Comstock Lode

by Louis L'Amour

  Inconsistently, he believed all of those of whom he expected to take advantage to be fools, and for them he felt nothing but contempt. At the same time he avoided any contact with George Hearst, John Mackay, Fair, Sharon, or the bigger men on the Comstock. He wanted to be considered one of them but felt uneasy under the cool, direct attention of John Mackay.

  Give him time, he told himself. They would come later, and for the present, he had his plans.

  He had bought several small mines, considered worthless. These he would salt with ore from the Solomon or elsewhere, and when the shipments started, their stock booming, he would sell. After a while he would let the shipments fall off in quality, the value of the stock would drop, and he would buy it back again and do the same thing. There were always dupes in a hurry to get rich quick.

  Yet Margrita Redaway disturbed him. He had never been interested in any particular woman and cared for nothing but money and the power it represented. He found it difficult to think clearly in her presence. His mind, usually clear and incisive, became blurred and confused when she was around. At the same time he was irritated by the feeling that nothing about him really reached her. Ordinarily he would not have cared, but somehow he did care, and that irritated him, too.

  If she had the stock, she could offer it for sale. It would be worth a great deal of money, and it was his experience that everybody wanted money. What was she thinking of? What was she planning? He refused to admit that any woman had intelligence, but at the same time he was confused, trying to decide what was in her mind.

  Then he had seen her with Trevallion. He had seen them ride into town together and was alarmed. How had they gotten together? She had ridden out alone, he had seen that, but she had returned with him.

  Trevallion was his enemy. He felt this instinctively, yet Trevallion had never spoken against him nor acted against him, except in the one matter of filing on the claim adjoining the Solomon. Trevallion might know.

  The thought came to him, and then he hastily averted his mind. He must not think of that. He would not think of it. Too many years had passed, and even if Trevallion knew, he could prove nothing. But would Trevallion want proof?

  The fact remained that Trevallion could destroy him. Now, at last, Albert Hesketh—for he now thought of himself by that name—had become someone. He was a mining man, a mine owner. He was a wealthy man, well, almost, who could become wealthier. People looked at him with envy. He walked into the dining room at night and took his seat like royalty. He dined in solitary dignity, aloof from the crowd, envied and admired. It was thus he saw himself.

  He did not guess that nobody really cared. That they accepted him as one more odd character in a camp filled with even odder or more flamboyant ones. He was a very dim page alongside the likes of Sandy Bowers, Pancake Comstock, Ol’ Virginny, Langford Peel, Tom Paisley, Bill Stewart, and Judge Terry, to name a half dozen from a camp where oddity was a rule rather than an exception.

  To himself Albert Hesketh was a man of dignity and poise, a commanding figure in the business of mining, a man who someday might decide to run for the Senate. He was special, and therefore Margrita Redaway should have noticed him. She should be paying attention. She had actually met him, been taken to dinner by him.

  He shook her from his mind. It did not matter. She did not matter. He had the Solomon and one way or another he would make sure of his hold and of his control.

  Trevallion must go. He must locate Will Crockett and eliminate, once and for all, that threat to his future.

  Also, he would build a home. He would build the best home, the grandest home of them all.

  Ralston, the banker, had the best home now. He had heard of it, wanted to see it. Belmont, it was called, and it was somewhere near San Francisco. The grand balls and parties given there were already legend. He must see it. Then he would know what he had to do.

  Trevallion stood in his way. So, and he returned to the idea reluctantly, did Margrita Redaway.

  If the shares he wanted had not been found, it must be that she carried them on her person. Therefore she must be killed, and searched.

  He shrank from the suggestion. The idea of touching the body of a woman made his flesh crawl. He did not know why he felt as he did, but it was something deeply ingrained in his being. He had touched but one, and it remained a moment of shuddering horror to him. Whenever the memory or the thought returned to him, he turned quickly away from it. He shrank from the memory.

  He had never gone in for self-examination. He had never wondered why he was a being virtually without appetites.

  Hesketh thought of Trevallion. The man should have been dead. Why was he not? Every day he lived the danger became greater. At first, even when resolved to have him killed, he had not pushed. If it was to be done right, it must be done with care. Yet nothing happened. Not even any rumors of attempts upon him.

  Suddenly, his thoughts shifted. Why had that Redaway woman hired Teale? What would an actress need with a killer?

  A bodyguard? Well, maybe. There had been attempts to rob her.

  Manfred. Hesketh had only seen Manfred once or twice, but something about the actor disturbed him. He did not seem to be an actor, yet he obviously was.

  For a moment he thought about trying to hire Teale, then pulled back from the idea. There was something about Teale that disturbed him. The man was a killer, and he had killed for hire, but he himself decided when and if he would kill and by some weird reasoning of his own.

  Albert Hesketh returned to his rooms. They were as he had found them, rich with hotel opulence, but without character. The only thing he had changed in the room were the locks. On the door he had two locks placed, each opened by a key that he alone possessed. He let the maid in, and he let her out, remaining there while she did her work. He had an abhorrence of anyone handling his clothing or of investigating his few belongings. He watched while they worked, and when they were finished, he locked the door again.

