Into the face of the devil: A love story from the California gold rush
Page 2
Mrs. Wimmer also had a big heart and I knew that once she noticed Lacey she would’ve corralled her just like she did me that day when poor Jess washed up by the millrace dam with his throat slashed. First she dragged me to her cabin and fed me breakfast. Later she took me to the burial service. And when Pa showed up so drunk he couldn’t stand she gave a bone chilling prophesy about what life would be like for a fifteen-year old boy alone in a gold rush boomtown. Everything she said came true. The same things would be in store for a girl like Lacey, only worse.
I pulled the dishes from the rinse water and gave them a quick dry. The bell on the front door hadn’t jingled in a while so I figured l had enough time before the supper rush to whip up some peach cobbler. I’d never baked a pie before but Maggie wrote down how she did it. She said a cobbler would be the easiest to make because I wouldn’t have to worry about a crust.
I mixed up the flour and stuff in a bowl, poured the peaches into buttered pie pans and dabbed the batter into the peaches with a spoon. It all seemed pretty easy and it looked like it did when Maggie made it so I pitched two logs into the firebox and slid the pie pans into the oven, already hoping some would be left over to have after my own supper. After all, peach cobbler was my favorite.
While I wiped down the table with an old rag, I got an uneasy feeling like somebody watched me. I wheeled toward the dining room door. Lacey stood there smiling, the blue-checked bonnet gone and her blonde hair piled up in a neat bun.
She leaned back against the doorjamb and twirled one of the curls that hung in front of her ear around her finger. “Say, you’re real handy in the kitchen for a boy. How’d you learn to make cobbler anyway?” she asked, sassy like.
Right off that sounded pretty snotty to me. “What are you doing here?” I barked back.
My growl didn’t seem to bother her much. “I’m looking for my Papa, if it’s any of your business,” she answered and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“This ain’t no place for a girl like you,” I added, still miffed at her.
She pushed her arm out straight and gazed down a slender finger pointed right at my feet. “Did you know your britches are too short?” she asked.
I looked right down at my boots and felt my face flush. I’d gotten the hand-me-down pants from Jess and like most of my clothes they’d grown old and ragged. Nobody else in town seemed to mind, yet for some reason it bothered me a lot that she did. “I planned to get another pair soon.” I stammered. “Maggie says I’ve grown a bunch this last year.” Maggie was right. I measured close to six feet now and it didn’t look like I would stop growing anytime soon.
She put a hand to her mouth to muzzle a laugh. “I’m sorry. Papa says I have a mean streak in me. I think you’re a right handsome young man—the best I’ve seen in a while. But your britches are still too short,” and a tiny giggle slipped between her fingers.
All at once I realized I wasn’t mad at Lacey anymore, but she did stupefy me. I really wanted her to like me and when she’d called me handsome my heart thundered again. Then she went right back to the pants thing and I fell flat in a puddle. I didn’t know what to think, or do, or say. “I, uh, I—”
“In San Francisco men can get ready-made britches that fit. You buy the ones that go around your waist and then roll up the legs. It’s all the rage, you know.” Her tone felt softer now and sounded more like she cared.
I’d seen a lot of new miners who came to town lately wearing rolled up pants, but I hadn’t thought much about them. And for some reason it seemed like my pants were more important to Lacey than they were to me. “I don’t get to San Francisco much. I reckon I’ll just have to make do,” I said, thinking that ought to end the whole thing.
But Lacey pushed past me and walked to the back door. She grabbed one of Maggie’s aprons from a peg and held it up in front of her. It had blue and white checks like her bonnet and looked real good against the yellow dress. Still, it was Maggie’s apron and I wasn’t sure what Lacey planned on doing with it. “That’s Maggie’s, you know,” I said as gentle as I could.
“Do you think she would mind if I helped you out a little?” Lacey said as she slid the apron on and tied it behind her.
