by Steve Frazee
“I know, I know. Time is the most expensive thing in life.”
Thinking back on the years when he had stood apart from men, Cushman knew that Dunbar was right.
• • •
Francis Hardesty and Elwood Potts did not arrive when Big John had said they would; they came a week later having stopped to examine operations at Cache Creek placer a few miles farther up the Arkansas.
They rode into Victory towing a pack horse. They were both young men and at first glance they looked to be only another pair of gold hunters who had arrived too late. Potts was a tall, fair-haired man who seemed to best fulfil the camp’s idea of an Englishman. Hardesty was a heavy-set, dark-haired man with a stiff military mustache and an abrupt manner of speaking. Both were friendly, and obviously they knew their way about the mountains.
They stayed with Big John. Their first afternoon in camp, Potts and Hardesty carried water to a wooden tub behind the saloon and stunned onlooking miners by bathing briskly in the icy stuff. Then they changed their clothes and had a dinner with Big John that lasted two hours.
Dunbar was up the mountain and did not learn of the arrival of the engineers until the next morning. He came rushing down. Hardesty and Potts had taken their pack horse and gone hunting. Dunbar was fit to be tied.
“What the hell did they come here for — a summer excursion?”
Big John hid a grin and said, “Slowly, Jake, slowly. They’ll be back.”
The engineers returned three days later, completely disreputable in appearance and with two large bucks which they referred to as stags in spite of all instruction to the contrary. Hardesty and Potts barbecued the deer over pit fires behind the saloon. That took the best part of a day and night, and after the celebration, which the whole camp attended, the engineers rested for another day.
Dunbar said, “Maybe next winter they’ll go up the mountain.”
Deciding that they had properly arrived, Hardesty and Potts did go up the mountain. They started at the mine, but examined it only briefly before going higher up. Once they were moving, Dunbar had to admit that they covered ground enough to patch hell a mile. For a week the engineers explored the mountain, going around it and over it, poking into seams and outcrops in a hundred places.
They took another two days exploring the glacial drift below the mountain, examining the twisting hills clear to the valley.
Dunbar was jumping, not so much because he wanted to hear their report, which would do no more than confirm what he was sure of already, but because the opinion would at last get major wheels in operation.
They made an offhand report one evening at the timberline hut when Big John was present. Hardesty, gesturing with a big-bowled pipe, did most of the talking. “We’ll prepare the full opinion later,” he said, “but here is what it is in common language …”
The essence was that the Illinois was no more than a freak bloom of gold-bearing quartz that would not extend to any appreciable depth into the granite.
Dunbar was completely motionless. “What makes you think so?”
“There’re certain fracture patterns in the mountain,” Hardesty said; “intrusions that indicate the entire structure is of recent origin, and tremendous glacial gouging that has carried away hundreds of feet of the face itself. Some time subsequent to the period of sedimentation the whole region here was high above sea level, and that’s undoubtedly when the folding and faulting took place that make it now so difficult to tell — ”
“Those are words,” Dunbar said. “What I want to know is how you can be sure the gold in the Illinois won’t go to the middle of the mountain.”
“Impossible,” Potts said. “The faulting itself precludes that.”
Cushman said nothing. He was not satisfied with what he was hearing; but he couldn’t disbelieve simply because the report was bad, and he knew too little of geology to understand everything the engineers were saying.
“Where’d the gold come from that’s in the gulch?” Dunbar demanded.
“Probably from glacial action,” Hardesty said. “We’ll prepare a complete report within a few days.”
“I’ve got about enough of it now,” Dunbar said. “You say the Illinois is no good. That’s it, ain’t it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Hardesty said. He started to explain further, and saw that technical exposition was not what Dunbar wanted. “Commercially, I’m afraid it would not be even a long gamble, Mr. Dunbar.”
Dunbar looked at Big John. “You’ll take their report on this?”
“It disappoints me, but I accept their word as truth. They’re men who know, Jake. They’ve been all over the world in this business.”
