Colorado Gold

by Marian Wells

  She dropped her hands. “I don’t know hardly anything about life except what I see right here. But if there’s just one want, I want to have a piano and learn to make music on it. I know I could. It’s like it’s already inside, just waiting to come out.”

  “Oh, Amy Randolph!” the girl breathed softly, “You are such a child.” Amy lifted her chin and Lizzie continued, “I’ve never had a chance to be a fairy godmother, but I can’t resist it now. Come, Amy. Now before supper is over and the men come flocking in to play their games and sing their songs. Come, and I’ll let you play that piano.”

  Amy studied her face. Lizzie wasn’t teasing. “Do you know how to play a piano?”

  She nodded, “I also know the woman who runs the boardinghouse. I know she won’t mind if we go in and plunk a few keys. Come on.” Her hand tugged at Amy. Amy hesitated only a second. There would probably never be another chance.

  Together they flew down the hill, slipping and sliding, Lizzie laughing with excitement and Amy desperately determined.

  Wooden steps went down the hill to the back door of the boardinghouse. Amy hesitated on the steps. Through the high window, nearly on a level with her nose, she could see the piano. A cluster of candles threw flickering light across the polished wood. The ivory keys gleamed. She hurried after Lizzie.

  Inside, Lizzie skipped across the long room and closed the door, but not before Amy saw the dining room and the wash of rainbow colors. She heard the muted voices and heard the clink of dishes. When Lizzie returned she asked, “Won’t they wonder?”

  She shook her head. “No one will pay any heed.” Pulling the stool close she asked, “Can you read music?” Amy shook her head. Lizzie chewed her lip, instructed, “Watch my hands.”

  As her fingers rippled over the keys, Amy shivered with delight. “Oh, play something I know.”

  Lizzie’s face was mocking and her dark eyes shadowed as the gay, tinkling melody faded away. Now the somber chords of a hymn came from her fingers. Amy bent close and sang softly, “Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears.” She was still singing, “Before the throne my Surety stands; My name is written on His hands.” when Lizzie’s hands crashed down on the keys.

  It was an ugly chord, and Lizzie hissed, “Hush; it sounds like camp meeting and you’ll bring the house down around our ears.”

  Amy leaned against the piano as Lizzie swung into a rollicking melody. She sang the words and Amy attempted to follow. Now she whispered, “Please, let me try.” Lizzie got to her feet and Amy slipped onto the stool.

  “Start here,” Lizzie murmured pointing to the key right under the gold-lettered name. Amy’s fingers were moving, picking and she was humming. Lizzie beamed. “You’re a natural. Now let’s see if you can put music to my song.”

  She bent close and slowly sang the words. Amy fumbled with the keys, while Lizzie frowned and then beamed approval.

  Abruptly Amy realized she must bend close to see the keys. The sun had set and there was only the flickering light of the candles. “Oh! Father and Aunt Maude will be searching for me. Please, Lizzie, talk your friend into letting us do this again.”

  Lizzie followed her to the front door. Amy had turned for one more imploring word when she heard footsteps. Light from the dining room flooded the veranda. There could be no mistaking that coiled mass of graying hair, those sharp elbows akimbo. Amy flew backwards, bundling into the row of cloaks, and Lizzie followed.

  There was a thump on the door and quick steps.

  “My niece is here; I heard her singing.”

  “Oh, you’re the parson’s sister.” The woman’s voice answering was strident. “Do you church people have a corner on singing? Is the likes of us too rare for singing the grand old music? Be off, old lady. I’ll sing the songs I learned at my mother’s knee, God rest her soul.”

  The door slammed, Lizzie grasped Amy’s hand, dragging her to the back door. “I’ll be in trouble if we don’t get out of here!” Amy mourned. Lizzie shoved Amy through the door.

  Quickly Amy fumbled her way up the wooden steps and turned to run. Her first step threw her full force into a dark warm object. The exclamation and the rough fabric under her hand sent her reeling away. “Wait!” A hard hand came down on her shoulder and her face was tilted to the light of the moon.

