Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) (6 page)

But it was all too vague. In any event, he had left these things behind him.

T
HERE WAS A change upon the land now, a sense of something different. There was a new silence, a strangeness. Brionne welcomed it, and he watched his son with curious eyes. At last Mat said, “The air seems different. What is it?”

“Pines…it’s the smell of pines, Mat. But that is only part of it. It is the feeling of loneliness, the sense of quiet. We’ve moved away from people, Mat. This is the wilderness.”

“I like it.”

“So do I.” He pointed toward the cliffs across the river. They ran east and west. “We will camp over there tonight, and find a way through them tomorrow. There are mountains beyond there, and we will find game.”

He saw no tracks but those of deer. Occasionally they saw a buffalo. There were not many left in this country, and those few had drifted to the high meadows and the remote places.

Brionne made camp in a sheltered cove of the Book Cliffs. Gathering fuel for the fire, Mat stopped and spoke to him. “Pa, this looks like coal.”

Brionne took the piece of rock from Mat’s fingers. “It
is
coal,” he said. “Is there much of it? Show me.”

The vein was a wide one. He knocked off a few chunks with his prospector’s pick and carried them to the fire.

They had built it in a concealed hollow, and the rising smoke would have thinned out before it cleared the rocks around them. Brionne had killed a fool hen during the day, and they baked it in the coals. From time to time he walked out of the cove to listen to the night. All was still, with only the usual night sounds. Nonetheless, he continued to be uneasy.

A
T A BACK table in one of Corinne’s nineteen saloons, Cotton Allard sat behind a bottle. His naturally red face was flushed a deeper red from a mixture of whiskey and anger.

“You had him an’ you let him get away? He sure didn’t up and fly through the air! Why wasn’t you watchin’?”

“We watched. Only all of a sudden he wasn’t there any more.” It was the man from the Southern Hotel who spoke. “You ask Peabody.”

Peabody Allard was the wide-hipped man who had been one of those who traveled with the horses.

“Hoffman’s right. That Brionne is a sly one. I tell you he don’t miss a trick. Him an’ that boy of his’n, they—”

“That kid!” Cotton Allard exploded. “He knows the both of us, you know that? He knows me and he knows Tuley, and he ain’t likely to forget it!”

“What I can’t figure,” Peabody Allard said, “is how Brionne knew where to hunt for us. We didn’t leave nobody behind—not nobody. There wasn’t a way he could have known!”

Cotton stared at him angrily. “Then how you figure he got here? By accident? He knows…I ain’t sayin’ how, but he knows!”

“We got to find him,” Tuley said. “We got to kill him. We got to kill him an’ the kid now anyway, else he’ll find us.”

“That reminds me,” Hoffman said. “Rody Brennan’s kin was aboard that train. I heard her say something about some silver mine or other.”

“Rody’s dead,” Tuley said. “We got no call to worry about no kin of his. Leastways, not any girl kin.”

“She was talkin’ to Brionne,” Peabody offered. “She sat with his kid when Brionne fought the fire.”

Cotton mulled it over, hitching his gun around into his lap. He liked none of it. Brionne’s showing up at Promontory couldn’t be an accident. It was too pat, too easy.

“We got to keep nosin’ around until we find where he’s gone,” he said finally. “You can bet somebody knows.”

“Maybe he went huntin’ Brennan’s mine,” Peabody suggested. “You say he was thick with the girl.”

“I don’t think Brennan had any mine. If he had, he’d of told us. You think he’d of stood all we did to him without tellin’? It don’t stand to reason.”

“I saw the silver,” Hoffman said. “He surely had silver—some big chunks of it.”

“He was no miner. You said so yourself.”

“He might know somebody who was. How about that old man he was forever staking to money? Ed Shaw—wasn’t that his name?”

Cotton thought that over. “Well,” he said at last, “the Gopher did say Shaw spent a lot of time down in the mountains east an’ south of here.”

He looked up, his flat, cruel eyes on Hoffman. “You round up that conductor friend. If Brionne left town on a train, he should find out. And Peeb, you go talk to that Irishman down to the stable where Brionne got his horses. He might know something.”

