Ever since the men had found the lode of quartz the previous October, their hopes had run high. But through the winter, and then with the wedding and our two trips away, enthusiasm gradually slowed. The hard work and aching muscles just weren’t getting them anywhere, and it wasn’t hard to see that discouragement was setting in.
Finally one day at supper Pa said what they had probably all been thinking to themselves.
“I think it’s time we shut down the mine,” he said matter-of-factly before stabbing a hunk of potato with his fork and popping it into his mouth.
The room was silent a moment as Pa chewed away, paying no attention to everyone’s surprise.
A few heads turned this way and that, then gradually every eye settled on Pa.
“What are you all staring at me for?” he said after swallowing the bite.
“You can’t be serious, Drummond?” said Almeda.
“Course I’m serious. We ain’t finding nothing.”
“But . . . but I hear you all talking every day about all the gold there still is to find and how well you’re doing.”
“It’s all talk, Almeda. We’re just trying to keep each other working, that’s all. But we haven’t found a thing in months. And today that big wide run of quartz we thought was going to lead us to gold shrunk down to less than an inch wide. We been following it into the mountain since October and it’s been getting smaller ever since. I reckon it’s time to face the fact that it’s leading nowhere—our mine’s finally played out.”
Again it was quiet, the only sound the clink of forks against the plates.
“Pa’s right, Almeda,” said Zack at length. “I didn’t want to say anything. I’m willing to work as long as Pa is. But we haven’t set eyes on any nugget as big as a fingernail since last summer.”
Tad nodded. I looked at Christopher.
“I don’t know what I can add,” he said. I’m such a newcomer to all this, I didn’t know whether this was normal or not. But in all honesty I haven’t really seen much gold.”
Again it was quiet. Even though Pa and Zack and Tad had all been thinking the same thing, just to talk about shutting down the mine was such a major change to contemplate. Almeda and Becky and I were astonished, because it took us so by surprise. That mine had, in a sense, been the center of our lives for fifteen years, even longer for Pa and Uncle Nick. I could hardly imagine what impact it would have on all of us for the mine not to be operating.
“What . . . what would you do, Drummond?” asked Almeda.
“I don’t know. I reckon there’s plenty of things I could keep busy with.”
“Politics again?”
“I doubt it. But you never know. It’s these young fellers here I’m thinking mostly about. We can’t all just keep working up there forever without finding anything. Our bank account’s thinning out, Almeda—you know that as well as I do. Before long we might have to think about selling off some of the land if there isn’t a change of some kind. Christopher here’s got his own life and family to think about. Zack’ll likely be thinking along those lines here soon enough. And Tad . . . I don’t know—it just don’t seem fair to keep them working away here for me when maybe it’s high time they was getting on with their own plans.”
“We’re not worried about ourselves, Pa,” interjected Zack. “As long as there’s any more gold at all and as long as you say, we’re behind you.”
“Thanks, son. But all that’s not to mention,” Pa went on, turning back toward Almeda, “that I made these fellers all a bargain, and so I figure I owe them all some return on their investment of time and work, though it ain’t as much as we figured a year ago. If Corrie’s man here had known it was going to turn out like this, he might not have agreed to my proposal. I’ve held him up with whatever he plans to do with himself as it is. Maybe it ain’t fair of me to hold him up any longer.”
He glanced over at Christopher with an expression that looked like he felt he’d let Christopher down.
“You don’t owe me a cent, Drum,” said Christopher. “You made it clear enough when we began this partnership that we might not find anything. It was a risk we all took. Besides, I feel I’ve been more than amply paid with room and board all this time.”
This time the silence around the table lasted more than five minutes. Pretty soon everyone was through eating.
I felt a lump rising in my throat. It was all so sad! I had the feeling I might one day look back on this evening as the beginning of the breakup of the Hollister homestead. The talk sounded like the partnership they’d all made last year was coming to an end.
Oh, but I loved it here with everyone together! I didn’t want us to all start going our separate ways. Yet what else would it lead to if they shut down the mine?
Pa was right; we were all grown-up adults. We couldn’t stay this way forever, with us all living in one big family.
Pretty soon Tad would get a job somewhere, maybe move away from Miracle Springs.
Zack would probably go back to the horse business with Little Wolf and his father, and probably be marrying Laughing Waters before long. Then he’d be gone too.
And what about Christopher and me? What would we do?
My heart began to sink within me with all these thoughts and fears and uncertainties.
My reflections were cut short by the last thing I expected to hear at a sad time like this—laughter.
“Hee, hee, hee,” sounded the cackle of Alkali Jones’ high-pitched voice. “You’re all talkin’ like a parcel o’ lily-livered old geese. Ain’t no more gold gonna be found round hereabouts without a dang sight more work ’n when we first came. Hee, hee, hee. What ye expect, Drum, fer the blame stuff t’ appear down at yer feet like it did when I first sloshed through this here Miracle creek? I ever tell ye about the size o’ the first nugget I took outta here? Why the blame thing was as big as—”
“Yep you have, Alkali—a time or two,” interrupted Pa, with a wink in Tad’s direction.
