Chapter 7
Jarrod entered Red's saloon and felt like he was living a piece of his life all over again. The place was fairly quiet, the same as when he went into her place in Stockton for the first time. The saloon even looked very similar in layout and décor, but this time she was already there and coming toward him. She met him before he got halfway to the bar.
Her expression was perfectly bland. He couldn't read her at all. He took his hat off, and just as he had done in Stockton, he bowed his head slightly, smiled slightly and said, "Hello, Barbara."
"Mr. Barkley," she said, as she had said in Stockton and earlier in the street.
Jarrod was a little surprised she didn't call him by his first name. "I guess being back to the formalities shouldn't surprise me," he said, "but maybe you would still call me Jarrod. No strings attached."
"Well, I am pretty close to your station in life now," she said. "And to some extent, I have to thank you for that. Thanks to the lawyer you got me, I'm not in prison."
"And it seems you've made the best of it," Jarrod said. "I just wanted to congratulate you on your success here in Carson City. My brother Nick filled me in on your talks."
"And on the sheriff giving me a clean bill of health, I'm sure," Red said. "All right, Jarrod. We can't start off again as if nothing happened between us in Stockton, but we can act more like we're equals now."
"You're part owner of a mine, as well as owner of two businesses," Jarrod said. "It wouldn't be acting."
"A mine that's in trouble, though," Red said. "You just came from there."
"Yes," Jarrod said.
Red nodded toward a table. "Sit down. Tell me what's happening. Dwight is still out there, I'm sure. And we do have cognac here. Would you like some?"
Jarrod smiled a little. "Just a little whiskey, I think."
Red nodded toward the bar and a waitress there. "Bring Mr. Barkley a whiskey." She didn't need to have the girl be sure the glass was clean.
They sat down together. "Before I get into it," Jarrod said, "you should be aware that Dwight Tolman and I have pretty much settled into the fact that our interests in this are opposing ones."
Red said, "You want him to pay for the damage and repair, and he wants you to pay for it."
"Something like that," Jarrod said, "so I'd rather we don't get into that. I don't want him thinking I'm working behind his back."
"He knows you and I have a history, Jarrod," Red said. "In fact, he knows all about it. ALL about it."
Jarrod was surprised at that. The waitress brought his drink, and she went away before Jarrod said, "I'm surprised you'd tell him about all of it."
"I pretty much had to," Red said. "You see, we're not only business partners. He's also asked me to marry him."
Jarrod was even more surprised.
"I haven't accepted yet," Red said quickly. "He understands that I'm a little cautious about becoming involved other than in a business sense. I have no intention of being used by another man, in business or in love. Especially not in love."
Jarrod looked into his whiskey glass, then took a sip of it. "And he understands my part in that decision."
"Completely," Red said.
Jarrod still looked into his glass. "Barbara, for my part in that – for my part in making that decision – I am deeply sorry."
"But you're not sorry you did it," Red said.
Jarrod looked at her. "You had my brother. I had to find him."
"Well," Red said. "That's in the past now, back there with the time you dropped my case in San Francisco. We don't need it to complicate the situation now."
"Just so you'll know," Jarrod said, "if there is some way to work out an amicable solution to our problem with the mine, I intend to find it."
Red laughed a little. "You are a determined man. And I do believe you. Just so you'll know, Dwight is a decent man. A fair man. But he won't be taken advantage of."
Jarrod nodded. "I didn't think he would be. I assume you and your partners are looking to him to handle this situation with the mine."
"We'll be working on it together, but he will do the talking with you," Red said.
"He plans to talk to you and your partners tonight. We'll get together in the morning and see if we can find a way to get the mine operating again, for a start."
"I appreciate that," Red said, and then she got up.
Jarrod stood up quickly too.
"And now, I think we'd better say good-bye," Red said, "at least until you and Dwight have sorted out what we all want to do about this mine."
Jarrod finished his whiskey and reached into his pocket to pay for it.
"It's on the house, Jarrod," Red said. "Good evening."
She turned and walked back to the bar. Jarrod noted that she was as beautiful as she ever was, and more confident. "Good evening, Barbara," he said to her as she walked away.
Then he left the saloon.
XXXXX
Jarrod spotted Nick in the hotel bar as soon as he entered the place. Nick was at the bar. Jarrod joined him right away. "So how did it go?" Nick asked.
"As well as I could expect," Jarrod said. "We had a nice chat, didn't discuss the mine much – she's leaving the negotiating up to Tolman. And by the way, Tolman has asked her to marry him. She hasn't accepted yet."
Nick's eyebrows shot up. "She didn't tell me that."
"You never tried to make her fall in love with you."
Nick knew Jarrod had tried that, when she had shanghaied Nick on his birthday. He just didn't know how extensive that all was. "Was she expecting you to give it another try?"
Jarrod choked a little laugh. "Not even remotely, though maybe she wishes I had so she could knock me down." He ordered another whiskey from the bartender here.
"Speaking of the mine," Nick said, "how do you want to handle this 'who pays for what' we're going to get into tomorrow morning?"
"Well, we'll get Caldwell's bill for today paid 50-50. Then I expect Tolman will want us to pay for everything else and we'll refuse and we'll work toward something in bits and pieces. But getting the mine back open is what's most important. Technically, that's their problem, and even if we say we're not going to contribute a cent, Tolman will get it open and then sue us. So we'll be working from that expectation."
"You're talking some kind of settlement," Nick said.
"Probably," Jarrod said. He got his whiskey from the bartender and drank some. "But a whole lot of it depends on why that bracing came down."
"You think it was sabotaged?"
"I'm not thinking anything yet," Jarrod said. "Other than we're going to be here for a few days, at least until they get enough of that slide cleared for Jack Caldwell and this engineer to answer that question."
Nick sighed and finished the beer he'd been nursing. "I reckon we better get over to the telegraph office and let them know that back in Stockton."
Jarrod downed his whiskey completely. "Yep."