Bushedwhacked Bride (24 page)
Only, why did his brothers have to bedevil him so
about her? Calling Miss Dumpling a watermelon and him
a beanpole. And why did he even care? Wasn’t Miss
Jessie right? Wasn’t it time for him to decide whether he
was really a man, or a baby?
And just look at poor Miss Dumpling sitting in that corner all by herself, like a big, sad flower waiting to be
plucked.
His decision made, Billy strode across the room to her. “Howdy, Miss Dumpling.”
Spotting him, Dumpling gave a little gasp. Then she
surged to her feet. “Well, hey, Bobby.”
He flashed his most charming grin. “What’s a purty thing like you doin’ all alone?”
She dimpled. “Don’t look like I’ m alone no more, do it?”
“No, ma’am.” He gestured toward the desk. “You know,
I could use some help with that bench I’m repairing.”
She laced her arm through his. “Why, sure, sugar.”
Lowering her voice to a husky purr, she confided, “You
know I was a’watchin’ you drivin’ them nails.”
Billy all but swallowed his tongue. “Y-you were?”
Dumpling licked her lips. “Ain’t never seen no man do
it better.”
Billy gulped. “Well, hot damn, sugar.”
“You getting hungry?” she added suggestively.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied just as eagerly.
“Well, wait till you see my basket—I brung stew, and biscuits.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “And
even chicken and
dumplings.”
Billy’s grin all but split his face. “Hey, honey, I just
love dumplings. Can’t wait to dive into ‘em.”
“I’m counting on it, sugar—that is, after you pound
nails.”
“Yeah!”
“Then what are we waitin’ for? You hammer the
nails—”
“And you show me your basket.”
***
Across the room, Jessica was relieved to watch Billy and
Dumpling pair off together, Dumpling holding the bench
for him while he hammered. They continued to work to
gether, laughing, for the balance of the morning, ignoring
the occasional snickers they received from Wes, Luke,
and Gabe.
At high noon, Reverend Bliss stopped by just in time
to pronounce grace before everyone sat down to eat. Sit
ting next to Cole at an old desk, Jessica glanced about
happily; already the schoolhouse looked so much better.
The steps, sagging walls, and floorboards had all been
shored up, the roof repaired. This afternoon they would
begin whitewashing the walls—and by tomorrow, the
curtains would be hung. The little place was starting to look like a real school, after all.
When the meal was over, young Caleb pulled out a harmonica and treated those gathered to a jaunty rendition of “Nellie Bly.” While the townsfolk looked on and clapped,
Wes and Maybelle got up to dance, soon followed by Minerva and Luke, Gabe and Beatrice. Jessica felt disheartened when Billy and Dumpling didn’t join the others right away.
However, once the three couples retired from the floor
and Caleb started up a new tune, “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” Jessica was pleased to see Billy proudly escort
Dumpling out to dance. Dumpling was grinning from ear
to ear as the two waltzed; Billy was smiling shyly. Every
thing went fine until Dumpling stumbled onto Billy’s in
step and he jerked back with a yelp of pain.
That was when his three brothers, standing along the sidelines with the Holler girls, erupted into laughter and
began to point and jeer. Billy glowered at the others while
Dumpling blushed and hung her head. The Holler girls
appeared embarrassed by the boys’ obnoxious behavior,
while others present, including Dumpling’s parents,
looked on, frowning their disapproval.
Outraged, Jessica turned to Cole. “Do something.”
“My pleasure,” he replied grimly.
Cole strode off, grabbing the three culprits and taking
them off to a corner. She watched as he soundly scolded
his brothers. Cole behaved as a true hero of the down
trodden. Watching his angry gestures, observing the look
of fierce recrimination on his face, Jessica felt proud of
him. And his lecture worked. She smiled as she watched
three male faces dissolve in guilt. Good for Cole!
She glanced back at Billy and Dumpling, relieved to
see them dancing again, this time with no taunts from the
sidelines. Both of them looked happy. She was making
real progress here, reforming all of the brothers, perhaps
even Cole. Perhaps
this
was the true reason she’d been
brought across time.
Wilma Hicks and Millie Holler now strolled up to join
her. “Well, Miss Garrett, looks like there’s romance in the air,” declared Wilma. “My Dumpling talks of nothing but
Bobby.”
