Lover's Gold (4 page)

Chapter 3

H
EAD HELD HIGH
, Elaina walked down the two flights of stairs, out through the double mahogany doors, and along Broad Street toward the meeting hall.

Though Keyserville was a small town, two-story brick buildings, false-fronted shops, and canopied mercantile establishments lined the street. She could see J. P. Sidwell’s Livery just up ahead, and noticed several miners’ wives whispering in hushed tones in front of Walzheimer’s General Store.

By the time Elaina reached the town hall, the meeting had been under way for more than an hour. She figured her timing should be just about right. With the wind whipping her skirts, she paused for a moment at the top of the stone steps to bolster her courage; then she straightened her shoulders, tossed back her head, and opened the door.

Josh Colson, who headed the grievance committee, stood at the lectern. Every seat in the hall was filled, and miners stood along both walls.

“We’ve got to stand together!” Josh was saying. He banged the lectern with his fist, and a murmur of agreement filled the hall. As the door creaked shut behind Elaina, he glanced up, his pause drawing the miners’ attention. The room calmed to a quiet hush as the men realized a woman had entered the room.

“What’s she doin’ here?” Jacob Vorhees wanted to know.

“Yeah,” another took up the cry, “who invited her?”

Elaina’s heart pounded. This was going to be even harder than she’d imagined.

“She’s Chuck Dawson’s girl. Git her outta here!” a burly, bearded miner demanded.

“She’s probably a company spy!” one of the younger men chimed in.

Elaina gripped the folds of her jersey dress, feeling close to tears. Why had she come? They weren’t going to listen to anything she had to say. All she was doing was making a fool of herself. She bit her lip and turned to leave but stopped when she heard Josh Colson’s voice above the noise.

“Wait a minute, boys, wait a minute. I know Miss McAllister, and so do a lot of you. She wouldn’t have come here without a darned good reason.” The men quieted a little. “I vote we hear what she has to say.”

“He’s right,” Mike O’Shannessy and some of the others agreed.

The room began to still as the men settled back down.

“You got somethin’ to say, Miss McAllister?” Josh asked.

Elaina swallowed hard. Taking a deep breath, she marched up the aisle to the front of the room. When she reached the lectern, Josh smiled at her reassuringly. With her heart pounding so hard it thumped against her ribs, she turned to face the men. It was one of the toughest things she’d ever had to do. Her palms were damp, her knees shaking, and the remaining color had drained from her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” she said hesitantly. “I just thought . . . I mean . . . some of you knew my father.” When she heard the men’s muttered acknowledgment, a bit of her courage returned. “If you worked for him before he took on Redmond and Dawson as partners, then you know working conditions weren’t always as bad as they are now. My father was concerned for the miners’ safety. He knew long hours only increased the risk of accidents. He kept the equipment well maintained; he didn’t believe in taking shortcuts that might cost lives.” Before she could continue, a flash of light at the back of the hall signaled the opening door. The tall man who entered settled his broad-brimmed black hat a little lower across his brow. His pale blue eyes held hers, and for a moment she couldn’t remember what she wanted to say.

Why had he come? she wondered. Did he intend to stop the meeting? She forced her mind back to the words she wanted to say, and her heart resumed its uneven beat. The rumble in the crowd ceased as she picked up her train of thought.

“I came here today because I wanted you to know that I think what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to achieve, is right. You deserve a day’s pay for a day’s work. You have the right—no the obligation—to insist on safe working conditions.” The men shouted their approval. Elaina stiffened her spine and went on, determined just this once to speak her mind. “My father believed that—and so do I!”

She glanced toward the back of the room and saw the tall man lean nonchalantly against the wall, his big .45 resting ominously on his hip. His cool look infuriated her. How dare he come here and try to intimidate these men!

Lifting her chin, she leaned over the lectern, searching each man’s eyes. “And if you have to fight for what you know is right, then so be it!”

Cheers and whistles of approval thundered through the hall. Josh Colson grinned at her and squeezed her arm. Gathering her skirts, she headed back up the aisle to the entrance, hearing the miners’ applause and feeling shaky all over. Dan Morgan, his eyes unreadable, flashed her a mocking smile and touched the brim of his hat in a tiny salute as she passed through the door.

