Shaye felt as though a vast gulf had opened between them as they walked back to the hotel. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of s single thing to say. She had to find her way back home, she thought desperately, had to get out of here before she did something incredibly stupid.
When they reached the hotel, Alejandro walked her up the stairs, waited while she unlocked the door.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Good night.”
“Shaye?”
She looked up at him, mute, every fiber of her being yearning toward him.
“What did I do wrong?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Everything’s fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
He reached for her, and she backed away.
“Dammit, Shaye, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head, wishing she could explain, wishing she could tell him the truth, that she didn’t belong here, that some quirk in time had sent her through time and space and dropped her in an unfamiliar world, but she was certain he would never believe her. Even now, she could hardly believe it herself.
“All right, darlin’,” he said softly. “Good night.”
“Good night.” She started to turn away, then paused when he called her name.“Here,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket. “You forgot something.”
He pulled her share of the winnings from his pocket and placed the money into her cupped hands. Her skin tingled when his fingers brushed against hers.
“Where will you spend the night?” she asked, and then thought what a silly question that was. There were probably any number of women who would welcome him at any time of the day or night.
“Don’t worry about me, darlin’. I’ll find a place.”
His gaze, dark and smoldering, caressed her like summer heat, and then he turned and walked away, leaving her feeling cold and empty and aching deep inside.
* * * * *
Shaye rose early after a restless sleep that had been plagued with nightmares she could not now recall. She looked at Alejandro’s side of the bed, and wondered where he had spent the night.
A short time later, after washing her hands and face in a bowl of cool water and drying with a coarse cotton towel, she dressed and went downstairs in search of breakfast. She was acutely conscious of the layers of ruffled petticoats and the long wine-red skirt swirling around her ankles. Her white blouse…it was called a shirtwaist…had long, poofy sleeves that narrowed at the wrists. She had shunned the corset and pantalets in favor of her bra and bikini briefs, which she had rinsed out the night before. The half-boots were far more comfortable than they looked; she would have preferred pantyhose or even a pair of socks to the long cotton stockings. She wore a straw bonnet that tied under her chin. Her reticule, which held her camera and some of the money she had won in the poker game, dangled from her wrist.
Feeling like she was playing dress-up in her great grandmother’s clothes, she entered the hotel dining room. It was crowded with miners, all eating gustily and talking about the latest strike in one of the mines.
“Hit a rich vein this time!”
“Ore’s top grade, too!”
“I knew I should have bought some stock in that damn mine…”
Shaye hurried across the room toward an empty table and sat down. Two waitresses threaded their way around the tables, taking orders, filling coffee cups.
She sat there a good fifteen minutes before a short, plump waitress wearing a harried expression stopped by her table. “What’ll you have, honey?”
“What’s good?”
The woman brushed a lock of limp brown hair from her forehead. “Honey, if you’re hungry enough, it’s all good.”
“A stack of hot cakes, and a cup of coffee.”
With a nod, the waitress wrote it down, then moved to the next table.
Shaye removed her gloves and slipped them into her skirt pocket. Looking out the window, she saw the ever-present flood of miners and wagons that clogged the boardwalks and the streets. The shouts of teamsters, the rumble of wagon wheels, the distant sound of blasting from one of the mines, the whinny of a horse, the chiming of a clock, the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer, all combined to fill the air with discordant music. Added to this was the constant noise of the Standard stamp mill, which ran twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. A thick haze of dust hung over the town, churned up by wagon wheels and the hooves of horses and mules.
She shook her head. She had only been here two days and she was already growing accustomed to the noise and the dust. Outhouses, however, were something she would never get used to. If she ever went time traveling again, she was going to be sure to pack some toilet paper!
She smiled as the waitress returned with her breakfast.
The pancakes were some of the best Shaye had ever eaten. The coffee was the strongest she had ever tasted. Even adding a generous amount of milk and sugar didn’t help much.
She was on her second cup of coffee when she felt a tingle along her spine. Glancing toward the entrance, she saw Alejandro striding toward her, felt her whole body react to the sight of him. She licked her lips, remembering the way he had kissed her the night before and her response to it.
He winked at her as he slid into the chair across from hers. “I thought I might find you here.”
“Did you?”
The waitress appeared at their table, her brown eyes shining as she smiled at Alejandro. “Morning, Rio,” she said, handing him a cup of coffee. “The usual?”
