The Gold in These Hills

by Joanne Bischof

  Up ahead, the fledgling town of Kenworthy is never hard to spot. Two clapboard buildings garner attention first—the squat post office and the two-story Hotel Corona. The wood that built them is nearly new despite the fact that they stand abandoned. It’s not possible to spot the mine from here, and I’m glad. We gave all we had to the mine, and it offered nothing in return.

  Those who built this town built it on the dream of gold that never existed. The glimmer discovered some years before sank no deeper into the ore than the craggy surface. Instead, the mine had been salted—gold loaded into a shotgun only to be fired off inside the mine to coat the walls with false promises. Who would deceive the founders so? How does a man hold his hands steady and conscience clear as he pulls the trigger? However he managed, the salting was a falsehood that caused a town to rise from the arid land only for hearts to break in its shadows. Tens of thousands of dollars were poured into its founding, and now the final wagon train leaves behind its dust.

  This place that was built on hope has now died upon regrets.

  Bethany slows for me, and there’s a lonesomeness in the way she and I walk side by side down the center of the road. In the fact that I wear a pistol holstered at my hip. The town’s one sheriff rode out months ago, and while most of the troublemakers followed soon after, I mean never to be caught unaware. The harsh truth about a ghost town is that you’re not supposed to still live here.

  The few who remain? We are the forgotten.

  The last in a town that will soon fade to nothing.

  Bethany and I make two, as does Edie, the shop owner’s daughter, and her invalid father, Reverend Manchester, who isn’t long for this world. Beyond that are several lingering miners as well as a schoolteacher I’ve never met. Bethany is one of only a few young ones now, so it’s hard to imagine how the woman will remain. If she does, it would be nice to have another friend.

  Winter whispers that it’s on the way as I follow Bethany toward the mercantile. The dirt road running down the middle of Kenworthy holds only two men now. Only two.

  One is Oliver Conrad. He’s kneeling in the center of the road, sharing a morsel of food with the abandoned dog. It’s a comforting sight. As I watch, he smiles some to me, but it’s the kind of smile you share with someone when trapped in the same bad dream. An understanding as sad as it is kindred. We don’t speak often since Mr. Conrad bears a difficult stutter, but he has always been kind. The sight of him—his dingy shirt and roughened hat—reminds me of John.

  Thought of John drives a constant sharpness deeper into my gut. There is a pain to love. In the risk to willingly give your heart to another. It’s a pain that gives cause for one to kneel at night and press on with faith in the unseen. I know because my knees are worn and weary.

  The second man is one of the Cahuilla cowhands who works at the nearby ranches. I have heard him called Señor Tiago and have seen him with horses of every color and size, so I sense he is more than a cattle herder there. Most of the Cahuilla cowboys keep to the opposite end of the valley, but this one ventures into Kenworthy often. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times he has stepped from the mercantile with a new tin of tobacco in hand. He is perhaps only a few years older than me.

  His skin is as brown as aged leather, and his eyes glint dark like onyx from beneath his tattered hat. His shirt, a grungy white, drapes open at a smooth chest. He simply watches me pass by from the porch of the empty Hotel Corona, where he’s settled in the shadows—easy and quiet. I’ve never heard him speak, and even if he were to voice something, it wouldn’t be a language I know. Only some of the ranch hands speak English, and it’s perhaps by their whispers that those of us in town have learned that this man is an hijo de shaman—shaman’s son.

  Oliver Conrad and Señor Tiago regard one another in passing. The native man spits a stream of tobacco juice, and Mr. Conrad tips up his chin. I do not think they like one another. But I have not ventured into town to worry about these menfolk. It is my dearest friend I have come to see. Bethany has already disappeared inside the mercantile where my friend’s sure to be found.

  At the open door, I hear Edie before I see her.

  “Lands, June, get in here and fix this for me.” Edie struggles to untangle two different sizes of rope that she’s pulled from a box. She mutters a stream of curse words, and when Bethany starts to repeat one, I scold them both.

