“I’ll chance it.”
“I’m not going back,” Mary says. “No matter what. You can drop me off right here, and I’ll run all the way to San Francisco if I have to.”
Using knees and hands, I direct Peony to circle around back the way we came, and she’s such a dab at bareback riding that she responds to the slightest touch.
“Wait, Lee,” Jefferson says. “I’m going with you.”
“Me too,” Tom says. “Or we’ll never be free of this man.”
Mary begins to cry softly.
“You don’t have to come, Mary,” Jefferson says.
“We can give you some of our supplies and wish you Godspeed,” Tom agrees.
Mary lets go of Tom’s waist long enough to wipe her face. “It was all just bluster. Truth is, I have nowhere to go.”
We face one another in the dark, wasting precious moments as thoughts chase themselves around in my head. At last I say, “I have an idea.”
The rise leading toward the mine is awash with firelight, and the scent of burning wood fills the air. Things are awful up there, and if I have my way, they’ll get even worse.
“There’s a way to ruin my uncle completely without doing murder,” I add.
“Oh?” Tom says.
“He’s done most of the work himself already. We just need to help him along.” I pull everyone close. “This is what we’re going to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The uprising is over, and the mining camp is littered with bodies—limbs pale against dark earth made muddy with blood. It’s impossible to identify the fallen, but based on what I see of the living, the dead are mostly Indians and Chinese.
Jefferson and I crouch in shadow behind the arrastra. We’ve circled around, sticking to the trees, until we reached a good hiding place. From here, we have a perfect view of the entire camp—the mine is to our immediate right, and stretching below us are the barracks, the stables, my uncle’s cabin, and the Chinese tents. The barracks are a raging inferno. Heat washes my face.
“Glad you grabbed the guns when you did,” I whisper.
Boggs and the stockade guards are nowhere to be seen. They’re either dead, or on their way back to the stockade, or out trying to round up the horses we let loose. There’s no sign of Frank Dilley, whom I suspect did not survive, but several foremen remain, trying to put out the fire. Abel Topper works his way through the dead bodies with an ax. He aims for someone’s neck, then raises the ax. I have to look away, but I can’t avoid the sound of the blade crushing flesh and bone.
There’s no sign of my uncle or Muskrat.
“There,” Jefferson whispers, pointing. “Look.”
I follow the direction of his finger and discover Reverend Lowrey. His back is turned to me and he’s covered in mud, but there’s no mistaking the huge Bible under his arm. Pity he survived the uprising.
That thought sets my belly to twitching, though, because even if Lowrey is a self-righteous son of a goat, he doesn’t deserve to die. I need to finish this business quick and get back to the good people I care about. Otherwise, I’m on my way to becoming as mean-spirited as Frank Dilley.
Reverend Lowrey is speaking to someone. He shifts to the left, revealing his companion, and it’s like a rock sticking in my chest, because there’s my uncle, looking as prim and perfect as you please, with nary a scratch or even a smear of mud.
“Blast,” Jefferson mutters, echoing my own thought, because my uncle being a special case, I’m not sure it exactly qualifies as mean-spirited to wish death upon him.
We wait in silence. To our right, between us and the mine, are three stacked barrels beneath a canvas awning, which are nearly full of gunpowder, fresh from one of Hiram’s trading errands. I rummage through my pack and pull out the dress—the first one Hiram got for me. I put the skirt hem in my teeth and tear until I have a nice rip going. While I rip up the skirt, Jefferson retrieves his tinderbox.
Now we just need the signal.
Jefferson whispers, “How much longer do you think—”
Someone screams, distant but forceful.
Everyone in camp stops what they’re doing and stares in the direction of the stockade, even though it’s way out of sight. My uncle’s hand goes to the gun at his hip.
The scream comes again, louder and drawn out. “Wow,” Jefferson mutters. “Nice work, Mary.”
Hiram shouts some orders that I can’t quite hear over the raging fire of the barracks, but several men check their guns and start making their way through the Chinese tents toward the creek and the pasture.
“Still too many left,” I say.
“The gunshot might take care of that,” Jefferson says.
