Easy Pickings

by Richard S. Wheeler

  She edged around him and soon was treading up the wide gulch out of town. She felt his eyes on her back, but it was only her imagination.

  For some reason the hike from town up to the mine was wearisome, and she toiled through the second mile, suddenly exhausted. She had accomplished all she could that day, hadn’t she? Then, when she rounded the bend, and saw the ash-heap that had been her home, and her rude camp nearby, and the few things she had salvaged, a great wave of sadness engulfed her.

  What had she done? What madness had got ahold of her? Kermit was barely in his grave, her boy had been lost to fire only a few days before, but here she was, committed on paper to marry someone she didn’t know, someone who repelled more than warmed her. She had set aside every caution, written her signature on a paper that would change her life, and for what? For just what?

  Even if Mr. Apollo was a good man, she felt nothing for him. Even if he got her papers together and rescued the mine and gave her a comfortable life, what good was it? Did she care for him? Love him? No, it was a fear of loss, of a mine, of her independence, of support, of respectability that had driven her. Fear, not love. Desperation, not desire. She felt her weariness steal through her limbs, robbing energy from them until she could barely walk. She passed by the ashes, reached her camp, and fell to the ground, desolated by the mistakes she had made this day, and by her own foolishness. Or stubbornness. Or maybe even her own greed.

  She sensed she would regret this day the rest of her life. She sat bleakly beside her few things, until at last she undid Tip Leary’s bundle, and beheld a soft gray woolen dress, needed warmth even in a Montana summer, and the small sack of oats, and the ball of home-made soap. The soap filled her with a longing so great she had no words for it. After days of living barely washed and never clean, she could clean herself.

  She found kindling and wood and started a fire in the stove, which sat nakedly on the earth. She started water heating in the tin kettle. She rinsed the ash out of the sheet metal tub. She fetched more water in the wooden bucket, and as soon as the first pailful was hot, she poured it into the tub and started more warming. Nervously, she eyed the trail winding far below. She would see anyone ascending it long before they saw her, and that was all she needed. And yet it felt strange, and intimidating, to bathe in open air.

  She fetched the soap, holding it as if it were gold, and when she at last had enough warm water, she stepped in, and luxuriated in it, and then scrubbed herself, lathering soap over her, cleaning her flesh, even if she could not clean away the darkness she felt about signing that paper committing her life and fortune to that man, that Hermes Apollo, names she could barely conjure up, and names that filled her with bleakness. What had the lawyer offered except some security and imprisonment in a cold marriage? How different that was from Tip Leary’s tender gift, the soap, the warm dress, the promise of help to rebuild. Tip had given her gifts; Hermes Apollo had only offered a deal, a vast return on a small service. Tip Leary had a heart. Hermes Apollo had only an eye for easy pickings.

  But in time, the warm water and suds did their magic, and about the time the water turned chill, she emerged, dried and dressed herself, and felt herself to be a woman once again. But the sadness stayed on. She had made a dreadful mistake, and had bound her life away.

  She slipped into the soft gray dress Tip had given her. Nothing could have felt better. Scots knew wool, lived in wool, cherished wool, and now this wool warmed not only her body but her heart. She felt Tip’s presence there, a friendship that had grown simply out of Tip’s charity.

  She knew she had to undo what she had done this day. She examined the paper, the simple contract that bound her perhaps for the rest of her life, if he made good his end of the bargain. She stared at her own signature, scarcely believing she had willfully written it, willfully bargained her life away.

  Her thoughts drifted to Kermit, and she sensed his presence there in the wilderness camp they had called home for so little time. What would he want her to do? She decided that was the wrong question. What should she do to make his quest to give her a good life become reality?

  She found a sunlit spot where she could let wind and sun dry her hair, and there she sat weighing her future. And there, while breezes toyed with her glossy red hair, she decided that she would not pursue any future; she would let the future come to her. Things had been set in motion. Tip was sending his patrons to build a new cabin, begin mining gold, and keep her safe, and all for the pleasure of doing it. And Mr. Apollo would, or wouldn’t, get the papers together, protect her from predators, and keep her safe from people with warrants and summons and judgments. She was not alone.

