“So what have you done to our Maude, Jeremiah?” Tonya asked, hands on her hips. Maude gasped then blushed as she thought of those little nibbling kisses and how much they’d filled her mind the last few hours. Jeremiah cleared his throat. “I have no clue what you mean, Mrs. Watt’s. I’ve done nothing inappropriate to Miss Jones.”
“Then explain why she keeps getting this far away mooney look in her eye and turns this delightful shade of pink right before sighing? I think we may need to march the two of you over to Pastor James and just get the vows out of the way.”
Maude gasped. “Tonya!”
“What? It’s obvious as Betsy’s baby bump that the two of you are in love and should marry. I’m just saying if you went ahead and did so all this sighing and mooning and wishing could be over.”
Maude stamped her foot. “A lady should not say such things in mixed company.”
Tonya laughed. “Oh get over it already, Maude. It’s almost a new century. All those rules of deportment and southern lady etiquette the sisters taught you are old fashioned. We’ve all seen how short life can be. I say live yours. You wanted a mail order husband, well here he is.” She waved at Jeremiah. “Take him to the preacher and be done with it.”
Jeremiah cleared his throat; this time it was his face that was red. “Tonya, while I appreciate what you’re saying how about allowing Maude and I to decided when to marry? Make no mistake, we are getting married; but there are still things that need to be sorted. Now first I need a moment of business with Betsy.”
Betsy who had silently been laughing through the whole conversation looked at him. “What is it, Jeremiah?”
“Nathan is at the bank making absolutely sure, but maybe you should send for Alex for this conversation as well.”
The sound of footsteps coming in from the entranceway interrupted the conversation. “No need, I ran into him outside.” Nathan and Alex entered and everyone took seats. Maude watched and listened as Jeremiah became the serious businessman and mine manager she had known he was, but had yet to see him be. She realized that it was almost as enticing as those kisses they’d shared to see him working. Doing the job he would do to provide for a wife and family. He was smart, and while it was nice that Betsy and Alexzander listened to his expert opinion, to have a businessman of Mister Ryder’s wealth and experience listening did things inside her. She could see that this man, her man, had what it took to succeed. That was as enticing as his romancing her had been.
“What did Joel have to say?”
“There is no record of an investment.”
“So what we have here is a conman trying to take control of the mine and possibly the town through the mine?”
Nathan nodded. “As a U.S. Marshal I have to say that’s exactly what we have here.”
“Okay then that leaves me with a few questions for both of you, Betsy and Nathan. I’m the one with the least stock besides the single share every person in town owns. What do you want to do?”
Nathan looked at them all. “As U.S. Marshal, I’m issuing a warrant for the arrest of one Wallace Francis Lunsford in the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars since no one has been hurt by his scheme. However, I know that’s not what you meant. Betsy, you have the most invested here both financially and emotionally so I think we have to leave it up to you to decide what to do.”
“You mean about reopening the mine?”
“Yes.”
She sighed and looked at her husband. Maude watched as they spoke without speaking. She wanted that. If she was honest with herself she wanted it with Jeremiah. She snapped back to attention. “The town is recovering and new business and people are coming in; but this is Silverpines, we are a mining and lumber town. Tonya and Braylon have lumberjacks and timber families coming to get her business back up and running. I think I need to follow her example. But honestly I have no idea how to reopen that mine.”
Nathan looked at Jeremiah. “I don’t either, but he does. I say if you are going to reopen it, let him do it. His plan is solid, and I’ve watched him run my mine in Goldtown for a year. He’s honest, fair, and good at what he does. Plus, he’s a partner; you don’t have to pay him. Do what we did back in New Mexico. Once the mine is up and running, offer him a monthly draw against his dividends.”
Betsy looked at Jeremiah and said. “Is that acceptable to you?”
