Silver and Spice

Chapter 9

Anne turned silent, once Jake came back out of the bank and started driving through the narrow streets of Wallace. The touch and look of the silver ingot was indelibly engraved in her mind, evoking unwilling fantasies of sterling castle…and a dreadful anxiety as to exactly what Jake had got himself involved in.

The look of the town was just not what she’d expected. Jake had been playing tourist guide, blithely relating that Idaho’s Silver Valley produced more than 40 percent of the nation’s metal ores. Wallace, he said, was the unofficial capital of the valley. He went on about geological fault lines and mineral deposits and the incredible wealth hidden in the mountains. Anne was hardly the type to whimsically imagine streets lined with silver, but Wallace…well.

The town was about as big as a handkerchief, and appeared as old as the hills behind it. Silver Shares Sold Here, shouted the signs in every other window. So much wealth in gold and silver, pocketed in this tiny, tiny place? The mountains simply didn’t provide growing room. Old frame structures were packed one on top of the other. Houses had backyards that led to a second tier of houses, with steps that led to a third tier of houses-and beyond that the mountains shot straight up.

“Not what you expected, Anne?”

“I can picture it as a rough, tough Western town about a hundred years ago,” she admitted.

“She hasn’t changed. She’s known gunfights, fire, feast and famine, and I don’t think anything ever will change her. Not as long as there’s silver in the hills.”

Yes. His silver. Anne took a breath, intrigued by Jake’s town but not at all by his latest business venture. “Jake, I wish you hadn’t got into this. You think I know nothing about the commodities market? The price of silver has fluctuated like crazy in the last few years. It’s a game of futures, where a broker contracts to buy or sell lots at a set price at some future date. The investors purchase those futures with margin money and go long or short-”

“I love it when you talk money,” Jake drawled. “Did you know that in India they serve silver-roasted chickens at weddings? They actually eat the stuff.”

“So,” Anne said crisply, “the sucker speculator agrees to buy silver at so many dollars an ounce in, say, three months. Or four. Or whatever. That’s all fine and good for him if the price per ounce is higher when that time comes. That means he gets more silver than he paid for. But if the price is lower, Jake, you have to put up more margin money.”

“It’s like listening to the flow of Greek,” Jake remarked to the world in general.

“Silver is a perfectly insane commodity to become involved in. How’s that for plain English?”

Jake shook his head. “Now let’s not get violent, honey. I didn’t buy futures. I bought the mines.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“You see, I found dozens of little mines that had been closed down for years. The silver in those mines wasn’t top-grade metal. But when demand for silver went sky high, I decided to go for it. You see, by themselves those little mines might not have been profitable, but put them all under one roof-my roof-and it’s a whole different ball game… Where are you going?”

“To get some antacid tablets. I can’t take this.”

The motor home didn’t stock antacid tablets. Anne settled for peppermint tea.

“Listen,” she started tactfully, as she carried her cup forward and sat down again. Only she couldn’t seem to continue. Jake pulled into a gas station, passed the pumps, and drove straight through onto another road. A road of sorts. The asphalt abruptly led straight up, like the start of a roller-coaster ride. Anne’s tea splashed, and her head bumped against the seat’s headrest. Before she could catch her breath, they were headed into a hairpin turn.

There were no guard rails along the side of the road. That was unfortunate, because there was a three-hundred-foot drop between the road and the valley below. If she’d had the urge, she could have opened the window and patted the tops of the tallest pines she had ever seen in her life. She didn’t have the urge.

“Jake-”

“We’re headed for the first mine I ever saw in this area. A really tiny one, actually, with no major tunnels or caverns. You’ve always been a little claustrophobic, and I didn’t think you’d want to go a thousand feet down inside the earth.”

“You’ve got that right,” Anne affirmed.

Jake chuckled. “So I thought I’d break you in nice and easy… You’d better drink that tea while you can,” he suggested.