She closed it firmly behind her, then collapsed against the heavy planking. She’d finally done it! She’d taken a stand at last. She knew her father would have been proud. Then her mind echoed the last words she’d spoken: “If you have to fight . . . so be it!” and her feelings of accomplishment fled with the icy breeze.

God, what had she done? She’d only meant to give them a little moral support, tell them how her father would have felt. She certainly hadn’t meant to encourage violence. It went against everything she believed in.

Pulling her cloak around her, Elaina headed into the wind, thinking again of her words and of the terrible conditions at Blue Mountain. In the anthracite region a man a day lost his life to the mines. Maybe violence
was
the only way to change things.

With shoulders not nearly so straight, she walked back to the hotel, allowing herself for the first time to think what Henry Dawson and, more important, Chuck Dawson would do when they found out. The thought sent shivers down her spine.

Chuck was a domineering bully, even more unreasonable than his father. The older Dawson, she’d learned, acted only out of self-interest, a desire to retain the wealth and power he’d accumulated over the years. Henry had been kind to her, she grudgingly admitted. He said she was like the little girl he’d always wanted and never had.

The younger Dawson enjoyed hurting others. His cruelty was what disturbed her most about becoming his wife. She’d seen the way he treated the miners, even the young boys who worked at the mine. She remembered the time one of the little nippers, boys who worked the doors that controlled the air flow into the shafts, had fallen asleep at his post. Chuck had taken the seven-year-old deep into the mind, removed the boy’s lamp, then left the child alone in the darkness all day and late into the evening. When the child had finally been brought to the surface, he was so frightened he could barely speak.

Remembering the incident, Elaina shuddered and hoped she could make Chuck change his ways.

* * *

Dan Morgan stayed at the hall only long enough to make his presence known and make clear the threat it implied. He had a meeting scheduled with Dolph Redmond and the two Dawson men. They were going out to the mine. He hated the role he was playing, but he knew it was the only way he could discover what was going on in Keyserville.

Outside the hall, he untied the black gelding he had hired, mounted, and headed toward the hotel. He smiled as he thought of the woman at the hall. She was Dawson’s fiancée, yet she’d taken a stand against him. Morgan was only a little surprised; even as a child, she’d fought for the underdog. And he’d learned years ago that it was the quiet ones a man had to watch. Their fire was all underneath, where it counted. Elaina had come through for the men today, just as she had for him nine years ago.

Morgan nudged his horse into a walk, ignoring the curious glances of the people on the street while his thoughts remained on Elaina. What a beautiful woman she’d become—slim straight nose, ruby lips a man could damn near taste, petal-smooth skin. She was just a little taller than most of the women he knew, but not too tall. And you couldn’t miss that figure. High, round breasts, tiny waist—he could easily imagine her long, slim legs and gently curving hips. And that hair. Long and thick, the color of sable. Red-brown highlights glinted every time she moved. Damn good thing he was almost a married man. The last thing he wanted was to seduce the woman who had saved his life!

“How’d your little show go this morning, Morgan?” Chuck Dawson was waiting on the front porch of the hotel as Morgan rode up.

“Just the way you planned,” Morgan answered, “but those boys don’t look as if they’ll be easily dissuaded.” Dawson clenched his fist, and Morgan felt a chill as he thought of the man’s hands on Elaina’s high, full breasts.

“Then we’ll just have to use a little more persuasion.” Dawson mounted his horse. “We’re meeting my father and Dolph Redmond out at the mine.”

Morgan nodded, and the two men headed out of town just as the meeting hall began to empty. The surly looks on the miners’ faces clearly spoke of the outcome of the meeting.

“You better watch your back, gunman!” a voice in the milling crowd threatened as Morgan rode past.

“Git outta town and leave decent folks alone!” another voice called out.

Morgan wished there were some other way to handle the situation. He hated to go against the very men he wanted to help. If there were any other way . . . but there wasn’t. In the long run, this would be best for all concerned.

Riding in silence, they continued down the street and into the countryside, while familiar landmarks—a shabby old miner’s shack, a covered bridge he used to play beneath— brought memories of his early years. But the memory he couldn’t forget was the night before he left Keyserville: October 1, 1869.

