Colorado Gold

by Marian Wells

  Suddenly Father smiled at Daniel, and their hands came out. He said, “Join us for worship again, and bring your father.” He studied Daniel’s face a moment and turned to Amy. “Why don’t you hurry on home. I’ll bring the pail.”

  Once Amy was out of sight, Eli turned to Daniel. Before he could speak, the youth blurted, “Sir, I think a lot of your daughter, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d—well I’d like to see her—more.”

  Eli chewed the corner of his mouth. “My daughter said you wanted to talk about becoming a Christian.” Daniel was nodding, not eagerly, just slowly, looking puzzled. Eli thought about Aunt Maude’s appraisal of the situation.

  Glancing up at the youth, Eli spoke slowly. “I wouldn’t want you to get confused about all this. Sometimes a person makes a commitment to God for the wrong reasons. Seems to me it might be a good idea to go at life one step at a time.

  “That way there won’t be any confusion over—motives.” He paused. “Later we can talk about your courting Amy.”

  At the end of the day, Amy still didn’t know what it was like to be kissed, but without a doubt, Father liked Daniel. And there had been one second of special feeling when Daniel had looked at her. That was more important than anything else right now.

  It was definitely spring. The roads had dried completely, and the supply wagon came more frequently. On a day especially warm and bright, it brought its most precious cargo yet—at least Amy thought so.

  She was outside, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her head as she hung the wet towels and sheets on the line and listened to dogs barking and men shouting. Then she heard the wagon bumping slowly over the rocky road.

  Aunt Maude heard it, too. She came to the door. “Sounds as if that fellow is driving like he’s afraid of breaking eggs.” The wagon came around the bend and they saw the towering bundle in the middle of the wagon. Two men were standing in the wagon beside straining ropes, and Aunt Maude snorted, “Like ants holding back a mountain. Don’t know what it is unless it’s the new stamp mill, but it’s sure precious.”

  Amy pinned the last sheet to the line and said, “I’m going to walk down the road and watch.”

  She reached the wagon just as the last swaddling robe was removed. Amy gasped, “A piano! A dark, shiny, mahogany piano. Just like the one at the hotel in Kansas.”

  She held her breath as the men clustered around the wagon and lifted the piano across the dusty road to the new boardinghouse.

  Aunt Clara came out of the store and walked up the street to stand beside her. “Piano. I see they’re moving it into the boardinghouse. Well, I declare. Mighty fancy. I would like to hear it myself, but I don’t suppose a flock of pretty ladies would invite an old darky to their fancy party just to listen to piano playing. I’d be willing to wash the dishes to hear a bit.”

  “Oh,” Amy moaned, “do you suppose they would let me go see it? I’ve never touched a piano. Would they invite me?”

  Aunt Clara glanced sharply at Amy. “Lands, you’re more of a child than I thought you were. Do you see?” She pointed to the two-story log building. “That’s a house of ill repute being started up here. You go in that place and I’ll help your pa and aunty skin you alive.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Aunt Clara shrugged and lifted her hands sky-high. “Lord, what do I say now?” Looking at Amy she said, “My, how could they neglect your education?” She stretched out the word education; then Aunt Clara sighed and continued, “No wonder—Aunt Maude, bless her, she’s a frozen potato. Now come along, let’s get off this street before we all get sucked into sin.” She shoved the sack of beans into Amy’s hands and picked up the towering basket of laundry.

  They started up the road toward Eureka Gulch. When Aunt Clara stopped to rest, Amy remembered the time she had come upon Aunt Clara beside the road, having a shouting spell.

  Now her dark face was very sober. Bending toward Amy, she began, “Child, all those pretty ladies in the ruffled dresses were here to spy out the land. Those ones you’ve been eyeing and envying—they can lead you astray.”

  “So they are ladies of the night. Dance-hall girls,” Amy answered quickly. “Aunt Clara, I wasn’t born yesterday. I just didn’t know they were truly moving into town. You know, I’m not interested in being led astray or anywhere else.

  “There’s only one thing I want—to learn to play the piano. I’d be happy if I could just push those keys a few times.”

