2

“He’s dead, isn’t he, Mr. Slocum? My pa is dead.” Gerald Benteen rode in front of Slocum while Elizabeth rode behind. When the boy asked the question, Slocum felt the woman tense, as if she wanted to jump down and rush back to the cliff where the wagon and Clyde Benteen had vanished from sight. Slocum had looked down the precipice and knew from the huge pool of blood that Benteen could never have survived the fall. Even climbing down to the wreckage would take a fair amount of time because of the steep embankment and the rugged, rocky cliff face.

He tried to keep his voice level when he answered the boy, as much for the youngster’s benefit as his mother’s. Elizabeth listened intently but looked away, trying not to show how much her husband’s death affected her.

“There’s not a whole lot of chance he survived, Gerald,” Slocum said carefully. “It was an accident.”

“He saw those men and wanted to get to town,” Elizabeth said, running her hand over her lips in a quick, nervous gesture that betrayed more than her tone. “The wagon wasn’t safe. It wasn’t fixed right.”

“It would have been all right, for a spell,” Slocum said, a bit sharper than he intended. He felt she was trying to shift the blame to him for a shoddy repair job. He had done the best he could. If Clyde Benteen had known how to drive a rig and had taken precautions heading down the steep road; he might have reached Nirvana without mishap. The greenhorn fool hadn’t even locked the back wheels before starting downhill.

As if agreeing with Slocum’s appraisal of what had happened, all three surviving mules brayed loudly.

Slocum looked around. There had been men lurking at the edge of the forest watching as he had repaired the wagon, but he doubted they had meant any harm. Not wanting to palaver with him as he’d ridden over was hardly reason to think they had been intent on robbing the Benteen party or had any other mischief in mind. But he was still on edge because of everything that had happened. He would have ridden easier if he had spoken with the riders and learned what he could about their business out here on the road.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Slocum?” asked Gerald.

“Nothing. The mules are a bit skittish after being dragged along by the wagon.” The three lop-eared beasts trailing him were the lucky ones. The ill-kept harness had saved them by breaking even as it had doomed the fourth mule to a messy death.

“It wasn’t Clyde’s fault,” Elizabeth said. “He didn’t know. This isn’t what he does best. Did.” She sobbed a bit and clung to him even harder. He felt her wet tears staining the back of his shirt. He rode the entire distance into town without saying another word. Neither mother nor son seemed to mind the silence since both were lost in their own personal grief.

Slocum felt half a hundred sets of eyes following them as they slowly made their way down the narrow main street. Long ago, quartz tailings from some unnamed mine had been brought to Nirvana, crushed and then used to pave the street. The white rock gleamed in the setting sun, white and gold and a bloodred.

“I don’t rightly know where you can stay,” Slocum said, having faced this problem himself before deciding to leave the boomtown. Miners were sleeping ten to a room at the hotel for a dollar a night—if they supplied their own bedrolls. Just passing outside one of those rooms had convinced Slocum to avoid such accommodations. The miners snored like ripsaws, and the stench of unwashed bodies was almost more than he could stomach. He had decided it was better to find a spot at the edge of town to spread his bedroll. Even so, he had slept with his hand curled around the butt of his six-gun.

Where was a decent woman like Elizabeth, with a young son in tow, going to find a place to stay until she decided to move on? He reckoned she wouldn’t be in Nirvana too long. Family in Boston could arrange passage back east, probably overland this time since stage and train were quicker ways of getting across the country than the sailing ships going around the Cape, especially if she and Gerald weren’t burdened by a wagonload of household goods.

After recovering the wagon’s contents, Elizabeth could sell what wasn’t smashed for a small fortune. Nirvana, like all boomtowns, suffered shortages of all useful goods like blankets, quilts, kitchenware and tools.

Slocum frowned as he considered why Clyde Benteen had chosen the sea route to bring his family to this godforsaken place. Trains were reliable, not to mention faster and safer. He shrugged it off. It didn’t matter if the man had been more comfortable at sea than riding on the iron rails. Perhaps his family owned a shipping firm.

“Getting a roof over your head for the night is going to be a problem,” Slocum said, skirting the real issue. A female as pretty as Elizabeth Benteen was going to cause trouble in a woman-hungry town like Nirvana. The few women here were whores or wives with very suspicious, protective husbands. Slocum had seen the owner of the bakery pistol-whip a miner for making a suggestive remark to his wife, and there was more than one unmarked grave in the town cemetery that he suspected were filled with murdered miners who had let their desires run rampant in front of a jealous lover.

