Unbroken Hearts (15 page)

    
Cal sighed. "OK, Doc. Honestly, I
was about to throw away the dang sling."

    
Rutherford's mouth tightened. "Right.
Do as I say and your arm will be normal before it rains again." His eyes
studied the knotted pine flooring. "The wounds we can see are the easiest
to heal."

    
Cal didn't respond to the strange
muttering, but it seemed the man was full of good advice.

Chapter 13

 
   
Trailing his mules, Roy Easton rode into the bustling
mining camp. He'd slept the previous night along the river, south of the Lazca
mine, where he was pleasantly lulled by the gentle sounds of prairie grasses
whispering in the wind.

    
He'd wanted trout from the river for
dinner, but instead he cooked beans and warmed Sarah's leftover biscuits, owing
to the runoff from the mining operation. Fish were dead and rotting, washed up
along the banks. And the stench and the yellow, brackish water had persuaded
him to camp a healthy distance from the water.

    
This morning he led his string to a shack
that served as mine foreman's office, occupied by a fellow named Howard
McHenry. McHenry's red hair made him easy to find among the herd of men. When
Roy spied him, clad in his dusty trademark overalls, thumbs hooked under his
suspenders, he was loitering not twenty paces from the gray office. A fat
calico cat lounged in the dirt nearby, nursing a posse of kittens. As usual
McHenry was arguing and cursing, this day with a crusty-looking old miner.

    
Roy bent his head to listen in on the
conversation.

    
"Lord, why'd Dullen bother me with
you? I'm running a copper and silver mine here!" McHenry thrust his hands
onto his hips and grimaced. "He thinks I've got time to burn pussyfooting
with every lousy greenhorn he sends up." His voice faded to a grumble.

    
Roy had seen McHenry in foul moods before,
and he'd hoped today would be different. Just as he was beginning to think
about turning around and trailing his mules back home, Howard caught sight of
him and stepped around his problem man.
 

   
He jerked his hand and snarled. "Well, here's a bright spot. I see
you've brought the mules I need, Easton." He waved at the stranger.
"This here's Mr. Peck from Denver. Peck, this here's Roy Easton. Peck's a
metallurgist," he explained, "Dullen brung him up to do
prospectin'." Then he spit a crooked grin, and his mop of hair bounced.
"Sell Mr. Peck a couple of them mules too. He's gonna need 'em to haul his
freight," he laughed.

    
"Pleased to meet you Peck," Roy
drawled as he extended his hand to a man with eyes set deep beneath bushy gray
brows.

    
Peck shook his hand and cast a glance over
Roy's shoulder at the mules. "I'll take your best pair, son," he
said. "I'm fixing to prospect a ways east of this place. After that Dullen
says to make a trip south to Wounded Colt, a place called Mineral Creek,"
he muttered.

    
McHenry's gaze locked on Roy. "Ain't
your ranch there?"

    
Roy's expression was flat, but his blue
eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Thereabouts." He rubbed his chin.
"Heck, nothing shiny in Mineral Creek. All the gold was panned out years
ago." He gave the man his best naïve smile. It was the truth; he and Cal
and the hands panned, and it produced only than a few flakes for their efforts.

    
"If there's placer in the creek it
can signal deposits nearby -- gold, silver or copper." Peck spread his
legs in an authoritative stance. "Er, you raise mules?"

    
Roy threw back his head and let out a peal
of laughter. "No, lessin' these get a mind to drop young 'uns," he
said when he caught his breath. "I won these critters from two fools, in a
poker game when they couldn't cover their bets. I'm here passing along my good
fortune and making a quick dollar. Cal –
 
my brother—and me raise beeves. Cattle keeps us plenty
busy." He chortled again as he imagined what his brother Cal would say to
the idea of running a "mule ranch".

     
Peck laughed heartily. The man
turned out to be a rollover sale, but McHenry drove a hard bargain, and Roy
caved, but he was preoccupied as he turned the mules over to their new owners. He
was still thinking about what Peck had said about Mineral Creek.

    
McHenry brushed a bit of dust from his
sleeve and faced the man from Denver.
 
"Peck, we'd better get a move on if'n we plan to get to
Crowley River. Daylight's burning."

    
"Right," replied Peck. He turned
to follow McHenry, then glanced at Roy." Maybe we'll see each other down
at Wounded Colt," he muttered with a farewell wave.

    
Roy was looking at the mules. "How
long you gonna be prospecting around here?" His eyes caught Peck's and
held them.

    
"Just today. Then I'm headed down
south."

    
Roy peered at McHenry. "I know the
Crowley. I 'spect I could sashay Peck over there."

    
McHenry was delighted. "I'd be mighty
obliged!" He eagerly began pitching Roy's guide service to Peck. "Roy
Easton is the man you want protecting your backside. Them Easton brothers are
the best shots this side of the territory. Ain't a sane man alive who'd draw on
Roy.
 
An' they've already taken
down any insanes." McHenry's smile stretched up to his grateful green
eyes.
 

    
Peck smoothed his hands over his worn
shirt. "OK Easton, but I can't pay you gunslinger wages."

    
Roy put on his best sheepish grin.
"It's on the house, Peck. Heck, I overcharged you for the mules."

    
An hour later Peck had loaded gear onto
his new pack mules, and they were ambling their way out of camp, making their
way to a site several miles east of the Lazca mine.

