Heaven in My Arms

by Colleen French

  Sally stood on the parsonage steps and took a deep breath to calm her pattering heart. She'd dressed carefully for the visit. She'd borrowed a plain, metternich green traveling gown from one of the new girls at Kate's, pinned her hair up under a modest bonnet, and scrubbed her face clean of red paint until her cheeks stung. She didn't have a strand of blond hair out of place or a hint of color on her lips. This call was important to her, and she wanted to look her best.

  Sally made herself rap on the door before she lost her nerve, turned, and hightailed it back to the whorehouse. Before she could exhale again, the door creaked open.

  Mrs. Tuttle appeared, nearly as tall and as wide as the doorway. "Afternoon," she said kindly.

  "Good . . . good afternoon." Sally smiled hesitantly at the reverend's wife, a little intimidated by her size. She must have doubled Sally in weight. But she had always been pleasant to her on the streets of Carrington, unlike most of the matrons. "I . . . I've come to see the reverend. Is . . . is he in?"

  "Could I ask why?"

  Sally glanced at the hem of the woman's gray gown. "P-personal, ma'am. Preacher business."

  Mrs. Tuttle stepped back. "Please come in. We weren't expecting guests, but our home is always open to the reverend's lambs."

  Sally stepped into the front hall that was dark and smelled peculiar. She tried not to wrinkle her nose. It smelled like rat poison to her.

  "Would you care to wait in the parlor, Miss . . . I'm sorry, I don't know your true name."

  Sally had to think for a second to remember her surname. She'd been Silky Sally for so long that her old identity was nearly lost. "Jenkins. Sally Jenkins, ma'am."

  "Would you like to wait in the parlor, Miss Jenkins, while I fetch the reverend? He's in the kitchen doing a chore."

  Sally glanced into the dark parlor off the front hall. The furniture was draped, just to keep out the dust, but it looked eerie.

  This was where Sally'd come to pay her respects last year, when poor Anne had died of the clap. Joash had had the mortician lay her out here because she'd had no parlor of her own. It had been kind of Mrs. Tuttle to allow a dead whore in her parlor, but Sally would just as soon not go in. It made her think too much about Anne . . . about her own mortality.

  "If'n it wouldn't be a problem, ma'am," Sally said softly, "I'd just as soon see him in the kitchen."

  "This way."

  Sally followed her down a hallway into a small, cozy kitchen.

  "Miss Jenkins to see you, Reverend."

  Joash Tuttle turned from a wooden worktable, a triangular butcher knife in his hand. The last of the afternoon sunlight glimmered off the blade. "Good afternoon, Miss Jenkins." He smiled in his preacherlike way. "Mrs. Tuttle, I think this knife will slice far more evenly now that it's sharpened properly." He ran his finger along the shiny blade carefully so as not to cut himself.

  "Thank you, Reverend. A woman does appreciate a man's effort in her kitchen." She smiled at Sally and backed through the doorway. "I'll just go out and catch that hen while you speak with the Reverend."

  "I won't take much of his time," Sally said.

  Mrs. Tuttle lifted her big hand, unadorned but for her platinum wedding band. "Please, Miss Jenkins, take as much time as you need. The Lord's work cannot be measured by time."

  Sally gave her a half smile, not really understanding what she meant, but wanting to get on with her business. "Thank you," she called after the woman disappearing down the hallway.

  "Now what can I do for you, Sally?" Joash wiped the blade of the butcher knife with a clean cloth and slipped it into a wooden block that held two other knives.

  Sally watched the blade slide into the wood and licked her dry lips. It was the biggest butcher knife she'd ever seen. She thought about the dead women. They'd been killed with a knife. Brutally murdered, Sheriff Tate said. Thank God she was getting out of Carrington before it was too late.

  "I . . . I wanted to talk to you on a matter."

  "Do sit down."

  She glanced at the wooden kitchen chair he indicated. "I'd rather stand. Makes me humble."

  He nodded and smiled the barest smile as he folded his hands neatly at his waist. "I'm pleased you came to me. I'm always pleased when one of my stray lambs comes to call. Now tell me how I can help you, dear Sally."

