Chapter 11
All Hands on Her Deck
In which we have a moment to enjoy ourselves before hitting the dirt
Climbing the rope ladder to her ship, Rose pondered her choice to go in another’s stead. She supposed she’d volunteered because she wanted to show everyone she was still in charge. Maybe delegating the job would have been just as effective, but something told her that if she could manage this, it would refresh the crew’s respect for her.
The professor wasn’t the only one with but a slight respect from his employees.
Why did no one want to obey her? Wasn’t she a fair captain? A gracious host? Rose thought of Bill and how everyone under him respected him. No, that wasn’t right. They didn’t respect him. They were afraid of him because he was a cruel man, and that’s how he would always be remembered. As a cruel man and nothing more. Rose would rather never be obeyed again then to be thought of as that cruel.
Just as she crested the side of the ship, Click greeted her with his usual smile.
“What kept you, my captain?” he asked.
“Click!” she shouted in surprise. “I told you not to sneak up on me like that.” Rose took his hand, pulling herself on deck. She made a straight line for her cabin, but Click caught her by the arm, delaying her course.
“What is going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain.” She yanked her arm from his grasp. “Where is Maggie?”
“In her loft, tending to the birds. My captain, what troubles you?” The tenderness of his voice brought her to a stop. Click stepped behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist as he said, “You are not well.”
How he knew when something weighed on her, she could never hope to guess. Rose closed her eyes, wishing she didn’t have to tell him what was happening, but as a member of her crew, he had every right to know. She told him. As soon as she announced that she would be the one to enter the mines, he spun her about to look her in the eye.
“My captain,” he said, his eyes begging for her submission. “Let me go in your stead. This is too dangerous. You know I would slay the wildest beast to keep you safe.”
“I know, and that’s why I have to do this. Alone.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You don’t have to prove yourself to them. No matter what you believe, the crew reveres you enough as it is.”
“Then why do they never heed me?” She felt like a whining child.
“Because it is their very nature, my captain. You packed this ship with women who wouldn’t listen to anyone else in their lives. Not their husbands, their families, their friends. Not society, nor the priests, nor the law. What makes you think you are so different? Why should they heed you?”
Rose was pained by this exposure, by his words striking the raw nerve of her worries. “Because I’m the captain.”
“Then be their captain, but not their master.”
She lowered her head to his chest, defeated by his logic. Rose had most certainly hired a crew of outcasts. It was up to her to find a way to make these strong-headed women at least consider her commands before breaking them.
“Let me go,” Click said again.
“No. Besides, it’s bound to be nothing.”
“Then why return here?”
Rose went silent.
Click sighed as he rubbed gentle circles on her back. “You’ve come to set your affairs in order. Haven’t you?”
She nodded into his chest.
“I thought it was bound to be nothing?” he asked.
“Just in case there is something down there,” she said. “I want to be sure things are arranged.”
“There’s no need for that. You will pull through fine.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” Click’s hand wandered down her back until he had a handful of ass.
Rose lifted away to stare at him. “Don’t be rude.”
“Rude? I had no intention of being rude.” His smile spread. “I have every intention of being most excellent.”
“Not now, Click.” She wormed free from his clutch, only to find he was holding her from behind again.
“And why not?” He pulled her to him, sliding his hands up her stomach, taking a firm hold of her breasts. “You said yourself there might be something down there. We might never get another chance.”
“Click,” she gasped, trying to control her lust in the face of his naked desire. “I swear all you ever want to do is fuck.”
He lowered his mouth to her blouse, suckling, nibbling and kissing along the length of her shoulders and neck through the thin fabric. “That’s not true. Sometimes I like to just fuck. But right now I wish to make love to you.” He ground his ever-ready cock against her ass as he kissed the nape of her neck, her favorite spot.
She shuddered under his lips, but kept her legs pressed together tight. “We can’t. Not here.”
“Of course we can, my captain.” He ground his erection against her harder. “After all, it’s your ship.”
“But Maggie—”
“Will know better than to interrupt. Or maybe she will enjoy the show? Yes? Like the boy on the island. I think you liked that. Do you? Does it make you wet to know someone might watch us make love?”
His words echoed not just in her ears, but in her soul, lighting a roaring fire that only his touch could quench.
