Sins of Motherlode Read online

  ‘She’s fine, thankfully,’ Jenny answered. ‘In fact, she’s in the dining room right now, with a gentleman. I suggested she rest tonight, but she wouldn’t. She’s got a lot of grit. Louise told me of your kindness, and I want to thank you for that.’

  ‘I wish I could have done more – stopped it from happening in the first place.’

  ‘From what I understand, you didn’t have any choice. It would have been plumb foolish of you to take on armed road agents,’ Jenny said.

  ‘I guess it was just bad luck that that bandit recognized her,’ Robinson said.

  Jenny nodded. ‘I’m just glad she wasn’t hurt worse. But you, at least, treated her like a real person afterwards, and didn’t just pretend that nothing had happened, or that she didn’t deserve sympathy. As a thank you, everything tonight is on the house, as our guest.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’ Robinson wondered guiltily if he’d have treated Miss Louise differently if he’d known for certain earlier that she was a prostitute.

  Jonah had been looking across the hall into the music parlour; now he politely interrupted the conversation.

  ‘Excuse me, I see you have a professor at the piano. I can hear Miss Sandy in there and I’d like to see if she’s free for a dance?’

  ‘I believe she is,’ Jenny answered, smiling. She put her hand on Jonah’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you.’

  With a warm smile and a polite nod, Jonah went through to the other room.

  ‘Now then, Mr. Robinson,’ Jenny continued. ‘Would you like to mix generally, or shall I introduce you to one of my boarders?’

  ‘Um. . . .’ Robinson looked around at the women.

  There was an olive-skinned girl, with a lovely smile and corkscrews of dark hair trailing loosely from a bun. Beside her was a slender girl with pale skin and flaxen hair which was crowned with a spray of tiny flowers, but otherwise fell in loose waves to below her waist. Opposite was a beautiful woman with dark hair in a coiled braid on the back of her head.

  ‘I’ll defer to your judgement, Miss Jenny.’

  She smiled reassuringly and led him across the room. ‘Mr. Robinson, I’d like you to meet Miss Erica.’

  Miss Erica held out her hand. ‘Please, sit beside me so we can talk.’ With her other hand, she patted the empty space beside herself on the two-seater sofa. Miss Erica was a dark-haired beauty with a clear, creamy complexion and blue eyes that shone with the love of life.

  ‘Your accent?’ Robinson said, as he sat.

  She laughed lightly. ‘Yes, I’m English.’

  She sounded different to the other English people Robinson had met, and he guessed accurately that it was an upper-class accent. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘You must hear that all the time, yeah?’

  ‘I hear all kinds of accents here and they all sound as foreign to me as I do to you,’ she replied. ‘You sound rather like Jonah. Are you from Vermont, too?’

  ‘Rhode Island, so both are part of New England,’ he said with some pride.

  ‘I never saw New England,’ Erica told him. ‘I landed in New York and came west. Is it beautiful country?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ Robinson considered for a few moments. ‘It isn’t grand, like the scenery here in Colorado, yeah, or endless like the prairies. It’s smaller in scale, but I reckon it’s pretty swell.’

  ‘Describe it for me, please,’ Erica asked, her lovely face turned to him with flattering, and genuine attention.

  Robinson began to describe his home town, drawn on by Erica’s questions. He began to relax, helped by good wine, good conversation and the social atmosphere of the parlour. His previous visits to prostitutes had been more a matter of physical need and the women had been a pleasant means of satisfying that need. Robinson had never learned anything about them as people in their own right. Talking with Miss Erica was a comfortable, fascinating experience as she talked about her impression of America as an immigrant and the cultural differences.

  Things got livelier when they joined Jonah and the vivacious Miss Sandy in the well-appointed dining room for an excellent meal. Miss Sandy proved to have an earthy sense of humour and lowered the tone of the conversation with great style. It was one of the most entertaining evenings Robinson had ever had, and after they finished eating, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to accompany Erica up the stairs to her bedroom, where the pleasure became more personal.

