He had brought his canteen of whiskey down here with him, and it had made time pass easier for a while. But now it was all gone. Seemed like a hell of a long time since he'd had a drink.
He made a flame with flint, steel and cotton wool, lit his next to last candle and set it in a pool of its own wax. The light hurt his eyes for a moment, and the sight of his own shadow moving on the dark gray rock walls frightened him.
His hollow belly kept squealing and grumbling, and visions of beef and turkey and duck and pork tormented him. Out of one of his saddlebags he took the bundle of corn biscuits and dried beef he'd thrown together at the trading post in his flight. He bit into a biscuit as hard and dry as a lump of wood and rolled it around in his mouth until his saliva softened it enough to chew and swallow.
Now he'd go up to the mine entrance, and if it was nighttime he'd leave. The Flemings had their cabin about a mile from here. Their men had joined the Regulators, so they deserved to have him take a horse from them. Then he'd ride north to Galena.
He hefted the other saddlebag, loaded with gold and silver coins and Bank of Illinois paper. He'd had to leave a lot behind in his office safe, and they'd probably steal it from him. But he'd get it all back.
Because this was enough to buy him an army.
Galena would be crowded with the roughest men in the Northwest Territory right now. Surely more men than could make a living in the mines around there, boom or no boom. Rough and hungry, just what he needed.
I'll yet see that high-and-mighty Cooper swinging from a tree. And I'll piss on Auguste's grave.
He bit into a slice of dried beef. It was tough as rawhide, but he forced it down.
When I'm running things in Smith County again, Nicole and Frank and that pack of squalling brats are leaving. I've put up with Frank and his damned newspaper long enough, just because he's married to my sister.