Jessica eyed the woman contritely. “I’m so sorry
about the way Bobby’s brothers just acted toward your
daughter. I’m going to skin them all alive once we get
home.”
Wilma sighed. “I know, but it looks like their older
brother already took them to task. Anyhow, boys will be
boys, and poor Dumpling has always been teased about her size. Don’t you worry, now—my daughter’s a strong-willed
young woman who can hold her own with them boys.”
“And her cousins will help, too,” put in Millie Holler.
“My three girls are really taken with Walt, Lyle, and Gill.
I’m sure they’ll insist the boys mind their manners
around Cousin Dumpling.”
“Good for them,” Jessica replied gratefully.
She was touched by the women’s support. It seemed
she now had extensive help in her mission to redeem the
brothers. Suddenly her world felt filled with happiness.
***
Jessica’s bubble burst in mid-afternoon, when the group
arrived home and the five brothers began gathering their
pistols and saddling their horses. She confronted them
out in the yard.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
Standing next to his horse, Billy answered, “There’s a
new shipment of gold coming down the mine road this af
ternoon. Reckon we’ll go relieve ‘em of it.”
“My God!” Jessica cried. “But I thought all of you
were changing, becoming reformed.”
“We are,” answered Gabe. “We all had a meeting and
decided we’re giving part of today’s take to the school,
and part to the church.”
Jessica was flabbergasted. “Has it never occurred to you that churchgoing folks don’t steal?”
The boys exchanged perplexed looks, then Luke spoke
up. “That makes no sense, ma’am. Don’t the church need
money to run it just like anything else?”
She beseeched Cole. “Please, do something.”
But he, too, proved immovable. “It’s the way we live
our lives, sugar.”
“Well, it stinks.”
“Want to join us?” he asked.
Remembering what had happened following their last
robbery, Jessica felt weak. To cover her discomfiture, she
crossed her arms over her bosom and glowered. “Think
I’ll pass this time.”
Cole edged closer to her, and from the ardent look
in his eyes, Jessica suspected he was also remembering
that torrid episode. “Don’t be mad, Jessie. It
is
what
we do.”
“Don’t give me that hogwash.”
“It’s the only way to stop Miser.”
“You haven’t stopped him yet. And, by the way, how
do
you find out about all these shipments? Do you have a
spy at the mines?”
Cole’s features tightened. “Sorry, trade secret.”
Jessica watched glumly as Cole swung about; then he
and the others mounted their horses and rode off. Ma
came out, sweeping the porch and humming “Bringing in the Sheaves.”
“Can’t you do something?” Jessica beseeched, gesturing at the departing riders.
“Well, honey, I could have told you a skunk don’t
change its stripes,” Ma muttered to Jessica.
“No kidding,” she replied.
Chapter Twenty-one
On Sunday afternoon, Cole galloped into the yard of the
Aspen Gulch Mines, a collection of ramshackle build
ings, sluices, and piles of tailings, all sprawled amid
gouges in the mountainside.
Cole was eager to see evidence of what he and his
brothers were fighting for—especially after their es
capade the other day. Though he hadn’t admitted this to
Jessica, the last gold shipment robbery hadn’t been the
usual easy pickings—the guard had been unexpectedly
tripled. A spirited gun battle had ensued between the
guards and the gang, and the guards hadn’t surrendered
until one of them had been winged by a gang bullet. Even
though no one had been seriously hurt, the incident both
ered Cole. Robbing gold shipments was one matter;
wounding or even killing people was another.
Cole dismounted to face four miners from church
milling about in the yard—Joshua Hicks, Henry Holler,
Gideon Mayhew and Thaddeous Jeter. At the back of the
group stood a fifth man, a white-haired old-timer, a
familiar stranger to Cole. Beyond the group yawned the
black entrance to the mine, with an empty ore car sitting outside on the narrow tracks.
Cole tethered Red to a hitching post and strode toward the group. “Afternoon, gents.”
Joshua Hicks shook Cole’s hand. “Clay, you know
most everyone from church. But I don’t expect you’ve
met old Jeremiah Crane, since he doesn’t attend.”
Cole approached the thin old man, whose features
were wizened and sallow. He wore the tattered flannel
shirt and filthy canvas Levi’s typical of hard rock miners.
