Prayers for Sale

by Sandra Dallas

  “I know chamomile, but I wouldn’t gather it where there’s dead bodies. Who knows what graveyard chamomile would do to you? I got mine up yonder, in that high meadow.”

  Hennie was amused that Nit refused to use a cemetery flower, but she wouldn’t for the world let the girl know that.

  “How did you like the life on the bad side of the law?” Nit asked slyly.

  “Oh, I didn’t at all. Any minute, I expected to be exposed, but I had to do it for Merry Belle. It’s a terrible thing when luck dies. I don’t expect she could have lived without that money.” Hennie thought a minute as she stretched out her legs. “Emma asked if I’d work with her again, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the soul of a sharper.”

  The two women laughed, then Hennie asked, “Have you got your wood in for winter? You can’t go anywhere in autumn without seeing men sawing their winter’s wood. At least, I won’t have to do that anymore, for I’ve got enough to last me till I leave out.” Hennie told the girl, “You’ll need a mountain of wood.”

  “Dick’s been at it. He says when he’s done, he’ll build me a chicken coop, and we’ll send off for chickens. I sure would like eggs come winter, and they’re too precious at the store.”

  “You can’t have chickens in Middle Swan. They’ll freeze on the roost—unless you keep them in the house.”

  The girl frowned at the words and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Oh, hello, I never thought of that.” She stretched her legs, too, and held her face to the sun, in no hurry to leave. “I saw smoke from our chimney go down to the ground. That means fall weather in three days,” Nit said. “Chestnut weather, that’s what we called fall time at home.”

  Hennie sighed. “It’s the prettiest time of year, autumn is, but the coming of the leaves means snow’s not far behind. I’ve always hated to see winter’s dark days come on, this year more than ever, because it means my time on the Swan is almost over.” The old woman didn’t want to think about that, so she asked, “What does Doc say about the baby?”

  Nit looked at the old woman curiously. “He doesn’t know about it. I’ll send for him when the pains start.”

  “Some go to see him earlier to make sure everything’s all right. It might ease your mind if you did.”

  “Well, I don’t know why. I wouldn’t go to a doctor at all if there was a granny woman around, but there’s not. I never trusted doctors much. It seems to me they wouldn’t know common sense if they met it in the road.”

  The old woman stood then, for the sun had moved, and there was a chill under the pine trees. The wind had come up, too, and it rattled the dry leaves on the bony aspen branches. “You go on back. I believe I’ll walk a little,” she told Nit.

  The two women went through the arch with END OF DAY CEMETERY in cut-out iron letters, and stopped to say good-bye. The girl shivered, wrapping her thin coat about her belly, which was shaped like a rain barrel, and said, “That wind searches me.” She asked if Hennie wanted her to go along for company, for the path Hennie was about to turn onto was rocky.

  “No, I’ve walked these mountains since they were new,” Hennie replied, looking up at the hills, which were yellow now in the harsh light. “Tap ’er light,” she said by way of farewell.

  “Don’t trot yourself to death,” the girl warned.

  The old woman would have liked the company, but she knew the girl was cold. Besides, sometimes she needed to be alone, especially now, because thoughts of death had intruded all afternoon—Billy’s, Jake’s, Sarah’s. Her own days, she feared, were close to spent, and her death would be hastened with the move below, for she was like a turkey that can’t be enclosed. She had to range free to live.

  Hennie watched the girl until she was out of sight, then stooped down and picked a spray of purple asters, which she tucked into the buttonhole of her coat. “Jake,” she said out loud, as she started up the path, “I got to settle things for that one before I go. You take it up with the Lord.”

  Walking with sure footsteps, Hennie followed the path past the willows and the stumps of trees that had been cut long ago for the mines, whose headframes rose above the pines. There seemed to be more gallows frames than trees along the trail. She was thirsty, but the trickle of water left in the spoiled river the dredge had worked ran red where it leached the iron out of the rocks. Hennie made her way across the piles of glacial rocks to where the dredge squatted in its pond and stood there, watching the ugly thing scoop away an embankment across from her. She stared at the bucket line, thinking, until she was jolted by the long screech of the shift whistle.

