There was a lull, and then Susan Burtrum turned to Jeannie.
"Will you be staying on in Barkerville?"
Hannah tensed. It was a question no one at the Nugget had asked, for fear of making Jeannie feel unwelcome. There’d already been a lot of inquiries about Oscar’s claim; it was rumored to be a good one, and Hannah knew that Logan and Angus had gone out there and brought back a small fortune in nuggets from some hiding place Jeannie knew about.
She was a wealthy woman now. She’d be able to do whatever she chose, and Hannah was delighted for her.
"Oh, I’ll be stayin’ on,” she said now in her shy voice. "I figger me and Angus, we're gonna work our claim. See, I got my mining certificate. Oscar—”
Her voice faltered, but she went on. “Oscar made me get one so’s he could hold an extra share.”
Her bruised mouth tilted into a sad little smile.
"And I know all there is ta know about minin’. I worked right beside him alia the time.”
There was an excited buzz amongst the women. It was almost unheard of for a woman to actually mine.
"Won’t it be too hard on you, with the baby?”
Jeannie shook her head.
“I got Angus ta help with heavy stuff, and I can hire another man if we need one.”
Elvira stuck her thumb high in the air. “Yes!” she exclaimed, and everyone laughed.
Through all of this. Carmen Hall sat utterly silent, her dead gray eyes studying each of the other women and her sullen mouth twisted into a sarcastic little smile.
Although Daisy politely urged her, Carmen didn’t stay for the coffee and doughnuts after the meeting, and Hannah could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when the door closed after her, although again none of the women said a word.
Logan did, however.
He and Hannah were again using his bedroom. Elvira was back in her room at the hospital, and Jeannie and the baby were sharing with Daisy.
He came in just as she was undressing, and he didn't return her welcoming smile.
“I saw Carmen Hall leaving your meeting tonight, Hannah,” he said sharply. "I don’t want that woman on my premises.”
Hannah had stepped out of her skirt, and she stood in her underpants and blouse, staring at him in amazement.
“For heaven's sake, Logan, we talked about this before I started having the meetings. You knew I was going to make it clear that women like Carmen were welcome."
“Women like Carmen, perhaps, but not Carmen Hall herself," he repeated stubbornly, taking off his vest and unbuttoning his shirt.
“I don't want you talking to her. I don’t want her near the Nugget.”
Hannah’s chin came up. "Why her in particular?"
He sat down and tugged off his boots, but he didn’t answer, and his silence infuriated Hannah.
“You don't have the right to tell me who I may or may not talk to, Logan. If I choose to—to befriend Carmen Hall, it’s entirely my own business.”
He glared at her and got to his feet. “Befriend her? Don’t talk nonsense. She’s a madam. She and her partner are involved in white slavery. She and Flannery are evil, Hannah. You don’t know what you’re getting into, speaking of befriending Carmen Hall.”
“I’m trying to help women help themselves, women like Jeannie. And Gentle Annie. If I have to reach out to them through people like Carmen, then I will.”
She undid her braid with furious fingers and reached for the hair brush.
“All women need support, Logan, not just a chosen few. I can't say one woman is welcome at the meetings and another not."
He jabbed a finger at her. "Carmen Hall is not welcome."
“I don't get you, Logan. I just don't understand you."
Hannah brushed her hair with furious strokes.
“You ought to be the first one to support what I’m trying to do. You were the only one who stood up for Jeannie. You told me about your sister, that she was pregnant and had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. A group like this one could have supported her.”
She smacked the brush down on the dresser.
"Don’t you feel any sense of responsibility for what happened to Nellie?”
He was undoing his pants, and he stopped dead and looked at her.
"Responsibility?” His voice was a near whisper. "You dare to speak to me of responsibility?"
She’d gone too far. The sudden absolute rage on his face shocked and frightened her, and she stepped back, away from him.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Two
"My sister is dead because of Flannery."
Hannah stared at Logan, confused.
“She was carrying his child. It’s a hobby of his, finding innocent girls like Nellie and seducing them, making them pregnant. It’s his favorite method of recruiting new girls.”
Understanding was beginning to dawn.
“You followed him here to Barkerville. Flannery’s the reason you’re here, isn't he, Logan? You’re waiting for him to come back, and then you’re going to—”
He didn't confirm or deny it, but she knew it was the truth. She thought of the hidden gun he carried in his leather vest, of the business he’d said he had to conclude, of the fact that he planned to leave Barkerville before winter and never return, and a terrible sickness knotted the pit of her stomach.
“You came here to... to kill him?” She wanted him to deny it; she wanted him to laugh at the idea.
Instead, he slowly nodded.
"He doesn’t deserve to live, Hannah. He's a destroyer of women, beautiful young women like Nellie, but no court would ever convict him.”
The awful thing was, she understood. Back in her own time, there were sex offenders, mass murderers, child molesters, whom she’d often thought would have been better off dead.
The difference was, she would never have dreamed of murdering them herself. But these were different times.
She shuddered, remembering Begbie’s warning. “If there is another shooting in Barkerville, for whatever cause, and you are involved, in any fashion—there will be a hanging in Barkerville.”
