Patience

by Lori Copeland

  He hadn’t realized she knew the word. Her English was broken at best. “You know what diplomacy means?”

  She nodded. “Boy teach me: Be nice until I find big rock.”

  He chuckled. Wilson. “Unless we can find another assayer, we’re going to have to get along with Sage.”

  Moses trekked off, apparently to see what she could do about the situation.

  Tossing a shovelful of dirt into the sluice box, Jay wondered what sort of man would take Moses on. Most miners were so hungry for female companionship they’d marry anything in a skirt. “That Moses would be a handful.” He spoke the thought out loud.

  “Not for me, buddy boy. I’d take her on in a minute.”

  Gamey reclined on a nearby rock, arms scissored behind his head, lazily soaking up the sunshine.

  Jay hadn’t heard him approach. “That might be a mistake,” Jay pointed out. “She could whip you without breaking a sweat.”

  “You got your own problems, buddy boy. Especially in view of what you’ve been thinking about that Patience woman lately. Better leave now, afore you suddenly find yourself tied down to a woman and an eight-year-old boy.”

  Jay shot him a cross look. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “Been watching you. Ain’t hard to tell when a man’s got a woman on his mind.”

  Jay was getting used to the old man’s observations and sudden visits. They were daily now—and annoying. He switched the topic back to Moses. “Thought you said Moses was ugly.”

  “Oh, she is. Ugleeeeee. But she’s got possibilities,” Gamey allowed. “Winters get mighty nippy up here. That woman’s bulk could provide some powerful warmth to a man.”

  “Winters shouldn’t bother you,” Jay goaded. “You’re dead.”

  The old man sat up. “Don’t believe that I’m dead?”

  Jay threw another shovelful of ore into the sluice box. “You’re about as dead as I am. What do you want? The mine? Or are you working for someone—someone who thinks I’m stupid enough to believe in ghosts?”

  The intruder shifted positions. “You ever been in love, buddy boy?”

  “Might have.”

  “Don’t try to tell me you haven’t, ’cause I know you have. Her name was Nelly, and she had your boy, Brice.”

  Jay froze, anger overflowing him. Whoever was trying to claim-jump the Mule Head had done his homework. Considering he and Nelly had lived in these parts while he was mining, it wouldn’t be any trouble to learn about his past, but he didn’t like anyone digging around in things he’d rather not have to talk about.

  Guarding his tongue, Jay said quietly, “Well, guess that saves me the trouble of telling you.” Taking his shovel, he moved on downstream. “Someone’s coached you real well, haven’t they? But everything you’re saying could have been learned in Fiddle Creek. So who’s paying you to go to all this trouble?”

  Gamey tagged along behind him, ignoring the question. “Some other little gal got yore heart now, eh?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Liar.”

  “I said, not that I’m aware of.”

  “And I said, liar.”

  “Okay, so you tell me who has my heart now.” Jay felt like a fool discussing the subject.

  “Patience. You’re sweet on her—but not sweet enough. If you was, you’d take her back to Denver City where she could be with them other orphans. I ain’t ever gonna let her alone, ya know. She won’t bring any gold outta this mine.” Smiling, he winked. “You can bet on it.” Trailing behind, Gamey aggravated Jay. “Cute little bugger. Shame she got mixed up in this mine.”

  “She deserves better,” Jay agreed.

  “Who?” Gamey baited. “Go ahead, say her name. You ain’t got no secrets from me.”

  Jay refused to be drawn back into the conversation.

  “Sweet on her, are ya?”

  “No,” Jay denied.

  “Are too.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Big liar.”

  “I admire her,” Jay conceded. “That doesn’t make me sweet on her.” Patience wasn’t like most women. She accepted people for what they were, and with the exception of the time she flung a bowl of dumplings in his face, she was usually even-tempered.

  And if he felt different than he was saying, well, it was no one’s business but his.

  “Even had a good time at the square dance, huh, buddy boy?”

  “Good enough to suit me.”

  “But?”

  “The last thing Patience needs is a man like me in her life.”

  “Cain’t agree. You ain’t no blue-ribbon prize, I’ll grant ya, but she could do worse.”

