The Horseshoe Mine

I slowly finished my coffee while watching Miriam clean up the dishes. I liked the way she moved—so innately seductive; it was hard to belie she had ever been a dowdy homesteader's wife and I wondered what had drawn her and Clifton to marry. As I think I said, I didn't know Clifton Candler well, had no reason to. He seemed a sour, bitter man when the land he bought didn't produce anything about scorpions and tarantulas and skulking coyotes. I supposed that was why she hated to waste anything; that mindset of deprivation is hard to overcome but at least she didn't reuse coffee grounds anymore although she saved them—for the garden, she said. Some flowers did well with the grounds tossed on the soil.

She and I were alone and the sun was filling up the small kitchen. Asher had asked to play outside—asked Miriam, not me for permission, and she had given permission after insisting he say "please" and telling him not to leave the yard. And except for the sound of simmering water to be used for washing and the clatter of plates being stacked, there was no other sound.

"I'll be gone most of the day." I waited.

"Will you be home for dinner?"

"Yes. I thought maybe you and Asher could go visit Millie. I know their boys are in school but…well, you'll be alone all day and I think it'd be nice for you and her and Addie to become friends."

She turned her face to me. "I'll be fine. There's still much to do and I thought I'd weed the vegetable garden. Looks as if the bean plants are still growing and the onions. Who knows what else is there." Then, turning back to her work, she asked, "Where are you going?"

"Miriam, come sit down." I found I was eager for her. I wanted to talk to her about my plans, partly because saying them out loud would help jell them. "Just for a bit."

I knew she considered refusing, making some excuse, as her lips parted but then she picked up her cup and saucer and sat down, pouring herself more coffee. Black. I put sugar in mine and she drank it black.

"A few years ago, I invested in a mine. It paid off and then the other main investor, Reese Murray, died in a cave-in and the mine's stood idle. I'd pulled the miners not wanting to lose anyone else, and then the epidemic struck and the mine just didn't seem all that important anymore. I've never gone back to it."

"He was the banker, correct? Reese Murray." I nodded. "I'd heard he stolen the money for the investment from the bank."

"That's what they said. His widow wanted me to pay the bank and swore she'd pay me back but I didn't do it. There was just something wrong about the whole thing and I offered to buy her shares but she wanted to keep them. Anyway, she was saved by the man she's now married to, Harry Baxter. Now's the interesting part. When I went through my back correspondence last night…"

"Did he go out there alone?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Murray? Did he go into the mine alone?"

"Yes. I don't know why but two men stopping on their way to Carson City said he was caught in a cave-in. They had heard the rumble and…"

"Was the body ever found?"

"No. He was buried under tons of rock…"

"Did anyone do any investigating into the witnesses?"

"No." I sat back, thinking. Miriam had a conniving mind—a bit like me. "I don't think anyone did. The rode into Virginia City and told the sheriff. But…"

"What?"

"They were traveling to Carson City; that's where they should have reported it, not back-tracked to Virginian City."

"That is odd as they couldn't have known he was from Virginia City, could they? Did they talk to him before he went into the mine?"

"I don't know," I said. Miriam was raising questions that I should have already considered.

"Maybe the banker never really died." Miriam said. "Or maybe…"

"Maybe they killed him?"

"It's a possibility. So there was no body to be buried?"

"No. Sheriff Coffee, our engineer, my father and I went out to the mine. The cave-in was about 10 yards in. I thought at the time that the shoring was sturdy and that it was unusual it would collapse. I figured Murray must have done something to cause it. I even considered dynamite—that someone had set off dynamite and knew exactly what they were doing. But when we couldn't recover the body, Reese Murray was declared dead. The funeral was more of a 'token' funeral, for legal purposes and to help Mrs. Murray with her grief. Although…. I don't know. She married within a year, married the man who had bailed her out of her troubles and they built a house in the best side of town, up on the hill."

"Could they have plotted to kill Murray so they could be together?"

I chuckled. "Lorelei Mason is not a woman a man would kill for. Now you, on the other hand…"

Miriam let my comment pass. "It's possible she wanted him dead for other reasons."

"Oh? What other reasons could she have? He was wealthy, a nice looking man and seemed even-tempered."

"Maybe he was just boring." I looked at her carefully to see if she was joking but she wasn't. She sighed and looked up from her cup. "There are many reasons a wife might want her husband dead. Many. But a woman would keep them to herself." Miriam sat for a moment longer and then rose from her chair, taking her coffee cup with her to the sink.

"I should have thought of all this earlier-years ago," I said. "The timbering in that mine was good. I know because I had the beams milled myself. I supervised the supports and where they were placed." Miriam had raised specters from the past and I considered they were from her past. But still, I wondered now if Lorelei Murray had anything to do with her husband's death.

I took my cup to Miriam and placed it on the counter by the sink. She pumped water into the wash basin and I reached for the teapot with the hot water and poured it in the basin for her. "I'm going out to the mine and then to town to talk to Sheriff Coffee. I might go see Mr. and Mrs. Harry Baxter as well. I'll see." I leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Miriam, do I need to be concerned? Am I boring?"

