Flames of silver, p.8
Flames of Silver, page 8
He led the horse past the toolshed where Duggan kept his equipment, grabbed a shovel and then headed for the meadow. The grassy green expanse was so different from the mountain where the killings had occurred. Peaceful, green, with soft winds, it was a world apart from death. Mason began digging, but his aching muscles convinced him to put the two bodies in a single grave. He had no idea as to who they were. A quick search of their pockets didn’t give him anything definite. Their names were probably as loose and easy as their morals.
He finished mounding the dirt and sat under a tree, staring at the fresh grave. Never when he came to Virginia City had he thought life would take the turns it had. Two major fires and maybe an arsonist, saving little children and a cranky old prospector and now a pitched gun battle.
He had killed two men. Growing up in San Francisco had been a cakewalk in comparison. He had shot down two claim jumpers and discovered a silver strike that put others in the Comstock to shame. Using the shovel as a crutch, he stood. The horse came to him and nuzzled him. His contact with animals in San Francisco had been limited, but he patted the horse’s nose and realized he no longer had to walk.
“To the victor belongs the spoils,” he said. “So what’s your name, old girl?” The horse jerked her head about and tried to rear. He held the mare down. “You think you’re a queen, eh? I’ll call you Victoria. How’s that?”
The horse settled down, as if the name was satisfactory. It took some work to adjust the stirrups. The original owner had been quite a bit taller than Mason. He finally figured out the cinches and buckles, then mounted. While he had never owned a horse before, he wasn’t a total novice riding. Still, keeping control proved difficult. Victoria had a mind of her own.
He rode back to Duggan’s cabin and found the man asleep inside. Mason had been forced to do things he had never considered himself capable of doing, but compared to all Duggan had endured the past couple days, he was in clover. Unsure what to do, Mason decided to start around the mountain and visit other miners. The claim jumpers weren’t likely to return, and the chance of another gang descending on the Mira Nell was small.
Mason continued up Calabasas Creek to the next mine. A pair of men sunned themselves rather than working what their sign said was the Lost Cause Mine. Mason drew rein a dozen yards away from them and waited to be noticed. He was aware that he still carried the outlaw’s six-gun in his belt—and that he didn’t have any ammunition to reload it. Coming up on a pair of miners like this wasn’t too smart, but he made no move for the gun.
That might set them off, since one had a shotgun leaning against the tree to his right.
“Hello,” Mason called. “How’re you boys doing?”
The one with the shotgun climbed to his feet and grabbed it. The other didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to either Mason or his partner.
“Who are you?” The challenge wasn’t hostile. It was a simple question.
“A newcomer to the area. I arrived in Virginia City from San Francisco a couple days ago, and I’m out here looking to ply my trade.”
“Which is?” The man rested his shotgun against the tree again, showing he considered Mason to be harmless. “From the look of your clothing, you’re a miner. We ain’t got need of any help in our mine.”
“I saw the name. For a small fee I can explore your mine and see if there’s anything you’re missing. I’m a geologist. I just looked over the Mira Nell and found some silver chloride worth exploiting for Mr. Duggan. Chances are that I might do the same for you.”
“Our mines are only a couple miles apart,” spoke up the second miner, showing interest for the first time. “He’s been right lucky in how much pay dirt he’s pulled from his mine.”
“Five dollars, and I can see if that’s also true in your mine.” Mason considered asking the same of these two that he had of Duggan, but the name of their mine hinted that worthless rock was all he’d find. Them sitting and watching the world go by when they ought to be digging away at the ore in that mine warned him of two men on the brink of giving up.
“All we got between us is two dollars, but if you find a decent nugget in the mine, you can keep it.”
“Even if it’s worth more than three dollars?” Mason dismounted, tucked his pistol into the saddlebags and hesitated, wondering what else might be there in the dangling leather pouches. He hadn’t bothered to look. He had just picked up his bag with his clothing and tools and strapped it down.
