The Streel Read online

  family to famine and most of the rest to sickness, I’m not sure I want to meet the God responsible for all that.”

  “Who is left in your family, Paddy?” I asked, sitting opposite him at

  the long wooden plank that served as a table.

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  “I have a brother who made it to Dublin, I hear. And an aunt who still

  lives in Donegal. She writes me from time to time. That’s all that’s left. I once had three sisters and two brothers and my mother and father. I was

  the oldest. They had all died by the time I left Ireland. There was nothing to keep me there. My aunt had taken my brother in, so I didn’t have to

  worry about him.”

  “I don’t know if Seamus told you, but our mother died this last month.”

  I smoothed down my dress.

  “No, I had not heard. Seamus spoke so well of her. You must be very

  heart sad.” Truly I felt that Padraic looked more moved by my mother’s

  death than his own family losses. Maybe it is easier to feel someone else’s pain than to squarely face your own. Especially for men.

  “I am at that.” I felt tears pushing behind my eyes and changed the

  subject. “Also, I went for a short visit to the Gem. I wanted to see what it was like. Nel ie was performing while I was there.”

  Billy dropped the rabbit in hot grease and then jumped back from the

  splattering. “You never did, Brigid. Jaysus, a lone woman like you.”

  Padraic’s eyes turned black and he banged his fist on the table. “What

  were you thinking?”

  I could tell he was on the verge of saying words that we would both

  have trouble ignoring, so I spoke before he had a chance. “Now, Padraic, as Billy said to me when I came in, we all have a right to our own lives. I want to be able to do what I need to do to clear my brother’s name. You

  must see that.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment as if to clear them of their storminess.

  When he opened them, he appeared calmer and nodded as he spoke. “Yes,

  I think I would have to agree with that, especially as it was laid out for me so clearly and directly.”

  “I’m sure there are some people who would think I shouldn’t even be

  staying with the two of you.”

  “Of course, Brigid, you must stay with us. We need a woman’s hand

  around this godforsaken place.”

  I could tell that Padraic was feeling badly. So I reached out my hand to his and rested it there. “I will help around the house and assist as much as

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  I can with the claim. And I will try to find out who killed Lily. Surely you can understand that. I appreciate your concern for me. But now I’m all on my own, and I want to be able to make my own decisions.”

  He took my hand in his and looked at it as if it were a precious metal.

  “You’re a wel - spoken woman, Brigid Reardon. We’re lucky to have you.”

  “Would you go to the Gem with me later?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be trying to pull himself

  together. “It would give me great pleasure.”

  We all laughed at his slip of the tongue.

  That night at home Padraic and Billy sat down with me and went over

  the business. A year ago, they had bought their claim for three hundred

  dol ars from money they had saved from railroad work. It had been Billy’s idea. He was sure they would make a fortune. They had taken over the

  claim from a miner who was too sick to continue to work. Since then they had pulled nearly three thousand dol ars’ worth of gold out of it; however, much of the money had gone back into the workings of the claim.

  While they felt there was much more gold to be had, they didn’t feel

  they had the equipment or the money that was needed to do so. They

  were hoping the Hunts would offer to buy their claim for ten thousand

  dollars.

  I was stunned. Ten thousand dol ars was a huge amount of money. It

  could set you up for life. Even with a three- way split— nearly thirty- five hundred a piece. That was what a chambermaid would make if she worked

  her fingers to the bone for ten years and never spent a penny.

  “When are you expected to let them know if you will accept?” I asked.

  “When Hunt left he said he’d only be gone a month or so. Just over the

  holidays. He might be back any day now,” Paddy explained. “But it’s not all as easy as that. They are bringing in their own man to do a test on an ore sample. That will happen as soon as Charlie is back.”

  I thought of seeing Charlie Hunt in Deadwood. Wouldn’t he be sur-

  prised to learn that he would have to be dealing with me to buy the claim?

  I remembered the conversation I had overheard at the Hunt house

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  between Charlie and his father. “From something I heard at the Hunts’ we might be able to ask for more. I think their interest runs high.”

  Billy smacked his hand on the table. “I have a good feeling about this.”

  Paddy stayed calm. “At present, we’re both going to keep working the

  mine. If we stay at it for eight to ten hours a day, we should take out about twenty to thirty dol ars a day. At that rate we can’t afford to hire another miner. We could really use Seamus right now. An extra hand would be

  good.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  “We’ll take you up there. I don’t think you would want to go down

  into the mine, but you might help us check the sieves. Keeping the house in order here and figuring out the banking would be a big help.”

  “What if I find a gold nugget? Do I get to keep it?” I asked, wondering

  what that would be like, to find money on the ground.

  “You might need it for some new clothes,” Billy said.

  “I’m fine in what I’ve got.”

