Wanted: Zookeeper (Silverpines Book 19)
Page 9
“Oh, princess, I’m just teasing you.” Grandpa stood to help close the lid to her picnic basket. “Your Mr. Phinney wouldn’t let anything get in the way of spending some time with you. Everyone needs a lunch break.”
She turned hopeful eyes to her grandpa. “You think so? You sure I won’t be interfering?”
“I’m certain of it, Ellen Mae. Go have lunch with your fiancé.”
A huge grin slowly waxed her face. “My fiancé.” She tested the word on her tongue. It sounded perfect. “Okay. I’ll be back later.” She scooped the basket onto one arm, and headed to the back door. “And, Grandpa?”
“Hmm.” He had sat down and returned to his newspaper.
“I left plenty on the stove for you, too. And there are some biscuits in the oven.”
He lowered his paper with a curious look to the stove. “Thank you, Ellen Mae. You always take good care of me.”
She hurried out of the house, tied the basket to the back of her saddle, and rode the mare, Edwina, to Timber Town. As she approached the many Chinese workers, Niles, Brawny Winter, and several other new men who had come to Silverpines to marry, she reined Edwina to a halt. There were dozens of Chinese men with shovels, bent at the waist, moving the silt and small debris into bags left over from the mine digging. These were being stacked neatly onto a wagon to be used for barriers against future storms.
Ellen turned to another area and shivered at the nightmarish appearance of rotting roots and branches unearthed from the mud slide that took on a macabre appearance. It looked like black monsters’ corpses being dumped into wheel barrels with arms and legs sticking out in every direction. Workers put down their shovels to quickly take the wheel barrels to a designated area near the river. The debris slid from the barrels into a growing pile that would eventually be washed away by the flowing water.
Ellen stared at the gruesome sight, lost in a memory of the trembling ground, the sounds, and the gut-wrenching fear of that horrible day.
“Ellen!” Niles’s voice yanked her from her woolgathering. “You alright?”
She blinked away the morbid memory. “I, uh, yes. I’m alright.” She let her eyes leave his and take in the workers moving across the ruins. “It’s just harder than I thought.”
He nodded as he pulled her into his chest. She drew in the musk of his unique fragrance. It soothed her frayed nerves as if she’d taken a lavender concoction from Hattie. He held her tight. Tighter then she needed to be comforted. She stepped back, but he wouldn’t release her. She tilted her head toward his. “Are you alright?”
As if he realized he was holding her against her wishes, he let go and stepped back. “I’m a little unsettled.”
“Because of the debris?” She focused on his eyes for an answer. The truth always shone in his warm chocolate eyes.
“No.” He looked across the land at the workers moving about and returned his gaze to her. Sadness filled his eyes. “I sent a telegram to my brother yesterday. He answered me this morning.”
Niles pulled a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket. “He is less than pleased that I have decided to settle here in Silverpines.”
“Oh.” Ellen never considered Niles’s brother in all her excitement. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t stop to think about his expectations. What can we do?”
“Nothing. Ellen, I’m staying here in Silverpines, with you. These animals are going to stay here too. I really don’t know what’s got his garters in a twist. It wasn’t his idea to bring the exotics from Africa. It was mine. I had grown quite attached to them, and I couldn’t just release them back into the wild. None of them would have survived.” Niles drew a deep sigh.
Ellen stared at him. His anguish was her heartbreak. “Maybe if you write him, a letter not a telegram, and explain with more detail. Perhaps we could take a train and go there together, to meet him. Perhaps we could—”
“You’re sweet. But this is my problem.” Niles took her hand and kissed her knuckle. Ellen struggled to breathe normally. His touch and his kiss set her heart to flight like a thousand butterflies.
“Niles Phinney, I am going to be your wife. Your problems are my problems, now.”
He looked into her eyes, searching her face, and tilted his head to one side. A smile slowly grew from his solemn frown. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Ellen placed her hand over his. “I love you Niles. Your happiness is my happiness, and if there is a problem with your brother, then we will resolve it together.”