  She took a deep breath. She'd practiced what she was going to say on the walk over, but now she forgot the words. "I . . . I want to know if . . . if someone, a woman, can be forgiven for her sins."

  "Christ died so that we might be forgiven of our sins," he answered.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. "I . . . I know that's what people like you say. But what I mean is . . . is, can I really be forgiven? If . . . I say I'm sorry for what I done and I'm really sorry and I won't do it anymore—" She exhaled. "Hell, Joash." She glanced up him. She was trying so hard to be a lady her Noah would be proud of, but a thing like this took time. "I want to get married and be a wife . . . maybe even a mother. If I don't spread for no more men, and I'm sorry for what I done in the past, I won't be punished, will I?"

  His smile was serene. "All you must do is accept Christ as your savior, confess your sins to His ears alone, and repent."

  She heaved a sigh of relief. "You mean if I don't do it no more, if I stay true to my husband, and I go to church every Sunday, I won't go to hell?"

  He chuckled. "It's the glory of Christ, Sally."

  She smiled. "I . . . I never knew it would be so easy."

  "It's easy to give yourself to the Lord, difficult to follow Him. Remember that."

  She fluttered her gloved hand. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She started for the door. "I can't tell you how much better I feel. My Noah, he says he doesn't care what I've done, but I was worried about Jesus. Worried something fierce. I didn't want to die like those other girls—punished."

  Joash followed her down the hallway to the front door and out onto the parsonage's front porch. "Go home and pack your things, and take yourself from that den of sin, Sally. That's the first way to begin your new life."

  She tugged on the ribbons of the itchy bonnet she'd borrowed. "Oh, don't worry. I plan to get out of there soon. My Noah's hit silver." She broke into a wide grin. "We're going to get married." Happy beyond words, Sally fluttered off the porch. "Thank you. Thank you much."

  Joash waved. "Go in peace, child, and do not sin again."

  "Don't worry," she called back. "I'm not even lettin' Noah in my drawers again until I've got that ring!"

  Chapter Nineteen

  Celeste sat on a high stool behind a makeshift desk sketching a cross-section view of the progress being made by the laborers below her. Carefully she began to draw the timbers already in place to shore up the earthen ceiling and protect the workers from cave-ins.

  The first vein of silver ore they had discovered beneath the ground was at least sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. With a vein of that tremendous size, and the discovery of three more ore bodies, Fox had made the decision that for safety reasons, they would have to change the structure of the wall supports. They were now building three-dimensional boxlike supports called square sets, rather than the typical post and cap method that looked like door frames. The square sets, shaped like timber boxes, took longer to build and twice the lumber, but made cave-ins far less likely. Slowly the square sets were being built to form the hollow cubes, one interlocked to the next, fanning out in the direction of the digging to resemble underground honeycombs.

  Celeste sketched the west wall of the shaft that had been dug on an incline to follow the apparent tilt of the lode. On impulse, she added a miner with a pickax, digging where the ore was so crumbly that dynamite wasn't necessary to dislodge it. A smile played on her lips as she added a dog.

  "Good afternoon, Celeste."

  She glanced up from her desk. Seeing that the visitor was Brent Trevor, she covered her sketch with a sheet of figures. She didn't want him to know any more about their operation than what he h
ad already bribed out of some of her miners. She was even less anxious to share the sketch of Fox and Silver.

  "Good . . . good afternoon." She climbed off the stool.

  "No, no, don't get up for me."

  He raised a gloved hand and she wondered how he always managed to remain so clean in the midst of all the filth of the mine.

  "I just stopped by to say hello and to see if you'd gotten that pocket of hot water up out of the tunnel."

  She walked around the desk, rubbing the small of her back. It was mid-afternoon and she'd been here since dawn. "I needed a break anyway. I've been sitting for hours."

  "Oh, you poor dear woman, worked liked a slave. "He shook his head. "I keep telling MacPhearson that it's not seemly, a woman like yourself working amidst these men." He pointed with his silver-tipped walking cane.

  Celeste watched a bare-chested miner pass through the open machinery room with a length of rope coiled over one shoulder and a bucket in both hands. The man tipped his battered hat cordially as he went by.

