"It's a simple question. Answer it."
"My God — you know the answer. No man has ever made me feel the way you do."
"I can trust you, then?"
"Hasn't the partnership taught you that you can?"
"I believe I can," he countered, "but if I shared a confidence, then found I'd made a mistake —" he snatched the Sharps and pushed the muzzles into her breast "— I'd rectify it."
Ashton's mouth opened as she watched his finger whiten. Smiling, he pulled the trigger. The hammer fell — on an empty chamber.
"What — Lamar — what is —?" Confused, inwardly wild with fright, she could barely form the words. "What's behind all this?"
He put the pistol aside and laid the map on the tangled bedding. In the southwest corner of the map, he had inked a vertical line through the Territory of New Mexico and to the left of it had inscribed several small squares, none overlapping, with dotted lines.
"What you see right here, love. Our inept generals in Texas lost the Southwest. The Union has it all. Including this —" he tapped the section of the map containing the squares "— the new Territory of Arizona. The Yankee Congress created it with the Organic Act, passed in February. A few regulars from California and some New Mexico volunteers are expected to guard this entire area, which of course is impossible. It's too large, and, beyond that, the red savages keep the soldiers dashing hither and yon to protect isolated settlements. The new territory is perfect for a plan conceived by myself and some other gentlemen who realize King Jeff will ruin us if we allow it."
The maddening smile stayed as he rolled up the map and dropped it on the floor. Ashton jumped out of bed on the other side, her buttocks bouncing as she crossed to the window above the garden. She folded her arms over her bosom.
"You're being mysterious to torment me, Lamar. If you won't explain what you mean, I'll dress and go."
He laughed admiringly. "Nothing mysterious about it, love. Those squares on the map are possible sites for a new confederacy."
She whirled, a figure white as milk save for the blackness of her hair. "A new —?" She shook her head. "My God. You mean it, don't you?"
"Absolutely. The idea is certainly not new." She nodded. She had heard discussions of a third country to be formed in the Northwest, and of a Pacific Coast Confederacy. "What I have done is find the ideal location for a new state, small but impregnable. A law unto itself. A place where each can prosper according to his wishes and ability, and where the breeding and holding of slaves will be encouraged."
The idea was so awesome she couldn't quite get hold of it. She padded back to the bed and sat on the edge. "How long have you been hatching this scheme?"
"For over a year. It gained impetus after Sharpsburg, when European recognition became a lost cause."
"But Davis wouldn't have any part of such a plan, Lamar. He'd use every resource of the government to block it"
"My poor, witless Ashton," he said, stroking her cheek and working his thumb into the little valley beside her nose. "Of course he would. Why do you think I had to satisfy myself that you're trustworthy? When we establish our new state, the government here will be headless. Mr. Jefferson Davis will have gone to his reward — in hell, I hope. The first order of business is to send him on his way."
"You mean — assassinate?"
"The President and key members of the cabinet," he concluded. "Those who might rally forces to oppose us."
"How — how many others are involved?"
"You need know only that I'm in charge and that we mean to go forward. Now that you're aware of the plan" — his thumb pressed her cheek; his fingers closed on the back of her neck, turning it ever so slightly, bringing a touch of pain — "you are part of it."
After the first shock passed, questions began to flood her mind. She asked the most obvious first. How would this new state or country be financed? Small as it was, it would have to be defended. How would its army be paid?
Powell circled the bedroom, tense with excitement. "First, with my share of the earnings from Water Witch. But it will take much more than that to arm and equip the kind of force we'll need to defend the borders for the first couple of years. Until the Yankees realize they can't overwhelm us, and recognize our sovereignty."
"Where will you get men for an army of that kind?"
"My dear, there are thousands of them in the Confederacy at this moment — in military service and out of it. Disaffected officers and enlisted men. Some of our very best have deserted, disillusioned by all the bungling. We will rally them, adding Westerners who were born in the South or show sympathy for our cause. I have an estimate of at least seven thousand such in Colorado alone. Finally, if need be, we'll hire mercenaries from Europe. We'll have no trouble finding soldiers."
"But you still must pay them."
A cat's grin spread again. "We have the resources. Have I ever mentioned my brother, Atticus?"
"In passing. You've never said anything about him."
Powell sat beside her and began to rub her leg. She studied his profile, momentarily wondering about his sanity. He had never struck her as unbalanced, and he didn't now. He spoke passionately but with the lucidity of one who had spent a long time plotting his course. Her doubt passed.
Contempt crept in as Powell explained. "My brother had no loyalty to the South. He left Georgia in the spring of '56, traveling west to the gold fields. A great many Georgians did the same thing. There was quite a colony in Colorado, where Atticus found and staked a claim. He worked it until the summer of 1860, and in all that time he cleared just two thousand dollars — respectable, but nothing more. About the time South Carolina seceded, boredom and wanderlust set in again. Atticus sold the claim for another thousand and started for California with the stake. He got as far as the Carson River diggings at the western border of the Nevada Territory."
"I've heard of the Carson River mines. James once talked of buying shares in one. The Ophir, I think. That was before he found out about Water Witch."
"My brother's timing turned out to be propitious. The year before, some miners, including an obnoxious, half-mad Canadian called 'Old Pancake,' because he ate nothing else, discovered promising sites in two gulches on Mount Davidson. Comstock — that was Old Pancake's real name — Comstock and the others started placer mining in Gold and Six-Mile canyons. They made a decent profit from the beginning. Five dollars a day in gold. That increased to twenty by the time they made the major discovery — two, really. The lode was richer than they dreamed. Ore pockets scattered all through the mountain. Furthermore, mixed in with the gold was something else. Silver."
"Did your brother stake a claim?"
"Not exactly. Miners are a queer, complex breed — always dickering, selling, and trading claims. It amounts to gambling on how much ore remains in a given piece of ground. One of the original finders of metal, fellow named Penrod, owned a sixth interest in the Ophir, which he wanted to sell for fifty-five hundred dollars. My brother couldn't afford that, but Penrod was making a second offering — half interest in a mine called the Mexican for three thousand dollars. Atticus bought it."
Striding across the bedroom again, Powell explained that the mining camp, christened Virginia City by another of the original claimants, Old Virginny Finney, had undergone rapid and dramatic change during the first two years of the war. By agreement among the miners, it became possible for a man to stake a lode claim, which was much larger than the regulation fifty-by-four-hundred-foot placer claim.
"With a lode claim, you can dig down into the mountain for three hundred feet — and you have rights to all the ground on either side where there are offshoots of your lode. The Mexican started with an open pit, then sank shafts, and in spite of smelting and transportation costs — at first the ore had to be carried over the mountains to California — Atticus and his partner were soon clearing three thousand dollars in silver from every ton of ore and a third as much in gold. Last year saw a great influx of Californians, but of course the richest claims were already staked, so the newcomers called Virginia City a humbug. Atticus's partner succumbed to the talk. My brother bought him out at a favorable price. Last summer, when the town had grown to fifteen thousand, poor Atticus met an untimely end."