Patience Read online

  The time for honesty was at hand; Patience knew it, yet she continued to fight the inevitable. “There is more to your story. Tell me why—if you truly don’t believe in the supernatural—why are you being so stubborn?”

  Stripping his hat off, he beat the dust from it, his face a stained mask.

  “Jay?”

  “All right! I’m claustrophobic.”

  She gasped. Terminally ill. She knew it. The first man she was ever interested in, and he was dying.

  “Oh, Jay … how long … ?”

  A muscle flexed tightly in his jaw. “Four and a half years.”

  Four and a half years. So little time left for a man who was still young and vital.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, prepared to do anything to make what time he had left bearable. “When did you find out?”

  He glanced up. “Four and a half years ago. At first I didn’t know what was happening. Every time I went into a mine, I felt like I was suffocating.”

  “Oh,” she soothed. A horrible lung disease.

  “One day it got so bad I blacked out. My partner hauled me in to see a doctor, and that’s when I learned the truth.”

  Her heart ached. Consumption. “It must have been dreadful.”

  “No. Embarrassing.”

  She gazed back at him, longing to cradle him in her arms. God love him; he was so brave—so sensitive. He was dying, and he was embarrassed.

  Meeting her stricken gaze, he suddenly frowned. “Patience?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know what claustrophobic means?”

  Patience felt faint. She needed to be strong in his hour of need, but she was hampered by a delicate constitution. “No,” she admitted hesitantly, hoping he wouldn’t find it necessary to go into detail.

  “It means a fear of tight places. It’s a relatively new term in medicine. I was fortunate enough to be diagnosed by a young doctor who had recently completed his training in Boston and knew of the latest medical advances.”

  Nodding in total understanding, she sighed benevolently. That would make the grave even more dreadful.

  Cupping her chin in his hand, he said, “I am not dying. I faint when I’m in a mine because I have a fear of being closed in.”

  It took a moment for his words to register. When they did, Patience was giddy with relief. “That’s what’s wrong with you? You’re afraid of tight places?”

  He looked away. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Well, all you had to do was say so,” she chided. “Then you’re really not afraid of ghosts?”

  “Afraid of Gamey O’Keefe?” He laughed. “No.”

  “While we’re on the subject, who is this Gamey O’Keefe?” She’d heard the name until she was sick of it, and yet she hadn’t the faintest idea who he was.

  Jay’s gaze pivoted to the shaft. “A long time ago Gamey and Ardis Johnson both laid claim to the Mule Head. Seems Gamey stole the mine from Ardis while Ardis was gone into town for supplies and … other pursuits.”

  “Other pursuits?”

  He looked away. “Other pursuits.”

  “Oh,” she said, getting it.

  “The story goes, O’Keefe was trying to bluff Ardis and the sheriff off the property when he blew himself up.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “The stories vary, but apparently it was a blunder on O’Keefe’s part. Some say he never intended to kill himself, only to trick Ardis.”

  “But if Gamey was dead, the mine would have returned to Ardis.”

  “It did, but from that day on, no one has been able to work it. Legend has it, O’Keefe’s spirit lives in the mine and isn’t about to let anyone near his gold.”

  Patience laughed. “That’s absurd. And now Gamey is supposedly in the mine, aimlessly roaming around?”

  “Worse. The legend is that he’s locked in the Mule Head forever.”

  She glanced back to the mine. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “Others do.”

  She crossed her arms, thinking of the agony she’d gone through to hire a crew. “People can’t conceive that this ‘ghost’ has been blown out of proportion—that it’s only silly folklore that’s been passed from one miner to another. No one’s thought to question whether or not it’s just a figment of someone’s highly active imagination?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Feathers.”

  His brows rose a notch.

  “Rubbish,” she amended. Turning away, she muttered, “Fiddle Creek men are a disgrace.” She glanced over her shoulder protectively. “Present company excluded.”

  Scooping up the leather rucksack, Jay followed her up the hill.

  “How do you figure?”

  “They’ve left a bunch of women to do their work.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Patience lingered in the door of the dugout and watched the activity going on at the mine. Wilson spent most of his afternoons hanging around in the way, and even though she scolded him and so did Jay, he was so fascinated with the work and with Jay he couldn’t stay away. His assortment of animals was growing too. Where on earth did the boy find all of his pets and how did he catch them?

  She hadn’t been back to Fiddle Creek lately. Seemed as if she had so much to do here, and like Wilson, she didn’t want to be away for very long. She thought of Mary, Lily, and Harper and felt guilty. She should make a greater effort to send word to them, maybe find someone going to Denver City who could carry a message, but it seemed that the longer she stayed away, the more remote her old life became. Right now, she was content to see Jay every day, cook for him and for Wilson, and look forward to the times they spent together talking. They were sort of like a family—a real family, something she knew little about.

  She knew her way of thinking was dangerous. Jay Longer wasn’t interested in her that way. He was just being friendly, and as he had made clear, he was only working the mine because he needed money. Her needs were secondary. She had learned a lot about mining since they had started working the Mule Head. Of course there was a lot she didn’t know, but she was gaining in knowledge every day.

