Silver Rock

by Luke Short

  “I don’t think so,” Hodes said softly. “If my money’s going out, I want it to go to my friends.”

  “Sometimes friends can’t accept it without the whole world knowing it,” Byers observed.

  He’s got it, Ben thought, and he said, “There are lots of ways to arrange that without it ever showing.”

  Byers straightened up in his chair, and once again his eyes were veiled. “You’d like me to pass around this information?” Byers asked carefully.

  Hodes shook his head emphatically. “I would not. I’ll deny I ever said it if you repeat it. But the offer stands.”

  Byers rose. So did Hodes. Ben stepped over, held out his hand. “Thanks for the visit, Justin.”

  Byers shook hands with him and they looked at each other steadily, with mutual understanding.

  “No trouble at all, no trouble at all.”

  CHAPTER 4

  It was Sarah’s idea that out of consideration for Kevin’s physical infirmities they should meet at his house that evening. And it was several minutes after seven o’clock, the appointed time, when Tully knocked on the door. When Sarah opened it, Tully could hear immediately the low rumble of Sam Horne’s voice and the higher pitched and softer tones of Alec answering him.

  Tully said, “Sorry I’m late, Sarah. After the third time I fell on my face, I went back to buy a flashlight.”

  Sarah smiled, saying, “It doesn’t matter.” Tully walked past her into the shabby linoleum-floored living room. The voices, Tully saw, were all coming from the kitchen. Turning to Sarah, he asked quietly, “Still speaking to me after that sorry job I did this morning?”

  “What was sorry about it? The whole thing was loaded and you knew it.”

  Tully shook his head. “I didn’t look good.”

  “You didn’t lose your temper anyway.”

  “That’s the only thing I didn’t lose.”

  “Let’s forget it,” Sarah said. “It was a very dignified hassle and you lost it.” She started toward the kitchen and Tully fell in behind her.

  Kevin, Sam Horne and Alec Bacchione were seated at the big round oilcloth-covered kitchen table. With its clustered chairs, the table took up all the space in the tiny kitchen that was not occupied by the big, black iron coal range and the rusty sink.

  When Sam Horne saw Tully, he said jeeringly, “Hail the conquered hero. Brush the dust off your knees. You don’t need to kneel to us.”

  Tully only grinned and said hello to Kevin and Alec. Then he seated Sarah and slipped into a chair between her and Alec, who said, “Has the mining consultant come to confer with his associates?”

  Sarah laughed. “He almost had them fooled, Alec, so don’t tease him. He sounded very important.”

  “He is important,” old Kevin said.

  “Don’t build him up, Pop,” Sam Horne said. “He looks too much like a young executive right now.”

  “It’s the suit,” Tully said. “I promise never to do it again.”

  Sam Horne touched a match to his cigarette and then said in mock soberness, “Mr. Gibbs, the Nugget’s Market Edition will hit the street in four days. Anaconda has kept a wire open from Butte since ten o’clock this morning. They all want to know what the syndicate plans for Vicksburg. Have you any statements that you care to give me to throw away?”

  Tully grinned. “Sure. The syndicate is starting work tomorrow.”

  “My God, I’d better sell my Phelps-Dodge,” Horne said.

  Sarah said seriously, “Starting to work?”

  Tully glanced over at Alec. “That depends on the guy on my right. I asked him to come over tonight so we could put the screws to him.”

  “No pain so far,” Alec said.

  “Sarah says you’re a heavy equipment operator, Alec, and that you worked county equipment once upon a time.”

  “That’s right. But I’m an operator, not an owner.”

  “Want a job?”

  “Not in any mine.”

  “You won’t be off the seat of a ‘dozer for sixty days. We’ll pay going wages for a ‘cat skinner’ as long as we have an option on your services.”

  “That’s for me,” Alec said promptly. “Sure.”

  “This sounds a little nasty,” Sam said, “but first you’ve got to get the bulldozer before you can seat him, Tully.”

  “I got it this afternoon,” Tully said. “I called a contractor at Galena and rented one. I also rented a compressor here in town. The cat’s on this afternoon’s train and it’ll be in tonight.”

  Sam Horne’s eyebrows rose. “I thought you had to survey a road before you started to build it.”

