by Rae Carson
I can’t help it; I pick up my water-heavy skirts and hurry toward him. Wilhelm’s heavy boot steps pound to keep up, but I don’t care. I have to see Jefferson. I have to talk to him.
Jefferson is not alone. There’s no sign of Tom, but two Chinese men coax the burros along as they go round and round, crushing ore. Another is shoveling the crushed ore into a different cart, to be hauled down to the creek for classifying and panning. Standing on a crate overlooking the whole process is a dark-skinned man with black hair, a mean rifle, and the widest-brimmed hat I’ve ever seen. Borrowed from the rancho my uncle mentioned, if I don’t miss my guess.
“Hello, Miss Westfall,” Jefferson says as I approach. He doesn’t pause in his shoveling, but a smile still quirks his mouth.
“Mr. Kingfisher,” I reply, just as formally. I stop well short, keeping a solid distance between us. “My uncle has asked me to familiarize myself with our operation.” I say it too loudly, for the benefit of whoever is watching and listening.
“In that case, are there any questions I can answer for you?” Jefferson says as the foreman steps down from his crate and ambles toward us, hefting his rifle.
All the things I shouldn’t ask in front of everyone else tumble through my mind. Did they hurt you again? Are they treating you right? Where is Tom? How did you sneak out last night? When will we meet next? Do you have any idea how much I miss seeing you and talking to you all day long?
“I thought you were working the mine,” I say finally.
“Dilley didn’t want me fraternizing with the diggers. So I got reassigned.” He says it like he’s spitting venom. Jefferson hates Dilley worse than anyone, even me.
I’m about to say I’m glad he’s out of that awful place, absorbing fresh air and sunshine, but I realize that maybe Jefferson wanted to work the mine. Maybe Dilley is smarter than I’ve been giving him credit for, and he knows that to keep people in line, he has to prevent them from talking to each other.
“Wilhelm here took me on a tour of the entire camp this morning,” I say carefully. “I learned a great deal about this venture, as my uncle requested.”
Jefferson’s shoveling hitches a little. It’s not quite a pause, but I know he takes my meaning.
“That’s good,” he says, his voice flat as a flapjack. “Mr. Westfall will be happy to know you’ve taken his desires to heart.”
“I think so.”
“He cares for you, in his way. That’s important.” This time he does pause, his shovel hovering in the air. “A man will do just about anything for the woman he cares about.”
The foreman closes the distance between us. “Señorita Westfall,” he says with a soft Spanish accent, tipping his wide hat. “These men must be to doing their work.”
I force a smile. “Of course, sir. I just wanted to observe for a moment.”
Leaving Jefferson is the last thing I want to do, but I must. I give him one long last look, my eyes roving him from head to toe. I save it up in my mind, the way he stands so strong in spite of everything that’s happened, the determined way he attacks the ore with his shovel.
I grab Wilhelm’s arm. Walking away feels like scooping out my heart with a shovel and dumping it in the arrastra to be crushed into dust.
Chapter Nineteen
Hiram has not left yet; he’s at his desk, still working on correspondence, when I return. He looks up as I enter. A smear of ink streaks his cheek.
“I ran into Jefferson!” I blurt. “It was an accident. But I kept my distance and left almost immediately. I didn’t mean to disobey.”
“Leah . . .” His gaze falls to my ruined skirt. He shoots up from the chair and covers the distance in two strides. He grabs my upper arms and shakes me so that my teeth rattle. He can’t stop staring at the skirt. Anguish pulls at his features. “What have you done?”
“I went to the Drink, and—”
He shakes me again. “The dress. My . . . Your dress. And . . .” He grabs my skirts and lifts them, which makes me feel like I’m naked before him. “Your new shoes are ruined.”
His eyes on my exposed stockings make my skin crawl. “I had to,” I say. “I had to. I sensed gold, and I had to wade through the Drink to find it. To be sure.”
Hiram’s jaw twitches. He drops my skirt, to my great relief, and his grip on my upper arm relaxes a fraction. He takes a deep breath. “You found gold?” he manages. His voice is shaky, and I can’t believe a ruined dress would cause him such pain.
