by Wilbur Smith
“Do you like it?” Saffron said, grinning up from her play with Leon.
“I do,” Ryder said, taking the stamp from Gebre again. “I do, very much.”
He heard a sniff at the doorway and turned. Dan was watching from the shadows, his arms folded across his chest.
“Any word from Massowah, Mr. Courtney?” he asked.
“Not yet, Dan,” Ryder replied evenly. Dan had grown increasingly morose in the weeks since Rusty died and he was beginning to try Ryder’s patience with his constant pessimism.
“Perhaps they’ll have no luck there at all,” Dan added.
Saffron laughed. “Don’t be silly, Dan. You know Amber. She’ll be back here any day with the quicksilver and a man who knows what to do with it.” She widened her eyes and leaned forward toward Leon. “And perhaps a toy for her nephew too!”
Dan blinked. “I suppose so. Mr. Courtney, I want to show you a spot up on the Mother’s east flank. Think there may be another seam there, so there’ll be no shortage of ore when Miss Amber and Patch get here.”
“We can go at first light, Dan.” Ryder got to his feet and shook hands with Gebre. “Thank you, Ato Gebre. We shall need this stamp and soon. I feel it in my bones.”
He ushered the two men out of his house and looked at his wife. She had settled Leon in his cot and now turned toward him, a familiar hungry glint in her eye.
“How shall we fill the hours till Amber gets home, Filfil?” he asked.
She sashayed across the earthen floor toward him and put her arms around his neck. “I’m sure we’ll think of something, Ryder.”
•••
The runner arrived midway through the morning. Saffron heard her name being called and stepped out of the relative cool of the shade by the church and shielded her eyes. A young man was racing down the path on the other side of the valley, a bundle of papers in his hand. Saffron picked up her skirts and splashed across the low flowing river to meet him, recognizing him as one of Ato Asfew’s sons—Amber’s guide to Massowah.
“My sister?” she cried out as soon as he was in calling distance.
“She comes—even now, with Mr. Patch,” the young man panted, thrusting the papers into her hand. “She told me to run ahead. To give you these papers. She says tell Mrs. Saffron the woman in the article, Mrs. Martin, is beloved of Mr. Dan. She says: ‘Saffy, read fast. Tell Ryder.’”
Saffron unfolded the sheets of newsprint. First she read the article about the Duke of Kendal, then the second about the murder of the woman and boy near San Francisco. Then her confusion was replaced by a terrible cold clarity singing through her blood. She did not need to ask how Amber knew about the connection between Mrs. Martin and Dan. If Amber said this woman had been important to him, that was enough for her.
“Oh, Ryder!” she whispered. Then, with the newspapers clutched in her hand, she raced down to the river and toward the mine.
Tesfaye was the first man she saw, testing the harness on the mule that would drag around the grinding stones in the arrastra.
“Mrs. Saffron, I hope you are well?”
“Yes, yes, where is Ryder, Tesfaye? I need him at once. And where is Mr. Dan?”
Tesfaye was puzzled. They had seen tragedy at the mine and disaster, yet he had never seen Saffron look as distracted as this.
“They are together, yonder,” he said, waving toward the other side of the slope. “Mr. Dan took your man up to show him a place he thinks he has found more ore.”
Saffron lifted up her skirts and ran.
•••
The path up the far side of the slope was rocky and lined with thorns. They tore at Saffron’s hair and her clothes, but she dragged and willed her way up, then half fell, exhausted and bruised as the track dropped sharply again. She looked around her. Dan and Ryder were perhaps a dozen yards away, where the track broadened into another narrow plateau, like a giant step cut from the side of the mountain. Ryder was crouching by the rock face, examining a pile of rocks, then looking up to see the place from which it had fallen. Even from here Saffron could see that the color of the rock was different, the blue-gray of silver-bearing ore rather than the rust-colored sandstone that surrounded it, but it was not the stone that caught her attention and squeezed her heart. Dan was standing perhaps ten feet from Ryder’s exposed back and he had already taken his revolver from his belt.
