Lone Star 73

Chapter 1

Jessie Starbuck could feel the perspiration trickling down her backbone. The wood-smoke from the laboring Virginia and Truckee Railroad engine made her slightly nauseated, but what a panoramic view of western Nevada lay stretched out before her! Jessie and her samurai companion, Ki, had boarded the train at Roundhouse Station in Carson City less than an hour earlier. The V and T Railroad, its boiler dripping and steaming, had given two blasts on its steam whistle and headed directly eastward into the high desert sage. Off to her right she now caught glimpses of the sun as it sparkled off the Carson River. A line of cottonwood trees led her eye farther out into the desert. But for some inexplicable reason, the huge lumberyards and numerous sawmills all sat abandoned.

Jessica’s lovely sea-green eyes studied the tin rooftops of the sawmills and the smokeless stacks jutting up against the pale, sun-blasted hills. She had come to investigate the Comstock Lode and perhaps buy herself a silver and gold mine. But the absence of activity along the Carson River told her that something was amiss.

Ki, it seems to me that if the mines on the Comstock Lode are doing as well as I am supposed to believe, every sawmill on the Carson River would be filled with new logs for underground shoring.

The tall, slender Eurasian beside her nodded but said nothing, for he was not a man who made idle talk. To the samurai’s way of thinking, Jessie, as always, was very observant and her reasoning quite flawless. She would, of course, ask that exact question of the men who awaited them in Virginia City. It was precisely the kind of question that would demonstrate to any astute businessman that Jessica Starbuck was a woman who missed little.

For her own part, Jessie had not expected an answer from her protector and faithful companion. Ki was a samurai, a martial-arts master, whose actions spoke far more eloquently than his words. His very presence was a comfort to her and, now as always when they traveled together, she was aware that they made quite a pair. Jessie Starbuck was, by any definition, stunningly beautiful, with her blond hair and hourglass figure. She had long, shapely legs and a narrow waist accentuated by the fullness of her bosom. Because of the flying cinders and the thick smoke from the steam engine, Jessie wore a dark duster over her dress, but would have felt much more comfortable in Levis and a blouse, the day-to-day working clothes that she habitually wore on her huge Circle Star Ranch down in Texas.

Miss Starbuck. A voice behind her spoke up. Its owner introduced himself. My name is Ethan Dorr and I could not help but overhear your question just now. May I comment, please?

Jessie regarded a middle-aged, rather scholarly looking man with a receding hairline, baggy jowls and watery eyes that blinked myopically behind thick bifocals. The man was wearing a heavy tweed suit and tie, and he was much too warm. His chubby red face was bathed in sweat.

Of course, Mr. Dorr.

Thank you! he said with gratitude. You see, I am a mining engineer from San Francisco. I’ve been called over here to visit the Comstock to ask precisely the questions you have just raised. The very fact of the matter is that there is a supreme shortage of good timber for underground shoring. That’s causing a great many cave-ins, I’m sorry to say. It’s my understanding that men are buried underground almost daily.

Why, that’s horrible!

Of course it is. But there seems to be little by way of an immediate solution, Miss Starbuck. As you saw in Carson City, the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas has been logged almost clean. What timber there remains is runty and of poor quality, and yet it continues to be logged. Poor-quality timber such as that could not possibly withstand the tremendous underground weight it is often forced to suspend. Not possibly!

The intense little man shook his head vigorously. He appeared to Jessie to be extremely excitable and quite upset. Go on, Jessie told him.

I’m saying that the only premium-grade timber left within fifty miles of the Comstock Lode is to be found at Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada boundary line!

Jessie frowned. It did not seem possible. Yet she recalled that early this morning when she and Ki had taken a walk around Carson City, they had both remarked at how the eastern slope of the Sierras had been stripped of much of its timber and that the hills they were now approaching had been completely denuded of piñon and juniper pine. What about those cottonwood trees? she asked, pointing out the window toward the Carson River. Some of them look very large and strong.

