Hester knew there was no use arguing with a determined Ethel Brown. “Fine. I will keep it all in mind.”
“I also want all of us to meet early at Jessica Sage’s house tomorrow so that I can discuss this with all of them before Mrs. Kane arrives.”
Hester rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t like being unkind to people, Ethel.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that you or any of us should be. I only want them to be aware that we could be associating with someone with a less than reputable background, that we must refrain from getting too close just yet. I do hope Mr. Breckenridge isn’t risking his heart and his own honor by wanting to be seen with the woman so soon. What if he takes an intimate interest in her and then discovers she’s … well, you know. It would be hard on him, embarrassing.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Well!” Ethel smiled with near glee at having such wonderful gossip to share with everyone. “One o’clock tomorrow then at Jessica’s? Mrs. Kane won’t come until two. I’ll get messages to everyone to come earlier, and I’ll go and tell Jessica.”
Hester nodded. “Personally, I hope that you’re wrong, Ethel. I like Addy.”
Ethel bent over and picked up her tea, gulping down the rest of it quickly, as it had already cooled. She took several crackers into her plump hand then. “We shall see. Do you mind if I take a few of these crackers along with me? I was to meet Jessica for lunch and am running late, and I am so hungry.”
Hester thought how Addy Kane was much more a lady than Ethel Brown when it came to appearance and manners. “Take all you want.”
The woman smiled, picking up her handbag with her free hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Thank you for listening, Hester.”
Hester smiled grudgingly. “Certainly.” She showed Ethel to the door, watched her walk to her waiting carriage, watched the carriage sink down noticeably as soon as the woman climbed inside. The carriage moved off, and Hester walked out onto the porch. From where her house stood, she could see down all across Central. She could also see the rooftop of Miss Ada’s rooming house two streets below. Had Addy Kane left yet with Grant Breckenridge? Would anything come of their meeting?
“Who on earth did you see last night, Addy? What is going on?” She wondered if she should simply flat-out ask the woman; but then Addy would surely be terribly hurt that she was being gossiped about when she was so lonely and trying to make new friends. And what would come of all that hurt if they found out after all that Addy was just as honorable and educated as she claimed she was? If she let Addy know their suspicions, then they would be even more embarrassed and feel more like fools when they had to face her than if they never said a word.
“Are we fools to trust and believe you, Addy; or are we fools to go sticking our noses into your personal life?” She felt sorry that someone had made Addy cry. “But who in this town could possibly upset her that way?” she mused. Much as she liked Addy and hoped none of Ethel’s suspicions were true, she could not help being just as curious as Ethel was, though not in a mean-spirited way. It would be interesting to see what kind of reply the woman received from Unionville.
Addy looked out across both Central and Blackhawk, able to see everything from the high, hairpin road over which Grant Breckenridge had brought her to show her one of his mines. It both thrilled and frightened her to be so high. The road was rocky and treacherous, with no barriers to stop them from tumbling to their deaths hundreds of feet below should the carriage go off the edge; yet this same road was traveled by much larger freight wagons carrying supplies up and gold down.
In spite of her loneliness and the ache still in her heart over seeing Cole the night before, she was certain of one thing. She was beginning to love this area. The surrounding mountains were beautiful, and a person was so high she felt closer to God. This was an exciting place to be, meeting new people, living in a town that was growing every day, where the surrounding hills were full of gold, an enticement that brought men and women from thousands of miles away with dreams of getting rich. In spite of some resentment toward those who felt they could run her life, at least here she did not have to put up with the hurt of being scorned by those she once called friend.
“That mine opening you see just ahead is the Chicago lode. I call the mine the Chicago because that’s where I’m from and where my employer is based,” Grant told her. “Chadwick Mining Company. I’m out here managing their mines and working with crews developing new mines. I judge the value of the ore discovered and the company allows me to name the mines myself. I’m also a troubleshooter … deal with the miners over wages and so forth, kind of an overall manager. I caught another Chadwick employee, a metallurgist like myself, trying to stake a claim for himself once rather than for the company, and I corrected the situation. The man was fired and has had a hateful grudge against me ever since, but I was only doing my job.”
Addy thought the words were spoken rather piously. “Is he still in Central?”
“Oh, yes. Works in one of the other mines now, not a Chadwick mine, of course.” He pulled up to the mine entrance, and Addy listened to him carry on about mining. It was obvious he was trying to impress her, but she had decided she had better learn all she could about the industry that supported this town, so she listened well. She did not consider this venture with Grant as a prelude toward being interested in the man romantically, as Hester hoped. She had only agreed to this because she wanted to learn about mining gold, who owned which mines and so forth, since that was practically all anyone in this town talked about; and she wanted and needed to make more friends. If nothing more, she supposed Grant could become that much, and he seemed quite the gentleman, although there was an air of arrogance and even a little hint of ruthlessness about him that still bothered her. She supposed she only had to get to know him better, and, after all, no one seemed to object that she be seen with him. He was apparently respectable enough for a single woman in her position to see socially. And who better to teach her about mining?
