by Sharon Sala
Letty struggled with tears until she finally let them fall.
“It’s okay,” Eulis kept saying, as he did all he could to ease her pain. “Shoot. I could’a told that George Mellin that he’d done the wrong thing when he ticked you off. I remember how your temper used to spew just because your bath water wasn’t ready.”
Letty laughed, which was exactly what Eulis intended. He led her to the side of the bed and pulled her down beside him.
She grabbed his hand, and as she did, a notion she’d been harboring in the back of her mind took rise.
“Eulis… I’ve been thinking…”
He groaned. “Now, that can’t be good.”
She punched him lightly on the arm and crawled the rest of the way up on the bed, hugging her pillow against her belly like a shield.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I want out of here. There are too many people down here trying to mind our business for us.”
Eulis frowned. “But honey, there ain’t no other place to go. We don’t have any furniture, and Robert Lee has settled in real good in the cabin.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “We slept in and under our wagon all the way across the prairie, then up the mountains to Denver City. I’d sooner sleep back under the stars with you, or on a blanket in the floor of that new house, than spend another night under this roof.”
Eulis grinned.
“Then I reckon that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
“Good. I’ll pack up our stuff in here. You go get our wagon. T-Bone and I will be waiting when you get back.”
Eulis wrapped his arms around her and gave her a slow, gentle kiss, then grabbed his hat off the bedpost and headed out the door.
The pup raised its head and looked to Letty.
She grinned.
“We’re getting out of here, T-Bone. Tonight, we’ll be sleeping in our own home.”
The pup didn’t know what she’d said, but the tone of her voice made him happy. His tail was still wagging when she started out of the room, dragging the trunk with their belongings. She paused in the hall, glanced at the room next door and increased her stride, anxious to be rid of this place and all its memories.
Angus Warren was a big man with a thick head of hair, although in deference to Mildred’s preference, he maintained a clean shave. He’d seen a lot of bad things in his life since he’d hung out his shingle, but none of them worse than the shape Alice Mellin was in. He ached for her grief, and was doing what he could to help her make arrangements for the baby’s funeral. He’d learned the baby’s name had been Mary—Mary Elizabeth Mellin. He’d had her spell it out for him so he could give it to the man who was building the coffin—get him to make a grave marker too, and carve her name into the wood.
Angus knew he was going to have to get down on his knees and pray for forgiveness for what he wanted to do to George. It was difficult being a doctor in a land where the gun ruled, and fair was an adjective for weather, rather than a metaphor for life.
He paused in the act of mixing a tincture for his latest patient, a little girl named Charity Talmadge, who’d been brought in with a bad case of eye infection. They were swollen and raw, and the infection was so bad that, as it dried, it stuck her eyes shut. According to her parents, Charity had been unable to see for the past three days.
Charity was four, but she had the fortitude of a woman of forty as she sat with her jaw clenched, and her hands doubled into fists while Angus and Mildred worked at softening the crust on her eyes with wet cloths. Every now and then she would whimper, but it was the only sign she had given that she was in pain.
It had taken both him and Mildred over an hour to get the crusted infection cleaned from her eyes so that they would open, and another thirty minutes to convince her father, Homer Talmadge, that unless and until they practiced better bodily hygiene, she might get well, but she wouldn’t stay that way.
Finally, he’d escaped into his office to compound a medicine for Charity’s eyes. The sound of the mortar and pestle with which he was working was a comforting sound. To Angus, it signified healing. He glanced at Alice, who was asleep on a cot in the next room. If only he could concoct a salve that could heal a broken heart.
A knock on the door distracted his thoughts. He looked up as Mildred came into the room.
“Angus, are you finished?”
“Almost,” he said.
Mildred glanced over her shoulder and whispered.
“Please hurry. I don’t think I can bear the smell of that family any longer.”
He grimaced.
“Sorry,” he said, and quickly finished the preparations, then followed her back into the examining room.
“Mrs. Talmadge, watch how I apply this to your daughter’s eyes. You will need to do this three times a day until the salve is all gone. If Charity has a recurrence of the infection, bring her back in immediately.”
Vera Talmadge glanced nervously at her husband, and then ducked her head.
“Reckon this’ll cure her right up. We cain’t afford no doctorin’ bills.”
Angus glared at both Vera and her husband. “I have yet to charge you a penny, so don’t use that excuse on me again. Your daughter’s disease and suffering is a direct result of living in filth. I’m assuming you have access to water.”
His sarcasm was unusual, but he’d seen his share of children’s suffering today, and was in no mood to mince words.
“Well, yes sir, we live right next to Cherry Creek and—”
“Then use that water for something besides drinking and panning. Bathe, woman. Clean this child’s body and clean her eyes. Apply the salve as I’ve shown you, or as sure as I’m standing here before you, she’ll go blind. Then one day you’ll be saddled with a grown woman, who will not only be unable to take care of herself, but will most likely never marry. You’ll be stuck with her for the rest of your lives.”
Homer Talmadge’s mouth gaped. He stared at his little girl as if she’d just grown horns.
Mildred hid a giggle. It was obvious that Angus had struck a nerve.
