“Guess who you’re lookin’ at!” he cried.
Putting the lid back on the kettle, Cassandra asked, “Ambrose Zerek?”
“More than just Ambrose Zerek,” he said, slapping the paper with the backs of his knuckles. “You’re looking at a soon-to-be rich man, Cassie girl. Papa and I decided to go in partners with that fellow, Peter Hirsch! We signed the contracts when we got off shift tonight.”
After tossing the paper onto the table next to the lighted lantern, he caught Cassandra at the waist and twirled around the room with her. In the process, he sent one of the five-gallon buckets that served as a kitchen chair flying. “In four hours, we found more color at his dig than we ever did at ours! There’s a vein in there, Cassie, love. I feel it in my bones. We’re gonna be filthy rich!”
Lessons forgotten, Khristos jumped up from the table, his blue eyes alight. “Whoo-ee!” he yelled, nearly rattling the thin walls. “When you get rich, what’re ya gonna buy me, Ambrose?”
Awakened by all the loud voices, Lycodomes, Cassandra’s dog, crawled out from under the table and began to bark. A huge beast with shaggy yellow and white fur and a bald patch along one side, Lycodomes was too large for the small house. Cassandra was afraid Ambrose might accidentally tromp on her beloved pet’s toes.
“Go lie down, Lycodomes,” she managed to gasp out between giggles. “Ambrose, stop it! If you don’t break your own fool neck, you’ll wind up breaking mine.”
“Ambro-oo-ose!” Khristos wailed. “What’re you gonna buy me if you get rich?”
“Anything you want!” Ambrose said with a deep laugh. “The sky’ll be the limit, little brother. Just you watch and see.”
Breathless from the pressure of her big brother’s arm around her waist, Cassandra thumped his strong shoulder with the heel of her hand. “Put me down, you great oaf, before you crush my ribs!”
Ambrose gave her one more twirl for good measure, then set her gently on her feet. Cassandra drew back, still laughing as she tried to smooth her hair. She was pleased to see Ambrose so excited. Usually when he came home at night, his feet were dragging, and he had a distant, hopeless look in his eyes. Unlike her papa, Ambrose had never really caught the gold fever. He worked in the mines with Papa because their family needed the additional income, but Cassandra knew his heart wasn’t in it.
After patting Lycodomes on the head and shooing him back under the table, Cassandra said, “So…it’s decided, then. You and Papa and Mr. Hirsch are partners?” She reached back to retie the strings of her apron. “I thought Papa said he wanted to think about it for a few more days.”
The twinkle of excitement in Ambrose’s eyes sent a tingle up Cassandra’s spine. “Hirsch made it sound so good, I guess Papa changed his mind.”
Peter Hirsch was a new hire at the Taggart Mine, and for the last few days, he’d been all that Cassandra’s papa and brother could talk about. Like most new hires, Hirsch had been assigned to work under Milo as a trainee, and ever since his first day on the job, he had been regaling the Zerek men with fantastic tales about the amount of gold he’d already found in his dig. All he needed, he’d told them, was a couple of partners with strong backs who could help him chip the rock.
“So where is Papa?” Cassandra asked Ambrose. “Is he still with Mr. Hirsch?”
Ambrose grinned and nodded. “I was so anxious to tell you the news, I headed home before he did. He’ll be along.”
Ever conscious that her father and brother got little enough sleep without having to wait for their evening meal, she said, “Then I’d best be getting supper dished up.” She poured water from the teapot on the stove into a basin so she might rinse her hands. As dearly as she loved Lycodomes, he was stinky, and she’d soiled her fingers petting him. “I’ll bet you and Papa are starving. You’re running a little late tonight.”
“Starving isn’t the half of it,” Ambrose admitted. “I feel like my belly button is fastened to my backbone. This business of working until ten with no supper break between shifts isn’t easy, I’ll tell you. And now that we’ve gone in partners with Peter Hirsch, Papa is talking about working every night until eleven. Can you believe it? He’s just that excited.”
With a touch of sarcasm in her voice, Cassandra asked, “And while you were working Hirsch’s dig, did you find any nuggets the size of marbles just lying about on top of the ground, like he said you might?”
