Pistons and Pistols (14 page)

Jayne started to speak, but Atom held up his hand, asking for her silence.

“As you are quick to point out,” Atom said, “I am not one of your crew. I am free to do as I please. And I wanted to visit this tavern for a drink with a few of my friends.”

The captain’s nostrils flared as she considered Atom’s words.

“Guppy?” Dot asked. “Are you gambling?”

Gabriella blushed, mortified to be caught in such a horrid act by the older woman. She dipped her head in shame.

“Say you are at least winning,” Jax said.

Lifting her head with a slight smile, Gabriella nodded.

“She isn’t just winning,” Clemet said, “she’s cleaning our clocks.”

The captain snorted a small laugh, then spied the papers piled in front of Gabriella. “What are you playing with? Love notes?”

“Shares of the mine,” Buford explained.

The captain seemed to like the sound of that. Her mouth curled at the edges as a smile came upon her. “Shares, you say.”

“You thinking what Jax is thinking?” Jax asked.

“I bet it’s what Dot’s thinking too,” Dot said.

The three of them stared at the pile of papers, wide smiles all around.

Gabriella had no idea what they were thinking. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“At ease, Guppy,” the captain said.

While she relaxed a little, Gabriella wasn’t sure what to do now that she had been caught.

“And for heaven’s sake,” the captain added with a wink, “don’t let me interrupt your game. You play on. Enjoy yourself.”

That was over an hour ago, and boy did Gabriella ever enjoy herself. She hadn’t had this much fun in years. Who knew a simple game could provide such entertainment? But, alas, all good things must end. Before she knew it, she won her last hand.

“That’s it!” Clem exclaimed as he tossed his losing hand at the deck. “I’m tapped out.”

“Me too,” Buford said. The big man stood, removing his hat as he bowed again to Gabriella. “Thanks for the game, Miss Upstairs. I ain’t been beat that bad in many a moon. And never by no woman. It was an honor to play ya.”

Clem and Buford were the last men left playing, the rest of them having lost all of their shares long ago. Six others rotated in and out of the game, some not lasting more than one hand before giving up on her. Now, no one wanted to play her.

“Thank you, Mr. Buford,” Gabriella said. On the one hand she was delighted to have proven herself to these ruffians. Yet on the other, she was disappointed that they gave up so easily. Maybe she should have strung them on a bit longer. “Well, pooh. I was just beginning to enjoy myself.”

“Guppy,” the captain called from the bar. “Gather your winnings and come over here.”

Gabriella eyed the pile, wondering how she was going to carry it all, when Buford offered the use of his broad hat. She thanked him, scooping the piles of shares and her own money, which she had won back within the first few hands, into the hat. After thinking about it for a moment, she pulled out a few of the shares, offering them to Buford, as she explained, “For the hat.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Consider it a gift. For a pretty lady. I’m just sorry I ain’t got flowers for ya.” He smiled wide, revealing a woeful lack of teeth.

“Never be sorry for what you have, Mr. Buford,” she said. “A gentleman always makes do with what God gives him. Thank you again.” Carrying the lot to the bar, she handed it to the captain.

“You did good, Guppy,” the captain said as she passed the hat to Dot, who fell to counting the plunder with a voracious greed.

Gabriella beamed with pride.

“But good doesn’t get you out of a month’s worth of kitchen duty,” the captain added.

The grin fell into a frown.

“At least you’ll have good company,” the captain said. “Jayne got two months.”

Gabriella didn’t think that would be very good company, not at all. Speaking of good company, she glanced around, but couldn’t spy Atom. “Where did Atom go?”

The captain nodded to the door. “After he got a gander at the way that big man’s been flirting with you, he decided he needed to go for a walk.”

“Really?”

“Really. Jax went to keep an eye on him.”

“But Buford wasn’t flirting with me.”

“Honey,” Dot said between counting handfuls of shares. “Trust me when I say a man in the West doesn’t give you his hat, ’less he’s after something.”

Gabriella blushed at the very idea. She chanced a glance at Buford, who indeed was leering at her. He smiled again, wiggling his fingers in the air. Gabriella smiled in return, wondering what she had gotten herself into by accepting his gift. The sound of the saloon doors opening snatched Gabriella’s attention. She hoped it was Atom returning.

Instead of Atom, through the doors came a strange man in a long white coat, followed by a man in gray. The moment the first man entered the bar, all the miners in the room let out a simultaneous groan. Gabriella had to assume, based upon the conversation over the last hour of cards, that this was the mysterious professor.

A man whom everyone in town seemed to loathe.

* * * *

“You,” the professor said as he barged across the room toward Rose. “Why are you still here?”

Leaning against the bar as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Rose took her time before she answered. “I told you, I need a load of coal.”

“And I thought I made myself clear. You don’t have anything I want. Why would I part with a precious load of fuel when you don’t have anything I need in return?”

Rose jerked her head to Dot as she said, “I think I have something you’re going to want.”

“Oh, and what would that be, ladies? A nice cake you’ve baked? Or perhaps a pair of socks you’ve knitted?”

