Chapter 4
The broker was a heavy man, but Michael suspected that most of that weight was muscle. He didn’t look as though he had gone to seed. Michael didn’t think a great many men looked for trouble with Mr. Fry even though, at that moment, Michael was seriously contemplating it.
“I don’t understand,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “What do you mean the ore’s quality is even more off?”
Mr. Fry turned his dark eyes on Michael and shrugged.
“I mean exactly what I said, Mike. The quality is further off than it was last time. It’s not as pure as it originally was.
You can see that in the color. Look for yourself.
Your bars aren’t the usual rose gold with a touch of orange.
There’s a lot of brown and green in there, which tells me it’s not the same. Did you open up another seam?”
“No,” Michael said, frowning. “We didn’t. It’s the same one that we’ve been mining for months. It should still hold out for another year before we have to go looking again. Are you sure? I did the tests in the mine myself. Everything was perfect.”
Mr. Fry gave a shake of his head. “The color doesn’t lie, Mike. Tell him, Ethan.”
Michael turned to Ethan, and his friend sighed. “I thought we were running into trouble. Thanks for confirming it, Mr. Fry. What can we get for this lot?”
Mr. Fry rubbed his lips with a large thumb. “Usually I pay you boys top dollar because your copper needs little to no extra refining on my part. I can usually sell it on as is. But this? I don’t know. I’ll have to work some magic on it. That’s going to cost.”
He suggested a figure and before Michael could respond, Ethan had agreed to it and shaken the man’s hand.
Mr. Fry wrote out a receipt, the money changed hands, and just like that, it was all done. Ethan gave Michael a look, and they left the broker’s office before speaking. Michael had so many questions he wasn’t sure where to start.
“When were you going to tell me this was turning into a big problem?” he asked as he and Ethan walked down the street to the lumber yard. They had supplies to buy for their budding town, but now they would have to buy significantly cheaper items.
“I wanted an independent confirmation,” Ethan said. “I’m sorry, Michael. I should have mentioned something before we arrived.”
“Yes, you should have,” Michael said. “I just don’t understand what’s happened. I checked the seam myself, and I’m not so bad a geologist that I would mistake bad ore-bearing rock for good.”
“I know,” Ethan said. “Which is another reason why I didn’t mention anything. I can’t help but think we’re being sabotaged, and worst of all, it has to be one of my men. One of my smelters. I can’t think who else would have access to the ore and be able to tamper with it.”
Michael stopped walking and stared at his friend. “Are you crazy? Who would do such a thing? We’ve known Adams, Perez, and Stevens for months now. They work well, don’t they?”
Ehtan raised his brows and shrugged. “They do. Even Collette and Roja are coming along well. They’ve learned so much about the process. I don’t know.” He sighed sadly. “I don’t know what to think.”
They started walking again, and Michael’s mind began to race.
Who would do such a thing? Who would put the entire camp in jeopardy?
No one who lived there, surely. They were a tight-knit community now—the original camp founders, the bandit refugees, and the travelers.
He had grouped the folks who lived by the mine in those categories in his mind.
He and Ethan were two of the original camp founders.
Lizzy and her brother were part of the refugees, and the travelers were Julie and Emily.
They might all come from different places and have ended up at the mine for different reasons, but they were one community, and they all relied on each other to survive.
He couldn’t think of anyone doing something that would hurt everyone living there.
They couldn’t discuss it more though, as two of the smelter workers were there, driving the cart, while Michael and Ethan had ridden horses into town.
Michael eyed the two men as they helped to pack the lumber and supplies into the wagon.
John Adams was a stocky man with a wife and child.
Surely he wouldn’t be foolish enough to do something to jeopardize the mine, which was his only source of livelihood.
The other smelter in town with them today was Ryan Stevens.
He was single, but that didn’t mean anything.
Michael would need a lot more information before he could work out who was responsible for the dip in profit.
“Are you okay, Mike?” Adams asked. “Only you’re staring at me and Stevens and it’s kind of odd.”
