Mining for Justice

by Kathleen Ernst

  Then she looked at Claudia. “Have you heard anything about Rita? Was she involved?”

  “I haven’t heard,” Claudia said. “But I do have news. Loren’s resigning as site director.”

  “Resigning?” Chloe echoed. “Because of the closure threat? What happened yesterday wasn’t his fault.”

  “He disappeared yesterday afternoon because, in his words, he’d ‘reached the end of his rope,’” Claudia told them. “He’s realized he doesn’t want to be an administrator. He hopes to find a site that’s open year-round and pays a living wage to interpreters.”

  “Yikes.” Chloe took that in. Not everyone would be willing to step down the ladder a rung or three. “But what does that mean for you?”

  “I suppose I’ll be acting director for a while.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Chloe told her. Claudia had enough problems without assuming huge new responsibilities.

  “It’ll be all right,” Claudia said. “I love the site. I know the site better than anyone. The community support has been amazing. I’m optimistic.”

  “Good for you,” Tamsin said.

  “After what could have happened yesterday”—Claudia leaned over and kissed the top of Holly’s head—“all the other problems suddenly seem more manageable. I can face anything as long as Holly’s safe.”

  The waitress returned. Claudia ordered an omelet for herself and pancakes for Holly.

  “I’d like to order something else,” Adam announced. “Figgy hobbin for everyone.”

  Tamsin looked askance. “Figgy hobbin for breakfast?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Chloe said. “Absolutely.” Poor people in Cornwall centuries earlier might not have thought much of their figgy hobbin, but she’d been wanting to try what Tamsin had called “a sweet version made with raisins and caramel sauce” all week.

  When they slid from the booth some time later, Claudia leaned close. “Gerald was looking for you after all the commotion yesterday. Did he find you?”

  “He did.” After seeking Chloe out, the interpreter had scuffed his feet, stared at his hands, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

  Chloe hadn’t been sure if he was apologizing for leaving the nasty note, for being rude, or on general principles. “For what?”

  Evidently incapable of articulating the deed, Gerald pointed at her totebag.

  “You wrote that nasty note.”

  He nodded.

  “It was unkind,” Chloe had said, “but we’re good now.” After everything else, the childish note seemed immaterial.

  Now Claudia gave Chloe a hug. “Thank you for protecting Holly yesterday.”

  “I’m just grateful that everyone’s alright,” Chloe said fervently. “And listen, if you start feeling overwhelmed at the site, call me and I’ll come down again.”

  “That would be great.”

  Chloe dared give Holly a quick hug. “It was wonderful to meet you.” Holly smiled.

  “Chloe,” Tamsin said, as Adam helped her into her jacket, “Midge called from the archives yesterday afternoon. It flew right out of my head last night. She has something for you to see, and said she’d leave it at the library for you.”

  “I’ll stop by,” Chloe said. “See you later.”

  Once alone on the sidewalk, however, she turned in the opposite direction of the library. This was her last day in Mineral Point. There was something she wanted to do.

  Ten minutes later Chloe reached the old cemetery. She started walking the grounds, trying to read the cracked and faded headstones. Maybe half an hour later she spotted a familiar name.

  Andrew Pascoe had died in 1900 and been buried beside his wife. Just to the right was a leaning stone with a sculpted finger pointed to heaven above a chiseled inscription:

  Mary Pascoe

  b. 1816, Camborne Parish, Cornwall

  d. August 24, 1911

  Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.

  Esther 4:14

  Interesting choice of verse, Chloe thought. Had Mary Pascoe met the moment for which she had been created?

  Chloe pressed one palm on the cold stone. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to learn more about you,” she told Mary softly. “I think you’re awesome to have immigrated so early and survived for so long. And done so much good along the way. It can’t have been easy.”

  The stone to the right of Mary’s appeared to be much older. Chloe knelt, squinting at the weathered inscription. Finally she tore a piece of paper from the notebook in her totebag and gently held it over what she thought was the name on the stone. She went back and forth lightly with a dull pencil also found in her bag, then considered what emerged. J, o … and was that a v, or an r?