“It’d have to be a mighty big nugget,” said the second miner. The first elbowed him to silence. A final grumble and he once more ignored everything in the world except whatever he stared at in the distance.
“I’m willing to take the risk,” Mason said. He fished out his chisel and pick hammer. “You hear any gunfire earlier? Say, an hour or two back?”
They exchanged looks, the talkative one shook his head and said, “Ain’t heard much but the birds chirping. We haven’t even felt any of the tremors lately.”
“Tremors? What do you mean?”
“Me and a few of the others have felt the ground shaking like an earthquake trying to cut loose.”
“Somebody’s blasting, that’s what it is,” said the second miner. “I was in a quake once and this is nothing like it.”
“I’d have to look at a special map, a topographical map, to see if there are fault lines here. I don’t think so,” Mason said. “In San Francisco we get quakes all the time because of the cracks in the ground. The sides of the break in the ground shift back and forth. That’s an earthquake.”
“Blasting,” insisted the second miner.
“Let me get to exploring the Lost Cause,” Mason said. He felt an argument building between the partners over earthquake or blasting just as he and Duggan had argued over a two-dollar fee. It didn’t amount to a hill of beans but relieved tension and gave them something to do since they weren’t inclined to swing a pick or heft a shovel in their mine.
Mason rode as close to the mine as he could. He found a patch of grass for Victoria to occupy herself while he ducked into the mine. The miner’s candles were all less than an inch long, and there were only a couple of them. A tin lantern rather than a helmet proved to be the only way to carry the lighted candles. Holding the lantern high, he slowly made his way down the main mine shaft.
Branching both left and right, other tunnels looked even less promising than the main drift. When the air began to get stuffy, he stopped to examine the walls. What little ore had ever been here was picked out. Creeping inch by inch, he went deeper into the mine, then stopped. Little work had been done on a section of wall. He began chiseling until a hole the size of his head revealed a dark flash. More work cut out a yard of rock. Mason fumbled through the pieces and held the lantern close.
His heart beat a little faster. Using his chisel, he scored the rock above the hole so the two miners could find it. He dropped to his knees and scrabbled out even more of the ore, then measured the width of the vein. Mason swung around and examined the wall opposite the hole he’d created. More than a half hour brought out the continuation of the large vein he had initially found.
A few more measurements confirmed his guess. The miners had driven their main shaft through the vein, not along it. Some few pounds of ore had been taken out, but they had missed the real strike. Mason stuffed the samples he took into a gunnysack. He considered going farther into the existing mine, but the stubs of candle were about gone. When he stepped out into the late afternoon air, he took a deep, cleansing breath. Sharp odors made him choke, but compared with the feeling of constant suffocation in the mine, he was pleased to be free of the rocky coffin.
He secured the gunny sack above the saddlebags and opposite his carpetbag of clothing and rode back down to where the miners still argued. The subject had changed, but the idle good feeling told him this wasn’t a serious misunderstanding. Chances were good they could switch sides and continue the argument unabated.
“I’ve got some good news, gents.” Mason dismounted, showed them what he’d found and said, “If you pay for the assay, I can let you know how big that strike is. My guess is you won’t get rich but you’ll be richer than you are now.”
“Ain’t hard to do that,” the first miner said. “We hardly have a pair of nickels to rub together.”
“What’s it to be? I marked the spot. You don’t need an assay, but if you want to figure how much more you can take out of the Lost Cause, it’s a good idea.”
The two looked at each other.
“We’d need an assay to sell the Lost Cause, wouldn’t we?”
Mason caught his breath. He’d wondered what business he’d find once the assayer had turned him down for a job. An idea blossomed.
“If you want to sell, I can act as agent. I know about deeds and rights, and I can sign a notarized statement about the silver still in the ground.” The two said nothing. “I’d take a percentage of the sale price so you wouldn’t have to pay me anything up front and I’d tend to all the details with the land office.”