“It ain’t been proved to me — not yet.” Dunbar spoke strongly, but Cushman knew how badly he was shaken.
Hardesty filled his pipe carefully and lit it. “Let me say, Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Cushman, that you are on the right track. It’s our opinion that even Cache Creek will never be a truly great success, but not far from there, on the east side of the river, we found indications of gold masses in place, geologically speaking.
“We’ve no doubt that these mountains, particularly farther northward, will produce huge quantities of minerals long after all the placers are exhausted. You gentlemen are on the right spoor, but my advice is to spend less money the next time on dead work before you establish, as far as possible, the extent of your prospect.”
“Thanks.” Dunbar smiled faintly. “Well, we’re not through with the Illinois yet.”
Hardesty shrugged. He left with Potts and Big John soon afterward. Dunbar and Cushman and Marvel sat silent in the hut.
“You can’t trust an Englishman too far,” Marvel said carefully, after a long time. “And you’re dealing with three of them.”
Cushman considered the implication. Of course collusion was possible, to make the mine appear worthless. He was pleased at his quickness in dismissing the idea. A few months ago he would have given it long consideration. He looked at Dunbar.
Dunbar shook his head. “I trust Big John. I trust the engineers too, but maybe their judgment is bad. They can’t see inside a mountain, no matter what they say.” Dunbar shook his head. “Still, they’re smart men. I’ve no doubt of that.”
Dunbar sat with his head resting on one hand. Between his feet on the dirt floor lay one of the shaved boards worn to thinness with his planing. He talked stubbornly, but the black edge of doubt was in his words.
Tempered by greater failures than this one, Cushman now sensed that he was the stronger at the moment. Dunbar had given him much. Cushman tried now to return some of the help and faith he had received.
“We’ll never know the truth until we look inside the mountain. We’re not sure till we do that.”
Dunbar raised his head. “A few more weeks will clean out our last dime.”
“All right. Let’s gamble.”
“You’re willing to?”
“I want to,” Cushman said. “If we get licked there’s nothing dishonorable about it. This is only one mountain, too.”
“That’s what Hardesty said.” Dunbar stood up and began to pace the floor. The old look of eagerness and drive came back to his expression.
• • •
They spent their dwindling money. They hired men to work the clock around. Between walls of monzonite porphyry the golden face of the Illinois widened to four feet. Aspens and cottonwoods on the watercourses running toward the Arkansas turned golden. A light snow fell and melted in one day, and then there was glorious Indian Summer.
But the mountain sent cold winds slicing early and late when there was no sun. Looking up the granite slopes, Cushman knew that winter was never very far away. With black powder shots they raced the coming of the snows.
Big John came up, looked at the widened face, and was enthusiastic. He offered to supply the partners money if they ran short before they tested the tunnel thoroughly.
The mountain did not take quite all the treasure they had shoveled from th
e gulch below. It closed them off while they still had a little left. In two days the golden face disappeared. For a while there was a thin streak of quartz, faltering and uncertain, wandering without strong design. Then it died against solid granite which was like nothing they had encountered before.
For another week they fought on. There was nothing but more granite.
Cushman let Dunbar make the decision. Dunbar was a dreamer, but he was no fool. They stood one afternoon on the dump with the crew dismissed for good. Below, the fall-touched valley was long and beautiful with color. Dunbar looked down in silence.
He did not glance back when they began to descend. At the foot of the last switchback Cushman stopped to look up at the long trail they had torn into the mountain. They had nothing to be ashamed of; their failure was honest all the way ….
Marvel had his gear packed and was ready to leave. He had waited only to say good-by, which he did gruffly. He slung his pack on his shoulder and started off. “Only one mountain, remember.” Small pennants of pipe smoke whipped back across his shoulder as he went down the trail.
Cushman and Dunbar sat in the hut. They had sent the tools, and everything that was of any worth, down with the crew to be stored in Dunbar’s cabin in Victory.
“Up the river — up there where the engineers said? Shall we make the next try there?” Cushman asked.