He and Tommy had been trapped in the darkness for more than four days. The candle atop Ren’s cap had gone out in the blast, and Tommy’s had lasted through only the first eight hours. After that they’d existed in total darkness. Ren’s overalls and shirt were soaked clear through from the water dripping off the ceilings; his skin had become soft and loose, chafing constantly against the rough material of his clothes; and the dampness from the earth beneath him seeped into every bone in his body. He was stiff and sore, and the bruises he’d received from falling timbers throbbed unbearably.

“Ren? Do you think we’re going to die?” Tommy’s small voice sliced through the blackness like a knife.

“Don’t be foolish,” Ren answered, wanting desperately to keep up his younger brother’s spirits. “Just keep tapping. I’ll start again when you get tired.”

“I’m so cold . . . and I’m scared.” Tommy groped in the darkness until he finally found Ren’s hand.

Ren held it tightly. “They’ll find us soon, Tommy. I’m sure of it. You just have to be brave a little longer.”

“I’ll be brave, Ren, I promise.”

The despair in his brother’s voice tore at Ren’s heart. “I know how hard this is, Tommy—Papa would have been proud of you—but we can’t give up.”

“I won’t give up, Ren.”

“Good boy. Now just keep tap—What was that?” Ren stiffened, straining to hear the sound.

“What?” Tommy listened, too.

Tap, tap, tap
.

“That!” Ren felt his way blindly across the narrow chamber to the opposite wall of the cavern.

Tap, tap, tap
.

“There it is again. And it’s close!” Ren remembered how his heart had leapt. “Tap back a few times,” he’d instructed. “Then help me dig.”

Tommy had tapped a rapid staccato. Even in the dark, Ren had felt his brother’s smile.

As the men rounded a bend in the road, Blue Mountain came into view, a quick reminder that Ren was now Dan Morgan. Redmond and the elder Dawson waited near the front gate.

The mine looked much the same as he remembered: a huge mountain of earth, scarred and debauched. Deep holes penetrated the sides of the mountain as if it had been endlessly violated, and rusting mine cars stood forlornly beside the main entrance. Narrow iron tracks ran into the hillside awaiting the heavy, rumbling burden of the loaded coal cars.

It all seemed just as forbidding as he remembered, only now, as they moved inside the main shaft, he could see that the timbers needed replacing and the equipment clearly showed a lack of maintenance. Morgan’s mind again filled with grisly images of the past—days buried in the dank, cold depths of the mine, men dead and dying, screaming in agony beneath the fallen timbers. He had trouble concentrating on the conversation.

“Well, whaddaya think of ’er?” Henry Dawson wanted to know.

“Sorry, ’fraid I don’t know much about mining,” Morgan lied. “Looks dark and cold to me.”

Dawson laughed. “That’s what all you Johnny-come-latelies say. Takes a real muckman to work in them tunnels!”

Morgan thought how right the man was. He’d given up mining nine years ago, except for some financial investments, and never regretted it once.

As they moved a little deeper into the tunnel, Morgan could smell the dank air moving out of the shaft. All was quiet, the miners still in town. Only a few mules brayed from their dark stable beneath the earth. Mules were a necessary part of the anthracite mining industry. They pulled the heavy coal cars up and down the tunnels, moving the coal to the surface. Some of the animals were never allowed to see the sunlight. It interfered with their ability to work in the suffocating depths.

Morgan had heard of mules who went crazy when they saw the light after being kept for years in the tunnels. They wouldn’t return to the mine no matter how much they were beaten. Morgan understood their feelings. Sometimes mules were smarter than men.

The four men left the mine and headed for the company’s headquarters building to continue their discussion. Redmond wanted to hear the details of the morning’s events. Morgan filled him in, careful to omit any mention of Elaina’s passionate speech. As Morgan took in Chuck Dawson’s sallow complexion and dark brooding eyes, he wondered what the man would do to Elaina when he found out.

The meeting continued for more than an hour, each man offering grisly suggestions as to how Morgan should handle the problem of the miners. A walkout would be far too costly. Losing one day was more than they’d planned on. And giving in to the miners’ demands was out of the question. It was far cheaper to pay Morgan’s fee and keep things the way they were. Morgan assured them he’d take each idea into consideration. Secretly, with every new and deadly suggestion, he damned the three to hell.