Zeke Pike looked over at Alexzander and replied, “Over five hundred. From what I can tell, just the entrance collapsed, so if we can get it open we should be able to get them out.”
“I need to patrol the rest of the town,” Alexzander replied, “and see if I can find Roy or Gene. I’ll send any able bodies this way. We need a place for Hattie to set up her triage for both those caught in the cave in and people hurt by the quake.”
Zeke nodded and waved at him as he headed back to start digging out his workers again. Alexzander looked around until he found Betsy working with Hattie setting up a make shift hospital in the mining office. “We’re going to need more room soon. Alexzander, can you talk to Miss Flora and perhaps the girls can handle some of the less critical injuries over at the Saloon.”
Alexzander nodded again and pulled Betsy into his arm for a passionate kiss. “When this is over, I’ll see you at home.”
She shook her head. “Tonight, come to Papa’s its nearer the mine. This isn’t going to be finished today.” She looked around. “Not by a long shot.”
Alexzander nodded again. Then quickly walked away. About half way back to the Saloon he crossed paths with Roy Rogers, who was heading his way. “What’s going on at the mine boss?”
“Quake caused a collapse. They need every able body digging. But before that ,have you seen Gene?”
“He’s dead. We were on our way back from checking on Charles and the outlaws when the quake hit. His horse fell and Gene broke his neck. Died instantly.” I had to put his horse down it broke two legs. Brought Gene back and left him at the undertakers.”
“All right. That's rough. Gather any able bodies you see on your way. If there are injured folks, like they need real doctoring, Hattie’s at the mine office. If it's sewing or something simple, send 'em to the Lucky Lady. I’m heading there now to get Flora to set up a make shift hospital. I’ll get all the men there heading to the mine. How was Timber Town?”
“It’s a mess boss, but not like here. Tents are easy to put back up. Might be a couple of lumberjacks hurt but they’ll either doctor 'em there or bring 'em in for Miss Hattie.”
“Yep. I’ll head over and see if Woodson will get some of them to come help dig out the mine. We need to get those men out before the air runs out.”
Roy nodded, and the two lawmen shook hands. “After that, we need to set a curfew for tonight. Anyone out after dark will be arrested. Plan on little sleep Roy, it’s going to be a long night.”
Roy nodded again, and the two men went about their tasks.
Late that night when Alexzander finally stumbled into the Pike house, he was covered in mud from head to toe and so tired he could barely stand. Betsy had come home several hours earlier. Zeke refused to leave the men, still desperately digging to reach the elevator and shaft to the main mine. They’d already pulled over one hundred miners and engineers body’s out of the main mine, where they’d initially dug. They still had several yards of digging to go, and the constant rain wasn’t helping anything.
Alexzander and Roy had shut down the town and everyone was too hurt, tired or still working to cause trouble. Now he just wanted to get clean and sleep. He looked up at the sound of Betsy coming out of the kitchen with a big bucket of steaming water.
“Hello, Alexzander. I have a bath ready for you in the wash room. Hurry and get clean.” She handed him the bucket and he walked down and shut the door. There was a towel and a clean set of his clothes laid out. He quickly washed and dressed, then headed up to the room Betsy and he had shared before their furniture had arrived. His wife was laying in the bed waiting for him. He turned out the light and stripped down to his small clothes and climbed in. There wasn’t much conversation that night but as soon as he turned to her, Betsy scooted up and started kissing him. It was the first time she’d initiated their night time kiss and it told Alexzander that she’d meant every word she’d told him that day before the earthquake. When she pulled back to breath she looked at him in the darkness barely making out his eyes. “Make me your wife, Alexzander.”
He leaned in and kissed her, pulling her close so that they were snug against each other. “I would love nothing more, Sweet Betsy but we are both tired and I want to take my time and do this right. Let's just keep kissing and holding each other until after things are back to normal, and then I’ll give you everything you want.”
She sighed in disappointment, but he captured her lips again, showing her how much he meant what he said. After a few more kisses, Betsy laid her head on his chest and before he could move her, she was asleep, listening to his heart, as if it beat just for her.
Fourteen
The next day was full of rain and digging. Everyone that was able, except a few of the lumberjacks, was at the mine site. The women helped by bringing tools and supplies to the men who were slowly making their way to the main shaft. Others cooked or fixed coffee and other drinks for those working.
Betsy was busy organizing the women, and Zeke was back in the shaft with his men digging to bring the rest of them out. Hattie moved all the wounded to the saloon, and the women in town that had some ability to help with the doctoring, were working alongside the doves in the Lucky Lady taking care of those hurt.
Alexzander had spent all morning going from house to house and business to business making sure people were okay. He helped them inspect their homes and work places to make sure they were safe. It was just past noon and he’d finally arrived to the mine site. Betsy smiled and let him hold and kiss her, not caring that the towns folk could see their loving touches. She wanted everyone to know that she was in love with her wonderful husband. She’d seen yesterday and today how much more of a man of honor he was than Ike had ever been.
