Mining for Love (Mountain Men of Montana Book 2)

by Dana Alden

  “Do you have sisters?” she asked.

  He smiled, “Two. How’d you guess?”

  Calvin had told her she could trust J.B. She analyzed his face, his recent actions and words. She’d learned that all had to match if you wanted to trust someone.

  “Just a wild guess.”

  J.B. took his arm from around her and stood, offering that same arm again to help her rise. “Let’s walk and talk. We’ve got to figure out a plan for you.”

  Delia felt a welling of gratitude, until J.B. spoiled it by adding, “Cal asked me to help you so I guess I’m obligated.”

  They meandered down the trail. J.B. would periodically reach down to pick up a stone. Sometimes he showed her the rock, pointing out colors or variations he found interesting. Some of them he pocketed. Some he skipped across the river.

  Once, he paused to point to a faint track, long and skinny, in the dust. She followed his pointing finger until she saw the snake curled in the shade of rock. It was shades of brown with a black tongue flicking out. They continued on.

  “You know a lot about rocks.”

  “I am a miner, you know. It helps to know rocks and sand and whatnot. This pretty green one is just a mud stone, but it’s fine for skipping.” He threw it across the river’s surface where it bounced five times before sinking. “Sometimes, I go up in the mountains to look at the different kinds of rocks I can find up there. There’s no one else around. I feel like I’m closer to God.” J.B. squatted down, poking at a translucent rock, his eyes trained at the ground. “Quartz,” he mumbled.

  “Do they call you Mountain Man? Like that man called Calvin Mountain Man Cal?”

  “What? Oh, no,” he said, rising back up to look Delia in the face. “That’s left over from Cal’s trapper days. I was never a trapper. I feel like a mountain man, though. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” His gaze turned to the far-off mountains you could see in every direction. He looked lost in thought, but then turned his eyes back on her and his words showed he would not be distracted.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you find someone else to marry? In case it doesn’t work out with Cal? You might even find a fellow you like better.”

  “What? No!” She was perhaps too emphatic, from the look on his face, but she meant it. Coming out here to marry Calvin had seemed a way to start over, but now, scary as it was, she was free to truly start again. No one here knows me, Delia thought, and I can forget the past. I won’t have to explain anything.

  “I’ve been married and wouldn’t repeat it with most men.”

  J.B. raised his eyebrows.

  She quickly added, “Except with Cal. I’ll marry Cal.” Then she looked down to carefully and far too slowly pull her skirt loose from a sagebrush branch that had hooked the fabric. When she finally looked up, J.B.’s eyebrows had returned to their regular position. J.B. and Delia continued to stroll until J.B. spoke. “Maybe you want to go home, back to your parents I mean, until Cal gets things worked out here?”

  She shook her head. “They passed two years ago; scarlet fever.” Before J.B. could respond to that, she said, “I think I need a job.”

  She was, she realized, free. No husband. No parents. If she could make a living, and everyone said that anyone willing to work hard, even women, could make a living out here, then she could remain free. She could be her own woman.

  “Could you help me figure this out, Mr. Wood?” She needed to know if he’d really help her, that he wasn’t simply paying lip service to her.

  J.B. didn’t hesitate. “I’d be honored, Mrs. Watson.”

  And then he fell over.

  Chapter Six

  Delia had been looking at him like he was a knight in shining armor, and then he tripped and fell. J.B. could feel his face burning red. He brushed the dusty dirt from his shirtfront and then prepared to rise. Instead, Delia exclaimed, “Oh my goodness!” and knocked him back down. “Don’t move! Don’t move!”

  While she pushed on his leg and shoulder, he squirmed around trying to sight a gun, or a bear, or something that would cause her to act so. He didn’t hear anything, even a rattle.

  “Don’t move. I’ll go get help! Someone to carry you!” Her eyes were darting around, looking for someone to flag down.

  “Mrs. Watson, I am fine. I just tripped.” He put his hand underneath himself to push up and flinched when he felt a cactus spur embedded in his palm.

