Longarm nodded, his lips twisted in a wry smile. “Yep. I know the feeling. How come you gave up, though?”

  “Hell, Marshal, it’s an election year, and it gets tedious looking like an idiot. Besides, I only have so many men and it’s a big county. While we were wasting time watching the Lost Chinaman, some rascals ran off thirty head of cattle up by Murphy. When they told me the government was sending in a man, I just thanked the Lord and handed it back to you folks.”

  Longarm regarded the sheriff for a moment, then downed his shot of Maryland rye in one throw. “I see,” he said. “Well, I’ve only got one man. Me. Old Lovejoy over in Manzanita is a crook, and—”

  Marvin cut in, “He’s not a crook. Just dumb. I heard about the set-to you had with him. The way I hear tell, the marshals in Sacramento were a mite peeved at the government for not trusting them.”

  As the bartender poured him another shot, Longarm asked, “What can you tell me about George Hearst, over at Sheep Ranch?”

  Marvin frowned. “Nothing. Hearst just owns that mine and a lot of others. He’s a big hoorah down in Frisco and over in Virginia City circles. He don’t dig his gold personally.”

  “What about the folks working for him, then?”

  Marvin sipped his beer and said, “Eye-talians. A whole colony of Eye-talians who come over the mountains together from some town in Italy. They talk funny, but they never give us no trouble. I know what you might suspicion, but it won’t wash. There’s only one mule track between Sheep Ranch and Manzanita, and we been over it again and again looking for sign. No freight wagons could make it, even empty. Besides, the Sheep Ranch ore is another kind of rock.”

  Longarm shrugged and said, “I’ll have a look-see anyway. Was that mining engineer, Ralph Baxter, one of the folks you had staked out when it was your turn to look foolish?”

  Marvin shook his head and said, “He hadn’t come up here yet. He wasn’t in the county, as far as I know, when the robberies first started.”

  Longarm grunted, “He’s here now, and he’s offered a million for Lost Chinaman.”

  The sheriff’s mouth fell open. “Jesus, I’d take it if I was MacLeod. He ain’t making anything on the mine now, the way they’ve been robbing him. It’s a wonder anybody wants to buy it at any price. There’s no way to show a profit till we find out who’s high-grading it, and make the rascals stop!”

  Longarm nodded and said, “Yeah. Makes you wonder if Baxter thinks he can stop it any time he wants to, doesn’t it?”

  “Hot damn! You reckon that prissy dude is behind all this?”

  “It’s sure starting to look that way. On the other hand, some slick son of a bitch might just be wanting it to look that way. I’ll know better when I catch him.” Longarm tossed back his drink, thanked the sheriff for his hospitality, and strode out through the batwings into the brightness of the street.

  Chapter 6

  Longarm never found out why they’d named the little town Sheep Ranch. Nobody there knew. There was a billy goat grazing atop the town dump as he rode in, but not a sign of a sheep. Of course, he hadn’t seen any disoriented Orientals over at the Lost Chinaman and he doubted that Angel’s Camp had been built by celestial beings.

  Sheep Ranch had a big frame hotel with a built-in taproom. The miners lived in less imposing accommodations—shacks that lined the single street, which was only a wider stretch of county road. The mine works were surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The fence was posted against trespassers with the additional warning that survivors would be prosecuted. So he went to the hotel bar and told the bartender he wanted to meet up with someone who could answer questions about mining.

  The bartender said, “That’d be Herc Romero. He’ll be here in a little while. They’re about to change shifts.”

  Longarm said, “Romero, huh?” and the bartender snapped, “Do you know who the last man who saw Custer alive was?”

  “Some Indian scout, wasn’t it?” the deputy guessed.

  “No. Custer sent his bugler, Trooper Martin, with a message for Terry, just before the Sioux wiped out the Seventh Cav.”

  Longarm was puzzled. “That’s interesting as hell, but what’s the point of your yarn?” he asked.

  “Trooper Martin’s real name was Martini. He came from Palermo, damn it!”

