by Joyce Magnin
“It’s kibble for you this morning,” she said.
“Here you go.” She filled his dish with the small brown pellets. He gulped them down like a nervous Nellie.
“Uh oh,” Harriet said. “Are you anxious about something? You always gulp your food when you’re upset.”
And that was when Sandra Day sauntered into view.
“The cat,” she said. “That darn cat.”
Harriet patted Humphrey’s head. “Well, don’t you worry too much. In just a few weeks we’ll have our own place. No cats allowed.”
“No cats?” It was Martha.
“Good morning,” Harriet said. “Yes. No cats in the Grammy Suite.”
“Capital idea,” Martha said with a yawn.
“Coffee?” Harriet said.
“Please. And what is that noise?”
Harriet stopped to listen. “Oh, that sweet melody is the sound of a backhoe firing up. They’ll be digging the foundation today. They already have the area marked off and cleaned up.” She poured water into the coffeemaker to make some more. Henry had already emptied the carafe.
“That’s nice,” Martha said as she sat down at the table.
Harriet smiled. The sound of the backhoe brought back a quick slideshow of memories for Harriet. She would often go to one of the building sites where Max worked. She did learn a lot, and she believed she had every right in the world to keep a close look on the addition construction. After all, she thought again, it was more than likely the last home she’ll ever have. It was still a sobering and sad thought.
“Well, Humphrey, when we strike it rich, we’ll just have to go on another adventure. Maybe to Europe or Australia.”
Martha coughed.
“Don’t be so … pessimistic,” Harriet said. “The mine is going to strike. Any day now.”
“I really hope it does,” Martha said. “But I think you should be prepared. How much money are you planning on losing?”
Harriet did not appreciate Martha’s comment. She had never given a thought to a gold mine budget. “I don’t know, but I can’t quit now.”
“Quit what?” asked Henry, closing the deck slider.
Harriet shot Martha a glance as if to say, “Tell him and die.”
“Collecting salt and pepper shakers,” Harriet said.
“Well, why would you do that? In a few weeks you can display them all.”
“I know,” Harriet said. She thought about saying something else, but that would just be extending the lie even more. So as usual she changed the subject.
“How about bacon and eggs?” she asked.
“Sounds good.” He sat down at the table to wait for the coffee. “How did you sleep, Martha?”
“Fine,” she said.
“Listen,” Henry said. “I’ve been thinking about Wyatt. I’m going to write to him. But I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. The prison censors will take care of that.”
“Censors? Wow. I’ve never been censored in all my years of writing.”
“You’d be surprised what they consider dangerous or provocative or sensitive.”
“Well, I’m still going to write to him.”
“Thank you,” Martha said. “I know he’ll appreciate hearing from you.”
After breakfast, Harriet cleaned up the kitchen while Martha showered and dressed and Henry got ready to slink into his cave for a day of cattle rustling.
“Do good writing,” Harriet said.
Henry kissed Harriet’s cheek. “Thanks, Mom. You have a good day too. Do you and Martha have plans?”
“Not sure. I think first I want to take Humphrey for a nice long walk and then maybe do a little housework. I know Prudence hasn’t been feeling well, and I don’t want her to have to work too hard when she gets home.”
“Oh, that’s thoughtful of you, but she got a lot done this weekend. She said she’d be a little late again tonight.”
“I wish she wouldn’t work so hard. It scares me.”
“She’s fine, Mom.”
The coffee was ready. Henry poured some, grabbed a snack cake, and headed off to his den.
“He’s a good boy,” Martha said.
“Yes, he is. The best. But … look, Martha, you can still be proud of Wyatt. There must be some good left inside him.”
Martha poured her coffee and took a sip. “Oh, there is. He is still just so sweet and quiet. A terrific artist. Sometimes I think that was the trouble. He just never fit in until he got mixed up with the wrong crowd.”
“Then be proud of his art. Will they let him draw in prison?”
Martha thought a moment. “I think so. I’ll have to check.”
“That’s the ticket, and then you can send him a sketch book and pastels or charcoal and water colors, pencils—whatever he needs.”
“If they let me.”
Harriet quickly finished her own coffee and set her mug in the sink. “I’m going to walk the dog. Would you like to come?”
“No, not this morning. I kind of like sitting here. It’s such a nice room.”
“Suit yourself.”
Henry sat at his desk. The building sounds were not as loud as he thought they might be, and he was grateful for that. He stared at his computer screen, not really in the mood. The muse had not shown up that morning. It had been such an eventful week.
He heard a knock on the door. “Hello.” Perhaps his muse knocked first now.
“Martha,” Henry said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Martha said, moving in closer to Henry. “I wanted to talk to you. While your mom is out with the dog.”
“Me? Sure. Come on, sit.”
Martha sat in Henry’s comfortable reading and napping chair.
“I really shouldn’t be telling you this,” Martha said. “I promised your mom, but I don’t want to see her get hurt, and I thought maybe we could head off any trouble, maybe even go to the authorities if we have to.”
“Authorities?” Henry said. “What are you talking about?”
Martha sighed. “There’s no other way to say this than to just say it. Your mother has leased a gold mine.”
