Comstock Lode (1981)

by L'amour, Louis

  "But there's another thought, too. Supposin' that other man was killed because he knew who sent him to Washoe?

  "Mr. Trevallion, I think Miss Redaway is in more trouble than she guesses, and I think whoever is after her or what she's got isn't one to stop at anything.

  "The man who tried to hire me is dead, his place burned and him with it. Accident, they say. Mebbe.

  "The man who carried word over here is dead. Shot apurpose.

  "Somebody hires Kip Hauser to kill you, an' anybody but you or me or somebody like us would've been killed.

  "Seems to me there's something mighty big at stake here, somethin' bigger than we'd guess, and whoever's on the other end will stop at nothing. Not nothing atall."

  Jacob Teale buttoned his coat. "Mr. Trevallion, I'm scared. I'm scared for the both of you."

  Chapter XLIV

  The dining room of the International was almost empty when they reached their table. Only a few late diners were scattered about the room, and none were seated close by.

  Trevallion drew back Grita Redaway's chair and seated her, then went around the table and sat down opposite her.

  For the first time there was a moment when she could really look at him. He was, she realized, a very handsome man. Dark, perfectly poised, and very self-contained. Their conversation was at first in trivialities, as all such preliminary conversations are apt to be.

  "You know," he said suddenly, "you are a very lucky person, and you do not realize how lucky. Your father, or whoever it was who loaned that money those many years ago, used remarkable judgment."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "He loaned money to a man who was in financial trouble, a very shrewd man and an honest one. You will remember that you wanted him to reinvest the money for you, and he agreed if I would be partly responsible."

  "Well? What happened?"

  "What happened is that you are very well-off. I won't say wealthy, simply well-off."

  The waiter came, and they ordered, then he continued. "You helped to provide capital to a man who knew how to use it.

  "Being possessed of capital and knowing what to do with it are not necessarily twins. This man was a shrewd, intelligent investor and he proceeded to go into the business of supplying tools, clothing, and food to miners. From that he bought land, began farming on a rather large scale, shipping wheat to Alaska and to China.

  "He bought land for you, also, but a part of your capital he kept working with his. He had reverses from time to time, all of which he outlined to me and which I understand, knowing the country and the times, but what matters is that you now own a comfortable home in Monterey, a ranch in southern California, and a small piece of his produce and supply business."

  "I had no idea! You mean all the time I was growing up-"

  "That little bit of money was growing, too. I might add, nobody knows this except the gentleman himself, you, and I."

  "I don't know what to say. I'm overwhelmed. I knew there was a little money there, but-"

  "That little money has been in the hands of a very shrewd man for about fifteen years. The Sacramento River flooded out crops on two occasions, and a shipload of grain was lost at sea."

  Trevallion reached into his pocket. "This list," he put a finger on it, "is your holdings. It looks quite impressive, but what you will understand is that the dollar value is not so great as it might appear. All of this," he indicated the list, "is growing and should be unproved or simply let alone. Ten years from now, if you hold all this, you will, indeed, be a wealthy woman."

  "I had no idea." She looked directly at him. "And you? What of you?"

  He shrugged a shoulder. "I have little. A mine that has good indications, several claims that have only possibilities, and a few minor investments."

  He was embarrassed. "I have not done as well as I should have or could have. I, I've been preoccupied."

  Trevallion paused, then he asked, "Miss Redaway, do you hold shares in the Solomon? I was told you had some mining shares, and from what has been happening I believed you might."

  "No, I do not. I do have some shares in mines, most of them worthless, I believe. I also have some old debts owed my father and my aunt. I am afraid they are useless also."

  "Several attempts have been made to rob you?"

  "Yes, at least two attempts in San Francisco, and an attempted stage holdup."

  "Why?"

  "I've no idea, unless they assume I have something I do not."

  "You must be careful. They may want something more than just a possession."

  "You mean they may wish to kill me?"