  “Amy Randolph, what were you doing in that boardinghouse?” It was Daniel Gerrett and with a sigh of relief, Amy sagged against his arm.

  “Oh, Daniel! I thought for certain that Aunt Maude had caught up with me. But let’s go quick! That woman pretty nearly shoved her off the veranda, she could be coming this way.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Daniel said slowly. “What was your aunt doing in that place?”

  “She heard me. I don’t think they sing many church hymns in that place.”

  “That was you singing something about guilty fears?” His grip loosened. “Does your father know you were in there?”

  “No, he’s been in Denver City since early this morning. I met a girl, Lizzie. She was trying to teach me to play the piano.” In the dim light Amy could see the frown on Daniel’s face. “Honest. She knows the woman who runs the place.”

  “Playing the piano. That’s something to sneak around about?”

  She winced. “I guess I was being a sneak. Daniel, I wanted desperately to just touch that piano just once. I knew I could play it and I did!”

  “Why would your aunt object?”

  “She thinks everything around here is of the devil.”

  “Well, I’m not sure it isn’t. Though I don’t know much about devils.” He glanced around and then said, “But surely not pianos.”

  “Aunty believes the devil’s trying to get fancy music in church just to send us all to hell.”

  By the light of the moon, Amy could see the puzzled but unwavering look on Daniel’s face. She waited. Finally he sighed, “I don’t know how to get you out of this fix without getting you into a worse one. You can’t just walk home can you?” She shook her head. “If I take you home she’ll tack my hide to the front door, and there goes our friendship.”

  He took her hand and tugged. “Well, come on. If we don’t do something she’ll catch us standing right here.”

  They moved slowly down the street, with Daniel murmuring, “I suppose I should face the lionness, but I’m chicken enough to look for an easier way out. What if I take you to Aunt Clara’s? Then I’ll just happen to pass your Aunt Maude while she is searching for you. I’ll say I saw you up there and volunteer to fetch you home. She might even end up liking me after that kind deed!”

  Daniel was still chuckling when they heard the footsteps behind them. Aunt Maude! Before Amy could come up with an excuse, her aunt dashed toward her. Amy and Daniel both saw the tears on her face as she threw her arms around Amy.

  “It will never happen again,” she breathed into Amy’s collar, her voice so muffled that Amy could barely make out the words. “Not if I have anything to say about it!”

  Chapter 8

  Just past noon on a hot July day Amy heard the blast. Holding a wet towel in her hands, she stood ready to pin it to the clothesline when her attention was caught by the deep rumble. Overhead the parched leaves quivered in the swoosh of air one moment before the rumble became a blast. It was from Eureka Gulch.

  At the moment of the blast the noonday heat had left man and beast barely moving. Every sound seemed flattened and dull, and then it came.

  She turned to look up the mountainside. Dust was hanging, marking the spot. Strange and fearful as it was, she reacted by moving her shoulders uneasily.

  It was a big one. She shivered, thinking, Can’t live long in a mining camp before learning the difference between the big ones and the little ones.

  The images were beginning to form in her mind as she admitted the worst. This one had started with a feeling born earth-deep.

  Aunt Maude and Eli came spilling out of the cabin. Maude said, “Earthquake.”
Father shook his head. There was a sick expression on his face, just as there had been when the explosion happened in Mountain City. He said, “Think I’ll wander down to the post office.”

  He had only taken a step when the cry came. “It’s the Lucky Clover.”

  She knew, but he said it. “It’s the Gerrett’s claim.”

  Already there were men running up Eureka Gulch. Eli reached for her hand and she said, “No, I’d rather run.”

  By the time she turned up the road toward the claim, the first of the returning men met her. “Ain’t no use, Missy. The mountain plumb rose and settled. There’s no reason to dig.”

  “Both of them?”

  He shook his head. “No, the young fella wasn’t even there. He passed me running up the hill.”

  She kept on until she saw the wounded mountain and the tiny stream of smoke and dust. Men were standing around the broken timbers and tumble of rock. Amy stood uncertain, waiting, trembling.

