She had looked over the assay reports in the office while her husband was off talking to Gunther Hammersmith. They were probably plotting something together, as men liked to do. Jessica didn’t care. Let them play their games. She had found out what she wanted to know. She knew how the ore assayed out, and her brain could calculate the income per ton even faster than Munro’s could. It was easy to speculate on how much the mine would be worth in the long run.
It had been a productive day in other ways too. Hammersmith had bitten hard on the hook, and now she had him on the line if she needed him. Pulling him in would be no challenge at all. When the time came, with Hammersmith’s help, she could make herself a very rich woman indeed. All she had to do was wait for the right moment….
Jessica became aware that Munro was looking at her from the stagecoach’s other seat. There was no suspicion in his eyes, only longing.
She smiled at him. She could throw him that bone anyway.
It was all he was going to get.
Chapter 22
Since keeping the corpses of the dead men on display in front of the undertaking parlor didn’t seem to be doing any good, Frank told Claude Langley to go ahead and bury them. Frank and Dog had gone over the scene of the gun battle with the men and hadn’t found anything to indicate who they had been working for. Riding in the stream the way they had prevented Dog from backtracking them. The man who had slit the throat of the surviving outlaw must have also ridden in the stream, because Frank couldn’t find his track either.
Frank’s frustration grew over the next few days as it seemed that his visit with Munro wasn’t paying any dividends either. That attempt on his life he had halfway expected didn’t happen. In fact, things in Buckskin were pretty peaceful again. The rush of newcomers into town finally seemed to be slowing down. The settlement was still crowded, and there were drunken brawls in the saloons, fights over poker games and women, and the occasional robbery. But nothing happened that Frank couldn’t take care of easily with help from Catamount Jack and Clint Farnum.
The new deputy seemed to be settling right in. He had made some friends, including Becky Humphries, who seemed to have given up her interest in Garrett Claiborne now that Diana was spending so much time with the mining engineer. Frank went by Dr. Garland’s place every day, and knew that Claiborne was getting more and more restless. He was anxious to get back out to the Crown Royal and go to work, even though the new equipment for the stamp mill hadn’t arrived yet. There was still rebuilding work to do, and Claiborne wanted to supervise it. The doctor’s orders were firm, though. Claiborne still had some more recuperating to do.
Frank was coming out of Leo Benjamin’s store one morning, carrying a box of .45 cartridges he had just picked up, when he saw Tip Woodford hurrying toward him. The mayor’s urgent manner, plus the worried look on his face, told Frank that Buckskin’s peaceful respite was probably over.
“What’s wrong, Tip?” Frank asked.
“Got some trouble out at the Lucky Lizard,” Tip replied. “The fellas are sayin’ that I ain’t treatin’ ’em right.”
Frank frowned in surprise. “You’re talking about the men who work in the mine?”
Tip nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s crazy. You pay them fair wages, you do everything you can to make sure the working conditions are safe, you don’t expect more than an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage.”
“Yeah, but that ain’t stopped a couple o’ the boys from tryin’ to get all the rest stirred up and mad at me.” Tip pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “To tell you the truth, Frank, I ain’t sure I ought to be talkin’ to you about this, seein’ as you and me are rivals, so to speak.”
Frank shook his head. “Diana told you what Claiborne said about me.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t expect her to keep somethin’ like that a secret, would you?”
“No, I reckon not. But listen to me, Tip. My late wife and my son were the ones who built up that business empire. I had nothing to do with it. For years I was just a drifter, like that nickname somebody hung on me. It was only after my wife died that I inherited a stake in all those holdings, including the Browning Mining Syndicate. I don’t have anything to do with the running of it, and I let my lawyers in Denver and San Francisco handle all the money. As far as I’m concerned, my only real job is being the marshal of Buckskin.”
“Well, it ain’t that I doubt you…”
“Good, because I’m not in the habit of lying,” Frank said.
Tip nodded, wearing the look of a man who had just made a decision. “All right. In that case, I reckon I done the right thing by comin’ to you for help. Can you come out to the mine and have a talk with those fellas?”
“Problem is, I’m not sure how much I can do,” Frank said. “The mine’s not in my jurisdiction—”
“That didn’t stop you from goin’ after the sons o’ bitches who blew up the Crown Royal,” Tip pointed out. “And remember, there’s that old offshoot tunnel that runs all the way down here under the office. Since that’s in town, I reckon you could say that by extension, the rest o’ the mine is too.”
Frank chuckled. “That’s a little bit of a stretch,” he said, “but I can’t argue with that reasoning. Anyway, my job is to keep the peace here in town, and if there’s unrest at your mine, it could spill over down here any time.”
Tip nodded and said, “Yep, that’s what I was thinkin’ too.”
“I’ll go out there and see if I can find out what the problem is. You want to come with me?”
Tip rubbed his jaw. “Might be better if you went by yourself. Those boys might come closer to shootin’ straight with you if I ain’t around.”
“Who’s the ringleader?”
“There’s two of ’em, a couple o’ brothers I hired not long ago. Their names are Fowler. Mike and Gib
