by Holly Rayner
Kelsie laughed. “It’s a big country. What developed in Texas is different than what developed in the Appalachian Mountains, and that’s different than what developed in California. Plus, you’ve got Nashville, which is the royal seat of all things country. Unless you’re in Memphis or Austin.”
Masoud raised his eyebrows and gave her a look. “I’m not sure any of that actually helps.”
She grinned. “I know. Sorry. I’d rather just listen to what I like, regardless of what kind of music it is.”
He shrugged. “That sounds smart to me. And I’m happy listening to whatever you like.”
Kelsie glanced sideways at him again, catching his eye and turning back quickly before she could start blushing. The man had a way of making her feel self-conscious and assured all at the same time. And the look in his eyes…
She tried not to think about that feeling as they hit the city limits for the town next to Rancho Cordero, and instead pointed out the sign welcoming people to the town. It was a large, dark blue sign made out of weathered wood with giant, silver letters reading, “Welcome to Silver City.”
“Silver City was founded about forty years after Rancho Cordero,” she explained. “There was a small silver mine here and the town grew up around it, but when they found the larger one, the mine here closed. The town survived, and when the mine at Terryville ran dry, most of the people who lived there moved back to Silver City.”
“Does that happen very often out here? Towns go away when the mine runs out?” Masoud sounded curious.
Kelsie thought he also sounded a bit worried, and she wondered why as she answered his question.
“Sometimes, yeah. The miners leave since they can’t get work, their families go with them, and then there aren’t enough people to support businesses. So, those people close up, and then there just isn’t a town left.”
“How has Rancho Cordero survived?” There was that curious, but worried note in his voice again.
She turned and smiled. “We never had a mine. The Masons established the town because it was good land for farming and close to trade routes and wagon trails, plus it was one of the last stops before the nearest mountain pass. If you were going to go over the Sierra Nevadas, you had to stop at Rancho Cordero first.”
“Until Rowan was built.”
Kelsie was pleased that Masoud had remembered that.
“Exactly. But even then, we had enough of an established population that while it affected how many people stopped here, it didn’t hurt the town itself. And when the Great Depression hit, we relied on farming and ourselves and managed.”
Masoud was silent for a minute, until Kelsie glanced over.
He said, “Has anyone ever looked into building a mine close to Rancho Cordero?”
Kelsie got the feeling that the question was important to him, but he did deal in precious metals. “Not that I know of. The silver missed us, and so did the copper and gold.”
Masoud was quiet again and they were passing through the main street of Silver City, so Kelsie pointed out a couple of the shops.
“There are some great businesses here, too. A well-known retired artist started a gallery here; he does gallery shows every couple of months. And there are some really good restaurants.”
“Better than Mrs. Clark’s place?” Masoud asked, clearly skeptical.
“Not better, just different.” Kelsie pointed out the window at a row of restaurants. “There’s a great Thai place, and next to that is a burger joint that has fantastic food, too.”
At Masoud’s questioning glance, she added, “And yes, the Thai place is my favorite. Their pad thai that is just the best comfort food. I get it every time I come over here.”
“It’s good to know that you don’t subsist on eggs and coffee cake alone,” he teased her.
Kelsie laughed in spite of herself. “Survival skills. I know what’s important.”
They passed out of the town. The landscape began to flatten out and grow more desolate. Masoud stared out the window; to Kelsie, it seemed he was thinking hard about something.
“I hadn’t expected the land to be this beautiful,” he finally said, quietly.
“It gets to you. I think this place is something that you either love or you don’t. There’s no in between.”
“And you love it?” Masoud asked like the answer was important to him.
Kelsie nodded. “I do. I’d chose it as my home even if I wasn’t from here.”
They drove for a little longer. They passed a few vehicles headed in the other direction, and each time, Kelsie gave the standard greeting to a passing truck, lifting a finger or two off the steering wheel and receiving the same gesture in return.
Masoud watched in fascination, finally asking, “Does everyone do that?”
She looked at him in question. “Do what?”
“That little finger wave. You all do that.” He tried to imitate her, but it didn’t look the same without a steering wheel beneath his hand.
Kelsie looked confused for a second then figured out what he was talking about. “Oh, that. I hadn’t really thought about it.” She shrugged. “It’s just what you do out here.”
Masoud narrowed his eyes, and Kelsie recognized the expression that went with that action as being a sign she was about to get teased for something.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it when I was driving my car. You sure it’s not code for: ‘Spread the word. Got me a city-slicker here.’?”
Kelsie laughed at his really bad attempt at a Western accent. She knew he was mostly poking fun at himself.
“I promise, sometimes a wave is just a wave. And if it was a truck driver that didn’t wave at you, it was probably just because they assumed you couldn’t see them, since your car is so low to the ground. Honestly, they were probably more worried about squashing you in that tiny car.”
“Hey, my car is not tiny.”
Now, he sounded legitimately offended, so Kelsie grinned at him.
