Silver Rock

by Luke Short

  When Sarah finished reading the minutes, Wishnack moved that they be approved and then settled back in his swivel chair. He pointed a calloused finger at one of the men seated against the wall and asked courteously, “Who’s first?”

  A man in bib overalls rose, came to the table and seated himself, and he was already talking. It seemed he wanted a culvert placed in the road several hundred yards below his farm because his neighbor’s runaway irrigation left the road a perpetual mire.

  Tully listened attentively. The petitioner was addressing a heavy-set man with a big head, topped by an uncombatable mat of short, dead gray hair. This would be Justin Byers he remembered, and he understood suddenly why these men, and especially Byers, had been commissioners almost in perpetuity. They were considerate, grave and patient, and exactly the same sort of people as those who usually petitioned them. Byers had a florid, heavily veined face with deep hound’s creases graven at the corners of his mouth. His pale eyes were large and morose and when he spoke, his voice was oddly gentle. He might have been a priest listening with deep compassion to the old old sins of humanity.

  The remaining commissioner, Harvey Peebles, was a long, angular, cheerful-looking rancher whose hearing was impaired and who listened with his great calloused hand cupped to his ear. Tully found Sarah the most attractive thing in the room.

  The culvert was disposed of and the petitioner left. Then Bill Wishnack addressed Tully. “You wanted to see us?”

  Tully moved toward the seat at the big table and Sarah said, “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Tully Gibbs, a mining engineer.” Her introduction called for the shaking of hands all around.

  Then Tully seated himself and began to state his case. He said that he had looked over some claims located in the county and that he had confirmed the presence of a large body of high-grade ore. He and his associates were preparing to develop the property, but before doing so he wished to know the attitude of the county toward a new industry.

  Bill Wishnack said bluntly, “Why, we’d welcome it, Mr. Gibbs. We already have one crackerjack mine in this county and we’d like a dozen more on our tax rolls.” He paused. “Just where is this property?”

  “I’ll come to that later,” Tully said matter-of-factly. “I’m mostly interested in how much help you feel you could give us in opening up this property and maintaining a road to it. I already have easements for the road and I’d be willing to deed the road to the county in exchange for help.”

  Bill Wishnack squirmed deeper into his chair, put his elbows on the arms and steepled his fingers under his chin. “Depends on where it is, Mr. Gibbs.”

  “With what you’ll eventually get from us in tax money, I think you could afford it even if it were on Black Mountain Peak.”

  The commissioners all smiled dutifully at this mild joke.

  “You plan a year-round operation?” Harvey Peebles asked.

  Tully nodded and Peebles looked at the others. “Shouldn’t think maintaining it would be any problem,” he observed.

  “Wait a minute,” Wishnack said slowly. “Before we make any promises, we’d better find out where your mine is.”

  “Vicksburg Hill,” Tully said quietly. He was watching Byers’s eyes, and they reminded him of a shade being pulled down over a window. Byers did not even have to look at the other two; he studied the pencil in his hand and thrust out his full lower lip in a thoughtful sort of pout.

  Wishnack cleared his throat. “Those are the Russel claims, Mr. Gibbs?”

  “That’s right.”

  Wishnack straightened up. “I don’t think we’ll be able to give you any help on your road, Mr. Gibbs. We’ve been over this with Mr. Russel.”

  “You were pretty helpful until you learned where the claims were,” Tully said sardonically, looking at Byers. “Suppose I’d said they were on Black Mountain?”

  Byers lifted his morose glance and regarded Tully with suffering patience. “You don’t understand, Mr. Gibbs,” he said gently. “Vicksburg Hill is a long way from the closest access road. Suppose we spent ten thousand dollars putting in the road for you. What guarantee have we got that tax money from you will help pay for it?”

  “Because there’s ore there and a lot of it.”

  Wishnack said abruptly, “Suppose you show us your drill logs.”

  “The property has not been diamond-drilled, Mr. Wishnack. We’re not Anaconda. We’re simply a small mine with a good body of top-grade ore.”

  “You hope,” Harvey Peebles said dryly.

  “We know,” Tully corrected him.