  There were quick steps crunching through the rocks. With dismay Amy cried, “Oh, Aunt Maude.” Her aunt’s face was twisted into a frown until she spied Amy’s companion.

  Still panting, Aunt Maude exclaimed, “Aunt Clara! I was afraid—I see she’s helping you. Amy, did you satisfy your curiosity? Why didn’t you come home?”

  Amy shrugged and said, “It was a piano. They carried it into the new boardinghouse.”

  Aunt Maude rocked back on her heels. “Piano!” she cried, flinging her hands high. “Piano! Lord, what will become of us all? So that’s the kind of boardinghouse it is. The devil himself has moved into town.”

  Aunt Clara Brown spoke heavily, “Law, Missy, it isn’t the piano that’s going to get your girl into trouble. I’ve heard some pretty music come outta one. I’m guessing one of these days we’ll be seeing pianos right in the middle of church. Can’t be a detriment to worship if it’s teaching a body or two about singing the right notes.”

  Amy pleaded, “Oh, Aunt Maude, even Aunt Clara thinks a piano is a good thing. If only I could learn to play!” Amy was still pushing her case as Eli came toward them. “Oh, Father! It’s a piano. They’ve moved it into the boardinghouse. If only I could learn to play it. Aunt Clara says—” She stopped midsentence. From his frown and the white line around his lips, Amy knew it didn’t matter what Aunt Clara thought.

  With a sigh of resignation Amy sat down on the rock beside Clara. Wearily she said, “I know all about the dance-hall girls being bad, about them showing their legs and about the dances. I’ve been hearing about them forever. Does being in a building with dance-hall girls make a piano bad?”

  She waited, staring up at them. While the anger surged through her, she forced a smile into place.

  Suddenly she straightened. “What if there was a concert? Like the one back home. Remember when that man came and played? What if—”

  Father’s voice was slow and weary as he said, “Come, Amy. It’s getting late.”

  “I was helping Aunt Clara up the hill.” Slowly getting to her feet, Amy felt despair like a dash of cold water. Trying to find the heart to accept, she looked at Aunt Clara. The woman was blinking tears out of her eyes. For a moment Amy was comforted. She knew Aunt Clara understood, but she also knew the ache to touch the piano wouldn’t die.

  “Child,” Aunt Clara murmured as she stacked the beans on top of the laundry basket. “You best go home. I can make it fine; see we’re nearly to the top of the hill.”

  As Amy started down the hill after her father and aunt, she could hear the first tinkling notes from the piano. The joyful, lilting sound drifted through the streets. For a moment Amy closed her eyes, seeing her own fingers moving over the keys. She clenched her fists to shut out the ache in the tips of her fingers.

  “Coming, Amy?” Her eyes popped open. Father was waiting, holding out his hand; surprisingly, she saw regret mingled with a strange pain. She hesitated a moment before allowing him to take her hand in his.

  Chapter 7

  Amy walked along the rain-freshened street. Yesterday’s dust had turned to tan liquid, while the drooping grasses and bedraggled blossoms glistened with moisture.

  She stopped to examine the last of the yellow avalanche lilies and the tiny pink bitterroot. Tall woody stalks of purple, fan-shaped flowers were beginning to bloom. Lifting one blossom with her finger, she said, “It’s about time. Back home—” She stopped and sighed.

  Back home in Kansas, the hills would have been covered with a carpet of color since March. Here the mountain weather w
asn’t that kind. But it would do no good to mourn the differences. Amy tightened her grip on the newspapers and letters and cut up the rocky slope to the Randolph cabin.

  Before she opened the door she stopped to admire the new, well-oiled hinges, and the way the door stood square in its frame. Looking across the street at the pile of logs, she said, “Hope it doesn’t take as long to build a church as it does to put hinges on a door.”

  Eli came to the door and reached for the mail. “Father, they’ll need to hurry if that pile of logs will become a church before Independence Day.”

