Jason C. Hobart, Boulder
May God watch over these brave toilers of the mountains.
No matter how many times Donner's eyes traveled over the old news type, they always came back to the last name among the missing miners. Slowly, like a man in a trance, he laid the paper in his lap, picked up the phone and dialed long distance.
14
"The Monte Cristo!" Harry Young exclaimed delightedly. "I heartily endorse the Monte Cristo. The Roquefort dressing is also excellent. But first, I'd like a martini, very dry, with a twist."
"Monte Cristo sandwich and Roquefort on your salad. Yes, sir," the young waitress repeated, bending over the table so that her short skirt rode up to reveal a pair of white panties. "And you, sir?"
"I'll take the same." Donner nodded. "Only I'll start with a Manhattan on the rocks."
Young peered over the top of his glasses as the waitress hurried to the kitchen. "If only someone would give me that for Christmas," he said, smiling.
Young was a skinny little man. In decades past he would have been called an overdressed, silly old fool. Now he was an alert, eager-faced seventy-eight-year-old bon vivant with a practiced eye for beauty. He sat across the booth table from Donner in a blue turtleneck and patterned, doubleknit sportscoat.
"Mr. Donner!" he said happily. "This is indeed a pleasure. The Broker is my favorite restaurant." He waved his hand at the walnut-paneled walls and booths. "This was once a bank vault, you know."
"So I noticed when I had to duck through the five-ton door."
"You should come here for dinner. They give you an enormous tray of shrimp for an appetizer." He fairly beamed at the thought.
"I'll bear that
in mind on my next visit."
"Well, sir." Young looked at him steadily. "What's on your mind?"
"I have a few questions."
Young's eyebrows raised above his glasses. "Oh my, now you have tickled my curiosity. You're not with the FBI are you? Over the phone you simply said you were with the federal government."
"No, I'm not with the FBI. And I'm not on the payroll of Internal Revenue, either. My department is welfare. It's my job to track down the authenticity of pension claims."
"Then how can I help you?"
"My particular project at the moment is the investigation of a seventy-six-year-old mining accident that took the lives of nine men. One of the victim's descendants has filed for a pension. I'm here to check the validity of the claim. Your name, Mr. Young, was recommended to me by the State Historical Society, which glowingly described you as a walking encyclopedia on Western mining history."
"A bit of an exaggeration," Young said, "but I'm flattered, nonetheless."
The drinks arrived and they sipped them for a minute. Donner took the time to study the pictures of turn-of-the-century Colorado silver kings that hung on the walls. Their faces all projected the same intense stare, as if they were trying to melt the camera lens with their wealth-fortified arrogance.
"Tell me, Mr. Donner, how can anyone file a pension claim on a seventy-six-year-old accident?"
"It seems the widow didn't receive all she was entitled to," Donner said, skating onto unsure ice. "Her daughter is demanding the back pay, so to speak."
"I see," Young said. He stared across the table speculatively and then began idly tapping his spoon against a plate. "Which of the men who were lost in the Little Angel disaster are you interested in?"
"My compliments," Donner said, avoiding the stare and unfolding his napkin self-consciously. "You don't miss a trick."
"It's nothing, really. A seventy-six-year-old mining accident. Nine men missing. It could only be the Little Angel disaster."
"The man's name was Brewster."
Young stared at him an extra moment, then stopped the plate-tapping and banged his spoon against the table top. "Joshua Hays Brewster," he murmured the name. "Born to William Buck Brewster and Hettie Masters in Sidney, Nebraska, on April 4 . . . or was it April 5, 1878."
Donner's eyes opened wide. "How could you possibly know all that?"