Sweet Boundless (12 page)

Not in peace. There could be no peace. Because of him, Cain was dead. And because of Carina. Because of what they’d done, coming together in a sham marriage. And if he wasn’t careful, she’d make him forget that. She’d lure him with her talents, her beauty, her vulnerable strength.

He swallowed the onions and reached for more. Another sausage went down in four bites. Then he grabbed snow and washed his hands and face. He tugged on his gloves and turned. Carina had filled the pot with snow and was rubbing it clean as it turned to mush. Her fingers were raw.

“Just stow it in the wagon, Carina. Let’s get moving.”

She dumped it out and did as he said. Sam lapped at the greasy snow, having already devoured two of the sausages. Quillan whistled, and the animal reluctantly left his feast and jumped to the wagon bed. Quillan kicked the fire out in the snow and ground the last of the coals into the muddy circle.

He unfastened the rough lock for the horses to pull the short distance to the next downward slope; then he climbed into the wagon where Carina waited silently. He took up the reins and urged the horses forward.

Between shoveling and rough-locking, it was dusk before the lights of Crystal came into sight. The blizzard had been negligible as mountain storms go. Soon the road would be snow-packed until May, each storm building onto the base already laid. But for now, the road was mostly clear as they neared the Diamond of the Rockies, which was more a scar and blight than any gem.

Carina was half collapsed against him with her arms around the dog. She must have stayed awake last night while he slept to be so worn-out now. But then, she wasn’t used to the rigor of sitting on the box all these hours. And she’d toiled alongside him for some of it.

His conscience weighed as heavily as the hardtack and jerky he’d forced down for supper. She hadn’t been hungry. Quillan glanced over, then turned away. He didn’t want to be mean, didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted her to see the way it was.

He half carried her into the house over her protests. He didn’t want her help to unload, didn’t want her working beside him. During his first half dozen trips inside the door with her supplies, she stood in the center of the room and watched. The next she was curled fully clothed on the bed. When the last of it was deposited in the cold back corner, he tugged a blanket over her and went to sleep in his wagon in the livery. By morning he’d be gone.

SEVEN

A dream worth undertaking must be nurtured. But I worry. Crystal has not been kind to my dreams.

—Carina

“GOOD MORNING, MR. MAKEPEACE.”

“Good morning to you, Mrs. Shepard.” Alex Makepeace removed the derby from his head. “Your enterprise is progressing nicely, I see.”

Carina smiled her satisfaction at the new walls that connected her home to Mae’s and formed a fine long room behind her own. “It’s finished except for the fireplace and, of course, the tables and chairs.”

“I heard the men worked night and day like gnomes.”

Carina laughed. “Joe Turner says they can’t wait for their wages in trade. The sooner they finish, the sooner I start cooking.”

“Sounds reasonable. Especially as the fare in other places tends toward . . . monotonous.”

Carina laughed again. It was easy to laugh with Mr. Makepeace. “Eh, what I make will not be monotonous—I promise you that.”

He appraised her cheerfully. “No, I believe you. Any word from your husband?”

She felt her spirits sag but refused to show it. “Communication is difficult up here. He’ll come when he comes.” He’d left before she woke the morning after their trip to Fairplay. She didn’t know to where or how long he’d be gone. For all she knew, he’d never come back.

“Well, I was hoping to discuss some things with him. Regarding the mine.”

Carina hesitated only a moment. “Mr. Makepeace . . . which is my husband’s mine?”

“Which?” He turned. “You mean you don’t know?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know he had one until you came. He keeps his business to himself.”

“Well, I . . .” He smiled. “Would you like to see it?”

“I would.” Carina unwrapped her arms. “Let me get my coat.” She hurried inside. The coat hung on the row of new hooks along the wall by her bed. She tugged it free and shrugged it on, thinking of Quillan. Every time the fur-lined collar touched her neck, she thought of him buying it for her.