  Twelve

  At first light, March awakened to the rattle of a wagon, and hastily clad herself. A group of working men in brogans and worn britches were toiling up the grade, along with a mule-drawn wagon loaded with something. It was barely five, but the nights were short in June.

  She collected her shotgun and went to the road to meet them, her pulse rising.

  They halted, aware of the weapon in her arms.

  “The widow McPhee is it?”

  She nodded.

  “Himself, Tip Leary, sent us,” said a burly one with carrot hair. “We’re all on the second shift at the Drumlummon, but we’re here to do a little fixing for you, if it’s a thing you need. Before we go into the pit.”

  “Oh, my, you are welcome,” she said. “You and Mister Leary are most kind to me. Whatever it is, go right ahead.”

  “It’s a pride in us to help. Is it your husband was lost to a collapse here?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “We can’t save him, but we can save others. We’ve some timber men and some muckers, and we’ve some canvas and a little stovepipe and all. You show us where you’d like the little house put up, and we’ll do it.”

  “A house, you’d do that?”

  “A wall tent on a pole frame, then. We’ll get some poles up, make a frame, hang the canvas, get your stove in with the fitting to take the pipe through the roof. And these lads here, Micks every one, they’ll cut some lodgepole and put a square set or two into the shaft, brace up that bad spot where the rock’s hanging and ready to take the life of anyone in that hole.”

  “I am March McPhee, and you are?”

  They were content with first names: Two Mikes, a Harry, Sean, Peter, Ambrose, Brian, Kenneth, and two Dans. The red-haired one was a Dan.

  “I will make sure that you are repaid,” she said.

  Dan shook his head. “Not a man here would allow it,” he said. “Some of us would leave a widow behind; some not. But we who go into the pits, we’re all brothers.”

  Somehow or other, they all felt a solidarity with Kermit, with the lost baby, and her. She wondered at it.

  They swiftly spread out, several heading for the mine, others to a thicket of young lodgepole pines where the trees crowded together. They plucked up axes and saws and tools she scarcely knew, and began hacking down the lodgepoles and limbing them. Others tackled thicker trees, limbed them, and began snaking them up the grade to the mine, where they would soon become mining timbers. She watched amazed. The pole frame of a cabin rose swiftly, not far from the ashes of her home and life. A ridgepole and rafters were lashed down, and then the canvas was wrapped around the poles and laced into place until there were four taut walls, one with a door opening, and a taut cover. A golden light filtered through the cloth, making the interior glow. In the space of a few hours, these busy and artful men erected a solid shelter against weather, one that even had a wooden floor made from Kermit’s stores at the mine head.

  They had a sheet metal fitting that would keep the stovepipe heat away from the canvas, and two of these men soon had it anchored and the stove ready for use.

  They stood silently while she inspected her new shelter, the glowing room, the floor, the release from chill air, the safety of a small home.

  “It’ll take you through the summer and into the fall,” Dan said. “After that, you’ll want to come
live in town, I’m thinking.”

  They smiled when she thanked them, and seemed eager to get on with whatever else they had in mind, which was timbering the mine.

  There, a crew of four sawed and notched the stout lodgepole trunks into a square set timbering of the dangerous area of the shaft, wedged the timbers in place, and slid lagging, or ceiling poles, into place above the crossbeams. The fractured rock was held at bay with a wooden cube jammed tight and ready to fend off most any collapse in the roof of the shaft. They were experienced timber men, used to erecting stout bulwarks and timbers deep in the Drumlummon, and knew exactly what they were doing.

  Then Dan showed her the timbering by the light of a carbide lamp.

  “I should like to know who you are, and how I may be your friend,” she said to Dan.

  “Oh, we’re just patrons of our friend Tip. And he’s not getting off for free. He promised us a spare mug for it. So you see? It’s not for nothing we’re working here.”