“We’re talkin’ ’bout going our separate ways. Him, he wants to go back to Boise, and me, I miss ole San Antone, down Texas way. You just can’t get decent tequila this far north.”
“With the ore samples in this sack I’m sure I can get a good price for you,” Mason said confidently.
“Soon?”
He looked from one miner to the other and nodded. “Soon enough. Before the weather turns cold again.”
“I don’t mind the snow. Kinda like it,” said the one intent on Idaho. The other man shivered at the thought.
“I’ll start asking around,” Mason said. He shook hands with the two partners. He was going to make quite a mark for himself in Virginia City. Once word of one successful sale got out, he’d have dozens of other miners begging him to sell their claims.
He mounted, waved and headed back toward the Mira Nell Mine. As he rode, he realized Duggan might be the fly in the ointment. That additional strike was going to be on every man’s lips. Who’d want to sell if they had a ghost of a chance to be as rich as Croesus? Or Blue Dirt Duggan?
CHAPTER NINE
Morgan Mason sat astride his new horse and looked into the darkness. Miles away he saw lights from Virginia City. The road was long, and he was bone-tired. He had put in a day unlike any other in his life. His fingers lightly touched the butt of the six-shooter shoved into his waistband. A quick look over his shoulder assured him that the gunnysacks holding samples from both the Mira Nell and the Lost Cause Mines were secured.
Victoria stirred under him, as if telling him it was time to turn in for the night. He was hungry and thirsty and tired, and it was a long, dark road back to Virginia City. And once there he wasn’t going to find a bed as nice as the one he’d slept in the night before. The few dollars he had might not put him up even in a flophouse.
“Should have demanded Duggan pay me,” he muttered. Victoria whinnied agreement. He patted the mare’s neck and answered, “You should have insisted. What kind of horse are you, not telling me these things?”
The mare looked back at him, and he knew she disapproved. Riding back to town would bring even greater disapproval. He turned the horse uphill toward the Mira Nell Mine. The going was rough, but he finally arrived at Duggan’s falling-down old cabin. The man would be rolling in the dough soon enough and able to build a decent house. If Mason was even half-right about the silver in the mine, Duggan could build a house in San Francisco up on Russian Hill, buy himself a membership in the Union Club and hobnob with the upper crust.
He stepped down and secured Victoria’s reins to a nearby tree limb. He ached all over, not only from earlier exertion putting out fires and rolling around on the mountain shooting claim jumpers but from riding. Mason rubbed his aching posterior, then knocked.
“Duggan, you there? It’s me, Morgan Mason.”
“Whadya want?”
“A place to rest my weary bones for a few hours. I’ll be off for town at first light.”
“I only got one bed.”
“I’ll sleep on some straw in your shed. I just can’t keep going. I’m close to dead on my feet.”
Blue Dirt Duggan growled and made his way to the door. At least Mason guessed that was the sound made by crutches and a foot scraping along the first floor. With a screech like a nail being pulled from dried wood, the door opened.
Mason recoiled and held up his hands.
“Don’t shoot me. You know me! I’m harmless!”
“Harmless, my eye. I saw you kill two men this very day. Get your carcass in here. You can sleep on the floor. It’s not cold enough for me to use my second blanket. You can use it to wrap yourself up.”
“Much obliged.” Mason edged in past the muzzle of the six-shooter Duggan brandished. Even knowing who his guest was didn’t make the miner relax one whit.
Duggan muttered constantly as he hobbled back to his bed. He flopped down hard. The bed groaned under the strain. Then Duggan stretched out and snored loudly within minutes. Mason found the threadbare blanket and spread it on the dirt floor under the table. That was about the only spot inside where even a man as short as he was might stretch out.
He half turned and pulled the blanket up over his shoulder. Uncomfortable, he took the unfamiliar six-gun from his waistband and laid it beside him on the floor. This made his bed comfortable enough to let him fall into a deep sleep almost instantly, only to sit bolt upright when the ground shook. He banged his head on the table and sank back, rubbing his forehead and wondering how long he’d been asleep for.
