West of Washoe (10 page)

“Hold on. I’ll get rid of whoever it is.” Tuttle hurried down the narrow hallway to the back door.

Fossett heard mumbling voices. A few seconds later came the sound of the door closing and a bolt being shot.

Tuttle reëntered the room, looking more flushed than before. “That was Jorge, a Mex who works the lift at the mine. Gunderson sent him to tell me that Ross, the mine inspector, came up in the bucket pretty roughed up three hours after Gunderson took him underground. Ross was loco, waving a pistol, yelling for Gunderson.
Ross took off on foot toward Virginia City. Hasn’t been seen since.”

Holladay muttered something under his breath. “I can’t depend on you to do a damn’ thing right!” he exploded. “That’ll go into the newspaper or Ross’s report. In either case, it’ll sink the price of your stock.”

“Gunderson sent word Ross can’t prove we deliberately did anything to hurt or kill him,” Tuttle babbled.

“Did Ross get any ore samples?” Holladay asked.

“Jorge didn’t say.”

“Any experienced miner could tell if rock or dirt has been salted with gold particles, or if the bluish silver ore has been deliberately mixed with clay…physical proof fraud’s involved in the Blue Hole.”

Fossett saw the mine owner’s Adam’s apple work up and down in the soft flesh of his neck. “I’ll find out from Gunderson,” Tuttle said in a strained voice.

Holladay got up and shook his great, shaggy head as if to rid himself of the contamination in the room. “In the meantime, we’ll stay on schedule for our next hold-up of the Washoe Express. Wells, Fargo has a coach departing Virginia City for Sacramento and San Francisco next Tuesday noon. I’ve made arrangements to ship small, easily portable gold ingots in the strong-boxes, listed as the property of a passenger. My hired guns will hit the coach before it reaches Strawberry. It’s costing more and more to find men with guts and competence who’ll take on the shotgun guards protecting the shipments. Costs continue to rise, but costs to Wells, Fargo have risen even higher.” He moved to the hall tree and retrieved his hat. “Tuttle, in a few days, I’ll be in contact to follow up on this mine inspector business. Good day, gentlemen. When next we meet, I trust all of us will have better news to report.”

Tuttle hurried to open the front door for him, and the big man strode outside to his waiting coach.

Through the beveled glass front door, Tuttle watched his guest depart. Finally he stepped back into the room with an audible sigh of relief. “I know men who’d give all they own just to have Ben Holladay cross their thresholds…hoping some of his luck would rub off on them. Did you hear him say he’s going to hire me as his western division supervisor once he acquires the Pioneer Stage Line?”

“He’s a man to be reckoned with, all right,” Fossett said, draining the last of his sherry and easing out of the armchair. It wouldn’t be long before he’d have to take a spoonful of laudanum. He wondered if his wound was becoming inflamed.

“I mean, the man is worth several fortunes!” Tuttle gushed. “And he came up from nothing…one of seven kids of a Kentucky farmer. Made it all on his own. His Overland Mail and Express stretches from Atchison, Kansas to Montana, Denver, Salt Lake, and up into the Oregon country.”

“I’m well aware of his fortune,” Fossett said, draping his coat over his shoulder and bandaged arm. Tuttle’s toadying irked him.

“Besides being sole owner of the country’s largest stage line,” Tuttle went on, “he owns sixteen steamers on the coast, has a couple of slaughterhouses and grain mills, whiskey distilleries, and who knows what else. I’ll bet even he doesn’t know what he owns.”

“On the contrary, I’d bet he knows
exactly
what he owns. How do you think he got where he is?” Fossett said. “By paying attention to details, that’s how. Did you notice how much interest he took in what you’d done with this Gilbert Ross?”

Tuttle was staring into space, evidently still awestruck.
“Why do you suppose a man like Holladay wants more? Why’s he so intent on acquiring the Pioneer Line?” He followed Fossett down the hallway to the back door.

The editor paused, his hand on the brass bolt. “Men like Holladay are driven to excel. Ingrained habit from childhood…from their first break and their first taste of success. They’re slaves to their own ambition, addicted to wealth and power like a chink to opium.” He slid back the bolt and opened the door.

“That Ben Holladay is a ruthless son-of-a-bitch!” Tuttle said in an admiring tone. “I could do a lot worse than hitch my wagon to his fortunes.”

Fossett turned to him. “Did it ever occur to you to wonder why a man that rich would need the money we could get for worthless mine stock?”

“Ben told me ninety-five percent of his assets are tied up in real property…horses, coaches, land, buildings, equipment. He needs untraceable liquid capital to fund this project to bring down Wells, Fargo.”

“With all that collateral, he could obtain huge bank loans…unless he’s already overextended.”

