by CJ Quincy
Chapter VIII
Penny hitched up her skirt and broke into a jog when she saw the last of the blasters file onto the mining train ahead of Samuel and Benjamin. The last thing she wanted to do was miss the chance to see this blasting. Not only did she immensely enjoy the blasting experience, but she wanted to see the state of this mine for herself.
Her lungs burned and she felt her braid loosening as she called out to Samuel to hold the train one more moment. He turned at the platform and gave her a bemused look.
“Can I go with you?” She huffed, leaning on her knees.
“To the blast?” Samuel asked, incredulous.
“Yes!” She looked up and smoothed her hair. “I love blasting day. And would like to experience it just one more time.”
Samuel cocked an eyebrow, and she knew he was surprised by her sudden friendliness. “Um, okay. Hop on board.” He said. He held out a hand to help her board, but to save face and dignity she stood straight looked him square in the eyes as she grasped the handle herself waltzed into the train car.
Penny avoided lifting her hand to her ear when the whistle blew and turned her back to the wall to hide the dark spot of sweat she felt seeping through her lilac dress. Silence, thick as smoke and equally as choking, filled the car, and Penny noticed most of the blasters and Benjamin avoiding her gaze.
Samuel, however, locked his eyes on the passenger cars resting just past the train as they whizzed by the windows.
“If I’d known we'd have a lady on board, I could have arranged to add a passenger car for you.” He looked at his feet and wrung his hands. If he weren’t so smug all the time, he’d almost be endearing.
Penny considered just looking ahead and ignoring the comment, but she softened. “Oh, you won't ever catch me on one of those passenger cars.”
Samuel glanced up at her. “Why might that be?”
“It’s a story for another time, Samuel.” She smiled softly and turned her attention to the blur of trees, flowers, and fields out the window. Samuel did the same, and the two quietly watched the passing beauty until the train finally rolled to a stop.
*
Penny could hardly contain her excitement when the train reached the top of the mountain and she saw the mine in the distance. The loud clatter of the blasting crew as they exited the train sent adrenaline coursing through her body.
This time, however, there was no attendant with comfortable chairs and a table. No delicate glass full of a refreshing drink, and that was, honestly, how Penny liked it. She bent down and slipped off her constraining shoes, letting her feet stretch in the dusty soil.
Benjamin cleared his throat. “Sam, I’m going to head in and monitor the placements of the charges. You know, make sure there are no mistakes.”
Penny watched, amused, as Samuel’s face became etched in panic.
“I should go with you, Ben. Four eyes are better than two in that dark mine…”
“You stay out here, Sam.” Benjamin cut him off. “You know, take the time to admire the scenery while you can before we get back to work. And besides, we don’t want the crew to totally think we don’t trust them.” Benjamin winked and trotted off toward the mine’s opening.
“Don’t the rocks hurt your feet?” Samuel asked while looking at her toes.
Penny laughed and walked in a little circle. “Not at all. I’m no tenderfoot, sir.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought, being a lady and all…”
“…that I would be a delicate flower?” Penny put her hands on her hips. “My uncle always wanted to keep me indoors, make me proper. If I took to staying in and doing needlework all day or playing the piano for fun, he’d be the happiest man this side of the Mississippi.” She looked away from Samuel and toward the mine. “But I’ve always loved getting my hands…or feet…dirty.”
Samuel rubbed the back of his neck and pushed some rocks around with the tip of his foot. “Well that’s right admirable of you, Miss Penny. A lot of New York girls can’t even handle breaking a nail.” He cleared his throat and shyly looked up at her. “I’ve never met a woman quite like you.”
Penny felt the wall she’d constructed inside her tremble a little at the intensity of his eyes. She took a few steps away from him and fixated her attention on the mouth of the mine. “Are they almost done?”
“Oh, they should be any minute,” Samuel said as he stuck his hands in his pockets.
Just then the blasting crew and Benjamin exited the mouth and seconds later the first blast erupted and sent electricity from Penny’s head to her bare toes.
