Nathan smiled. “Maybe. But still dangerous.”
“Yep but it’s all about appearing stronger than we are. Wouldn’t need much, just enough to make a showing out at the shooting range for word to get around that you have one.”
Nathan thought about it. “Interesting idea. I’ll talk to Dekum and if he can make the ammo. I might have your miners bring it with them. We can put it in the cattle car under lock and key. So you think we should fight them?”
Jeremiah sighed. “I don’t like the idea, boss, I really don’t. But I don’t think we’re going to end up with a choice unless we can find proof that Lunsford is a conman and a crook, or unless we’re willing and able to pay him off which honestly I doubt Betsy is. It would be you and me that would have to pay him off. But what’s to stop him from trying again after you go back to Redemption? We both know you can’t stay long or you risk getting snowed in here.”
“I’ve got maybe a month if the weather holds.”
“He’s got all the time in the world. And his men are here, if they start again tomorrow how do we stop them? Without massive bloodshed, which this town doesn’t need.”
“Sometimes, Jeremiah, you have to stand even if it is the last thing you need because this town can’t afford not to stand either.”
“Yeah, but can we convince them of that before it’s too late?”
“You know what? Maybe we can. Sometimes they just need to see someone stand and say ‘no more’.”
Nathan stood and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re the local boy, made good, come back to help. I’d say you’ll have to be the one to stand and show them that. Will your woman let you do that? She’s been through it with them.”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to tell them what I know and pray they listen.”
Nathan nodded. “That’s all any of us can do. I put out the call to get men headed this way. Tomorrow we show Betsy Sewell what we know and what we suspect. You going to inspect the mine site tomorrow?”
“Yeah, want to come with me? Watch my back while I see how bad it is? We need to talk to the doctors too; see what they say.”
“Yeah, probably be the female one from what I hear. She was the one that was here; she’ll know better what we’re dealing with body-wise.”
“It’s a mess, Nathan. Even without walking it and getting a closer look, just looking at the town after six months I can tell you it’s a mess.”
“Yep.”
Seven
The next day Jeremiah woke and instantly reached out for Maude. His dream of them married had been so real that he expected her to be in bed with him and then he remembered it was just a dream. But it was a dream he was going to work to make reality. He had some time before he needed to be at the Howard House to walk Maude to Betsy’s, so he dressed for a day of examining the mine and the mine office for records and inspections prior to the collapse. He also wanted to see if maybe the paperwork that Betsy and Nathan couldn’t find was there instead of in Mr. Pike’s personal office. But before all that he wanted to go check on some things around town in the quiet before most townspeople were up and about.
He dressed in denim today, shirt and pants, and put on his mining boots because he knew he was going to be in some rough spots; then he strapped on his Colt remembering Nathan’s training about never being unprepared. Not something he had to do in Goldtown. He kept a Colt in his desk and only put one on if he was going to the bank or into town itself. But here his enemy could show up anywhere and he had something more important to protect than silver or gold, he had Maude. Then he headed downstairs for a good breakfast. He wasn’t surprised to see Nathan already there. Ranchers were up with the sun.
“Where you off to this morning?”
“Going to go seek out some of the places of my childhood, and then after getting Maude to Mrs. Sewell’s, I thought I’d meet up with you if it’s okay and spend some time at the mine and the mine office.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe that missing investment contract is there and not at the house. Plus, I want to see what the last safety inspection said. That will help me determine how bad it may be down in the mine itself.”
Nathan nodded. “This is your area, Jeremiah, I trust you and Betsy told me she trusts you. The fact that you came to help not knowing you owned part of it has put you in her trust. So you do what only you can do of the three of us. I’ll get personnel here from the mines and for anything else we might need them for.”
“You’re going to wire your old Marshal buddies, aren’t ya.”
Nathan smiled. “More like some of the old Mountain Goats that are still around. If we have to fight we’re doing it Nugget Nate’s way, not this mine breaker’s way.”
“You mean by subterfuge and misdirection?”
“No, I mean real mountain ways. Anything goes.”
“Ah, I don’t think I want to know.”
“Probably better if you don’t. You just figure out how to get us up and running and see if that Lunsford fella is on the up and up. If you can. I’m inclined to think not, if we can’t find a corresponding record here anywhere.”
Jeremiah finished his breakfast. “Get Betsy to give you access at the bank, Boss. That’s more your area than mine. A deposit, or lack of one, around the time of the paperwork for the amount of his investment, could be used as proof one way or the other as well.”
Nathan agreed. The two men shook hands and set about what they needed to do, Jeremiah knowing the first thing Nathan would do was go to the range and practice both accuracy and speed. Jeremiah decided he’d work on accuracy this afternoon while Maude was teaching the girls.
He started walking toward what used to be the mining town area. It wasn’t owned by the mine, but it was a section of smaller houses owned by married miners or rented by them from local land owners. As he expected, most of them were abandoned and several were in need of repair, some were completely gone and one or two looked like someone had intentionally tried to set them on fire. He’d heard of towns where men would come in after a disaster or a big boom in the mine and sell protection. However, the only people they were really protecting you from was them. One of their tricks if you refused to pay was to burn you out. So you’d see how valuable their services were. He figured Silverpines had its share of those types in the early days right after the disasters. His heart hurt for his old hometown. He really did want to stay and help rebuild. With or without Maude but he sure hoped it was with. He needed her like his body needed air. He even now could feel the hole where she belonged, the space in him only her presence could fill.