Hoffman spoke up. “There was another gent on that train. Kind of a tow-headed man, looked like a Texican. Him and Brionne talked some.”

“Forget him. If we paid mind to ever’ gent Brionne talked to or ever’ girl he made up to we’d never find him.”

“I still think we ought to keep an eye on that girl. She didn’t come way out here for nothing. I think she knows where that mine is.”

“If there
is
any mine.” Cotton’s mean eyes were thoughtful. “All right. I’ll have a look at her. But don’t you forget, we got to kill that boy. If he grows up to have half the nerve his ma had…” He paused, remembering. “That woman had sand. Chills me to think of her settin’ there…waitin’.”

Outside, Hoffman started to walk up the street, then paused. “You be careful, Peeb,” he said. “That sheriff they’ve got here is a tough one.”

Peabody did not seem to hear. “That woman bothers his head,” he told Hoffman. “Ol’ Cotton’s killed twenty-five, thirty men I know of—nine of them in face-up gun battles—an’ he’s killed four, five women, but none of them ever made him think twice. Only that Brionne woman.”

“I heard Tuley speak of her. Cotton says he don’t want none of her get growin’ up to know who he is. I think he’s more set on gettin’ the kid than on Brionne.”

“He’d better not be. I hear tell this here Brionne is hell on wheels with a gun.”

They were silent for a few moments as they went up the street together. Then Peabody went on, “On’y there’s nobody can use a gun like Cotton, not even ol’ Tuley, an’ he’s mighty handy…almighty handy!”

“You think we’ll find Brionne?”

“Sure! This here’s a big country, but no man can cut down through it without leavin’ some notice of himself. If he’s set on huntin’ us down, we’ll just give him the chance.”

“There’s one thing,” Hoffman commented after a moment. “Brionne don’t know Cotton…nor Tuley. He never laid eyes on them.”

“On’y that kid.”

“I don’t like that,” Hoffman muttered. “I never killed a kid.”

“Nits make lice,” Peabody replied shortly. “What difference does it make?”

They separated at the corner. Hoffman hesitated, thinking, then he started for the Golden Spike. That was where his friend the conductor hung out. If Brionne had used the railroad he would have heard some talk of it.

A tow-headed cowboy, the one who had helped fight fire when it endangered the train, was loafing on the corner. Another drifter. The town was full of them.

Chapter 6

A
LONE IN HER room at Pat Brady’s place, Miranda Loften counted over her money.

Seventy-four dollars and fifty cents…That, and nothing more.

That was all that stood between herself and whatever happened to a girl who was without money, in a place where there were no jobs for women.

Of course, there was her father’s gold watch and her mother’s ruby and diamond ring.

It was costing her just fifty cents a day to live at the Bradys’ and Pat would let her have horses at a dollar a head per day. When she started out she would need food, blankets, and some kind of a weapon.

The trouble was she had no idea how long it would take to get to the mine, or just how far she would have to travel, and she was afraid to ask anyone. If only she had dared trust that man…the tall man with the little boy. He seemed so sure of himself, so positive about where he was going and what he was going to do.

As for Mat…Despite herself, she worried about him. He was such a little boy to be going into that wild country. Did his father realize how young he was to face such hardships and dangers?

Nobody seemed to believe in Rody Brennan’s silver mine. He was a man everybody had liked, a man who talked and spent freely. And nobody seemed to have any secrets in this country. There were too few people for any of them not to be known to the others. Nobody believed in Rody Brennan’s mine, but Miranda Loften had never known Uncle Rody to lie.

He had told her where the mine was, even how to get there. He had left them what money he had and gone back west on his railroad pass. He might, she admitted to herself now, he might have exaggerated the importance of the mine and the number of men working there. It would be like him to do that to convince them it was no hardship for him to give them the money.

But it was odd that no one out here even knew of the mine, or knew that he had any interest in one. Come to think of it, the thing he had been most explicit about back home was its location. She had made no further inquiries here, but whenever she could she steered the conversation to mining, but there was never a comment on Uncle Rody when the talk involved mining.

She might, she was thinking, be able to sell the ring. It might give her money enough to hire horses, and to get the supplies she would need. Yet deep inside her was a kind of fear at the thought of relinquishing the ring.

