Free Gold by Jane Toombs Page B

He’s always watching me with those rheumy eyes of his.”
    “ If watching you were a crime, Selena, all men would have to be declared guilty.”
    “ Men watch every woman in these god-awful mining camps.” Pamela said.
    Selena tossed her head. “Harry Varner,” she said, “acts as though we’re marauding Indians at tacking his wagon train. Just because we opened this store.”
    “ He probably sees us that way,” Rhynne said.
    There were shouts from outside and Rhynne went to the window as a man ran up to the door way. “It’s here,” he cried. “It’s here. Horobin’s wagon is here.”
    “ At last.” Rhynne strode outside.
    “ Mother, do you need me?” Selena asked.
    “ Go ahead. I’ll stay. If I wait long enough, I may sell something, even if it’s only a pin.”
    Selena ran after Rhynne to where a wagon pulled by two mules had been backed against the front of the hotel. The two teamsters were attempt ing to wrestle down a bulky, blanket-wrapped object—a crate by its appearance—onto two planks laid from the rear of the wagon to the porch.
    “ Careful,” Rhynne shouted. “It’s the only one of its kind in all the diggings.” The heavy object, some five feet long and four high, tilted danger ously, threatening to topple to the ground. Rhynne sloshed through the mud, put his shoulder to it, and together the three men slid it to the porch.
    Rhynne stepped to the top of the porch steps and faced the gathering crowd. “Gentlemen,” he called out, “you’re just in time for the grand un veiling. Has anyone a knife?” A miner handed him his Bowie knife. Rhynne slashed the ropes and the blankets fell to the planking.
    The crowd gaped.
    “ Never thought I’d see the likes in Hangtown.”
    “ We’re becoming right civilized.”
    “ A piano!”
    With one finger Rhynne picked out the opening notes of On Top of Old Smoky. “That, gentlemen, represents the alpha and omega of my musical repertoire,” he said. “Can anyone here play? A piano without a piano player is like a woman without a man.”
    A miner, tall and thin and bearded like most of the others, was shoved toward the porch. Rhynne reached down and grasped his hand, propelling him up the steps. The man stood in front of the piano, tried a few chords, then struck up Blue-T ail Fly. Selena began to sing and one by one the men sang with her, “Jimmie crack corn an’ I don’t care. . . .”
    Grinning, Rhynne turned to the two teamsters, saying, “Inside, inside,” and they pushed the piano toward the door, the miner walking side ways beside it still playing it. When they’d shoved and pulled the instrument into the saloon, Rhynne shouted, “Drinks are on the house,” which was all the men needed to hear. They trooped past the sign reading NO WEAPONS INSIDE, singing, “Jimmie crack corn an’ I don’t care, Ole Massa’s gone away. . . .”
    Rhynne and Selena stood alone on the porch, listening to the boisterous laughter inside.
    “ You sing right well,” he told her quietly.
    “ W.W., can I sing tonight? Now that the piano’s here?”
    “ You can as far as I’m concerned.”
    “ You mean Pamela? You know she’d say no.”
    “ Aren’t you of an age to make up your own mind? I personally believe in the efficacy of presenting nay-sayers with a fait accompli . Once an egg’s broken, like Humpty Dumpty it can’t be put back together again.”
    “ I’m afraid, W.W., of what Pamela would say. And what if the men don’t like my voice? Though I suppose I should listen to you.” She nodded toward the open window. “The piano arriving on the very day we open. You’re a wizard.”
    “ No, not a wizard. I’m lucky, have been ever since the day I left New Orleans. When a gam bler’s lucky he has to ride his luck until it turns and when it turns he has to quit. If you don’t quit then, you’re liable to go into a slide and before you realize it, you’re through.”
    “ And sometimes when a man thinks he’s lucky he