  Longarm blinked, surprised at the intensity of the bartender’s response.

  “Well, don’t get your balls in an uproar. Everybody has to come from some damn place.”

  “Palermo is in Sicily. Martini was an Italian. Herc Romero is an Italian. And I, God damn it, am Italian!”

  “I don’t aim to dispute your words, old son. I just don’t savvy what you’re getting at,” Longarm said, pushing his hat back from his forehead.

  Slightly mollified, the bartender said, “My folks came across the prairies and deserts in a covered wagon. Everybody seems to think that’s funny as hell. You Irishmen weren’t the only people who won the West, you know.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Longarm agreed, “but I ain’t Irish. Ain’t an Indian, either, and they were here before damn near anybody else.”

  The bartender nodded and said, “Just wanted to set the record straight. They buried a Yankee over in Dorado for calling somebody a dago last year. Folks in this part of the county are just as Western and mean as anybody else.”

  Two men came through the swinging doors and the bartender called out, “Hey, Herc. Lawman here wants to talk with you. He sounds like he’s all right.”

  Herc Romero was a bearish man of about forty with a red bandanna around his neck and rock flour in his hair. He came over to Longarm and offered his hand. He said, “I’ll drink with you, but I’m wore out answering questions about the Lost Chinaman. I’ve never seen the damned mine.”

  The deputy smiled amicably. “I’ll take your word for it. But Kevin MacLeod over there said someone working for the same boss as you rode over for a look-see a while back. MacLeod said he took the Hearst man through his diggings. Do you have any idea who it might have been?”

  Romero shook his head and said, “Nobody working under me. The way I hear it, our ore is higher grade, and even that’s not anything to get excited about. The Mother Lode is playing out. We’ll be shutting down here in just a few more years.”

  Longarm frowned, wondering who in thunder had visited MacLeod. But he knew Romero couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell him. So he asked, “If I was to ask you, would you ride over there with me right now?”

  The foreman considered this briefly, then said, “Maybe. If you can give me two good reasons.”

  “One reason is that you ain’t on duty,” the lawman offered.

  “My wife’s expecting me for supper.”

  “The second is that you’ll be helping the U.S. government. I want a man I can trust to have a look at a few things over there for me.”

  Romero smiled and asked, “How do you know you can trust me? You never met me before.”

  Longarm chuckled. “Sure I have. You’ve been married up with the same gal for nigh twenty years, you were cited for bravery in the Battle of Cold Harbor, and you’ve never been sued or arrested since you stole those watermelons when you were twelve.”

  Romero and his friend looked startled, and the mine foreman asked, “How in hell did you find out so much in the short time you’ve been here?”

  Longarm said, “I didn’t find it out here. I’ve been over to the county seat. I’ve read your whole record.”

  “Damn it, I don’t have no record!” Romero protested.

  “Sure you do,” Longarm said. “Everybody does. Every time a man gets hitched, serves his country, or gets dragged before a judge for any reason whatsoever, there’s a record kept. Since you’ve lived in this county most of your life, except for five years in the War, I know all I need to about you. I need an honest man to back my next play, too. Will you do it?”

  The bartender said, “I’ll be damned, you never told us you got a medal in the War, Herc.”

  The foreman shrugged and said, “It wasn’t much. What do you want me to do over at the Lost Chinaman, Deputy?”

  “Answer questions as I think them up. I’m going through the diggings from top to bottom and I need a hard-rock mining man I can trust as a guide.”

  Romero nodded and said, “You got one. Just let me tell my woman. Do you suppose I’m going to need a gun?”

  Longarm said, “Don’t know. If you’ve got one, you’d best bring it along. The folks we’re after are pretty slick, and they might start playing rough if we get near pay dirt.”

  * * *

  Kevin MacLeod’s wife said her husband had gone down to Sacramento to see about another bank loan. But Tico Vallejo said he’d show Longarm and Romero through the mine.

  As they moved down the gentle slope inside the entrance, walking between the tracks with Vallejo holding a lantern, Longarm held back and let the two other men talk. He knew Romero was likely to ask more sensible questions about the operation than he was. So he just listened.

