They returned, Eben and Jams, in three months’ time, bringing not much from Nevada save the dust that had collected in their hats and clothes, in their carpetbags and boots, a silt of alkali that gathered even in the wrinkles around the eyes and collected in the hidden cracks and creases of a man that only the wife knows. The maid was sweeping silver dust from corners nine months after their return. For the children, Jams brought silver trinkets made by the redmen, spurs and belt buckles for the boys and combs and mirrors for the girls. Elegantly wrapped in a mahogany box, his gift for Flo was a hunk of raw silver ore, blue-black as night and heavy in the hand. “This here will double our money,” Jamie said. “The ground is thick with it. Those poor bogtrotters who discovered the Comstock lode knew nothing for silver. Four Irishmen were digging for gold, and this black stuff kept clogging their rockers, and it were an accident altogether that they even bothered to ask were it of any use. McLaughlin cashed in for $3,500 which he promptly lost, and Comstock hisself traded an old blind horse and a bottle of whiskey for a one-tenth share formerly owned by the mick called Old Virginny. Give me an Irishman to dig the hole any day, but I’d take even a Chinaman to have wits enough to ask what was in it.” He picked up the hunk of silver sulphite and pretended to smoke it like a cigar.
Something about his mood or manner alarmed her that morning, and try as she may, Flo could not completely shake the sense of foreboding that began to build upon her husband’s return from the silver hills of Nevada. She should have trusted herself to be right. When she and Jamie had first left home for the west, she was but a girl, just married, and knew no better. But now with his latest scheme, James seemed so cocksure it was all going to work out just the same as it had in ’49, but the difference now was she was a grown woman and mother of six, and his confidence grated on her common sense. “We ain’t kids no more,” she said. “Are ye going back into the earth? Or send that brother of yours, at least? To see firsthand what labor is necessary to find this ore?”
He dropped the silver cigar back in the box and spoke coldly. “We been under the ground and seen it, Flo, in the pit of hell with but a candle. The hole timbered and beamed like a ship’s hull, and every minute a danger of the cave-in and the whole mountain landed atop ye. I been there, and I seen it. Ain’t I been right before? And amn’t I the one who got us all this?” He gestured at the furnishings. “Have ye no faith in me?”
“It ain’t a matter of faith, but of capital and risk.”
“We was there near three months, woman. I think I can find my way round a silver mine and know a good investment when I see it.” One of the infants commenced caterwauling from the other room, and he frowned at her. “Ain’t ye going to tend your baby?”
“Nurse can take care of her, Jams. This is a serious proposition ye made, and I need to hear it out and understand—”
“Leave off understanding to me, Flo, and to Eben. We saw for ourselves what’s coming up the ground by the tubful, and we spoke direct with the owners. They has drifts and tunnels, five miles in all, and over five hunnert men in the ground. Once ye go down, ye never wish to go again, and I don’t aim to. Leave it for the workingman. I’m too old for that sort of thing, and besides, the real money is in the speculation. Don’t worry about it, for we will be made millionaires when this comes roaring through.” Jamie held her in his arms, and for the last time, Flo felt assured there.
By some subterfuge, the houselights were extinguished and once more Flo stood in spotlit halo before the shower curtain. “Ladies … and gentlemen. I bring new riches from days gone past. Not gold, me dearies, but somewhat else …”
On Beckett’s lap, the baby began to whimper, and from the folds of her skirt, his mother slipped a pacifier and popped it into his mouth. The handle of the ninny was plated in gold.
Flo cleared her throat and spoke in a loud voice, “I now draw your attention to the rewards of rash speculation.” She opened the curtain and in lieu of the golden treasure, the bathtub held six inches of paper in a ragged heap. Upon closer examination, the documents were identical stock certificates, emblazoned with the American bald eagle clutching in one taloned fist a miner’s pick, and in the other, Union dollars.