The Copper City (3 page)

A small cooking-fire welcomed them back to the campsite outside town. The aroma of rich stew and simmering coffee coaxed them out of the saddle. Pete could see White-Wing squatting by the fire, her Apache dress hidden by a blanket as she stood guard over the cooking-kettle. He came up behind her, sniffing appreciatively.

“I'm hungry.”

She smiled her woman's smile, her eyes leaving Pete's face to rake the darkness for Quantro. “I thought you would be.”

Pete hadn't missed the glance. “Don't you worry none. He's seeing to the horses, he didn't stay in town to find a white woman.”

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Pete read the satisfaction there. “Brought you something, too.” He held out the parcel he had been hiding behind his back.

Like all women, she loved presents. With a last quick stir of the pot, she set it on the fire rocks to simmer. Eagerly, she reached out with both hands for the bundle. When the string was off, she parted the paper and pulled out the peasant dress. To Pete's eyes it was neither pretty, nor ordinary, but to her it was beautiful. Underneath it in the bundle was a shawl, the type the Spanish women use to pull up over their hair. It would help further disguise the girl's parentage.

“It's nothing much, not fine enough for you, White-Wing, but we don't want you looking too grand, too much like a lady. That'd show us up some.” He chuckled.

“
Bello
, beautiful,” she enthused, holding the frock up in front of herself to measure the length against her legs. She looked as though she didn't know what to do next.

“Well, go and put it on,” Pete prodded, shaking his head that she could derive so much pleasure from something that had cost so little. He had thought she wouldn't want to wear white women's clothes, but then maybe dressing up would be a new and exciting experience for her.

While she was in the bushes, Quantro finished picketing the horses and came into the circle of the firelight carrying both the saddles. He carefully laid them on their sides to protect the trees, then stood up and looked around. He jerked his head in question.

“She's just paying a visit in the bushes.”

There was a soft whisper of rustling material. Both men swung around. White-Wing stood before them, eyes demurely downcast.

“
Muchas gracias
, many thanks.”

“
De nada
,
señorita
, it was nothing,” Pete answered with a slight shrug and a smile. “For me, anyways. He bought them.” He nodded his head at Quantro, who stood silent. Pete watched him, waiting for a comment.

Quantro's left hand moved, his eyes on the toes of her moccasins peeking from beneath her dress. He held out a pair of
huaraches
, open sandals like the Mexican women wore. As she looked up their eyes met for a moment and he felt uncomfortable. Back up in the mountains she had been wild and free, almost a part of nature and he understood how that had been part of the natural attraction she had held for him. Now, dressed in white women's clothes, that attraction was erased, only to be replaced by another just as subtle that drew him irresistibly. Only during that moment when their eyes met did he realize that the transformation was merely an illusion, and that in fact that same wild freedom was still mirrored in her sparkling dark eyes. She could not lose it, and in that instant he knew it would always draw him to her, a magnetism born of the sheer womanliness of her.

Her warm fingers touched his as she took the sandals. Coyly, she raised a leg and slipped off her moccasin then replaced it with the
huarache
. As she leaned forward to take off the other moccasin, the low neck of the peasant dress, held together by a drawstring, dropped away from her body to allow Quantro a view of the cool valley between her breasts. He swallowed dryly, turning away to look toward the fire.

“Okay, you look fine. Let's eat,” he muttered.

The food was good and Pete'd had the foresight to fetch back a bottle of rotgut whiskey to round off the meal. After strong black coffee they drank and smoked while White-Wing continually fussed with her unfamiliar skirts, obviously happy. Pete watched the way her eyes kept switching to Quantro, seeking his approval, but the younger man paid her no mind. He merely stared out into the night, occasionally cocking an ear to the horses.

“That miner'll have himself a bad head in the morning.”

Quantro made a face. “I will too if I drink any more of that rattlesnake whiskey.”

“Rattlesnake whiskey's better than no whiskey at all.”

“Yeah. Maybe when we're fixed up at the mine we'll be able to afford something better.”

“Thought you were figuring to save all your money for a ranch?”

“Yeah, and you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You're going to be my partner.”

Pete experienced a sudden flush of pleasure that he should be included in Quantro's dream. It did no harm it was only a dream.

Quantro ground out his cigarette His fingers searched for the thong to unfasten his bedroll. “We'd better get us up to the mine pretty quick after sun-up. If we get taken on, we'll need all the sleep we can get.”

