Veiled Joy

by Reece, Colleen L.

  Once he left her, she couldn’t live there alone. Angus didn’t trust some of the men who, with any encouragement, would pitch a tent on the McFarlane doorstep. His innocent daughter had so far shown no interest in even the nicest, but Angus must not leave her to shift for herself. Heart beating unevenly, he looked up from the flapjacks, bacon, and golden-yolked eggs at breakfast and said, “Joyous, I’m hankering to go prospecting again.”

  A little flush crept into her smooth cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. “When? Where?” She clapped her hands together. “What fun it will be! It’s been a long time since we went into the desert.” A little frown puckered her brow. “You gave up your wandering for me, Daddy. Are. . .are you sorry?”

  “You know better than that.”

  The gentle reproach brought laughter back to her face. “I can be ready tomorrow. So can Jenny.” She sighed. “I’m glad we’ll always have a Jenny. I remember how I cried when the one who first carried me after you found me died from getting out and into some loco weed. I love the new one, too, though. Tell me where we’re going.”

  Angus inwardly sighed with relief. So far, he hadn’t had to mention his heart. Someday he would have to tell her but not now. Not until God could show the way for him to ensure Joy’s future security. “In the west-central part of Utah Territory, Carson County, there’s been a strike of rich ore—silver, some gold. My fingers are just itching to get back to prospecting and mining, lass. Are ye with me?” In times of deep emotion he reverted to his Scottish speech.

  “Why, of course.” Her eyes opened wide and her reddish gold brows went up. Her curly golden lashes intensified the blue of her eyes. Joy glanced around the small but cozy room. “We won’t. . .will we sell our place here?”

  Angus had already thought of that. He sensed that because of her unusual past she needed somewhere to come back to when her wandering stopped. Now he quickly shook his head. “Nay. Our neighbor’s grown son is wanting to work the land. He can live here while we’re gone and keep all he can grow.”

  She sprang to her feet. Her blue-and-white-checked dress beneath her white apron swished around her dainty ankles. “Daddy, I am so glad that of all the people in the world, God let it be you who found me.” She pressed a quick kiss to the top of his whitening head and fled, but not before Angus saw the shine of tears.

  His heart throbbed, not from pain, but from knowledge of what Joyous would suffer after his death. Again he prayed that God might extend his life and help him prepare Joy for the time to come.

  With the future in mind, Angus forced himself to put reticence aside. On the journey north and east to the Comstock Lode, a dozen times he planted seeds to bear fruit when he no longer would be there to see it. “We’ve had good years together, lass, but one day ye’ll be wanting a home of your own and a laddie who’ll take care of ye.”

  Her meadowlark trill of laughter gladdened his heart and turned his thin lips up in a sympathetic smile. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to get rid of me, after all this time,” she pleaded in mock fear, then spoiled her dramatics with another laugh. “Besides, haven’t you taught me that when the laddie I’m to love comes, I will know it?”

  “Aye.” Angus kept his gaze fixed on the trail ahead but his mouth twitched.

  “I wonder what he will be like,” the girl mused. A dreamy look crossed her expressive features. “Tall and thin like John, the farmer? Sturdy and homely but good all the way through like Edward? Dark with the flashing eyes of Juan?” She shrugged daintily and the shoulders of her riding clothes moved in a show of disinterest. “Why think about him—this laddie—until he appears?”

  Angus had no answer for her without disclosing the possible short time before their separation until reunited in heaven.

  Another time he warned, “When we get to the mining camp, I want ye to wear the heavy gray veil I bought for ye to keep off dust on the trail. Canna ye remember how ’twas at Sutter’s Mill?”

  She nodded vigorously, and the fat braid she wore while traveling bounded. “Men yelling and noise, noise, noise.” She grimaced. “I don’t look forward to that.”

  “We’ll try to locate far enough away from the boom town so we can have a bit of quiet,” he promised. Compelled by curiosity and driven by dread, he asked, “Joy, s’pose that something happened to me? What would you do?”

  Her shock told him he’d introduced a totally new idea. “Why, what do you mean?” Fear paled her cheeks.

