The Rainbow's Foot

by Denise Dietz

  “Shut up! Walls have ears.”

  “I only meant—”

  “You know I’m not allowed to discuss details.”

  Ned felt his face flush. To hide his discomfort, he clipped the cigar, struck a match on the heel of his boot, and puffed the cigar until its fat tip glowed.

  Richard swiveled his stool, spat into his hands, and palmed untidy strands of silver-blond hair away from his eyes.

  “Don’t stop playing,” Ned said. “I sure do admire that song. The best thing about a bicycle is that it allows a woman to shorten her skirts and show her ankles.”

  “You never change, Lytton. Your wife’s upstairs birthin’ your second child while you fret ’bout the length of a woman’s skirt.”

  “I fret ’bout what’s underneath the skirt. Did Annie offer you food and drink?”

  “Annie?”

  “The servant you discomfited with your remarks about childbirth.”

  “There’s no time.” Rising, Richard walked toward the window. “I must leave soon.”

  “But you just got here. I thought we’d celebrate the birth of my son.”

  “Is it safe to talk?” Richard turned and stared at a portrait of Ned’s grandfather, as if the benevolent face might carry tales.

  “Absolutely. The servants’ quarters are at the other end of the hall. So’s the kitchen.”

  “Have you read about the new Jim Crow Car Law?”

  “Of course.” Some mumbo-jumbo about Louisiana and a separate-equal doctrine.

  “The Supreme Court’ll declare the law legal this spring,” Richard said. “How does your father feel about the Cuban revolt against Spain?”

  “Sympathetic. Father has interests in the Cuban sugar industry. Why do you ask?”

  “We’re tryin’ to raise money to help Spain.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Lie low. If Edward has interests in Cuba, he’s no good to us. Have you been makin’ peace with him?”

  “I’ve been licking his bootstraps,” Ned replied bitterly, “but I miss the Klan.”

  “So do I. Listen, Lytton, everyone believed the Klan defeated back in the eighties. Do you realize that the men who once owned the most land and slaves now control local government? They pick U.S. Senators and—”

  “I know all that!” Ned scowled. He might be fuzzy about Jim Crow laws and the Cuban thingamajig, but he knew nigras once ran the Republican Party. And he knew Northern industrialists and bankers and Southern white aristocrats were now Republican partners together.

  “Did you know we don’t have to wear hoods anymore? For the last few years we’ve arranged up to three hangings a week, defendin’ white womanhood. The South’s governors and ministers justify our goals. A white North don’t care ’bout Southern nigras. The Klan’ll rise again and we’ll be there, ready to take control, and I’ll be Grand Dragon of Texas.”

  “Grand what?”

  “Dragon. Klan leader of the state, appointed by our Imperial Wizard.”

  “Then I’ll be Colorado’s Grand Dragon.”

  “No, Ned. You’ll be a Kleagle, a recruiter. For now, your most important task is to keep Edward happy. I don’t mean to lack compassion, but you said your father has an impaired heart. Think what we can do when you inherit his fortune. By the way, is he home?”

  Ned shook his head. “Edward’s squeamish. He’d arranged a business meeting before Johanna let loose with her second scream.”

  “Then I believe I will indulge.”

  “Would you like wine? Whiskey?”

  “No. I’ve tempered my consumption of spirits. Does your father employ any colored servants?”

  “One laundress, sweet as molasses.”

  “Make the arrangements.”

  *****

  Edward Lytton waited at a private table, early for his appointment with artist-agent Sydney Alexander. “Sandy” had convinced Edward that paintings were a safe investment. Edward had no quarrel with safe investments, especially when he could enjoy the beauty of his purchases.

  As he surveyed the restaurant, he smiled at the framed photographs of railroad cars. Those smoky monsters were responsible for his wealth and prominence.

  Edward had been born in Philadelphia, the son of prosperous Quakers. While still in short pants, he had accompanied his father out west to decide where the Pennsylvania Railroad should expand. Fort Sumter fell, postponing that decision. Edward’s father defended the Union and died in battle, inadvertently severing his son’s already-fragile ties to Quaker tenets.

  At age seventeen, Edward secured employment constructing the Kansas Pacific Railroad west from Kansas City. In August 1870, the Kansas Pacific met the Denver Pacific.