  “ … Oh, no.” Chloe realized the obvious with dismay.

  With a little more work she decoded the rest.

  Jory Pascoe

  Born 1817, Camborne Parish, Cornwall

  Died March 11, 1838

  Chloe sat back on her heels. Jory Pascoe had only been twenty-one when he died. Had his death been the result of an epidemic? A mining accident?

  Or—or had Jory Pascoe been injured in a fight? The fight that had led to a man being buried in the Chy Looan root cellar?

  Chloe thrummed with excitement. With Jory’s death date in hand, maybe—just maybe—she could find a newspaper article that would suggest an identity for the skeleton in Chy Looan after all.

  “Any questions?” Roel­ke looked around the circle of cops crowded into the Eagle station. He didn’t expect to find more than two people inside the house on Hackberry Lane, but no way was he screwing this up by not having enough manpower.

  Zietz had made her final buy around lunchtime, and all had gone according to plan. He’d made a map of the yard and, with details she’d provided, produced a basic sketch of the interior. He’d assigned his colleagues to locations around the perimeter. He’d talked through who’d do what once inside, and how he hoped it would all go down.

  Since no one had any questions, he glanced at Chief. The older man gave him a tiny nod: You got this. It’s all yours.

  Roel­ke was ready. “All right. Let’s go.” He led the way out the back door. No point in telegraphing the fact that something potentially big was about to go down in Eagle.

  Outside, Blakely caught up with him. “Things still tense between your cousin and her ex?”

  Roel­ke could hear someone chopping up fallen leaves with a lawnmower. “Yes. They are.”

  The other man muttered something beneath his breath. “All the Palmyra guys are keeping an eye on her place,” he assured Roel­ke. “Sooner or later Raymo will screw up bad enough for us to arrest him. You can bet I’ll be waiting for him to leave his hunting club meeting at Mickey’s tomorrow. Chances are very good he’ll be drunk enough I can at least nail him for DUI.”

  “That would be good,” Roel­ke said. But nailing Raymo for driving under the influence would be little more than a petty annoyance, one that would do nothing to keep him away from Libby’s house. It wasn’t enough. Libby deserved to feel safe.

  Thirty-Two

  october 1837

  I just want to feel safe, Mary thought. She eased the front curtain over a smidge and peeked outside. Parnell Peavey stood in the street, arms folded, feet planted wide, scowling at Chy Looan.

  Mary turned away. The door was barred. There was nothing the man could do. If he was still there when Andrew and Jory came down the hill with Will, they’d run him off. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  She crouched and added fuel to the fire. It was extravagance, but she needed to drive the chill from her bones. The autumn afternoon was cold, the sun already sinking in the western sky, and Parnell Peavey was waiting to get what—who—he was after.

  Then Mary tiptoed up the steps to check on the children. A candle burned in the sticking tommy Jory had stab
bed into a beam. In the wavering shadows Ida, who’d been keeping Ezekiel company, was recounting a tale Ruan had once told her about piskies.

  Mary paused, feeling the familiar ache flame inside. She hadn’t seen Ruan since they’d argued about Ezekiel a month earlier. Part of her longed to run to his smithy and somehow make things right. The other part of her was still hurt, and horrified, that Ruan had made her choose between helping Ezekiel and marrying him. Every time she looked at the boy, she knew she couldn’t possibly have made any other choice.

  “Are piskies like knackers?” Ezekiel asked.

  “Knackers live in the mines,” Ida reminded him. “Piskies live on the moors. They lead travelers in circles until they get lost.”

  “That’s mean!”

  “They only do that if the travelers are not good people,” Ida assured him earnestly. “Piskies are kind to people who are old or crippled. Or hurt like you.”

  Mary swiped at her eyes and went on up the stairs. The children were both sitting on the mattress. The sight of them together eased her heartache.