  Then a voice called from the gangplank, “Hey, old woman.” Hennie turned to see Dick Spindle waving to her. “Wait there. I’ll be right quick.” He disappeared for a moment, then came running down the gangplank, past the men leaving for the day, dodging a man who had stuck out his elbow just as Dick went by. “This here’s for you,” he said, handing her a fine walking stick. “I found it this morning, and I couldn’t hardly leave it there. I knew I’d find somebody to give it to. I’m awful bad to keep things.”

  Hennie examined the stick and pronounced it the best she’d ever seen, and it was, sturdy, just the right height, wind-polished to a shine, even a knot on top for a knob. “It would tickle me to use it,” she said, by way of compliment.

  “I’ll walk along the drop side of this foxpath if you like. I’m off shift.”

  “I’d be pleasured.” Hennie was amused that Dick had picked the outside of the path along the mountain edge. Her own footing was surer than the man’s, she figured, but she wouldn’t for anything tell him so, for he had been mannerable. “I just left your wife,” she said.

  “Nit’s partial to you. I don’t believe she’d have made it up here in the mountains if you hadn’t tended to her.”

  Such talk embarrassed Hennie, and she changed the subject. “You liking the gold boat any better?”

  “No, ma’am. It makes hell look like a lightnin’ bug. Nit, she tries to be in good heart, but I know she worries. Sometimes I figure I’m on borrowed time, what with Frank getting killed instead of me. I believe Mr. Hemp wishes it had been me. That’s all I got to say about it.”

  Hennie didn’t push the young man. Instead, she said, “Mrs. Spindle told me you like it fine in Middle Swan.”

  “That’s about right. I got no hankering to go back to Kentucky, nor Nit, either. I told her when the dredge shuts down for the winter, we can go on home, see that little grave, but she doesn’t care for nothing that way now. She’s got a brave heart, and she’s thinking about the new baby. I sure hope . . . If something happened to me . . .” His voice trailed off. In a minute, he said, “I don’t know what she’ll do when you leave out. Nit says you’ve been a friend and a mother to her.”

  “There are others—”

  “Not like you,” Dick said.

  The two of them walked the rest of the way in silence. At the place of parting, Hennie put her hand on Dick’s arm. “I don’t want you to be in discomfit, Mr. Spindle. Women here are as tough as these mountains,” she said, “and your wife’s a mountain woman now. She can handle anything that comes down her trail.”

  Chapter 9

  Hennie Comfort felt Mondayish as she watched the snow come down outside her window, a real blizzard. The flakes were thick and soft and endless, and fell straight from the sky, as if they were being dumped from a giant bushel basket. She sat beside her quilt frame and stared through the green leaves of geraniums that all but filled the frost-etched window, to the snow beyond. Her stitches were loopy and uneven and would have to come out. She might as well quilt with noodle as a needle, she thought. Hennie’s mind was troubled, and she couldn’t understand why. The stove wood was stacked in a box in the kitchen, the brass coal shuttle was full, and the pot of chili that simmered on the back of the range would last until the storm was over. Besides, she had the memory of the night before to keep her warm. She had invited the young couple to supper again, along with Tom Earley.

  He’d r
emained in the high country long after he usually went below. “I like this place above all others, although I won’t like it at all if you aren’t here. I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t return next summer,” he told her the week before, over supper at the Grubstake. “But of course, you’ll return,” he added with a little too much feeling.

  She reached for her old friend’s hand and held it a long time. It wasn’t necessary to tell Tom how much his friendship had meant to her over the long years, any more than it was for Tom to tell her how much he cared about her. Neither one of them was ready to say good-bye to the friend of a lifetime; nor did either want to say farewell to Middle Swan.

  “Of course I’ll be back. I’m not ready to say deep enough to the Tenmile,” Hennie said, knowing even as the words left her mouth that they might not be true. “Most likely, I’ll live to be a hundred. I believe I have enough money to do that. And if I don’t, there’s Mae, not that I care to be beholden.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about money.” Tom dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand, and Hennie understood that he must have made provision for her in his will if he crossed over before she did. Although she’d found out after Jake died that Tom had arranged with the banker to help her if she ever needed it, she didn’t know he’d extended that responsibility after his death.

