Novel 1981 - Comstock Lode (v5.0) (33 page)

A man naturally reticent, he found himself even more so now. In his own world he was prepared for any situation that might arise. He had hunted, trapped, prospected for gold, defended himself; he had planned long journeys, coped with the wilderness. He had mined and was knowledgeable about ores, timber construction, shafts, winzes, raises, and the new square-sets, but he had no formal education, and his awareness of her world was from his limited reading only.

Yet what had he to do? Deliver some papers that indicated her possession of certain properties, that was all. Nothing more was needed than what any messenger might perform.

In his own world he was known, respected for his courage and his abilities; in her world all that counted for nothing.

He was scarcely aware of the play, well as it was done. She was good, far better than he had expected, perhaps better than anyone he had seen. She had presence, making the whole play seem suddenly exciting and alive.

The man who played Lanciotto seemed strangely familiar. Sitting up, he leaned forward; what was it about him? Dane Clyde was there, playing Malatesta, the father of Lanciotto, in rather heavy makeup, but Lanciotto? Why should he seem familiar?

The play ended and they filed out onto the street. He stopped, looking around. Should he go backstage?

Ledbetter glanced at him sharply. Then he said, “She’s good, isn’t she?”

“Very good. Very, very good.”

“She’ll do well on the Comstock. Been a long time since we’ve seen a woman that beautiful.” Then he added, “I was surprised not to see Hesketh. He rarely misses a play, and he knows her. Rode over from Frisco on the same stage.”

“I wouldn’t know him if I saw him. I don’t believe we ever met.”

“Hesketh? God knows he’s at supper every night at the hotel. Makes a thing of it, he does.”

“I rarely go there.” There was no use trying to see her, anyway. Her papers were back at the cabin, hidden with some belongings of his own.

“Want some coffee?” Ledbetter asked.

“Not tonight. I’m going to get to bed. Thanks, though.”

He turned and walked away up the street. Tapley came up and joined Ledbetter. “I seen the play. Good, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” He jerked his head toward Trevallion. “I wonder if anything is wrong? He seemed preoccupied.”

“He better not be,” Tapley replied. “Waggoner’s back in town and so is Hesketh.”

G
RITA REDAWAY WAS dressed and adjusting her hair when Dane Clyde knocked and entered. “You made quite a hit out there tonight.”

“We all did, Mr. Clyde. They seemed to like us.”

“They’re hungry for entertainment, and especially any show with beautiful women. They see too few of them and they’re far from home. That’s why Lotta has been so successful, ever since she was a child. She played mining camps where those men hadn’t seen a child in months, maybe years. And many of them had youngsters at home. They used to give her nuggets, dust—everything.”

“Let’s hope they haven’t changed,” she said. “Have you seen Mr. Manfred?”

“He’ll be along. We thought we’d both better walk you and Mary back to the hotel. This can be a rough town.”

He paused. “Oh, by the way. That friend of mine was out front tonight. Trevallion? He was sitting toward the back of the lower box on the right.”

“Oh? I saw him then. I was looking at the audience before the curtain went up, a dark man in a black suit?”

“That’s the one. He was a good friend when I needed one.”

She made no reply. Together they went to the stage door. Manfred was waiting there. He gestured to indicate the town. “Look at that! The streets are crowded and it’s nearly midnight. It’s easy to see why Tom Maguire wants a theater here! The town’s booming!”

“It should be,” Clyde said, “they are taking millions from the ground! The Ophir, the Potosi, the Hale & Norcross—there’s a dozen more, all taking out tons of ore, and listen to the stamps. They never stop, day or night, crushing ore to be sent through the mills.”

“Why here?” Grita asked.

Clyde shrugged. “It just happens that way. If what I hear is correct, there was a huge fissure formed ages ago, from an earthquake, volcanic explosion, or something of the kind. I’m no geologist. Hot springs shot steam, mineral water, and gas up through the fissure and they brought along with them, in solution, a lot of silver. The fissure was about four miles long and from fifteen hundred down to less than three hundred feet wide. There were a lot of cracks that broke off from the sides of the main fissure and they filled up, too. Chunks of rock from the mountain fell into the fissure, dividing into sections here and there. They’re saying here it is one of the greatest mineral discoveries in history.”

“Did you ever do any mining, Mr. Manfred?”

