CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A woman used to picking up after children, Clementine Rathmore had sewn a large pocket onto the front of her ragged skirt. The blue Colt was in there, but by moving carefully she didn’t think it showed, and besides, her pocket usually sagged with the chunks of quartz and interesting rocks the children used as toys. She saw Clara Rathmore standing beside the cooking fire, stirring a steaming, soot-blackened cauldron, and said, “Clara, I’ll take the slaves their supper tonight.”
Clara, maybe ten years younger than herself, may have been pretty once, but she wasn’t any longer. The woman shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, go right ahead,” and then, “Why?”
“Just being nice,” Clementine said.
“Being nice doesn’t abide in this place.” Clara frowned. “Here, are you hiding something?”
Clementine felt a pang of alarm. Oh, dear God, did Clara know she had a gun? Was she about to take her play away from her? She blinked and said, “What would I be hiding?”
Clara smiled, a joyless grimace. “That maybe you’re sweet on one of the slaves.”
Pretending to join in the joke, Clementine said, “Yeah, I am. The one Papa Mace is gonna burn to a few cinders.”
It was hard to tell if Clara thought that funny or not. The woman turned on her heel, gave a wave, and walked deeper into the moonlit arroyo. Clementine realized she’d been holding her breath. She sighed and began to ladle the pungent meat into the earthenware bowl she held. Later she’d fill another for the Mexicans.
Fires were burning, casting a scarlet glow on the arroyo walls, and people were scattered about, reclining or engaged in conversation. Nobody paid attention to Clementine as she walked to the mine entrance. But the two guards—a couple of the Rathmore brothers she hated as much as she did her husband—were alert.
“What’s in the bowl?” one of them said.
“Horsemeat,” Clementine said. “Want some?”
The man shook his head. “No, we’ll eat later.” He nodded in the direction of the mine shaft. “One of them dying in there, the one with the red hair.”
“He won’t eat much,” the other guard said.
“Good, that means more for the others.” Clementine hardened her face. “Keep up their strength for digging.”
“Papa Mace had a great vision, did you hear?” said the guard with the stingy beard.
Clementine shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
“He said an angel took him into the mine and showed him what lies behind the rock,” the man said. “The quartz vein is five foot thick, stretches for half a mile, and holds so much gold, it glitters like sunlight on snow. That’s what Papa Mace said.”
“That is wonderful news,” Clementine said. “Soon we can all leave this place.”
“Leave the mountains?” The guard was genuinely surprised. “No, you stupid woman, we won’t ever do that. Papa Mace said we’ll use the gold to hire gunmen and then use them to wipe out that devil’s spawn Ben Kane. After his ranch and cattle are ours we will live in peace and prosperity forever after.”
Clementine was not stupid. She was intelligent enough to realize that if Papa Mace’s vision was real, he would keep the gold for himself. His sons trusted him . . . but she did not.
“Ah, now I see the future Papa Mace has planned for us and I’m most happy and grateful,” Clementine said. “All praise to our great leader.”
“I should think so,” the bearded Rathmore said. “Woman, I know you trust Brother Asher, your husband. I know you do because he told me so, and soon you will be with child again. But above all you must trust Papa Mace in all things. Remember that. Now, take the meat inside and feed the dogs.”
Clementine smiled and nodded, the very picture of the subservient wife and mother, and carried her reeking bowl into the mine shaft.
* * *
Clementine entered the shaft, stopped, and looked around. The Mexicans were gathered around the slave Papa Mace had killed with his whip that day, and the white men sat a distance from them, keeping vigil over the redheaded man from the stage. An oil lamp cast a fitful light, and the only sound was the whispering of the Mexicans praying to their god.
What she had to do had to be done quickly and without anyone noticing, even the slaves. Her heart racing, she took a few deep breaths to steady herself, placed a bowl of meat near the Mexicans, and then stepped to the gambler, his fine clothes stained and torn by his work in the mine.
Clementine stood in front of him, staring into his eyes. “Food,” she said, laying down the bowl.
The gambling man looked up at her and said, “Is that what you call it? I have another word for it.”
For the benefit of the guards, the woman yelled, “Pig!” and slapped Broussard across the cheek, a blow that made a satisfyingly loud smack.
There’s no telling what the gambler would have done next had Clementine not reached into her pocket and dropped his Colt into Broussard’s lap. For a moment in time he and the woman froze, fearing discovery, but the instant passed, and the gambler grabbed the revolver and quickly shoved it under his coat.
Raising her voice, Clementine yelled, “And the next time you complain about the food, I’ll dump it over your head!”
The guards were still grinning at that when she stepped out of the mine. Scowling, her back stiff, she walked back to the cooking fire. “Time to feed the Mexican slaves more meat,” she sang out to no one in particular . . . and no one in particular looked in her direction.