My uncle arches a brow. “What’s to keep them from running off?”

“Me,” I say. “They would never leave without me.”

Hiram gives me a dubious look.

“You’d be amazed,” I say, “how friendship and loyalty will make a body act. Maybe you should give it a try. Maybe if anyone cared about you at all, you wouldn’t have to kidnap people or knock them around to get what you want.”

I instantly regret the words, because his eyes flash with more rage than I’ve ever seen in a man, and he steps forward, raising the back of his hand.

At the last second, just as I’m flinching away, he changes his mind and lowers his arm. “You’ve a saucy mouth on you, girl. Reuben’s doing, no doubt.”

I’ve a mind to tell him to shut his trap and never speak of my daddy again. Instead, I clench my teeth together.

“Very well,” Hiram says in response to my silence. “I’ll give orders to have these boys freed, fed, and housed. We’ll make space for them in the barracks. I’ll insist, though, on tying them up at night when they’re not working.”

Bloody pulp. Black eyes. No more teeth. “Thank you,” I say aloud. “Does Hiram’s Gulch have a doctor?”

“Not yet. The Chinese headman knows a little healing, more healing than English. I don’t know that I’d trust him.” As if knowing English is the thing that makes someone trustworthy.

Hiram leads me back to our cabin. As we walk, my mind is as busy as bees in a hive. I scan our surroundings, every shanty, tent, and lean-to, looking for cover. Places to hide. A way to escape. Unlike the area around our beautiful beaver pond, these hills are dry and mostly bare, but the north side of the cabin backs up against a thicket of cottonwood. It’s wispy now, the leaves dried and fallen to the ground, but darkness might hide us if we escaped through it. The trees are too tall for me to see for sure where it leads. We could push through the cottonwoods only to find ourselves trapped against the cliff face. Sometimes, though, cottonwoods lead to a stream. And following streams or dry washes downhill would eventually point us in the direction of Sacramento and freedom.

I also keep an eye out for Abel Topper or Peony. Not many here can afford their own horses, but there are pack mules aplenty pulling carts into and out of the mine, and even a few donkeys. There’s no sign of Peony, though, and when the cabin door closes behind us, leaving me in the turnip-scented gloom, I can’t help the stab of despair that hits right behind my eyes.

“You have a day to rest and get your strength back,” Hiram says. “Then you go to work.”

Maybe he means for me to cook and clean instead of Mary, who is nowhere evident. Maybe he means for me to scour these hills looking for gold. I don’t know and I don’t care. But I do need to rest and get my strength back, just not for the reasons he thinks.

As politely as I can, I ask, “May I have some of that stew?”

The next morning, I take breakfast with Hiram at the dining table. I sit on the bench while he faces me on one of the stools. Mary has cooked us up a meal of soaked oats with butter and molasses, to be sopped up with biscuits, but she has since left, disappeared to wherever it is she goes. I wish she would stay. I haven’t had a female friend my own age since Therese died.

“Your hair grew out a little since I last saw you,” Hiram observes.

“Mm-hmm,” I say around a mouthful of biscuit.

“You’ll be able to put it up in a month or so,” he says.

I’m not sure why it’s so important to him, but I nod. Even though I don’t plan on being here a month.

Becky and the Major and everyone back home expect us to be gone awhile. Past Becky’s thanksgiving celebration. I either have to escape soon, or survive until they come. It’s better that I escape, Jefferson and Tom in tow. Otherwise things could get deadly.

“Today, you will tour the mine,” he informs me. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, folds it neatly, and sets it on the table beside his empty plate. “Our empire begins here, Leah. The mine isn’t very deep yet, but it’s been profitable so far. I want you to familiarize yourself with its workings and . . . well, feel it out, so to speak.”

“You want me to tell you where to dig next.”

“Yes.”

I promised I’d help him in order to keep Tom and Jeff safe, but dear Lord in heaven, I surely don’t want to.

“All right,” I tell him. “Is that where you plan to set Tom and Jefferson to work?”

“Of course. They’ll have to earn their keep around here, just like everyone else.”

I smear oats around my plate with a biscuit, finding it hard to eat. “You could just let them go.” It wouldn’t be easy to convince them to leave me behind, but I’d give it a fair try.

My uncle smiles. “I think not. I have some things to attend to, so Frank Dilley will be your guide.”

I spit out my biscuit. “No! Dilley is a no-good, weaselly—”

Hiram’s hand darts out, snags my wrist, and gives it a shake. My skin still smarts from the rope burns. “He knows to behave.” His look turns dark. “And so do you.”

I say nothing, but after a moment, I’m able to snatch my wrist back. I pick up my fork and attack my breakfast with renewed vigor. I’m getting my strength back, by God.

My uncle escorts me through the camp, past the arrastra and its damp manure scent, to the mine entrance. He hands me over to Frank Dilley, who offers me his elbow like an actual gentleman instead of the filthy cur he is.

“You will treat her like a lady,” my uncle warns as I take Dilley’s proffered elbow.

“Of course, sir,” Dilley says, with a grin and a tip of his hat. “This way, my lady.” He pulls me toward the entrance, and several of his men—along with the tall, ghostly man—fall in line behind us. My neck prickles to know they’re there, where my eyes can’t mark them.

We pass into shadow, and the air instantly becomes cooler and moist. The tunnel is about three paces from wall to wall, barely wide enough for a burro and a small cart to pass. Wooden beams bolster the walls and ceiling at irregular intervals, lanterns swinging from them to light the way. The walls are rough and irregular. At one point, the tunnel widens inexplicably, revealing a table off to the side, along with a few chairs and a couple of barrels. Several of the Missouri men lounge here by lantern light, sipping from tin cups. When they see me, they all stand straight and whip off their hats.