Easy Pickings

by Richard S. Wheeler

  He seemed oddly content with that, and she wondered what was running through his mind. Surely he had a dozen angles, and she scarcely knew any of them. She knew little about liens, and supposed that was what he had in mind.

  But at least Kermit would be buried.

  Seven

  It was a proper funeral. March was escorted to a front pew; before her was the fine casket of burnished hardwood, with brass furniture. Bouquets flanked the chapel altar. A frail, bent minister unknown to her, the Reverend Mr. Pinkerton, recited the usual prayers, condolences, and hope of eternal life in some unfathomable place. He did not know Kermit.

  Behind her sat just two people: Constable Roach, and the assayer, Mr. Wittgenstein, bald, bespectacled, and wreathed in black. Mr. Laidlow hovered at the doors along with his flunkies; Mistletoe, Jerusalem Jones, and Bum Carp. The latter had been recruited as pallbearers. March wondered whether they had also been recruited to burn her to death in her cabin.

  The assayer, alone among those attending the funeral, came to honor Kermit.

  March felt discomfited by her blue dress, gotten from a lady of the streets, misshapen and unclean. But maybe it didn’t matter. She was present, no matter how she was clad.

  “May I offer the pulpit to anyone who wishes to eulogize Mr. McPhee?” the divine asked.

  March found herself rising and walking up two steps, and then facing the empty chapel. She didn’t know what she would say. She wanted Kermit buried within a cocoon of blessings and kindness.

  She was aware of how ill-kempt she was, but somehow it didn’t matter. What counted was Kermit.

  “My husband, Kermit McPhee, grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and attended the university there. He graduated with a degree in geology. His gaze was always on the horizon, and soon he emigrated here, bringing me, his bride, with him.

  “He was not afraid of hard labor or physical hardship, and saw opportunity in the North American continent, as yet little explored and much of it unmapped. I came with him gladly, proud to be married to a man who wished to advance through life on his merits and industry, through his skills and knowledge, through his integrity and courage.

  “So he prospected for minerals, located the present mine, and followed your laws scrupulously, proving his claim and winning a patent, which he shared with me. There were things he scorned. He had no use for people who tried to snatch wealth from others through questionable means. Such people, he felt, were not real men; they were parasites, feasting on the courage and industry and wisdom of others. He believed in honest industry, and did what he believed in.

  “He had a great heart, a rare courage, and a kindness that brought him friendship and trust from others. I can put it simply: he was an honorable man, and that separated him from those whose entire enterprise is to snatch away what others have won.

  “I shall miss him. I will visit his grave now and then, refreshing my understanding of what is good about the human race because he was a good and true man. He loved me. He supported me. He nurtured a family. He also inspired me, and his legacy to me is the wish to live as he did, with courage, kindness, and honor.”

  She gazed at the small audience, at the ones who would not meet her gaze eye to eye, but seemed to stare at the ceiling.

  “We are burying this day a fine man,” she said. “And the man I love.”

  And returned to her pew.

  She had not started her eulogy to deliver a message but that was how it ended up. She knew she had forced those who heard her to consider their own conduct. Maybe it would do them some good.

  The service ended with a simple blessing, and she found herself in a cortège carrying her husband to his grave. He would not have approved of the coffin or the funeral. But what was done was done, and that was how his life on earth would end.

  The Marysville cemetery had few graves in it because of the rawness of the town, but one was ready for Kermit. Laidlow’s two young men eased the coffin into the gray earth, and off a way Constable Roach watched. The constable was determined to see everything and miss nothing.

  March left a red rose on the coffin, a rose supplied by the funeral home, and then they took her back to the funeral parlor, and she was freed to go where she would.

  Except that Constable Roach intercepted her.

  “Mrs. McPhee, follow me, please.”

  She did, and he took her to his alcove in the city hall, and bade her sit down.

  He carefully removed his blue hat and eyed her, his mustache twitching.