  Edie ceases her monologue and winks at me. “If you let her go to school, she’d learn to speak proper, you know?”

  “She’s still too young for school. And if she spends less time around you, she’ll learn to speak proper.” Ah, how this woman is good for my soul. Especially with her laugh that fills this mercantile more than all its provisions. It brims with the sound of her girlish spirit that’s as wild as it is strong.

  Edie is not yet twenty, and with no mother was raised to hold her own among the roughest of men. “Coffee’s hot, June.”

  The air smells of it, mixed with molasses, which means she’s been baking.

  “Pour yourself a cup and sit just here.” She waggles the box of rope as though that will make rescuing her from this task more tempting.

  I chuckle and, having the patience she lacks, set aside the bundles of clean laundry to do as she asks, ensuring the labels are pinned visibly in place on each smaller bundle of clothes. Men know to come here and collect it just as soon as Friday rolls around, and they drop off sacks of what needs scrubbing. I’m curious, now, to know which bundles will remain in a few days’ time. How many men pulled out today, forgetting I had their laundry in hand?

  Edie calls to me to come help now. Her long-legged stride is more apparent in the rawhide britches she wears. How is it this woman has the patience to decipher telegrams when they come through the wire and yet can’t wait two seconds for anything else? Bethany tries to match her step for step as they walk the outside length of the polished counter. My daughter’s chin is jutted upward, just like her tall companion.

  Edie fetches a box of paper dolls from her back bedroom, and Bethany settles down beside the counter with the bounty. They’re friends, those two, and while most mothers wouldn’t warm to the idea of their daughter in the company of a woman who smokes a pipe and could curse a pirate to repentance, Edith Manchester is as genuine as she is loyal. She’s a swig of cold water on a hot day. Just what the souls in this town need, and why her mercantile continues to be the lifeblood of Kenworthy.

  Delicate leather fringe swishes down the length of each pant leg as she returns with a steaming cup for me and a plate of gingerbread for us both. Under her arm is an envelope with my mother’s handwriting. The mail must have come in yesterday. She thrusts the plate toward me. “You must try this. It rose and did all the things it was supposed to!”

  She offers me the letter as well, and I gladly tuck it into my apron pocket. Something to read by candlelight. News from home is always welcome. Just as welcome is the square of gingerbread she lowers into my hand. I don’t take a bite until I see Bethany sink her teeth into her own square. My heart whispers a prayer of gratitude for the extra nourishment today. We eat enough to get by, my daughter and I, but barely, and as I savor my own bite, it’s impossible not to be thankful for Edie’s kindness.

  Edie settles across from me. Her blouse is that of a woman, fresh from a catalog. It’s tucked into the leather waistband where her pistol is twice as imposing as my own. An oversized coat drapes her narrow frame despite us being indoors. Her auburn hair hangs free, and there has never been a ring on her finger. Men have sought her, but each discovered that you don’t tame a woman like Edie. Rumors abounded once that she nearly ran away with a fella, but either the hearsay wasn’t true or she changed her mind. She’s as vivid as she is headstrong, and God bless the man who will someday love her in all these ways.

  Edie returns briefly to one of the back bedrooms, where her invalid father is abed. Doubtless the truest reason she stayed behind. Reverend Manchester silently occupies a chair by the window during th
e daytime, and come nightfall, it takes all of Edie’s strength to move him to his bed, where he is just as still. Having suffered a spell last year back, he requires her help with a spoon to even eat. I can just glimpse her adjusting his blanket before slipping back out.

  Edie cares for him faithfully in this forsaken land, and it makes her only more admirable.

  When I’m seated near the fire, the box of tangled rope pulled into my lap, Edie returns and leans near enough to whisper, “Your beau was just in here.”

  I gawk at her. “For shame. Mr. Conrad is not my beau.”

  She smirks and takes a square of gingerbread. She must have been using saddle soap earlier because when she waves a hand haphazardly, it stirs up the faint scent of lanolin and beeswax. “I was speaking of the other one. The one who left with the others.” She arches an eyebrow as though puzzled by my choice to stay. But of anyone, I know this woman understands loyalty. “So . . . did he ask you?”

