Glittering Promises (11 page)

“I will. Hold your own in there, Miss Diehl Kensington.” He nodded to the two open doors that led to a small office. Already, Andrew Morgan stood in a corner, reading a document, the sun spilling over his shoulder. I stifled a sigh. Apparently he was staying behind too.

“I shall, Mr. McCabe,” I returned. “Lead them onward.”

“Only if it circles back to you,” he whispered in my ear. And then he was gone, the happy chatter and laughter seeping out the house with the group. I pushed thoughts of grand views and remote villages and swimming from my mind and focused on the task at hand, squaring my shoulders and marching back into the office. Our fathers had not yet come down, but Andrew watched me enter. I ignored him and turned the blueprints on the large desk to the page that had kept me up late last night, thinking, thinking…

“It must be a trial for you, not being able to go with them,” Andrew said from over my shoulder.

“No more so than it is for you,” I said, my fingers running across the page, along the meandering line of the small river that split the vast area of rock.

“Come now. Admit it. This is a man’s place. You belong out there. Frolicking.”

“Frolicking,” I repeated stonily. “Honestly, Andrew, you treat me as if I don’t have a sound mind. Must I remind you that I was training to be a teacher before my father reentered my life?”

“Exactly,” Andrew said, his voice uncommonly soft. “So why not go and pursue education? Become a teacher
of
teachers if you wish for something of more…
stature
.” He shrugged. “But leave the family business to those who’ve been training all their lives to do
this
.”

I felt the sting of his words even if his tone was carefully neutral.

I turned to face him. “This, in particular the Kensington-Diehl Mine, is none of your concern. Perhaps you can rejoin us later, after my business with Father is concluded?”

It was then that our fathers arrived, each carrying a stoneware mug steaming with what smelled like coffee. Behind them was Mr. Grunthall.

“No, no,” my father said. “I want Andrew to be with us for this final meeting. He will be a support to you, Cora, in time. Won’t you, Andrew?” he said pointedly.

“Why, I aim to be nothing but a support,” Andrew returned, his smile catlike. I stifled a shiver. I really could not see any bit of what my sister saw in him. At least he hadn’t been violent of late. But what sort of faint praise was that?

“The precious days of summer are slipping away,” my father said, sitting down heavily in a chair and setting his mug beside him. He reached for a notebook and opened it. “Shall we get through what we must, without further ado?”

“Indeed,” I said, leaning against the table and resting a hand on the blueprint. “We need to begin with this,” I said, tapping the paper. “Your architect depicts the Gandy River flowing into the mine.”

“Of course,” he said. “We shall need to redirect the river and use the water to generate electricity.”

So I had read it right. I’d asked Will to look it over with me too, and he’d confirmed my suspicions. But neither of us had quite believed it was true. “But we cannot,” I said. “You know how dry that county is. How the farmers struggle to eke out a crop. If you take that water, how will they irrigate their fields?”

“Nonsense. It’s already done,” he blustered. “We’ve secured the water rights! None of those farmers have any sense if they remain. We’re doing them a favor, really, pressing their hand.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It isn’t right. We either need to find an alternate source of power and water, or we need to buy their land at a decent price. It will be worthless after we divert the water and build this dam.”

I heard Andrew chuckling behind me. Mr. Morgan and my father stared at me, while Mr. Grunthall scribbled notes on a pad. For what? His own article on me? He’d hinted that he would be writing such things. It was all so silly, so overwhelming…but this, this mission in my mind, was not. I was certain I must stick to my ideas. I could see my old neighbors in the small church with the white paint peeling from the sunbaked and snow-blasted boards. All fanning themselves as my old pastor rambled through a sermon. There was no way I could betray any of them.

“Every person in Dunnigan must gain from this strike, as we will most certainly gain,” I said, crossing my arms. “It shall cost us more up front, but we shall gain long-term, just as you did in Butte. Don’t you see?” I shook my head, boggled that they couldn’t seem to grasp it, that they were hesitating over my apparently outlandish ideas. “I don’t want to destroy my hometown. I want to build it to something even better than it was.”