  “You are by definition a vagrant,” he said. “We have a law that forbids vagrants from loitering in Marysville. The law defines a vagrant as a person without visible means and without a residence and without funds and without moral or ethical scruple. You have no means, no residence, and no funds. You qualify. I will not hold you this time, because of your loss, but if you should enter my town again, I will be forced to place you in that cage there for a day and fine you two dollars and confiscate anything you possess and evict you from this peaceful community. That’s all I have to say.”

  He rose.

  “Don’t ever propose marriage,” she said, and laughed.

  It was so unexpected and gamey that all she could do was whoop. He turned red, his rheumy eyes blazed, and she could see he itched to pitch her into the cell then and there. But some sobriety returned, and he simply nodded curtly.

  “You might lock yourself up and fine yourself and banish yourself from Marysville,” she said, stepping into fresh spring air.

  She headed for the assay office, hoping Mr. Wittgenstein had returned. She entered, which triggered a cowbell, and soon enough he emerged from a small rear room, dressed in his laboratory smock once again.

  “Well, well, Mrs. McPhee,” he said, uncertainly.

  “I wish to thank you for paying your respects,” she said.

  “He was a remarkable man, Mrs. McPhee. And had he lived, I believe he would have prospered. The mine was getting better and better.”

  “It is for sale, sir. Do you know of a reputable buyer?”

  “I’d buy it myself if I had the means. But you may be in for a difficult time, because the mouth has been blown shut and there are parties who’ll do whatever they can to prevent a sale, and delay or discourage you in every way.”

  She stared.

  “I think you know that,” he said gently.

  “I think my little eulogy reached the right ears,” she said.

  At that point some understanding passed between them.

  “Following the burial, the constable invited me to his warren and told me I’m a vagrant and will be fined and jailed if I return to Marysville.”

  Wittgenstein stared, amazed.

  “Well, I am a vagrant,” she said. “No home, no funds, no visible income or position or connection.”

  “Mrs. McPhee,” he said. “You happen to possess a gold mine with great promise. People come to me all the time, offering me a reward if I reveal the tenor of the McPhee ore I’ve assayed. Only yesterday, several people approached me, nearly all of them relatives of our worthy constable. At one point, this place was broken into. Since then I’ve kept all my assays of the McPhee Mine under lock and key. I also reported the break-in to Constable Roach, telling him I’ve notified the county sheriff as well. That served as a warning.”

  His manner became very gentle, his voice low and soft.

  “There are people here who mean to take the mine from you by rook or crook. Frankly, they’re a clan plus a few in-laws. They’re all in tight. Mortimer Laidlow is the godfather. He’s a careful one and always has the younger ones doing his dirty work. I’ve seen it. An assayer can’t help but see it. They’ll try to steal it, or do it with intimidation, or lawsuit, or bribery, or whatever. Actually, they were circling your husband, but he was not a man to be bullied. I confess, when I heard of his death, I wondered if it had been arranged, but that is most unlikely. He didn’t timber his shaft, even in fragmented rock, and paid a terrible price for his daring.”


  “I begged him to.”

  “Once, he told me it’d put his mine in the red. He’d do it, after it was showing a tidy profit.”

  She felt an odd tenderness. “Mr. Wittgenstein, what should I do?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I knew. People without scruple will never cease to alarm or hurt you to get the prize. I think I would call Roach’s bluff. You might well go back there, now, and tell him you’re going to stay in town, and if he wants to arrest you, go ahead.”

  “And what if he does?”

  “This town, Mrs. McPhee, would laugh the man out of office.”

  “Unless I rot in there undiscovered.”

  “I am standing ready. It happens I do the assays for the Drumlummon. A word from me will be heard.”

  Thomas Cruse’s great mine was the sole reason Marysville existed. A little pressure from the powerful men who ran it would go far.