“What?”

Tuttle finally began to listen.

“In the newspaper business, I hear lots of rumors. Some of those rumors say Ben Holladay is riding for a financial fall…that his whole empire is teetering on the verge of collapse because his reach exceeded his grasp. Buying too much on credit, forcing competitors out of business with cut-rate fares and low prices for his goods.”

Tuttle stared at him blankly.

“He has the mail delivery contracts because he used his ready cash to buy off Congressmen. His creditors are also demanding cash, and I hear he’s mighty short
on specie. I’ve learned to give only half an ear to rumors. But usually where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Nothing to it. Ben Holladay could buy and sell the whole of Virginia City without batting an eye.”

“Have you actually seen his financial records?” Fossett could hardly wait to be rid of the both of these men. But first, he had to take enough of their money to see him through the rest of his life. He was tired of slaving for a living, only to die someday in poverty.

“It’s obvious enough to me the man is a multi-millionaire,” Tuttle insisted, his cheeks glowing, blue eyes blazing defiance.

“ ‘All that glitters is not gold,’” Fossett quoted as he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Gil Ross squatted on a sandbar at the edge of the Carson River and scooped water into a wide, shallow miner’s pan. He swirled the water around and around, stirring a handful of coarse black material. With each rotation, he deftly flipped some of the water and rock particles over the edge of the pan until only a cupful of water remained. Little by little he sluiced the dirty water and lighter grit out until a residue of fine gold particles had sunk to the bottom.

“Pretty good color,” he muttered aloud to himself as the sun shone on the dully glinting streak. “And from a small chunk of ore, at that.” He stood up with a groan, stretching his sore back and leg muscles. “Got to get into condition,” he said.

Setting the pan on the gravel bar, he knelt beside it to rake out the remaining residue of rock and mud with his fingers. He touched the tip of his forefinger to the wet gold. Some tiny flecks of yellow metal adhered to the ball of his finger. He held it up. “So this is what men kill and rob and cheat and scheme and give up their homes and travel thousands of miles for…amazing,” he breathed, scraping the remainder of the gold dust into a tiny, black velvet poke. He shoved it into his pants pocket. Then he removed two more fist-sized chunks of ore from the pocket of his new corduroy jacket, having replaced the coat ruined in the mine shaft. Holding them in the sunlight, he took a small magnifying glass from his other pocket and examined the ore.

“Just like I figured,” he said aloud. Even without the glass, he could detect the gold particles had been driven into the dark quartz with some force. The pattern was the same—each of the tiny, individual pieces had penetrated to various depths, leaving a detectable path of entry. “Huh!” He slid the glass back into his coat pocket. “Blasted in there as neat as you please, probably with a shotgun.”

He’d crushed two hunks of ore to wash out the gold they contained, and he’d retained two intact just as he’d removed them from the mine. If the gold in this rock had occurred naturally, and it’d come from a large ledge that had the same concentration throughout, it would assay at more than $2,000 to the ton. A nice lure for investors. But he was convinced the gold in this rock was no more a natural phenomenon than the gold in his teeth.

He stooped to wash the pan, wetting the toes of his new shoes in the process. His old, worn out boots were still in the Blue Hole Mine, unless some miner had found and thrown them away or was wearing them.

Striding back toward town, he stretched out the sore muscles in his legs and buttocks. It would take a few days for his ordeal in the mine to recede in memory so that it didn’t disturb his dreams, as it had last night. It wasn’t the first time he’d been disoriented in caves and mines, but no one had ever purposely tried to make sure he could never find the way or means to get out. This reaction to the murder attempt would pass. Meanwhile, what should he do with this evidence that the mine had been salted? Maybe he’d have a talk with John Rucker, to see if any of the miners on the other shift had any thoughts about Gunderson. No doubt the foreman had acted under orders.

Should he give the evidence of this salted ore to Martin Scrivener, or reporter Sam Clemens? Since Rucker had revealed that Frank Fossett, editor of
The Gold Hill Clarion
, was a third owner of the Blue Hole, this would only add fuel to the feud between his two friends on the
Enterprise
and Fossett. Damned if this wasn’t getting complicated.

Besides recording this in his report, he had no idea what to do next. Most of the people in town owned at least some mining stock in some kind of mine. The printed certificates representing these shares were given freely as gifts among friends. As near as Ross could tell, there was no intent to defraud. Almost any stock for mines in the area had potential value. It was only a matter of waiting to see how much value. But what he’d uncovered was fraud on a grand scale that could ruin many investors.

It was a long walk to the river and back, and he was thirsty. He decided to stop at the Blind Mule for a beer, to give himself time to ponder these things. The real reason was to have a look at Angeline Champeaux, the flesh-and-blood version of the girl in the painting above the bar. Was she the woman who’d ridden the stage? Maybe it was just her hairstyle that made her look different.

