Easy Pickings (15 page)

“There is more, I think.”

Brian grinned. “Sure is, ma'am, but we'll let it go just the way it is.”

“Is it the constable?”

“There's food here for a few days, and we'll be checking. And if it's not enough, give Tip the word.”

“How may I thank you?”

“We've got to get some shut-eye, ma'am. Shift comes soon.”

Brian blew out the candle, and they were suddenly gone, in a rush of night air. Except for the distant thump of the mill, it was suddenly quiet. She was pierced by loneliness. Not just for her benefactors, but for her husband and son, not to mention all her family across the sea. Give her a nest, and she ached to fill it.

She felt oddly comfortable, as if destined to be led to this place. There was some settling in to do, but she put it off, wrapped her blanket about her, and found comfort and peace on the cot. The odd thing of it was her sense of coming home. She had taken possession, even though she had yet to explore the building or the washroom, or the glade of aspen that hid it from the Cruse house.

Just at dawn a train whistle awakened her, and she remembered that Marysville was connected by a Northern Pacific spur to Helena, and that the railroad brought mining timbers, coal, food, and necessaries to this mountain-girt town. She arose swiftly, eager to explore this barren cottage. She stepped into the laundry room, jacked a pump, and was rewarded with cold water. She stepped outside, and found herself in a glade of trees, with windows opening on the blue mountains. She could see the road up Long Gulch that would take her to the McPhee Mine and her hideaway. To go back and forth she wouldn't even need to go through Marysville, so long as there was no fence—and she saw none.

The cottage cookstove was tiny and efficient, and with just a few sticks of kindling she had water boiling for some porridge. It all seemed a miracle to her, and gave rise to the idea that maybe, with this heartening refuge, she could survive here. Maybe she could become a washerwoman. Everything she needed to make a living was right there. But she would need the owner's permission. She did not scorn ordinary labor. That had been her lot as a mother and wife, and always would be. She might even be the town washerwoman, if need be.

But first, the mine. There had to be a way. She did not know Constable Roach's hours, but she suspected he was more or less on duty all the time, sometimes in his office, sometimes patrolling the bustling town, sometimes making appearances in saloons after dark. She would begin with the constable, and maybe she could learn a few things. Or maybe she could give him the same ultimatum she had given to his brother-in-law, Mortimer Laidlow.

When the day was bright and quick, she headed into Marysville, found the constabulary, and found him making entries in a ledger.

“You again, is it?” he asked, studying her clean dress and well-washed face.

“I've some questions, Constable. If you have time.”

“I don't. And you're wasting what little I have.”

“You could begin by telling me who or what claims to own the McPhee Mine. I wish to know.”

“You needn't bother your head about it. It's a corporation.”

“And who might that be?”

He sighed, annoyed, and flecked a bit of lint off his immaculate blue uniform. “It happens to be a family business. My family. The Roaches, Laidlows and in-laws, and certain cousins, about a dozen of us in all. We've business interests in Marysville. We own the restaurant that feeds my prisoners, we own the city water company. We own the coal, ice, and firewood dealership. We own a grocery. We own a blacksmith, a bakery, and a livery barn. And we now have an interest in five of the twenty mines in the district.”

“And your cousin is a district judge.”

He suddenly retreated into himself.

“The judge helped your company acquire properties?”

“He is not a principal. Entirely independent, of course. Now, madam, you've been asked to leave Marysville, and you are defying me. You are a vagrant. And it seems a public nuisance. What shall I do? Tell me.”

“Restore my mine to me. As you should. As conscience requires.”

He laughed, a dry, rheumy cackle. “You are a one-woman variety show,” he said.

“Mind if I use a sheet of paper and your pen?”

He smiled thinly, and nodded.

She collected pen, ink bottle, blotter, and paper, and wrote a notice, similar to the one she had given Laidlow, directing the Roach interests to abandon her property, cease trespassing, cease stealing ore, and to remove themselves within twenty-four hours. This time she signed it and added another line. “Owner of the patent of the McPhee Mine.”