  “Just you wait!” she said. “I’ll get even with you!”

  The whole lot were grinning.

  “We’re on the moonlight shift, four to midnight, and it’s time for us to go down the hill,” said Dan. “You’ll see some more of us. Some powdermen, they’ll set up a little charge at the head, and some muckers, they’ll clean it out and put the quartz in an ore car. But that’s not for today.”

  “What do they pay you at the Drumlummon?” she asked.

  “Three a day, and some of us get more.”

  “Then you’ll get that, too.”

  Dan sighed. “Ma’am, don’t take the brother out of it, please. It’s not only for you. It’s for him that you lost here, going into the shaft and not coming out.”

  Some sort of brotherhood, then.

  “So we put up good timbers in his memory.”

  Then they were gone. If they hurried, they would meet the whistle at four. And put in another long shift before they saw their beds. She felt an odd loneliness as she watched them hurry their mule and wagon down the slope to the gulch, and then vanish. It was past three in the afternoon, but the day had transformed her life. Now, suddenly, she had a safe mine, a shelter, and hope. And she barely knew their names. Friends of Tipperary Leary; that was all.

  She arranged her few possessions in her snug shelter but her mind wasn’t on the task. She was safe from most weather, but that wasn’t in her thoughts. She could survive the long wait for the papers, but that didn’t occupy her. No, the visit from Tip Leary’s saloon patrons had brought something else to her attention. They had not come to help or console a new widow out of luck, though that had been present. They had not come to share her new and sharp grief. They had not come especially for her, a woman in trouble. They had come to honor a bond they felt with any man who braved the pits. Any man, anywhere, Hibernian or not, who gathered his courage and plunged into the bowels of the earth for a long shift with the sun hidden from his eyes and soul. In a way, they had come to pay homage to Kermit.

  Was this brotherhood among men the same as sisterhood she often felt toward her own sex? She could not say, and maybe it wasn’t important. Strangers had honored Kermit McPhee and looked to his widow and his property. It all seemed a mystery to her; she, a new and hurting widow, and Dan, their spokesman, looking beyond her, his every word respectful, and yet serving a male brotherhood.

  She wondered whether Kermit would have fathomed all this. It left her oddly pained, but so did most everything these dark times.

  That evening she found herself entertaining a visitor. She discovered Constable Roach slowly climbing the grade to her shelter and mine. He walked easily, a compact man in fine condition, wearing his natty blue uniform. He was carrying a folder or envelope of some sort. A small silver bar pinned to his lapel identified him as the village peace officer. She debated whether to collect her shotgun, and decided against it. He stood on the small flat, eyeing the ashes of what had been her home, her new shelter, the woods beyond, and finally her.

  “Good evening, Constable,” she said.

  He took that for permission to come close, surveying her all the while with those spaniel eyes. “Here’s something for you,” he said, and handed her the envelope.

  She took it.

  “There, then. That’s a summons and you’ve been served properly. Your presence is required in district court.”

  “For what?”

  “Collection of debt, as I understand it. You owe the Laidlow Funeral Home a sum. They’ve gone to court. This action requires you to pay in ten days, that’s tomorrow, or the mine will be attached. I should add that there’s a court order prohibiting the removal of anything of value, such as ore, which might reduce the value or prevent my brother-in-law from full satisfaction.”

  “What court?”

  “The territorial district court in Helena. My cousin, Samuel Roach, presides there.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you do. We are a tight-knit family, each branch of which looks after the advancement and well-being of the rest.”

  “And how much time have I, and what happens if I fail to raise the funds?”

  “You’ll want to be there tomorrow. The mine will be attached and sold to satisfy the debt unless you bring cash.”

  “And once the mine is sold, do I get the balance, beyond what is owed for Kermit’s funeral?”

  “I don’t imagine you will. There’s no evidence that you own it. It belonged to your paramour.”

  “Paramour?”

  He smiled slightly. “Can you prove otherwise?”

