Read Online The Mother Lode by Gary Franklin - Free Book Online Page B

“You’ve got a lot of grit and spunk, Mrs. Johnson. I like that in a woman.”
    â€œI like it in a man,” she said. “And after what we’ve been through, Joe, I think it’s high time that you just started calling me Ellen. To heck with what anybody thinks.”
    â€œDoes that mean I can move out of your shed into your bed?” he asked, barely able to keep from laughing.
    â€œYou try it, Joe Moss, and I’ll put a whole lot more hurt on you than you’re feeling now!”
    Joe looked at her face, which was covered with dust-streaked sweat. By gawd, he thought, I’d better get that lumber up and sold and then move on to Virginia City before I start thinking ungentlemanly thoughts about this spunky woman .
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For the next three weeks they kept to the same hard routine. Get up way before dawn and do the milking and the chores, then hitch the wagon up and saddle the Mexican mule and tie him to the back of the wagon. Then it was on through town with the same disapproving faces and expressions coming from the Mormon townspeople. Ignoring their icy disapproval, Joe then drove up the grade, and then climbed down the side of the mountain tied to a rope.
    Joe fought the pain, and he went farther and farther down the mountainside each day, until he had all the lumber that he could reach by tying together every rope that they could lay hands upon. He supposed, if he spent a day and went to Carson City, that he could have bought more rope and gone deeper into the steep canyon, but the lumber down there had fallen and tumbled so far that it was mostly worthless.
    â€œThat’s it, Ellen,” he announced one day when they’d loaded the last that could be recaptured. “Some of it probably ain’t worth no more than firewood, but a lot can be cut and trimmed and will bring a good price up on the Comstock.”
    â€œI’m sure that’s true,” she said as they turned the wagon around and then loaded it for the trip back through town to her farm. “So when do you think you’ll be leaving?”
    â€œSoon,” he told her. “No sense in putting you out anymore. I’d like to fix a few of your fences and split more wood and get . . . .”
    â€œNo,” she said too abruptly. “I’ll do those things. Joe, I’ve put some thought to it and I think it would be best if you left tomorrow.”
    â€œTomorrow?”
    Somehow, Joe hadn’t really been thinking of rushing off. He and Ellen had become close, and his lessons had taken on some flavor now that he’d progressed to the point where he could read more than a few simple words. Why, he’d even taken to reading some of Ellen’s old newspapers, and he’d picked up considerable information about a world he’d never known and would likely never see.
    â€œYou’ve got a son or daughter you’ve never seen up there in Virginia City,” she quietly explained. “And you need to get up there and make your peace with Fiona McCarthy.”
    â€œI doubt that’s her last name anymore,” Joe said, feeling troubled. “Seeing as she has already married and been widowed once.”
    â€œWell, that may or may not be the case,” Ellen said, her lower lip quivering slightly. “But you’ve pinned your heart on having her and you need to go and find out if that’s going to happen.”
    â€œI’ll miss you,” he blurted out, picking up the lines and slapping the team too hard.
    â€œShut up and don’t say anything more,” she told him with a shine in her eyes. “Just . . . shut up and drive.”
    Joe swallowed a lump in his throat and headed on down the grade with his final load of salvaged lumber. He should have been mighty happy to be leaving. It would only take him two days to be at Fiona’s side . . . but he found that he was feeling sad and low.
    Sometimes, he thought, a man didn’t know what the