He saw the creek that ran through the back of the Howards’ property just behind the old Pet Cemetery and he followed it into the woods. The place he wanted to check on could be reached by the lane further down, but it was quicker on foot to cut through the woods and then across the field.
He was walking through the woods almost to the field on the other side when he began to smell smoke. He slowed and ducked at the edge of the wooded area to see a camp of tents set up in the field he needed to cross. It was the roughs that were working for Fagan. They were all passed out, but this was private property. In reality, this belonged to the Howard sisters and he knew for a fact they would never have given permission for these men to camp so close to their girls. Which meant that just like at the mine, they were doing what they wanted because they had the might. He’d be seeing Marshal Sewell again today. This really didn’t bode well with the working relationship between Fagan and his men and the town folks. If they were already just doing what they wanted, what would happen when they had control of the mine? The young women and widows in town were suddenly less safe than they had been a week ago. Jeremiah would not only be talking to Alexzander, he’d be talking to Nathan again.
As he thought, he’d worked his way to where the house had been and was disappointed to see it was gone. It wasn’t dilapidated, it looked like it had fallen in the quakes and then been salvaged for useable parts; in reality
all that was left was the foundation. The house that Maude had always said she wanted to live in when she got married was no more. But he could remember what it looked like. Could it be rebuilt? Was there a master carpenter in town? Or one in Astoria or even Portland that he could hire to come out and rebuild the house for her. Even better than before?
First things first: see if the land was even for sale. Then start looking for an architect that could come look at the foundation and tell them what it needed to look like and how big it needed to be. He remembered them exploring the place. It had been empty even then. He wanted it and he wanted to rebuild it for Maude. But he didn’t want to wait to get married until this house was rebuilt, so he needed to find a suitable starter house for them. Something they could use now; and what better idea than to look at a home right on the edge of the old Mining town. Maybe one of the bigger ones. Three bedrooms, one of which could be turned easily into a water closet and bathing room. Time to head back to town. He wanted to plan an outing after supper, but he didn’t want to bring her out to the foundation, not as long as those men were camping in the field which also ruled out a walk beside the creek. What he really wanted was to get her out where they could be alone and look at the stars. He’d order a lemon cake at the bakery and see if Mrs. Donlinson could make him a couple of jars of peach iced tea and pack their supper as a picnic. He’d rent a buggy and take her out past the house and they could eat and talk and then lie and watch the stars come out. Just like they used to do as kids. Only this time he’d be away from the prying eyes of the Howard sisters and maybe he’d be able to get a little bit of sparkin’ in. Not much, but hey, if that sawyer kid could withstand getting sawdust where it didn’t belong, he ought to be able to kiss that spot under her ear again and maybe taste her mouth a little deeper than last night. He started down the lane, time was getting closer to when Maude would need to be at Betsy’s and he didn’t want to chance waking those mine tuffs. They’d hold him up just out of principle.
He got down the lane and arrived just before eight as Maude was coming down the steps inside the house. She saw him through the door and waved him in. She was as lovely in her brown day dress as she’d been in the blue one she’d had on yesterday. He smiled. “Maude, you look lovely today.”
Katie was standing at the top of the stairs with a smirk on her face. “Jeremiah, are you saying she didn’t look lovely yesterday?”
Every eye in the house turned to him. “That is not what I’m saying at all, Katie, I’m saying right this minute she looks lovely because right this minute is when I first saw her today. You, on the other hand, look like you should have some coffee because I’m not sure if you look tired or just are getting old? Shouldn’t you be washing diapers or something?” he said as she had an infant in each arm.
Katie sniffed. “I’d trade you jobs any minute, Mister Henderson. Let’s see how you look after feeding, bathing and dressing two infants.”
Jeremiah held up both hands. “I know when I’m licked, and I’m licked.”
He had no clue what went through Maude’s mind when he said that, but he wanted to know since it turned her the most beautiful shade of pink. “Let’s go, Jeremiah, I don’t want to keep Betsy waiting. She normally needs ginger tea and some ginger snaps this time of the day to calm her stomach.”
Ethel gasped. “Maude, we do not discuss a lady’s confinement with single gentlemen.”
Maude bit her lip to keep from laughing. Jeremiah could see the humor in her eyes. “Yes, Miss Ethel, I’m sorry.”
“Take your parasol, it looks like it might rain later.”
Maude sighed. “Of course, Miss Edith. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“If not just send Hershel or one of the boys over with word. Betsy and her needs come first. If we have to teach the girls, it won’t hurt them any.”
She walked up to Jeremiah and took his arm. “Yes Ma’am.”
They headed out and Jeremiah waited until they rounded the house before pulling her into his arms and kissing her soundly. “I’ve needed to do that since I woke up this morning.”
Maude breathlessly pulled his head back down to her lips. “Me too. How long are we going to court, Jeremiah?”