She blotted it and handed it to the constable, who read it with delight wreathing his carefully groomed features.

“You know,” he said, “I was talking to my brother-in-law, and we both thought that Marysville is suffering from the presence of a most afflicted woman, plainly alone, without means, and brimming with dementia. She needs supervision. She seems to live on what she can pluck out of trash piles. Fortunately, the Territory has a fine new asylum at Warm Springs for the mad. It seems to me that I would be doing a service to you, as well as my city, to petition the court to commit you. You could spend the rest of your life protected from yourself, safe, comfortable, and no menace to the community.”

He plainly was enjoying himself.

“See that cell?” she said. “You're on the wrong side of the bars.”

She left, steaming. But maybe she had achieved something. She'd given notice. And by giving notice, she could justify whatever she would be forced to do.

She headed next for the Drumlummon Mill, the noisy monster that rumbled on a slope, processing tons of gold ore daily. These were male precincts, and she scarcely knew where to turn. Smoke billowed from stacks. Rank odors rode the breezes. Working men were moving material in and out of giant doors. From within she heard the clatter of metal on metal, and smelled the acrid smoke of fierce furnaces.

She was looking for a building or office that might house a manager, but the structures were all raw wood, grayed by weather, not even coated with whitewash. No one in this place was spending a spare nickel on any amenity. She kept working upslope, finding nothing resembling an office, and finally worked down to the base, and there she did find a long gray structure, plain as a warehouse, and an unmarked door that seemed the likely place. She entered. It was indeed an office, a big bullpen with some clerks, and a private office to the left.

The clerks were startled by a female presence, but in due course they steered her to the office of the manager, a muttonchopped man named Burroughs.

“Madam?” he asked, plainly wanting to get it over with.

“I am March McPhee. I own the McPhee Mine. I have the patent right here.”

She brandished it. He read it swiftly.

“My mine has been commandeered. It was taken, not sold, after my husband died. I've demanded that the occupants leave at once and cease mining. Now, sir, I am requiring you not to mill any McPhee ore, and to pay me for whatever gold or other minerals have been extracted from my ore at the mill. And pay me from the beginning. From the first load they brought you for custom milling.”

The man's muttonchops seemed to ripple as he shifted chewing tobacco about in his cavernous mouth.

“You have proof of ownership, I suppose?” he asked.

“I have just shown it to you. And if you continue to refine my ore without paying me, or shipping the ore to me, you will find yourself in court.”

“They own it now, I'm sure.”

“Ask them for a bill of sale signed by me. Ask to see their ownership papers.”

He smiled at last. “There's nothing I can do, madam,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

 

Eighteen

Stubborn, that's what she was. She needed to talk to the district judge in Helena, Samuel Roach was his name, and set the record straight. Maybe it would do no good. But she had her patent, and she could tell him about the summons that his cousin, the constable, failed to deliver to her in a timely way, and see what that would do.

The trouble was, she hadn't a dime to go there. Helena, the county seat as well as the new Territorial capital, lay about thirty miles distant, on a hogleg route. A Northern Pacific spur served the mining town. It plugged into the mainline near Helena.

There must be a way.

The next day she visited the tiny station; it stood near the Drumlummon Mine. The station master was present only an hour before the daily run. She entered the depot, studied the wicket of the master, found the time of the arrival and departure chalked on a blackboard, and also noted a price. A dollar and twenty cents round-trip; seventy-five cents one way. There wasn't a soul in the little structure.

But on a gravel platform outside, she discovered an old man on a bench, soaking up summer sun.

“One train a day? For passengers?” she asked him.

He eyed her with watery blue eyes, from behind a scraggly beard. “If that,” he said. “Mixed lot; one old coach behind a string of boxcars or gondolas. You go to Helena, you stay over for the night, or walk home.”

“What's in the freight cars, sir?”

Heavy equipment, mining stuff, coming in; certain ores that can better be reduced at the smelter east of Helena, going out. A few carloads of foodstuffs, hardware, mercantile whatnots. Once in a while, a stock car, usually with hogs. We got enough ranchers around to run beef in.”

