‘August,’ Henry repeated.
But R.P. Grover shook his head, and said, ‘He’s gone.’
‘Can we cut him down from there?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
R.P. Grover took out his clasp knife, and while Henry supported the weight of the body, Grover quickly cut the tangled ropes. Between them they lowered the body on to the ground. Henry was sickened by how light it was: by the thought that this was how little a man weighed when he had no legs.
‘Better to leave him here now,’ suggested R.P. Grover, with undisguised distaste. ‘I’ll send two or three of the lads down, they’ll bring him up, and—’ he glanced around the gallery, wiping his hands on his work-trousers ‘—clear up the rest of him.’
He picked up the lamp; and both of them were about to leave when August Rische spoke. Henry was so startled by the voice that he shouted out, ‘Ah!’ and stumbled back against a floor-timber.
‘Your wife, Mr Roberts,’ breathed August Rische, in a bubbling whisper. ‘Always taking the very best care of your wife....’
Henry opened his mouth and then closed it again. But even if he had managed to say anything, it would have been too late, because August Rische let out a cockerel-crow gurgle, and died, his lungs flooded with his own blood. Henry stood where he was, staring at him; and then stared at R.P. Grover.
‘I told you not to come looking for him,’ said R.P. Grover, with the slightest hint of an accusation.
‘I don’t know what he meant about my wife.’
‘Dying men say the strangest things,’ R.P. Grover replied. ‘Sometimes I think they purposely leave us with the most troublesome words they can think of, just to cause a disturbance once they’re gone.’
‘Did we kill him?’ asked Henry. ‘I want to know the truth, Mr Grover.’
‘Accidents are a way of life, down in the mines, Mr Roberts. It’s a very accidental profession.’
Henry turned away; and then he said, ‘Let’s get back to the surface. I think I’ve had enough of this.’
They retreated across the gallery, and then tugged the rope for the engineer to hoist them up the incline. Henry said nothing as they were winched upwards in the giraffe. The air in the shaft was beginning to clear now, and passing in front of his face he could see the chiselled surface of the rock, streaked here and there with black, the unalluring mixture of lead and silver which was now making him wealthier with every day that passed; although how many tons of ore would it have taken for him to gain as much wealth as he had fortuitously acquired today, with the death of August Rische? Rische had left no will; and had no known relatives; and so his third-share in the Little Pittsburgh had already reverted to Henry without the need for any legal argument at all.
Back on the surface, in the glare of the winter sun, the day-shift were waiting to go down, and R.P. Grover picked three of the most hardened of them and sent them on ahead to clear away August Rische’s body. Somebody else was waiting there, too, outside the hoisting house: Augusta, in a plain coat of brown wool, with a feathery hat of brown ostrich feathers. She looked unusually severe; and her nose was as red as a grosbeak’s breast with cold.
‘You should have worn your fur, my dear,’ Henry told her, taking her arm, and walking her away from the mine.
‘I’m sorry, yes, I should,’ she said. He was surprised by the apology in her voice. Then she twisted around looked back frowning towards the mine and asked, ‘Has something happened? I heard one of the men talking about an accident. I asked him what it was, but he wouldn’t tell me. Not rudely; or unkindly; but as if he felt that I oughtn’t to know.’
Henry stopped, and held her hands. ‘I’m afraid that it’s quite bad news. Some giant powder went off by mistake, and August was standing close by.’
‘August! Is he hurt?’
Henry squeezed her hands. They felt cold, even through the trim leather of her brown kid gloves. ‘He’s dead, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Dead!’ she cried, and both of her hands flew up to her face and clapped to her cheeks as if she were a kind of mousetrap.
‘I’m afraid so. There was nothing that anybody could have done to save him. I don’t suppose he felt anything.’
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Augusta. And then, without warning, she fell to her knees on the ground.