“There are two newspapers in town,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Let me go in there.” She pointed toward the opened front door of the Nirvana Bugle. A river of pale yellow light flooded onto the boardwalk as if this might drive back the gathering darkness. Slocum saw this as a battle destined to be lost.

“Why this one?” Slocum asked, but Elizabeth was already sliding away from him and dropping behind the horse. The dark-haired woman patted down her dress and created small dust storms with this ineffectual toilet. Then she ran her fingers comblike across her head to get her disordered raven-black hair into some semblance of neatness. She heaved a deep breath and marched directly into the office.

“Your ma know the owner? Was this where you were heading?” Slocum asked Gerald.

“I don’t know, Mr. Slocum. Pa never said anything to me about what we were going to do once we reached here, other than to start our own newspaper.”

“Your ma said there are already two papers here. Why would the town need a third one?” As important as newspapers were to a mining town, there had to be a limit to how many were really needed. Gossip, word of assay results, new strikes, humor to lighten the dreary day, announcements of any entertainment passing through town—these were all that a paper needed to carry. One newspaper could do it, two had a chance of survival if they fostered fake feuds between themselves, but three? Like tits on a bull.

Slocum heaved Gerald around and let the boy jump to the ground. He followed suit, standing by the hitching post and waiting for Elizabeth Benteen to come out. Reporting the accident to the press wasn’t what Slocum would have done first, but he was beginning to think that Clyde Benteen wasn’t the only one bitten by the newspaper bug.

“Come on in, Gerald,” Elizabeth called, waving to her son from the doorway. “You, too, Mr. Slocum.”

Curious, Slocum followed the boy inside the brightly lit room. Coal oil lamps burned everywhere, casting deep shadows but also providing a good view of the large trays of lead type and the huge, flat-plate printing press in the middle of the room. From the look of it, Elizabeth had interrupted the editor in the middle of printing the next day’s edition.

“Joseph Arnot, meet John Slocum. I’ve told Mr. Arnot how you helped me and he’s agreed to let you sleep out back tonight in the shed.”

“Much obliged,” Slocum said, letting the woman do the talking. She seemed to understand his silence.

“Mr. Arnot has agreed to let Gerald and me stay in the back room in exchange for the contents of our wagon.”

“That’s a mighty pricey swap,” Slocum said. Before he could say more, Elizabeth rushed on with her explanation.

“My husband had a Ramage press, Mr. Slocum. A new printing press, much finer than this one.”

“She’s agreed to give it to me if I let her and Gerald stay and work for me. Truth to tell, experienced news reporters and delivery boys are at a premium in Nirvana.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Slocum said. “If it’s all the same, and I do appreciate your offer to stay, I’ll get back on the trail.” He saw Elizabeth start to protest. A lump formed in his throat. For some reason he felt responsible for her and Gerald, and now he was abandoning them. But Arnot looked to be a decent enough man, and Elizabeth had to seize control her of own destiny. From what Slocum could see, she was off to a good start.

“Please, Mr. Slocum,” she said, for the first time a plaintive note entering her voice. “Could you stay? Just for a short while? You’ve done so much for us, but I don’t know who I could ask to retrieve the printing press and . . . and Clyde.”

“Workers are mighty scarce in Nirvana, Mr. Slocum,” said Arnot. “If you want a job, I can give you one, too.”

“I don’t know anything about a newspaper,” Slocum said.

“But you’ve read one, I bet,” chimed Gerald. “You know lots more than you think. Come on, Mr. Slocum. Please stay. For a while?” The boy looked up at Slocum with big eyes the size of saucers. In those eyes Slocum saw the hurt and longing for some steadiness in his life. His ma was dealing well with her husband’s death. Slocum saw Gerald was having a harder time and hunted for someone to replace the security he had lost.

Slocum wasn’t the one to give the boy what he sought. In spite of this, Slocum nodded.

“For a day or two,” Slocum said. “I can fetch this printing press, but it looks to be mighty heavy.”

“I know the spot where the wagon went off the road,” Arnot said. The short, stocky man pushed eyeglasses up his nose. Strong, stubby ink-stained fingers rubbed aimlessly across his filthy apron. “I’d be glad to help but I have a bad back. But one thing’s working in our favor. The big election will bring a passel of miners into town. There’ll be one or two willing to help bring in the equipment in return for a few dollars. If they’re not completely snockered from the free booze being passed out in return for their votes.”