  He lifted his head from the newspaper and said, “Independence Day? Better think toward September, unless I raise the logs myself. There’s too much happening in the diggings right now.” There was a touch of sadness in his voice as he added, “I can’t pry a fellow away to build something as unexciting as a church. What about your friend Daniel? Their mining isn’t showing much color. Would he and his father help out a bit?”

  Amy studied her father’s graying hair and the deep sad lines on his face. His statement about raising the logs made her see things she had been ignoring. He was getting old. What would happen to me if he were to die? Amy’s throat tightened and she shook her head impatiently.

  Eli waved his newspaper and shook his head in disgust. “The paper’s full of war talk. There’s a push to get this end of Kansas Territory designated a new and separate territory. And both the North and South want us to side with them.” His voice was solemn. “The slave problem will pull us into war sooner or later. If Lincoln is elected President, I guess we’ll be forced into action. The South’s making no bones about their feelings, and Lincoln will push the slavery issue first thing.”

  She pondered his words. Slavery issue. The words sounded stuffy, but the expression in his eyes made her recall the conversation up at Clara Brown’s cabin. She moved her shoulders uneasily. Somehow this summer seemed to be different. Even Father and Aunt Maude were pulling the wrappings away from her, forcing her to see life. But what was it they wanted her to see?

  Eli tugged at the newspaper, continuing, “Slavery is an issue, even in this end of the territory. There’s bad feelings against Aunt Clara Brown. A more gentle woman I’ve never known.”

  “And that man she’s letting live in her woodshed,” Amy said slowly. “Yesterday, down by Joe’s store, a fellow on a horse tried to run him off the street. Called him a bad word. Father, do you think Barney Ford is a runaway slave?”

  “I don’t know,” Eli turned to peer at Amy. “But then, does it matter? He’s here, and I’ll accept him at face value.”

  “How’s that?” Aunt Maude asked.

  “As a dignified man, trying hard to earn a living and reunite his family.”

  Their conversation still nagged at Amy the next day as she strolled through town. Thinking about the changes in Central City, she wondered if life had also changed in Kansas.

  Sometimes it seemed as if most of the people in the United States had streamed into the mountains, armed with gold pans and picks. All spring she had watched them come, thinking, Soon there won’t be room for one more pair of feet in the creek, let alone room to wash a pan of gravel.

  These days, after her father’s reference to the tug-of-war over the Pikes Peak area, Amy became more conscious than ever of the men trickling into the mining town.

  They were dressed either like gentlemen or in the frayed, coarse garb of the miner. But there was a difference. In the conversations echoing through the streets, she heard soft southern accents slipped in beside the flat, clipped speech of the northerners. North and South, like Father said.

  One thing that hadn’t changed was the lack of women. Several women had joined their men, but the bright-bird foliage of the dance-hall girls was still in the majority.

  Of the feminine faces, Amy had to admit, they were the most attractive. The newcomers were as stern-faced and rough-clad as their husbands. And not one was young enough to claim as friend.

  Amy’s wandering walks continued around the mining town. Her favorite time of day was late afternoon, before supper and after Aunt Maude had exhausted her daily store of tasks.

  She grew to love the summer evening walks. With the sun behind the mountains, the yellow soil no longer threw heat into her face, and the day mellowed out like a soft sigh.

  In the evening, on a high perch above town, Amy found she could keep track of all the comings and goings. Seated on her favorite rock wedged between the cedar trees, she watched the miners breaking out of the hills, heading for home. Some limped along slowly. It was easy to guess it had been another bad day for them, hacking through rough rock without the slightest promise of color.

  But others moved briskly down the hill. Amy watched them swinging along, jumping the creek and heading for one of the three new saloons.

  One evening as she sat on her rock, she could hear a sound coming from the boardinghouse. Someone was running fingers across the piano keys.

  Amy moved restlessly on the rock and pressed her hands across her eyes as she tried to imagine being in that room. She could nearly feel the keys; could nearly guess the sound each touch would bring.

  “What’s wrong?” Amy raised her head and looked into the face of a girl bending over her.

  Amy blinked and stared at the girl, dumbfounded. Finally she came to her senses and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I was seeing visions.” The girl wore a neat calico frock, a band of black ribbon holding curls away from her face.

