by Carla Kelly
“Call it what you will—an epiphany, a vision, inspiration—Jesse told our son that pretty soon we were going to have all the money we wanted, if we would see it as a stewardship to help others.” She rested her hands in her lap. “Sure enough, they struck a rich vein in the Humbug, and that started the company.”
Della took over from her hostess and continued cutting the taffy. “I have to tell you that Owen and I have joked about Uncle Jesse, wondering if he starts each day deciding who to help.”
They laughed together. “I think he does,” Amanda said. She turned kind eyes on Della. “He’s been watching over the Davises.”
“We thought so,” Della said. She swallowed down her tears, wondering why she was so emotional lately. “He’s moving mountains for us, and we know it.”
She thought about Amanda’s words with every letter Owen sent, describing the land of the Alberta District, the soil perfect for wheat certainly, but also for sugar beets, according to experts. Mind you, I know nothing about agriculture, he wrote, but I’m starting to believe in this land. Home soon, I hope.
She hoped the same, watching the calendar slide toward the end of a short month anyway, wondering if she should remind him of his promise to take her to Hastings for her father’s birthday anniversary on March 10.
She had a bigger interest, something on her mind since early January, something she tried not to think about, until it was all she thought about. A few shy words to Amanda had directed her to David Smoot, M.D., whose office was a block north of the Knight Investment Company. Lying on his examination table in a too short cotton gown, she answered his questions, asked a few of her own, and let him prod a bit, somewhat south of her belly button.
When he measured her hips and smiled at the caliper reading, Dr. Smoot gave her a hand up into a sitting position and nodded to his nurse.
“Mrs. Davis, I predict you’ll be washing diapers in about the middle of September,” he said. “Congratulations.”
She burst into tears, babbling about waiting and waiting for just such news until her husband had told her to stop marking Xs on the calendar.
“My dear, you look so young. How long have you been married? Has it been years?”
“Since last May!” she wailed.
He laughed. “Then you are an impatient soul, indeed.” He shook his finger at her. “You have about seven more months to grow this little one, and nothing needs to rush that. Make an appointment to see me once a month.” He shook her hand and left the room, still laughing.
Della wondered whether to write such news in a letter. She stewed over the matter and then realized late that night as she tossed in bed that she was terrible at keeping secrets. She got up, dragged herself into the kitchen, and wrote a letter to her man, to the father of this tiny being inside her. She wrote of her love, reminded him of his Colorado promise, and asked him what he thought about having a little Canadian in the family this coming September, if the Knights decided he was the man for the job.
On her walk to work—Dr. Smoot had assured her that walking was excellent exercise for a lady-in-waiting—she debated long and hard over mailing the letter. She held the letter suspended over the postbox until a woman waiting behind her cleared her throat loud enough to remind her that other people lived in the universe and mailed letters. In it went.
On the first of March, Della was ready to strangle the father of her child. “You promised to take me to Hastings,” she told his miner’s round lunch bucket, the one with the two compartments, one for a meal and the larger one for water, that she had started using earlier in the week when the queasy feeling in her stomach revolted and attacked. It had a useful handle and lid, which meant she could carry it to the toilet for disposal.
Angharad had caught her early that morning, heaving up everything except the birthmark on her ankle. “Mam! Are you ill?”
Once Della had eaten a few saltines and the kitchen quit spinning, she sat her daughter down and told her what was going on. She watched the shy look Angharad gave her and held out her two hands in the Welsh way. With a delighted smile, Angharad placed her hands in Della’s, never taking her eyes from Della.
“Does Da know?”
“I sent him a letter. I want him home soon.”
That morning, Uncle Jesse’s secretary showed her a telegram from her boss. Tonight at six, it read. “Why use ten words when three will do?” the woman said. “Is that how the rich stay rich?”
Della remembered what Amanda had told her about Uncle Jesse’s mandate from heaven. He stayed rich by helping others. The secretary was new; maybe she hadn’t heard it yet.
They were waiting at six when the Union Pacific railroad steamed its way toward the Provo station and hissed to a stop. She waved to Uncle Jesse and Ray and then stood still, too shy to wave at Owen Davis, the man who knew her better than anyone on earth—the father of their baby, the singer, the coal miner, and maybe now a builder on Canada’s vast prairie.
Angharad hurried to him and he hugged her. He took her hand, bent down and sent her ahead to walk with Uncle Jesse. Her heart thumping loud, Della walked toward Owen. He came faster, and then he stopped directly in front of her.
“I was going to grab you and swing you around, but maybe I shouldn’t, m cara,” he told her.
He set down his valise and gently folded her in his arms.
“I’m not made of porcelain. Baby’s tucked in there pretty safely,” she whispered in his ear. “I think maybe since Christmas. Maybe that night you came home. The night you sang to me. Well?”
Della’s reminder of her durability notwithstanding, he held her off from him just as carefully. “Baby Davis will be a Canadian. Della, I’m to facilitate building a town and a sugar factory. My stars, but life is strange, is it not?”