“We’ll see to her bathin’,” Vera promised.
Angus handed her the tin in which he’d put the salve. “Don’t forget to doctor her. Three times a day.”
“Yes, sir,” Vera said, then took Charity into her arms, and started out the door.
Homer Talmadge followed without comment.
Mildred rolled her eyes as she fanned the air with her apron.
“Such a stench,” she muttered.
“Poor child,” Angus said.
Mildred looked at Angus and grinned.
“They may not bathe themselves, but I warrant they’ll bathe the child. It was real obvious that they don’t want to be stuck with an old maid.”
Angus grunted as he went back into his office to clean up, while Mildred went to check on Alice.
At the same time, Eulis and Letty were pulling into the yard of their new home, while T-Bone did a quick reconnoiter in the woods, barking happily to be out of town.
George Mellin was lying on his cot in the jail, bemoaning his condition and his fate which had yet to be decided by a judge, who would not arrive for at least another month. He was a miserable two hundred and seventy-five pounds of man, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.
Alice Mellin chose to remain in the shadow land of opiate sleep, and had turned her face to the wall.
Paddy O’Brien, down at the livery stable, was sawing up green lumber for baby Mary’s final bed, while a young man of sixteen had volunteered to dig the grave in return for a meal.
Within an hour, the sun would set and a good portion of the citizens of Denver City would go to bed. What had happened today would soon be nothing but gossip to be told and forgotten.
As night drew near, the sky darkened and the stars disappeared. By midnight it had begun to rain.
The roof on the new Potter home was solid. If it was going to leak, they would have known it by now. When it began to rain, they’d
moved their bedrolls from beneath the wagon to inside the house, and had settled in the middle of the big room, thankful to be dry.
T-Bone had, as usual, chosen a corner of the room in which to sleep.
Letty lay on her side with her face to the windows. The dampness in the air was chilling, as was the constant clash of rolling thunder and lightning flashing through the sky. As storms go, it was magnificent, but not one to be caught out in.
Eulis had thrown his arm across Letty’s waist as he slept, and was snoring lightly near the back of her head, but she didn’t mind. Despite their discomfort and lack of amenities, this felt right. It was their first night in their new home. The first, she hoped, of many.
The rhythm of the raindrops falling on the roof above their heads finally lulled her to a deep, dreamless sleep, while down in Denver City, Cherry Creek, fed from numerous mountain streams above the town, continued to rise.
Robert and Mary Whiteside had cooked salt pork and johnnycake for their evening meal. Mary washed up their tin plates and spoons near the spot where they’d been panning only hours before. Then she’d taken her hair down, undone the long braid she wore like a crown upon her head, and washed it clean in the water of Cherry Creek.
Robert sat nearby, teasing her about wearing gold dust in her hair. They’d laughed easily then. They had found some good color today and their bellies were full. A few more months of this life and they would have enough to buy some land—maybe in California where they had heard that the weather was mild all year long.
By the time the thunderstorm hit, they’d been asleep for hours. The thunder woke Robert, who got up to take a pee, and check their campsite. It was sprinkling a bit as he made the rounds of the camp, but when the rain began to fall in earnest he dashed back into the tent, and crawled into his bedroll. Even though winter was gone from the mountains, a rainy night at this elevation was always cold. Mary roused as he pulled the covers up around his chin.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“I reckon so,” Robert said. “Go back to sleep.”
Confident that Robert knew what he was talking about, Mary settled easily and was soon back asleep, but Robert wasn’t as convinced that he’d been right. Through flashes of lightning, he’d seen the rushing water in Cherry Creek and lying here inside the tent, he could hear the continuing roar of wind and water.
He thought about the bags of gold dust and nuggets they’d buried beneath his bedroll and thought about the tools he’d stacked beneath some trees north of where they were sleeping. If that water kept rising, they might need to move to higher ground, which would mean digging up their gold.
Mary was already snoring. He hated to wake her up, but he also didn’t want to make the mistake of waiting to move until it was too late. They’d worked too hard and too long to take a chance on losing it now.
A hard gust of wind pushed at the tent fabric. Robert thought he could hear the squeak of protest from the tent stakes. At forty-nine years old and sporting a bad knee, he wasn’t as fast as he once was, so he stayed beneath the relative safety of the tent, unwilling to go out into the storm unless it was absolutely necessary.
The storm rose in intensity, the claps of thunder so loud it sounded as if it was right on top of them. The flash of lightning afterward lit up the inside of the tent. When it did, Robert saw something that made the hair rise on the back of his neck.
Water was coming into the tent, and from the creek side of their camp. He grabbed his wife, shaking her awake.
“Mary! Get up! Get up! Water is comin’ into the tent.”
Mary Whiteside rolled to her knees and began throwing their meager belongings into the bedrolls and rolling them up. When she reached for Robert’s bedroll, she remembered the gold.
“Robert! Get a shovel and dig up the gold or we’ll lose it sure as shootin’.”
Robert bounded out of the tent and made his way in the darkness, stumbling twice and falling once before he found the cache with their tools. He felt around in the darkness for the shovel, and when he felt the spoon-shaped metal beneath his fingers, breathed a quick sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was find his way back to the tent.