I stared at her wide-eyed. “Help me . . .?” I stammered, wondering how in the world she’d already become the most confounding creature I’d ever known when the bell on the front door cut short my pondering.
Before I could gather what remained of my senses she sashayed right past me, the blue flowers on her round bottom swaying easily back and forth. At the door she stopped and turned to me. “Yeah, I’ll help you. Watch this.” She winked and disappeared.
I followed her but before I got out of the kitchen I heard her say, “Hi there, gentlemen. My name’s Lacey and I’ll be helping Maggie here for a while. How are you?” Sweetness and honey practically dripped from her voice.
“Glad to meet you, Lacey. I’m Jed.”
“Don’t pay no attention to my little brother, Lacey. My name’s Jeremiah and I’d be pleased to walk you home after you’re done here.”
“Oh, aren’t you special, both of you,” she gushed. “We’re having a wonderful pot roast today and peach cobbler for dessert. How about I bring you some hot coffee for starters?”
I got to the dining room in time to see her spin from the table and sashay towards me again like she’d just done in the kitchen. But this time the eyes of the two Wiggins boys had stuck on the pretty blue flowers that swished to and fro with each step she took. Jeremiah Wiggins was so roped in by her that he’d turned all the way around in his chair to watch, and leaned against the back so hard I thought he’d topple flat on his face.
Lacey winked again then swung by me into the kitchen. My insides, already in a muddle, flopped around like a fish out of water. The Wiggins boys were about my age but Jeremiah was part of the rowdy crowd in town. I didn’t care much for them anyway, and now that they flirted with Lacey I’d gotten downright steamed—until she’d winked at me. Then everything seemed funny, like she was trifling with them—or was she trifling with me? Oh, Lord, I thought, what’s happening?
Before I could clear my head she blew by me again, a coffee pot and two cups in her hands. As she plunked the cups on the table and filled them, I decided that I’d seen enough and went back to the kitchen to check on the cobbler and maybe whip up some more biscuits.
##
The bell on the front door dinged for what seemed like the nine-hundredth time, but chances were it would be the last tonight. I mopped the sweat from my forehead, picked up two small plates from the table and headed to the dining room. Once inside I could see Lacey in the lamplight, talking to someone standing in the dark outside the door.
“Now don’t you worry. I’ll be working here for a while. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?” she said but sometime during the long afternoon she’d lost her honey-flavored tone. Now she sounded plain tired.
“Well, yes’m. That pot roast was sure the best I ever had, and I’ll be back, you bet. But I’d hate to have anything happen to you on your way home. This is a rough town, you know, and if I was walking with you you’d be a lot safer,” the voice from outside pled.
“Now aren’t you sweet, but I’ll be just fine. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” The bell rang loud as she slammed the door harder than necessary. She turned, leaned back against it and slid slowly to the floor, letting out a long, pitiful moan as she did.
She sat with her legs spread wide and her hands on the floor. Her head hung low against her chest while sweat streaked across her forehead then dripped from her nose. Her blonde hair, once so neat, dangled willy-nilly out of the bun. I already knew the back of her yellow dress had been soaked through with sweat for hours. I couldn’t tell about the front because of Maggie’s apron. And, in spite of it all, right now Lacey Lawson was the prettiest girl in the whole world.
I walked up to her, squatted on my haunches, and held out one of the plates. “Peach cobbler? It’s the last of it.”
She slouched into my shoulder and held up the pie. “Do you always have dessert before supper?”
“No, this is the first time.” I said and realized that my voice carried all the same signs of a long day of hard work in the heat as hers did.
“Good idea,” she said and took a big bite of the cobbler.
“Yeah,” I agreed and we each ate our pie without talking. I finished first and dropped my plate on the floor. “How long were you at Mrs. Wimmer’s?” I asked.
“What makes you think I was at Mrs. Wimmer’s?” she retorted and put her empty plate down beside mine.
