in Frisco. Let somebody else get their hands dirty for a change. The Lahoods’ll just sit back and collect dividends.” He looked past his son, toward the mountains that towered behind them.
“But we need to strike pay dirt in Carbon, and we need to do it fast.”
Josh and McGill rode along silently, hanging on the elder Lahood’s every word.
“Those tin-pans have got to go and go this week. We can’t afford to wait any longer. I want us set up in Carbon and cutting ground before the farmers’ bill is put on the governor’s desk, because the dumb bastard’s just liable to sign it. That means that preacher has to go, too. We’ll have to figure out a way to handle him.”
“Maybe we could—” Josh began hopefully. His father cut him off.
“Shut up, boy. If you could’ve taken care of him you would’ve done so already. So keep quiet and let your old man think.”
The younger Lahood endured this criticism in silence. First, because not even blood relations talked back to Coy Lahood and second, because he knew the criticism was justified. He forced himself to say nothing during the remainder of the ride into town. After awhile he began to relax.
He was thinking of how his father was going to take care of that damn preacher man. Coy Lahood could be very inventive when the need arose. By the time they reached the outskirts of town, he was smiling.
The oak bureau had been hauled all the way from Philadelphia, around the Cape via clipper, then overland into the Sierras via wagon.
Now it reposed in the Wheeler cabin, where it constituted Sarah Wheeler’s prize possession. It was the finest piece of furniture in Carbon Canyon and would have drawn appreciative comments even in Sacramento. Sarah preferred not to point it out to visitors if she could avoid doing so, however. Doing so would have meant explaining its history, and that in turn would have meant explaining how she and her former husband had come to acquire it. She preferred not to mention that man’s name in her home.
On reflection, the bureau had been of more use than had the man. It stayed where it belonged, did its job, was there when she needed it, and neither beat nor berated her. Better a wooden bureau than a wooden man, she finally decided.
From time to time she wondered where he was, what he was doing. Looking for gold, no doubt, in places where a wife and a daughter would be more of an encumbrance than a help. Handsome he’d been, handsome and smooth-talking and so wise in the ways of the world. Or so he’d seemed to young Sarah. Now that she’d had a chance to experience a bit more of life she knew better. She’d mistaken vanity for confidence, lies for knowledge, and sex for love.
Not that he’d been an evil man. Just sorry, and she too young to know any better. When he’d deserted her and Megan, the hurt had been too much to bear. It was still there but healed over now, like an old break covered by new bone.
Megan was hard at work in her own room, unaware of her mother’s thoughts. She was trying to pull the straps tighter against her back, the better to raise and emphasize her adolescent bosom. She turned sideways to eye herself in the beveled oval mirror, examining her half-naked form critically. It was a good figure, no doubt of that, and time would likely enhance and refine it even more. But it would’ve been better if she’d had someone else there to tie the corset straps for her. She didn’t dare ask her mother.
What she really needed was one of those new dresses Mrs. Williams had been talking about. Mrs. Williams had been in Sacramento as recently as two months ago, to tend to her elderly sister, and had returned to Carbon Canyon full of tales of the latest in politics and fashion. The gowns she claimed to have seen sounded fit for a queen to Megan. Cut low in front, with lots of velvet and feathers, that was what she needed.
But all she had was the one Sunday dress, and that would have to do.
Idly she called out to
“But we need to strike pay dirt in Carbon, and we need to do it fast.”
Josh and McGill rode along silently, hanging on the elder Lahood’s every word.
“Those tin-pans have got to go and go this week. We can’t afford to wait any longer. I want us set up in Carbon and cutting ground before the farmers’ bill is put on the governor’s desk, because the dumb bastard’s just liable to sign it. That means that preacher has to go, too. We’ll have to figure out a way to handle him.”
“Maybe we could—” Josh began hopefully. His father cut him off.
“Shut up, boy. If you could’ve taken care of him you would’ve done so already. So keep quiet and let your old man think.”
The younger Lahood endured this criticism in silence. First, because not even blood relations talked back to Coy Lahood and second, because he knew the criticism was justified. He forced himself to say nothing during the remainder of the ride into town. After awhile he began to relax.
He was thinking of how his father was going to take care of that damn preacher man. Coy Lahood could be very inventive when the need arose. By the time they reached the outskirts of town, he was smiling.
The oak bureau had been hauled all the way from Philadelphia, around the Cape via clipper, then overland into the Sierras via wagon.
Now it reposed in the Wheeler cabin, where it constituted Sarah Wheeler’s prize possession. It was the finest piece of furniture in Carbon Canyon and would have drawn appreciative comments even in Sacramento. Sarah preferred not to point it out to visitors if she could avoid doing so, however. Doing so would have meant explaining its history, and that in turn would have meant explaining how she and her former husband had come to acquire it. She preferred not to mention that man’s name in her home.
On reflection, the bureau had been of more use than had the man. It stayed where it belonged, did its job, was there when she needed it, and neither beat nor berated her. Better a wooden bureau than a wooden man, she finally decided.
From time to time she wondered where he was, what he was doing. Looking for gold, no doubt, in places where a wife and a daughter would be more of an encumbrance than a help. Handsome he’d been, handsome and smooth-talking and so wise in the ways of the world. Or so he’d seemed to young Sarah. Now that she’d had a chance to experience a bit more of life she knew better. She’d mistaken vanity for confidence, lies for knowledge, and sex for love.
Not that he’d been an evil man. Just sorry, and she too young to know any better. When he’d deserted her and Megan, the hurt had been too much to bear. It was still there but healed over now, like an old break covered by new bone.
Megan was hard at work in her own room, unaware of her mother’s thoughts. She was trying to pull the straps tighter against her back, the better to raise and emphasize her adolescent bosom. She turned sideways to eye herself in the beveled oval mirror, examining her half-naked form critically. It was a good figure, no doubt of that, and time would likely enhance and refine it even more. But it would’ve been better if she’d had someone else there to tie the corset straps for her. She didn’t dare ask her mother.
What she really needed was one of those new dresses Mrs. Williams had been talking about. Mrs. Williams had been in Sacramento as recently as two months ago, to tend to her elderly sister, and had returned to Carbon Canyon full of tales of the latest in politics and fashion. The gowns she claimed to have seen sounded fit for a queen to Megan. Cut low in front, with lots of velvet and feathers, that was what she needed.
But all she had was the one Sunday dress, and that would have to do.
Idly she called out to
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