River With No Bridge

by Karen Wills

  “Oh, no. It was my fault. I thought a room to be empty, and it was not, for certain.”

  Flynn laughed. “Always knock, young lady. These brutes are healthy men, after all.”

  Nora nodded. So they were. Healthy men after all.

  That evening talk turned to the coming community picnic, when even the mines would be shut down. “It’s a great occasion,” Rose explained. “There’ll be bars, a lunch counter, athletic contests, and a dance hall, all set up for a few thousand of us. The money—35 cents a ticket—goes for a free Ireland.”

  “What a lovely idea,” Nora said. “But I wonder if I’ll get the day off. In Boston, a maid would be fired for the impertinence of asking.”

  Tade laughed. “Flynn’s no tyrant. Just say, ‘Mr. Flynn, I’m wondering if I might have time off for the picnic. My friends that have been so kind, they’ve asked to take me.’ Stand respectful before him. You won’t have to elaborate.”

  Nora pictured her boss leaning back, frowning, then bestowing one of his infectious smiles. What he actually said next day was, “All our guests will be there anyway. We’ll get old Fritz and a couple Chinamen to keep the place going and we’ll all be off.”

  On the day of the picnic Rose and Nora were up by first light. Both wore white shirtwaists with lace yokes and pleated oval bosoms. Nora fastened her hair at the nape of her neck and topped it with a straw hat trimmed in a cotton print that matched her green skirt.

  She glanced in the mirror. A pinched, wan excuse for a face stared back. I’m growing pale, she thought with dismay. How many weeks since she’d moved through clean air and sunshine? She squeezed her cheeks, creating a temporary blush that failed as a substitute for health’s ripe glow. Would Tade notice her brightness fading? She frowned. If ever she dared depend on a man, it must be Tade Larkin. Hadn’t she come across the country counting on that very thing? He’d never abandon her. She thought back to the worn-out single maids at the Parker House. Had they still held out hope for a better life? Their faces said not.

  Light-hearted workers and families rode in horse-drawn bench wagons. Ascending from the yellow smoke and ceaseless industrial noise, they progressed toward a sky that turned a darker blue the higher they went. Nora all but gawked at the multi-shaded forests of the foothills. Bright mountain water rippled over mauve and aqua rocks. The sun warmed her upturned face. When a vivid mountain bluebird sailed overhead, she joined the Murphy girls clapping and cheering.

  The wagon creaked to a stop at last. A stream of people sauntered past striped tents, makeshift booths, and a long, crowded lunch counter. The breeze carried the scents of meat cooking, pies baking, and fresh bread served by overworked but smiling women.

  Tade stepped from under its awning. Nora waved, but willed herself to wait for him to come to her. He took her hand, saying, “I’m playing in the Gaelic Football League this afternoon. Will you come and cheer me on?”

  “Football? Is it bashed and bloody you’ll be?” Nora felt a stab of impatience. Why did men love such games? Hadn’t they learned that life is fragile enough without unnecessary risks? “I’ll come, but I’ll shut my eyes.”

  “I promise I’ll come out of it alive. And I’ll make you proud.”

  Rose and Nora picked a quiet patch under huge ponderosas to spread a blanket. Rose rested her broad back against a pine trunk’s rough bark. She played with Tillie, a fat, perpetually astonished baby, who took her first staggering steps on the uneven forest floor. Tillie frowned as she concentrated on her high-legged walk, straddling nothing but air.

  Tade extended his hand to Nora. Wandering among the crowds, they stopped to watch the drill contest. Two giants stood on a raised platform, a block of granite in front of them. “Watch these boys.” Tade spoke with reverence. “There’s none can hold a candle to them.”

  Indeed, when the competition started Nora understood. While one brought down the double jack, the other held and turned the steel drill after each blow. In fifteen minutes the team had drilled a hole forty-five inches deep in granite. The crowd’s approving roar shook the ground, vibrating the soles of Nora’s feet until they itched.

  At the knife-throwing contest, Nora nearly stumbled in surprise. Bat Moriarty waited his turn to throw a bone-handled knife.

  “Well, if it isn’t Bat Moriarty, the gambler.” Tade bent to speak in Nora’s ear. “I’ve met him in the saloon the few times I’ve gone there. He’s one to avoid. We won’t let the likes of him in the Ancient Order of Hibernians.”

