by Ann Parker
He seized her freed hand and held it open. “Done much needlework, Miss Thomas? Lace? Embroidery?”
“Some,” she said, startled. “My ma used to say I could maybe earn my way with a needle. Why?”
“Nimble fingers required.” He dropped her hand. “Okay, Miss Thomas. Here’s my decision. If you start now, this very moment, I’ll give you the opportunity to learn the typesetter’s trade. I need help with tomorrow’s issue, tout suite. The pressmen are due in tonight, and I’m behind.”
Zelda thought she detected a note of panic in his tone.
He then straightened, pulled his slouched shoulders back. “If you prove out today, I’ll ask you to come back tomorrow. If tomorrow goes well, I’ll pay you at close. Dollar-fifty a day. The first time you’re late, or a mistake gets into print, you’re fired. I can’t afford slip-ups.” He stared, as if daring her to turn tail and run.
Instead, she squared her shoulders to match his. “Thank you, Mr. Elliston. You won’t be sorry.” A dollar-fifty a day! She could hardly believe her ears, or her luck. Not as good as whorin’, but a whole lot better than fixin’ lace.
“I’ve often heard the theory posed that women—some women, in any case—are superior to men in the matter of typesetting. Hard for me to believe that a woman is superior anywhere outside the domestic realm, but I’m an open-minded sort.”
He gestured to a coatrack beside a desk overflowing with stacks and crumpled balls of paper. “For your coat and hat.”
“I’ll keep ’em on, if that’s all right,” she said, not wanting to reveal her face any more than necessary.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He crossed to a row of pegs alongside one of the huge hulking machines and pulled off a canvas apron smeared with ink. “You’ll need this, though. Now, for your first lesson.” He led her over to a tall set of drawers, and pulled one open. “Type cases here. They come in pairs. The upper case holds capitals, small capitals, fractions, braces, and so on. The lower case holds small letters, points, spaces, quadrats, and the like. Over here is a form, ready to go, with case, type, lead, and furniture.”
***
Quoin.
Composing stick.
Leads.
Heel nicks.
Widows and orphans.
The words filled her mind like small fish swimming in a stream. More words, the type sizes, bobbed like so much foam on top: Excelsior. Agate. Long Primer.
Her back ached, her fingertips were inky and tender, her eyes watered from looking at all those little letters, and her head felt like it couldn’t hold another thing. But, as she stared down at the half-page she’d set—with Mr. Elliston barking and pointing and telling her what to do—her heart felt different. Swelled with pride. She’d done it!
What’s more, after fixing a last paragraph so as not to have a lone word sulking by itself on the last line of the page—a widow-word, that’s what it’s called—Mr. Elliston had actually said, “Good job, Miss Thomas.” Although he’d uttered the words a touch grumpily, like he didn’t really want to, like someone held a pistol at his back.
Then, he’d added, “You seem to have a natural faculty for this kind of work, Miss Thomas.”
Now, she wasn’t entirely sure about the word “faculty,” but it must’ve meant something good, because he’d actually smiled when he said it.
Pride goeth before a fall.
Her pa’s voice whispered in her head. She stroked her hands down the lap of the rough apron, being gentle on her raw fingertips, and silently addressed her father’s doom-filled prophecy. Well, Pa, if’n you don’t want for us to starve in this hellhole of a town, you’re gonna have to let me have a little pride in what I can do. It’ll put food on the table, maybe not as much as whorin’ might, but it’s a sight better for the soul.
A strangled clunk of the bell caused her and Jed both to turn toward the door as someone rattled it. An indistinct shadow flitted past the dust-dimmed window, its exact form indistinguishable from other pedestrians.
“What’s this?” Jed strode toward the door.
Zelda realized a white space lay on the dark wood floor, like a displaced square of sunlight coming through a small window.
Jed picked up the oversized envelope and turned it over. “Well, it’s got my name on it in any case.” Pulling out a pocketknife, he slit it open while walking back to the table where he and Zelda had been working side by side. He pulled out several pages, unfolded them, and set them on the table. The top page held a scribbled sentence: If you think John Quincy Adams Wesley is a friend of the hardworking and voting men of Colorado, read these.