Hardly a moment later, a single rifle shot rings out.
“It’s the Indian camp!” Topper hollers. He gestures for every-one left to follow him. “Leave the barracks; it’s lost to us. We need every gun, every able-bodied man.”
They obey without hesitation, and there’s murder in their eyes as they weave through the bodies, toward the creek and away from the mine. Everyone, that is, except Hiram.
Another shot cracks the air. We were right to give Jefferson’s rifle to Mary, figuring it would boom louder than a revolver. Everyone heading away breaks into a run. This time, my uncle turns to follow, though at a leisurely pace.
“Mary was slow to reload,” Jefferson observes.
“If she sticks with us, we’ll teach her true,” I say.
I watch my uncle’s dallying back. He plans to arrive at the stockade after all the dirty work is done. That’s why his vest and jacket are as clean as the morning. He gets people to do his killing for him. My mama and daddy were an exception.
Hiram’s men are going to be awful surprised when they find the stockade empty, which means Jefferson and I have to work fast.
“Now!” I say, as soon as my uncle is out of sight.
Jefferson grabs a flake of flint and strikes it against an old busted horseshoe. A shower of sparks rains down on his char cloth, but it doesn’t ignite. Neither does it catch fire on the second try.
“Might be a little damp,” he says, and he reaches for the powder horn at his hip to measure out a tiny pinch of gunpowder, which he sprinkles onto the cloth.
His next strike ignites the char cloth in several places. He grabs some tinder, places it carefully on the tiny flames, and begins to blow and coax it into a decent fire, adding small sticks as he goes.
While he does that, I find a nice rock about half again the size of my fist and wrap my torn rag around it. I tie it off so it looks like a ball with a tiny waving flag on the end.
“I guess we could have just borrowed from the fire at the barracks,” I say.
“It’s better this way,” Jefferson says. “If someone is still hanging around, and they see us running for the barracks, it’s all over. Okay, this fire is good for now. Time to move those barrels.”
He stands to go, and I grab his hand. “Be careful,” I tell him.
Jefferson grins. “You’d be heartsick if something happened to me, wouldn’t you?”
I glare at him.
“Back soon. Keep that fire going.”
My pulse is in my throat, now that he mentioned the possibility of someone hanging around. What if he’s seen?
Jefferson reaches the barrels and yanks off the top one. All that work to steal little bits of gunpowder, and now in the chaos we can take as much as we want. He pulls the plug, and gunpowder streams out. It keeps right on streaming as he drags the barrel into the mine.
This is the most dangerous part of my plan. If anyone sees us, we’re done for. If gunpowder gets anywhere near the lanterns inside the mine, we’re done for. And once my uncle’s men realize they’ve been tricked, they’ll come rushing back. If we’re not finished with our work by then, we’re done for.
The barracks fire is burning itself out. The camp is still washed in firelight, but shadows hug the edges now, and maybe that’s a good thing. I’m staring past th
e barracks toward my uncle’s cabin, gladdened with the thought that I’ll never see the inside of that awful place again, when something flickers in the shadows. A shadowier shadow, moving with purpose.
I should warn Jefferson that we are not alone. I can’t call out to him. I’ll have to sneak into the mine myself.
Leaving the fire where it is, I gather my legs and quietly stand. I make it two steps before I glimpse the shadow again. This time, I recognize the tall, skinny form.
It’s Tom. He’s supposed to be hiding in the trees at our rendezvous point, keeping an eye on our mounts so we can flee as soon as possible. Dawn is still hours away, and firelight makes the darkness hard to parse, but God bless the man, because he’s done our plan one better. Instead of doing what he was told, he’s freeing the horses from the stable—they’re near panicked already, from the scents of fire and blood—and grabbing their extra tack.
After he smacks the rump of the last horse, a dark, beautiful animal that is surely Hiram’s, he looks up toward the arrastra where I’m hiding and flashes a wide white grin against the black night. He waves once, and I wave back, and then he and the gear he’s stolen melt back into the darkness.
“That’s one barrel in position.”
I jump out of my skin at Jefferson’s voice.
