“Are you sure?” she asked. “I know he can be inquisitive—”
“He’s fine.”
Smiling, Patience patted the boy’s shoulder, then turned and walked off.
Wilson settled more comfortably against Jay’s back. “You smell better’n you used to.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t stink or nothin’.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And you look better. I didn’t like your beard.”
“Well, I guess I needed a change.” He looked at Wilson briefly. “You could talk the leg off a table—anyone ever tell you that?”
Wilson nodded and went back to the subject. “Your face is cleaner this way,” he explained. Shifting his stance, he squinted thoughtfully. “Jay?”
“Yes?”
“If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?”
“I’m … not sure.”
“Well, then—” Wilson frowned, thinking—“why do they call it ‘after dark’ when it’s really ‘after light’?”
Jay turned to look at him. “Shouldn’t you be taking care of your animals?”
He shook his head. “And why do we wash bath towels? Aren’t we clean when we use them?”
“You’ll have to ask Patience.” Jay stepped farther into the mine, holding a lantern aloft.
Wilson trailed behind. “What’re you doing now?”
“Cleaning a crevice.”
“Why?”
“Because a little piece of gold might have been overlooked.”
“Gold?”
“Yeah.”
“We found gold already?”
“Not in any quantity yet.”
“But soon, huh, Jay?”
“I hope so.”
“How much gold is in the crevice?”
“I don’t know if there’s any, but we clean them once we’ve worked an area. It’s called coyoting.”
“Coyoting?”
“Yeah, coyoting.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“Yeah.”
“How come?”
“How come what?”
“How come they call it coyoting?”
“I don’t know. They just do.”
“Who calls it that? Moses?”
“Moses and other miners.”
“How come?”
Jay paused, cocking an ear to the wind. “Listen, I think Patience’s calling you.”
“Uh-uh. You said I could stay and keep you company—long as I don’t ask a bunch of questions.”
“I said that?”
Wilson viewed Jay charitably through his thick lenses. “Aw, you’re just teasing again, huh, Jay?”
“Yeah, only teasing, Wilson.”
Wilson followed the tall sheriff deeper into the shaft.
“How come you’re in the mine this afternoon? You don’t like to come into the mine, huh, Jay?”
“I’ll only be here a few minutes.” Wilson could already hear the sheriff’s breathing quicken. The sheriff didn’t like the mine, Wilson knew that, but he didn’t know why. P said it was because he’d worked his own mines for five years and had gotten real discouraged when he didn’t hit gold.
“You afraid of the ghost?”
“No, Wilson, I’m not afraid of the ghost. I don’t believe in ghosts, and you shouldn’t either. Ask Patience to read you what the Good Book says about the supernatural.”
“She already did.” Wilson felt a sense of relief. He really liked Jay, and he wanted Jay to like God more. “You believe in God, huh, Jay? Everybody with a lick of sense believes in God because what’s the alternative? If you don’t believe in God and you die and then there is a God, then—”
“Haven’t you got something else to do?”
“Oh.” Wilson caught himself. He was talking too much. Jay didn’t like a lot of kid racket. He’d said so—lots of times.
“Are you sure Patience isn’t calling you?”
Wilson listened for a moment. “No, she’s not. Honest. Where’s Moses?” Wilson had taken an instant liking to the convict. Although Patience forbade him to get in anyone’s way, Wilson still managed to sneak in a daily visit when the women came out of the mine. Moses told him stupid jokes, like what do you get if you cross a dog with a chicken? Pooched eggs. Or why are skunks always arguing? Because they like to raise a stink.
Moses was funny—and nice, even sharing part of a fish with him for lunch one day. She didn’t cook it, but Wilson ate it anyway because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But, boy, he’d spat and spat and spat on the way back to the dugout.
He didn’t like them other convicts much because they never talked to him. Just Moses was nice.
“Moses went home,” Jay said.
“How come?”