  “This might not be the time to talk about this, but you’re going to

  need to buy yourself a pretty dress, Brigid.” Billy said to me, pushing back his chair. “There’s a dance come New Year’s Eve. You might want to get

  something new to wear for that.”

  “A dance,” I said in wonder, then felt bad thinking of such fun. “I don’t know if I would feel like going. But I’ve never been to a real dance before.”

  Billy winked at me. “I’ll teach you the new steps so you can keep up

  with everyone. As I remember, you’re light on your feet.”

  “As I remember, you throw your weight around.”

  We both grinned at each other across the table. Standing up, Billy

  started humming a waltz. I stood and curtseyed. He took me in his arms

  and, without running into many pieces of furniture, we danced around the room.

  The next thing I knew Billy was roaring out the words to an Irish bal-

  lad in my ear and we were all laughing and trying to keep up with him.

  Padraic tapped out the rhythm of the music with a knife on the table, and I felt a bubble of happiness push up inside of me.

  Billy’s voice was true and clear as if it poured from a holy spring. The words came out and I felt my heart yearn for Ireland again, for the music

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  of my people, even for the sound of the Irish language. What were we all doing in this strange land?

  I wondered how my dear brother was faring on this cold night, if he

  had found safe refuge in Cheyenne or wherever he might be. I hoped be-

  yond hope to clear our family name and to gain enough money from the

  sale of the mine to set us up wel , with no worries ever again.

  And t
hat I might actually go to a dance.

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  The next morning as we were preparing to go to the mine, Padraic

  handed me a leather pouch.

  “This is what the fine gold dust looks like,” Padraic said.

  I took the pouch in my hand and opened it. Gold dust. Particles of

  burnished gold, dirty looking, but worth twenty dol ars an ounce, he told me. I dipped my finger in and stared at the bits of gold that clung to it.

  The streets of America were not lined with it, as promised, but here I was holding a bag of the precious metal in my hand.

  “How ever do you gather it when it’s so fine?” I asked.

  “You will see.”

  Billy joined us on the front steps and laughed when he saw what I was

  holding. “So he’s letting you hold his balls?”

  I was shocked at his language, but Billy hooted again and even Padraic

  cracked a smile. He pointed at the bag I was holding. “It’s made from a

  bull’s jewel sack,” he told me.

  I carefully tapped the gold off my finger back into the bag and looked

  at the fine leather with new respect. A grand pouch it was. “May it only increase in size,” I said as I handed it back to Padraic. They both got a laugh out of that.

  Billy ran off to fetch the horses and Padraic looked me over. I was out-

  fitted in a pair of Billy’s dungarees. They were a bit big around the waist so I had tied them over a shirt with a kerchief. There was not an item on my body that belonged to me but my socks and even they had been covered

  with a heavier wool pair of Paddy’s.

  A chinook had blown in— a warm southern wind that had melted most

  of the snow during the night and turned the street into a sea of mud. The sun was out, and I could feel its warmth on my face and through my jacket.

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  Paddy went inside and came back out with a brown felt hat that he

  placed on my head. I pulled it on tighter for a better fit. Then he surveyed me.

  “You look like a boy,” he crowed.

  I felt stung by his comment. “Wel , what do you expect with all this

  gear on?”

  “A fine looking lad you are, to be sure,” he said to make me feel better.

  We were riding up to the claim. I wanted to see for myself what they

  were doing and understand the mining process. Now that a share of the

  claim was mine, I intended to make sure that we did what was best with it.

  I wished again that Seamus was with us. Last night, lying in bed, I had

  questioned what I was doing staying in Deadwood without him. I thought

  of traveling to Cheyenne to join him, although we still had not had word from him. But I felt I needed to stay on and safeguard our share of the

  money from the sale of the mine. With it, we could bring the family over from Ireland— I was determined to not let another one of them die there.

  I tried to think what I might do with a bit of money— start a business,

  set up my own household— it all seemed so grand. And with some money

  of my own, I was sure I could make a better marriage. Who would want me

  as I was? Without a pot to pee in, as my father would say.

  Billy rode up on a bay and held the reins of two other horses. The smaller one, a pinto, was for me. I walked to her head first and patted her on the nose. She stared back at me with reassuring dark brown eyes. Paddy helped me put my foot in the one stirrup and hoisted me up onto the saddle. I felt very high up off the ground and hoped that my horse had a gentle disposition.

  Padraic patted me on the leg and said, “Gertie is as sweet a horse as

  there is. Give Gertie her head and she’ll take you the right way. She knows this path wel .”

  Paddy grabbed the reins of his horse, a black gelding, from Billy and

  swung up into the saddle as if he were climbing over a fence. He clucked and pulled the reins in the direction he wanted to go, and the horse gave

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  a little jump and sashayed up the street. My horse followed with a nice

  rhythm to her gait. Billy fell in behind me.