She sighed. There was no sense pining. While he was gone she must make the best of it. Anyway, it was less painful than when he was there. She pushed open the door and rejoined Mr. Makepeace, her curiosity piqued. They walked to the livery, passing through the crowd with greetings and smiles. Mr. Makepeace was already known, his amiable nature and expertise winning him a place at any table.

Alan Tavish met them at the door. “Good mornin’, lass. Are ye here for a horse?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m going to see Quillan’s mine.”

He glanced behind her to Alex Makepeace. “Are ye, now? Touring the New Boundless?”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“Aye. ’Twas Cain Bradley’s mine. He and Quillan were partners after the old Boundless failed.”

“That’s not likely with this one,” Alex Makepeace said. “Not anytime soon anyway.” He went into the stall that held a large steeldust stallion while Alan Tavish saddled Daisy.

Carina greeted the mare with an affectionate stroke down her muzzle. Then she rode with Mr. Makepeace outside the bustle of town to the even more hectic bustle of a working mine. The noise was cacophonous, and as they dismounted, Carina put her hands to her ears.

“Tie this over.” Mr. Makepeace handed her a heavy woolen muffler.

She did so, and it muted the din somewhat. The hillside was hollowed out in a bowl shape and Carina remarked on that.

“That was the surface ore first discovered. This much was quarried before I came. Now we’re sinking a main shaft inside the shaft house here.” He led her to the wooden structure that enclosed the central area of the bowl. “We’re following the vein of richest mineral.”

She could see the heads of men in the shaft some twenty feet down. The shaft was lined with wooden timbers, but the floor was the raw stone they must remove. Just outside the shaft, a machine puffed and chugged with a hose sinking into the gaping mouth. Suddenly a horrific din erupted from the shaft, and again Carina clamped her ears in spite of the muffler.

“That’s a Burleigh drill,” Makepeace hollered. “This part’s the boiler.” He waved to the machine outside the shaft. “Makes the steam that drives the drill at the other end. I can show you better in a side drift.”

“Drift?”

“A horizontal tunnel.”

He took a candle and led her out of the shaft house and into a tunnel at the far end of the bowl. “This is an exploratory tunnel to ascertain the extent of surface ore.” They proceeded into the tunnel and the darkness closed around her even as it had in the shaft of the Rose Legacy. The candle Mr. Makepeace carried was hardly sufficient.

“Why don’t you carry a lantern?”

“Fire. A candle overturned extinguishes itself. A lantern can mean disaster. With the amount of timbering underground, an oil spill and flame can take the lives of men more swiftly than anything else.”

“Do they burn so fast?”

“Underground the oxygen is limited. In the confined space, a man will suffocate almost instantly in the presence of fire.”

Carina shuddered. This was a dark and dangerous world she entered. They walked beside a pair of rails on ties, and she saw a man pushing an ore cart loaded with long steel cylinders. Stripped to the waist, the man plodded past her with a nod.

“He’s taking the dulled steels to the blacksmiths outside to be sharpened.”

As they continued, Carina felt a thunderous pounding reverberating in her chest. The air was thick and humid with steam and white dust, the heat unbearable. How did men work in it? She peeled off her coat and held it against her. They advanced, and the pounding was now edged with the ringing of steel on stone. Carina felt suffocated, and her ears ached with the thundering din.

“One thing I want to talk to your husband about is converting the steam boilers to compressed air. Not cheap, but well worth it.”

She nodded vehemently. Just ahead a group of men worked the drill that was mounted vertically on a steel column. One man angled it against the wall; the other worked a wrench, turning the steel as it pounded again and again. The men had rags stuffed in their ears. Even so, how could they bear it?

“That’s the last hole in this pattern. They’ll take it in six feet, then put in the giant powder and pull the entire face. And they’ll do it in one tenth the time of the best double jacking team.”

“Double jacking?”

“We used to drive the steels by hand. One man held while the other two hammered. Many still do it that way, operations too small to afford the Burleigh.”