  "I like to keep an eye on my investment," Celeste said. "Besides, even with the foremen, there's too much work for Fox to do alone. I try to keep track of the paperwork, the number of loads of ore we ship a day, and information like that." She came to stand in front of him. "It keeps the miners and my neighbors honest."

  He smiled, apparently amused. "I should hire you to work for me." He brushed at an invisible fleck of dirt on his lapel. "My men are stealing me blind."

  "Perhaps you should spend more time at your mine and less time making social calls." She smiled prettily.

  Trevor laughed. "Oh, I do love a clever woman. You're certain you won't change your mind and allow me to escort you to supper one night? Just supper."

  She tried to speak, but he went on.

  "The more I see the two of you together"—he took a step closer—"the more I see that a woman like yourself could do much better than MacPhearson. He's a strange egg. Spends too much time in those pits with those filthy men. A woman like yourself deserves better. Deserves me."

  Finished with his little speech, he appeared pleased with himself. He really was a laughable little man.

  She tucked a lock of hair back under the linen cap she wore to cover her chignon and keep her hair clean. "Brent, we've been over this. I thank you kindly for your invitation and your compliments, but—"

  Celeste felt a sudden shift on the flooring beneath her and, startled, she grabbed for the corner of the desk. It wasn't just the floor that seemed to move; it came from deeper below. A rumble from the earth accompanied the shifting ground and she looked up in fear at Brent. This wasn't typical of the sound the earth made when the men set dynamite to clear a wall of ore. This was . . .

  "Oh, God, a cave-in," she whispered. As the words passed her lips she unclenched her hand from the desk and ran for the shaft.

  Fox.

  All she could think of was Fox. He was down there. He and Silver had ridden down over an hour ago to settle a dispute between two men.

  Celeste tried not to panic as she raced out of the equipment room into the main room that had been built around the shaft. There was no need to panic. Panic wouldn't help Fox; it wouldn't bring him out alive.

  By the time she reached the square-cut hole that was the mouth of the main mine shaft, great clouds of dirt were puffing from it. The dirt mixed with the ever-present steam made a thick cloud that clung to her face and clothes.

  A hoisting cage clambered up filled with men all talking at once.

  "What's happened? What's happened?" she demanded of the half-naked, dirty-faced miners.

  "Cave-in," a man whose beard was encrusted with dirt said. "Somewhere against the back, north wall, second level."

  As they climbed out of the cage, she pushed her way in.

  "Miss Kennedy!" Trevor called from behind. "Heavens, woman. You can't go down there!"

  Celeste had forgotten his presence. She squeezed into the cage, yanking her petticoats in behind her. "Take me down, Joe," she yelled above the din of the clanking engine and the confusion of the men. Another bucket of men came up as she spoke.

  "Miss Kennedy, you shouldn't go down there," the engineer called to her. "Ain't safe."

  "Damn it, Joe, you send me down or you find work elsewhere."

  The engineer pulled the lever, knowing full well the job as engineer at the MacPhearson Fortune was too sweet to give up. He also knew better than to question Miss Kennedy. Here, her word meant as much as Mr. MacPhearson's. "Yes, ma'am."

  The iron-framed cage with open walls descended and Celeste grabbed a pole for support, taking care not to allow her arm to hang over the cage, where it would be smashed by the timber frame of the shaft as she was rapidly lowered. She passed the first level where she saw a flash of men with candles and lanterns and heard voices and the clank of machinery.

  The cage hit the bottom of the second level of the shaft they had just begun constructing. Before the cage came to a complete halt, she bounded off.

  "Where is he?" she demanded of the closest miner.

  They were all standing around bare-chested in naught but boots and breeches. Lanterns swung in their hands, illuminating their weary faces.

  "Where's Mr. MacPhearson?" she repeated.

  "Don't know, ma'am," one of the gravelly-voiced men offered. "Ain't seen him."

  "How many hurt? Anyone killed?" She pushed her way through the crowd, shoving when they didn't move out of her way fast enough. "You." She pointed to a young man who couldn't have been more than sixteen. "Light my way."

