Easy Pickings

by Richard S. Wheeler

  March felt a wave of weariness. “Please drive him down the road. I don’t think they’ll bother me.”

  “I would not think of leaving you, in such circumstances, Mrs. McPhee. I shall bide my time here at the wagon.”

  She nodded, thinking she ought to make him some tea. But instead, she slipped inside and collapsed in a Morris chair that had been Kermit’s pride. She sensed his presence there, in that chair, and it comforted her. The things that gold did to people had not surprised her.

  Shortly, the young men swung into the yard, having explored the works to their hearts’ content. She heard the assayer talking to them. Then one of them, Jerusalem Jones, barged into her cabin without knocking.

  “We’ll keep an eye on it for you,” he said.

  “That will not be necessary.”

  “There’s people wanting this mine, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for you.”

  “The mine, Mr. Jones, is no one’s business but my own.”

  He grinned. “You’ve gotta keep people out of it.”

  Wearily she watched them clamber into the wagon, beside her dead man, while the assayer slapped lines over the rump of the dray, and they rattled away, and then the widow and son of Kermit McPhee were engulfed in quietness, and twilight crept along the slopes.

  “I will be going now, Mrs. McPhee. Unless there is need.”

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Wittgenstein. I want to be alone now.”

  She watched him walk down the grade, a little way behind the youths and their wagon.

  She felt numb. She had dwelled in an isolated cabin, had no friends in town, and her life had been bounded by husband and son. There would be no friends collecting here to comfort her and see to her needs. The cabin was a comfort now, and so was the privacy.

  She lay still, too weary even to brew some tea. Soon she would need to feed Fourth and herself, too, if she felt hungry. She hadn’t the faintest idea where her life would lead now. Marriage? She’d had her fill of it. And soon the pressure would begin. There were men itching to marry a young widow with a working gold mine. She had no desire for them, no wish to accommodate them. Kermit the Third was enough.

  The cabin didn’t seem empty; Kermit’s presence lingered there. He had actually devoted time to civilizing the place, building their tables and chairs, putting up shelves, getting up a fine outhouse that was not icy in winter. The cabin was not a hard place to be, even though it was a long walk from company, a half hour from groceries and meat markets and dry goods stores and saloons and blacksmiths. Sometimes in the winter they had been cut off, and only then was she uneasy and aching to be reconnected.

  The child was restless. She bestirred herself, built a small fire, jacked some water from the shallow well, and started it heating. She would cook some porridge for the boy and herself later, and get some tea going.

  The men would be down to Marysville by now, and she knew that the assayer would insist that they go first to Laidlow’s place and carry Kermit McPhee in. She didn’t know how she would pay for all that. The mine hadn’t made them rich. But she would somehow. Mr. Wittgenstein would see to her needs. He was a strange man; pale, bald, and not an outdoor sort of male, and yet scrupulous in his dealings. Today she saw him quite stern, his hard gaze compelling those renegade young men to do what was right and needful, even if they were busy scheming.

  After waiting for the porridge to cool, she fed Fourth, cleaned him, and slipped him into his cradle. The poor baby would never know his father. She eyed him gently as she pulled her hand-crocheted coverlet over him and blew out the lamp.

  Death, then. She sagged into a chair, scarcely knowing what would come next. A stiff breeze rattled the shutters that guarded the sole window. She felt too alone. Had she known people in Marysville, there would be friends here, a quiet vigil beside a young widow. Mining towns saw many vigils, not only for men lost in the bowels of the earth, but men lost in the cruel milling machinery that crushed and refined and smelted ore, eating up cordwood and an occasional mortal as well. Mining was a cruel business. The earth exacted its toll of lives and property.

  This was one of few times she had spent a night alone, with Kermit gone, and it amplified every sound that the night brought on the breeze. She swore she heard footsteps, but cast the idea aside. She was overwrought. Still, the grate of boot on gravel continued. It was as if several men were passing the darkened cottage in the night, heading for the mine for whatever reason.