  “Ask me what?” The rope begins to unravel beneath a patience that Edie, for all her qualities, lacks.

  She drags a stool across from me beside the fire. “He was in here three weeks in a row asking after you.”

  “He was not.” My face flames with embarrassment.

  “Was too. Asked me all the time about you.”

  “Well, you’d do well to keep your mouth closed.” If she only knew that I would give up a thousand hellos from a thousand men for the chance to see John once more. But she doesn’t know this because I’ve kept the longing pinned deep inside. Like a hidden pocket that I let no one see into. Perhaps it is pride—the burning need for me to be strong. Not fragile or weak. Perhaps it is because I scarcely acknowledge that place myself. Only when I am alone, and can cry freely, do I concede how much my heart still beats for a man who is lost to me.

  “I just told him you were the best cook in fifty miles.” After tasting her gingerbread, she scrunches her nose. “Maybe a hundred. And that you aren’t afraid of just about anything.”

  Actually, I’m afraid of a good many things. “Edith Manchester. You encouraged him.”

  “Did not. Just was honest, ’s all.” When she reaches for a rope to help, I bat her hand away. She’ll only make it worse again. “So what did you say?”

  “I told him no. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m certainly not marrying him.” With no proof of John’s whereabouts, it would be against the law for me to remarry. But what I also don’t mention is that while the letter from my mother will doubtless hold another bid for Bethany and me to come and live with them, I’m not ready to leave. Maybe this mountain has made me stubborn like itself, or maybe it’s something much softer. Perhaps it has more to do with the reason I saved the flowers John used to gather for me. Some linger dried on the windowsill by the bed. Memories that are planted like seeds. Seeds that haven’t yet blossomed into hope, but the possibility is enough for me to not yet surrender.

  “Maybe you should have married him,” I counter. “You could find a town that’s big enough to hold your personality.”

  She grins, flashing straight white teeth. “Can’t leave Pa. And I sure can’t take him along. No . . .” She shakes her head and breaks her piece of gingerbread in half. “This here is the spot for me.” Still perched on the stool, she leans back to peer out the window. “It’s strange to see the streets this empty.”

  The way she sits, her coat having fallen open, I notice her midsection is bowed out some. Not as lean as usual. She straightens again. Adjusts the coat, folding it carefully over her middle as she jabbers away some more about the latest news—that five men were arrested near Yuma after being accused of salting several gold mines across the West. Perhaps even the one here. “I think they’re gonna talk more on it at the meeting,” she adds.

  I should pay closer attention to such a critical detail, but I’m distracted by what I just saw. “Edie.”

  She grabs for the box again, and I let her have it only to lean forward and brush one side of her coat away.

  Her eyes shoot wide as she yanks it snug. “What’d’ya do that for?”

  “Edie.” This time the name comes out solemn. Despairing.

  She rises, crosses to the counter, and plops down the box of rope. From a glass jar there, she pulls out a taffy for Bethany, who’s content as ever with the paper dolls.

  I follow the young woman. All the way to the storeroom where she sets to work arranging cans of beans. Wanting to startle her no further, I simply stand there. Waiting. Finally, she grips the nearest shelf and hangs her head.

  “How far are you?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “I’m not certain.” She falls quiet then finally adds, “Shy of three months, I think.”

  I gulp. Edie’s with child. And she’s not married. It’s hard to forget the sight of the abandoned dog on the road. The way it was shoved away from the wagon. A mother with no husband to speak of will be treated little better.

  “Is the— Is the father still here?” Regret burns within me to have to ask. The pain deepens at the sorrow on her own face. Her chin is trembling. “Oh, Edie.” I pull her into a hug.

  She weeps silently against my shoulder. It’s a cry that’s harnessed so as not to alert Bethany or the sleeping reverend. A soundless sob that fractures me to my core.