“Sure,” Pete agreed. The two men settled into their blankets, leaving White-Wing sitting by the fire. Soon, Pete's breathing grew deep and regular. She turned to glance at Quantro. His eyes were shaded from the flickering flames by the lowered brim of his hat, his long blond hair framing his face. She rose to her feet.

The slight rasp of her
huaraches
on the grass woke Quantro. He had barely slipped into a light doze. Wary, his eyes snapped open. He saw White-Wing standing by the fire, her frame sharply outlined by the flames, tinting her bronze skin even darker than usual.

As he watched she unfastened the drawstring of her dress, then turning, she allowed it to fall away from her body. Her long hair, shining like a raven's wing, hung thickly down to the middle of her smooth back and he was clearly aware of her narrow waist that flared to wide hips bordering generous buttocks like two ripe peaches that ached to be squeezed.

He felt the hunger rise up in him.

And with the hunger came stirrings of anger. She knew what she was doing. She
knew
he was awake. Like a rabbit teasing a fox.

Purposefully, he turned over, his back to her.

CHAPTER 3

By sun-up there was already a long queue at the mine office.
The Cananea Copper Mining Company
, the board nailed above the window read.

“I'm surprised it don't say Green's Mining Company,” Pete remarked as they joined the line.

“Hope they're taking on,” Quantro said, counting the number of men before them. He felt awkward, out of place. All the others looked like miners, hard-bitten in their odd assortment of working clothes. Maybe Pete knew something about mining, after all he'd been a prospector, but Quantro had no knowledge about it at all. He had never seen a mine, much less been in one. He had been born and raised on his father's ranch under a blue sky in Colorado and had done nearly all his work from the back of a horse. Holes in the ground were a completely new prospect, and not exactly one he welcomed.

The office window creaked open and the line shuffled forward, closing ranks. From where he stood he could hear the clerk's voice rasping out questions and the easy answers that came back. They all seemed to know what they were talking about. Maybe he'd made a mistake. He should have found a ranching job, but there again all he could expect as a ranch-hand was maybe twenty dollars a month and his keep. He would never get rich on that.

While he was still thinking, he arrived at the window. The clerk looked him up and down then stroked his chin.

Quantro's feet moved uneasily.

“You mined before?”

“No.”

“Handled ore?”

“No.”

“Worked as a teamster?”

“No.”

“Can you use a pick and hammer?”

“Never had to.”

“You look like a cowhand to me.”

“That's right.”

“Then you can handle horses?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Wait over there.” He pointed.

Quantro stood with a small group of men who looked just as uncomfortable as he felt. Soon, Pete joined him.

“Looks like we didn't cut it.”

“Maybe,” Pete sniffed.

Shortly, a broad, red-faced man swaggered towards them, chewing on the stub of a cheap cigar. He announced himself as Scheller, the foreman. “All right. None of you guys worked a mine before, right?”

Nobody answered.

“I thought not. Okay, I'm gonna put each of you with a man who knows what he's doing. You'll soon pick it up. If you don't, you won't last the week.” He studied them as if talking was a waste of time. “Follow me.”

It was murder.

Quantro was issued with a fourteen-pound hammer before being led down to the rock face, stumbling in the dim light over the small-gauge tracks for the ore trucks. His job was to drive a long drill into the rock, then knock it out to leave a hole for his new partner, the dynamite man, so he could place the charge. Each set of charges needed six holes.

Swinging the hammer horizontally tore at his shoulder muscles. He gritted his teeth, determined to do the job. Soon, sweat ran freely down his face, dripping off his nose, and his clothes began to stick fast in every place they touched his body. The dust, battered airborne by the hammer blows, rose up in a murky cloud to clog his nostrils and blind him. By the time he had completed the drilling for the first charges, he was aching from head to foot. He waited in the shadows while his partner carefully set the sticks in place and attached individual fast fuses, then followed him away from the face, running out the long slow fuse. He crouched against the wall of the tunnel while the dynamite man prepared the end so it would catch alight quickly. When everything was set, his partner winked at him, telling him to run. As Quantro moved down the tunnel, his mate struck a match then touched the flame to the fuse.

“Fire in the hole!” he shouted as it began to splutter. Then he was on his feet and sprinting along the tunnel to catch up Quantro. He slapped him on the shoulder, yelling, “Get down and cover your ears!” They both crouched by the wall.

