Silver Lies (19 page)

The crowd shifted toward the welter of sleighs, cutters, and carriages. As Inez watched, a short, voluptuous figure wrapped in fur slipped away from the main crush of mourners. A gust lifted the veil of the fashionable black hat briefly, revealing brassy curls.

Frisco Flo?

The woman stepped nimbly into a red cutter trimmed in gold and flicked the reins.

Nils started toward Emma, met Inez’s eyes, and beat a hasty retreat. Chet, hovering at a distance, finally spat into the snow and walked away. Inez felt an undefined anger growing, searching for a target.

Abe, Useless, and Reverend Sands approached from the gravesite. Sands stopped by Emma. "Mrs. Rose, it’s time to go."

His eyes met Inez’s briefly. Somber gray, with a genuine sorrow that surprised Inez. Emma squeezed Inez’s hand, then let him guide her and Joey to a nearby sleigh.

Inez turned and caught Nils ducking away from her gaze. On impulse, she strode through the snow toward him.

"Nils Hansen." She blocked his path. "You’ve been avoiding me."

His two companions exchanged glances and kept walking.

Nils’ reaction was exactly as she’d hoped. He flushed bright red and looked around to see who was watching. "What do you want, Mrs. Stannert?"

Inez grabbed his coat sleeve, ignoring the startled looks of passersby, and raised her voice. "Last week it was Inez. Why so formal now?"

She calculated what she knew of Nils: avoided honkytonks, quoted the Bible, probably an obedient Lutheran son. She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. "If you don’t want the good folk of Leadville to think you’ve taken up with a lady saloon owner, you tell me what I want to know. Right now. What sort of ‘no good’ was Joe Rose up to?"

He tried to pull away. She knew he was too well-mannered to throw her off. In fact, she was counting on it.

"What happened last month?"

He said nothing, so she decided to up the ante and the volume. "Nils, remember that night? The things you said?"

One of the assayers, leaning on a wagon, shouted, "Give her what she wants, Nils, and let’s go!"

Nils squirmed with embarrassment.

Inez twisted the cloth in her fists. "Joe hasn’t a penny left to his name."

He looked stunned. "Then Mrs. Rose is—"

"Destitute. Now,
Silver
Mountain
Consolidated. Why did Harry drop Joe?"

Nils jumped as if she’d rammed him with a hot poker, guilt plain on his face. "I reckon you’d better ask Mr. Gallagher about that."

"I reckon I will." She released his arm. As he plowed through the snow toward his companions, she shouted, "I’m not through with you, Nils Hansen!"

She walked with dignity to her buggy where Abe and Useless waited. Lucy rolled a dark eye toward Inez, indicating by a turn of ear how much she disliked standing around in the blowing snow. Inez patted her mare’s neck absently, her thoughts on Frisco Flo.
Why did she come to Joe’s funeral?

"What was all that about?" Abe leaned down, reins gathered loosely in his hands. In back, Useless tucked his long neck deep into his canvas duster.

She waved dismissively and gathered up her petticoats, layered skirts, and cloak before climbing up to sit beside Abe. Pulling the hood of her cloak over her hat, she said, "I’ll take her, Abe."

Abe handed over the reins.

Concentrating on the ruts fast disappearing under the pelting snow, Inez urged Lucy up
State Street
. Even in the storm, it was jammed with men, freight sledges, carriages, and delivery wagons. As Lucy trotted past Cat DuBois’ parlor house, Inez risked glancing away from the slush-filled road to the elegant rigs lined up on the side street. The red cutter was there.

Inez stopped in front of the Silver Queen. As Abe and Useless climbed down, she threw the saloon keys to Abe. "I’ll be in later."

Abe lifted his eyebrows.

"I have business to attend to."

"Somethin’ we can send Useless for?"

"No. Not that kind of business."

Abe grabbed Lucy’s harness. "What kind of business, Inez?"

As she stiffened, he added, "With a storm blowin’ in, I’d like to know where you’re headed, in case I gotta send a search party."

Inez relented. "
Silver
Mountain
."

"The mine?" Abe didn’t relinquish his hold.

"Oh, all right. The mining office. Harry’s office."

"This have to do with Joe? Is that what’s got you in a lather? Has Harry got outstandin’ business on those books?"

"It has to do with something Nils said." Inez was suddenly aware of Useless, hanging back from Abe but within earshot. "It would take too long to explain. The sooner you let go, the sooner I’ll be back."

Abe let go. "You watch your step, Inez. Harry ain’t a man to trifle with."