“Hee, hee, hee . . . couldn’t recollect if ye knew about that or not. But if ye can remember that fer back, surely ye ain’t fergot that when we found that blame quartz last year, there was two lines of it leadin’ into the dang hill.”
Nobody said anything for a minute, and a few more glances went back and forth around the table.
“Yeah,” said Pa slowly. “But that other wasn’t no bigger than my little finger.”
“Hee, hee, hee—an’ I told ye that was the one ye oughta foller.”
“The other was six inches wide, Alkali—more quartz than I’d ever seen compacted in one vein like that.”
“The look o’ things don’t always tell ye all there is t’ know, Drum. I tell ye—ye went the wrong direction. Hee, hee, hee.”
“Well, I’ll think about what you say, Alkali,” said Pa. “Maybe we’ll poke around tomorrow and see if we can find that little finger-vein you’re talking about.”
I could tell by the tone of his voice that Pa wasn’t convinced in the slightest and that nothing Mr. Jones said had changed his mind.
Chapter 20
Uncertainty
Nothing changed much for the next several days. Christopher and Pa and the boys went up to the mine the following morning just the same as they always did, though not quite so early.
Pa was a little quieter than normal for the rest of the week. The others, and Almeda and I too, were kind of watching him to see what he was going to decide about the mine. Knowing Pa, he realized it too, and that only increased the pressure on him to make a final decision. When he told us about shutting down the mine, his words were almost like those of a decision, but they weren’t quite final. Then everything Alkali Jones said had muddied the water about what to do. And when Pa said nothing more, the future was left up in the air, and nobody knew quite what to think or what Pa expected.
Everybody, I suppose, had their own reasons not to talk about it openly, because what Pa had said couldn’t help but cast doubt onto everyone’s future. Even Christo
pher and I didn’t talk about it right at first, and we usually talked about everything.
Two days after Pa’s surprise announcement about shutting down the mine, Zack left for the afternoon to Little Wolf’s, and Christopher went over to Tom Woodstock’s again to help him finish up the fence they had been working on together. That left just Tad and Pa at the mine—Mr. Jones wasn’t feeling too well and left early too—and when the two of them came down about four o’clock, it was clear enough they were through for the day, even though they usually worked till six or seven.
It was already obvious that everyone was thinking of a change. Meals gradually grew quieter. Zack began to spend more time with Little Wolf again. Two mornings later Tad rode into town, and we later found out he’d gone to see Mr. Simms about getting his old job at the livery stable back. Mr. Jones—I don’t know why, sensing maybe that Pa hadn’t taken kindly to his idea—didn’t come around for several days.
I didn’t like what was going on, but I was afraid to say anything. I don’t know what I would have said anyway. Pa was right. If they weren’t finding gold, then what was the use of pounding away on rocks for eight, ten, or twelve hours a day month after month?
When Christopher gradually grew quieter and quieter, I began to be even more concerned. It wasn’t like him. He had always been so open and communicative; now for several days he hardly spoke whenever we were alone, and when he did speak it was only about the most superficial things.
Finally I just had to ask him what was wrong.
“Christopher,” I said one evening after we had retired to our little home in the bunkhouse, “why are you being so quiet? What’s wrong? Have I done something to make you upset?”
“Oh no, Corrie,” he replied, looking at me with a pained expression. “It’s nothing about you.”
“What, then?”
“It’s just . . . I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“But what—what about? Why can’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
“It’s worse not being bothered with it,” I said. “What else can I think but that it has something to do with me . . . with us.”
“Oh, but it doesn’t at all—that is, not directly.”
“Oh, Christopher, you’re just making it worse by being so vague. You’ve got me really worried. I’ve never seen you like this.”
He sighed, and I could tell I had only succeeded in adding to whatever the cause was of the burden he was feeling. We were quiet a minute.
“I’m sorry, Corrie,” he said finally. “The last thing in the world I want is for you to think I’m upset with you. I really am sorry.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “But when a man gets quiet, that’s the first thing a woman thinks. I don’t know—somehow you can’t help it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he sighed again. “But on my side of it, when a man is uncertain about a decision, wondering about the future, asking the Lord what to do in a given situation—sometimes that uncertainty brings with it an introspection and quiet that you just can’t help, either.”
“Why can’t you just share what you’re thinking?”
“Sometimes it isn’t that easy.”
“For most men, maybe, but you’ve always been different. You always talk to me about what’s on your mind.”
