The Mother Lode (18 page)

“We'll see to his care,” Ellen said without a moment's hesitation.

Joe glared at her. “Ellen, what's the matter with you? That old goat ain't worth savin'.”

“He's a child of
God,
” Ellen countered. “Joe, it's the Christian thing to do. Do I need to remind you of what kind of condition you were in when you were found up—”

“All right. All right!” Joe finally conceded, knowing he couldn't honestly argue the point. “We'll see to him, but it's a waste of money. Even if McCarthy does pull through this time, he'll just go off on another long drunk and end up the same way.”

“That doesn't matter to me,” she told him. “I can only do what I can do with the Lord's good help. And yours, too, Joe. If you are truly willing to act in good faith and charity.”

Joe took a moment to study McCarthy's rotgut-ravaged face.
Keep telling yourself how he's Fiona's father and you need him alive to find her and your daughter. He might be the only one who can help you find them now.

“All right, Ellen,” he heard himself say. “I'll do whatever needs to be done to help the old man.”

“Thank you, Joe. I knew in my heart that you were a good man and would not abandon me or Mr. McCarthy and prove yourself to be anything less than a fine and godly man.”

“Where can we take him, Doctor?”

“I know a widow who has a house on B Street. She is actually my sister-in-law and she'll help you to nurse this man through the worst of it. But it will cost you quite a lot of money.”

“Everything costs a lot of money,” Joe grumped. “Can we stay in the same house?”

“In separate rooms,” Ellen quickly added.

“Of course,” Joe agreed.

“I'm sure that would be acceptable, for the proper remuneration.”

“The what?” Joe asked.

“Payment,” Ellen said. “For the proper payment.”

“I see. How much?”

“You will have to come to that arrangement with my sister-in-law. Her name is Mrs. Hamilton. Beth Hamilton. She's a widow and she has a fine house that is mostly empty.”

“How far will I have to tote McCarthy this time?”

“I'll arrange for a wagon when he's regained consciousness. I'll also be coming by twice a day to check on his condition. Be advised that this man is hanging onto life by a thread.”

“That's what I thought I was hanging by when he had me by the throat,” Joe groused.

All this was really grinding hard on Joe. The last thing he wanted to do was to throw good money after bad on this old drunk. He hated Brendan McCarthy more than he'd ever hated any human being, but he needed him alive in order to find Fiona and his baby girl.

It was all just that damned simple.

Really.

“
Q
UITE A HOUSE, isn't it?” Ellen said as they stood before the two-story Victorian mansion owned by the widow Beth Hamilton. “Mr. Hamilton must have done very well before he died.”

“I suppose,” Joe answered, not impressed by houses. “Let's go in and see if the widow woman will let us stay here.”

When they knocked on the door, Joe expected an elderly woman, but Mrs. Hamilton could not have been more than forty and she was quite attractive in a pleasingly plump sort of way. Joe stood back and let Ellen make the introductions and explain their need for rooms and care for the human wreckage that was Brendan McCarthy, and how Dr. Taylor, the widow's brother-in-law, had recommended them as possible tenants.

“You're asking quite a lot,” Mrs. Hamilton said after hearing about their plight. “Are you prepared to pay for it?”

Joe wasn't really, but Ellen said, “We are . . . if we can arrive at a reasonable fee. Dr. Taylor says that Mr. McCarthy is in very poor health. I'm not sure how much care he will need, but I will provide it so you will not be troubled with that responsibility.”

Beth Hamilton studied Joe. “Sir, are you married?”

“No, ma'am,” Joe said. “Ellen and I are just good friends.”

Her eyebrows went up and she said, “I see.”

Joe didn't know what that was supposed to mean, and he really didn't care. He could see through the doorway into Mrs. Hamilton's parlor, and it was way too damned prissy and pretty for his liking. He was thinking that he would go someplace else when the woman asked, “Joseph, are you skilled as a carpenter?”

“Nope.”

She looked disappointed. “Then can you paint a wall or repair a roof?”