Her lips trembled, and she sat down stiffly on the edge of the bed.…Suppose there was no mine? Suppose Uncle Rody had just gotten that money some other way—somewhere, somehow—and had told them there was a mine so they would accept the money?

Yet, if that was the case, why the careful directions?

Moreover, there was her fear about the ring. It was a family heirloom, and her mother had told her it was valuable; but Miranda doubted that her mother knew that much about jewelry. That was really what she was afraid of—suppose the ring was not really valuable—suppose it was worth nothing.

She had to find the mine, and to find it she had to risk everything she had. If she could not find it within a few weeks she would have to give up, and she would not have even the money for a ticket back.

She could not bring herself to say a ticket
home
. It was no longer home. It was only one of several cities in which she had lived as a child, and it was the place where her mother was buried. There was nothing there for her, nobody…only a few people who had known her to speak to, a few casual friends of her mother. Nobody who had any interest in her, nobody in whom she had any interest.

She was alone.

The shadows grew long, but she did not light the lamp. She still sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, frightened at what was before her.

Yes, to find the mine was her only chance. Without it, there was nothing. There were no jobs for women in Corinne except in the dance halls and in the cribs behind them. There were few other jobs available anywhere except as household help, which she could do, but which she shrank from except as a last necessity. Even that would mean she would have to go somewhere else, to a city where people hired household workers.

She would talk to Pat tonight. She would arrange for horses, and she would ask his advice on what she would need to take with her.

She got up and left the room. Tonight only Pat and Nora Brady were in the house, and they had been talking about her. She knew that as soon as she joined them.

“Pat”—he had insisted she call him that—“I shall need a horse to ride, and a pack horse. I am going out after that mine.”

“Ma’am,” Pat said gently, “you better realize what I’m sayin’. There just ain’t no mine. Nora an’ me, we knew your Uncle Rody. We been going back over the years after he came west…ma’am, he didn’t have time to find any mine! We just been sittin’ here figurin’ it out. He was never out in those hills, never in his life! At least, not far enough or long enough.

“I can tell you how long he worked for the railroad, when he hired out to drive stage.…Ma’am, except for that trip back east, Rody Brennan was always right where folks could see him.”

So there it was. She felt the fear growing inside her. She had always, down underneath, been afraid it was too good to be true, just as she was afraid the ring was worthless.

But she lifted her chin a little now and said quietly, “Pat, I believe Uncle Rody. He told big stories sometimes, but he never lied to me.”

She took up her cup of coffee. Holding it carefully with both hands, she went on speaking. “I do not have much money, Pat, but I have a ring. If you would buy it from me…or better still, let me have the horses and hold the ring for security…”

“Miss, didn’t you hear a word I said? There’s no silver, there’s no mine. There couldn’t have been.”

“Uncle Rody Brennan never lied…not to me. He said there was a mine, and I believe him.” She looked earnestly at them. “There just
has
to be a mine. It is all I have.”

“Now, look here,” Pat began.

Nora stopped him. “Be still now, Pat. Let a woman talk. It’s like this. Pat an’ me, we’ve taken to you, Miranda. We’ve no daughter of our own, so s’posin’ you stay on with us, just like you have been.

“Why, there’s no tellin’ who might come along! There’s many a handsome laddie comes by this way, and the best of the lot come to eat with us. You could have the pick of them, an’ hereabouts there’s mighty few girls, and none as pretty as you.”

“Thank you, Nora—it is good of you. But no—I have to find that mine. I have to. I want to marry, but on my own terms, not just because I have to have someone to take care of me.”

Pat sat back in his chair and stuffed his pipe. Loaded it, might have been a better term, for the fumes from that pipe had been known to send grizzlies back into the deepest canyons, to stampede buffalo, and even skunks were repelled by it.

“Miss, have you got any idea what you’re takin’ on?” he asked after a moment’s silence. “There’s thousands of square miles out yonder, filled with all manner of varmints, four-legged or two.

“When the railroad ended at Promontory it spilled all the workers and the camp followers and the trash that lived at the hell-on-wheels towns at the end of the track, it spilled them all loose on the country.