My grandmother and her brother spent their first winter in the rickety cabin behind the store, and though it was not a particularly cold winter—certainly no colder than any they had experienced on the Red River—for Martine, the cabin felt like penance for a sin that she had not committed. Franklin did not mind that the cabin was small and let the wind leak through it. He spent most of his time in the store, weighing gold dust and sending for more supplies by sea from San Francisco or by land and river from Quesnellemouthe; it was Martine who spent her days trapped inside the hovel, baking goods for her brother to sell, the poorly vented stove sending choking smoke against the low ceiling. At least she was near the fire, she sometimes thought, because she could never seem to keep warm, and the flames gave off more light than the one small greased-paper window let in.
The wind blew constantly that winter, but the snow held itself. Only a few inches stuck to the ground—not enough to stop men from working—and by the spring, ten thousand men had transformed Sawgamet into a dirty, noisy, bustling boomtown. Jews, fishermen, Indians, farmers, Chinamen, Londoners, Irishmen, Russians, bankrupt men needing a fresh start, former slaves and former slave owners, beat-down soldiers, dreamers, adventurers, and even honest-to-God miners boiled over the landscape, and with them came saloons and whorehouses, but never enough dressed lumber or tin pans.
WHEN MY GRANDMOTHER realized that the winter had passed but that she still could not get warm, she marched fiercely into the store and demanded that her brother build her a proper house.
My great-uncle looked up from the counter and blinked at his sister, as if Franklin were not sure whom the angry young woman was. “I’d no idea,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“Franklin,” Martine said, “I did say something. I said something every morning and every night. Even my bones said something while I was sleeping. Did you not hear me shivering from across the room?”
Franklin rubbed at his temples. My grandmother watched him pressing on the side of his head, as if the bright sun that streamed through the large windows in the front of the store pierced his eyes. She wondered if he still thought of her as simply his younger sister. He was certainly capable of looking at her and not realizing that she was eighteen and attractive, one of the few unmarried women in Sawgamet who was not a whore or worse. They ought not to be sharing a single-room cabin anyway.
“Franklin.” She was careful to make sure that her voice did not sound angry, though she was insistent, and Franklin nodded and reached for the ledger book under the counter. She did not know why he bothered to reach for the book: he well knew how much gold they had earned.
“I’ll order you some dresses,” he said, and she thought of silk and beads and swiss waists and buttoned shoes that were more appropriate for an opera than for the muddy streets of Sawgamet. “And books. I know you’d like to have some more books, and they’re something we could sell once you’ve finished them.”
My grandmother smiled and reached out to pat her brother’s hand. He meant well, but sometimes she wondered if he thought much beyond the gold that passed through his hands. He seemed so odd to her sometimes. She asked for a house and he offered her dresses and books. “We’ll not be heading back to the Red River, will we?” she asked.
Franklin let her touch his hand for a moment and then he took it off the counter. She watched him pretend to look down at the ledger book and felt a sudden stab of love for him. He had done the best he could with her since their parents died. He had taken her west with him when it would have been so much easier for him to simply leave her to her fate on the Red River. She would have married somebody. She could have scratched out her life as a farmer’s wife.
“No,” he said. “We’ll not return there.”
“Then let’s not live as if we will,” Martine said. “It’s thoughtful of you, Franklin, but I don’t need new dresses and I’ve nowhere to wear them anyway. What I want is a house, something with walls and real floors rather than swept dirt, with enough windows—glass windows, not greased-paper—to let in the light, and a properly built stove. I want something that feels more like a home than a coffin. You’ve given the goods that you’re selling a better home than you’ve provided for me.”
“Well, they cost a pretty penny more than you do,” he said. “I only had to bring you from the Red River, and you walked some of that way on your own.” He waved his hand out toward the shelves and then touched her nose. “Some of this I had to have shipped in from San Francisco.”
She swatted away his hand, and then, with a mischievous look, yanked the ledger book out from under his hands. She knew he hated her touching it. She slammed the ledger shut with a flourish. “Lord knows you sell those damned tin pans for enough that you can afford to build me a proper house.”
“Lumber is hard to come by right now,” he said. “I was lucky to get enough to build the store.” He reached out and gently pulled the ledger back from her. “My little temple of commerce.” He slipped the book under the counter. “Jeannot can’t keep up with the demand,” Franklin added, “and now some of the men are starting to work pit mines, so he’s making props, too.”
At the mention of my grandfather’s name, Martine felt a coldness move through the store. The last hum of winter, she thought, and she pulled her shawl over her head and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Are you all right?” Franklin, usually so self-absorbed, so busy with his books and his wares, sounded concerned.
“You see, even in here I can’t get warm.”
MY MOTHER HAS SHIVERED like that for the last few days. We kept her covered with blankets, the fire burning, the furnace turned up, and still she shivered. Her hands were cold in mine, and I rubbed at them, trying to put the chill at bay.
“The winter they fell through the ice,” I said, “you shivered then, too.”
“I wasn’t dying then,” she said. I flinched at the words, and my mother squeezed my hand. “Stephen. You’re a priest. You’ve sat by the bedsides of enough mothers and fathers.”
