by E. E. Burke
“The stamp mill isn’t operating today?” she observed.
“The men have the day off on account of the wedding.”
“But there wasn’t a wedding.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not celebrating.”
Penny peered down beyond a collection of rough canvas tents at the base of the mountain, further on, to the rough timber structures facing a snow-packed road.
The men were indeed celebrating—in the street. Fights were daily occurrences in a town where saloons outnumbered stores, and the most prosperous businesses appeared to be sporting houses. Filth, violence and disease were rampant among all the populations, both men and women, whether white, Chinese or Indian. Even upright leaders like the pastor and Dr. Deane couldn’t seem to influence a change.
She cast an accusing glance at the man who carried a title implying authority. Did he even notice or care about the reality of his own town? “The letter you wrote for Mr. Powell described a very different place.”
“Maybe I just see it differently.”
Ah! So the opinions expressed had been his and not her erstwhile groom’s.
“Noelle is a town of promise and possibilities,” she quoted. She didn’t need the letter to reference because she’d memorized it. “That’s what you wrote, I remember. How do you look at that and see promise and possibilities?”
“I don’t look down, I look up.” He nodded in the direction of the mine. “We’ll soon be hauling lots more gold out of that mountain. Then things will turn around.”
Penny wished she had such certainty about her own future. “What makes you so sure you’ll find what you seek?”
“Because I won’t give up. By next Christmas, Noelle will have twice as many stores, paved roads, and I’ve promised Chase Hammond a brand new church.”
She wasn’t yet convinced the vision would become reality, but she admired Mr. Hardt’s tenacity. In the letter, he’d conveyed in eloquent terms his aspirations for the little town, as well as his hopes for the future. Those were his sentiments. So it stood to reason, his personality had imbued the phrases that had fired her imagination and touched her heart. Mr. Powell hadn’t lived up to her expectations, because she’d grown attached to the wrong man.
A sick feeling lodged in Penny’s stomach. No, she couldn’t harbor affections for Mr. Hardt. She hardly knew him. Besides, he’d never shown the slightest interest, except for that odd moment in the cabin.
“Look there at that long tom.”
She turned her attention to where he indicated, at the frozen river running behind the town. The long tom, she supposed, was the structure of flat wooden troughs, built on a slant, following the river’s course. At present, it looked in ill repair.
“That’s where we sluiced our first thousand in gold. I started out panning in some of the lower rivers and streams until I found this place. It yielded enough for us to invest in supplies for hard-rock mining after I found evidence of more gold.”
“Us?”
“Me and my partner.”
“I didn’t know you had a partner.”
“Don’t anymore. He made off with a fortune in my gold.”
“Did you catch him?”
“Yep. Caught him red-handed. He was tried in a miner’s court and sentenced to hang.”
Horrified, she lifted her hand to her throat. She’d heard about the vigilante justice meted out in mining camps. Thieves were fortunate to be banished. “Sentenced to hang? For stealing?”
“If you take a man’s gold and leave him without money for food or supplies, it’s the same as killing him. Life out here is harsh.”
Not a speck of pity.
“And unforgiving?” she chided.
“It can be.”
For a man who penned such heartwarming prose, Charles Hardt sounded surprisingly cold-hearted. It was just as well she should open her eyes and see the truth. The sensitive man she’d imagined from reading his letters wasn’t the one sitting next to her. That was a figment of her imagination, dreamed up out of loneliness.
“Forgive me if I think it strange, that the same person who would approve a death sentence for his friend would give a town a name like Noelle.” Penny returned her attention to the scenery and tried to ignore her disappointment. Besides, her lofty expectations were irrelevant, considering that he wasn’t the man she’d come to marry.
Charlie kept his attention trained on the road ahead, while mentally kicking himself for veering off-course, talking about his partner, rather than coming up with reasons for Penny to remain in Noelle. The whole story about what had happened with Robert Cortland was ugly and more complicated than he wanted to go into. But if he let stand her poor impression of Noelle’s original inhabitants—him included—she definitely wouldn’t stay.
“For the record, the sentence wasn’t carried out. Somebody hauled my ex-partner out of the hole we’d put him in, and he got away.”
There. Now they could drop this discussion about frontier justice.
“You did the right thing.”
He threw a surprised glance her direction. “What makes you think I helped him?”
“He was your partner and at one time you must’ve been friends. I’m sure you couldn’t bear to see your friend hang, even if he deserved it.”
She’d misunderstood him. He hadn’t helped Robert Cortland escape. Admittedly, he’d felt slightly relieved at not having to watch a man he’d once considered a friend hang. But that was beside the point. A short time later, he’d hired a ruthless bounty hunter to make certain no thieves would get away in the future. Wisdom advised keeping that detail to himself.
He guided the mules off the road and onto a trail, which led around the mountain. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice they were headed in a completely opposite direction from when she’d first come into town.
Penny threw a confused look over her shoulder. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
Apparently, she noticed.
“Are you worried I don’t know where I’m going?”
“No. I suppose I’m simply confused.”