“It isn’t that I’m trying not to talk about this; it’s that I just can’t—not yet. I just have to sort and pray something through on my own. I don’t know how to explain it other than that, Corrie. Even for the most open and expressive of men, there are times when a sense of quiet comes over you that you just can’t help. I don’t say it’s right or good or that it ought to be that way, only that sometimes you can’t do anything else.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment.
“But don’t you see how hard that makes it on a wife like me?” I asked at length.
“Yes,” Christopher nodded. “And I truly mean it when I say that I am very sorry.”
Again it was silent for a minute or two.
“Can’t you tell me anything about what you’re thinking?” I finally asked.
“I’m thinking about what your father said a few days ago—you must realize that.”
“About closing the mine?”
Christopher nodded.
“What about it? I don’t see why that would cause such a melancholy to come over you. You’re not finding any gold anyway, even you said that.”
“It’s not about the gold,” replied Christopher with just a touch of exasperation in his voice that I could even think such a thing.
“What, then?”
“Don’t you see?” Again I felt the exasperation.
“I guess I don’t.”
“If we quit working the mine, then where does that leave us, Corrie?”
“What do you mean? It doesn’t leave us anywhere. It leaves us right here. What do you think, that Pa will ask us to leave?”
I suppose there might have been a little exasperation in my tone by this time, too.
“Of course not.”
“They love having us here.”
“I know that. What I’m saying is where does it leave us as far as the future is concerned? What will I do?”
“I don’t know—work like you did before the mine partnership? You’re a hard worker. You’ll find something.”
“It was different then. I’d just come here, and I needed something to occupy my time and earn a few honest dollars. It’s all changed now.”
“How?”
“Corrie, how can you even ask such a thing? We’re married now. That changes everything. What do you think, that I’m going to be satisfied supporting a family doing an odd job here and an odd job there, living forever in the back end of a barn?”
“What’s wrong with this?” I asked. “I think it’s romantic.”
“It is. I think it’s romantic, too. I love it here. But, don’t you see, it can’t last forever. Someday we will have to think of the future, of what I am going to do with my life, of what kind of a life I am going to provide for you and our family. When your father said what he did the other night, suddenly that someday crashed in upon me and I realized that maybe I needed to think about that future now.”
At last I saw what had so burdened Christopher down. Of course it would have made him anxious. How could I have been so insensitive to what he was going through?
“Christopher, I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. Thanks. What about mine?”
“Your what?”
“My apology,” smiled Christopher, and it was good to see him smile.
“Your apology accepted, too,” I said, returning his smile.
He stretched his arm around me and pulled me closer to him where we had been sitting together on the bench. I snuggled in close, and we sat contentedly like that for five or ten minutes without saying anything more.
“It’s different for you,” said Christopher at length. “This is your family. You have been here most of your life. As much as I love your family, and as much as they have accepted me and I know they love me, I’m still not as much a part as you are.”
“Of course you are, Christopher. You and I are one now.”
“On one level. But can’t you see that to accept that fully is difficult for one like me, one who hasn’t known family like this in the past? I don’t want to be beholden to your father beyond what is proper. I appreciate all he’s done. But you heard him—the mine is now draining him financially, and there is no denying we contribute to that. If the mine’s not going to produce, then I have to begin carrying my fair share as the head of our family.”
“I see what you mean.”
“There we are again at the question of our future. We can’t just stay here indefinitely when to do so might eventually mean th
at your father would have to sell some of his land.”
“But you’ll get a job, and then you’ll begin paying for our share of the expenses. And the Supply Company’s still doing well.”
“True. But there we are again at what I’m going to do with my life. Odd jobs or working for Almeda at the Mine and Freight are just not a permanent solution. I’m willing to work at anything the Lord gives me. You know that. At the same time, I want my life to count for something in people’s lives.”
“Your life will count, Christopher. You could clean out horse stalls every day and your life would count, just because of the man you are.”
“I know,” he sighed. “Of course you’re right. But I’m concerned for what kind of life I’ll be providing for you, too.”
“I will be just as happy married to a stable hand as to the President of the United States—just so long as it’s you. I don’t care where we live or how much we have. We can live in a cottage somewhere, or the back of a barn, or even in a huge mansion. It is you and me that make it a home, Christopher.”
“I know,” he smiled. “I suppose that’s another difference between men and women. Most women can be happy under any circumstances, as long as they have a man who loves them and does his best to take care of them. For a man, however, there are so many other factors that contribute to his sense of worth. A man has to try to build a meaningful life for himself and his family. It’s just the way we are. As much as I love it here right now, I could not feel worthwhile as a man if I did not try eventually to provide better for you.”
“I understand,” I said. “Just so long as you know that all I want is to be with you.”
“I think I realize that.”
Again silence fell. It was late, and all we could hear in the warm early summer’s darkness outside was the sound of crickets in branches of the oaks. Everyone else in the big house was sound asleep by now. It was probably between eleven and midnight.
The Braxtons of Miracle Springs Page 8