Easy Pickings (16 page)

He sat down, stared a moment, and settled the matter in his mind. “I don't see you. When we reach the Helena yards, I will step down ahead of you, and yell when it's okay.”

“Scots are invisible,” she said.

“I suppose it's none of my business,” he said.

“I'm going to ask a judge to give me my gold mine back.”

He plainly didn't know how to respond to that. “I earn a dollar fifty a day,” he muttered.

“That's a dollar fifty more than I do.”

“Good luck,” he said.

“Don't wish you could trade positions or fates with me,” she said. “My mine was stolen.”

“I could use a gold mine.”

The train wove downslope on shoddy roadbed, never getting up speed as slopes rose and fell, and forests crowded the right of way. She wondered why a spark hadn't ignited the thick-clad alpine slopes any hot summer. It was glorious country, still somehow virgin even if miners were burrowing into every likely outcrop.

They reached a relatively flat area, and then switched onto the NP mainline, whose silvery rails stretched straight into the Territorial capital.

“Do you know where the county courthouse is?” she asked.

“Yeah, they fined me there once, five clams for getting into a fight. It's on Broadway.”

“Wherever that is,” she said.

Helena was a mongrel place, half gold-mining camp, half emerging capital of Montana. Last Chance Gulch had yielded a torrent of placer gold, and the city's commercial buildings had risen right beside the twisting bonanza gulch. Its natural beauty had drawn the newly rich, and these people had built stately brick homes on one side of the gulch, while the less fortunate crowded helterskelter into chaotic neighborhoods on the other. All the other mining districts in the area, including Marysville, were satellites of the fabulous Last Chance Gulch, where placer gold was discovered by four Georgians fleeing the Civil War.

The brakeman proved to be a lively conspirator, and at the right moment he summoned March from the caboose, nodded, and headed up the line of cars. She studied the sidings, saw nothing to stop her, and stepped delicately across steel rails, to a platform mostly empty, and then headed into the city, which was a long walk away. She was hungry, but that couldn't be helped.

Helena struck her as a city divided. Workingmen in dungarees toiled everywhere, but along the streets she discovered clerical sorts, men in suits and cravats and bowlers, some with elaborate mustachios or muttonchops, the hirsute gentlemen of Helena plainly the upper class.

Somehow, Helena was different. Here people wrestled for power and fame; she could see it in the mansions rising on one side of town. It didn't seem friendly, the way Marysville did. But what did it matter? She found Broadway, turned there where the street climbed away from the gulch, passed the redbrick federal assay office, and found the Lewis and Clark County Courthouse easily enough. She marveled. The city had existed only a few years, but here was a substantial stone building surrounded by landscaped lawn. Gold had profited the county.

It was late in the morning. She entered the building, walked on waxed hardwood floors, her steps echoing in the high hall, found the courtroom, which was empty, and found the chambers. She was in luck. She entered, and the door closed behind her with a soft snap. A clerk in shirtsleeves, with a garter on one arm, eyed her.

“I wish to see Judge Roach,” she said.

“He's busy. But you could try tomorrow. He's got a session this afternoon.”

“Tell him it's March McPhee, and I own the McPhee Mine, and I've come from Marysville.”

“I tell you, he's busy and won't see anyone.”

“Tell him.”

Something in her tone must have changed his mind. He eyed her, rose reluctantly, and vanished into the chambers, separated from the anteroom by a pebbled glass door.

She didn't know what she would say. She would show him the patent, and show him the summons that were never delivered. And ask for a reconsideration.

The clerk returned. “Be brief,” he said.

March McPhee entered, found that the judge bore a family resemblance to the constable, but had a full black beard and agate eyes.

“It is unlawful to attempt to influence or bribe a judge,” he said, in a voice so quiet that March strained to hear it. “Watch what you say, and if you transgress, I'll call the bailiff.”

“Thank you for the warm welcome,” she said.

His coal eyes bore into her.