“None yet.” Ambrose peeled off his jacket and hung it on one of the coat pegs. “But the light was poor, Cassie. There’s nothing to say we won’t find some nuggets eventually. There’s gold in there. I feel it in my bones.” He flashed another broad grin. “You know me. Papa’s always getting excited, but I hardly ever do.”
That was true. Ambrose was the proverbial doubting Thomas when it came to prospecting. The fact that he seemed to think this particular dig might actually have gold had to be a good sign.
“Wouldn’t it be something if you and Papa really did strike it rich?” She drew four soup bowls off the cupboard shelf. “If any man on earth deserves a streak of luck, it’s Papa. He’s worked so long and so hard…” Her voice trailed away. In her mind’s eye, she tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a big, fancy house and have all the money they needed. An image of the patent leather shoes in the dress shop window flashed into her mind, and she felt a flurry of excitement. “Oh, Ambrose, I do hope the two of you are onto something this time, that Papa doesn’t get disappointed again.”
“Me, too!” Khristos chimed in. “I want me a shotgun of my very own. I ain’t never had me a real gun.”
“Haven’t, not ain’t,” Cassandra corrected, turning to ruffle her little brother’s hair. “A shotgun, you say? I didn’t know you were hankering for a real gun.”
“I’m comin’ on to bein’ grown, Papa says,” Khristos reminded her. “Only babies play with toy guns.”
She gave Ambrose a conspiratorial wink. “Growing up before our very eyes, that you are. I’ve had to let your pants down twice in the last three months. Next payday, if there’s any way we can, we need to buy you some britches and shoes.”
“Maybe I can work a few extra hours,” Ambrose mused aloud. “The night shift foreman is always needing an extra man to fill in for someone who doesn’t show.”
“Don’t you even think about it.” Cassandra picked up the wooden spoon to ladle stew. “You work enough as it is. Besides, if Peter Hirsch is telling the truth about his claim, who’s to say you’ll need to work any extra hours? We may be rich by next payday.”
Ambrose chuckled. “Well…that might be expecting a bit much. But if all goes well, I may have a few gold flakes to cash in. Those would bring plenty enough to buy britches and shoes for Khristos.” Planting his hands on his hips, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. “Ah, Cassie…wouldn’t it be grand? I can hardly believe he asked us to go in partners with him. A rich dig like that! Maybe things are finally going to take a turn for the better.”
Angling a glance over her shoulder, Cassandra asked, “Is that the partnership agreement you tossed on the table? It might get stew spilled on it.”
Grabbing up the paper and carefully refolding it, Ambrose placed it on the knickknack shelf for safekeeping. Then, hooking a foot around the bucket he’d displaced earlier, he drew it back to the table and sat down. Cassandra didn’t have the heart to remind him to wash up. After working such long hours, her papa and Ambrose were always exhausted when they finally got home.
She placed bowls of stew before both her brothers, then turned back to the stove to fill bowls for Papa and herself. Milo walked in just then, weariness etched into the seams of his face, his eyes rimmed with pink from the strain of squinting against the harsh glare of the miners’ lanterns for hours on end.
“Ah, Cassie, girl. You are a blessing. Hot food always waitin’, and a fire roarin’ to warm my old bones.”
Cassandra went up on her tiptoes to brush a kiss across her father’s whiskery cheek. He’d brought the
smells of the night in with him—chill wind, autumn leaves, and the crisp scent of evergreen. “Sit down, Papa. I know you must be tired.”
After setting aside his miner’s light and lunch pail, Milo stripped off his heavy wool jacket, then wiggled out of his slicker pants. He sat on his cot, which was situated under the front window, to tug the trouser cuffs off over his boots. “Amazingly enough, I don’t feel tired at all tonight. Fact is, I think we should celebrate.” He winked at Ambrose as he rose and walked to the table. “What’d ya say, son? Will you share a little ol’ nippee with your da?”
“Can I have a taste this time?” Khristos asked as Milo took a seat at the head of the table.
“Eight-year-old boys don’t get tastes of whiskey,” Ambrose informed him. “Liquor stunts your growth.”