Henry burst into laughter. “What?”
“A gold mine, Henry. Your mother met some guy and his daughter at the café, and they talked her into buying into a gold mine.”
“That’s crazy. Even for my mother. I don’t believe it.”
Martha leaned forward. “It’s true. I met the guy and saw”—she made air quotes—“pictures of the mine. He claims she can’t see it in person because it’s too high up the mountains. All he does is take money from her.”
“Wait a second,” Henry said. “You’re serious. How much money?”
“Well, the other day I saw her hand over fifteen hundred dollars to rent a backhoe.”
Henry leaned so far back in his desk chair he nearly toppled over. “This is crazy.”
“I know. I thought you and Prudence could check it out.”
“Sure, sure, but why is she keeping it a secret?”
“She wants to surprise you. She thinks she can provide money, help with the babies. But I think she’s a little worried, even though she won’t admit it, that it might not pan out, so to speak, and doesn’t want to embarrass herself.”
“That sounds like my mother all right. Okay, I should call Prudence. She knows people.”
“Yes, you should. But please do not tell Harriet. She’ll kill me.”
Henry nodded his head. “Okay, okay. Give me as much info as you have, and I’ll get Pru on the case.”
“It could be legit,” Martha said. “But … I have a sinking feeling, and this guy Winslow Jump makes me nervous. His daughter, if she is his daughter, is quite sweet and I hate that she is getting in so deep. Of course, she’s still a minor but not for long.”
Henry could hardly believe his ears. “Okay, okay,” he said again. He grabbed a pen and a legal pad. “Now, tell me what you know.”
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“Now, remember, you can’t let Harriet know. Tear up that paper when you’re done.” Martha told Henry everything she knew about Winslow and Lily Jump, Old Man Crickets, and Brunner’s Run.
“Old Man Crickets?” Henry said.
“That’s what she told me. He’s the man who owns the land and apparently leases parts of it to miners, gold diggers.”
“Fifteen hundred dollars?” Henry said, tapping his pen on the legal pad.
“And five grand for the lease,” Martha said. “I don’t know how much more she has given him.”
“F-f-five thousand?” Henry said.
Martha nodded. “That’s what she said.”
“She should have just given us the cash if she wanted to help.”
“She was thinking bigger thoughts, Henry.”
“But to be this frivolous. The cross-country trip was bad enough, but this takes the cake.”
“Try to understand and not be too upset.”
“Is she going to see this guy again soon?”
“Probably.”
“Please don’t let her be alone with him—and absolutely nowhere secluded, like a mountain. Just in case he’s a nut job.”
“Good thinking.”
After a jaunt around the block, Harriet and Humphrey decided to check out the builders. There were four men fast at work with shovels. A backhoe was lifting and dumping dirt into a huge pile. She thought about talking to them but then, no, she’d let them work. Just watch a few minutes. But one of the men spied her.
“Hello,” he called. “Want to take a look?”
“Sure,” Harriet said. “I didn’t want to bother you.” She and Humphrey stepped over a couple of smaller dirt piles. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” The young man, large and robust and wearing a blue T-shirt and a baseball cap, smiled. “My name is Manuel. I’m the boss around here.”
“Ah, don’t listen to him,” called one of the other guys. “We just let him think that.”
Manuel wiped his hand on his shirt and extended it to Harriet. “Notice which one of us is in the hole.”
Harriet laughed. “That’s right. My dead husband, Max, he was a builder. He never went into the holes after a while.”
“Ah, Daisy told me you were married to a builder.”
“I hope that doesn’t intimidate you, young man.”
“No. No. It’s a good thing. Keep us on our toes.”
With that, one of the other men dropped his shovel, stood on his tippy toes, and twirled with his hands above his head.
“You stop that, Gus,” Manuel said. “Show some respect.”
“He was just playing,” Harriet said. She looked around. The area had been staked out with string. She saw a pile of cinder blocks and bags of concrete.
“So you’ll probably be pouring the foundation very soon,” Harriet said.
“Yep. Need a firm foundation. Then we can put in the flooring and the walls and the plumbing and the electric. All that good stuff. But the foundation? Most important.”
Harriet thought that was pretty much a true philosophy in any realm.
“Thanks for your hard work,” she said. “I can’t wait until it starts to take shape.”
“Come back here in a week, and it will be looking like a house.”
Harriet shook her head as she walked away. These men could build a house, or at least a medium-sized addition faster than Henry could write a book. Harriet pulled on Humphrey’s lead lightly. “I need to stop thinking that. He’s doing what God has called him to do.”
Humphrey sniffed around the site.
“Now that hole could hold one giant bone, huh, boy,” Harriet said.
Humphrey woofed.
Chapter Twenty
HARRIET FOUND MARTHA IN THE LIVING ROOM LOOKING through a Good Housekeeping magazine. She set the magazine on the coffee ottoman. “So what should we do today?”
“Well, you would still like to see the gold mine, at least that section with the stream.”
“We don’t have to,” Martha said.
“Sure we do. Who knows, maybe you’ll want to invest.”
“Nah, not me. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“I still want you to see it again.”
“But just the streambed. I’m not climbing a mountain.”