  Now the men were milling around, with the same aimlessness she felt down inside—she need not be told there was nothing to be done. She saw Daniel close to the broken tumble of rock, standing with his head drooping.

  Amy climbed the slope behind the claim, found a rock in the shade and sat down before pressing her cold hands against her face. Father reached the top of the hill. She watched him walk through the crowd to Daniel’s side.

  As the sun crossed the sky and the rock became hot, Amy moved to the shade. The men were breaking away in clusters and heading down the mountain. Father left. Amy shifted her attention from the slumped figure of her friend and looked at the cabin close to the creek.

  Good water up here. Lots of it. She recalled some saying the biggest problem to be faced in the next few years would be to get enough water for the machinery. The Gerretts had the water.

  The cabin was worthless. All their time had been spent on the mine. She remembered Daniel saying how his pa wanted to work a mine. But Daniel had admitted he worked the mine just because of his pa; it wasn’t important to him. She sighed.

  He moved. She watched him kick at the shovel and pick lying on the ground. She knew she had to go down to him. He would be embarrassed if he knew she was watching.

  Amy went down the slope, sliding in the gravel. He heard her coming. From his face she knew there wasn’t anything to do but wait.

  “It’s cooling off a little,” she said. He nodded. Finally he pointed to the logs piled close. She knew they were fresh cut, intended for shoring up the tunnel once it was blasted clear.

  When he sat down beside her, she knew from the way he rubbed his hands over his face that he was pushing away the numbness and would talk.

  “I asked Pa to wait on the dynamite. He was rushing it. He had an offer, a good one if he could find color today. He couldn’t wait. I can’t imagine why he took the whole sack of dynamite in there with him. He’d sent me to town to get some more caps for it.”

  It was nearly dark. Restlessly Amy went to sit on the rocks overlooking the gulch. He followed, saying, “I heard you singing at the boardinghouse. I wanted to ask you to sing that hymn for me some time. Seems I heard Ma once; it might have been the same one. Would you?”

  Amy began, concentrating on the words, blocking out his face, and soon the words captured her and lifted, “…He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh….” When the hymn ended, he came to stand below the rock where she sat. His face reminded her of a lost child’s. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she put her arms around him and held his face against her shoulder. Child, man, friend, love.

  No, not that! Amy’s spirit shrank away from the thought as she felt his tears on her shoulder.

  When she finally walked down the mountain, alone, in the dark, she knew it was all over. There was nothing. Even that embryo emotion was gone, lost. She should never have hugged him so shamelessly. Amy trembled and stumbled in the night. What must he think of me?

  As she reached her own door, she stared at its blankness. Today a door slammed in Daniel’s life. Her sore heart ached for him. Drooping with fatigue, she slumped to the threshold wondering what would happen to Daniel. All over, like a slammed door. For both of them.

  Early the next day she heard the news at the store. It was from Joe. He took her money and handed over the pail of milk. “That Gerrett fella,” he said, without a flicker of emotion in his eyes. “Saw him packing out about sunup. Had one mule and a bundle. Didn’t look back.”

  Amy walked slowly home. It didn’t seem possible to share the news. Memories caught up with her, and she blushed at the thought of that silly time when she had challenged the young miner to kiss her. Now, measured against the last dark expression she had seen on Daniel’s face, she found herself wishing she could wipe out the memory and replace it with something he could hang on to. Something good.

  But there was nothing, not one good thing in all the times they had been together. And now, that last touch between them had ruined it all. While she had clung to him, feeling his warmth and aliveness, he had slipped away forever. Amy could feel only shame for her strange embrace.

  When she reached her own door, she muttered, “Seems, Amy, you haven’t got the sense of a mule. You don’t deserve a friend like Daniel. Lizzie is more the kind of friend you deserve—all froth.” Amy frowned. Inside, her heart was crying, It wasn’t just a friend I wanted.

  With her hand still on the latch, Amy shifted her thoughts, trying to give herself time to mask the pain that must be in her eyes.