Jed set the note aside to reveal a letter written on fancy paper, thick and creamy. An engraved heading read “Law Offices of Lawton, Lawton, and Crouse, Boston, San Francisco, and Denver.”
The words “personal” and “confidential” were scrawled across the top in a well-versed hand. The salutation—Dear Mr. Gallagher—was followed by:
In response to your inquiry, I take it that the question of employees is only a question of private and corporate economy, and individuals or companies have the right to buy labor where they can get it cheapest. We have a treaty with the Chinese government. I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated, until our great manufacturing and Corporate interests are conserved in the matter of labor—
Apparently a faster reader than she was, Elliston whisked the letter aside with a muttered “Gallagher!”
Zelda thought she heard a note of triumph in his voice. She screwed up her nose, thinking of her brothers. They cursed Gallagher, the absentee owner of the Silver Mountain Mines, daily. She’d never met this man, who was as rich as Horace Tabor, if not more. The old-time girls at Flo’s sometimes talked about him in hushed tones, but he’d not been in town for a long while, according to them.
Elliston picked up a second letter, saying, “Same paper, same handwriting, different salutation.”
Zelda, peeked over his arm, reading—
My dear Mrs. Clatchworthy,
You needn’t worry. Stand assured that I am fully on your side as regards the women’s vote. Once elected, I shall work assiduously to make woman in Colorado man’s equal partner in all, including property and voting—
Zelda was having trouble reading the rest of the letter because Elliston’s hand trembled so. She glanced up at his face. His eyes looked feverish, softer, his face flushed. The tip of his tongue escaped briefly to touch his lips. It was the sort of look she’d seen on faces of younger men who got a glimpse of tit or on older ones who liked to talk about their stock holdings and bank accounts.
“These—” his hands shook— “I’d not trade these for the Matchless Mine, or any silver strike. It’s the break I’ve been waiting for. My bonanza.” He gazed at a point high on the wall. “I wonder. Who slid these under the door? Should I verify the information? Check with Wesley? Get his comments? He’ll surely deny everything. This is as volatile as giant powder. No, more like nitroglycerine, set to explode in his face, no matter what he says. Who else knows about this, I wonder. Dill at the Herald? Robinson at the Democrat? Davis at the Chronicle? But I have the original letters here. Anything they get would be hearsay. Not that that would stop them.”
His unfocused gaze settled on Zelda and sharpened. “There’s no time to hesitate. It’s either go or no in tonight’s edition. Wesley is from Denver by way of San Francisco and Boston. Thinks he can move into town, throw his charm and money around, and get elected, just like that.” He snapped his fingers dismissively. “He’s just the kind of upstart politician I detest. Slick on the outside, rotten on the inside, and protected by his mother. Oh, she doesn’t let any of us near her precious boy. But I’ve heard him talk from both sides of his mouth, depending on the audience. And I know Mrs. Clatchworthy. This sounds just like her. And Harry Gallagher, after the miners’ strike four months ago, I’ll bet he’s itching to hire cheap labor that won’t cause more trouble and make demands. T
he Celestials would jump at the chance to make half a white man’s wages and kiss Gallagher’s boots for the opportunity.”
“Are there Chinamen in Leadville?” Zelda asked, since he seemed to be talking to her.
He started—Guess he was talkin’ to hisself after all—then said, “Last one left town in a hurry some time ago. Celestials are not welcome here.” He licked his lips again, more nervously this time, then came to a decision. “Well, when Dame Fortune smiles, what can we mortals do but smile back? This will sell a mountain of papers, with all the visitors in town.”
Zelda picked up the envelope to give it the eye, not that there was much to see.
“There’s somethin’ else in here.” She pulled out what felt like an oversized playing card, wrapped in paper. She unwrapped it, and a small photograph fell out.
But not just any photograph.
During Elliston’s horrified gasp, Zelda had time to observe a number of things about the woman in the image.
First, she hardly wore a thing. If’n you can even call that bitty gauze drape a thing.