‘Augusta!’ Henry shouted. He seized her, under her arms, and tried to lift her up, but she was a heavy woman; and either she had fainted, or else she had simply decided to kneel there and lean against him with all the inert weight that she could bring to bear. Her feather hat fell off, and the cold wind caught it, and blew it fitfully across the rocky ground, until it caught in a tangle of bushes. Henry tried to heave her on to her feet again and again, but each time she dropped back into a kneeling position; and when he tried to appeal to her to stand up on her own, she simply stared at him with glassy hysterical eyes.
‘Augusta, get up,’ he ordered her.
She knelt where she was, swaying. Henry held her shoulders for a moment, then released one, then released both of them.
‘For goodness’ sake, Augusta, you look like the leaning tower of Pisa.’
She jerked her head up. ‘That’s a cruel thing to say to someone who has almost fainted.’
‘You didn’t almost faint. You simply decided to get down on your knees and make an exhibition of yourself.’
‘I’m suffering from shock.’
‘Because of August? A filthy old German sourdough you always greeted with your nose turned up?’
‘Lately, he was much cleaner. He started asking for fresh shirts.’
‘Just because he started asking for fresh shirts, that wasn’t any excuse for you to—kneel down, damn it—and sway.’
Augusta was quiet, her hands clasped together, palm-to-palm, over her pudenda. It was the word that came into Henry’s mind, for some inexplicable reason—pudenda. Yet how sexless she looked, in her brown coat and her spectacles, her hair scraped back from her big pale forehead, and braided into those elaborate Teutonic plaits that always reminded him of loaves of bread. He stepped away from her, then took one step back, and said, ‘I’ll fetch your hat. Get up. You can get up on your own, can’t you?’
He started to walk across to the bushes, where the hat was teasingly lifting its brim in the wind, as if it intended to blow away as soon as he was nearly there. But Augusta called, ‘Henry!’ and he turned around to see her still kneeling there, one hand raised for him to help her.
Helpless, he thought, as he walked back to her, and held out his hand to lift her up. Helpless and plain and defenceless. Supposing I should incline my head to R.P. Grover, and silently suggest that she should meet with an accident down in the mines? But then he thought of August Rische, hanging in the loops, bloody, without legs, and the breakfast he had eaten that morning rose up in the back of his throat like thick dry oatmeal; and it was much as he could do to take Augusta’s hand and stand there beside her while she struggled up on to her feet.
‘Thank you,’ she told him, cuttingly. ‘Now you can bring my hat.’
He retrieved her hat and she put it on and adjusted it while she was staring straight into his eyes, as if his face were nothing more than a looking-glass. Then she said, in a busy impatient tone, ‘A messenger came for you this morning from David Moffat.’
For several reasons, none of them important but all of them irritating, Henry disliked it when Augusta called David Moffat by his Christian name. He felt that David was his friend, his business acquaintance, his banker; and certainly not Augusta’s, if even the least of her criticisms of him were to be taken even half-seriously. She called him Lerf, because of his shiny bald head (‘lerf,’ she always used to explain, ‘is the French for egg.’). Or else she called him Mr W.B.B., which meant ‘Wealth Before Beauty’. If only she had realized how ugly she was looking these days to Henry; so ugly, in fact, that if a friend ever commented on Augusta’s appearance, Henry would feel that they were being patronizing to him. ‘Po
or old Henry, nice enough fellow, but have you seen that old burro of a wife of his?’
‘What did he want?’ asked Henry.
‘To see you, that’s all. He asked if you could go to Denver, as soon as possible.’
‘Did you bring the rig up?’ Henry asked, looking around for it.
‘No, I walked.’
‘You walked? And you’re going to walk back?’
‘I was hoping that you would give me a ride on Belinda.’
‘Augusta, I’m busy up here. A man has just been killed. Apart from that, we have a new amalgamating-pan going in today.’
‘And all of those things are more important than your wife?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
They walked down the hillside in silence for a while, and then Augusta said, ‘You’re not going to go to Denver, are you, just because Mr Wealth-Before-Beauty beckons?’
‘David doesn’t beckon, Augusta. He asks. He doesn’t ask very often, but when he does, it’s only because it’s important.’