Although only mid-morning, he found her dealing blackjack at one of the gaming tables. Two other women in the room were serving drinks and food, but his eye immediately caught the brown-haired woman. She shone like a lamp in a dim cellar. One look told Ross this was the woman in the painting, the belle of the Comstock, the independent, high-priced courtesan, who named her own price and her own terms.

Ross went to the bar, ordered a beer, and sipped it as
he watched her from a distance. The man at her blackjack table finally gave it up as a bad job, tossed down his cards, and left. Ross sidled over.

“Interested in a little game to pass the time?” she asked, smiling at Ross as she shuffled. Then she stacked and cut the deck on the green baize cover.

“Sure.” He straddled the tall stool.

She dealt him a card, face down, and one for herself as well, then flipped each of them a card, face up. He had a four of clubs showing, she a nine of diamonds.

“Hit me.”

She placed another card on his stack—the six of hearts. She added the deuce of spades to her own hand. “Dealer showing eleven,” she intoned.

Ross peeked at his hidden card—a jack of clubs. He placed two silver dollars on the table. “I’ll stand.”

She deftly flipped up her hole card—the queen of hearts. “Twenty-one.”

Ross showed his total of twenty and she raked in his silver.

“Again?”

He nodded, cringing, since he’d just lost what amounted to half of a miner’s daily wage. But everyone in this town was free and easy with money. Why should he be different? Because he had to live on his salary, that’s why. And the government didn’t count gambling losses as a travel expense.

She dealt and he bet, trying to outguess her. This time he won and was back even.

Two more games followed and he lost both, putting himself down $5. “Enough for me,” he said, pushing back from the table. The mid-morning crowd was light. Since no one was waiting to gamble, he said: “You were the lady on the Washoe Express the other night coming in from Placerville.”

She looked at him, and recognition dawned in her eyes. “Yes. Sorry I didn’t place you right away, but I don’t usually study my customers. How’s your leg?”

“Only a few scratches from stray buckshot. Thanks to the whiskey in your flask, it’s healing fine.”

“I didn’t thank you for having the nerve to defend us.” She smiled at him and he felt as if he’d been enveloped by a sudden burst of sunshine. “That whiskey drummer was useless.”

Ross nodded, slightly embarrassed.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t very much company for you,” she went on. “But I was exhausted. Been awake for twenty-four hours before I boarded the stage.”

“Don’t know how you managed to sleep, with all that excitement.”

“Once we got clear of them, I was confident the driver and you and the guard would keep us from being stopped.”

“Cool nerves,” Ross said admiringly. “The way we were being slung around inside the coach, I thought the driver might run us off that narrow road into one of those cañons.”

She laughed. “Well, we made it, and I find I can sleep well when I’m moving, especially if there’s a storm outside. By the way, my name’s Angeline Champeaux.” She extended a slim hand.

“I know. I’m Gil Ross,” he said, taking the tapered fingers, noting the perfect manicure. A woman with her hands on display had to have them immaculate. He envisioned the rest of her on display, but shoved the thought from his mind.

“Gil, it’s nice to see you again. With thousands of people in Virginia City, chances are slim of running into the same man twice.” She looked over Ross’s shoulder. “Unless it’s somebody like Sam Clemens.”

Ross caught a whiff of rank cigar smoke and knew before he turned around the
Enterprise
reporter had walked up behind him. “Sam, it must be nice to sleep late every morning and hang around saloons in the middle of the day, not having to work.”

“You misjudge me, Gil,” Sam replied. “I’m working, gathering news. Just came from watching part of an autopsy, and then attended an inquest. Put me in mind of my own mortality, and brought on a powerful thirst.” He had a foaming mug in hand.

Ross chuckled. “So you two are acquainted?”

“Sam and I originally arrived in town about the same time,” Angeline replied.

“Angie’s too high-toned for me, but she does pass along some news to help fill a column or two.”

“At least you don’t have to make up those stupid hoaxes any more,” she said. “Like that thing you wrote last year about a whole wagon train of immigrants being massacred by Indians.” She made a wry face. “And that story about the petrified man.”

“Probably not the two best ideas I ever had,” Clemens acknowledged. “A lot of people took those seriously. No sense of humor. But when I first started at the
Enterprise
, there wasn’t much going on here. Duller than paint. Some days I had to let my imagination run free to fill a column.” He chuckled, puffing his cigar. “Not any more. Town’s been mighty lively for months. Everyone goes armed, so there’s an inquest ‘most every day.”

