Miner's Daughter

by Duncan, Alice

  Damn it, this was stupid. He called out, “Are you ready yet?” The internal disruption he was feeling crept into his voice as a nasty note.

  Mari heard it, too. She turned and gave him a vicious scowl. “Wait just a minute, can’t you? I have to make sure everything’s ready for Martin to come and feed poor Tony. I mean Tiny.”

  If she confused his name with that of her dog one more time, Tony didn’t know what he’d do, but it would be drastic. “Poor Tiny,” he mimicked. “We’re only going to be gone for a day.”

  She’d called Martin Martin. When had that happened? Why was Martin on a first-name basis with her, when Tony wasn’t? Were those two closer than he had suspected? Had some surreptitious courtship been going on under his very nose, and he’d missed it? Was Martin wooing her? Was she wooing him?

  Good God, were they lovers? Jealousy, green and as monstrous as Tiny, swelled in Tony’s bosom. He told himself not to be an ass, which didn’t help much.

  “I know that, and Martin knows that, and you know that, but Tiny’s never been left alone before, all by himself.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. He’d be safer if he didn’t contemplate any possible relationship between Mari and Martin but concentrated instead on how ridiculous the girl was.

  So, back to dogs.

  At once he decided there were to be no Great Danes mucking up his life. His own dog wouldn’t be as big as Tiny. Tony’d get himself a nice, largish—but not too large—friendly dog that wouldn’t knock folks over when they came to call. He didn’t know much about dogs. Maybe he could pick up a book in L.A. Something that described the various breeds and things like that.

  He caught himself up short. What in the name of holy hell was he thinking about buying dog books for? For the love of God, he lived in New York City. If he ever decided to get a dog, he’d do it there.

  It was all because of Mari. She’d rattled his senses so hard, he could scarcely keep his wits together. If she and Martin were a courting couple, Tony considered it mighty sneaky of them not to mention it to him. Were they trying to keep it a secret because they feared his reaction?

  That was arrant nonsense. What did he care if Mari loved Martin and vice versa? It was nothing to him. She was nothing to him.

  His entire insides clenched as if he had a cramp, and it was all he could do not to double up with pain. He fought off the spasm, gritted his teeth, and remained upright.

  Damn it, would the girl never be through in there? He contemplated squeezing his horn, but feared the noise would frighten Tiny so much, she’d refuse to leave him. Then he considered stomping to the cabin and hauling her out of it, but again, he didn’t quite trust her dog. She claimed Tiny was as gentle as a lamb, but he was a hell of a lot bigger than any lamb Tony’d ever seen. And he had sharp, pointy teeth, too. Tony decided not to chance it.

  At last! Mari came out of the cabin, carrying a carpetbag that looked as if it were at least a thousand years old. She wore a dress about that old, too, and Tony recognized it as one she’d worn before. Didn’t the girl have any decent clothes at all? She looked like a damned ragamuffin.

  He was ashamed of himself when the reality of Mari’s poverty crawled through the resentment clouding his senses and tapped on his brain to get his attention. She probably didn’t have any decent clothes because she couldn’t afford them. Anyhow, she wouldn’t need them out here, would she?

  Not only that, if she decided to get some new clothes, she’d indubitably have to make them herself. Tony’s heart squinched when he considered Mari’s blistered fingers as she wearily sewed into the night by the light of a single sputtering candle.

  Damn. He hated when sentiment got in the way of rational thought. He had no business feeling sentimental about Mari. She wouldn’t thank him for it She’d be more apt to slap his face for insulting her.

  The notion made him grin

  Mari appeared troubled as she lugged her carpetbag to the machine. When she saw him grinning, she stopped walking and frowned. “What are you laughing at?”

  He threw out his hands “I’m not laughing at anything.”

  “You’re smiling.” She said it as if it were an accusation.

  “Is that a crime?” Her interrogation had squelched any inclination to smile He walked up to her and started to take the carpetbag. She didn’t release her hold on it. “Give me the bag, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “For crying out loud, you may not need it, but I’m giving it to you. Let go of the stupid thing.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, I’ve got to put it in the tonneau.”

  Reluctantly, she released her hold on the bag. “I don’t like to be laughed at.”

  “For God’s— I’m not laughing at you!” He jerked the bag up roughly and flung it into the big car’s backseat “You get the strangest ideas in that head of yours.”

  “You were smiling.”

  He turned and glared down at her. Since she was a tall girl, it wasn’t that far down. “What’s wrong with smiling? If you’re going to tell me I can’t smile when feel like it, we’re never going to get along.”

  She sniffed. “I don’t suppose we ever will, no matter what I tell you.” She flounced to the passenger’s door and reached out to open it.

  Tony beat her to it. “Here, damn it. You may not be lady, but I was raised to be a gentleman, and gentlemen open doors for females.” He yanked the door open and stood, fuming, as Mari settled herself on the luxurious leather seat.

  As ever when they fought, she lifted her chin. Tony had begun to recognize this gesture as an act of defiance from a woman who had nothing but her basic character with which to tackle the world and everything in it. She didn’t have money to talk for her, or a male relative, or anything else. She had her wits and her honor, and she possessed an intolerable amount of pride.