Anne agreed. She sipped the scalding liquid as if it were fortified with courage. They were going to die on that road. Soon. The steep upgrade suddenly became a steep downgrade. The vehicle hit sixty-and that with Jake’s foot on the brake. “Most people only think of silver in terms of jewelry and flatware,” he informed her casually. “I’ve got one mine that produces a grade high enough for these things, but the others-”

Anne moaned. “Exactly how many mines do you own?”

“I sell the rest of my silver to various industries. Medicine, for one. Orthopedic surgeons use a cement containing silver salts to mend damaged bones. Did you know that? And patients who’ve been burned badly need silver, too… I’ve always had this horror of being burned. Without a silver cream to disinfect the burns-”

“Jake.” Anne set down her empty cup and clutched the armrest. “Where is this mine? How far from here?”

“Just a little way. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The roller coaster was going up again, curling around like a rattlesnake. The treetops were about five hundred feet below now. A Jeep was hurtling toward them from the opposite direction. Anne closed her eyes.

“And then there’s California, Anne. It can get pretty dry in certain parts of California. Silver can be chemically altered to form silver iodide crystals, and they can be used to seed the clouds-to make rain, Anne, for people who desperately need it. One thirtieth of an ounce of silver can yield ten trillion ice crystals.”

“That’s absolutely wonderful.”

Her palms were embarrassingly damp-which wouldn’t have been at all embarrassing if Jake hadn’t reached out and claimed one. “I’ve driven this road at night in the rain, honey.”

“Then you have a death wish.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

Which was exactly where they parted ways philosophically. She knew very clearly when there was something to worry about. Jake had never worried about anything in his life. “How often do you have to drive this road?” she asked, very casually.

“Every day during the week. Well…” He paused. “I’ve spent more time near Coeur d’Alene lately. You could tell from the look of Wallace that there’s really no place to live there, no space. You’ll love the place where I park the motor home, Anne. You won’t want to love it, but you will.” He paused again. “I haven’t finished telling you about silver.”

She listened, desperate to keep her mind on anything but the logging truck that suddenly loomed ahead of them. Their motor home was on the inside curve, but the huge vehicle had rattling logs in its bed… She bit her lip as the logger whizzed past them. The taste of blood was sweet and warm.

“Film, Anne. An ounce of silver is all it takes to make five thousand color photographs. I’ve just started selling to film manufacturers. Like the buyers for every other industry, they require a specific grade of silver. And that’s just the point. I’ve got lots of different mines, so I can provide several different grades to different buyers. No other metal conducts as well as silver, and it’s a natural dry lubricant… You can open your eyes now,” Jake said mildly.

She did. Jake vaulted outside to open a tail, weathered wooden gate with a No Trespassing sign nailed to it. The killer road was behind them, replaced by a gravel lane. Once they were inside the gate, they might as well have entered another world. The mountain valley was flat, a grassy field leading to a stand of gold pines, backdropped by the spiked hills.

When Jake stopped the vehicle and turned the key, Anne stepped out and took a good long breath. The sun beat down in warm, soothing rays, as if apologizing for that harrowing ride. Fresh, sweet air surged into her lungs, and at the same time curiosity was battering questions in her head. This little dale was mining country? “Jake?” She turned to see Jake stepping out from the back of the motor home, with a pair of decrepit black galoshes in his hand.

“Anne, I stuffed socks in the toes so they’d fit you. There’s no way you’re going into the mine with heels on.”

“What mine?”

“Baby Rivard.” He motioned. She saw nothing but a grove of trees, and then the fluff of a rabbit’s tail as it hopped away from them. Her eyes skimmed back to the grin on Jake’s face, and the permanently muddy boots in his hands. With a wry smile, she exchanged her Italian leather sandals for his choice of footwear.

He took her hand as they started walking toward the face of the cliff. The boots felt cold and clammy on her stockinged feet, and no one would have considered them graceful. Only when they’d passed through the grove of trees did she see the planks that formed a path to the opening of a cave.

