Before the Dawn (Truly Yours Digital Editions) (16 page)

“That’s reaching a bit, Sam. There were a few petty thefts in town around the time the store was robbed, and wagon axles have been known to break before.”

“True, but what about the four braces of mules that were stolen? Then we get a bad batch of blasting caps. And in September, I spent nearly the whole month working on one pump or another. Parts that shouldn’t have failed did. Fluids ‘accidentally’ drained away. Debris ‘somehow’ got into the motor. I couldn’t keep more than two pumps going at a time, and we were running in circles to keep the mine dry. Then there was the cave-in.”

“That was my fault.” David’s shoulders slumped, and he rubbed his temple.

Sam gripped David’s shoulder. “I know you think that, but why? You’ve never come up with a definitive reason why the supports should have failed and neither has anyone else. I think we need to comb through all the paperwork again—the plans, the surveys, and the ore samples—and figure this out.”

“How can I? I can’t see.” David straightened and gripped the arms of his chair. The familiar helplessness rolled over him.

“I’ll help you. I think the answer is here, but I can’t find it on my own. Last week, the mine office was ransacked twice. I think whoever it was that did it was looking for the papers that have been in your house the past few months. Nothing else was missing. Marcus and I checked.”

David frowned. “Why didn’t you have Marcus look these things over? He’s the better engineer. If he’d been in charge of the mine, the cave-in wouldn’t have happened.”

Sam rose and paced the area in front of the desk. “Dave, I’ll match my time on a rock drill or pickax against any man in the mine. I can about sharpen a pencil with a stick of dynamite, but I can’t decipher these charts and papers by myself. I need you. Not Marcus, not Father, you. I’ll read aloud anything you want me to. I’ll help you do the figures, but I know, if you’ll just work with me, you’ll be able to see what I can’t.” David snorted at his word choice, but Sam went right on. “You’ll come at this from your logical, intense, black-and-white view of the world, and you’ll put the pieces together.”

David swiveled his chair, listening to the creak of leather and the doubts in his head. He wanted to pray, to ask for guidance, but he was afraid. Afraid God wouldn’t hear him. Even more afraid the answer would be no. He swallowed, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“Well, Dave? How about it?”

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll give it a go.”

Sam pounced on the box, as if he wanted to get started before David changed his mind. “Let me read to you a list of things that have gone on at the mine over the last ten months or so. Where’d I put my notebook?”

“Is this it, sir?”

“Thanks, Buckford.” Pages scraped and shuffled. “Here it is. Any one of these alone wouldn’t draw too much attention, but when you list them, it becomes more than a coincidence.”

Sam read and David tried to organize the items into a mental list, visualizing them in his head the way Rex had taught him:

1. Axle broken on new wagon. Team put down. Reason for failure unknown.

2. Ordering mistake leaves company store short on inventory.

3. Store robbed and ransacked. Four teams of mules stolen.

4. Shipment of faulty blasting caps. Work halted for two days till replacements are found.

5. Pumps falter. Time lost repairing and replacing parts. Reason for failure unknown.

6. Square sets fail, mine collapses. Eight dead, five wounded. Reason for failure unknown.

7. Transport bucket winch system fails, bucket falls to bottom of mine. One man injured, leg amputated. Winch and motor in good repair. Reason for failure unknown.

8. Pump fails entirely in No. 3 shaft, shaft flooded. Reason for failure unknown.

9. Ghost story begins to circulate. Men restless. Some walk off the job and hire on at competing mines.

10. Stope output in No. 3 well below predictions. New tunnel produces nothing.

11. Office ransacked.

David’s brows came down. “What? Predictions showed shaft three should have the richest ore.”

“We were delayed having to clear the debris from the cave-in. Then the shaft flooded when the pump failed, so we had to install another pump. When we could finally send in the crews, we found nothing but rock. Then the standby pump failed. No sense throwing hard effort down a wet hole with no silver in it.” Sam resumed his chair beside David. “None of us wanted to quit on it, not with all we’d lost trying to bring it in, but in the end we just had to abandon the shaft. Marcus urged us to keep trying, said we were losing faith with you if we stopped, but with no results. Father finally called a halt to digging in that tunnel.”

Heat tracked across David’s chest and up his neck. How could he have been so wrong? All the indications had pointed to a rich vein and stable rock to dig through. “I was so sure.” He took a deep breath, then set his abacus flat on the desk. “I want to go over every page. Start with the earliest ones you’ve got, and we’ll work our way forward.”

Sam riffled the papers. “Buckford, can you sort through this box and put it all in chronological order? I’ll start reading these. Dave, you stop me when you need to.”

Sam read slowly, and David sat very still, absorbing, visualizing the charts and reports in his old handwriting, remembering and immersing himself in the work he had loved so much. He asked Sam to repeat some things and asked for clarification and expansion on others. Several times he did calculations on his abacus, but mostly he listened and collated the information to get an overall understanding of the data at hand. “You didn’t read the initial survey and sample sheet I did on shaft three. I need to hear that.”

“I don’t have those. Not ones you did, at any rate. I have the ones Marcus did.”

“No, I need the ones I did last June. My name should be at the top of every page. When I told Father I suspected there might be a rich vein there, he told me to handle all the preliminary work myself and not to bring anyone else in on it. There should’ve been no reason for Marcus to have filled out survey or sample sheets.”

“I’ll look again.” Sam shuffled papers, rolled and unrolled charts, and shifted chunks of rock around. “I can’t find any survey for shaft three other than this one Marcus did.”

David shook his head. “Read out Marcus’s report then.” As Sam read, David tried not to give in to the growing doubts. “Those don’t match at all.”