  Edward envisioned a railroad north and south, built from Denver to Texas, fed en route by future east-west railroads. If a three-foot narrow-gauge track was built, it would allow for sharp curves and access through the steep Rocky Mountains, and it would be cheaper to construct than a line with tracks four feet, eight and a half inches apart.

  He wasn’t the only man with that vision. In fact, he was too late. William Palmer, another Philadelphian, had already approached influential friends, offering them railroad bonds. Palmer planned to raise capital for a line through two Mexican land grants, the Sangre de Cristo and the Beaubien-Miranda. Palmer’s proposed railroad would quadruple the value of those remote areas along the Colorado-New Mexico border.

  Edward sold everything he owned, including property from his deceased father. Then he borrowed all he could and went into the real-estate business.

  During a trip back east, he met Dorothy Currigan. Seventeen-year-old “Dolly” was beautiful, passive and pliable. Her father had made a few unfortunate investments and was anxious to pool his remaining assets in Edward’s venture.

  After accepting Edward’s marriage proposal, passive, pliable Dolly developed a stubborn streak. She didn’t want to leave New York, and she repeatedly postponed the wedding. “Female trouble,” she’d say with a sigh, though her damned female trouble didn’t hinder her appetite for fine dining, nor her attendance at the opera.

  William Palmer was engaged to an Eastern woman too, Queen Mellon of Flushing, New York. Just like Dolly, Miss Mellon had doubts about living in Colorado. Together, Lytton and Palmer searched for sites on which to construct suitable homes for their future brides.

  Riding atop Palmer’s Concord coach, Edward admired Pikes Peak and toured the cathedral park of violent reds called Garden of the Gods.

  “I planned to have a town every ten miles along the railroad,” Palmer said. “Why don’t I build a special one at Pikes Peak for well-to-do people, on the order of Newport or Saratoga? That would solve our mutual problem.”

  Palmer built his estate near Garden of the Gods and called it Glen Eyrie, after the eagle’s nest on top of the gray entrance rock. Lytton’s entrance had an eagle’s nest, too, and he called his home Aguila del Oro, Spanish for eagle of gold.

  Dolly’s father had a long talk with his recalcitrant daughter. The wedding date was set. Following a honeymoon in London, Edward and Dolly journeyed to their new home.

  Dolly hated it. Edward saw the mountains as majestic, Dolly thought them hovering shadows. She found Aguila del Oro sinister. And the area was infested with rattlesnakes.

  Edward allowed Dolly to visit New York often. His daughter, Elizabeth, was born there exactly nine months after the honeymoon. His son, Edward Gaylord, was born in Colorado Springs one year later. The delivery wasn’t difficult but Dolly kept screaming, “The snakes will get me, they’ll get my babies, they’ll sting us all.”

  “Snakes don’t sting, they bite,” Edward soothed.

  Seven years later, Dolly left for London, taking Elizabeth but relinquishing Ned, the heir.

  Still abroad, Dolly died of acute appendicitis. Edward moved to Denver. Aguila del Oro remained vacant.

  Today, Edward was content. Wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, he had never remarried. Elizabeth taught school in Ne
w York. Ned and his family shared Edward’s Denver mansion.

  Unfortunately, Ned drank too much and had no aptitude for business. He was weak, just like Dolly, and yet he was doing his best to produce a Lytton dynasty. After the birth of Kate, he had immediately planted a new seed. Maybe this one would be a boy, another Edward.

  *****

  Dr. Bronstein found Ned inside the music room, straddling a piano stool. On the floor lay an empty bottle of whiskey.

  One look at Bronstein’s face and Ned lurched to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. You have a new daughter, Mr. Lytton.” Frightened by the expression on Ned’s face, Ervin took a few steps backwards. Cossack, he thought. Putz!

  “My father will handle your fee. Get the fuck out of here!”

  Bronstein pulled some Jew trick and changed my son into a girl, Ned thought.

  “I’ll name her Dorothy after my dear departed mother,” he told the portrait on the wall, the first Edward. “That should please Father.”

  Retrieving the whiskey bottle, Ned threw it against the fireplace grate.

