Page 47 of Working the Lode

“Zel,” he said, suddenly acutely aware of his odd Scottish way of pronouncing things. “Hard doings? About Sing Sing, I mean.”

She shook her head. “No hard doings. My father was morbidly ill also, and I do wish we would have known a physician such as you. My parents were so angry when my husband vanished to Van Diemen’s Land, because with him also vanished the funds to pay for my father’s ongoing care…Care that didn’t help anything and only prolonged his suffering. When I had no more income, they had no use for me. Since I left on the ship for San Francisco, I’ve not sent them a dollar…So no, having a man such as you around would have been mighty handy. I am sure the poor man has finally passed, but I was not allowed there to witness it…Well, it looks like the end of the trail, I wonder where to now?”

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Zelnora

They spent the night half froze for warmth. Aaron had not slept in three nights since riding from Sutter’s Fort, and rain was falling steadily, so they agreed to stop. Cormack made a lean-to while their mules and horses snorted with funk as though they’d sensed evil white men sign. Cormack said that someone had crawled like a rattler along a riverbed, and Jack agreed that was the direction Brannagh and his men had struck out. So that was their plan for the morrow, while Zelnora and Aaron huddled in the leaking lean-to and Cormack and Joaquin took turns keeping their eyes skinned on the Sonorans in case they decided to light out and warn someone.

Under his buffalo robe, Aaron drooped against Zelnora’s shoulder as she dozed in the solid black night, fat drops of rain plopping on her head and rolling down her arm. She thought about how Cormack and Aaron had spent ten years, wild-looking mountaineers in their animal skins, freezing numb fingers and toes, hunched in the tall wintry peaks of the Rockies. She recalled what Cormack had affirmed when she’d first told him she was barren. “The happiest moments of my life have been in the wilderness of the Far West. I recall with pleasure my solitary camp with no closer more faithful friend than my rifle…no compañeros more sociable than my good horse.” Yet he had added, “That way of life has gone under, Zelnora, and hurrah for womanly doings.”

She knew she was doing the right thing, sticking with these strong men who had fought the Arapaho and Blackfoot, and searching for her friend Mercy. She felt much more at home in this lovingly-built nest of sticks than she ever had in Brannagh’s damned cabin, or in Barton Sparks’ damned house with a cherrywood sideboard.

Putting out early the next morning, Cormack shot a deer, but there was no time to skin or cook it, so they traded half of it for smoked salmon to a few Digger Indians on broken down horses. Joaquin knew a bit of the Digger lingo, having câched in these mountains with them some two years, and he arranged for a guide. The Diggers said there were some white men a few valleys over holing up in an old emigrant shack, and they had seen a white woman with blazingly red hair—a pelirrojo woman, like Cormack, doing chores around the place.

They set off, switching back and forth up a heavily timbered granite cliff.

“You’ll have to let Brannagh know we didn’t come of our own free will,” Jack whined, and Zelnora saw a look of complicity pass between Joaquin and Cormack. “I don’t want him taking us off the payroll.”

When they had topped the ridge and the Sonorans were out of earshot, she asked Cormack, “What’s the plan, old hoss?”

“Well,” said Cormack, looking steadily ahead with his steely eyes of acumen. He always seemed to see things she was completely blind to. “Them Diggers say there are four men in the cabin, and we’ve only got three, since I don’t want them to see you, and those bandits are no bargaining chip. If we go in a-blazing they could rightly…harm Mercy.”

Zel gave voice to what had been her main fear all along. “I’m sure that Brannagh would much rather have possession of me than Mercy. He holds no grudge against Mercy, other than her intention to leave for the Colorado River. I’m certain he’s using her as…a bargaining chip.”

“Well,” Cormack said again. “This child isn’t letting him have you.”

There was a heavy silence as they entered the first of the park-like prairies the Diggers had mentioned.

At length Aaron, who had been near enough to hear their conversation, added, “We can knock the hind-sights off them when it comes to shooting.”

“That’s right!” Cormack said, almost cheerful. “Many are the coups we’ve struck, and when’s the last time anyone saw Brannagh discharge a piece?”

That was true—Brannagh was a newspaperman, a wily businessman, a gambler, and a sporadic hunter at best, but not known as a marksman. So Zelnora held her tongue until they crested the last ridge, holding their animals steady behind a row of pine. Joaquin raised his glass to his eye to view the shanty the Digger pointed out, but Cormack had the eagle’s eye of a hard case, and instantly spotted it. She sighed, bathing in the sight of his exquisitely handsome profile, the pointed aristocratic tip of his nose, the full cupid’s lips, his strong white throat. She had experienced a lot of terrifying events— the disappearance of her husband, the disowning by her parents, rounding Cape Horn with hundreds of women and children colonists two years earlier—but nothing quite like the shoot-out that looked to be imminent. Her Colt was loaded, her pocket pistol was shoved into the waistband of her skirt, but Cormack pointed to a stand of timber where she would wait in hiding with Joaquin. Aaron would wait with them, as it would do no good to let Brannagh know they had a romantic quest at heart, and even more at stake.

The shanty was about fifty yards from their hiding spot. The breakfast cook fire still smoldered with a scent of frijoles and lard.

Joaquin whispered, “My men said there were four of them, but there may be fewer in the cabin, some may be off hunting.”

“I’m not betting on that,” Cormack answered. “I’ll just draw them out, see what’s shining in Brannagh’s tiny brain.”

Not having much doings as an ambusher, Zelnora dared to insert an opinion. “They won’t let Mercy go without a written agreement from Origin Pickett—or something more valuable.”

Cormack bored his piercing celestine eyes into hers. “’Something more valuable’ is staying put right here.” To Joaquin and Aaron, he whispered, “If he lets Mercy out of his shot, put a ball into him.”

“Shoot sharp’s the word.” Aaron nodded crisply. “Here’s luck.”

And Joaquin urged, “Viva Carlos Quinto. Death or glory.”

Cormack did not look back at Zelnora. She told herself it was because he needed to concentrate on the goal at hand.

With the two bandits in tow at gunpoint, Garcia so hungry and lame he was nearly toppling out of his saddle, Cormack trotted into the clearing before the shanty. Not a rustle came from the little ramshackle structure, and the trio hiding in the pines could clearly hear Cormack’s forceful bellow:

“Brannagh! Get out here and show your devil’s hide!”

The trio tensed, their weapons leveled at the ready. Aaron crouched beneath Zelnora using one pine tree as a shield, and Joaquin poked his pistol around the trunk of another. Brannagh could very well start blazing from a corner of the tiny window, and his mark would certainly be Cormack rather than the worthless highwaymen, whom most people wished were dead anyway.

But after a few seconds during which Zelnora could testify she saw a metallic glint in the window, the door opened, and Brannagh stepped out, two men shadowing him.

One of the men was Nutting, the colonist Cormack had saved from choking with the eagle’s quill.