“Uncle, I suspect I found a great deal.”
Finally he lets my arm go. He takes a step back, rubs at his jaw, the back of his head. “Good. That’s good.”
“I told Topper where to dig next. They’ll see a little bit of color today, but by evening tomorrow, they’ll find a large vein.”
He is silent in the space before me. Then: “I hope so. For your sake.”
And suddenly I’m doubting myself. What if there’s nothing? What if I imagined it? Will he hurt the Indians if the vein doesn’t pan out? Or me? Or worst of all, Jefferson?
No, I know what I sensed. I know it. And I didn’t just sense it. I talked to it. I commanded the gold to move, and it did. It was almost like a dog on a leash, straining toward me.
“You’ll see,” I tell him, chin lifted high. “You’re going to be a very rich man.”
And I must have chosen the exact, most perfect words, because his shoulders relax and his gaze softens. “I’m glad to hear it, sweet pea.”
I think I’ve pleased him, but that night, after supper, he keeps to his word. He takes up a rope with one hand, grabs me by the wrist with the other, and drags me into my bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
He pushes me down on the bed. “It’s just temporary, sweet pea. Until I know I can trust you.”
“You can trust me!”
He ties my wrists to the bedpost. Everything in me wants to kick out at him, to scream and thrash, but I think of how he threatened Jefferson, and I submit meekly. It feels like the worst thing I’ve ever done.
He ties my ankles to the other end so that I’m forced to remain stretched out on the bed. It’s a clever bit of work. There’s no way I can reach the ropes to untie myself.
He leans down, his neatly trimmed beard tickling my neck.
“Good night, love,” he says, and he kisses my cheek, near to my earlobe.
Somehow, this kiss is the worst of all. I watch him depart, staring daggers of hate at his back. I won’t complain, though. Other folks in this camp are a lot worse off than me.
The gold buzzes at me from its hiding place beneath my mattress. I’ll put it back in the toe of my boot as soon as I’m able, but for now, I let it surround me, comfort me. By morning, my tears have dried. My neck is cricked, my flesh rubbed raw with rope burn, and my heart determined.
I’ve spent the last week being on my best behavior. I worked hard to launder my dress, and though the hem is well and truly ruined, I succeeded in getting out the worst stains and making it somewhat presentable for daily work. I’ve visited the mine every day, giving advice on exactly where to dig. The miners have brought up more gold in the past few days than in the entire previous two months combined. Dilley, Topper, and the other foremen think I’m lucky.
I haven’t complained once about how thin Jefferson is becoming, how badly my wrists smart from the rope burns, or that the foremen laze around all day, watching the starving, mercury-sick Indians do all the work. I haven’t once mentioned the fact that Dilley’s men are polite to my face, even friendly, but they ogle me as soon as my back is turned, and I feel their eyes crawling all over my body like flies.
I itch to do something, anything, but I know that biding my time is the right thing. Destroying my uncle is a long hunt, with lots of tiny, quiet moves leading up to the big kill.
I know long hunts. I am patient. I am a ghost.
A ghost who sees things. My angelic behavior has earned me knowledge. Listen, Muskrat said. Watch. And that’s exactly what I�
�ve done.
I’ve learned that all the guns are kept in the foremen’s barracks, which makes sense. Aside from my uncle’s cabin, it’s the driest place in camp. I bet my guns are there, too.
I see Mary every day in Hiram’s cabin, and sometimes I pass Muskrat on his way to the mines, but I say nothing to either of them. A hunting ghost takes no chances.
I look for Tom, who is absent from the camp, and discover that he has been assigned to the creek, along with most of the Chinese workers and several of the Indian women. He pans for gold from sunup until sundown, and I know from experience how that makes for a brutal day, but not so brutal as hefting a pickax in the cold, wet dark. Knowing Tom, he smoothly talked himself into such a prime assignment.
