“Having any luck?” Can inquired, standing at the edge of the hole. He squinted down inside where Sam had left a lantern burning.
“I have hopes for this one. I followed a float trail that as near as I can figure ends somewhere on this claim.” He’d believed the same thing before and he’d been wrong. Someday he’d be right, and he believed he was this time.
Already the sun had sunk beneath the range to the west. Orange and pink lit a fan of billowing clouds. Down below, Sam noticed the electric lamps along Bennet and Myers Streets, and lantern light glowed in the windows of most of the houses and cabins. He imagined mothers calling children inside, and fathers digesting their suppers while reading the newspaper. Or maybe the fathers were having a few drinks in one of the sporting houses and the mothers were figuring out how to slip rat poison into their husband’s morning eggs.
With a sour expression, Sam leaned against a boulder and wiped sweat from his forehead. He’d been swinging a hammer all day, and now his pick and shovel seemed to weigh about a hundred pounds each.
“Brought you a sandwich and some pickled eggs from the Slipper.” Can handed him a wax-paper package. “The way I hear it, you ain’t likely to find supper waiting when you get home. Or clean clothes either.” Can’s blue eyes twinkled in the fading light.
Sam’s stomach told him to accept the packet. He lifted an edge of the bread. “Beef. Thank you.” He took a bite, his gaze fixed on hints of indigo fringing the edges of the pink and orange. “I didn’t do a damned thing. I just walked in the house and she started shouting how she wasn’t going to do my laundry.” He shook his head. “I didn’t appreciate Laura enough.”
“Reminds me of a time when Molly chased me down Fourteenth Street in Denver. If she’da caught me, she would have beat me half-dead with that broom she was swinging.” He laughed.
Sam slid him a look. “Did you know why she went after you?”
“She thought I was seeing some doxy at Matty Silks’s. I didn’t know at the time that was the reason. Found out later.”
Molly wasn’t a woman to put up with much guff. Sam smiled, seeing the scene in his mind.
“And no, I wasn’t involved with any whore.”
“Didn’t think you were.”
“Thing is, I’d rather have me a woman with spirit. She might embarrass me, delight the gossips, make me mad as a wet hen. But Molly keeps me on my toes, and she ain’t boring. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot of dull and boring women in this old world.”
“Laura wasn’t boring,” Sam said after a minute. She’d been quiet and she didn’t stand up to him much, but she’d had opinions. She wasn’t a shouter or a thrower like Angie, but a lot of hidden strength had resided in that small frame.
“I didn’t say she was. I am saying you shouldn’t get too het up about your real wife chasing you down Carr Street and refusing to do your wash. If you want some good unasked-for advice, I’d say your wife’s telling you in her own way that you got some home work to do, boy.”
The unasked-for advice made him recall kissing Angie, which had been a big mistake. If he’d thought sleeping was hard before, now he had the memory of her body in his arms, the scent of her hair, the soft crush of her breasts, her trembling palms on his face, and the sweet taste of her in his mouth. He didn’t need those thoughts in his mind and didn’t want them.
“As soon as I hit my jackpot Angie and I will get a divorce.” And then Peter De Groot would step forward, the son of a bitch. “Until then, I guess I can take my laundry to Su Yung’s.”
Frowning, he glanced at the mouth of the shaft he was digging. Somewhere down there the future waited. He felt it in his gut. But his unreliable gut had told him the same thing at a dozen other pits, and his gut had always been wrong. Giving his head a shake, he reminded himself that he’d sworn to think positively. Every hole was new and every hole could be the one.
“Heard you got your crew standing watch over Dryfus’s place every night.” Cannady lit one of the cheap cigars that the Gold Slipper sold for two cents. “Anybody seen anything?”
“I thought I heard something the other night, but it turned out to be only a couple of deer.”
“I did some checking, Sam. Bill Haversham, Jason Todd, and Jack Hudson worked on the other sites, too. Wasn’t just you.”
He knew that. “There’s no sense placing anyone else under suspicion.”
“Thing is, none of those boys have any more reason to start the fires than you do. Unless someone paid them to do it.”