“Betsy, this is where I’ve always considered my home, it’s perfectly acceptable. I have enough in the bank to do that, but you need to understand the mine’s going to lose money for a while. I won’t take a salary until we are open and processing ore, but miners are going to be needed and they need to be paid. Which means using the funds in the Pike Mining Consortium account.”
Maude watched as her friend held out her hand toward Jeremiah. “I trust that you know what you’re doing, Jeremiah. Get our mine back up and running.”
Maude was proud of him. He shook her hand and solemnly said. “You can count on me. I’ll start making arrangements next week.”
Nathan asked the question Maude wondered too. “Why next week?”
“We need to deal with Fagan and his men and I need to deal with getting moved and settled this week.”
Nathan nodded. “I’ll take care of Fagan and his men, with Alexzander’s help of course.”
Alex smiled. “Glad to be of assistance.”
Jeremiah cleared his throat again and Maude realized he did it when he was nervous. “About that. I don’t know where Mr. Fagan has been staying but his men are trespassing on the Howard sisters’ land. The field behind the creek.”
“We’ll take care of them.”
With that Jeremiah stood and looked at her. “Would you be willing to take a little walk with me? I’d like your opinion on something.”
Maude’s face must have shown her curiosity. “If I’m going to be living here I think I should probably move out of the Hotel.”
Betsy spoke up. “There’s a house that the old mine manager’s family used that belongs to the mine. It’s yours; it’s the two-story at the far end of the mining town.”
“I appreciate it, Betsy, but I’ve already made an offer on a house. Just wanted to make sure it met with Maude’s approval.”
“Well, the offer stands if you want it.”
“We may save that for the guy I bring in as my assistant if he’s married. I’ll be spending partial days until the crews get here examining the houses the mine owns and making arrangements for the men and their families.”
“Do what you need to, Jeremiah. That’s part of why you’re here.”
Just as they started to exit the house they could see one of the men who had come with Fagan in the street. He saw Nathan come out of the house. “Nathan Ryder, I’m calling you out.”
Maude gasped. She’d heard of things like this and read about them in dime novels but Silverpines had never had a shootout as long as she’d lived there. Not on this side of town.
Nathan sighed. “Go away, kid. You don’t want to do this.”
The man stood straighter and walked into the middle of the street. “I do.”
“It’s a new age, kid, the way of the gunslinger is done. Just a couple of months and it’s a new century; this is the past, move on.”
“Not until you face me.”
“Why?” Nathan asked.
The man seemed confused. “What do you mean, why? To see who’s faster, of course.”
“That’s all you want to know, who is faster? Then I’ll tell you. You win, kid, you’re faster. Congratulations.”
“It don’t work that way and you know it.”
Nathan looked at the guy and sighed. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“I gotta know.”
Nathan nodded and stepped into the street. The younger man took his stance. “When you’re ready.”
Nathan shook his head. “Your dance, kid; you call the tune.”
The man’s hand clawed for his Colt when there came a blur from the Preacher
and the air was filled with the sound of a single gunshot. The younger man’s gun fell to the ground as blood ran down his arm. “You shot me in the shoulder.”
“Someone go get the doc.” Nathan pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and held it to the man’s wound. “Yes, I shot you in the shoulder. I told you, kid; it’s a new age. Time to stop all this killing. When you heal, come see me in New Mexico, I’ll teach you to wrangle horses. Do something with your life.”
Maude looked at Jeremiah who smiled. “He tries not to kill them if he can. He’s a pretty good judge of which ones will listen, and which ones won’t.”
Maude took his hand and they started down the street. “Are we really going to look at a house?”
“Yes, I bought it this morning with the understanding that you had to approve of it.”
They walked up to a house and Maude gasped. “You bought the house beside Ella Grace’s?”
Jeremiah smiled. “Of course, I know how important your family is to you. It’s just down the street from your other sister’s and the mine too. But it’s only a temporary house.”
She groaned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I plan to have someone rebuild your house. The one you always wanted.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t.”