  “We’re not doubting your judgment,” Byers said slowly. “Only we need more than your opinion.” He leaned forward in his chair, an expression of deep earnestness on his sorrowing face. “Mr. Gibbs, here’s our problem. The state allows us to spend only so much of county money for roads. Our maintenance problems here are terrible. Sometimes, in one week we have to move two or three-foot snow falls. We spend twice and three times what other countries do in just keeping our roads open. We can’t afford to build new ones.”

  “That’s a speculation not allowed us,” Wishnack put in.

  “But you’ll build an access road to a ranch, won’t you?”

  “Ranches pay taxes,” Harvey Peebles said.

  “So do mines,” Tully countered.

  “Just what tax money have you paid, Mr. Gibbs?” Wishnack asked, and smiled sourly to blunt the barb of his question.

  Tully glanced briefly at Sarah. Her face was masked by a pretended attentiveness, but the lack of hope was there. Tully realized bitterly that these men held Sarah’s livelihood in their hands. She was a deputy paid to cooperate with them and carry out their decisions, however wrongheaded they were. He had no right to expect any help from her. The thing to do, he knew, was to swallow their refusal to help with as much grace as he could muster, at the same time driving the best possible bargain.

  “I can see your point there,” he said reasonably. “No reason why a late comer on the scene should demand preferential treatment, is there?”

  Byers gave a soft sigh of relief and said piously, “We try to take care of our own first, Mr. Gibbs.”

  Our own what? Tully thought sourly. He said, “That’s understandable. Still, as a prospective heavy taxpayer, I think I may be entitled to some consideration.”

  “What consideration, Mr. Gibbs?” Wishnack asked carefully.

  “Well, if I’m going to have to build a county road at my own expense, there are a couple of ways you could help me. For instance, I’ll need a bulldozer. It would be a real break for me if I could rent it from the county for what I’d depreciate it plus a very modest rental. The same would apply for one of your four-wheel-drive trucks when it’s not plowing.”

  Before he was finished, Wishnack was shaking his head in negation. “We’d be happy to do that, Mr. Gibbs, except it’s an iron-clad rule that no county equipment can be rented out.”

  “No exceptions?”

  “Sorry, no exceptions.”

  Tully felt a savage exasperation which he could not entirely hide and he said, “So I rent one in Galena for plenty of dough, is that it? Who made that iron-clad rule, Mr. Wishnack—the Board of County Commissioners?”

  Wishnack nodded. “Yes—out of simple self-protection.”

  Tully tried another tack then. “Once I get a road in, will the county help me maintain it, always supposing I’d deed it to the county?”

  Wishnack gave Byers a fleeting and wary glance, and then said, “Suppose we settle that when your road is built, Mr. Gibbs.”

  This then was total defeat, or almost total, Tully thought. He made one last try. “Well, gentlemen, I don’t seem to be getting much in the way of positive help from Grant County. I wonder if you’d be willing to help me in a negative way.”

  “Explain that, Mr. Gibbs,” Peebles said courteously.

  “Well, when my mine is hauling out ore, it’ll be taxable. It will be easy enough for you to ask the county assessor to place a low evaluation on t
he property until I’ve recovered part of the cost of building a road.”

  Wishnack said blandly, “The county assessor is not an appointive office in this state, Mr. Gibbs. It’s elective, and he goes his own way. If you feel like appealing your assessment, we’ll hear you.”

  That’s it, Tully thought with disgust. He hadn’t even succeeded in bumming a cigarette from these three sterling public servants. Rising, he shook hands all round, said courteously, “Thank you, gentlemen,” and replaced his chair at the table. He gave Sarah a fleeting glance and saw that she was studiously recording the decision of the commissioners. He went out.

  On Tully’s exit, Sarah went into the County Clerk’s office adjoining the commissioners’ room and returned with a batch of warrants for the commissioners to sign. Wishnack rose and got a drink at the marble-topped sink in the corner. Justin Byers rose, too, said, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and stepped out into the corridor.

  Turning left, he padded softly down the corridor and looked into the assessor’s office. Behind the counter on which a plat book was opened, a blond girl, trim of figure and wearing a shrieking red dress, was typing.