“Election?” asked Gerald.

“Nirvana’s electing its first mayor,” Slocum said.

“See, Mr. Slocum, you do have the makings of a reporter. You pay attention to what’s going on around you,” Elizabeth said, beaming.

“I’d have to be blind and dumb not to notice the banners and bunting everywhere.”

“It has all the makings of a real barnburner,” Arnot said, some passion lighting his dark eyes. “J. Henry Jones is likely to win because he’s a politician. He was an elected alderman in San Francisco and then came here to run the bank. But Thomas Calderon, for all his rough-hewn ways as a miner, is a real contender.”

“That’s more than I need to know,” Slocum said. He had left Nirvana as much to get away from such politics as the fistfights and the miner who still might be carrying a grudge and a split head.

“Sorry if I waxed too enthusiastic,” Arnot said, not sorry at all.

“Since the election’s so soon, Mr. Arnot wants me to interview the two candidates.”

“Tonight?” Slocum was startled that she’d want to do anything so soon after her husband’s death.

“It . . . it’ll help me keep my mind off other matters,” Elizabeth said softly. “And Gerald can deliver papers in town.”

“Got a special edition coming off the press right now. I’ll be up the rest of the night getting out the final edition by tomorrow morning.”

“You do both morning and evening editions?” Slocum’s eyebrows rose.

Arnot had to be a fool to kill himself with a schedule like that.

“Only today. This election’ll make Nirvana think it’s a real town. I want to record everything I can about it for posterity.”

“I have to hurry over to find Mr. Calderon and Mr. Jones,” Elizabeth said, taking a notebook off the desk and critically studying a pencil from a cup beside it. The sharp lead point passed muster. She stuck the pencil into her hair above her right ear the way Slocum had seen other reporters carry writing implements.

“It’s getting mighty dark,” Slocum said, glancing outside. The sun had set. The red sheen on the quartz had turned to milky reflections of the lights from the newspaper office and the saloons down the street. Like most places, Nirvana turned deadly when the sun dropped and the animals came out to feed. And drink. And gamble. And whore.

“I won’t get lost,” Elizabeth said, grinning a little. “If I do, I can ask. I’m sure everyone knows the way to the Bugle.”

Slocum caught Arnot’s eye. The small editor rubbed his inky hands against his heavy apron, looked from Slocum to the press and its partially printed extra, then back.

“I’ll tag along,” Slocum said, giving in to the inevitable.

“There’s no need. You wanted to be on your way,” Elizabeth said. He caught more than a hint of taunting in her voice, as if she challenged him. He wasn’t sure if it was a goad to leave or stay.

“Promised to fetch the printing press,” he said. “I can’t do that in the dark. Besides, these two gents might have something interesting to say about how they’d run Nirvana if they’re elected mayor.”

“Very well.” Elizabeth turned to her son. “You help Mr. Arnot. Do whatever he says. Do you understand, Gerald?”

“Yes, Ma,” the boy said, not wanting to work while his mother ran off to playact being a reporter.

Elizabeth scooped up a sheet of paper, checked her pencil, then left without so much as a backward glance. Slocum and Arnot exchanged looks again, then Slocum followed the dark-haired woman out into a drastically changed world. There had been a hint of civilization while the sun tottered above the tall mountains but when night came, the veneer of decorum vanished. Slocum’s hand flashed to the butt of his six-shooter when a miner came roaring out of the saloon two doors down from the Bugle office. The man flailed wildly, tumbled over the hitching rail and splashed noisily into the watering trough.

“He needed a bath,” Elizabeth said, sniffing at such behavior. “Where is the political debate most likely to be held?” she asked, studying first one and then another of the gin mills lining the main street.

“Reckon that’s the one,” Slocum said, pointing to one cattycorner from the newspaper office. The red, white and blue bunting draping the exterior of the Millionaire Miner Drinking Emporium had been torn down and set on fire. Men crowded close, trying to force their way inside, probably for free drinks. More than this, an occasional gunshot sounded and the saloon bouncer appeared at the side door, giving a bum’s rush to the most obstreperous of the drunks.

“Getting interviews is going to be difficult,” Elizabeth said.

