Holliday grinned. “That’s the way I like to hear a man talk.” He put out his hand. “We’ll talk more after we hook up in Colorado Springs.”
Ethan shook his hand, which was unusually cold for such a hot day. “Fine.” Holliday rose and returned to his seat. Ethan couldn’t help wondering if he had any feelings at all for the man who had been sitting right beside him and was shot point-blank. It was as though he considered him just another loss, perhaps like losing some stock in a mine. Fact was, maybe losing stock would upset him more. He figured Holliday was not a man to have very deep feelings about anything except his mines and the money they made him; but then that was not his problem. At least he’d found a job, and it paid damn good. He’d never been to a mining town like Cripple Creek. It might be an interesting diversion. He needed something like that, something to keep him busy, keep him on his toes and keep from thinking about what had happened to the Sioux and Cheyenne…all his losses…Allyson. If he knew his geography, Cripple Creek was a good sixty miles from Denver. There was little, if any, chance he would run into her in a place like that.
19
Allyson awoke to the feel of something running over her legs. She gasped and sat straight up, grabbing a six-gun that lay on a crate beside her cot. Her first thought was that someone had broken into the cabin and was touching her, but when she came fully awake she realized a rat had scurried across her bed. By the dim light of a lamp she’d left lit, she saw the hideous animal disappear through a hole under the door jamb.
She shivered at the sight, wondering if she would ever get used to it. She hated rats, but up here in this rickety cabin, there was little that could be done about them except to keep food in safe containers.
Mountain rats, her guide had called them. Everybody up here has problems with them. Just keep your traps set. The man had been very nonchalant about it, as though the rats were no more unusual than a pine tree. For a full day after first arriving two months ago, she had used the rats for target practice, learning to shoot her new Colt .38 Frontier pistol by sitting quietly and waiting for a rat to appear. The deserted cabin had been full of them at first, and it had been difficult not to change her mind and catch a wagon or mule-train out of Cripple Creek back to Colorado Springs. Only the thought of gold kept her here, along with a determination to prove to herself and to men like Calvin Gibson that she could do this.
She had managed to get to Cripple Creek by leading her own two mules, purchased at Colorado Springs and heavily laden, behind a wagon train of supplies being brought up for the miners. It was a long journey, fraught with dangers, not just from grizzlies and such, but, at least at first, from the men who drove the wagons. None of them believed she would survive the trip up, walking the whole way, but she proved them wrong, and by the time they reached Cripple Creek they had a new respect for her. She had made sure they all knew she had a gun and would use it if any of them got any “funny ideas.” She had made her own campfires and cooked her own food, and by the time they reached Cripple Creek she had even cooked meals for the rest of them.
Cripple Creek was a wild town, full of men hungry for a pretty woman. It disgusted her to realize what was on all their minds. Her only salvation had been the men of the supply train, who quickly set other men straight as they moved through town, letting them know that Miss Allyson Mills was a respectable woman who had come there to work a claim and not for the reason most of the other women were there. Painted women, some in fancy dresses, others looking more pitiful, stood in front of saloons and hung out of the windows above them. Allyson was happy to learn that most of the men there and up here at the mines were almost in awe of a proper lady, and many had practically gotten into fistfights trying to be first in line to offer their services as guides. However, since she didn’t know any of them, she had chosen one of the men from the supply train who had already offered to see her up to her claim. His name was Stan Bailey, a bearded old man familiar with these mountains but who had himself given up digging for gold and preferred taking other odd jobs. Stan had brought her up here, and on their way out of town, men had laughed, some placing bets on whether or not she would stick it out or give up; several wished her good luck. She’d been told there were a few other gold-seeking women scattered through the mountains, “but none as young and perty as you!”
