Comstock Lode

by Louis L'Amour

  The town was booming. Silver was being extracted from the mines at an unbelievable rate. Trading in mining stocks on the San Francisco market had become a form of madness that rarely had any connection with true values. Trevallion worked on his claim, keeping out of sight, working with the simplest tools.

  Frame hotels were going up, and there were plans for a large brick hotel with an elegant dining room. A theater was being built, and there were plans to bring in some traveling stock companies. Of a sudden, Virginia City was no longer a squalid cluster of stone huts and dug-outs but a city.

  There came the night when Trevallion walked into Lyman Jones’s place with Ledbetter. “Look out,” Ledbetter said softly, “there’s Brown.”

  “I see him. If it is to happen, the sooner the better.”

  Trevallion’s eyes met Brown’s across the heads of two dozen gambling, drinking men. Trevallion walked to the bar. The bartender glanced up, saw who it was, and his face went a shade whiter.

  “You heeled?” Ledbetter asked.

  “Always,” Trevallion said.

  Brown glanced at him again. He was a big, shaggy man with small, mean eyes. Yet he was also a cautious man.

  Kip Hauser’s eyes followed Brown’s. “Don’t do it, Sam,” he whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “Just take my advice. Leave him alone. He’s good with fists or gun and he won’t back up, not even a little. He won’t be bluffed and he won’t scare. If you brace him, you’ve got to be ready to go all the way.”

  “He’s that good?”

  “The best. Langford Peel isn’t in the same class, take it from me.”

  Suddenly there was a stirring in the crowd near him. He looked around and Trevallion was there. “Hello, Sam.” Trevallion looked into the cold little eyes and smiled. “Want a drink, Sam?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Trevallion leaned one elbow on the bar. Was Trevallion right- or left-handed? Sam couldn’t remember. When they had their drinks, Trevallion said, “I heard there was trouble between us, Sam. I can’t think of anything, can you?”

  “Trouble? No, I don’t know of nothin’.”

  “Of course not. I said the same thing. I knew you had nothing to do with Ledbetter’s mules, Sam. If you did I would have hung you.”

  “You would have—” Sam stared, starting to get angry, but a little worried, too. “What do you mean, hung me?”

  “Why not, Sam? Isn’t that what they do with horse thieves? But that’s foolish talk. I told them to forget it. We’ve no trouble, Sam. You just remember that.” He indicated the drink. “Go ahead! Drink up!”

  He paused. “If we ever do have any trouble, Sam, you just tell me, and you can choose the weapons. Man to man, that’s the way we like it, isn’t it?”

  He downed his drink, then with a slap on the back he turned and walked away. Ledbetter lingered just a moment, finished his own drink, and then followed.

  Sam Brown stood at the bar, scowling. He had a feeling he had somehow been tricked, but he couldn’t see how. Nonetheless, he was irritated.

  “Damn it!” he muttered. “I think I’ll—”

  “Don’t,” Kip Hauser advised. “Leave him alone. He’s poison, Sam. He’s real trouble. He’s got too many friends around and Ledbetter probably has more. Anyway, all the time we were talkin’, that Tapley was over against the wall behind us, just settin’ there, watchin’. My advice is forget him. There’s easier pigeons around.

  “Anyway,” he added, “the word’s around that somebody else wants to kill him. Let them do it.”

  Trevallion went outside with Ledbetter, and a few minutes later they were joined by Tapley. “First time I ever saw Sam buffaloed,” Ledbetter commented. “He just didn’t know what to make of you. An’ Tap here, he had Kip Hauser worried. Kep’ turnin’ his head to look at him, an’ there you sat, Tap, with that six-shooter in your belt, watching them.”

  They went up the hill to the MacNeale claim, and Trevallion stoked up the fire. “Still cold,” he said. “That wind makes a man wonder what he did with his summer’s wages.”

  “They’ve started building a theater,” Clyde commented, “and the Westwoods are going to play here.”

  “I was counting up,” Ledbetter said, “and there’s thirty-eight general stores now, nine restaurants, and twenty-five saloons.”

  “Four butcher shops,” Tapley commented, “and there’s nine or ten livery stables, a couple of barber shops, and there’s plenty of laundries and such. The town’s growin’, boys. She’s gettin’ to be a reg’lar metropolis.”

  “I’m worried about Will Crockett,” Ledbetter said suddenly. “Has anybody seen him?”

  “He’s got nothing to worry about,” Tap said, “with forty-two percent of the Solomon. No matter who controls, he stands to make money.”

  “He’s a trusting man,” Ledbetter said, “and he trusted Hesketh. That’s more than I ever did.”

  “Never met him,” Trevallion said.

  “He’s a cold man,” Ledbetter replied, “and no mixer. Keeps to himself. He’s shrewd, though, but I’d not trust him across the street.”

  “Word is he’s on his way back from the coast.”

  Ledbetter turned to Trevallion. “You looked his mine over. Have they got anything?”

  “There’s some good-looking rock in that old drift. I was advising Will to start it up again and then the word came through.”

  The fire was warm and pleasant. Trevallion filled his cup and put it down on the oilcloth-covered table. Below the sound of their voices he listened for sounds from the outside, but there was no sound but the wind.

