The Gold in These Hills

by Joanne Bischof

  She draws in a slow breath and closes the car door. When her eyes lift to mine, they’re resolute. Sharp. “Sign those papers, J, or it’s going to get more difficult for you.”

  I turn the packet in my hands, trying to make sense of that. “You’re engaged. And you’re pregnant?” Why do I have to say it out loud? Because it makes no sense.

  “Johnny, it couldn’t be more over. And if you don’t sign those papers, I will turn this into hardball.”

  The whole world has slowed.

  And it hits me: that’s what life is. That’s growing up and realizing that it’s not like you imagined it would be. It’s your life—your dreams—flipped upside down. Truck cab to asphalt as your wife stands there reiterating next that she’ll take you to court to fight for the two kids you share if you don’t finally sign the agreement that she and her lawyer drafted up.

  She watches as my fingers, still holding the packet, grow unsteady. “Johnny, let this go.”

  I still can’t speak.

  The breeze catches the length of her ponytail, spraying the blond strands past her shoulder. I hate that it still hits me how lovely she is, but I’ve spent half my life noticing. The realization dies the same second because what isn’t lovely is what she’s doing. This choice she’s made to destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build up. All because she thinks she’s found a man who will fill her with more gratification than the one she started out with.

  Or maybe I don’t know anything at all. Maybe I’m the chump who has no grasp of reality. Everything I know fades to ash as I finally manage to speak. “Any chance I can ask . . .” Words failing me, I clear my throat. “. . . when the baby’s due?” It takes so much determination not to envision her with Austin that I’m sick from the effort.

  She hesitates, looks over at the kids, then back to me. “April.”

  Her drapey blouse flutters in the breeze, and there’s a sting in the back of my throat that’s about to close it. I hope she’ll give that little one a good life. It’s all I can do now. “Alright.”

  At first, I doubt she could hear me rasp the word, but she grabs her purse and retrieves a pen so fast it’s a miracle her bag’s still in one piece when she uncaps it. My heart rate is slowing, and my fingers tingle.

  Everything is going numb.

  It’s the feeling of two EMTs pulling you from the truck window and onto the ice-slicked highway. Of fighting for breath past broken ribs. Of one paramedic pushing an IV needle into your unshattered arm while the other starts oxygen through a mask. One medic speaks into the radio, and it sounds like your heart rate. The number is so low you’re sure it’s the final time you’ll drift off, but then you wake two days later in the hospital with eyes so swollen you can scarcely see. Your arm’s in a splint, ribs bound in bandages, and a second chance at life with your kids lies on the horizon.

  News reporters describe the near-fatal crash to the whole county—not a soul but you knowing that you drove too fast on an icy road, not by being reckless but because you had witnessed your wife checking out of a B&B with some guy. That you had just been wanting to get home so that you could collapse to your knees.

  I glance once more to the girl who ran across the football field with me, wishing with all that’s in me that I could have reached her in that wilderness. I unfold the papers, accept the pen, and this time it’s not my arm that’s broken in two places.

  And there’s no oxygen for this. No IV for this kind of pain.

  Instead, there’s two kids kicking up dust on the swings beneath the old oak. Even if it means that I’ll be the only one watching them from the porch, I push the ink to the line and write my name. Not because of threats but because the girl from the football field is gone. She’s long since hopped into the pickup of another guy and isn’t so much as looking back.

  John Cohen

  August 1896

  It keeps me up at night—the memory of what happened that day.

  Was it really over two years ago?

  It was just to be a simple job. In, out, wait for them to fire off the shotgun, and we all get paid. As usual, I was going to keep to the edges. Keep to the background. My conscience lived easier that way.

  But when that man stepped in to stop us, everything changed. None of us saw him coming. An Indian, right out of the hills, barely as old as myself and yet willing to defend the honor of that land with his life. An old gold mine that nobody cared about anymore, but to him it was a piece of the earth worth protecting. Who would have that type of conviction? Who would care about what we were there to do? Five against one . . . all over a craggy mine entrance. It was courage that made his back strong and his rifle steady as he aimed it at us. But his courage wasn’t enough.