  Jay said the Mule Head was a lode mine. Once the diggings were brought out, they were scooped into long flumes and sent to the bottom of the mountain. There they were washed in sluice boxes—long troughs, sometimes in several sections, from fifty to one hundred feet long, designed so water could run through them. Riffle boxes, which had false bottoms with cleats to arrest the flow of water and mud, were used to let the gold and heavier particles sink into the shallow boxes. Most of the equipment was in good condition from the old prospector’s time, and Jay had repaired the rest.

  It was excruciating, backbreaking work, but Moses Malone and her crew didn’t seem hindered by their gender. Two of the women stood beside the sluice boxes with hoes and shovels, keeping the dirt stirred up. The residue washed down the trough. Two more women shoveled in material at the head of the sluice, while yet another pair hauled dirt from the mine in wheelbarrows.

  Patience ceased trying to help; she only got in the way. But she could cook, toting large pails of food and piping hot loaves of fresh-baked bread to the mine daily. To vary the menu, she fried pans of rice with tomatoes, onions, and chili powder; baked pans of beans flavored with salt pork and thick, rich molasses; made crusty brown peach pies from canned peaches, and piping hot skillets of cinnamon-fried apples. She stayed busy trying to find something new to add to the menu—not that it was appreciated as far as she could tell.

  The shady ladies consumed the meals without comment.

  Patience wandered over to where she could sit on a boulder and look at the grandeur of the mountains. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. A couple of the women pushed a wheelbarrow of dirt out to be processed. Again she thought of the dark interior of the mine. If Tom Wyatt had had his way, she would be working in his mine right now, with no hope of escape. So would Harper and Lily. Mary might not have survived the rigors of digging for
gold. Patience lifted her face to the sky, watching an eagle riding the air currents, thankful she was free to sit in the sun and enjoy God’s creation.

  Wilson came to join her. “P?”

  “Yes, Wilson?”

  “I’ve been going to school for some time now. Do I have to keep on with it?”

  “Of course you do. Why?”

  “Well, it seems like you and Jay could teach me all I need to know. Jay’s real smart, P; don’t you think so?”

  “He’s smart enough.” So where was he going with this?

  “I’ve been thinking. I don’t believe I want to go to college. I want to be a lawman like Jay. He gets to do lots of exciting things.”

  “Like working in a mine? Do you think he finds that exciting?”

  “Well, maybe not that, but he gets to carry a gun and hunt for bad men, and I don’t think you need much book learning for that.”

  “What’s the real reason you don’t want to go to school?”

  “I don’t like being inside all day. The old prospector never made me stay inside. I could do anything I wanted to do, and he never complained.”

  “It isn’t good for us to do just what we want to do. Life is mostly made up of doing what we don’t want to do.”

  Wilson thought about this, his face screwed up in concentration. “That doesn’t seem fair to me. You like Jay, don’t you, P?”

  “Of course I do; he’s a good friend.”

  “Friend, huh? I was hoping for more than that.” He seemed disappointed.

  “Friendship, Wilson. Leave it at that.”

  “All right, if you say so.” He sighed and picked up a broken branch to use for a walking stick. “Well, I guess I’ll go explore for a while.”

  Patience watched him walk away, probably looking for a pretty rock or another animal he could claim for a pet. She thought about his last question. Yes, indeed, she did like Jay Longer. Maybe more than she should. But that wasn’t anything she could admit to Wilson, because she was fairly sure Jay didn’t care that much for her.

  The next day was Sunday, and the women didn’t work. Jay hadn’t shown up either. Patience and Wilson sat on rocks in the sun, dressed in heavy coats, having an early morning worship service. The silence seemed almost unnatural after the daily clatter of mining activity.

  Patience read slowly and with reverence: “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.’ Isn’t that beautiful, Wilson? The psalmist never saw our mountains, but somehow he knows how we feel about them. God’s creation is so wonderful.”

  “Did God make these mountains?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Wilson pointed to a small pinecone. “Did he make that cone?”

  “Yes, that too.”

  “He does good work, doesn’t he?”

  “He does very good work. And he made us, in his own image.”

  “And he made Selmore and all of the other animals all different. God’s so amazing, P. Sometimes it just takes my breath away to think about it.”

  “Mine too, Wilson. He’s truly an amazing God.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Patience closed her Bible. “What do you want to do today? We can take a walk down the other side of the mountain or go fishing, or I can make a pan of cinnamon rolls and we’ll just be lazy the entire day.”

  Wilson didn’t appear to be listening. “Someone’s coming. Maybe it’s Jay.”

  He ran toward the trailhead, coming to an abrupt stop when two burly, unkempt men came into view. Wilson backed slowly toward Patience.

  She got to her feet, conscious of the isolation of this spot and her own inability to protect herself and Wilson against intruders. The old prospector’s gun was in the dugout, but she had no idea how to use it.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” the one with the dirty blond beard said, revealing teeth stained brown with tobacco juice. “Jay Longer here?”

  “No, he isn’t here.” She was furious at the way her voice trembled.

  The one with brown hair and beard, wearing a grimy tan shirt, narrowed his eyes at her. “We was told he hangs out here.”

