Read Online West of Washoe by Tim Champlin - Free Book Online

their neighbor’s rich vein of ore if they got half a chance. Power, greed, and wealth brought out the worst in human nature. Yet, there were exceptions. He’d heard the Irish immigrant, John Mackay, one of the richest men on the Comstock, was the antithesis of most others in his honesty, integrity, and care for friends and employees. He was liked and admired by nearly everyone—a notable quality among the newly wealthy mine owners who’d come up from nothing. The miners had organized into a strong union to protect themselves from men like Avery Tuttle.
    “You a union member?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Didn’t the union threaten to strike if the miners weren’t paid four dollars a day?”
    “That’s right,” Sturm said, looking up with bleary eyes. “And we got it, too.”
    “Seems like that kind of money would help make up for the bad working conditions.”
    Sturm looked at him suspiciously. “You part of management?”
    “No. Just interested in your story. Go on.”
    “We took to tying bandannas over nose and mouth to filter the air. But it was too damned hot down there to keep those things on very long. Heat one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty. We stripped down to our shorts. Union agreed with Tuttle…we’d work a half hour, then rest for a half hour…drink pints of water, chew on ice kept in barrels near the blower tubes. Can’t work long in that kind of heat…” He paused and took three rattling breaths. “But Tuttle kept his foreman on our backs…wouldn’t keep to that agreement. Waited till somebody passed out before he’d call for rest. And usually no ice sent down from up top.”
    “Why didn’t you quit and go somewhere else?”
    “I was going to…but found out by then I was sick…couldn’t get hired in no other mine.” His eyes seemed to be focusing better as the food began to have a restorative effect, offsetting Madam Turney’s Elixir.
    Sturm ate another spoonful and washed it down with a swallow of beer. “Funny thing is…the harder the foreman pushed us, the less good ore we took outta there.”
    “How could you tell until it was milled and smelted?”
    Sturm looked at him with disdain. “Mister, I been a miner for a lot of years. I know rich ore on sight…by color, by feel. What we took out of there…the past few months was poor-grade stuff. Have to move a lot of rock and clay to get any good metal outta that.”
    “I reckon Tuttle was desperate, then, to keep cutting back on overhead expenses to see if he could strike something better.” It seemed entirely logical to Ross that a hard, ruthless mine owner would act that way. Yet he could understand Sturm’s complaints as well. The man had taken a chance, been well paid to do a dangerous job, and had ruined his health as a result.
    Sturm finished his food and drained the beer.
    “Can I help you home?” Ross offered. This man was in no shape to be picketing on the street. The next person might take offense at his sign. “Where do you live?”
    “Back room of a house down the block.”
    Ross helped him up, pocketing the bottle of elixir, and handing the miner his sign.
    Sturm leaned on him as they left the saloon and walked the block to the frame building. He helped him inside the unlocked door. The sick man sagged down on his bunk, muttering his thanks for the help and the food. He seemed to fall into a doze almost immediately.
    Ross gazed down on him for a moment to be sure he was breathing normally, spread a blanket over the fully dressed man, then turned to leave.
    He was startled by a movement on the other side of the room. A stocky man dressed in long Johns rolled out of a bunk next to the far wall.
    “Oh, sorry,” Ross said. “Didn’t know anyone else was here.”
    “John Rucker, his roommate. Thanks for bringing him home.” He reached for shirt and pants hanging on the bedpost.
    “Gil Ross. I saw him on the street and he looked to be in pretty rough shape.”
    “Rough is the word, all right,”