  “I can run a hand level,” Tully said. “All Alec will need are some grade stakes to go by, and a hand level is plenty accurate for that. Just so a four-wheel drive can get up and down it without too much grief.”

  Now Tully looked at Kevin. “Mr. Russel, are there six good miners in this town that the Mahaffey hasn’t hired?”

  “The best ones won’t work for Hodes,” Kevin said quietly. “There are more than six.”

  “Can we round them up by noon?” Tully asked. “I’ve got a cook already located—also a couple of wall tents and enough lumber for floors and sides. I got hold of a trailer this afternoon. We’ll load it with a stove and the rest of this junk so when Alec pioneers the road with the dozer we can set up shop in a hurry. By the time Alec has made his second trip and picked up the compressor and hoist, we’ll have a roof over the men and be ready to mine. By the time we’ve got the ore bin built, we should have something to put in it.” He paused. “How does that sound?”

  “Like you’d been operating,” Sarah said. “Where was I when you were doing all this promoting?”

  “You were taking down the immortal words of the county commissioners.”

  Sarah rose and moved to the stove where she looked into the coffeepot. Afterward, she began distributing old Kevin’s cracked cups around the table.

  “What have I forgotten, Mr. Russel, not counting powder, fuse and caps, and your own drilling and hoisting equipment?”

  “We’d have use for a forge and coal,” old Kevin said. “It would be a good idea if one of your miners is a blacksmith, too. You better get four hundred yards of inch pipe with enough sawdust to insulate it. You’ll be that far from the creek if you make your camp at number one shaft.”

  Tully looked at Sam Horne and they grinned at each other. Then Tully said, “I’ll do that.” Afterward, Sarah poured the coffee and the talk went on. It was mostly mining talk and was concerned with the geology of the claims. His hand shaking, old Kevin drew for them on a piece of cheap tablet paper the course of the ore body as he had followed its exposures through the ten claims.

  Tully listened attentively while Sam Horne, ignorant of everything but the most superficial mining talk, listened with open fascination. Presently, he drained his cup and shoved it toward the center of the table. “Rakes and drifts,” he murmured, “foot walls and hanging walls, yakety-yak-yak-yak. Why does a miner have to use that double talk?” He rose then and reached for his coat, hanging over the back of his chair.

  “When I was a boy,” Kevin said softly, “you couldn’t have worked on the Nugget without knowing it. Most of the news started out something like this, ‘There was jubilation at the Dolly Gray today when Miners Pat Morrison and Kevin Russel, sinking from the Cork stope to a cross-cut on the ninth level, turned up a considerable body of ore that indicates sixty-three ounces of silver or better.’ “

  Sam Horne laughed then and said, “You’ve got me, old timer. I’d better learn my trade if this is going to be a mining town again.” Suddenly he frowned and moved around the table, and then his gaze settled on old Kevin. “Has this mine got a name yet, Mr. Russel?”

  “Yes, sir,” old Kevin said promptly. “It’s the Sarah Moffit Mine.”

  Tully looked at Sarah who was standing behind her chair. She was looking down at old Kevin, and then she moved over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’d rather have
your mine named after me than the Queen Elizabeth, pop,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Sam Horne shrugged into his coat, muttering over and over, “The Sarah Moffit, the Sarah Moffit.” Then he announced, “That’s a prettier name than the Home Stake or the Camp Bird, Mr. Russel, even if it isn’t in tradition.”

  “The largest nugget of silver ever mined—1840 pounds plus—came from a mine in Aspen, Colorado, called the Molly Gibson,” old Kevin said slyly.

  Sam Horne grinned. “Have I said anything right tonight?” he asked. “I’d better be going.”

  Tully knew he should be going, too, in order to give old Kevin his rest. He quickly settled the details of tomorrow’s job with Alec and then rose, which was a signal for all of them to move into the living room.

  Sarah gathered up the cups and rinsed them in the sink. Sam Horne, on his way out, called good night to her, and she answered from the kitchen.

  When she entered the living room Tully was holding her coat for her. As she slipped into it, Alec said, “The jeep’s outside. Want a shaking up before you go to sleep?”

  Sarah looked up at Tully. “I’d like to walk home if your flashlight will last that long, Tully.”

