Chapter 8
A day in the mine was always long. Despite his work at the farm, Kevin still had other duties. It had been his turn to go down into the shaft, take samples, process them, and then report back to Andrew.
With the samples in his carry bag, he was heading to Andrew’s mine office, which was the tent he had lived in before, when he saw Troy and Michael walking swiftly to the tent. They wore worried expressions, and Kevin hurried so that he would reach the tent flap at the same time as they did.
“Oh, hey, Kevin,” Troy said with a grin. “We just need a couple of minutes with Andrew.”
“Well, so do I,” Kevin said indignantly. He had been sidelined for far too long. Every time that he had something to talk to Andrew about, the man was far too busy with other things and Kevin’s vast patience had been used up.
“Look, if you just let me go first, I can be done and out of the way in a couple of minutes,” Kevin said. “And my couple of minutes doesn’t turn into days and weeks of someone being ignored and avoided.”
“Kevin, no one is avoiding you,” Michael said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Kevin shrugged it off. “Sure,” he said. “That’s why I haven’t been able to say more than a couple of words to you since the campfire party.
And even then, we spoke for a few minutes and then you were in a meeting again.
All of you, even Jeff. I’m getting a little sick of it.
” His anger flared. “Actually, you know what? You can give Andrew the report on the mine shaft. Just tell him everything is fine.”
Kevin turned to leave, but the tent flap opened, and Andrew stood there, looking annoyed.
“What is going on out here?” he asked.
“Kevin is having a temper tantrum,” Troy said with a shrug.
Andrew sighed. “I guess we had it coming,” he said. “We haven’t been fair or open this last while.” He looked around and then stepped aside. “Come on in, all of you. Let’s talk.”
“But Andrew, we have news,” Michael said.
“And you wouldn’t have known to go looking for that news if it wasn’t for Kevin, so sit down,” Andrew said.
They all entered the tent in single file.
It was as cramped and airless as Kevin remembered it being the last time he had been in the tent.
Andrew didn’t want to waste time having an office built yet, but Kevin thought it would be more efficient.
When they were all seated on the stools that were the only chairs that could fit in the tight space, Andrew looked them over and began to speak.
“As you know, we have been enjoying a few months of relative peace,” Andrew began.
He sat behind his narrow desk and steepled his fingers.
“We achieved that through a fluke. Ryan Stevens and a couple of his fellow smelters took it upon themselves to make a deal with our neighborhood bandits that they would sell them some of the copper we mined. And for that, the bandits agreed they would leave us alone.”
Kevin stared at Andrew and realized that his mouth had dropped open. He hastily shut it. “They did that on their own?”
“Yes,” Troy said. “And they were pocketing the money that El Aguila was paying them for the copper.”
“We managed to put a stop to that side of it,” Michael said. “Stevens hands over every penny from that sale now. We’re selling it to him at such a rock-bottom price it doesn’t cover a fraction of the cost of mining the stuff, but that’s not the point.”
“Or, more accurately, it is the point,” Andrew said, giving Michael a look. “We have a lot of obligations. We owe Mr. McGregor, and his investors need to see returns. But this little deal is seriously hampering our ability to deliver on that.”
Kevin nodded. He knew about Mr. McGregor back in New York, who had invested in the mine to help them start it up. But there was something about McGregor that Kevin had never liked. He had only met the man once, and in that one meeting, he had given Kevin a really bad feeling.
“Now we can’t just back out of the deal we made with the bandits,” Michael said with a shake of his head. “That would just bring down El Aguila’s men on our heads like an anvil, and we really don’t need that.”
“He seems to have endless resources,” Troy said. “More than we can ever hope to compete with.”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “So, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to do anything?”
“We definitely are,” Andrew said. “We’ve been trying to come up with a way to stop him. To get him and all his men arrested or at least drive them from this area.”
“And?” Kevin asked. He thought he could guess how well their planning had gone.
“Well, we’ve had no luck so far,” Troy said with a huff.
“Not for lack of trying,” Michael said. “We’ve been trying to find El Aguila. We thought that if we could somehow get a sit-down meeting with the man, we could at least look him in the eye and try to get a better read on him.”
“And then what?” Kevin asked.
“And then we could try to negotiate,” Andrew said.
“Negotiate?” Kevin asked.
“For a ceasefire between us. That was the old plan, but now we think it would be better to get the law to back us up,” Troy said.
“Which is what I’ve been saying all along.
If we find out where the main hideout is, where El Aguila spends his time, then we can bring down the force of the law on him. ”
“We had no idea where El Aguila spent his time until you spotted that black-clad bandit and recognized him,” Andrew said with a nod at Kevin. “Robert told me all about it. That was a stroke of luck.”
And suddenly the possibility, which had been skulking around in Kevin’s mind, came to the fore. That man in the linen suit who had looked so clean and neat and professional … was most likely El Aguila. He’d considered it, of course, but it had never been completely clear in his mind until just now.
“Oh my,” Kevin said and swallowed hard. “It’s a good thing that Anita and I left when we did.”
“Is it though?” Michael asked. “You might have been able to tell us more about what he was up to at that inn.” He chuckled. “How did you find the place anyway?”
“Anita met the owner’s wife, Clara Sparks, at the train station.
