He leans down, his neatly trimmed beard tickling my neck.
“Good night, love,” he says, and he kisses my cheek, near to my earlobe.
Somehow, this kiss is the worst of all. I watch him depart, staring daggers of hate at his back. I won’t complain, though. Other folks in this camp are a lot worse off than me.
The gold buzzes at me from its hiding place beneath my mattress. I’ll put it back in the toe of my boot as soon as I’m able, but for now, I let it surround me, comfort me. By morning, my tears have dried. My neck is cricked, my flesh rubbed raw with rope burn, and my heart determined.
I’ve spent the last week being on my best behavior. I worked hard to launder my dress, and though the hem is well and truly ruined, I succeeded in getting out the worst stains and making it somewhat presentable for daily work. I’ve visited the mine every day, giving advice on exactly where to dig. The miners have brought up more gold in the past few days than in the entire previous two months combined. Dilley, Topper, and the other foremen think I’m lucky.
I haven’t complained once about how thin Jefferson is becoming, how badly my wrists smart from the rope burns, or that the foremen laze around all day, watching the starving, mercury-sick Indians do all the work. I haven’t once mentioned the fact that Dilley’s men are polite to my face, even friendly, but they ogle me as soon as my back is turned, and I feel their eyes crawling all over my body like flies.
I itch to do something, anything, but I know that biding my time is the right thing. Destroying my uncle is a long hunt, with lots of tiny, quiet moves leading up to the big kill.
I know long hunts. I am patient. I am a ghost.
A ghost who sees things. My angelic behavior has earned me knowledge. Listen, Muskrat said. Watch. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.
I’ve learned that all the guns are kept in the foremen’s barracks, which makes sense. Aside from my uncle’s cabin, it’s the driest place in camp. I bet my guns are there, too.
I see Mary every day in Hiram’s cabin, and sometimes I pass Muskrat on his way to the mines, but I say nothing to either of them. A hunting ghost takes no chances.
I look for Tom, who is absent from the camp, and discover that he has been assigned to the creek, along with most of the Chinese workers and several of the Indian women. He pans for gold from sunup until sundown, and I know from experience how that makes for a brutal day, but not so brutal as hefting a pickax in the cold, wet dark. Knowing Tom, he smoothly talked himself into such a prime assignment.
Muskrat said things are coming together. And I have faith in him and Mary and the others; I do. Still, I know I’ll feel a lot better if I have my own weapon to use against Uncle Hiram.
So, one morning after my uncle leaves, I tiptoe over to his writing desk. The drawer slides open with a scraping noise so loud I’m sure it can be heard east of the Mississippi. I hope to find his letter opener, or something sharp, but he’s too smart to leave something like that lying around. All I find are several folded letters and a small book bound in leather.
The leather book is a ledger, containing rows of numbers and notations. Mathematics has never been my strong suit, so it takes a while for me to makes sense of the mess. We’re bringing out a lot of gold, if this ledger is any indication. But there are too many entries in the expenses column: more materials for a proper cart track for the tunnels, more gunpowder, more pickaxes, more burros—even a few luxury items like the washtub I bathed in on that first day, an extra box stove, a set of fine dishes.
There’s a number on the bottom right of each page that changes with that page’s entries. On the first page, it’s eight thousand dollars. A month later, that number has shrunk to three thousand. But lately, it has crept back up to more than four thousand dollars.
I was right. Uncle Hiram owes someone money. A whole heap of it.
Hiram’s only focus—no, obsession—is to bring out more gold. And he’ll spend whatever he must in order to do it. Mama used to say that the fever made idiots of grown men, and she always said it like she knew from experience.
I rifle through the letters. Most are from Sacramento and San Francisco. Many of them have to do with supplies; turns out Hiram does a good deal of negotiation by correspondence. But one name crops up over and over again, and I skim all the letters from this one man as quickly as I can, until I find the most recent.
Thank you for the detailed notes on your progress. Your request is granted, and I’ve instructed my attorney to amend your note. It shall come due on Christmas Eve. This is the last extension I will approve. If your debt is not paid in full on that day, the mine, its surrounding acreage, and all its assets will be repossessed.
Yours truly,
James Henry Hardwick
I stare at it a long moment. This is not the weapon I was looking for, but it is definitely a weapon. I finally have a name. I say it over and over in my mind so I won’t forget. James Henry Hardwick. James Henry Hardwick. This is the man my uncle owes. This is a man who has power over Hiram Westfall.
Chapter Twenty
Later, I return from the mine and discover my uncle waiting for me in the cabin. The air smells sweetly of tobacco, and he blows smoke from his pipe as I enter. On the dining table are two large packages.
“For you,” he says with a soft smile.
My hackles instantly go up, but I sound as cool as ever when I say, “There’s nothing I need, Uncle.”
“Allow me to spoil you, sweet pea.”
He needs to be paying down his debt, not buying presents. I approach the table slowly, like the packages are animals caught in a trap, waiting for me to come within range of their teeth.
Gingerly, I open the smallest. I gasp.
My uncle grins around his pipe, but my gasp was not a happy one. Inside the package is another dress. Another dress exactly like the one I’m wearing, with blue calico and lace-trimmed sleeves.
“You should continue to wear the old one when you visit the mine and the creek,” he says in a perfectly reasonable tone. “But I want you to look well-groomed and lovely at all other times.”
My stomach curls in on itself. “Why?” I whisper.
“Because any girl of mine will be dressed properly, as befits her status as a—”
“No. I mean, why this dress? Why do you want me to look just like my mother?”
I know it’s a mistake as soon as the words leave my mouth, because his eyes are suddenly as dark and threatening as storm clouds. “Your mother was a lovely woman,” he says coldly. “You should be proud to look like her.”