“I don’t know, Maude, let’s talk about it at supper.”
“Okay.”
After dropping Maude at the Sewell house and getting Betsy’s permission to search the mining offices and a key for the offices from her, Jeremiah headed right over there. He met Nathan there and together the two of them walked over to the mine. It was obvious someone had been working on uncovering bodies, because there were piles where debris had been moved and you could step deeper into the mine but nothing had been dug into and shored up like one would expect in a mine entrance. It was more like someone had dug around those that were exposed partially and uncovered those bodies and removed them about five feet from where the original entrance had been. You could see where the debris had collapsed but the mine’s entrance had been partially underground and no one had started to dig down past the timbers. Carefully with a large pry rod that Jeremiah had found there he began to test for hollow spots and a place they could begin to reopen the mine. There just didn’t seem to be an open cavity for the eight to ten feet. He poked at the ground and he shook his head. “We’d have to just start at the front, Nathan, and dig until we found a place we could lift the timbers. That second quake, it completely collapsed the entrance, I’m guessing all the way back to the shaft at least a hundred feet in. We might be able to start creating a new entrance. But this wouldn’t be a reopening, it would be more of a restart. The opening is just gone. I’m figuring the shaft down probably is too.
“There’s got to still be remains here and we need to talk to the doctors about how to deal with that and any chance of making people sick. An epidemic is all this town would need.”
Nathan sighed. “Is it worth reopening?”
“We know there’s still ore there, but how long to get to it? No one can tell you that, not without at least several months of digging and winters coming which will make it even harder to do.”
“So the estimates that Fagan’s giving; can he do them even cutting corners?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “I just don’t see how, Nathan. I mean if we had a hundred miners here right now it would take us at least two months to get enough of this cleared up we could start opening a new mine shaft. By then we’ll be into snow, and it’s the mountains, so deep snow and frozen ground. Better bet would be to clear what we can, dispose of the remains with respect and whatever the doc says needs to be done to keep an epidemic from happening, then arrange to have a full couple of crews here in the spring. Even then, it’s going to be long, hard, back-breaking work.”
“So there’s no way Mister Lunsford is going to get his investment back with that motley crew he has here?”
“Nathan, I would wager not one of those guys have ever swung a pickaxe in his life. Those guys are here to force someone else to swing a pickaxe behind big walls, where how they do it can’t be seen. I would say you’d see a fence, tall and wooden, go up first with a solid gate like a fort and then some kind of conscripted work force would be brought in. Chinese? Criminals? I don’t know? Indians? Is there a tribe nearby? There used to be a small tribe of Chinooks, that would be my guess; and they’d be marched in under guard in chains and worked until they dropped. Even then, he won’t be ready to open the mine until next fall. And by open, I mean start trying to uncover the vertical shaft.”
“Alright, well at least we know. And if you had a trained crew?”
“Again, it would be summer; maybe, if we had a full four shifts of workers who know what they’re doing and enough timbers to keep shoring up as we go.”
With that the two men entered the mining offices and made their way to Zebadiah Pike’s office and started systematically going through the papers and files. But by dinner they’d found nothing of significance beyond a copy of the paperwork transferring Isaiah Henderson’s
shares of Pike Mining Consortium to Jeremiah Henderson. But no record of a hundred-thousand-dollar investment into the mine. “Nathan, according to this record they’d just found a new vein of silver and hadn’t even exhausted the old vein yet. There was no reason to take an investor’s money. It wasn’t needed.”
“So Lunsford, he’s a conman and a swindler!”
“Sure looks like it to me.”
“I’ll go talk to the banker, see what the accounts say.”
“I think it may be time to draw up a warrant too, Nathan.”
“Yeah, after I talk to the banker. What’s his name anyway?”
“Oh, I have his card here in my pocket. I met with him about something else this morning. Let me find it.” Jeremiah handed the card to Nathan who started to laugh. “Your hometown seems to be filled with people from my past, Jeremiah.”
“What do you mean?”
“Joel Richards, he’s originally from Cottonwood Iowa. Where Tim and Nell live and where my Aunt Aggie lived. I met Joel first when he was just three or four. Watched him over the years grow to be a fine young man. Kind of like you.”
“Well, ought to make working with him easier.”
“That it should. You go on, I know you got courting to get to. It’s almost dinner time.”
“Yeah, I need to walk Maude back to the Howard sisters. She has orphans to teach.”
“By the way, Jeremiah, I highly approve of your young lady. She’s got grit and style. As Grandmother, Mother and Grace would say, she’s a real lady.”
Jeremiah smiled. “Thanks Nathan, that means a lot coming from you.”
“So go spend time with her and woo her, son. You’re going to be here for a long time.”
Jeremiah nodded. “A lifetime, I hope.”
“Only if you seize the day, Jeremiah, and the girl.”
Maude had been distracted all morning. Thankfully Tonya wasn’t busy today and had been there with her and Betsy. Both of them had laughed at her. They’d sent word to the Howard sisters that they were keeping Maude for the afternoon and then when Jeremiah showed up to walk her home they invited him in.
Wanted: Engineer (Silverpines Series Book 11) Page 6