She let out a squeal and clapped her hands, curling her toes in the dirt and relishing every resounding explosion. It was almost like watching fireworks, but better, each boom sending chunks of earth blossoming into the air like blooming flowers.
*
Penny’s ears rang well after the last blast sounded. Her heart rattled against her ribs like a caged animal and she was short of breath. She clenched her jaw and wiped her face with a kerchief to try and mask her exhilaration in the face of Samuel and Benjamin’s dour expressions.
“Well I guess that's it.” Samuel sighed.
“Let's get to work,” Benjamin said. He began to walk toward the blasting area, pick in hand.
Samuel turned to Penny. “Penny, I will have the train take you back to town.”
Penny’s stomach tightened at the sight of Samuel chewing his lip. “Thank you. Thank you for letting me attend the blasts.”
“Anytime. Maybe I can see you again sometime?” asked Samuel.
“Maybe,” Penny smiled back at him. “You’d better go get all the silver you can before it goes back into hiding.” She joked. His genuine smile breaking through his anxious demeanor brought a blush to her cheeks. Lest he see, she made her face expressionless, nodded, and turned to board the train.
*
After the blasting crew and Penny had left, Samuel and Benjamin threw themselves into the effort to find more silver. They, along with the other miners, swung their picks and dug deeper and deeper into the caverns, futility and frantically searching.
Half of the day had passed with no luck. Samuel’s throat burned with thirst and his eyes were dry and stinging. His miner’s uniform clung to his body, and he was pretty sure he could feel every grain of grit and sand that had settled on him through the hours of hard labor.
Rage welled in his chest as no one came up with so much as an ounce of silver, and Samuel took one final, explosive swing with his pick before turning and flinging it with both hands at the wall.
“This is horseshit!” yelled Sam, his voice and the clatter of his pick echoing throughout the mine. The miners immediately surrounding Samuel and Benjamin stiffened but kept working while avoiding eye contact.
“I'd say so.” Said Benjamin as he lowered his pick and chugged from a nearby water canteen. “I'd say it's a certainty that we were duped. I guess I never should have gotten you into this mess, Sam.”
Samuel sighed and took the canteen held out by his friend. “I made the final decision, Ben.”
“So what are we going to do with an empty mine?”
“Well, we know that Mr. Kingsley is not going to give us our money back.” Samuel said.
“I think we should pay him a visit.” Benjamin replied as he cracked his knuckles and smirked. Samuel’s rage lowered to a simmer, dampened by Benjamin’s loyalty but still fueled by the cheating nature of a dishonest man.
Chapter IX
Kenneth stood among the other miners at the edge of the tracks as they unloaded from the mining train. He waited and watched for Samuel and Benjamin, his mouth dry as cotton and his chest muscles cramped and aching. This had gone too far, and Kenneth could barely bear it. Samuel and Benjamin had to know.
“Sir!” Kenneth called out above the clamor of miners and the roar of the train engine. “Can I have a word with you?”
Samuel looked defeated and tired, but even so he smiled softly at Kenneth and wal
ked away from Benjamin, who remained near the train. “Sure.”
A knot formed in Kenneth’s throat and for a moment he panicked. “Sir…I don’t know how to tell you…”
“Yes?” Samuel asked, his gentle smile dissolving from his face.
“Well, sir. You aren’t going to find any silver in that mine, no matter how hard you look.” Kenneth looked away, letting his eyes graze over the heads of the others bustling through the train station.
Samuel’s shoulders slumped and he relaxed a little. “Well tell me something I don’t know, Kenneth.” He gave a brief laugh.
“You don’t understand, sir. You see,” Kenneth took a few instinctual steps backward and cowered into himself, wringing his hands and dreading the words he was about to spit out. “That silver you first found…it was put there by Mr. Kingsley. Well actually, it was put there by us on his orders.”
Kenneth took one daring glance at Samuel’s face, and when he saw how Samuel’s cheeks and neck reddened and how his jaw was iron tight he looked away again.