  But there were no voices. And no other night sounds. And for a while all she sensed was the deep silence of her cabin. Its thick logs had once seemed stout, but somehow just now they seemed frail, as if some terrible force could turn her refuge into matchsticks.

  She could not say why she sensed something was wrong. Nor could she say why she wrapped a shawl about her against the chill, and stepped into the night, and slowly, cautiously made her way up the rocky trail to the mine, starting at every slight sound. She dreaded leaving Fourth alone in his crib, dreaded the foolishness that was propelling her upward toward the mine, only a few hours after the terrible accident that had killed Kermit.

  She scolded herself. What sort of foolishness would drive her, and what did she expect to see? She climbed slowly, the familiar trail a comfort to her. She had passed up and down a thousand times, and knew every pebble. She arrived at the rocky ledge where the mine pierced into the bowels of the mountain, and knew at once that something wasn’t right, but in the stygian gloom she could make out nothing. She heard, rather than saw, that mortals were there, and they were busy, and muttering things among themselves.

  She thought to stop them, but knew better, and knew that her safety depended on the darkness enveloping her. She stepped off the trail, straining to grasp what was happening, knowing only from the soft growl of human voices that something was occurring there.

  She heard the hard sound of running, boots clattering on gravel, and several of these night visitors raced by, some of them only twenty or thirty feet from where she stood beside a jagged rock that had split from the bedrock beside the road.

  A dull thump slammed her, along with a muted flash and then the sound of clattering rock. A wave of cordite smoke smote her. It didn’t last. A breeze whipped the air clean, and the debris settled into silence. She stood, paralyzed, uncertain what had happened. No one remained, as far as she could tell, but she didn’t dare move. So she stood, her nerves screaming, her muscles taut, and finally when she could endure it no more she edged upward, seeing no one, her eyes upon a slope revealed only by bright stars, somehow changed.

  She stumbled over shattered rock, and realized that the whole ledge above the portal of the mine lay under debris, and she would need to poke and probe her way up to the mine head, which she did with care and fear.

  The mine had disappeared. Rather, the shaft lay under a mountain of rubble, sealed from the world. She could see no ore car. She thought she might see rails dimly reflecting the night, but she saw no rails. She saw no powder magazine, no cordwood, nothing but an anonymous slope where once a small mine shaft had pierced horizontally into the mountain. Kermit’s gold mine had ceased to exist. For the moment, anyway.

  She choked back a cry, aware that there might be observers still, observers who would not be present to comfort a widow on the very night of her husband’s death. She stared, amazed and afraid, the anger building in her.

  And then she smelled smoke, and caught the flicker of flame. She stumbled down the trail, her heart in her throat, hoping to reach her burning cabin before it was too late.

  Three

  She rounded a bend in the flickering light and beheld her cabin engulfed in fierce flames. A wall of yellow barred the door. A wall of yellow barred the window. A roar echoed up the gulch. She raced toward the inferno, her heart hammering.

  “Fourth,” she cried, and plunged toward the door, but the heat rebuffed her, threw her back, singed her hair and scorched her robe. She ran around the cabin, looking for some way in, but there was none.
The cabin roared and seethed and spat tongues of blinding flame. She heard a cry, clear and plaintive, over the roar.

  The smell of kerosene hung in the air. Light danced off the nearby forest. Smoke eddied down, after boiling upward. Thunderous flame blistered her, drove her back, and finally pushed her to the earth. Sparks shot high, and embers sailed into the night and fell about her.

  She ached for her baby. She cried out to him. She itched to plunge through the flame, get inside, and snatch him out. Maybe the well would help. She raced to the pump handle and began cranking it, finally getting a little water, and then more. But she had no pail. She pulled off her robe and soaked it, and soaked herself, and put the wet robe on, and splashed water into her hair, and braved the heat, but the wet robe and wet hair were nothing, and the heat threw her back and murdered hope.