  “Look, do you mind if we just drop the subject?”

  The old man shrugged. “What else we got to do?”

  “I have work to do.”

  But pretty soon Gamey was heckling again. “Like to hitch up with her, wouldn’t ya?”

  Jay didn’t bother to answer. He’d learned the less he said, the quicker Gamey would tire of badgering him and leave—go wherever he was camped out for the charade.

  “Oh, you’d like to all right, but you’ve got this idea yore not good enough for her.”

  “You talk too much. Go away. You’re wasting your time here. Go tell whoever you’re working for that it isn’t going to work. This mine belongs to Patience and the boy.”

  “You ain’t so bad,” Gamey said. “You ain’t necessarily anyone I’d choose for my daughter, if I had kids, but you’ve been behavin’ yoreself lately. Quit gambling, haven’t ya?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You have—mighty hard habit to shake, but you did it. Guess you got real ashamed of yoreself and realized yore ma would be real disappointed to see how you’d turned out. It’s hard for a man to get away from the way he was raised. Now ya need to get Backus off yore back.”

  Jay whirled, temper flaring. “How do you know about Backus?”

  “His thugs, Red and Luther, been lookin’ everywhere for you—bound to find ya real soon, if I was to tell ’em what I know.”

  Plunging the shovel back into a cart, Jay wondered exactly how much the old coot did know about him. So Red and Luther were nosing around town. He hadn’t seen them since he’d left the hotel and moved into the miner’s shack. He’d hoped they had given up and gone back to Denver City, but no such luck.

  “You don’t like me knowing yore business, do ya? Ghosts can go anywhere they want to without being seen. I can find out anything I want.”

  “Way I heard it, you were supposed to be locked in the mine forever. Gamey O’Keefe couldn’t go wandering around like you are now.”

  Gamey looked startled. “Eh! Where did ya hear that?”

  “Around. If you know so much about me, then you should know that I don’t like you or anyone else butting into my business.”

  “I know that! I’m jest tryin’ to tell you, you ain’t as hopeless as ya think.”

  Jay’s laugh rang with irony. “I’m the epitome of success.”

  “Shoot, no, you ain’t that neither, but you’ve had a run of bad luck. So what? You want to talk bad luck?”

  The old miner raised his hat and scratched his head. “I was sixty-two years old when I blowed myself up. Sixty-two, and not a penny to my name, but I ain’t never considered myself worthless. Why, I’d worked one hopeless claim after the other—seen the elephant a hundred times, but always had the gumption to keep going. Gamey O’Keefe give up? Not on yore life. Drank too much, yes; ’ssociated with women too much, yes; got discouraged, yes; complained a lot, yes. But give up? Never entered my mind. I’ve lived through winters so cold I’ve seen horses froze solid standin’ up, and the horns on cattle freeze and burst off from the pith. I suffered through summers so hot you’d swear you was in hades. I’ve witnessed fires sweep entire towns and lay ’em out in ashes. I’ve seen grown men cry when everything they’d worked for went up in a sheet of flames or their claim didn’t pan out.

  “Shoo
t, buddy boy, gettin’ what you want out of life takes a powerful lot of effort. Nothin’ worth havin’ ever comes easy. Jest ’cause you lost yore wife and boy, couldn’t make a mine pay off—because you found out you couldn’t work ’cause of that phobia thing—why, that’s sissy stuff. Stop beatin’ yoreself up. If that’s all life’s got to throw yore way, consider yoreself lucky.”

  At his age, probably most of what he’d said had a grain of truth, except for that part about blowing himself up, Jay figured. “For a man who claims to have blown himself to pieces, you seem to be well preserved. I’m guessing your job is to scare me off; if that’s the case, you’re doing the opposite. Why boost my morale?”

  “I don’t know.” Gamey scratched his beard. “Shore as shootin’ I don’t know—maybe I’m startin’ to like ya, buddy boy.”

  “Then why are you trying to scare me and Patience out of the Mule Head?”

  The old man stiffened. “Didn’t say that, did I?”

  “You didn’t have to. Now clear out of here and don’t come back.”