At that moment, another flash of lightning illuminated the sky long enough for him to get his bearings. He saw Mary running out of the tent toward higher ground. She was screaming his name.
“I’m here! I’m here!” Robert called. “Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.”
Rainfall was so heavy that Robert found it difficult to breathe without inhaling water. Covering his face with his arm, he made for the tent and then fell over it in the dark. By the time he got to his feet, the tent had fallen in, and he wasted precious moments pulling it aside so that he could dig. He hadn’t expected it to be difficult. There was only a few inches of dirt over the box, but he’d become disoriented. Every time he lifted a shovel full of dirt from the ground, the hole filled up with water so fast that he couldn’t tell where he’d been digging.
Panic began to set in as he toyed with the idea of having to abandon the dig to save himself. The waters of Cherry Creek were completely out of their banks now, and more than once, he’d been staggered by the swift, unexpected power of the flow.
Just when he thought it was over, Mary appeared at his elbow.
“Leave it!” she screamed, and grabbed his arm.
“Our gold! Our gold! I can’t leave our gold!” he yelled back, and turned to thrust the shovel back into the dirt, only to have the water sweep it out of his hands.
Lightning struck a tree near where they’d built their campfire only hours earlier. The sudden smell of sulfur was strong, despite the pouring rain.
Robert gasped and started to dive for the shovel when Mary yanked him around and slapped him hard on the side of the face.
“Run, you fool! Run with me now before it’s too late!”
Robert grabbed her by the hand and, together, they managed to stagger out of the rising water.
“This way!” Mary cried.
Robert held on to her, fearing that if he didn’t, he would lose her the same way that he’d lost their gold.
They ran and they ran, climbing up as they went until they’d reached ground high enough to escape the rushing flow of Cherry Creek, then they collapsed together beneath an outcropping of rock. Huddled together, with their sodden bedrolls at their feet, they held hands and prayed.
Hours passed, and so did the storm, although the rain continued to fall. They were forced to move twice more before morning. When daylight finally came, it was gray and gloomy, and a mirror to the unseen terrors that they’d escaped.
Their campsite was gone—buried beneath a good six feet of roiling water. God only knew how their box of gold might have fared. And there was another horror that they had yet to face. When the water went down, more than likely, their claims would be worthless. Whatever pockets of gold that Cherry Creek had been hiding were long gone, buried in silt and mud, miles and miles downstream.
The Whitesides could take comfort that they were still alive, but little else. It would be several hours before they ventured out long enough to realize that they were not the only miners to suffer the same crushing blow. Every man, woman, and boy that had laid claim along Cherry Creek had been wiped out.
Faced with the devastation of their losses, they still had to deal with the rain that continued to fall.
Lawyer
It had been raining off and on for days, and even when the rain would cease, the sun refused to shine. Cherry Creek was still out of its banks, and every building south of Main Street had been evacuated.
Dr. Warren and his wife had been forced to leave their home and set up a makeshift office inside a tent north of the livery stable, with a second one that he and Mildred were using as a place to sleep. But their forced evacuation had, once again, left Alice Mellin homeless. Her broken ribs were healing, and Dr. Warren had told her to come back in a week and he’d remove the stitches from her other cuts. He didn’t k
now about Alice’s predicament when she’d walked away, and she was too ashamed to tell him.
The grave that had been dug for her baby was full of mud and water and the coffin with little Mary’s body was up in the loft of the livery stable, waiting for the flood to subside before she could be buried.
Unknown to the owner of the livery stable, Alice had spent the night up in the loft, sleeping next to the little box that held her baby’s body. She was feverish, and hungry, and about as desperate as a woman could be.
She’d tried to go back to her room in the hotel, only to find out that her meager belongings had been confiscated for money owed on their bill. With George in jail and no place to live, Alice was afraid. She had tried to find work, but the hotel already had a cook, and there were only two other places in Denver City that served food. One was run by a China man, who did his own cooking, and the other was the saloon where, on occasion, the bartender could be talked into serving some bread and meat. None of it was fancy, and none of it required the hands of an extra employee.
She’d thought about taking in laundry, and didn’t mind scrubbing and mending. But that required money and a place to live, which once again, she was sadly lacking. There was only one other thing that she knew how to do that might earn her some money, but she was going to have to heal up some first. She thought about how she’d turned up her nose at the woman in the hotel who’d had a room across the hall. She’d been selling herself to men for money. Alice was beginning to understand why. And, she wasn’t the only person suffering from being displaced.
The flood had caught a lot of people besides the Whitesides unprepared. Some of the people searching for their own bit of gilded heaven had gone the same route as Letty and Eulis, by tunneling into the surrounding peaks of the Rocky Mountains. They were unaffected by the Cherry Creek flood or the recurring downpours. But a good portion of the prospectors, men, women, and even some with children, had been panning, which meant they’d been residing in tents on their claims near the creek. Now they were all afoot, without shelter to be had, and the small bags of dust and nuggets they had with them were being swiftly depleted.