“Might be easier if we go in from above,” Slocum said, pointing to rickety stairs going to a second floor. He guessed what might be up there—cribs for the soiled doves—but forcing their way into the saloon was out of the question as long as whiskey flowed for free.

“Mr. Slocum, I have seen a great deal of depravity and it does not affect me unduly,” Elizabeth said, seeing his hesitation. “There are Cyprians there, aren’t there?”

“Could be,” he said. He wasn’t a wet nurse who had to hide the seamier side of a boomtown from her eyes. Why he was even with her was yet to be answered. Slocum still appreciated the way her bustle rolled as she hurried across the street. Elizabeth was a tidy little package.

He sucked in a deep breath. She might be a pretty filly, but she was also newly widowed. It was not proper to think such thoughts about her until after a decent period of mourning.

“Come along, John,” she said from the top of the stairs. Elizabeth had opened the door and peered in. “I might need help getting through the crowd.”

Slocum gingerly made his way up the steps. His heavier weight threatened to bring down the entire staircase. He heaved a sigh of relief when he stepped into the second-floor hallway of the Millionaire Miner. Then his nose wrinkled as the smells hit him like a hammer.

Elizabeth tried to keep from choking.

“Here,” he said, handing her his bandanna. It wasn’t overly clean but anything that filtered out the reek had to be an improvement. She gratefully took it and held it over her nose as they stepped over the inert bodies lying along the length of the corridor. Most were passed out, but Slocum saw the goose-egg lumps behind the ears of more than one miner. They had come up to be with the lady of the night they had chosen, only to end up robbed. That the prostitutes didn’t bother dumping their victims out the back door told him the bouncer downstairs was likely to be up to perform that chore sooner or later.

The neophyte reporter appeared not to hear any of the amorous sounds coming from rooms on either side of the hall because she was so intent on getting her story.

At the head of the stairs, Elizabeth crouched down so she could see into the barroom below.

“That must be Jones,” she said, pointing to a man in the far corner.

If Elizabeth saw only the candidate, Slocum saw the stony men serving as his bodyguard. Mugs like theirs showed up on wanted posters. All the men wore a brace of six-shooters, and three carried sawed-off shotguns. If they opened up with those, they’d clear the room in a few seconds, leaving behind dead bodies and a whale of a lot of splattered blood on the walls and floor.

But the banker wasn’t the only one with a tight knot of men around him. In another corner of the saloon stood the miner seeking to become Nirvana’s first mayor. Thomas Calderon was as hard-bitten, but Slocum felt an unmistakable kinship with him. The miner made his living honestly—from Slocum’s standpoint. Jones traded money for the promise of gold and silver rather than putting his own hard work into the claims. Calderon swung a pick and pushed an ore cart all day hunting for the elusive blue dirt that held silver.

“Do you think I can speak with them?”

Slocum shook his head. He couldn’t force his way through the crush of miners. There was no way Elizabeth would be able to.

“They’ll get to talking sooner or later. That ought to answer most of your questions. Who’s to know you didn’t ask the questions directly?”

“That’s so,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “Besides, I have to use a byline that hides the fact that I’m a woman. No miner’d read anything a woman wrote.”

She accepted this with such equanimity that Slocum was again taken aback. Elizabeth worked well in a world dominated by prejudice and didn’t complain or let it deter her.

“Mr. Jones is starting his talk,” Elizabeth said, taking her pencil and quickly making notes. Slocum thought the banker was haranguing rather than speaking, but when Calderon began his speech, it wasn’t much different. Before long, the pair of them were trading shouted insults, much to the delight of the drunken crowd.

The glint of light off a badge caught Slocum’s attention. The town marshal stood near one of Jones’ henchmen, looking mighty chummy. When the crowd began taking sides and fighting began, Slocum couldn’t help noticing how the marshal used a little extra force to remove Calderon’s supporters.

“The entire building’s going to come tumbling down,” Slocum said. The surge and swell of the miners below as they crashed into the flimsy saloon walls worried him.

“I have plenty,” Elizabeth said, looking up at him with her bright blue eyes. She smiled just a little and said, “Thank you.”

“Haven’t done much, not yet,” he said, his mind on retrieving her husband’s corpse.

“No,” she said, smiling even more. “Not yet.”

Blinking at this, Slocum hastened to follow Elizabeth Benteen as she stepped over the drunk and unconscious miners as they made their way back to the Nirvana Bugle.