  Byers walked around the counter, saying in his soft voice, “Morning, Ann.”

  She smiled at him as he halted before her.

  “You take a walk, honey. I’ve got a call to make.”

  Dutifully the girl rose and left the room. When Byers was certain she was out of hearing, he moved the phone on her desk toward him, dialed a number, and after again making sure that there was nobody in the hall, he turned his back upon it.

  Then, he said in answer to the voice on the other end of the wire, “This is Justin. I’ve got to see you right away.” He was silent a moment and then said, “But we’re meeting this morning.” He was silent another moment, then said, “All right, be right out.”

  He hung up the receiver, retraced his steps to the commissioners’ room. Instead of seating himself, he lifted a dust-colored, narrow-brim Stetson from its wall hook and said, “I’ve got an appointment with the doc that I can’t get out of, Bill. I’ll sign those later,” and he nodded toward the stack of folded vouchers and warrants on the table.

  Wishnack was signing his name. Without looking up, he said, “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Gas,” Byers said mysteriously. Nobody said anything and he went out.

  Parked in front of the courthouse were a dozen cars. Byers went to the most dilapidated one, a pickup with a battered stake body and flapping fenders.

  Backing out, Byers turned down Main Street, traveled its length and, presently, where the gravel road forked, he turned left up the canyon.

  The Mahaffey Mine lay two miles up New York Gulch. Its galvanized tin buildings, staggered in steps down the base of the mountain where it met the flats, were shining brightly in the midday sunlight.

  Byers parked his truck alongside a dozen other cars on the parking lot, and the moment he shut off his motor he picked up the low rumble of the grinding mill in operation up the slope. As he tramped toward the office door, he wondered how people could work in the constant din of the mill, forgetting that much of his life was spent listening to the noisy roar of a working tractor.

  The office he entered held behind its low counter a huge safe and filing cabinets, plus a pair of metal desks at which two middle-aged women were working.

  Byers nodded to them, went through the gate at the end of the counter and hauled up at the frosted glass door marked Private. He knocked, was bidden enter, and stepped into Ben Hodes’s office.

  This was a sunny, comfortable room which Ben Hodes had left just as his father furnished it. It held an ancient rolltop desk, a floor-to-ceiling rack of paper-stuffed pigeonholes and a long glass case containing a variety of tagged ore samples. Against the opposite wall was a long table littered with magazines and mining journals, and on the wall above it was a panoramic view of the original Mahaffey Mine and its workings.

  Hodes was seated in a swivel chair at the hulking desk, his feet hoisted to the writing board which groaned each time he moved the massive weight of his legs. He was coatless and seemed to Byers to be loafing luxuriously.

  “What’s up, Justin?” Hodes asked, and then grinned. “You sounded as if you’d just lost your favorite dog in the bailer.”

  “A dollar says that in ten minutes you’ll be feeling as bad as I sounded.”

  Under Ben’s scowl, he threw his hat on the table, swung a chair out from the wall and eased his soft bulk into it.

  “Now what?” Ben asked cautiously.

  “Did you know Kevin Russel is starting to mine those Vicksburg Claims?” Justin asked softly.

  “Who’s been ribbing you?” Hodes scoffed.

  “A fellow by the name of Tully Gibbs.”

  At this announcement, Hodes swung his feet off the desk and settled them on the floor with a surprising gentleness. He was staring at Byers in open disbelief.

  “Gibbs?” he echoed, and then hesitated. “How do you know that?”

  “Gibbs came before the commissioners this morning wanting county help on a road to Vicksburg Hill.”

  For ten full seconds Hodes was silent, glaring at Byers, then he reached out for the phone on his desk and swiftly, with a savage intensity, dialed a number.

  “Harry?” he asked then, “have you given that party his certified check?”

  Upon receiving the answer, Hodes groaned softly, then he said irritably, “I know, I know. All right,” and slowly replaced the receiver.

  For long seconds he stared at the wall ahead of him, then slowly turned his big head. “What a chump,” he murmured.

