Comstock Lode (1981)

by L'amour, Louis

  He had never thought to ask why he deserved anything. It was enough that he felt he did. His ego was walled, shielded, and guarded.

  Once in his bed he slept soundly.

  When morning came, a spatter of rain was falling and the harbor was obscured by mist. From her little balcony Grita looked for the last time over the view she had come to love. "I will miss it, Mr. Clyde," she said. He paused, holding her luggage in his hands. "We must play this town again."

  "We will. Manfred's waiting below, Miss Redaway. We had better go."

  "I'll be along." She lingered, and he went out, drawing the door shut behind him.

  Quickly, she went to her hiding place and drew out her father's wallet. For an instant, she was worried.

  Now it could no longer be hidden. She had it all with her. Whoever wanted those papers must realize that when she left San Francisco she would take the papers with her, and the shares. Still, Manfred was along, and Dane Clyde as well as several other members of the company. Others had already gone on before.

  When their rig dropped them at the stage station the first person she saw was Albert Hesketh, yet he was so altered in appearance that she did not at first recognize him.

  He smiled. "I am dressed as many of us do on the Comstock," he explained. "Actually, these rough clothes are easier for travel."

  "Of course," she agreed, but was puzzled nonetheless. Hesketh had always seemed a dapper, overly neat man and one who seemed to think much of how he appeared to others. In these clothes he looked strangely out of place.

  The spatter of rain turned into a steady drizzle that lasted through the day. The heavy coach creaked and groaned on its way, bumping over stones and rough places in the road.

  Manfred was on one side of her and Mary sat across from her. There was a bulky, heavy man in a brown suit beside her, a man with mutton-chop whiskers and a mustache. Hesketh sat beside him and soon gave every appearance of being asleep. Dane Clyde was riding atop the stage and there were others inside and on top, how many she did not know.

  Several times they stopped to change horses, and at one stage-stop, as they hitched the horses, she said to Manfred, "I am a little worried."

  He glanced at her. He was a sharp, intelligent man who had traveled a great deal. "What is it?"

  "Whatever they wanted from me in San Francisco they must know I am carrying now."

  "I had thought of that."

  "Nevertheless, if there is trouble, stay out of it. I want no one hurt because of me."

  "We will see when the time comes."

  A new passenger joined them there, a tall, clerical-looking man with sandy hair and thick sandy brows. He was neatly dressed in a hand-me-down suit still carrying the creases from the shelf. He was, she suspected, about thirty years old. He carried a small carpetbag and got quickly into the coach, ignoring them all.

  From time to time others joined them. She had begun to wish she had taken the steamer to Sacramento.

  "We will be here all night, ma'am," the driver said. "That there feo-tel is respectable and entertains lady guests."

  "I thought the stages went right on through? Although I will admit the rest will do me good."

  "All of us, ma'am. Yes, we do usually go through, but there's been some flooding and I won't chance those roads in the dark. I want to see what I'm gettin' into!"

  She looked around. Hesketh had disappeared. So had the heavy man in the brown suit and the sandy-haired newcomer.

  This was Sacramento. This was the town that letter had come from so long ago. Somebody here had owed her father money and it was invested, perhaps right here in town.

  Manfred sat beside her at supper. "If there is trouble," he suggested, "it will be between here and Placerville, or after we leave there. Some of it is very rough country."

  "You've been here before?"

  He pointed toward the east. "My parents died over there," he said quietly, "not far from where we are going."

  "Mine did not get that far," she said. "They were killed in Missouri, before they ever got started."

  Manfred gave her an odd look. "Oh? I had no idea. I thought you were French."

  "I went to school in Paris, but I am an American." She gestured around. "This is where we were coming. California was our dream."

  "Mine, too. I wish my folks could have seen it."

  Alone in her room, she wondered. Why that odd look? Simply because he had believed she came from France? Or was there some other reason?

  Chapter XXX

  At daylight, putting the last finishing touches to her hair, Grita looked around at Mary. "Have you a pistol?" she asked.

  Mary Tucker looked up, surprised. "I do, Miss Redaway. I keep it by me."