  Ida had initially been shy about spending time with Ezekiel, but over the weeks she’d crept closer. She volunteered to take him food or water. Then she began lingering, singing him to sleep, telling stories, teaching him a game of her own devising played with colored pebbles. Mary had struggled to understand his dialect, which was melodious but thick and soft, but Ida was already chattering easily with him.

  “Neither one of you has to worry about piskies,” Mary told them now. “Ida, it’s time to start supper. Please go downstairs and begin peeling the potatoes I left on the table.”

  Once the girl was gone, Mary crouched beside the makeshift bed. “It’s good to see you sitting up, Ezekiel. May I see your back?”

  He swiveled obligingly, and she lifted his shirt. Although the welts made her sick with fury, the wounds were closed now. “You’ve mended well.”

  “Yes, Miss Mary.”

  “Ezekiel … ” She hesitated, but the question had tormented her. “Are there other children working Mr. Peavey’s mine?”

  He shook his head. “I think he just brought me because my mama died.”

  “What about your father?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Don’t know, Mary thought. At least she knew what had happened to the people she grieved. “Tomorrow, I think you can come downstairs for a while. Would you like that?”

  “What about Massa Peavey?”

  That is the question, Mary thought. “You don’t want to go back to him, do you?”

  Ezekiel shook his head vigorously.

  “We have to keep you hidden, then. I’ll keep the curtains closed.”

  In the shadows, Ezekiel’s expression was old beyond his years. “If Massa Peavey finds me now, he’s like to beat the life out of me.”

  “Why did he beat you?”

  “He done said I didn’t dig fast enough.”

  “And … why did Mr. Peavey leave you down the mineshaft that night?”

  “After being whipped my back be hurtin’ so bad I could hardly dig at all. That’s why. Said I could think about digging, all night.”

  There should be laws to protect children, Mary thought. But she knew of no such laws, even for white children. For Ezekiel, Peavey was the law.

  She put a hand on his head, feeling the texture of his hair. “We’ll keep you safe,” she promised. She prayed every day for God’s help in protecting this boy. “Now, I must go help Ida. I’ll bring your supper up later.” She stood, hating how the wind whistled around the eaves, and how the stone walls held the chill.

  “Thank you, Miss Mary.” Ezekiel curled up on his side and pulled the blanket up to his chin.

  It was chilly downstairs too. Jory and Will had opened the back wall and were, as time permitted, digging a root cellar into the hill behind the house. But they hadn’t hung a door yet, and drafts crept from the cellar.

  She crouched by the bed she shared with Ida and groped underneath until her hand hit metal. She drew out the foot warmer Ruan had made for her, inscribed with hearts.

  Mary traced them with one finger. She missed Ruan.

  Well. A life with Ruan was not to be. She briskly carried the warmer to the hearth, filled it with hot chirks, wrapped it in her old shawl, and carried it upstairs for Ezekiel.

  Peavey had disappeared by the time Mary’s brothers and Will came down the hill that evening, but Andrew stopped inside anyway. “Do you want supper?” Mary asked. “I made potato cakes.”

  “No, I’ve got supper waiting at home, but … ” He cocked his head toward the table. “I’ll sit with you. We need to talk.”

  Ida had already set the table with tin plates and cups. “What’s wrong?” Mary asked, as she passed a plate heaped with the potato cakes.

  “The sheriff sought me out today,” Andrew began. “Peavey asked him to search Chy Looan for the boy.”

  Fear, hot and sour, crawled up Mary’s throat. “He’s coming?”

  “No. He told Peavey he had no call to search a home without evidence of some crime. I was seen with Ezekiel, and my home was searched. That’s all he’ll do without cause.”

  Jory helped himself to several potato cakes. “Then we mustn’t give him cause.”

  “I agree, but … ” Andrew ran a hand over his head. “How long can you hide a child?”

  “As long as it takes,” Mary said sharply. “Peavey’s a sucker, right? He’ll go back to Missouri before the snows come.”

