“What you tried to do yesterday took guts. I’m sorry it was so rough.”
“You wouldn’t believe what it was like.”
“Pretty sure I would. Every former guidance counselor has some bad war stories.”
“Good point. I just don’t feel cut out for it. I didn’t take the right college classes, or get a master’s in social work, or any of that stuff.”
“Maybe not, but your instincts to want to help are right, as usual.”
“Even if I go about it in my typical cloddish way.”
“You always say that, and it’s never true.”
“I never squared off with Brittany Crowder before. I barely knew her in school and haven’t done more than hand her cash or a debit card at an occasional checkout counter since. Suddenly she’s everywhere.”
They crested a small rise and paused to catch their breath and marinate in the vista. They were west of town, out past the old mine Tony Rizzo operated as a tourist attraction, in a network of trails. In midsummer, the mountains were their most blazing verdant cacophony above the browns and blues of Cutter Creek as it rushed through the canyon below.
“This view is worth every drop of sweat it takes to get here,” Nia said. “Every time.”
“Agreed.” Jillian pointed at a massive pile of boulders and stones. “Although that can’t have been part of the original view, and it seems like we’re too far above the old mine for these stones to have come from there.”
“The name of the town is plural for a reason,” Nia quipped. “There are dozens of abandoned mines up here. That was long before the Environmental Protection Agency or state regulations. They dug out the mountains, mined in a frenzy, and when they got what they wanted or went bust, they just left it all.”
“How do we know there’s not a mine entrance behind that pile of stones?”
Nia shrugged. “I guess we don’t know for sure, but most people left because the assay office told them what they were digging out was worthless after all or because the markets fell apart. Spending money to pay men to move rock back wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list. You can’t put a mountain back together. Much later there was some effort by authorities to at least put some grates over known entrances for the sake of safety, but I’m not sure anyone claims to have found them all.”
“How do you know all this?” Jillian took a long gulp of water.
“Have you met my husband?”
Jillian laughed, spitting liquid. “Leo and his books.”
“And the way he likes to wax on, sounding erudite, over breakfast with our B&B guests.” Nia shook her head. “I try to get him to tone it down at least until people have had their morning coffee, but enough of them find it fascinating that he keeps going. I’ve heard the same lecture umpteen zillion times.”
“Good grief, he’s going to scare them off from hiking for fear of falling in a mine.”
“Well, there you have it.” Nia flipped her fingers into Jillian’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I tell him.”
Jillian capped her water bottle and turned back to the trail. “Thanks for making me laugh. I haven’t been able to shake thinking about Tisha since yesterday afternoon. To be honest, I’m dreading tomorrow when she comes to work. If she comes to work.”
“Do you really think she might not?”
“She hasn’t wanted to be there in the first place. Then half the town saw what happened on Friday, and I probably only made things worse by turning up at her house on Saturday. Why would she show her face again?”
“Because she has to.”
Jillian shook her head. “It’s hard for me to understand not caring about being in trouble when there could be legal consequences for blowing off the deal my dad has arranged, but I really don’t think that’s a factor for Tisha Crowder. Every step we try to take with her results in backward progress—which I guess is not actually progress. Regression.”
“If what you saw of her home life is true all the time, coming to work tomorrow morning is the least of her mental worries at the moment. But she also knows she has to, and if she doesn’t show up tomorrow, Nolan is not going to let it go, and she’s smart enough to know that too. So I think she’ll be back.”
“In the long game, this option could make all the difference for a kid like Tisha.”
“We all have reasons for the ways we express how we feel, even if we don’t understand them. Teenagers with troubles are not always the best at thinking about the long game.”
“I guess I can’t argue with you there.” Jillian pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head to absorb the nuances of the palette before her unfiltered. “How could this view not make anyone feel better?”
“It certainly does my spirit good,” Nia said. “This spot always reminds me of that little painting in your kitchen.”
Jillian turned to look at Nia and then back at the view. “Do you really think this could be it?”
Nia lifted one shoulder and let it drop without commitment. “It’s a wide view. The exact vantage point could be anywhere along here. But don’t you think the hills look right?”
Jillian considered the question. “I do. You know, on Tisha’s first day, she said my picture reminded her of something. Yesterday she said she figured out it was because the original is in their attic.”
“No way!”
It was Jillian’s turn to shrug.
“You’re not the only person in town who has a reproduction of that picture,” Nia said. “There has to be a story.”
“Given Brittany’s mood, I’m not counting on hearing it. I didn’t get much of a chance to ask.” Jillian flipped her glasses back onto her face. “We’re heading downhill again. You know what that means.”
“No, no, no!” Nia crisscrossed her arms in front of her face. “That’s not even a real trail you have your eye on.”
“Looks pretty good to me. Think of it as a shortcut.”
“You’re killing me with these downhill sprints on mountain paths. I won’t be able to move all week.”
Jillian wiggled a hand over her shoulder, already ten steps ahead of her friend. The stretch she’d chosen was wide and relatively free of obstructions like wayward tree roots. It would dump them on a level length of trail that wound much more gradually toward the lot where they’d left the car.
