Veins of Gold

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “Good heavens, what are you two doing here so late?” She shone her candle over Gentry, and, perhaps noticing Gentry’s dirt-covered blouse, exclaimed, “Oh my, come in, come in.”

  Gentry thanked Carolyn, but she didn’t think the older woman heard her. Carolyn turned back into the house so quickly her candle almost went out. “Hannah! The Abrams girls are here!”

  “What?” came a high, soft voice from the back of the house. It was a large house, four times the size of Gentry’s. Thuds of feet on stairs sounded, and Hannah, dressed in a white print dress, her curly hair poking out from its pins, appeared in the front room.

  “Goodness!” she ran toward them. She embraced Gentry first, then Pearl. Hannah was of a height with Gentry and only two years older. “I didn’t know you were coming! And the quake! Did you feel it?”

  “Are you well?” Gentry asked, looking her over, peering into the rest of the house.

  Hannah nodded. “Just some furniture slipped, a few broken dishes.”

  Broken dishes. Gentry’s bones turned to lead within her. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m so relieved you’re well.”

  “Bother? No bother at all. And better off than you two, by the looks of it.” She took Gentry’s hand and lifted it, examining her dirt-streaked dress. It was evident that she and Pearl had, fortunately, not sustained any injuries themselves. “I said you were always welcome, and I meant it, and we haven’t retired yet, see?” She smiled, gesturing to her dress. “You must have set out awfully late to get here after dark. The quake, though. Is your horse well? Rooster?”

  “Bounder is fine, but I need to board her and brush her down.” Guilt crawled up Gentry’s ribs like spider legs. “Rooster is at home. I’m sorry to put you out—”

  “No more apologizing. We’ll take care of everything.”

  “Caleb?”

  Hannah smiled. “He’s well. Slept through it.”

  Carolyn said, “So odd. I’ve never been in a quake before.” She rubbed her arms, perhaps feeling chilled.

  “I . . . I don’t know what it was,” Gentry admitted. And she didn’t. She still felt the cool, sandy fingers of the earth grappling for her necklace, which now rested securely in her pocket. Every time she blinked, she saw lightning traces of gold on the back of her eyelids.

  She would have thought she imagined it, had Pearl not been a witness.

  Hannah smiled. “Let’s get you cleaned up and see to the horse. Carolyn, is there any milk left?”

  “I’ll pour two glasses.” The first wife retreated into the kitchen.

  Pearl asked, “Caleb is still sleeping?”

  Hannah nodded. “But we’ll see him in the morning. Do you have spare clothes? Night things?”

  “We do,” Gentry answered.

  “This way.” Hannah led them to her bedroom, though Gentry and Pearl both knew the way. “There’s already a bowl of water and a cloth on the dresser. I’ll send Willard after Bounder when he gets back, and then we’ll catch up, hm?”

  Gentry assumed Hannah and Carolyn’s husband was one of the many scurrying about the streets, helping with the damage the quake caused. “Thank you. So much.” Gentry felt weights leave her shoulders and dissipate into the ether as the words passed her lips.

  “You’re very welcome.” Hannah smiled and shut the door.

  Gentry knew the tale sounded absurd, but Hannah kept her expression level, despite Pearl’s overly detailed outbursts, which Gentry wished she’d kept to herself. The day’s events were far-fetched enough as it was.

  Hannah said, “A man just showed up out of nowhere?”

  Gentry sipped at the warmed milk in her hands. She hadn’t had milk since . . . well, since the last time she’d stayed at the Hinkle residence. “I don’t know where he came from, but he showed up, and the earth stopped shaking.”

  “Good timing, I suppose.” Hannah stifled a yawn.

  Pearl added, “Then he vanished with the seagulls.”

  Hannah blinked. “Seagulls? Were you out by the lake?”

  “No, but there were seagulls,” Gentry said. A lot of seagulls.

  “Frightful. And the road like that . . . well, we’ll see to it in the morning. You two can take my bed.”

  Gentry stiffened. “Oh Hannah, we couldn’t possibly . . .”

  “Gentry Abrams.” Hannah put her hands on her hips. “When have you ever been able to win an argument against me? It’s too late to be trying, besides.” She grinned. “Sleep, and we’ll worry about the road and the china when we’re not burning through candles.”