Offering his hand, he said, “Mr. Crane. Clay Lively.”
Humor gleamed in the old-timer’s gray eyes. “Pleased
to meet you, Mr. Lively,” he rasped back, shaking Cole’s
hand.
“Jeremiah’s the only miner left in these parts who was
around when the first mine opened over thirty years ago,”
put in Henry Holler.
“Really?” asked Cole. “Mr. Crane, I don’t suppose you
would have known my pa,
Chester
Lively?”
“Yep, I knew him,” replied Jeremiah solemnly, telltale
merriment again sparkling in his eyes. “A pity we lost
him in that cave-in back in’59 at the old western branch.”
Cole nodded. “My ma still hasn’t gotten over it.”
“Yeah, them Aspen Gulch boys kept on tunnelin’ out that hillside till the blame thing collapsed,” Jeremiah related bitterly.
Henry clapped Cole across the shoulders in a gesture
of reassurance. “And Clay’s ma is not the only woman in
these parts to lose a good man in one of Elijah Miser’s
hell-holes.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jeremiah. “If cave-ins don’t do us in, it’s
miner’s lung.” He paused, coughing hard, then straining for
his next breath. “I reckon it’ll put me under before spring.”
Thaddeous Jeter waved off the old man. “Ah, Jeremiah,
you’ve been promising to die on us for ten years now. I reckon you’ll outlive us all.”
All six men laughed at this much needed bit of levity.
Then Joshua continued more soberly to Cole, “We do
lose a lot of men to lung disease, especially our drillers like Jeremiah.” He pointed to a huge, rambling shed off
to the west. “But we lose more due to the cyanide and
acid fumes used in the stamping mill. I’ll have to hand it
to Miser and his cronies—they’re damned shrewd to have
such a self-contained operation, so they can just ship the
gold bullion off to their fat coffers in
Colorado Springs
.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t count on the Reklaw boys un
loading their booty along the way,” put in Henry, and
again the men erupted in laughter.
Joshua clapped his hands. “Ready to see the mine,
Clay?”
Cole hesitated. “Are you sure it’s safe for us to be snoop
ing around? Isn’t there a chance we’ll be discovered?”
Joshua chuckled. “Not with Gideon here pulling guard duty today. And Jeremiah will help him out.”
Cole turned to Gideon, a tall, thin man with carroty
hair. “Thanks, neighbor.”
Gideon grinned back. “Long as you fellas don’t try no
high-grading, reckon we’ll be all right.”
Perplexed, Cole asked, “What’s high-grading?”
“Oh, it’s a custom certain miners have of pocketing the
highest grade gold ore,” Gideon explained. “At most
mines, any man caught loses his job. Out here, a guilty
fella more likely will disappear down some unused
shaft.”
Cole whistled. “You must be jesting.”
Jeremiah answered the question. “Nope, sonny, we’re pretty sure it happened to Clive Kitchell back in ‘82. We
all knew he was high-grading, then one day he just up
and disappeared.”
Cole shook his head. “Maybe he left for better parts.”
Joshua’s bitter laugh rang out. “Without his wife and
year-old baby? We reckon not.”
“It’s a harsh life, isn’t it?”
Joshua nodded. “Doesn’t your family know that as
well as anyone else?” Since a reply seemed unnecessary,
he gestured toward the mine opening. “All right, men,
time to go down the hole.”
As the others began striding off, Cole again shook Jeremiah’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Take care down in the mine,
sonny.”
“You bet.”
Joshua spoke to Gideon. “You two keep an eye out,
now.”
Gideon touched a pistol at his waist. “Sure will.”
Cole and the other three men entered a tunnel cluttered
with debris. Joshua paused to light a lantern. “You ever been in a mine before, Clay?”
In the dank, cool interior, Cole gazed about at rock
walls, clutter and machinery parked everywhere. The
mine shaft itself was marked by a crude elevator at the
end of the cave. “Well, a neighbor took me down into one
when I was little, but it’s been a while.”
Nodding, Joshua led the others over to a large, grimy engine. “That’s the steam engine powering the hoist,” he
explained. “We’ll fire her up, then Thaddeous will oper
ate the hoist and lower us down. He’s our hoistman.”
