Pale Rider (11 page)

The younger Lahood endured this criticism in silence. First, because not even blood relations talked back to Coy Lahood and second, because he knew the criticism was justified. He forced himself to say nothing during the remainder of the ride into town. After awhile he began to relax.

He was thinking of how his father was going to take care of that damn preacher man. Coy Lahood could be very inventive when the need arose. By the time they reached the outskirts of town, he was smiling.

The oak bureau had been hauled all the way from Philadelphia, around the Cape via clipper, then overland into the Sierras via wagon.

Now it reposed in the Wheeler cabin, where it constituted Sarah Wheeler’s prize possession. It was the finest piece of furniture in Carbon Canyon and would have drawn appreciative comments even in Sacramento. Sarah preferred not to point it out to visitors if she could avoid doing so, however. Doing so would have meant explaining its history, and that in turn would have meant explaining how she and her former husband had come to acquire it. She preferred not to mention that man’s name in her home.

On reflection, the bureau had been of more use than had the man. It stayed where it belonged, did its job, was there when she needed it, and neither beat nor berated her. Better a wooden bureau than a wooden man, she finally decided.

From time to time she wondered where he was, what he was doing. Looking for gold, no doubt, in places where a wife and a daughter would be more of an encumbrance than a help. Handsome he’d been, handsome and smooth-talking and so wise in the ways of the world. Or so he’d seemed to young Sarah. Now that she’d had a chance to experience a bit more of life she knew better. She’d mistaken vanity for confidence, lies for knowledge, and sex for love.

Not that he’d been an evil man. Just sorry, and she too young to know any better. When he’d deserted her and Megan, the hurt had been too much to bear. It was still there but healed over now, like an old break covered by new bone.

Megan was hard at work in her own room, unaware of her mother’s thoughts. She was trying to pull the straps tighter against her back, the better to raise and emphasize her adolescent bosom. She turned sideways to eye herself in the beveled oval mirror, examining her half-naked form critically. It was a good figure, no doubt of that, and time would likely enhance and refine it even more. But it would’ve been better if she’d had someone else there to tie the corset straps for her. She didn’t dare ask her mother.

What she really needed was one of those new dresses Mrs. Williams had been talking about. Mrs. Williams had been in Sacramento as recently as two months ago, to tend to her elderly sister, and had returned to Carbon Canyon full of tales of the latest in politics and fashion. The gowns she claimed to have seen sounded fit for a queen to Megan. Cut low in front, with lots of velvet and feathers,
that
was what she needed.

But all she had was the one Sunday dress, and that would have to do.

Idly she called out to the front room. “Were Grandpa and Grandma happy when you got married, Ma?”

Her mother’s voice floated back to her from the kitchen. “I’m afraid they didn’t have a thimbleful of choice in the matter.”

Megan hardly heard the reply. She was frowning at her reflection. No matter how she altered the position of her bodice or tugged on the straps which raised the stays, she was unable to produce the desired end result with the equipment at hand.

“That’s no answer. Were they surprised?”

A distant sigh. “Your grandpa took the measles and your grandma got drunk. I suppose you could say it surprised them some.”

Moving to the quilt-covered bed behind her, Megan picked up the neatly laid-out gingham pinafore lying atop the covers and slipped it on over her shirtwaist. She had to do a little jig to make it slide down. No question about it, she was still growing, and the pinafore was starting to pinch in certain critical places.

“Was it ’cause they didn’t think you were old enough?”

“Your grandma was only fifteen when she was married,” Sarah replied. “No, I think what riled them was
who
I married. I could’ve been forty and they wouldn’t have approved. Turns out they were both right. Too late for me to apologize now that they’re both gone. I was too smart and too pig-headed to listen to the advice of a couple of old folks.”

Megan adjusted the pinafore to its unsatisfactory best, then picked up her hairbrush and began working on her waist-length hair.

“Do you think you’ll be happy married to Hull?”

“Who says we’re getting married? Girl, you’ve been growing up when I wasn’t looking.”

Megan smiled at her reflection. “Hull’s nice enough, isn’t he?”