“This mine won’t ever be profitable, Anne. The vein’s shallow and not worth the effort of taking out the ore, but it will give you a good idea what a silver mine really looks like. Almost all silver comes from ores that contain larger amounts of other metals. Lead, usually, and copper a lot of the time. This little honey’s got copper and gold and quartz. The ore’s rich-it’s where I got the silver your necklace is made from-but it yields only a few ounces of silver for every ton of ore. That’s why…”

Jake stepped into the dark hollow in the mountain, still holding Anne’s hand. As she followed him, she shivered suddenly in the cold, dank air. He released her hand and took a lantern from a hook. She watched him light it and hold it high so that they could see the passageway ahead of them.

“Are you listening, Anne?”

“Yes.” She was listening, though not entirely to the lecture on silver. She was listening to a side of Jake she’d never heard before. Nothing in heaven or on earth could convince her that silver would provide a practical, stable livelihood, but for the moment that wasn’t the point. For a man who had roamed lackadaisically from one project to another all his life, Jake clearly had learned a great deal about Idaho…and silver.

He’d changed, she thought fleetingly. Or had she misunderstood the man in the past? She watched his face, so full of animation, his silvery eyes picking up the flickering reflections from the lantern’s light. She couldn’t possibly follow everything he was talking about. “They grind it into dust…loosen it from the rock, submerge it in tanks of foaming water… Tailings…ash-gray sludge…then the refinery process…” He was really irresistibly handsome, all shoulders in the chamois shirt, all lithe grace and tawny head and sheer brazen male every time he moved.

Finally, Jake stopped leading her through the labyrinthine passageway with its floor of small, gritty rocks. “There.” He motioned.

Her eyes were reluctantly diverted from his profile to the strange walls of the cave. She’d been so busy, between studying Jake and trying to keep from stumbling on the uneven ground, that she had really barely looked at their surroundings.

Moisture dripped slowly down the rough, craggy walls. When Jake lifted the lantern just so, the inside of his mountain took on color-the greenish gleam of copper, the translucent sheen of marble, the threads of pale yellow, and last-and brightest-a long streak of pure silver.

“If there were lead in the vein, the silver would have shown up as black. That’s why I wanted you to see it pure, Anne.”

Tentatively, she reached out to touch the gleaming vein. The cave was dark and damp and claustrophobic…but the silver thread beneath her fingers felt soft, smooth and uniquely alive. Its pure beauty didn’t belong here at all. Unwillingly, she felt Jake’s enthusiasm suddenly catch up with her. Not that she would ever, ever become involved in anything so foolhardy…

Jake hung the lantern on a hook in the cave’s ceiling and turned Anne to face him, capturing the fingers that had been slowly following the silver vein. “You’re catching it, aren’t you?” he murmured. Laughter was in his eyes, laughter…and something else. He pulled her arms around his neck and leaned down to touch his forehead to hers. “Silver fever. Not the greed for it, but the fascination with it. And the treasure’s there, Anne. It’s always been there, all through these mountains for centuries. Some men have captured it, but most have failed. It’s just too hard to reach.” His voice changed. “Some love affairs follow that same course. The woman is the treasure, yet how elusive she’s been through the years. Self-contained, her vulnerable core well hidden. No one’s keeping count of the number of men who’ve tried to claim her. It doesn’t matter. They haven’t been smart enough to outwit the lady, now, have they?”

Anne shook her head, suddenly feeling shaky. “Jake-”

“We’re only talking about silver, Anne. And mountains. Relax.” He tipped her face up, and lowered his lips to hers, pulling her into the promise of riches he offered. Not silver, not metals, not wealth, but adventure and softness and wild, wild dreams… Her fingers got lost in the thick texture of his hair, splaying on his scalp, pulling him closer. She rose up on tiptoe in the oversized boots; the silky Victorian blouse molded ever so willingly to his chest.

A kiss intended as a moment’s sharing seemed to change its mind. Jake’s arms tightened on her back, moving slowly down the supple shape of her. She no longer felt the chill of the cave. Silver was running in her veins. Molten silver, smooth and hot and shiny. And suddenly Jake was kissing her again, over and over, rough, drugging kisses.

