The Copper City Read Online Free Page A

at Quantro. His eyes were shaded from the flickering flames by the lowered brim of his hat, his long blond hair framing his face. She rose to her feet.
    The slight rasp of her huaraches on the grass woke Quantro. He had barely slipped into a light doze. Wary, his eyes snapped open. He saw White-Wing standing by the fire, her frame sharply outlined by the flames, tinting her bronze skin even darker than usual.
    As he watched she unfastened the drawstring of her dress, then turning, she allowed it to fall away from her body. Her long hair, shining like a raven’s wing, hung thickly down to the middle of her smooth back and he was clearly aware of her narrow waist that flared to wide hips bordering generous buttocks like two ripe peaches that ached to be squeezed.
    He felt the hunger rise up in him.
    And with the hunger came stirrings of anger. She knew what she was doing. She knew he was awake. Like a rabbit teasing a fox.
    Purposefully, he turned over, his back to her.

CHAPTER 3
    By sun-up there was already a long queue at the mine office. The Cananea Copper Mining Company , the board nailed above the window read.
    â€œI’m surprised it don’t say Green’s Mining Company,” Pete remarked as they joined the line.
    â€œHope they’re taking on,” Quantro said, counting the number of men before them. He felt awkward, out of place. All the others looked like miners, hard-bitten in their odd assortment of working clothes. Maybe Pete knew something about mining, after all he’d been a prospector, but Quantro had no knowledge about it at all. He had never seen a mine, much less been in one. He had been born and raised on his father’s ranch under a blue sky in Colorado and had done nearly all his work from the back of a horse. Holes in the ground were a completely new prospect, and not exactly one he welcomed.
    The office window creaked open and the line shuffled forward, closing ranks. From where he stood he could hear the clerk’s voice rasping out questions and the easy answers that came back. They all seemed to know what they were talking about. Maybe he’d made a mistake. He should have found a ranching job, but there again all he could expect as a ranch-hand was maybe twenty dollars a month and his keep. He would never get rich on that.
    While he was still thinking, he arrived at the window. The clerk looked him up and down then stroked his chin.
    Quantro’s feet moved uneasily.
    â€œYou mined before?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHandled ore?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWorked as a teamster?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCan you use a pick and hammer?”
    â€œNever had to.”
    â€œYou look like a cowhand to me.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œThen you can handle horses?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOkay. Wait over there.” He pointed.
    Quantro stood with a small group of men who looked just as uncomfortable as he felt. Soon, Pete joined him.
    â€œLooks like we didn’t cut it.”
    â€œMaybe,” Pete sniffed.
    Shortly, a broad, red-faced man swaggered towards them, chewing on the stub of a cheap cigar. He announced himself as Scheller, the foreman. “All right. None of you guys worked a mine before, right?”
    Nobody answered.
    â€œI thought not. Okay, I’m gonna put each of you with a man who knows what he’s doing. You’ll soon pick it up. If you don’t, you won’t last the week.” He studied them as if talking was a waste of time. “Follow me.”
    It was murder.
    Quantro was issued with a fourteen-pound hammer before being led down to the rock face, stumbling in the dim light over the small-gauge tracks for the ore trucks. His job was to drive a long drill into the rock, then knock it out to leave a hole for his new partner, the dynamite man, so he could place the charge. Each set of charges needed six holes.
    Swinging the hammer horizontally tore at his shoulder muscles. He gritted his