by Stacey Kayne
Reginald glared at her over his silk hankie as he took another strong whiff of perfume.
The carriage slowed before rocking to a stop.
A rush of nerves and anticipation swirled through Lily. The driver’s seat creaked as he stepped down. Light spilled into the dim cab as Mr. Dobbs, her armed guard, swung the door wide. He was a rather large and brooding fellow, but the hint of a smile twitched beneath the curve of his black mustache.
“Miss Carrington,” he said, holding his hand out to assist her onto the step. “We’ve reached the lumber mill at Pine Ridge.”
She placed her gloved hand over his palm and emerged from the carriage into the cool mountain air. She was glad she’d dressed warmly. Her full skirt belled out, wedges of a heavy tapestry in green, blue and brown paisleys tucked into folds of dark green velvet. As her accountants followed her, Lily brushed heavy wrinkles from her green velvet waistcoat and fluffed the layered bustle crushed by hours of travel. The sound of rushing water drew her gaze to a breathtaking sight.
She walked to the edge of the high cliff overlooking a wide stream. Clear, sparkling water rushed over rocks and giant boulders. On the other side of the river the land had been stripped bare, giving a clear view of miles of green ripples, a weaving of forest valleys and tree-topped mountains.
“Oh, my goodness. It’s like standing on the edge of the world. And knowing I own it.”
“Be sure they put that on our matching headstones.” Reginald stepped beside her, his frown firmly in place.
“How can you look at such beauty with a scowl?”
“Perhaps you should glance behind you, sweets.”
Lily turned, glancing past the carriage, and her good spirits plummeted. What a complete and utter mess.
Pine Ridge appeared to be no more than a maze of logs, piles of planks, and poles with cables strung in all directions. Splintered wood and shavings littered the rutted ground. For all the piles of planks and logs, the dozen or so small cabins spaced across the yard seemed rather flimsily constructed, pieced together of mismatched boards and spare wood.
Aside from thin trails of smoke rising from stovepipes on two of the cabins, the cluttered camp appeared to be abandoned.
“Oh, my.”
“Hmm. I’ll be expecting that apology by the end of the day.”
“Did they know we were coming, Miss Carrington?” asked Mr. Dobbs.
“No.” She drew a deep breath and went to stand with her men. “I didn’t think it wise to announce our arrival while carrying such delicate cargo.”
Dobbs nodded in agreement.
A screeching whine echoed from downstream.
“The mill seems to be running,” she said, unable to see beyond the bend in the river and a thicket of pines. “Shall we make our way through the camp?”
Brown and Johnson each lifted an end of the lockbox holding the payroll. Mr. Allen gripped the handles of three leather cases containing their ledgers and accounting files.
“What should I do with the luggage?” asked the driver, standing near his team of horses. Their trunks were still strapped to the top of the carriage.
“Leave them for now,” she said, setting off across the grounds. “And wait here for us.” If no one was around to collect their pay, they may indeed be traveling back to the valley as Regi had hoped.
Lily carefully picked her way across the rutted dirt, stepping over splintered wood and chunks of tree bark. The scent of freshly baked bread grew strong as they passed a few cabins, none of them appearing to be more than common living quarters. The distant sound of a cow echoed across the yard, along with the cluck of chickens—all good signs of inhabitants.
The squeak of hinges drew them to a stop. A man stepped out from one of the ramshackle cabins to their right. His hat hid all but the shaggy brown beard of his face as he fumbled with the closure of his trousers. His other hand gripped an ax. Finished with his pants, he tucked his hands and the ax through red suspenders, then froze at the sight of them.
“Good afternoon,” said Dobbs.
The lumberjack quickly shrugged his suspenders into place, his hand taking a rather firm hold on his ax.
Dobbs stepped in front of Lily, blocking her view. “Who’s in charge of this camp?” he asked.
“You the new owner who’s holdin’ our pay?”
“I’m a representative of L. P. Carrington,” he answered as Lily moved beside him.