  A theater, they said. He had not seen a play in years, but he had always loved the theater. He said as much. “Will Crockett, too,” Ledbetter said. “Will raised some of his first money from theatrical people. He bought back most of the shares he sold them as soon as he raised the money, but they were always the ones he went to when he needed cash.”

  Trevallion stood up and put on his coat and stepped out into the night. It was cold. The sky was very clear, and the stars were bright and sharp against the night. He walked away from the mine and looked down the hill at the town. There were lights everywhere. They were right, of course; Virginia City was growing. A few months ago the town had been numbered in hundreds, and now it could be counted in thousands, and more coming all the time.

  Waggoner…where was he? Had he given up? Who was he, anyway? One of them, certainly, although there was still a chance he was just a thief.

  He was sure it had been Waggoner who stole his gold. And the man would be back.

  He thought again of the men who murdered his mother and killed his father. Nine of them, he believed, and not less than eight. His father had killed two in that final fight, and he had killed two since.

  Four or five left, at least two of them he would remember.

  What about the man who instigated the affair? He was the one Trevallion wanted.

  Or did he? He thought about it less and less all the time, and blamed himself for it. Those men deserved to die, and there had been no law to punish them or even to seek them out.

  He seated himself on a large rock and looked thoughtfully at the town. In a booming town like this, a man could get rich. He was here, with a couple of good claims, and he knew what to do with them. He owned a small part of Ledbetter’s operation and a small piece of the bakery. Both of these were making money.

  He turned his thinking to the lode itself. Several of the mines looked very good. The Ophir, the Mexican, and others were showing large ore bodies, and the ore was the richest he had seen. The vein in the Ophir was sixty-five feet wide.

  Nobody had ever worked a vein that wide, and nobody knew how. The earth was crumbly and unstable. There were constant rockfalls. Some method must be found to handle the unstable gro
und and enable the miners to get out the ore in quantity. That such a method would be found he had no doubt.

  Trevallion realized he had been so concerned with his own immediate problems that he had not taken the long view. Apparently the affair of Ledbetter’s mules was over. He could, for the time, leave Brown out of his thinking and concentrate on the larger issues.

  First, he would let Melissa know he was in the market for a claim or two, if the price was right. Her bakery was the best listening post on the Comstock, as miners and mining men talked freely and often confided in her.

  Ledbetter was another source of information, as he was constantly moving ore. Most of it was being milled locally now, however. Very little ore was shipped to the coast. Milling had become a big business in Washoe.

  The road over the Sierras had been improved and Ledbetter had already begun to shift from pack mules to wagons. Times were changing, and changing fast.

  Trevallion went back inside, and on a sheet of tablet paper he drew a rough diagram of the Comstock and Sun Mountain. He drew in the mines, so far as he could remember them, and began to study the situation. There were a few outlying claims that showed no promise. He would look them over, and if the price was right, buy them.

  He looked again at the Solomon. Will Crockett was still a major stockholder but no longer in control. He owned forty-two percent and Hesketh now had forty-eight percent, and—

  He looked at the figures again. Forty-two and forty-eight figured to only ninety percent.

  Who owned the remaining shares? The shares that could represent the controlling interest?

  CHAPTER 20

  Albert Hesketh disliked riding, and he distrusted horses, but it was the best method of travel, and he was returning to the Comstock in triumph. From his first arrival on the west coast, he had planned for this moment, yet this was only a beginning.

  He had known exactly what he wished to do and exactly how to go about it. He had begun by getting a job as bookkeeper for the Solomon and gradually had taken more and more detail off the hands of Will Crockett, until within a year he was virtually in control.

  Each evening he had gone into the mine and taken samples from the faces of the workings, and he had paid occasional bottles of whiskey to workers in other mines for news of developments. Gradually, he had accumulated considerable data as to the situation on the Comstock.

  Hoarding the small amount of gold he had brought with him, he added to it what he could save by frugal living and from discreet skimming of high-grade from the Solomon.

  At the first indication of increased values, he had stopped work in the main drift and begun exploration elsewhere. He had gone himself into the mine each night to see the results of the blasting before the morning shift came to work. He had himself mucked out some good-looking ore and hidden it in a cross-cut, and cleaned up along the face of the drift. The following morning the new exploration began.

  Will Crockett rarely came into the mine, spending more time buying supplies and cutting timber, and Hesketh had carefully nurtured the idea that Crockett was of greater value on the surface than below. Hesketh made a practice of reporting carefully all the developments below ground so Crockett would seem to have a grasp of what was going on.

  Purposely, Hesketh had hired miners who loafed on the job or were just putting in their time, as they would be less likely to wonder at the orders they received.

  From the beginning he had known he would not have money enough to bring off the coup he intended, so on his winter in San Francisco, with the mine closed down, he located the man he wanted.

  Marcus Zetsev was a ship chandler who also dealt in mining supplies. A short, stocky, somewhat corpulent man with slightly protruding eyes, he operated a small business on the waterfront, a business that suddenly began to prosper.