“Better take care one of them isn’t yours,” Ross said, thinking of their previous conversation about a possible duel with Frank Fossett. He decided not to mention anything in front of the woman.

“Now there’s more going on than Scrivener has room to print,” Clemens continued. “Flush times. Money as
common as dust. Everyone considers himself a millionaire. Brass bands, banks, hotels, big quartz mill cleanups, hurdy-gurdy houses, gambling palaces, political powwows, street fights, murders, riots. Everything is competing for space in the paper…stage hold-ups, stock fraud. All the folks who own little hole-in-the-ground mines are trying to bribe me to write a line or two about their likely looking ore, or how their ledges are very similar to those in the Ophir…” He shook his head. “Virginia City has become an amazing place. Prices for town lots are going sky high. As an active, concerned citizen, I considered joining one of the volunteer fire brigades, but don’t have time for all that spit and polish and parades. Besides, I’d rather enjoy this rarified air than breathe smoke…except for these.” He held up his cigar.

“Sam, you rattle on too much,” Angeline said. “What you need is a woman to calm you down.”

“Is that an offer?”

She rolled her eyes in mock despair. “Sam and I are like brother and sister,” she explained to Ross.

“Unfortunately,” Clemens said.

A concussion shook the floor and rattled glassware on the backbar.

“That was either an explosion, or one of your frequent earthquakes,” Ross said, now rising from his stool and glancing to see how far he was from the door.

“Underground blasting,” Angeline said. “Nothing to get concerned about. Happens several times a day.”

“That’s the sound of money,” Clemens said. “When they get through hollowing out these mountains, Washoe will collapse as flat as this floor. But I don’t reckon it’ll happen this week.”

“Is your blackjack table open?” a bearded man asked.

Ross and Clemens moved aside.

“Have at it,” Ross said.

The man sat down on the stool and pulled out a rawhide poke.

“I’ll see you gentlemen later,” Angeline said, shuffling her deck.

Ross and Clemens nodded to her and moved away. “Tell your boss I’ll be down to see him at the paper this afternoon,” Ross said. “We live at the same boarding house, but he keeps uncivilized hours, so I never see him there.”

“Right.”

Ross drained his beer and set his glass on the bar. He started back toward his boarding house to work on his report.

Halfway there, his sore muscles were complaining so much he felt like a rusty machine when he moved. He stopped at a Chinese bathhouse and soaked his bruised body for a half hour in a wooden tub full of steaming water.

Feeling limber, clean, and relaxed, he pulled on the tough tan canvas pants and white cotton shirt he’d bought after his sojourn in the mine the day before. This town was not like San Francisco—no one dressed up. Miners, barmen, merchants, and everyone else seemed to dress for the weather and for comfort. Except for the very rich, clothes didn’t denote the social status of the citizens.

Back in his room, Ross sat down to work on his report. He listed all the mines he’d inspected, along with the depths of their shafts, the tonnage of the extracted ore for the past six months, how many ounces per ton were extracted and smelted into ingots. He drew a rough map of the area, locating all the mines, large and small; he would add a more professional map later.
Then he launched into a description of the mountains, with Mount Davidson as its principle peak.

This mountain is composed mainly of what miners called “country rock”, their name for the common syenite that forms the mass of the mountain. On the east side of the mountain, the common rock is propylite, of volcanic origin. Between these two common types of rock lies a series of fissures containing the Comstock deposits. In general, this series of fissures is about four miles long and from one hundred to fifteen hundred feet in width. These rents were caused by an uplifting of the earth’s crust, which had then shattered, the uplifted crust falling back while steam and hot clay continued to be forced up into the rents, carrying up the precious metals.

Fragments from the edges of the ragged chasm on the east side fell back into the opening and, sliding down the smooth slope of the syenite, blocked the fissure from closing. Some of these fragments are massive—one thousand feet long and four hundred feet in thickness. These still rest in the vein, the ore, quartz, etc. having formed about them. The layers are stratified, and the ledges are broken and irregular, underlying each other. In places are found detached patches and masses of gypsum and carbonate of lime. The ore contains native gold, silver, some rich galena and antimony, and a few rare forms of silver in small quantities. Also mingled with the mass of ore are iron pyrites, copper pyrites, zinc blend, and a few other minerals. The chasm in which is formed the Comstock lode was doubtless at one time a seething cauldron. As the digging continues and greater depths are attained in the mines, not only are great quantities of hot water found, but the rock itself is in many places sufficiently hot as to be painful to the naked hand. The east wall of propylite of the vein is very jagged and uneven, while the less disturbed west or syenite wall of the rest is quite regular, descending to the
eastward at an angle of thirty-five to fifty degrees, being throughout quite smooth and covered with a heavy coating of clay.