  “Visions?”

  “I mean, I’ve wanted to meet a person like you for so long—you know, a girl my age—I, well, I thought I was dreaming. Suddenly Amy burst into a barrage of questions. “Who are you? Did you just arrive? Is your father a miner? Where do you live?”

  The faint frown and the concerned look disappeared. Now the girl chuckled and settled down beside Amy. “I guess you’ve been out here for some time.”

  Amy nodded. “Nearly a year. In all that time I haven’t seen a soul my age except for dance-hall girls. I do hear there’s families moving into Denver. We haven’t been there since last summer, so it doesn’t help me a bit. I’m looking forward to conference time.” She added, “My father is the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church.”

  “Oh,” the girl nodded. “I’m Elizabeth Steele. I’ve always been called Lizzie.”

  “I’m Amy Randolph. Tell me all about yourself. Where are you from? I love the way you fix your hair. It’s a pretty color. Mine’s so curly I can’t do a thing with it.”

  Lizzie leaned back and looked critically. “It’s not so bad. But at your age I’d expect curls instead of braids.”

  “My aunt.”

  “Oh, well, why don’t you just start with a few little curls around your face? I’ll show you.”

  Lizzie bent over Amy and began brushing curls loose from her braids. Amy said, “My mother is dead and my Aunt Maude is ancient. Poor soul, I can’t yawn without shocking her.”

  “I know. I’ve aunts like that back in New York state. Our generation will just have to clear all the debris out of the tracks before we can make time.”

  Amy’s eyes widened at the strange expression. She said, “New York. I suppose we really seem backwoodsy to you.”

  “You seemed so sad when I first saw you, is it—”

  Amy said hastily, “I’m not sad. I was listening to someone plunking on that piano and I was wishing with all I had that I could just go down and play it. Just once.” She knew she was pleading and she clenched her hands into fists.

  Lizzie studied Amy. Slowly she said, “Seems if you want to play a piano that bad, there ought to be a way. Won’t they get you a piano?”

  “Father can’t afford a piano. Besides, Aunt Maude thinks they’re of the devil.”

  Lizzie shrugged. “You don’t like to shock the older ones, but sometimes you have to. It isn’t right to let someone’s opinions ruin your life. Now take pianos—”

  Amy frowned and then caught her breath. Lizzie w
as saying, “…free spirit. We can’t let all the old people tell us how to live. After all, they broke the rules their parents made.”

  “We do think alike,” Amy whispered. “Oh, I don’t want you to think I want to be bad; it’s just that I feel so stifled, and sometimes—”

  “I know. Sometimes I wish I were more brave. I hear about some of the things others do and I wish—Amy, did you hear about what happened last week? Four of the girls from the boardinghouse nearly stampeded the supply wagon team.”

  Amy whispered, “I heard! I couldn’t admit it to anyone, but for just a second I couldn’t help wishing I were one of those girls racing the pony carts down the middle of town.”

  “It could have been dangerous,” Lizzie added. “Just as the supply wagon took the corner, they came charging right at him.” Lizzie snickered behind her hand. She shook her head, but her eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’m not that daring, but it sounded like high fun.”

  Amy nodded, whispering, “I thought so, too.” Then she added, “I hear the fellow with the team was angry. He had three kegs of molasses tip and run all over his wagon. Got it in the mail bag. Ugh!”

  Lizzie said, “I’ve seen a few shootouts since I’ve come west. I wonder if they shoot women for riding horses like that.”

  “You’re teasing.” Amy looked into the mocking brown eyes. “I don’t shock that easy. I’ve seen a gun fight, too.” She paused and then blurted out the words. “Somehow I think you’re just like me on the inside.”

  Lizzie’s solemn face moved closer. “Do you think so? Then tell me, what is it that you want more than anything else in the world. If you tell me, I’ll tell you what I want.”

  Amy had to cover her face to shut out the curious eyes. She thought about the question. After sorting through everything, measuring the shabby cabin, Aunt Maude, the bottomless feeling of her life, there was only one thing.