Chapter 45
L
Owen had purchased tickets on the D&RGW for Colorado when they stopped in Salt Lake on the way home. After Della’s letter that he read over and over in his hotel room in Lethbridge, he made sure they were Pullman tickets. No pregnant wife of his needed the discomfort of sitting in a parlor car for such a distance. He remembered how tired Gwyna had been in those first few months. Better to let Della stretch out, for all that she protested how good she felt, barring an early-morning heave.
When she heard the news about the baby, the job, and the trip, Mabli had clapped her hands, hugged them, and said she would be happy to let Angharad stay with her while they traipsed off to Colorado. She packed a prodigious box lunch and handed it over when they dropped off Angharad the next evening and caught the night train to Grand Junction and points east.
A man of obvious efficiency, the porter had already made up the bed in the sleeping car. “My goodness, we have our own compartment,” Della said after he left. “I was just hoping for partitioned curtains.”
“You’re worth a compartment,” he said.
“And you’re an overly protective man I adore,” she said. “I am quite fine.”
She could protest all she wanted. By the time he had helped her into her nightgown, bracing her against the motion of the moving car, she was drooping noticeably and yawning. “I’ll just rest my eyes,” she told him as she lay down close to the window and patted the space beside her. Before he could unbutton his shirt, she was asleep.
Della barely made a sound when they pulled into Grand Junction, patting Owen’s shoulder before she returned to sleep. In the light from the depot, he watched her, touched by how her hands already cupped her belly even though she wasn’t showing yet. Gwyna had done the same thing. How kind of the Lord Almighty to bless him with two wives who loved their little ones, no matter how small. Maybe all mothers did that. How would he know?
By the time they changed trains and headed south on a track reminiscent of Utah’s winding canyon routes, she was wide awake and nervous. To distract her from the great drop-off to the river far below, he told her all over again about his new job, and the wide-open prairie that was the District of Alberta.
She laughed. “Owen, with no mountains close, are there any mines?”
“Cross my heart I didn’t ask,” he said. She could find out for herself later that there was a town by Lethbridge called Coaldale.
“Fences, more ditches, and houses come first. Then comes the sugar factory, which is already contracted for its first load of beets in 1903,” he said. He tucked her close, because he knew from experience in Scofield how trains in canyons terrified her. “If you came right now or even in May when school is out, you’d be living in a tent, and I won’t have it.”
Tears welled in her eyes, which made him doubt his own resolve. The last thing he wanted was to leave her in Provo while he worked in Canada, but a coming baby had changed things. “I’ll build you the first house,” he promised. “Uncle Jesse and Ray will be advertising across Canada’s southern district and Utah for settlers. There’s space and room to grow.” He peered closer. “Are you unhappy with me?”
“Not precisely,” she said, which made him smile.
“Do you at least like me?” They had traveled this road before.
“Quite a lot. Could we perhaps consider a tent for the summer? I’m healthy and I’m strong, and Angharad is already such a help.” Her words came out in a rush then. “My heart will break if I am not with you.”
He sighed and kissed her hair. “We’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask,” she told him quietly before she drifted to sleep. He could tell her later that she was probably going to win this argument. His lonely time in Knightville was not something he wanted to repeat, not ever.
By mid-morning they reached La Perla, where the next step was to find a way to Hastings, which proved to be simple enough. Someone was always going to Hastings, only ten miles away. It was a simple matter of finding the freight yard and asking around.
“Does any of this look familiar to you yet?” he asked her.
Della nodded, her face solemn.
The freighter providing the ride looked at her with interest. “You lived here, Mrs. Davis?”
“My father mined in the Molly Bee.”
“It’s been closed for years,” he told her, and then he looked over his shoulder to Owen. “Give your lady a hand up and we’ll be going.”
“What do people do around here now?” she asked after the driver clucked to his team and they started up the graded incline.
“Ranching, mostly.” He pointed to the southeast with his whip. “The Wilson ranch that way. Bob Wilson’s been here the longest and he has quite a spread. I think he runs three thousand cattle.”
Hastings was much what he expected: a modest town with some abandoned buildings, two churches, more saloons than churches, and a schoolhouse smaller than the one where Della taught in Winter Quarters Canyon.
She pointed due south toward a steeper road looking overgrown and neglected now. “That’s the way to the Molly Bee.” Della shivered, but Owen didn’t think she was cold, since the sun shone.
“May I ask—my wife tells me I’m nosy—what are you folks planning to do here?”
“My father died in a rock fall when I was a child. I haven’t been back since, and I wanted to visit his grave before we move to Canada,” Della said, adding, “… this summer,” with a pointed look at Owen. “Is there still only the one burying ground between the two churches?”
“The very same,” he said. “I can take you there now, or maybe you might want to have some lunch.”
“Lunch,” Owen said at the same time Della said, “Burying ground.”
They laughed. “I suppose we should eat,” Della conceded.