Her mother’s response was deliberately flat. “Yes, he’s nice.”

“He likes me, and I know he likes you. Don’t you like him?”

“Hull’s all right. Yes, I like him, but people don’t get married just because they like one another.”

A dreamy cast came over Megan’s face as she swayed approvingly before the mirror. “Do preachers get married?”

“I don’t see why not.”

That comment brought forth a broad smile from both the reflection in the mirror and its owner. A few final sharp strokes through her tresses and Megan returned the brush to its resting place atop the bureau. She all but skipped into the next room.

“Is my hem long enough?”

Sarah turned to her daughter, and Megan saw that she wasn’t the only woman in the house who had been hard at work on her appearance. Her mother’s long hair had been piled up into an elegant knot atop her head, where it was secured in place by tortoiseshell pins.

“Why yes. And you look lovely.” Rising, she planted a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. “You’re the prettiest daughter I could ever have. That anyone could ever have.”

Megan fidgeted under the praise while simultaneously casting an envious eye on her mother’s elaborate coiffure and wondering if she could somehow manage to duplicate it. It wasn’t that it made Sarah’s hair any more attractive as much as it contributed to her more, well, more mature appearance, something that concerned Megan very much just now.

Hull had resurrected his Long Tom, but instead of setting it back up at the far end of his claim where it had stood originally, he’d moved it downstream. Now it stood in the lee of the pulverized boulder whose disintegration Josh Lahood’s henchman had inadvertently begun.

It was strange having help. He’d worked alone for so many years he hardly knew how to handle not having to do everything himself. Of course, he was within easy shouting range of his fellow miners, but men like Conway and Miller hadn’t come to the mountains to idle away their days in casual conversation. Time enough for that after sundown, when it grew too cold and dark to work.

And even then there were those in whom the gold fever ran so hot that they remained to work their claims by the light of candle and lamp.

This much the Preacher shared in common with the other sourdoughs; he preferred work to talk. Hard work at that. Hull had to argue with the tall man before he’d let the miner take his turn at the much more strenuous job of shoveling gravel into the upper end of the sluice. Any fool could walk the Long Tom’s length, searching the wooden boxes for signs of color. And when he’d protest that the Preacher was taking too long a turn with the gravel, his friend would reply that he still had five more minutes of “sermonizing with the shovel” before he’d allow Hull to take over.

He would argue, and then give in. After two years of working alone, Hull’s shoulder muscles were more than a little grateful for the respite.

He was enjoying one of those breaks at the moment, busying himself with inspecting the flow of sand over the bottom of the sluice. Rocks, and more rocks, the dull gray beneath the clear water interrupted only by an occasional flash of quartz or pyrite.

Something caught his eye, masked but not obscured by the swirling water that raced the length of the sluice. The water could not obscure it. It was bright, much too bright. Much brighter than any pyrite had a right to be. He gaped at it, wiped dirt from his face, and looked again to make sure he hadn’t imagined it.

Letting out a joyous whoop, he plunged his right hand into the frigid current and closed his fist over the object. It felt different from the surrounding gravel even beneath the water.

The Preacher dumped another load of gravel into the upper end of the Long Tom and paused to grin back at his friend. “You break your hand there, Barret?”

The miner had removed his fist from the water. Now he opened it to stare at what he’d retrieved. His fingers were turning pink from the cold, but he didn’t feel the chill.

He turned the object over in his fingers, a rapt expression on his face. It did not display the familiar octagonal crystalline bulges or the surface striations common to pyrite. It was smooth and battered where the water had tumbled it across the creek bottom. And it was brighter in hue than pyrite, with a telltale reddish tinge.

“It’s a nugget,” he was finally able to gasp. “The biggest damn nugget I’ve ever seen! Look here.” He let out another whoop of pure delight as he hurried to display his find.

The Preacher looked approvingly at the handful even as he echoed Hull’s first thoughts. “You’re sure it ain’t fool’s gold, now.”