Saffron screamed and pulled herself to her feet, then ran on. Ryder spun around as soon as he heard her cry. He could see his wife struggling toward them, and then Dan, his revolver raised and cocked and pointed straight at Ryder’s chest.
Dan kept the gun level and shifted around so the sheer rise of the cliff was at his back. He shouted at Saffron over his shoulder. “Stay where you are! And look away, Mrs. Courtney. You can’t get to me in time. You know that. And I’d be sorry if you saw your man die. But die he must.”
Saffron ran past him and into her husband’s arms.
Ryder cursed her. “Saffy, get out of the way! Don’t you dare put yourself in front of a gun for me,” he said.
“I’m not moving. If he wants to kill you, he’ll have to kill me first,” she panted.
Dan still had his gun trained on them. He looked sorry, but resolute.
“I don’t want to shoot you, Mrs. C. But I will.”
“Dan! It’s over!” Saffron screamed. “They are dead and killing Ryder can’t save them.”
Dan rocked back, as if she had struck him.
“Please, Dan, if you’ve ever cared for us at all, listen to me.” Saffron could hardly speak, hardly think. Her words felt like they were tearing her lungs apart. She could see nothing but that gun. She felt Ryder’s hands on her shoulders. She knew he would fling her sideways as soon as he saw Dan’s trigger finger tighten, that the round from the powerful handgun would slam into his chest and rip it apart unless Dan listened to her now.
“What are you saying?” Dan said, still staring over her shoulder at Ryder.
“Gloria Martin and her son James. They were found murdered in San Francisco. Who are they?”
“My sister and her child,” Dan said dully.
“Oh, Danny!” Saffron exclaimed and covered her mouth.
Dan lifted the revolver again, but his hand was shaking. “You’re lying! You’re trying to trick me! They can’t be dead. I was promised. They came to me in Massowah, after the steamer sank. They said they had Gloria but if I did what they said . . .” He pointed the gun straight at Saffron. “You found out somehow, Mrs. C,” he said. “And now you are trying to trick me to save your man. It won’t work.”
“Amber sent a runner ahead of her, Dan, with these newspapers. She said Mrs. Martin was your beloved. I don’t know how she knew, but look!” She held up the fistful of paper in front of her, as if it would stop the bullet.
“The photograph,” Dan said quietly. “I had their photograph, one of the girls gave it back to me . . . Miss Amber must have seen it . . .” The gun shook slightly.
“What the hell is happening? Explain this to me, Saffy,” Ryder said urgently. He put his arm around her and she held on to it, feeling the thick muscles of his forearm.
“Someone took them, Ryder!” she said, still clinging to him and watching the muzzle of the wavering gun. “I think that’s why Dan did what he did to Rusty. To save them. But they’re dead, Dan. It’s in the newspaper. They killed them anyway.”
“Dan murdered Rusty?” Ryder hissed. “The cracked stones, the cave-in last month—you’ve been sabotaging us this whole time?”
“Read it to me,” Dan said.
Saffron smoothed the paper with shaking fingers but she couldn’t see it. She sniffed and brushed away the tears that were blinding her with the back of her hand and managed to stutter out the paragraph: throats cut, missing for some time, brutal slaughter, suspicion of kidnapping and blackmail. As she read, she saw Dan lean against the wall behind him and let the revolver hang by his side.
“Who took them, Dan?” Ryder said. His voice
was filled with dark rage and Saffron could feel it, his pain at the betrayal, his grief and shock vibrating through his muscles.
Dan had tilted his head back, half slumped against the rock as if he no longer had the strength to hold himself upright.
“I don’t know. But if I wanted Gloria and James to live, this mine could never produce silver. That was the deal.”
“Something went wrong,” Saffron said. “They killed them to stop them going to the police.”
“When?” Dan said. The word was a whisper.
Saffron, deafened by the thumping of blood in her ears, could hardly hear him. “What, Dan?”
Now he roared. “Were they dead when I killed Rusty?”
Saffron groaned. “I don’t know, Dan.”
“When was that newspaper printed?” he shouted. “Were they already dead when I killed my friend?”
