“Then the muckers come, but that’s tomorrow, long before dawn, and they’ll clean the load out before anyone’s awake,” said Del. “There isn’t nobody gonna know the shaft runs three feet farther, and you’ve got some quartz for the mill.”
Something in it froze up in her.
“The court says I can’t remove ore,” she said.
“The court belongs to them that wants to drive you off,” Del replied.
She stared into the predawn gray, uncertain.
“There’s something in me that respects the law,” she said. “Whether or not it’s just. Thank you for coming. I’ll see what the day brings.”
“We’ve hiked a long way, ma’am.”
“I know that, and I’ll make it good somehow.”
“You’re letting yourself be run down like a fox,” Del said. “They have the hounds.”
“I know,” she said.
“Tip, he won’t be happy.”
“Tip is the kindest man I’ve met. Thank him for me.”
“You mind if we stash this stuff near the mine?”
“There’s nothing against it,” she said.
“We’ll find a place out of the way. It’ll be handy.”
She nodded. She’d rarely felt such a heaviness. It was as if she had thrown hope and success out the window. She watched them lead the mule up the mine trail and then disappear above. She returned to her shelter, feeling foolish, and spent an uneasy hour preparing for the day. She neither heard nor saw the powdermen and the mule retreat to the gulch. She thought that if Constable Roach heard about it, he’d be amused. The man was often amused, usually by the foolishness of others.
Why had she sent them away? She couldn’t say. They had offered to help her, to toil hard for hours, to expose themselves to danger, to dig her out of her troubles. They and the muckers who would shovel out the rock the following day. They and Tip Leary, shepherding her against impossible odds. And yet for some unfathomable reason she had chosen to heed the injunction of a biased court. She couldn’t explain her conduct to herself, and finally decided she was stubborn, a trait she knew a lot about, because every Scot she knew was stubborn, including Kermit. It flashed through her thoughts that she was being honorable, but that was silly. There is no honor in heeding the dictates of a judge looking after his relatives.
The heaviness stayed with her. It was upon her when two more men toiled up the grade, but these two she knew. They were Jerusalem Jones and Bum Carp, part of Roach’s little army, lackeys for the funeral home. Fear laced through her. She raced to her shelter and got the shotgun, and met them as they approached the forlorn flat, with its ash heap, and the canvas house built by Tim Leary’s friends.
They stared across a chasm, not in the earth but dividing the soul. She knew them better than they knew her.
“Hey, put that thing down, lady,” Jerusalem said. “We’ve been deputized. We’re township constables, old Roach pinned on the badges, and if you wave that shotgun at us, and threaten peace officers, you’re gonna regret it.”
“You have no right to be here.”
He grinned. “We’re moving in. Court says, you can’t take anything of value out, and we’re gonna see to it. Just keeping it honest, you see? You try to make off with property, like gold ore, that’s being contested in court, you’ll end up rattling bars in a cage for a couple of years. Get it?”
“Get off my property. If that’s what’s bothering you, camp in the gulch.”
“Naw. We thought we’d camp right there in that nice tent. Looks about right, don’t it, Bum?”
“This is my home. You’ll not stay here.”
“Looks like we’ve got us a domestic to keep us tidy during our stay,” Jerusalem said.
“Camp up at the mine if you must. That’s what you want anyway.”
“No, you got things of value you might make off with, like that shotgun. That could help pay debts, I think.”
They both wore sidearms. But neither was in any sort of uniform.
“We saw a couple of miners and a mule on the road. You know anything about them?” Bum asked.
“I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
They eyed each other. “Bum, go up and see if they’ve been messing with the mine.”
Bum trotted up the sharp slope to the mine head while March and her captor waited in silence. Some puffball clouds scraped distant peaks. When Bum returned he seemed agitated.
“They’re fixing to do it. They got timbering in there, ready for some serious digging. But the face wasn’t touched.”
Jerusalem grinned. “Seems like we got here just in time to prevent illegal stuff going on.” He turned to March. “You gonna stay here and cook for us and clean the outhouse?”