  Everything happened so quickly, and by the time my cousins had their own guns drawn, I knew the Indian was a goner. I couldn’t stand back in the shadows a moment longer. They already had murder on their hands. I grabbed up the gold-loaded shotgun and pulled the trigger myself. Not at any souls, but into the mine we had come to salt. The chaos gave enough time for the Indian to vanish, and when the dust settled, my cousins were plenty satisfied that the job had been done.

  Now my conscience is as appeased as it is plagued. A man I don’t know went free that day, but ruin came knocking my way instead.

  I hear the mine has sold now to an Englishman named Harold Kenworthy.

  I don’t sleep anymore, and don’t know how to get away from this darkness.

  The sound of the trigger pull keeps me awake, watching shadows, listening to night. The new mine owner has succumbed to the trap we set for him. And I’m the one who pulled the noose tight.

  John

  Chapter 11

  Juniper

  October 1902

  There’s a heat to grief. It covers your very skin. There’s a pressing that tightens your lungs. A piercing sharpness that rushes over you in waves. It sets a ringing in your ears that grounds you in reality even as mind and soul can’t manage to agree.

  I want anything but this pain. I can’t think or move beyond sitting on the bed. Bethany slumbers beside me, oblivious to this plummeting ache that her father might be dead. Dawn is yet to crest the mountain peaks, so it’s in a dark room where the crimes and sentences cover me in a shadow with even less light.

  Five miners.

  Three hung.

  Two left.

  It’s all that circles my mind. I should be angry. I should be furious. If John has been part of illicit mining activity, likely it was much closer to home.

  Did one of these men salt the Kenworthy mine? Did . . . John?

  Five miners.

  Three hung.

  Coarse ropes would have been laid around their necks. Anguish flooding them even heavier than it does me now. Agonizing . . . those final moments before death. Tears burn my eyes at not knowing if John was among them. Or did he await within a darkened cell? Questions collide into broken understandings. All that I have known and everything I have conceived has been tipped upside down. There is a mess to clean up here and news to unearth, but I don’t know where to begin. So I sit in the dark and try to keep breathing. Try to keep these wracking tears from making sound within me as Bethany sleeps. My body shakes with them. I don’t have the strength yet to tell her anything of her father. Wiser would it be to wait until I know for certain.

  Oh, God.

  Tipping my face toward the ceiling, I try to suck in air through a closing throat. Then, curling back onto my side, I pull a pillow close and try to muffle the sound of more sobs.

  It’s a long while until merciful sleep claims me again. As I drift in and out of the fog between pain and numbness, Bethany’s hand touches my shoulder. Some while later, I notice that her place is empty and cold again. Voices lift from downstairs. The alphabet is being sung in soft song form. The scent of warm oats and honey clenches my stomach.

  It is impossible to move.

  Time slides along—ever so slowly. Midday sun shimmers across the floorboards. I
need to rise. Bethany needs her mother. We have a guest. But then soft footsteps enter. A shadow softens the light. A woman’s hands place a cup of steaming tea on the bedside table, and comfort pierces the breaking, which hastens in more tears. Sleep stems in waves, dragging me, coaxing me toward unconsciousness. Two words circle my mind as I dream. Words that have been penned over and over and over when the world was different and still holding a shred of faith.

  Beloved John.

  * * *

  I do not know how many hours have passed, but when I awake, sounds of life drift up from below. Bethany is humming, softening only to be replaced by a prayer from Mrs. Parson. Soft clatters on the cookstove whisper of a coming meal.

  Rise, June, rise.

  Finally managing, I slide a shawl around my shoulders. My whole body hurts, throat parched. Whatever will I say to Mrs. Parson to explain?