Michael blinked and then smiled. “Sorry, I was a million miles away. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“That’s okay,” Stevens said as he helped to load the boxes of nails into the wagon. “I know how it is when you got something on your mind.”
“Anything we can help with?” Adams asked.
Michael shook his head. Until he knew if his tests were off or not, he didn’t feel comfortable talking about the drop in purity. “It’s nothing, just thinking is all.” It sounded odd even to him, but the men didn’t challenge him and, with shrugs, carried on loading.
Ethan walked over and spoke in a low voice.
“Worked out who it could be yet?”
“Possibly,” Michael said with a sigh. “It was most likely a mistake I made.” He watched the lumber-yard hands and Stevens and Adams loading the last of their purchases onto the wagon and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Ethan. I could have made a mistake on the tests.”
“I don’t think it’s that,” Ethan said. “You don’t make that kind of mistake.”
They waited for the goods to be tied down so they didn’t shift all over the place as they rode back to the camp and for Adams and Stevens to climb onto the driver’s seat.
“Thanks, but I’m human. I can make errors,” Michael said. “Anyway, it’s better to check that first than accuse innocent men of something they didn’t do.”
“I agree,” Ethan said as he and Michael mounted their horses once more. “Let’s check all we can before we tell Andrew.”
The wagon would start off on the way home first while Michael and Ethan rode behind, keeping an eye out for bandits.
“Andrew has enough to worry about,” Michael agreed as they set off.
“With the whole bandit sword of Damocles hanging over us … It’s only a matter of time before they strike again.
Who knows what they’ll try this time? They’ve already come at us head on and found that doesn’t work.
I don’t think their leader is a fool. He’ll be thinking up some other way to get to us.
And I think that, as well as keeping food on plates and the town sprouting up across the creek, is giving Andrew nightmares.
And then there’s the whole issue with Mr. McGregor back east. That man is putting a lot of undue pressure on Andrew. ”
“I’m just glad it’s not me,” Ethan said with a sigh. “I met him a couple of times, and I can’t honestly say that I saw the light of goodness in his eyes. It was more the gleam of greed that I saw, and I thought to myself that we were going to have a bumpy ride with that fellow hanging over us.”
“The sooner we can pay him back his money with interest as agreed, the better,” Michael said as they headed out of the town and down the track that would take them on the lonely road to the mine. It was a long drive through a lot of open space.
“Yes, hence my worry about the quality of the ore. Do you think you could do the tests quickly?”
Michael nodded. “Of course, I’ll get on it straight away when we get back. We shouldn’t panic until we have explored every option. There are a million possible reasons for the dip in quality. We should make absolutely certain of what it is before we do anything.”
“Absolutely,” Ethan agreed. He lowered his voice even more before continuing, though the wagon was well in front of them and out of earshot. “Perez, Stevens, and Adams are working really well at the moment. I would hate to have there be any possibility of foul play.”
“I’m sure there isn’t,” Michael said. “You’re turning into a suspicious old man.”
“Hey, I’m younger than you are,” Ethan protested with a chuckle.
“Only in years; you’re an old man in spirit,” Michael said, laughing.
“Let’s hope we live that long,” Ethan said, his hand straying to the shotgun holstered on the saddle.
“Aren’t you worried about the bandits? You’re always so cavalier.
I keep thinking that the longer we go without an attack, the more certain it is that one will come soon.
They won’t have forgotten about us. We upset their leader. ”
Michael shrugged, resisting the urge to touch his own shotgun and the pistol that was holstered at his hip.
“I don’t know. We should just stay vigilant.
Maybe we got lucky and El Aguila has turned his attention to easier fruit.
We can’t be the only ones in the area worth pursuing.
I hate to say it, but maybe he’s attacking some other folks for a while and giving us a break. ”
“And once we build a barrier around the camp and the mine, we’ll be more difficult to get at,” Ethan said with a decisive nod.
“So, you’re voting for a barricade of sorts?” Michael asked. “Turning the town into a fortress, basically?”
His friend nodded. “Aren’t you?”
He shook his head. “Maybe around the new town, but not the camp. There doesn’t seem to be much point since it won’t be part of the town when it’s done.