  Pearl leapt from her chair and hugged Hannah, arms around her neck. Setting the cup of milk down, Gentry said, “Thank you.”

  Gentry and Pearl, after slipping on their nightcaps, crawled into a bed that was a little softer and a little wider than the one they shared at home. Pearl fell asleep quickly, and Gentry lay awake staring at the wall, thoughts of finances and china and family churning through her head to the rhythm of her sister’s snores.

  When she closed her eyes, she dreamed of seagulls.

  Broken. All but two plates and a saucer.

  Gentry stared into the box. She’d set the larger shards of the gold-rimmed china on the rag rug beside her. She sat on the floor in the Hinkles’ front room, box full of broken china in front of her.

  Her ma’s china. Smashed. Useless.

  Gentry’s eyes stung. She dug her fingernails into her palms and blinked rapidly. Don’t cry. Not in front of Pearl and Hannah. Pearl was already sniffling on the chair in the corner.

  Gentry was the mother and the father now. She had to be the post that supported the fence. Do. Not. Cry.

  She let out a long breath and pressed a hand against her eyes.

  “It’s all right,” Hannah offered. “We’ll make it work.”

  Willard Hinkle, Carolyn and Hannah’s husband, stepped into the room. He was a man nearing forty, almost Hoss’s age, with a long mustache and round, silver spectacles. Gentry didn’t look at him, only listened to his footsteps and the silence that followed them.

  “We’re morose today,” he said. Gentry felt his eyes on her and on the mess she’d strewn about his carpet. “What’s this?”

  Hannah answered. Gentry silently thanked her for it, as the returned lump in her throat would have made her own voice squeak. “Gentry and Pearl were hoping to sell some of the china, but their wagon jostled on the way here and the box fell.”

  Gentry swallowed. “Don’t they break it up anyway? For that temple?”

  Willard frowned. “I’m afraid not. True, some ceramics were used in Kirtland, but . . . not for this one.”

  Gentry bit the inside of her lip, her insides feeling like a dried sponge. A moment of silence fell over them. From the corner of her eye, she saw Hannah tilt her head and widen her eyes at her husband.

  “But we can make use of it somehow, perhaps,” Willard added after a few more stale seconds. “Might be able to find someone to buy the whole pieces.”

  “Some women might like the broken bits for jewelry,” Hannah suggested. “Especially the bits with gold trim.” She turned to Gentry. “So many of them sold what they had to make the trip out here. There might be interest, especially if you’re willing to trade.”

  “Not sure what we could trade for, but . . .”

  Willard said, “I’m going to Salt Lake City to look at some land and get some estimates; I could take it with me. No harm done.”

  Gentry felt as though someone had blown a very large bubble inside her chest. “Truly?”

  Willard nodded. “I’ll take it and see what I can get for it. Look around and see if I can sell the whole pieces for more, but there are a lot of poor folk in these parts, so I can’t make any promises.”

  “Yes, please. Anything will do.” Gentry quickly gathered the broken pieces and returned them to the box.

  “Mind your fingers. Goodness,” Hannah said.

  Pearl asked, “Are you moving?”

  “Oh no, dear,” replied Ha
nnah. “I think I mentioned Willard’s printing press in Providence, before we came out here. He’s hoping to put together a new one.”

  “It’s good work, and we could use a newspaper, hm?” Willard chuckled. When Gentry finished loading the box, he stooped down and picked it up. Gentry shot to her feet to hold the door open for him and closed it after.

  A whine sounded down the hall. Gentry perked up.

  “Caleb?” she asked.

  Hannah nodded, standing. “I’ll fetch him.”

  Caleb, of course, shied away from both Gentry and Pearl, at least at first. Though he was their half brother, he seldom interacted with them. He was well past walking now and had a dozen words to his vocabulary, as well as a near-full set of teeth in his small mouth. Gentry watched as Hannah fed him bits of bread, wrinkling her nose and singing some Mormon song to him. Caleb’s tan hands reached for the slice in Hannah’s hand after a few minutes, unsatisfied with the offered morsels.

  Though they shared a mother, little Caleb didn’t look much like Gentry or her siblings. They all had brown eyes, yes, but Caleb’s were too dark, as was the case with his skin and hair. That’s how Pa had known Ma had been unfaithful. That was why Pa wouldn’t keep Caleb after she died.