The little engineer almost laughed. My dear woman, cottonwood is terribly weak and subject to stress failure under pressure. Besides, that little bit of timber would not last a single mine even one month, and there are dozens of big mining operations in existence on the Comstock. Add those to the thousands of little claims staked by pathetic prospectors from one end of Six Mile Canyon to the other, and you can well see why millions of board feet of prime lumber have already either been burned by the steam engines that power the stamping and sawmills, or else used in shoring or for heating fuel.

Yes, Jessie said as the V and T Railroad began to climb a series of switchbacks that would take it into Virginia City. She studied the rocky, treeless hillsides with a sense of awe and respect. This was hard country. The air was thin, and she knew the summers would be blistering and the winters terribly cold. The luckier prospectors around here lived in little shacks, but most survived the elements by sleeping in tiny caves hacked out of the mountainside, or even in little holes in the earth covered by paper, brush, or pieces of discarded tin. Jessie felt sorry for men who had to live like rodents and suffer such hardship. The entire scene was shocking, and she had never seen so much activity confined to such a small area of canyon. Everywhere she looked she saw rough-looking miners digging away at the hillsides. Their tailings were like large mole hills numbering in the thousands.

They’ll never strike it rich, the mining engineer said with a sad shake of his head. The silver and gold found here is entirely different than that which started the Forty-Niner gold rush.

Jessie knew very little about gold. Her father had built a huge shipping and export business that had made him a fortune. When Alex Starbuck had been murdered by a vicious international cartel, Jessie had been his only heir. She had inherited his many holdings and his money, but she mostly thought of herself as a cattlewoman. But cattle prices had been down for several years, and Jessie remembered her father had told her that diversification was the key to a continuing strong rate of growth for the Starbuck empire. Jessie had taken that advice seriously. She had further expanded her late father’s vast industrial holdings in Europe as well as his coffee and sugar plantations in South America. She had recently been to South Africa to buy a diamond mine, but this grim Comstock Lode was quite another matter entirely. And though free information, like free advice, was usually worthless, Jessie thought that it would not hurt at all to listen to this man and learn something.

How is this so different from the Forty-Niner gold rush? she asked.

Dorr seemed very pleased to have the chance to educate her and the samurai. Well, the California gold rush revolved entirely around—at least in its early stages before they turned to hydraulics—placer mining. That means that the gold was easy to find because it was on the surface. It could be found in rivers, or under rocks. There were rich deposits right on the surface. But here in Nevada, the gold and silver is much too deep under the ground for those poor fellows with their picks and shovels to even hope to reach. It’s a pity; and though they would never listen to me, I could save them all a great deal of heart- and backache if they would only understand that the Comstock gold is deposited in pockets hundreds of feet below the surface. This is hard and deep rock mining, Miss Starbuck. It is terribly dangerous and requires the finest miners that can be found anywhere in the world. For that reason, it also offers the highest wages, five dollars a day for an eight-hour shift, and the mines never shut down. The steam engines run continuously and so do the pumps, which can only attempt to keep the mines dry.

Jessie nodded. She was not completely ignorant of the Comstock. What I am told is that it takes huge amounts of capital to have any chance of success here.

Oh, my yes! Dorr said, his little eyes dancing. Look at the big mines and you will readily see that there are tens of thousands of dollars invested in big steam engines and underground mining machinery. The men in, say the famous Ophir Mine, all go down in steel and wire cages. These cages are lowered as much as a thousand feet underground. Sun Mountain, which is where Virginia City is, can only be described as being riddled with tunnels. Miles and miles of them.

Have you heard of the Lucky Lady Mine? Jessie asked, because Wild Bill Evans, an old friend of hers, had given her a tip that this particular mine might be bought at a reasonable price, and that it had a great deal of potential because of its excellent location.

No. Dorr frowned. How many men does it employ, and what is its weekly tonnage?

I have no idea.

The mining engineer shook his head as if dismissing the Lucky Lady as being of no importance whatsoever. Believe me, Miss Starbuck. More money is probably made on the Comstock by selling worthless stock in mining companies than is made from the ore itself. Why, over in San Francisco, thousands of wealthy men who should have known far better than to invest in things they know nothing about have seen their fortunes swallowed up and lost.

