Whistler in the Dark (15 page)

What else? Mr. Spaulding had seemed annoyed to find Emma studying his map, and had looked through his papers nervously before addressing her. He had gambling debts.
Gamblers get angry when they lose
, Mr. Troxwell had said.
A man in debt is a desperate man
, Tildy had said.

Emma chewed her pencil. She couldn't imagine why Mr. Spaulding would bring her and Mother all the way to Twin Pines, then try to drive them away. But she did have a good idea where to look for the answer. “Look in the bird's eye—” Dixie John had mumbled, before Blackjack interrupted him. That part, at least, finally made sense. Bird's-eye
box
. If Mr. Spaulding was hiding secrets, they were no doubt locked in his storage box made of bird's-eye maple.

Emma rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling. How was Dixie John involved? What connection could a Confederate veteran have with a land speculator from New York? She tried to recall what she'd heard about Dixie John. He periodically headed into the hills, Jeremy had said, hoping to strike it rich in the goldfields. When his luck ran out, he drifted back to Twin Pines and looked for odd jobs. He'd been known to chop wood for goldfield widows, or dig wells—

“Oh!” Emma sat up. She considered a moment, then darted from the bedroom and thundered down the steps. She found Mrs. Sloane in the kitchen, cutting up a dead rabbit for stew meat. “Mrs. Sloane, may I ask you something? Do you own this place?”

Mrs. Sloane frowned. “I most surely do, if it's any business of yours. When my husband died, he left me enough to buy this plot and have the house built.”

“Has Mr. Spaulding ever offered to buy the land back from you?”

Mrs. Sloane snorted. “Now, why would he do that? He's got enough money troubles, from what I hear, to—Child? Where are you going?”

Within an hour, Emma had learned that most of the businesspeople in town still rented their lots from Mr. Spaulding. A few had purchased the land, but Mr. Spaulding hadn't offered to buy any of
their
land back—just the Abbotts' land, south of Tildy Pearce's farm. According to Jeremy, Mr. Spaulding had also bought back the farm north of Tildy's place. And the Pearces had paid Mr. Spaulding for the middle farm but had never received a deed to their land.

Emma was breathless by the time she plunged into the print shack. Mule Tom and Jeremy were busy concocting ink in a copper kettle, but Mother gave her a stern frown. “Emma Catherine Henderson! Didn't I scold you just last night for disappearing without letting me know where you were going?”

“Yes, but wait.” Emma held up a hand. “I have some news for you.”

It was a dubious posse that confronted Mr. Spaulding in his office later that afternoon: Emma, Mother, Mule Tom, Jeremy, Mr. Abbott, and Mr. Boggs, who had closed his store to join them. They had discussed sending someone to Denver City or Golden for a sheriff, but they'd discarded that plan. “We can't prove anything,” Jeremy's father pointed out. “All we can do is challenge the man, bluff if we have to, and hope he crumbles.” As the group filed into a semicircle in front of Mr. Spaulding's desk, Emma hoped Mr. Spaulding would crumble quickly. The whole business was twisting her stomach like laundry through a wringer.

Mr. Spaulding stood up. “What's all this?”

“We have concerns to discuss with you,” Mother said crisply, and spelled out what Emma had pieced together.

Mr. Spaulding began shaking his head before she'd finished. “That's absurd,” he sputtered. “Preposterous! I've put my lifeblood into this town, and it needs a newspaper! I
hired
you, for God's sake—although I see now that I made a terrible mistake. This is what comes of hiring women, I suppose.”

Emma decided to charge in before Mother exploded. “We don't know what this is all about,” she admitted. “But we think it has something to do with these properties.” She walked to the big map and pointed to the three farms north of town, along the creek. “This near one is the Abbotts', and you tried to buy their land back. This far one you
did
buy back. And this one in the middle is where Tildy Pearce and her husband settled. You took their money, but you never gave them the legal deed to the land.”

Mr. Spaulding's face paled, and he began fishing in a pocket—undoubtedly for the ever-present handkerchief. “I told you, I merely forgot—”

“What about my land?” Mr. Abbott interrupted. “Why did you try to buy me out? Why the farm families in Peaceful Valley, but not anyone in town?”

Sweat began to dribble down the land agent's forehead. Emma watched with fascination as dark, damp patches appeared on the front of his shirt as well. He fumbled in another pocket.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, here!” Mother slapped her own handkerchief down in front of him, then pointed at the storage box. “We think we can find the answers we're looking for in that box.”

Mopping his face, Spaulding dropped into his chair. “My private papers—I haven't—you can't—”

“Oh, yes, we can!” Mr. Boggs erupted. The short, bald storekeeper was shaking with fury. “I poured my life's savings into my store, and into this town! If you're dealing shady business, you're going to come clean
right now
!” He took a deep breath, straightening his cravat. “Now. We can do this one of three ways. One: You can open that box for us. Two: This man—” he nodded at Mule Tom, standing silent and huge at the end of the row—“can smash it open with his fist. Three: We can all sit here quietly and wait for the Safety Committee members we sent to fetch a sheriff. It's up to you. But we
will
see what you've got in there.”

For one horrible moment, Emma thought Mr. Spaulding was going to burst into tears. Finally he shoved the box toward them with shaking hands. After a moment of fumbling in his pocket, he pushed the key after it. “There. There! Are you satisfied now? You've ruined me!” With elbows planted on the desk, he buried his face in his hands.

Mr. Boggs worked the key and lifted the lid. Mother and Mr. Abbott leaned close as the storekeeper began passing papers around.

“Here's the deed to Tildy's farm,” Mr. Abbott said grimly. “Only it isn't made out to the Pearces. It's made out to James Spaulding.”