“Nuh-uh,” Khristos cried. “Cassandra gives it to me when I’m sick, and it ain’t never stunted me yet.”
Cassandra placed a bowl of stew before her father, then turned to set the kettle in the middle of the table so everyone could refill their bowls whenever they wished. As she nudged the lantern out of the way, she shot Ambrose a warning glance. “How’s about if I make you a ‘toddy,’ Khristos?” The toddies she occasionally fixed for her little brother contained only a trace of whiskey. “You like those, and we’ve a bit of milk still left in the jug.”
“You spoil him, Cassandra,” Ambrose grumbled.
She raised an eyebrow. “I spoil you, too, and I never hear you complaining. Besides, as Papa says, it’s a night to celebrate, and Khristos is as much a part of our family as anyone else. He should get a wee nippee, too.”
Khristos grinned, displaying huge gaps where he’d lost front teeth. “Can I have a dash of cinnamon?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m out of cinnamon, but there’s nutmeg aplenty.”
“Are you gonna have a toddy, too?” Khristos asked her.
“I’m planning to be a nun, Khristos. Nuns don’t drink toddies.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do, that’s all. Maybe I’ll have a bit of hot milk spiced with nutmeg, though. Will that make you happy?”
Holding her own bowl of stew cupped in her hands, Cassandra lowered herself onto an overturned bucket beside her little brother. “Ambrose says the Hirsch claim has lots of color, Papa.” The smell of lantern fuel blended with the spicy scent of the stew as she took her first bite of supper. “Do you think this’ll be your lucky strike?”
Cheek bulging with a lump of venison, Milo nodded and swallowed. “More color than I’ve ever run across.” His blue eyes fairly danced. “I’m telling you, Cassandra, when Peter Hirsch came to work at the Taggart Mine, it was our lucky day. Imagine, having a rich claim like that, and no one to help him work it.” Milo smiled, clearly incredulous about their good fortune. “He needed partners. We needed a decent claim. It’s an arrangement that will feather all our nests, make no mistake.”
“Oh, Papa, I hope so!” she said. “You’ve worked so hard, for all of us. It’s time you had a bit of comfort and ease.”
Khristos fastened big blue eyes on his father. “If you get rich, I want a shotgun, Papa. I’m old enough now, ain’t I?”
“Pert’near it. You’re growing like a weed, and that’s a fact.”
“I’d like one of them there flutes, too, like what we saw in the catalog,” the child added. “If you get rich, can I have one of them, too, Papa?”
“You can have a half dozen!” Milo promised. Turning his gaze to Cassandra, he added, “And, you, young lady, will have so many pretty new dresses, they won’t fit in your closet.”
At the moment, Cassandra didn’t have her own sleeping area, let alone a closet. The one-room house provided only enough space for the stove, the table, and their cots. What little clothing they owned hung on a rod in the corner. “I don’t need that many dresses, Papa. One or two would do me.”
But, oh, it would be nice, a small voice sighed inside her head. To feel fine lawn and satin against her skin instead of the coarse cotton of the flour sacks she’d turned into a chemise or the rough wool of hand-me-down dresses.
Ambrose propped his elbows on the makeshift table, constructed from two sawhorses and some salvaged wood. “You know what I’d like? One of those fancy box cameras and a felt fedora hat.”
“Don’t be forgettin’ I want a shotgun!” Khristos reminded him.
“I think you’re still a bit too young for a shotgun, Khristos,” Ambrose told him. “You may have to wait a few more years. One good kick from a twelve-gauge, and you’d be knocked flat.”
Under cover of the table, Cassandra thumped her older brother on the shin with the toe of her shoe. Ambrose jumped. “Ouch!”
She slipped an arm around Khristos, who appeared about to cry. “Don’t you believe him for a minute, Khristos. I’ll start feeding you up, and by the time Papa strikes it rich, you’ll be plenty big enough to handle a shotgun.”
It was a promise Cassandra felt fairly safe in making. Even if the Hirsch mine was chock full of gold, it could still be a very long while before her papa struck it rich. With only three men to chip at the rock, working a dig was slow going.