  “No, no, Mr. Wood, you must be in shock. You are not fine.” She studied his face, but it was hers that looked pained. It wasn’t until she turned to look at his foot that he saw what concerned her. His boot was creased right across the middle, turning up so the end of his foot would have to be broken to point up and backward toward his knee.

  Normally, he’d have continued to be embarrassed for falling, but now he just had to laugh at the two of them on the ground. Most people noticed his limp, but on their walk, she’d been so distraught she surely missed it.

  He reached out and took each of her hands that were threatening to worry him into the ground. He held them together between his, and looked her in the eyes. Slowly and calmly, he said, “Thank you, but I am not injured nor am I in shock. That is just my boot.”

  She looked confused, and he didn’t blame her. He set her hands into her lap and reached down to pull off his boot. Instead of a normal foot, there was the sock-covered stub. His foot had been amputated about an inch before where his toes would be. She couldn’t see it because of his sock, but the knobby end of his leg was a mess of scar tissue.

  “Oh,” was all she said, staring at his shortened foot.

  “Battle of Wilson’s Creek in Missouri. Canister shot from a 3-inch rifled cannon bolt, courtesy of the Yanks from the Phoenix Iron Company in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Some hot metal cut off and cauterized a lot of it and the doctors did the rest.”

  He watched her carefully. Some folks, especially women, were squeamish when it came to these types of injuries. Instead, she looked at him in awe.

  “You didn’t turn septic? You’re walking like normal? How is that possible?”

  He smiled. He had been amazed it didn’t turn gangrenous, then further amazed when it healed enough to try walking. He was glad she was as impressed as he was.

  “Somehow, it healed up without infection, thank the good Lord. I was sent home and my sisters helped care for me. And then I figured out how to wrap it. I used a cane for a long time.”

  “Well, I’ll be. You are truly a clever man.”

  He felt his blush returning. “I don’t know about that. I persevere, that’s all.”

  And then he found himself saying things he normally kept locked up inside. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of never walking again. I know I could use crutches or a cane, but didn’t want to be dependent. I didn’t want folks to dismiss me, as they do, as a war cripple. That’s part of the reason I came out here. I don’t have to walk far as a miner, can ride my horse for longer distances, and most folks don’t think anything about a limp. For the nosiest, I simply say, Battle of Wilson’s Creek, and that suffices.”

  Mrs. Watson nodded. “I didn’t even notice your limp, Mr. Wood.”

  “That’s because you were distracted.”

  Now it was her turn to blush. They both laughed. He took a moment to adjust his sock and slide the boot onto his foot. That boot was starting to fold up on him more often; he’d have to figure out a solution or he’d be on the ground a lot.

  He stood up and offered his hand to Mrs. Watson, even though she was already half risen. She put her hand in his anyway and he tucked it into the crook of his arm as they started to walk back along the path.

  “Call me J.B. That’s what my friends call me. You should, too.”

  She looked down for a moment, and then smiled her sweet smile. “And you shall call me Delia.”

  They didn’t speak on their way back to the hotel. J.B. realized that though he didn’t really want to be responsible for Mrs. Watson—for Delia—ther
e were worse people to be forced into company with.

  Chapter Seven

  Delia turned so her back was to J.B. She bent over and lifted her skirt so that she could unhook her stockings and slide them off. She glanced back. J.B. was carefully tying up the horses, taking far more time than he likely needed to. She placed her folded stockings on top of her shoes and then turned to the reason they had stopped in this location for a break.

  It was a natural hot spring, roughly dug out to create a small pool. Logs laid along the side gave a place to sit or enter the water without getting muddy. Delia chose a spot with her back to the sun and slid her feet into the water, arranging her skirts to cover her knees without dropping into the pool.

  She closed her eyes. It was heavenly.

  She heard a small splash and opened her eyes to see J.B. sitting down beside her, sliding his feet and calves into the water. He had rolled up his pants to his knees. He leaned forward, sliding his hands into the warm pool. She wondered if they ached.