My father looked at me intently, and at last a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “So there is a bit of empire builder within you after all,” he mused. His smile faded. “But what you propose is most expensive. And not necessary at all. Darwin’s theories on the survival of the fittest and all that.”

“And we are clearly the most fit,” Andrew said.

“We are most fit to
lead
,” I returned, shooting him a dark glance. “Just because we
can
doesn’t mean we should. Honestly, would you need a press secretary,” I said, waving toward Simon, “if you were doing great, good things? Wouldn’t the stories write themselves in a way that benefited you—if the people honestly loved you rather than feared you? If they wanted to help build up you and the company rather than somehow tear you down?”

My father was silent a moment, steepling his fingers before him. “What exactly do you propose?”

“Can we not find more water from another source?”

He shook his head, and his silver beard wagged under his chin. “Not enough.”

“Then let us tackle it in a forthright manner. I wager you have squelched the news that we’ve brokered a deal for the water rights?”

He was still for a breath, then two. “I might have paid a few men the right amount to keep it quiet.”

I sighed and pushed away from the table, pacing to the doorway and turning. How I wished Dunnigan wasn’t so far away! That I could go and speak to my old neighbors and friends and tell them what I knew. Promise them that I’d make certain they were treated fairly. My eyes went to Mr. Grunthall, and I thought of his typing machine and sheaf of paper. He could help me! Get the word out to each and every one of them. I hurried back to the stack of blueprints and paged through them until I arrived at a broad-scale version that plotted out small homesteads and vast ranches, rectangles of land, alongside the miles of cliffs now owned by the Kensington-Diehl Mine.

My fingers traced one—the Ramstads’—then another—the Millers’. With each progressive plot of land, I could see weathered homes and derelict barns, failing fences. Very few of the ranches were successful enterprises.

“We will buy them out for a fair price. Allow them to start anew. Or stay right where they are and go to work for the mine. But they will no longer have to try and eke out a living from that soil.”

A shiver ran down my back. Was I not proposing something awfully similar to what Wallace Kensington had offered my mama? Forcing my folks out by “buying” them out? “No,” I amended. “We offer them more than twice the value for their land. Three times,” I said, gaining steam. “And we allow them to keep the acres on which their homes and barns sit.”

Andrew laughed, incredulous. “Thrice the value? Are you mad?” He turned toward our fathers. “She’ll run us out of business before she’s even begun!”

I looked back to my father, silently pleading with him to trust me in this, then back to Andrew. “This pertains only to the Kensington-Diehl Mine. And I am not in need of your vote on it.”

My father studied me for several long moments, tapping his fingertips together. He glanced over to his old partner. “She was right in regard to our labor negotiations in Butte.”

Mr. Morgan nodded. “There is a certain wisdom to it. Unconventional, for certain.”

“It’d be quite a story,” Mr. Grunthall said, lifting one black brow and shaking his head. “Your girl is already fascinating. This would ratchet her up to Molly Brown status. A Robin Hood figure, of sorts. Unconventional. Daring. But intrinsically good.”

My father let out a scoffing laugh and rose to meander over to the window and stare outward, still thinking. “The Kensington name has seldom been tied to anything remotely considered ‘intrinsically good.’”

I waited a moment. Then I said, “Isn’t it then time?” I eased around the table and went to stand beside him at the window. “Wouldn’t you much rather our name be tied to the good, the true? What if we led the country in showing how a business could succeed without treating our workers as cattle? What if every miner in America wanted to work for us over any other?”

His eyes shifted back and forth, searching mine. I knew he was running my words, our name, through his mind. It was echoing in my own. He slowly turned and lifted his hand for mine. After a moment’s hesitation, I slipped my fingers into his and he covered it with his other hand. “My dear, you truly believe this is the best course of action?”

“I believe it is the only course of action,” I returned steadily.

“Then,” he said, cocking his head, “I say you are the majority share owner, and I shall support—”

“No, Mr. Kensington!” Andrew said. He came around the desk and stood near us. “You can’t be serious. There’s giving a horse a little rope, and then there’s giving her the whole field…”

“I am hardly a horse,” I said, turning to face him.