“No, we can’t do that, but let me call and see what I can arrange. I’ll call Lily and she can call her father. Hopefully, there will be some gold today. I don’t see why not. It washes down from the mountain all the time. It can’t all be washed away like Win said.”
“You mean it comes and goes?”
After saying that, Harriet did think it sounded kind of strange. “Well, kind of. It must. When I went the first time with Win and Lily, it was chock full of gold flecks and specks. But Win said it can wash away farther downstream and then finally out to sea.”
“Really?” Martha said. “So there could be gold in the ocean?”
Harriet shrugged. “I suppose so. But it would be almost impossible to mine, I would think.”
Martha stood. “Okay. Now I am curious. Let’s go see your gold mine.”
“Terrific,” Harriet said. “I think it would be best if we went into town first, to the café. I’ll call Lily from there. But I better go tell Henry we’re going out. We’ll need to take his car, especially if we’re driving to Downieville.”
Martha put the magazine in the wicker basket near the couch. “I’ll go grab a sweater.”
“Sure thing. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Harriet walked softly into the den. “Son,” she said in a low voice. “Henry.”
Henry spun around in his chair.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to tell you that Martha and I are going to go into town—if I can take the BMW.”
“Oh, sure, I guess so. What’s in town?”
“Stores and things, dear. Just something to do.”
“Okay, but stay out of trouble.”
“Now what kind of trouble could I get into?” She spotted the opened website on Henry’s computer, and her eyes fell on the words Culinary Institute of America.
“What are you looking up?” she asked.
“Oh, oh,” Henry looked at the screen. “I was just … doing some research. Cooking schools. Just in case.”
“Uh huh,” Harriet said. She moved closer and kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you are a writer. You’re very good, you know. But if you are serious about becoming a chef, then check it out. If there’s one thing I’ve learned recently it’s that you don’t have to stay in one place your whole life.”
“But that’s what Dad did. He gave you security.”
“True. But that was your father’s choice. That’s the important thing. Prudence believes in you, and so do I. Whatever you choose will be okay.”
“What brought this on?” Henry asked. “Quite a change of heart.”
“I’ve just been thinking, talking to Martha, you know, figuring things out.”
“Thanks, Mom. So you’re not mad at me for selling anymore?”
“No. Not anymore. Now, we won’t be too long. I thought we’d drive into town, do some shopping, then maybe have lunch. You know, that kind of stuff. Maybe drive into Reno and hit the casinos.”
“Mom, we talked about that. No more gambling.”
“Just joking,” Harriet said. Even though it did sound like fun. “We won’t go to Reno. No more bets. Look where the last one got me.”
“It got you right where you are supposed to be.” Harriet sighed. “If only we could figure it out for Martha.”
“I know,” Henry said. “I can’t believe Wyatt is in prison. It must be torture for her.”
“I think she should move here,” Harriet said.
“Oh, she’d never leave Wyatt.”
“But she’d do so well. Maybe start doing her art again.”
“I agree,” Henry said. “Grass Valley is kind of a mecca for ar
tists.”
“That’s true,” Harriet said. “That gives me an idea. Maybe we’ll check out the local galleries. We’ll start at Florence’s daughter’s place.”
“Good idea.”
“Thanks, son. I did raise the smartest boy.”
“Have fun, Mom.”
“You too, and maybe check on the guys when you get a chance.”
“The builders? They know what they’re doing.”
“Yes, but it helps to keep an eye out. Don’t want them cutting corners.”
“I doubt that will happen.”
“All right, son, we’ll see you later, and I’ll gas up the car.”
“Thanks.”
Harriet and Martha clicked on their seatbelts.
“I was thinking,” Harriet said as she adjusted the rearview mirror. “I’d like to take you someplace before we go to the café.”
“Before we visit the stream?”
“Yes, Florence has a daughter who owns an art gallery right in town. It’s called The Bitter Herb. I’d like to take you there.”
“Oh, really. I heard that Grass Valley has a lot of artists.”
“Yep, artists, writers, musicians. All the artsy fartsy people come here.” Harriet looked at Martha. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say you’re fartsy.”
“No, no,” Martha said. “I can be very fartsy. But I hope you’re not trying to convince me to move here by showing me galleries and—”
Harriet turned onto the street. “Martha, I’m shocked you would even suggest that I was trying to do anything underhanded,” she said with a twinge of sarcasm.
“You’ve been known to pull some shady things.”
Harriet smiled, “Okay, but not this time. Well, okay, this time. Why not move here, Martha?”
“You know why I can’t move. I have Wyatt to consider. I’d have to sell my house. So much work.”
“Your house is lovely. It will sell quickly. And Wyatt, as much as I hate to say this, made his choice. You can’t live your life just to visit him once a week—or however often you go.”
Martha was quiet until Harriet pulled the car onto the main drag.
“All right. I’ll visit the gallery. But no funny business. Don’t go setting up a one-woman show for me or anything.”
“I won’t do anything. We’ll just look. I’ve never been inside the gallery either. I bet it’s all very Western. Well, not all of it. Lots of landscapes. Cow skulls and snakes. Deserts.”