‘He wants to tell you how rich you are, I suppose.’
‘I know how rich I am, thank you.’
‘And a good deal richer now, I suppose, with poor August dead?’
Henry gripped her arm, and stared at her with such violence in his eyes that she couldn’t help flinching. ‘I could hit you sometimes,’ he told her.
‘Well?’ she challenged him, although he could tell by the slight catch in her voice that she was frightened. ‘Here I am, my dear. Hit me.’
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He released her arm, and stood where he was, with his hands on his hips, steadily breathing freezing cold air through his nostrils. The truth was that he didn’t even care about her enough to hit her. To hit a woman, he knew, was an admission of failure; but to be unable to hit her whether he had failed or not, that was the secret and terrible measure of a marriage that knew no love at all. And never had done, he thought; and never will.
He rode Belinda down to the store, with Augusta sitting side-saddle in front of him, her brown ostrich feathers blowing against his face and sticking to his lips, her big bottom protruding over the side of the mare like a sack of washing. When they reached the store, she jumped down gracelessly and went straight in (so she said) to see to her candies. Henry swung himself slowly out of the saddle and tethered Belinda to the rail in front. A boy of about sixteen was waiting there, wearing a thick Mackinac jacket and a wide-awake cap, on which the frayed braiding of a Union cavalry badge could still be seen. He was a round-faced boy, spotty and awkward, but polite, because he touched his cap as Henry mounted the steps up to the boardwalk, and asked, ‘Mr Roberts, sir? Begging your pardon.’
‘What is it, son?’
‘Mr Moffat, sir; he sent me to bring you back to Denver.’ Henry looked towards the closed door of the store, into which Augusta had just disappeared.
‘How long have you been waiting out here, son?’ he asked.
‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘How long have you been sitting out here in the cold?’
‘About an hour, sir. Mrs Roberts said she’d bring you back directly, sir; and that I had to wait.’
‘Outside? She told you to wait outside?’
The boy bit his lip. Henry laid a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Come along in; get yourself warm by the stove and help yourself to some chocolate cookies. I won’t be long; I just have to throw a couple of shirts into a bag.’
They went into the store. Augusta was standing by the candy counter, setting out rows of freshly-made fondants. She watched the boy with sun-blinded spectacles as he walked unsurely across to the stove, and stood there with his mittened hands held out over the top of it, but not too far, in case Augusta should accuse him of absorbing too much heat.
‘Don’t forget to take your cookies, too,’ said Henry, looking at Augusta all the time.
‘Are we a charity now?’ asked Augusta.
‘The boy has come here all the way from Denver, on his own, to fetch me for David Moffat. The very least we can give him is a few cookies.’
‘And what if I were to start giving away a few cookies to every hungry young child who comes hanging around at the front of our door?’
‘If you were to do that, my dear Augusta, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference, because we are as wealthy as all hell—’
‘Don’t profane!’ she snapped.
‘—as all hell,’ he repeated, with determination, ‘—as all damned hell—and we can afford to give away cookies to most of Colorado, if we feel like it—and I’m certainly not going to begrudge this boy!’
‘That’s right!’ Augusta screeched suddenly, and the boy looked at Henry wide-eyed in alarm. She threw her candy-spoon across the store, and it seemed to tumble through the winter sunlight as slowly as if it had been thrown for a mile. ‘Accuse me of meanness! Accuse me of starving young children! Accuse me of everything! You’re never wrong, are you? Not you! Never, never, never! It’s always me! I’m the one to blame, no matter what happens! Well, listen to me, Henry Roberts, I baked those cookies myself, and I worked hard to bake those cookies, and I expect to be paid for them, especially if they’re going to be eaten by a brat who comes here running errands for David Moffat, of all people!’
Henry was silent. He knew his face was as rigid as an Indian mask, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, in a voice that was very little more than a croak, ‘How much is it for six cookies?’