Jeremiah looked at her. “Why not, Maude. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
She kissed him standing on the porch of the home he’d bought already. “That was a little girl’s fantasy, Jeremiah. This is perfect; this is a woman’s dream. The house beside my sister and just down the street from the orphanage. Let’s go see our house. This house. My grown-up dream. Just like you, Jeremiah Henderson, are my grown-up dream husband.”
Jeremiah groaned and they went inside, leaving the door open so as not to be too tempted to chase their dreams too far.
Eight
After walking through the house, Jeremiah told Maude that once it was ready for them to move in he’d marry her. She needed to get it clean and order furniture. So she’d gone next door to see her sister Ella Grace. She was already working less hours than she wanted to work because of her pregnancy. Her husband had gone a bit crazy and had hired a cook and one of the mine widows to clean for her. He’d tried to insist she was going to stay home with her feet up all the time, but Ella Grace put a stop to that. But to keep the peace she had agreed to shorter hours. So when she found out that Jeremiah had bought the house next to hers, and that once it was clean and furnished her sister would be getting married and moving in, she’d hurried over to help.
They cleaned the kitchen and dining room and made arrangements to work on the parlor and what would become Maude and Jeremiah’s bedroom the next day. Then they walked arm in arm to the mercantile. Jeremiah had already been there and set up an account authorizing Maude to purchase anything she wanted or needed. Millie had smiled when they came in. “So I hear congratulations are in order, Maude. Your fiancé said you’d be by to order furniture and that I should get whatever you want. Should we take these catalogues upstairs and let you look them over while we have tea?”
Maude froze at the oily voice that spoke from too close behind her. “So, I don’t get the job, the prize or even a kiss. Don’t seem right somehow.”
Millie and Ella Grace frowned. Maude stepped away from the smell of pomade before turning. “Mr. Fagan, it is inappropriate for you to stand so close.”
“Well, excuse me for my lack of manners. Still seems to me that you owe me something, missy. I come out here because you’re advertising for a mining engineer for a husband and I don’t even get consideration.”
Maude raised her chin, “You came out here at the request of a conman. I didn’t correspond with you. I certainly never indicated that you were the man I chose to respond to. We’ve had two interactions now, both of which you’ve initiated, and both times you’ve acted inappropriate. Please leave me alone.”
Lucius reached out and grabbed her chin. “I’ll leave for now but rest assured, missy, I’ll get my prize. One way or another, I’m not leaving this place empty handed.”
With that he released her and left.
Elle Grace and Millie looked at her. “I’m okay.”
“He threatened you.”
“He’s just upset. I can understand. He thought he’d landed a position and a spouse and turns out he was taken in by a conman. He’s leaving. Nathan Ryder said he’d see him out of town so I’m not worried.”
“I think you should be worried, Maude, that didn’t sound like a man planning to go away quietly.”
She shuddered. “Well, I pray he does. Now let’s not let his oily demeanor ruin our good time. Let’s go pick out my furniture.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“I don’t know yet. Jeremiah said he wanted to have things ready for us, so I have to get the house ready and you know Edith and Ethel will want the banns read and a dress ordered. If I had my way we’d be standing in the James’ parlor right now speaking our vows.” She blushed as she admitted it. Both woman laughed at her blush.
“Well, let’s get the furniture ordered so we can rush that right along then.”
By the time they were seated around Millie’s table the encounter with Lucius Fagan was forgotten.
Jeremiah was more than happy to be on his way to pick up Maude. Ella Grace had come to see him after her sister had returned to the Howard sisters’. She was concerned with Lucius Fagan and the threat he’d made against Maude. It had been enough for Nathan and Alexzander to find the man and escort him out of Silverpines. They’d both gotten on the train and escorted him to Astoria so now that was one less thing to worry about.
The tuffs that had come with him, they had left on their own when they found out that Lucius had no money to pay them and the lucrative salaries they’d been promised by Lunsford weren’t real. So, things were looking to return to as normal as things got in Silverpines nowadays. He’d spent the time Maude was at the house cleaning and then shopping by speaking to Hattie Richards, who was very helpful as a doctor.