She sighed and rubbed at her eyes, then got up from her cot, which had apparently been hand-built by John Sebastian. She walked to the door, making sure it was bolted, then looked down at the hole underneath the door jamb. She would have to find a way to plug it. That would help with the rat problem, which had improved greatly since she had begun keeping traps set. The traps and a few supplies were found still intact in the crudely built pine cabin. Sebastian, who someone had buried out beside the cabin, had managed that much, and whoever had killed him had not disturbed anything in the cabin. But rats had taken over, and it had taken a good week to get them under reasonable control. Now that the weather was warming, the problem was not quite as bad, since the rats were not so anxious to look for warmth.
Apparently it was not claim-jumpers who had killed Sebastian. No one had disturbed the site, and no one had tried to claim ownership. She had checked with the land office before coming up, and her name was shown as the owner of the claim, since she had grubstaked Sebastian. Everything seemed to be in order, and she had decided she didn’t have to worry about someone trying to do to her what had been done to Sebastian. Whoever killed him must have just had a personal grudge. It was the only explanation. The claim was all her own now, and she had all summer to work it. She hoped that before the worst of winter returned next season, she could find her own “bonanza,” as these miners called a major strike, and be able to afford to hire professionals to mine it properly. As much snow as there still was in these mountains, and as lonely as she felt already, she was not sure she could manage a whole winter buried up here. Besides that, she would have to hire someone to cut and stack enough wood to last her for months, which she really could not afford to do—and there was no doubt the rats would be a hundred times worse. There was also the problem of buying winter feed for her two mules, which she didn’t want to give up. She needed them when she went down into town for supplies, if she could even find her way. She had not been back to Cripple Creek since old Stan had brought her up here, and she was beginning to run low on food. She did not look forward to making the trip alone through bear country, but she supposed she would just have to. She just hoped she could remember the right trail.
The trip up here had been a full day’s journey from Cripple Creek, all of it on a steep, winding trail. She had never seen quite such beautiful country, full of little waterfalls from spring melt in even higher elevations, giant boulders everywhere, looking slick and smooth where they lay in stream beds. Stan Bailey had told her that a lot of the streams would be gone by summer, once most of the heavier snow at the mountain peaks had melted. They had waded through more snow themselves to get here, the rich smell of wet pine in the air. Now spring flowers bloomed everywhere, peeking up through melting snow in rainbow colors.
In spite of the dangers of animals and the elements in this rugged land, she had found a kind of peace here, but her first view of the cabin in which she was expected to live had brought her great disappointment. She wasn’t sure she could bear such a crude shack, but Stan had assured her it was actually better than some others. The man here before you did an okay job buildin’ it, he’d told her. It was made of roughly hewn pine boards, and air could easily get through the cracks. A potbellied, wood-burning stove was left inside, and there had even been a supply of wood on the sagging porch. She had left her prettier dresses packed in boxes; she certainly would not need them up here. In fact, with her hat on, and if she kept her hair twisted into a knot under it, a person would hardly know she was a woman. She wore a man’s pants and shirts, clothes that would have fit a young boy. She could find no men’s sizes small enough to fit. The weather was still quite cold even though it was
May, and when she was outside she wore a heavy woolen jacket that hid her breasts.
After showing her how to pan for gold in the little creek that ran past the cabin, as well as explaining how to use the sluice left behind by Sebastian, Stan, who was anxious to get back to cards, women, and whiskey in Cripple Creek, had finally left her on her own. He had promised to inform neighboring miners of her presence and warn them to show her some respect. He had also promised to return and check on her.
It had only taken a couple of days after he left for the horrible loneliness to set in. Never had she felt so totally abandoned, not even in the streets of New York City. At least then she had had Toby.
Now there was no one. She didn’t have enough money to hire a man to help her full-time, and she could not imagine trusting any of them, no matter how polite they might be at first, to live up here with her and help her work without eventually expecting something more than money in return. Besides, it would look bad to have some stranger living up here with her. No, she had been determined to do this all on her own, and she would. Faithfully, every day for long, long hours, she worked with the sluice, rocking it, learning how to pick out the gold specks and drop them into a jar of water. Stan had taught her that true gold, because of its weight, would sink to the bottom, no matter how small and thin the speck was. She was becoming more adept at fishing through the drag in the sluice, finding not just gold, but a few garnets and even some silver. She had learned that what was left besides the dirt was called gangue, worthless minerals that could be tossed aside.
