The prospect didn’t seem to concern her.
“Then ye corn it—which means putting it through screens, to divvy it into different sizes. Finest corning is for pistols and rifles—that’s what ye’d want for hunting, mostly. The coarser sizes are for cannon, grenadoes, bombs, that class o’ thing.”
“I see.” It was a simple process, as explained—but judging from the state of Mrs. Patton’s apron and the singe marks on some of the boards in the shed, rather dangerous. She could probably manage to make enough powder for hunting, if they really had to, but dismissed the idea of trying to do it in large quantities.
“Well, then. What’s your price, for the sort of powder you’d use for hunting?”
“Hunting, is it?” Mrs. Patton had pale-blue eyes and gave Brianna a shrewd look out of them, then glanced at Mr. Shelby and her father, still conversing by the river. Why? she wondered. Does she think I need his permission?
“Well, my price is a dollar a pound. I sell for hard cash, and I don’t bargain.”
“Don’t you,” Bree said dryly. She reached into the pouch at her waist and came out with one of the thin gold slips that she’d sewn into her hems when she and the kids had come to find Roger. And she said a silent, absentminded prayer of thanks that they had found him, as she’d done a thousand times since.
“It’s not exactly cash, but it’s maybe hard enough?” she said, handing it over.
Mrs. Patton’s sandy eyebrows rose to the edge of her cap. She took the slip gingerly, felt its weight, and glanced sharply at Bree. To Brianna’s delight, she actually bit it, then looked critically at the tiny dent in the metal. It was stamped, but beyond the 14K and 1 oz., she didn’t think the markings would mean anything to Mrs. Patton, and apparently they didn’t.
“Done,” said the gunpowder mistress. “How many?”
AFTER SCRUPULOUS WEIGHING of both powder and gold, they agreed that one slip of gold was the fair equivalent of twenty dollars, and Brianna shook hands with Mrs. Patton—who appeared bemused but not shocked at the gesture—and made her way back to the wagon, carrying two ten-pound kegs of powder, followed by the two cousins, each similarly burdened.
Her father was still talking with Mr. Shelby but, hearing footsteps, turned round. His eyebrows rose higher than Mrs. Patton’s.
“How much—” He broke off and, pressing his lips together, took the kegs from her and loaded them into the wagon, along with the bags of rice, beans, oats, and salt that they’d traded for in Woolam’s Mill.
Finished, he reached for the sporran at his waist, but one of the cousins shook his head.
“She’s paid already,” he said, and with a brief tilt of the head toward Bree, turned and went back to the milling shed, followed by the other young man, who spared a look over his shoulder, then hurried to catch up with his cousin, saying something to him in a low voice that made the first man glance back again, then shake his head.
Her father said nothing until they were well out on the road toward home.
“What did ye use for money, lass?” he asked mildly. “Did ye happen to bring a bit when ye … came?”
“I had some coins—what I could get without too much fuss and expense—”
He nodded approvingly at that, but stopped abruptly when she withdrew another gold slip—it barely qualified to be called an ingot—from her pouch.
“And I got thirty of these, and sewed them into our clothes and the heels of my shoes.”
Her father said something that she didn’t understand in Gaelic, but the look on his face was enough.
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked sharply. “Gold works anywhere.”
He inhaled sharply through his nose, but the added oxygen seemed to be enough to enable him to get a grip on himself, for his jaw relaxed and the color in his face receded a little.
“Aye, it does.” The fingers of his right hand twitched briefly, then stopped as he shifted the reins a little.
“The trouble, lass,” he said, eyes fixed on the road ahead, “is just that. Gold does work everywhere. That’s why everyone wants it. And in turn, that’s why ye dinna want it to be widely known that ye have it—let alone in any quantity.” He turned his head toward her for a fraction of a moment, one eyebrow raised. “I would ha’ thought … I mean, from what ye told me about yon Rob Cameron … I thought ye’d know that.”
The quiet admonition made a hot flush burn up from chest to scalp, and she closed her fist around the slip of gold. She felt like an idiot, but also unfairly accused.