“Just a guess, but then I wonder why you were so hungry if you were with her.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Well, you’re kind of right, but not completely. I just got to Coloma when Mrs. Wimmer ran into me. I think the man who brought me up from Sacramento City sent word to her. She took me home and that’s when the old man—what’s his name again?”
“Eban.”
“Yeah, that’s when Eban showed up and off we went lickety-split. She had promised to feed me but babies are more important, I guess.”
“Did Eban ask you to help out here in the cafe?” I reached out, picked up her plate and piled it on top of mine.
“For a guy whose britches are too short you’re pretty smart. Did you guess that too?” she asked but now she sounded way too tired to seem sassy or snotty.
“Eban found me in Coloma a while back, too. He gave me a job with the freight line. That job saved my life.”
“Are you telling me that working in this cafe is going to save my life, Mr. Short Britches?” Now I heard a touch of sass sneak back into her tone.
I ignored it, too tired to fight. “Well, I don’t know, but just like that last customer said, this is a gold town and it’s a rough place, especially for a girl.”
“How about this Maggie, she’s doing okay here isn’t she? Why can’t I?”
“Maggie’s had more than her fair share of hard times, way more than her share.”
Lacey leaned over and caught my eye. “You like Maggie a lot don’t you? Like maybe even more than peach cobbler?” she said softly, even managing a tired smile.
I had to laugh. She sure had a way about her. “Yeah, I like her way more than peach cobbler. That’s a fact. I think you’ll like her too when you get to meet her. Maggie’s pretty darn special.” I stood up with the pie plates in my left hand and offered her my right. “How about we finish up that pot roast? You still hungry?” I asked.
She grinned, a worn, sore grin but an honest one. “You bet I am. I could eat the whole cow, hooves and all.” She let me pull her to her feet and took my arm. Together we walked into the kitchen where we piled as much food onto our plates as we possibly could before we went back into the dining room and sat at a table by an open window.
After I’d eaten most of my supper I finally felt full enough to talk again. “You did a really great job today. I’m pretty sure we had way more business than Maggie usually does on a Friday. The word must’ve got out that you were here and the miners turned out in droves. By tomorrow everybody for twenty miles around will know your name. With Maggie laid up having the baby and all you’ll be the only girl around. Every lonely miner in town will come to see you. We’re liable to be swamped.”
Lacey kept her head down, picking at her carrots, but it seemed to me that her face had gone from plain white to a deep red. Then again, it could just be the lamps. “Oh, I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Maybe it was your cooking. The pot roast really was great and the cobbler was wonderful.”
“Yeah, well, everybody thought my cooking was rotten until you showed up. Then all of a sudden it got good. Does food taste better just because a pretty girl gives it to you?”
She giggled, her head still down, her face still red. “Maybe it does at that.”
“This country is full of men who left their wives and families to come here to mine. There are a lot more who should have been looking for a wife to start a family with but instead they came here. Right now you’re probably the only unmarried female east of Sacramento City, and if you aren’t I’d bet a Yankee dollar to a horseshoe nail that you’re the prettiest. Tomorrow’s Saturday, we’ll be busier than a beehive in clover.”
“Oh Lord,” she whispered but I barely heard what she said. Her voice suddenly went soft and squeaky and her face didn’t seem so dark any more. In fact it seemed as white as a clean bed sheet now. In a flash of panic I thought maybe my pot roast had made her sick.
“You’re looking pale. Are you feeling okay?” I quizzed.
She hunkered lower in her chair. “Oh, it must be the light in here.”
I turned to see if the lamps had run out of oil or something, but both burned bright and strong.
From outside came the clomp stomp of two quick footsteps. The door pushed open, the bell jangled, a boot stepped in from the dark. “We’re closed, mister,” I blurted.
Before the words made it all the way out I realized my mistake, but Eban grinned wide behind his gray beard as he closed the door and threw the latch.
“I hear you’ve been busy,” he said and tossed his straw hat on a table.
I muttered something close to a yes while Lacey rolled her eyes.
