Chapter 6

“Two Trails to The Silver Moon”

Jeremiah stepped off his horse onto the hitching rail, then stepped over onto the porch. He followed the man inside to get his message.

“How did they ever find me way out here?” Jeremiah asked, after reading his message.

“With a telegraph message like this, they’ll send them out to all the telegraph stations in the whole state. Or, if they know of a particular area where a person may be, be it a lawman or not, they’ll send the message out until they have an answer back ... Not meaning to get into your personal business, but congratulations on becoming a US Marshal, Jeremiah Trail.”

“Thanks, Mister, I appreciate that. If there’s a way possible, I’d like to keep it quiet about me being a lawman – for a while anyway. I have a feeling that there’ll be some people come here looking for my wife.”

“Call me Frenchy, Marshal ... Uh, I got to ask you, is your wife wanted?”

“By me, she is – and call me Jeremiah.”

“Jeremiah, tell me how can I get in touch with you? That is if I have another urgent message for you?”

“See that Indian over there?” he turned, pointing out the window toward Gray Hawk.

“Yes.”

“Between the two of us, we’ll be back here at least twice a week to check my messages, now that I know you have a telegraph office. I’ll have to figure out some way to get them faster. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

“I hope that message wasn’t your orders to go somewhere else,” Kellyanne told him when he stepped across the hitching rail to throw a leg over his saddle.

“No, they’ve made me a full marshal! Seems that I had a good mark on my last two assignments and Webb Hickson had me promoted...

“Uhhh, Kellyanne, I’ve got something very personal I need to ask you.”

“What is it? I hope nothing’s wrong.”

“Will you marry me, Kellyanne? I know we just met a few days ago, but I want you to be my wife.”

“YES! I’ve almost asked if you’d marry me, on more than one occasion since we met. But I was hoping you’d ask me so I wouldn’t have to.”

Gray Hawk was coming up alongside them when Jeremiah told him, “Gray Hawk, keep these three mules here and wait for us. Kellyanne and I are going back inside to get married before we leave.”

Inside the Trading Post, Jeremiah motioned for Frenchy to follow them as he and Kellyanne walked through the door into his telegraph office.

“Frenchy, I want you to meet Kellyanne Corcoran. She and I want you to marry us.”

“But I thought you said she was already your wife.”

“I’ve been calling her my wife so folks would know she’s taken. Now I want to be married to her for real.”

Before they left, Jeremiah turned to Frenchy’s desk and wrote a message for him to send.

“I’ll get this sent right away, Jeremiah. I already know what you’re aiming to do,” Frenchy told him as he read the part about Jeremiah wanting his US Marshal’s badge sent here.

“Then keep that a secret for me too, Frenchy.”

“Jeremiah, since the moment I first saw you, I knew that one day I would get my chance to love you. I wanted to be with you in the lake that first night we were alone. We bathed and washed each other when we first arrived at Father’s place, and I wanted so bad, for you to love me right then and there. Now, you’ve made me your wife and I never want to be away from you again.”

“I’ve already figured out how we can make that work too.”

“What do you have in mind for us? You’re not going to quit your job, just as you get promoted are you?”

“No, I’m going to make you my full-time deputy, so you can go where I go, when I go.”

Back at Silver Moon Canyon, it was dark by the time they had the packsaddles off the three mules. They informed the others that they’d gotten married while they were at the Trading Post. No one was more happy for them than Evan Corcoran.

As they sat around the table, Evan started telling about the time he and Gray Hawk discovered the large silver deposit in this canyon. He told them that it was located in the abutment which extends out from the west wall of the canyon, near where the water springs up from the artesian well to form the lake and river.

“We had been up to White Pine ourselves that day, and it was dark by the time we entered the canyon through the north pass. We rode down alongside the west wall of the canyon in the moonlight, all the way to the abutment that’s straight across from this wall. The sky was clear that night, and the moon was full. When we neared the base of the wall, the reflection of moonlight off the water, cast a beam of light onto the wall. At one point as we rode, the reflection was so bright we couldn’t look at it until we had ridden closer to the wall, then we were able to look up.