  As the glass shattered, he recalled the little lame crib whore, Blueberry. He’d never met another woman so eager to please. All the same, he’d stayed away from Cripple Creek. Blueberry might insist they were “wed good and proper.”

  Besides, he owed the chit a pair of ruby earrings.

  Nine

  Cripple Creek, Colorado

  When Blueberry Smith rode into Cripple Creek on Whiskey Johnnie’s burro Clementine, tents dotted the hills and ravines. Had Blueberry lived, she would have seen Bennett Avenue, Third Street and Meyers Avenue become flourishing business districts. She might have moved her lips carefully, the way her brother Geordie had taught her, and read the Cripple Creek Business Directory, which listed eight hundred enterprises. Among them were twenty-six saloons, forty-two real-estate offices, and thirty-six law offices.

  The directory didn’t list parlor houses.

  Or gambling establishments.

  Or dance halls.

  Or the cribs.

  In Poverty Gulch, sunlight streamed through a window, shining down upon a cradle. Fools Gold was asleep, her inky lashes hiding her dark-blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth formed a secret smile. One hand clasped a rattle half filled with uncooked pinto beans.

  Outside, the painted name over the door read MINTA. Following Blueberry’s death and burial in the Mt. Pisgah cemetery, Minta had moved her own belongings into Blueberry’s crib. Sometimes, when the wind whistled at the windows, she could hear her friend’s laughter.

  Today, seated on Blueberry’s rocker, Minta said, “Sorry I baked them gingerbread men. It’s too hot for baking. Ain’t it hot for April, Belle?”

  “April?”

  “April twenty-fifth, Fools Gold’s birth date.”

  “What then became of Christmas, Min?”

  Minta hid a sigh. Last Hallow’s Eve her neighbor had been hit in the face with a hatchet and now she had trouble recollecting things.

  “Christmas went bye-bye, Belle. Here, have a gingerbread man.”

  “Sure cooked them purty.” Belle sat forward in her cane-backed chair and reached for the cookie.

  “I planned to bake a birthday cake, but Fools Gold loves my gingerbread men. She seems to admire all men, and her not even out of nappies.”

  “Fools Gold?” Belle shook her head and hair bobs flew. Blonde strands tumbled forward, shading button eyes and a nose that resembled Mr. Edison’s light bulb.

  “My poppet.”

  Belle shook her head again, until her eyes were freed from the bristle-like veil. “What’s a poppet, Min? A muffin?”

  “A muffin’s a popover.” Minta retrieved a comb from her trunk and began to neaten Belle’s hair. “Jasmine the Brit taught me poppet. It means a baby that looks like a doll.”

  “What’cha’ want a baby for?”

  “The least I can do is raise Blueberry’s bairn. It’s no hindrance. I love the child.”

  “Blueberry knew the risk. She didn’t count days nor spit in no frog’s mouth.”

  “Blueberry was my sister, Belle.”

  “She was? I thought her name was, uh . . .”

  “Smith. Blueberry Smith. But she acted more sisterly than my own kin.”

  “I got a sister. She lives in, uh . . .”

  “Chicago.”

  Belle stared at the cradle. “It’s easy now ’cause the peewee sleeps. What’s gonna happen when she’s growed?”

  “I’ll send her to a twiggy school in Denver.”

  “She’s gonna learn trees?”

  “Jasmine the Brit taught me that word, too. It means choice.” Belle’s hatchet-scarred brow still puckered so Minta added, “Fancy.”

  Belle’s brow unpuckered. “It takes lots of coins to fancy-school a peewee. You’re addled, Min.”

  “Well, if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black!” Minta took a deep breath. “Sorry, Belle, sometimes the devil puts words into my mouth and I say them before I think.”

  Belle squinted down into the cradle. “That there’s a purty peewee.”

  “Her papa’s a rich gent and someday Fools Gold’ll look Nugget Ned straight in the eye and tell him how he wronged Blueberry, the two-faced bastard!”

  “The bastard has two faces?”

  “It’s just an expression, Belle.”

  “What if you have peewees of your own, Min?”

  “Can’t have no bairn of my own.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, I love stories. When’re you meeting up with Otto?”

  “Soon. Have another gingerbread while I get dressed.”