  Bat turned, rolling snow-white shirtsleeves above forearms with small wrists, but muscles well defined toward the elbows. His frock coat and vest were thrown over a nearby chair. He still wore his bowler, tipped far back. When he noticed Nora, he flashed his white-toothed smile and approached with movements slightly less intense than a prowl.

  “Miss Flanagan, you’ve escaped the city that’s paved with the bones of Irishmen, if only for a day. Is it still to your liking?”

  Nora kept her arm through Tade’s. He covered it with his square, callused hand, and Nora thought it good and forthright compared to the smooth, tapering fingers of the knife-wielding gambler. “I like it well enough,” she answered, then explained to Tade how she and the gambler had met.

  “I’m surprised to see you in a contest such as this one, Moriarty,” Tade interjected. He straightened, and Nora could swear her sweetheart puffed out his chest like a rooster.

  “A man needs to know how to protect himself when sensitive situations arise. Cat Posey came at me with her knife two nights ago. I didn’t kill Cat,” Bat said, his grin wicked, “but I pinned her to the bar by her skirts. I see it’s time to start. Excuse me.”

  As Nora and Tade turned to walk on, a rush of chill breeze stirred the tops of the pines. Nora shivered at their sound of a thousand sighs. Open talk of Cat Posey annoyed her. All combined, it seemed a harbinger of bad weather within and without. A white banner of cloud hooked on one snag like a flag of surrender.

  She calmed as they waited in a long line for mugs of lemonade and meatloaf sandwiches to carry back to share with the others. The Murphy girls gathered wildflowers, black-eyed Susans, violets, and treacherous, thorny wild roses while Nora and Tade settled on the ground.

  “It’s a different world, entirely,” Nora murmured, drawing in air laced with tangy pine. Another breeze lifted the blanket’s corner and swirled pine needles up from the forest floor. She squinted and brushed at her face.

  After they’d eaten, Tade urged, “Come walk just a bit more with me.” They crossed a shallow stream, balancing on flat rocks. More wildflowers riffled on its banks. Bulky clouds shouldered into the bright sky.

  “Sure and it’s beautiful. Nothing like that loud jungle of a place below,” Nora said.

  “Butte is a booming city.” Tade enfolded her hands in his as though praying. “A man can marry there and raise children and keep them fed, clothed, and educated. And that’s what I want. It would be sweet to me if you would be the wife I dream of. I love you. Ever since you near knocked me over in Boston.”

  “Tade.” Nora breathed a prayer of thanks that he’d finally asked, that she’d been right to come, that she had won the heart of such a fine man, that she had someone of her own. She touched his square jaw and said, “When I’m with you I feel as much at home as I did in Ireland. Of course, I’ll marry you. There’s hardly been a doubt about that, now has there?”

  Tade gathered her to him, and they kissed. When his breathing quickened, she moved to look at him. “Let’s tell Rose and Patrick now, sweetheart. The rest must wait.”

  For a moment she wished they could stay forever in this meadow that felt like a sanctuary. But then, she thought, we would be poor and hungry. No more of that. Not for us.

  Patrick and Rose hugged the engaged pair with boisterous congratulations.

  Patrick thumped Tade on the back. “Grand news, but it’s time for the game. We’ll leave the women to talk of less important matters.” The two men left together, laughing.r />
  Nora and Rose spoke of housing and clothes and the life of married women. And the wedding. “The only decent thing I own is this shirtwaist. I can’t afford a new dress,” Nora said.

  Rose shook the blanket-tablecloth in a fierce billow. “Let’s talk to Molly Boyle, a fine seamstress. She might know of something to be done. I saw her here today.”

  Walking to the game, Nora carried solid little Tillie, the Murphy daughters following behind like ducklings. The littlest started to cry as more dirt and needles swirled into their faces, the wind stronger and colder. “There’s Molly,” Rose said, pointing at an angular, severe-faced woman. Rose introduced Nora, and they spoke about her need for a wedding dress as the wind flattened and whipped their skirts.

  “I tell you, I believe I can help,” Molly raised her voice to be heard above the soughing pines. “I ordered navy corduroy for a Welshmen who planned on going home dressed like a toff. But he went home in a coffin, leaving me with the goods. It’s a soft material. I can let you have it on the cheap if you don’t mind the story.”