  She was cute as a bug.

  As Tony cranked his motorcar and then jumped into the driver’s seat, he couldn’t believe he’d actually thought that.

  It was ridiculous for her to be this nervous. No matter how many times she told herself so, Mari couldn’t halt the anxiety eating away at her self-possession. Blast it, what was it about Tony Ewing that bothered her so darned much? Just because he was handsome? Just because he was as rich as Midas? Just because she wanted to leap into his arms and kiss him?

  Probably. Darn.

  “I don’t know why you brought that big bag with you, anyhow. We’re not going to be there overnight.”

  If her chin rose any higher, she’d be staring into the backseat. Mari lowered it reluctantly and gave an imperious sniff. “It’s best to be prepared. I might not have been reared to be a lady, but at least I know that much.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Tony growled.

  “You didn’t mean what?” She didn’t think it was her place to give this awful man an inch. He already had all the money in the world. The only thing she had was her dignity, and she wasn’t going to let him take that away from her—or not more often than she could help, anyhow.

  “What I said about being a lady I didn’t mean that.”

  “Oh.” She turned her head away from him and stared out the window.

  If she were to admit the truth, she’d have had to tell him she’d seldom been this excited. Imagine her, Mari Pottersby, driving to the metropolis of Los Angeles in a big, fancy car with him, Tony Ewing, the richest, most handsome man she had ever set eyes on.

  “And you still won’t need that bag.”

  “It’s always wise to be prepared for the unexpected.” She’d heard tales about these fancy motorcars breaking down. Or sometimes they drove over tacks and blew out their tires. Their engines overheated, too, especially in the desert. And what if they ran out of fuel? Unless he kept a supply with him, Mari didn’t know where he’d get any more.

  He grunted. She could tell he was exasperated. Too darned bad. She squinted through the window, spotted something unusual, and cried out, “O
h, look over there!”

  “What? Where?”

  The machine swerved wildly, and Mari, grabbing the seat to keep from slithering to the floor, shrieked, “Oh! What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter? What are you screaming for?” The automobile screeched to a stop by the side of the road.

  She stared at him, wide-eyed, and demanded, “Why did you do that?” Was he trying to kill her? Maim her? Punish her for being nasty? Good Lord, she’d never have guessed him capable of these sorts of tactics.

  He stared back at her for a moment, then turned toward the front and bowed his head. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles shone like polished marble. “You screamed. I thought something had happened to you.”

  “I didn’t scream.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He drew in a huge breath and held it.

  Mari bit her lower lip. “Um, I guess I did speak sort of loudly. A little bit. It’s only that I wanted you to see the two roadrunners.”

  He slanted a glance at her without lifting his head.

  “Roadrunners?” The word came out hard, reminding Mari of sharp knife blades and hatchets and things like that.

  “Um, yes. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” That was polite of her, wasn’t it? To acknowledge a slight lapse—although she hadn’t known it to be a lapse—and apologize for it?

  “I thought you’d suffered some kind of attack or seizure.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Please don’t screech like that while I’m driving “

  “Very well.” She was beginning to feel put-upon. She hadn’t meant to scare him, after all. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t drive and look at things at the same time. It wasn’t her fault his nerves were bad. She decided to say so. “You might want to consider drinking a glass of warm milk at night before you go to bed. I understand it does wonders for the nerves.”

  This time he lifted his head when he stared at her. “My nerves?”

  She tilted her head, again lifting her chin. “Yes. You seem a trifle jumpy.”

  “Jumpy? I’m not jumpy, Miss Pottersby. You shrieked like a banshee.”

  “I did not!”

  He sucked in another breath and let it out slowly. “I suggest we begin again. Perhaps we should go over a few rules—rather, suggested modes of behavior—before we do so.”

  She’d seldom felt this stupid, and it was an intensely uncomfortable experience. Nevertheless, she knew she’d been at fault. Sort of. In a way. It still wasn’t her fault that his nerves were bad. Because she didn’t want to fight all the way to Los Angeles, she decided not to press the issue of his fretful disposition. “Very well.”

  “If you wish to point out some entity in the countryside that you believe will be of interest to me, please don’t . . . speak loudly.”

  He’d been going to say, Please don’t screech at me. Mari could tell. She also resented it, though she deemed it prudent not to say so. “Very well.”

  After another moment’s pause, during which Mari could almost hear him battling with his urge to holler at her, he said, “I appreciate your willingness to show me flora and fauna native to this area. I’ve never been to California before, and I’ve never seen a roadrunner.”

  “Well,” she said, feeling crabby, “they’re gone now, so you won’t see those two.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  He didn’t sound like it.

  Mari held her tongue as he restarted the motor and the machine lurched once more onto the rough road. None of the roads in Mari’s life were paved, although she’d read about paved roads. She expected she’d see some in Los Angeles.

  They hadn’t been traveling for very long before another pair of roadrunners began racing beside the car down the road. Very quietly, Mari pointed them out to Tony.

  He grinned. “I’ve never seen any birds like that before.”

  She couldn’t help grinning, too, because the birds were so silly looking as to be adorable. “No. They’re unique, all right.”

