“Shouldn’t you be on your way?”
Her eyes snapped up to his. “You said the rifle isn’t loaded.”
“I’ll meet you in the yard with a crate of ammunition and show you how to load it and shoot it. You’re not leaving here till you hit what you aim at.”
She groaned. Learning how to shoot could take the rest of the day. Was it really necessary if she didn’t go beyond shouting distance? But she left to do as he said. A shooting lesson might give her an opportunity to bring up forming a new partnership with him.
By the time she’d retrieved the rifle from the other tunnel, Morgan was already in the yard with a crate at his feet. Taking the weapon from her, he said, “This is a Spencer repeating rifle. The magazine holds seven bullets, and this lever needs to be pulled after each shot. After the seventh, you will need to reload.”
He demonstrated as he spoke, but he was still shirtless and her eyes kept drifting away from the rifle in his hands to that thin mat of hair across his upper chest.
Then she heard, “You try,” and gave him a blank look. He actually chuckled.
She said, “It’s not funny. You could have dressed more appropriately for this lesson.”
“When I’m going right back into the mine? Do I need to repeat myself?”
She sighed. “Once more, please.”
He did, and she paid better attention this time, so when he said, “Your turn,” she was able to load the magazine. “Now, positioning is very important.”
He started to move behind her, but she turned so she was still facing him and quickly said, “I’d like to discuss the partnership you mentioned last night.”
“I told you it’s over and done with, so, no.”
“Humor me, please. At least tell me the particulars of it.”
“There’s no point.”
“Please.”
He stared at her so long she almost said, “Forget it,” but then he said, “Charley suggested an eighty-twenty split in my favor, since he knew he wasn’t going to be able to contribute much. But I was feeling generous the day we came to terms, so I lowered it to seventy-thirty.”
She frowned. “Thirty percent instead of half doesn’t strike me as a fair partnership.”
“When he did so little digging? You really want to take that stand?”
She pointed out, “Would you have been able to mine the silver on his claim without his agreement?”
“No, I can’t lawfully mine beyond my stake in the yard. If there weren’t restrictions, one person could claim everything.”
“So this was all extra silver for you, even if you did have to split it. That’s quite a contribution from him, if you ask me.”
“No one’s asking you. And I did consider that, but the fact is, I didn’t need to dig another mine. There’s more silver on my claim than I’ll ever dig out, and it’s a hundred percent mine. So the extra silver was just a minor incentive for me to accept Charley’s deal.”
“It was his idea?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Like I said, he was pretty desperate that day.”
“What about the money you said he hid? Is it worth the effort to search for it?”
“He had around thirteen hundred left after our first joint-venture load paid off. It was eighteen hundred, but he insisted on giving me a quarter of that for his share of the supplies and the use of my smelter. It was too much, but I couldn’t talk him out of it. I think his pride got in the way.”
She was incredulous that her father’s 30 percent share amounted to so much money. “That thirteen hundred will at least let my brothers stave off the banker for a few months, if I can find it. But what I don’t understand is why my father didn’t send that money to my brothers right away. Or write them when he went to town again.”
Morgan looked like he might be frowning, but she couldn’t be sure because of his mustache. “Because he didn’t go back to Butte after he filed his claim. He got accosted the day he filed it. I found him roughed up in an alley struggling to his feet and got him out of town fast. He was bruised up pretty bad, but otherwise okay. He didn’t know who did it, but before the men attacked him they asked him where his mine was located and he refused to tell them. I don’t doubt it was a couple of Sullivan’s men.”
“But how did they even know about it?”