  "Can you use it?"

  Mary smiled. "At home in Indiana there was little enough on the table and my pa worked in town. I had no brothers, so if we had meat the shooting was up to me. I kept meat on the table until I was fourteen, when the cholera took my family."

  "Keep the gun where you can get it, then. I think we may have trouble."

  "I will that. Is it after you they are?"

  "It is. Or something I have."

  "You seem very sure of yourself, ma'am." The Irish girl looked at her, smiling. "You'd think you'd been caring for yourself as I have."

  Grita nodded. "I have, in a somewhat different world. When did you get into the theater, Mary?"

  "When I lost them all I took a job for some people in Pittsburgh. The young man there, where I was maid, he was forever talking of the theater, and having folks to dinner from the theater. He didn't like girls much, he didn't, but he was nice and we talked a lot. One day I was speaking of one of the ladies who had been to dinner, and not knowing her name, I did an imitation of her that set him laughing.

  "At supper a few nights later he told a man to look at me. 'She's the one you need,' he said. 'She will do the part better than anyone.'

  "So they had me down to the theater to play a housemaid, a pert, snippy one, and they liked me. So here I am, four years older and an actress. 'Tis never rich and famous I'll be, but ''tis better than scrubbing floors."

  "Do you never regret the farm?"

  "I do. One day I'll put by enough to buy one, to own one of my own." She picked up her valise. "And you, miss? What will you do?"

  "Who knows? Have you been in love, Mary?"

  "Twice, I thought I was. Each time I came to my sense in time, thanks be to God. And you, miss?"

  "No, not yet. There were some gentlemen I knew, very elegant gentlemen, too, but they were not for me. The trouble is, Mary, I'm like a lot of others. I don't know what I want."

  "Who does, until you see him? And then you're like to be wrong."

  Grita spoke suddenly, and without thinking. "I shall buy a ranch, Mary, and raise horses. I like the theater, and it's a challenge. There's no end to how good one can get, but none of us are good enough."

  "It's good to hear them laugh."

  "Yes, it is, but the crowd's a fickle beast. At least, that's what an old actor I knew often said, and I agree. Some actresses think the people love them, and that's nonsense. They love the roles you play or the way you play them, but notyou. Tomorrow it can be another."

  It was cold and damp when they reached the coach, and nobody was talking. The heavy man in the brown suit bobbed his head at them, but the sandy-haired one looked at nobody, he just waited.

  They were seated before Manfred appeared. He got into the stage without a word and sat back against the cushions. He and the two girls were seated in the very back of the stage, facing forward and looking at the backs of three passengers who rode the center seat. Beyond them were three who faced toward the rear. One of these was Hesketh.

  The driver's whip cracked like a pistol shot, and the stage started with a lunge.

  "There's been some flooding," someone said. "The river's up across the road in places. We may have to take some other route."

  " 'Other' route?" The voice was grim. "What other route
?"

  "There are trails." That was the man in the brown suit. "I've heard it said."

  Waggoner heard the horse coming up the road and had a hunch. He rolled off his bunk and glanced out the window. Something passed between his cabin and the lights of the mine some distance away. A rider, no doubt. He hitched up his pants and slipped his suspenders over his shoulders. Then he belted on his gun, which had been lying on a chair close to the bed. He got out a cigar and lighted it. He smoked them rarely, but kept a few on hand.

  The horse's hoofbeats slowed and stopped. The only other sound was the rhythmic pound of the stamp-mills and compressors. Occasionally, when a door opened somewhere down on the street, he caught a bit of tin-panny music from a saloon or dance hall.

  After a moment there was a tap on the door, and he lifted the bar. "Come on in," he said, and stood back to look at the man as he entered. A stranger, a sallow-faced man with shifty eyes.

  "I brung a message. You're to pay me."

  Waggoner stared at him. He had an idea about the kind of payment needed.

  He took the message. It was obvious to him the message had been opened and resealed. He looked at it, then looked up at the messenger and met a sickly grin.

