“Yeah, he did. But I was already feeling sorry for him after hearing why he was so desperate. He was willing to die to help his family. Caring about kin that much is something I can understand.” He suddenly stood up. “More dessert?”
“After a visit to the mine.”
“You don’t want to wait until morning?”
“Does daylight reach into the mine?”
“Not very far,” he admitted. “Grab a lantern, then.”
She picked up the one on the table and he reached for one on the wall, then led the way across the yard to the large hole in the cliff.
Inside the tunnel, she noticed that the support beams were as tall as Morgan. Anyone taller than him would have to duck.
“Why is the floor so smooth?” she asked.
“Because I chiseled it smooth.”
She gasped. Lowering her lantern and looking at the floor more closely, she saw brighter streaks in the rock. “Is that silver we’re walking on?”
“The tunnel runs straight through the lode, which was reached after six days of digging. It’s not pure silver, it never is. It needs to be processed, which is what the smelter outside is for. But it’s a rich lode, eighty percent silver with a sprinkling of copper and gold.”
Eyes wide, she realized all her problems were solved! Those bright streaks in the rock weren’t just on the floor, but on the walls and the ceiling, too.
“Your pa’s stuff is here,” Morgan said when he stopped, not quite at the end of the tunnel, though close enough for her to see the back wall in the lantern light. “I used his horse to carry him to the doctor and I didn’t bother to retrieve it after I was told he died, so the stable has probably sold it by now. This is everything else Charley had with him when he came up here.”
She moved around him and saw a bedroll, a rifle, two saddlebags filled with mining tools and cooking gear, everything he would need to survive up here alone. But he hadn’t ended up alone, he’d ended up making friends with a bear. Her father’s valise was there, too. She dropped to her knees to open it.
Behind her, Morgan said, “He never talked much about home. He seemed ashamed to admit that he’d been rich at some point and wasn’t now, but it was obvious from his manners and the way he talked that he was a gentleman. I would have got around to hiring someone to take this stuff to his boys—he never mentioned their names—I just didn’t see any reason to hurry when there’s nothing of value here.”
“My brothers are Daniel and Evan. You could at least have let them know he’d died.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I want to deliver news like that. They’ll hear from me soon. I was taking their address to Doc Cantry this trip so he could send them a telegram, but I found you there instead.”
Violet was only half-listening to Morgan as she looked inside her father’s valise. The lantern she’d set down didn’t offer much light in the dark tunnel, so she couldn’t see much of what was in it, but she reached in to pull out a few things. A small handful of letters rested atop the pile of clothes, letters tied with twine, all of them from her brothers, which was where Morgan must have found their address.
She pulled out one of her father’s jackets and held it up to her face. The smell of it brought tears to her eyes. She was surprised she even remembered that scent after all these years, but it had been his favorite cologne.Oh, Papa, why were you so careless with your inheritance that you had to resort to these drastic measures?
“Are you crying?”
She dabbed the cuff of the jacket against her eyes before saying, “Of course not. Thank you for leading me to Papa’s belongings. It’s incredible that he was able to dig all this out at his age.”
“He didn’t—I did.”
She glanced around. “I don’t understand. Thisishis mine, correct?”
“Not exactly.”
She was too excited about all the silver in the mine to want to argue with him, so she merely pointed out the obvious. “He staked the claim—you let him—so now it belongs to his heirs. And you don’t need to help with the mining anymore, I can get workers up here to do—”
“Stop right there,” he growled furiously. “I dug this tunnel for Charley only because I felt sorry for him. I sure as hell don’t feel sorry for you. And you damn well aren’t deciding anything about what I dug out. Your pa didn’t find the silver here, I did. He broke every rule putting a claim down this close to mine. If I hadn’t agreed to partner with him, he would have had to move on somewhere else. If you try to bring workers up here, I’ll damn well close the book on that partnership and go to the claim office and get his claim invalidated.”
“You’re a horrible man!”
“No, I’ve got a heart of gold, just not for you!”
She’d never seen him this angry. It terrified her because she barely knew the man or what he was capable of in this state. He’d been doing all the work for someone else when he had his own mine? No one could be that generous. He had to be lying, everything he’d told her had to be lies. He’d even admitted that the only way he could get rid of Charles was to kill him!
Without thinking it through, she reached for her father’s rifle and pointed it at Morgan’s chest. “You killed him, didn’t you? I only have your word that you found him unconscious. Everything you’ve said could be lies to cover up what really happened.”