  He was surprised at her calmness. "That might be it."

  "I have suspected as much, although I have no idea why."

  "You don't seem frightened."

  "I am, I suppose, and I should be. I've learned that fear can be one's first line of defense. One has to be aware of danger to defend oneself against it."

  He smiled. "You know," he said, "I like you."

  "I like you, too," she replied seriously. Then she added, "I don't know what it is in me. Perhaps it is something left from that terrible fear I felt as a child, but I accept the fact that life is a jungle."

  "Is that why you hired Jacob Teale?"

  "Yes. I saw him and I liked what I saw, a very dangerous man but aman, and I had a feeling if he gave his word it would prove good."

  "You gave him something that meant more than anything else could. You trusted him and you respected him. His kind of man wants little else."

  "And you?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. All these years, I-"

  "You started out to kill those men."

  "Yes. For years I thought of little else except that they had destroyed so much that was beautiful and good, and that they were going free. It became an obsession."

  "And now?"

  He shrugged and did not reply. He wanted to kill no one. He wanted an end to all that. He wanted only to work, to build, to do. He looked across the table at Margrita. "It must be ended," he said abruptly. "It has gone on too long."

  She nodded. "It is strange how this one crime's effects have lingered. How many crimes have those men committed? How many have been killed? But this one has gripped all of us. You, me, and yes, them, too. They are obsessed by it. They cannot forget it. Why else would they try to kill me?"

  Trevallion tasted his coffee. "I think someone has much to lose. That can be the only explanation. Rory was nothing. A card-cheat and a thief. Skinner was no better. Yet both of them were obsessed by what they had done. They are dead.

  "Who is trying to kill me? I know it is the man who cornered you in the canyon. If he is not stopped he will kill us both."

  "Who is behind it?" Grita asked.

  "I've no idea."

  Grita paused a moment. "Albert Hesketh was in San Francisco when the attempts were made to rob me. He had invited all the cast for a drink when the second attack was made."

  "Coincidence. He may be angry with me for staking that claim; but to have me killed? It makes no sense."

  For a few minutes they ate in silence and then she said, "You're a strange man, Val. I've never forgotten that night when you held me. I was so frightened and you were so strong. Terrible as that night was, I have never felt as safe as I did then."

  "It was your need that made me strong," he said simply. "I was afraid, too, but I had to be brave so you would feel safe."

  He gestured around them. "This was what we were looking for. We all wanted it. The pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow and most of us passed it by and went on to California. All the time it was here, waiting for us. I sometimes think this place was our destiny, yours and mine.

  "You, you were gone so long from it, yet you are here at last, and I am here. So," he added, "are those others, whoever they are."

  "Maybe it is only that man, that Waggoner."

  He shook his head. "It was not him tonight."

  "Tonight?" She was startled.

 
"Tonight, on the way here, a man tried to kill me. A man who would have had to be paid, and paid well. A man who had to believe he could do it in safety."

  "What happened?"

  "He failed. I have lived too long with trouble."

  "Was it those shots I heard?"

  "There are always shots. Yet, I suppose so."

  He put down his cup suddenly. "It is late. You have another show tomorrow, and I have work. Arid there is something else. I must end this."

  "End it? How?"

  "Discover who is behind it. Find out what they want and put it forever beyond their grasp. I don't know, only that I can sit no longer. There are things to be done."

  She arose. "Val? Be careful."

  "I shall." He looked at her, his face cold and serious. "I have things to do, things I must complete, and something I must become."

  They said no more but parted at the foot of the stairs. He looked at her for a moment, touching her fingers lightly with his, and then he walked toward the door.

  Teale was there. "All clear," he said, quietly. Then he added, "You were mighty good tonight. Two shots and either one would have been enough. He thought he had you, cold turkey."

