Free The Gold Miner's Wife: A Young Woman's Story of Romance, Passion and Murder by Amethyst Creek Page A

who she was, her crimson gown conveyed the clear message.   Delilah glided up the wooden steps, her back ramrod straight, and opened the office door without knocking.  Jack looked up from the account ledger and knew he was in for trouble.  The fiery sparks darting from her blue eyes could have ignited the papers on his desk at ten paces.
                  “What kind of jackals, no, let me begin again, what sort of human hyenas do you employ at your mine, Mr. Simmons?” she asked with an intensity that put him on his guard.  Among his men there might be a few who were guilty of some misdemeanors, but this sounded serious.
                  “Calm down Delilah,” he said, offering her a chair.  “Please sit down and tell me what this is about.”
                  “I’ll tell you what it’s about.  One of your men took his fists to one of my girls last night.  She was so frightened we spent most of today trying to get answers from her.  Her face is bruised, her lower lip is horribly split and the bruises around her eyes have swollen the lids shut.  I will not stand for it.  As Colorado is still a Territory, I will involve the Federal Marshal if I have to.”
                  Jack looked stunned and he was also bewildered.  On one point he knew she was bluffing, the Federal Marshal would never involve himself with something as trivial as an allegation of brutality from a mere prostitute.  Still, Delilah’s claim was so unexpected it took him a moment to regain his power of speech. “How do you know it was one of my men?” he asked.
                  “He identified himself as a Mr. Brophy from the Five Nuggets Mine,” she answered icily.  “He was burly, stocky and sounded Irish.”  Jack was having no luck dredging up the unfamiliar name.  The mine managers frequently hired new men and oftentimes they did not last long.
                  “I am sorry, who,” he asked?
                  It was moments like this when Delilah hated the helplessness of being a woman.  She had run into a brick wall and his name was Jack Simmons.  “You know, Mr. Simmons,” she said to him as the bile rose in her throat, “I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.  Don’t sit there and try to tell me you’ve never heard of this person.  You’re protecting him and I want justice.”
                  “I assure you, I am not,” he insisted.  “Let me call in one of the mine managers and see if we can’t sort this out.”  But Madam Delilah’s troubles would have to wait until another day.  Jack pushed back his chair, stood and was heading for the door when a very loud explosion rattled the windows.
    *****
                  You have never seen dark until you have seen dark inside a mine.  Like the pitch-black bottom of a murky well, it is a darkness as thick and oppressive as death.  Thomas Sprague held his oil lamp aloft, the lamp emitting a moving pool of light that delineated the darkness beyond and behind.  His breath fogged out in front of him and he narrowed his eyes to peer into the darkness ahead.  The lamp cast only a small pool of light in the immense chamber.  He was here to inspect the progress on the new vein.  In an incredibly short time his Five Nuggets Mine was processing thirty tons of ore per day. 
                  Thomas and his partner, Jack Simmons, employed about forty men.  They were strong, hardy-looking fellows with plenty of muscle and snap.  But at this altitude, workers would frequently come and go.  Some averaged only a week or two before the altitude got them down.  It was a rough existence, dangerous, isolated,  and in an area known for nine months of harsh winter followed by three months of cold weather.  Gold ores from the mine averaged from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five dollars per ton. 
                  Thomas Sprague