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CHAPTER 1
Lucky Creek, California, 1855
"I'm going home!"
If Laurie Sinclair hadn't been carrying her father's lunch pail, she would have clapped her hands as she performed a happy little skip along the narrow road that led up to the Monarch Mine.
Her younger sister, Ada, who walked beside her, laughed at her enthusiasm. "I do believe you're glad you're leaving."
"How did you guess?" Laurie couldn't keep her buoyant mood to herself. Six months ago, she'd traveled clear across the country to join her family in the mining town of Lucky Creek, high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. What a horrible decision! She so hated living in a place so primitive, so remote, so foreign to anything she'd ever known that from the day she arrived, all she could think of was getting back to her beloved Philadelphia. How wonderful that at last she could and was leaving tomorrow.
Ada sighed. "I'm going to miss you. How will I know what's the latest fashion after you're gone?"
"I'll write often, I promise. I'll miss you, too." And I'll also worry, Laurie reflected. She loved her family and would miss them tremendously. "We can blame it all on Father, can't we?"
"Nothing would stop him."
"All he wanted was to race to California and pick up all those gold nuggets lying on the streets before they were gone. Now look what's happened." Laurie would never forget that awful day back in 1850 when Sam Sinclair announced he was leaving for the gold rush. The whole family was dumbfounded. Why would he want to go? Unlike most men who headed west to make their fortune, he'd already made his. They lived in a mansion on Society Hill, the best neighborhood in Philadelphia, where all the rich people lived. The Sinclairs might not be among the very richest, but they were wealthy enough that they moved in all the best social circles. What could their father find in California that they didn't already have?
"What a miracle he really did find gold," Ada said.
"I wish he hadn't. Then we'd all still be living in Philadelphia."
"I never understood why you stayed behind when Father sent for us. All I could figure was you wanted to live with Aunt Florence. Wait. I'm out of breath." Gasping for air, Ada stopped and bent over, hands on knees. "Such a steep climb. I've got to rest a minute."
Laurie stopped gladly. She, too, hadn't completely adjusted to the thin mountain air. "It wasn't only Aunt Florence. You know what fun she is, but she's not the real reason I stayed behind. The truth is, I wanted to get away from Mother. I was twenty years old and tired of her bossing me around. I thought if I didn't like living with Aunt Florence, I could join the family any time I wanted. Then I met Brandon Cooper. After that, you couldn't have dragged me from Philadelphia."
"Really?" Ada gazed at her accusingly. "You never told us. You had so many suitors, I could never keep them all straight. I remember what you wrote about Brandon, though. Rich, handsome, brilliant, and catches bugs."
"Don't say 'bugs.'" How annoying that no one in the family could grasp Brandon's brilliance, his distinguished reputation in the scientific world. "I've told you before, Brandon is a renowned entomologist. He's gone on several expeditions throughout the world — the East Indian Archipelago, the Spice Islands. He's acclaimed for finding a new species of orthoptera. That's 'grasshopper' to you." She'd fallen completely, madly in love with him, and he with her. He'd asked her to marry him but said she should keep it a secret till he got back from his next expedition.
Her family thought she was having a grand time living with Aunt Florence, but she was growing more and more miserable. There was always another expedition Brandon had to go on before they could marry. He was stringing her along, so after two years, Laurie finally told him she'd waited long enough. Either marry her or she'd leave for California to be with her family. She was sure he'd be so devastated at the thought of losing her that he'd finally set the date. That didn't happen, so Laurie found herself in Lucky Creek, California. She glanced up at the snowcapped mountains surrounding them. "This must be the most lonely, most dismal place I could ever imagine."
Ada sighed patiently. They'd been through this before. "But the smell of the pine trees — those gorgeous snow-peaked mountains. There are those who find it beautiful here."
"You can have it." That was thoughtless. Ada always saw the best in everything, and Laurie wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world. "I take that back. Lucky Creek is an exciting town with plenty to offer."
"No, it's not. The truth is, I don't find it beautiful here, and neither does Mother. We're not blind to all the crime here. There's lynchings and hangings and they hate foreigners."
"I was trying to be nice, but I agree," Laurie replied. Lucky Creek had a sheriff, but he was weak and subject to corruption, and justice seldom prevailed. And like all mining towns, prejudice against all foreigners ran amazingly high. Gold prospectors whose skin wasn't white were often run off their claims, and worse.
"We'd move back to Philadelphia in a heartbeat if we could, but you know Father. He loves it here, so we're stuck." Ada eyed her accusingly. "I'm not likely to get a letter like you did."
The letter from Brandon. Laurie had it almost memorized. He'd made a terrible mistake and wanted her back. He'd gone on enough expeditions. It was time to settle down. He missed her terribly, and would she please come home and be part of his life again. Of course, she would, the sooner the better. She hated disappointing her family but hastened to make arrangements for her return east. This was her last full day in Lucky Creek. Tomorrow she'd leave by stagecoach for San Francisco. From there, she'd take a steamship bound for New York, then on to Philadelphia. Not an easy journey. Weeks on the ship, full of boredom and idleness, would pass before she got there, but she would gladly endure whatever hardship she must, just to be in the arms of Brandon Cooper again.
