The Ballad of Emma O'Toole (11 page)

“Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m feeling fine. You’re not to worry about me, Logan. That’s an order.”

He scowled down at her. “I’ll do my best to follow that order, but only on one condition.”

Emma’s pulse skittered. “What’s that?”

“If anything troubles you, now or in the future, promise you’ll share it with me.”

Emma felt the weight of a dangling lie. For an instant she was tempted to break down and tell him everything. But she’d come too far to give up so easily.

“That’s a tall order,” she joked. “If I were to mention every little twitch and niggle, it would drive you out of the house.”

“Try me.”

“I’m fine. Truly I am. And look, here’s the hotel. Now let’s just relax and enjoy a nice meal, shall we?”

He sighed. With her promise sidestepped for now, Emma let him escort her into the dining room. The hour was early. There were plenty of tables but when the waiter appeared Logan nodded toward a remote corner, where it would be easier to talk without being overheard. Emma sensed what that meant—his gambler’s instincts were reading her unease. Whatever was happening he meant to get to the bottom of it.

Logan studied his wife across the table. In the golden lamplight she was as beautiful as the Botticelli
Venus
and as mysterious as the
Mona Lisa
.

Something was going on behind those sea-blue
eyes. He could read it in the way her gaze flickered when she spoke, and in the restless way her fingers toyed with her spoon.

What was it? Some flirtation, even an affair? But that wouldn’t be like Emma. She had her principles, and foremost among them was loyalty—if not to him, at least to the father of her child.

Maybe that was where the matter lay.

“How’s your trout?” he asked, noticing that she’d barely picked at her dinner. “I can have the waiter bring you something else.”

“No, it’s fine.” She nibbled a sliver of the pink fish. “If I’d known we were going to dinner I’d have eaten less for lunch.”

“Let me get your opinion on something.” He launched into an account of his dilemma at the mine. He could feel the tension easing as their conversation shifted to a less personal basis.

“Either way I go is a risk,” he said. “Say, I put money into a pump or a drainage tunnel. The silver could play out and waste all the money I’ve sunk into it. On the other hand, a new shaft would be even more uncertain.”

“Is there any sign you’re getting close to water?”

He shook his head. “I’m just going by where it’s been struck at other mines.”

“Then, I’d say, as long as you’re getting decent ore, keep blasting out the tunnels. Meanwhile the best money you could spend would be on a mine geologist to look at the land, take some samples and advise you what to do next.”

“I’m guessing he wouldn’t work cheap.”

“No, but it would be a lot cheaper than a pump or a new shaft.”

“Spoken like my lovely, sensible wife.” Logan reached across the table and laid a hand on hers. He felt the slight recoil before she forced herself to relax. Yes, his Emma was up to something.

Releasing her hand, he leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been thinking about the future,” he said, testing the waters. “However it goes with the mine, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a dirty, freezing backwater like Park City. There are better places to live, like San Francisco or maybe Seattle. We could buy a nice home, maybe travel when the fancy struck us. How would you like to see New York, or maybe even Paris?”

“I’ve never been anyplace bigger than Salt Lake City.”

“I’d like to show you the whole country, Emma. Chicago, Boston, St. Louis…”

“What about New Orleans? Would you take me to see the place where you grew up?”

Logan felt the blackness like the brush of a cold hand. An image flickered in his mind—his sister’s thin bare feet, dangling a handsbreadth above the floor. Emma wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. He lifted his wine goblet and drained it. “Not New Orleans,” he said. “Any place but there.”

She stared at him. For a moment Logan feared she might ask him to explain. But she seemed to sense that she’d cracked a forbidden door.

“How long would you want to stay here?” she asked. “What about the mine? What about the baby?”

“The baby would go where we go, of course. As for the mine, I should probably work it another year or two. If it proves to be a money maker we can sell stock, expand the operation and put away as much profit as we can. When we’re ready to pull up stakes, we can sell out. How does that strike you?”

He caught the telltale flicker in her eyes before she spoke. “To be honest, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’ve never thought that far ahead.”

He reached out and captured her hand again, feeling it tremble like a bird beneath his palm.
“I know we got off to a hell of a bad start, Emma,” he said. “But we might yet make a good thing of this.”

Her gaze dropped, only for an instant but long enough to tell Logan what he wanted to know. He released her hand.

“Think about it,” he said. “Meanwhile, since I’m not going anywhere, there’s no reason we can’t take this one day at a time.”

“Thank you.” Her voice barely rose above a whisper. They finished their dinner in silence, interspersed with awkward small talk.

At least she hadn’t lied, Logan reminded himself. But Emma’s reticence spoke volumes. Until he could learn what she was up to, his hands were tied.