  “No takers, Alec. See you tomorrow,” Tully said.

  Alec went out, and afterwards Sarah and Tully said good night to Kevin, and stepped out into the cool evening. There was a bite of frost in the air, and they could hear the rush of the river, still sibilant with the run off of yesterday’s rain. It would probably be the last rain, Tully thought. Sarah slipped her arm through Tully’s and, guided by the beam of their flashlight, they set out under the great cottonwoods on the weed bordered path to town.

  Tully was tired and he hoped that his legs would not choose the next few minutes to fail him again. He wondered idly if he should tell Sarah about this infirmity, and decided against it. Once it happened in her presence, it would be easy enough to explain to her, but the chances were it never would.

  He was aware, now, that Sarah, beside him, was humming softly, and he glanced down at her in the dark. “You sound happy.”

  “I’ve got a mine named after me—a great big, rich mine.”

  “It’ll bring us luck.”

  “Well, it always brought me luck.” Sarah was silent a moment, as if thinking. “You know, it really has, even if I haven’t stopped to think about it much.”

  Tully considered this a moment. Usually a fatherless young girl drudging at a dull job didn’t consider herself especially lucky, and now Tully asked curiously, “How do you figure that?”

  He felt Sarah’s arm move against his as she shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I had more fun when I was a kid than any ten girls I know. We lived in a big brick house like the Hodes house. I had bannisters to slide down, a big attic to hide in, two ponies, one black, one brown, and five Llewellyn setters to play with. My dad taught me how to fish dry flies and to hunt elk and how to run a trap line. Did you know I caught a lynx once?”

  “Is that good?”

  “Good? The pelt was in Harmer’s window for over a year!”

  “Then it must be good,” Tully said, and they both laughed together.

  There was an engaging simplicity about this girl that made Tully feel good, and for a moment his scheming, his worries and his dim sense of guilt were forgotten. He was trying to picture Sarah’s childhood in this town, and there came to him a moment of envy. He asked curiously, “Was your dad in the mining business?”

  “Mother’s father was. Dad took over after he died. You probably never heard of the Hawley Mine. Dad ran it until the shaft got so deep he couldn’t lick the water. We were in low-grade silver then and we couldn’t buy new pumps. I remember the day he locked the office door. I was standing on the steps watching him. You know how you can feel sad sometimes without really knowing why you are. That was the way I felt then.”

  “Did he, too?”

  Sarah didn’t answer for a moment, then she said, “No. He took the keys out of the door and held them in his hand and just looked at them for a minute. Then he looked at me and his eyes weren’t sad at all. You know what he did next?”

  “No.”

  “He wound up like a baseball player and threw the keys as far as he could, then he said to me, ‘Maybe now I can get that big cutthroat up above the Sawmill riffle. I never had time to really work on him before.’ “

  Tully smiled into the night. “He sounds like a good guy.”

  “He was. I told you I was lucky.”

  They were in town now and as Tully turned the corner toward the Moffit apartment, he saw the lights of the hotel a block ahead of them. He remembered then his first night here and the imperious girl in the red convertible. At the moment, he found it hard to connect her with Sarah Moffit.

  They turned on the stairs of the Moffit apartment and slowly climbed them arm in arm. There was only a dim light at the far end of the corridor, Tully saw, when they achieved the top of the stairs and halted before the door to Sarah’s apartment.

  Sarah put out her hand and Tully took it.

  “I’d ask you in, but I’m a working girl.” She smiled and added, “As of tomorrow you’re a working lad, too.”

  “The proletariat has to stand together,” Tully said mockingly. And on impulse he took her in his arms and kissed her. There was no resistance, but little cooperation from Sarah. Tully heard the apartment door open and the hall was suddenly flooded with light. A kind of anger at being thus surprised stirred in Tully; he let the kiss linger a moment longer and then broke slowly away from Sarah, expecting to be confronted by a surprised Mrs. Moffit.

  Instead, his glance rested on Ben Hodes hulking in the open doorway. Sarah turned slowly, deliberately, as if also resenting this invasion of her privacy. Tully said dryly, “Are you the new truant officer?”

  “Don’t let me disturb you,” Hodes said, his voice sardonic and angry.

