Searching for Silverheels

by Jeannie Mobley

  CHAPTER 16

  The next morning, we said good-bye to Frank on the platform. Annie had already gotten Robert aboard and I could see him through the window, his head flopped back and his mouth open in a snore. Frank was distracted, worrying about Annie as he was, so our parting was brief. With a reminder to write, I gave him my address. It was just “General Delivery, Como, Colorado,” but I wrote it out for him anyway.

  “Don’t forget to write me, too,” he said. He gave my hand a quick squeeze before he stepped up into the train. He waved through the window as the train pulled out. I waved back, and I kept waving until the train was nearly out of sight.

  When it was finally gone, I turned back, only to see George leaning against the depot, watching me and looking a little hurt. Guilt swept over me.

  “That was Willie’s new friend, headed back to Denver. They went camping yesterday,” I said quickly. “I suppose that’s the last we’ll ever see of him.”

  “Would you be sorry if it was?” George asked.

  I hesitated, then forced myself to shrug as if I didn’t care. “He was a nice enough kid, and he paid well for a tour of Buckskin Joe,” I said.

  “Would you prefer him taking you to the Fourth of July picnic, instead of me?” George asked, frowning.

  I hurried to his side and wrapped my arm through his. “Of course not, George. I barely know him. He’s a tourist, that’s all. I want to go to the picnic with you.”

  “I just thought if we were going together, you’d have more time for me, that’s all,” George said. “I came by the café after supper to see you last night, and you’d gone off with him again.”

  “I’m sorry. If I’d known you were coming to the café, I wouldn’t have gone,” I said, wondering even as I said it whether or not it was true. He looked skeptical, so I added, “I’d rather spend time with you, George.”

  He gave me just a hint of a smile, like the sun gleaming around the edge of a cloud. “I’d like that, Pearl. But I have to be able to trust you. You spend all that time with that city boy, and now I hear your mother’s invited Josie to campaign in the café every day at lunch, too.”

  “She was just trying to help Mr. Orenbach,” I said.

  “A German?”

  “He’s a neighbor. You know he’s been here for years, and he’s never done one bad thing to anyone.”

  “My mother says that’s the way the enemy works. They gain your trust and then they use it to spy for the kaiser.”

  “Why would the kaiser want to spy on Como?” The idea was ridiculous.

  George patted my cheek. “You’re so sweet, Pearl. You see the good in everyone. It’s just that sometimes, it’s easy for an innocent girl like you to be fooled. That’s why I want to look after you.”

  I smiled back, relieved that he had forgiven me for seeing off Frank’s train. We began walking away from the depot, and I tried to assure myself that his concerns were romantic. I’d always dreamed of a man who would want to protect me and take care of me. It should all feel perfect, shouldn’t it? He wanted to be with me, and thought I was sweet, and that made me the luckiest girl in Park County.

  “What would you like for your picnic?” I asked. “Fried chicken, maybe? Or cold sliced ham, if it’s a hot day? What is your favorite?”

  “You are, Pearl.”

  I blushed, despite myself. He smiled as the blood filled my cheeks, the full beam this time. The smile that made it hard for me to think.

  “Surprise me,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll like anything you cook.” He stopped walking, and turned to face me.

  “I have to go, Pearl. I have to help my father in the store today. But I’ll be thinking about you. See you later, okay?” He smiled and gave both my hands a warm squeeze right there in the middle of the street, where everyone could see. I hoped they were all looking.

  I watched him go, caressing the warm spot where his lips had touched my skin. He was so handsome, I didn’t deserve him, but here he was, walking with me and kissing my cheek.

  Back in the café, the breakfast crowd had all gone and mother was hard at work in the kitchen. She was lifting one batch of golden-brown pies out of the oven and putting another batch in. The sweet tang of rhubarb filled the air. Mother smiled when she saw me.

  “Frank got off without a hitch?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. He seemed to think Robert would sleep most of the way to Denver.”