“I doubt it, ma'am. I'm just good with horses and other livestock.”

“Well, you could at least help clean up around here.”

But Joe shook his head. “Maybe I'll find another place to stay, Mrs. Hamilton. I ain't a servant and I ain't a yard man.”

He started to leave, but the widow's voice carried sweetly to his ear. “I do have a horse in the backyard and his barn and corral are falling apart.”

Joe turned around. “
You
have a horse?”

“It was my husband's, actually. He's a handsome brute. Big, rough, and strong like yourself. He hasn't been ridden in nearly a year and his name is Jasper. Do you think you could take care of fixing up his stable and exercising him under saddle?”

Joe removed his Stetson. “I'm no cowboy, Mrs. Hamilton, but I do know and like horses and mules. Sure, I could fix his corral and barn and ride the horse. Any chance that we could squeeze three more horses into your stable?”

“Why, Jasper would love some company! Of course, you'd have to expand the corral and barn, but I'd pay for the lumber since it would increase the value of this property.”

This was sounding much better to Joe. “Ma'am,” he said, breaking into a wide grin, “I think we can work this out fine.”

“I will reduce your room and board for your help. Mrs. Johnson, are you willing to also help?”

“I am,” Ellen said. “How much will you charge for all three of us and our three horses?”

“If Joe will fix the corrals and expand the barn and you will help with cooking and cleaning, then I'll only ask twenty-five dollars a week, which includes food for your horses and yourselves.”

“That is
very
generous,” Ellen said, although Joe thought it outrageous.

Mrs. Hamilton clapped her hands together with happiness. “Actually, I do get lonely and this house is falling down around my poor shoulders, so I really would appreciate some help and company. My home has six bedrooms, three downstairs and three upstairs. You along with Mr. McCarthy will have the downstairs rooms and I very much look forward to meeting Mr. McCarthy.”

You might change your mind when you lay your eyes on that mean and smelly old boar,
Joe thought, wisely keeping his own counsel.

So it was arranged and they were shown impressive rooms on the mansion's ground floor. Joe had never stayed in anything nearly so grand and fancy. Why, the four-poster bed had a pink silk canopy, for gawd sake! And there were rugs on the floor and lace curtains. Golly, if his old Indian and trapper friends could only see him now! They would howl with laughter like a pack of wolves at the moon.

Around six o'clock, Dr. Taylor drove up to the mansion in his buggy with Brendan McCarthy slumped over on the seat. The besotted bastard was alive, but it was clear that he just hanging on by a thread. They got him into his room, and Joe let the women fuss over the old man while he and Dr. Taylor went outside with glasses of whiskey they'd poured in the kitchen.

“So,” Taylor asked, “you are Joe Moss and that man is your father-in-law even though you smashed his face up with your fists.”

They were sitting on a wide veranda overlooking the entire Comstock Lode and farther out, the Virginia City Cemetery, which was mighty large to Joe's way of thinking.

“Well, Doc, it's a complicated thing to explain and you'll be able to read a bunch more about it in tomorrow's edition of the
Territorial Enterprise.
But the long and short of it is that I have to find the woman I love, Fiona McCarthy . . . maybe now Fiona Moss . . . and my daughter, whose name I do not yet know.”

“It does sound complicated,” the doctor said. “And as I told you earlier, Mr. McCarthy could die at any moment from his poor health and heart trouble. So if you need to make amends or ‘bury the hatchet,' so to speak, you ought to do it as soon as possible.”

“I have nothing to make amends for to that man,” Joe staunchly replied. “It was he that ruined my life and that of his daughter. That said, as soon as McCarthy tells me where to find Fiona, then he can go right ahead and die.”

The doctor sipped his whiskey. “You're a hard man, Joe Moss. Not much compassion in you at all, is there?”

Joe frowned and sipped. “I've
had
to be a hard man to survive my entire lifetime. But now that I'm about to become the father of a four-year-old girl and the husband of the only woman I've ever really loved, I am probably going to soften up some around the edges.”