“I wouldn’t be shouting that to the treetops,” the man advised. “Ever since that ’Frisco bigwig put the stop on our pay, Sheriff’s been a mite busy. He’ll be wanting to see you when he returns.”
“A sheriff?” Lily glanced at Reginald.
Regi shrugged his shoulders as Dobbs continued his inquiry.
“Where do I find the man in charge here?”
The lumberjack scratched at his whiskery jaw. “Depends on where you’re standin’ and the time of day. Bein’ that it’s noon, Cook’s in charge. Elsewise, Grimshaw runs the mill and assigns the bullheads. The Swede carries some weight, but he mostly brings down the heavy for the sheriff.”
Lily wasn’t sure the man was speaking English, having understood very little of what he’d said. “Where is the sheriff?” she asked.
“Ma’am,” he said, quickly pulling off his battered hat. “Ruckus on the mountain.” He motioned his ax toward the rise of trees beyond the river. “I suppose Grimshaw is who you’d want to see,” he said to Dobbs. “Follow that path.” He pressed his hat over matted brown hair and pointed his ax toward a dirt path leading through the thicket of pines on the far side of camp. “The whine of the saw or Jim’s swearing will lead you to the millhouse.”
“Lovely.” Reginald motioned for Lily to go ahead of him.
“The lady might choose to stay in the carriage,” the timberman advised before setting off across the grounds.
“Not likely,” Reginald muttered.
“Come along,” she said to the others.
Reaching the far side of camp, she ducked beneath chains and stepped over steel tracks as she started up the hillside leading to the millhouse. The wide path cut through a patch of tall timbers. Tracks for rail cars ran along one side. She wondered why this thicket of trees hadn’t been cleared. Perhaps to cut down on noise, she thought, hearing the whine of a saw through the tall timbers. Lifting her skirt, she trudged up the hillside.
Up ahead stood a giant open-ended barn. As she reached the top of the hill, the piercing whine of the saw fell silent. The sound of rushing water and the chirping of birds was as loud as steady traffic moving through San Francisco streets. Much like those busy streets, flatbed rail cars piled with cut wood were lined along the tracks leading to smaller open-frame buildings farther down the embankment of the river.
“Watch your footing,” she said to Johnson and Brown as they carried the heavy lockbox across a wide grid of steel tracks. Cautiously she stepped into the millhouse, a massive structure filled with machinery and oval tables surrounded by flat hand saws. Other tables supported circular blades in a variety of sizes. The strong scent of sawdust coated her senses. In a place she’d expect to find covered in bark and shavings, the floor was swept surprisingly clean. At the far end, ramps led down to what appeared to be a giant pond filled with logs.
“I think we got it working, Jim.”
Two men huddled over one of the tables near the center of the room.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she called out.
Both men jumped as though she’d raged at them. Two clean-shaven jaws dropped open as they met her gaze. Both men wore ivory hats tugged low on their brows, blue denims and ivory shirts.
“I’m looking for Mr. Grimshaw.”
“That’s me,” said the taller of the two, wiping a red handkerchief over the black grease on his fingers. “Who are you?”
“We’re representatives of L. P. Carrington Industries,” said Reginald. “I’m Reginald Carrington. This is Miss Carrington and our accountants, Mr. Johnson, Allen and
Brown.” Each man tipped his hat with the introduction. “Our man, Mr. Dobbs,” Regi added, motioning to their menacing guard whose presence was title enough. “Are you the manager here?”
“I run the place,” Grimshaw said with a nod. “This is Ted Mathews, one of our tree fellers.” He jammed his thumb toward the man beside him.
“Delighted,” Reginald said, flashing a rather patronizing smile, which wasn’t missed by the two men and annoyed Lily.
“We’d like to have a look at your payroll files,” he continued.
“Did the sheriff know you was coming?” asked Grimshaw, slowly strolling toward them.
“I wasn’t even aware that we had a sheriff,” said Lily. “We’ve come to retrieve the payroll files. Where is your office?”