“I’m older than you are!” Nia’s plaintive cry came from behind.
Jillian grinned but didn’t slow down until she got to the flat path. She bent over, hands on knees, for a moment, easing her breath before reaching for her water bottle and pacing while she waited. Nia wasn’t walking, but neither was she sprinting. Jillian had plenty of time to recover.
“I suppose you’re very proud of yourself.” Nia finally reached the security of level ground.
“Quite.”
“My calves will never be the same.”
“You should do more running.”
“Go to your room, young lady.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
A sheepadoodle lumbered across their path, chased by two giggling little boys who couldn’t be more delighted to own a dog twice as big as the two of them combined. It took both of them, under supervision of their mother, to manage the dog’s long leash.
“Grandpa Rossi, I want a dog like that!”
Jillian and Nia turned their heads toward the determined little voice. Dave Rossi gripped his granddaughter’s hand. Clearly she wanted to race after the sheepadoodle.
“Hello,” Jillian said.
“Hello there,” Dave said. “Nadia, these are my new friends, Jillian and Nia. Can you say hello?”
She leaned into his leg as she greeted them.
“A dog, eh?” Jillian couldn’t help smirking.
“I want a puppy, Grandpa!”
“Nadia, we’ve talked about this,” Dave said. “I can’t just give you a puppy.”
“But you love dogs. You said you do. You’re always happy to see doggies.”
“If the pup
py was yours, it would live at your house, and your mother would have to say yes. Remember?”
Nadia’s lower lip pushed out. “My mommy doesn’t want a puppy. She says a puppy is a lot of work.”
“She’s right. A puppy is a lot of work.”
“But puppies are so cute, Grandpa Rossi! And so fun! You used to have a dog.”
Jillian laughed. “She’s got you cornered.”
“My dog was an old dog. I’m too old myself to chase after a puppy.”
“No you’re not, Grandpa! No you’re not! You’re not too old. Don’t say that.”
Jillian tried to stifle her laugh, but Nadia’s earnest appeal was too much not to evoke any reaction.
“I admit I miss my dog.” Dave glanced at Jillian. “My yellow lab died about a year ago. Maybe someday I might be ready for another one, when I feel more settled in. But a puppy? They definitely are a lot of work.”
“Are you getting an especially close opportunity to observe that truth right now while at work?” Jillian winked.
Dave chuckled. “Might be.”
“What am I missing?” Nia asked.
“Tell you later,” Jillian said.
“We gotta go, Jillian,” Nia said. “Leo is hanging out with your dad, but we have stuff to do to be ready for tomorrow.”
“Then don’t complain to me about how your calves or your quads or any other body parts are screaming.” Jillian waved at Dave and Nadia. “Nice to see you both.”
“This was supposed to be a hike, not a race,” Nia said.
“Whatever.”
“Suit yourself, but remember I have the car keys.”
“Well, when you put it like that.” Jillian dumped the last of her water down her throat. That would have to last her until they got back to the car, where a cooler held backup bottles on ice.
Under other circumstances, Jillian would have had a couple more hours to enjoy being at the ranch with Drew before getting in her own car for the drive back from south of Pueblo to Canyon Mines. Maybe he would still call to wish her a happy birthday. In the meantime, she’d just about hiked off the excess nervous energy his silence fueled and Tisha stoked.
“Shall I send Leo out?” Jillian asked when Nia pulled into the Duffy driveway.
“I’ll come in and get him.” Nia unstrapped her seat belt. “Otherwise I could be sitting out here till the cows come home.”
“I hear your cows have a late curfew.”
“Cut it out, smarty-pants.”
They climbed the front steps together. Jillian wouldn’t admit it, but her own calves and quads were starting to talk back. Nia hung back a few steps to let Jillian go through the door first.
The shouts of “Surprise!” rattled Jillian’s eardrums. She spun around to look at Nia.
“You!”
“Strictly diversion duty.”
Kris. Leo. Luke and Veronica. Connie. Marilyn. Clark and Joanna. And Nolan, grinning at the dining room table, laden with food. He must have been cooking the entire time they were hiking.
“But the cake and ice cream party on Friday,” Jillian said.
“Also strictly diversion,” Nia said.
“Well, it worked. I didn’t expect this. I’m a sweaty mess.”
“You are glowing with age.” Nolan came and kissed her cheek. “Officially twenty-nine.”
“My piles of papers,” Jillian said.
“Carefully and temporarily moved to the kitchen table,” Nolan said. “I promise now that you had a recognizable system, I did not disturb it.”
“Well, this does look much more enticing,” she admitted.
Connie’s chocolates. Kris’s ice creams. Nia’s scones. Her favorite meatballs in a sauce. Olive cheese bread. Two kinds of quiche. Little pastry cream puffs that looked just like the ones Drew, a master dessert chef, made and which Nolan had been feverishly determined to learn to make himself. Apparently he’d finally done it. Jillian couldn’t tell the difference.
Even with her large, wild, noisy Irish family based near Denver, and as much as she enjoyed them, the moment before her swamped Jillian with gratitude for this family—people who chose her and loved her and stood by her every day.