She saw how it would be.
“Leave that here,” Jerusalem said, nodding at the shotgun.
“You will not enter my home,” she said, and stood squarely in the doorway through the canvas.
“You call that a home?” Jerusalem said. “Canvas on poles?”
“You burnt my home,” she said. “You won’t burn this one.”
They grinned. “What are you talking about? Burnt your home? Are you resisting arrest or something?”
“Did you burn it?”
“What home?” Bum asked.
That was answer enough.
“Out!” she yelled, lifting the shotgun.
They rushed her, knocked her down, yanked the shotgun, pinned her down. She writhed and bucked, but there was Jerusalem, holding her to the earth.
He let loose of her and stood.
“You’ve got two choices. Either you walk out of here on your own, now, or we’ll walk you out, straight to the lockup in town, and charge you. Threatening a peace officer, that should keep you in irons.”
She clambered to her feet and walked away, their eyes following her as she made her way down the grade and into the gulch. She doubted she would ever see her property again. And in a little while, the clan would own the mine. And if she lingered in Marysville, they would find some way to harass or shame her.
It was a long, weary walk. She did not plunge directly into Marysville, but skirted it to the small green cemetery where Kermit lay, and sat quietly beside the raw earth that covered him.
“Have to say good-bye now, Kermit. You left me a good mine, and it’s gone,” she said. “You and I brought a good child into the world, and he’s gone,” she said. “And you and I, we made a good match, and you’re gone. I still have life and memories.”
She sat in the morning quiet a while, remembering her man, remembering the comfort of his arms. And then it was time to go.
She drifted toward Hermes Apollo’s office near the big mine, walked in, found him alone. He peered up from his desk, where he had been perusing a law book. He seemed less flamboyant there, except for the gaudy sleeve garter.
“I need the cash. From the ore you took to the mill,” she said, abruptly.
He sighed. “Actually, you owe them thirty-seven dollars. The batch was so small it cost them more to mill it than you got out of it.”
“How much gold in it?”
“Two and a half ounces. Fifty dollars refined, but milled gold has some impurities. Worth about seventeen an ounce. Now tell me the rest.”
“I’ve been driven out,” she said. “By the hooligans. The ones with the funeral home. The ones who burnt down my cabin. Jerusalem Jones and Bum Carp.”
She told him that story, and then told him about the earlier visit from two powdermen ready to do some blasting. And after a moment, she confessed:
“I wouldn’t let them. I suppose that was dumb.”
“Why wouldn’t you let them?”
“The court order.”
She had to tell him about that, too. He hadn’t heard.
“I’ll retract my offer to marry you,” he said. “I wanted the gold mine, and now it’s gone.”
She hadn’t expected to laugh, but she did.
“But you could live in
sin if you’d like,” he said.
“I may take you up on it, but not yet.”
“Meaning you’ll go dicker with the barkeep first. Let me see what’s to be done here. The Helena court’s a half day away, and there’s not much I can do against the local constabulary. But we could always elope.”
He was making a joke of it. That was the trouble with the gasbag. She whirled out, into the glare of midday sun, and headed for the saloon hoping Tip Leary would be about. He wasn’t. She was alone. It hit her hard. She would soon need food. And shelter. And something to wear. She could wait for Tip and beg for help. She could find some of those miners, now off-shift, and beg for help. Or she could fight, and maybe die trying if it came down to that.
There was the overhang on the slope off a way from the mine boundary. There was the root cellar, which she could reach furtively, at night. There was Kermit’s shirt and pants and boots at the overhang. There was Kermit’s own explosives stashed near the mine head. There was the stash of those powdermen, somewhere.