“Just let me roll the others inside,” he says. “See if we can’t bring the whole mountain down.”
“I’ll help. Let’s be quick.”
We rush over and each grab a barrel. Mine is heavier than heavy, and rolling it even the tiniest bit uphill almost proves too much, because it keeps wanting to roll back over my toes.
“How did you get that first barrel inside so easy?” I say between huffing breaths.
“It was hardly three-quarters full,” Jefferson admits.
We’re running out of time. So I think about Hiram and how this is my one shot to completely ruin him without doing murder, and I push a little harder, and bit by bit, we manage to get the barrels farther inside the entrance.
My uncle’s men have surely reached the stockade by now. They’ve seen the place is empty. It might take them a moment or two to figure out what’s really happening; a few will undoubtedly take off into the trees in pursuit of Indians—who are hopefully long gone. But not my uncle. He’ll turn around and come right back. He might be walking up the hill this very moment.
Inside the mine, Jefferson’s thick trail of gunpowder twists like a black snake down the tunnel. “I put a whole pile of it at the edge of the Drink, right up against the supports,” he says. “Another pile near the end of the Joyner. I don’t have a lot of experience with gunpowder other than for shooting guns, but it should do its work.”
We settle our barrels, each one against a beam bolstering the entrance. As we start to leave, I grab his arm. “Thank you,” I tell him.
His hand comes up to mine, and he squeezes.
We exit the mine together and head toward the arrastra and our tiny fire. As I bend to pick up my rag-covered rock, drops of water splatter onto my face.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, please no.”
“Rain!” Jefferson says. “We have to move fast.”
I dip the flag of fabric into the fire until it ignites, then hold it gingerly as it creeps up toward my hand.
“I’ll do it,” Jefferson says. “You should be a safe distance away.”
I think of Frank Dilley shooting that Indian in the head, of Hiram burning my daddy’s boots, of scaly, mercury-sick skin and the picture of Mama on Hiram’s dresser and the rawness of my wrists that will show scars for a long time. I think of the broken bodies littering my uncle’s camp. “No, I need to do it.”
I step toward the line of gunpowder. It stretches out of the mine for several paces, but once I light it, we’ll have to run like demons are chasing us. And maybe they will be.
“Hurry!” Jefferson says. “Someone’s coming.”
I touch the flame to the gunpowder. It sizzles and sparks as a tiny lick of fire races away from me toward the mine.
Voices carry now, men’s voices, coming toward us.
“Lee!” Jefferson pleads.
I turn to flee, but in that moment, heaven opens up and dumps all the water of the world atop our heads. My racing lick of fire winks out, two paces short of the mine entrance.
This can’t be happening. My one shot, lost to a stupid storm.
Figures move just beyond the firelight. Hiram’s men have returned.
The gunpowder is soaked. Ruined. But I can’t make my feet move.
“Here,” Jefferson says. “Give me the rock.”
A growing flame still licks the end, partly sheltered from the deluge by my own body. The bundle is warm in my hand. Shielding it as best I can, I give it to Jefferson.
“I’m going to throw it. With luck it will hit one of the barrels inside.”
“That will never work!”
“Get ready to run, just in case.” And with that, he sends it sailing in a long arc.
By some miracle, the flame survives, and Jeff’s throw is a bull’s-eye, landing just inside the entrance.
The explosion shakes the ground all around us, and dust chokes the air as something flies out and hits my cheek hard enough to draw blood.
I wipe at my cheek as Jefferson grabs my hand and pulls me away. “Let’s go!” he says. But we’re too late, because an enormous shadow bears down on us—an impossibly tall, broad man in a hood.
Wilhelm.
The sudden flood of rain has all but put out the fire in the barracks, so I can hardly see his face, but he stands strong before us, arms crossed, as if daring us to pass. From behind him come the sounds of approaching men—angry voices, boots scrunching through mud, someone yelling orders.
“Oh, Lee,” Jefferson says, despair in his voice, and at first I think it’s Wilhelm he’s worried about, but then I realize he’s looking toward the mine. “The entrance is only half collapsed,” he says. “The other barrel didn’t ignite.”