It was like waiting for a dynamite charge to go off.

They walked home in silence under a rising moon. Emma’s hand rested on Logan’s arm. Her fingers felt the tension through the fabric of his sleeve.

He knew. She felt sure of it. Not everything, of course, but enough to raise his guard. Tomorrow when she went to meet Armitage, it would pay to look over her shoulder. She could
scarcely imagine that Logan would have her followed, but better safe than sorry.

What if he asked her outright what she was planning? Emma hated the idea of lying to him. But what she was doing was even worse than a lie. It was a betrayal.

They had reached the Chinese bridge. Lamplight danced in the windows of the huts below. The aromas of seared duck and green onions drifted upward. Pausing, Logan glanced down at her.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Emma?”

The concern in his eyes was genuine. For an instant she was tempted to fall into his arms, confess everything and beg his forgiveness. But that would only shift the guilt. She wouldn’t be betraying Logan—instead she’d be betraying Billy John and the men in the mines.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired.”

“Then you should rest. It’ll be straight to bed for you when we get home. I’ll catch up on some reading in the parlor, so you can get your sleep.”

He spoke casually, almost playfully. But the meaning beneath his words was clear. Until things were right between them, Logan would not make love to his wife.

Was that what she wanted? A deep part of
Emma cried out like a lost child for his warmth, his protecting strength and the sweetness of their joined bodies. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to fling herself into his arms, beg his forgiveness with all the tears of her heart and be carried home to a night of tender loving.

But that would be wrong. It was better that they stay apart, so that she could keep her mind clear and focused on her plans. She’d become too comfortable, too contented with the life she was never supposed to have. She felt too enamored with Logan’s strength and the pleasure he gave her. She couldn’t let the disturbing softness she felt toward him drive her off from her purpose.

Tomorrow morning she would see Logan off to the mine. Then she would take a back route through the Chinese settlement to meet Hector Armitage at the little café. There they would plot out final arrangements for her act of righteous vengeance.

An act that would change everything.

E
mma huddled on the seat of the hooded chaise, dressed in the baggy shirt and overalls, heavy work boots and low-brimmed hat Hector Armitage had given her the day before. Her face was smeared with ore dust, her upper lip overhung with a fake moustache that made her want to sneeze. The tin lunch pail in her lap contained a boiled egg and a mutton sandwich like the ones she’d made so often in the boardinghouse. It also held two plain white candles, which were supposed to last to the end of her ten-hour shift. Right now those ten hours loomed like an eternity.

It wasn’t too late to go home. All she had to do was tell Armitage she’d changed her mind. But she’d come this far. She was bound by her vow to finish what she’d started.

Hunched over the reins, Armitage shot her a sidelong glance. “Remember, keep your head down. Don’t talk if you can help it—you can always pretend you don’t speak English. When there’s work going on, stay out of the way. Do that, and you should be fine till the shift ends.”

Emma nodded. It sounded easy enough. But her pulse was racing so fast she could barely distinguish the beats.

Even at a distance Emma could hear the hiss of steam engines and the steady thump of the ore-crushing stamps in the huge Ontario Mill. She thought about the men who worked in these canyons, ten hours a day, seven days a week, with no holidays except Christmas and the Fourth of July. How did they stand the dirt, the noise and the darkness?

When she found out, she would tell the world what it was like.

Emma’s strategy for getting into the mine depended on the row of privies that lined the back of the hoist shed. While the miners were leaving the changing room to wait for the cage, Emma would wander in from the direction of the privies, as if she’d already changed and gone to relieve herself. From there it should be easy enough to mingle with the waiting men. If she chanced to get caught, she’d be in trouble.
But since she was the owner’s wife, the foreman could do little more than turn her over to her husband.

The risk of her coming to harm wasn’t that great. So why was her throat so tight she could barely swallow?

“What about the interviews?” she asked Armitage. “Will you have time to talk with people today?”

“Leave that to me. As we agreed, you make the headline, I’ll write the story. That’s my job.”

“But it’s important that we get the article out as soon as possible. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely. Don’t worry about it.” Armitage halted the chaise at the foot of a brushy slope, below the rear of the mine. “When you get off your shift, I’ll be waiting here to drive you back to town. You can tell me everything on the way.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Good luck, Mrs. Devereaux.”

Emma dropped to the road and started up the hillside. The distance wasn’t far, but it always surprised her how fast she tired these days. Pausing for breath, she watched the buggy disappear down the road. Dealing with Hector Armitage always made her want to go home and bathe. No doubt the man was putting his own interests first. In this case, it was in his
best interest to help her, so she could trust him to do his part. For this escapade he was exactly the person she needed. The fact that Logan despised the reporter made him all the more suitable.