“That was when Gray Hawk told me, maza ska, meaning silver. The next morning, we were back there at daylight and discovered that the silver runs from a height of ten foot, down beneath the canyon floor – though we’re not sure how deep. It’s half as wide as this table, and has smaller veins, four foot long and as wide as one foot. There’s eight of them and they’re tapered to a point, extending from the rounded top, in all directions like the rays of the sun. It has the appearance of an ancient monument, or maybe even an ancient altar of worship, built of pure silver and somehow embedded into the wall.”

After listening to her father tell that story, Kellyanne stood and told her husband, “Jeremiah, I want to spend my first night as your wife at the base of that silver monument, since there’s a full moon tonight.”

“Then grab your bedroll and your guns and let’s walk over there. It’s not that far, and we can bathe in the lake tonight.”

That night, out in the open moonlit canyon, the wealthy young Irishwoman who grew up a Tomboy, laid all her sophisticated upbringing aside as she gave herself to her new husband – body and soul. They made love in the reflection of the full moon off the water. They swam and played, then made love again on their open bedrolls.

As he lay on his back, gasping for breath with Kellyanne lying beside him, Jeremiah reached across her for his tobacco pouch but couldn’t quite reach it.

She reached over to pick it up and told him, “I’ve watched you do this many times. Let me roll your cigarette for you.”

She sat up and took a single paper from the book. While cradling it between her fingers, she carefully shook the tobacco out of the pouch. Then with her teeth, she held the drawstring as she pulled the pouch closed. Jeremiah smiled as she rolled the paper, then swiped it across the tip of her tongue before rolling it into a cigarette.

Reaching over to pick up a match, she used her thumbnail to strike the match just as she’d seen him do many times. Holding the cigarette between her thumb and fingertip, she took the first draw, then held it to his lips for him to take a long pull.

“You do that like an expert, Mrs. Trail.”

“Thank you, Mr. Trail. Now give me another of those magnificent orgasms, and I’ll roll both of us another smoke. We may need to buy more makings when we go back to visit Frenchy again. I can tell already, I’m going to love rolling a smoke with you after we make love under the stars like this. You make me feel so complete as your wife.”

“Kellyanne, though I do want more than anything for us to have a family one day, we need to think about putting that off for now, if we can. I want you to travel with me as my deputy and my wife. A baby right now will put a end to that before we start, don’t you agree?”

“I want the same things for us – but don’t worry, I was taught in finishing school how a woman can count her days to keep from conceiving.”

“Then you need to do your part and tell me how to help. I promise, I’ll make it as good for you as I can each time.”

Before the night was over, Jeremiah told Kellyanne about the many ways Miriam Kearse and her daughter Reese had taught him how to love a woman’s body other than by penetration.

“Jeremiah, the next time we do this, I want us to begin with the part where they showed you how a man and woman can make love to each other without you inside me. The more I think about that, the more I want to try all of those things with you. That alone, will keep us satisfied and keep us from having babies, before we’re ready.”

Early the next morning they dried their bodies and dressed after bathing in the lake. They looked up to see Evan, Gray Hawk, Eulie, and Vonda walking toward them, leading one of the pack mules.

Gray Hawk carried a sack of jerked beef with him, and held it out to Kellyanne and Jeremiah. Both of them took a long strip of sun-dried beef and began chewing.

Evan led the pack mule over next to the silver deposit and pulled the pack off onto the ground. “I’ve been thinking about this,” he said. Then, taking a pickaxe, he drew back to swing his pick near the base of the silver column.

The point of the pick sunk to the head, as if it was pure sand. “Just as I thought,” Evan spoke, then took another swing. With a dozen more swings of the pickaxe, Evan dug up the soil across the front of the tall silver column.

Jeremiah picked up a shovel and quickly removed the loose sand and soil from the hole Evan had dug. They could see the top a wide table made of silver. There were two tall silver urns, one on each end of the table.

“This silver tower has somehow been smelted and poured into a sand cast, making this altar. Then, somehow, someone stood this monument up to rest inside a space chiseled into the canyon wall. It would be my guess that the sandstone around the silver is a form of mortar, sealing the silver in its upright position.”

Saying that, with his pick, Evan struck the rock wall next to the silver tower. The pick knocked a hole in the brittle sandstone mortar and two large clumps fell to the ground.

Kellyanne asked, “Father, shouldn’t we dig around the tower and let it fall to the ground so we can cover it?”