“The question is why not?”

“You sound like you have an idea.”

“You won’t like it, but. . .think about it, Dave. Besides you and me, who has had access to everywhere in the mine
and
the store
and
the offices? Whose name is on this report? Who would know enough about mining to make sabotage look like random accidents?”

David shook his head, not wanting to believe it, though the doubts had been growing with every new report. “No, I can’t believe that. Marcus? That’s impossible. Our own cousin? He wouldn’t do such a thing, not after all we’ve done for him.”

Buckford spoke up. “That’s quite an accusation. If you voice it outside this house, you will have to substantiate it. A very serious business.”

Sam rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Men have died. Whoever did this is responsible not only for the loss of revenue and the loss of equipment, but also for the lives of eight men, plus the wounded, including David.”

“But, Marcus?” David asked again. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what his motive could be. The only hard evidence we have is this report. We know the figures here don’t match what you originally surveyed. We know you found a rich strike in shaft three, but according to this”—the paper popped, and David envisioned Sam holding it up and jabbing it with his finger—“shaft three is a played-out dead end. And we can expect that if Marcus is the guilty party, then when he finds out I’m here in Denver talking to you, he’s going to be on his guard.”

David put his elbows on the desk and his forehead on his fists. “If it turns out that Marcus is behind this, Father is going to be devastated. We can’t do anything more here. The answers we need are in Martin City.” They would have to go. He would have to return to the scene of his accident. Clammy sweat broke out on his skin. He would never enter a mine again. He couldn’t. Too many nightmares, too many shattered hopes, too many dangers, physical and mental, lurked in mines.

Sam put his hand on David’s shoulder. “The minute we show up at the mine, Marcus will have to be suspicious. I would be. When we get there, we won’t have much time. He’ll either run or he’ll try to destroy whatever evidence remains that could tie him to the sabotage.” His hand dropped away. “Buckford, throw some things in a bag. We can leave on the morning train.”

David slipped his watch from his pocket and touched the hands. “It’s late. If we’re leaving early, we’ll need to get to bed.”

Buckford cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir, but Mrs. Mackenzie is due to arrive this week.”

David jerked. He’d been so absorbed in the discussion and so focused on the task he’d completely forgotten Karen’s return.

“David, just what’s going on with you and Karen?” Sam put the question to him gently.

David rubbed his palm down his face and turned toward Buckford. “Sam and I will take the morning train. You’ll stay here and await Karen’s arrival. After the situation with Marcus is settled, I’ll come back here and hear what she has to say.”

“Very good, sir.” Though Buckford would never contradict his employer, David got the feeling Buckford thought the plan of action anything but “very good.”

When David and Sam were alone, Sam asked, “What’s going on with you and Karen? Why didn’t you go with her to her aunt’s funeral? I hate to think of her dealing with all of that by herself.”

David shook his head. “She preferred to go alone, so I gave her the space and distance she wanted.” He gave a brief outline of events leading up to her departure, not sparing himself in the telling. “When she gets back, she might very well ask for an annulment.” The idea lanced his heart, and he chastised himself. He had no one to blame but himself. She’d tried every way she knew to love him, and he’d pushed her away. He’d brought about the very thing he feared. She no longer loved him, and he’d lost her for good.

Sam sighed. “I’d like to lock you both in a room until you straighten things out. You’ve been going about this all wrong. Instead of giving her space, you should’ve held her and kissed her and groveled. She was looking for comfort and strength from you. At the very least, you should’ve written and told her how much you missed her and how you needed her and wanted her to come home.”

“Since when did you become an expert on women?”

“I never claimed to be an expert, but even a blind man can see that a wife needs her husband to want her in his life. And eventually, everyone has a breaking point. You’ve pushed and tested and tried Karen to the limit, and she broke. It’s up to you whether you want to attempt to put the pieces back together.”

“What if I can’t? What if it’s too late?”

“What do you have to lose by trying?”

SIXTEEN

With every mile of prairie she passed, Karen tried not to hope David would meet her train but failed miserably. Checking her watch didn’t make the time go faster, but she couldn’t stop. She had so much to tell David, so much forgiveness she needed from him. In the back of her mind, a niggling doubt taunted her. What if David couldn’t forgive her? What if they really couldn’t find happiness together?

Passengers sidled down the aisle, their canes, umbrellas, and valises jostling and vying for space. Though she wanted so badly to hurry them up, Karen forced herself to sit still until the majority of the occupants cleared the car.

She scanned the faces through the window searching for David’s. Weak morning sunshine trickled through thin, high clouds, promising warmth.

Karen made her way outside. Baggage carts lined up beside the train. She picked her way over three sets of tracks to the platform and joined the stream of people heading up the stairs to street level. As she emerged into the terminal waiting room, she caught sight of Buckford standing by the ticket windows.

He waved and nodded to her, then crossed the tile, weaving around people to get to her side. “Welcome home.”

His familiar face gladdened her heart, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking behind him for David. “Thank you, Buckford.” She adjusted her coat collar and checked her hat, trying not to be disappointed. There were so many people and so much noise and confusion she didn’t blame David for not coming. “I can’t wait to get to the house. Tell me, how is David?” The question uppermost in her mind came tumbling out. “Is he anxious for me to get to the house?”

Buckford cleared his throat and took her valise. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but he’s gone to Martin City. Sam came to Denver and enlisted his help with some trouble at the mine. They’ve gone up there to rectify the situation.”

“He’s gone?” Her heart lurched. “When?”

“They left yesterday morning. The situation at the mine is most urgent.”

She reached out and grabbed the valise from Buckford and started toward the ticket windows.

“Ma’am, where are you going?”