Her hands traced the feel of sinew and flesh, from his neck to his spine to the small of his back. As though some wanton fire had bewitched them, her fingers tightened on his hips, inviting the intimacy, deliberately provocative. Your silver scares me, Jake, her heart whispered, but don’t you dare share your crazy dreams with anyone else.

So slowly his lips lifted from hers, his eyes never leaving her face. His profile would have looked jagged and harsh if those eyes hadn’t been filled with the same warm wanting as her own. “No more waiting, Anne,” he said quietly.

It was very definitely a statement, not a question. She couldn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. He smoothed back her hair, his expression grave.

The touch of his palm was suddenly possessive and disturbing. She reached for his wrist and dragged his hand down to his side. “You know more about futures and margins than I do, don’t you, Jake? Yet you let me talk on and on.”

A spark of humor glinted in his eyes. They both relaxed. “Now, Anne. I never-”

“Don’t you now, Anne me. You’ve done an outstanding job over the years of presenting yourself as devil-may-care, move-on-a-whim Jake, never staying anywhere long enough to get deeply involved in anything.”

“I did that?” He made the effort to look surprised. “Maybe the lady was always a little too serious. Maybe it was fun to incite her to laughter, to shock her just a little.” He reached up for the lantern. “And keeping in character, honey, I think it’s time we hit my ghost town.”

His ghost town was perfectly awful.

Anne stood with hands on slim hips, staring in all directions around her. The drive from the mine to here hadn’t taken long, just twenty minutes of suicidal hairpin turns-she was getting used to those-and then a cow path behind another fence. A steel fence this time, marked well and locked. Anne pivoted to face him. “You actually live here for weeks at a time?” she questioned casually.

Jake, his hands lazily jammed into his jeans pockets, had found a shady chestnut to lean against, out of the hot sun. His face was in shadow, though she knew he was watching her. “This is where I generally set up the motor home, yes. Weekends I drive the Jeep back and forth to Coeur d’Alene, and during the week when I can, but it’s not always possible.” He paused. “Rugby was the name of this town. It lived and died all within the decade of the 1890s. About the 1920s there was a short revival. Didn’t last long.” Jake gestured. “I own the whole town, from that crag-” he gestured again “-to that peak.”

Her heart sank. Perhaps unconsciously Anne had been praying for a miracle, a place she could live in, particularly after realizing that Jake was seriously committed to his silver.

The meadow was lovely. Lush, low grasses whispered in the sun. The town was high…so high that the pure air almost hurt her lungs, so high that the tree-softened peaks on all sides of their private little valley seemed part of the sky. Clouds were touchably close. A gurgling stream rushed near her feet, the sun glinting clearly on its stone bed, and aspens clustered near Jake’s chestnut tree. Their leaves were tinged with gold and fluttered even without a breeze, showing off their gilded decorations.

It was almost a magical place, and the three structures standing in the distance only added to that mystical quality. As ghost towns went, this was no metropolis. One of the frame structures housed Jake’s Jeep. The other two were as old and as ghostly and deserted as the rest of the town. Both were two-story frame buildings, with wildflowers clustered near their doors, creeping over the windows as if they had slowly but surely decided to hide the buildings completely, along with their owners’ secrets. Anne itched to explore, to get inside the buildings and imagine what it must have felt like to be the wife of a miner, to know that her dreams depended on the secrets of those mountains…

Reality was knowing it was forty miles down to the corner grocery store-forty miles down that killer road. Neighbors, schools, culture-even a drive-in movie-simply weren’t. The water from the stream was undoubtedly pure and delicious, if one wanted to lug buckets of it from the stream to the house. Electricity might reach the area in the next century. The landscape was lovely, yes, and ideal for a nature girl who delighted in stepping outside in the morning to say hello to her friendly local bear. Or cougar. Or wolf. Very nice.

Anne knew she couldn’t live here in a thousand years.