She might have found a welcome in town. Walk into any church and get help. Marry some male on the spot; she knew there were scores of lonely miners ready to tie the knot. But that was not to be. She turned her back on Marysville. Instead, she walked wearily up the familiar gulch, with its walls of anonymous dark forest climbing the slopes. She cut off at a familiar spot, and worked through brush, past a bear nesting ground, past a dripping spring, ever higher, until she reached the place where native rock broke out in jagged strata, and a few minutes more took her to the overhang, not far from her mining claim. This would be home. It would umbrella her. With a little effort she could add to its comfort, barricade the wind and weather.
Kermit’s britches and shirt were where she had left them. She climbed into them, again discovering the comfort of flannel and the odd liberation of pants. Even rolled-up pants. The next step was to steal food and maybe a blanket or some sort of cover. And after that, to fight her guerrilla war bare-handed and never quit and never surrender.
She was now as feral as a bitch wolf.
Fourteen
March McPhee discovered she had no trouble living in the wild. She found wild strawberries, as tiny as her fingernail, carpeting some hollows, and huckleberries, too. She smuggled potatoes and onions from her own root cellar, and even slipped into her canvas house to nab her clothing and blankets when no one was there. She collected her shovel and pick and hammer, and hauled them to her redoubt. These she used to build rock walls that effectively shielded her from the occasional mountain storm.
She ached now and then to slip into Marysville, but that would serve no purpose. There was nothing her friends could do for her. Tip Leary’s miners had tried again to work the mine, but Roach’s thugs had driven them off at gunpoint, and after that all forays into the property ceased. All this she had watched from several vantage points that enabled her to look down upon the mine head, and even the canvas house below. There wasn’t much that escaped her.
She felt free, most of the time, to wander the area of the mine head, picking up valuable items. One day she discovered a cache of explosives, DuPont powder, copper caps, Bickford fuse, plus some equipment, too, such as a crimper, an acetylene lamp, and a box of kitchen matches. All these things vanished from the mine, and were stowed strategically and safely in or near her redoubt.
The summer days and nights passed one by one. No doubt things were happening. Courts were issuing edicts. Property was being seized. Plans being laid to start the mine up, this time for its alleged new owners, known as the Roach Clan, or sometimes the Laidlow Group, but encompassing several families.
March continued to ghost around the property, noting exactly when its watchmen departed, as they occasionally did. And then she slipped in, pillaged the canvas cabin, and made off with even more items. A blanket, a cook pot, a fork and spoon. She always took care not to call attention to herself, and with each passing day learned how to glide through the dense forest, leave no mark of her presence, live off the land, and keep a watch over the mine.
The watchmen were bored and restless. One day she spotted them at the mine head. One was standing guard while the other was deep within. When at last he emerged, he was carrying a heavy burlap sack. So they were nipping ore themselves, no matter what the court’s edict might be, and in defiance of their employer, Uncle Mortimer Laidlow. That was the beginning. Soon they were gold-fevered, and spending more and more time at the mine head. They avoided any blasting, but managed to chisel and hammer ore out of the quartz seam. That would soon come to an end, though. The day would come when they could no longer sledge out quartz. The seam was narrow and surrounded by country rock that had to be blasted loose.
They must live somewhere in Marysville, and next time one of them walked into town she intended to shadow him. She was gradually thinking up some things she might do to make their long stay at her mine less comfortable. She was tempted to burn the canvas shelter, but that would only trigger a major manhunt for her. No, she would remain invisible if she could, and for as long as she could manage.
She didn’t know what she’d do when winter set in, but that was months away, and maybe she’d have her mine back by then. But that looked less and less probable to her. Loneliness dogged her. She starved for company, and was often tempted to slip into town just to talk to someone, anyone, such as Tip Leary. But for some reason she didn’t. She could not explain herself. She was becoming a hermit, even against her better judgment.
One day Jerusalem Jones headed into Marysville toting a heavy sack, no doubt full of her ore. She shadowed him, knowing how to be invisible, always on the slopes, never on the trail or the bottoms. He grew wary in town, paused whenever he saw anyone, and finally delivered the ore to the assayer. So, maybe this was just another assay. But she remembered that the assayer was capable of refining small quantities—for a price. Jones emerged in a while, without the sack of ore, and headed for the Laidlow Funeral Home, and disappeared there. She hesitated to follow him there, on a busy street, wearing Kermit’s britches and shirt, which would have scandalized anyone who saw her. So she retreated until twilight fell and she could move stealthily. She hoped to find some sign of Jones, but he had vanished.
