by Jake Logan
“All yours, old-timer,” Slocum said. “A word of advice. Don’t shoot at men traveling this road. One of them’s likely to do more than shoot off the heel of your boot.” Slocum sheathed his Winchester and waited for the miner to stalk off, grumbling as he went.
Slocum got back on the road with solid information about a large, profitable mining operation sure to satisfy Cheswick’s need to see gold pulled from hard rock. Barely had he ridden a mile when he saw a rider far ahead of him. Something about the way the man sat his horse turned Slocum wary. He reached around and pulled his field glasses from his saddlebags. When he put them to his eyes, he saw a man staring back at him through another pair of field glasses.
“So you’ve turned up again like a bad penny,” Slocum said softly. He was fairly sure he recognized the man ahead as the rider he had played cat and mouse with in the valley. He put away his binoculars and rode forward, not hurrying but not slowing either. He wanted to see what the mysterious rider would do.
It came as no surprise when the man finally lowered his own field glasses and galloped away, heading into the hills to the right of the road. When Slocum reached the spot where the man had ridden away, he dismounted, groaned at the effort, and stretched to work out the kinks in his muscles. He decided not to kneel and study the trail because standing again would be hard, with his ribs as bruised as they were. Slocum pulled his hat brim down to shield his eyes, and tried to find the rider in the midst of rocks and vegetation that stretched all the way to the top of a low ridge.
It took a considerable amount of willpower not to keep on his trail. Following anyone through such rocky terrain was difficult, but Slocum wondered why the man was so skittish. He wasn’t up to any good, but unlike the crazy old miner, he hadn’t shot at Slocum. This made Slocum decide to return to Cheswick and get the Britisher up to the Climax Mine so he could get a taste of another curious aspect of American culture. Let the rider spy all he wanted, as long as he didn’t take potshots at Slocum.
After spending the night near a stream and sleeping fitfully because of his bruised body, Slocum rode back to Cheswick’s camp. Although the ride was uneventful, he kept looking over his shoulder, and several times doubled back to see if he was being followed. If he was, whoever tracked him hid better than any Apache could. Slocum was satisfied he had returned to Cheswick without bringing a parade of others with him.
“You made good time, Slocum,” Cheswick greeted. The man wore a hunting jacket with a padded shoulder where the butt of his elephant rifle could rest. Slocum didn’t miss how the rifle had crushed the leather patch from repeated firing. “Did you find a big mine?”
“The Climax is supposed to have a dozen or so men working it. That’s a huge mine for this part of Nevada,” Slocum said. He swung down to the ground, steadier now than he had been even a day earlier. He would be back to fighting trim before he knew it.
“The Climax,” Cheswick said, rolling the name over and over on his tongue as if he savored a fine wine. “That’s it. Yes, that’s the one I must visit.”
“With your wagons and gear, it’ll be two or three days of hard travel. Easy enough the first day getting out of the valley. Then the road gets steep and narrow up into the mountains.”
“We can travel much lighter,” Cheswick said, as if he had already decided the matter before Slocum spoke. “Quinton can stay here in this camp. You and I and Abigail will ride on, with a pack animal or two.”
“I’m not your servant,” Slocum said after a moment of thinking about what the man meant.
“You are my scout. I’m not sure I would trust you to cook my meals. Abigail can do that.”
Slocum started to ask if Abigail could cook in a kitchen, much less on a campfire under the stars, but he held his tongue. He wasn’t averse to doing the cooking, but he drew the line at all the other menial chores Quinton took care of in the camp.
“You see anything of the two that hightailed it during the Paiute attack?” Slocum asked.
“What other two? Oh, the scurrilous servants who abandoned me when danger reared its ugly head? No, I’ve seen nothing of them and if I do, they’re in for a sound thrashing.” Cheswick clenched his hands as if he had one of the servant’s necks under his fingers. He relaxed when he realized Slocum was staring at him and his mock execution. “Go on. Pack up. We’ll hit the trail, as you say, right away.”
“Tomorrow at daybreak,” Slocum said. “I’m tuckered out, and my horse needs to rest.”