“Compared to what most people drive around here, yeah it is. But that’s okay—we don’t equate car size to anything else.” She gave him a sassy look and a waggle of her eyebrows.
Masoud stared at her and then burst out laughing. “Good to know.”
His laugh was one of the best things about him and Kelsie thought he needed to let it out more often. She’d have to see if she could help with that.
Looking ahead, she saw the edge of the ghost town and pointed as she turned off the two-lane highway onto a dirt road.
“There. You can see what’s left of the mine entrance. The town is just behind it.”
Kelsie drove for a few more minutes, then pulled up next to a large building and parked in the shade.
“We can walk from here.”
They got out of the truck and Kelsie nodded toward one end of the town. “Let’s start down there.”
Masoud looked around as they walked. “I’m surprised the buildings are still standing.”
Kelsie nodded. “It’s so dry out here that the buildings don’t rot or get mold. There’s only the sun, wind, and tumbleweeds. And high school kids with too much time on their hands.” She pointed toward graffiti on the side of one building.
“Is that a real Old West saloon?” Masoud looked at one of the larger buildings on the street, with a hitching post in front of it and an elaborately carved sign. The lettering on the sign had been worn away completely.
“It is. Legend has it that there was a shootout here in 1883, one of the last true Wild West gun battles. Wild Jack Taylor robbed a wagon transporting the mine’s payroll and holed up here at the saloon for a day or so.”
Kelsie led him up the steps to the saloon and pushed through the swinging door still attached to the door frame. As they walked through the dimly lit room, she told the story.
“Jack sat in that corner with his legs propped up on the bags of money. He didn’t move for hours, just sat there and made the bartender bring him shot after shot of whiskey. When t
he law finally showed up, Jack pulled out his six-shooter and killed two of them.
“Silver City’s sheriff and one of his deputies made their way around back while some of the other posse kept Jack busy from the front entrance. More than one person got caught in the crossfire and died. The two men came through the kitchen and fired on Jack. They heard a yelp, but there were so many people in the saloon and a whole lot of noise, so they couldn’t tell who they’d shot.”
Kelsie stopped right where the outlaw in her story was supposed to have been sitting. Her voice dropped low and got quiet.
“The gunfire finally stopped. The deputy had been hit, so the sheriff crept out and yelled to the rest of his men to cease fire. He made it to this point and found the bags of money, but Jack…well, Jack was gone. There was blood on the table and blood on the chair and blood on the floor under the table, but there wasn’t any blood leading away. The sheriff ordered his men to fan out and look for the outlaw. But he wasn’t upstairs. His horse was still out front. He hadn’t snuck out the back way. They simply couldn’t find him.”
Kelsie nodded down at a point on the floor. “The sheriff took the money back to the mine, where he learned that one of the money bags was missing. They never found it, and they never found Wild Jack.”
Masoud was listening intently, and when Kelsie’s voice trailed away, he looked around the room in wonder.
“How did he get out?”
Kelsie shrugged, her voice going back to its normal tone. “No one knows. If anyone saw Jack leave, they didn’t talk about it. There wasn’t a blood trail. It was like he just disappeared.”
“Carrying a bag of money.” Masoud sounded skeptical.
Kelsie cocked her head and grinned.
“He was a talented outlaw. But some people say he didn’t make it out of here at all. There’s a story that the bartender stole the bag of money from him during the gunfight and hid the bag somewhere behind the bar.”
“And where did Jack go?”
“Well, the story says that the bartender, who was a big man, picked Jack up, too, and dumped him with the money. No one knows if he was dead by then or not, but they say if you come in here around sunset, you might see his ghost standing behind the bar, looking for that bag of money.”
Masoud stared at her for a long moment, then shook himself. “Have you ever seen Jack’s ghost?”
Kelsie laughed, breaking the spooky spell of the story. “No. I don’t believe in ghosts. But it’s a great story.” She tilted her head towards the door. “Come on, I’ll tell you a less scary story about the town.”
They walked down the street until they reached a small building with dirty, peeling white paint on the wooden exterior. Kelsie looked up at it.
“This was the church on Sundays and the school the rest of the week,” she said. “There’s a legend about the daughter of the town’s mayor and the son of the mine owner. The school was just one room, so all the kids were there together. Well, the mayor and the mine owner hated each other. The mine owner wanted the town to pay for part of the mine operation and the mayor wanted the mine owner to pay for more upgrades to the town.
“Like all these stories, the bad blood went back a generation or two. Apparently, the two families had been rivals back in Kansas City, before both families moved west and ended up here. The kids had been kept apart…”
“Ah, but because of the one-room schoolhouse, they met.” Masoud finished her sentence, nodding, as they carefully stepped over a hole in the steps and walked into the building.
“Exactly. They became friends and then sweethearts, but they weren’t able to court in the open because of their families.”
“Very Romeo and Juliet of them.” Masoud walked around the perimeter of the empty room, studying the walls where the old outline of something could still be seen.