She kept low as she climbed, ducking behind the brush to avoid being seen. Above her on the slope, the shaft house loomed against the morning sky. Miners were arriving on the wagon that hauled them from their boardinghouses in town. Minutes from now, they’d be dressed in their work clothes, waiting to be lowered down the shaft.

What would it be like down there? Emma had never felt easy in dark, closed-in places. What if she panicked and screamed? What if she got sick? And what was she supposed to do about relieving her bladder, surrounded by men? She hadn’t even thought of that until now.

At the shift’s end, she would need a way back to town. Armitage was planning to pick her up. But what if he didn’t make it? Catching a ride on one of the wagons was out of the question. In full daylight she was bound to be recognized as a woman. Walking would be safer.

But getting home was the least of her worries. Whatever else happened, the most dreaded
part of the day would come when she had to face Logan.

Odds were he’d arrive home ahead of her. Finding her gone, he’d be worried. When at last she came dragging in, dressed like a miner, he would demand to know what was going on. At that point she’d tell him the truth, which he was bound to learn, anyway.

Logan would be enraged, especially when he learned she’d colluded with Armitage.

But wasn’t that what she’d wanted?

A short blast of the steam whistle signaled that The first cage was ready for loading. Emma quickened her steps, entering the hoist shed by a side door. The miners were milling into lines. No one paid her any attention.

The sturdy, wood-framed cage was open in front. It was designed to hold twelve miners at a time, six on each level, crammed as tightly as sardines in a can.

Tracks for the hoisted ore cars led from the shaft to the loading chute. As she moved to the end of the line, Emma stumbled over a steel rail. Thrown off balance, she might have fallen if a wiry hand hadn’t steadied her arm.

“Are ye all right, lad?” The miner ahead of her looked close to fifty, with sharp blue eyes
shaded by grizzled brows. His brogue identified him as a Scot.

Emma nodded, hoping she wouldn’t have to speak.

“Ye must be new. I can tell because there’s a touch of sun on that young face. Me, now, my face be as white as my belly. First time for ye, is it?”

Emma nodded once more. Another blast on the whistle signaled that the cage was filled and on its first trip down the shaft.

“’Tisn’t so bad once ye get used to it, lad. Ye’ll be muckin’, most likely. Take it slow the first day or two, or ye’ll be too sore to work. Hear?”

Again Emma nodded. the big drum that wound the hoist cable had stopped turning. Now it reversed direction, raising the cage.

“Where be ye from, lad?”

She cleared her throat, lowered her voice and gave the first answer that popped into her mind. “Minnesota,” she rasped.

“So ye be a Swede, then?”

Before Emma could fashion a reply, the cage reappeared above the loading platform and the miners hurried to board. Squeezing herself into the compartment, Emma tried to ignore the panic that clutched her throat like a strangling
hand. She closed her eyes as the cage shuddered and began to drop. Bodies pressed around her, rank with sweat. She couldn’t do this. All she wanted was to get out. But it was too late. Thinking of her mother, she closed her eyes and murmured a silent prayer.

She opened her eyes to darkness. The cage was still moving downward but its descent was slowing. Not far below, she could make out a faint glow from the entrance of the tunnel where the miners were working. Seconds later the cage shuddered to a halt and the miners spilled out into the tunnel.

Emma had expected the mine to be cold. But the air was so hot and humid that, by the time she reached the work area, sweat was trickling down her face. Candles flickered from small iron brackets that were hammered into the timbers. Following the example of the others, she opened her lunch pail, removed one candle and lit it from a sputtering stub. After replacing the stub with her fresh candle, she took a shovel from the stack at the base of the wall and moved into the shadows. Because of the baby, it wouldn’t be safe to do heavy work. But she would need to look busy.

As was customary, the rock had been blasted at the end of the previous shift. The newly arrived
workers would muck out the debris and separate the silver ore to be hoisted topside. Meanwhile, more holes would be drilled in the rock, stuffed with dynamite and blasted again at the end of the shift.

Following the example of the miners, Emma stirred through the chunks of blasted quartz, picking out any that showed the dark, metallic promise of silver. The gangue, or worthless rock, would be shoveled into a hopper and dumped down the shaft. She willed herself not to think about the stifling air or the infinite blackness beyond their tiny island of candlelight. She struggled to ignore the faint creak of the timbers that supported the tunnel and the thought of the massive, crushing weight that rested above them.

The miners chatted sporadically as they worked, telling jokes and stories that would’ve had most women reaching for their smelling salts. After her work in the boardinghouse, Emma had learned to ignore such talk. She kept her head down, trying to remember her purpose for being here—to keep her eyes open for dangerous conditions that might be improved.