She had evolved a way of ghosting straight through Marysville, using doorways, shadows, alleys, hedges, and now she eyed the city hall and its constabulary office. A single lamp burned in a window. Roach was nowhere to be found. She located him at Mac’s Eats, where he was dining importantly. She slipped into his sanctum and studied it. There were shotguns in a rack on the wall, and she was tempted to take one to replace the one stolen from her. But she didn’t. She noted the ease with which the office was breached. The constable was scarcely worried about crime in the village. She spotted a key ring, and tried the key in the cell lock, and found it threw the bolt. She returned the key ring, and looked for another, which she found in a desk drawer. She felt bad about snooping. The town was quiet, and she felt she was violating its peace, just by poking around the empty constabulary.
She yearned to talk to Tip Leary, but that would place her there, and she decided against it. She slipped into the fullness of night, pausing at shadowed doors to make sure the coast was clear. Marysville was sleepy; Constable Roach had little more to do than keep rowdy boys from tormenting dogs.
She watched him finish his meal at the restaurant, leave without paying, and amble along the street, trying the doors of businesses without scaring up an army of thugs. When he reached the brightly lit funeral home, he turned in, and she saw him welcomed there by his brother-in-law, and saw several others, all male, through the window. She edged closer hoping to hear, since it was summer and most of the sash windows in Marysville were opened wide to catch any stray breeze. But she couldn’t make out the conversation. One of those present was Jerusalem Jones, and she wondered whether he told them about taking ore samples to the assayer. Maybe he had been asked to do just that; then again, she doubted it.
Jones left
, started through pale moonlight toward the mine, and she shadowed him all the way. He was unsuspecting, and never turned to see who or what might be coming along behind a hundred yards or so. He reached the grade leading to the McPhee, climbed it, and entered the canvas shelter. She edged around to the rear, glad there were no dogs, and listened to Jones and Carp. It proved to be easy. The canvas obscured nothing but herself, there in the dark.
“Court’s seized the mine; we’re pretty much through here. There’s no fight. The woman’s gone. Soon as the boss gets it, he’ll be digging ore. If we’re going to do it, we’d better set to work. You game?” Jones asked.
“Ah, they’ll need a few days to hire a crew, and even then they’ll fool around, getting equipment.”
“Naw, they’ll move fast.”
“What did the assayer say?”
“Well, that’s not so good. He pulled out some quartz, put on his spectacles, and studied it some. From the McPhee Mine? That’s what he asked. I didn’t want to say, so he pulled out a pad of forms. Sign the form, sez he. So I study on the form, and it authorizes him to do an assay and take a fee for it, and it sez the signer is owner or authorized agent, and he stares at me. I sez, I’ll check with the owner, and hold off. So he nods, and the ore’s in there waiting for a signature on a form, and I am thinking maybe putting my name on the line, that’s just asking for it, not so much because of the woman but because of the family.”
“So it’s just sitting there? Could we take it to the mill for a custom milling?”
“Beats me. We’d need a lot more ore to make a full load for custom milling.”
“Not much time for that—unless we start now.”
“I’m tired. I’ve walked all day. Took twenty, thirty pounds of ore down there. And now you want to go dig a ton out.”
“You got any better idea?”
She didn’t hear the answer. The man probably just shook his head.
“If we don’t get it now, someone else will. And we’ll lose our only chance,” Bum said. “It don’t matter if you’re halfway worn out. Nothing matters but digging it out while we can. We’ll put in a hard night, for sure, but it’s worth it. You and me, we’ll run a ton through the mill down there, and we’ll put enough in our britches to live like kings.”
Easy Pickings Page 9