“It was. But this story has a happy ending. Well, more or less. When their families found out, they were forbidden to see each other. But they were in love, and so, they decided to run away. That December had been unusually warm, so they hid supplies, and on Christmas Eve, when the whole town was here at the church for a service, they each found a reason not to attend. They met up and ran away.”
Masoud looked at her and tilted his head. “Did their families look for them?”
“Yes. But the girl had an aunt in Kansas City that took them in, and then they left for New York City. They left a note with the aunt that they didn’t want anything to do with their families. Apparently, they made it to New York and she became an actress and he became a lawyer. But they never saw their families or their home again.”
“Sounds like they made a new home.”
Kelsie sighed and nodded. “True. But how sad, to have to leave everything you’ve ever known to find happiness.”
Masoud dropped his chin and looked away. Kelsie had a thought that maybe she shouldn’t have told that story; after all, he had moved away from everything he knew to make a home in Rancho Cordero. Or, maybe he wasn’t intending to make a home there, and that was why he looked bothered at that moment.
Suddenly needing to get out of the small, dark room, she tapped his arm and gestured to the door. “Want to go see the mine entrance?”
He gave her a look that she couldn’t decipher, then said, “Yes, I would.”
They walked in a companionable silence to the entrance, which was mostly blocked with fallen beams and concrete barriers.
Masoud was ahead of her in a few steps, and Kelsie could tell just by watching him that he knew what he doing as he expertly looked around the barriers and beams.
“Was there a cave-in?” he asked, peering more closely at the supports still in place.
“Not in the mine itself. Kids used to go in here on dares and the police finally put up the barriers. I think the beams came down long before that, but not with a cave-in.”
Still hyper-focused on the walls around the mine entrance, he nodded.
“It looks like a solid mine, still. You generally don’t close down mines unless they either run dry or collapse. Much better to see them run dry than to lose people inside.”
“Does your work mean you have to spend a lot of time in mines?”
Masoud looked almost guilty when he turned around, but when he immediately walked back to her, Kelsie thought that maybe he was worried about seeming to ignore her. He wasn’t, and she was fine; she couldn’t imagine what else he would feel guilty for.
“Some. It’s good to see where the raw material comes from. And mining is interesting. A lot of people think the industry hasn’t changed in centuries, but there is a lot of innovation happening.”
“It’s still not really environmentally friendly, is it?”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “In the end, no. There are better ways to do it—safer for both the miners and the people that live close to the mine. And there are ways to lessen the impact and ethical ways to deal with what remains. But most mining companies don’t do those things.”
Kelsie thought he sounded offended at the thought of bad mining companies and it made her smile. Whatever Masoud actually did day-to-day for work, he apparently cared about it very much.
He looked at her and smiled. “Is there more of the town?”
Kelsie nodded. “We can walk through some of the old houses where the miners and their families lived.”
“And are there more ghost stories?”
Kelsie grinned at that. “You bet.”
As they walked, she told him about the miner that had died while he was outside during a storm looking for his wife. The wife had taken the horse and buggy into town, and he’d raced after her to protect her from the storm.
“People swear they’ve seen his ghost walk through the streets of the town, calling her name.”
“People have overactive imaginations.”
Kelsie laughed. “True. But there are so many stories, and out here where it’s deserted and very spooky, you can see how people would get caught up in those storie
s.”
“Like some poor man calling for his wife?”
“It’s romantic. He lost his life trying to save her. He died right over there, actually.”
She pointed at a spot across the street from them and just then, a gust of wind kicked up and the door in the house next to where she was pointing slammed shut. Kelsie jumped, startled, and practically fell into Masoud’s arms.
He caught her without hesitation and Kelsie wasn’t sure who was more surprised. She felt silly for being scared by the wind, but then she realized she was in Masoud’s very muscular arms, and she felt safe and more than a little turned on.
Masoud must have felt the same way, because he glanced at her lips and then looked into her eyes. She relaxed into him, leaning against his solid frame and almost without thinking about it, closed her eyes and lifted her face. She knew he was about to kiss her; she could feel his warm breath.
But right before his lips touched hers, Masoud pulled back. He carefully set her on the ground and made sure her feet were firmly planted before he let her go.
Kelsie opened her eyes, a little confused. His expression matched what she felt: uncertain and puzzled. Maybe he thought they were rushing things? Maybe he didn’t like her like that?
Shaking it off, Kelsie tried not to sound as awkward as she felt when she said, “Hey, it’s getting late and I need to get back to town and run some errands.”
She wasn’t sure if she felt relief or disappointment when he nodded.
“I’ve got to pack, too. I leave early tomorrow morning.”
Masoud led the way back to the truck.
Kelsie would have thought he was upset, except that he opened the truck door for her and held out a hand to help her in. Her hand tingled where their skin touched and he lingered, not letting go right away.
The drive back was quiet, both of them making a show of listening intently to the music on the radio, even though the tension in the cab of the truck was palpable.
Kelsie stole a glance at the man next to her and noticed that he almost looked regretful. Did he wish he had kissed her as much as she did?