Her apologetic response tweaked his conscience. He hadn’t outright lied, and he wasn’t acting out of self-interest. He was doing this for the good of the town.
To distract her, he took a turn a little too fast, which caused Penny to slide in his direction. If need be, he could catch her.
She wrapped her arm around his and held on tight.
Charlie smiled at her instinctive reaction, which had been to reach for him. It felt good to be needed for something other than monetary gain. Olivia had only married him to get the ranch, and he’d been kidding himself to think otherwise. The women he’d been with since charged for their services.
How could any man not be drawn to Penny’s spontaneous warmth and her compassionate, caring nature? This last unfortunate incident had shaken her faith in herself. Once she met someone who appreciated her, she would be a devoted partner. Her desire to escape could be more about her opposition to the town, rather than her reluctance to marry. She’d questioned how he could look down and see anything good in Noelle. Somehow, he had to get her to see the town the way he saw it.
“I named Noelle after my daughter.”
Penny glanced over sharply, and above the scarf her eyes widened with surprise. “You have a daughter?”
Charlie took a deep breath. He’d misspoken and found this conversation was harder than he thought it would be. “She died five years ago, when she was three months old. She took a bad fever, and in just few days she…she breathed her last breath in my arms.”
He hadn’t been able to come to grips with his child’s death and had stayed stone cold drunk for months. If not for Chase Hammond, who’d taken an interest in him and helped him dry out, he might’ve put a bullet through his whiskey-saturated brain.
He needed to make peace with his friend. He’d been furious when Chase had picked a bride for him. Would he have been so angry if the preacher had selected Penny?
Honestly, no.
“Now I understand what you meant when you said Noelle is a place of promise and possibilities,” Penny said softly. “You were remembering how you felt about your child, and you feel the same way about the town.”
Just like that, she grasped what he couldn’t find words to express. She seemed so attuned, or maybe her insight didn’t have a thing to do with him and she was just a woman with great sensitivity. Maybe that was why he felt safe unburdening his heart.
“Noelle was born on Christmas Eve. We’d run out of food and we were living in a tent. She was the only speck of joy in our lives. What a tiny little thing she was, with thick black hair, like her French Creole mother. She would’ve been a beauty.” Charlie’s voice grew rough. He’d forgotten how inconvenient and messy emotions could be, and how painful.
Penny didn’t offer meaningless condolences. Instead, she moved her hand up and down his arm in a reassuring gesture. She’d written about her own devastating losses, and it infuriated him that ignorant men had piled on the suffering, blaming their fears on her bad luck. If he could convince her to stay, he would make sure no one went around spewing anymore of that poison.
They rode along in silence—the peaceful kind, like two old friends.
“Did you lose your wife to sickness as well?
The warmth in his chest shrank into a cold knot. He should’ve known this question was coming, and it was natural that she’d wonder. He could say, yes, he lost her and leave it at that. But it wouldn’t be the full truth. Penny had given him nothing but the truth, even when it didn’t show her in a very good light.
“The day after we buried Noelle, she left me.”
Charlie kept his attention on the trail because he didn’t want to see whatever might be on Penny’s face. Pity, perhaps. More questions. She got quiet again so the direction of their conversation must’ve made her uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as he felt, he’d wager.
After another moment, she finally spoke. “She shouldn’t have walked out. You didn’t deserve that.”
Odd, that she would defend him. “How do you know what I deserve?”
“I don’t have to know. Whatever you did, or think you did, could be forgiven. That’s what love does.”
She spoke like she understood the elusive emotion.
Charlie glanced down at Penny’s hold on his arm. Her touch warmed a cold place in the middle of his chest. Being kindhearted, she might want to offer comfort, but didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have to say anything. He was long past needing sympathy when it came Olivia.
“I acknowledged my sins, and gave her what she asked for.”
“Which was?”
“A divorce.” And that was all he intended to say. He’d let the conversation get too personal. Revealing more wouldn’t improve Penny’s opinion about the future of Noelle.
She moved her hand up his arm again. Did she even realize what she was doing? “Whatever happened, it didn’t stop you, and I can see how your suffering has made you more compassionate and generous. You’ve given people places to work and jobs to do. The doctor told me you paid for your workers’ medical care after a mine accident last year then made the mine safer.”
Her litany made him sound like a saint, which would be funny if it weren’t so ridiculous. What would it gain him if his workers died and the town shriveled up? She lauded him for acting out of self-interest, which only proved she was a sweet, gentle woman. They could use more like her in Noelle.
“Why don’t we dispense with formalities? Call me Charlie.”
Her lips twitched, a small almost imperceptible reaction. “Not Charles?”
She even teased gently.
“That does sound more dignified, doesn’t it? You reckon I ought to go by Charles?”
“Oh, no, don’t. Charles sounds stuffy. I like Charlie much better.”
The spontaneous smile she beamed at him caused his breath to get stuck halfway up his windpipe. He had to clear his throat before he could reply. “Glad to hear it.”
He sincerely hoped she also meant she liked him, the person, not just his name.