"Did you and he ever ...?" Ada blushed easily and now her cheeks were turning red.
"Did we ever what?"
"Nothing." Her blush deepened.
"Good grief. Do you mean, did we ever make love?"
"Well, yes."
"No one else must know, especially Mother."
"Of course."
"We did it a few times, three to be exact."
Ada gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. "You didn't!"
"We did. Three times when Aunt Florence was out, and the servants gone. It was ... very nice." Actually, it hadn't been all that nice, but that was only because she couldn't relax and kept worrying someone would catch them. Of course, all that would change when they married, she was sure of it.
They'd caught their breath and started walking again. Finally arriving at the Monarch Gold Mine, Laurie again was struck by its ugliness. Long, wooden sluice boxes stood on rickety stilts over the muddy ground. They stretched from the nearby river to the mine entrance where grunting, grimy men with shovels scooped heaps of ore from iron carts into the sluice boxes. From there, gushing water washed separate pieces of ore down the boxes as they extended down the hill, all of it a muddy, unsightly mess.
The office — mine headquarters, as Father called it — consisted of nothing more than one ramshackle building with shingles missing from the roof. An unpainted barracks for the workers stood nearby. Worst of all, the entrance to the mine itself made Laurie's skin crawl whenever she looked at that yawning black hole in the side of the mountain. Heavy beams lined the sides and top and rusty iron carts ran in and out on a narrow set of tracks. Who in their right mind would want to go down that dark, dangerous place? Mining accidents happened all the time. So far, the Monarch had been spared, but you never knew.
As they walked toward the office, Ada pointed toward a wagon parked in front. A sign on the side read ATLAS MINE. "Looks like Darcy McKenna's here."
"I hope not."
"You don't like him, do you?"
"Not especially."
"Well, I do. I think he's dark, tall, lean and, well, intriguing. There's something mysterious about him. He never talks about himself or where he comes from."
"I haven't the least interest in where he's from." Laurie definitely didn't care for the owner of the Atlas Mine. She wasn't sure why. He was always polite enough. Maybe she disliked him because he always seemed so driven, as if running a profitable mine was all that mattered in his life. Or, she had to admit, maybe she disliked him because the few times she'd met him, and he looked at her with those piercing blue eyes, she had the feeling he didn't like what he saw.
Ada pointed to another wagon, marked COYOTE MINE. "That's Brock Dominick's wagon. They must be having a meeting."
Laurie had no desire to mingle with the mine owners. At least Darcy McKenna knew how to be polite, but Brock Dominick, a crude-mannered man with a powerful build, hadn't the faintest notion how to act in a civilized manner, and didn't seem to care. "We won't stay long. Just long enough to give Father his lunch, and then we'll leave."
Inside the office, Laurie's father and her brother, Hugh, appeared to be engaged in a serious discussion with the visiting mine owners. Darcy McKenna and his assistant, Tom Crain, were there, along with Brock Dominick and a few other owners. They stopped talking when Laurie and Ada walked in. "Hello, ladies," Samuel Sinclair called. Laurie's affable father had been having more than his share of problems lately, but he never let his worry show. "Ah, so you brought me my lunch. Seems I forgot again."
"Did you really forget, Pa?" Laurie's brother, Hugh, inquired, "or did you want an excuse to see more of Laurie before she leaves?"
"Never mind all that." Samuel looked slightly sheepish as he took the lunch pail. "Thank you, daughter, and Ada, too. Want to stay a while? We were just finishing up. They're claiming I'm a dangerous character." He smiled at Darcy McKenna. "Aren't you, my friend?"
Darcy didn't smile back. "What I'm saying is, you're taking a chance with all that gunpowder."
"Damn right," Brock Dominick agreed. "You'll blow yourself to kingdom come if you're not careful."
"You let me worry about that. Did you know my little girl is leaving tomorrow?" Father cast a sad eye at Laurie. "Hate to see her go, but she's hell-bent on getting back to some fellow in Philadelphia, and I can't stop her."
Brock remained stone-faced and said nothing, which didn't surprise Laurie. She expected nothing more from a man as coarse and unfeeling as the owner of the Coyote Mine.
"That's too bad, Sam." Darcy sounded genuinely sorry for his friend, but when he turned to her and inquired, "When are you leaving?" she knew he was only being polite and hadn't the least interest in what she did. Briefly she told him her travel plans.
"Have a pleasant journey, Miss Sinclair."
"Thank you, Mr. McKenna, I shall." And she certainly would. How wonderful she could at last escape this miserable mining town with its gritty men like Brock Dominic and Darcy McKenna whose talk was all about mining, who cared little for the social graces. She addressed her father and brother. "I hope you can get home early tonight for my farewell dinner."