She’d explained that she would get the local Chinook women to come and help by sewing up bags that the remains should be put in as they were pulled out of the ground. Miners or others digging to recover the bodies, or who might recover a body, should cover their nose and mouth with a bandana to try and breathe in as little of the germs that the decaying corpses might emit. Then everyone should wash with a solution of water and carbolic acid, that she and her husband would start ordering right away, at the end of each shift and before they touched anyone not involved in the recovery efforts.
Once sewn into the bags, the corpses would be doused with lye and placed in a special grave being dug at the back of the graveyard. After six months, there was no way to know who was who, so all those recovered would be buried together in a mass grave, again with the help of the Chinooks and a local gravedigger. The mayor and town council agreed to erect a special marker once the grave mound was finished, marking it as the place where those lost in those fateful two days were buried.
Wires had been sent to Goldtown and Ryder Mining in Colorado and crews were being assembled to be sent to Silverpines. The rest of Jeremiah’s day had been spent inspecting and making a list of repairs needed on the homes that were owned by the mine. Some of those, it turned out, had miner’s widows and orphans still living in them and Jeremiah had assured these women that they had nothing to fear; their homes were safe. That as far as he and the mine were concerned they were still mining families. He asked if any of them needed anything and took note of things that needed repairing, like windows that were cracked or doors that still wouldn’t shut.
He asked if the women had found work and realized most of them were moving on, they just hadn’t anywhere else to move to. He assured them that they could stay as long as they needed to, and the few that hadn’t found steady work he promised to have work for them before long. He’d put them to work feeding those removing debris or helping in the office
s at the mine. He knew Betsy and Nathan would agree; they were mine family and they would be treated as such.
But now that all that was done, he’d gone to the bath house and cleaned up, picked up his picnic supper and a quilt from Mrs. Donlinson and the cake from the bakery, and now was off to spend time with Maude. Plus, he figured a reckoning from Ethel and Edith about springing a wedding on them. They were lucky he was giving them time. If it were up to him he’d have taken Maude to Pastor James’ home today and she’d have gone to the Howard House just to move her things into his hotel room.
He pulled up to the Howard House and was met by Ethel with her rifle. “What are you going to do about this slimy no account who’s bothering our Maude, Boy?”
Jeremiah got out of the buggy. “I told you, Ethel, that I will keep her safe. Marshal Ryder and Marshal Sewell have personally escorted him out of Silverpines. They are going to drop him off in Astoria with a warning that showing back up in Silverpines will get him arrested.”
Ethel glared at him. “So you were aware and on top of the situation?”
“Yes Miss Ethel, I promise you I will always look out for Maude. She is as precious to me as she is to you and Miss Edith.”
The grumpy old woman nodded. “I apologize, Mister Henderson. I do get a bit worked up when it comes to hearing someone is threatening my girls. They each have a special place in our hearts, you know.”
He smiled and patted the older lady on the hand. “I do know that, Miss Ethel. It’s time to give me the care of Maude, though. I promise she will be safe, loved and cherished with me.”
Ethel nodded before frowning. “Yes she will, or I and my rifle will know the reason for it.”
Jeremiah chuckled and walked the older matriarch up to the house where he exchanged her arm for Maude’s. Then he settled her and they rode out to the hillside overlook where Jeremiah got out of the buggy and came around, helping Maude out. He pulled her into his arms and let his lips find hers. She responded to his kisses and soon they found themselves lost in each other, the picnic sitting in the back of the buggy uneaten. It was only when the horse moved trying to get at more sweet grass that they came up for air. Jeremiah reached in the back and handed Maude the quilt and basket. “You set up supper and I’ll let the horse loose to graze and rest while we eat and wait for the stars to come out.”
Wanted: Engineer (Silverpines Series Book 11) Page 7