    
"We can cross the river here where
it's low," said Roy with a wave in the general direction of the
water.
 

    
"Bad idea."
 

    
"Come to think on it, you're right.
Closer I get the more it stinks." Roy eyed the water suspiciously. It was
a murky yellowish color, even worse than the area further south, where he'd
found the dead fish.

    
Peck frowned. "See the dead trees and
grass." He pointed along the banks.

    
Roy lifted his brow curiously. "Yep.
It wasn't near so bad last time I was up this way. Over a year ago," he
stated. "On the ride up there was fishkill along the river."

    
"Wouldn't eat those fish if I was
you." Peck sighed and looked toward the horizon, resting his arm on the
pommel of his saddle. "Mining is a dirty business. Can't be helped.
Poisons in slag piles are carried by rainwater to the river. Last time I came I
took samples", he explained. "I ran a Marsh test when I got back to
Denver. Those heaps are full of arsenic poison. Kills damn near every living
thing. Damn good reason to steer wide and cross north of it," he added
tersely.

    
Roy gazed at the trails of hard gray that
covered the ground between the waste and the river. He hadn't understood
everything Peck said, but the barren landscape told the story. He guessed the miners
simply headed upstream and hauled the clean water for drinking and bathing. But
what did people living downstream do? He'd passed a few abandoned homesteads on
the way up.

    
Soon the two men settled into a steady
pace, drifting across flat plains. Peck carried a crude map to guide them to
the site once they arrived at the north fork of the Crowley River. At their
slow rate it was at least a three-hour ride, and that gave Roy plenty of
thinking time.

    
When at last they drew close to their
destination Peck stopped and surveyed the banks of the river. He unfolded the map
and peered at the rough markings, tracing the lines with his bony finger. Roy tried
to look nonchalant, as though he had little interest in what the man was doing.

    
Roy knew a bit about gold digging. His father had panned gold and was even
half owner of the Lazca mine before Dullen bought them out. Roy and Cal always assumed their father had searched for
signs of gold on their property. Now it occurred to Roy that maybe his papa hadn't
really looked. Or maybe looked but didn't want to see. The man had preferred
ranching. He'd always said mining was a boom or bust venture, and raising cattle was a
good and steady moneymaker, a better business for his sons.

     
Roy laughed to himself. What with
cattle diseases, rustlers, blizzards, and droughts, he'd never call the cow
punching business steady. At best it was a mix of hard work, steely
determination, and luck.
 

    
"Is it difficult to find a copper
lode?" He asked in a deliberately offhanded manner.

    
"Can be," snorted Peck.
"Almost always find gold and copper together. Sometimes a little gold,
sometimes more. Prospectors can think they've found the sure thing only to be
wrong." Peck walked over to a large reddish rock outcropping and motioned
to Roy. "Fall off and cool your saddle." He waved his hand at the
mules. "And grab that pick and hammer, will ya'? A pan, too."
 

    
Roy swung down and walked over to a mule,
unlashed the tools. He brought them to where Peck squatted and leaned them
against the rock. Peck grunted when he stood up, and Roy heard a knee crack.
Peck took up the pick and swung at the rock until he he broke off several
chunks. Peck was a short, compact man, but he had the swing
of a lumberjack.

    
Peck paused and wiped the sweat off his
brow with his shirtsleeve. "This rock outcropping is called a
gossan." He reached behind his back for the hammer, caught it between his
fingers, and swung it around to pound one of the rocks into fine dust.
 
He collected the dust in his cupped
hand and poured it into the pan, walked down to the river and dipped it in the
water. Swirling the mix, he looked at the deposit and murmured under his
breath. Then he straightened and wiped his hands on his dark cotton shirt.

    
Roy pulled a plug of tobacco from his
pocket and bit off a chew. "You're like my grandma. She used to read tea
leaves in a cup," he chided with a bold lazy smile.

    
"Hmmm . . . maybe it ain't much
different." Peck grinned. Then he put some of the rocks into a bag and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll send these for assay
later," he mumbled, as if he were reminding himself.

    
Roy spit and thought about the rock
outcroppings on the ranch. He and Cal often climbed them to get a look at the
herd. It was always easier to count steers from a higher elevation. He made a
mental note to look at those rocks more carefully when he got back home.
 

    
"Mind if I take a couple of rocks?
Er, my little sister Emily collects pretty rocks. Say, what do you call
these?"
 

    
It wasn't a buffalo-goring-in-the-backside
lie. He figured that Emily would be his little sister-in-law soon enough, and
if she didn't have a rock collection, well, he just started one for her.

    
"Take all you want." Peck
laughed. "You can tell her this is hematite. Rich in iron."
 

    
Peck loaded the bag of rocks onto a mule.
Then he waded into the water downstream from the gossan and dipped his pan into
the silt. He shook the pan. Water leapt over the sides.
 

   
 
"Dullen ain't paying
you enough? You need to make a little extra panning today?" Roy's eyes
teased.
    

    
"No," Peck threw back. He'd
decided Roy Easton was a likable fellow. Being taken by the young man's charm
and easy manner was natural, like falling off a log. "Getting rich takes
hard work for most."

    
Roy laughed. "Yep.
 
I expect cattle ranching is about one
of the hardest ways."
 

    
Peck hauled himself out of the river and
staggered up the bank, fighting against the weight of his soaked overalls. The
two men continued to chat amiably as they packed the tools and started back to
the mining camp.