  After his breakfast, Caleb warmed up and let Gentry and Pearl play with him. They rolled a knitted ball back and forth until Caleb’s older sister fetched him, as well as two of Carolyn’s children. They shared lunch together, and Gentry helped Hannah with the laundry while Pearl took the children outside to play and to tend Bounder. It wasn’t until after supper that Gentry stepped away, finding Carolyn in the kitchen.

  “I don’t know the chances,” Gentry fished her ma’s necklace from her pocket, “but is there a jeweler nearby?”

  She held the chain’s ends in her hands. The clasps were still intact, but the ring that held one of them in place was missing. Bent out of shape and dropped somewhere in the desert.

  Gentry’s fingers grew clammy around the gold. As clammy as her mother’s had been as she huffed after delivering Caleb, this locket pressed against the dip in her collarbone. Gentry blinked the image away and tensed the muscles in her stomach to keep her resolve.

  “A jeweler? Ha! Few around here can afford it.” She glanced over her shoulder at the necklace in Gentry’s hands. “Oh dear, what happened?”

  The ground reached up and snatched it off my neck, she thought, but she swallowed the words. She wasn’t sure that had happened, after all. Last night was a blur of confusion. It was easier to pretend it didn’t happen than to acknowledge it, but Gentry had never been good at pretending.

  She’d seen the ground roll like the ocean off Virginia’s coast before a storm. Clearing her throat, she said, “It got caught and snapped.”

  Carolyn studied it. “Just needs a new ring to connect the clasp. Do you have it?”

  Gentry shook her head. What if the chain was irreparable? She certainly couldn’t afford to replace the missing gold link unless Pa really did make it big in California.

  “Hmm . . . Agnes Snow might have something to hold it in place. If you head down the road,” she pointed northward, “to the second right, she’s in the triangle-shaped house. Only one on the road. She does all sorts of beading. If nothing else, she can tie a thread around it until you find something better.”

  “Thank you.” The words mingled with a breath of relief. After letting Hannah and Pearl know of her errand, she followed Carolyn’s path, nodding to the people in the street—some she recognized, some she didn’t. All were Mormon, or so she guessed. One usually couldn’t tell a Mormon from a non-Mormon—they didn’t wear priest collars or kippah or the like—but most settlers in this area were of their sect.

  Gentry turned the corner, noticing three women gibbering beside a man with graying hair. There was nothing to say matrimony tied them—by all means, they were likely stopped for a bit of conversation. The Hinkles were the only polygamous family she knew. Still, Gentry tried to imagine her own future husband, then thought of sharing him with another woman, or two. She frowned, unable to fathom giving her whole heart to a husband who only gave part of his back. And how did he keep them all? Pa had barely supported one wife and her children, even when the wife left the equation.

  Agnes’s home was not difficult to find. While American Fork seemed a little bigger every time Gentry visited, it was still sparse, with wide bits of land between houses, though still not as empty as Dry Creek. Gentry knocked on the front door, and an old woman with a cane answered—the very Agnes she was seeking. After Gentry explained herself, Agnes invited her in and, with a pair of pliers, hooked a small nickel ring through the chain and clasp. Gentry had a few pennies on her, but Agnes merely shooed Gentry and her abundant thanks away.

  A breeze swept through Gentry’s hair as she stepped outside, taking with it the bite of the desert sun. Gentry tied her bonnet about her neck, but didn’t bother putting it on her head. She stared off beyond the town to the wide, dry world around her, cupped by mountains, and sighed. Best to enjoy her time here while she could. Willard Hinkle wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Then it was back to Dry Creek and the empty spot at the supper table.

  She missed her father. They hadn’t been as close since Ma’s passing. Or, perhaps, since Caleb’s birth, as they had been one in the same. Her father had focused more on work than on family after that, on what needed to be done more than who needed a shoulder to cry on. But he had still been there, sturdy and strong. Gentry prayed he wouldn’t be gone too long. Barring that, she hoped he’d find success in California.

  Be there for them, Gentry, she thought, but the words sounded in her ma’s voice, the cadence out of rhythm with Gentry’s footsteps. Don’t overlook Pearl. Don’t forget Rooster.