  She thought of Lizzie’s fingers tripping over the piano keys, playing the hymn like it was a familiar one, almost more so than the rollicking songs. Yet there had been a scowl on her face as she played. Why? The words slipped into her mind. Kindred souls. But Lizzie hadn’t revealed her secret, her deepest desire. She was no kindred spirit.

  ****

  Daniel was in no hurry to reach Denver. Taking the torturous road winding steeply down Golden Gate Canyon to the settlement called Arapahoe, he let the mule pick her way. She stopped at every succulent weed, giving him plenty of time to think. By the end of the day, Daniel was certain he wanted to be done with mining forever.

  He fingered the coins in his pocket and thought of Indiana. It had been home. Once there had been a farm and a mother as well as a brother and sister.

  After some more thinking, Daniel sighed and muttered, “Can’t complain against the Almighty for taking off Ma and the little ones. Nearly every family in the valley lost at least one. Pa made a bad mistake. That’s all there is to it. If—”

  He sighed and tightened the reins on the wandering mule. For just a moment, his lips twisted in a grin as he looked at the mule’s seedy gray mane. What would Aunt Maude think of having a mule named after her? His lips twisted. “Maude, that’s enough.” He tugged the reins, and the mule turned her head and bared her teeth. “You’ll make yourself sick if you eat any more. And don’t glare at me like that; I’m no more afraid of you than I am of the lady you were named after.” The mule continued to eye him with a disapproving stare.

  “Matter of fact, I’m much more afraid of Aunt Maude.” He recalled Amy’s sweet face, her trusting blue eyes, and lingered over the memory of her arms, her embrace. He flicked the reins, sighing heavily.

  Staring at the mule he muttered, “I wouldn’t trade that hug for all the gold in Pikes Peak country, but with Aunt Maude in Central City, I best hightail out of there before I cause any more trouble.”

  That night Daniel camped beside a stream, breaking out of the rocks at the head of the canyon. As he made camp and went after water, he found his fingers fumbling through the gravel. “Habit dies hard,” he murmured, studying the swirl of mud and water. There was a brightness in the clearing water and without enthusiasm he scooped up a handful of stones and fished out the small bright nugget. He bit it, and the soft, heavy metal gave beneath his teeth. “Gold. Too bad Pa isn’t here; he’d get a kick out of it.” He tossed the nugget from hand to hand before sl
ipping it into his pocket. “Buy a couple of loaves of bread.”

  A twig snapped behind Daniel. Without rising, he rotated on his heels and reached for a large stone. A man strode into the clearing—a white man. Daniel sighed with relief as he got to his feet.

  “Saw the fire,” the man was speaking as he approached. “I have some bacon and coffee; mind if I share with you? The name’s Bill Kelly.”

  “I’ve heard that name,” Daniel said slowly, “but I don’t recollect anything else.”

  “Methodist missionary. I’m headed into Denver City to meet with some churchmen. You going that way?”

  Daniel nodded. “I’m down from Eureka Gulch. Had a mine up that way.”

  “So you’re mining. Central City?”

  He shook his head. “Not anymore. Sold out my claim for fifty dollars.” Kelly gave him a shrewd glance but said nothing as he kicked a log close to the fire and sat down. Daniel took a deep breath. “Lost my father in the mine. Dynamite.”

  “I’m sorry.” The man’s voice was deep and musical. “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday.” Daniel slanted a glance at him. The man’s hands were hanging limp between his knees and Daniel knew he was waiting. He blurted out the words, “I know it happens all the time, but why does it happen when things are rolling along smooth? I guess it’s just that you never expect something like this until it hits you. I—”

  He paused and looked into the man’s face. “Go ahead, son,” he said gently.

  The next day the pair walked into Denver City leading the mule. Kelly pointed out a little log cabin beside Cherry Creek. “That’s where I’m headed. Need to have a talk with the presiding elder. There’re plans in the making for a big quarterly meeting at Mountain City.”

  “What is that?”

  “The Methodist Episcopal Church has been organized in the area. Little and as struggling as we are, there’re big plans afoot. You might as well come and get in on them.”

  “I know the preacher in Central City; know his daughter too.”