That may be true, Jessie said, but there are always men—and women—who profit and who invest wisely. My advisers have told me that the Comstock will last for many years, perhaps even decades.

It may well do that, Dorr admitted. By my calculations, there is another ten million’s worth of gold and silver under Sun Mountain. But the problem is that all the time it gets harder and more expensive to reach. If gold is selling for eight dollars an ounce and it costs ten to bring it up and smelt it down, what good is it?

None, Jessie said.None at all unless the factors of production drop.

Dorr removed his glasses and polished the ash from their lenses. ‘Factors of production,’ he mused. Isn’t that a term coined by a French economist?

German, Jessie said.

Exactly what does it mean?

It means the costs of doing business. Wages, supplies, interest on investment, capital expenditures—

The mining engineer interrupted her in his excitement. And underground shoring for the mines that has become prohibitively expensive. He sighed. I’m here to try and figure out some solution to the problem. But there really is none. You can’t substitute anything for cheap timbering.

Jessie pursed her lips. Then in that case, the mine operators and investors had better build a railroad up to Lake Tahoe and try to lower the cost of their future lumber.

It isn’t quite that simple.

Jessie listened as the V and T engineer began to blast his whistle. The train entered a tunnel and, for a moment, the bright light of day was transformed into inky darkness. The smoke, without anywhere to go, blew off the ceiling of the tunnel and back into the passenger cars, almost asphyxiating the occupants. When the train finally emerged in sunlight again, they were all choking and coughing. The mining engineer seemed to be completely overcome. He was lying slumped across his seat behind Jessie.

Ki saw him too, and they both reached for the man, thinking that he might have suffered a heart attack or apoplexy. But they were wrong.

He’s been stabbed to death, Ki said, pulling the man’s tweed jacket aside to reveal the handle of a knife protruding from just under Dorr’s rib cage.

Jessie glanced quickly around the passenger car. It was loaded with rough miners and unsavory-looking men of all descriptions. There is no way in the world to tell who did this, is there?

Ki shook his head. His black eyes surveyed each man. No one was paying them the slightest attention. They looked tired or bored, and many of them were still coughing and choking. The only question that we can even attempt to answer is, why was he killed? Ki propped the dead engineer’s bowler over his face so that he looked as if he was sleeping. There was nothing to be gained by causing a stir.

Jessie considered the question, but drew a complete blank. I have no idea. Perhaps he had enemies he’d made from previous trips to the Comstock.

Yes, Ki said, that is quite possible. But there is an even greater possibility.

And that is?

That is that Mr. Dorr was killed because he was telling you things that someone in this coach did not want revealed.

Jessie blinked. But what ...

The samurai shrugged. I don’t know. He told you nothing that wouldn’t seem to be common knowledge. But he might have said more before we arrived in Virginia City.

Jessie nodded in understanding and took a seat beside the dead engineer, hoping that she had in no way contributed to his murder.

She stared out across a hundred miles of desert waste-land that stretched all the way to Utah Territory. A feeling of foreboding assailed her spirits, and she retraced every word of the conversation, but without results.

Mr. Dorr had been murdered. Jessie kept telling herself that she had nothing whatsoever to do with it, but something inside of her knew better.

Chapter 2

Mr. Andre La Fleur was waiting at the Virginia City train station. He was not alone. Beside him stood three more gentlemen in equally stiff white collars and expensive black suits. Jessie saw them through the window of the passenger car, and she frowned. It looks like we’ve got the welcoming committee out in full force.

Ki glanced at the assembly of bankers and stockbrokers. Yes, he said, that’s a sign that they’re overeager. Beware, Jessie. They have a lean and hungry look in their eyes.

She nodded. Before we talk business, I want to get poor Mr. Dorr off this train and to a funeral home. We’ll also want to pay a visit to the sheriff and see if he can shed some light on this.

I don’t think Mr. La Fleur will be too pleased about that. He appears to be a little uncomfortable.

It was true. The four men were standing right in the path of the steam that rushed out of the brakes, and were nearly being blasted off the platform. Jessie could see La Fleur’s