“You did it!” McLaughlin sprinted to the mountain man’s side. “They’re gone. They’re really gone.”
“Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with me own two eyes.” O’Riley would have broken out in a jig but he was too emotionally and physically exhausted.
“And now, sirs, if ’tis all right with you, we will be collectin’ our pay for doin’ the fightin’ that led to this happy conclusion.” With that the taoiseach of the leprechauns was off to give orders to his green-clad troops. The lot of them were soon busy bustling over the miners’ pit.
Ögrad stood beside his chief, his eyes wild with anger.
“He’s cheated us! The great lumbering smelly man has cheated us!” With one short, thick arm he gestured at the wild ocean before them. “This is no new habitation, but home!”
“Nay, stand and consider a moment.” Novalst, the chief, gestured at the white-capped sea beside which he and his tribe had been deposited. “This is not our ancient coast. Smell. Drink deep of it. It is not the same. The land is similar, the climate familiar, the sea alike, yet all are different.”
Reluctantly, his second-in-command complied. As he did so, some, but not all, of his initial fury faded. “So. I concede the point. Another sea it is. But of gold I smell naught.”
“It is here. It is here.” Novalst turned a slow circle. “I can feel it.”
At that moment several of their companions came running toward them. In their cupped hands they held sand taken from the nearby beach. Among the particles of quartz and feldspar were flecks and nodules of… gold.
Novalst looked upon this wonder and was pleased. Even Ögrad experienced a deeply felt change of heart. “I am ashamed. The giant was not merely true to his word: he bested it. Who could think of such a thing? A beach full of gold!” Turning, he surveyed the frozen, barren landscape that was so like that of their ancestral home. “This will make a fine place to live. And no humans.”
“No.” Kneeling, Novalst picked up some of the gold-rich sand that had been deposited there and let it trickle free between his fingers. “But they will come. Sooner or later they will come here. Humans always find such places. Yet this I predict: The first of them will be men who know and respect us, and so will not interfere with our dwelling underground in this land. Others will follow and settle here, and though they know us not will call it after us.” Rising, he spread his arms wide, ignoring the chill Arctic wind that was whipping his shirt around him.
“This place will be known as the City of the Gnome!”
As black kettle after black kettle was lifted from the pit, the unsettling sensation that had started in the pits of the miners’ stomachs grew progressively more discomfiting.
“A lot of gold they’re taking out.” A patently unhappy O’Riley was chewing on his lower lip as he followed the procedure.
“An awful lot,” agreed his partner edgily.
“Their ‘fair share.’” Having relit his pipe, Malone gazed down at the two men. “You agreed. Unless both of you wish a shillelagh up your respective fundaments, I wouldn’t interfere. Also, I’ve seen the blight an’ sickness these folk can inflict on those who cross ’em.”
“What?” McLaughlin could not help himself. “What happens to those who do?”
“Why, they find themselves transformed, forever to dwell ill and afflicted among those whom they have tried to cheat.” The tiny fires of Hell bristled in the bowl of his pipe. “They become leperchauns.”
The late-rising moon was still in ascent when the last of the enchanted little people from the old country paid their farewells. Tired and sore but demonstrably content, the taoiseach confronted Malone where he was seated by his campfire.
“’Twas an experience as unique as it was unexpected to be called hither by you, Amos Malone. A rud is annamh is iontach.”
Malone smiled pleasantly. “I quite agree. ‘That which is strange is wonderful.’”
“One would almost think you had a bit o’ the green in you yourself. “
“I am a reservoir to all shades of magick,” the mountain man told him. “When I ain’t skinnin’ beaver, that is.” He nodded toward the other side of the fire, which blazed no less bright than the lights at the bottom of his jet-black eyes. “Best to tell your people over there thet Worthless ain’t fer stealin’. Couple o’ your boyos already tried when I was busy seein’ off your northlander counterparts.”
The leprechaun was mightily offended. “Sir, you accuse my men of attempted theft? I withdraw my compliment, sir!”
Malone shrugged. “As you will. While you’re at it, you might withdraw the last o’ your innocents from Worthless’s immediate environs. I’m afraid not all o’ them escaped his attentions.”
Uncertain, the leprechaun leader beckoned for several of his followers to join him. None offered an apology, but when the enormous equine lifted his right front foot off the ground and revealed what was stuck to the bottom of his hoof, they set to work scraping off the greenish remains with uncommon alacrity.
The last of them had vanished when a cry rang out from the vicinity of the mine pit. Peter O’Riley’s anguished wail rose above the crackle of Malone’s fire and the sounds of the night.
“Gone! It’s all gone! They’ve taken everything!” Then he was charging down the hillside toward Malone. McLaughlin tried but was unable to stop his partner from getting right up in the mountain man’s face, the smell notwithstanding.
“You son of a bitch! You let them take all our gold! All that trouble and fighting, for nothing! We’d have been better off dealing with the gnomes ourselves. We could’ve given them ninety percent share and still been better off than this! Go hlfreann leat!”
Throughout the full length of the miner’s diatribe, Malone had continued staring at the fire. Now he lifted his gaze. What the irate miner saw there made him draw back behind his fury.
“I’d calm down if I were you, friend. It’s said that too much anger can be bad fer a man’s health. As fer your suggestion, I’ve already been to Hell and back, thank you very much.”
McLaughlin was pulling his friend away now, to one side of the fire, and trying desperately to settle him down. Realizing he had no real hope of taking out his frustration on the giant mountain man and that it didn’t matter anyway now that the gold was gone, O’Riley fell to sobbing.
“Gone. All gone. Spirited back to the old country in a damn lot o’ kitchen pots, no less. And us that set it all in motion left with nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Malone rose. “You still have your claim. I reckon there’s still some gold in it.”
Pushing away his partner’s attempts at comfort, an unashamed O’Riley wiped at his eyes. “All the easy gold’s gone. Taken by that lot o’ unscrupulous green midgets. Nuggets an’ dust just lyin’ there in the water at the bottom o’ the pit, waitin’ t’ be scooped up, an’ they surely did the scoopin’. What’s left, if anything, is for hard rock mining, for them that has the resources.”
“Or the will.” Malone had walked over to his horse and was making preparations to depart. McLaughlin could have sworn the empty coffeepot hopped up into an open saddlebag all by itself—but then, it was dark now. “You two can do it, if you’ve the backbone. Get a loan, hire help, do the work. The difficult work.” His tone hardened. “Instead o’ tryin’ t’ bring out gold with buckets and wishes.”