So her husband’s mine was successful. That was good, she supposed, but the work still seemed torturous to Carina. The noise and dust. And the machine itself looked anything but safe.

“Better clear out now. They’re gonna set the charge.”

“Why don’t I see the gold?”

He looked at her a long moment. “Because, Mrs. Shepard, we’re not mining gold.”

She raised her brows.

“It’s silver and lead, mainly. Some small percentage of gold. Just like Leadville. Some operations have gold in white quartz formations, but not in this mine.”

They walked out, and she turned her face up to the cold September air, breathing deeply. Her ears felt battered and numb; her head spun. The hammers and files of the blacksmiths rang, and she shook her head. “I wouldn’t make a miner.”

He smiled. “It seems your husband feels the same way. He told me he wouldn’t interfere, but I did think he’d pay some attention at least.”

“Does he need to?”

Makepeace shrugged. “I suppose I can make all the decisions without him. But I’ve never worked that way before. My backers in the East don’t know quite what to make of it either.”

Carina waved a hand. “Who does? Quillan goes his own way.”

Again she found him appraising her. The questions were in his eyes. Why does your husband leave you? Why doesn’t he stay? Why won’t he work his own mine? What does he run from? But he didn’t voice them. He was a gentleman.

Carina watched while the Burleigh drill was quieted and the men came out of the tunnel. The explosion sent clouds of smoke and fumes into the air. Carina felt the ground shake under her feet and instinctively caught Mr. Makepeace’s arm. Mining was a violent business.

He steadied her. “Are you all right, Mrs. Shepard?”

She let go his arm. “Yes. Thank you for showing me.” She understood better why Quillan didn’t stay and work the mine. If he could make money with his wagon and team in the open air and the quiet of the road, why would he choose this?

“Shall I see you back?”

“No.” She took Daisy’s rein. “I think I’ll ride up the gulch.”

“Lovely day for it. I can hardly believe it’s snowed twice.”

Carina looked up into the startling blue sky, then to the snowcapped peaks and the slopes below. The autumn colors were almost gone, the white-barked aspens bare of leaves among the dark pines. But it was still beautiful, and she knew it would be so even when it was all cloaked in snow.

“Good-bye, Mr. Makepeace.”

“I really wish you’d call me Alex.”

Carina smiled and pulled herself into the saddle. She had no intention of using that informal address. She’d been through it already with Berkley Beck . . . and Quillan. And look what that had gotten her.

Alex Makepeace watched her go. He considered himself a reasonable man, a solid Presbyterian, raised in Maine, Harvard educated, a man of his times—or maybe ahead of them—especially in his field. He’d excelled in engineering from an early age, showing both aptitude and interest.

This opportunity to develop a mine from start to finish was a feather in his cap. The investors, Harrold and Sterk, along with the several small partners, one of whom was his uncle, were watching his success closely. At this point in his career, the decisions he made would build his name and credentials and, to a great degree, determine his future. One wrong step and a man could undo years of diligence.

And there was his grandmother, who had moved into his father’s home and raised him after his mother died. She had told him never to meddle in people’s personal affairs, especially those between a man and a woman. Sage advice. She always held that half the world’s conflicts would be settled in a day if everyone else stayed out of it.

He watched Mrs. Shepard’s slender back, straight yet willowy, as the mare carried her away. Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight, but her hair seemed to shimmer, and she had an otherworldliness that made him pause. Shaking his head, he turned away. It was purely coincidence that he’d walked into the livery that dawn three weeks ago and seen Quillan Shepard sleeping in his wagon.

A man had a right to his privacy. And pondering that situation was not the way to ingratiate himself; that much Alex knew.

The wind blew lightly in Carina’s face as she rode along the creek up the gulch. Though the air had a chill with the sun shining, her night in the blizzard with Quillan seemed an anomaly. Three weeks had passed, and she could almost imagine he hadn’t been there at all.