  Gamey scoffed. “Too hard on yoreself. Ain’t dead yet, are ya? Never met a man who didn’t have somethin’ to learn and wasn’t the better for learnin’ it.”

  Jay considered his prospects. Come spring, he would turn thirty. Thirty, flat broke, with the future of a salmon spawning upstream. He had nothing to offer a woman. Patience was intelligent and pretty. Though she didn’t know it, she could have her pick of eligible suitors. What did she need with a broken-spirited man like him?

  “Look at it this way: you were decent enough to help her,” Gamey reminded him. “You cain’t be all bad.”

  Jay laughed caustically. “She didn’t have a whole lot of choices now, did she? There wasn’t anywhere else for her to turn.”

  Gamey dipped his hands in the stream, letting water trickle through his fingers. “There ya go again, selling yourself short, buddy boy. Now take my gold—which you won’t—but for right now, we’ll pretend you will. You’re convinced that with enough time you’re going to find that gold, ain’t ya?”

  “I’ll sure be doing my best.”

  “Won’t find it.”

  “I’ll keep looking.”

  “Ya lookin’ for Patience’s sake, or do ya want it to save yore hide from Mooney?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, at first it was the latter, but now yore tiltin’ more to the former.”

  “That just goes to prove you don’t know everything.”

  Smiling, Gamey gradually began to fall behind. “Ya still got a powerful lot to learn about women, buddy boy.”

  “Yeah,” Jay conceded. “But not from you.” When he looked again, the miner was gone, disappeared over a ridge.

  Jay leaned on his shovel, thinking about the little man who seemed to know so much about him. Someone had coached him well. Question was, who? He’d never talked much about Nelly and the boy. Some things lay too close to the bone for general conversation, but he guessed it was no secret. People in these mountains were interested in each other. With no newspapers and the hit-or-miss mail service, they didn’t have anything else to do. So they talked. Not hard to find out anything about someone if you wanted to bad enough.

  Mooney Backus, now, he’d probably been rampaging around, blowing off steam. Him or those goons he employed. Bragging about what they’d do to him. But this so-called ghost, he wasn’t working for Mooney. Whoever had hired him to pull this scam had brains, something notably lacking in Backus.

  Why didn’t this Gamey, or whoever he was, show himself to anyone else? to Patience? Seems like a woman would be easy prey. He must have a reason to appear to Jay only when no one else was around. It didn’t matter, except that it looked like whoever was behind this wanted to run him off more than he did Patience.

  Jay paused in the act of lifting a shovelful of dirt. Maybe he was on to something. Whoever wanted the Mule Head knew Patience couldn’t work the mine by herself. Get rid of Jay, and she would have to leave. The unknown claim jumper could move in and take over.

  He whistled through his teeth. Shrewd. Except it wasn’t going to work. What kind of no-account varmint would he be to walk out on Patience and Wilson?

  Jay Longer didn’t run.

  Two nights later Jay knocked on Patience’s door. She unhooked the latch and opened it, surprised to see him up so late. She supposed he’d been asleep for hours.

  “Did I wake you?” he whispered.

  “No, I can’t sleep.” Opening the door wider, she allowed him entrance.

  “Is it too late?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m grateful for the company.”

  He stepped inside the dugout, closing the door quietly behind him. Wilson was asleep on his pallet before the fire, his arm gently curved around a kitten.

  Moving to the fireplace, Patience slid the coffeepot over the flame. Her hair was loose tonight, a dark cloud swinging below her waist. “What are you doing up so late?” she whispered.

  “Had something on my mind; I couldn’t sleep either.”

  Seating herself at the table with Jay, she gazed at him. “Is something bothering you?”

  “Patience, there’s something you ought to know. At first I thought I’d keep it from you, but you should know. There’s someone in the mine who’s pretending to be Gamey O’Keefe.”

  He couldn’t keep the information from her any longer. The old miner was getting reckless. Today he’d initiated two minor cave-ins, one trapping the shady ladies for over two hours before Jay could dig them out. Moses was furious. She and the other women were getting tired of the hassles.

  Patience’s jaw dropped. “You’ve seen the ghost?”