  Robinson and Jonah met again the next morning at breakfast in their hotel’s dining room. Robinson felt a little awkward at first, in the clean light of a new morning. However, other than a vague enquiry about whether the newspaperman had had a good night, Jonah showed no inclination to discuss anything that had happened in the brothel’s bedrooms. Robinson realized he had somewhat misjudged his new friend. Some other men he’d met had been happy to discuss the abilities and attributes of prostitutes, sometimes almost as if comparing horses hired from a livery stable. He guessed that Jonah wasn’t reticent through embarrassment or lack of self-confidence; he simply respected the women and himself.

  Instead, the conversation was about plans for the day, in relation to the attack on the stagecoach, and Miss Louise. Jonah decided to visit the Red Horse Mine where the stolen payroll had been destined, as he’d been there before. Robinson offered to go to the stagecoach company and talk to the owner.

  ‘I’d like to know if his drivers have seen those bandits before, yeah, or if payrolls have been stolen from them before?’ Robinson said.

  ‘The marshal didn’t mention any other stagecoach robberies,’ Jonah said. ‘Though it may be that he just didn’t think to,’ he added. ‘The Golden West Company’s not been in Motherlode long; it wasn’t here when I first came in the spring.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I reckon it must have been set up in July.’

  ‘Two months. They’ve done well to get a contract to deliver payrolls that soon,’ Robinson said. ‘Unless there was another company that quit, yeah?’

  ‘There wasn’t a stage line in Motherlode before,’ Jonah told him. ‘There’s one runs between Durango, Silverton, Ouray and Montrose, but it’s harder to run east-west.’

  ‘The Golden West runs between Telluride and Animas Forks,’ Robinson said.

  ‘Plenty of mines along that route,’ Jonah mused. ‘If they could get regular contracts to deliver payrolls and some goods, then that would help.’

  ‘I’ll find out what I can,’ Robinson promised. ‘Folks that have done well like to talk about their success,’ he added shrewdly. ‘And if the listener is a newspaperman, they can become quite loquacious.’

  Jonah smiled. ‘You go get the owner of the Golden West to loquate as well as you can, and I’ll go call on the Red Horse Mine and get the other end of the story.’

  Some fifteen minutes later, Robinson was at the offices of the Golden West Stagecoach Company. Stable blocks and barns enclosed most of the company’s yard, with the modest office tucked in a corner by the high fence that separated the yard from the street. There was hammering from a workshop, and a sudden hiss, accompanied by the smell of singeing, as a hot shoe was applied to a horse’s hoof at the forge. Robinson paused to watch a large, heavyset man stacking bales of straw. The man lifted the bales as though they weighed nothing, making a tidy stack under a sloping roof adjacent to the stables. He paused briefly to stare at Robinson from an inscrutable, Slavic face, then returned to his labours.

  Mildly unsettled by the look, Robinson knocked on the office door, and entered.

  A quick glance showed him a well-appointed office, with a good-sized filing cabinet, a heavy safe and a substantial, leather-topped desk. The man behind the desk had an equally prosperous look to match his surroundings. He was stocky and powerful in build, almost to the point of being overweight. His face and balding scalp were pink and shining, with the hair at the sides of his head shaved so short as to be almost invisible. Blue eyes and a smile as he greeted Robinson, made him look like a genial gnome from a fairy story.

&
nbsp; ‘Mr. Millard?’ Robinson asked.

  ‘Certainly, sir. How may I help you?’ the businessmen answered, indicating a seat on Robinson’s side of the desk.

  ‘I’m Hulton F. Robinson, correspondent for the New-York Tribune. I was travelling on the stage that was robbed yesterday, yeah?’ Robinson sat down.

  Millard’s smile abruptly faded. ‘Terms of the company state that passengers travel at their own risk.’ He suddenly looked decidedly thuggish.

  ‘Oh, I understand that. I’m not here to make a complaint,’ Robinson explained hastily. ‘I travel a lot on the stages, but until now, I’ve taken them rather for granted. Yesterday’s unfortunate experience made me think about the risks in setting up and running a stagecoach company. I feel it would make a fascinating subject for a letter, or a series of letters, to the Tribune. I was hoping that you could help me, yeah? You must have a great understanding of the subject.’