“Here is a fair copy of the patent on the McPhee Mine, listing me as one of the owners. Here are two court papers that Constable Roach carefully neglected to give me in time, leaving me in the dark about what happened here.”

“And what happened here, madam?”

“A sham proceedings that took my mine from me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because the whole event was staged to steal my mine from me after my husband died.”

“Contempt of court,” he said. “I'll summon the bailiff, and you may cool your heels in my hospitality parlor and stay there for as long as I deem you in contempt. Which may be some little while.”

He rang a bell, and a burly bailiff swiftly arrived.

“Lock her up,” the judge said.

The bailiff grinned.

March McPhee refused to march, and the bailiff had to drag her away.

 

Nineteen

The cell was small, cold, and dark. Iron bars pinned her in. A small window high up let in sunlight, hope, and dreams of liberty. A sheet-iron platform served as a bunk and seat. An open bucket served as a chamber pot. The iron-barred door clanged shut behind her, and the bailiff turned away. The silence that followed was the quietness of a tomb. Jail was all about silence; being taken away from busy commerce and human voice.

She surveyed this dour and odorous place with a great sadness. She was helpless now. Her fate rested entirely with the judge. She knew that contempt of court meant that the judge could keep her there as long as he chose, without trial, bail, recourse. He could do with her as he would, for she was no more than a rag doll now.

She peered out, onto a bleak corridor, painted brown, seeing and hearing nothing. She appeared to be the sole prisoner in the county lockup. There would be no one next door, or down the corridor, to talk to, share misery with.

She paced the cell, three steps in any direction, and felt it close down upon her. She ached suddenly for exercise. Walking seemed like the ultimate comfort, or even luxury. Walking to somewhere.

She swiftly realized the dilemma. Time. How could she fill it? What could she do? Were there exercises of the mind she might pursue? She saw not a thing to read. There was no one to talk to. The tick of an imaginary clock sliced her life away, minute by minute.

Finally she lay down on the hard bench, its boards cruel against her flesh. This would be her bed, her sole comfort, for as long as Judge Roach chose to keep her penned. She thought of her Kermit, and of her lost baby, but that only deepened her sadness. She thought of Scotland, her parents' cottage, her girlhood, her mother, and that worsened the ache within her. Finally she drifted into a passive state of emptiness, and let the hours tick by.

When the light in the window darkened, a warden came at last, bearing a bowl of gruel and a spoon. She eyed him, an elderly big-bellied man, probably a political appointee.

But at least he was cheery. “Brought you some chowder, courtesy Lewis and Clark County. I guess you riled up the judge, eh?”

“I asked for a proper hearing.”

He laughed, and she suspected he had heard it all before. He handed her the bowl through an iron service door. The slop was cold. She lifted it, took the spoon, tasted it, and then threw it all in his face.

He laughed. “That's what he said, crazy as a loon,” he said. “Guess you'll start to lose a few pounds. Oh, that will add a little to your time here.”

He wandered off, and she wondered what had gotten into her. She had always prided herself on her serenity and self-control. It had all exploded like a fulminate of mercury cap, snap, over before she'd warned herself against foolishness.

It was worse than that. The old man hadn't said one word that could be considered offensive. A cynical laugh, perhaps, but not anything that justified a bowl of stew on his head.

She was hungry, but the remains of the meal lay sprayed across a filthy cement floor, mixed with whatever body fluids were embedded there. The silence returned, and she slipped to the bench and let its hard surface offend her soft body.

A deep sense of helplessness becomes, in the end, an ally, and now she lay through a black night on her iron bed, the absence of hope easing the hours away. Once she made use of the terrible bucket, and then swiftly slid into an estate somewhere between wakefulness and stupor.

Dawn came, quietness without food or drink, and her body was telling her about it. But lying quietly was better than pacing the cage, or yelling for help that would not come.

She lay back, unable to better her condition, and then she did hear a clang, and the pad of footsteps, and found herself staring through bars at the judge. He wore a black suit. For a moment they simply gazed, she upward, and he downward.

“I have some papers for you to sign,” he said.