  Miss GR has shares. Offer usual terms before stage reaches VC. Rumor Pot Joe. Also specialist Jacob. Deal the high card to Jacob. Usual 3, delivery later.

  "Usual terms" meant he was to steal those shares.

  Pottawattomie Joe was a known outlaw, specializing in stage and wagon holdups, what was known at the time as a road agent. Specialist Jacob, deal the high card-What sort of specialist? A killer? Waggoner scowled. He knew of no one named Jacob.

  Still-He looked up at the messenger. "I'm to pay you? I can do that, or you can lend a hand and make yourself a nice piece."

  "How?"

  "You read this?"

  Teem hesitated, then shrugged. "Why not? A man better know what he's carryin' these days. There's a war on."

  "You know what this means?" Waggoner held up the letter.

  "Seems to say what it means."

  "Seems to, but doesn't. 'Miss GR has some shares' don't mean nothin' like that. Chances are there's somebody on that stage with them initials, but that there's a code that tells me there's to be ten thousand in gold on that stage." He was lying, but he could use this man-for awhile. "I'll need a man to help." He jerked his head toward the town. "There's those down there would jump at the chance but you're here. Saves time."

  "How much?"

  "If we take the ten, you get twenty-five hundred. I got to give that much to my spotter, too."

  "Half?"

  "Not a chance. This here's my deal and I make the cut. You're in or you're out."

  "I'm in."

  "You got a travelin' horse?"

  "I have. He's come a far piece." He had used Pony horses all the way over, horses rented from the spares the Pony Express kept. That enterprise was about over now and the hostlers were out to make every dollar.

  "No matter. There'll be other horses." He was lying about that, too, but this joker would never know the difference. When the word was to pay him, Waggoner needed no interpreter.

  Albert Hesketh did not like to kill, but only because killing left one open to be killed. He had never thought of himself as either a brave or an unbrave man. He simply did what had to be done if anybody got in his way.

  He knew very well that he was riding into danger. Jacob undoubtedly had instructions from Zetsev to kill him, and was probably among those already on the stage. If not he would join it further along.

  Had Jacob been paid? Or was he expecting to be paid later? Maybe if this Jacob knew that-

  "There was a killing in San Francisco," he said suddenly, "a man I'd been doing business with. Named Marcus Zetsev. He sold equipment to mine owners, freighters, theaters, and such. The Hounds killed him, they think. They looted his place."

  "I knew of him," Manfred said. "Tom Maguire bought gear from him, backstage stuff, canvas for scenes, ropes, pulleys, that sort of thing."

  "That's the man. He always sold at a good price, so we'll miss him."

  Now, if Jacob was aboard, he knew his employer was dead, and if he had not paid, he would not and could not.

  There was talk about the Sydney Ducks and the Hounds and what ought to be done, then the conversation drifted into silence.

  Hesketh was considering the road ahead. He had been over it many times, and his guess was that any holdup would come after Placerville, and probably after Strawberry. He was thinking carefully, coolly, of what he could do.

  If Jacob was with Pottawattomie Joe, that would be one thing. If he was in the stage, he would have to bring about a shooting so he could kill Hesketh under cover of the firing. Yet that left open too great a chance that Jacob himself might be killed.

  His hunch was that Pottawattomie Joe would wait until the last minute. There were trails up Fay Canyon and there was one cut-off from Carson Canyon. Joe could be back in his usual hangouts before anybody knew he was gone.

  Waggoner could beat them to it, he must. It was good to know about men like Waggoner. They could save a man a lot of trouble.

  The stage bounced and jolted, rocked and swayed, swung around precipitous cliffs and down into hollows, plunging through shallow streams. Several times they pulled out around tongues of flood water that had pushed back up some hollow or ravine. Dust sifted over their clothing.

  Grita Redaway felt again for her derringer. It was there.

  There were occasional mud-holes, but the higher parts of the road had dried out fast, and the usual dust was there, as if the rains had never been. At the top of a rise, the driver suddenly pulled up. Leaning over, he called to the passengers.

  "If y'all want to stretch yer legs, how's the time! Got to rest my team!"