  “I should imagine,” Mother said, her mouth tightening at the corners at the mention of Robert.

  “You’ve made extra pies,” I noted.

  “Yes. Mrs. Larson brought me fresh rhubarb from her farm, but not everyone likes rhubarb, so I’m making apple, too. Next week, Mrs. Larsen said she’d bring us fresh strawberries.”

  She knew my favorite was fresh strawberry, with thick whipped cream on the top.

  “Let’s just hope the sugar supply holds out through cherry season. There’s talk of rationing, you know, for the war effort. I can sweeten cakes and sweet rolls with raisins, but I need sugar for a good pie.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t imagine this town without my mother’s pies. Half of the business and most of the gossip in Como took place over pie and coffee in the Silverheels Café.

  I was still thinking about it when Mother placed a warm apple pie in a basket and set it in front of me. “I want you to take this to Mrs. Gilbert to thank her for her help last night. Oh, wait.”

  She cut a wedge of cheddar cheese off the big ring on the counter and tucked it into the corner of the basket. I looked at the whole thing with apprehension. George had already heard about Mother letting Josie campaign here—what if he caught me going to or coming from her house again? How would I explain the gift of a whole apple pie and still maintain that my mother and I wanted nothing to do with Josie?

  “Maybe we should let the pie cool a little longer before we take it over,” I suggested. Maybe we could wait until Josie came in at lunchtime and we could let everyone think she had just bought the pie.

  “Nonsense, Pearl. An apple pie is best when it is fresh out of the oven. I sent one home with Russell this morning, but Mrs. Gilbert didn’t come in, so I want you to take this one to her while it’s still warm.”

  I sighed. There was no way around it. I took the basket and slipped out the back door. I made my way around the back as best as I could, avoiding Main Street where the whole town could see me.

  Josie answered her door in her usual grubby miner’s overalls and a heavy leather apron. Her fingertips were black with ink. She looked neither surprised nor pleased to see me. She just gave a little grunt, as if that were a sufficient greeting, and turned back into the room. I followed, but was only one step past her doormat when she barked, “Shoes!”

  Glancing down at her own feet, I saw she wore only thick wool socks, her rolling gait more awkward than ever. I found myself staring. One of her feet was noticeably shorter than the other, and the end of the sock, where her toes should have been, flopped loose and empty. No wonder she walked the way she did—the toes on her left foot were missing!

  “Stop gawking and get over here!” she barked again, even sharper than before.

  “My mother sent you an apple pie to thank you for your help last night,” I said as I unlaced my shoes. “It’s still warm.”

  “I don’t have time for pie, girl. Set it on the table and get over here.”

  I took the basket to the table and lifted the pie out, so the crust wouldn’t get soggy. There wasn’t much room for it on the table. Josie had stacks of newspapers there—the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, but more than that—the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. I had never seen newspapers from big cities before. They were twice as thick as any paper I’d ever seen, and I wondered how so much could be happening that they could fill papers that size. I wanted to open one, read it, and look at the ads for the fashionable city clothes, but before I could ask, Josie barked at me again.

  “I haven’t got all day, girl.
What’s keeping you?”

  “I only came to deliver the pie for my mother,” I said, edging back toward the door.

  “You already said that. Now stop lollygagging and give me a hand.”

  I crossed the room and entered the area behind the rail, where the printing press stood. “A hand with what?” I asked.

  “Stand there,” she said, positioning me on the opposite side of the press from her. She snatched a piece of white paper off a stack and deftly inserted it into a binder that hinged down over the inky plate of metal type that would produce the printed page. In the brief moment it was visible I could not read the plate, as all the letters and words were backward. Once she had the paper in place, she pointed.

  “Pull that lever,” she said.

  I did, and the platform holding the paper and plate slid smoothly forward until it was directly beneath a massive steel slab in the machine’s center.