  “Do you think my mine will support me?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not a geologist. There are dozens of factors. The vein might pinch out tomorrow. The ore might not reduce well. The mine might flood. The price of gold might decline. But I can say this: his assays got better and better, and he told me his vein got thicker and wider as he bored in.” He smiled. “That’s the heart of it.”

  “I wish I knew what to do,” she said.

  “I wish I could help you with that,” he said. “I’m a chemist, not a swami.”

  “I’ve just assumed a heavy debt, burying Kermit. He would be horrified.”

  “Yes, and they’ll use it as a lever.”

  “Do you know someone willing to buy it straight off—for what it’s worth?”

  “No one knows what it’s worth, I’m afraid.”

  “There’s nothing now. Nothing keeping me up at my mine but the wish to sell it properly.” Then she added a caveat. “And no one’s going to push me off.”

  “Then the way to do that is to share in its profits. Find a partner. Make sure he’s square. Gold does things even to men who start out with a head full of ethics.”

  “Would you?”

  He sighed, smiled and shook his head. “I know my profession very well; buying and managing mines is quite beyond my abilities. I come from an Austrian family known for its suicides, so I live without high ambition.”

  She felt weary. The funeral had drained her of her last reserves. “Mr. Wittgenstein, thank you for coming. Thank you for, well, looking after me. You’ve helped in ways I can’t explain.”

  He nodded, and lifted a white work smock from its peg on the wall. “I like to think I’m good for a few things,” he said. “Not just chemistry.”

  She stepped into the fresh spring air, walked back to the building that housed city offices and Constable Roach’s prim warren.

  He looked up at her, started. His revolver lay in pieces on a table. He had been cleaning it.

  “Well, here I am,” she said. “The vagrant is staying in Marysville.”

  “It seems you’re begging for trouble.”

  “Go ahead. Arrest the vagrant who is a widow with a gold mine. Arrest the vagrant with the fifteen hundred by six hundred foot patented, proven lode mine.”

  He did nothing.

  “Mr. Roach, I don’t even know your given name. Is it Herald? Donald?”

  “For you, it’s Constable.”

  “Have you held this office long?”

  He reddened slowly, and fidgeted with his fingers, and looked exactly like a man being bested.

  “Here,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  She walked into the cell and waited. She saw the heat boil through him. He was a man not at all used to being thwarted or crossed. But some innate caution slowly cooled him down, and he did not leap from his stool and slam the barred-iron door shut.

  “Thank you, peace officer,” she said, and stepped out. “If you owned a gold mine, I’d do the same for you. You wouldn’t qualify for vagrant. Not even after arsonists burnt your home. Which is something well understood in this town. Now I will task you. Find out who set my home ablaze. And arrest them for premeditated taking of life.”

  “Not my jurisdiction,” he muttered.

  “And not your inclination,” she said. “You might be related.”

  The look on his face, as she walked into fresh air, was one she would never forget, and one that she knew would torment her dreams. She thought maybe she had pushed him too far, and would pay a price for it. She had pointed at his clan.

  Eight

  The No Trespassing notice at the edge of her property was missing. She stormed up the trail to the mine, and found three men hard at work mucking rock out of the mine shaft. They were young, burly, and knew what they were doing.

  They had cleared the shaft, piled the rock to one side, and were putting Kermit’s ore car back into operation.

  They spotted her, but barely stopped working.

  “You are on my property, and you must leave,” she said.

  They ignored her.

  “This is private property. You are trespassing.”

  “Sorry lady, we’re taking over,” said one. He was the smallest of the three, ferret-faced, full of itchy energy that made him unable to stand still. The other two ignored her, cleaning out the rock from the ore car.

  “Your name, sir?” she asked.

  “Call me Poker. Call him Three-Card Monte. Call that one Faro. We just hit the jackpot, wouldn’t you say?”

  They all paused, grinning at her, knowing they held the high cards.

  “Looks like an abandoned mine to me,” Poker said. “All shut down, no one around. Dead mines, they’re fair game. No one owns ’em. So we done took it.”

