Comstock Lode

by Louis L'Amour

  He looked at it, then sat down on the pile of muck, picked up a piece of ore and studied it, then looked at the face again. The vein had taken a downward dip, but it was wider—wider and richer. He swore softly and went back into the air.

  He went back, mucked out his ore, then sorted it with care. Never a talkative man, he preferred nobody know his business. The ore was rich, but crumbly. It would be hard ground to work.

  Fortunately, nobody believed he had anything here, and the longer they believed that the better off he would be.

  After he had washed up and taken off his digging clothes, he got into a clean outfit and put on his coffee, then he walked out front. Evening was coming on, and some work had ceased. The big stamp mills continued to pound, but he rarely heard them any more. His mind had learned to blot out the sound.

  He strolled down the slope and sat down on a rock, looking back up the mountain. Of course, there was no telling which way that vein would go. That was one thing the Comstock had taught them. He glanced at the claim adjoining his on the north. It belonged to an Irishman named Lydon, and the one east of him belonged to a Dutchman who kept a store and sometimes cut hair as a sideline.

  He dropped around to the store. “How’s for a haircut?”

  “Set over there. In the cane chair.”

  Trevallion dropped into the chair, studying himself in the mirror. It was time he had a haircut. “If you find any dust in my hair,” he commented, “don’t bother to pan it out.”

  “What’s the matter? Not paying off?”

  “I’ve got a claim up on Seven Mile. If I work I can make a living.”

  “Don’t you have the old MacNeale place?”

  “Uh-huh. I live there.”

  “But you’re working that a little, aren’t you?”

  “Tried. It doesn’t show much so I’m widening out the hole. Make a basement of it.”

  “A basement?”

  “I’m going to build myself a house. I’m tired of sleeping in that bunk of MacNeale’s. I want to build a six-room house, something really nice. Trouble is, I don’t have quite room enough. I’m going to see who owns that place north of me. If I could pick it up cheap I’d—”

  “I own the one to the east.”

  “You do? Well, I’ll be damned. If it was to the north we could make a deal.”

  When the Dutchman had finished cutting his hair he put up his scissors and said, “You’d not be interested in my place then?”

  “Well, no.” He paused, as if thinking. “Still, if the price was right—”

  He picked up his coat and put it on. “I’ll want a garden, of course. I can bring in some earth from the valley. I might plant east of the house.”

  “Of course,” the Dutchman said, “there might be mineral on it.”

  “Could be. No use taking my place as an example. You might strike it rich up there. Of course, all the best ores are deep here, and it will cost you some money to develop it.”

  He changed the subject, talking of the failure of the Pony to arrive. The situation in the east was growing daily more serious, and the lack of news was a disturbing thing.

  “I’m for the Union,” the Dutchman said. “If the South secedes there will be a war, that much is certain.”

  A miner had come in from outside, and heard the comment. “Aye,” he said grimly, “and Terry expects to seize the Comstock for the South!”

  “How do you know that?” Trevallion asked.

  The miner glanced at him, started to speak, then shrugged. “There’s talk,” he muttered. Suddenly, as if sorry for having spoken, he turned and walked out.

  “He spoke as if he knew something,” Trevallion commented.

  “He probably does. He just realized he didn’t know us and stopped talking.” The Dutchman sat down, brushing the hair from his sleeves. “Terry’s done a lot of talking, and there are many who think as he does. They leave me alone because they think of me as a foreigner.” He glanced at Trevallion. “You’re a Cornishman, aren’t you?”

  “I was. I’m an American now.” He gestured widely. “I was born overseas, but I make my living here. I vote here, when I stay any place long enough to vote.”

  “It will be well,” the Dutchman spoke quietly, “to know where one stands. I am Dutch, but I went to American schools.” He paused a minute. “The Southerners talk the most for they feel very strongly about it all, the Unionists don’t talk so much, but they are here.”

  Trevallion started for the door, but the Dutchman spoke. “Trevallion? If you want that claim of mine east of you, I’ll let you have it for five hundred dollars.” He hesitated. “Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it,” Trevallion said.

  They shook hands.

  “Although you’d be wise to leave,” the Dutchman said. “I hear things, and there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Serious trouble. I’m going to pull out, now.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Trevallion was lonely and restless. The old pattern of his life no longer would do. He sensed that Ledbetter felt much the same way, but they saw little of each other as even now, with growing affluence, Ledbetter was much on the trail.

  Will Crockett was no longer around. There were rumors that he had gone to San Francisco, others that he was prospecting. Hesketh, a rumor said, had offered Crockett three dollars a share for his forty-two percent of the stock. Crockett had refused and Hesketh had replied, “All right, my offer is now two dollars per share, and not a cent more.”

  Trevallion worked alone on his claim. He got out more ore, sorted out the best stuff, and had it milled where Tapley had found work. From time to time he thought of moving on, of going to some other area, to Austin, on the Reese River, but his good sense told him things would be no better there than here. To keep moving was to try to escape from a problem he carried with him.