  “You are. Shut the door.”

  “That’s enough,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “What’re you doing here, Ben?”

  “Watching you kiss Gibbs.” Hodes’s voice held a sullen resentment. “I came over to see you, and your mother told me you were out. I decided to wait, so she went to bed. When I heard your footsteps on the stairs and then no sound at all, I opened the door.” He added in a sour attempt at humor, “You were both being naughty.”

  Sarah shouldered past him and walked swiftly into the living room. For a moment Tully stood undecided on the threshold and then he thought, I’ll be damned if I leave her this way, and stepped into the room. Hodes moved to block his entrance and Sarah said sharply, “Come in, both of you.”

  Hodes stepped aside reluctantly. Tully walked over to Sarah. He heard Ben close the door and follow him into the room. Without turning, he said to Sarah, “I know you’re tired. You want me to throw this snoop out of here?”

  Sarah did not look at Ben; she regarded Tully with something like affection, and there was a sudden mischief in her eyes. “No, I’ll take care of him, Tully. Good night.” And then, surprisingly, she came up to him and kissed him squarely on the lips.

  For an amazed second Tully stood there and then Sarah spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll kiss whoever I want, Ben, whether you’re spying on me or not.”

  “So I notice,” Hodes said sullenly. “Maybe a man has to have a Silver Star, a couple of broken legs and fainting spells before you’ll kiss him.”

  “Do you have fainting spells, Tully?” Sarah asked.

  “You mean he hasn’t told you?” Ben asked.

  “Told me what?” Sarah looked at Tully in puzzlement.

  “Let him tell it,” Tully said.

  “Sometimes his legs don’t work,” Ben said sourly. “That’s one way of making a bid for sympathy. I’m surprised he hasn’t pulled it on you, Sarah.”

  “They’re working now,” Tully said flatly. “Want me to prove it?”

  “I don’t want you to prove anything,” Sarah said hastily.

  Tully said to Ben now,
“Why don’t you shut up? Even better, why don’t you leave? You want it spelled out for you?”

  Hodes took a step toward them and halted. “Look—” he began heavily when Sarah cut in with an unaccustomed curtness. “Yes, why don’t you?”

  Baffled, Hodes looked from one to the other. “I was invited in here by your mother.”

  Sarah said tartly, “All right, wake her up and visit with her.”

  “But what have I done?”

  Tully said quietly, “You’ve eavesdropped, my friend. The next time you do it I’ll drop an eave on you.” He glanced obliquely at Sarah. “We’re going now, Sarah—Hodes and I.” To Hodes he said, “Lead off, friend. You know where the door is.”

  For an angry moment Hodes regarded him, then shifted his attention to Sarah. “I think you kissed him to spite me.”

  “That’s perceptive of you, Ben. You’d better leave or I’ll kiss him again.” Wordlessly Hodes turned, walked over to a chair, picked up his hat, then turned to look sadly at Sarah.

  “Don’t trip on your lip,” Tully prodded.

  Hodes only said sorrowfully, “Good night, Sarah,” and headed for the door.

  Tully glanced at Sarah, “I’ve already said good night, I guess.” He grinned, turned and followed Hodes out. Closing the door behind him he observed that Hodes was waiting on the top step. Tully walked toward him and the two of them silently descended the stairs.

  Once on the sidewalk below, Hodes halted and put out a hand as if to restrain Tully, who stopped short of him, a wariness upon him.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” Hodes said slowly.

  “I’ll do it every chance I get.”

  “She’s my girl,” Hodes said flatly.

  “So you said. But that’s not the way the votes count out.”

  “Just take this as a warning,” Hodes said deliberately. “You’ve come in here a cute little war hero, you’ve parlayed one of my mistakes into a partnership in a mine, but Sarah doesn’t go with the property. Don’t make the mistake of thinking she does.”

  With that he turned and walked off into the night.

  After leaving Tully, Hodes stopped in at the Elks Club. It was a Monday night and the club rooms were almost deserted. He tramped through the reading room, and went into the empty barroom. Here he poured a drink from his own bottle, checked the billiard room and found it empty, then took his drink in, turned on the lights, pulled off his coat and set about playing a solo game of billiards.