Page 34 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“Why does that matter?” Through his haze of arousal, he lifted his attention enough to catch her pulling her face into a grimace of apprehension.
“It doesn’t.” Her voice was high and sharp enough to cut through his sexual trance. “I’ll just…” She pinched and clipped and wrinkled her nose, face confounded.
“Marigold.” His blood cooled. Fast. “You said you knew how to do this.”
“You’re my first man. I understand most find that to be a thrill. I’ve never understood why. The first flapjack is always the worst of the batch. Everyone knows that.”
“Very funny.” He brushed her hands away and ran his hands over his hair. It didn’t feel anything like after the barber had finished with him. “How bad is it?”
“It’sfine,” she insisted but looked as if she needed to pee. “Maybe if these were sharper?” She snipped the air twice. “You’re not paying for it,” she reminded him.
“Jesus Christ.” He rose and went to the window, shifted to glimpse his reflection in the glass. “I look like a half-peeled potato!”
She bit her lips, showing no contrition at all. “I’ll get better now that I know whatnotto do.”
Muttering every curse word he knew, he slapped his hat over his chewed-up head and stalked off to work.
Chapter Ten
After such a blundering start to her new life here, Marigold was determined to be more cautious and try harder to think ahead. To that end, she squeezed as much knowledge as she could from Leyohna, making copious notes on foraging across the valley for seasonal roots, berries, spring greens, and fall mushrooms.
Leyohna was a wealth of practical ideas, too. She pointed out that dry needles were in abundance on the forest floor. She helped Marigold find a tree that shed ones with blunt tips and showed her a tree that had soft inner bark suitable for stripping and using as well. Marigold had to add an extra layer of thick cotton to the tick, but it saved her the work of cutting grass. The needles brought a pleasant fragrance into the cabin, too.
Gristle was so pleased with the mattress she made for him, he gave her a cotton sugar sack that Marigold was able to quickly sew up as an undershirt for Leyohna’s newborn. She ran it across to give it to her before she left.
They hugged a final time, and Marigold felt as orphaned as the children when Leyohna filed out of the valley with the rest of her family two days later.
The children were out of sorts from losing yet another mother-figure. Marigold knew it wasn’t personal to her, but she felt as though she wasn’t meeting their expectations and there wasn’t any way she could correct it. Levi was grouchy that he had to release the animals and mind them without Chevano. Nettie lost her temper with Harley and refused to play with him, which turned him whiny. Harley was usually a cheerful and curious little scamp. He squawked if he bopped himself while bashing his wooden animals, but he loved to snuggle and could amuse himself endlessly with a spoon or a blanket or a dribble of water on a tin plate.
She wished Virgil would spend more time with them. She thought that might reassure them, but she’d been here more than a full week, and aside from a few words in the evening, she hardly saw him.
If he’d been coming home drunk each night, Marigold would have had a reason to complain, but he was always filthy and dog-tired and hungry, rarely having eaten since morning. He obviously worked very hard, and even though he wasn’t the most demonstrative father, he was always patient with his children. He admired Nettie’s sack doll without saying a word about the clumsy stitches or the cock-eyed buttons placed for eyes. He helped Levi fix his slingshot and whittled a pair of interlocked rings for Harley that kept the boy busy trying to pull them apart.
“Did you tell Yeller you would write letters for the men if they needed one?” Virgil asked her one evening, as he was scraping up the last of the pea soup.
“Do you mind?” Marigold caught Harley’s arm, trying to keep him in place as she washed him for bed.
“Not at all. We try to do it at the office, but we don’t always have time. I said if you’re up to it, we’ll eat at the cookhouse tomorrow. Anyone in need of a letter can see you then. It’s payday. Gristle will have ham and cornbread.”
“That’s a nice treat. Thank you.”
“Gristle’s talent is quantity, not quality,” he warned. “But it fills the hole, and having you and the children there might keep the men from drinking and gambling away a week’s wages before midnight.”
Marigold had learned the men could choose one of two methods for receiving their pay. Some preferred carefully measured gold dust stored in the quill of feathers. Others took promissory notes that were accepted by the mercantile and saloons in town. When Virgil or one of the other partners went for supplies, they settled up at all the establishments, buying back their notes with gold dust.
Marigold understood shipments of gold had also been sent to the mint in Philadelphia under armed guard. Whether those coins had come back and were stored here, she had no idea. They wanted to invest some of the company’s earnings into a railroad, but each of the partners also had personal interests, too. Emmett had shares in one of the lumber mills in Denver and had ordered equipment to build his own mill here. Bing Sun supported family in San Francisco. Owen was determined to open a saloon—“Mine gold from men’s pockets”—while Virgil was building a house for his children. She didn’t know what the rest planned.
The cookhouse was full when they arrived. The miners ranged in age from a boy who looked like he had only a few years more than Levi to ones with leathery faces and thin, gray hair. They were all rough mannered and had to be reminded by Virgil not to swear, but they seemed to appreciate the family atmosphere with the children there. After they’d eaten, the men delayed their poker game and turned their cards face down in a memory game that amused the older children.
Marigold took out her supplies and wrote a letter for a young man who wanted his mother to know he was well and staying out of trouble. Another asked her to warn his brother that prospecting was not the path to quick riches they had been led to expect.Don’t come. You’ll regret it.
While she wrote, she kept an eye on Virgil. He wore his straw hat, so his hair was covered, but with his beard still chopped up like a rag mat, he looked more disreputable and dangerous than ever. He was watching his children, however, and his expression had softened into an almost-smile. It was pure tenderness by his standards.
The children were eating up the attention, and the men seemed cheered by their high spirits. One pulled off his sock to use as a puppet, and the two older children had to do the same. Their silly antics sent Harley into fits of giggles that were so infectious, everyone was laughing.
With a bubble of laughter in her own throat, Marigold smiled at the next man who approached her.
“Hello. I’m Marigold. Are you needing a letter?” She started to reach for her pen.
