“Yes.”
Then the person in charge should have the entire town’s best interests in mind, right? “Do you think Erik can handle it?” From what Mia had seen, Erik wasn’t quite there. The people seemed to really like Seth—trust him.
“Erik can handle anything, and he’s a decent guy, which matters.” Seth maneuvered the truck through a narrow, gated entrance lined with massive wooden posts holding aVolk Miningsign about nine feet off the ground.
Yeah, but Seth was a natural leader. Even though she didn’t trust him, not yet anyway, the town did. “Why don’t you take over?” she asked.
“It’s Ben’s silver mine, and Erik is Ben’s son,” Seth said flatly. He pointed to a galvanized metal building probably built in the fifties. “That’s our mill, where we take the raw material and process it before sending it to refining.”
She circulated through the quick research she’d done about mining the other night on her laptop. “You don’t refine?”
“We do.” Seth drove farther and pointed to a massive smelter stack. “Most mines can’t conduct their own smelting because of EPA regulations, but we’re grandfathered in since we’ve done it for so long.”
“What’s smelting?” she asked, captured by the process. She hadn’t made it that far in her Google search.
“That’s when we take the refined material and actually make a finished product. We make silver bars.” He looked around, scouting the area. For what?
“You also mold silver handcuffs.”
Seth grinned. “Yeah, but just for Lost Lake, and only for tradition’s sake. We don’t make them for anywhere else.” He pulled the truck in front of a hand-cut cedar building weathered by at least a century. Several lifted and dirty trucks were parked in the lot. “My office is in there…and over to the right is the entrance to the mine.”
Mia craned her neck to see a building no bigger than a couple of outhouses set into the rock. “The entrance is just that small shack?”
“Yep. The lift is beyond the door, and you head on down. There’s another entrance over to the north where we take in the dump trucks and other equipment that’s too large for this lift. This is just for people.”
He jumped out and crossed around to assist her out of the truck, his hold firm until her feet touched the ground.
Three men came out of the building, all dirty and wearing tattered flannels. The man in front stopped short, his shoulders shooting back. Everyone froze. A heartbeat later, he rushed Seth.
Seth pivoted and shoved Mia behind him.
The men impacted each other with a sound like thunder. Seth smashed to the side and into the truck. Metal buckled with a loud crunch.
Mia sidled away and reached for the gun at her waist.
Seth turned and captured the guy in a headlock, lowering his head to hiss, “You’ll want to do this later, Barnby. Much later.” A hard shove had Barnby smacking into the other two men, who quickly righted him.
Barnby whirled around, his face red, his eyes blazing. “What the fuck are you doing, Volk? You took this cop to bother the Fulsomes after their daughter was murdered?”
“Back away, asshole,” Seth muttered as he kept his body between Mia and the threat.
“No. That girl’s death is on your head, and you know it,” Barnby spat.
“I’m aware of that,” Seth said quietly. “Now go home and get a handle on yourself.”
Indignation ripped through Mia so quickly that her breath caught. “Mandy’s death is the killer’s fault, not Seth’s. The mere thought that you expect him to protect you all from everything is not only ridiculous but unfair.”
Seth jerked, surprise crossing his face.
The shock infuriated Mia further. Had nobody ever stood up for the guy? She elbowed him in the side to angle herself in front of him. “We all know I could arrest you for battery, but since Seth probably won’t press charges, I’m not going to waste my time. Though you need to understand if you bother him again, you’ll have me to deal with.”
Barnby stepped toward her, and she angled her right leg back, settling into a fighting stance. Oh, she’d love to knock this guy on his ass.
Tobacco-stained teeth flashed when he snarled. “You’re as much to blame for the little girl’s death as the Enforcer here. Don’t worry; you’ll get yours.”
Who were these people? They actually admitted that Seth was the enforcer of whatever the mine wanted? The idea gave her a headache. “I’ll get mine? You dumbass. How so, Barnby?” she asked.
“Oh, you’ll find out. When your lapdog isn’t behind you.” The man’s belly rolled over his pants, but his chest was broad, and his arms muscled.