  At night, lying in his bunk alone, he thought of what some of his friends had said, that he needed to find a woman, get married and settle down, but there was no woman. Yet he considered his situation honestly and found it not bad. He had some mining claims, his as long as he did at least one hundred dollars work per year, and they were good claims. He now owned the adjoining claim on the east, in the direction he believed his own lead to be taking.

  He sat up suddenly, swinging his feet to the floor. What was he thinking about? He could be rich! True, riches had never been one of the things he wanted, but it was here, at hand, and he thought of John Mackay, and something he had said during one of their idle moments of conversation. “Sometimes I think it is not the money, but the game. It isn’t the winning so much as it is to play the cards right.”

  Trevallion got out his plat of Virginia City and Gold Hill and studied them. Most of the mines had now passed from the hands of the discoverers into those of developers, and they were rapidly going deeper and deeper. The Ophir was into bonanza ore, others were going deeper and richer. Down C Street the International Hotel was going up, destined to be a haven of elegance, if plans matured.

  He looked at the plat again. If his drawing was correct, and he was sure it was, there remained a corner near the Solomon on which nobody had filed. Surrounded by mines that were already into bonanza, it was idle. Did no one realize it was there?

  Trevallion studied the plat carefully, rechecked his figures, and looked again. When the first filings had begun on claims on the Comstock, the record book had been kept in a saloon, and anyone had access to it. The entries had often been altered, boundaries changed, and claims sold. There was every chance that the others believed this was Solomon ground.

  Melissa had scarcely opened her bakery before Trevallion came in. She turned at his closing the door.

  “Trev! Where have you been! It’s been days! Weeks!”

  He accepted the coffee and doughnu
ts she put out for him. “Hang on for a minute and I’ll have Cookie fry up some eggs. We just got some in.”

  She sat down opposite him. She had filled out a little and was even more attractive. “I never see you or Jim any more. Where is he?”

  “His business has grown, too.” He sipped his coffee. “Have you seen Will Crockett?”

  “No. He’s been in only a couple of times since he lost the Solomon. He’s a changed man, Trev.”

  “If you see him, tell him I want to talk…business. Important business.”

  She asked no questions. “He needs something. He’s been wandering around like a lost soul. Anybody else would have taken a gun and killed Hesketh.”

  “It was business. Tricky business, but business nonetheless. One should never trust anyone too much.” He put down his cup. “I’m a quiet man, and I’m much alone, but despite that, I like people. At the same time I know we are all subject to temptation and we are all human and you can always find excuses for what you do.”

  “So?”

  He smiled. “I try to keep them from being tempted.”

  The streets were crowded now, and there was almost no place on the side of Sun Mountain that was not busy.

  From high on the side of the mountain, he studied the slope below with his glass, and especially that area near the Solomon. When he had worked it out in his mind, he went back to his cabin and got several stakes together, then he went down to the Virginia House, inquiring for Will Crockett. He was not around. Dane Clyde was.

  “Guess who just moved in? Al Hesketh just took an apartment here.”

  “Living it up, isn’t he?”

  “He’s taking ore out of the Solomon that you wouldn’t believe. That’s the story, anyway.” Clyde glanced at him. “He’s going to be a rich man, Trevallion.”

  “No doubt.” Trevallion was thinking of something else. “If you see Will, tell him I must see him. It’s important.”

  “Have you met Sutro? If you haven’t, you should. He’s got some idea of running a tunnel to drain all the mines but he’s not getting much help.”

  “He will have to work fast. The Ophir is down around a hundred and fifty feet and going deeper.”

  Tonight, he would have to move tonight. If he could bring it off—

  Hesketh had guards around his mine, and at night they were apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Trevallion was quite sure that Hesketh had been assuming the area in which he was interested was part of the Solomon holdings, just as everybody else was. Hesketh had, Trevallion knew, picked up several adjoining claims, apparently assuming it had been part of the Solomon from the beginning. It would not be the first time such assumptions had been made. It was a small piece of land, but Sandy Bowers and Eilley were getting rich from a piece not too much different in size.

  He wanted no gun battle if he could avoid it. Whatever he did must be done quickly, silently, and before it was realized what he was doing.

  They went into the saloon and sat down. It was quiet, only a few businessmen drinking at the bar. Suddenly, Clyde said, “What I’d have given to have been here among the first!”

  Trevallion permitted himself a rare smile. “You’d probably have done no better than the others,” he said. “Alvah Gould, one of the original owners of the Gould & Curry, sold his piece for four hundred and fifty dollars, and thought he’d gypped the Californians. Another one ended up cooking in a sheep camp, while millions were being taken from the mine he’d sold for almost nothing.”

  “You could be rich,” Clyde suggested. “Everybody says you know more about mining than any of them.”

  “That isn’t true.” He gestured toward Sun Mountain. “We’re all learning. This is a new kind of mining, and we’re having to find new ways of doing it. That mountain has a lot of tricks that we’ve only begun to learn about. If we don’t find a new way to timber those drifts and stopes, the whole mine will come down on us.”

  “They’re bringing in a man from California named Philipp Deidesheimer.”

  “I know him. I worked for him over in El Dorado County. He’s a good man.”