The two men stared at her for a moment before looking at each other then glancing at Regi.
“Miss Carrington has asked you a question.”
“I, uh…” Again, Grimshaw turned toward the equally vacant expression of his co-worker.
“Surely you have employee files,” said Lily.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We would like to see them.”
“I’ll be truthful with you. Those files aren’t as sharp as they ought to be.”
“We’ll be able to straighten them out,” said Reginald. He pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase and held it out to Grimshaw. “Our estimated payout is listed on top. Beneath you’ll find a cross-reference for employees. We’ll need you to confirm positions and pay rates.”
Grimshaw glanced at the papers. The man beside him leaned in. “You brought the payroll up here?” Grimshaw said, alarm tightening his features.
“This is the Pine Ridge Lumber Camp, is it not?” asked Mr. Dobbs.
“Yeah, but pay’s usually passed out in The Grove. Sheriff set that up right off when he took over.”
“The grove?” said Lily
“It ain’t really a grove, just a spot in the lower hills where some of the family types put down stakes and planted some fruit trees. It’s got all the particulars of a township, banking office, church, brothel and general store. A man wants his pay, he goes to The Grove office.”
“’Cept for here lately,” said Mathews. The mill worker’s mouth slanted with a frown.
“What are you suggesting?” asked Reginald. “That we distribute payroll down in The Grove?”
“I reckon. You’d need to run it past the sheriff. He ought to be back later today. He has final say about such things. He put a stop to pay coming up the mountain a couple years back. Too many blind bends in these mountain roads for a man to be riding with cash in his pockets, that’s what he told McFarland.”
“Then we’ll distribute wages in The Grove,” said Lily. “In order to do that, we’ll need to see your filing system.”
Grimshaw poked a finger at the sweat-dampened hair beneath his hat, his tense expression unwavering. “Filing system?”
Good gracious. Did she have to repeat everything? “You do manage this camp, do you not?”
“I manage the workload. We used to have a site manager, but here lately, ain’t no one can manage this camp but the sheriff.”
“Told you to sell,” Regi said beneath his breath.
“I appreciate your situation, Mr. Grimshaw,” Lily said, ignoring her cousin’s gloating smile. “I assure you we can find all we need if you’ll just show us where to look.”
“Time cards would do,” said Johnson. “Any documentation used to keep track of hours and pay rate.”
“Oh, yeah. We got all that up in the office.”
Irritation snapped at her nerves. Grimshaw was clearly the sort who only understood English spoken by a man. “Would you be so kind as to show us to the office?”
His twisted expression suggested he’d rather not.
“Cook sent your dinners.” A young boy darted in from outside. He held a tin plate covered by another in each hand.
“Set ’em over there on a bench and change the blades on table four.”
“I’ll help you take out the dull blades,” said Mathews, rushing off to assist the boy.
Lily watched the boy set the tin plates aside on a workbench and pull on a pair of heavy leather gloves. Cuts and scars covered his slender fingers.
“The boy works here?” she said to Grimshaw.
“A lot of our workers moved on to other lumber camps after the second pay hold. My oldest boy’s been helping to pick up the slack. Davy, say hello to Miss Carrington.”
His young face glanced up. He touched a gloved hand to the brim of his hat. “Ma’am,” he said before turning back to his task.
“Do we have an age limit for employees?”
Grimshaw’s eyes narrowed in clear annoyance. “He’s thirteen, a smart boy and a hard worker. We’ve had boys as young as ten work the flumes and other odd jobs.”
“I see,” she said, deciding to keep her disapproval to herself for now.
Grimshaw turned away, clearly agitated. “Office is this way.”
Lily motioned for Reginald and her men to follow him. As they filed up a set of stairs at the north end of the building, she glanced back at the boy lifting a circular saw from a spot on the wall. He seemed awfully young to be handling such dangerous equipment.
“Oh, hey,” he said brightly, peering out a wide-open section of the millhouse, “Günter’s back.”