Muskrat said things are coming together. And I have faith in him and Mary and the others; I do. Still, I know I’ll feel a lot better if I have my own weapon to use against Uncle Hiram.
So, one morning after my uncle leaves, I tiptoe over to his writing desk. The drawer slides open with a scraping noise so loud I’m sure it can be heard east of the Mississippi. I hope to find his letter opener, or something sharp, but he’s too smart to leave something like that lying around. All I find are several folded letters and a small book bound in leather.
The leather book is a ledger, containing rows of numbers and notations. Mathematics has never been my strong suit, so it takes a while for me to makes sense of the mess. We’re bringing out a lot of gold, if this ledger is any indication. But there are too many entries in the expenses column: more materials for a proper cart track for the tunnels, more gunpowder, more pickaxes, more burros—even a few luxury items like the washtub I bathed in on that first day, an extra box stove, a set of fine dishes.
There’s a number on the bottom right of each page that changes with that page’s entries. On the first page, it’s eight thousand dollars. A month later, that number has shrunk to three thousand. But lately, it has crept back up to more than four thousand dollars.
I was right. Uncle Hiram owes someone money. A whole heap of it.
Hiram’s only focus—no, obsession—is to bring out more gold. And he’ll spend whatever he must in order to do it. Mama used to say that the fever made idiots of grown men, and she always said it like she knew from experience.
I rifle through the letters. Most are from Sacramento and San Francisco. Many of them have to do with supplies; turns out Hiram does a good deal of negotiation by correspondence. But one name crops up over and over again, and I skim all the letters from this one man as quickly as I can, until I find the most recent.
Thank you for the detailed notes on your progress. Your request is granted, and I’ve instructed my attorney to amend your note. It shall come due on Christmas Eve. This is the last extension I will approve. If your debt is not paid in full on that day, the mine, its surrounding acreage, and all its assets will be repossessed.
Yours truly,
James Henry Hardwick
I stare at it a long moment. This is not the weapon I was looking for, but it is definitely a weapon. I finally have a name. I say it over and over in my mind so I won’t forget. James Henry Hardwick. James Henry Hardwick. This is the man my uncle owes. This is a man who has power over Hiram Westfall.
Chapter Twenty
Later, I return from the mine and discover my uncle waiting for me in the cabin. The air smells sweetly of tobacco, and he blows smoke from his pipe as I enter. On the dining table are two large packages.
“For you,” he says with a soft smile.
My hackles instantly go up, but I sound as cool as ever when I say, “There’s nothing I need, Uncle.”
“Allow me to spoil you, sweet pea.”
He needs to be paying down his debt, not buying presents. I approach the table slowly, like the packages are animals caught in a trap, waiting for me to come within range of their teeth.
Gingerly, I open the smallest. I gasp.
My uncle grins around his pipe, but my gasp was not a happy one. Inside the package is another dress. Another dress exactly like the one I’m wearing, with blue calico and lace-trimmed sleeves.
“You should continue to wear the old one when you visit the mine and the creek,” he says in a perfectly reasonable tone. “But I want you to look well-groomed and lovely at all other times.”
My stomach curls in on itself. “Why?” I whisper.
“Because any girl of mine will be dressed properly, as befits her status as a—”
“No. I mean, why this dress? Why do you want me to look just like my mother?”
I know it’s a mistake as soon as the words leave my mouth, because his eyes are suddenly as dark and threatening as storm clouds. “Your mother was a lovely woman,” he says coldly. “You should be proud to look like her.”
“Why do you have a picture of her on your dresser?”
Another mistake, and I wish I could put up a dam to keep the words I’m thinking from flowing out of my mouth, but a strange, desperate fear has gripped me so hard that I don’t think I could do it for all the gold in California.
He slams his pipe down on the table. “You’ve been in my room.”
“Just . . . once . . . to clean. I was sweeping that day. I haven’t gone back in since.” That last part, at least, is true.
He says nothing. We stare at each other a long moment.
“Open the other package,” he says.