  “Now pull that one there,” she said, pointing upward to another lever above my head. “Good and hard.”

  I pulled the arm downward, and a series of gears turned. The heavy metal slab clamped down, pressing the paper into the typeset plate.

  “Good. Now release it and pull it out,” she said, pointing back at the first lever. I reversed my actions. The press opened and the papers slid out. Quick as a wink, Josie had the printed sheet out, a new sheet in, and had me pulling the levers again. While I did, she lay a sheet of blotting paper over the freshly printed page, rolled them up, and slid the roll into one of the many little cubicles on the wall. Even as she stowed it, she was reaching for a new sheet.

  It was fascinating to see the blank pages going in and the printed ones coming out, and the rhythm of Josie’s movements that kept the process from coming to a standstill. She commanded me to pull the levers again, and I tried to match her rhythms.

  “Frank left on the train this morning,” I said, once I felt it was going smoothly and getting a little dull.

  “Hush, girl. Keep your mind on your work.”

  I thought of telling her this wasn’t my work, it was hers, but instead I did as I was told. The next sheet of paper went in faster, and the next faster still. We had settled into a rhythm, our movements slotting in against each other, like all the other parts of the machine.

  We continued until the stack of papers was gone and all the pigeonholes on the wall were filled with rolled papers.

  “Well,” she said as she rolled the last page and slid it into the last little space on the wall, “that should hold me through the lunch rush.”

  I let go of the lever as if it was a hot coal. How could I have been so stupid? I had been so fascinated by the machine, I hadn’t thought about what we were printing. “These are your handbills?” I said.

  Josie smiled with that look that said she’d been waiting for this moment. “What else would I be printing? And since you helped me so willingly, I assume that means I’ve won our little wager and you’ve finally seen the light?” She walked past me, ignoring my angry sputtering, leaving me alone by the machine. She cleared the stacked newspapers off the table and put the kettle on the stove top.

  “Tea and pie?” she asked.

  “You haven’t won,” I said, hurrying after her.

  She went on about her business, putting tea leaves in a pot, setting two mugs on the table, getting out forks and plates for the pie.

  “The real work of curing those miners was done by Mrs. Weldon and her daughter,” she said.

  “Who?” For one horrible moment, I thought she had found some kind of new proof, but she pointed at my apron pocket where I had put the list of names from the graves after our last conversation.

  “Wasn’t that the name? Elijah Weldon, and his Indian wife? What’s a good Indian name?”

  I thought for a moment. Indian women in my penny dreadfuls were always named after pretty flowers or gentle animals. “Prairie Rose?” I suggested.

  “Okay. Prairie Rose Weldon and her daughter.” She paused and thought. “Sefa.” Josie paused again to pour the boiling water into the teapot.

  I didn’t know what she meant to accomplish, making up these characters, but I was curious. “And how do you propose Prairie Rose and Sefa did that?” I asked.

  “I figure Eli Weldon stuck around for the same reason most of the other men did, to protect his claim. Leaving a claim unwatched or unworked for even a few days was inviting claim jumpers. With news of the sickness, claim jumpers were no doubt circling like vultures. If a man didn’t show up to work his sluice in the morning, it would have been taken over by lunchtime.”

  “But they would have to give it back once the owner got better and came back to it, right?”

  “Possession, as they say, is nine-tenths of the law, girl. And the other tenth, a sheriff or district court, didn’t come to Buckskin Joe till much later. The only way to get a claim back was to shoot the claim jumper, provided he didn’t manage to shoot you first. So to men like Eli Weldon, the only reason to risk smallpox was to protect a claim that was producing or to steal one from the dead or dying. It was a dangerous gamble. Every man on that list of yours is one who took it and lost.

  “There were a few who contracted smallpox at the very beginning who never had a chance to flee, but there are too many men on that list for it to simply be ignorance. Some of them must have figured they could cheat death. They stocked up on elixirs from snake-oil salesmen and thought they’d be protected.