“Get another. I don’t know why you ride that nag.” Cheswick looked as if he might be sick as he eyed the mare standing patiently a few yards away.
“She suits me,” Slocum said. “Dawn.”
“Yes, yes, dawn tomorrow,” Cheswick said. As Slocum went to find himself a spot to make his own camp, he saw Cheswick take a sheet of paper from a pocket and stare at it. A slow smile curled his lips. Then he put the paper back where it had been. He walked away, whistling some jaunty tune Slocum almost recognized.
“The trail is quite steep, isn’t it, John?” Abigail Cheswick looked up the sheer face of the mountain at the road painstakingly clawed onto its face.
“The Climax Mine’s almost at the summit,” he said. “We’re rested enough to make the entire trip on the road by noon.”
“That’s three hours,” she said uneasily. Abigail turned to her brother and clutched at his arm. “Do we have to go, William? All of us?”
“Yes, my dear, all of us. You heard what Slocum said about the murderous miner taking shots at him.”
“But he was miles back down the road, and we didn’t see him.” She looked up apprehensively at the steep road.
“There, there, my dear,” Cheswick said, pulling her close and giving her a long kiss on the lips that Slocum found disconcerting, though Abigail did not resist. They broke off the kiss. Cheswick looked at Slocum with a bravado that would have meant a gunfight if any Westerner had flashed that look his way. That look dared Slocum to say a word, to make a move.
“Let’s ride,” Slocum said. This produced a sharp laugh on Cheswick’s part. He and Abigail exchanged looks that Slocum couldn’t decipher and didn’t much want to. For all her beauty, Abigail Cheswick had strange ways about her.
Cheswick rode ahead, letting Slocum hang back with Abigail between them on the narrow trail. Slocum guessed a narrow wagon might go up and down the road to supply the mine and miners at the top, but anything larger would tumble down the mountainside.
“I’m so fearful of heights,” Abigail said. “When William and I went to Switzerland, I could not bear to go up the slopes and stayed in Zurich.” She looked pale and kept her eyes averted from the increasingly large drop on their right.
“You don’t have any business up there,” Slocum said, pointing to the area where the Climax Mine chewed away at the mountain. Clouds drifted low and occasionally obscured the area. “Wait at the base of the mountain. The old coot who took a shot at me won’t bother you.”
“I’ll keep going,” she said. Abigail swallowed hard, then resolve flooded into her. Slocum saw her shoulders pull back and her jaw tense. “It’s something I want to do.”
They rode in silence for an hour, each lost in his or her own thoughts, with Slocum thinking a great deal about how vulnerable any rider was on the way to the summit. The road curled halfway around the mountain, giving a drop of a hundred feet or more into a canyon. From what Slocum could see below, several men and their horses had tumbled off the road here. Their picked-white bones gleamed below in the noonday sun, giving mute testimony to the dangers of mining—and just getting to the mine. He didn’t bother pointing them out to Abigail, and Cheswick rode ahead as if he couldn’t wait to get to the top. Slocum shared that ambition, but probably not for the same reason. He was tired and still ached. What Cheswick’s reasons were, he kept to himself.
“Men ahead,” Abigail said. “William, wait. Be careful!”
Her brother ignored her and rode directly toward the tight knot of men dressed in
flannel shirts and canvas pants, as if this was a uniform and they were all dutiful soldiers. In a way, Slocum knew, this was close to the truth. Working in a mine was cold, dirty work and took a toll on clothing as well as men. The way they dressed was both durable and warm.
Slocum touched his six-shooter but did not draw. Miners were notoriously clannish, and the ones that didn’t work in companies turned into hermits, like the one he had met at the base of the road.
“I say, old chaps, put down those weapons. I am here to experience your pitiful condition.”
Slocum stopped beside Cheswick and leaned forward. Left to his own devices, Cheswick would have the miners in a fury and throwing them off the side of the mountain.
“Which of you’s Charlie?” Slocum asked. “I got a message from his former partner down below at the Ole Betsy Mine.”