“No,” he said, after a minute, “although I planned to.”

“Can we go into a mine?” she asked.

Clyde shook his head. “I doubt it. Most miners think women are bad luck in a mine, but some have gone down. You wouldn’t like it. It’s steaming hot, muddy, and in some of these mines there’s clay that keeps oozing up through the cracks. It breaks timbers, forces its way in, and if it isn’t constantly removed it would fill a tunnel in time.”

“I wish…I’d like to walk down the street. Is it safe?”

A voice came from the shadows near the theater’s entrance. “It will be safe, ma’am.”

“Oh! Mr. Teale!”

“Yes, ma’am. You go where you’re of a mind to. I’ll be somewheres near.”

“Thank you.” She turned to the others. “Mr. Clyde? Mr. Manfred? Shall we?”

At every step there seemed to be a saloon or a dance hall humming like bells with loud talk, laughter, and tin-panny music. Bat-wing doors swung wide and a man, obviously drunk, staggered onto the walk. He saw Grita Redaway and blinked, then he stepped back and with elaborate courtesy doffed his hat and made a deep bow. “Madam, your carriage awaits!”

“Thank you, sir!” she said, laughing.

They walked on down the boardwalk and men moved back as they approached. One man also removed his hat and bowed slightly. “A fine performance, Miss Redaway. We are honored.”

“Thank you,” she replied, smiling.

A step or two further, Dane Clyde said, “You
have
been honored. That was Langford Peel.”

“Who is he? I don’t know the name?”

“He’s the ‘Chief’ as they call him. Supposedly the best man with a gun on the Comstock. He’s killed several men. He was a soldier, I think, before that.”

“The best man with a gun? Is he what they call a gunfighter?”

“Very much so.”

Teale spoke quietly. “He ain’t the best, an’ he doesn’t claim it. He’s just handled what trouble came his way, and never hunted it to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, he ain’t the best man with a gun on the Comstock.”

“No?” Manfred asked. “Who is?”

“Trevallion is. I’ve seen him in action.”

Grita paused and turned toward him. “You have seen him kill a man?”

“Yes, ma’am, although he don’t know it himself, and I never mentioned it to no one. It was a man needed killing.”

“Was that over a card game? I’ve heard stories of that,” Clyde said.

“No, but I heard about that. Caught a man cheatin’.”

“There was more to it,” Manfred put in. “Some words passed between them, something relating to Missouri.”

Grita Redaway thought for a moment her heart had stopped beating. She swallowed. “Missouri?”

“Some old grudge. Some say Trevallion knew he would cheat and wanted an excuse to kill him. Well, he done it.”

Chapter 38

S
HE WAITED A moment, wanting to know yet almost afraid to ask. “You said you saw him kill a man?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Teale said. “It was out on the trail. I’d headed for the settlements and was plumb beat, so I just turned off the trail into the brush, staked my horse out of sight, and bedded down.

“A horse comin’ along the trail woke me. Then there was another horse from the other direction. Well, ma’am, I got enemies here and there, so made out to ready myself for trouble.

“I could see them plain. One of them was Obie Skinner. He was a runnin’ mate of that man who was killed over the card game, I don’t recall his name. That Skinner was a bad one, real bad. He wasn’t afeered of anything, and he was almighty good with a gun.

“The other one was Trevallion. It was that Missouri thing again. Trevallion brung it up and Skinner went for a gun. I’d of bet my shirt on him but he didn’t have no more show than a jack-rabbit at a coyote picnic. Trevallion blew him out of his saddle.”

“Please,” she turned to Manfred and Clyde. “I’d like to go back to the hotel now.”

In the lobby she turned suddenly to Teale. “Mr. Teale? Will you sit down with me, please? I want to ask you a few questions.”

She turned to Manfred and Clyde. “Thank you, gentlemen. Tomorrow, then? At the theater?”

“If you’d like us to wait?” Clyde suggested.

“No, I will be all right. I just thought of something I’ve been wanting to know about mines. Mr. Teale can tell me, I’m sure.”

When they were gone, she turned to Teale. “Will you sit down, please?” When they were seated she said, “You are an interesting man, Mr. Teale, and a curious man, are you not?”

“Whatever a body knows can’t hurt him an’ may be a help. When I’m hunting buffalo, I try to learn a buffalo’s habits. It’s the same with beaver.”