  Maybe she could do something nice for them when she got back. Rooster should take Pa’s bed, of course. He was too old to be sleeping with his sisters. Maybe, if the china sold well enough, Gentry could get some honey and make some cakes. Rooster loved Ma’s honey cakes, and it had been so long since any of them had tasted the sweets. Yes, Gentry would do that, even if she had to beg honey from Hoss. Perhaps if she flashed her ankles . . .

  Gentry chuckled, shaking her head. What silly thoughts to think, but it felt good to laugh.

  She pulled her ma’s necklace from her pocket, inspecting the new link. It didn’t match, of course, but no one would see it, especially if she had a bonnet on. No one noticed the backs of necklaces. Unclasping it, she strung it around her neck, relishing the familiar weight against her collar.

  She looked up, noticing she’d gone too far down the road; she was nearly to the small cemetery. Lost in her thoughts. Ma used to chide her for it.

  She turned around to head back, peering down the slightly curved road to see the lengthening shadows coming off houses and people alike.

  One of them moved.

  Gentry froze, staring at it. Waiting for it to move again, for surely it had been a trick of the light.

  A dark, triangular swatch of darkness shifted back and forth. The shadow of a shed. Like it . . . breathed.

  Swallowing, Gentry crossed the street and quickened her pace, putting distance between the shed and herself. She stepped in a puddle, but it didn’t splash about her shoes as it should.

  It hadn’t rained in weeks.

  Looking down, Gentry saw the puddle wriggle and stretch. Small, white holes opened in it, and the dark stuff glared with dozens of eyes.

  Gentry shrieked and raced backward, bits of the thing sticking to her shoe.

  “Are you all right, miss?” asked a male voice. Gentry spun toward a balding man with a sack over his shoulder, but around his feet danced creatures of the wildest kind. Long, translucent bird legs stemmed from slender, pear-shaped bodies. They had half a dozen arms soft as cat tails and faces without eyes or mouth. He didn’t seem to notice.

  Blood fled Gentry’s extremities. She gritted her teeth, her eyes bugging, and backed away.

  “Miss?” he asked.


  She shook her head. “Y-you don’t see them?”

  The man’s brow skewed. “See what?”

  She shook her head harder, turned around, and ran down the street, toward the cemetery. The man didn’t follow.

  She stopped at the short fence around the graves, many of them new, and gripped the wood under her hands, taking in deep breath after deep breath. Wisps of hair stuck to her temples with perspiration.

  Anxiety. It was just anxiety. Gentry closed her eyes hard enough to see spots, then blinked the spots away. She focused on the heavy rhythm of her pulse.

  A red smile the length of her arm grinned at her from atop one of the graves, set in a violet, raindrop-shaped body twice her size. A massive, grinning blob.

  Gentry screamed.

  The blob lunged.

  She ran.

  Direction fled her mind. Gentry bolted down the street until it wasn’t street anymore, just flattened wild and crossing trails. The shadows grew as the sun set, spraying orange and salmon across the sky.

  Something gray and translucent bubbled from the ground before her. Gentry stopped hard and slid, falling to her knees, scraping her palms on half-earthed pebbles. Sweat beaded along her spine as she scrabbled back to her feet and ran away from it. Her heart palpitated like a plucked fiddle string against the percussion of her breaths and footfalls.

  The sun vanished as she ran, and Gentry made the grave mistake of looking up. It was not a cloud that passed overhead, but a giant navy beast, flying through the sky as though tethered to a kite string, tendrils of its dark body squiggling out in the air with no apparent end. Behind it dragged twilight.

  The earth rumbled beneath her feet.

  “No, no, no! Go away!” She tried to outrun the sky demon above her. Her thoughts flickered back to Pearl and Hannah, to refuge with them, but then she spied the beast from the cemetery following her.

  She ran.

  The farther she ran, the more they came: black birds with noodle-like wings, insects with too many or too few legs that stood knee-height or taller, shapeless ghosts that sang eerily into the descending darkness, following her with their eyes. Gentry clamped her hands over her ears and sprinted as hard as her tiring legs would carry her, racing atop her toes, ignoring the sting in her ribs and the burning in her lungs. She stumbled down a dip in the ground, half twisting her ankle as she went. A single tear fled her eyelashes as she forced weight upon it and ran, raced—