Second, she was a Celestial. Kinda pretty, too, but I don’t see how she kin be smilin’, posed like that. I’d not be smiling, that’s for sure!
Third, and this more of a professional rumination: How can she bend her legs around like that? Must of been in the circus, maybe.
Before she could examine the photograph further, Jed snatched it away.
Zelda realized that, as a proper young woman, a proper response was expected from her.
She promptly covered her eyes, as if the lewd image had almost stricken her blind. Behind the dark shield, she contemplated whether she maybe ought to pretend to faint dead away, but the floor was filthy and besides, she wanted to see what Mr. Elliston would do. She peeked through her fingers.
He was giving the picture a look-see, close up and personal. Meanwhile, he gabbled.
“Miss Thomas! I, I don’t know what to say. I apologize. Profoundly! I would never have allowed you to touch that envelope had I suspected, had I known…I apologize for having your female sensitivities exposed, uh, what I meant to say is, this carte de visite is obviously something that you should not be…Well, perhaps I should finish this job myself so as to protect you from further distress.”
She hastily dropped her hand. “Mr. Elliston. I was raised on a farm. I’m no shrinking violet. I know about life. Here in Leadville, oft times I am forced—” forced, that’s a good one—“to walk down State Street, lookin’ for my young brothers, who are drawn to that street of sin like, like, moths to eternal flame.” Oh! That’s good, too! “I am shocked, truly, by the sight of that awful picture, but now that it’s out of my sight, I shall recover.”
She looked down at the paper that had held the card and read aloud: “Found in J.Q.A.W.’s personal effects. Dare him to say diff’rent. He is an unrepentant lover and supporter of the Orientals.”
Jed turned the photograph over. “And here on the back, it says—in an illiterate hand, I’ll add—‘To My John. Come Back. See Soon. Love.’”
He snorted. “Love.” He said the word with disgust, then took the cover sheet from Zelda and rewrapped the photograph gingerly as if it were hot to the touch.
He tucked it back in the envelope, set the letters on top, and took in the printer’s form holding the front page, finished except for a space left open for an engraving. “We’ve got to redo this, and fast. Take out the quoin, Miss Thomas—No, not that. The quoin’s the metal wedge, there, that locks up the type in the form. I’ll work out the headline decks and the lead. When you’re done, grab a composing stick, and I’ll give you the first line.” He turned over a piece of scratch paper and began scribbling.
As early evening slid into darkness, the two worked to reset the front page of The Independent. With the headline, the article’s lead, and one letter completed and only half of the Clatchworthy note and a brief concluding paragraph to go, Elliston straightened up from his stooped position with a sigh.
He pulled out his pocket watch, clicked it open, and groaned. “The reception for Grant. If I’m going to get there for the reception line, I’ve got to leave now.” He hesitated. His gaze swept over the nearly completed form before coming to rest on Zelda, part doubtful, part hopeful, but with a dash of skepticism.
“I can do it, Mr. Elliston,” she said, before he could ask her or change his mind. “I can finish up. All I got to do is set up the stick with the last few lines of the letter and that little paragraph about the card, isn’t that right? And then lock it up with the,” she pointed at the metal wedge, “I forget what it’s called, but I know what it does.”
Elliston switched his gaze back to the page and the last empty bit of the form. “You’ll need the leads, to put the proper space between the lines.”
“I remember.”
He worried his lower lip with his top teeth, finally looking square at her. “All right, Miss Thomas. I hope my trust isn’t misplaced. I’m counting on you to finish the last few lines. The pressmen’ll be by in the next couple of hours. If you’d wait for them, then put Wesley’s letters and the envelope in the desk drawer over there.” He gestured at the walnut rolltop, nearly hidden under piles of papers and cast off bits of metal and wood print furniture. “Tell the boys to hold off printing the front page for now. I’ll be back by one or two in the morning to check it before they run the whole.”
“You can count on me.”
“I hope so,” he said gruffly. He snapped the pocket watch shut, retrieved a proper swallowtail coat and top hat from the coat tree, and unearthed a notepad and pencil from the desk, causing two piles of papers to avalanche into each other. He stuffed pad and pencil into an inner pocket and returned to Zelda.