  “Now Eli Weldon had been a fur trapper, a mountain man, and a gambler all his life. He was a natural born risk taker, but he wasn’t a fool. Fools didn’t survive in the mountains, and he’d been there for years. What’s more, he’d sired two or three strapping young sons with the Pawnee wife he’d won in that card game years ago. And having a woman of his own and a few little boys had domesticated him. He liked the comfort of civilization, and he’d decided to strike it rich, build a mansion in Denver for his family, and retire to a life of luxury like a proper gentleman.

  “He couldn’t do that if someone got at his claim, though, so he sent his wife and sons to safety and kept his stepdaughter with him to administer the herbal cures of Prairie Rose, should he get sick. And little Sefa was a good obedient child who did as she was told without a thought for herself. She was tearful as she said good-bye to her mother and brothers, the only people in the world who loved her.”

  “Why didn’t she go with them? I mean, if Prairie Rose loved her, she would have insisted that Sefa go with her to safety too.”

  “Because wives must do as their husbands demand,” Josie said.

  “Sefa could have run away,” I said.

  “Sefa was a good obedient child that did as she was told. Just like you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe even a stepfather would have been that cruel, and if it meant risking her own life, I don’t believe the girl would have stayed,” I said. “Why would she?”

  “Why will Frank’s fool sister stay with that no-good Robert?” Josie countered.

  I frowned. I wanted to say that was different, but I knew Josie would demand to know how it was different, and I didn’t have an answer.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Sefa needed another reason to stay.” She thought a moment, then snapped her fingers. “I know—she, too, had fallen victim to the handsome, swaggering Buck Wilson. She harbored a secret love for him, like every other woman in town. And Buck, never one to leave a woman uncharmed, gave her just enough encouragement for her silly, romantic imagination to carry her away. So she stayed to be near him, maybe even to save his life with her mother’s cures when the smallpox hit.”

  “But she didn’t save him. No one did. He’s in the graveyard,” I said.

  “Best laid plans, Pearl. That graveyard is full of their failures. Sefa Weldon stayed to save her beloved and her stepfather, but when both were lost, she turned her attention to the rest of the camp to save who she could. Silverheels probably never cured a single man. She just took the credit for it.”

&
nbsp; “Then why would she have stayed?”

  Josie gave a little laugh. “Remember those claim jumpers, circling like vultures?”

  “That’s ridiculous! How could a dancer have been a claim jumper?”

  “She was a beloved dancer, Pearl. Who better for a dying miner to give his gold to? Who better to ask to send his money off to his family? She didn’t need to set finger on a shovel. She just smiled and batted her lashes, and raked in the gold. But she had competition in Buck. Not that any of the miners fell in love with him, but they trusted him, thought he was an honest, upstanding man. He’d generously helped more than one of them whenever they needed it, so he knew where everyone’s strikes were, and what was producing. All he had to do was wait.

  “I wonder if Silverheels and Wilson were working together or against each other. Perhaps you are right and they were sweethearts. Perhaps they joined forces, though it’s hard to imagine two such slippery and greedy grifters having a true partnership. More likely, they were competing. Maybe they even had a wager, as you and I do, to see who could take the most. Buck Wilson probably thought he had an edge over the dancer, because he had that cow-eyed Indian girl in love with him, ready to protect him with her medicines. All he had to do was smile at Sefa and she would do anything he asked.”

  “No,” I said. “Buck and Silverheels were in love. True love. He wouldn’t have led Sefa on, not even for life-saving medicine. Maybe that’s why he died. He gave the medicine meant for him to Silverheels to keep her safe. He sacrificed his life to save her.”

  “I’ll grant there was probably a mutual attraction between Buck and Silverheels. To someone like Buck, Silverheels would have been the ultimate conquest. There’s no victory sweeter to a con man than to con another con. No doubt she saw the same in him.