“Nothing to be scared of,” he assured her. “As long as you take the right precautions, mines like this are perfectly safe.”
“But things sometimes go wrong, don’t they? There are cave-ins and things like that?”
Hammersmith shrugged. “Most problems are caused by carelessness. I don’t allow my men to get careless. They know they’ll be in for trouble if they do.”
“From a cave-in, you mean?”
Hammersmith laughed. “From me. I reckon most of them would rather have to deal with a cave-in than face me when I’m mad at them.”
“You are a rugged man, Mr. Hammersmith.”
“You can call me Gunther if you want,” he ventured.
“All right…Gunther.”
She didn’t invite him to call her Jessica, and while he noticed that, he didn’t really care. As long as he got to walk along beside her and touch her now and then, it didn’t matter to him what he called her.
There was quite a bit of noise underground. Picks rang against the walls; steam-powered drills known as widow-makers chattered as they gouged holes in the rock so that dynamite could be planted in them; men shouted back and forth to each other. In some mines, the rock was balanced so precariously that a loud noise could set off a cave-in, meaning that the hard, dangerous work of shoring up had to be completed before the real job of taking the ore out could begin. In the Alhambra, that had already been done. An earthquake or a badly placed blast might bring the place down, but short of those things, it was safe down here, as Hammersmith had explained to Mrs. Munro.
He didn’t try to take Jessica all through the place. That would have taken too long and exhausted her. He settled for showing her the general layout and letting her watch some of the men at work for a few minutes. At this level, they still wore their grimy, dust-covered shirts. Lower down in the earth, where the temperature rose, the miners often stripped their shirts off and worked bare-chested. Hammersmith recalled doing that himself, when he was a young man and too stupid to do anything except swing a pick all day long. He had learned a great deal since then.
Even here, it was warmer than on the surface, and Jessica’s face shone in the lantern light as a fine layer of perspiration appeared on her skin. “My goodness,” she said as she fanned herself with a hand, “if you dig down far enough, do you reach Hades itself?”
Hammersmith laughed and said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s probably how folks got the idea that Hell’s somewhere under the earth. Once you get past the upper level, where it’s cooler, the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Smells a little like brimstone too.”
“I think I’m ready to go back out and get some fresh air.”
“Sure. You’ve seen all there really is to see anyway.”
They started back up, the light from the mouth of the shaft growing brighter as they climbed. Before they reached it and stepped back out into the sunshine, Jessica stopped and said, “Gunther, thank you for showing me around.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” he said without hesitation, meaning every word of it.
“You’re just being polite. I’m sure you couldn’t have enjoyed getting stuck with your boss’s wife like this.”
He shook his head. “You’ve got that all wrong, ma’am. I didn’t mind a bit, truly. Fact is, I, uh, really enjoyed spending the time with you.”
“Really?” She smiled up at him. “Why, that’s such a nice thing to say, Mr. Hammersmith…I mean, Gunther.”
He had never liked his name all that much. It sounded coarse and harsh to him. But when she spoke it, in that honeyed voice of hers…well, that was different. He looked down at her, realizing just how close she was standing to him. Nobody was around; all the men were down at the bottom of the shaft. And she had this look on her lovely face, like she expected him to do something….
What the hell.
He pulled her into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers in a hard, urgent kiss.
Chapter 21
The same sort of racket came from the Alhambra that had come from the Crown Royal until the explosion a couple of nights earlier. The donkey engines, the compressor that powered the steam drills down in the mine, the shuddering thumps of the stamp mill in action…
A mine was a noisy place, and one that stunk a mite too, Frank thought as he rode up. The frontier had been a lot more peaceful before all this newfangled machinery came along, starting with the railroad. Frank was old enough to remember what it had been like before. He could only imagine the changes that some of the real old-timers, like Catamount Jack, had seen in their lifetimes.
Frank brought Stormy to a halt and dismounted in front of the building where the office was located. The place had been cleaned up and repaired a lot since that day he and Garrett Claiborne had stopped by here and almost gotten themselves gunned down for their trouble. At least, Hammersmith wasn’t taking potshots anymore at anybody who happened to come riding along.
Hamish Munro’s private stagecoach was parked in front of the building. His guard and driver sat on the edge of the porch, smoking. The guard had his rifle across his lap, and his eyes followed Frank closely.
“What do you want, Marshal?” he asked.
“I’m looking for your boss,” Frank replied. “Is he inside?”
Before the guard could answer, the door of the office opened and Hamish Munro stepped out. “What do you want, Marshal?” the mining magnate demanded.
“Hammersmith around?”
“I thought I heard you say you were looking for me.”
Frank nodded. “Oh, I was. I just thought I’d talk to both of you together, save a little time that way.”
“Hammersmith is tending to some chores I assigned to him,” Munro said. “Anything you have to say, you can say it to me. If I deem it worthwhile of his time, I’ll pass it along to him.”
“All right then, if that’s the way you want it.” Frank hooked his thumbs in his belt and asked, “Have you had any trouble out here at the mine?”
“What sort of trouble?”
“I reckon you heard about what happened at the Crown Royal a couple of nights ago.”
Munro pursed his lips. “Yes, of course. A terrible accident. Sorry for the loss of life. But nothing like that has happened here.”
Frank didn’t think Munro sounded the least bit sorry. He said, “I want you to know, I’m going to find out who was responsible for that blast and bring them to justice.”
“I thought you killed the four men who set that dynamite,” Munro said with a frown.
“I shot three of them when they threw down on me. I reckon the fourth one was killed by whoever hired them, so that he couldn’t answer any questions about who was really to blame for what happened.”
Munro shook his head and scowled. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Didn’t say you would,” Frank pointed out. “All I’m saying is that I’m going to continue to investigate until I get to the bottom of that business, and when I do, whoever came up with the idea of blowing up the Crown Royal’s stamp mill is going to be mighty sorry.”
In a harsh, angry voice, Munro asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
Frank shrugged. “So you’ll know that if anything suspicious happens around your mine, I’ll look into it the same way. If you have any trouble, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”
Munro’s bushy, reddish-gray eyebrows lowered even more, as Frank’s reply appeared to confuse him. “All right,” he said. “Is that all?”
“You’re sure nothing’s happened out here that you want to report?”
“I’m certain,” Munro snapped.
Frank reached for Stormy’s reins. “I reckon I’ll be getting back to town then.” He swung up into the saddle. “Come on, Dog.”