  Crossing the floor takes great effort, and by the time I reach the door, the very woman is there, lending a knock. When I brave a new step forward, I find her grasping a tray that balances a steaming bowl of soup along with a biscuit. Carrots and potatoes scent the air, as does the richness of fresh game that must have come from Edie. I have no idea how to make sense of such an offering.

  “Back to bed.” Though softly given, Mrs. Parson’s decree holds enough authority that I return to the mound of tangled bedding. “Feet up, please.”

  When I obey, she settles the quilt across my lap. Fluffs the pillow. I can’t stem the tide of tears now. Why is this stranger being so kind to me? It is I who should be serving her. And yet it is her weathered hands that angle the spoon so that I can easily grasp the handle. Wedged beneath the plate is the folded newspaper clipping. It peeks out from beneath the blue-and-white porcelain. I must have dropped it between the yard and the house, and in truth, I recall little of the walk.

  My eyes lift to hers. This woman knows.

  The ones who salted the Kenworthy mine have long reigned a mystery. The citizens of this town would have surrendered the gold they didn’t have to bring justice to those who fired such deception into the mine’s walls. Now those suspects are stamped in black ink and folded on a tray.

  Such should burn me with shame to be the wife of one of these men, yet it’s only sorrow that floods me. I cover my face with my hands as sobs rise up. John’s name presses to my tongue. How I ache to cry it out loud. To plead to God for mercy that he is still alive. And yet warring with that primal need is the agony that he has deceived me.

  Mrs. Parson slides both arms around my shoulders, squeezing tight.

  The article beside us is folded in such a way that John’s picture stays concealed. I’m sure we would both agree that it’s best Bethany not know of this now. Nearly a year ago, he was the one sitting beside me on this very bed, holding my hand as I described the cough Bethany had been battling then. He’d arisen twice in the night to check on her. I found him sleeping on the floor beside her bed come dawn.

  Now that man could be lying in a shallow grave.

  The date of the article is already ingrained in my mind. The sixth of September. Over one month ago. He would have died alone. His thoughts would have been on his daughter. On this little life he cherished so much. His thoughts might have been with me as well . . .

  What was I doing that day? Was I pinning laundry to a line when he received a sentence?

  “He may still be alive.” Mrs. Parson eases to sit beside me.

  I nod numbly, but it’s hard to find the hope. If he is alive, he is one of two convicts still awaiting trial.

  Mrs. Parson whispers an answer though I have not voiced the question aloud. “The psalmist wrote, ‘In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?’”

  I hunger for this light she speaks of. This deliverance. This uprightness.

  I hunger for it for me. For Bethany. And most of all, for the one who may already be lost to the cold earth. A man who may have stepped from this life not by the Lord’s light but by the glow of gold mines. A shimmer that, while tempting, can hold neither the power to satisfy nor to save.

  Chapter 12

  Johnny

  October

  There’s no glory to the brand-new stove as I dump a jar of spaghetti sauce into a pan. Pasta bubbles in the dented pot that’s been dragged from my camping gear. Nearby, the kids play on their beanbags that they tossed down from the upstairs landing. Rye is curled up near them, oversized head on his paws. In any other circumstance their laughter would be contagious, but it sounds distant and far away, drowned out by the throbbing inside that feels an awful lot like being torn in two.

  As much as I’ve craved these sounds—of them settling in—it’s all shadowed. The divorce is on its way to being finalized. Sutherland v. Sutherland. Six months the state of California takes from filing to approval. Emily filed months ago, and I’ve actually done my part, so it won’t be long now.

  “This isn’t happening,” I mutter.

  Sauce is starting to burn. Crud. It needs to be stirred, and my brain is disconnected from the rest of me.

  The sound of Cameron’s laughter from the middle of the living room shatters my heart further. The kids are so innocent. They have no idea that I just signed on the dotted line to make their home broken for good.

  Do they know about the baby?