Augusta stared back at him, quivering, her eyes seeming to fill the whole lenses of her spectacles.
‘How much?’ he demanded, louder this time, harsher.
‘Nothing,’ said Augusta. Her lips framed the word as if it were a toad from a Grimm’s fairy story, crawling dangle-legged from the mouth of the unkind sister.
‘You want money, don’t you?’ bellowed Henry. ‘You want money! Tell me how much! How much, for six chocolate cookies? How much, Augusta? How much are they? Three for a penny? Ten for a nickel? Come on, my darling, tell me!’
Augusta opened her mouth again but this time nothing came out at all, and Henry knew that he had gone too far; that he had raged too much; that he had deliberately forced her into the position of having to explain not only to him but to herself the fright she felt about their wealth, and the agonies she felt about their marriage. That was why, in spite of his anger, in spite of the splintering revenge inside his head, he turned away from Augusta, and wrenched open the jar of cookies on the side of the polished counter, and crammed as many as he could into the boy’s outstretched hands, and then stalked to the back of the store, and hammered up the stairs to get his bag packed; all this in jerky, tight, suppressed movements; choreographed by fury, scored by silence, and directed by inadequacy. And stood there, in the bedroom, staring at himself in the looking-glass, and thinking only one question, the most fearful question of all human anguish: why me? Why me, oh God, why me?
He was still standing there when Augusta came into the room. Her reflected face in the looking-glass was as pale as a midsummer moon.
‘Henry,’ she said, quietly.
He didn’t answer.
‘Henry, I’m sorry. Henry, please forgive me.’
He turned around and faced her. She looked wounded and small.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I forgive you.’
‘It’s just that I’m frightened. I thought my future was so secure. Not wealthy, or important; but at least secure. Now it seems like a great yawning chasm, and I don’t know what to do.’
Henry hesitated for a moment or two, and then took hold of her hands, turning her wedding-band around and around between his finger and thumb. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ he told her, although he knew that he was lying. He was frightened himself.
Augusta lowered her head. ‘Why did this have to happen to us?’ she asked him. ‘Of all the people it could have been. But no, it had to happen to us. Oh why was that man on the train?’
He knew that she meant Alby Monihan. She had made the same useless protest so many times before. He squeezed her hands, and kissed her on the forehead, and said, ‘I won’t be away for long. I’ll bring you back a surprise. Something to make you understand how lucky we are.’
‘I don’t want anything but you, Henry.’
‘You’ve got me.’
‘But you’re rich now. And you expect me to behave like a rich man’s wife.’
‘Is that so difficult for you?’
She turned her head away. He had always thought that age would improve her appearance; invest her with dignity; and strengthen the indeterminate lines of her face to make her handsome. But age had done nothing except make her look older, and older in a strange way: as if she had never been young.
She said, ‘I’ll try, Henry. I promise. But I will never be able to sleep easily again. Money that comes as easily as this…well, it can’t be counted on; it can’t be honest. Henry, there has to be a penalty.’
He finished packing his bag, and clicked the clasps closed. ‘If there is a penalty, Augusta, it will come in its own time. Meanwhile, let’s be thankful for what we have. Whatever you think, that silver didn’t come from the devil. It came from up there.’
Henry raised his finger and pointed up to Heaven.
‘I hope you’re right,’ Augusta whispered. ‘I hope that you’re not taking His name in vain; nor misinterpreting His will.’
‘No, Augusta,’ he said; although there was an intonation in his voice which made her wonder to what question ‘no, Augusta,’ was the answer.
There was a thin whirl of snow in the air when Henry arrived in Denver the following day, and went into the First National Bank to see David Moffat. Genial, bald, and dressed in the smartest of dark frock-coats, David Moffat was talking on the telephone when Henry came in; but beckoned him to sit down, and opened the decanter of rum on his desk, and pushed it across for Henry to help himself.
‘No,’ he was saying, ‘I don’t want even a hundredth share of it; not even a thousandth. No. No, I won’t be tempted, not any grounds at all.’
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