“I hope so. What about Mrs. Johnson?”

“What about her?”

“She's a very attractive woman and I sense that she has real strength of character.”

“Oh, she has plenty of that,” Joe assured the doctor. “There are none better.”

“Is she married?”

“Nope. She and her husband were Mormons and they had a fine farm down in Genoa. But Mr. Johnson died several years ago. All that is in the past and Ellen doesn't know where she wants to go or what she wants to do next.”

“And you are in no way romantically involved with her?” Taylor asked, eyes fixed on the distant barren hills.

“Hell, no! I told you that I'm in love with that old man's daughter.”

“Good,” the doctor said with just the trace of a smile. “Glad to hear that, Joe.”

Then the doctor finished his drink and left Joe on the porch so that he could go see McCarthy and, Joe suspected, Ellen as well.

Joe rocked and sipped Mrs. Hamilton's excellent rye whiskey. He was fascinated by the anthill of activity that stretched out before him. There were tailings more numerous than leaves on a tree, and he counted no less than eight huge mines with their smokestacks and huge tin buildings that Joe supposed housed massive steam engines, wheels, and hoisting works.

It was really all too much. Far too much busyness for Joe's liking, and he hoped that Fiona would not want to live here on the Comstock Lode once they were properly married. Better by far that they left this place and went off to the high mountains of Colorado or Wyoming, where he knew he could buy land by running water with aspen and pines for winter firewood. Or, if Fiona was averse to deep snow and cold, then Joe could take her south and find her warmer places down near Santa Fe and Taos where she could raise a garden and maybe some hogs to butcher.

“Mr. Moss?”

Joe was pulled out of his sweet reverie to see Mrs.

Hamilton with a glass of whiskey in her own hand as well as the bottle. “May I replenish your drink?”

Joe had never had a drink “replenished,” but it sounded like a good idea so he nodded.

“May I also join you?”

“Sure. It's your porch and view.”

Beth Hamilton sat in the rocking chair just vacated by the doctor and looked out over the Comstock with a serene expression. “It's a view that I never tire of, Mr. Moss. Think of all the lives that are being lived out there and all the hopes and dreams that they represent. People come to our little mining town from all over the world and they have fascinating stories to tell.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, taking another slug of the excellent whiskey. “There's a whole lot of drunken miners, crooked gamblers, thieves, muggers, and hustlin' whores, that's for sure.”

She glanced sideways at him with a frown of annoyance. “There are also many
good
people down there, Mr. Moss.”

“Joe,” he corrected. “Just Joe, if you please, ma'am.”

“All right, then you must call me Beth.”

“Okay.”

“I understand that you're seeking the woman you love and your little daughter.”

“News spreads fast around here. But, yes, I am.”

“I hope you find them as you have pictured them to be in your dreams.”

Joe wasn't sure what the hell that meant, but the woman was nice, so he just nodded his head and kept rocking and admiring the view.

“Are you a Christian like Mrs. Johnson?”

“No, ma'am. But I'm not one to start tellin' the Bible lovers that they're wrong. Truth is, ma'am, I don't think anyone knows the truth about what happens after we ship out for the great unknown.”

She was silent a few moments while considering his words. “I suppose that is a reasonable response, Joe. But not a very pleasant one.”

“Life isn't supposed to be pleasant,” he told her. “It's hard. Sometimes there are real fine moments when you're happy as a little chirpin' bird enjoyin' a fine spring morning, but mostly not.”

“I have a very good life, even without my late husband. I am busy in women's societies and quite a few worthy charities. But I do miss a man's company.”

“Well, you've two more men to deal with now.” Joe stood up. “I'd like to go fetch our horses and put 'em up back there with Jasper. I already checked and you've got enough hay for 'em all for a week. After that, we'll buy you some more.”

“And you've already fixed and expanded the corral fence?”

“I've done enough to make it do until I get more barbed wire, rails, and fence posts. For the time being it'll work out just fine.”