Saffron tried to look at the paper. The breeze flicked it, as if trying to playfully pull it from her fingers. Her hands were still shaking so hard she could hardly read the paper. She cursed herself and pulled it tight. She focused on the date—April 29, 1888—then checked the wording of the report.
“Yes. Yes, oh, Dan. They were murdered the day before.”
Dan seemed to collapse from within. He groaned and sank to the ground, his arms slack beside him, his head lowered.
Saffron began to shiver uncontrollably. If Ryder had not been holding her, she would have fallen in the dust. It took her a moment to realize Dan was speaking.
“I hardly knew them. My sister and her boy. But when I heard they were taken. God, what is it? That pull in your blood that means you’ll do anything for your kin? They gave me a letter from her, when we were in Massowah, and a photograph of her and the boy. They even got the boy to send me a note. He said that he’d been told I was a great man and would save them. And I tried, God, I tried. Why? What good did it do to kill them? I was doing what . . . God, Rusty . . . I sold my soul to save them and it did no good.”
“The men who took them were tying up loose ends. Who brought you the letters? Who made the deal?” Ryder said.
“A man named Carruthers. He came in on the next sailing from Cairo and said he was working for some Englishman who was interested in this strike. Wanted you stopped so he could take it over himself when the time came. God, they knew everything.”
Saffron looked up at her husband. “Ryder, it was the Duke of Kendal. It’s a great scandal. He was corrupt and was exposed somehow. They say he shot himself. It’s all in the newspaper.”
Ryder’s grip on her was like iron.
Dan slowly lifted the loaded gun to his temple and began to wrap his finger around the trigger. Ryder released his wife and launched himself forward. He caught Dan’s wrist and wrenched it back so the shot went straight up into the sky. Dan cried out and let the pistol fall. Saffron sprang forward into the dust to grab it and flicked open the chamber, the unspent bullets ringing against the rocks as they fell.
Dan twisted around to look at Ryder. “Let me die.”
“No,” Ryder said. He raised his fist and punched Dan once in the jaw with a force that sent the man sprawling in the dust. Ryder towered over him, his fists clenched.
“Ryder, don’t . . .” Saffron said.
He ignored her, staring at Dan with such intensity of loathing, Dan shrank away from him. Ryder spoke only to him.
“Not before you’ve explained yourself to the people here. They deserve better than a second-hand truth from me.”
Saffron handed Ryder her scarf and he used it to tie Dan’s hands behind his back before making him walk in front of them to camp. Amber and Patch had arrived while they were gone and Saffron dashed into her sister’s arms, while Ryder forced Dan to his knees in front of the church.
“Oh God, Amber! Thank you! I was only just in time.”
Amber felt her breath release in a shuddering sigh as she held Saffron’s shaking body against her.
“I’m here, Filfil. I’m here. And we have quicksilver. It will be here in a few days.”
•••
They held Dan’s trial, if that was what it could be called, that afternoon. The priest officiated. The workers and their families were all collected on the open ground in front of the church. Dan was still bound to stop him making another attempt on his own life. He was seated beside the priest. In front of them was a heap of pebbles, some white, some black. They had been gathered from the river by the children who thought it all a great game.
Ryder did not think he’d be able to control his feelings, so gave the role of interpreter to Tadesse. Amber and Saffron sat with the women, while some of the older girls took the younger children off to play at a distance, where their questions and demands would not disturb their elders. The priest, looking a little unsure, first offered his blessing to the crowd, then asked Dan if he wished to confess to the people. He nodded. Amber listened to both Dan’s own words and Tadesse’s translation. The story sounded better in Amharic, somehow more simple and more tragic, like some ancient epic told by the fireside. Dan made no attempt to deny his guilt, no attempt to excuse himself, other than to say he had never intended to kill Rusty. He had only meant to delay the amalgamation of the ore by draining off the quicksilver, but when Rusty had stumbled into it, he felt he had no choice. Amber was glad he confessed, though she could hardly believe it even now. She had thought Dan was their friend. She thought he was like an uncle to her and Saffron. He had helped her with the garden and her dams and waterways. She did not understand how he could have done so with all that blood on his conscience.