  “Men say he didn’t fare well this season,” Will put in. He drained his mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “I doubt he did,” Andrew agreed. “But I don’t think he’ll give up, Mary. Slavery is legal where he comes from. Ezekiel was his possession. Property worth money. If he can prove the boy is here—”

  “We won’t let him find proof.” Mary pushed her plate away, no longer hungry.

  A log in the fire popped. Ida looked around the table with sad eyes. Mary wished she could shield the girl from this horrid situation. But Ida needed to understand it, because Ezekiel’s safety depended in part on her.

  Finally Andrew said, “I hold God’s law above all, and I don’t think it Christian to own slaves. But at the same time … you can’t keep Ezekiel hidden forever, Mary. That’s no life for him either.”

  Mary inhaled a slow breath, let it out again. Andrew’s observation was fair. But she simply couldn’t bear to give up on Ezekiel. “It’s just for a while. We have nowhere else to send him. Let’s wait and see if Peavey leaves.”

  Thirty-Three

  Roel­ke tried not to let his nervous excitement show as they approached the house on Hackberry Lane. He was prepared … but had no way of knowing for sure what they’d find inside, or how the homeowners might react.

  He gestured at the officers designated to stay outside, and they silently fanned out. Roel­ke trotted up the front steps with Skeet and Chief Naborski behind him. He hadn’t been able to get a no-knock warrant because the suspects had no known history of violence. But that was good, right?

  He hammered the door three times and bellowed, “Police!” The door opened almost instantly. A man stared at them, slack-jawed with astonishment. Before the man could react, Roel­ke shoved inside.

  The action was over fast. Greg Trieloff made a mad dash toward the back door, and was tackled and cuffed by Roel­ke for his trouble. Marjorie Trieloff screamed like a banshee, and was cuffed by Skeet for her trouble. Once the pair was in custody two of the other cops escorted them to separate squad cars, and stayed to babysit them during the search.

  Roel­ke took the bedroom. He ripped the bed apart first, as he always did; once that was clear everything else in the room could be piled on the mattress. Next, the dresser and—jackpot. The idiots weren’t even creative, Roel­ke thought, with a twinge of mild disappointmen
t. The top drawer held a large hoard of marijuana packaged in separate baggies, and a scale, which meant he could make a good case that the weed was intended for resale. In the next drawer he found five, maybe six pounds of crack, also divvied into small plastic bags. And in the bottom drawer he discovered money, rubber banded in stacks. A quick count showed over thirty thousand dollars.

  Holy toboggans.

  “Chief?” he called. When his boss came into the bedroom, Roel­ke showed him both drugs and cash.

  The older man’s craggy face relaxed into a rare, satisfied smile. “Well done, Officer McKenna. Well done.”

  At the Mineral Point archives Chloe found an elderly man on duty. “Oh, yes,” he said when Chloe introduced herself. “Midge left this for you.” He picked up a small carton on the desk and handed it over.

  “Thanks,” Chloe said. “Before I dig into this, though, I’d like to see microfilm from the 1838 Miners’ Free Press.”

  “We don’t have any newspapers from that year.”

  “You don’t?” Chloe felt crushed. “I’ve looked at 1837.”

  He nodded. “Yes, we do have those. Then we jump to the Mineral Point Free Press for 1843, and then the Mineral Point Democrat for 1845, and then—”

  “I see.” Jory had died in 1838. Evidently any relevant reports regarding his death had died with him.

  “It’s not like somebody was systematically saving newspapers for posterity back then.” The man sounded a tad defensive. “We’re lucky to have anything from the territorial period.”

  “Yes, I do understand that,” Chloe assured him. “Thank you.”

  She settled at one of the worktables with the box Midge had left. A scribbled note was taped to the top:

  Chloe,

  Something nagged at me about Theophilus George. Bob Neal saved everything he could get his hands on, bless his heart, and gave us such a large collection of stuff that we don’t have everything cataloged yet. I had this feeling that something useful might still be hidden away. I went on the hunt, and voila!