"Logan—my God, you can’t do this. You can’t take the law into your own hands."
"What would you have me do, Hannah?"
His voice was sarcastic.
"Make a formal complaint to Judge Begbie? Nellie was my sister. You were the one who first spoke of responsibility."
Hannah lost her last shred of composure.
"Do you think Nellie would want this? Do you honestly think she’d want you to hang, Logan?"
She realized she was shrieking at him when he reached out and placed his palm gently over her mouth.
"Shush, Hannah. You’ll wake everyone in the place."
Trembling, she sank down on the bed. There had to be some way to make him see reason, some argument that would change his mind.
"Logan, I love you. Leave Barkerville with me now, let's go to some other place and live our lives together."
She gulped and went on.
"We could get married, we could have a family—"
He shook his head, and there was no anger in his tone now. He just sounded sad.
"I can’t, Hannah. This is something I must finish."
He sat down on the bed beside her.
"And you can’t leave, either. If there’s any faint chance of getting back to your own time, it will probably be from here. You have your mother to think of, and Elvira as well. You’d never be content, always wondering if there might have been a chance for you to go back where you belong.”
She opened her mouth to deny it and couldn’t.
He’d taught her about honesty, and no matter how much she wanted to contradict what he was saying, it was the truth.
"Come here, sweetheart.” He reached for her, drawing her into his arms.
"Nothing has really altered. We have this moment. We have to- night.”
There was forced humor in his tone. "We might even have tomorrow if we’re lucky. Le
t’s make the most of our time together, without quarreling over things we can't change.”
His nimble fingers unfastened the buttons on her blouse, and he drew it carefully down her arms, mindful of the healing wound on her shoulder. He lowered his head and pressed his lips against the cut.
"My brave, foolish, beautiful woman."
His lovemaking was excruciatingly slow, as if they had all the time in the world. In the languorous haze of passion, she forgot for a little while, just as he intended she should. But when it was over and he slept, his muscular arms still holding her close against him, Hannah lay awake and remembered, and panic washed over her in a cold tidal wave.
There must be a way—there had to be a way—to stop him.
At four A.M. Carmen Hall and Rosie, one of the best girls, ushered the last drunken customer down the stairs and out of Frenchie's, and Carmen locked the doors.
As usual, the fetid air stank of coal-oil lanterns, stale whiskey, cheap perfume, and cigars, but Carmen didn’t notice, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have minded. It was a smell that went with the business of making money.
Carmen loved only two things: Bart Flannery and gold.
She’d been an old man’s mistress in Seattle when she’d met Flannery five years before. For the first time in her life she'd fallen in love. She’d wanted to run off with him then and there, but Flannery was smart.
With his counseling, she'd first made certain she was taken care of in the old man's will, and then Flannery had arranged an accident.
The money she got had bought this building, and she'd become an excellent businesswoman under Flannery's tutelage. She was justifiably proud of the way she'd run Frenchie’s in his absence. She'd kept the girls in line and she'd diligently applied the bookkeeping lessons Flannery had taught her before he left.
"Night, Carmen.” Rosie yawned and tugged her shiny purple dressing gown up over one lush breast as she headed for the stairs. She wore a variation of the uniform all the working girls at Frenchie’s favored, a laced corset cut so low the tops of her nipples showed, a pair of ivory satin bloomers, black stockings with scarlet satin garters, and high-heeled slippers.
Her dyed blond topknot was listing to one side and much the worse for wear; it had been a busy night.
In the hall, Carmen turned down the lamps and lifted the heavy wooden drop box that held the night’s take. She carried it into her cubby hole of an office.
The box had an opening in the top big enough to allow the packets of gold dust and the girl’s chits. Carmen opened the padlocked lid and removed the small canvas pouches the girls had weighed out on the gold scales the house supplied in each of their rooms.
The girls were well trained and too scared of Flannery to cheat. She added up the take and the chits and meticulously entered amounts beside each girl's name in the ledger Flannery kept in the top drawer.
The cut was a third for the girls and two thirds for the house. After expenses, she and Flannery split the profits evenly. When the entries were done, she put the pouches in a bigger canvas sack and opened the combination lock on the large safe in the corner, depositing the gold inside and then relocking the door of the safe.
There hadn’t been a lot of profit last winter, but this had been an exceptionally good summer. She and Flannery would soon be millionaires at this rate, and he'd be pleased with her when he finally got back.
She was looking forward to his return; if all had gone as planned, she expected him sometime within the next two weeks.
With the new crop of girls, Carmen expected the profits to soar. Miners would be lining up three deep to sample the new merchandise. Anticipating the girls’ arrival, Carmen had hired a carpenter to turn some of the unused space on the third floor into bedrooms, and just today she’d impulsively decided to have him enlarge the bedroom she shared with Flannery by knocking out a wall and incorporating a small, unused storage room next door.
There'd be space for another wardrobe, and she’d order some new rugs and wallpaper. Maybe she’d line the walls of the addition with mirrors and put a chaise longue in there.
The idea excited her and she wanted it done quickly, so it would be completed by the time Flannery got back.
