Wildstar

When she nodded, he left her with the horses and scouted the area, entering the dark mouth of tunnel, climb­ing the slope above, circling the first shack, pushing open the door and peering inside. From what he could make out in the darkness, it was filled with mining tools—hammers, picks, shovels, explosives, and drill steel.

Shutting the door, he inspected the miner's hut next, stepping inside briefly to make certain no one was lying in ambush.

"All clear," he said as he walked back to her.

Before he could offer to help her dismount, Jess slid down from her horse and proceeded to picket the ornery Clem's two ornerier mules in front of the tunnel, her movements efficient and determined.

"You'd better let Nellie and Gus smell you," she warned, "so they won't set up a ruckus every time you go by."

Devlin bit back a crude remark at the suggestion, but af­ter hobbling and unsaddling the horses, he did as she asked. Then he followed Jess to the hut and stood aside while she entered.

She fumbled for a minute in the dark, then struck a match against the door frame and lit the coal oil fixture hanging from the ceiling. The place was stuffed with the miscellaneous trappings of the mining trade, Devlin saw, and yet there was little actual furniture, only a rickety pine table and two chairs, and a narrow rope bed. The thin mat­tress was covered with a blanket but no pillow or sheets.

He shut the door behind them as Jess carried the knap­sack of food she'd packed over to the table. When he heard her give a sudden soft gasp, Devlin swung his rifle up. She had come to an abrupt halt, staring down at the large black stain that darkened the raw pine floor.

"Riley's blood," she said faintly.

Devlin felt his heart soften at the tremble in her voice. "Looks like it," he said gently. Relaxing his rigid stance, he took the knapsack from her, laid it and his rifle on the table, and pulled out one of the chairs. "Sit down. You look worn out."

"No, I couldn't sit still just now."

Backing away from the stain as if it frightened her, she ignored his advice and went to stand at the small window whose shutter had been left open, restlessly peering out. "Do you suppose he was shot through the window?"

Devlin eyed the distance from there to the bloodstain. 'The angle's right. Whoever did it must have figured him for dead."

"He nearly was." She shuddered, which made Devlin feel the urge to go to her and put his arms around her— and not just to offer her comfort. "I don't know what I would have done if Riley had died," she whispered.

"Yes you do. You would have gone on without him." He was certain of that. Jess Sommers was a strong woman inside, for all her curvaceous softness outside. Devlin hes­itated. "This stranger I heard you describing to the marshal . . . you said he had a scar and was riding a roan. That's all you know?"

"Yes."

"You've never heard of him before this?"

"No. But maybe some of the miners have. I could ask around."

>

"That would be good. Any lead might help us find him."

Wanting to give her something else to think about be­sides the attack on her father and his near murder, Devlin joined her at the window and closed the shutter firmly. "Why don't you show me the mine and tell me about this feud with Burke? If you're paying me to guard this place, I might as well know what I'm getting into."

Jess looked up to find Devlin smiling a teasing wayward smile that unnerved her. "All right." She didn't really like going into the mine, especially at night. It gave her chills to be deep underground in the darkness. But even that was preferable to the helpless, shivery feeling she got when Devlin looked at her so intimately.

Moving away uneasily, she took down from a shelf a miners' lantern and lit it, then led the way back outside. Both mules set up a raucous braying the minute Devlin came near. Jess scolded them both and made Devlin go through the sniffing procedure again. Then, holding the lantern aloft, she led him into the Wildstar tunnel.

The air immediately felt cooler, he noted, while the lan­tern light sent giant shadows leaping around the rock walls that were braced by thick timbers. There was not much room to move in a hewn passage that was approximately seven feet high by four feet wide. Ahead of him, Jess carefully skirted an empty ore car and sidestepped the narrow rail tracks that ran along the tunnel floor.

"Be careful," she warned Devlin needlessly. "Accidents happen all the time underground. Just about every week you hear of somebody getting hurt. I always worry that Riley will be next, but he's been lucky. . . . That is, until today.

"This used to be the old Wilson claim," Jess added a minute later in explanation. "Back in '78, Riley used ev­ery penny he could scrape together to buy it and sink a prospect hole. He's been trying to develop the property ever since. It isn't much, but it's all he has. There are only two levels, this one and the one below. We should be working it two ten-hour shifts a day, but Riley can only af­ford a small crew for one shift."

She fell silent, not wanting to be disloyal to her father. Yet she had to admit Riley had no business trying to work a mine on this small of a scale. Mining operations were usually the ventures—or playthings—of wealthy entrepre­neurs who'd made money elsewhere and had it to invest. An independent miner like Riley had little chance of suc­cess going up against the huge consolidated mines, which had the means to buy the latest technology and best equip­ment.

"How much capital would he need to work it properly?" Devlin asked in a musing tone.

Jess sighed. "Lots. Too much. There's an old saying . . . to work a silver mine, you have to have a gold mine."

"And your father doesn't have a gold mine."