“A lode mine is one where the ore deposits are enclosed within other rock,” he was saying, “usually gneiss or what we call conglomerate rocks. Another Chadwick mine, the Jackpot, has open veins that are incredibly rich and run for miles into the mountain. That’s the easiest way to mine, when it’s right there for the taking with a few whacks of a pick.”
“It must be exciting to see something like that,” she answered, “let alone actually own it.”
Grant looked at her, his gaze dropping to her full breasts, then back to her face. “It is. I happen to be seventy-five percent owner of another Chadwick mine, the Jamesway. That’s the one the employee I told you about tried to steal. I call it the Jamesway after my son, James. I told you the other night he’ll be coming here to practice law. He’ll graduate soon from law school in Chicago. James is the light of my life, and we’re very close. I’ll be so glad to see him again.”
Addy was confused over what to think of the man. When he talked about his son, a softer look came into his eyes. But other than that, there was a hardness about him that disturbed her. She wondered how he had managed to own such a large percentage of the Jamesway, the very mine he’d caught another employee trying to claim for himself. “How old is James?” she asked.
“He’s twenty-one. His mother died ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Grant halted the carriage and looked at her. “It’s been many years now. I’m forty-three, if you’re wondering.” His gaze moved over her as though he were assessing her figure, and it struck Addy that that was what made her uncomfortable around him. She told herself it really made no difference. He was nearly old enough to be her father, and she had no personal interest in the man.
She turned away, not caring for the way he looked at her. “What is the name of the employee who got fired over the Jamesway?” she asked.
“Ed Foley. He tries to threaten me in various ways once in a while, tries to start trouble, but don’t worry. He�
��s harmless.”
I wasn’t worried, Addy thought. The arrogant man already thought she cared enough about him to be concerned.
“I’ll take you up to the Jamesway now,” he told her. “What people don’t realize is how expensive it is to get the gold out of these mountains once it’s been discovered, and to process it correctly in order for it to truly be worth anything. Most prospectors can’t afford to do that, so once they find the gold, companies like mine pay them for their claims and then bring in the right equipment to mine them profitably.”
Addy suspected companies like Grant’s paid prospectors far less than they deserved for their claims. Then they moved in and made a fortune on them, while the poor prospector was left to go through all the hard work of picking away at the earth or panning more streams to find yet another claim. But that seemed to be the way of life out here, and she could tell by the arrogant glitter in Grant’s dark eyes that he enjoyed taking advantage of men too foolish to realize how much more they could be getting for their claims.
There it was again, that ruthless glint in his eyes. Grant Breckenridge was a rich man who took great pleasure in making a fortune from a raw deal he’d given another man, and he held no regrets or guilt about it. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d told her the whole truth about Ed Foley. Still, he was being quite gracious and friendly today, and she supposed that what he did in the way of business decisions was not her affair. Maybe the best way to forget Cole was to force herself to look to another man, even though she wasn’t ready for any new relationships. Perhaps, if Grant was interested in seeing more of her, she should accept any other invitations he might propose. It could help her forget a relationship that only brought pain and heartache.
“A lot of gold in Colorado is found by placer mining,” Grant continued, obviously quite proud to be able to explain these things to her. “Gold is washed down from the mountains into ravines, gulches and such, lies in the beds of streams, mostly in places where two streams wash together. Men pan for the gold, dig a shallow pan into the stream bed, swirl the water, dump off the debris. They keep doing that until all that’s left in the bottom of the pan is particles of gold. Gold is heavy and sinks to the bottom, so as you pour off the dirt and debris, only the gold is left. It’s a pretty slow way of collecting gold, but some men are content with what little bit they find that way. I prefer mining the big stuff, owning half a mountain.”
The words were spoken with pompous pride. Addy did not doubt that a good portion of the women in town would be impressed by the man’s money, but wealth had never been something she required in a man.
“In some places where there are deep streams, mine owners can speed up the panning for gold by using steam engines to operate a hydraulic system, pumping high volumes of water at the side of a mountain to wash away the dirt and rock by force. The debris is forced into sluicing flumes.”
“Sluicing flumes?”
Grant smiled. “Oh, that’s just another form of placer mining. A flume is a contraption normally set up along streams. As the water flows downhill it’s run through flumes. Some are up to a mile long. Debris from the bottom of the stream is shoveled into the flume. Mercury is deliberately put into the bottom of the flumes because mercury attracts gold. The heavy particles of gold sink to the bottom to amalgamate with the mercury, and the rest of the debris just keeps flowing on, leaving nothing in the bottom of the sluice but the amalgam. That is collected and run through a processing method to separate the gold from the mercury. All of that is called placer or gulch mining. When the gold is in lodes, embedded deeply in rock so you can’t see it, getting to that gold is called practical mining.”