  He fumbled. “Well, in a mining camp, a body’s never sure what kind of folks will be there, and accidents do happen.” He felt like a liar although every word spoken was certainly true and represented the hidden dangers of where they would be.

  Joy thought for a long time before she said, “I don’t know. I guess first I’d cry then ask God to help me. He would, you know.”

  The quiet assurance in her voice repaid him for all the hours Angus had spent teaching her the truths of the Bible. A load of worry slipped from his shoulders. With faith such as hers, he need have little concern. “Aye,” he agreed and turned her attention to an inquisitive gopher who peered at them with bright eyes then popped back into his hole.

  ❧

  By the time Angus and Joyous reached Carson County, Virginia City had already shot up like a mushroom. Crude buildings and tents stood on yellow earth 6,500 feet high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, close to Mount Davidson and the famous Comstock Lode. Stories of how a person could pass through a town composed of a half-dozen tents in the morning and return to a mile-long strip of tent saloons booming with business ran rampant. Dugouts and shacks, sometimes built of packing cases or rocks, littered the ugly area whose claim to beauty lay in rolling, sparsely covered hills that gave way to blue, snow-capped mountains in the distance.

  The McFarlanes had reason to rejoice over the small remaining hoard of gold their simple living had left them. The price of provisions soared almost as high as the mountains. Joy gasped, set her chin in a firm line, and decided to plant a small vegetable garden as soon as possible. Virginia City had no wood or water; it had to be hauled in from nearby hamlets springing up in the area. Food hauled in from California over the mountains sold at the asking price.

  Angus managed to find a tiny piece of land away from the sprawling shacks and tents. With Joy’s able help, he built a two-room shelter, crude but snug. Joy papered the walls with layers of newspaper to add extra warmth. She also observed Angus’s warning and wore the heavy gray veil any time she went where she could be seen. Even so, she felt the bold gaze of ruffians who seemed to have more time to lounge in the open-flapped tent saloons than be out mining.

  Her cheeks burned one afternoon when she made a natural mistake and approached a woman standing before a counter made of planks resting on heavy boxes in a dry goods establishment. “How nice to see another woman here!” she exclaimed, admiring the rich deep blue of the other’s enveloping cloak.

  The woman turned. Joy gasped. No friendliness warmed the hard, painted face. When the blue cloak slipped, it exposed white neck, shoulders and some of the voluptuous woman’s bosom. “Sorry girlie, we ain’t the same type.” Amusement and a lifted eyebrow reduced Joy to small-girl status and left her staring open-mouthed, and glad for the gray veil.

  “Sorry, miss,” the harried storekeeper apologized. “She’s not for the likes of you to be greetin’.” He leaned across the counter, glanced both ways and whispered, “Decent folks oughta run her kind out of town, along with the sharpie gamblers and those who sell booze day and night.”

  Joy mumbled something and beat a hasty retreat, only to stop short with her first step to the dusty street. A crowd had gathered at the far end. One man wildly gesticulated, his hands going like windmills in a tornado. Another shook his head violently. His, “ ’Tain’t so” reached the appalled girl. Sickened by the dust, noise, and heat, Joy slipped through the crowd, back to a quieter street and quickly made her way out of town and to the haven of the tiny shack she and Angus called home.

  Should
she tell him what happened? She considered then slowly shook her head. What good would it do? For some reason he thought they should stay until they could strike it rich, or at least find enough ore to build up their dwindling resources. She must not tell how she hated everything about their new life. Gone were the days when she happily tended her garden and cows and chickens. How could she grow things in this place when barrels of water could only be obtained for exorbitant prices? She couldn’t depend on rainfall to water the plants for her. Discouragement drooped her shoulders and she wearily walked on.

  A few weeks later, Angus came home grimy but chuckling. He washed up, being as sparing of the precious water as possible, then sat down to supper. “Lass, I heard a tale today.” Many times he started out with those words.

  Lifted from her lassitude, Joy smiled and waited. One of the few good things about this place lay in the stories.