  “Who built this?” Delia asked.

  “Of course, the spring has always been here as far as anyone knows, but sometime in the past year, some miners dug it out and laid the logs around it. Mining is back-breaking work.” J.B. wiggled his fingers in the water. “Hand-breaking work, too.”

  They sat in peaceful silence for a while, until J.B. asked, “What’s that smell? Is it you?”

  Delia sputtered. She had noticed the smell, too, but thought it came from the water. “What? No! That’s not me. It’s the water. Or the…the—" She looked around for some plant or animal that could be causing the smell.

  J.B. started laughing. Delia was confused, and then annoyed. J.B. leaned back on his hands and smiled. “Oh, Delia! That was funny!”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, and even to herself she sounded stuffy. She tried to smile and pretend she hadn’t been mortified to be accused of smelling so terribly.

  “Yes, it’s the water. Sulphur. Some say the rotten egg smell is how you know it’s good healing water.”

  They returned to silence. Delia looked at the canyon walls surrounding them, wondering what critters could be hiding up among the bushes and scrub trees, watching them.

  After a bit, they got back on J.B.’s horse, the one he had hired out of Virginia City. Delia was riding up behind him on this one. He’d had to hire another horse in Gallatin City to carry her travel boxes, as well as all of her new purchases.

  There weren’t many options for a woman here who wasn’t dependent on her husband or father. Or she should say, a respectable woman. Since working in a brothel or serving drinks and dancing in a saloon were not acceptable options to her, J.B. had offered other suggestions. Cook, laundress, seamstress. She was a poor cook and a merely adequate seamstress (which J.B. had assured her would not be a terrible hindrance in this neck of the woods). Nor did she have funds to invest in a mine or stock lumber for a lumberyard.

  She’s wanted to wait until they arrived in Virginia City to make her decision. She wanted to see the city and maybe it would help her choose her path. But J.B. had nixed that idea.

  “It’s a long way to get supplies if you can’t get what you want in Virginia City,” he said, shaking his head. J.B. had explained there were stores in Virginia City, but he couldn’t be sure the supplies she’d need would be stocked, so it was best to make the decision and purchases while they could.

  She’d opted for laundress.

  On her family farm, she’d been in charge of the laundry since she was sixteen. Even after she’d married, she’d done laundry for herself, her husband, and any hired hands and migrant workers. It was hard work but she liked the sense of accomplishment that came from starting the day with dirty clothes and ending it with clean ones. She’d only had to do that once or twice a week, instead of six days, but now, she could keep her own income and decide how to spend it.

  J.B. had taken her back to the ferry landing where a supplies boat had just landed. They negotiated to buy two tin tubs, an iron boiling pot, boxes of borax and starch, two irons, lye soap, rope, and wooden clothes pegs. That had taken nearly the last of her funds. She was grateful that J.B. hadn’t asked her for money to hire the second horse needed to haul her travel boxes and the new supplies.

  J.B. offered to let her set up on his plot, since there was a small spring bringing in fresh water nearby, with deferred rent in return for getting his own clothes washed by her. She’d gone from prospective bride to prospecting laundress in a matter of days.

  So, here she was, riding along behind a man she barely knew, more dependent on him than he even realized.

  “I think you ought to know that I am nearly out of money.”

  J.B. turned his head to look over his shoulder at Delia. She could feel the red heat in her cheeks. They were approaching the end of their first day’s travel, with one more ahead of them the next day. She’d pretty much guaranteed that unless J.B. was rotten to the core, he had no choice but to keep helping her. He grunted and said, “I’ll help you out until you’re on your feet.” Then, he faced forward again, but she heard him mumble, “We’ll make Cal pay us back.”

  The second day, the trail they traveled along the river opened up into a long, broad valley. Mountains surrounded it. It was so beautiful that Delia pushed her bonnet off and let it hang down her back. She didn’t want to miss any of the scenery, even if she was getting too much color from the intense sun. The valley was straw colored, except along the Madison River, where the deep blue water was riffled with white breaks and the green grasses and leafy trees.