“Do you mind if I call you Penny?” Her name suited her. The heavy tresses currently hidden beneath her hood had a shiny copper sheen like a newly minted one-cent piece.
“No, I don’t mind.” She murmured, and glanced away. She had to be blushing, even though he couldn’t see the evidence beneath the scarf that concealed most of her face.
Pleased, Charlie shook the reins at the plodding mules. Penny wouldn’t remain in Noelle if she disliked the man who presided as mayor, so gaining her good opinion made sense. They might even become friends, and that would be another reason for her to stay.
After a bit, her head began to bob. Later, her chin dropped to her chest. Poor thing, she had to be tuckered out, having probably not slept much the night before her wedding, and what had happened since was enough to tire anyone out.
“You can lean on me. Take a nap.”
She jerked awake, tensed, but after a moment, relaxed against his shoulder. “Thank you, Charlie.”
He smiled, and couldn’t stop smiling. Everything was going according to plan. Eventually, this path would take them right back to where they’d started. When Penny realized where they were, he would say he’d been distracted and took a wrong turn, but they wouldn’t be able to make it to the next town before nightfall. She might not be happy, but it would keep her in Noelle another day…and give him a chance to get her married off.
Chapter 4
Penny slowly opened her eyes. She and Charlie had been chatting like old friends, but at some point she grew tired and must’ve drifted off. She lifted her head off his shoulder. Leaning on him wasn’t proper, even if it did make her feel safe and warm.
“Oh good heavens!” She stared in horror at the sheer drop just beyond the other side of the wagon.
The wind, whipping at her cloak, sent a spray of white flakes whirling into a chasm.
Penny hugged Charlie’s arm for reassurance, as well as to keep him from sliding off the seat and toppling to his death. “Where are we?”
“On a short-cut.”
She craned her neck to look at the terrifying drop. “It looks unsafe.”
“These mules are sure-footed. We’ve been this way many times.” Charlie’s nonchalance might be intended to comfort, but she knew better than to think it was genuine. He had to notice how treacherous the road had become; and it wasn’t really a road, more like an old trail that wound around the side of the mountain.
Another gust swirled snow around them.
She held her hood with one hand, while keeping an arm firmly linked around Charlie’s. “Do we need to be this close to the edge?”
He chuckled, as if what she’d said was meant to be funny. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He turned his head and brushed his mouth against her hood.
Had he just given her a kiss? The possibility brought a smile to her face. Oh good heavens. He only meant to reassure her, and she would be grinning like a fool when the wind tipped the wagon and pitched them into eternity.
“We’ll be off this road soon. A little ways up, the road bends and we’ll hit a flatter stretch.”
She squinted to find the bend he indicated. The wind kept the snow stirred up, making it hard to see far ahead.
As a distraction from her worries, she turned her attention to Charlie. When they’d started out, she’d half-expected him to be taciturn, certainly not talkative. Then he opened up and revealed things about himself that he admitted he didn’t normally share. After hearing his heart-wrenching story, she felt even more connected to him, as if they’d been traveling in the same direction on different roads until their paths had finally crossed in Noelle.
Charlie slowed the mules, and the wagon slid to a stop.
Startled out of her daydream, Penny let go of his arm and sat up straight, which was what she should’ve done earlier instead of clinging to him. “What’s
wrong?”
When he hopped out of the wagon, her heart nearly stopped. Good Lord, he had to be inches away from the edge.
“Be careful!”
He looked up and his blue eyes gleamed with amusement. “I will. You sit tight. See that rock slide up ahead? I’ve got to clear a way to get through.” After tying up the reins, he trudged through knee-deep snow to a mound of rocks that blocked their path.
Her gaze followed the rockslide up the mountain. She might not have noticed the opening, except for the reinforcement beams, one of which had collapsed when the rocks gave way. “That looks like the entrance to an old mine.”
“It is. This is where we started three years ago, but then…” His voice trailed off as he rolled a boulder aside, and then another, and another. His labored breathing sent vaporous clouds into the cold air.
“Then?” she called out. “What happened?”
“We didn’t find much gold. Lost a man when something went wrong.” He tossed another rock over the edge. “I found a floater on the other side—a chunk of rusty-looking quartz that’s broken off from a bigger vein—and we started digging where the mine is now.
“If this one is abandoned, what happened to cause the rockslide?”
Charlie looked up, squinting in the sunlight. “Not sure. Might’ve happened when we blasted through back then. Or it could be water freezing then melting that broke away the rock.
“Nothing could melt out here.” She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Sitting still, she would turn into an icicle. Moving around would keep her blood flowing, and she could help speed up the process of clearing the road.
She climbed down, careful not to shake the wagon. The mules turned their heads to look at her as she passed. Nothing seemed to bother them. Not the narrow path, or the dizzying drop-off, or the freezing weather.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay in the wagon.” Charlie heaved a cannonball-sized rock off the mountain. She cringed at the noise as the rock hurtled down. Although she supposed any sound was better than silence, which would indicate there was nothing over the edge, just vast emptiness.