She gazed sideways at me. "No. I would never describe you as boring." Then she went back to her dishes and I left but I considered that I had underestimated Miriam. She was far more cunning than I'd realized and I felt a little uneasy in that I would never know her thoughts—would never really know her—she had made that clear. But that also made her more interesting, more delightful, and made me more eager to explore the woman who was my wife.

~ 0 ~

I sat in Roy Coffee's office while he looked through his files, mumbling to himself about what each one didn't hold. "No, not this one. It's been a while now, that's for sure. Three years, right?" he asked while he slowly pushed each individual file folder, opening a few and them refiling them when they didn't hold what he wanted.

"Right, three years." I wanted to jump up, shove Roy aside and look for the file myself. It was obvious that Roy would soon be retiring and his deputy, Clem Foster would more than likely be the next sheriff; he did most of the footwork. But I admired Roy as much as I did my father and so I pursed my lips and patiently waited for him to find the file holding the report of Reese Murray's death in the mine.

"Well," Roy said as he held a file in one hand and closed the file drawer with the other, "I think this is it." He sat at his desk and adjusted his glasses before he opened it and while he read, he ran an index finger along the lines of writing, his lips moving in silence.

"Roy. Can I look at it?" I leaned forwardly eagerly.

"I suppose so; nothing confidential here." He turned the file around to face me and I took it off his desk.

It was as I had remembered. Two men, Harrison and Rowland, said they had stopped for their noon meal near the mine. They were a distance but waved at a man who rode up and the man waved back. They were packing up to head on to Carson City when a rumble came from the mine and they heard the cave-in. The man's horse, obviously terrified by the sound and the expelled belch of dirt and dust, took off. The men then decide to report it in Virginia City after seeing there was no way they could save the buried man.

"Did you get any more information from them than their names and what's in here?"

"No, there wasn't any reason to and even if I had and didn't write it down, I wouldn't remember after all this time What's the reason for all this, Adam? Something come up?"

"Oh, I was just…here." I reached in my pocket and pulled out the letter from Wellman at the First National Bank of Sacramento. Roy opened it and read it.

"Well, this is interesting, that is if they are the same man. This Wellman fellow just says they sound like the same man but this letter is almost three years old."

"I know but if it was true then, it's still true. And it makes sense. I was out at the mine before I came here and no one's touched it. In all this time-no one. I lost all interest in it but tBaxter and his investors spent a great deal of money to own it and they've done nothing. And Baxter, he doesn't really do anything, does he?"

"Well, not that I know?" Rou rubbed his chin.

"He paid off Murray's theft and then married the weepy widow. I had other things to worry me then but now that I have time, well, it does seem suspicious."

"Well, I don't know about suspicious but I'd say odd. So what exactly are you thinking?"

"Tell you the truth, Roy, I'm not sure. I know that I can't ask for someone else's financial transactions but maybe you can." I waited and Roy raised his brows.

"Now, Adam, I can't go asking about Baxter's banking history and then tell you. One, it's none of your business and it's also none of mine."

"Look, you don't have to tell me anything about it, but why can't you open an investigation? It's possible there's some…what if people are trying to hide illegal profits from criminal activity and are passing the money through Baxter? And for his trouble and risk, he gets a cut—or even a regular paycheck. I don't know, but I think it's worth investigating."

And then Roy went into his lawman act. "Adam, I've got to have a reason to open an investigation into anything and as it is, there is no reason for me to investigate him or anything else."

"Look, Roy…" And then Roy put up his hand to stop me. If I didn't have such respect for Roy, I would have stood up, told him to go to hell and walked out.

"Adam, when I get something from the bank saying that there's suspicious activity or some wrong-doing by Baxter or his wife, then I can investigate and if I find anything, wire whoever I need to. But just because you got an inkling…"

Now I did stand up. "An inkling? My gut is telling me it's more than an a mere 'inkling'." I grabbed my hat off his desk where I had put it.

"Now don't go off half-cocked." Roy stood up as well and stepped toward me. "Adam, I trust your gut but I have to go by the law and…"

"Yeah, that may be but I'm telling you," I pointed my finger at him, "something's wrong. I've got a hell of a belly-ache over this."

Roy stopped for a moment. "Give my regards to Mrs. Cartwright."

I just slapped my hat on and went out. I stood on the sidewalk, tipped my hat to some passing ladies and then decided that I'd make a little social visit to the Baxters. After all, we were business partners, and I wanted to reopen the mine. I had a legitimate reason to see Harry Baxter. And my mind went back to Miriam. Suddenly I wanted to see her, to ride back to our place and take her in my arms. Why then, why at that moment I wanted her, I didn't quite know. But I decided later that it was because I doubted my actions and I wanted to run home to her and have her hold me and tell me I was right. After all I'd been through in my life—war, destruction, Andersonville, the death of my wife-I still yearned for the arms of a woman around me. I was getting as bad as Asher.

TBC