The two miners at the Lost Cause had argued over whether the ground shakes were due to an earthquake or blasting. Mason pressed his hand onto the dirt floor. There weren’t any further temblors. More than one quake in San Francisco had rattled his teeth for long seconds. One had endured for close to a minute. This had to be a single blast.
But such an explosion had to be the talk of Virginia City for days or weeks. He had no idea how much dynamite had been detonated, but it was more than a stick to bring down another few feet of rock inside a mine.
He rubbed his eyes, then realized the sun was slanting through the crevices in the eastern wall. Although he felt as if he had slept only a few minutes, the truth was shown by the bright sunlight. Moving stiff muscles made him all too aware of having spent the night on the cold ground with only a single blanket beneath him. He came to hands and knees, then was buffeted around with another explosion. Reacting in surprise, he rose and banged his shoulders against the underside of the table.
Mason flopped down, then regained his composure. For a terrifying instant he had thought this was an earthquake. They were notorious for giving a strong shake, pausing, then following with a secondary buffeting around. But the secondary quaking had been too similar to the initial one.
“Another blast?” He rubbed his shoulder, used the table to pull himself to his feet and looked around. The cabin’s disarray gave no hint as to the magnitude of the seismic activity. Duggan wasn’t much of a housekeeper. “No, not a blast. That one felt . . . different.”
Mason tried to put his finger on how it differed from the first and couldn’t. He wasn’t too well versed in the effects of dynamite and other explosives, but the second quake had been deeper, more prolonged. It seemed more like a pain in the gut rather than being punched in the belly. Slow and enduring rather than sharp and then over.
“Duggan! Mr. Duggan? Where’d you get off to?” Finding the miner wasn’t all that important. He might have headed for the outhouse. Mason opened the door and watched a dust cloud sweep past.
“Duggan! Are you in the mine?” He rushed outside and looked uphill. On his way to Virginia City he had seen more than one dust storm. The wind whipped up enough sand and debris to pull a nasty brown veil over the land. What he saw now was the same—and different. Roiling clouds gusted downslope from the mouth of the mine.
It had collapsed!
“Duggan! Where’d you get off to?” Mason rushed around hunting for the miner but found no trace of the man. His horses were still in the shed, nervously pawing at the ground and trying to back out past their restraining ropes.
Mason soothed his own horse, then began the climb up the hill to the mouth of the mine. He shook his head when he saw how the timbers supporting the opening had given way. The roof had collapsed, sealing the mine. Not sure what to do, he began pulling away what rocks he could. The task was harder than dipping water from the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon. Too much rock, so little he could do to reopen the Mira Nell.
He stepped away and coughed. The dust from the collapse was finally settling. He reconstructed what he had seen and used his knowledge of geology to guess how far the collapse extended. He doubted it was more than ten or twenty feet.
Still, a plug of rock twenty feet long presented an insurmountable barrier to opening the mine using only his two hands. He felt desolate thinking that Duggan had been inside when the collapse occurred. The miner had been a potential millionaire the day before and now he had a silver-lined coffin.
Legs turning to rubber, he sat on a rock and stared at the mine mouth. He wondered who Duggan’s next of kin was. Whoever it was had become immensely wealthy all because some careless blasting had shaken the entire mountain. Head in his hands, Mason tried to get his churning emotions under control.
“. . . get me out!”
“I don’t reckon there’s much hurry,” Mason muttered, answering the voice in his head. “It might be best to put a marker here and whoever gets the mine can drive a shaft parallel.”
“Out! Get me out!”
Mason looked around, frowning. The voice wasn’t in his head. It came from the mountainside. Slowly rising, he turned back and forth, straining to hear. Nothing. He was imagining it. Voices in the head. A ringing about drowned out real sounds of the world.
