by Sharon Sala
Letty had needed a purpose to face the day. It seemed that purpose had arrived. She got up from the stool and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress.
“Is that so?” Letty asked.
“Yes! Come see! There are five wagons full of crates. Mama Alice said we’ll be living in a palace tonight.”
Letty grinned, and then the moment she did it, felt guilt for allowing joy, no matter how small, into her heart. She followed the little girl down the stairs and then out onto the front porch. The freighters had already tied down their teams and were prying the crates apart.
The first piece they unpacked was a wardrobe. Letty recognized it as one of the pieces Eulis had picked out. The elaborate carvings of oak leaves and acorns, as well as the red and gold stenciling on the doors looked like something out of a dream. They’d had no idea when they’d ordered the furnishings months ago that he would not be here to see their arrival.
“Oh Eulis… you were right,” Letty whispered. “The things are truly grand.”
“Where do you want this, ma’am?” one of the men asked.
“Upstairs. First room on the right.”
Up they went, and down they came until, one by one, all the crates were unpacked and the furniture was in place. The china Letty had ordered was still packed and in a crate in the kitchen. It would be up to her and Alice to put it in the cupboard.
There was also a large stack of linens, including bedding, tablecloths, and napkins to be put away and the large chest of silverware sitting on the sideboard begged to be used. Letty had looked in it twice, still struggling with the reality that this opulence belonged to her.
Alice’s favorite piece, the wood cookstove, had been set up in the kitchen. The stove and stovepipe were shiny black, and the stove had a warming shelf and a large cooking surface. There was a small, ornate box beside the stove that was meant to hold kindling, and Alice immediately sent Katie outside to bring some in. She had not cooked on anything this fine since she’d left Boston three years earlier, and couldn’t wait to start a fire and cook a meal.
When they began unpacking the crate with the cooking pots and china, Letty’s enthusiasm ended. The more homey the house became, the more she resented the fact that Eulis would never share it with her. Without explaining herself, she left the room and headed for the back yard. She needed to talk to Eulis.
T-Bone fell into step beside her. He was growing so fast that Letty could touch the top of his head without bending over anymore. When they reached the grave site, Letty paused, bracing herself for this confrontation. It had been bearing on her mind ever since she’d watched him take his last breath.
There was a small stump beside the wooden marker bearing Eulis’ name. She didn’t know that Robert Lee had put it there for her, and if she had, would have been puzzled by his continuing concern. Still, she was grateful for its presence.
T-Bone plopped down beside the stump. Letty sat on it, then leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Just looking at his name on the marker brought tears to her eyes. She cleared her throat, smoothed down the bits of hair that had come out of her braid, and licked her lips.
“It’s me,” she said. “I reckon you’re doing fine. Wish I could say the same.”
A large, fat robin sailed out of a nearby tree and then perched on the handmade cross. Letty frowned.
“Is that supposed to be some sign that you’re hearing me now?”
The bird tilted its head sideways, peering at her with a tiny black eye.
Letty sighed. “Listen to me… I must sound like some crazy woman… talking to a bird and all. Anyway, that’s not why I came. I wanted to tell you that the furniture finally came.” Her voice broke, but she kept on going. “Those pieces you picked out are real pretty. I hate to admit it, but you were right all along.”
The robin flew out of sight.
Letty sighed. “I guess it wasn’t you after all.” Then her chin began to tremble. “I’m sorry, Eulis. I’m as sorry as I can be. George Mellin was the man who killed you. If I hadn’t interfered in their life, you would still be alive.”
Tears were rolling down her face as she wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
“I never could mind my own business, could I? Anyway, I wanted you to know that I never meant for you to suffer for what I did, and that the man paid and paid dearly.”
A breeze lifted the fringe of hair away from her forehead as she briefly closed her eyes. In her mind, she could almost see Eulis standing there, smiling at her in that slow, easy way he had. But when she opened her eyes, the fantasy was gone.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going now. If you get the time and aren’t too mad, I wouldn’t mind if you said a prayer for me. For a man who couldn’t read all that much, you were real good at praying.”
She stood then, glancing down one more time at the marker with his name. Her shoulders had slumped, but as she turned away and started back to the house, she straightened her back and lifted her chin. She’d been beaten down, but she owed it to Eulis to get up. She still carried his name, and even if she didn’t want to—even if it hurt her heart every day for the rest of her life—she was going to do right by him and make his name a name of which to be proud.
Two weeks came and went and Letty began to resume something of a daily routine. She went into town when supplies were needed, and with some help from her banker, Amos Trueblood, began keeping a decent set of books on her mine, which still showed no signs of playing out. For all intents and purposes, Letty Potter was worth more than she could spend in three lifetimes.
The flood that had washed all of the gold deposits out of Cherry Creek had long subsided, but new pockets were being found daily.
For some of the prospectors, it meant relocating a bit farther downstream, and for others, they rediscovered new color on their old claims.
Robert and Mary Whiteside had finally come down off the mountain, but their fate had drastically changed. Before, they’d been getting color almost every day, but now they had nothing. They’d had to ask for credit at Milton Feasley’s general store.
