The Escort - By Gina Robinson Page 0,55

their hair. "Do not eat too much at once or you will get sick." She was sick already.

Tonio worked sixteen hours a day in the Hole, as long as the sun lasted, not that it mattered in the depths of the mine. Time was measured there by the cadence of water dripping off dark rock walls. May days were warm and dry in North Idaho. At ground level temperatures reached into the seventies. Beneath the surface in the depths of the mine shafts, the air was cool and moist. Tonio labored with his shirt unbuttoned, hanging open. The humidity caused a man to break a sweat easily. Ground water dripped on him from the walls, mingling with the sweat that poured off him to pool in half circles beneath his arms. By day's end he was completely soaked.

At the end of each day he emerged into the twilight to shed his clothes and bathe in a nearby stream. He camped just outside the entrance to the mine in the shade of a large cedar, which was much more convenient than his room at the boardinghouse in town.

The idea of finding the mother lode and making a fortune consumed Tonio and made a convenient diversion from his tortured thoughts of Angelina. He'd always worked hard, would have worked seven days a week. But Harry Scott, who managed the mine, insisted he take a day off every now and then.

Harry insisted because Tonio's job was more a matter of mind and nerve than of manual labor. The explosives expert had to be alert and well rested to avoid mistakes. A slip on his part could cost lives or at the very least the accidental destruction of a valuable tunnel. Tonio planned where to set the charges, how much dynamite to use, and more often than not, he set the blast off himself. The best dynamiters were those who had learned the craft early in life, while they were still young enough to feel invincible. A skilled dynamiter could not be made of a novice much past the age of twenty-five, an age at which they had matured enough to recognize their own mortality and had become too careful. Fear immobilized the older man.

At thirty, Tonio had been practicing the art for eleven years, since learning how to blow up Ethiopian troops while serving in the Italian army. He further perfected his skill dynamiting for the railroad. He was practiced enough to be confident, mature enough to be cautious.

Tonio left his campsite late Saturday afternoon in time to drop his dirty laundry off with the laundress before she closed. Then he met Charley Nokes for a drink at one of the local bars. Charley kept him apprised of the comings and goings of the town. The news was most often unsettling.

The Western Federation of Miners had representatives in town stirring up trouble. Tensions mounted daily. Fist fights broke out. The two friends spent hours discussing the situation, each one speculating when new violence would erupt and what could be done that wasn't being done to abate the situation. Both men agreed that this was only the tip of the trouble.

"The Colonel's got a new girl working at the Fuller." Charley always had news of a new female face around town.

"I thought with the impending strike business had slowed. Did one of his waitresses quit?" Tonio took another swig of beer.

"Nope. This girl is helping May in the kitchen, living with her, too. Comely gal. Newly widowed. Foreign—Italian like you. Name sounds like Angel."

"Angelina?" Tonio nearly dropped his beer.

"That's it! Sad tale. Came out to meet her husband only to find out that he died of a bad heart a couple of months ago. Lots of hard luck here in the Valley."

Tonio gave a slight nod. His head spun with the implications. Angelina was free, but was he? He didn't need any connections that would give the thugs in the union a hold on him.

Nokes made the shape of an hourglass with his hands. "Dark hair and eyes. Fine, a very fine woman. Even though she hides back in the kitchen, she's been attracting all sorts of attention. I've thought about throwing my own hat in the ring." Nokes chuckled. "What would my old man think if I brought home a sensuous, feisty little Italian bride?"

"You don't have a chance in hell with her, Nokes. That woman is mine."

Chapter 11

Franco Allessandro is dead. My husband is dead.

As Angelina lay in her bed at the