It was slow, tedious, sometimes back-breaking work, and for the first couple of weeks she was so sore it was agony to move her arms. Still, she was used to hard work, and after a while the pain went away. Her guess was that she was probably retrieving around five dollars worth of gold a day out of the stream bed that ran down the side of the mountain behind her cabin and flowed alongside it. That could mean there’s a bonanza farther up, Stan had explained. You ought to start diggin’ into the mountain behind the cabin. Could be that’s where the gold is comin’ from, but you need a man to help you.
She could not afford that. She had tried wielding a pick herself, chopping into an area that John Sebastian had apparently already started exploring, but it was slow, almost impossible work for a woman. She had decided that maybe if she could glean enough gold and silver and garnets out of the stream bed instead, she could sell what she found and afford to get better tools, maybe even afford to stay in Cripple Creek and hire more professional miners to dig into the mountain. There were none up here to help—all the men were too involved in their own prospecting.
The closest prospector to her site was an old man nearly a mile away, and a mile up in these mountains was like ten miles on flatter land. She was truly on her own. Stan had explained that one of the biggest mine owners in Colorado, Roy Holliday, owned two mines in the mountain behind her cabin, but on the other side of it. Every day she could hear muffled explosions in those mines, sometimes feeling the ground shake. It had been frightening at first, but she had gotten used to it.
She tried to imagine how rich Roy Holliday must be. She had never met him, but she remembered seeing a hotel and several other businesses in Cripple Creek with his name on them. That was how rich she wanted to be someday, and she had every reason to believe it could happen to her just as well as to someone like Roy Holliday. Surely he had started out just like this, but then some men involved in the big mining had already been rich and had simply used their money to buy up prospectors’ claims so they could be professionally mined. She didn’t want to have to sell out that way. She wanted it all to be hers. She even daydreamed sometimes about going back to Guthrie a very rich woman, wearing the latest fashions, arriving in a fancy carriage pulled by beautiful horses. She would find Nolan Ives and wave stacks of hundred-dollar bills under his nose. It was a wonderful dream, but it was clouded by the little voice that told her all that money could not bring the happiness she had known for one night in the arms of Ethan Temple. Money could not embrace her, love her, make her feel on fire with the need to have a man filling her, tasting her, bringing her physical ecstasy.
Where was Ethan now? She walked over to lay her .38 back on the crate beside the cot, then put a little more wood in the stove. She climbed back into bed, fully dressed, except for her boots. She didn’t trust the men in these mountains enough to sleep in just a flannel gown. No one had given her trouble, but a woman always had to be ready. She pulled the covers over herself, thinking how much more pleasant it would be in this lonely bed if Ethan were sleeping beside her, how much safer she would feel, how much better she could sleep knowing he was there.
Was he even alive? She had been so sure that with time she could forget him, stop wondering and worrying about him, stop feeling so guilty about the way she had hurt him. Time had not helped much after all. It had been a year since their one night of marriage. She did not doubt there was more he could have taught her about being a woman, and part of her ached to learn it all; but only one man could have taught her, and she would never see him again. Even if he tried to find her after all this time, which was unlikely, he certainly would never trace her all the way up into the mountains above Cripple Creek.
She jumped slightly then when she heard another muffled rumble. This one made her flimsy shanty shake enough to spill some little particles of dirt caught in the roofing boards. The dust landed on her face, and she quickly sat up and blinked, brushing it off. “Damn,” she mumbled. Here she was hacking away as best she could at a project she was beginning to think might be hopeless, and men at the Golden Holliday were blowing out tons of gold in one swoop. It irritated her that it was rich men like Holliday who made the most money in mining. It took money to make money, and she was determined to have it both ways.