Ike wouldn’t have done the things Alexzander did yesterday. He’d forced the men who were still at the Saloon to come help dig. He’d made sure everyone got food, water and rest. He’d even taken a turn digging in the mud and slop that was the collapsed entrance. Then, he’d come home and hold her and even refused to take his rights because of his care and concern for her.
Ike wouldn’t have done any of that. He'd have sat back and told everyone else what to do.
Betsy dished her husband out a bowl of the stew that the women made and he had just sat on a stump to eat when a triumphant shout came from the mine. Zeke came out and shouted, “We’ve made it to the shaft! Jaxsom and I just need to inspect the cable on the lift and we will start to bring the men out.”
A cheer went up from those assembled and Zeke started in with a lantern in his hand when the ground started to pitch and roll just like the day before. Only this time it was stronger. People started to panic, and buildings started to fall . As people ran towards the mine, there came boom and a rush of air. The top of the mine collapsed, leaving a crater where the earth over the shaft fell into the hole, sealing the mine closed. The entrance groaned and as Zeke came stumbling to the front the newly place timbers collapsed closing off all the work they’d done since the day before.
Betsy screamed for her Papa and Alexzander grabbed her to keep her from racing into the still falling debris. When the earth stopped, he let her go and ran with her. They could see Zeke’s head and shoulders sticking out of the rubble, the rest of him buried under the huge support timbers for the entrance of the mine.
The old miner looked up and saw his daughter and her husband. With labored breath, he looked at his only child. “Looks like I’m going to see your mama, little Betsy. You hang on to that husband, you hear me? He’ll take care of you from now on.”
“Oh, Papa, NO!” she cried “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me I need you, Papa.”
“Hush now little one. You got a good man, he’ll take care of you. I’ll be watching from the pearly gates.”
He took a breath and a dribble of pink foam slid out the side of his mouth. He looked over at Alexzander. “You take care of my girl now, son. She’s all yours.”
Alexzander removed his hat and knelt beside the
broken man. “I give you my word as a mountain man, Zeke. I’ll never let her down.”
The old man shuddered “I know you won’t. Take care of my town while you’re at it. Oh, that hurts.”
Zeke took one more breath and let it out and never took another. Betsy fell to the ground crying and Alexzander pulled her into his arms holding her as she cried for the loss of her father.
There came a sound from the other side of town like a rushing of a river. “What’s that?” Someone cried out, and within minutes a woman covered in mud came running up the street.
“Marshal, it’s Timber Town. That quake caused a mudslide. Everything's gone. They're dead. They're all dead!"
Alexzander looked at the faces all looking at him. He stood, pulling Betsy up with him He picked her up and carried her over to Fannie Pearl, sitting her beside the matriarch of Silverpines. “There’s nothing we can do here. The main shaft collapsed. Let's head over to the other side and see what we can do to help in the mud slide.”
As he started walking, the words of his father in law repeated in his mind., “Take care of my town while you’re at it.”
He sighed, “I’ll do my best Zeke. I’ll do my best.”
It took two days to dig out timber town. Between the mine collapse and the mud slide, the town of Silverpines went from over five thousand citizens to less than five hundred. The railroad track was either buried or twisted making train travel impossible. There had been those who’d survived initially, but severely injured were moved to the Lucky Lady which had become a makeshift hospital. Hattie Richards did everything she could to heal the wounded, but after a week she came to see Alexzander.
“I’m running out of supplies and I don’t know what else to do. We have over a hundred injured or sick and about half of them aren’t going to make it. We need supplies and a doctor. I'm going to write to my connections back east. Perhaps you can put a call out?”
Alexzander put out a call for any supplies, bandages, and medicines, people had at home to be brought in to the saloon. He hadn’t realized how important he’d become in the week since the disasters, as the women in town were calling the two day's events.. He was the most able-bodied man left in town. Roy had been up in the timberline keeping an eye on Charles Little and his gang. All of them, including Roy, had died in the mudslide. That was the one upside. Charles Little was dead. But Alexzander knew it was going to get worse before it got better.
There was no way to communicate outside of Silverpines. The river was jammed with logs and debris that was swept in to it by the slide. The railroad track was damaged, the telegraph lines were down, and the telegraph agent was one of the men killed in the second collapse. The only bright spot was his wife, while mourning the passing of her father, had clung to him and become more loving each day.
They’d finally come together as man and wife and while sorrow hung over the town at night they fell into each other’s arms.
He knew he had to get the surviving men, women and injured, in town to pull together. They could make it until they could get outside Silverpines for supplies, but once the passes opened again, then the real trouble would start. Con men and swindlers would arrive to take advantage and here, he was without a deputy left to help him patrol the town and keep it safe.
