The Bride of Willow Creek(87)
Leaning forward, Angie gripped Molly’s wrist. “Molly Johnson! Are you saying Cannady found his jackpot?”
“He told me last week, but I didn’t believe it. Just didn’t seem real, not after all these years.” She waved a hand. “Well, I knew he was doing something up there after he put a half dozen men on picks and shovels. Some of those booms we’ve been hearing during the last weeks were up at Can’s mine. He and his crew were dynamiting, following a web of gold veins as fast as they could dig drifts. Then he talked to one of the syndicates, and . . .” She waved a hand in front of her face and looked at Angie with amazed eyes. “Can went to Denver to sign the papers and he came home this morning with these.”
They gaped at the diamonds sparkling on the faded old oilcloth.
Then Angie leaped from her chair and pulled Molly to her feet. They danced around and around the kitchen until they were both breathless and laughing. After they caught their breath, Angie danced with Lucy and Molly danced with Daisy. At the finish, the girls went outside to weed the garden, and Molly poured coffee into thick crockery mugs. She pinned the diamond brooch to the center of her apron front and insisted that Angie wear the diamond bracelets.
“My, aren’t we grand.”
“I can’t even imagine what all this cost,” Angie said, turning her wrist to admire the sparkle of afternoon sunlight flashing on the bracelets’ gems. She figured this was the closest she’d ever get to real diamonds.
“Can won’t tell me. All he’ll say is that we’re rich and there’s plenty more where this came from.”
Dazed, Angie studied the pieces shining on the table. “I was thinking it couldn’t happen. Not to Sam, not to Cannady. That hitting the jackpot was just a dream. Wishful thinking.”
“There were times when I thought so, too. Times when I thought all the mines were dug, all the gold had been found.” Molly leaned to pat Angie’s hand. “Don’t give up believing.”
Angie frowned and sipped her coffee, gazing at the diamond brooch pinned to Molly’s apron. Had she ever believed? Ten years ago she hadn’t believed in Sam enough to go with him on his quest for fortune and success. And he was still searching. But he hadn’t given up. Still, every time she paid the bills, then portioned out what little was left into the jars over the stove, her heart sank further. And believing got harder.
They drank their coffee in contemplative silence, listening to the buzz of summer insects and the girls chattering outside in the garden. Angie had gotten used to the distant boom of dynamite exploding in the hills and seldom noticed the noise anymore. But she did today. The dynamite represented men’s hopes of wresting the Earth’s treasures out of the ground.
Suddenly she thought of something upsetting. “Oh Molly! You’ll be moving!”
The dreamy half smile vanished from Molly’s lips and she frowned. “We won’t go to Colorado Springs like so many do. We already decided that. We’ll move to Denver. Can and me could be as rich as Midas, and we still wouldn’t fit into society.” She shrugged. “But there must be other folks like us in a town the size of Denver. Folks with some money who don’t care about the hoity-toity crowd.” A smile curved her lips and the brooch twinkled and flashed as her bosom rose. “We’ll buy two building lots and save one for you and Sam.”
Standing abruptly, Angie walked to the stove. Instead of immediately pouring more coffee, she stood looking out the kitchen window at the haze of mill smoke overhanging the valley.
“If Sam is ever rich enough to buy a lot in Denver,” she said quietly, “he’ll be rich enough to afford a divorce.”
Sam heard the news from Jim Richards, the contractor chosen by the town to build the new school. Jim rode up to the L&D to make sure Sam wasn’t harboring any hard feelings and to ask him about his vision for the school.
When they finished discussing design and materials, Jim thumbed back his hat. “Have you heard about Cannady Johnson?”
The news was hardly out of Jim Richards’s mouth before Sam was saddled up and riding toward town. He found Can at the third saloon he checked, smoking a hand-rolled Cuban cigar and buying drinks for every man in the place.
He slapped Can on the back. “Damn, Can. You son of a gun.” They grinned at each other. “If you aren’t tired of telling the story, I’d like to hear it.”
During the next three hours, Sam heard the story a dozen times.
Can had lacked the money to develop the mine, so he’d gone out on a limb and borrowed a frighteningly large sum to hire eight men to dig enough drifts so that Can could follow and map the veins branching off the main lode. When he knew he could prove the worth of his claim, he’d hired a Denver attorney to pit two syndicates against each other in a bidding war.