  “Who? Gibbs?”

  “A-ah, never mind,” Hodes said bitterly. Lifting his hand, he scrubbed his mouth savagely, and then winced when the pressure touched his torn lip. Rising then he shot the swivel chair back until it crashed against the table. Ramming both hands in his hip pockets, he moved over to the window and looked out at the sun drenched reaches of far New York Gulch.

  He said then, over his shoulder, “What did you tell him?”

  “Gibbs? Why, to go to hell, of course,” Byers said, a tone of injury creeping into his soft voice. “Bill gave him a pretty thorough run-around. First, he wanted us to build him a road, then he wanted to rent our equipment, and then he wanted his taxes excused.” Byers hesitated. “He’s serious, Ben.”

  “Don’t I damn well know it,” Hodes said angrily, and turned back to the window again.

  Presently he wheeled and slowly walked back to his chair which he dragged up to the desk with the vehemence of suppressed wrath. The whole clever scheme of Gibbs’s was apparent to him now. He had lost not only his last opportunity to force old Kevin into giving up the Vicksburg Claims, but he, and he alone, had been instrumental in financing his own defeat. There was no doubt in his mind that the ten-thousand-dollar loan the bank made Gibbs would go toward working the claims. Gibbs had been clever as hell, Ben thought. He had parlayed a simple pickup of Sarah into working capital for his mine.

  Ben sat down and grimly regarded his desk blotter. He knew all too well how Gibbs would operate. The bulk of his loan would be spent on constructing a road to the claims. By the time it was in operation, his miners would have the highest grade ore in the bin and waiting for the trucks. The custom mill over at Galena was a short haul. In a hundred and twenty days Gibbs would have his loan repaid, his road built and a sweet little mine working around the clock. In another year, he would have a mill of his own. Old Kevin Russel would be drinking seven-dollar-a-bottle whiskey and Gibbs would have a new convertible.

  Ben said grimly, “He’s got to be stopped.”

  Byers chuckled appreciatively. “That’ll take some doing.”

  Ben rose again and slowly tramped back to the window, a wild restlessness pushing him. He cast about in his mind for Gibbs’s vulnerable points, considering them carefully. Finally, he said over his shoulder, “What’ll he do for machinery?”

  “He said he’d have
to rent the stuff from Galena.”

  That would be the Uinta Construction Company, Ben supposed. Well, he had the money to rent it now, he thought savagely.

  He half turned back to Byers. “Know who’ll work for him?”

  “Old man Russel knows every miner in this country. That won’t be hard.”

  That was true, Ben thought sourly. Gibbs had the money and the technical know-how, while old Kevin could certainly come up with practical advice.

  Hodes turned his head and stared morosely out at the distant mountains. Up to now a case of whiskey at Christmas for each commissioner had been enough to keep them friendly toward him and cooperative, since their own selfish interests coincided with his. As the county’s major taxpayer, they were understandably anxious to please him. Byers’s presence here was testimony to that. Yet, in his emergency, he thought wryly, they were powerless to help him.

  Or were they?

  Impulsively he turned to examine Byers coldly, as if he were first seeing the man. He was remembering all he knew of him. Byers had some poor land, and a few head of cattle up Officer’s Creek way. He was lazy, a born gossip, and was enormously proud of his commissioner’s job. To retain it he faithfully neglected his ranch and just as faithfully did the bidding of the group of hidebound, conservative ranchers to which he fancied he belonged.

  Ben asked bluntly, “Is there any legal way you commissioners can stop Gibbs?”

  Byers pondered a moment. “I don’t see how.”

  Ben bulled ahead. “It’s worth ten thousand dollars to me to find a way.” He walked slowly over to his chair, sat down, and only then looked at Byers.

  Byers’s glance was veiled. He said in agreement, “If you figure to pick up those claims someday, I’d judge it’s worth that to you.”

  Ben smiled faintly. “You don’t get it, Justin. I said—”

  “I heard you,” Byers cut in softly and his eyes were suddenly sharp. “Every act of the Board of Commissioners is known to the people. We’re watched. What you need is a good lawyer, Ben.”