Mary had offered the suggestion that they go back to Philadelphia. Instead of giving Robert an excuse to pack it in, it had angered him. He’d taken it as failure on his part to provide for his family, and every day afterward without gold in the pan, he became more and more depressed.
Mary Whiteside had awakened this morning with a cramp in her neck and a centipede crawling on top of her blanket. She’d screamed in fright, as much as in anger for being put in such a precarious place. In frustration, she’d told Robert she wasn’t going to the creek this morning, and stayed in camp for the morning to put a pot of beans on to cook. Robert felt sorry for her and offered to go hunting to put some meat in the pot. Mary had pouted her way through breakfast, and when Robert left camp, she wouldn’t tell him goodbye.
Now, hours later, the beans were almost done and Robert still wasn’t back. She gave the bubbling beans a quick stir, then replaced the lid on the pot and looked up toward the woods. Robert should have been back a long time ago. She was on the verge of working up a new fuss when she heard a gunshot.
“It’s about time,” she mumbled to herself, and hoped he’d shot them a rabbit or maybe a squirrel.
She waited for a few minutes, but when Robert didn’t appear, she put a couple of sticks on the fire so it wouldn’t go out, and started into the trees. He was probably in there cleaning his kill now. If he had it skinned and gutted, she’d take it right back to camp and put it on a spit. There was a little salt left in the salt sack which would make the meat right tasty.
Humming to herself, she walked a few yards into the trees and was somewhat surprised when she still hadn’t spied him. Now she was wondering if he’d missed his shot and moved farther away from camp. He’d done that once before and she’d had to spend a good two hours by herself in camp in the dark before he’d appeared. She didn’t want to have to do that again. If he missed his shot, the beans would do fine.
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“Robert! Robert! Where are you?” she called, but he didn’t answer. “Dang man,” she muttered, pausing with her hands on her hips as she squinted through the trees.
“Roobbberrrt!”
Still no answer. It wasn’t until a few more minutes had passed that she realized she was the only thing in the woods making any sound. There were no bird calls, no squirrel chatter—even the breeze seemed to have laid. A sick feeling turned in the pit of her stomach, not unlike the night they’d almost drowned in the flood. She called out again, only this time her voice cracked.
“Robert? Robert?”
A black snake slithered out of the underbrush and across her path. Normally, the sight wouldn’t bother her, but the anxiety she was already feeling raised superstitions. She watched as the snake slithered away and convinced herself that it was some kind of sign.
Now that her anxiety had turned to true fear, she began running up the hill, then backtracking the way that she’d come and running west, then east. Up, then down. Backward, then forward, dodging small limbs, while others slapped her face. Wild berry vines, just past blooming, grabbed at her clothes, ripping the homespun, as well as her skin, and leaving stinging droplets of blood behind.
She found him at their old campsite near the creek, sitting with his back against a tree. He’d dropped his pistol near his right leg, right after he’d pulled the trigger and shot himself through the head. The shot had gone in one ear and out the other, and flies were already gathering on the blood trail down the left side of his face.
Mary gasped in disbelief, then fell to her knees and covered her face as she let out a wail. Then she looked at her husband and began to scream.
Men prospecting upstream heard her, but by the time they found her, she was wading up and down in the creek and babbling hysterically. She’d dug deep bloody gouges in her face and was pulling at her hair. When they tried to help her, she fought them like a woman possessed.
One of the men had the foresight to knock her out, while the others ran for help. By the time Sheriff Hamm arrived, Mary Whiteside had come to and was weeping softly at the edge of the water.
They carried Robert’s body into town and laid him out at the blacksmith. These days, the blacksmith was making as much money building coffins as he was shoeing horses and mules, and calmly began to cut some pine boards.
Mary Whiteside was taken to the doctor’s house. She wept quietly as he applied a mint salve to her face, while Mildred made her some tea. She’d wanted Robert to take her home to Philadelphia, instead, he had sent her to hell.
Letty was in the general store when a man came in, full of the story and of himself, claiming he’d saved Robert Whiteside’s wife from drowning herself in Cherry Creek. The story didn’t seem likely, considering the fact that Cherry Creek was less than four feet deep, but when Letty heard that Robert Whiteside had killed himself, she reckoned she knew how the woman must feel.
“Hey, mister… where did they take Mrs. Whiteside?”
“She’s at the doctor’s house,” he said, and then flushed when he realized who he was talking to. “Say… I was real sorry about your husband, Miz. Potter.”
“Thank you,” she said shortly, gathered up her purchases and headed out the door.
She drove the wagon up the street to Dr. Warren’s house and knocked on the front door.
Mildred answered.
“Come in, Letty. Angus is with a patient right now. He can see you in a while if you’re a mind to wait.”
“I didn’t come to see him. I came to see Mrs. Whiteside.”
Mildred shook her head sadly.
“Poor woman… looks like she tried to do herself in. She’s in a bad way, she is.” Then she realized the connection between Letty and Mary Whiteside and paled. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Not a problem,” Letty said. “Life does go on… even when it pisses us off to no end.”
