Diantha

by Zina Abbott

  She kept the hat her husband used before they traveled from western Nevada to Wildcat Ridge to have something to protect her skin from the sun while she worked out of doors washing laundry where the light helped her find the stains that needed extra soap and scrubbing. Once the weather turned cold, and she moved her operation back inside the laundry shed, she would need to rely on lamplight and what little sunlight came through the single small window for that. However, in warm weather, she preferred direct sunlight to check for spots, even though it reddened and freckled her skin.

  Nissa knew before she started her laundry business it would not be a lucrative venture. Since Mortimer Crane, owner of the Gold King Mine, decided to not reopen the mine after the disaster, what relatively few miners who survived had already moved on to other mines—some of them to his new mine in Clear Creek. With the miners gone from Wildcat Ridge, there was hardly any call for laundry to be done. Most of the widows in town washed their own clothes and linens. Only a few, like Hester Fugit, the former mayor’s wife who now filled the post of mayor, still sent her laundry out. However, Nissa could not earn a living on what came from a middle-aged widow with no children living at home and the few others who brought their dirty laundry to her.

  Nissa looked over at the clothes from the newspaper editor, Duncan Moon, better known as Dinky. He was another one of her customers, when he sobered up enough to realize he needed to do something about getting clean shirts and underclothing. The sight, along with the stench of body odor and vomit, prompted her to wince. It would not be a pleasant load to wash, but it would bring in some cash money to buy food and essentials for her little family.

  One term of service Nissa had insisted upon from the start was she only accepted cash payment. She advised all her customers they would not receive their cleaned clothes or linens until after they paid for her work. She could not afford to carry accounts, not with the three of them to feed. The one exception was the hotel laundry. Since the hotel had closed its dining room, and the few rooms rented hardly generated enough dirty sheets and towels to be washed, what work she did for the Ridge Hotel barely paid for her rent for her “home” which consisted of the laundry shed and the yard full of roped lines for drying clothes.

  “Nissa, honey, ah missed y’all at the meeting. Ah thought y’all planned to come to hear what Mayor Fugit had to say to all the widows.”

  Upon hearing the soft voice with its Southern accent of her landlady, Nissa turned and offered a warm smile to Diantha Ames, the owner of the Ridge Hotel and the laundry building she rented. Diantha had been raised as a Southern lady to behave graciously and to never raise her voice to others.

  In the short time Nissa had rented from Diantha, she wondered how the woman would ever earn enough income from running her hotel and the side property on which the laundry building had been constructed. She was far too generous to her customers, and especially to Nissa and the children. Nissa’s official home consisted of the shed of pine with its gaps between the square-cut logs which, when several feet of snow layered the ground as it still had at the time Nissa first moved there, hardly held the heat in, even with the wood stove burning a full flame to provide hot water for laundry. However, Diantha insisted she and the children sleep inside and use the now-vacant cook’s room behind the kitchen in the back left-hand side of the better-built building. The room boasted a door to the outside, as well as one that opened into the kitchen from which the heat of the cook stove adequately kept both rooms warm. In addition to the door between the rear cook’s room and kitchen, doors in the kitchen led to the dining room in front of the building, Diantha’s sitting room to the right, and the outside door to the left. Since she knew Diantha’s late husband designed the room, Nissa often wondered how he managed to pay for so many doors, knobs and locks.

  Diantha also insisted Nissa share the common kitchen which had once been used to prepare breakfast and supper for the hotel’s guests, but now only served as a kitchen for Diantha. As much as she felt grateful for her landlady’s sharing, Nissa felt the lack of having her own home.

  Seeing Diantha suddenly jarred Nissa’s awareness of her surroundings. She twisted her too-thin body as she frantically searched the hotel grounds. “Jamie and Molly. They’re gone! I was so focused on finishing these sheets I lost track of them.”

  Seven-year-old Jamie, with his brown hair like his father and green eyes from her, behaved like a typical active little boy, although he acted out his grief over his father’s loss in ways that at times drove Nissa to distraction. In contrast, four-year-old Molly, a chubbier copy of Nissa, had retreated into herself and grown increasingly quieter as she struggled to understand the disappearance of her father and the changes in the family’s circumstances. She constantly sought approval, as if she was afraid if she misbehaved, her mother would also leave. Nissa knew she must do whatever it took to keep these two children healthy and with her. She had suffered the loss of her firstborn daughter at birth, and the boy that came after Molly had miscarried four months early. Jamie and Molly were all that remained of any family she knew of, immediate and extended.

  Nissa tossed the hat on the bench next to her tub of rinse water and snatched the scarf off her head as she turned towards the street. “Excuse me, Diantha. I have to find them.”

  Diantha reached out her hand to stop Nissa as she spoke in a reassuring voice. “They’re just fine, Nissa. They were playing by the edge of the vegetable garden, and I invited them into the kitchen to each have a cup of milk and a cookie from those left from last night.”