He might end up having to teach some of the women to shoot and deputize them. He knew women that could answer the call. The Ryder women all could shoot almost as good as Nugget Nate, and Nathan could, as well. He had the weapons at the jail. If he had to, he’d teach the rest. Until then, he’d do the job the town had hired him to do: uphold the law and keep the peace. After which, he’d go home to his Sweet Betsy, and be the husband she’d sent for. Her very own Mail Order Marshal.
Epilogue
One month after the roads open.
Betsy Sewell sat inside her parlor mending Alexzander's buckskins. She smiled at the thought that after the disasters he’d gone back to wearing them for a while because they would withstand more than his store-bought clothes had. Yet he still found a way to tear out a seam or snatch a hole in them. She was just thinking about getting dinner started when there came a knock on her door.
Standing at the door was Fannie Pearl and several of the women of the town including her friends Maude and Tonya. Betsy invited them in and they came into the parlor. She asked if they wanted some tea as she had just bought a new box and didn’t mind sharing with her friends.
“No, dear that’s fine we didn’t really come to socialize." Fannie Pearl said.
Betsy looked at Fannie Pearl and the women. “Why did you come then?”
The woman all shifted in their seats and looked at each other as if trying to figure out what to say.
Fannie Pearl continued. “As you know there have been several unscrupulous men arriving since the pass opened and the train will start back up soon, we’re told, bringing even more of these less than desirables.”
Betsy nodded. “Yes, it’s a big worry of Alexzander’s, but what does that have to do with me?”
Tonya sighed, “Oh, for heaven sakes, stop beating around the bush. Fannie Pearl. Betsy, we need husbands. Good, quality men to marry and help keep us and the town safe. We want to know how you got Alexzander to come here and marry you, and how can we do the same thing with other good men?”
Betsy blushed. Her friend was right. If Silverpines was going to survive and thrive again then good men of character like Alexzander needed to come and marry the widows and daughters left behind in the wake of the disasters. It was time for her to share her secret with her friends and neighbors.
“Well, I sent a letter to a match maker I know. But that would take a bit longer than you are wanting. She does, however, run a publication. Like a newspaper for men and women seeking matches.” Betsy walked over to the desk in the corner of the parlor and opened a draw pulling out the paper Alexzander had picked up the last time he’d gone to Portland to look for a deputy. He’d brought the paper put out by Elizabeth and her network of matchmaker’s home as a joke. She sat it on the table in the center of her parlor.
“It’s called the Grooms Gazette. You put in your advertisement for what you’re looking for in a groom and men write to you. You pick the one you want, and you’ve got yourself a mail order husband.”
The woman all gasped. “Do men do that? Travel to find a woman? I mean I’ve heard of women becoming mail order brides, but a husband?”
Betsy smiled and shrugged. “It’s how I got my Alexzander. He was my Mail Order Marshal. What do you have to lose? Place an advertisement and see what happens.”
“And you think we should?”
Betsy smiled, “All I can tell you is it worked for me. I’m very pleased with the husband sent to me. I met the love of my life all because I sent a letter to Elizabeth and asked her to send me a Mail Order Marshal to marry. After all we’ve been through, don’t you think each of you deserve to be as loved and happy as Alexzander and I?”
The End.
Want to find out what happens next in Silverpines?
Follow the link below for a Sneak Peek of “Wanted: Horsebreeder” Book two in the Silverpines's series by Barb Goss.
Sneak Peek
About the Author
George McVey always wanted to be a superhero; sadly, no radioactive storms or animals have been a part of his life. One day while spinning a tall tale for his family, some suggested once again that with all his experiences in ministry, and his imagination, he should be writing books. This time it was like lightning struck him and he decided, why not?
Since then George has been hard at work using his creative imagination and writing several books. He's still adding to his bibliography to this day. You can find all his works on his Amazon.com page.
George lives in the wonderful state of Almost Heaven, West Virginia. A few years ago, he moved from a single-family home to a deluxe apartment in the sky, well the fourth floor anyway. He lives with his wife of thirty years and a service dog named Daisy Mae. He is visit
ed often by his three children and two grandsons.
If you ever come to visit him, you will probably find him sitting in his lazy boy recliner or at his desk in the corner office working on some writing project. If not a teaching book, then a novel. If he isn't working on a novel, then he will be working either on a short story or blog post. If he isn't doing either of those then he is either asleep or eating, his other two favorite past times.
You can reach him by email at [email protected]. You can also find out more about his books, get a free book, or join his beta readers team to help make the books he sells better at his website http://georgemcvey.weebly.com. You can also connect with George on Facebook at his author page https://www.facebook.com/George-H-Mcvey-557196424346233.
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Other Books by George H. McVey
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Mail Order Marshal Page 9