“Never my own mother,” I said. “Besides, experience doesn’t make it easier.”
“I was cold that entire winter. I felt like I’d gone through the ice myself. You were a good son, though. You kept the fire stoked, kept chopping wood for kindling.” She nodded at the fireplace. “I still like a good fire, but it’s easier now. Turn the dial and the furnace does the work. Same with the stove. Unimaginable luxuries, and all you have to do is turn a knob.” She shifted onto her side to face me, letting out a small grunt. Her bones had been hurting her. “Can you put a pillow behind my back?”
Her body was hard angles. She was so thin and small that it was hard to believe she had once carried me. I adjusted the pillow and I heard her suck in her breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to be gentle.”
She nodded but closed her eyes, and in a few minutes she was sleeping.
I stared at my mother while she slept. The logs burned in the fireplace, and it was at that moment, watching the fire, that I knew there was nothing I could do to stop her from dying.
A child should never be allowed to watch his mother sleep.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Martine and Franklin walked through the forest and up the hill. In the clearing, three large frames held logs off the ground. Each frame featured a sawyer standing underneath with another above, the men taking turns pulling on their ends of the eight-foot-long saws. The blades tore at the wood and sent shivers of sawdust floating down onto the men who were below. A few men hauled a straight, bucked tree into the clearing, while off to the side another man stacked a small pile of rough-cut boards.
Across the meadow, a thin man who seemed no older than Martine stepped out of a squat, crooked cabin. He stooped over to rub the muzzle of a shaggy gray dog that lay near the door, and then he looked up and appeared to see Franklin and Martine.
Martine had seen my grandfather when he and his crew built the store, but she had not talked to him before. In some
ways, though, she felt that she knew a lot about him—she had heard men in the store talk of the young Frenchman who had first discovered gold in Sawgamet but who had found himself more lucky cutting trees than along the river—but she was surprised by the accommodations he kept for himself.
“That’s his house?” she asked.
“First one built in Sawgamet,” Franklin said. “Wintered here alone with that dog.”
“It looks a little …” She paused, searching for a word. “Forlorn.”
Franklin laughed. “He’s eighteen and without a wife. What does he need more than that for?”
Jeannot wiped his hands on a cloth as he walked across the clearing, the dog trotting behind him at close attention. Martine was struck by the way that my grandfather carried himself, and how, when Franklin said, “My sister’s wanting a house,” Jeannot only glanced sideways at her, like he was afraid to look at her directly.
The thought almost made my grandmother laugh—and both my grandfather and my great-aunt Rebecca did laugh when they told me their versions of this story—and I can understand why. My great-uncle Franklin was not the sort of man who usually inspired concern, and my grandfather, though not a large man, had the sort of face that made it clear that he did not mind settling disputes with his fists.
Jeannot turned and looked at the gang of men working for him, seeming to consider something, and then he turned back. “I’m sorry, Franklin,” he said. “I’ve been selling it for one hundred fifty dollars for a rough-cut thousand feet.”
“I can pay,” Franklin said quickly. He glanced at Martine. She had the distinct feeling that he was for some reason afraid she might suddenly turn on him if he did not get her what she had asked for. Franklin had his coat off and his sleeves rolled, and she could see sweat building at the top of his forehead, but my grandmother shivered a little, as if she had never known the touch of the sun. “And I’ll hire you on to construct it if you’re willing.”
“I’m willing, but I can’t,” Jeannot said with a sigh. “I’d be happy to sell it to you, Franklin.” He paused, gave a little cough, and, still not looking at my grandmother, added, “And to your sister. But it’s not mine to sell. The wood is already spoken for through September, even at these prices. I don’t pretend to understand all of it that the miners need—if I knew about mining, I’d still be working the river myself—but there’s sluice boxes and rockers and props, and even more, there are men who are worried that next winter won’t be so mild. You aren’t the only one looking to build a house. These forests have good, strong, straight trees. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. A man could spend a lifetime cutting in these woods and never touch the end of it. But every time I get one man trained, another one decides he’d rather try to find his own mother lode. If I were a smarter man, I’d have you bring me in blades and I’d build a mill over the creek.”
“The next three months’ wood may be spoken for,” Martine said, and though she had begun to shiver even more despite the sunlight, her voice was clear. “But the lumber that you and your men will be cutting in October is not.”
Finally Jeannot looked at her, and when he did, Martine felt the cold strike through her. It seemed to her like they stared at each other for hours until she heard her brother’s short laugh.
“She’s a shopkeeper’s sister, all right. Striking deals runs in the family,” Franklin said. “Shall that be it, then? October? And will you run a crew to build it?”
Jeannot smiled and shook Franklin’s hand. “If your sister wants a house, I’ll build her a house. Would you,” he said, dropping Franklin’s hand and turning to my grandmother, “like to see how the boards are made?”
“I’m not sure what there is to see that I haven’t already seen,” Martine said. She suddenly felt both hot and cold, and when my grandfather laughed at her words, she could not decide if she was going to freeze or burst into flames.