The teamster laughed at them. “No harm meant, Mrs. Davis, but your father will keep.” He pointed with his whip toward a two-story building needing paint like all the others. “How about I drop you there with your luggage? It’s not much, but I hear the sheets are clean with no bedbugs, and there’s a nice café.”
Owen doubted they would remain in Hastings much beyond a visit to Frederick Anders’s grave, but he agreed. Wife and luggage on the boarded walk now, he waved to the teamster who left them there. The man promised someone was always leaving Hastings in the morning and they would have no difficulty leaving too.
The hotel was much as described. Della looked around the room he rented and nodded her guarded approval. With a pang, Owen realized that even this shabby room looked far more promising than a tent in Raymond.
Della opened her suitcase and retrieved the Anders name he had carved for her last year. She held it up for a good look and then cradled it in her arms. Her eyes were bright when she smiled at him. “Let’s go. My father has waited years for this.”
No, you have, he thought.
“I have to tell you, Owen: the first time I saw the Scofield cemetery, it gave me quite a jolt,” she said as she led him toward the open ground between the churches. “Papa has a wooden marker just like those. Can we think about a regular headstone?”
“Your wish is my command, fair lady. Let’s make arrangements on the way back to the train. I can carry that for you.”
“I know you can,” she said, hugging the Anders carving closer. “It’s my job, though.”
There weren’t many graves in the Hastings Cemetery. Della scanned the burying ground and pointed toward the row of wooden markers. “Over there.” Her voice seemed to shrink. He waited, hoping she wouldn’t begin to use that eerie child’s voice, and she didn’t. A full-grown, confident woman walked beside him. He couldn’t have been more grateful. He would have to write to Saul Weisman and tell him Sigi was right.
She was in no hurry, stopping every few feet and looking around. She must have thought her slow pace deserved an explanation. “I doubt I will ever be here again. I want to remember this moment.”
He nodded, thinking that in a few days on their return trip he would probably do the same thing when they stopped in Scofield. Through the years, he had managed to save enough for a granite memorial for Gwyna. He planned to spend more than a moment by her again, explaining why he was moving so far away to the plains of Alberta District. He knew Gwyna would understand, but he needed to tell her.
They reached the row at the back with ten wooden markers and one granite headstone with flowers in front of it.
“That’s odd,” Della said. “I thought Papa’s was the one on the end, but I suppose there were more miners’ deaths.” She leaned against him. “Clumsy of me to say that, especially when I think of May 1. Certainly there were more deaths.”
“There will always be miners’ deaths,” he said, and he braced himself against the wave after wave of agony that broke over him that awful day when the Number Four blew, and which had troubled him for months. He waited; it didn’t happen.
Instead, he felt an odd sort of peace settle on him, followed by a shower of wonderful memories of friends gone, but friends still. He had come full circle in his own personal grief. This thing in May that was far bigger than he was had become at least an ally, if not a friend. He could live with that.
“Owen. Owen.”
He must have closed his eyes for his tender epiphany. When he opened them, Della stood before a granite marker, staring down. To his astonishment, she dropped the carving she carried and fell to her knees.
He was at her side in moment, looking where she pointed.
“Frederick Soiseth Anders,” he said out loud. “Eighteen Fifty-one to Eighteen Eighty-six. Della, who did this?”
She shook her head and held out her arm so he could help her stand. She leaned closer to touch the flowers, then pulled back her hand as though it burned.
“They’re fresh! Someone must have left these today, on his birthday. Who would do this?”
As surpr
ised as she was, Owen shook his head. “Do you have any relatives here?”
“Not one.”
He saw the bewilderment on her face. She picked up his carving and leaned it against the headstone, staring down.
“You don’t … you don’t think your uncle did this, do you?” he asked her. “Surely he would have said something.”
“Aunt Caroline would never have allowed such a kindness. These are fresh flowers. We must have just missed whoever it was that left them.”
They stared at each other, and he held out his hand. “Do you know anyone in town?”
“Not a soul.” She took his hand and they started by silent agreement for the front of the cemetery, walking fast.
Chapter 46
L
A bell tinkled when Owen opened the door to Hastings Dry Goods and ushered her inside. The sharp tang of dried herring made Della’s stomach lurch. Not now, Baby Davis, she thought, half amused, half exasperated. I don’t have time to puke.
“Is anyone here?” Owen asked. “Please?”
“Over here.”
They turned together and saw who they guessed must be the owner, sitting in a rocking chair by a pot-bellied stove and, of all things, knitting. He noticed their surprise and held up the ball of yarn.
“The wife calls this a winter project,” he said. “I knit socks. That’s all. Learn one thing and do it well is what I say. Can I help you folks?”
Owen looked at Della and gave her a little push forward. “I don’t even know what to ask,” she whispered to her ever-helpful man.
“Let’s try this,” that ever-helpful man whispered back. “Sir, we were noticing the flowers on that grave in the back row of the cemetery.”
“Nice, aren’t they?” The proprietor put down the latest sock and came closer. “She does it every year on his birthday.”
“Who does?” Della and Owen asked at the same time.