The charges blew.

Nearly deafened, Quantro was almost knocked over on his back by the pressure waves. A wall of dust billowed toward them along the tunnel to envelop them in its choking mist. Coughing, they waited until the dust settled. The miners filed past them with their armory of picks and shovels to break up the rough boulders of copper-bearing rock that the explosion had brought down. Expecting to be allowed time to draw breath, Quantro sank to his haunches with his back to the wall when the army of miners had passed, resting his elbows on the shaft of the hammer. Immediately the air began to clear a little, Scheller the foreman came barreling down the tunnel.

He jerked a thumb. Quantro groaned inwardly.

“You. On your feet.”

“I just knocked in all the…”

Scheller grimaced. “I know what you did. Get on down there and load ore. You, them and me, we're all on tonnage. The more ore we get out of this damn hole, the more we get paid. Got it?”

Quantro got it. He rose wearily to his feet and trudged down the tunnel.

***

They both slept the sleep of the dead that night. Pete hadn't fared any better. He'd been put on pushing the ore trucks out into the open, tipping them, then pushing them back down the mine again. It was a never-ending job and each truck seemed to be heavier than the last. He knew the work wasn't harder than he was used to that was so tiring; it was the fact he was using a different set of muscles to work with.

When they arrived back at the campsite after dark, they did barely more than utter single words at each other while they wolfed down the meal White-Wing had prepared. She had eagerly awaited their arrival, but her face had fallen at the sight of the two dirty, exhausted men. As soon as they cleared their plates they hit their bedrolls, both snoring almost immediately.

Two weeks after they started at the mine, Quantro walked into the big miner he had coldcocked in the Copper Queen. The long days of hard work had toned up his muscles and now he didn't become so drained by his efforts. He had even begun to dredge up some humor as he toiled in the dark hole. His partner, the dynamite man, was easy to work with and Quantro had also found Scheller to be fair, even if he pushed them hard.

That morning they had already run two blasts and he was returning along the tunnel to wait for his partner when he came upon the big man. He was standing in a group of miners waiting to go up to the face.

“You!”

Quantro stopped and turned, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. He jerked his head in question.

“Don't I know you, Blondie?”

“Don't know that you do,” Quantro answered, making to move on. A huge paw clamped down on his right shoulder.

“Stop, Blondie. I know you.”

Quantro was tired, aching to sit down and let the ringing of the hammer die in his ears, and to allow his shoulder muscles to relax after the shuddering vibrations that had racked through him each time he struck the drill against the unyielding rock face. “Take your hand off me.”

The big man didn't move, just stared intently into his face.

Quantro looked at the hand. “Won't tell you twice. Don't tell nobody twice.”

The big miner's face cracked into an evil grin. He chuckled with pleasure at his unexpected find. “Now I know you, Blondie. You're the one that gave me the lump on my head the other night.”

“You could be right.”

“Ha! Now I think I get my own back.”

“Maybe you will, maybe you won't,” Quantro whispered, shrugging away the hand. How come these things always came back to bite you on the ass? As it slipped from his shoulder he twisted away. The big man came forward, dropping his pick. Quantro dropped the long drill and backed off across the narrow tunnel, the fourteen-pound hammer still in his right hand.

The miner lunged, swinging wildly. The blow caught Quantro on the side of his head. He staggered, the big man's laughter suddenly distant. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. His eyes eased back into focus to see the huge, hairy face bearing down on him.

Second nature brought up his hands to defend himself. He realized he was clinging to the hammer. He whipped it up and rammed the end of the shaft into the miner's gut. The big man gasped. Foul breath washed from his mouth, forced in a rush between his rotten teeth.

The muscles of his bulging stomach must have been tighter than they appeared. After one faltering step he seized the hammer shaft. With enormous strength he wrenched it from Quantro's hands.

With horror, Quantro watched him whirl the hammer around like a battle-ax above his head. He moved to jump sideways but found himself hemmed in by the ring of miners pressing forward to gain a better view. Their bloodlust was rising. Caught in the circle of leering faces, evil in the half light of the tunnel, Quantro realized that nothing short of a bullet would stop this huge angry bear.

He had no gun. They were forbidden underground.