He nodded. “Gracias, Addy Mae.”
Cheeks flushed, Addy Mae practically floated away from the table. It was obvious the girl, who didn’t look like she was more than seventeen or eighteen, had a crush on him.
“Why were you looking for me?” Shaye asked. Seeing the look in his eyes, she felt her own cheeks grow warm with the knowledge that he, too, was remembering the kisses they had shared the night before.
“I wanted to let you know I took another room at the hotel.”
“Oh, good.” It was for the best, of course, but she couldn’t help feeling bereft somehow, and ridiculously relieved that he hadn’t spent the night with someone else. “I’d hate to think of you sleeping in the street.”
He grinned at her, and she knew they were both thinking that he would never have any trouble finding a bed to sleep in, or a woman to share it with.
“That wasn’t the only reason I wanted to see you,” he said.
“Oh? Is something wrong?”
“No. I was hoping to spend the day with you.”
Her heartbeat speeded up just a little. “Were you?”
“If you don’t mind, darlin’.”
Mind? Was he crazy? “I’d like that.”
“I was hopin’ you would,” he drawled softly.
Oh, Lord, she was going to fall and fall hard, she thought frantically. Just the sound of his voice made her heart race like chain lightning across dry grass. She had never fallen head over heels in love. It had come slowly with Josh, and even then, it had never been wild and spontaneous, it had just happened. Maybe she had never really loved Josh at all. Heaven knew she had never felt this way about him. His voice had never made her heart pound. Of course, it had been just an ordinary voice, not low and sexy like Alejandro’s. Josh’s kisses had never spread through her like wildfire. They had given her pleasure, aroused her, but never made her feel like she was drowning in honey.
Oh, Lord, this couldn’t be happening.
He was watching her, one brow arched, a faint smile on his handsome face, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“What…” Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak. “What did you want to do?”
“Anything you like.”
Visions of cool sheets and hot kisses flooded her mind. She could feel herself blushing furiously.
“Well, I’ve never seen a gold mine,” she said. She had never wanted to, either, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
His gaze trapped hers. “Is that what you want to see, darlin’?”
Addy Mae arrived with his breakfast then, sparing Shaye the necessity of answering. “Anything else I can get for you, Rio?”
He smiled up at her. “No, Addy, this looks fine.”
Shaye stared at the plate the waitress put in front of him. It was piled high with pancakes, eggs, sausage, and fried potatoes. It was a wonder he didn’t weigh three hundred pounds.
“Could I get another cup of coffee?” Shaye asked.
“Coming right up,” Addy Mae replied.
The waitress returned in a few minutes. “Everything all right, Rio?” she asked as she filled Shaye’s cup.
“As always,” he replied.
Shaye sipped her coffee while he ate, only vaguely aware of the other people in the room. All she could see was Alejandro. His long black hair, the bronze of his skin, the way his fingers curled around his cup, his deep brown eyes, the way his gaze moved over the room. He seemed relaxed, yet she had the feeling he was aware of everyone in the place.
He finished his coffee and put the cup on the table. “Ready?”
She nodded, slipping on her gloves while he dropped a couple of greenbacks on the table. He was, she thought, a generous tipper.
Rising, he pulled out her chair, then took her hand. Gallant, she thought, and tried to remember the last time a man had done the little things once so common in everyday society. How times have changed, she mused. Men rarely held a door for a woman anymore, or helped her on with her coat. Women in her time had to pump their own gas and pretty much look out for themselves. And while she was perfectly capable of opening a door and filling her own gas tank, it was nice to be treated like a lady for a change.
Alejandro held the door for her. Outside, he took her arm, and they walked down the boardwalk. “So, you want to see a gold mine, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Well, there’s not much to do in Bodie this time of day,” he remarked with a grin.
“It’s a little too early for poker, and I’m not much for drinking before noon. I guess that leaves digging for gold.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? I’m hardly dressed to go tromping around in a mine.”
He laughed softly. “Have you ever been in a gold mine?”
“No.”
“Come along, then,” he said, and led her across the street and up the side of a hill.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Robison mine.”
“Will they let us go in?”
“Sure, darlin’. The foreman’s a friend of mine.”