Holding the lantern higher, Jay inspected a heavy beam. “Because it’s time for her to go home. Didn’t you see me walking the women down the hill?”
“No.” Wilson shook his head. Switching subjects abruptly, he launched into a review of his day. “Thursday Matthews almost ate lunch with me at school today, but she changed her mind and said she was going to eat with Prudy Walker, but maybe she would eat with me on Monday or maybe on Friday. She’d have to think about it.”
“Well, maybe she will,” Jay mused.
Wilson sighed. “Who knows? Women are a mystery to me. She thinks I talk too much.”
“Can’t imagine that.” Jay swung a heavy rope onto a rock ledge.
“Do you think P’s a mystery?” Wilson could tell Jay a thing or two about P—like how she cooked all the things the sheriff liked most and only baked pies Jay liked, and how she was always opening the dugout door to see if she could spot Jay. She’d always say she was checking the weather, but Wilson knew the weather didn’t change that often—just Jay’s whereabouts.
“P thinks I talk too much too.” He didn’t think Jay was listening to him. The sheriff’s breathing was more pronounced now—like he could hardly breathe and he was real nervous or something.
“Did you know my parents died when I was a little boy? The old prospector found me, and since he didn’t know anything else to do, he brought me home with him.”
“You told me that, Wilson. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve worried about that, huh?”
Jay shot him a tired look.
“Oh, it’s all right. I’m not sad anymore. P says Mama and Papa are up in heaven, singing with the angels and walking on streets of gold. That’s nothing to be sad about, huh, Jay? P says they’re real happy, and we shouldn’t wish them back. That would be selfish of us.”
“She’s usually right, kid.”
Wilson cocked his head cagily. “You think P’s pretty?”
Slipping the blade of his knife inside a crack, Jay pried a piece of quartz loose. “She’s okay.”
“She can cook good, huh?” He’d seen the way Jay enjoyed her meals and the funny way he looked at her when she wasn’t looking back. Outright stared at her twice, he’d noticed. He didn’t think Jay was supposed to be looking at her that way, all warm and soft—the way the cat looked at a bowl of cream—but there was still a lot Wilson didn’t know about men and women. Just a whole lot.
A smile lifted the corners of Jay’s mouth. “She’s a good cook.”
A thump at the back of the mine suddenly diverted Jay’s attention. Halting the discussion, he cocked an ear, listening.
“What?” Wilson whispered. “You hear something?”
“Shhh,” the sheriff warned, listening intently now.
A low rumble centered at the back of the mine. Dirt and loose rock showered down through the cracks of uneven timbers.
Wilson coughed. “What’s happening, Jay?”
“Come on, son.” Taking the boy’s hand, Jay started propelling him toward the shaft opening.
“What’s wrong? Is it the ghost?”
“Keep walking, Wilson.” Glancing over his shoulder, Jay moved the child swiftly back through the mine. Bedrock s
howered down on them, hindering their progress. The ground vibrated, and walls started to crumble.
“Run, Wilson!”
Breaking into a sprint, Jay impelled Wilson toward the mine entrance. A loud roar followed on their heels as they burst clear of the shaft.
A thunderous explosion rocked the ground, and dirt and rock came crashing down. Dust obliterated the fading twilight. The entrance to the mine was sealed shut.
Clasping Wilson tightly to him, Jay seemed shaken by the unexpected onslaught of destruction.
Swallowing hard, Wilson squeaked, “We must’ve made Gamey O’Keefe mad.”
Jay snapped. “It was a cave-in—a cave-in, Wilson. Nothing more.”
For a moment Wilson stood transfixed, afraid to move a muscle. When he couldn’t stand the silence anymore, he finally said, “Hey, Jay?”
“Yes?”
“Knock, knock.”
“Is this another one of your silly jokes?”
He nodded, eyes fixed to the sifting dust still pouring out of the hole. “Ahab.”
“Ahab who?”