“You are a wild and untamed filly,” he bit back, staring down at me, “with no sense of a bit and reins. If we don’t teach you what it means—”

“That’s enough, Andrew!” Mr. Morgan cried.

“She will lose it all!” Andrew shouted, lifting his hands to his father, then mine. “This mine…” He shook his head and then ran his fingers through his hair. He turned to my father. “I don’t know what you’re doing here. If you are so desperate to forge a bond with this girl”—he jabbed a hand toward me—“so desperate to make her beholden to you that you’d risk earnings that would help your
other
children in the future…”

My father’s face became bright red, his eyes even more blue against the ruddiness of his skin. “That is
enough
,” he said with such vehemence that the last word became a shout. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This mine is only going to bring income because my daughter was raised on its doorstep. It has nothing to do with my other children.”

“Doesn’t it?” Andrew persisted. “Isn’t this your mad attempt to level the playing field? To give your precious Cora an inheritance of her own? An inheritance that would rightfully be split with Vivian, Felix, and Lillian?”

“No,” my father said, shaking his head. “They have more than enough with their inheritance that I will leave them through Kensington & Morgan Enterprises.”

“But what of your forty-nine percent?” Andrew yelled. “Are those not funds that will filter into K & M? Into Montana Copper? And is she not risking those funds? Quit thinking like a forlorn father and start thinking like the businessman I’ve always known you to be!”

“Andrew!” Mr. Morgan shouted.

My father was so angry that he couldn’t seem to form words for a long moment. Then he settled on two: “Get. Out.”

Andrew stormed out, then. A moment later, we heard the front door of the apartments slam shut.

The four of us—me, my father, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Grunthall—stood in silence a moment.

“Forgive him,” Mr. Morgan said tiredly, rubbing his forehead. “I fear he’s been taxed of late, between these…changes, and his inability to, uh, come to an…understanding with Vivian.” He met my gaze. “He’ll come around.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He seems to loathe me.”

“Loathe?” Mr. Morgan said, blinking. “That’s a strong word…” But he didn’t offer an alternative.

“I think it’s enough for today,” my father said, the fury all gone now, only a weary countenance in its place. “Let us reconvene tomorrow after breakfast.”

I walked out, feeling stung and worn out and wondering if I was in the right place at all. Everything in me longed to be with Will, with my siblings, out on the trail, exploring, laughing, having fun. Instead, I was in here, at an impasse with men I wasn’t certain I wanted to spend my days with.

After making it to my room, I stood by the window and looked outward until, gradually, my heart settled into a normal rhythm even if my head had begun another daily thrum of complaint.
Is this what You want from me, Lord? Is this the right path?

Words from the basilica in Venice returned to me again.
Wait and trust.

But what exactly was I waiting for?

CHAPTER 9

By the time the others returned the next day, I was desperate to see them…and even more desperate to be away from Andrew. We’d spent a tense morning in negotiation, cooped up inside the sweltering apartment, and then after lunch, Mr. Grunthall interviewed me again, apparently so he could continue writing his own stories. Apparently, my father and I would review every story before it was sent out to the
San Francisco Chronicle
, which was then going to syndicate the articles to other papers. So far, the two I’d seen were fairly mundane accounts of our travels—exactly what Mr. Grunthall and my father wanted. Essentially, they were trying to throw flour on a grease fire, and apparently the world was hungry enough for word of our whereabouts and progress that they were willing to take whatever was sent to them. Grunthall, of course, was careful to only send a story about our stay in a specific location after we departed that locale, and in this way, we stayed ahead of those who sought us out.

When I finally heard the travelers return, I rushed down the stairs and fairly threw myself into Will’s arms. He laughed and hugged me in surprise, casting an embarrassed look around at the group.

“Cora!” Viv chided me.

“Aw, let her be,” Felix said, giving me a brotherly smile and then winking at Will.

“I’ve missed you dreadfully,” I said, looking about at the group. “All of you.”