  Nora did mind the story. The chill wind invading her engagement day along with this tale of the unlucky Welshman combined to flatten her spirits. Joyous as she’d felt, omens now conjured the despairing, helpless gloom that she’d hoped Tade’s proposal had banished forever.

  “Patrick and I will help as our gift,” Rose said, interrupting Nora’s somber thoughts. It was a generous offer and after all, the Welshman hadn’t touched the cloth. Rose and Molly waited.

  Foolishness, Nora chided herself. I mustn’t take a cool breeze and another’s bad luck as some dark portent. She accepted, forcing a smile and pushing away thoughts of the Welshman.

  Nora, Rose, and the girls, fidgeting with eagerness to see their father and Tade play, found seats on makeshift benches, snuggling together for warmth as the game began.

  The Gaelic football teams were divided by mines. It was an old game, dating in Ireland back to the sixteenth century. Nora hadn’t seen it played in Boston. Now she remembered its exuberant violence. Tade and the others crashed into one another with sickening thuds. Nora clutched her handkerchief and cried out as a giant on the other side tackled Tade and both came up with bloodied noses. Her gentle Tade blackened another man’s eye in the battle to get the ball, the lithroid croise, in the proper place. Nora squeezed her eyes shut, but the grunts, snaps, and shouts of players and onlookers sounded all the louder. She peeked again.

  Tade moved gracefully for a man so big, and in spite of alarm for his well-being and shock at the unharnessed aggression, Nora felt a thrill of pride and desire. Tade looked every bit the Irish hero with his black hair and muscular body. The fearful wind died down during the game, and Nora relaxed into the fun.

  A chill wind meant nothing. She must learn to truly believe in the future as Tade did.

  Tade’s team won and celebrated with mugs of stout, cigars cocked between split lips below swollen black eyes. At the evening’s dance the blind fiddler stopped his reel. “We’ve just been informed that Nora Flanagan and Tade Larkin are engaged. Let’s have the sweethearts lead this waltz.” He tucked the fiddle under his chin and began the tender melody.

  Nora’s heart filled. She’d found a wonderful man, a fortress. She had something real to make her proud. People surrounded them, friends who’d made something of themselves, happy for their happiness. White stars hung overhead as Nora floated in Tade’s arms. She remembered how on that first evening in Butte, she feared she’d taken too great a risk. Foolish. Because she’d come to be with this man she loved, she faced no risk at all, did she?

  Long into the night they listened to impassioned speeches for Irish independence. Political rhetoric filled every gathering of Butte. When stars washed into the graying dawn sky, parents wrapped blankets around sleeping children flushed from sun and fresh air and tucked them into wagons.

  Nora pillowed her head on Tade’s shoulder. Their wagon lurched in uneven ruts while it bore them down to the sulfurous smoke and wrenching noise of Butte, America.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the following weeks Nora visited Molly Boyle for her fittings. Molly constructed the bridal dress with a high neck and white lace flowers on the collar and sprinkled down long sleeves and a fitted waist.

  The engaged couple scrimped together a down payment for a two-bedroom house in Dublin Gulch. Like its neighbors, the narrow, one-story home suffered exposure to smoke and dirt, but it would be theirs. Nora pictured it with furniture, lace curtains, and bright-eyed children.

  Of course, they had to seek the loan first. They met at the bank’s front door. Nora felt thrilled but terrified that something might go wrong, that some fluke might cause them to be rejected.

  “Are you nervous about the meeting?” Tade asked as Nora’s free hand kept brushing an imaginary stray tendril of hair. “Don’t be. I can write my name. That’s all they want to see. That and a down payment. We have enough. They know we do.”

  The thin-lipped banker extended his hand to Tade, only nodding in Nora’s direction. Tade frowned, but Nora shook her head. She wanted no trouble. She wanted to own a house. The banker sat, gesturing that they do the same, his massive oak desk separating them. A safe jutted from the center of the wall behind his high-backed leather chair.

  Sitting erect beside Tade, aware they had nothing but the door to the street behind them, Nora tried to imagine the safe’s contents. Would it soon hold the very papers before them now? She could imagine nothing more valuable for it to protect.