  I brush the hair from her damp cheeks and hold her face so she’ll look at me. “Please tell me who the father is. Maybe it’s not too late.” Though if she’s almost three months along, it could have been nearly anyone.

  She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to be done.”

  “Is he a miner?”

  “No.”

  That eliminates half the men who were in town.

  Her eyes flash with urgency as I grow pensive. “It sure as shootin’ wasn’t John,” she adds. “That may be crass of me to say, but I can’t, for one minute, think of you fearing such.”

  Warmth heats my limbs as the stun from those words collides into me. It’s quickly tempered with relief for what she’s generously offering. Slowly, I manage to nod, believing her with all my heart. Believing John with the same.

  It’s a relief, still, when she speaks on. “You don’t know his name.” She swipes at her eyes. “So don’t ask for it.”

  “If that’s what you wish.” My heart is trying to slow in my chest. “Edie, you can’t do this on your own.”

  She tips up her chin. “I’m just fine. Listen, June. This little bit ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while yet, and it ain’t gonna get much bigger today. So let’s just let it alone for now.” She wipes her eyes with her sleeve then pulls the coat snug across her middle again.

  “Of course.” I touch her arm, giving a squeeze of assurance. “I’ll go check on Bethany.”

  I step away, passing in front of the window where, less than an hour ago, the last wagon train pulled away. The offer of marriage from yesterday comes to mind, and it’s more than a relief that I said no. Not only does my heart beat for one man and one man alone, but I could never leave Kenworthy now. Not with Edie and her father stranded here alone. There is no midwife, no doctor. Edie has only her father, whose unfocused eyes stare out the window from where he huddles in his chair. Abandonment is not a fate I will resign them to. This empty place is our home . . . or what will break us. Either way, we are here until spring.

  Chapter 4

  Johnny

  October

  Dust churns beneath rubber as I make an easy right onto the property drive. At a rut in the dirt road, the two-by-fours in the bed of my truck rattle on top of the tailgate. Rye, my overgrown Labrador, stumbles on the bench seat beside me. I scruff the top of his yellow head, and he lies down, whining. The climbing gear piled on the floorboard rattles—a pile of orange quickdraws and some loose carabiners clanging with every jerk of the truck.

  “Almost there, buddy.”

  This is the first time I’ve brought him out to the cabin, and he sniffs the air, trying to make sense of the place. The sale on the Cohen house is a short escro
w, so I should close next week. For now, the family gave consent for me to get the inside stair railing up to code. I would have gladly bought the materials, but they insisted on footing the lumber bill and paying for my labor. I couldn’t argue with the first, but I’m not sending them any other invoices. They’ve been generous enough. We’ve never met, but they seem like the kind of folks you’d want to have over for Sunday supper.

  The Cohens are in their eighties, and since they’ve already lost this house to time and finances, it’s the least I can do. Extra handy that the week is wide open. Emily took the kids to a beach house until Monday, and while I’m eager to make up the time with them, the next few days will be perfect for getting the cabin up to par. The historical society has been maintaining it the last few decades, but a house this old? These four walls and I are about to spend a lot of time together.

  The truck jerks again, splashing drops of hot coffee through the plastic lid on my to-go cup. I grab the drink from the holder and steady it. My crew and I just wrapped up a kitchen remodel in town, and we intentionally scheduled our next job for a week out, giving us all some needed vacation time. The guys didn’t mind, and I don’t either. At some point, I’ll hire them to come out here to help me with some work in the barn, but I can tackle most everything else on my own. And with clear blue skies overhead and wind stirring acres upon acres of grazing land, the solitude is welcome.

  I heave in a deep breath and rest my elbow on the rolled-down window. How is it that being out here makes troubles seem farther away? Vast, open sky has a way of doing that. Of reminding us of how small and quick life is when compared to the whole of time.

  Still ambling down the dirt road, I just spot the roofline of the barn when my phone rings. Please don’t be the lawyer. We have a phone conference scheduled for this afternoon, but I’m not ready yet. I fish the phone from the center console. It’s lit up with my sister’s name.