She’s actually a really nice woman,” Kevin said with a shrug.
“I don’t think they know who Mr. Santiago is.
I mean, they know he’s a businessman, which is obviously the story he tells them, but I suspect they have no idea what his business is.
We won’t really know if Mr. Santiago is El Aguila until we confront him,” he pointed out.
“He could be another person of importance in his gang of thieves and scoundrels. He might be El Aguila’s right-hand man, his accountant, or his brother-in-law. ”
Andrew nodded. “The possibility has crossed my mind. But we won’t know until we speak to the man. How would you feel about going back to the Lucky Bull?”
“You’re joking, right?” Kevin asked, frowning. “Anita and I are just barely getting the farm going. We’ve got the market coming up shortly. And there’s no knowing if Mr. Santiago is still at the Lucky Bull. We could go there for nothing. And this time we would have to pay for the special suite.”
“Special suite?” Michael asked.
“Yes, it’s this room with a parlor and a bedroom,” Kevin said. “It has these huge windows that look out over the fields at the edge of town. It’s quite a spectacular view.”
“Is that so?” Michael asked. “Maybe it would be worth it to take Emily. She would love a night in an inn.” He grinned impishly. “Why didn’t you mention all of this before?”
“Because Kevin didn’t tell Robert about it,” Andrew said with a shrug.
“Right,” Troy said. “So, then how would we know which room this man is in, if he’s there?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Kevin said. “They told us that Mr. Santiago always takes the suite that looks south.”
“All right, then maybe Michael and Emily should take a weekend away at the Lucky Bull,” Andrew said. “You two can keep your eyes peeled for the men. Can you give them full descriptions, Kevin?”
“Sure.”
“And if they’re not there?” Michael asked.
“Find out when they will be coming back,” Andrew said. “I think it would be the perfect time to ambush this Mr. Santiago, don’t you? If you could find a way to get him alone and talk to him, you could learn a lot.”
Before the meeting ended, Kevin gave Andrew his report on the mine.
“Everything is good,” he said. “I did a preliminary test, and you can see the copper in the rock, so we’re fine for now.
The seam is holding. I also tested the gas levels, and Troy, you’ll be happy to know that your system of burning up the gas each morning before anyone goes down into the mine is working well. ”
Troy and Lizzy had come up with a way to light a string of lanterns right into the deepest parts of the mine at least thirty minutes before any miners went in, and so far, there hadn’t been another gas accident.
Prior to that, there had been one big explosion that could have claimed any number of lives if God hadn’t chosen to spare them.
After that, Troy and Lizzy had set to work on preventing other such incidents.
Feeling better than he had in ages, Kevin left the tent and went on his way.
When he got home, he found Anita in the dairy. She was just finishing up wiping down the counters and taking the milk cans outside to drain after she had scrubbed them clean. She turned them upside down on a slatted wooden platform she had asked him to make, where they could drip dry in the sun.
Looking up from her work, she smiled at him. “You look cheerful,” she said.
“I am,” he said. “I finally got to speak to Andrew, Troy, and Michael.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, wiping her hand on her apron. Some of her golden-brown hair had escaped her bun at the back of her head and hung around her face. She was always so lovely. For a moment, he just drank her in.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I know,” he replied. “Don’t bother me when I’m admiring my wife.”
She giggled and shook her head at him. “I’m sure the novelty will wear off.”
He walked up to her, put his arms around her waist, and drew her to him. “I hope not,” he said and kissed her.
This new development of freely kissing one another had been a wonderful addition to their lives. Anita hugged him and smiled when they pulled apart.
“We’re ready for tomorrow’s market,” she said. “We’re only selling the soft cheeses. None of the others are ready, but I’ve also made some butter to add to our stock. We need to make some money to put toward the café.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “So, I’d better get to making my mother’s cheese and onion tarts.”
“I checked on your dough,” Anita said. “It has rested nicely in the cold cellar. I think it will come out flaky and perfect once we roll it out and bake it.”
Kevin smiled. “I’ll get washed up, and we can set to work.”
Once he was scrubbed clean, he went into the kitchen.
She had everything ready for him. His pastry dough, which he had made the day before, looked perfect when he unwrapped it.
Anita was finely slicing the onions and starting to fry them to caramelize them in a pan. She had even lit the fire for the range’s oven, and soon they were working side by side.
“So, it seems that our little stay at the Lucky Bull has started something,” Kevin said as they worked.
He wanted to keep it light despite the gravity of the situation.
He still wanted to protect Anita from the harsh reality of the bandits and all the chaos, mayhem, and violence they brought each time they came riding in.
“Andrew wants to send someone back to San Antonio to see if Mr. Santiago is still around the inn.”
“Oh?” she asked as she measured some pastry to fit into a pie dish she had buttered already. “Who does Andrew want to send?”
“Michael and Emily,” Kevin said. “Michael said he thinks it sounds like a wonderful little holiday. You know, they could go for a weekend and just enjoy being in a large town for a while.”
“It would be fun for them,” Anita agreed.
Kevin nodded. And with a little luck, Michael and Emily would find El Aguila, maybe work out some sort of a deal, and all of this violence and horror could finally disappear.
He longed for that, for a time when he wouldn’t have to worry about Anita being on the farm alone while he was in town or down in the mine.