Dunbar studied him. “Not you, Ed. You haven’t got your heart in mining. I have, and I’ll go on trying. Some day I’ll hit. I don’t want the money; I want to build things. So do you, but not the same things.”
It was true, and yet it was a breaking up that hurt. No matter how closely drawn he and Dunbar had been, Cushman knew they were of different natures and different ambitions. They would always be friends but this one venture together, whether it had failed or succeeded, was enough for them.
“You know what?” Dunbar said. “All we lost was a little money.” Suddenly he thrust out his hand and they shook hands, looking at each other gravely. Cushman saw a tough little man who would never be beaten. Some day he would make more than mining history with his dreams. Cushman saw more than that — the man who had given him faith and understanding to live more than a defensive, wary life.
Until after sunset they stayed at the hut, packing their duffel bags, dawdling about with little to say to each other. Dusk was nearing when they started down to Victory.
Cushman was going away, but he wasn’t going without Belle. If he had asked her twice to marry him, he had not done so with any show of hope or forcefulness. He had withheld his faith, just as he had worked toward making the Illinois a mine without belief.
Now, because he knew he loved Belle, he would put his heart into his asking. He would win, too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN Cushman knocked on the door of the restaurant, a man’s voice bawled, “Come in!” Cushman stepped quickly out of the sharp fall night into the warmth of the room, keenly aware of his quick pitch of resentment because a man had answered for Belle Drago.
She was there, standing near the serving window. Two men were in the room. One was sitting near the cupboards by the stove, eating a pie which he held in his lap. He glanced up briefly. Cushman made nothing of his face beyond a wolfish leanness and beard stubble.
The second man was sitting before the remains of a meal at the worktable. He reached under a dirty, shapeless hat to scratch his head as he turned inquiringly toward Cushman with a bold stare. Thin, purplish lips were set in a dirty beard, gray-streaked. His nose was small, with a boneless look.
A shock like a heavy blow against the heart went through Cushman. Time collapsed as he stared at the man.
It was Rumsey Snelling. Except for the gray in his scraggly beard, he looked no different from the day Cushman had last seen him at Gravelly Crossing.
Rumsey said, “Who mought you be, friend?” His eyes dropped before Cushman’s fixed look.
Cushman heard the beating of the wings of the monster bird that came in bad dreams to tear Kathy away from him. For an instant he was no longer a mature man; he was the scared, desperate boy of long ago. He wanted to shriek a curse to drive away the vision of Rumsey Snelling.
But the man was flesh and blood. He moved. He raised his eyes to look slyly at Cushman. A big, gray-knuckled hand went out on the oilcloth of the table and toyed with a fork.
“The cat’s got this feller’s tongue,” Rumsey said. He looked at the woman standing motionless by the wall. “Who is he, Lizzie?”
The second shock piled in upon the first. Cushman looked at Belle. Lizzie … Lizzie Snelling?
“This is Ed, a friend of mine,” Belle said. She watched Rumsey with a steady, bitter expression. Without shifting her gaze, she went on. “This is my father, Ed.” She moved one hand listlessly toward the other man. “My brother, Reed Snelling.”
“Well, howdy there, Ed,” Rumsey said with a false heartiness. He looked slyly from Cushman to his daughter, as if gauging the extent and nature of their friendship.
Reed looked up and grunted. He frowned, watching Cushman with a vaguely searching expression for a moment, and then he resumed his eating. Pie juice dripped as he spooned it up from the pan. He brushed his hand carelessly where it had stained his pants.
Rumsey said, “We was talking over some business, young feller, but since you’re a friend of Lizzie’s, set down, set down.”
Belle’s head was high. Cushman saw the desperate appeal in her eyes, and he saw how her body was braced against the wall. There was no place to sit down, and he didn’t want to, anyway. He moved past Rumsey and stood with his back to a section of cottonwood log that served as a meat block.
All the anger and bitterness of the lonely years flooded him with their acid. Why hadn’t she told him? She could have told him long ago, instead of letting him find out like this. In his mind he yelled out at Rumsey, “You filthy old bastard, don’t you remember me? I’m the kid you left to die with his sister on the Humboldt!”