Her head was bent over the composing stick as she set up the words “Mama sends her regards.” She could almost feel his silence. Finally she looked up, afraid that he had changed his mind and was going to tell her to go home, that he’d take care of it. Instead, he pulled two dollars from his pocket and said, “You’ve earned this, Miss Thomas. See you tomorrow morning. At nine.” He touched his hat to her, for all the world like she was a real lady, then left, closing the door with a thud that set the bell clanking.
***
Zelda stood back, wiping her sore, ink-stained fingers on a rag and admiring the finished page. It was as perfect as anyone could make it, she was sure. No widow-words, the lead is all proper, it fits just right.
After removing her bonnet, she ran one hand cautiously over her hair. It was recovering from the application of bear grease and beginning to regain its natural curl. She picked up the two letters from John Quincy Adams Wesley and the cover note and replaced them in the envelope with the photograph.
And she wondered: Who slid them under the door? And why? These are sure gonna give this John Wesley feller a world of hurt. This business of Celestials…she and her pa had seen a Chinaman or two working on railroads as they had made their way to Leadville. It was hard for her to understand why everyone hated them so much. They’re just workin’ t’ keep from starvin’, like everyone else, ain’t they? But there was no ducking the fact that the Chinamen had no friends in these parts. As for women voting—
She snorted, the explosion of derision sounding loud in the empty building and half scaring herself.
I can’t see the men allowing such a thing to happen, ever.
And the photograph. Now that was interesting. Something she’d not seen before. Zelda wondered if she ought to mention it to Miss Flo, suggest it as a way to drum up business, seeing that Miss Flo was always looking for new ways to bring in customers.
The creak of the door and clank of bell announced a visitor. Not one but two shabby-looking fellows paused on the threshold.
“What’s this?” said one.
Zelda grabbed her bonnet off the table, trying to hold the brim with her knuckles so as not to stain it with ink. “You the printers for the paper? Mr. Elliston asked m
e to stay until you-all arrived.”
They stepped into the room, removing their hats. One, with a beard that looked like the moths had gotten into it and done some damage, came over to look at the front page.
“Mr. Elliston said he’d be back by two in the morning,” added Zelda, squashing the envelope into the pocket of her coat, thinking she should put it in the desk and hightail out of there. She was anxious to find Flo, tell her that she wasn’t going to be working at the house tonight, tomorrow night, nor ever again.
The bearded one looked up at her and said, “Guess J.E.’s gone to see the general, I’ll bet. All the muckety-mucks are there tonight.” His eyes narrowed. “So, who’re you, anyway?”
“I’m the new typesetter,” she said proudly.
“Tarnation. Elliston’s hired a lady setter? Printer’s devil, more like.” He and his partner snickered. Zelda glared, not certain whether “printer’s devil” was an insult or not, but not liking the sound of it.
The bearded fellow brushed past Zelda on his way to the coatrack, remarking, “Well, Missy, we’ll see how long ya last. Be sure t’ get your pay right away. Old J.E., he squeezes two bits so tight you’d think he’s hopin’ they’ll pair up and raise themselves a whole family o’ pennies.” He hung the hat and turned, staring hard at Zelda. “You look kinda familiar, Missy. You been in these parts for a spell? I’d swain I’ve seen your face afore.”
Not liking the direction of the conversation, Zelda started for the door, hastily slinging the bonnet over her hair and tying the ribbons tight beneath her chin. “You-all kin tell Mr. Elliston I’ll be back tomorrow. Bright an’ early, like he asked.”
But right now, I’m gonna go tell Flo: No more workin’ on my back. I’ve got a job that pays for standin’ up and usin’ my hands in better ways.
Chapter Nineteen
Dressed for Grant’s reception, Inez twisted back and forth in her chair in the saloon’s upstairs office, twiddling with her fan. Outside the large mullioned window next to her desk, lights from State Street’s businesses glimmered, subdued by window glass and reflecting on the puddles and mud in the street. Beyond, in the darkness, were the mountains. There, but hidden, like so much in her life.