  “Then why issue a summons to me?”

  “You contracted the funeral services.” He discovered a stump and sat on it. “I’ll take some tea and enjoy the sunset with you,” he said. “Nice prospect here, the view down the gulch.”

  Maybe that was a good idea. She headed wordlessly to her shelter, where some hot water rested on the stove, and prepared the Earl Grey for him, and for herself.

  “I have no sugar.”

  “Tea has its own manly flavor,” he said. “Nobler than coffee.”

  She handed him a crockery cup of it, and kept another for herself. Those were the sum of her crockery.

  “So what happens if the mine is sold? Is there bidding?”

  “My cousin will make sure there’s an appearance of it.”

  “Which means, I suppose, that one or another of your clan will snatch my mine for a song.”

  He shrugged. “That’s probably all it’s worth. An exploratory hole is hardly a bonanza. We thought we’d take the risk. We may end up losing our shirts. But it’s all under way, and there’s no way you can derail it.”

  “Except to pay the undertaker.”

  “Oh, there are other approaches if you do that. A considerable amount of tax money is overdue on this place, you know. We discovered it recently. The court can seize it, you know. And there’s some question about the patent; whether it is valid. There may have been an earlier claim on this very ledge.” He sipped. “Earl Grey. My favorite, and well brewed. You have gifts, Mrs. McPhee, or is that the right title?”

  “It is the right one.”

  “Well, I’m glad of that. One of my duties is to look after the morals of the village of Marysville. Thomas Cruse, owner of the Drumlummon, would have no other. We have none of the wickedness of Helena here.”

  She reddened, furious, but choked it down. He was observing her closely, well aware of her gust of rage.

  “Nice fellows, the ones from Leary’s saloon, coming up here to build you a shelter. I gather they timbered that bad patch in the mine, too. That adds to the value, and that will help us ascertain what sort of operation Kermit McPhee was running. But that was generous of them, and I’m sure you’ll be returning the favor any way you can.”

  She threw her cup at him. It splashed by, barely wetting him. He stood abruptly, amused.

  “Time to head down the hill, my lovely friend. It wouldn’t be seemly for the town constable to be seen with the mer
ry widow after dark.”

  He lifted his visored cap and headed his natty way down the trail.

  Thirteen

  The pair stood outside her shelter in the dawn light, along with a laden mule. They had awakened her. She peered out, discovering the skinniest men she had ever seen.

  “Friends of Tip,” one said.

  “Powdermen,” said the other.

  “We’ll drill, put in some sticks, and blast. Tomorrow, there’s be muckers.”

  She was getting the idea. The slope was soaked in predawn gray, and a deep hush lay over the mountainside. These two were so thin she couldn’t imagine them doing heavy labor. But they were wiry, and muscles lumped out of their arms.

  She needed to think about this. There was that paper that forbade it.

  “I don’t think I’m allowed,” she said.

  “Tip Leary said go ahead, don’t worry about nothing. They can’t stop us.”

  It was a hard decision to make. She still felt sleep-fogged. The mule twitched restlessly. The packs were heavy, and sagged.

  “I’m Del and this is Will,” said one. “We’re doublejackers.”

  “I guess I don’t know.”

  “Tip says they’re trying to push you out, and it’s the Laidlow crowd, so nothing’s fair and right,” said Will. “They don’t even need to know about it. You need a little ore? You’ll have some ore.”

  She was fully awake now. “What will you do?”

  “We’ve got steels; I hold and turn the steel while he hammers, then he holds and turns the steels while I hammer. Each steel’s a tiny bit narrower than the previous. When we get the holes drilled and cleaned, then we crimp Bickford into the caps, cut the caps into the DuPont sticks, slide the sticks into the face, and when we’re ready we ignite the rat tails a certain way and get out of there. There’ll be a thumpety-thump, and that’s it. Maybe three feet of rock and ore to muck out. All quiet as a church on a Monday night.”

  “I’ve watched my husband do it,” she said.