WHEN MARTINE AND HER brother left, my grandfather told me, he surveyed his men, gave a few instructions, and then went back inside his small cabin. When he had settled Sawgamet he was burning for gold, had suffered through a winter alone for it, had suffered many other things, but now that other men had come to Sawgamet, it seemed like whatever magic had led him here in the first place had also decided that he would have to make his gold another way.
He was happy enough with the work, and he was making more gold selling lumber than he likely would have digging it from the ground, but now that he had the gold there was little use for it. He had food and books and new clothes brought in already, but he was nearly eighteen and without a wife. He lay down for a while and thought of Martine. He had noticed her before. It was hard not to.
There were not so many women in Sawgamet, and she was a handsome woman. And her pies. That was something he had spent his money on. My grandmother and my great-uncle Franklin charged enough for those pies, but that did not stop men from wanting them. My grandfather touched a small furrow on the side of his forehead and smiled. Men sometimes came to blows over who would be the one to pay their sweat-earned gold for a pie. He was sure their desire for the desserts would not have been so frenzied had Martine been a less attractive woman, though he was almost certain that she was unaware of the commotion that her pies caused.
To me, Jeannot joked that he might have just mistaken hunger for love, but that afternoon, lying there thinking about Martine and having to face another winter in his cabin alone, my grandfather resolved to walk down to Franklin’s store and talk to him about Martine.
I’VE HEARD TWO STORIES of this encounter. The first from my grandfather himself, in which he was funny, charming, and commanding, and in which he spoke openly of his love for my grandmother. In this story, he asked for her hand in marriage, she accepted, and when she came to the marriage bed it was in all of her virginal glory. But the other version of this story, told by my great-aunt Rebecca, the woman who raised my father and who was never known for bowing to social pressures, is the story that I believe to be true.
When my grandfather entered the store he was momentarily taken off guard when he saw Martine behind the counter rather than her brother.
“May I help you find something, Mr. Boucher?” Martine said.
“Where’s Franklin? I mean, thank you, Miss DeBonnier, can I help you with anything?” He winced as he heard himself speak, and he felt an unaccountable urge to bow to Martine, as if she were royalty.
My grandmother laughed. “As it’s my store, shouldn’t I be asking if I can help you? But if you want to help me with something other than building a house, you could put another log or two in the stove,” she said, nodding toward the corner. “It’s better in the store than in the cabin, but I’ve a sudden chill.”
Despite the warmth of the day and the almost stultifying feel of the store, my grandfather fed wood into the stove, taking the opportunity to settle himself. He stirred the fire with the poker and then turned back to Martine and pulled a book from his pocket, Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. “I thought you might like to borrow this.” He saw her hesitate and rushed on. “I have a few other books as well if you’ve read it.”
Martine made no move, so Jeannot, absentmindedly touching his crooked nose, placed the book on the counter. “It’s good,” he said, and then he half-smiled and looked down at the book. “Nights are long here in the winter and it’s this or spending my money on drink, I suppose.”
“How do you know I can read?” My grandmother had to bite her lip as she watched Jeannot suddenly redden. His mouth opened but nothing came out. “I’m sorry. You just seem so solemn,” she said with a laugh. “I can read, and I appreciate the gesture. Books are hard to come by here.” Then she touched her fingers to the cover just as Jeannot did the same. Their hands touched and my grandmother let out a gasp.
Jeannot glanced down at his hand, at Martine’s hand, at the book, and wondered if her gasp was something else he would not understand, but when he looked up again, Martine was already standing and backing away from the
counter. “You’d best leave now, Mr. Boucher,” she said. “You can come back another time, when my brother is here.”
Jeannot did as he was asked, and as he walked up the path and through the meadow, past the men who were still sawing boards, he thought about the high blush that had come into her cheeks at the touch of his hand. It must have neatly matched his own.
According to my great-aunt, my grandmother thought of the sudden rush of heat that came from Jeannot’s hand, the surge that had run through her and broken the coat of ice that seemed to cling to her, how for the first time since she had come to Sawgamet she had felt warm. Finally, after a while, she locked the store and went back to the small cabin, where her brother slept with a wet cloth on his forehead. She woke him gently, and when he sat up, she said, “I think I’m ready to be married.”
Franklin stared at her and then held out his hand to reclaim the wet cloth. He lay back down and closed his eyes. “There’s a needle pushing into my head. Something sharp and burning.”
“Yes,” my grandmother said, “that’s what it feels like. Will you talk to him?”
But before Franklin was able to finish buttoning his Sunday suit, Jeannot knocked on the door.
Martine waited anxiously in the cabin while her brother and Jeannot talked in the store. She handled the thin gold chain around her neck that her brother had given her for her eighteenth birthday, and she tried to read the book that Jeannot had left, but everything she touched felt like it had come directly from the fire.
When Franklin came back to the cabin, he was alone.
My great-uncle took his time, carefully unbuttoning and hanging his jacket, lighting an oil lamp against the dimness of the cabin, pouring himself a cup of water from the metal pitcher. Martine waited until he sat down on the rocking chair that she usually occupied and then she snatched a wooden spoon from beside the stove and stood over her brother. “I swear, Franklin, I will whack you so hard,” she said.
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