“Ellen, I—”
“Hold up!” Brawny Winter shouted. “Somebody go get Hattie Childs!” There was so much emotion in his voice.
Ellen’s heart dropped to her knees. There was only one reason Brawny would want Dr. Hattie. There had to be a body found. Niles dropped her hand and rushed over to see what caused the alarm. The men stopped working. Shovels became leaning posts. Everyone stared at the ground. No one moved. Ellen stepped quickly to catch up with Niles. Brawny turned to them. “It’s a human bone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I feared this would happen.” Niles nodded. “We’ll wait until Dr. Childs gets here. I was told they had a good system over at the mine for handling this sort of thing. Any idea who this mi—”
“No way to tell without something specific to identify—” Mr. Winter shook his head.
“Right.” Niles nodded too.
Winter stepped closer to Niles, leaned into his ear. “From the size of it, I’d say it was a child.”
Niles drew in a long deep breath. He pursed his lips and stood in silence.
Brawny rubbed the back of his neck. “This isn’t going to go well with the council.”
“No.” Niles said at last. “No, it will not.”
“Who is it? Do we know who it is?” Ellen touched his arm, trying to see around him.
A sense of protection washed over him. He stood his ground, shielding her from seeing the exposed bone. “Let’s go over here and wait for Dr. Childs.”
“What did Brawny say?” Ellen’s eyes filled with tears. “He knows who it is, doesn’t he?” She leaned against Niles’s chest and sobbed.
“No. Ellen. We can’t identify— let’s just wait until the doctor gets here and see what she says. She knows how to handle these situations.”
Ellen sniffed, rubbed her nose, but stayed in Niles’s embrace. He was glad for it. He needed to hold her as much as she needed to be held. His on-going family issues seemed irrelevant now.
Dr. Robert Childs helped Hattie step down from a buggy. A small bundle bulged across her chest from under a hand-woven wrap that encircled her body from shoulder to waist. Dr. Childs attempted to escort her over to the place where all the men had stopped working, but she shrugged him away. Ellen gasped. “Dr. Hattie has had her baby!”
Dr. Childs followed close behind his determined wife. Niles chuckled under his breath. He could see Ellen being just as stubborn. The thought gave him pause, and then sorrow flooded his mind. This bone belonged to someone’s little one. Was it a boy or a girl?
Hattie squatted down and looked hard at the specimen. She looked around and gestured for her husband to come closer for her to speak quietly. He then looked around and found a small garden shovel that had been used to skim off the silt. He handed it to Hattie. She tenderly moved the dirt away from the find. Her hands were free to work the soil, with the cleaver way she wrapped her baby around her. Ellen smiled.
Hattie worked around in the debris until she found another bone.
And another.
She put both hands on her skirt at her knees and pushed herself up. “Well.” She breathed heavily. “We’ve definitely got at least one child. I’d like to let Dawson Elliott know we have another grave to dig, while we work to see how many bodies we may have here.” She lifted stern eyes and searched around before landing her gaze on Dr. Robert Childs. “Honey, will you go let him know? I’ll stay here and oversee this. Oh and let Tess know we will need a few more bags.”
The workers had been using the surplus cloth bags made by the town’s women to hold the bodies brought out of the mine and placed in the mass grave.
“Thank you, Zhang.” She looked around. “Are there any smaller shovels? We can’t unearth these remains with those.” She gestured toward the workers leaning on their tools.
“Have small shovels— I get.” Zhang ran toward the big wagon.
Hattie squatted back down and gingerly worked to bring more remains out of the debris. The workers brought over a cloth bag and laid them out flat. She gently placed what she found in a logical order. In total, three bodies were found. Hattie declared them to be a man, a woman, and a child about five to eight years old.