“Hogs?”

“Yep, Marysville miners eat hogs like we was born to it. A hog car announces itself on the wind, if it's blowing toward town.”

“And the hog cars go back empty?”

“You can't put anything into a hog car. They don't smell like a good Smithfield Ham, I'll tell you.” He eyed her. “You're mighty curious about it.”

“I don't have the price of a ticket,” she said.

The geezer broke into a gap-toothed smile. “Just find yourself a boxcar and enjoy the ride. And don't wear skirts. They'll likely get caught and pull you under.”

“Who checks the cars?”

“Anyone. Brakeman, railroad dicks, who knows? You'd not be the first to slick it over on the old Northern Pacific.”

“How do I get on, with the station right here?”

“Opposite side, and make sure no fireman or engineer's looking back.”

“And if I hop a freight coming back here, is it the same thing in Helena?”

“Play it by ear, old gal. It's one long walk from there to here. Take it from an old bindlestiff.”

“What's that?”

“Tramp, lady. You're talking to a retired tramp.”

She studied the layout. The tracks dead-ended at the mine, not far away. There was not a single structure or tree that might conceal her if she were to hop the freight. The whole idea was daunting. Not only hop the freight here, but also in Helena. And make sure it was the Marysville local, and not some mainline train. And know when it left. And dodge the railroad dicks.

The old codger spat, a fine brown stream of well-used tobacco, and wiped his dirty beard.

“Here's what you do,” he said. “You dress fancy, maybe add a hat, and climb right up the steps and into the caboose. The coach's up front, right behind the engine. Stubby little six-wheeler. Then there's a string of freight, and the caboose. There'll be a brakeman around there, maybe right at the steps. You just say something like, ‘You taking me to Helena?' Like that. He will or he won't. Pretty lady like you, he just might.”

She phrased it delicately. “And will I owe him anything? An obligation?”

“Beats me,” he said. “Never knew much about women.”

That didn't exactly answer her question. His gap-toothed grin didn't either.

“The next train out leave in the morning? At seven?”

“Before I'm up and stirring,” he said. “Stay clear of the station.”

She resolved to be on it. Scots were thrifty.

But she'd still have to find the courthouse, hope court wasn't in session, locate his chamber, and try to talk her way in. And whatever the result, figure out how to get back into the mountains again.

She spent that day assembling something to eat on her trip. She scarcely knew how, given how little she had, but eventually baked some oatmeal cakes, and those would have to do. But she lacked a handbag; nothing in that barren washerwoman house helped her. Well then, she would go hungry.

Early the next morning she garbed herself in borrowed skirts, not a bit satisfied with any of it, and headed for the little station. A dozen people stood patiently on the gravel platform, so she stood well away, the sightseer. She knew she was conspicuous but there was no help for it. In time, a stubby engine chuffed in, raining cinders and belching smoke from a diamond stack. There was a battered wine-colored coach, three boxcars, two gondolas filled with some sort of ore, and a gray caboose. The train shielded her from the station, so she stepped across the creosoted tracks, fragrant in the morning sun, and eased toward the caboose. There was a small stair at the rear, with handrails, and she would have to step high to board.

She didn't hesitate. But the moment she stepped up, a brakeman in blue yelled.

“Hey! Off of there.”

The young man materialized from somewhere forward, maybe between the caboose and the last gondola.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“I'm Scots,” she said.

He stared. “Scots is it? That answers it. I do not see you.”

“And yourself?”

“Half Swede, half bobcat,” he said.

She stepped in, fascinated by the compact comfort she found there, including a small table, benches, potbellied stove with a cooktop, and even a bunk. But most of the space was given to equipment, especially lamps, flares, and tools. The open window was letting in soot, even while the train was boarding passengers up ahead. She settled in a seat, heard some shouts and clanging, a whistle, a jolt as the couplings pulled tight, and then the caboose rolled slowly forward, even as the brakeman swung onboard.