Tisha Crowder had never known such a moment. Her family was wild and noisy, but not in the joyous way of the Duffys or these friends.
Where did Tisha disappear to when her own mother told her she didn’t want to look at her?
Jillian pulled herself back to the moment. “Nice job on the pastries, Dad. You’ve finally done it.”
Nolan laughed. “In my dreams. Those aren’t mine.”
Drew burst out of the kitchen and opened his arms. “You didn’t really think I’d miss your birthday, did you?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Denver, Colorado
Wednesday, July 26, 1893
It’s much too late to walk home,” Clifford announced. “We’ll take the streetcar.”
Missouri glanced at Loren.
“He can ride with us for a while,” Cliff said, “and then …” His words trailed off because he didn’t know where Loren spent his nights. Loren didn’t always know.
“You said you were going to talk to Mama.” Missouri’s tone threw a dart of accusation.
“The moment hasn’t been right.”
“Please don’t argue about me,” Loren said. “As you can see, I’m well enough.”
Well enough. Hardly. Loren ran himself ragged making sure other miners knew where they might find help, and he would gladly hand his meager charity meal to another man in the bread line. If he got any thinner, he would have to make another trip through the charity clothing the People’s Tabernacle offered, looking for smaller garments, rather than only directing others there. If Loren weren’t so much taller, Cliff would have given him some of his own clothes. Clifford suspected the thought of seeing Missy kept Loren going. Most of the men had no such hope.
“Soon, Missy, I promise,” Clifford said. “In the meantime, Loren, please ride with us part of the way, and then take the streetcar back to find someplace for the night.”
Already it was well after nine. Over the protest of Georgina’s silent scowl, Cliff had accompanied Missouri after dinner back downtown for a special shift on a food wagon to distribute food among the men who did not make it to organized food lines. Parson Tom was right. They couldn’t keep up. The church couldn’t take care of everyone. But a couple of evening food wagons operated by volunteers could fill a few more bellies before night clasped the city. Georgina didn’t want Missy to go at all, and even Clifford felt better if he went with her, no longer only to mollify Georgina.
Fewer streetcars ran every day, and even fewer in the late evenings, but the food wagon had finished its work circling around Union Station, leaving the trio at Fifteenth Street. Walking all the way across town to Champa and up to Twenty-Fourth to get home was too ambitious at this hour even for Clifford’s wandering spirit. Though they might have to wait for a streetcar, they would be home much sooner than on foot. Before long Georgina would be ready to set aside the reading material she habitually took to bed when she retired early, and her irritation at his absence would breed anxiety. She never slept well without him beside her where she could reach for his hand, although she had been reaching for it less of late, her fomenting distrust of his decisions seeping into private spaces.
A car arrived a few minutes later, and they boarded.
“This seems unnecessary,” Loren said. “We can say good night here.”
“You’re coming.” Missouri shut down his protest with a tug on his hand.
Running along the rails that made it so easy to navigate Denver, even with frequent stops, at this hour, the streetcar should have had them to Curtis Street swiftly enough, and their route would have turned toward home. Instead, in a matter of blocks, traffic congealed in a throng of pedestrians.
Missouri gripped the seat in front of her. “What’s going on?”
Their streetcar wasn’t the only one clutched i
n unseen events. Several were backed up along both Fifteenth Street and Larimer where the two streets crossed.
“How could that many men be getting out of those streetcars?” Clifford mused—just as a stream of men pushed past him out of their own car. By the moment, the streets filled both with disembarking passengers and, more voluminously, pedestrians who mobbed their way down Larimer.
“The jail!” Missouri shouted. “It’s in the next block. That’s what is stopping up everything.”
“What could possibly be happening to warrant this crowd?” Clifford couldn’t count. Hundreds—no, thousands—of men swarmed, shoved, shouted.
“Some of them have picks.” Loren swung out of his seat, his pack of personal belongings over one shoulder. “Miners.”
Missy grabbed his arm. “You can’t go out there.”
“We’re not going anywhere else. We might as well find out what’s going on.”
“It’s dangerous!”
“I’ll just get off and ask.”
She couldn’t stop him. When the streetcar began to rock, she screamed, and Loren turned around and reached with both hands for Missouri and Clifford.
“We have to get off. Now! All of us!”
Clifford instantly agreed. On the pavement outside, the men linked arms with Missouri in the middle and shuffled as a block to lean against a building on the corner. Even the driver sought escape from the streetcar’s impending danger.
“We have to get out of here,” Clifford said.
“But how?” Missy had to shout to be heard above the cries of the mob.
Loren reached out for a brawny miner’s arm. “What’s going on?”
“Dan Arata is in the jail,” the man said, “and we intend to get him out.”
“With sledgehammers and picks?”
“They won’t give him up any other way?”
“What has he done?”
“Murdered a war hero, that’s what. Over a nickel bar tab.”
“Isn’t that a matter for the police? They’ve already arrested him, haven’t they?”
“We’ll make sure there’s justice in our own way.” The man stomped off.
“What madness!” Missouri clung to the wall and her father. “This is not Denver.”
What You Said to Me Page 13