  Then she lay on the sod, broken and numb, knowing all there was to know, and hoping that the infant was gone before flame licked his soft little body. But that was something she would never know.

  She sat numbly while the cabin burnt to the ground and became a glowing orange heap throwing vicious heat at her. She thought of nothing, the mesmerizing fire blotting out everything. Smoke lowered, and so did the first chill, and she saw stars again, and knew she had to move, because the night was cold. She was a half hour from anywhere, in a damp robe and slippers, and had nothing else. Everything she had ever owned or known was gone.

  She sat paralyzed until night stabbed at her, and she knew she must walk to Marysville, must get help, must tell someone that on this night vandals had come and taken everything from her. Her life was smoke.

  The heat had mostly dried her robe. That was the sole comfort that March McPhee possessed. She did not know the time. She didn’t know if she could make it to Marysville in her robe and slippers. But she started, not wanting to leave her baby, still hoping to hear his little cry in the middle of the ashes. But she walked, feeling sticks and stones push upon her slippers, walking down the steep trail that divided the gulch. She walked, and rested, and walked, and the stars moved in their nightly orbits, and she walked more, as the heavens whirled.

  She felt out of her body. She could not connect herself to her own flesh, her own muscle. She seemed to float, disembodied, as the gulch twisted lower and finally opened on a dark flat, where Marysville lay silent, its lamps out. No light rose anywhere save the Drumlummon works on the far slope and the mill works below it, where getting gold from rock never ceased.

  She looked for a lamp. She saw only dark frame buildings, black against the sky. She needed a lamp, a person, but the mining town slumbered. She hated the place. Those who had killed her baby were here. Those who had blown apart the mine to keep others out of it had come from this place.

  It was very late. The saloons were done. The constable was in bed, wherever he lived.

  She thought of Laidlow’s Funeral Home, but something stayed her. The hooligans that had come from there were probably the hooligans who had just robbed her of her baby. She stood wearily, so worn she didn’t know what to do. A quarter moon had risen.

  “Well, missy, you seem to be in a fix,” a quiet voice said.

  She whirled, and found a stout, balding, jowly man staring at her.

  “I need help.”

  “That’s for sure, madam. Is there no one looking after you?”

  “I lost everything. The fire…”

  “A fire was it?”

  “Far from here. Up our gulch.”

  “If you’re willing, come with me. I just closed my saloon. I had a gent stay on, talking of his woes, and he wouldn’t quit, and that’s what a saloon man is for, the listening. But I’ll open up. Or, take you to wherever you’re going.”

  It was a question.

  She had never been in a saloon. But she nodded.

  He led her a half a block to a dark building with locked double doors.

  “Or we can wake up the constable,” he said.

  “Let me talk.”

  He unlocked, pushed open the door, and she entered into a dark world, rank with strange odors: cigars, whiskey, sweat.

  “I am Tipperary Leary,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of stories in my day.”

  She didn’t want to say her name.

  He struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp, and now she saw she was in a long, narrow place, with a bar running along most of the right wall. There were some tables and chairs dimly visible at the rear. In the dull light she saw horse art on the walls, fancy nags drawing carriages.

  He eyed her quietly. “Have a seat, madam, and I’ll get you some water. Unless you need something else.”

  “Water,” she said.

  He handed her a glass filled with cool water, and waited.

  “I’m listening,” he said. “That is, if you’ve a story. Maybe it’s not one to be told to a stranger.”

  In truth, she was trying to sort out what to say. She didn’t know this man. He could be one of them, one of the ones who … She caught herself. “It’s not a long story, sir.”

  He found a bowl of pretzels and placed it before her, and drew some beer from a tap and then sat across a scarred table from her.

  She was right. It didn’t take much telling. He sat quietly, sipping, listening, not missing anything, saying anything.

  And then she was done.

  “You’ve lost more this day than most lose in a lifetime, madam,” he said. “It’s a wonder you’re here and telling it.”