  ‘I have been somewhat successful,’ Millard admitted modestly. As he shifted in his chair, sunlight flashed off the stickpin in his tie, and caught Robinson’s eye. Millard saw him blink and gave a little laugh. ‘I do apologize; I had no intention of dazzling you.’ He moved his hand to briefly cover the diamond-tipped stickpin, giving Robinson a glimpse of the diamond-set cufflink he wore.

  ‘It’s very beautiful,’ Robinson said, trying to imagine how much the tiepin and cufflink set would cost. It occurred to him that Jonah would probably know.

  Millard smiled. ‘I’m afraid that jewels are my weakness; I even named my daughters after them.’

  Robinson had got out his notebook and pencil without even thinking about it. ‘Really, which jewels?’

  ‘The eldest is Opal, she’s eighteen. Her sisters are Pearl, Ruby and Amethyst. I think of Amethyst as the baby, but she’s nine now, not really a baby anymore.’

  ‘Those are pretty names,’ Robinson said politely. He realized that he was making notes and looked over at Millard. ‘A newspaperman’s habit, yeah?’ he said, gesturing with the notebook and pointing at it with the pencil. ‘I can leave the names of your family out if you wish, but readers like the personal detail. I believe that readers will be charmed by your daughters’ names, yeah?’

  ‘I guess a whole family of jewels must be rather uncommon?’ Millard asked, with a nice degree of modestly-concealed pride. ‘If I’d had more daughters, I was considering Emerald, Amber and Topaz as names,’ he added thoughtfully.

  Robinson wondered briefly what Millard would have named a son. Jet, perhaps? Or Jasper? He pulled his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  ‘You look to have a mighty fine yard out there,’ he said. ‘Everything a coach line might require, including your own forge.’

  Millard warmed to the praise. ‘Indeed, we do. “No foot, no horse” is perfectly true, so I prefer to have our own smith to tend to the horses. With my own man, I can be sure of getting a skilled job, plus, he’s available whenever necessary, so we don’t have to wait at a public forge if a horse has cast a shoe. The smith also makes fittings for the coaches and helps the carpenters keep them in good repair.’

  As Millard continued to talk about his company with quiet self-satisfaction, Robinson brought the conversation round to the early days of his business. Although Millard had only been operating from Motherlode for three months, he’d run stagecoach companies in four other towns over the years, starting in Missouri before moving west after the war, and then around Colorado.

  ‘Have you encountered much trouble with road agents before?’ Robinson asked.

  ‘Now and again,’ Millard said. ‘The attack that you, unfortunately, endured, was the first one since moving to Motherlode.’

  ‘Are your drivers here the same ones you employed back in Cañon City?’

  Millard shook his head. ‘No, I wanted drivers who knew the local trails.’

  ‘They didn’t recognize the bandits at all, did they? If the bandits operate locally too, they might have robbed those drivers before, yeah?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid my men were unable to give any useful information to the marshal.’

  Robinson made a note of that. ‘Do you carry valuable loads like payrolls to a regular schedule – the same day each month?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Each mine needs its payroll at roughly the same time each month,’ Millard replied. ‘But we arrange with them for it to be transported on different days, and at different times.’

  ‘How do you make those arrangements with the mines?’

  ‘When we get a new contract, I visit the mines and we work out a schedule for the next six months at a time. Each mine contacts its bank when it wants its payroll put on the stage and copies of the schedule are kept locked away securely.’ Millard gestured at the stout, iron safe fixed to the wall of his office.

  ‘How far in advance do employees learn that they will be taking a payroll?’

  Millard frowned thoughtfully, his face turning thuggish. ‘I don’t tell them, they find out when the guards from the bank bring it to them. And I think we’re done discussing details of our security arrangements.’

  Robinson nodded, not wanting to provoke Millard. ‘I’m sure grateful to you for your time. I’ve got a lot of interesting material here.’ He smiled. ‘And I swear there won’t be anything about how you arrange security in the article. I was just asking for my own curiosity, after witnessing the attack, yeah?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll write a terrific piece for your paper,’ Millard said generously. ‘Would it be long before it appears?’ He tried to be casual about his question.