“That’s me. I’m Charlie Gustav.” A man elbowed his way forward. “What’s the message?”
“Your former partner apologizes.” Slocum had no idea what had caused the break. It might have been the lack of gold in the mine, but more likely it was something personal. Men turned into sandpaper, grinding away at each other until tempers rubbed thin and arguments erupted on a daily schedule about the same things.
“The hell you say. You tell that old fool that he’s plumb crazy and I ain’t returnin’!”
“I’ll convey the message when I can. Just happened I was coming this way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever run into him.”
“He knowed you was comin’ up here?”
Slocum nodded.
“I’ll be danged. Maybe he’s not as loony as I thought.”
Charlie and two others put their heads together and argued. Slocum couldn’t care less about the subject of the argument. All he knew was that by establishing some rapport he had defused a powder keg Cheswick had insisted on lighting.
To Cheswick, he said softly, “They’re nervy types. You’ve got to go slow getting to know them.”
“Liquor!” Cheswick called. “I want to drink with you—” He jerked when Slocum elbowed him in the ribs to keep him from insulting the miners again.
“You wanna split a bottle with us? How come?” Charlie peered up at Cheswick. “We ain’t got nuthin’ you want.”
“Your company,” Cheswick said. “I desire your company.”
“The Climax Mine’s not fer sale,” Charlie said. “Even if it was, we can’t sell it. We only work for Mr. Dumont, and he’s over in San Francisco.”
“He thinks you meant the company that owns the mine,” Slocum explained when he saw Cheswick’s confusion.
“You, my good man, I want to drink with you. And you and you!” Cheswick pulled out two bottles of rye from his saddlebags and held them up, one in each hand.
A cheer went up. There had never been a miner who wouldn’t partake of a free drink, no matter the source. Slocum had to admit Cheswick had won them over after a rocky start. The Brit dropped off his horse and called over his shoulder, “Be a good fellow, Slocum, and tend my horse.”
“John, please,” Abigail said from behind him. She saw how Slocum had tensed. He had told Cheswick he wasn’t another servant and wouldn’t be treated like one. “It’s his way. He doesn’t know any better.”
“He should learn,” Slocum said, but he bent down and grabbed the reins. He led the horse to a trough and let it drink. He swung from the saddle and stretched.
“I could work out some of those kinks. Or perhaps I could straighten out parts that needed it,” Abigail said.
“That the payment for tending his horse?” Slocum spoke more harshly than he had intended, and Abigail recoiled. To his surprise, she smiled and nodded.
“When we get a chance. It seems I am something of a celebrity like William.”
Slocum looked past Abigail, and saw a half dozen miners staring at her. Women in mining camps were as rare as hen’s teeth.
“Come on,” Slocum said after letting his horse drink. He led the mare and Cheswick’s stallion to a hitching post, then helped Abigail down. “We should see what trouble your brother’s got himself into.”
They went to a building about ready to fall down. There wasn’t a square joint anywhere—not in the doorway or the roof. The prevailing wind had worked its airy magic too long and was gradually pushing the clapboard building flat. The men inside the rude mess hall weren’t the least bit interested in that. The bottles making the rounds were the only things in their lives.
“These are notable drinking companions, Slocum. Come, join us.” William grinned crookedly and said to his sister, “You may join us also, Abigail.”
“I’ll watch,” she said. Her nose wrinkled in distaste, as much at the miners as at her brother’s attitude toward her.
Slocum settled down next to Charlie, and listened to the men gossiping like women at a quilting bee. He realized that Cheswick was doing the same thing, prodding with a question or two now and then, but mostly letting the men spill all the details of their dreary lives.
“How come you’re not in the mine working?” Slocum asked.
“Well, it’s like this,” Charlie said. “We been workin’ so danged hard, we need more dynamite to blast and our tools have gone dull. We got explosives and files to sharpen our picks on the way up.”
“Do tell,” Slocum said. The men hadn’t been loafing when Cheswick had ridden up. They were outside the mine sorting ore that had been pulled from the side of the mountain. Some chore always existed, even if it didn’t involve being buried under tons of rock.