Hull was grinning from ear to ear. “Preacher, I’ve thrown away enough pyrite to plate the U.S. Capitol. Look at it. Ain’t she beautiful, all smooth and polished by the water?” He rubbed one part of his find to remove the caked-on silt. His voice was hushed, reverent. “I never thought to see the like, ’cept in the papers. Always felt sure it was given to other men to make a strike like this, not Hull Barret. But you know something? Even while I was thinking that I never gave up hope.” His fingers tightened around the nugget.

“I knew there was gold in this creek, and not just dust. Spider knew it, and I knew it.”

“Well, don’t keep it to yourself, Barret. Good news tastes best when it’s shared.”

“Yeah, right.” He started climbing the slope, heading for the Wheeler cabin. “Hey Sarah, Megan! Have a look at this!”

Spider Conway looked up from his panning, then disgustedly tossed the contents aside as he watched Hull Barret half clamber, half run up the hillside. He directed a thin stream of tobacco juice into the mud that swirled around his ancient boots.

“It figgers.” With a snort he dipped the pan again, methodically swishing the load of sand, gravel, and water around and around, patiently letting the water remove the lighter debris as he searched for a faint trace of yellow amidst the brown, gray, and white.

His initial reaction to the discovery had been instinctive, but in reality he was quietly pleased. Hull Barret had worked as hard as anyone in Carbon Canyon, and he deserved the luck that had befallen him. Besides, better for someone to find gold than no one. It meant that the gold was there, and who knew but that maybe one day even poor old Spider Conway might find his share. He panned a little faster.

So would every man working the length of the creek, once the word got around.

Hull arrived at the cabin out of breath and breathing hard. Sarah had come out onto the porch to see what all the yelling was about and Megan now joined her.

He held his discovery out to them. It gleamed in his palm, a small lump of sun fallen to earth, and there was satisfaction as well as exultation in his voice.

“Nothing but a little dust in Carbon Canyon, Lindquist said! Nothing but dust, not worth the trouble of panning out. How’s this for a piece of dust!” He turned to nod in the direction of his claim. “It came from beneath where that boulder was. I was right about that. There’s all kinds of stuff sucked down under that rock that’s been waitin’ there for a million years, just waiting for somebody to come along and pull the cork out of the bottle.” He shook it at them, his voice trembling with excitement.

“Look at it, Sarah! Look at it good. Must weigh all o’ four ounces not countin’ what matrix is still clinging to it. A quarter
pound
o’ gold.”

The nugget was roughly the size of a bird’s egg, pure and solid with only the slightest bit of quartz and sand clinging to it. It was more gold than any of them had seen in one place before, and it was all in one piece.

Impetuously Hull embraced first mother, then daughter. “How about it, Sarah? Want to celebrate?” He put his arms around her again.

“Oh Hull,” Megan said hopefully, her face shining with shared excitement, “could we go into town?”

Sarah’s carefully controlled approval of Hull’s discovery was suddenly tempered further by the reality that underlay their lives. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Megan,” she said slowly.

“
Please
, Mama. We’ve been stuck up here for ages, and if Hull thinks it’s all right,” she turned to the tall man who had finally joined them. “What do you think, Preacher?”

He wore that thin, enigmatic smile as he replied. “It’d sure go a ways toward clearing your credit, wouldn’t it? I’m sure Mr. Blankenship would be glad to relieve you of that little burden, at a fair price. He struck me as honest enough, if a tad on the dour side.”

Sarah quickly detached herself from Hull’s embrace, a fact which escaped the excited Megan’s notice.

Hull looked thoughtful as he considered the Preacher’s words. He tossed the nugget up and down in his palm a few times, enjoying the delicious weight and feel of it while he still could. It wouldn’t be his for long, and he’d be sorry to see it depart his possession, but the Preacher was right. They owed Blankenship, and the nugget would be enough to clear accounts for everybody with maybe some left over. Once their account had been cleared, they’d be able to buy on credit once more.

Besides, he told himself cockily, where there was one such nugget there were bound to be more.

“It would. It would at that. And then some.”

“Gold just makes a man’s pocket heavy.”

Hull was grinning again. “Be worth it just to see the look on old Blankenship’s face.”

“Can’t we go into town?” Megan asked again. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out of the canyon.”