A morose cloud of desolation hung over the workers as they went back to moving large areas of debris. Brawny Winter seemed to be in a particularly foul mood. Niles couldn’t judge him. Ellen had told him that Mr. Winter was one of very few who lived in Timber Town, but had survived the disaster because he had been out surveying that day. This excavation project had to be excruciatingly hard on Mr. Winter— on any man.
If the bodies could have been identified, there would have been a specific family to mourn. But these three bodies would forever be anonymous. Their remains would represent the many families who were killed that day. Finding them had opened the raw grief for everyone who had survived the disasters all over again. The only good thing about finding them, the people of Silverpines now had three victims to bury and pray over. With these three, there was a single grave representative of the many who were lost.
The work continued until dusk and no more bodies were found.
Why just these three? No one knew. The rest were assumed to have been swept into the river with the mud slide, forever lost. There was something comforting about these three being placed in the Silverpines cemetery.
“We need to make something… so all these people who died out here will- will be remembered,” Ellen said more to herself than anyone. She had not opened her picnic basket or eaten lunch with Niles. She stood quietly while the workers cleared debris. Tears swam in her eyes as memories of specific women and the children she had known who had lived here floated in her thoughts.
“What do you mean? We are making something. This whole zoo will be dedicated—” Niles wiped his brow. “Are you thinking a headstone for the three we found, but list all the Timber Town residents’ names?”
The sun was setting and darkness encroached upon the workers’ progress.
“No. I suppose not. But we need to do something. There are plans for a memorial to be made in Central City Park, listing the miners and people who died trying to help with the cave-in. Why not have something with Timber Town’s people listed, too.”
“Hmm.” Niles rubbed his chin. He took her hand and walked toward her horse which waited patiently along the road before entering what had been a tent town. “Let’s go see the stonemason and we’ll talk to Mr. Winter.”
“What are you thinking?” Ellen let him lift her into the saddle. He tied the unopened picnic basket on the back, and walked beside her, leading the horse into Silverpines. “Well, I’ve already agreed to name the zoo after the community out here. But now that we found— I’ve got something more personal in mind.”
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Ellen stood in front of her mirror, double checking everything was in place. Her hair, she had braided and pinned at her nape, with a black-crocheted hair net across the braids, like she’d seen in a New York Times advertisement. Her dress was one of her Sunday best. Tonight Niles had invited her to dinner. It was their first dinner alone since he proposed marriage. With all the work clearing the land at Timber Town, she’d barely had a chance to bring him a cold lunch, let alone make him a nice hot supper. Her heart had never been so empty. She plodded through her routines of feeding her animals, which used to bring her such joy. Now, she longed to be with Niles.
She had even taken over feeding his exotics. Sammy stayed with her during the day, although she did not allow him to nest under her clothes like Niles had. The strange mouse spent the majority of his time curled up with Clarence. They were some pair.
Grandpa made arrangements with some of the hunters and trappers who brought fresh meat to the Cutler’s Mercantile, to bring an elk or deer to the warehouse. Grandpa strung the animal up and quartered it himself. The lions and cheetah were especially pleased on the days they received the fresh kill rather than the pellet food. Ellen had a feeling Grandpa was growing a bit fond of the big cats. She had caught him talking to them as if they were his buddies. Just like she did with her chickens and goats. Just like he did with the horses in the livery. There was no denying she was his grandchild.
“Ellen!” Grandpa called her from her room. “Niles is here.”
Her heart doubled its pace. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe normally. Touching her chest, she blew out a lungful of air, attempting to settle the speed at which her heart was pounding. Poise and grace. Her mother’s words made her smile.
“Coming!” She took another breath and walked down the hall to the parlor. “Hello, Niles.”
The sight of him took her breath from her lungs. He wore a new black suit and a top hat. His cane made him look debonair. His gaze swept over her length, then lifted to meet her eyes, and he smiled. All her hard work to look nice had paid off. His eyebrows rose on his forehead. “Gosh. You are so beautiful!”