  Minta shrugged off her kimono and reached for a corset. “Once upon a time—” She smiled at Belle’s rapt expression. “Once upon a time I lived on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. At sixteen I wed the feller who lived on the farm next to me.”

  “You was wed? Oh, that’s nice. How come you ain’t lived happy ever after?”

  “My husband Rolf was clearing a new acre when a tree fell on him.” Minta adjusted her corset over the chemise then sidled closer to Belle so she could pull the strings. “I tried to free his body out from under the tree, lost my bairn, and the doc said I couldn’t have no more. Albert wanted to wed me anyways.”

  “What’s an Albert?”

  “Not what. Who. Albert was Rolf’s brother. I loved him so. Was him I always wanted to marry. When Rolf passed, Albert said we’d get hitched, but his folks talked him out of wedding his brother’s barren widow, so I packed up and left for Minneap’lis. Found me some work with a lady who sewed clothes. Dang corset!” Minta buckjumped like a grasshopper. “Wish Otto’d come here so’s I wouldn’t have to wear this dangfool contraption.”

  She stepped into an altered crimson gown that had once been Nugget Ned’s gift to Blueberry. “Anyways, I sewed night and day and folks swore my stitches outdid anything from Paris France. Then I met the Soiled Doves.”

  “Birdies?”

  “Whores. They were young, clean, and wanted me to do the finishing work on their pretties. Why sew, I thought to myself, when I could earn more coins on my back and not ruin my eyes in the bargain? So I joined the profession. I plied my trade in Minnesota and the Dakotas, working west, but men kept talking ’bout Colorado. They said it was a rich land with free-spending miners and millionaires. They said the streets were paved with gold.”

  “The streets’re paved with mud, Min.”

  “I got to Denver first, but the dance hall girls at the Alcatraz Theater were making fifty cents a night and the crib girls did worse. I sewed some pretties quick, for coins, took the Denver and Rio Grande to Colorado Springs, then changed to the Short Line. When I finally set foot in Cripple Creek, guess who I saw?”

  “Toot, toot, all aboard. I like trains, Min.”

  “I saw Albert. He’d come to pan for gold. We would have wed but he caught the fever.” Minta sighed. �
��Albert was my own true love.”

  “Ain’t Otto your own true love?”

  “I love him well enough, but Otto ain’t the marrying kind and he don’t care none for Fools Gold. That’s why I’m meeting up with him at the Central.”

  “I’ll watch your peewee real good whilst you’re gone.” Uncertainty clouded Belle’s eyes. “It’s hot for Christmas, ain’t it?”

  Minta swallowed a groan. Could she trust Belle? The woman’s senses were muddled but she could hear a cry, couldn’t she?

  Damn Otto Floto!

  *****

  “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.” Otto Floto couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he felt like whooping and hollering just the same. He had stopped at the Mint Saloon for a few beers. Now he strolled east along the sunny north side of Bennett Avenue, past the flimsy fronts of the Gold Dollar Saloon, the Okay Shaving and Bath House, and the New York Chop House.

  Across the street was Johnson’s Department Store, looking out of place among the other ramshackle structures. Johnson’s had been brick-built while most of the adjoining stores were made of green lumber cut from nearby government land during Cripple Creek’s first bonanza of ’92 and ’93. The lumber had dried and the buildings were in a bad state of dilapidation.

  Otto turned at Bennett and Third and walked past Lampman’s Undertaking Parlor and the Milk and Mush House to Meyers Avenue. On the south side of Meyers was the Butte Opera House, which Otto managed for H.B. Levie. Farther along the north side of the street were parlor houses and one-story cribs. Weaving his fingers through his oiled hair, Otto thought of Minta.

  The red-haired gal with her bright brown eyes was Otto’s favorite. Lord, could she give a man sugar! But she refused to leave her crib unless he paid for her keep.

  Otto had been told he was a looker, and he had to agree. His reflection in the plate-glass window of the Bucket of Blood gambling hall showed a trimmed handlebar mustache with waxed ends, a straight nose, and dark eyes beneath slanted brows.

  It wasn’t fair of Minta, expecting him to hurt others with his neglect; there was plenty of him to go around. And if she didn’t tend Blueberry’s bastard, they could spend more time together.