  Patience stiffened. Hangs out here? How dare they speak toher like that? “Neither Jay Longer nor anyone else hangs out here.” Her hand shot out to clamp over Wilson’s mouth, just as he started to speak. She didn’t like the looks of these men. Whatever they wanted with Jay, they’d get no help from her.

  The blond grinned. “If you see him, pass on a message: Red and Luther’s looking for him. We got some unfinished business to take care of.”

  “If I see him, I’ll tell him.” Anger held her voice steady. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  The brown-haired one, Luther, nodded. “We’ll be back. Maybe stay and visit a little while next time.” His eyes skimmed her with disrespect.

  After another look around the clearing, they turned and strode back down the trail. Patience, her knees gone weak, collapsed on the boulder, sighing in relief.

  Wilson stood beside her, his eyes wide. “What did they want with Jay?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think they were friends of his.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  “I hope not.”

  Wilson stood a little taller. “Don’t you be afraid, P. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  She was touched by his evident sincerity. “Thank you, Wilson. I appreciate that.”

  But if they ever did come back, she needed a plan of action. She had felt too helpless in this encounter. It was foolish to think she and Wilson could fight off two thugs like Red and Luther, but they might have to make the attempt. She needed to find something to use for a weapon.

  Patience glanced up that afternoon when Jay came into the dugout. She smiled, relieved that he seemed to be more comfortable with her lately. He stayed for every meal now.

  “Hi!”

  “Hi.”

  “Seen any ghosts today?” It was getting to be a standing joke between them.

  “Nary a one.”

  She hadn’t told him about her experience in the mine. She wasn’t sure she ever would. The passage of time had dimmed the fear she had felt. Probably it had been the wind howling through the old mine shaft. The wind could play tricks on you. She wasn’t going to tell him about Red and Luther either. After thinking about it, she had decided they might be passing through and wouldn’t come back, and she didn’t want to say or do anything to make Jay leave.

  “Finding any gold?” she asked.

  “Nothing to get excited about.”

  Jay poured water into the wash pan and scrubbed up for supper. “Something smells good.” He scooped water with his hands and flushed the grime from his face.

  “Slumgullion,” she verified. Poor man’s hash, the orphanage cook used to say.

  “It would be nice to have some fresh meat,” she mused. They’d had very little the past few weeks. Just a few rabbits and a deer roast someone had given her last time she was in Fiddle Creek. Fresh vegetables were unheard of, and fruit was scarce as hen’s teeth, unless you were fortunate enough to get a few cans of peaches in Fiddle Creek. She gave thanks every day for the old prospector’s foresight. She couldn’t believe how much food he’d managed to stockpile. Next summer she was going to plant a garden, a big one, and can everything she raised.

  Jay blindly fumbled around the washstand, and she slapped a towel in his hand. Lifting his head, he smiled. “Thanks. I’ll see if I can scare up some for you.”

  She smiled, happy to see the way his face had filled out lately. “Fresh venison or a plump, wild turkey would be delicious.”

  Taking the lid off the skillet, she stirred the hash. “I was just thinking how grateful I am that the mine isn’t in Dawson City. Have you heard what’s going on over there?”

  “They say things are pretty crazy.” He pulled out a keg and sat down. She took a pan of bread out of the oven and sliced it.

  Jay seem
ed to deliberately turn his eyes in the other direction.

  Setting the bread on the table, she brushed a lock of stray hair from her eyes. “You know what I heard the last time I was in town?”

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard that picks and shovels are going for twenty-five dollars apiece in Dawson City. Nails, ten dollars a pound; flour, seventy-five dollars a sack; a can of tomatoes, eight dollars. Salt’s worth its weight in gold, and eggs are two dollars apiece. Can you imagine?” She wouldn’t be able to survive a day!

  “They say the miners are paying the prices. Chappy Hellerman was telling me the hay is running five hundred dollars a bale nowadays.”

  “How is Chappy?” She hadn’t seen the old prospector around the last time she went into town.

  “He’s staked a claim over near Cherry Creek. Word has it he’s found a few good-size nuggets.”

  When she handed him a slice of warm bread, their hands touched. Her gaze fixed on his. “There’s blackberry jam if you like.”

  “Thanks. I’ll wait until you make biscuits again.”

  Her eyes seemed hesitant to move on, her breathing imperceptibly more shallow. “Guess I should call Wilson. Supper’s getting cold.”

  “He’s just outside the door. I had to cut the rope on the skunk. Wilson was upset, but if his luck ran out, you wouldn’t be able to live with the smell that close to the dugout.”

  “You did the right thing. I’ve told him as much.” It was a miracle the skunk hadn’t turned on them already.

  Don’t you dare look the other way, her eyes admonished. Is your lack of interest because I’m a burden to you? Not only did I defy your order to return to Denver City, but I have a small boy to raise. Do you dislike children? Are you afraid of responsibility?

  Then again, maybe it isn’t indifference I see in your eyes, only idle curiosity.

  “Butter?” she asked.

  Jay looked away first. “Thanks.”

  The door flew open, and Wilson burst in on a draft of cold air, dragging a lynx on a leash. “Hey, guys, look what I just found!”