Water must have rushed into the mine as soon as the storm hit. My plan didn’t work at all. And now we’re caught.
Jefferson and Tom will be whipped and beaten. I’ll be tied to the bedposts again. Hiram will find himself a new batch of Indians to work until death. It was all for nothing.
I fall to my knees in the mud. Rain streams through my hair and down my face, blurring my vision. Thunder claps overhead.
My hands form fists that beat at the ground, splashing mud and water everywhere, but I’m so angry I can’t seem to stop, and it’s impossible to tell where the rain ends and my rage tears begin.
“Leah? What happened? What did you do?” It’s my uncle’s voice. He’s coming for me. He always comes for me. My fingers burrow into the mud, as if by clenching the earth I can keep from being dragged away.
Gold tingles in my fingertips. Spreads up my hands and arms like liquid sunshine flowing through my veins. My chest swells with the sense of gold, my legs shiver with it, my mouth and throat practically hum.
I sense it all now. The whole of the earth glitters with gold, interspersed with tiny veins weaving everywhere. It’s like the earth is alive, and gold is its lifeblood.
I stretch out with my senses, taking it all in. I want this one thing, this one, beautiful, shining moment before I’m my uncle’s forever.
The ground trembles.
“What was that?” yells someone, Abel Topper maybe, but I’m too far gone to care.
I reach farther, coaxing, caressing, apologizing. I’m so sorry. You deserve better than my uncle.
The earth shakes again, dropping someone to his knees beside me.
Wind whips my hair, and tiny flecks of mud swirl around me, sticking to my arms, my face, even my dress, until I am covered in the stuff. The tiny bits of mud are like a blanket wrapping me tight, warming me.
Shakily, I gain my feet. Someone nearby holds up a lantern. “Miss Westfall? What in tarnation . . .”
The lantern glints against the skin of
my hands, the lace at my sleeves. It’s not mud swirling about, sticking to me like a long-lost friend.
It’s gold. I’m covered in the stuff.
Its light courses through my blood, and its warmth washes the air around me. A mere thought is all it takes to sense a tiny nugget nearby and bring it flying toward me.
Someone screams. The nugget drops into my palm, but it’s smeared with blood.
The gold is my servant, obeying my every whim. It comes when I call. I could do anything with it. I could move mountains.
I turn and face the mine.
“Jefferson,” I say, my voice dark and deep even to my own ears. “Take cover.”
I send my witchy sense inside the deep cavern. Our failed explosion didn’t wholly collapse the entrance, but it did notable damage. Ore lies in chunks along the path—the gold inside it gives me a decent understanding of their shapes and sizes. A new vein is exposed on the north wall.
I reach and reach, sending tendrils of thought through every vein, every nugget, every bit of dust in the mountain.
“Come to me,” I whisper.
The earth trembles as the gold struggles to reach me. People around me start yelling—no, screaming—but I pay them no mind.
Come.
The gold strains toward me like a dog on a leash, trying, trying, trying, and though my witchy powers could easily make a bit of gold worm through dirt or water or something soft like flesh, granite and quartz and shale are another matter.
The mine shakes. Clouds of dust pour from the entrance, only to be immediately tamped down by pouring rain. So I pull harder. More gold coats my arms and legs. I don’t have to look to know I am a golden statue, shining like the daughter of Midas. Except the gold is mine. I’m the one in control.
Come.
The mountain vibrates. A pine tree beside the entrance topples over, crashing into the arrastra, leaving its gnarled roots reaching for the air. I sense everyone around me fleeing as the earth heaves and bucks like a colt with its first saddle.
I close my eyes, reaching one last time for every bit of gold inside Hiram’s mine. I imagine I’m gripping it all in my fist. I imagine I give it all a twist.
The earth shakes violently, and the mountain crumples in on itself, so suddenly that it seems the very air gets sucked away. I open my eyes just in time to watch the land cave in, tossing rocks and trees in all directions. Then the rain finally succeeds in dousing the barracks fire completely, and I can see no more.