The priest asked Dan about his sister and her son. He told him their letters, passed to him by the blackmailer in Massowah, were hidden under his bunk. One of Dan’s work crew went to fetch them and Tadesse translated them for the crowd, while the photograph of the woman and boy was passed around. A murmur of sympathy could be heard among the women, but the men remained stony-faced. Amber was asked to relate what she had learned in Massowah about the duke and how she had realized the importance of the names of the murdered woman and child in the second article. Then Saffron told them of the scene on the high plateau. Ryder spoke only to confirm what she had said. The priest asked if anyone wished to speak for Dan. Alem and Silas, who had both been learning about tunnel propping under Dan, stood up and stated that he had been a fair boss, a good teacher and cared about the safety of his men, avoiding injuring them even as he sabotaged the workings. They did so while looking at the ground, compelled by a sense of justice, perhaps, but it was clear they took no great pleasure in defending him. The priest then asked if anyone wished to speak against him and Patch got to his feet.
“We grieve for this man’s sister, and her boy,” he said in English, and Tadesse translated quietly. “We all have family. We have all in our lives lost people we love. We know the greater evil was done by the man who took Gloria and her boy, forced Dan to do what he did and then took their lives anyway.” They were looking at him now, a quiet, serious regard. “But Rusty Tompkins was also my friend. He was a good man and he died with his lungs full of quicksilver, not at the hands of some agent in Massowah, but by those hands—” he pointed at Dan—“the hands of a man he would have gone through fire for. A man he trusted and loved like a brother. Dan says he did not know what to do. I know what he should have done.” Patch turned directly to Dan. “You should have told us, Dan. You should have told Ryder, you should have told me, you should have told Rusty. This man had power, this duke. Fine. Well, Ryder had money back then too. And between us we had a thousand friends in San Francisco. We might have been able to save them. We might have been able to come up with some lie to make this duke think you had done his bidding. We have all poured our hearts into this mine, this camp. It’s made us family and we would have done anything to save you, but you were trying to destroy all our work from the start.”
Dan dropped his head and stared at the dust under his boots. “I could not risk it, Patch. I could not risk their blood on
my hands.”
Patch’s face flushed red, making the scars on his skin stand out. He balled his fists.
“You could not risk their lives? You couldn’t risk their lives so you killed Rusty? To avoid risking your sister, you murdered him and you would have murdered Ryder too. Because you did not wish to risk the deaths of two people already dead.”
He turned away from Dan and addressed the crowd. “I will pity the woman and her son. I will not pity this man. I will not. And only one punishment is fitting for his crime. Hang him. Hang him like the Judas he is over Rusty’s grave.”
He stalked back to his place in the crowd and sat down. The men nearest him squeezed his shoulder and a whispered approval passed across the crowd like a breeze. Amber shivered.
The priest looked solemn. “What say you, Mr. Ryder?”
Ryder did not stand up. “In such matters I am only one voice among you,” he said. “But I agree with Patch. I say he should hang.”
“We vote,” the priest said. “He has confessed his guilt. If you vote for mercy, he will be sent away. He may take food and water—enough for one day—and a knife, but nothing more. If he is seen by any of us within a day’s walk of here after sunrise on the second day, he may be killed like a wolf who strays too near the cattle. Vote against mercy and he shall be hanged at dawn tomorrow in the place we buried Mr. Rusty.” He held up his hands. “Let each working man or married woman cast their vote as their heart tells them they must. The white pebbles are for mercy, the black for death.”
The people got to their feet, made their selection from the pile and dropped them into the priest’s folded shawl. The only sound was the click of the pebbles.
Once they were collected, the votes were counted in silence. Below the camp they could hear the children laughing and splashing in the river. At last Tadesse whispered to the priest. He got to his feet once more.
“Dan Matthews shall be hanged at first light.”
The whole crowd sighed at once.
“I shall lock him in the church tonight so he may be close to God and beg his forgiveness for his many and grievous sins.”