She’d already noticed one thing. The ordinary hats the miners wore gave little protection from falling debris. Protective helmets of some
kind could save untold head injuries, even lives. She would make sure Armitage suggested that in his article. She focused on that, and determinedly did not think of Logan or how he’d never forgive her for this.

The grizzled Scot Emma had spoken with earlier hefted a machine that Emma guessed to be a compressed air drill. As long as a man was tall, its weight was partly supported by a movable iron post. An attached hose extended along the tunnel and up the shaft to the top, where a steam-driven compressor supplied the power.

Until a few years ago, the blast holes had been drilled by hand, a painstaking process that required two men switching off with a hammer and a series of drill bits. The new drill required much less time and effort. But for the man who operated it, it was an instrument of slow death. the miners had a name for such machines. They called them widow-makers.

Raising the bit, the Scot shoved it against the rock and began to drill. The scream of steel against quartz was deafening. Another thing for Emma to note—the miners could be given plugs to protect their ears.

But it was the dust that troubled her most. As the drill ground deeper, the gray-white clouds that filled the tunnel formed glittering haloes
around the candles. The dust held glassy slivers that could, over time, ravage a man’s lungs, causing the dreaded miner’s consumption. Eventually, it would probably kill the friendly Scot who’d welcomed Emma in the line.

Every miner here knew this. But it was as Doc had said. They risked the danger for the good pay. And the men who paid them only cared about profit.

Surely something could be done. The miners could be given silk kerchiefs to mask their faces. Or perhaps water could be hosed into the rock to wet down the dust. How difficult could it be?

There was far more at stake here, Emma realized, than getting her petty revenge on Logan. Maybe the newspaper article would touch off a crusade for better working conditions. Maybe more powerful voices than hers would take up the cause and force changes. This clandestine visit to her husband’s mine could turn out to be the most important thing she’d ever done.

“You, boy! You think this is a damned Sunday school picnic?” The gruff voice startled Emma out of her musings. The speaker was a burly, florid-faced man who’d just come down the tunnel. Emma recognized Frank Helquist, the mine foreman Logan had rehired.

“Look at me!” he barked. “I don’t know who the hell hired you, but if you don’t move your ass, you won’t get paid and you won’t be back.”

Emma met Helquist’s gaze through the dusty murk. Neither threat mattered. The worst the man could do was escort her out of the mine. Once they were outside in the daylight, he’d no doubt realize she was a woman and inform Logan. No real harm would come to her. But she had no wish to be found out yet. If she could last down here, she wanted to make it until the end of the shift and leave the way she’d come.

Turning away, she began shoveling the shattered rock into a nearby hopper. The dense quartz was heavy. Emma only dared to lift a little at a time. She could feel Helquist’s eyes on her as she worked. Moving in the hot, damp air was like swimming through thick syrup. Perspiration streamed down her body. She felt nauseous.

“You deaf, boy? Put your back into it,” Helquist snapped.

“Leave him be, Helquist.” It was the Scot who spoke up. “’Tis the lad’s first day. He’ll toughen up soon enough.”

“He’d damn well better, or he’ll be gone. That goes for the rest of you slackers, too.” Helquist turned with a growl and stalked back
up the tunnel. Moments later the hoist groaned as the cage lifted him to the surface.

“Don’t let the bastard spook you, lad.” The Irish miner who spoke had a young voice behind an old face, as if the work had aged him before his time. “Helquist talks tough, but his bark’s worse’n his bite, ain’t it, boys?”

There was a mutter of agreement before the shriek of the pneumatic drill made conversation impossible. Emma continued sorting through the rock, tossing the good ore into one hopper and the worthless gangue into a larger one. Sweat and dust etched dirty streaks down the sides of her nose. She willed herself not to think of fresh air and sunshine or what she would say to Logan.

The efficiency of other miners made her own efforts look pitiful. Two of them had already filled a cart with ore and were pushing it back along the tracks toward the cage. Others had filled two hoppers for dumping.

When the drilling paused, Emma fancied she could hear the sounds of the mountain pressing down on them from overhead—little clicks and taps that made her spine crawl. She remembered the stories the Cornishmen told about Tommyknockers—ghosts of miners whose tapping inside the rock foretold a coming
death. Better not to think about that. Better not to think at all.

She could feel the baby shifting in her womb, trapped in darkness just as she was. A thread of panic rose inside her. What if she couldn’t get out? What if she were to die down here, and the baby with her?

But what foolishness. She was healthy and strong, her pregnancy had thus far been trouble free. In a few more hours her shift would be over. She would ride the cage up the shaft, walk outside into the fading daylight and fill her lungs with the sweet mountain air.

And she would never go down another mine shaft for as long as she lived.