“Try a hundred and fifty shares of your mine,” Dot said, holding out the hat for his inspection.

The professor almost swooned the moment he spied the shares. Weak at the knees, he snapped for his servant to bring him a seat, into which he sank. “How…how did you get that?”

“Our Guppy won them,” Rose said. “From your men, who seemed all too happy to give them away.”

“Won them?”

“It would appear, sir,” Thaddeus said, “that the men have been using their payments in games of chance.”

The professor’s weakness was short-lived. He leapt to his feet and turned to face the roomful of men as he yelled, “You heathens! That was a temporary payment. How could you gamble away your very livelihood like that?” He paused and narrowed his eyes at the group before he asked, “It’s the booze that led you to this, wasn’t it? Get out! All of you. Go on. I’ll see that each and every one of you dries out before I’m done with you. You’ve just earned yourselves a curfew. As of now, it’s lights out for the lot of you!”

Rose half expected a riot, but the men did as asked, each one rising and leaving the room without question. Including the barkeep.

“Why do they abide by him?” she asked Thaddeus in a low voice.

The man sighed, then said just as softly, “Because they all have mining in their blood, and the professor controls one of the last free-operating mines in the West. These men would follow him to the ends of the earth just for the chance to dig beneath her surface.”

“And why do you obey him?”

“I have my own reasons.” He didn’t elaborate.

“Now,” the professor said, his anger somewhat abated by the obedience of his men. “What will it take to persuade you to hand over those shares to me?”

“Sell me some coal,” Rose said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s impossible.”

“Then perhaps the Mechanics would like to sell me some coal for the shares?”

The professor went white at the suggestion as he mouthed the word “No.”

Rose nodded, hoping her bluff wouldn’t be called. There was no way she would ever deal with the likes of the Mechanics.

Before the professor could speak again, the manservant cleared his throat, then stared at his master in silence.

The professor stared in return.

Some silent conversation happened, some quiet arguing that Rose would have given anything to have been privy to. Years ago, she had seen her father’s butler give her father a similar silent dressing-down. It was bound to mean the professor was too ashamed to ask for help that the servant was desperate enough to beg for.

When both of the men seemed satisfied with the staring contest, the professor said, “What I mean to say is, I have troubles of my own.”

“Troubles?” Rose asked. Seeing a window in the discussion, Rose opened it, then propped it wide as she asked, “What kind of troubles?”

“You don’t want to know,” the professor said, pulling the window closed tight again. It seemed the man would rather suffocate beneath his own problems than place himself at the mercy of outsiders.

“Sir. I know it is out of place for me to say.” He lowered his voice a little then added, “But may I remind you they are willing to help when no one else will?”

“We certainly are,” Rose said, a genuine smile creeping to her lips for the first time since they met the professor. “If it means we end up with a full complement of fuel for our efforts.”

The professor smiled. “One hand washes the other, eh?”

“Of course. And you’ll get your shares back as well.”

The man considered their offer for a moment. “I can’t sell you coal, because I don’t have any coal.”

Rose had expected almost anything, but not this. “What?”

The professor leaned forward and shouted, “I don’t have any coal!”

She winced at his shout. “Thank you, professor. That’s what I thought you said. Now can you explain why?”

“You won’t believe me, but if I must. Four weeks prior to your arrival, the miners opened a new pocket of coal. While everyone was pleased by the new find, within hours those working this new section began to complain of strange experiences. At first it was small things such as hearing unusual noises or seeing things lurking just beyond their halo of light.”

“What kind of noises?” Dot asked.

“The crying of small children or the baying of cattle.”

“That’s perfectly frightening.” The woman shuddered.

“Indeed. Yet as the weeks progressed, the noises became worse and were soon accompanied by nightmarish visions. The men began to fight about who had to go into that section of the mine, because no one wanted to face the strange occurrences. Just last night, one of the men ran screaming for his life from the depths of the mine, collapsing at the entrance in the arms of his fellow workers.”

“He was quite the sight,” Thaddeus added.

“Wasn’t he though? His hair had turned solid white, his body covered head to toe in cuts and bruises. Broke three fingers on his right hand. When he finally came around, he claimed the ghost of his dead brother had just attacked him. Tried to kill him.”

“Ghost?” Rose asked.

“Yes. Preposterous I know, yet that’s what he claimed. Well, the rest of the men declared the whole mine haunted, and they refuse to go back to work.”

“You can’t blame them.”

“I certainly can!” the professor shouted. He looked down at his shaking hands, taking a moment to calm himself before he continued. “Here I sit on a mine full of coal I can’t reach, with a lab full of experiments that need the coal that I can’t get my hands on. It’s frustrating, to say the least.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Yes.” The professor looked up to face her with his worry. “What do you intend to do about it?”

Rose knew what they needed to do, she just didn’t want to be the one to do it. While she by no means feared of the idea of crawling around in the belly of the earth looking for supposed spirits, that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I suppose one of us needs to go and see if this haunting is as real as your men seem to think it is.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“Why? What else do you propose?”