  Nissa’s shoulders sagged with relief, and her face pinked with embarrassment. She knew the cookies were left over from those Diantha had baked and offered as an evening treat for her few hotel guests. She hated accepting charity. She often wondered if Diantha kept an eye on the food supplies Nissa stored on a shelf in the hotel kitchen pantry. She suspected her landlady knew Nissa struggled to provide enough for her children to not go hungry. Even then, their diet consisted of inexpensive basics. She often went without full meals herself in order for the children to have enough.

  “Thank you, Diantha, but you didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but I wanted to. I have so little opportunity to be around children, I enjoy spending time with yours.”

  Nissa turned away at the wistful expression that came over Diantha’s face. Although, like her, Diantha was wed young as part of an arranged marriage, Nissa knew she had never been able to have children of her own.

  “You never answered my question, Nissa. We missed you at the widows’ meeting today. If you were worried about finishing these sheets, you could have asked me to help you with them so you could have gone.”

  “I appreciate that, Diantha, but I didn’t want to go. You know I’m not welcome by most of those women. Besides, I had no one to watch the children. I’m sure they didn’t need my two underfoot.”

  “I would have helped you with the children, Nissa. Besides, why ever would you think the ladies would not have been welcoming? You are also one of the widows affected by this disaster.”

  Nissa eyed the wash tub, now empty of sheets and towels. She wiggled her fingers in the diminished suds. She decided the water still felt warm enough to wash Dinky Moon’s clothes, especially since she might need to give them a double wash. She clapped her hat back on her head, gathered together the light-colored articles, and dumped them into the tub.

  “My situation isn’t the same as you other women, Diantha. Most of you live in town. Your husbands worked in businesses in town. You have homes you want to keep. On the other hand, my husband was a mine supervisor. We lived in a house closer to the mine—one that Mr. Crane provided us as part of my husband’s compensation.”

  Nissa grabbed a wooden paddle which she plunged into the water to dampen all the clothes. She stepped back as the foul miasma that drifted up from the tub hit her in the face. She turned to Diantha with a wry smile. “You don’t see that fine, two-story house up on the hill near the mine anymo
re, do you? My husband was barely cold in the ground, and I had not yet started seeing where our finances stood when Mr. Crane showed up on my doorstep to tell me I needed to be out by the end of that week. He claimed he needed to dismantle the house and move it up to his mine by Clear Creek for his mine supervisor up there.” Nissa stared off into the distance, her expression wistful. “Even if he kept the mine open here, he would have wanted the house for the new supervisor. I suppose I knew once I heard James was gone I would have to move. I hoped Mr. Crane would have had the decency to at least give me to the end of the month to make arrangements for me and the children.”

  Nissa turned to Diantha, who looked at the floor.

  “The man doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body.” Diantha shook her head. “The tales some of the widows shared today—oh, my.”

  Nissa turned back to her task. “No, he’s not compassionate or anything else commendable. And if I thought then he might show a little consideration to the widow of a man who worked hard to make his mine a success and with whom he spent a great deal of time, I quickly learned I was mistaken. I am so grateful you allowed me to live and work here, Diantha. You are one of the few people in this town who own your property and don’t rent the land or buildings from him. I quickly learned I didn’t have the means to leave Wildcat Ridge like so many women did, but I would have gone to great lengths to keep myself out of Mortimer Crane’s reach.”

  Diantha’s voice remained soft and non-accusatory. “You could have gone to Hester Fugit to ask for funds to return to family. You know she used some of the money left over from the donations to help many of the miners’ widows return to their home towns.”

  Nissa turned and shook her head. “That would not have worked for me. I have no one close still living. My ma died having my baby brother, and Pa never remarried. I think the reason my pa was eager to marry me off to James while I was so young was because he knew he wasn’t going to live much longer. I have nowhere to go.” She shrugged and turned back to her scrubbing. “Maybe I’m too proud and didn’t want to take charity. Maybe a part of me knew I’d be better off here. I know where everything is in Wildcat Ridge. Maybe I am afraid I might find myself in a strange city with no money, no prospects and two children to take care of.”

  Neither woman spoke for several seconds. Nissa broke the silence. “Be grateful, Diantha, your husband left you a business. I know you are struggling, but at least you own the land and the hotel. If you and these women are successful in turning this town around, you’ll have a place to live, even if you never become wealthy.”

  “Yes, I am fortunate my husband managed to buy the land outright with the funds we brought from Georgia. However, that doesn’t mean Mr. Crane doesn’t try to cause me trouble.” Diantha issued a shuddering sigh. “He’s quick to point out my lack of experience running an enterprise like this hotel. I think he wants it gone so there is no competition for his Crane Hotel. Plus, he’s hinted he wants…other things.”

  Nissa sniffed. Using her paddle, she attacked Dinky Moon’s shirts and unmentionables in her tub like they were a badger threatening to take off her leg rather than clothes that needed cleaning. “He should move that hotel of his over by his new mine like he’s trying to do all the other buildings in town he owns. Then there would be no issue of competition with your hotel. If necessary, because the town remains small, you could take in more regular boarders and not worry about what he’s up to.”