We’re even going to widen that new entrance to the mine and make it the main one after closing the other one down.
It will all be on the other side of the creek then. ”
“Yeah, I forgot about that,” Ethan said with a shake of his head. “I guess it would make more sense to just wall off the new town. But I’m tired of the constant chaos of late. I like peace and order.”
“Don’t we all?”
They rode on in silence for a while, and Michael tried to work out how his tests of the ore could have gone so wrong.
He must have made a mistake, and yet, to his mind, he had followed the steps to the letter.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done these tests a million times.
So, how could he have made an error so critical that it had affected their financial bottom line?
Maybe he could get someone else to verify his work.
“Be sharp,” Ethan said, breaking the silence. “We have company.” He sat up straighter in his saddle, his hand hovering over the shotgun.
Michael looked around. Men on horseback were riding out of the trees on the side of the road ahead of them, their attention on the wagon full of supplies.
He could see that Adams and Stevens were urging the horses to go faster.
Adams had turned in his seat and was watching the men, no doubt reaching under the seat for the shotgun.
From the look of these men, they weren’t El Aguila’s. They had the look of a ragtag bunch of desperados, not the well-oiled bandit machine Michael had become familiar with in the last months.
“If it’s not one, it’s another,” Ethan sighed. “Why can’t people just find honest work?”
“Beats me,” Michael said with a shrug, pulling the shotgun from the saddle holster. “Let’s make it clear we aren’t playing.” He turned and rode back toward the men. Ethan followed. “Howdy,” he called when he was close enough.
The lead man stopped his horse as Michael got to within thirty paces.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I see you’re following us and you’re all heavily armed,” Michael said. “I’d like to know your intentions.”
The man, a skinny fellow with a pock-marked face, smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. “This here is our piece of road. You have to pay the toll to pass.”
Michael pursed his lips. “Your piece of road?”
“Yessir,” the man said.
“Ethan, did you see a sign or some other form of notice that would let a body know they were on a toll road?”
“I did not,” Ethan said. “Is there such a thing?”
The leader looked confused. He turned to one of the other men, who shook his head. Possibly they weren’t the brightest.
“You have to let folks know if they’re on your land,” Ethan said, speaking slowly.
“We are letting you know,” the leader said, his little beady eyes darting from Michael to Ethan and back again. “That’s what we’re doing here.”
“I meant with a sign,” Ethan said. “Because if you lawfully own this land and this isn’t a public road, which we honestly thought it was, then you have to tell us.”
“And you have to put up a sign to say how much the toll is so that we can decide if we want to pay and use your road or not,” Michael said. “It’s the law.”
“Look, we didn’t make no sign,” the leader said, sounding as though he really wanted the conversation to stop. He was clearly out of his depth and beginning to panic a little. “But this here is our road. Okay? So, pay up.”
Michael drew in a breath. The wagon had to be around the bend by now and heading into the spot where the road narrowed and there was no room to move around it. Once through there, the land was open again and there would be no more ambushes. They just had to keep these men talking until then.
“Well, now, how do we know this is your road?” Michael asked.
“You got a land deed or something?” Ethan asked. “We really need to see some kind of documentation.”
The leader had had enough. Michael saw it in his eyes and brought his shotgun up at the same time as the man raised his pistol. All nine of the ruffians raised their guns at the same time. Ethan leveled his shotgun barrel at the man who was clearly second in charge.
No one, however, fired.
“Look, we ain’t got none of that,” the leader said. “But you pay up, or we shoot you full of holes.”
“Well,” Michael said. “That’s a problem. You see, if we pay, there is nothing stopping you from shooting us anyway. So, not much incentive for us to do so.”
“You’re outgunned,” the second in charge said, sticking out his chin. “What you hoping to do? There’s no version of this where you leave alive.”
“Unless …” Ethan said with a smile that had Michael worried. Ethan clearly had one of his plans. Well, that was better than nothing. He glanced over his shoulder. The wagon was around the bend. They were safe.
He smiled. “Go on, Ethan, let’s hear it.”