Ethan approached the Holliday Hotel, went inside, and asked the clerk where he might find Roy Holliday himself.
“His office is on the second floor,” the man answered, pointing to a stairway. “Go to the door at the end of a hallway. His name is on the glass.”
Ethan thanked the man and headed up the stairs. He had ridden Blackfoot and a pack horse up here from Colorado Springs. He would have come up sooner with Holliday, but he’d had to wait a whole week in Colorado Springs for the money he had coming from Pinkerton’s. There had indeed been a price on the head of Jimmy Clairborne, who had turned out to be one of the men Ethan had shot and killed the day of the train robbery. Now he had a full thousand dollars stashed in a bank at Colorado Springs, more money than he ever dreamed he’d have in his life, certainly too much to carry on his person into a wild town like Cripple Creek.
What he would ever do with all that money, he wasn’t sure. Right now he didn’t even need it, so he would let it sit and collect interest. With what Holliday had promised to pay him, he’d get by just fine. He walked to the door at the end of the hall on the second-floor hallway, where he saw Holliday’s name. He heard voices inside and knocked on the door. “Come in.” Ethan recognized Holliday’s voice. He went inside, noticing another man there—a big, burly man with a beard, who eyed Ethan suspiciously when he entered the room.
“Mr. Holliday,” Ethan spoke up. “I finally made it.”
“Well, Ethan, come on in! Did you get your money?”
“Yes, sir, one thousand dollars. I left it in a bank at Colorado Springs.”
“Good idea.” Holliday nodded to the second man. “Wayne, this is Ethan Temple, the man I told you about who put a stop to that train robbery.” He looked back at Ethan. “Ethan, this is Wayne Trapp, my right-hand man.”
Ethan looked at the man a second time, nodding, knowing he should like him, but feeling an instant animosity. Trapp nodded in reply, but his blue eyes, set in a pudgy, whiskered face, told Ethan he didn’t like him one bit. Was it because he was Indian? Maybe it was because Trapp felt his own job might be threatened.
“I hear tell you shot up a couple of wanted men, saving the boss’s gold watch and hi
s money,” the man said. He stood up from his chair, and Ethan suspected it was to reveal his size. He stood as tall as Ethan, but was built like a grizzly bear, with a huge chest and shoulders. Ethan figured he was more fat than muscle, considering the size of his belly. He put out his hand, squeezing Ethan’s in a childish attempt to show his strength. “The boss says he’s hired you to work up at the mines.”
“I’m going to give it a try. I’ve got nothing else going right now.”
Trapp looked him over. “Yeah, well, a breed don’t often get far in life, does he?”
Their eyes met challengingly, and Ethan let go of the man’s hand.
“Now, Wayne, I told you I don’t want prejudice to get in the way here. Ethan’s damn good with his gun, and he’s a former army scout. I owe him for what he did on that train, and I don’t want you making trouble.” Holliday laughed, a rather forced laugh that seemed more threatening than jolly. Ethan figured he was hinting to Wayne Trapp that he had better mind himself or suffer the consequences, whatever that meant. The man came around from behind his desk and shook Ethan’s hand. “Wayne here isn’t real fond of Indians. His mother was killed by Cheyenne when he was a little boy.”
Ethan shook Holiday’s hand, then turned his attention back to Trapp. “Well, we have something in common then. My Cheyenne mother was raped and murdered by white men at Sand Creek when I was three years old.”
The remark seemed to set Trapp back a little. “Well, the boss says we have to work together, so I reckon that’s what we’ll have to do. Just don’t try steppin’ on my toes or takin’ over my job, Indian.”
Ethan mused to himself about what a childish brute this man appeared to be. Was this the kind of men “the boss” liked to have working for him, men who catered to his every command, obeyed him like trained dogs? If so, Ethan knew he wouldn’t last long. He turned his attention back to Holliday. “Just exactly what will I be doing?”
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