The heat of embarrassment filled her face. She needn’t worry about using rouge on her cheeks. She pursed her lips and lowered her eyes. “Well, thank you. You look mighty handsome yourself.”
“Shall we?” He put out his elbow and she laced her hand into the bend of his arm.
He helped her into a buggy, climbed in on the other side, and clicked his tongue while flipping the reins over the horse’s back. The dapple grey trotted down the street to the Silverpines Inn. Niles jumped out and ran around to give her a hand while she stepped from the cozy vehicle. She felt like a princess and he was her prince. They entered the inn and walked toward the restaurant, as if they were floating across the lobby. The maître d’ bowed slightly, then escorted them to a small table for two near the large hearth. Ellen waited while Niles pulled out her chair and the maître d’ placed the linen napkins in both of their laps. “Your waiter will be right with you.”
Ellen smiled at Niles. “This evening is enchanting.”
But his face reflected concern. She frowned. “What is it?”
Niles lifted his eyes to meet hers. “It’s nothing important. I don’t want to spoil our special night. What are you hungry for?”
Pain swam deep in his eyes. Ellen’s heart twisted with despair. “Niles, I told you before, your problems are my problems.” She touched his hand as it lay on the table. “Your heartache is my grief. Please tell me what has you so sad. Is it the” — she looked around to be sure she was not overheard and lowered her voice— “bodies found at Timber Town?”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no. That was disheartening, for certain. I’ve spoken to a gentleman, Mallet Thorne. He is the stonemason. I feel we have an excellent plan to commemorate the Timber Town people.” He dropped his gaze, fidgeting with his flatware. “I-I am sad because of my brother, Charles— I wrote him a letter, as you suggested. I explained in detail why I have decided to stay in Silverpines with the exotics.”
“What may I get you to drink, sir? Miss?” The waiter broke into their conversation.
Niles jerked his head back, his eyes darted from the waiter to Ellen. “Oh, um. Ellen?”
She drew her gaze from Niles. “I’ll have a sarsaparilla with vanilla.”
Niles smiled. “I’ll have the same.”
“Very good. Are you ready to order?”
Niles pursed his lips. “I’m afraid we haven’t looked at the menus yet. Could you give us a few minutes?” His kindness impressed Ellen. She smiled at the waiter. “Thank
you.”
The waiter nodded graciously and spun around to go get their drinks. Ellen leaned toward Niles to touch his hand. “Tell me.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “You see, it’s all my fault, really. I was the prodigal son who took off and did what I wanted. Mind you, I didn’t end up in a pig sty or dirt poor, but I did go against our father’s wishes. My brother, my twin, stayed home, did what our father requested of us, and he was there when Father passed. Charles wrote to me, begged me to come home then, but I stayed on my adventure. I had received my veterinarian degree by then and was touring Africa. I had accumulated a few smaller animals who had been orphaned by poachers. It was quite easy to carry the smaller exotics along with me, but when I saved the lion… he had been shot, his hip will never be the same, and if he were released into the wild, I’m certain he’d have been easy prey to other carnivores. So I performed surgery on him and have had him in my company ever since. We settled in Africa on some land that I procured. I became aware of other severely wounded animals, or orphaned species that would never know what it was like to be one of their own kind. I nursed them, like you did your small critters, until they could sustain themselves.”
He paused to look into her eyes. Ellen knew some of, but certainly not all, these details of his gathering his animals. The more she learned, the deeper her love became. She didn’t utter a word for fear he’d stop talking, and she wanted to hear it all, everything. He turned his hand over and took hold of hers, she gently squeezed her assurance for him to continue.
He drew in a deep breath. “We wrote often, me telling about my exploits, and he telling about the successes of our father’s English garden. But with the century changing to nineteen hundred, times were changing, society was growing and modernization was abounding, my brother and I both felt a pull for me to return home. He promised to provide a portion of the English garden for my menagerie, he has gone to great expense in preparation for our homecoming. So, you see why he feels… betrayed that I am not returning.”