  “He’s expected to solve the problems,” Clyde said. “Do you think he can?”

  “If anybody can. He’s a good mining man and a very shrewd one. He’s a German,” he added, “from Darmstadt.”

  Trevallion was watching the door. The man he wanted now was Will Crockett. Where was he?

  Suddenly, he saw somebody else walk past the window. He swore.

  Dane Clyde glanced around. “What’s the matter? Something wrong with your drink?”

  “No, I just saw a man I used to know.” He got up. “Sorry to run. I’ve got to get over to the bakery.”

  Melissa was watching a new batch of bread go into the oven. Jim Ledbetter was having coffee.

  “Melissa?”

  She turned sharply at his tone. “Watch yourself. I just saw Mousel.”

  Ledbetter looked up. “You saw him here?”

  “We should have expected it. After all, he claims to be a miner as well as a trapper. And he knew where Melissa was going. I’m only surprised he didn’t come sooner.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Melissa said. “He doesn’t frighten me any more.”

  “He’s dangerous,” Trevallion warned, “and he’s full of hatred. The very fact that you’ve done well will make him worse. If he gives you any trouble, just let me know.”

  “Or me,” Ledbetter said.

  “Be careful your own selves. He didn’t like either of you very much.” She filled a cup and walked to the table and sat down. “I’m not surprised. I’m just wondering if he followed Alfie.”

  They both put their cups down. “He’s here?” Ledbetter exclaimed.

  She laughed at them. “Of course! He showed up yesterday, very elegant-looking and fashionable.”

  “No callouses on his hands, I’ll bet,” Ledbetter said grimly.

  “He stopped by to see me. Said he was glad I was doing so well.”

  “I’ll bet!” Ledbetter said.

  She put her hand over his. “Jim, you’re an old grouch! You never really knew Alfie. He’s charming!”

  “What’s he doing for a living?” Ledbetter asked.

  “He didn’t say.”

  Trevallion said nothing, he was thinking of what he had before him and how it might best be accomplished. He looked around suddenly to find Ledbetter watching him.

  “What’s on your mind, Trev?” he asked.

  “Mining.”

  Ledbetter shrugged. “Be careful. Mousel’s a rat, but a vengeful one.”

  Trevallion got up. “If you see Crockett, tell him to look me up.”

  He went to the door, paused a moment, and then went along to the corner of C Street. It was crowded with ore wagons, riders, and pedestrians. Miners, prospectors, stockbrokers, teamsters, and occasional drifting cowhands and businessmen, and mingled with them the usual corps of nondescript drifters who follow in the wake of any excitement.

  At the MacNeale cabin he changed into digging clothes and went down the drift. He finished drilling the lifters at the bottom of the face, then came back on top and went into the cabin. It was a piecemeal way of working, and he did not like it much, but at least he was getting something done. He hefted the can of black powder; he would need more powder, and he was getting low on other supplies. He made a mental calculation of what money he had left and swore softly. He had been buying until his cash supply was almost gone. Yet he had some good ore and he should be getting some money from the ore left at the mill on his last visit.

  Tomorrow, maybe.

  * * *

  —

  Waggoner returned to Virginia City riding a sorebacked roan and in a foul mood. In his pocket there was an additional three hundred dollars and with it there had come a note: until Trevalli
on was killed, this was the last payment.

  The town was crowded, and his arrival attracted no attention. Deliberately, he had developed no associations or friendships. Nobody cared whether he came or went, and that was the way he wanted it.

  For the first time he was shying away from the job he had to do. He had killed other men, and would kill more, but not like this one. Trevallion bothered him, worried him, threw him off balance.

  He should have had him that night at the gold cache. Four other times he had lain in wait for him, only to find he had taken another route or gone elsewhere. At first he had believed it was pure accident, but he no longer believed that. Trevallion knew somebody was gunning for him.

  Waggoner had heard of the Sam Brown incident. That had demanded nerve of an uncommon kind. Also there had either been some organization or loyalty, because both Jim Ledbetter and Christian Tapley had been on hand.

  Twice, when stalking Trevallion he had seen Tapley not far off. Watching him? Or just there by chance? If he raised a rifle, would Tapley have shot him? He swore bitterly. What’s-his-name could do his own killing. Although, he reflected, it was his killing, too.

  He kept out of sight and made his way to his old dug-out, only to find the lock broken and the dug-out occupied.

  Leaving his horse ground-hitched, he opened the door and stepped in. Startled, a man looked up from a chess-board. Another man who had just slid down from a bunk was reaching for his overalls.

  “Get out,” Waggoner said, rifle in hand.

  “Now see here! Just who—”

  “I built this place. It’s on my claim. You busted in where you’ve no right. You’re claim-jumpers.”

  “You say this place is—” the chess player started to argue.

  Waggoner kicked the chessboard out of his hands, and as the other man started to protest, he struck him across the face with the rifle barrel. “Get out,” he repeated.

  The miner whose face he had struck fumbled for his overalls, blood streaming from a broken nose. Shocked and hurt, he could think only of getting out, of getting away.