Samuel turned toward the larger group of miners. “YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS? YOU KNEW THAT MINE WAS EMPTY?” Samuel roared, and Kenneth was startled at the fury that had engulfed his employer’s body. Benjamin stood motionless and wide-eyed, and the other miners all fell silent and dropped their heads in guilt.
“How could you stand by my side, while I exerted days of sweat into that mine and not tell me it was spent?” Samuel rasped as he looked to Kenneth once again.
“Sir, we have families to think about. We just wanted to work,” replied Kenneth, wincing as he spoke.
“Besides, Mr. Kingsley was paying us double,” a younger miner injected the stinging truth.
“What do you mean paying you double?” Samuel’s forehead was taut and aching as he
furrowed his brows.
“He was still giving us our weekly salary–even when you owned the mine. He was paying for our silence.” Kenneth’s voice dropped to a whisper at the end of his sentence and he looked to the floor.
The world seemed to spin around Samuel. He’d suspected he was being cheated, but he’d had no idea that these miners were part of the conspiracy. These men who he’d only wanted to do right by as a new business owner. These men who stood by him, smiled, and taught him to mine for silver he’d never find.
The energy that had been building in Samuel exploded, and with a curse under his breath Samuel broke into a run out of the train depot.
He grazed the shoulders and bodies of the people he passed, hearing nothing but the wind and blood in his ears and Benjamin’s faint cry for him to wait. But he was done waiting. He had to figure this out and now.
*
Samuel’s lungs burned and a crick under his ribs caused him to slow as he neared the border of the wooded area outside of Kingsley’s mansion. His face and arms stung from the slaps and scratches of tree branches, but Samuel hadn’t even begun to feel the plethora of stings across his body until his pace slowed.
His eyes were streaming, his face was tingling, and the tips of his fingers were numb from hyperventilating. The adrenaline that had flooded his system in the train depot seemed to have abated a bit, yet Samuel was still enraged.
When he reached the massive front door, he smoothed his hair a bit, wiped his face, and ignored the door knocker to pound with his fists. He knocked so hard that each strike reverberated through his arms. Only when he heard the smooth click of the door unlocking did he stop.
A dour, elderly butler answered. “Yes…sir?”
“I want to see Kingsley!” Samuel nearly yelled.
“I am sorry, sir–he is unavailable at the moment,” the butler replied, beginning to quickly close the door.
“Bullshit!” Samuel shoved the door open, knocking the butler backward. His boots pounded the floor and echoed through the entryway as he sprinted to Mr. Kingsley’s office and burst through the door.
Mr. Kingsley, seated at his desk, stood straight up upon seeing Samuel enter.
“Give me back my money.” Samuel said, almost whispering. He could barely control his anger, and he ground his teeth with clenched jaws.
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Kingsley attempted to mask his alarm by smoothing down his vest. “Who let you in here?”
“I did.” Samuel strode confidently toward Mr. Kingsley’s desk. “You sold me an empty mine. You paid the miners off. I know about your whole scheme.” He pointed an accusing finger at Mr. Kingsley’s bulbous nose.
Mr. Kingsley scoffed. “Those miners are lying to you.” He stared Samuel in the eye. “You really believe them? They’d say anything to keep their jobs.”
“Do you take me for a fool, Mr. Kingsley?” Samuel asked. “I’ve taken a pick to that mine myself, probably more than you’ve ever done, and I know that there is no silver in that damn mine.” Samuel crossed his arms over his chest and tried to resist the urge to throttle the slimy weasel of a man standing across from him. “You knew it all along. Now give me back my money.”
Mr. Kingsley put on a genial smile and opened his arms, as if for an embrace. “I'll gladly buy the property back from you, son–but with no silver, I can only pay you $10,000.” He lowered his arms and shrugged.
Samuel felt disbelief and hatred fill his lungs along with the smell of Kingsley’s smoldering cigar as it burned away in the ashtray between them. “$10,000? I paid you $270,000!” Samuel slammed his fist on the desk, causing the cigar to jump.
“Well, son, I guess you are learning about the harsh reality of the business world.” Kingsley’s smile remained but hardened. He slowly walked around the desk to face Samuel. “You can either take the $10,000 and sell me back the land or get the hell off my property.”