Eban took it in stride. “Three people stopped me on the way here from the cabin. They all praised the food, complimented Lacey and commented on how crowded the cafe seemed. And looking at you two I’d say you earned your pay today.” He turned a chair around backwards and sat down, folding his arms on top of the backrest.
I looked across at Lacey. She stared at me from red, weary eyes. “Lacey did great, Eban. Everybody loved her.”
“No!” She perked up and grabbed Eban’s arm to make her point. “Tom’s cooking is wonderful. All the men said so.” She turned back to me. “How’d you learn to cook like that, anyway?” She sounded like she really meant it, but somehow I thought I saw a glint of the fear I’d noticed this afternoon lurking in her eyes again.
Eban spread his hands wide, palms up and looked from Lacey to me. “Now you two hang on a minute,” he said. “I came to tell you that Maggie had her baby, and both mama and little Josie Tomasina Stone are doing great. Tom, you’re a godfather.”
“Me, a godfather? Holy Moses!” The words gushed out of my mouth. I didn’t know what else to say, and besides Lacey suddenly beamed at me like I’d done something important, and that made me feel kind of fluttery deep down, like a covey of quail got loose in my innards.
Eban stood. “Maggie wants to see you, Tom,” he said then turned to Lacey. “And Lacey, you’ll be sleeping in the cabin so when you two are done with supper we should go on up.”
I pushed back from the table. “I’ll put these dirty dishes into the wash water so the food won’t dry out and stick. Then we’ll go.” I said eager to see Maggie.
But Eban put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take care of the dishes, son,” he said. “You finish eating. There ain’t no hurry.” And he left to collect the plates.
The grin on Lacey’s face stretched as wide as the sky. Her eyes twinkled like when she first got here, like she was laughing at me again. “What?” I barked.
“Oh, I was just thinking. You’re probably the only godfather in California whose britches are too short.” She snickered again and covered her mouth with her hand.
But I knew my own eyes were even wider than hers. Maybe they even sparkled too. I couldn’t tell. “Yeah, I guess I am,” I said with my head held high. Right now I didn’t care a fig about how short my pants were. I was a godfather.
##
Right above the tree line a golden moon glowed from a wash of stars. I waited for Eban on the hillside in front of Maggie’s cabin. I’d just met little Josie
Stone and my head spun like a top. Maggie had even let me hold Josie. Well, actually Maggie had to make me. Josie was so tiny. I feared I’d drop her and she would squash flat on the floor. But Lacey put her in my arms and when Josie stared back at me from brown eyes filled with trust, while a tiny trace of spit drooled down from the corner of her mouth, I knew how special this brand new baby girl must be.
Lacey took Josie back pretty quick. She seemed to like holding her and talked baby talk and played with Josie’s little hands and stuff. Then she would rock Josie back and forth and hum real soft.
Maggie looked rough around the edges but had a warm glow about her that everybody talked about. I got the idea that having Josie was darn hard on her and so it must be a big relief now that it was over. Then Josie started fussing and Lacey shooed me out of the bedroom saying Maggie needed to feed her.
Eban had gone downstairs with me but ran into Mrs. Wimmer and now they jawed on the porch, but I went ahead to enjoy the night. I’d been cooped up in the cafe all day and the cool breeze mixed with the hoots from the owls that nested in the stable put me at ease.
Sitting on a hill like it did, the cabin had a great view. I could see the outline of Hangtown Creek where it ran beside Main Street at the bottom of the hill. On the south side of the road, just a little east of the log bridge, I could barely make out the stable and the freight office next to it, both partly hidden behind some tall oaks. A tad to the right of the bridge sat Maggie’s Cafe, easy to see through a break in the trees.
Farther to the west stood the town, a little hard to make out in the dark but smoke rising from cooking fires marked it pretty well. Past the town the creek ran through a gully in a gap between the hills that on a clear day gave a glimpse deep into the great valley of California. The summer sunsets through that gap could be special.