“I’ll get you a shotgun,” Milo assured his youngest child. “Don’t you worry. Pretty soon, we’ll all have everything we ever wanted.”
Cassandra sighed dreamily as she took another bite of stew. It was fun to contemplate all the things she’d like to have. “You know what I’d like, Papa? More than dresses, even? An indoor twa-let.”
“You mean a toilet?” Ambrose asked.
“Don’t be vulgar.”
“What’s vulgar about saying ‘toilet’?”
“It’s an uncouth word, that’s all. Twa-let is the French way of saying it.”
“Yeah, well, we aren’t French.”
Holding her spoon like a pencil, Cassandra drew little figure eights in the grease that had risen to the top of her stew. “Wouldn’t it be grand, Papa? Having an indoor twa-let? No more shivering all the way to the necessary on winter nights. There are folks right here in Black Jack who have them, you know.”
Milo looked amazed. “You don’t say. Right here in Black Jack?”
Cassandra nodded. “A girl down at the mercantile was telling me all about them.”
“Cassandra,” her father said with a scolding note, “I thought I made it clear I don’t want you talking with strangers. Straight to the church or the convent, remember? No dallying in between.”
“I only stopped in to make a quick purchase, Papa,” Cassandra explained. “And Zelda isn’t a stranger. She helps out over at the convent. Not as often as I do, mind. But she’s a good Catholic girl, and we only just visited at the mercantile for a minute.”
Looking mollified, her father said, “Just you mind what I say, hmm? No lingering in the shops or hanging about outside to look at the pretties on display too long. This town is full of scoundrels who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of you, if given half a chance.”
Not entirely certain what “take advantage” meant, Cassandra only nodded. She’d long since become reconciled to her father’s rules and seldom questioned his reasons. Papa was a very wise man, and she knew he had only her best interests at heart, even though his mandates were sometimes difficult to obey. Educated by nuns, her schooling sporadic because there hadn’t been sisters in every mining town in which they’d lived, Cassandra knew that her own knowledge of the world was sorely lacking. Her father had intended it to be that way.
“I promised your mama I’d raise you to be a lady,” he always reminded her when she complained. “And you won’t be a lady if I let you attend regular school and wander the streets in these mining towns. The commonness of the people in places like this rubs off on a person. It’s different for your brothers. One day they’ll have to work in the mines, and there’s no keeping them from it. But your mama wanted better for her daughter, and God as my witness, I’ll carry out her wishes.”
“I always mind what you say, Papa,?
?? Cassandra said softly, looking her father directly in the eye. “You know I do.”
“I know you try,” he corrected with a wink. “You’re a good, sweet lass. But sometimes you slip a bit.” Flashing a smile, he said, “I’m sorry for interrupting. Where were we?”
“She was tellin’ us about twa-lets,” Khristos reminded them. “Tell us more, Cassie!”
Trying to regather her thoughts, Cassandra frowned. “Well…Zelda says they’ve got little chains hanging from the water tanks above. When you pull the chain, the tank empties, and everything in the twa-let runs outside.”
Khristos wrinkled his nose. “Where does all the puckey go?”
Cassandra considered for a moment. “In a hole, I guess.”
“Yuck. I wouldn’t wanna fall in!”
Ambrose chuckled. “Let’s see if Cassie is still saying ‘twa-let’ after she falls in!” He scooted back on his bucket, avoiding the toe of Cassandra’s shoe before it connected with his shin again. “What’s the matter, Stump? Legs too short?”
“I told you, Ambrose, don’t call me ‘Stump.’ I’m not that short.”
“You barely reach my chin, even with your shoes on.”
“Now, children,” Milo interrupted. “Tonight is no time for quarreling. We should be happy.” He patted the breast pocket of his red-checkered shirt. “I’ve got a contract here that gives me legal one-third interest in a rich mining claim. Ambrose has another third. That gives the Zereks two-thirds interest, which means two-thirds of all the profits. That’s what we should all be thinking about.”
Distracted from the argument by the gleam of excitement in her father’s eyes, Cassandra asked, “Where is this claim, Papa? Will it be very far for you and Ambrose to walk every night after you get off work?”