“Morgan calls it slag. It’s the by-product of the smelting process. It actually has value because it’s used as gravel in making glass and concrete, but Morgan doesn’t have time to lug it to town. He makes more focusing on his silver.”
The very length of Morgan’s disposal area attested to how much work he’d done here. It was piled six feet high where it touched the cliff, sloping down some ten feet into the pathway. Beyond the slag pile the gully narrowed further. She could see little flat land, so she couldn’t imagine her father wanting to go that way to hide his money. And she didn’t think he’d go north either, since Texas was up that way. But she still had the rest of the mountain to search.
Heading back to the front yard, she asked, “Will you be returning to Nashart when, or rather if, Morgan does?”
“There’s no if about it,” he said with a slight blush. “My sweetheart, Emma, is there.”
“She didn’t mind that you took this job so far away from her?”
“It’s not that far, and I go home to visit every other month. But Emma did mind, until I told her how much I was earning here. We never thought I’d make enough money to buy us a house. I worked for Zachary, Morgan’s pa, and he would’ve let us use one of the cabins he had built in the hills for his married ranch hands, but Emma is a town gal. Thanks to Morgan, who pays me more in one month guarding the camp than I earned in a year herding cattle, we’ll have our own place in town when we get hitched.”
“You didn’t want to help him mine?”
“Hell no, I’m a cowboy, won’t even touch a pick. He offered me a share in his mine, even tempted me by mentioning that Emma might appreciate the extra muscles I’d gain mining.” He snorted softly. “Emma likes me just fine as I am, so I refused.”
Violet smiled, but couldn’t help wondering how many muscles Morgan had gained here doing all the work himself. “When is the wedding to be?”
“When Morgan’s ready to go home.”
“What if he is never ready?”
“Then when Emma gets tired of waiting. But Morgan’s going home. He misses his brothers and his folks too much not to. He never intended to dig out every bit of silver up here, just enough for what he wants.”
“What’s that?”
“Not for me to say.”
Apparently she’d broached a subject he wasn’t allowed to discuss, because he tipped his hat to her in good-bye and went on to open the pasture gate again. When he whistled, his horse came immediately, but so did Caesar and one of the mules. She ought to find out where Morgan kept the carrots. Caesar didn’t look too pleased that he wasn’t being offered one, even butted his nose against Texas.
But she wasn’t going to get sidetracked when it was imperative that she spend her time looking for the money that could save her and her brothers from penury. Morgan never had told her how much money was hidden, but she would bet he knew the exact amount, since he’d done the mining and the selling of the silver. She wondered what else he wasn’t telling her. But she supposed she ought to let him know she was going outside the fence to continue her search, so it was time for another confrontation. Oddly, she felt a sense of anticipation, as if she were looking forward to it....
Chapter Twenty
VIOLET CHANGED INTO HERprettier pink blouse and found a matching ribbon for her braid, determined to look a little more presentable before approaching Morgan. But she was actually out of breath by the time she reached him in his mine. It was a good thing she’d brought a lantern, because when she’d entered the tunnel she could barely make out the light at the end. Her father’s tunnel was barely a scratch compared to this one.
“Good Lord, this is hundreds of feet long!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you dig side tunnels closer to the entrance, instead of just this long one?”
“I plan to. But first I wanted to find out how far in this lode goes. Expected to reach the end of it long ago, but haven’t yet.”
He didn’t turn around to talk to her, just kept swinging his pick at the wall of rock in front of him. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his back glistened in the light of the two lanterns hanging on the support beams behind him. She was fascinated by the rippling of the muscles in his arms and back. He was a primal vision of man carving the land to his whim.
He broke the spell he’d cast when he asked, “Did you come in here for a reason other than to annoy me?”
“Don’t be nasty. I wanted to ask your advice on where else to look for Papa’s hidden money—or, more precisely, what to look for other than disturbed dirt. I checked your yard, even the mule pasture, and found nothing.”
“He definitely wouldn’t hide it there. My gals made him nervous.”
The remark brought a smile to her face as she recalled that her father didn’t like to ride horses, either. She and her brothers did, but their father did all his gadding about in a carriage or coach. He must have hated having to ride a horse out here in the West.
“Anything else I should know before I venture beyond the fence?”
“It’s sure not going to be lying out in the open. It might be buried under a large rock or stuffed inside a hole in a tree trunk.”
“Up a tree?”
“No, a hole in the tree that’s close to the ground. Charley wasn’t agile enough to climb trees. But figure on anywhere that’s a few minutes’ to a few hours’ walk from here in any direction. I was in the mine about four hours the day he told me he’d hidden the money. So you’ll need to learn how to shoot a rifle and take it with you. Go get Charley’s.”
He finally turned around. She couldn’t help noticing that his chest was glistening with sweat, too. She knew she shouldn’t be staring at his naked upper body, but she couldn’t help it.