  Once the door was locked and he was alone, he sat down in an armchair to think. Slowly and with care he began to study his situation, thinking out every aspect of it. He knew what must be done and the question was how to do it.

  * * *

  —

  Melissa was gone from the bakery, and Alfie with her. Jim Ledbetter no longer came by, and Trevallion, when he went anywhere but home, went to the International. They no longer had to wait for the Pony. The telegraph was in and they heard the news much sooner than before, although the gossip of the mining camps was still to be heard around the saloons.

  They were the clubs of the common man, they were the clearinghouses, the places where information was passed out and deals formulated. There were few secrets on the Comstock. There was always a miner fresh out of the hole to relay news of the latest strike. As soon as he had a few, the story came out.

  It was the same with the millworkers. A man with his ear to the ground heard all he needed to buy stock or sell it. The people in San Francisco, going wild dreaming of fortunes to be made, had no such source of information.

  Pack trains were few now, for most of the freight came in huge wagons with jerk-line teams. The old trail had been widened, and gravel had been packed into the clay, until it was as solid as pavement during most of the year.

  Trevallion had returned to his cabin and slammed the door. He stood, hands on his hips, looking around his sparsely furnished bachelor quarters. Suddenly he swore, he swore slowly and with exasperation. Then he went to the cubbyhole he had hidden in the rock at the back wall and got out his notes.

  He looked over the figures. He did not have much. For months now he had been living from hand to mouth, working a little ore, selling it, placering a little. He had small investments in the bakery and in Ledbetter’s freight operation. He was not a poor man, but he was far from wealthy.

  He thought of Ledbetter, who had offered to throw in w
ith him, but he did not want to risk Ledbetter’s money, and he did want to go it alone.

  He would have to work. He would have to work as he never had. He took off his coat, hung it on a nail, and then took off his gun belt.

  That Waggoner, what was going on there, anyway? Had he not come up when he did—

  Waggoner needed killing, and he had it to do. After all, Waggoner had been one of them.

  Shocked, he dropped to his bunk. Waggoner—did he know who Margrita was? But how could he? He had not seen her, and anyway, she’d been only a child, a very small child. That was absurd.

  He had started out to kill them all. What had happened to him? Waggoner was here, Waggoner had even tried to kill him, yet he had done nothing.

  He undressed and fell into bed, but he did not sleep. His thoughts returned to Margrita. Suddenly, from where the idea came he did not know, but probably it had been lying in his mind for some time, he knew she was the only woman for him. And he had nothing for her.

  He had known it when he saw her on the stage. He had known it when they rode back to town together. He had known it in that brief moment when he interfered out there in Six Mile Canyon.

  She was already a success, and he was nothing. He was a miner, a man who worked with his hands. So they had known each other before, but then they had been mere children, babies. Briefly their lives had been joined by a night of horror and the following sorrow. She had stayed in his mind, and once he had written to her.

  He thought then of her papers. He must go over them, and he must get in touch with Will.

  Will? Where the hell was he?

  He stared around the small room. This was one night when he wished he could go down to the bakery and sit there, smelling the bakery and coffee smells, with Melissa nearby and Jim sitting across the table. Not to talk, just to have a presence. Not to be alone.

  What the hell was the matter with him? He had been alone half his life!

  In the morning he awakened and went down into the hole. With cool detachment he studied the layout, studied the ore samples, and knew he had to face it. The ore looked good, but unless there was a sudden breakthrough into something better, this was not going to make him rich. And suddenly he wanted to be rich. He wanted very much to be rich, at least a little bit rich.

  His gut feeling told him he was in good ground. It told him there was rich ore somewhere down below, but he did not have it now, when he needed it.

  He would need money, a lot of money. That was why the first discoverers had sold out, because these were claims that demanded development. A prospector likes to find, but he is rarely the man to develop a mine, and he rarely has the money needed.

  So what then? Keep the boys working as long as he could, hoping for a break. And to go to work himself, somewhere where he could earn some money.

  He did not want to go underground again, but he would have to.

  Waggoner? What about Waggoner while he was underground? Hadn’t somebody said two men had just joined him?

  Maybe there were three of them in town now.

  And that gun he had found so long ago, a gun that might have been lost by one of the killers, the one he still had, with the name A.X. Elder.

  Who was A.X. Elder?

  CHAPTER 42

  At daybreak Trevallion was climbing over the rock shot down by the previous round, and checking the face of the drift. The round had, as usual, extended the tunnel by another three feet, but the vein looked no better.

  Using planks laid end-to-end as a runway for his wheelbarrow, he mucked out the rock, clearing the approach to the face. It was time to lay some track and do away with the wheelbarrow, but track cost money.

  As he worked he considered his situation. He always thought better while working, walking, or riding. Somehow physical activity was conducive to thinking, at least if the activity called for no particular attention.