  Albert Hesketh was inquisitive. He was suspicious, also. His first lead to the character of Marcus Zetsev came in a small restaurant where he overheard a conversation at an adjoining table.

  “Buy it from Marcus,” a man was saying, low-voiced, “you can get it cheaper. A lot cheaper.”

  “But how can he afford to sell that much cheaper?”

  “Don’t ask me. And don’t ask him. Just make your deal and keep your mouth shut.”

  A few days later he bought drills, cable, and powder from Zetsev, paying less than the market price. “I appreciate the favor,” he commented to Zetsev. “I am operating on the Comstock and can bring quite a bit of business your way.”

  “You do that. Treat you right.” He glanced left and right. “If the word gets out, I’d have to raise prices. Other dealers don’t take to price-cutting. Live and let live, I say.”

  A few days later Hesketh dropped around, and after a bit of desultory conversation, he asked, “Buy you a drink?”

  Zetsev glanced at him, looked out the door, then nodded, “Don’t mind if I do.”

  After some conversation in a nearby saloon, Hesketh said, “There’s money to be made in the mining business if you have inside information. Or if you can pick up good properties at a low cost.”

  A few minutes later, he said, “There’s a deal coming up—it will be a few months—but it needs more capital than I have.”

  “Lay it out for me.”

  “Later,” Hesketh said. “But it could mean millions. And that’s only one deal.”

  “I’ve got some Solomon stock.”

  “Sell it.”

  “What if it goes up?”

  “It won’t. Not for a while, at least, and then you can buy it back at a lower price.”

  Marcus accepted the advice and sold, and through a broker, Hesketh bought the stock himself. A few days later when the stock went down, Marcus was pleased. “A good tip. I appreciate that.”

  “Wait,” Hesketh said, “and save your money.”

  Marcus Zetsev was, he suspected, buying stolen goods. There were several large gangs, including the Sydney Ducks, operating along the waterfront, and they constantly slipped aboard ships in the harbor and stole cargo from them or from the warehouses.

  Later, Marcus said, in a confidential mood, “I never buy stolen goods. Take a strong stand on it. Only,” he smiled widely, “I just don’t ask questions. Man comes to me with something to sell, and the price is right, I buy it. I got no reason to think he’s not an honest man, now do I?”

  A few weeks later when the price of Solomon stock was right, Zetsev loaned Hesketh the money with which to buy.

  He bought discreetly, seeking out owners whose names he had taken from the Solomon files, first talking to them about a coming stock assessment, then suggesting the alternative. He had been careful enough so most of the stock was in his possession before even such an astute mining man as George Hearst was aware of what was happening. Hearst was in no way involved with the Solomon, but it was important to know what was going on, and then, he considered Will Crockett a friend, as did nearly everyone on the lode.

  Hesketh rode into Virginia City after dark. Purposely he had waited until the saloons were crowded and most of the miners off the streets. He had chosen the less traveled ways, and he rode right to the office of the Solomon.

  A few minutes later he posted a sign on the outside of the office and another on the headframe at the shaft-collar. Walking down the trail to the point where entry was made to mine property, he put up a third sign. All denied entry without a pass signed by the superintendent.

  At daybreak the following morning an armed guard was stationed at the first sign, and the first man up the trail was Will Crockett.

  The guard stopped him. “You got business here?”

  “I’m Will Crockett!”

  The guard shrugged. “I don’t give a damn who you are. If you’ve got a pass you can go ahead, no pass—no pass.”

  “What the hell is this? I own this mine!”

  “My
orders are you got to have a pass. Those orders come right from Superintendent Hesketh, and he—”

  “Super who?”

  The guard was a large man who carried a club. He also wore a six-shooter. “Mister, if you want a pass, you ask for it in writing. You give me a letter to Mr. Hesketh and I’ll see it is delivered.”

  He waved a hand at the mine-workings behind him. “There’s blasting going on. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Will stared at him, looked past him at the office, then turned and walked back down the trail.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll write a letter!” he said at the bakery. “The nerve of him!”

  “He owns a controlling interest,” somebody said. “So I guess he makes the rules.”

  Trevallion heard the news at the mine. He had just loaded a round of holes and had spit the fuses, then come on top. He listened but offered no comment. Will had always been a straightforward man.

  Other than mining there were only two topics of conversation in the camp, the Heenan-Sayers fight and the coming election. Seward was favored for the nomination. The South was threatening Secession.

  When asked, he shrugged. “I don’t know much about politics here. I’ve never been east. All I know is the west coast.”

  Yet it irritated him that he knew so little. He felt inadequate. He was a citizen now, had become more than a year ago, and a man should know. He had always been a loner, avoiding talk of politics, reading a little about it from the occasional newspapers he found, usually newspapers long out of date.

  Somebody had mentioned Lincoln to him. “What about Lincoln?” he asked.

  “Who?” They looked at him.

  “Abe Lincoln. He’s from Illinois.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Ledbetter spoke up. “Sure you have! Remember? He’s the one had those debates with Douglas.”

  “Oh, him? I was west then. Never did get the hang of what they were talking about.”

  When he went back into the hole after his last round of shots, the powder smoke had cleared. He picked his way over the broken rock to the face.