“And then what?”

“I'll decide after you sign them.”

She sat up, brushed her soiled skirts, and waited.

“There's a small problem. I hear you like to throw things. Like this ink bottle in my hand. Or this pen. That would be most unfortunate. So the best I can manage is to hand you the pen, fresh from the bottle, which will remain in my hand, and you can put your John Henry, or maybe I should call it your Joan of Arc, on these.”

“What are they?” she asked.

“One is a transfer of title of the McPhee federal patent to the Roach Group. The other is a bill of sale of the mine to the Roach Group, for services rendered, including debt repayment.”

He smiled benignly.

“I will read them,” she said.

“Nice facility we have here,” he said. “We're the first county in the Territory to have a courthouse with a modern, comfortable jail.”

She stood, and he handed the two documents to her.

“When the pen needs a dip in the inkwell, hand it to me,” he said, and handed her the nib pen.

She studied the documents, which were full of boilerplate and had false dates, stemming back to the court proceedings she had missed.

“What does this get me?” she asked.

“Sign and get it over with. I'm a busy man,” he said.

“I'm stubborn,” she said, and slowly ripped the two documents in shreds, and tucked the pieces in her bosom where she thought they would be safe.

He reddened, bloated, shrank, and smiled.

“They were right,” he said. “Mad as a hatter. Very well, then. Enjoy your stay.”

She threw the pen at him, but it hit a bar and fell.

She heard his footsteps retreat down the dark corridor, a clang, and then the oppressive silence settled over her again, but now she was thirsty as well as hungry. She wondered what had gotten into her this time. She could have signed and walked out. Maybe. She thought there may have been a few aces up his sleeve, little unpleasantries awaiting her after she had signed away her mine and veneered his clan's theft with the look of pure innocence.

She settled back upon her bed of thorns, for there was nothing else to do, and waited, because there was nothing else to think of.

The wait wasn't long. A pear-shaped man appeared and eyed her kindly.

“So you're the one,” he said. “Have an apple.”

He held a beautiful red apple in his hand, and she swiftly took it. The apple was gloriously sweet and moist, and she wolfed two or three bites while he watched. Only then did she study her visitor, who was now sitting comfortably on a stool on the other side of the gray iron bars. He wore a brown tweed suit, a red cravat, and lace-up shoes in need of polish. His round face was made all the broader by thick muttonchops. But he had merry brown eyes under thick lids and rolls of flesh below.

“Smells here,” he said. “No one wants to be in a prison for long. And that's what bothers me. You seem to want to.”

“Who did you say you are?”

“I didn't. I practice allopathic medicine. You know, the sort that is not homeopathic.”

She was too busy devouring the apple to care.

“Yes, allopathic's the wave of the future. It enlists science,” he said. “It enrolls pragmatism. It bases itself on hypothesis, experimentation, and verification. Unlike any other sort.”

She ate the core of the apple, seeds and all, everything but the stem.

“We always diagnose with caution because there's so much we don't know. But it pays off. We're more likely to be right, and helpful to our patients, than any other branch.” He studied her. “Now then. You look a little worse for wear, and I wonder why you don't simply walk out. You've had a chance.”

“Because I believe in justice.”

“That sounds a little like paranoia, wouldn't you say?”

She fell into silence, suddenly seeing which way this was going.

“Here you are, stuck in a terrible place, and free to walk away just by signing a bill of sale, I take it. But instead, you are seeing phantasms and demons. Have you always been this way?”

“What way?”

He shrugged. “You tell me.”

“What did you say your name is?”

He shook his head. “I didn't say. You must be imagining things. A head full of phantasms.”

“What is your name?”

“J. Bark Laidlow. The J stands for Jerrold. My MD derives from Curtis Correspondence College, in Peoria.”

“You too,” she said.

He smiled. “Oh, yes, I'm the younger brother of Mort. The family joke is, he plants my mistakes.”

“And why are you here?”

“To evaluate you for Warm Springs. The Territory does take kind care of those who are non compos mentis.”