  I hadn’t ridden since I had come to America. In Ireland, Seamus and I

  would steal out in the dark and hop on the backs of the landlord’s horses, wrap our hands into their manes, and ride over the fields until we fell off.

  Somehow, riding without a saddle I stuck on the horse better. Now I felt as if I might slide off the worn saddle at any moment, only my feet in the stirrups keeping me propped upright.

  We rode for half an hour. The claim wasn’t far according to Padra-

  ic— up over a steep hill and then following a trail alongside Whitewood

  Creek for a half a mile. Patches of snow huddled into nooks on the hil side.

  The sun shone and the soft wind blew moist against my cheeks. A very

  pleasant day for a ride. I was enjoying the slow easy walk of my horse as we picked our way along the path.

  Padraic pulled up and pointed down through the trees to an area right

  around the creek that was stripped away. Trees had been cut on either

  side and a sort of wooden chute built right over the creek. We turned our horses toward the claim and they gingerly picked their way down a gentle slope to the creek bed.

  A sign posted on a tree claimed the land for my brother and his two

  friends. Padraic jumped down and tethered his horse to a tree. I waited

  until he grabbed the bridle of my horse to swing down off the saddle. Even that short distance in a saddle and I felt an ache in my legs.

  He waved his arm and said, “This is the Green Isle claim.”

  A long wooden chute was built along the creek bed. The creek had

  been torn up and water ran right through the chutes. Piles of rock lay

  on the banks and shovels were close at hand. The scene looked like they

  worked until they were too tired and left things where they dropped them.

  So typical of men.

  Padraic explained how the whole system worked.

  “We panned at first, but that’s just too blamed hard. Then we set up

  this rocker.” He showed me the box with small holes in it, which he called a riddle, set on a trough. The gravel was placed in the top of the box and water poured over it. This washed the sand, gravel, and silt through the riddle. After removing the big rocks and pieces of gravel, the slurry of gold

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  and sand was washed down into the trough where it passes over other rif-

  fles where the gold and garnets are caught and held. At the very end of the trough they had put a sheepskin to catch the last bits of gold.

  “Don’t you know we call it the golden fleece.” Padraic rubbed his hand

  over it and then looked to see if anything was stuck on it.

  “We can’t work this right now as the waters froze. But we’ve been dig-

  ging to find the good gravel. We’ve got a pit going over here.” He walked me over to a hole that I thought I could barely fit in. “I think we’ve located a lode. We’ve found some decent ore down there.”

  “How do you determine that?”

  “Wel , sometimes we just figure it out by running it through the rocker.

  We can see what we have pretty quickly. But the Hunts want to take a sample to determine the worth of the claim.”

  “How do you decide where to take a sample?” I asked.

  Padraic pointed out where the pit had been dug. “It’s part the smarts

  and part just guessing, the same way it is with most things. You can see the way the land runs. You learn where the bedrock lies in your land. The gold, because it’s very heavy, settles down on the bedrock. The pit is dug on one of the lowest areas on
our claim, in the crease of it, so to speak. We dug to bedrock and brought up the gravel that we found right above it. We’re going to dig a mine shaft right there. Billy’s working on it already.”

  “Why are the Hunts so interested in your land?”

  “Besides the fact that we’ve got a good solid claim here, I think they

  want our piece as part of a bigger scheme. They mean to buy up the whole valley if they can.”

  I looked around at the diggings, which were all dirtier and danker

  than I had expected. The two men went to work, Billy climbing down into

  the pit and Padraic clearing away a channel.

  I started examining the slurry that was brought up out of the pit and

  was astounded when I would find the smallest chip of gold. The gold

  looked darker than I thought it would. But so sweet to find it. Once I

  found one piece I could spot others. I quickly picked out more pieces of gold. Imagine picking money up off the ground. I held the pile of small

  chips in my hand and thought what I could buy with them: a suit, a muff, some decent shoes, books if they were to be found in this uncultured

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  place. Then I thought of grander things: real china, a fur coat, a home with servants, my own carriage. From working at the Hunts, I knew what real

  money could bring. I pictured my father and the children getting off the boat in America. I kept digging to find more of it.

  After working about two hours, they called for some dinner and I took out the basket I had packed. I spread out a tablecloth and we all set to eating.

  Simple fare. Leftover biscuits and rabbit thighs. But out in the clean, cool air it tasted wonderful.

  I showed them the small chips I had found.

  “She’s become a miner herself!” Padraic laughed at me. “We’ll have to

  be giving her her own set of balls to keep her gold in.”

  As we ate, Padraic told stories of the mines in the hil s, of the Indians who hunted around us, of the cavalry that came through. I was surprised to hear what a storyteller he had become. They went back to work for a while longer, but the sun was almost touching the tops of the mountains, and we didn’t want a cold dark ride down out of the mountains.

  Billy was chipping away at a piece of stone he had brought out of the