  It was a small clearing on a knoll in the forest with pines all about and some great boulders and many fallen trees, their trunks lying parallel as though deliberately placed.

  "Blown down," somebody said. "Wind comes down these canyons sometimes, flattens trees like they was grass!"

  The stage driver, whip in hand, came over to them. He touched his hat to them. "Hope the ride isn't too rough, Miss Redaway. They are improvin' this road all the time, but the traffic's fierce! You should have seen it at first! Ma'am, you could no more get this stage over it than I can fly! A man had to go afoot or on horseback. Later they'd get wagons over it, but they'd often have to stop and almost build the road theirselves. It was sure enough rough!"

  "Have you been here long?"

  "Well, not so's you'd speak of it. I come out from West Virginny with my folks. That was in fifty-one. Lost my pa to cholera and ma, she set up a boardin' house over at Rough 'n Ready.

  "We moved camp to camp there for awhile, along with ever"body else. I made the run to the Fraser an' like to got drowned up there, then got m'self trapped in a snowslide. Trevallion found me when I'd about give up-"

  "Trevallion?" Manfred said. "I've heard stories about him."

  "You'll hear aplenty of them. He's the kind of man who makes stories wherever he goes, and without tryin', too. I mean, he minds his own affairs."

  "Does he have another name?" Grita asked.

  "Never heard any other." The stage driver spat. "He don't need any other, ma'am. Folks just say Trevallion an' ever'body knows who they mean. They ain't another like him in the goldfields."

  Grita turned to Hesketh, who stood near. "Have you met him, Mr. Hesketh?"

  "No. I have had no occasion to meet him. He is a miner, I hear, and they say he is a good one. I hire miners occasionally, my foreman does. I rarely meet them."

  Hesketh turned his back and walked back to the stage. The driver chuckled. "I reckon he don't like Trevallion none," he spoke softly, "kind of stole a march on him, Trevallion did.

  "There's a mine," he explained, "called the Solomon, rich as all get out. Hesketh there, he was bookkeeper for Will Crockett, who owned it, or thought he did. All of a sudden his boo
kkeeper turned up with a controlling interest, and he kicked his boss right out.

  "Kicked him out of his own mine, and he taken over. Seems all the time he was keepin' books for Will, this Hesketh was workin' to take over.

  "Then all of a sudden one morning Hesketh goes to his mine and finds that Trevallion had moved in the night before and staked a piece of rich ground, maybe the richest, that Hesketh thought belonged to the mine. Trevallion staked it in his name and Crockett's, although I don't think Will knows a thing about it. So you can see why Al Hesketh doesn't care much for Trevallion!"

  He looked around. "All right! Board up, ever'body! We got a long run ahead!"

  "Driver?" Grita asked suddenly. "This man Trevallion? Did they ever call him Val?"

  "No, ma'am, they never. Not that I heard of. He's just Trevallion. Called so by one and all."

  Chapter XXXI

  The passengers were boarding the stage. The driver turned away but she put a hand on his arm. Surprised, he turned. Speaking in a low tone she said, "Be careful. I am afraid there will be trouble."

  He had started to step up on the wheel, now he put his boot down. "What d'you mean, ma'am?"

  "There are people who want something I have. I am sure they will try to get it before we reach Virginia City."

  He took his time, knocking some mud from his boot against the wheel. "You got any indication of that? I mean, that there will be trouble?"

  "There have been several attempts to rob me. In San Francisco they broke into my flat, and I was attacked in the theater there."

  "You got any idea who's after you?"

  "I do not. Richard Manfred, who is an actor in our company as well as stage manager, knows of it. So does Mr. Hesketh."

  "What's Hesketh got to do with it?"

  "Nothing that I know of. Except, well, he has been paying me a lot of attention."

  The driver smiled, his blue eyes amused. "Now, ma'am, that can't come as any surprise. Most any man would pay his respects to you, given the chance."

  "Thank you, but I suspect he has other interests." She turned toward the stage where the last passenger was stepping in. "I wished you to know as I want no one to be hurt."