Darlin’. Never in her life had she heard anyone caress that endearment the way he did. “Must be a female,” Shaye muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She lifted her long skirts to keep them out of the dirt, and to keep from tripping over the hem. It had been a lot easier to climb the hill in her shorts and tennis shoes.
It was a bleak land, she mused as they neared the mine. There were no green fields, no trees, no birds. Just barren hills that housed mines with fanciful names: the Oro, the Champion, the Noonday, the Red Cloud. And acres and acres of sagebrush. Wood was freighted in, or brought in by burro from the Mono Mill. She seemed to remember reading in one of the books that Bodie went through one hundred thousand cords of wood a year.
She stopped several times on the way up the hill to take pictures of the mine and the countryside, wondering, as she did so, if she would ever get back to her own time to get them developed, and if there would be anything on the film when she did. She took pictures of Alejandro, too, amused by the expression on his face.
“There was no flash this time,” he remarked.
“I don’t need a flash in the day time,” she explained. “Would you want to take one?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to take a picture of?”
“You, of course.”
She showed him how the camera worked, smiled as he took the picture. “Come here,” she said, “we’ll take one of us together.”
“How can you do that?”
“I’ll show you. Stand here.” She checked the shot in the view finder, set the timer, put the camera on a post, then went to stand beside Alejandro. A moment later, the camera took the picture.
“Amazing,” Alejandro muttered.
“Isn’t it though?”
She knew a moment of hesitation when they reached the entrance and she looked down into what seemed to be a bottomless hole in the ground. Thoughts of cave-ins flashed across her mind.
A small cage hung suspended over the pit. Shaye looked at the man who operated the hoist. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“Safe as anything can be,” he replied with a grin that did little to reassure her.
Alejandro lifted the bar and stepped inside, then held out his hand. “You coming?”
Shaye took a deep breath, and nodded
The operator rang a bell, there was a lurch, and the cage began its descent into the shaft.
Darkness soon closed around them, held at bay only by the dim yellow glow of the lantern.
“You all right?” Alejandro asked as the cage plunged downward.
“Yes,” she replied, but her heart was pounding. She had never realized she was afraid of narrow dark places until now. She remembered an old Andy Griffith show where Andy and Helen had gone exploring and been trapped in a cave-in. If anything happened now, there was no Barney Fife to launch a rescue effort.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Cause I’ve lost the feeling in my hand,” he replied, his voice filled with suppressed laughter.
Muttering, “Sorry,” Shaye instantly loosened her grip.
“Don’t worry, darlin’. They hoist loads of up to nine hundred pounds in this thing.” He grinned at her. “And you don’t look like you weigh near that much.”
“Very funny,” Shaye retorted.
Moments later, she forgot her fear. “Oh, my,” she murmured, “will you look at that?” In the lantern light, flecks of gold and silver glittered from the cave walls. “How far down are we going?”
“I think they’re at eight hundred feet.”
Eight hundred feet! She looked up, felt her heart begin to pound when all she saw was darkness.
A short time later, the cage landed with a dull thud. A tunnel stretched out ahead of them, illuminated in the glow of the lanterns strung overhead. The sound of metal striking rock echoed off the walls.
“Hey, Rio, is that you?”
“How ya doing, Moose?” Alejandro lifted the bar and stepped out of the cage. Turning, he offered Shaye his hand.
“Who’s that you’ve got with you?”
“This here’s Miss Shaye Montgomery. She’s never been in a mine before.”
“Well, bring her on down. We hit a rich vein yesterday morning.”
They walked down the tunnel, careful to avoid the tracks. She could hear the rumble of an ore cart in the distance.
Moose was aptly named. He was far and away the biggest man Shaye had ever met. Solid and square, he looked to be at least six feet, six inches tall. Sweat gleamed on his chest; his biceps were bigger than her thighs. He had long blond hair; a faded red bandana was tied around his forehead to keep his hair out of his face. There was a snake tattooed on his left shoulder.
“Miz Montgomery, welcome to the Robison mine.” His voice was as big as he was, and echoed off the walls.
“Thank you.” She glanced around, feeling uneasy. The tunnel was about seven feet high and five feet wide. Here and there, she could see huge timbers shoring up the ceiling. Wooden planks had been placed against one wall. The precautions should have made her feel better, but somehow, they only made her more nervous. A few feet behind Moose, she could see a wooden ladder leading up to another level.
“All right if we look around?” Alejandro asked.