  “There is no ghost,” he confirmed. “My guess is that someone is trying to steal the mine, and they’ve hired an old miner to be the ghost of Gamey O’Keefe. In the process they’ve learned a lot about me.” Jay gave her a level look. “The man is human flesh and blood. He roams wherever he wants and shows up unexpectedly to throw me off.”

  Patience stood up, returning to the fire. Pouring two cups of coffee, she inquired softly, “Someone is trying to steal the mine?”

  “You shouldn’t be surprised. Man is greedy, and the Mule Head is rumored to have the mother lode, whether it does or not.”

  Carrying the tin cups to the table, she set them down. Ladling two heaping teaspoons of sugar into hers, she cautiously reached out and laid her hand over his. “Jay, we’ve been working hard lately. Why don’t we take the afternoon off tomorrow? I’ll fix a picnic, and we’ll find a nice place to eat in the sunshine.” She smiled encouragingly. “Doesn’t that sound nice? The shady ladies can surely do without us for one afternoon.”

  Shoving back from the table, he stood up. “Sorry I bothered you.”

  “Jay—” Springing up, she hurried around the table, realizing she had hurt his feelings. “I’m sorry… . It’s just, well … an odd story. Moses hasn’t said a word about seeing anyone. Are you sure it’s a man?”

  Jay’s eyes turned grave. “I see him every day, Patience. I talk to him. He wants to scare you off.”

  Her features softened. “Jay … if you say you see him, then I believe you. It just seems strange …”

  He’d been working too hard. His claustrophobia must be bothering him. Did the condition have side effects that might cause him to see things?

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” His expression was as blank as a tinhorn gambler’s running a bluff.

  No, she didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t let him see that. “I believe you think you see him—,” she began.

  He interrupted her, his eyes bright with anger. “Don’t try to con me, Patience. I know what I saw.”

  “I’m not trying to con you,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean—”

  He changed the subject. “I’m going into Fiddle Creek tomorrow morning.”

  She blinked. “Why? What about the women?”

  “They won’t work the mine tomorrow; we need fus
es and a few other supplies.”

  “But, Jay—”

  Before she could answer, he left, slamming the door behind him.

  She sank down in a chair, her thoughts troubled. She shouldn’t have let him see that she doubted him, but what else could he expect? Her shoulders slumped in despair. She’d depended on Jay, and now he was seeing little men in the mine… . She had to help him.

  But how? This was something she had no experience with. What if Jay turned violent? What would the shady ladies do? She visualized her crew. Well, led by Moses Malone, they’d probably beat him to a pulp. No man would be a match for that bunch.

  She’d heard a sound in the mine today, but after thinking it over, she knew what it was. These mountain winds could blow fiercely sometimes. She’d heard it moaning through the trees. But hearing the wind was different from seeing and talking to someone who wasn’t there.

  Patience took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Tomorrow she would insist that Jay rest, and she’d cook him a good lunch. Suddenly the gold didn’t seem so important compared to Jay.

  He’d be all right. He had to be.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next afternoon Jay sent the shady ladies into the mine before taking a gold pan and wandering upstream. He needed some time alone. Might do a little panning for nuggets.

  Patience had stood in the door of the dugout watching, but he ignored her. She didn’t believe him. Well, that was fine with him.

  Thought he was crazy, huh? He’d show her. He’d show them all. Mooney Backus and his thugs, that little runt who called himself a ghost, and Patience. Particularly Patience. Somehow, even though Jay admitted he wasn’t good enough for her, he’d expected her to trust him.

  He swirled the pan, letting loose gravel wash out while the heavier flakes of gold settled on the bottom. Picking out the scattering of flakes and a couple of nuggets, he dropped them into a drawstring tobacco pouch he’d gotten from an old-timer in Fiddle Creek.

  He felt lower than a snake’s belly today. For two cents, he’d pack up and leave. Or he would if it weren’t for Mooney Backus. He sighed. He was honest enough to admit that Mooney wasn’t the only reason he stayed. There were Patience and Wilson. He’d never intended to let it go this far. Although he wouldn’t admit it to Gamey, the day seemed a little brighter when he could see Patience and hear her voice. But he’d never let her know how he felt. Couldn’t. She was a fine woman, and she deserved better than he could give her.