  Vallejo seemed friendly and at ease with the burly Italian. Romero was friendly too, but he’d been filled in during the ride over, and was asking more questions than the usual guided tour might call for.

  Romero rapped a pit prop with a knuckle and asked, “How come you have live oak instead of cedar, Tico? Didn’t you know oak gives all at once, without warning?”

  “I think some of these tunnels were dug before my time. The hills hereabouts are thick with oak. Isn’t oak stronger than cedar?”

  “Sure it is, but cedar groans like a sick cat for at least a few minutes before it gives. If this mountain ever decides to sit down on you boys over here, it’ll happen with no warning.”

  Vallejo looked morosely up at the hanging wall and said, “Well, we’re solid rock, and it’s lasted this long.”

  Romero grunted, “It always lasts this long. By the time you can say it lasted that long, it’s too late. You folks are operating on a shoestring over here!”

  Vallejo nodded and said, “There’s no argument about that, Herc. Señor MacLeod says if the bank turns down his application for another loan he’s going to have to close or sell out.”

  A workman was leading a burro hitched to a little ore car up the slope toward them, and the three men squeezed back against the wall to let it pass. Longarm reached out and snagged a lump of rock from the cart, but Vallejo laughed and said, “Save yourself the trouble. It’s overburden.”

  Romero started to explain, “You have to dig ten tons of nothing much to get at a ton of high-grade ore,” but Longarm cut him short, saying, “I’ve been in a few mines before.”

  Vallejo led them farther down the slope to a point where the main shaft ended in a lopsided T. As they turned to the left, Romero ran a finger along the standing wall and said, “Metamorphic quartz, sure enough. I can see where they followed the vein as she pinched out.”

  Vallejo said, “It opens up again a bit farther, on. We’re almost there.”

  He held his lantern high as they approached a wet dead end of glittering rock. Though hardly a geologist, Longarm could see how the pinkish, glassy quartz ran in wavy bands through darker, duller rock. He asked, “What are the middlings—quartzite?”

  Vallejo sighed, “Yes, it’s tough as a bitch to shatter. Takes twice as much dynamite to shave the face as it ought to.”

  Longarm could see the shallow craters from the last blast running in neat rows across the mine face like the stars in the American flag. Romero bent to pick up a loose lump of quartz and put it in his pocket.

  Longarm followed suit with another sample, holding it up to the flickering light of Vallejo’s lantern before putting it in his pocket. If there was gold in it, it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Romero asked Vallejo for the lantern and held it close to the wet rock face. He ran his free hand over the rock and tasted his fingertips. He grimaced and said, “Metallic, all right. Sulfur, too. Are there any hot springs in the neighborhood, Vallejo?”

  The Mexican shook his head and replied, “Not that I know of. Why?”

  Romero said, “If the temperature starts rising down here, run like hell. You might be digging your way into a hot spring.”

  Vallejo muttered, “Madre!” but before they could get into a geology lesson, Longarm asked Romero, “What do you think, Herc?”

  Romero said, “Looks like a gold mine. Tastes like a gold mine. I’ll know better in a minute.”

  He squatted on an empty dynamite box and took a pocket-size kit from his loose wool trousers. He uncorked a small bottle, placed a shallow glass dish on one knee, held his ore sample over it with one hand, and dribbled some acid over the sample from a thin glass tube he had dipped in the bottle. As he corked the little vial of acid and opened another small bottle, Longarm observed, “That’s a right cunning little outfit. Do you carry it all the time?”

  “Sure,” Romero replied, “when I’m working. It gets tedious digging worthless rock, and all this durned quartz looks the same.”

  “They say you have another kind of quartz over at Sheep Ranch,” Longarm said.

  Romero shook his head. “A deeper shade, is all. Ours has more iron in it. Gold is gold no matter what the rest looks like.”