  “Lady, you’re trespassing. This here is now our claim,” said Three-Card Monte.

  “Yeah, and if you don’t, no telling what’ll happen to you. Can’t say as you’d like it,” added Faro.

  That one was big and smirky and grinning.

  She understood the threat. And it riled her.

  She headed down the grade, but then turned off toward her refuge, where Kermit’s shotgun was waiting for her. She needed a double-barreled one, but this would have to do. What she planned to do might be reckless, but it had to be done.

  She hastened along an invisible trail on the slope, through dense timber, and then to her ledge under the overhanging rock where her few small possessions were hidden. She found the twelve-gauge shotgun, checked the load, pocketed half a dozen shells, and headed back.

  By the time she reached the mine head, they had gotten the mine opened, and two of the three had vanished, no doubt into the shaft. The third, Three-Card Monte, was urinating on the rock pile.

  “Hands up,” she said, enjoying his dilemma.

  They were slow to rise.

  “Do it. This is buckshot and it will cut you in two.”

  “Aw, lady, you hardly know how to hold that thing. I bet you never pointed a gun in your sweet little life,” he said.

  His hands did not reach for the heavens.

  “Button up and then walk in front of me. We’re going to Marysville,” she said.

  He grinned, sat down, and didn’t budge.

  He had read her well. She was not ready to kill the man in cold blood, and he knew it. There were proper ways to deal with this, and shooting an unarmed trespasser was not one of them. She felt a sudden flood of frustration.

  He stood, slowly. He eyed her, eyed the shotgun, and stepped toward her.

  “You’re going to give me that gun, lady,” he said, moving one step at a time, closer and closer.

  She aimed at his knees and pulled the trigger. The shotgun bucked violently, knocking her back. Three-Card Monte howled, collapsed, as blood blossomed on his lower legs.

  She was shocked at herself.

  He sat howling. Both of his legs gouted bright blood.

  She ejected the shell and slipped in another and snapped the shotgun together.

  The other two erupted from the mine, took it all in with
a glance, and studied her shotgun.

  “Patch him up and carry him off, and don’t come back,” she said.

  They saw the blood, the howling man, and nodded. She let them reach the wounded man and start to bind him up with their shirts. She watched, her shotgun leveled. One of the balls had hit a kneecap. Two others had cut into his calves. Three-Card’s mining days were probably over.

  “Next time, I’ll aim higher,” she said.

  The injured man coughed and sobbed. The other two got the bleeding more or less slowed, but the wounded man was wailing, an eerie howl that sent shivers through her.

  She watched them load the man into a wheelbarrow, ignoring the picks and sledges and shovels they had brought, and slowly wheel the man down the mountain. The three card sharks never looked back.

  She sat at the mine head, shaking. She had shot a man. Gold had fevered her, along with the rest. It was hard to swallow, inflicting so much pain upon the man, even if he was robbing her and defying her. If she had been a man would he have ignored her as he had? She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She was simply March McPhee, and she would do whatever she must to preserve her property and her life.

  But it had been almost as shattering for her as it had been for the one calling himself Three-Card Monte. And yet there was a difference. She would not kill if she could help it. She was not born to womanhood to take life, but to nurture it. If she could defend her property without taking life, she would. That was the difference. She would not stoop to the level her adversaries had reached, reckless of life. She had her pride.

  She wondered whose men they were, whether they, too, were part of Laidlow’s clan, doing the first dirtywork. Or whether they were simply opportunists, a threesome who heard all the gossip in one of the saloons, and decided that some bold marauding might get them a gold mine. Maybe it didn’t matter. What did matter was what to do next, and how to defend herself.

  Maybe Tip Leary could help her. She wanted to talk to him. It was a marvel how much a barkeep knew. He would soon know all about Poker and his friends, and what their fate had been, and what sort of new troubles she faced. There was something tender in Tip Leary, and she saw something in his gaze that he wanted to hide from her, and she knew what it was, and it actually caused her to smile.