CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The stars were still bright in the sky when Bessie Foley rudely woke Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon. Buttons, a notoriously sound sleeper, came in for some extra attention by being tipped out of his cot, blankets and all, and thudded onto the hard timber floor.
Bessie, large, threatening and stern, waited until Buttons had finished turning the air blue with his cusses and then she said, “Both of you, faces and hands washed and hair combed before you join Mrs. Talbot for breakfast.” Then, ominously, “You’ve got ten minutes.”
Buttons scowling, said, “Woman, be damned to ye fer turning a Christian man out of his bed in the middle of the night.”
“It’s five-thirty, mister,” Bessie said. “Half the day is gone. And now you have nine minutes.” She stared hard at Red who was blinking like a startled owl. “Hotcakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and coffee. Come and get it or I’ll throw it out.”
Red nodded at her. “We’ll be there.”
Buttons grumbled but washed up and wetted down his unruly hair before parting it in the middle and laying it flat as an ironing board on either side. “How do I look? Will her highness approve?”
Red smiled. “Buttons, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“Damn right I am. As good-looking a driver as ever set foot on a Concord stage,” Buttons said. “Now lead the way, Red. And your hair isn’t combed right.”
* * *
As it happened, breakfast was delayed for five minutes as an openly defiant Crystal Casey was given a horse, a three-day supply of grub, and twenty dollars, and told to leave and never set foot on the Talbot ranch again.
Red and Buttons stood on the porch in front of the house and heard Luna say, more in sadness than anger, “You lied to me, Crystal. You didn’t go out for just a moonlit ride. You met someone. Why? And who was it?”
The insolent sneer on the girl’s face made her look ugly. “You’ll find out soon enough, Mrs. High-and-mighty Talbot.”
Leah Leighton wore her gun and a furious expression. “Woman, answer the boss’s question or I’ll shoot you right off that horse.”
“You go to hell!” Crystal yelled. She rammed her spurs into the pony’s ribs and took off at a fast run.
Leah immediately shucked her Colt, but Luna said, “No, let her go. Whatever mischief took place out there in the range can’t be undone by a killing.”
Leah looked disappointed as she holstered her gun.
Luna Talbot said to Red and Buttons, “Breakfast, gentlemen? Miss Leighton will join us.”
Despite its unpromising beginning, breakfast was a pleasant affair. Luna talked about her childhood, growing up poor on the west bank of the Brazos with her ferryman father, her mother having died when she was three. Leah Leighton talked cattle and the rumor that the army would soon require an additional twenty thousand head of beef to feed the Indian reservations and its own soldiers through winter, and that could only drive up demand and prices. Then came some woman talk to which Buttons contributed, mentioning how small the hats and how huge the bustles he’d seen being worn by the New Orleans belles during his recent visit to that city. Luna and Leah were suitably scandalized, or pretended to be, but no one mentioned Crystal Foley until breakfast was over, and then only indirectly.
“I have something to tell you gentlemen, and then a proposition to make,” Luna said. “I hope you will hear me out.”
“As long as it doesn’t contravene the rules of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company. I am set on that condition.”
Luna smiled. “Mr. Ryan, where on earth did you learn a word like contravene?”
“It’s wrote down a few times in the Patterson rule book,” he said. “That, and some other big lawyer words.”
Leah said she had to rouse the hands and left.
After she was gone, Luna said, “I’m offering you a fare. Does that contravene the rules?”
Buttons said, “No it doesn’t. Passengers are always welcome. Now state your intentions, Mrs. Talbot.”
“My intention is that you take me to the Cornudas Mountains.”
“And back again?” Buttons said.
“Of course.”
“Why?” Red said.
Luna sat back as Bessie refilled her coffee and when the woman left she said, “You’ve been wondering what was in the coffin you brought here.”
“Besides the dear departed, yes. We’ve been puzzling over it.”
“We figured it was treasure,” Buttons said. “Gold coins and the like.”
“No, it’s not treasure or gold coins. It’s a map,” Luna said.
“A map? A map to where?” Red said.
“To the Lucky Cuss gold mine,” Luna said.
That last rang a bell with Red, and he said to Buttons, “Here, remember that road agent Leah Leighton shot? The one they called Hank?”
Buttons nodded. “I recollect.” He smiled. “How can I forget?”
“His dying words were ‘Lucky cuss,’ and I remember thinking that it was a strange thing to say because a man with a bullet in his brisket ain’t lucky. Damn it, he was talking about the mine. He wanted the map from the coffin, and that’s why he held us up.”
“I think Solomon Palmer did too much talking in El Paso,” Luna said. “Now it seems that every outlaw in Texas knows about the Lucky Cuss.”
“And maybe a whole heap of tin pans,” Buttons said. “Pretty soon you might find yourself in the middle of a gold rush, Mrs. Talbot.”
“And that’s why we need to talk. I want to find out if there really is a gold mine, and I want you to take me there. Riding north with half a dozen of my hands would attract too much unwelcome attention. In the coach, I’m just a rancher headed to El Paso on business.”
“It will cost you four hundred dollars for the round trip,” Buttons said. “You have that kind of money?”
“I can do better than that,” Luna said. “How does ten percent of every ounce of gold we dig out of the mountain sound to you?”
Red Ryan shook his head. “Buttons and me, we’re headed for the Patterson stage depot in El Paso and then to San Angelo, up Fort Concho way. We’re a driver and shotgun guard, not miners.”
Luna smiled. “Silly, you won’t have to dig out the gold yourself. I’ll hire men to do that. All you have to do is sit back and let the money roll in. Red, think about it. If the mine pans out, you’ll be rich or close to it.”
“We can take you to the mountains for two hundred dollars, and then we part company. That’s the best I have to offer.”
“Twenty percent,” Buttons said.
Red stared at him in disbelief. “Buttons . . .”
“And we’ll take you there and back.”
Gold fever. Buttons Muldoon had caught the disease. Red could see the symptoms of it . . . the glitter in his driver’s eyes and the flushed skin, the beads of sweat on his forehead.
Luna didn’t hesitate. “Done and done.”
“And if there’s no mine?” Red said.
“Then all bets are off,” the woman said. “You drive me back to the Talbot and then go merrily on your way to San Angelo or wherever with no hard feelings.”
“Buttons, I don’t like it,” Red said. “We’re already overdue at the El Paso depot.”
But the driver would have none of it. “Red, we can split twenty percent of a gold mine and retire. Maybe settle down in some big city. Live the good life.”
“I hate big cities, and we’re too young to retire,” Red said.
“But not too young to get rich,” Buttons said. He was breathing hard, tasting gold.
“Any age is a good age to get rich,” Luna said.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, lady,” Buttons said. “When do you want to leave?”
“Now. We leave now. I’m leaving Leah Leighton in charge.”
“I’ll hitch up the team,” Buttons said.
“I got a feeling about this arrangement.” Red rose from the table.
“What kind of feeling?” Buttons said.
“That it ain’t going to end well.”