Mother squinted at what appeared to be a letter. “Listen to this. ‘I regret that I cannot immediately commence the trip you propose. I am under contract with the Lost Eagle Mining Company until the end of July. At that time, I shall travel to Twin Pines to survey the river land you described.' The letter is signed ‘Professor J. B. Swallow, Mineralogist.'”

“Hey, I know him!” Jeremy exclaimed. “He came through here once before. He took me rock hunting. He knows a lot about rocks and minerals.”

“Especially gold, perhaps?” Jeremy's father reached into the box and extracted a lumpy felt pouch. After peering inside, he upended it over the table. Emma gasped as half a dozen golden nuggets—one almost as big as a hen's egg—tumbled out.

Jeremy grabbed one and examined it. “It's not pyrite—fool's gold. It's real,” he said. “Where did you get these, Mr. Spaulding? Professor Swallow said there likely wasn't any gold around Twin Pines, beyond the dust in the creek. And that's not worth the time it takes to pan it out.”

“I think I know,” Emma said. “Those nuggets came out of the well on Tildy Pearce's farm—right? You hired Dixie John to dig a well on that land before you sold it.”

Mother nodded. “You no doubt hoped a well would help attract a buyer.”

“And Dixie John found the nuggets when he was digging the well!” Emma folded her arms. “That's why the well was never finished. Tildy said the well on her place was only half dug.”

“What did you do then, bribe Dixie John to keep quiet?” Mr. Abbott's voice was cold as January. “So you could buy the rest of us out cheap?”

“I
had
to!” Mr. Spaulding's red-rimmed eyes pleaded for sympathy. “Don't you see? I'm in debt! I owe
thousands
of dollars—”

“To who?” Mr. Abbott snapped impatiently.

“To Blackjack,” Emma said. “Am I right?”

“I don't know how it happened,” Mr. Spaulding quavered. “Just a few friendly poker games … and then I had to wager more, to earn back what I'd lost … I've
never
had such bad luck before. That's all it was, bad luck!”

“Blackjack began pressuring you for the money,” Mother guessed. “Then—then you stumbled onto a gold strike. So you tried to cheat the Abbotts and their neighbors off their land, before they found out about the nuggets. But … why attack the newspaper? Why bring me and Emma all the way out here, just to scare us back to Chicago?”

“It wasn't personal! Don't you see?” Mr. Spaulding begged. “I could have paid Blackjack easily if Twin Pines had developed as planned. But it didn't. Once I knew about the gold, the best I could hope for was that everyone would get discouraged and move away. It's happened in dozens of towns all over the territory. Then I could have mined the gold quietly, and no one would have been the wiser! But everyone was
hammering
me to hire a publisher. I put it off as long as I could. Finally, when I got your letter, I thought I was safe. I thought, if I just hire a woman …” His voice trailed away—probably silenced, Emma thought, by the sparks flying from Mother's eyes.

Those eyes narrowed to slits, “You thought that if you hired a woman, the paper would never see its first edition. Is that it?”

Mr. Spaulding wilted before her gaze. He planted his face back in his sweaty palms.

“Spaulding!” Mr. Boggs snapped. He waited until the other man looked at him. “This is how it's going to be. We are keeping the nuggets, the letter, and the deed until a sheriff arrives. You may own Tildy Pearce's farm on paper, but we don't think a judge will see it that way. As for your gambling debt, well, if you don't get carted off to jail for cheating the Pearces and terrorizing the Hendersons—and I hope to God that you do—then it's up to Blackjack. But until the authorities arrive, members of the Safety Committee will see that you don't leave this building. Is that understood?”

Spaulding nodded. He looked dazed.

Mother sailed from the room, and the others followed. Emma lingered to take one last look at the man who had caused so much trouble. “I'm not a bad man,” he whispered, and nodded at the beautiful bird's-eye map of his dream. “I truly wanted that.”

Emma struggled to find appropriate words. “Excuse me,” she said finally, crisp and cool. “I have a newspaper to help publish.”

On Monday morning, when Mr. Abbott drove his wagon to the print shop at half past eleven, the Hendersons, Mule Tom, and Jeremy were waiting outside.

“This is my brother Sam,” Jeremy's father said, introducing the man who rode with him.

“Sorry I haven't had the chance to make your acquaintance sooner,” Sam Abbott said. “I've been busy looking over the lay of the land around here.”

“How do you like what you've seen so far?” Mother asked. She held a cup of coffee in her hands and squinted as she looked into the sun—or maybe it was just the puffy, dark rings beneath her eyes that made it appear that way.

“I like it well. Real well. That's what I'm fixing to tell the people waiting for my report.”

“Well, we have something to send along with you,” Mother told him. If Emma hadn't been so tired, she would have danced a jig as she watched Mule Tom disappear into the print shack, then reappear a moment later with an armful of crisp, neatly folded newspapers.

“It's finished.” A broad smile spread across Jeremy's father's face.
“The Twin Pines Herald.”
He picked up one of the newspapers and looked it over—the headline banners, the news articles, the editorials and advertisements, even the children's news and ladies' advice column. He nodded at Jeremy, who beamed.

Sam Abbott smiled, too. “These look fine, ma'am. I'm sure the folks back home will be pleased to get them. I'm obliged.”

“Our pleasure.”

Jeremy scrambled into the wagon, and the others watched the Abbotts rumble back toward the main street to wait for the stagecoach. No one moved. “I'm going to bed,” Emma said finally. Her eyes felt sandy and her muscles ached. She'd never stayed up all night before. But after only a few plodding steps, she turned around. “Hey, Mother? Mule Tom?” Her face stretched into a smile. “We did it.”

Mother pushed a straggle of loose hair from her face. “Yes, indeed,” she said softly. “We did it.”

C
HAPTER
14

S
URPRISES