  Tade gripped the banker’s heavy pen, making his signature, committing himself and his Nora to life in Dublin Gulch, Butte, America. Nora signed as well beneath his name, her hand shaking. The banker finally smiled. When he found her significant enough to notice, his eyebrows lifted in admiration. “It’s been my pleasure to help you establish yourselves in Butte. We hope to see more of you both. Best wishes in your new home and life, Ma’am, Mr. Larkin.”

  Elation filled Nora until it seemed she could float to the stenciled ceiling. People would see her now as an upright matron, owner of a piece of America. Could it be this easy? This fast? She groped for Tade’s hand and he squeezed hers before letting go to shake hands again with a man so prominent they would only see him at Mass in the future.

  By late July Nora yearned for one day to be hers alone before the wedding. Between arduous maid work, courtship, and life with the boisterous Murphys, she couldn’t think her own thoughts. She needed to reflect, to be sure that she wasn’t missing some means of preserving her lovely future with Tade. So on a sunny day off, she slipped out early, leaving a note for Rose.

  She waited at the livery for the hack driven by one Top Hat John, a lanky Civil War veteran. Top Hat didn’t want to leave her at the city’s edge all day, but rebellious in her frolic, she insisted. Images of the picnic had invaded her dreams. Bluebirds flew in her imagination. She craved one more day’s escape from all that acrid smoke and ceaseless noise, a day of solitude and beauty to prepare. She so wanted this life she didn’t quite believe could be hers. Was it truly possible?

  Nora alighted and sauntered along a wagon road flanked by pale grass. Thick berry bushes started up tall and green on either side. Pines, a few cottonwood and birch, harebells, mountain aster, and wild roses flourished. Nora breathed in the dry earth scent of sun-heated grass and forest. A trail led into tangled brush and marsh willows to the Silver Bow River. Gathering her skirts, she followed it.

  She sat on the bank watching the surface in its rhythmic wrinkling as the current rushed along. Sunshine warmed her back and arms. She slipped off her dusty shoes and smudged stockings and sighed in bliss. She looked about—not a soul to see. Butte urchins had their swimming holes on creeks closer to town.

  The river’s lure sang and sparkled. Nora took off every stitch and stepped into its reviving waters. She gasped at the freezing new element and her own daring. Her body adjusted and in minutes the act of floating through limpid ripples carried her back to Ireland.r />
  She and her brother once found a place like this. It was in the Wicklow Hills when they lived in a cave while Paddy hid from the peelers. The two children swam in ragged underwear, never self-conscious. They hadn’t known they should be. Tinker brats, they’d been happy in their half-wild state. She allowed herself to feel so again.

  Free. In all the striving, she’d forgotten how it felt.

  She swam, a pale body dappled by sunlight falling through lacey willow branches. When a cloud passed over, she rubbed away sudden goose bumps. As she turned to climb out, her knees buckled.

  Two Chinese men, one very tall, one short, stared at her from the bank. Axes hung from their belts. She submerged to her shoulders, crossed her arms over her breasts, and screamed, “What are you goggling at? You get away from me, you heathens!”

  The men dropped armloads of wood, spoke rapidly in their language, and fled.

  Staring into brush curtaining their exit, Nora shook. She’d freeze if she stayed put, but if she straightened up they might—if they still looked—see her naked as a jaybird. She scanned tangled shrubs and drooping branches. Nothing. Finally, teeth clattering, she scrambled out. River rocks bruised the arches of her feet. She snatched up her clothes, tugged and yanked as they fought her wet, resistant skin. Was it glue she’d gone swimming in? She ripped one sleeve at the shoulder, then stopped.

  Of course. She began slowly buttoning her shirtwaist. The axes. The poor devils were woodchoppers for the mines. She’d invaded their workplace. She snorted, sinking to a log to pull on her shoes. How shocked they’d seemed. How frightened she’d been. How foolish it all was.

  Tade had told her Chinese smoked opium and gambled all night, and “twas a fine thing immigration laws finally excluded them or Butte would be overrun by John Chinaman.” But Nora never gave the Celestials, as newspapers dubbed them, much thought after she arrived in Butte and saw their quiet neighborhood. People had misjudged her tinker family just to feel themselves higher on some made-up yardstick. She’d never be that way. Not even for Tade.