  She was aware that she had yet to speak her name.

  “And here you are, in a robe, and needing help, and I’m not the man to put you in proper clothing, having none, and I have but a small room in a boarding house. But I can make a few things happen. First, though, have you the need to report it? We have a constable.”

  “I don’t know what I want. Tell someone, I guess.”

  He eyed her quietly. “I’d not want anything, either. I’d want to crawl into a bed and stay there. And ache for those I lost.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I’ll be doing some things for you, then,” he said. “First, if you’d like a little bite, there’s hard-boiled eggs in that jar, and pickles, there, and pretzels. A little something for the stomach. And anything else here…”

  She nodded.

  “Now I’m going to be leaving you for a bit. I know where to get you some clothing. You haven’t a thing but what’s on your back. You’ll not want to know how I’ll get it, but it’s all that can be done at this hour. I’ll want your slipper, for size, and I’ll want you to tell me the rest, for fitting.”

  “Medium and … oh, say I’m stocky. And not gaudy. I can’t pay.…”

  “I’m owed for some favors, and don’t you worry about a thing.”

  He vanished into the depths of night. She sat, desolately, and then fancied a pretzel, and nibbled on it absently. She needed to make some decisions—but was too numb to think, and finally slumped in her chair, quietly, growing aware that time was slipping away.

  She knew there were a couple of public women in town. Mining towns were like that. She had given them absolutely no thought, nor did she really know what drove men to them. Was it the same as what drove Kermit to her?

  She wanted only to sleep and not wake up. The saloon was cold, but her robe shielded her from the worst of it. She lost track of time, and then she heard him again. He had some things neatly folded, and he nodded to her.

  “There’s a closet,” he said, carrying the lamp to a rear door.

  Minutes later she emerged wearing a plain and shapeless blue dress and soft doeskin slippers.

  “Mr. Leary,” she said. “You’ve been good to me.”

  “Thank Molly,” he replied. “’Twas nothing. She didn’t mind helping.”

  “I can manage now.”

  “And where would that be taking you?”

  She didn’t know. Back into the night.

  “I’ve been thinking a bit, Mrs.— Did you say a name?”

  “McPhee. Ma
rch McPhee. My husband was Kermit.”

  “You know, sometimes dark deeds start a man thinking, and I’ve been doing that, running about Marysville in the wee hours. I think you might be hasty, making your troubles known entire. You’ve got some gold-fevered rotters stealing your mine and killing you and your child, men who might strike again if they knew you were alive. And I don’t see that the constable could help you any, with nothing to go on. He’s fine old gent, with gray whiskers and a nightstick, and he’s very good at boxing the ears of little boys when they torment dogs. I imagine he even knows which end of a revolver is the muzzle.

  “But as I am saying, I’m not good with words, you don’t know who the devils might be, and a gold mine is a prize big enough to forget their ordinary decency, and do whatever needs doing to grab the mine away. I’m thinking for your safety, you might want to take a little different road, and if you should, you can count on my help. I’d take it as an honor.”

  “I don’t know. I want to bury Kermit. I want to bury my baby. I want to send them to heaven—if there is any. I struggle with those things. But I don’t struggle with doing what’s right and proper. A place of rest, a prayer over his grave. A farewell to one I made my own. Some respect. Just a little respect.”

  “There will be good time for that; it doesn’t matter if this is tomorrow or a week or a month. And the grieving won’t change.”

  “I can’t make these decisions, Mr. Leary. I can hardly remember my name, or Kermit’s name, or the baby’s name.”

  “Whatever you wish, it’s my honor to help you get there. I’d say you’ve got several candidates wanting your mine. One is the assayer, Wittgenstein. Another is those two brutes who studied you and the mine and offered a new widow no help. Another is the young woman at the funeral home who sent them. Another is Laidlow himself, though you didn’t meet him there. She might have told him plenty. Who knows who else, eh? Some or several of them want the mine, and would strike again.”