My fingers tremble as I untie the twine and fold aside the paper to reveal another pair of women’s boots, even fancier than the last, with little cuffs of lace folding over the ankles.
“I’ve commissioned a gown also,” he adds. “It will take time to finish, but there will be a Christmas ball in Sacramento, the first ball to be held in the goldfields. It’s imperative that you look your best, for I expect it to be well attended. I plan on making several good connections there.”
I stare down at the shoes. They are the silliest things I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t make it from here to the outhouse without ruining them.
“Leah?”
“You didn’t answer my question. About my mother.”
Hiram pauses, as if deciding something. Finally he slides onto the bench and gestures me to sit.
I do, folding my hands carefully in my lap to hide their trembling.
“Your mother was very special to me,” he begins.
“I know,” I admit. “Free Jim told me you were sweet on her. Everyone was surprised when she went and married my daddy instead of you.”
His fist comes down hard on the table. “We were sweet on each other!”
I flinch back. “Yes. Of course. That’s what I meant.”
Some of the fight bleeds out of him, and he says, “No one was more surprised than I. Elizabeth and I were engaged. Then one morning I went into town and learned that she and Reuben had tied the knot, all secretive.”
His gaze becomes distant. “That was the worst time of my life, you know. I’ve never felt so betrayed. So . . .” He swallows hard. “So lonely. My brother stole the woman I loved right out from under me.”
This part I knew, but it still doesn’t explain why he’s dressing me to look like her. Or why he killed them both. I keep my voice neutral when I ask, “Why did Daddy do it, do you think?”
He frowns. “I wish you’d stop talking about him.”
“Why? So you’ll stop feeling guilty for murdering him?”
He stares at me, neither in shock nor rage, but like a bookkeeper adding up a column of numbers. He retrieves his pipe and takes a good long puff. I expect he’s working himself up to deny everything, but what he says is: “He deserved it.”
I gape at him.
The vision appears unbidden in my head: my daddy lying on the steps, his blood staining the wood, his face frozen in surprise.
“He took everything from me,” my uncle continues. “Everything!” His fist pounds the table again, and the corner of his mouth gleams with wetness.
“Just because Mama chose to marry him—�
�
“He took my woman, my land, and you. Even you.”
“What in tarnation are you going on about?” Tears are leaking from my eyes now. They’re born of anger and frustration and a whole heap of grief that I mistakenly thought had faded to a tiny tickle in the back of my head. But in this moment, facing down my deranged uncle, I miss Mama and Daddy more than anything.
“Don’t you see, Leah? Haven’t you figured it out? Reuben always said you were a smart girl, but—”
“For heaven’s sake, Uncle Hiram, just spit out whatever’s on your mind.”
“You’re mine. My very own girl. Born of the love shared between Elizabeth and me.”
My face prickles with sudden heat, and my breath feels thin and forced. “You’re mistaken.”
“Have you ever looked in a mirror, my Leah? You’re my spitting image. Your jaw, your chin, the shape of your mouth . . .” His eyes rove my face, searching, desperate to see.
“It’s not unusual for a niece and her uncle to share a passing resemblance.”
“Anyone with eyes to see knows it’s more than that,” he insists. “I’m your father, no doubt about it.”
I’m shaking my head against the possibility. It’s too horrible to bear. “Mama and Daddy were years married by the time I came along.”
“Yes. We were . . . This is not a proper conversation to have with a young lady.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me anything, and I’ll persist in never believing you.”
He sighs. Reaches forward and fingers the lace of my new boots. “We were intimate. Once. Several years after she married Reuben. I came upon her in the barn, and . . . well, something came over us, and . . . we were true with each other at last.”
His gaze is shifty, refusing to light on any one thing. And I know, as sure as I know the sky is blue, that his story stinks to high heaven. My hands tremble.
“That’s impossible,” I tell him, my hand going to the locket at my heart. “My mother would never . . .” He coils in on himself, like a viper about to strike, so I let my words hang in the air, unsaid.
He’s still touching the lace, rubbing it gently between thumb and forefinger. He says, “She had boots just like this.”