  Trevallion went into the street, yet he did not turn toward home but walked up the street and began to make a round of the gambling houses. All were crowded. The bars were lined two and three deep, the games were busy. He walked among them, unnoticed for the most part, but looking carefully. He wanted a man who knew Kip Hauser, one of the old Sam Brown crowd. None of them were visible.

  He gave up at last and then suddenly, without planning, he stopped in at the bakery. A stranger served him.

  He was drinking his coffee and thinking when a baker came from the other room, wiping his hands. "Hey! Ain't seen you in a while! The ol' place ain't the same with M'lissa gone."

  "What d' you hear from her?"

  "Nary a word. Like she dropped off the end of the world. And that's bad."

  "Bad?"

  "If n she was happy she'd be writin' to tell us. That's the way folks are. An' she was never one for complainin'."

  "She's a good woman."

  The man looked at him, then sat down. "Heard you killed a man tonight."

  "A man tried to kill me. I defended myself."

  "Had it comin'. Hauser was always a thief. Knowed him for years an' all that no-account lot he drifted with."

  "Have you seen any of them? I want to talk to one of them, any one."

  "They're scared. The whole lot of them took to cover after you killed Hauser, scared to death. The word's around it was a put-up job, an' Hauser had gold on him.Gold, an' he ain't pulled nothing for days. That's the word."

  "Who paid him?"

  "Who knows? None of his friends do. Look," the baker leaned toward him, "I know some o' that bunch. They talk to me. Nary a one o' them has any idea who paid him, if'n that's what you're after. They just don't know."

  The baker drew a cup of coffee and came back. "Anyway, that ain't the big news. The big news is the Solomon."

  "What about it?"

  "They blew into a stope of almost solid silver! Kind of a natural hollow in the ore body, but sheeted with silver! They say it's the richest ever! That there Hesketh, he's goin' to be the richest man on the lode!"

  Chapter XLV

  Trevallion put his cup down. The news could not have been worse. Unless his judgment was completely wrong, that new discovery would have been made on the side where he had filed his claim.

  If such was the case, development of the new area could not proceed very far without crossing the line. The old argument about one lode or many would rear its head once more, and he might well lose that claim. It was not as if he had depended upon it, for he had filed largely to benefit Will Crockett, but he hated to be defeated and especially by a man like Hesketh.

  Worse, it would provide Hesketh with almost unlimited financing, and he was a man who would know how to use it.

  Trevallion sat very still, thinking it through. Bill Stewart immediately came to mind. He had used that law in defeating Terry and would understand all its ramifications.

  At the moment it appeared that Hesketh might seize that claim for his own as a continuation of his own lead. Trevallion had never bothered to learn the legalities of mining. He had been basically a discoverer, finding a claim, then selling it and leaving the development to others. Discussion of the fine points of mining camp law were always taking place but he had rarely listened. Now he regretted he had not paid more attention.

  Albert Hesketh would move fast. Trevallion had been slow to realize the man's potential, for he had kept a low profile, seemingly content to slowly enlarge his possessions.

  John Mackay had commented once, "I'd have no dealings with him. A man who would do what he did to Will Crockett is without basic decency or principle."

  The discovery of bonanza ore would provide unlimited credit, giving him freedom to move in any direction he liked. So how would he move?

  Trevallion thought again of that claim he had staked alongside the Solomon holdings. Now, more than ever, Hesketh would need that claim.

  Trevallion got up and started for the door. He opened it with his right hand then lifted the hand to push the door wider. As he did so the baker called out. "Hey? Ain't you goin' to finish your coffee? I was just about to scramble you some-"

  Trevallion had turned back, his hand still on the opening door.

  Three bullets smashed through the door and the opening. One ripped a gash in the door-jamb, another went through the door within an inch of Trevalh'on's hand, and the third tugged at the back of his collar, smashing crockery on the back shelf.

  Trevallion hit the floor, scrambling, pistol in hand, toward the side entrance. He pushed it open, waited an instant, then lunged outside and ran to the corner on the street.