  Romero dripped alkali into the little basin, put the glass tube away, and swished the dish around like a tiny prospector’s pan. He asked Vallejo to hold the light closer. Then he held the dish up, peered at the muddy contents, and nodded. “Medium-high grade. Our stuff at Sheep Ranch is richer, but this rock’s well worth digging.”

  Vallejo said, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove, Señor Longarm. We have told you from the first we were digging gold ore here.”

  Longarm nodded and said, “Just wanted to be sure.”

  The Mexican insisted, “Sure of what? Why on earth would we be working so hard if there was nothing down here worth our efforts?”

  Longarm held up a cautioning hand. “I never said I doubted anyone’s word, Vallejo, but somebody is tricking the shit out of us and I’m eliminating as many angles as I can think of.”

  “Damn it,” Vallejo said, “we are digging real gold and loading real gold and shipping real gold. You were the one who was supposed to be guarding it. None of my crew were near you when you let the high-graders steal it!”

  Longarm said placatingly, “Now don’t get your balls in an uproar. If you weren’t so sensitive you’d see we just gave you and your men an alibi.”

  Vallejo simmered down and said sheepishly, “Oh.”

  Longarm explained. “That’s how I aim to find our culprit—by figuring out who didn’t do it, till I whittle down to the only ones who could have,” He ticked off possibilities on the fingers of his large, calloused hand. “So far, I know I never stole the gold. I don’t think Herc stole it, and it looks like you and your men are home free.”

  Vallejo sighed deeply and nodded, “I understand. Forgive my outburst. One becomes a bit sensitive after being called a greaser a few times. Who else have you eliminated from your list of suspects?”

  “Nobody. And there’s a lot of folks in Calaveras County, too. Let’s go topside. Maybe I can start crossing off a few more names.”

  Vallejo led the way with the lantern and they followed him back to the main shaft. Romero asked where the other miners were. The Mexican explained that the three of them had come down at the end of the shift. He added, “We are only working one shift a day now. Señor MacLeod is having difficulty raising more working capital.”

  Romero said, “I can see you’re running a shoestring mine with semiskilled labor, no offense intended. If I was MacLeod, I’d sell out. He sounds like a stubborn cuss.”

  Vallejo said, “He is. This mine means much to him. He says he put a lot of time and effort into finding his first decent strike and has no intention of letting others get rich from it.”

  They started up the slope. Vallejo was in the lead, with Romero in the middle and Longarm bringing up the rear. Longarm neither heard nor felt anything unusual until Romero suddenly whirled around and pushed him, yelling, “Run! Run like hell, and cut around the corner!”

  Wondering why, but willing to learn, Longarm tore after Romero as the burly Italian raced down the pitch-blackness of the shaft. He could hear it now. Something was chasing them!

  He reached the end of the entrance shaft in the darkness and ran full-tilt into the hard, wet standing wall. A hand reached out and hauled him into the side tunnel as an ore car, with an explosive, earth-shaking crash, slammed into the space he’d just been occupying. Longarm was hit in the back with a chunk of flying rock. A wooden plank slapped him across the behind like an initiation paddle wielded by a school bully who’d eaten gunpowder for breakfast. Longarm and Romero sprawled together on the sloping, muddy floor as things tinkled and shuddered into dead silence. Then Longarm got off Romero and helped him up, saying, “Thanks. You have damn good ears!”

  Romero lit a match, saying, “I felt the air pressure building. A hard-rock man gets to where he can feel things before they happen, under a mountain.”

  He raised the little light over their heads and took a gingerly few steps back the way they’d come, muttering, “Jesus!”

  The ore car that had chased them down the track was a pile of shattered debris against the standing wall at the bottom of the slope. The rock it had been filled with lay in a spread-out pile. A lantern lay on its side among the lumps of ore, its chimney shattered and its flame snuffed out. Romero’s match went out, but he lit another, picked up the lantern, and lit the wick, saying, “This thing’s warm. I think it was Vallejo’s.”

  As he held the lantern up, Longarm pointed with his chin at a trickle of blood running out from under the piled rock and wreckage and said, “He came down the tracks with the car! He’s under all that shit!”