Cole helped the other men load the firebox with wood
and start the fire. “The fire heats the tubes overhead,”
Joshua explained, pointing to a network of piping above
the engine. “They have water in ‘em, and that turns into the steam that drives the pistons.”
Cole waited with the others as the fire roared, the
steam began to sputter and sing in the pipes, and eventu
ally, the pistons began to clang. Thaddeous then assumed
the hoistman’s seat and grabbed the lever controls.
“All right, boys, we can get in the cage,” Joshua said.
The remaining three men proceeded to the elevator
shaft. Because the inside of the cage was so tiny, Joshua
extinguished his lantern. The three men squeezed inside together, then Henry fastened the gate. With a whoosh,
they descended.
Cole found the ride down in total darkness downright
eerie, with only the whistle of the cage slicing the air as
it sped past the close walls. The atmosphere grew cooler and clammier the deeper they descended.
Finally the basket jerked to a halt at the bottom. Joshua
stepped out first and relit the lantern. Cole found they were
in a vast round room with stone walls heavily streaked
with gold—and signs of carving and blasting everywhere.
“Well, this is it,” Joshua explained. “The glory hole.”
Cole was amazed by the vast size of the dig, almost big
enough for a small church. “Isn’t this a rather large exca
vation this far under?”
‘Tell that to Mr. Miser,” Joshua said cynically. “He
found this heavy vein of ore and he’s milking it for all he
can get. Come along and I’ll show you more.”
Joshua led them down a dank tunnel to their left. “This here is a ‘drift,’ a tunnel off the main, tapping an offshoot
of a major vein. It’s intersected by a ‘cross-cut’ here, an
other tunnel for ventilation.”
Inside yet another tunnel Joshua paused where hammers and drills were propped against stone walls. “You can see the drilling holes they’re working on,” he said,
pointing at crevices in the stone. “We’ll be blasting a new
tunnel next week.”
“Isn’t that dangerous work?” Cole asked.
“You bet,” answered Henry. “We lost three men last au
tumn when the dynamite was placed wrong and sent the force of the blast back inside the tunnel. And the drilling
itself is dangerous work. Knox Joiner had to quit after his partner accidentally crushed his wrist with a hammer last
week. He’s useless now, will never be back. That’s one
reason they call the job a ‘widowmaker’—also because the dust from the drilling can eat away a man’s lungs.”
Cole thought of poor Jeremiah. “What a brutal way to make a living.”
“Yeah—especially when a man is only making two dollars a day,” said Henry.
“That’s a worse crime.”
Joshua continued to lead them through a labyrinth of tunnels. “This place is like a maze,” Cole said.
“It’s overdrilled,” Joshua stated bluntly. “We’ve al
ready had several minor cave-ins. One of these days this entire hillside is gonna give way just like what happened
at the old western branch.”
“Yeah, my pa died in one of the earlier cave-ins there,”
Cole stated quietly. “You’d think the owners would have
learned.”
“Miser learn? Never,” Joshua replied bitterly.
Cole fell silent for a moment, thinking of how frightened his own father must have been almost thirty years ago, to be trapped hundreds of feet below the surface in
pitch darkness, most likely in excruciating pain and dying
slowly, knowing rescue would never come. He tried to
imagine these good men suffering that same harrowing
fate, and their families torn apart by grief.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” he asked at last.
Henry and Joshua exchanged a cautious look, then
Joshua spoke up. “Well, Henry and me have thought of coming out here some night with a box of dynamite and
blowing the place to kingdom come.”
“But if we did, none of us would have jobs,” Henry
added.
“Mainly, we’ll just have to hope we’re not here when the mine collapses,” Joshua added.
Cole didn’t reply. No one needed to state the obvi
ous—that the mine was far more likely to collapse while
the miners were here, working and blasting.
“Surely something can be done to make conditions
safer,” he muttered.
Joshua laughed. “With Miser and his crew? Now that’s
funny.”
Cole remained lost in thought as the threesome made
their way back to the cage. He realized Jessica was right.
He’d been taking his revenge on the owners of the con
sortium, but not really considering the fates of the miners.
Men like his father and stepfather. Good men with families to support, who desperately needed the pitiful dollars they earned.
He felt a deep sense of shame, knowing that the best
way to honor his father’s memory would be to help these people,
really
help them. And somehow, he must find a way to do so.