“Best danged freighter in the territory’s bringin’ ever’thin’ we need up the road.”
“We didn’t see anybody. How long’s it going to be until he gets supplies to you?”
“You came up from the valley side. The road goes down the mountain the other way, into Virginia City.”
Slocum tried not to react. He had not realized the Climax Mine was so near the source of much of his trouble.
“How long’s it take to get up from town?”
“A day, maybe two, but ole Pete’s a masterful driver. He can git them mules of his to pull twice what anyone else can. And fast!”
“Sounds like the kind of freighter you want supplying you,” Slocum said, his attention drifting to the others at the long, stained table that was as poorly built as the building itself. Whatever carpenter had put together the furniture and building had lacked real skill, or maybe was a tad near-sighted.
“Yup. Be here by noon tomorrow, or so he says. That lets us have a holiday. Yer buddy down there, he’s a pistol, ain’t he?”
Slocum saw that Cheswick was singing a bawdy song and had his arms around the shoulders of the men on either side of him. Standing behind him, Abigail had her arms crossed and was glaring at him.
“Slocum!” Cheswick bellowed from the other end of the table. “Tomorrow morn’s the time. They’ll let me go into the mine and perhaps even bring out a nugget.”
“Big as a hen’s egg,” said the miner on Cheswick’s right. This produced a round of laughter. “Cain’t let him take anything bigger ’n that or it comes out of our pay!”
This caused even more boisterous laughter. Somewhere in the crowd of miners, a supervisor would watch to be sure such a thing never happened, but it was perfect for joshing the generous foreigner.
Slocum actually sampled the whiskey when the almost empty bottle made its way around the table to him. After Cheswick saw this mine, there’d be no more reason for him to employ a scout.
Slocum jumped to his feet, hand going to the six-shooter at his hip when the door slammed open and a bull-throated roar filled the room.
“What the hell’s goin’ on here? Why ain’t you all workin’ instead of sittin on your fat asses?”
The man was short and built like a brick shit house and looked as mad as anyone Slocum had ever seen.
“That there’s our foreman, Bold Max,” muttered Charlie from the table. “We’re in fer it now.”
10
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�I’m gonna dock the lot of you a day’s pay for bein’ drunk on the job!”
“Mr. Carson,” Slocum said, getting up. “It’s not their fault. My employer, William Cheswick, is a traveler from England and heard about the Climax Mine.”
“So?” Bold Max Carson thrust out his chin like a bulldog and glared up at Slocum.
“He wanted to see the famed operation and meet its supervisor. That’d be you.”
“Why?”
“You’re the most famous mine foreman in Nevada, that’s why,” Slocum said. “He’s thinking of expanding the mines he owns and might need you to supervise a half dozen operations this size.”
“Me?”
Slocum decided Bold Max had earned his nickname doing something other than speaking. He motioned for Abigail to come over.
“Lord William and his sister, Lady Abigail, are touring the West hunting for properties to buy. They’re from England.”
Bold Max eyed Cheswick and dismissed him as a fop, but the mine foreman couldn’t as easily take his eyes off Abigail. The woman moved like a dream and acted like a princess as she worked to charm him. Bold Max had probably never seen her ilk before, and she reveled in behaving like royalty.
As Carson and Abigail talked, or rather as Abigail talked and the foreman listened, Cheswick took Slocum by the arm and moved him to the side of the room.
“Well done, Slocum. You’ve quite a quick wit about you.”
“Any smoothing of ruffled feathers is going to be done by your sister,” Slocum said.
“Oh, she is quite good at that,” Cheswick said. “I have discovered that a freight wagon is on the way here from Virginia City.”
“Name’s Pete and the miners think highly of him. So?”
“Ride down the trail and meet him. I believe he is carrying something of great value to me.”
“What’d that be?” Slocum looked suspiciously at the Brit.
“That’s not for you to question,” Cheswick said sharply. “Do as I request. There’ll be a bonus in it for you if this Pete arrives with the special package.”