  “You’re staying in the high country mighty late this year,” Hennie said.

  “I’m waiting you out. I’ll go down when you do,” Tom replied. “Are you ready to go to Iowa?”

  “I’ll never be ready, but I’ve sorted through my things and set aside what I want to go with me. I’ve got most everything I want to take boxed up, except for my clothes and my quilt frame. I’ll leave the rest behind.” She paused and added, “I wish I could leave my worries behind, too.”

  Tom didn’t say anything but waited for her to continue. He’d always been a good listener.

  “I’m still worried about Mrs. Spindle,” she continued. “Most likely, she’ll have the baby before I leave, so I’ll know whether the two of them are all right. But I’d feel better if I knew Dick didn’t have to go to the dredge of a morning.” Hennie shook her head at the thought.

  “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “That’s just it. I wish I could.” She smiled then and held up her glass and said, “That’s enough gloomy talk. Luck. To them, and to us, too.”

  She’d invited Tom to take supper with her last night, then asked the young couple to join them, for she knew that Tom enjoyed Nit and Dick as much as she did. It was a fine evening, one of the most satisfying she could remember. The girl, big as a woodshed now, was feeling fit, and her husband stroked her hand more than once, so proud of his young wife as he looked at her belly. He treated her as if she was as precious as a chunk of wire gold, and she was.

  The four of them sat with their toddies in front of the big stone fireplace, watching the flames jump up and listening to the wood pop and send up showers of sparks, as they toasted one another with “mud” and “luck” and “regards.” Outside, the air was heavy, and they knew that snow was coming. They wondered if it would be a big storm or just a dusting that would melt like fog in the next day’s sun. Snow already covered the peaks of the Tenmile; it would be there until July, but there hadn’t been a real blizzard in Middle Swan yet, although it was the last day of November.

  Hennie brought out a heavy winter coat of Mae’s and told the girl if she didn’t take it, the moths would eat it. Then she presented Dick with a pair of Jake’s gloves, leather with fur inside, saying they’d do until the dredge shut down for the winter. He wouldn’t want to freeze his fingers. “I found them when I was packing, and I don’t have a use for them,” she explained.

  Hennie had a way about her and offered the gifts in a manner that made the couple feel that they were doing her a favor by taking them. Neither looked at the gifts too closely, or they might have noticed they’d never been worn and that the coat was the latest style. Tom had told Hennie once that if she added up all the coats of Mae’s she had ordered from the catalogue to give to needy women over the years, Mae would have had a coat for every day of the month.

  The four had seconds of Hennie’s scripture cake. Then they helped themselves to the bottle of Tenmile Moon that sat in the middle of the table, Hennie telling Dick that she’d give him what remained of her liquor when she left out, since she couldn’t take it on the train.

  When they were all feeling mellow, Tom said, “I’ve got myself a problem.” He leaned back in his chair, Jake’s solid chair, and Hennie thought that it suited him.

  The young folks, comfortable from the food and drink, turned to Tom, waiting for him to continue.

  “I had to fire Vern Haslett, the man that’s in charge of the Yellowcat.” Tom paused and explained to Nit and Dick, “If you don’t know, that’s my mine up on the Jackass Trail. It’s not much of a producer, but I have sentimental feelings about it, since my brother Moses discovered it in the old days. I bought it some years back. There’s gold in it yet, and I make wages from it, with enough left to buy a dinner or two at the Grubstake—that is, if Hennie doesn’t order the porterhouse.”

  “Why’d you fire him, Tom?” Hennie asked.

  “I caught him high-grading!”

  “No! The sappy-headed fool! I’d have told him myself where he could get off. What was his excuse?”

  “He said he had a brood to take care of, but I didn’t swallow it. He raised a shabby family, and they’d left him long ago. Besides, I paid him good wages. So I told him, ‘Get your bindle, and get going.’ ”

  “What’s high-grading?” Nit asked.