“That’s a good suggestion. Though it’s not likely that anyone will ever see it standing here, we surely don’t need to take any chances with it in the open like this.”

Jeremiah asked, “What will you ever do with it? I mean, there’s no way we could ever load it, even if we had a wagon that would haul it.”

“Stand back, I want to try something,” Evan told them, then took a mighty swing with his pick, right at the base of the tower. The point of the pick easily buried into the silver three to four inches.

“This is pure silver, see how malleable it is? We’ll be able to chop or saw a portion off at a time, whenever we feel the need to sell it,” he told them.

“Father, if it’s alright with you, I’d like for us to keep these two large silver urns intact,” Kellyanne told him.

“Then consider those silver urns yours and Jeremiah’s wedding presents.”

Kellyanne attempted to lift one of the urns, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried the other, and it too felt as if it was attached to the altar.

Jeremiah reached over and pulled hard on the flared top of the urn nearest him. The urn toppled over, with sand and gold coins spilling out onto the altar. He pulled the second urn over and it too was half filled with gold coins.

“These gold coins are Spanish,” Kellyanne told them as she examined one.

“Those coins will be your wedding present as well,” Evan told her.

For the next three days they worked – digging a trench for the altar to fall forward into. Evan worked on the sandstone mortar, up both sides of the silver tower as the others dug the trench. The tapered moon beams of silver were not attached to the altar and had to be dug and chiseled out of the wall separately, after they had the altar lying in the trench. With the dirt and sand they’d removed from the trench, they covered the silver column.

Using the wagon, they carried two of the silver spars – Evan named them, to the cliff-dwelling. Using his block and tackle, they lifted the heavy silver pieces, one at a time up to the cliff dwelling.

Jeremiah and Kellyanne were back at the lake two nights later. After making love, they lay back, rolling a smoke as they talked, “I’ve been wondering why your father hasn’t started running cattle here. There’s plenty of water and grass and he wouldn’t need fences.”

“Then ask him. I think that would be a good idea too. They could roam free all over this big canyon.”

“Evan, have you ever thought about buying a few hundred head of cattle and grazing them here in the canyon?”

“No, never even thought of that, Jeremiah. Would they be much trouble to manage?”

“Not at all. You won’t need fences, you have endless water and grass, and there’s no way they could get out if we build a gate up at the north pass.”

“Do you know where we can find cattle for sale? Or would we have to travel far to get them?”

“We know a man who has many head of cattle. We could ask him.”

Evan told him, “Then you check with him. If he’s agreeable and we can get a herd at a good price, we’ll buy them in your name so my name won’t be known.”

On their next trip back to White Pine for supplies, Jeremiah asked Frenchy to feel Abe Cleveland out, about selling them at least five hundred head of cattle.

Before he answered, Frenchy motioned them into his telegraph office, where told them that there had been two separate groups who’d come by asking about a young redheaded woman and a Deputy US Marshal. “One group was led by a young redheaded man and there were three more men with him. One was a guide, the other two dressed more like dudes from back east. All of them spoke with an Irish accent, except for the guide that is...

“That other group was led by a redheaded woman dressed in finery, accompanied by two rough looking characters and a half-breed Indian guide. The woman sure did favor you a lot Kellyanne.”

As they made their way back to the canyon, Jeremiah told Kellyanne, “They’re getting too close and it’s just a matter of time until they run upon someone around White Pine who remembers us. Which means they’ll be waiting for us one day when we ride in.”

“Then we need to talk to Father about this. We cannot let them come here, and attempt to take all that he brought with him from Ireland, and everything he’s gained since he came to America.”

“We need to think about building a gate across the north pass. We can build one out of pine logs that would have to be burned out, before anyone could enter. We’ll need a gate anyway if we do bring cattle in.”

Frenchy set up the meeting with Abe Cleveland and Jeremiah, for them to meet in the back room at his Trading Post...

“I can get nineteen dollars a head if I drive them down to Carson City, or another fifty cents if I drive them over to Reno. I’ll knock off a dollar, if you’ll take as many as a thousand head.”

“We don’t really need that many, but we’ll offer you seventeen-fifty per head for seven hundred and fifty head, paid in cash, delivered to that three-forked creek about twenty miles south of here, right where it forks.”