Easy Pickings by Richard S. Wheeler Page B

heard.”
    Thomas Cruse’s great mine was the sole reason Marysville existed. A little pressure from the powerful men who ran it would go far.
    â€œDo you think my mine will support me?”
    He shook his head. “I’m not a geologist. There are dozens of factors. The vein might pinch out tomorrow. The ore might not reduce well. The mine might flood. The price of gold might decline. But I can say this: his assays got better and better, and he told me his vein got thicker and wider as he bored in.” He smiled. “That’s the heart of it.”
    â€œI wish I knew what to do,” she said.
    â€œI wish I could help you with that,” he said. “I’m a chemist, not a swami.”
    â€œI’ve just assumed a heavy debt, burying Kermit. He would be horrified.”
    â€œYes, and they’ll use it as a lever.”
    â€œDo you know someone willing to buy it straight off—for what it’s worth?”
    â€œNo one knows what it’s worth, I’m afraid.”
    â€œThere’s nothing now. Nothing keeping me up at my mine but the wish to sell it properly.” Then she added a caveat. “And no one’s going to push me off.”
    â€œThen the way to do that is to share in its profits. Find a partner. Make sure he’s square. Gold does things even to men who start out with a head full of ethics.”
    â€œWould you?”
    He sighed, smiled and shook his head. “I know my profession very well; buying and managing mines is quite beyond my abilities. I come from an Austrian family known for its suicides, so I live without high ambition.”
    She felt weary. The funeral had drained her of her last reserves. “Mr. Wittgenstein, thank you for coming. Thank you for, well, looking after me. You’ve helped in ways I can’t explain.”
    He nodded, and lifted a white work smock from its peg on the wall. “I like to think I’m good for a few things,” he said. “Not just chemistry.”
    She stepped into the fresh spring air, walked back to the building that housed city offices and Constable Roach’s prim warren.
    He looked up at her, started. His revolver lay in pieces on a table. He had been cleaning it.
    â€œWell, here I am,” she said. “The vagrant is staying in Marysville.”
    â€œIt seems you’re begging for trouble.”
    â€œGo ahead. Arrest the vagrant who is a widow with a gold mine. Arrest the vagrant with the fifteen hundred by six hundred foot patented, proven lode mine.”
    He did nothing.
    â€œMr. Roach, I don’t even know your given name. Is it Herald? Donald?”
    â€œFor you, it’s Constable.”
    â€œHave you held this office long?”
    He reddened slowly, and fidgeted with his fingers, and looked exactly like a man being bested.
    â€œHere,” she said. “Go ahead.”
    She walked into the cell and waited. She saw the heat boil through him. He was a man not at all used to being thwarted or crossed. But some innate caution slowly cooled him down, and he did not leap from his stool and slam the barred-iron door shut.
    â€œThank you, peace officer,” she said, and stepped out. “If you owned a gold mine, I’d do the same for you. You wouldn’t qualify for vagrant. Not even after arsonists burnt your home. Which is something well understood in this town. Now I will task you. Find out who set my home ablaze. And arrest them for premeditated taking of life.”
    â€œNot my jurisdiction,” he muttered.
    â€œAnd not your inclination,” she said. “You might be related.”
    The look on his face, as she walked into fresh air, was one she would never forget, and one that she knew would torment her dreams. She thought maybe she had pushed him too far, and would pay a price for it. She had pointed at his clan.

 
    Eight
    The No Trespassing notice at the edge of her property was missing. She stormed up the trail to the