Quantro sifted the precious few alternatives he had. He decided to go for the legs. If he could throw him off balance before he launched the hammer, then there was a chance. As he made to dive, the big man completed his final swing then hurled the deadly missile.

Quantro was already into the act of his lunge when the big man roared. His hands released the hammer and he swerved sideways, his knees bending, released from the strain of holding ground. His timing thrown, Quantro slammed awkwardly into the solid muscle of the man's thigh. The maw of the tunnel swallowed up the hammer and it landed with a clatter somewhere in the darkness.

The bad landing jarred Quantro's jawbone. His teeth rattled like piano keys in the back of his head. Huge hands grabbed the back of his sweat-soaked shirt and hauled him from the floor. A boot crashed into his ribs and he flopped against the tunnel wall. Dazed, chest aching, he was barely aware of the miner standing over him, still breathing shallowly.

“I don't need no hammer to kill you, Blondie.”

I'm in bad trouble, was all Quantro could think.

Hands grabbed him again. He was effortlessly lifted to his feet. Even then, he could see he was being set up. There seemed nothing he could do about it. A fist crashed into his face, followed by another to the shoulder. His head snapped back, then slumped forward as he began to slide down the wall.

Exultant, the miner was throwing punches as swiftly as he was able. Blows pounded Quantro's numb body as his mind closed up to send him on the path to oblivion. In his excitement, the big man mistimed a stroke. His fist crashed into the wall just as Quantro dropped like a stone. He howled, leapt back, nursing his clawed hand.

The other miners shouted and jeered, patting the big man's back as he beamed, the congratulations easing the pain of his hand.

“What the hell's going on here?” a voice demanded, cutting through their pleasure. They fell into an uneasy silence as Scheller emerged from the gloom, bristling with anger. “Why aren't you bums working?” he growled, pushing into the circle of fidgeting miners. He took one look at Quantro's crumpled body before his eyes came to rest on the big man's bleeding knuckles. His face twisted into a mask of disgust, then he spat into the shadows. When he turned back, his gaze fastened on the miner's expressionless face. “I've had more than enough from you. You're fired. Now get the hell out of here.”

The big miner stood like an unscaled mountain, glowering down.

Scheller sneered, staring back without a trace of fear. “I wouldn't if I were you. I wouldn't even think about it.”

Suddenly the miner looked unsure of himself. A muscle jumped in his cheek, then he shrugged and stamped away, muttering. Scheller watched him go with something resembling satisfaction. He pointed at the nearest two men and gestured to Quantro. “You and you. Carry him out. When he comes around tell him he's fired. No time for troublemakers down here. We got ore to shift.”

When the two men bearing Quantro's limp body emerged into the sunlight, Pete had just tipped a load of ore and was pushing the empty truck back into the tunnel. When he saw Quantro he left the truck and hurried over.

“What happened?” he asked, surveying the wreckage of Quantro's puffed and bloody face. The two miners told him the story as they looked for a piece of quiet ground where they could lay down their burden. Unconscious, Quantro lay unmoving but for the rising and falling of his chest, breath rasping between his teeth because his nose was clogged and bloody.

“You over there! Wiltshire!” an angry voice called. “Get back to your truck here. You're holding up the line.”

Pete, kneeling on the ground as he wiped at Quantro's face with a bandana, looked back over his shoulder.

“Get somebody else. I just quit.”

There was a mumble of complaint, and then the caller drifted away. Quantro jacked up an eyelid as Pete looked down at him. He tried to speak but only a whisper came from his throat before he sank back into unconsciousness.

Over by the mine company's office there was a jangle of harness as a carriage pulled up. It carried two men, both wearing suits and smoking cigars. There were four outriders with the carriage, men with restless eyes who sat their horses easily with the patience of men used to being paid for waiting around. They were well armed and their holsters looked well used.

One of the gunmen, seeing Pete, heeled his horse away from the carriage. When the long shadow of the animal fell over the two men below him, the rider reined in, then rested his hands on the saddle horn. His eyes were hidden by the shade thrown from his hat brim.

“You work here?”

Pete shook his head. “I just quit.”

The rider's hands moved a fraction. “Then get off the mine property. You ain't needed here.”

“I'll need a hand with my partner here…”

The rider touched his spurs to the horse until the big animal was crowding Pete. He couldn't step back without treading on Quantro. The gunman urged on his horse again. Pete stood his ground until the flared nostrils of the animal were only inches from his face.