  “Yes, the few boarders I have are what keep me going.” Diantha stepped around to face Nissa. “That is why you should have come today, Nissa. I never hear one bad word said about you. No matter what your husband’s position was before…before our world as we knew it changed. They recognize you share the same circumstance as the rest of us. I know they would have wanted you there.”

  Nissa stilled the paddle, and her body slumped. “I don’t know, Diantha. My husband was in so thick with Mr. Crane, I think they would think of him—and me—in the same light as they do that scoundrel. I know the men didn’t like my husband as a supervisor because he wasn’t always very nice to them.”

  He wasn’t always very nice to me or the children.

  Nissa shoved her thoughts and hurt aside and continued speaking to Diantha. “I’m sure the men told their wives. You put that together with James ordering me to not associate with the wives of the miners or the women in town, and there’s no reason for them to feel inclined to socialize with me now. Since he didn’t want to go to church, he always found reasons for me to not take the children. I don’t feel as sure as you they would forgive and forget.”

  “Well, you can go to church now. Priscilla Heartsel, the preacher’s daughter, said she has some of her daddy’s old sermons. She offered to share them with us on Sundays until we get a regular minister in here.”

  Nissa picked up the first article her hands touched and checked it to see if it needed to be scrubbed against the washboard. “All right, Diantha. Tell me what they talked about at the meeting today. Tell me what I missed. Then I’ll consider whether or not I dare show my face at church.”

  Nissa went through the process of scrubbing and then rolling the clothes through the wringer she had bought off one of the departing miner’s wives who, while the mine remained, had earned extra money doing laundry. After, Nissa tossed the clothes into the rinse water. All the while, she listened while Diantha told her about the meeting.

  “Oh, and there’s going to be a horse auction. Blessing—you know, the little Odell woman who likes to go by the name Buster—she said since her daddy died in the rescue, she has too many horses to take care of. She’s saving some out, but the rest she wants to sell. If we help her spread the word to potential buyers, she’ll split the money with the town to keep us going. She’s already bringing beef to Mrs. Muckelrath who is keeping the butcher shop open now her husband’s dead.”

  Nissa tightened her lips into a thin line as she focused on her laundry. Olive Muckelrath had come to her more than once to tell her Buster Odell had brought her a steer to butcher for the widows in town, and that she should come by the shop to get some. She could not afford to pay much for meat, and she resisted taking charity, even from someone as kind-hearted as Olive Muckelrath. Only once or twice had she gone and accepted some soup bones, and then only for the sake of her children.

  “That’s right generous of Buster. I’m sure it will help the town out a lot.” Nissa closed her eyes at the sound of Diantha’s sigh.

  “You know, Nissa, this horse auction sale will help only so much. What we need are men to take over and run these businesses so we can keep our homes. One thing Mr. Crane told most of these women was he wouldn’t renew any leases on the buildings he owns unless there were men—husbands—managing the businesses. Some of these women plan writing off to some of the matrimonial papers looking for husbands. I’ll let you know when I find out the details. Even though I know you are still mourning like the rest of us, maybe you should consider it.”

  Nissa bit back a retort. She knew most of the women were still suffering despondency over their losses. For the sake of her children, she felt sorrow over losing their father. As for herself, she felt mostly anger. James Stillwell had lived the high life as one of the hangers-on to Mr. “Big Moneybags” in town, Mortimer Crane. He had thought so little of her and her children he had gone into debt and not provided for them in the event something should happen to him.

  Nissa had discovered that the first time she tried charging at the mercantile, and Mrs. Tweedie asked when she thought she could pay off the bill that was three months behind. The request had stunned her into silence. Men working for a mine, unlike farmers or ranchers who paid off what was charged all year after the cattle and crops were sold, were paid regularly. There was no reason for her husband to allow the bill to get even a month behind.

  Nissa had found the same thing to be true at the butcher’s shop—another reason she felt guilty about accepting anything from Olive Muckelrath. She found it difficult to
believe her husband had let their debt build up so long without paying it off. However, the more she learned and thought about it, she suspected the reason.

  At the bank a week after the disaster, the teller, Birdie Templeton, told her Mr. Crane, who also owned the bank, had been encouraging the men he associated with to invest in one of his ventures. She quietly explained her husband withdrew a large sum from his savings account about that time. It had dwindled to almost nothing. She encouraged Nissa to withdraw the balance and close the account, which she did so she could pay off most of the bill at the mercantile.

  Nissa realized later the soft-spoken, mousy-appearing teller had done her a favor. The bank manager came to her and explained her husband had an outstanding loan to be paid. She informed him she had not signed the loan and was not responsible for the debt.

  To consider marrying again, only to find herself with another man who would treat her the same or worse as James Stillwell, did not appeal to Nissa.

  Nissa turned to Diantha with a smile. “I appreciate you thinking of me. However, unlike you and many of the widows in town, I don’t have a business a man can step into and take over. I have nothing with which to entice a man to come to Wildcat Ridge and marry me. The best I can hope for is that I can hang on long enough for the town to grow and prosper enough so more people will pay me to do their laundry, and I can better provide for my children.”