“Ahab to go home now.”
Jay stared at the obstructed mine. Like he’d said, it was just a cave-in, all it could be, but what had caused it? The timbers were sturdy; he’d checked them himself. That noise had sounded like an explosion, but how could anyone set off an explosion inside a mine without blowing themselves up with it?
The timing was suspect too. After the women had gone home. Of course, he was in the mine with the kid, but no one knew that. He didn’t want to think someone deliberately blew up the mine, but he wasn’t convinced the cave-in was natural. There was one other alternative he didn’t want to think about.
Gamey O’Keefe’s ghost.
Chapter Thirteen
Patience finally knew what hades was like; she’d lived five weeks in it.
“Why?” she agonized. She stood beside a pale-faced Jay, viewing the latest catastrophe.
“It just happened, P!” Wilson was still visibly upset over the experience. “Jay and I were just talking, and all of a sudden we heard this funny noise and Jay said, ‘Run, Wilson!’ and I did!”
Patience looked at Jay expectantly.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. The timbers were shored up properly. I checked them myself.” Kneeling before the pile of rubble, he examined it for color.
Patience closed her eyes, heartsick. It would take days to get the mine running again. “Now, what?”
Jay’s eyes firmed with resolution. “We dig.”
It took all of them—shady ladies, Patience, and Jay—working twelve-hour shifts to extricate the rubble from the mine entrance. The front section of the tunnel had collapsed, and after days of digging, they managed to clear the biggest part of rubble away from the opening.
It was challenging, backbreaking labor. The women swung picks, axes, and hammers, sweating like men in the cold temperatures.
Even Wilson did his part when he got home from school, lugging heavy buckets of water from the stream to slake their thirst.
Jay labored steadily, working alongside the women, giving orders when needed, a strong back where necessary.
Patience wasn’t surprised by his quiet leadership. It was just one more facet of him that intrigued her.
She had a growing need to prove her own worth, but by the end of the week, she realized she was no match for his strength.
He discovered her late one evening sitting outside the dugout, trying to conceal her emotions. “What’s wrong?” Concern filled his voice, and he knelt beside her. “Are you sick?”
“No, of course not. I just needed a few moments alone, that’s all.” With all the activity and confusion lately, heaven knew she’d had little of that.
“Are you sure?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I’m fine, honest.”
“Wilson sick?” Jay turned to peer over his shoulder, where the boy was forcing worms down his latest acquisition, a blackbird with an injured wing.
“No, Wilson is fine. We’re both fine,” she insisted. “I just wanted to be alone.”
“What then?” he asked, exasperation filling his demand.
Sighing, she turned her hands over, revealing the huge watery blisters covering her palms.
“Blisters?”
She nodded. “I don’t know what to do for them.”
Reaching out, he gently took both her hands in his. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
She gazed back, biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I’ve … never had … blisters.”
“Well, you do now.” He smiled at her, and she immediately felt better. She hadn’t known he knew how to smile. The realization did wonders for her flagging enthusiasm. She suddenly missed Mary, and Harper and Lily even more. They would have tended her injuries, sat and talked for hours, sipped tea, and encouraged her with Scripture. Why was she holding so tightly to what increasingly looked like a worthless pipe dream?
“Where’s the old prospector’s salve?”
“I didn’t find any.”
Bending, he lifted her into his arms and calmly carried her down to the stream.
Wilson, sitting on his heels, looked up and saw Jay disappearing over the hill carrying P. Dropping a grub, he sat up straighter. “Hey! What’s the matter with P?”
“She’s got blisters!”
“Oh.” Sinking back to his heels, he crammed another worm into the bird’s mouth. “Blisters. I get ’em all the time.”
Kneeling beside the stream, Jay dipped Patience’s palms into the icy runoff. The crystal-clear liquid bubbled and danced musically over the jagged rocks. Leaving her momentarily, he returned carrying a tin of salve Moses kept in a leather rucksack.