That afternoon the carpenter had already knocked a sizable hole between the two rooms.
She wrinkled her nose when she entered the bedroom. It was in total disarray and there was plaster dust and bits of lathing everywhere. Holding the lantern aloft, she stepped through the opening, imagining how it would look completed.
There was a strip of worn rug on the floor, and suddenly her foot hit a loose floorboard. It gave and she lost her balance, very nearly dropping the lamp.
She grabbed at it and burned her hand, and ended up awkwardly crouching on the floor with her foot twisted beneath her.
Cursing, she rubbed her ankle and then got gingerly to her feet, furious with the carpenter for not noticing the board. She leaned down and yanked up the rug and the loose board, and then stood staring open-mouthed into the hole.
There were four canvas sacks lined up beneath the floorboards, identical to the ones she’d just deposited in the safe.
Stunned, she reached down and lifted one out, opening the drawstring top. Inside were sacks of gold dust.
Carmen sank to her knees, her brain racing, her heart thumping like a mad thing in her chest.
Flannery.
Flannery was the only one who could have hidden these here.
She'd believed they were equal partners in Frenchie's. She’d worked like a dog these past months, and while he was gone she’d been meticulous about the books.
He’d claimed they’d had too many expenses last winter to show much profit. And all the while he'd been cheating her.
Her chest heaved, and red spots danced before her eyes.
She loved him passionately, but she’d never been fool enough to expect fidelity from him where other women were concerned; it would have been like asking Rosie to turn into a virgin again. Flannery had an insatiable appetite for young girls, and even though it rankled, Carmen had known better than to oppose it.
But in the matter of their business partnership, she’d believed he was absolutely loyal. She’d trusted him in that regard.
She hefted another of the canvas bags, estimating the fortune he’d stolen from her, and deep inside her gut, a volcano of pure rage began to erupt.
She cursed and wept and pounded her fists on the floor, and when the storm was over, she removed the sacks of gold dust and hid them in the bottom of her trunk. She replaced the loose floorboard and covered it with the rug.
Tomorrow she’d tell the carpenter she’d changed her mind, and insist he put the wall back up again. A roll of wallpaper would cover any telltale evidence. When he was finished, she’d put the gold back under the floor exactly the way it had been.
She’d been unsure of herself in the beginning, because she’d never run a business before. Now, thanks to Flannery, she knew she could do it alone. And just as he’d said about the old man, ac- cidents happened every day.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Three
As the last days of August approached, everyone in Barkerville longed for an end to the protracted spell of hot weather. Tempers grew frayed, the water in William's Creek dropped lower than it ever had before, and dysentery raged.
Elvira and Doc Carroll were run off their feet as the hospital overflowed with cases of fever, dehydration, and heat prostration.
Jeannie gathered up Angus and baby Sophie and moved back to the tent on the claim.
The Nugget seemed lonely without them, and Hannah woke up at night listening for Sophie's cries.
In the store, she sweltered through the endless days, but it wasn't the heat that bothered her.
Ever since Logan had told her about his plans, things hadn't been the same between them. Discussions became arguments which escalated into heated quarrels as Hannah tried everything she could think of to get him to see reason, but not
hing worked.
Sick at heart, she thought of a million far-fetched schemes to prevent Logan from committing murder, but when it came down to it, none were practical.
Two more meetings of the women's group were held, and Hannah was profoundly relieved when Carmen Hall didn’t attend either one, although Hannah found herself thinking about the other woman often, wondering if under her tough persona she loved Flannery the way Hannah loved Logan.
She was a woman with a woman's heart, wasn't she?
Three more miner’s wives turned up at the women’s group, and for everyone except Hannah, the evenings seemed both enjoyable and productive.
Elvira lectured on sanitation, and the need to boil all drinking water.
Hannah should have felt triumphant about the growing success of the group, but her enthusiasm was gone. Everything seemed pointless compared to her fear for Logan.
With September came the certainty that Flannery would be returning soon. Hannah found herself tensing each time a wagon train came pounding along the street in front of Pandola’s.
Her work suffered; she was abstracted and short-tempered.
One afternoon when she had a headache from the heat and the smell of animal dung wafting in the open door, she accidentally overturned an entire heaping basket of the eggs she was cleaning. They spattered everywhere, a gluey, stinking mess of shells and slime.
Pandola, who’d given up on his pursuit of Daisy and was in no better a mood than Hannah, threw his arms in the air and hollered a string of what sounded like Italian cuss words.
She couldn’t take it any more. She tore off the apron she was wearing, threw it down in the mess, and stamped on it.
“I quit!” she shrieked. "Take your stupid job and shove it up your nose. These damned eggs are better off broken. They’re half rotten anyway, and you’ve got no business even selling them."
Grabbing her handbag from under the counter, she sailed out the door.
Out on the street, the heat struck her like a blow, and the noise of bawling animals and shouting men and waterwheels made her head feel as if it were going to explode. She turned in the opposite direction to the Nugget, knowing that there’d be no privacy there; Daisy and Zeb would be cooking, and the saloon would be noisy, filled with men trying to cool themselves off with liquor.
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