  Tom explained that a miner high-graded when he stole good ore from the mine he was working. Most high-graders took it out in their pockets or their lunch buckets. Tom knew of one fellow who put a chunk of ore on his head, under his hat. Some even sprinkled gold dust in their hair, then washed it out at home.

  “Why, that’s stealing!” Dick said. “A fellow that’d steal from the man who pays him isn’t fit to live with hogs!”

  “That’s why I told him it was time to tramp,” Tom said. “He swore a blue streak at that.”

  “I hate cussing more’n anything that ever came down my road,” Nit told them. “I never saw the sense in blessing out a person.”

  Except for the crackling of the wood, there was silence in the big room then, until Tom glanced at Hennie, the corners of his mouth turned up a little, and continued slowly. “Now I’ve got to find a man to replace Vern, a fellow who likes it underground and one I know I can trust. If I don’t get somebody pretty quick, I’ll just have to shut down the Yellowcat.”

  Hennie put her hand in front of her mouth to hide a smile. She knew now where the conversation was going, and she looked at Tom with shining eyes, because he’d found a way to answer one of her prayers. “What a botherment,” Hennie said at last. “That means you’ll put the two other men you’ve got there out of work if you can’t find a manager. Won’t one of them take over for you?”

  “They’re just muckers. Those two are all right if somebody tells them what to do, but I don’t believe they’d get much work done on their own. For all I know, they’d sneak off to the picture show at the Roxy in the middle of shift.”

  “Where are you going to find a good man?” Hennie asked, wondering if lightning would have to strike Dick before he picked up on the conversation. She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips as if she were thinking hard.

  Tom shook his head and sipped his whiskey. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Seems like young men don’t care about gold mining today. So many young fellows don’t have a sense of the underground, not like the old miners did. I believe it might be a thing you’re born with. Fellows the age of Dick here would rather work the gold boat.” Tom paused, for what he said was not entirely true. But Hennie didn’t contradict him, and in a minute, Tom asked, “You don’t know of a good man I can hire, do you, Hennie?”

  The ol
d woman looked pensive as she glanced at Dick from under her eyelids. She hoped she wouldn’t have to hit the boy over the head with a chunk of wood to get his attention. “I’m wrecking my brain.”

  “I know who can do it,” Nit interrupted suddenly, and they all turned to her. “Dick can. He worked underground at home, and he’s as honest as the day is long. He knows everything there is about mining. Tell them, Dick.”

  Both Hennie and Tom looked surprised.

  So did Dick. “Aw,” he said, blushing.

  “Why, I recollect you said something about that once,” Tom said.

  “I worked in a coal mine back home. I know fellows here look down on that. They act like they’re top dog because they mine gold,” Dick replied hesitantly. “But I’ve been inside a gold mine, and I don’t see that it’s much different. I’m a fast learner. I believe I might could do it.”

  Tom scratched his head, looking as if he had to be convinced. “Those old boys I’ve got working there now could teach you, I suppose. But they’d sure as heck try to put one over on you now and then.”

  “I might look green as a gourd, but I know a thing or two.”

  Tom nodded. “I’d hate to hire a fellow who’d quit me to work the gold boat when it started up next spring. I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “Oh no, sir,” Dick said. “I wouldn’t. I recollect I told you I don’t like dredging at all, and I mean it. The dredge pays good enough, and I’m glad to have the job, but if you ask me, a boat’s a sorry way to mine gold. It ought to be dug out of the ground with a pick and a shovel, like coal.”

  “He’d rather work underground than on top of it. He says that all the time,” Nit added.

  Tom turned to Hennie then for her opinion. “I believe he could do it. Dick’s a worker,” she said. Then she added, “Here’s another thing: He’s neat with his work. His woodpile’s the tidiest in Middle Swan, and I’ve seen the way he keeps his tools in the house, lined up nice and as clean as my silverware. I believe a man who takes care of his equipment like that will be careful. That surely does matter in a mine.” She didn’t need to remind Tom that Jake most likely had died from carelessness. “And he’s awful good to do things for folks. He found that walking stick over there.” She pointed to the fine stick that Dick had presented to her the day the two of them had walked together from the dredge.