“And men?”

“Yes, ma’am. Men have their ways, too, an’ each one a mite different. I try to know the ones who might be trouble for me.”

“Like Trevallion?”

“Yes, ma’am. But he will never be a trouble to me. He’s a good man.”

“He’s killed men?”

“So have I, ma’am. Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes they invite it, comin’ at folks the way they do. I don’t look for men to shoot unless they are comin’ at folks. Then I take steps.”

“Trevallion?”

“I listen well, ma’am, and sometimes I prompt. I sort of nudge folks who might know something. Trevallion killed those men for something happened a long time back. Well, there was a man kept a trading post down off the mountain. Been there a long time. He’s gone now. Sold out. But he knew Trevallion when he was a boy. Knew his pa.

“Seems Trevallion’s pa was killed by some men who come ridin’ in, Trevallion’s pa got two of them but they killed him. They’d have killed Trevallion, he was just a lad, if they had time, but folks was acomin’. They taken out.”

“Do you know what was behind it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Trevallion’s pa told this man who ran the trading post some of it. He got more from some who came across the plains with him. Seems Trevallion’s ma and another woman had been set on an’ killed back in Missouri. That other woman’s husband was killed, too.”

“How well do you know Trevallion?”

“Sort of. We come down the trail together a time or two. He ain’t one to talk. Minds his own affairs. Does his share an’ a mite more.” Teale looked up at her suddenly. “Ma’am, I’d not say this to many, but I size a man up. I say if that thing had not happened back there in Missouri, Trevallion would be one of the biggest men on the Comstock. He knows mines and he’s sharp. He’s got it in him.”

“Does he have so much hate in him then?”

“Maybe, maybe that’s it, but maybe it is something else. Maybe it is just that he doesn’t want evil to go unpunished and be free to commit other evils.”

“So he takes the law into his own hands?”

“Where there’s law, I say let the law handle it, but out in wild country like that, ma’am, out in wild country where there’s no law, a man has to be the law. He has to administer justice.

“This here’s a fine, big, beautiful country, and men like Bill Stewart are bringing law into it, but they’ve got a ways to go, and they cannot punish crimes that taken place far away and long ago.”

“I see.” She stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Teale. I wanted to know. Please do not mention the subject of our conversation.”

“No, ma’am.”

She turned away, then paused. “Mr. Teale? What will Trevallion do now?”

He shrugged. “Kill the rest of ’em, although I think he’s kind of out of the notion.”

“Out of the notion? Why do you say that?”

“Because there’s at least one of them in town. He knows it an’ he ain’t killed him.” He hesitated, looking around for a spittoon. He found it, spat, and then added, “Fact is, two more of them just rode in, and he doesn’t know
that
.”

“Why? Why do they come here? Now?”

“That I don’t know, ma’am. I only know they come in, bold as brass, and by now they will have found Waggoner.”

“Waggoner?”

“He was one of them, ma’am. One of that crowd back in Missouri. He was there in the crowd tonight. I seen him.”

“At the theater? Watching my show?”

“Yes, ma’am. He was there. Trevallion seen him, too.” He paused. “Ma’am? I don’t figure to scare you, you bein’ the kind of woman you are, but Waggoner didn’t take his seat until just before the second act. He sat down just before you come on stage.”

She was silent, thinking. After a moment she got up. “Thank you, Mr. Teale. You have been most helpful. I am not frightened, and I wish always to know when there may be trouble. Otherwise, how can I prepare for it? I had believed myself a bystander, now I realize this is not the case. He must be aware of me. He must know something about me, or want something I have.”

“Ma’am, don’t you worry. I’ll be around. Them others, those actors? Will they stand?”

“I believe they will, Mr. Teale.”

“That one? The tallest one? I seem to have seen him someplace before.”

“It isn’t likely, unless you’ve been to the theater in other places than the frontier.” She paused. “Thank you, Mr. Teale. And good night.”

Alone in her room, Margrita—she had dropped the Marguerita long since, shortening it and making it simpler—undressed and prepared for bed. Looking at herself in the mirror, she thought of what had taken place.

She was, she supposed, a beautiful woman. She had been told so often enough in the past few years but was unimpressed by it. The world in which she had grown up had been one where talent and intelligence counted for much more than beauty, and the idea of being beautiful was one that had never impressed her.