  “Seems that a couple of men needed a place to hole up for the winter last fall, so they built a shelter, using all the rocks they could find.” Angus chuckled again and his gray eyes almost closed with mirth. “When spring came, those two were in for a big surprise. The rocks they’d piled up for walls turned out to be high-grade silver ore! According to the story, that shelter turned out to be worth seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Really?” Joy’s fork clattered against the tin plate they used when wandering.

  “Aye.” Angus took a big bite out of a biscuit. “Now, I wonder if when fall comes we should make us a rock house!”

  Joy didn’t tell him she hoped that by fall they would have a tidy amount gleaned from his findings so they could go home.

  Among the hordes who flocked in after wealth, one couple came for a different harvest—souls. The day Reverend Mills and his bustling, buxom wife hit Virginia City began a new era for Joy, who had been driven to distraction by her surroundings and idleness. Keeping her home neat, preparing meals, and shopping for what little they could afford left too many empty hours. Her nimble fingers had long since mended clothes and even the struggle to keep them washed didn’t take up enough of her time. Late one afternoon, a noise outside changed all that.

  She cautiously peeked out before opening the door wide to the thin-faced man who wore a clerical collar and rode a dilapidated horse. “Miss McFarlane? The storekeeper told me you and your father lived up here. I’m Reverend Mills.”

  “Step down and come in,” she welcomed eagerly. “You’re the first company we’ve had.”

  “I won’t be the last.” Saddle leather creaked when he slid off the nag and walked stiffly toward her. “My wife is eager to call, but we felt I should come first to see if. . . .”

  She knew he silently added, if she’d be welcome or if this is a fit place for a lady. A dimple showed when she said, “Not every place is suitable for a call from a minister’s wife.” She ushered him inside and reached for the precious hoard of tea she’d been saving.

  Reverend Mills shook his head. “None for me, thanks. Betsy will have an early supper waiting for me.” He put aside his small talk and went straight to the point. “Miss McFarlane, I see you are a Christian.”

  Her gaze followed his to the open Bible on a nearby table made from a box. “Oh yes. Daddy Angus taught me about Jesus from the time he found me.”

  The minister’s eyebrows raised. “Found you? Why, aren’t you his daughter?”

  “His adopted daughter.” Joy’s eyes shone like twin mountain lakes in sunlight. She briefly related her past, mentioning she couldn’t remember before the terrifying time in the desert when the man who later died carried her.

  “How old are you?” Reverend Mills wanted to know. Her laughter rippled. “Daddy says I’m sixteen or seventeen or eighteen, he doesn’t know which.”

  The minister joined in her laughing. “What is your name?”

  “Joyous.”

  “What a beautiful name! Do you remember where you got it?”

  “Daddy Angus said when he asked me who I was I said, ‘J-yes.’ So he called me Joyous.”

  “Hmm. You could have meant Joyce.”

  “That’s what Daddy said, but by the time he thought of it, we were used to Joyous. Besides, he usually calls me Joy.”

  “Joyce is actually Latin for joyous so you are well-named,” he told her then smiled. “I must be going, but Betsy will call soon.” He started for the door and paused. “Miss McFarlane. . .Joyous. . .do you sing?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him. “Daddy Angus and I sing hymns when we travel. At home, too.”

  “Praise God! Betsy and I felt we must come to this godless camp and share the good news of the Gospel of our Lord. We both sing a little, but if we can find a few others who will lift their voices in song, it will add to our meetings. Many a sinner has been touched by a hymn when he wouldn’t listen to a sermon. Child, are you willing to help us see if we can drown out a little of the wicked roar of this place with righteous songs instead of the vile, bawdy music of the streets?”

  “Oh yes.” Joy felt excitement stir within her. She followed Reverend Mills out to his excuse for a horse and called after him, “I can hardly wait to meet your wife.”

  “You’ll like her,” he promised and rode off with a wave, leaving Joy happier than she had been for weeks.

  ❧

  She did like Mrs. Mills, who arrived promptly at two the next afternoon, astride the sorry horse.

