Easy Pickings by Richard S. Wheeler

Author:Richard S. Wheeler
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466882959
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Seventeen

March didn’t know whether it was midnight. She only knew the night was long when she started down the obscure forest trails in deep dark.

She had toiled her way back to her hideaway, rested, and gathered what little clothing she possessed in a burlap sack, and then decided to peek at the McPhee Mine. She had worked her way through densely forested slopes to a place where she could observe, and what she saw stirred bitterness.

A crew of maybe a dozen men had been prepping the mine. Some were adding trestle that would take the ore cars to a good waste dump site. Timber men were cutting posts and crossbeams, putting in the shoring that Kermit could never afford. Other men were erecting a storage shed outside of the mine head.

She had watched darkly, and then retreated to her hideaway. She knew it wouldn’t stay a hideout for long; those men would fan out, hunting for new deposits nearby, and they would happen upon the little refuge under the overhang. She was escaping to Marysville just in time.

Now, with a thin moon to help her, she eased through deep night, stumbling over deadfall, until at last she reached Long Gulch and the trail into Marysville. Then the walk was easy. The trail led not only to the McPhee, but other outlying mines in the area, and was well used. The Drumlummon was the primary mine in the district, but now there were several more, which was one reason Marysville prospered.

The town lay quiet, the miners’ cabins dark, the lamps in the saloons turned down. Nothing prowled but cats, which were prized in mining towns because they killed rats, which were the unseen plague of most mining districts.

One lamp burned softly at Tipperary Leary’s saloon, the light welcoming and gentle. She found the door unlocked, and found Tip dozing, along with two miners she didn’t know.

“Good,” Tip said. “These two, they’ve stayed up to be looking after you. They’ll take you to your fancy new home.”

“But Tip, I don’t need…”

“Be quiet, will ye? Here’s the thing. There’s about twenty of my patrons in the know. You’ll have food daily. Not fancies, but things to keep you fed. It takes a bit out of their brown envelope to do it, but every one’s pledged to it, for as long as you need a little something to fill the stomach. Now, you’ll be staying on an estate. Not Tommy Cruse’s own digs, but the washerwoman house in the back. Cruse got rich, built this place, sold the Drumlummon to a big corporation, moved himself and his brood to Helena, but hung on to the house. He’s got a little sentiment about Marysville, having started it and named it and saw it grow to three thousand. This washerwoman cottage, it’s back in a grove of aspen so thick it’s not seen from the house. There’s a room for the woman, and a room to wash, with a stove and big tubs and drying lines outside.

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