  “There seems to be a lot of uniqueness in this neck of the woods,” he murmured.

  Mari squinted at him, but could perceive no ulterior meaning to the words. A desert tortoise captured their joint attention then, and she elected to stop worrying about surreptitious meanings to Tony Ewing’s pronouncements.

  The scenery was pretty dull, at least to Mari, who was accustomed to it. She was surprised to discover how many items of interest actually dwelt in the desert. She pointed out jackrabbits, more tortoises, vultures, cottontails, ground squirrels, tarantulas, tumbleweeds, more roadrunners, a small herd of wild donkeys, several prairie quails, an old bummy looking prospector, who waved his tattered hat and grinned toothlessly at them, two red-tailed hawks, and an eagle.

  Tony leaned forward and squinted through the windshield. “That’s an eagle?”

  “Yes. You don’t see too many of them anymore.”

  “I’ll be damned. I’ve never seen an eagle before.”

  “Not many city folk have, I expect.”

  He glanced at her. Mari pretended not to notice, but continued staring through the car’s window.

  “Thanks for showing me all this stuff, Miss Pottersby. I drove out here with Martin and didn’t see half so much.”

  “That’s only because you didn’t know what you were looking at, and he didn’t either, I imagine.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  Silence fell between them, although “silence”, under the prevailing conditions, with the machine’s motor roaring fit to kill, didn’t really describe it. Muteness was more like it, Mari supposed. She didn’t know what to say, that was for sure. They were driving through a stretch of absolutely bleak desert, so there weren’t even any points of interest to mention. A couple of sagebrush. Some creosote bushes. A mangy old Joshua tree. A tumbleweed or two.

  She told herself there was no reason to be nervous. Just because she was alone in the middle of nothing with the most attractive man she’d ever met was no reason to fall into a dither.

  Tony cleared his throat, and Mari jumped a foot. “So, Miss Pottersby, I don’t suppose you’d consider calling me Tony. I think we’ve known each other for long enough that it wouldn’t be considered improper.”

  She stared at him, then swallowed. “Oh. Sure. I guess that’s okay.” Darn it, she could feel heat creeping up the back of her neck, and she knew she was going to be blushing in a second. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, she turned her head and looked out the window. “Call me Mari.”

  “Thank you Mari.”

  She liked the way her name came out of his mouth. Probably because he had such a nice mouth. He also had a great voice. Deep, smooth, kind of velvety. He had a caressing sort of voice.

  Good Lord, wherever had that thought sprung from? She prayed hard for something interesting to tiptoe onto the scene. Something that would distract them both. Something -

  “My God!”

  Mari jerked around, and found Tony staring out his own window and jamming his foot on the brake. She looked, too, and gasped.

  “Merciful saints in heaven! What in the name of glory is happening?”

  A swarm of mounted Indians, bedecked with war paint and feathers, had just galloped over a rise in the near distance on Tony’s side. Mari gaped at the scene, her brain trying to assimilate this odd intrusion of somebody else’s history into her own personal world.

  Tony, staring hard, didn’t answer immediately. After a moment, he seemed to relax. “I think I know what it is.”

  “You do?” Darn it, he wasn’t supposed to know anything about her native California. He was a blasted easterner. “Then please let me in on it.” Her voice was as dry as the desert outside the car.

  “I think it’s another motion-picture operation.”

  Mari blinked, thought for several tumultuous seconds, and said, “Oh.”

  “I heard Biograph was sending a company out
here to do a picture. There’s a fellow named DeMille who’s been horning into the scene, too.”

  “Oh. My goodness. I, ah, hadn’t realized that people were doing so many pictures in the area.”

  He turned and gave her a rather sardonic smile. “Peerless was the first to recognize Southern California as ideal for the picture-making process, but I don’t suppose the others will be left behind for very long.” He gestured at the whooping band of Indians. “As you can see.”

  “Yes. I see.”

  Sure enough, as they watched, a motorized truck, with a cameraman cranking energetically at his machine in the back, rolled over the rise, following the Indians. Tony shook his head. “It’ll never work.”

  She gazed curiously at the scene, then again at Tony. “Why not?”

  He shook his head. “Landscape’s too bumpy. The image will be all over the place. There’s no way you can shoot a moving target from a moving vehicle and get a clear picture.”

  “That makes sense. Why do you suppose they’re doing it?”

  “If it’s Edison and his gang, they’re probably experimenting with a newfangled spring-mounted camera or something. They’re willing to try anything.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” she said doubtfully.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s a good thing. For Edison. The bastard’s—sorry, Mari—the buzzard’s such a tyrant and so single-minded and exclusive, that nobody else will ever profit from his inventions, though.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, yeah. He won’t let anybody or anything leak out of his studios back east. Anything he discovers will remain his exclusive property. He keeps the patents on anything his employees invent, too. If anyone leaves his company, he has to sign a pledge in blood not to use any of the products of his imagination that Edison’s patented. I don’t know what the penalty is. Death, I suppose.”

  “That’s pretty drastic.”

  “I’m joking about the death part, but not about anything else. Edison’s a real pip.”