  Today was Sunday, and he was alone. Some of the mines and mills worked Sundays, too, but he never had, although occasionally he puttered around as he was now doing. A quiet day would give him time to plan. For weeks he had been making resolutions, telling himself what he must do and should do, but other things had interfered. It was those interferences, no matter what they were, that he must push aside. They were time-wasters.

  Thus far he had been pushing his tunnel back into the mountain, but with few exceptions the best ore on the Comstock had been found at the deeper levels. To sink a shaft would cost money.

  So far the little he had made placering along with the few shipments of ore had been sufficient for his needs. He was a man of simple tastes and required little, but unless he intended to let his years waste away, he had better get on with it.

  He could borrow money. He was a hard worker, a steady man with a good reputation in the mines, and he knew the money would be available, but it was not the way he wanted it. He would be beholden to no man. Keep clear of debt, his father had warned him when he was very small. Once you are in debt, his father advised, you are carrying another man’s weight, and it will be him who sits in the saddle and his hands on the reins.

  He sorted the rock he had shot down and put the best-looking stuff to one side. When he had enough, he’d mill the lot. It would not come to much, but it would be walking-around money, anyway.

  He swore suddenly, bitterly. If he only had that five hundred dollars Waggoner had stolen! Of course, he could prove nothing, and if he hunted him down and killed him, he would be no better off.

  As he worked, he considered his situation and what might be done. There were jobs enough, but at four dollars a day; even the six he might get as shift-boss would not amount to very much. He could do better by himself.

  He could return to one of his claims but that meant leaving Virginia City, and he was reluctant to be away from town just now.

  He had gone into the mine without breakfast, but now he came up, stirred up the fire, and sliced bacon into the pan. He had coffee on when there was a rap on the door. He took his gun from its holster, which hung over a chair back, and slid the six-shooter behind his belt.

  Standing to one side of the door he asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Tap.”

  He opened the door and Tap stepped in. “Brisk out yonder,” he commented. Then he glanced at him. “Heard the news?”

  Without waiting for a reply, Tapley said, “Sam Brown’s dead. He got all charged up, figured he had to show his hand since Stewart made light of him, so he threatened Van Slyke.”

  “Van Slyke killed him?”

  “Got him a shotgun and rode down the road and waited for him. Blew him right out of the saddle.”

  “I’ll be damned! Van Slyke? The least likely man in camp, I’d say. Well, you never can tell.”

  “Bill Stewart kind of showed him up,” Tap said. “Once that happens a man had better run, because everybody will be after him. The trouble with a reputation is that you have to back it up, and once you slip, you’ve had it.”

  “Had breakfast?”

  “No, and that bacon smells almighty good.” Tap glanced at him. “You’re in your diggin’ clothes.”

  “I’ve been down in the hole. Worked a little. I’m going to sink a shaft. Going down three or four hundred feet.”

  “Never work on Sunday myself,” Tapley said, “least it’s an emergency.” He paused. “Reason I came by is that I saw Waggoner down on the street with two strangers. Hard cases if I ever saw them.”

  “So?”

  “Trev, those men were Bald Knobbers. At least one of them was. Another’s an Arkansawyer. Spotted him right off because he’s from my neck of the woods. I figured you ought to know.”

  “Thanks.”

  Trevallion served the bacon, some toast, and put the molasses jug on the table. “How are things at the mill?”

  Tapley shrugged. “I lik
e workin’ for you better. If you’re going to sink a shaft, maybe you’d need a good man.”

  “I can use you, but I don’t know how long the money will last. Maybe you’d be better off sticking to a steady job.”

  “Maybe, but I like workin’ for you.” He paused. “You an’ Miss Redaway gettin’ acquainted? Seen you ride into town together.”

  “We knew each other long ago,” Trevallion replied, and then at Tapley’s surprised look he explained, telling the story from the beginning.

  Christian Tapley swore softly. “It do beat all! I heard there’d been some trouble back down the line.” He glanced at him quickly. “Then, did you kill Skinner?”

  “I did.”

  “I’ll be damned. And you figure Waggoner is one of them?” He was silent for several minutes, chewing slowly, thoughtfully. “You know, Trev, I seen it happen before. There’s some crimes that are never forgotten. For some reason they scar ever’body they touch. This is one of them.

  “All those years, and then Rory dead, and Skinner. You say your pa killed two of them?”

  “He did.”

  “And you figure there’s five left?”

  “Four or five.”

  “You better figure on five, Trev. If you only count to four an’ quit that could be fatal. That fifth man—”

  “I’m figuring on five, with or without the one who started it all.”

  “You think you know who it was?”

  “I think it was that man with the pale eyes, the one who was curious about pa’s gold. He looked like the man who shot Grita’s father. I’d have sworn it was him. Yet I did not see his face.”

  “Then it could be anybody, anybody at all.” Tapley started to fill his cup, then stopped, coffeepot in hand. “Waggoner’s been around awhile. He isn’t workin’, but he has money. Where’s he get it? What’s he livin’ on?”