  Several men had stopped in the middle of the street, staring wildly. Newcomers, obviously, or they would have been out of sight or under something by now. A door closed down the street, then an ore wagon rumbled up, drawn by several teams of oxen.

  Nothing...

  He went back inside, bolstering his pistol. "I'll have those eggs," he said, "an' better give me a fresh cup of coffee, something to quiet my nerves."

  The baker refilled his cup which rattled in the saucer. "You ain't got no nerves." He was shocked and pale. "Ain't had no bullets come that close since Chief Winnemucca's braves opened up on us." He stared at Trevallion. "They surely wasn't shootin' at me. My bread ain'tthat bad."

  "And your coffee's good, so it must have been me."

  "From what I hear any man who starts shootin' at you don't have his head screwed on just right."

  Trevallion did not reply. He was thinking it over. Two men had been shooting. His mind told him that, for there had been a faint difference in the sound of the shots. If the baker had not spoken, he would be dead and the fault his own. He had allowed himself to be distracted, to be thinking of something else as he started out the door. In other words he had been a plain damned fool.

  He finished the eggs and coffee and looked around at the baker, who was working alone tonight. "Anybody back in Melissa's room?"

  "You want to spend the night? Ain't nobody there." The baker paused, sheepishly. "We're holdin' it for her, hopin' she'll come back."

  "I don't want to stay. I want to use her window. The doors don't seem very safe."

  "I'd say!" The baker jerked his head. "Go ahead. It's on the house."

  Trevallion got up and, avoiding the windows, went into the back hall and then opened the door to Melissa's room. It smelled faintly of perfume. He closed the door and crossed to the window, standing to the left and then the right to look out. Reflected light made the slope faintly visible and he saw nothing. Lifting the window he stepped out, closing it quietly behind him. For a moment he stood against the stone wall of the house.

  Waggoner? Some friend of Kip Hauser? He slid away from the wall and into the night.

  Back at th
e cabin with the door closed, he checked his gun from old habit.

  Working with Tapley, while two others continued sinking the shaft, he began to drift toward the outside. They needed a better circulation of air, and there was a good showing of ore in the direction in which he was drifting. After three days he had a wagon up and loaded twenty tons of ore in several trips to the smelter. It ran sixty dollars to the ton.

  "Can't figure it," Tapley said suddenly, pausing to rest at the face of the drift. "That Waggoner, now. He's around town, never does a tap of work, always has money. Eats in restaurants, mostly, an' eats well, drinks when he's of a mind to, sees a girl now an' again. Where's he get it? The money, I mean?"

  "Somebody's paying him."

  Waggoner showed up at the stage the night Margrita Redaway came in, Trevallion thought. Why?

  "Waggoner's obviously not scared of you huntin' him down. You've been in town for weeks, months, even. And you've done nothing. He can't be scared of you tellin' what he done, because it's too long ago and far away. So if he's not worried, who is?

  "We've been over this time and again and it always comes up to the same thing. Somebody wants you dead and that somebody has something he doesn't want to lose. Also, my guess is that somebody ishere."

  "In Virginia City?"

  "You bet. You just bet your life."

  "Looks like I have," Trevallion commented wryly.

  They returned to work. Oddly enough, his hunch was paying off, for the ore they were taking out of the new drift was somewhat better than from the shaft, and he could use it.

  As he worked he turned the matter over in his mind. He was a man to whom decisions came easily, and he had been decisive all his life, yet now he was irritated by uncertainty. Waggoner was a problem with which he could cope, but Waggoner was his only lead to the man behind the violence.

  Who wanted him killed? Why? Who instigated the attempted robberies in San Francisco? And why?

  Trevallion forced the thoughts from his mind and settled down to drilling. Later, when they had paused briefly to catch their breath, he said, "Don't mention this work."

  Tapley indicated the two men working in the shaft. "Shall I speak to them? They'll keep their mouths shut?"