Addy shook her head. “I never knew it could all be so complicated. Back East people think you can just come out here with a pick and collect pure gold into bags and walk off rich.”
Grant laughed. “Yes, many are surprised at how hard it really is. Down in the deeper mines, the gold is drilled out of the rock, sometimes blasted out with dynamite, then dumped into carts that are pushed to hoists. It’s lifted then with steel cable. The hoists are run either by steam, or sometimes pulled by horses. That noisy building below is a stamp mill, where the gold is separated by a complicated series of steps, using chemicals. You probably saw piles of debris, mostly a yellow color, when you were coming up here. You can see several down there around the stamp mill.”
“Yes. Another passenger in the stagecoach told me they were called tailings, leftovers from extracting gold, debris that’s dumped.”
“That’s right.”
The ground shook with an explosion somewhere deep inside the nearby mine. Addy jumped at the noise and vibration which was very close. “It must be very dangerous down there,” she told Grant.
“Sure it is, but most of those men know what they’re doing. Those who set the dynamite obviously have to know what they’re doing. The real dangers come when shafts have to be sunk deeper and deeper. Good ventilation becomes a problem, and sometimes they begin to fill up with water that has to be pumped out. We sink air shafts for fresher air that helps blow out gasses and smoke and blasting dust. Some mining is done by tunneling horizontally instead of going deeper. The tunnels have to be shored up with timber to help prevent collapse. There are lots of injuries, broken bones from falling rock, broken scaffolds. Once in a while a man falls down a shaft to his death. Explosions, of course, are a big cause of death and injury, and sometimes there are cave-ins. It’s all part of the job.”
Addy wondered if the man had any true concern for those who risked their lives to dig his precious gold. Was it all part of the job? “Do they make much money?”
“Depends on their particular job. The average is $3.50 a day. Not much for the risks they take, but the country is full of men desperate for jobs now.”
And full of men like you to take advantage of them, Addy thought. Another shaking rumble came from below the earth. “How many mines does your company own?” she asked, hoping he would not think she was trying to gauge his wealth.
“Four. The Chicago and the Jackpot, one a lode mine, the other open veins. The Hannah is a sluice mining operation, and the Jamesway is another lode mine, although as I said, they own only one-quarter of that one. I’d take you through the stamp mill down there, but as you can tell from the noise it’s awfully loud, and they’re full of men shouting, sometimes not too careful about their words. It’s really no place for a lady.”
His eyes moved over her again, this time with a little more respect in his gaze. Addy felt a tiny hint of attraction, as any woman would to a handsome, successful man. But she realized it was nowhere near the kind of attraction she’d had for Cole.
She looked away, angry that she had again allowed herself to think about Cole. “How long has it been since you’ve seen James?” she asked.
“Oh, about eighteen months. I’ve been here since sixty-four and I’ve been back to Chicago only twice. I love it here in Colorado, and I intend to stay and make Central my home.”
“How did your wife die?” she asked, looking back at him. “Or perhaps I shouldn’t ask.”
“It’s all right. It’s natural to ask. The doctors didn’t know for sure what it was. She just seemed to waste away, got worse over the months, until she was thin and weak and in constant pain. They think it was a disease they call cancer. They don’t know much about it and couldn’t do anything for her.”
“I’m sorry.” It didn’t seem to Addy as though the man showed true grief, but then, it had been ten years. Still, when Cole spoke about his own dead wife, who had died nine years ago, she still could see the love and sorrow in his eyes, and she could not help respecting him for that.
“Well, it was a long time ago,” Grant answered, looking her over again. “And people have to get on with their lives. I’m sure you understand that, considering the reasons you gave for coming here, and the fact that you lost a husband yourself.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “I know we’ve just met, Ad
dy, but I have to tell you I was instantly struck not by just your beauty, but your intelligence and your courage. I’d like to see more of you socially. I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow evening. Central still lacks a truly refined, elegant eating establishment, but there is one that will do for a lady. I’m sure that in no time at all we’ll have some better restaurants, and I know for a fact that we’ll have a really fine hotel in a couple more years. There is even talk of an opera house. At any rate, there are only a few choices when it comes to a man properly courting a woman. Perhaps you would like to join me as a guest when I have my annual picnic for the miners in late August.”
Addy told herself it only made sense to give a man like Grant Breckenridge a chance, no matter what her first instinctive feelings were toward him. After all, this man was part of the reason she had been able to come here to start over, the reason she could finally teach.
“I can’t think that far ahead, Grant. My biggest concern is just to prove I am a good teacher and can do my job. I have a feeling several of your friends think a female is not the best choice. I won’t make you regret hiring me. And yes, dinner tomorrow evening is fine.”
He flashed a handsome smile. “Good,” he answered. “Well, I’ll take you on over to the Jackpot. It’s mostly horizontal mining and not too deep, so you should be able to go inside. Would you like to see a real vein of gold?”
Until Tomorrow Page 22