Liberally coating her palms with the thick ointment, he gently bandaged them with a layer of clean, white cloth.
Patience watched him tend her wounds, gently as he would a child’s. Something akin to love stirred within her heart.
When he was through, he continued to hold her hands cupped in his. “Better?”
Nodding, she smiled, embarrassed he’d had to take care of her again. First fainting at the survey office—now blisters. He undoubtedly thought she was a world-class weakling. “I’ll bet you think I’m something—crying over some silly blisters.”
He put the lid on the salve tin and stuck it back into the sack. “You’ll need to change the bandages twice a day.”
Patience was determined to hide her swelling frustration with him. The moment he sensed he was getting too close, he retreated into a shell. Was it just her, or women in general, that frightened him?
“Will you be working the mine tomorrow?” she asked. Now that the entrance was passable again, there was a lot of work to be done.
“Moses can handle it.”
“I suppose. But because of all the delays, I thought you might be working with her.”
She thought it was strange that Jay rarely entered the mine. He did so only at the end of the day and only long enough to review the women’s work.
“That’s Moses’ job.”
She squirmed to look at him. “Yes, but if you were working too, it would go faster.”
They had already lost a week, and she couldn’t imagine what he did with the rest of his time. He vowed that he didn’t believe in ghosts, but something kept him out of the mine.
“I agreed to run the crew for you,” he said. “You agreed to the terms.”
“Well, feathers! What’s wrong with going into the mine?”
“I don’t want to. Moses and her crew can bring the diggings out, and I’ll work the sluice boxes—day and night, if necessary—but I’m not going into the mine any more than I have to. I’ve had my fill of mines, Patience. Five long years of wasting time digging for gold, and I’m not doing it again.”
“Of all people, Jay Longer, you would be the last person I’d think of being a quitter,” she fussed. “Whoever heard of a foreman of a mining crew refusing to ent
er the mine?”
He turned away, seemingly unaffected by her scorn. Apparently she could think whatever she liked. He’d agreed to oversee the mine, not to work it.
“A quitter!” Patience taunted in a surprising spurt of annoyance. “Quitter, quitter, quitter!” She was going to replace his apathy with enthusiasm if it killed her!
Springing to their feet, they butted noses.
“You’re calling me a quitter?”
“Yeah, a big one.”
His eyes glittered dangerously.
Hers flashed in resentment. “You don’t scare me, Jay.”
“I could if I tried.”
“Truth is, you are a scaredy-cat.” Their gazes locked in a poisonous duel.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me why you won’t go into the mine,” she goaded.
“Because I won’t. That’s all you need to know.”
“No, it isn’t. I want to know why you won’t go in there. You are afraid of ghosts, aren’t you?”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are!”
They were shouting now.
“One of us has to be in there,” she reasoned. “We can’t let Moses do all the work.”
“That’s why she has a crew.”
“I’m hurting, Jay. I can’t hold out much longer without paying the crew, and I haven’t found enough gold to meet the payroll. Work will go faster if you’re in there helping. That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“No,” he contended. “You are paying me to run the crew.”
She had a fit of stubbornness. “Then I’ll just have to try to help—get in everybody’s way, because I don’t know anything about gold mining!”
Bending from the waist, he politely gestured for her to be his guest.
She whirled, her anger exploding. “You are a sissy.”
“Think whatever you like.”
He was about to walk off when she reached out and latched on to his coattail. “All right,” she relented. Her gaze shifted to the mine—she was beginning to hate the thing. It was a curse! “I’ll help, but you have to give us more guidance. You know gold mining inside and out, Jay. What are you not telling us?”
His tone was gentler now. “I’ve told you all I know. Gold mining is a gamble, Patience. You win some and lose most of the others. Give up this idea you’re going to get rich. Let me take you back to Denver City, where you can enroll Wilson in school and get on with raising the child. This mine is never going to produce anything.”
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