  ‘A few weeks at least and I can’t guarantee it will be printed,’ Robinson said, putting away notebook and pencil. ‘But I believe it will. I may need to ask some more questions, once I start writing,’ he added. He fully intended to write a letter about the stagecoach business, but it was good to have an excuse to come back if he and Jonah had more questions about the robbery and the attack on Miss Louise.

  ‘You can be sure of my help,’ Millard assured him.

  They shook hands and Robinson left, heading back to his hotel. He wanted to start getting down ideas for letters about Jonah as well as the stagecoach company. A sudden thought caused him to stop in his tracks, making other people swerve round him on the busy sidewalk of Panhandle Street. Oblivious to the curses directed at him, Robinson took out his notebook and glanced at the notes he’d just made. His memory was right. Millard’s first stagecoach line had run for seven years in Missouri. He’d then operated from Denver for three years, before moving to Boulder for another three, and Cañon City for just two years, before relocating here to Motherlode. Why should someone with a successful business just up sticks and move to another place, with the expense of setting up new premises and the trouble of finding new contracts and suppliers? Millard didn’t seem to have failed in the other cities: he had money. Robinson shrugged; maybe Millard just liked new challenges. Striding out again, he made his way back to the hotel.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  There was a flash of red as a male crossbill swooped across the trail just ahead. Jonah’s horse pricked its ears and jumped sideways in pretend fright.

  ‘Steady, Cirrus,’ Jonah chuckled, as his legs and hands automatically steadied the dapple-grey and sent it on again at a steady trot.

  The horse had been doing no more than letting off a little steam on this fine, fall morning. Jonah was in pretty good spirits himself. He’d quit his medical studies for adventure out west and after a year of punching cattle, had ended up here in Colorado. Jonah had fallen in love with the green fields and trees, the grey and red mountains, topped with sparkling snow all year round, and the fresh, clear air that made the most distant peaks as sharp as the nearest. The towns and mills that were springing up made ugly blots on the landscape, staining the sky with their smoke, but Jonah enjoyed the pleasures of town life as well. His current line of work enabled him to enjoy both the towns and the country, and to earn good money, too. Although he didn’t realize it himself, part of Jonah
’s charm came from his own contentment with life.

  Jonah reached the Red Horse Mine before midday. He watered Cirrus and made his horse comfortable before approaching the office buildings. The clerk remembered him from a visit earlier in the year, and after a short wait, Jonah was shown into the manager’s office. He greeted the manager, Mr. Rooney, and sat down in front of the dark-wood, polished desk.

  ‘Jonah Durrell,’ Rooney mused, studying Jonah with shrewd, pale eyes. ‘I’ve heard your name a few times. You’re a bounty hunter.’

  Jonah nodded and smiled. ‘I am. Forgive me for intruding on your time. I know you must be busy.’ He indicated the sheets of paper stacked in tidy piles on the desk. ‘I want to find the men who attacked the stage and stole your payroll yesterday.’

  ‘The management of the Red Horse Mine haven’t yet decided whether to offer a reward for catching the criminals, or for the return of the money,’ Rooney said. ‘And we’re not in the business of hiring anyone ourselves to find either.’

  ‘I’m not doing it just for money,’ Jonah said. ‘No doubt the state will put a reward on the men, if they haven’t got one already, and I shouldn’t mind iffen the mine owners felt all generous to someone who helped them,’ he added honestly. ‘But a couple of friends of mine were on that stage, and I want to bring in the outlaw scum for them, especially for Miss Louise.’

  ‘I heard they raped a whore who was travelling on the stage.’

  ‘They raped a woman who was travelling on that stage. That’s all Miss Louise was doing, travelling; they sure as sin didn’t have the right to take her against her will, regardless of how she has to earn money to live.’

  Rooney opened his mouth to say something, but after a look at Jonah’s face, hesitated before saying anything. ‘Well, I . . . guess that that’s none of my business. If you’re not asking for payment for hunting the outlaws, what do you want here?’

  Jonah took a deep breath, letting his anger seep away ‘According to one of the passengers on the stage, the outlaws went straight for your payroll. They took a few things from the passengers, but they didn’t bother searching the rest of the luggage for anything valuable. All they were really interested in was the payroll. It seems to me like they knew it was on that stagecoach.’