  With a plastic fork, I try to revive the sauce and, with a bigger mountain of effort, attempt to corral thoughts of Emily aside. I need to focus on other things, but it’s like wading through glue.

  I angle to see the kids better. Needing grounding. A lifeline. Their presence here is my own kind of coming home. Like the house wasn’t fully ours until their voices echoed within these walls. I only wish I could feel their joy. Really feel it. It’s as though the information reaches my brain but not my soul.

  “Is the spaghetti ready?” Micaela bounds over, jumping across the three holes that are now patched in the floorboard. They’re from the old display cases, but she’s already dubbed them bullet holes and is now playing Wild West hopscotch.

  “Just about. Wanna fetch those paper plates?” I point to the “kitchen box,” and she counts out three plastic forks and the same number of plates. It’s a number I’m going to need to get used to.

  I shut off the stove then carry the pasta onto the porch to drain the liquid over the railing. “So how does this sound for the weekend, you guys?” I ask, returning and desperate to rally. “I was thinking we’d just have fun tonight, then tomorrow maybe you two can help me with a few jobs.”

  The kids cheer.

  “Sunday we’ll head to church, and I’ve ordered a climbing harness that will fit you, Micaela, so maybe I can teach you how to rappel from some of the boulders back behind the house.” There are bolts already in place, and I’ve tested each one with my own weight.

  The cheering escalates, and while I wish I could match their excitement, I focus on forming words and plans to keep this night in motion. I’ll have to do the same tomorrow and the next day and the next until someday, maybe, this will hurt less. I can’t really imagine it, so my “Awesome,” is strained.

  Since there’s no table yet, we all find spots in the living area. The kids sink into their beanbags, and I unfold a camping chair. I pop the top off of a Gatorade and fill plastic cups. We do a “Cheers” that doesn’t reach its way inside me.

  It must show when Micaela touches my knee and asks if she should pray for our food.

  “Please,” I say through a tight throat.

  Her eyes squint closed. “Dear Jesus . . .” She peeks over to her brother. “Daddy, he’s not closing his eyes.”

  Normally I’d chuckle at their antics, but tonight I just manage to speak. “How ’bout we close our eyes, Cameron.”

  My son squints his eyes tight, and Micaela folds her hands in h
er lap. “Dear Jesus. Thank You for this day and for this food. And thank You for Daddy’s fun house and for the beanbags.”

  I smile, and the simple act nearly has me wanting to cry. Not for the sorrow but the way their sweetness cuts light into it.

  “And thank You for the spaghetti.”

  I touch her hand, giving it a thankful squeeze. There’s something about the way we say amen together. Like the word belongs here in this room. This house.

  “So, what do you guys want to do tonight?” I twirl a fork into steaming pasta. There’s no Parmesan cheese or even a salad, but we have something edible.

  Cameron slurps a noodle, and while his tiny voice is hard to understand, I think he’s asking for a movie.

  “Sorry, bud. I don’t have a TV yet.”

  “Can we still bake cookies?” Micaela asks.

  That’s right, I had mentioned to her I was going to get some dough last time she was with me. Thankfully, I grabbed two rolls and put them in the new fridge yesterday. “Good idea.”

  They both light up.

  We take our time with the spaghetti, and as we do, I try to focus only on this moment right here. Me and these precious people. My people. The act softens the sorrow some, shoves it to a back cupboard of my mind where I know I’ll be revisiting it once I manage to get them tucked into bed. For now, I lean into their happiness and let it ease the ache. I’m glad they’ve got an appetite because between all our second helpings, we empty both pans. Dishes are easy when we toss away the paper plates and I drench both pots in the yard with the hose. Cameron slurps the last of his Gatorade, then waddles over to the refrigerator. He can’t quite reach the handle, so I hold it open and watch while his pudgy hands grasp for one roll of the dough. The tube of cookie mix is bigger than his arm, but he manages.