Mr. Kingsley pulled a long, silver plated revolver from under waistcoat and laid it on the desk, pointed at Samuel. Samuel's rage was suddenly peppered with fear. Just who was this man he’d traveled across country to buy from? What had he gotten himself into?
*
Penny opened the door to her uncle’s office to a sight she didn’t expect. She’d just come to give him an update on the garden and was shocked to see Samuel standing near the desk and a gun in full view.
“Uncle! What are you doing?”
Kingsley smiled and put his hands in his pockets. “Mr. Weir was just leaving. Isn't that right, Mr. Weir?” He put his hands in his pockets and stepped away from Samuel and the gun.
Samuel cleared his throat and glanced quickly from Penny to the gun and back. “Uh, yes.” He nodded. Penny could see the fear and anger in his clouded eyes and pursed lips. Before she could say a word, he backed out of the door and exited, with a slight nod her way.
Kingsley slowly took up the gun and placed into a desk drawer. He sat down and began reading some papers, as if nothing had happened.
Penny walked over to the desk and demanded an answer. “What were you doing?”
“I was handling my business. Our family business. I'm growing tired of all of the accusations.” He made the last point with an exasperated tone, as if he were done being bothered with trivialities.
“Accusations?” Penny’s voice almost became shrill. She took a breath to steady herself. “You sold him an empty mine!”
Her uncle erupted in fury. In the blink of an eye he leapt to his feet and slammed his fists on the table, startling her. “Get the hell out! Get out of my office!” He pointed to the door. Penny paused for a moment in shock, searching his face for and glimpse of the man she thought she knew. She was met only with the desperate stare of a man digging his heel in, or perhaps digging his own grave.
*
Penny choked back her tears long enough to burst through the front door of the mansion. She leaned her hands on her knees a moment, taking in huge breaths and letting her tears stream down her face.
“Samuel?!” she yelled into the stoic Colorado pines. “Are you there?” her second question came out weakly, as her lungs burned with hyperventilation.
There were no sounds
save the rustling of branches as a breeze passed and the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Penny considered walking to town but dismissed it. What could she do? Samuel probably had as much disdain for her as he’d have for her uncle; he’d just faced down a gun for God’s sake.
She sat on the mansion’s steps and ran her fingers through her hair, resting her forehead in her palms. For a moment of unusual stillness in her life, she watched a few ants navigate some pebbles or cracks, insurmountable obstacles in their way.
Penny thought of her uncle and his weapon, and her stomach churned. He seemed as impassable and inflexible to her as a pebble must seem to an ant. The image of his hard eyes in her mind made her shiver, and as much as she didn’t want to, she decided to wait before contacting Samuel again. The last thing she desired was drawing her uncle’s attention to him once more, not after staring down the barrel of that gun.
*
Samuel couldn’t stop shaking as he rushed through their hotel room at the Strater. He grabbed all of his clothing, his coins and money, and stuffed it into his bags. As he began shoving his last pair of pants in the sack, the door to the room creaked open, and Benjamin walked in.
“What are you doing?” Benjamin asked.
“I failed. I’m going back to the City.” Samuel felt his ears burn and wished Benjamin hadn’t come in.
“You can’t go back yet, Sam.” Benjamin said as he sat on his bed across from Samuel. “I don’t want to go back yet.”
“Well you don’t have to.” Samuel said, feeling a knot catch in his throat. “And why not? The mine failed, I lost most of my father’s fortune, I’m a failure. You can stay here or you can go back to New York with me.”
“Sam, we just got here, give things a chance.”
“A chance? A chance? That damn mine is spent! I own a shitload of bedrock, dirt and a mining train that has nothing to haul.” Samuel closed his sack and then smacked it, sending it tumbling to the bed’s headboard.
A moment of silence hung between them as Benjamin looked at his hands folded in his lap. “What about starting a different business here, Samuel?” Benjamin looked up, hope slowly dusted his face with a soft smile and widened eyes.