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As Deke made his own, much shorter walk back to town, he spotted Cora Everill out foraging among the scrub.
“Miz Everill!” he called out, causing her to turn. She carried a large wicker basket which was stacked high with gnarled wood. “Need any assistance?”
Cora rubbed the sweat out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “I wouldn’t say no to a hand, if you’re of a mind.”
Deke nodded at his bandaged arm. “I’ve only the one, but you’re welcome to it. Powerful little to do in town without going to the mine.”
Cora handed him the basket and set to work on a nearby shrub, using a hatchet to cut it down, trim off its branches and convert it into transportable sticks. “Really? Cain’t say as how I’ve ever found that to be the case. There’s plenty to be done to keep a household running.” She added the fresh pile of sticks to the basket. “Specially now that we’re gonna be refining on our own without the company’s equipment.”
“Y’all set up for that?” Deke looked at her, surprised.
She shrugged. “We can get by. Easier to sell ‘em our ore to dump into their tanks, sure, but since the tanks ain’t here we’ll cook it ourselves. Ain’t the easiest or most efficient process, but it’ll work to get it started. I reckon we’ve got enough materials on hand for a batch or two.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll trade that for some more and keep going. Or the company’ll roll back in, more likely.”
“What if they don’t? What if we’re stuck here?”
If Deke was hoping for a reaction, he was disappointed. “Nothing I can do about that at all, so I might as well not worry myself about it. Nothing ever got fixed by fussing, my mama always said.”
“Downright pragmatic.”
Cora smiled. “She was. I suppose I am, too. Elmer’s the dreamer. He’s always got the big ideas. I just try to make them work.”
“That what brought you out here?”
She nodded. “We didn’t have any plan when we left town. It was just time to go. Everything we heard about out here sounded so free, you know? And Elmer can paint a mighty fine picture with his words when he wants to. So we came out this way to see for ourselves. The company’d just started settling in to Rosin’s Hollow when we got to Contrition, and they were handing out stakes to anyone who’d come up to work the mine. All independent, so you got as much as you worked for. It sounded real nice, and it worked out pretty good, too.
“Except then the silver dried up, and we waited a little too long to pull up stakes. I tried to talk Elmer into it a few times, but he always begged me for one more day, one more chance to go look. He was sure there was a new vein there just waiting for him.”
“Well, looks like he was right,” offered Deke.
Cora laughed. “I suppose he was! Truth be told, I think he’d lost hope of ever finding it. We just didn’t really have nowhere else to go now.”
Deke nodded. “Kinda the feeling of the town.”
“‘Course, then there’s you, coming in and buying when everyone’s selling and going.”
“I’m a gambling man. I had a feeling this bet’d pay off.”
“Sure, when you fleeced the people desperate to get out.” Cora’s smile took the sting out of her words, but Deke still held up a hand in protest.
“I paid more’n anyone else would for claims they thought were played out! I put ready money in their hands and gave ‘em a ticket out when they thought they were stuck. I’m no saint; I did it to make money, and I ain’t ashamed of that. But I’m no devil, neither.”
“You never offered to buy out me and Elmer.”
“Would you have taken it?”
A pause. “No. No, I suppose not. What kinda price can you put on a dream?”
“That’s why I never offered. You wouldn’ta taken it, and if you had, it woulda torn you two apart in the end.”
“Well, then I thank you for looking out for us,” Cora said, her tone gently mocking.
“Given that your silver dream looks to have come true, ma’am, you’re welcome.”
As they arrived back at the Everill’s house, Deke offered Cora the basket. “You need anything else?”
“I believe I’ll be fine from here, but thank you for asking.”
Deke tipped his hat and ambled off down the street. Cora entered the house and dropped the basket by the hearth with a sigh. Now all she had to do was check the kiln for any cracks, find out how many of the necessary elements they actually still had to smelt the silver, and get the process ready to go. Oh, and sweep the day’s sand out of the house, plus prepare dinner out of whatever scraps of food they still had around. At least the clothes were already washed.
Cora snorted. Not much to do around town without the mine, indeed. Men clearly thought half of what went on in their lives was magic.
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Y'all Hazred 