“Who is Günter?” she asked, stepping toward him as she glanced through the thicket of trees.
“The deputy. That big Swede right there,” he said, pointing toward the camp, which now teemed with workers. A giant of a man with pure white hair stood out from the other men. “If he’s back in camp, Sheriff must be back, too.”
Just the man they needed. With the others already up in the mill office, this was her chance to ask the local lawman about any outlaws infiltrating her camp.
She hurried toward the path.
“Ma’am?” Davy called after her. “You like I should come with you?”
“I can manage,” she called back, thinking he ought to be in school where he could learn to speak proper English.
At the bottom of the hill, she discovered this was indeed a functioning camp. Hulking, sweaty men were everywhere, barking out orders, stacking boards, pulling chains, lifting crates—where had they all come from?
She stepped around a pile of logs, seemingly unnoticed by the men milling about like work ants.
Where had the deputy gone off to?
“Lady! Heads up!”
Lily turned toward the sharp call, just as something struck the side of her head. In a flash of pain and bright light, the world went dark.
Chapter Two
J uniper surveyed the growing circle of men as he tethered his horse outside the cabin serving as the Pine Ridge Lumber Camp jailhouse. Only two things drew such a crowd. There wasn’t enough rooting and shouting going on for it to be a fight.
Someone had smuggled a woman into camp.
Cursing beneath his breath, he started toward what could well turn into a riot. He didn’t get paid enough for this job. Hell, just like the rest of the camp, he hadn’t been paid in nearly two months. He needed to get down the mountain and check on John’s widow. His friend’s death was the most recent of fatalities in a lumber camp sliding downhill at an alarming pace.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” one of the men said as Juniper nudged his way past him and into a strum of murmuring voices.
“What’s going on?” he asked, working through the crowd of men. Just as he’d suspected, he spotted pale skin and colorful ruffles through the shifting veil of bodies. Women weren’t allowed up at the lumber camp for one obvious reason—they tended to bring out the worst in lonely, rowdy timbermen. To his immediate alarm, she seemed to already be in a horizontal position.
Good God.
He shoved his way through, then drew to a hard stop.
What the hell?
A pretty lady lay unconscious on a spot of open ground. The woman’s
peaceful expression and fancy prim attire shocked him far more than any display of indecency. The men surrounding her seemed just as stunned, none of them daring to go within a foot of her.
Juniper knelt beside her and pressed his fingers to her slender neck where her pulse beat strong and steady. A sigh of relief broke from his chest.
She sure didn’t look like a prostitute or a destitute wife who’d come up here to find out why her husband hadn’t brought home his much-needed earnings. Her green velvet waistcoat, matching leather gloves and colorful fancy skirt had a look of wealth about them. What was she doing way up here?
“What happened?” he demanded, glaring up at the others.
“I didn’t mean to hit her, Sheriff.” Slim, one of the log drivers, stepped forward. He twisted his hat in his hands, his eyes wide with fear as he stared at the woman. “I was moving a load.”
“She ain’t dead, is she, Sheriff?” someone asked.
“No,” he said, sliding his fingers into reddish-blond hair, knocking out hairpins as his fingers moved through the silken mass, searching her scalp for damage. He didn’t feel any fractures. A good-size lump protruded from the right side of her head.
“Where’d she come from?” he asked, glancing around the circle.
“I looked ’round and there she was,” said Slim. “I shouted a warning, and she turned straight into the log.” He clucked his tongue. “Knocked her right out.”
Dainty as she was, he was afraid to move her, unsure if the blow had jarred her spine.
“I want to know what she’s doing here,” he shouted. “Who does she belong to?”
Murmurs went through the crowd, every man looking to another.
“No one was with her?” he said to Slim.
“Not so far as I could see, but I wasn’t lookin’ beyond the path of that log.”
She moaned, and the group fell silent. The circle around Juniper drew tighter as the men leaned in.
“Miss?” Juniper brushed a finger across her petal-soft cheek. Long auburn lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes. The smallest rim of green lined the dilated centers.