“Sure. We’re not doing any more blasting today.” Moose reached into his pocket. “Ever seen raw gold, Miss Montgomery?”
“No.”
“Here ya go.” He handed her a lump of gold the size of a marble. “Found that in some clay this morning.”
When she started to give it back to him, he shook his head. “Keep it.”
“Really? Thank you.”
“Well, come along.” Moose said, moving down the tunnel. He pointed at the wall on the left. “Vein starts here. Don’t know how we missed it the first time. The face of this here drift assayed at three thousand a ton, some prime samples went over four grand.”
Alejandro whistled. “Guess I should have bought some stock.”
“I told you so,” Moose said. “It’s nigh on to seventeen dollars a share.”
Alejandro laughed. “That you did! Well,” he said, slapping Moose on the back, “I’ll get my share one way or the other.”
Moose laughed, too. “I reckon you will, at that. They hit a new vein over to the Standard, too.”
Alejandro nodded. “I heard Jim Mason struck it rich, too.”
“Yep. Ole Jim, he bought stock in the Standard when it was forty cents a share. Hear he made more than six thousand dollars. I remember a few years back when a couple miners bought a claim for nine hundred fifty dollars. They brung out thirty-seven thousand in gold, then sold the mine for sixty-five thousand.”
Shaye’s eyes widened. Sixty-five thousand dollars was a pile of money; in this day and age, when you could buy three pounds of salt pork for ten cents and a man could buy a pocket watch for a dollar, it must have seemed like a million.
“I heard about a couple of miners at the Bodie who found a pocket of rich ore a while back,” Alejandro remarked. “They asked for shares instead of wages, then told the owners about their strike.”
“Yeah, I recollect that. Stock went up to fifty-five bucks a share. Pretty soon those two were earnin’ near ‘bout nine hundred dollars a day.”
Shaye pressed against the wall as a tall man pushing an ore cart moved down the tunnel toward the hoist.
“Moose, dammit, if you don’t light a fire under Tolley, I’m gonna whip his ass. I swan, he…”
“Hey, watch your language, Dave, we got comp’ny,” Moose said.
Dave’s eyes widened when he saw Shaye. “My apologies, ma’am. I didn’t mean no disrespect. Howdy, Rio.”
“Hey, Dave,” Alejandro said. “How are you doing, amigo?”
“Same as always, Rio,” Dave replied with a grin. “Counting the hours until shift change.”
Shaye could understand that. She was anxious to get out of the mine. She knew it was just her imagination, but she felt like the walls were closing in on her. How did the miners spend twelve hours a day down here? She edged closer to Alejandro, finding comfort in his nearness.
“How did William Bodey happen to find gold here?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off her growing sense of claustrophobia.
Moose rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Well, according to the story I heard, he was huntin’ his dinner and he shot hisself a rabbit. Didn’t kill it though. He followed the rabbit to its den and while he was digging down, trying to get the dang thing, he hit pay dirt. Thing is, he never got to spend any of it cause he froze to death that winter.”
“That’s so sad,” Shaye remarked.
“Reckon so,” Moose agreed. “Thanks for letting us look around, Moose,” Alejandro said. He looked at Shaye. “You ready to go back up?”
“More than ready.”
“Come back anytime,” Moose said. “A pretty girl is always welcome.”
“Thank you, but I think once is enough.”
“Well, if you change your mind, come see us again. I’ll walk you back.”
“No need,” Alejandro said. He took Shaye’s hand in his and they started walking back toward the shaft.
Shaye frowned as she heard a dull roaring sound. “I thought Moose said they weren’t doing any more blasting today.”
“Yeah.” His hand tightened around hers as the ground beneath them shuddered. Muttering an oath, he pulled her into a passageway that led off the main tunnel. She stared ahead into the darkness, wondering where it led.
Alejandro dropped to his knees, pulling her with him. “Shit! Get down!”
Before Shaye had time to wonder what was happening, she was face down in the dirt with Alejandro lying across her, his big body shielding hers. There was a low rumble, like distant thunder, a shriek that sounded eerily like a woman’s scream. The ground beneath her shifted, heaving violently. Clods of dirt rained down around them.
Being a California girl, her first thought was that it was an earthquake. And then she heard the faint wail of a siren from above ground, the cries and screams of frightened men, and she knew it wasn’t an earthquake.
The mine had caved in.