  “Call me Betsy,” she said, even before she clambered down and came into the shack. Her sharp eyes in her round face surveyed the tidy surroundings, and she plumped onto a box chair on which Joy had placed a pillow. “Glad to see you’ve made the most of what you have. Never could abide those who whine and say there’s no use trying to keep a shack clean. Chances are, they wouldn’t keep a place clean if they had a mansion.” Her tongue ran as if well-oiled, but not an unkindly thing did she say. Instead, she brought cheer and happiness to the lonely girl.

  “Now, come Sunday, we’re going to have a meeting. No use waiting, I told my husband. I brought a list of songs—do you know them?” She handed Joy a piece of brown wrapping paper of dubious origins. On it were penciled: Amazing Grace; All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name; Oh, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing; Blest Be the Tie That Binds; Holy, Holy, Holy; Come Thou Almighty King; O God, Our Help in Ages Past; and Abide with Me.

  Oh, I forgot to put down ‘How Firm a Foundation,’ ” Betsy said. “Do you know it?”

  “Yes, and the others, too,” Joy gladly told her.

  “Good.” Betsy’s face wreathed in smiles. “Will that father of yours agree to sing with us?”

  “He already has.” Mischief twinkled in the girl’s eyes and her gilt freckles shone. “He is quite shy, but I just told him if ever people needed to hear the old hymns it had to be Virginia City and he reluctantly agreed.”

  “Well, that’s settled. First meeting or two the four of us may be the only ones who know the songs, but folks’ll soon catch on. Besides,” she added shrewdly, “my husband says some of the decent ones are glad enough to have something to go to besides the Sunday horse racing, even if ’tis a preaching.”

  six

  Sunday. The lone day of the week when exhausted miners put aside their tools for other pursuits. Some washed clothes. Some wrestled or raced their horses. Others read the Bible. They were the ones who smiled when the accustomed sound of a rousing hymn issued from a large tent Reverend Mills had erected at the edge of town. Another hymn followed, calling the devout and curious alike to the new phenomenon. The storekeeper occupied a front row seat constructed of long planks resting on wooden packing boxes. One by one, rough men took their places, sometimes stumbling from embarrassment when they saw the pure, beautiful face of Joyous McFarlane turned their way and smiling.

  Reverend Mills preached a message of salvation designed to pierce hearts. The harmony of the Mills-McFarlane quartette added its invitation and brought back long-forgotten memories of home and church to those who had wandered away. Every person who attended
left touched—many by the message, all by the girl who shone in her crude surroundings like a white flower in a coal field. Her clear voice had never before been used for the Lord, and when she sang one stanza alone of “Abide with Me” tears sprang to more than one pair of eyes.

  “Next week there will be more,” the storekeeper promised, excitement filling his face. “Word will get around, just wait and see.” He confidentially added for Reverend Mills’s ear alone, “Even those who patronize the saloons on Saturday night might be drawn here—by the girl.”

  The good reverend drew himself up indignantly and Betsy, whose keen ears missed nothing, retorted, “If they come for that reason they might as well stay away.”

  “Not so,” the storekeeper protested. “Once they get here they’ll get a good dose of religion. What’s the harm of using honey to catch flies, er, the souls of men?”

  “Just you keep your lip buttoned,” Betsy warned. “I’ll not have that girl bothered by the likes of miserable sinners who put on a good front so’s to gain her friendship.”

  “He nodded, but trotted back to his quarters behind his store with a grin. Say what she liked, it wouldn’t keep the men of Virginia City away, not from that girl, no siree. No wonder she had been swathed in the gray veil when she came to town.

  Now that she had the Reverend and Betsy Mills and singing and church, along with midweek prayer meeting, Joy could stand the primitive conditions.

  Angus said nothing to anyone except her, but quietly carried out his work and with success. While he found no ledges of silver such as rumor put out were everywhere in the area, a steady stream of small pockets of gold, silver-bearing rock, and, now and then, a gold nugget furnished their living and the beginning of a cache. Wise in the ways of greedy men, the canny Scotsman hid the gold in a well-concealed hole at the foot of his shack next to a corner post where he could add to the store when necessary. The discoveries of the silver posed a problem. He could hardly pack out great sections of rock and, if he announced the find, claim jumpers and unscrupulous mine owners alike would rush in.