"We might be a little late," said Hugh. "Mr. McKenna just sold us some of his gunpowder, and we're going to put it to good use. But you'd better not start without us. If you do, that precious boat ticket of yours might disappear."
"You wouldn't dare." Laurie gave her slender, sandy-haired brother a playful swipe on the arm. At twenty-seven, he hadn't got over playing the occasional practical joke. When she was little, sometimes he went too far with his joking and teasing, but she'd always tried to overcome her resentment. A hard worker, he'd become Father's indispensable assistant at the mine.
"We'd best get back to our discussion," Sam said to Laurie. "We're trying to figure what to do with those pesky high-graders."
Dominick's face clouded with rage. "I say, kill 'em all. Shoot 'em like dogs."
"Now, now, we don't want to go to extremes, Brock," Sam replied.
Laurie hadn't been in town long before she heard about the thieves who stole the high-grade ore out of the sluice boxes, always in the dead of night when no one was around. Called high-graders, they were a big problem with all the mines.
"After we've done all the hard work of mining it out of the ground," Darcy said. "I'm doubling the guards at the Atlas. What about you, Sam?"
Father's expression became tight with strain. "Looks like I've got a serious problem with it, too."
Finding the whole business of mining to be utterly boring, Laurie turned to her sister. "We're in the way. It's time to go."
She and Ada said their goodbyes, reminding Father and Hugh they'd better be home in time for Laurie's farewell dinner. As they started down the mountain, Laurie remarked, "I'll miss my family and a few people I met in church, but I certainly won't miss that Darcy McKenna."
Ada looked surprised. "Seems to me it's that awful Brock Dominick you shouldn't miss, not Darcy."
"Brock's out-and-out crude and disgusting," Laurie replied with amusement. "So, I don't have to wonder why I don't like him. But Darcy? I'm not sure. Maybe I don't like him because he doesn't like me."
"What's not to like about you? You're the beauty of the family and smart besides. Back in Philadelphia, you could have had just about any man you chose."
Laurie hated discussions about who in the family was beautiful and who was not. She'd been gifted with a wealth of auburn hair; big, velvet-brown eyes; and a fine figure. Not so, poor Ada, whose thin, mousey-colored hair, plump face, and chubby figure had so far not attracted any suitors. Her extreme shyness didn't help either. But as Laurie had pointed out countless times, Ada possessed such a compassionate heart and caring nature that someday some man was bound to see how beautiful she was but in a different way. Ada always scoffed when she said that and claimed that at her age she was well on her way to becoming an old maid. "And I really don't care. I'm happy and I feel useful. What would Mathew and Maryanne do without me?"
Laurie felt a pang of sadness remembering Hugh's wife, Maude, who had died in childbirth two years ago. Mathew, the baby, had survived. Ada had gladly taken over his care, along with his sister's, Maryanne, who had just turned three. "Hugh's lucky, Ada. You do a wonderful job."
"Let's get back to Darcy McKenna," Ada persisted. "Like I said, there's something about him that's enormously attractive. It's hard to describe exactly. Maybe it's because he has a kind of careless charm about him that he's totally unaware of."
Laurie burst into scornful laughter. "You think he's charming?"
"Absolutely I do, and wealthy besides. They say his Atlas Mine produces more gold than any mine around, except the Coyote, of course. Brock Dominick's the really rich man in this town."
"Even so ..." Laurie left her sentence hang. Why should she waste her breath on a man she would never see again? "What do you suppose Hugh meant when he talked about putting some gunpowder to good use? I hope they're not planning something dangerous."
"You worry too much. You should be thinking about all the good things, like tonight we'll have a lovely celebration, and tomorrow you're off to Philadelphia and the man you love. How could you be anything but giddy with happiness?"
Ada had hit upon the perfect phrase. Laurie indeed found herself giddy with happiness. "You're right. What was I thinking of? I'm the luckiest girl in the world."
Ada burst into delighted laughter. "And may your marvelous luck continue."
"Oh, it will." Not that she needed any luck. A bright, beautiful future lay before her. That anything might go wrong would be unthinkable.
* * *
With Darcy holding the reins, he and Tom left the Monarch Mine and headed back to his own mine. "I wish I hadn't done it," he remarked.
"Done what?" White-haired, with a weathered face and scraggly beard, Tom Crain had spent most of his fifty years in the out-of-doors, hunting, fishing, and now gold mining. He'd become Darcy's right-hand man at the Atlas Mine. "You mean selling Sinclair all that gunpowder?"
Darcy nodded. "He claims he knows what he's doing. You heard me straight-out tell him I didn't think so. I did my best to persuade him to get someone who knows about explosives, but you know how he is. Stubborn. Won't listen to advice. Thinks he can do it all himself."
"He's been successful so far, hasn't he? The Monarch has produced a lot of gold."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Lucky Creek Lady"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Shirley Kennedy.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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