  "Foreman says stay back," another black-faced man said. "Stay back 'til they know ain't no more ore gonna shift."

  "Light my way," Celeste repeated. "If you fear for your life, give me the lantern." She thrust out her hand.

  "No, m . . . m . . . ma'am," the boy stammered. "I a . . . a . . . ain't scared. I'll light ye."

  Celeste followed him through a newly constructed square-set into another. She heard men shouting, but she couldn't tell if any of them were Fox. Someone was calling orders, his voice echoing off the rock walls. Steam hissed from a gully, and she heard the grinding of rock being shoveled.

  "Hurry," she whispered. She followed the boy through a narrow passageway joisted up with fresh lumber. "Fox?" she called.

  Her voice echoed off the black walls streaked with silver ore. He didn't answer.

  "Fox?"

  She was rewarded by a sharp bark.

  "Silver?"

  The dog bounded out of the shadowy darkness and nudged her with his wet nose. She reached down to brush his head and found it covered in a thin coat of grime. "Where is he? Where's Fox?" she murmured.

  They entered the last honeycomb supported by timber. Directly in front of her was a pile of rubble six feet high. The room was so full of dust that it stung her eyes and made it hard to breathe. "Fox!" she called sharply, the filth in the air so thick that it was like fog.

  "Celeste." His voice was rough, but it was definitely Fox. "What the hell are you doing down here?"

  She slapped her hand to her pounding heart. Thank God he was alive . . . safe.

  "I came to see what had happened. What I could do."

  Fox emerged from the fog, his face so grimy that she barely recognized him. His breeches were torn, his hat gone from his head. One sleeve hung off his shoulder, nearly rent from the shirt. "You can stay up above and keep the men calm."

  She grabbed his hand. She'd have hugged him if he'd let her, but he kept her at arm's length.

  "Celeste, do you hear me? I want you up above. "He pointed to the low ceiling that nearly brushed the top of his head. "This is unstable, a pocket of clay."

  "Anyone killed?" she asked softly, knowing he wouldn't lie to her. He wouldn't lie to her.

  "No. Two slightly injured, another with what looks to be a broken leg. He's still trapped under some rock."

  She stared in the dim lantern light at the rubble; the miners trying to set the man free blocked her view of him.
"You should come up, too. Let these men get him out. They know what they're doing."

  His gaze was dark, his eyes pools of concern. "I won't leave an injured man down here. He works for me; he's my responsibility."

  Somewhere close, the earth groaned and a puff of dirt billowed from the ceiling. Fox threw his arms to cover her head. "Go," he insisted.

  "Not without you."

  "It'll take five minutes. I'll get these men out of here until we can reassess the structure. I'll check on the rest of the men and be up before the hour."

  The groaning of the unstable ground ceased, and he withdrew his hands. Celeste was now covered in the same film of dirt as the miners. She dropped her hands to her hips. It was so hot that beads of perspiration trickled down her temples and the nape of her neck. "I don't want to leave you. This is my responsibility, too."

  Fox rubbed the back of his neck, obviously irritated. "Celeste!" he said sharply. Two miners turned to look at them, and he lowered his voice. "How can I help this man if I'm worried about you?"

  "My responsibility for these men is the same as yours," she repeated.

  He looked away, shaking his head. "You are the most stubborn . . . irritating . . . inflexible—"

  "I'll make you a deal." She yanked off her linen cap and shook it, sending dust and bits of dirt flying. "You get him out, I'll check the other men, up on the main level. This is the only area that's been affected, right? They can go on working in the other tunnels?"

  He hesitated for a moment. She could tell this suggestion wasn't satisfactory either. The question was, would he waste any more time trying to convince her otherwise, or would he concede? With a sigh, he finally said, "All right. You check the other tunnels. Tell the men no one has been seriously injured. I'll meet you above ground as soon as we get the man out and close off this tunnel."

  She nodded and turned to go. "Agreed."

  "Celeste?"

  She turned back. Even with torn clothes and covered in dirt and sweat, he made her heart give a little trip. "Yes?"

  "Take Silver with you. These miners are rough. I think they know enough to keep their distance from you, but just in case—"