  Delia watched a bald eagle swoop along the water and rise with a fish in its talons, carrying it off to a nest in a tall cottonwood tree.

  The valley turned brown and pine green as it marched through the foothills and up into the mountains.

  J.B. pointed. “This is the Madison Range. That’s the Gravelly Range, and over there, those are the Tobacco Root Mountains.”

  Delia pointed to one mountain. “That white bit over there? Is that snow? In August?”

  J.B.’s voice carried over his shoulder as he guided the horses forward. “Yes. There’s some spots up on the mountaintop that keep their snow all winter here. It’s hard to imagine, considering how hot we are down here right now.”

  Delia merely nodded. Hard to imagine, indeed.

  As they headed across the valley toward Gravelly Range, Delia thought the hillside in the distance was moving. They were so far away, though, she couldn’t tell what she was seeing.

  “Are those buffalo?” she asked excitedly.

  “Elk,” responded J.B. “See those lighter spots? That’s the hind end of the elk. Like a white-tailed deer, but much bigger.”

  As they got closer, the details became clearer. The elk were bigger, and had bigger necks, thicker shoulders. The racks on the bulls were massive. One of them called out, a bugle like nothing Delia had heard before. She realized she was grinning as she rode along behind J.B. It was different seeing the country on horseback, instead of speeding at thirty-five miles per hour in a train, or in a boat, unable to travel off the water path.

  They passed the elk and headed up a trail. It was afternoon. It was hot. Sweat gathered along both their backs. She tried to lean back, away from J.B.’s damp shirt.

  Finally, after several ups and downs, they reached a lookout. In front of them was a narrow v-shaped valley, pressed between the hills they’d just crossed and more hills leading to yet another mountain range. It was Alder Gulch.

  J.B. halted the horses. “Those are the Ruby Mountains across there.” He pointed. “And this is Virginia City.” Below them was a creek, pressed in on both sides by dozens of shacks, cabins and tents. The ground was torn up everywhere they looked, the creek bordered by piles of rock and dirt. The hillsides around the town were nearly naked.

  “Where are the trees?” Delia asked cautiously. “Shouldn’t there be lots of Alder trees?”

  “Not many now. Most have been cut down for cabins and sluice bo
xes and the like.”

  “Sluice boxes?”

  “It’s a long narrow box. You run water over your slag and hope to find gold.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “No, I have a pit mine. I dig, run the ore through my rocker box.”

  Delia felt like he was speaking a foreign language. She felt she was looking at a foreign country. There were a dozen popup mining towns, having existed for less than three years, along this ten-mile stretch of Alder Creek. Ten thousand men were crammed into these shantytowns. Cabins and tents, shacks and lean-tos, anything to allow them to stay and mine for a better future.

  And she was going to live here with them.

  Chapter Eight

  Delia couldn’t believe her eyes. Seeing Virginia City up close was even stranger than seeing it from above. She came from a small town, and she’d seen some really small ones on her way out West, including Gallatin City. She had even seen some big towns along the way.

  Independence, Missouri was a staging point for travelers and there were hundreds of pioneers suiting up. Fort Benton, with its soldiers and ferry station goers was impressively full of hubbub. But this took the cake. It was a small town with the population of a big one.

  Spreading up the hills and down to the river were dozens of buildings that looked hastily built. Some cabins were only part built, and then the rest, including the upper walls and roof, were made of canvas. There were wagons with grass growing around the wheels, clearly being used as homes. Tents.

  There were random holes in the ground where someone had decided to dig for gold. Down by the creek, looking past some buildings, Delia could see the rocks and dirt that had been dug up.

  The dirt track that was the main road was bordered by small cabins with false fronts.

  The fronts and, in a few spots, boardwalks made it look bigger and more familiar. Some businesses, like the new wagon and blacksmith, didn’t even have a building. They were conducting business out in the open.