Mildred blinked. She wasn’t used to ladies using such language, but then she remembered Letty Potter never claimed to be a lady.
“I’ll tell Angus you’re here,” Mildred said.
Letty waited.
A few minutes later, Angus came out of his office, eyed Letty with a professional stare, judged her as sad but sound, and greeted her as such.
“You’re looking good,” he said.
Letty nodded. “I’m still breathing. Reckon I might talk to Mrs. Whiteside a minute?”
Angus sighed. “It can’t hurt. Maybe you can say something to her that will help. Lord knows you understand what she’s going through.”
“Thanks,” Letty said, and even as she was opening the door to the office, she wondered what the hell she was doing.
Mary Whiteside was sitting on the side of the examining table, staring down at the floor. Her face looked like she’d been slapped by a bobcat and come out the loser. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and there was a thin stream of snot running down the side of her lip.
Letty grabbed the hem of Mary’s dress and yanked it up over her knees, wiped Mary’s nose, and then dropped the skirt.
Startled by the feel of air on her bare limbs, Mary looked up.
“Snot,” Letty said, pointing at Mary’s nose.
Mary blinked. “What did you say?”
Letty pointed again. “You had snot on your lip. I wiped it off.”
“Oh.” She blinked again. “My Robert killed himself today.”
Letty nodded. “I heard. Damn selfish of him, don’t you think?”
Mary gasped. “How dare you come in here and—”
Letty leaned forward, placing her hands on either side of Mary’s legs, until she could see her own reflection in the woman’s eyes.
“What? Don’t get all indignant on me, now, and try to tell me you haven’t thought the same damn thing. Just because you were having a run of bad luck, doesn’t mean you walk out on your partner like that. Dying is one thing. Killing yourself is another. He ran out on you, woman. I understand your shock, and I understand your pain. But damn it, lady, he left you high and dry without a care for what you might have to do to keep yourself alive. You don’t need to grieve for someone who’d do that to you.”
Mary frowned. Despite this woman’s ravings, she was making some sense.
“So, you’ve said your piece,” Mary muttered. “I don’t need someone like you rubbing salt in the wound.”
Letty’s anger shifted, as she laid a hand on Mary’s knee.
“I didn’t come to rub salt,” she said softly. “I came to take you home.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “We had a tent. It washed away in the flood.”
“I wasn’t talking about your camp, I’m talking about my house. There are empty rooms. You’re welcome to one.”
Mary’s lips went slack.
“I’m what?”
“Welcome to come stay with Alice and Katie and me.”
“But I can’t pay.”
Letty frowned. “I’m not running a hotel. I’m just offering you a room in my house.”
“But what will I do?” she asked.
“Well… Alice cooks, and she looks after Katie.” She eyed the woman closer. “Are you coming or not?”
Mary fidgeted slightly, then picked up the hem of her dress and blew her nose soundly.
“I can grow just about anything. If you’ve got some seeds and such, I can make a vegetable garden. Mama had a fine vegetable garden back in Philadelphia. I used to help her with it.”
“We’ll get some seeds,” Letty said. “In the meantime, is there anything you need to get from your camp?”
Mary thought of the beans she’d left cooking on the fire and Robert’s axe he’d left leaning against a tree.
“No.”
“No matter,” Letty said. “All of us up at the house are like you. Clothes can be replaced.” Then her voice softened. “It’s the people we lose that we think we can’t live without.” Just for a moment, her chin quivered. “Trouble is… despite everything we
do to the contrary, we somehow keep breathing… so… are you coming with me or not?”
Mary slid off the examining table and then picked up the small tin of salve the doctor had given her to put on her face.
“I reckon I’d be much obliged,” Mary said, and then shuddered. “I have to see to burying my man.”
“I know something about that,” Letty said. “Follow me.”
And she did.
A Reason To Care
Within a week of Mary Whiteside’s arrival, the townspeople had begun referring to the fancy home on the hill as the hen house. Letty supposed it was because of all the females living there.
Mary Whiteside fell into the routine easier than she would have believed. Having a roof over her head and a clean bed to sleep in every night was a big inducement to adapt. There was also the fact that Mary Whiteside could read—and read quite well. With Alice’s approval, Mary took it upon herself to begin giving Katie daily lessons. The trio of newcomers bonded quickly. It was Letty who still held herself back, even though it was her home and money providing their care. There was a part of her that didn’t trust life enough to take another chance at being happy. She was satisfied with just being okay.
But, like every good thing, it must eventually come to an end. For Letty, it ended on a Thursday, just before noon, and in a way that put, what she thought was important, into sharp perspective.
Noah Shaffer was one of the first men Eulis had hired when they’d opened the mine, so when Letty saw him riding up to the house at a fast clip, she thought little of it. Robert Lee often sent one of them to ask her instructions as to how she might want them to proceed. But when Noah rode up to the front porch in an all out gallop, she realized it wasn’t a normal visit.
“Miz Potter! You need to come quick. Robert Lee went and got himself shot.”
Letty felt the blood draining out of her face. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the air to talk.
“He’s at Doc Warren’s right now. Doc sent me to tell you.”