But Cushman said nothing. He looked from Rumsey to Belle and then he looked away.
“Me and Reed have been traveling some,” Rumsey said. “Been over a good many states and some places that ain’t states. Hell, we seen mining camps that is camps, not some little place stuck away in a hole like this — Give me some more of that there pie, Lizzie. You’re just like your ma in some things. She learned you good when it come to baking a pie.”
Reed stood up. “You can have the rest of this one, Pa. I guess I overmatched myself, considering what I et for supper.” He carried the pie over to his father, who licked the spoon and began to eat.
Belle looked straight at Cushman. Her pride was a high, burning, angry quality, and then it dulled away before his look. Misery came into her face and she wouldn’t face him again.
Reed went back to the stove, glancing around with a proprietary air. He kicked the chair around to where he could sit with his feet on the oven door. He belched and pulled a plug of tobacco from his pocket.
“Yes sir, we traveled here and there,” Rumsey said. “It was quite a surprise to Lizzie when her old pa and her oldest brother dropped in on her today.”
“How’d you find her?” Cushman asked.
“Oh, pshaw!” Rumsey tried to eat and laugh at the same time. Juice ran into his beard and he ducked his head to rub his chin against his shoulder. “We heard she come back this way. People notice Lizzie. Taking a fancy new name didn’t fool us none.
“We heard in Denver about a gal up here running a big eating place. That Joe Kent fellow — Kenton? — he knowed all about her. He told us.” Rumsey shook his head. “Lizzie was always up to something. In San Francisco she used to run away to the ships in the harbor. Then she’d be talking about going to some far-off heathen place. She was always listening to wealthy folks talk and copying the way they said things.”
Rumsey finished up the pie, tipping the pan to get the last of the juice with the spoon. He pushed the tin away from him and wiped his beard, grinning at Cushman
as if the latter’s silence meant rapt attention.
“I had to whale the daylights out of her a few times for her queer ways. She had too many fancy ideas for her own good. Once, after her ma died, she even tried to stow away on a ship — and her only fourteen years old.” Rumsey shook his head. “When you got a big family to bring up and your old woman plays out and dies on you, you’re sort of up against it. I did the best I could — I don’t suppose you’re a married man, Mr. What was it Lizzie called you? I ain’t worth a damn at names.”
“Cushman.” His own name and the curiously tight sound of his voice ought to be enough, Cushman thought.
Rumsey tossed his hat on the table. It sprayed a little shower of dust against the light. He ran loose-knuckled fingers through his hair. “Sounds like a name I’ve heard somewheres, but like I said, I ain’t worth a damn on names. Yes sir, I had the devil’s own time with the kids. Jeff got himself killed at a sawmill — ”
“John,” Belle said tonelessly.
“I always get ’em mixed up,” Rumsey said. “I grieved for that boy, I’ll tell you. No matter how many you got, you love ’em all.” He wiped a long finger in the pie tin and licked it. “Lizzie, she run away another time and I found her washing dishes in a place up near Sacramento. She was the beatin’est one for running away.” Rumsey grinned at Cushman, as if sharing paternal mirth over the ways of children. His expression added to the crashing sickness Cushman felt.
“A young thing like that, leaving the protection of her pa and her brothers,” Rumsey said. He pondered on the ingratitude of his daughter. “The boys grew up and sort of spread out. Me and Reed was just kicking around, sort of looking for Lizzie, you mought say. We was figuring to do some mining when we heard about her being here. That Joe Kent fellow, that hauls freight, he knew quite a bit about her. His brothers wasn’t much to talk, but he sure did.”
Rumsey got up and stretched. “Like I said, Victory ain’t much of a place, but Lizzie done good here. Of course there ain’t no need for her to hire help no more. Reed can work a little and I can help out with the money end of things. It ain’t much of a camp, but I reckon me and the boy been in worse ones, huh, Reed?”