"Trifling is the last thing on my mind. I have questions for Mr. Gallagher, and I intend to get some answers."

Inez encountered a tangle of traffic on the way to Fryer Hill and the Silver Mountain Consolidated Mine. Alternately freezing and perspiring as she guided Lucy through the crush, Inez had plenty of time to consider Harry Gallagher and his possible role in the Roses’ circumstances.

Harry won’t tell me why he stopped doing business with Joe, but he might let something slip. Particularly if I mention Nils and imply that I know more than I do. Then, there’s Emma. She said straight out that Harry ruined Joe. And she almost certainly met him at the Clairmont. But I won’t play those cards unless I must.

"Whoa up!"

The cry behind caused her to yank the reins. A team of draft horses pulling a sledge heavy with timber thundered by, inches away.

Bastard!

By the time she and her mare had reached the offices of
Silver
Mountain
, they were out of sorts and out of breath. Inez slid off the seat and dug through her pockets until she found two sugar lumps covered with wool fuzz. Lucy sniffed suspiciously at the meager offerings before deigning to lip them off Inez’s gloved palm. Inez rubbed her hand on her cloak and examined the armed men lounging nearby, dressed in dark blue greatcoats and military-style hats.
Harry’s private troops.

The previous summer, Leadville’s silver barons hadn’t wasted any time in forming their own personal armies. Lip

service had been given about creating the forces as insurance against lawlessness.
Hogwash. The barons raised these armed camps so they wouldn’t kill each other in the rush to get rich.

Constant ownership disputes over land and mineral rights often erupted into physical violence.

Inez hitched Lucy to a nearby rail and turned her attention to the two-story frame building. One door, sheltered by a small portico, looked a likely office entrance.

The door flew open and a figure sailed out, landing hard on the slick ice. A militiaman appeared in the doorway. "You don’t like the work, find another job. There’s a dozen Cousin Jacks to take your place and Gallagher don’t hold with organizers or agitators."

The miner staggered to his feet, spat on the frozen ground. "With the profits he makes, he can afford a living wage for his men."

Several workers coming on shift slowed to listen, tin dinner buckets glinting silver in a landscape of dirty snow and dark timbered structures.

Several tense seconds passed. He spat again, then turned away, walking toward Inez. Inez finally placed the face: One of the group who had abandoned the Silver Queen when the opera let out. He said in a voice meant to carry, "Here to make a deal with the Devil, Mrs. Stannert? Take care. He drives a hard bargain."

She smiled tightly as she passed him. "I’ve dealt with this particular devil before."

Inez mounted two stairs, slippery with frozen mud, and opened the door to a dark and muffled world. The reception area held a heating stove and a man seated behind a desk piled high with ledgers.

He squeaked, "What’s your business, Mrs. Stannert?"

Renquist.
Pince-nez clung to his nose, much as the few desperate strands of hair clung to his scalp.
At least he shaved off that hideously patchy beard. It made him look like he was molting.

She said formally, "I’m here to see Mr. Gallagher."

He clutched a quill pen, glaring. She’d seen that expression before. An occasional customer at her saloon, Renquist would order a drink and nurse it at a vacant table. He would fix her with a look that—if it weren’t for the thinly concealed lust behind it—she herself would’ve applied only to rats and other vermin. No one ever joined him at his table.

"He’s a busy man, Mrs. Stannert. You can’t drop in and demand an audience."

Inez spotted a paneled mahogany door. "Is that his office?"

Without waiting for a reply, she moved forward and grabbed the ornate bronze knob. Renquist jumped up, spilling ink on a ledger.

As she pushed the door open, Renquist shouted, "You haven’t an appointment!"

Inez walked in.

Harry and another man were leaning over a large map, holding its curled edges down on a massive desk. They looked up, startled. Inez paused inside the threshold, as much to compose herself as to wait for Renquist to stop yammering.

"I told her you were busy, Mr. Gallagher. That she needed an appointment!"

So this is his office
. Once that summer, Harry had driven her up to
Silver
Mountain
and pointed out some of the mine’s obvious features. As she recalled, it had been a quick detour on their way to dinner at Soda Springs.
It seems a million years ago.

Renquist kept yapping. Harry, his silver-blue eyes on Inez, ignored him. Even though it was late afternoon, Harry’s fine linen shirt was unwrinkled, the collar starched, and his dark gray vest entirely buttoned. Only the shirt sleeves, uncuffed, and a slightly loosened cravat indicated that Harry might have done something more that day than just dress for dinner.