The Rose Legacy

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “This is fine, Mr. Beck. Only show me what you need me to do.”

  “Yes, of course. Well, for a start I thought maybe you could bring some order to these papers.” He looked sheepishly over the piles.

  Carina eyed the mountainous range of stacks along the wall. Mr. Beck’s office was not as meticulous as his dress and demeanor. He obviously paid better heed to his person than his work. She thought of Papa’s clinic, spotless and orderly, everything in its place—though sometimes Papa’s thick, shiny hair stood in graying blond spikes and his collar protruded at odd angles. Still, Mr. Beck seemed earnest enough.

  She returned her gaze to him. “Will you excuse me?” “I beg your pardon?” He rested his hand on his vest.

  “I have a thought for filing your papers, but I need to get something.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. Come and go as you please. You’ll find I’m frequently out myself, so here is a key to the front door.” He held it out.

  Carina’s eyes widened involuntarily. Mr. Garibaldi had watched her like a hawk. Never would he have trusted her with a key. Yet Mr. Beck handed her his now, and they had only met two days before. She tucked it safely into her pocket.

  As she went outside again, Carina half smiled to think how Mr. Garibaldi had hollered when Papa told him she was leaving. He was Papa’s cousin, and she had done his books as a favor to Papa, since the cousin’s eyes were so crossed he saw double. All she had heard from him were complaints until she was leaving, and suddenly she was invaluable! Irreplaceable! How could Papa think of letting her go? What sort of father was he to send a daughter so far?

  But Papa did not holler back. He was a man of mild temper, above displaying emotions even when his parental judgment was questioned. His voice stayed low, his countenance unruffled. “My daughter is twenty-one years old. She may choose her path.” And that, even though it made his heart ache to be losing her. Mr. Garibaldi blustered and swore. Papa never did either.

  Only Mamma hollered and slapped. She had married above her class because of her beauty. Now Carina did smile, recalling the story told again and again as the women sat together, baskets of mending beside them. How Papa had come to treat Nonna’s illness, laid eyes on Mamma, and fallen in love.

  He could have married higher, but the little dark-eyed beauty was all he could think of. Nonna’s own reputation had soared with the catch made by her daughter. The other widows came to her for advice. How can we marry our daughters well?

  “She is too lazy,” Nonna would say, or “her mind wanders,” or “she eats too much dolci.” So they would think it was her training that had made the match for Mamma. But Nonna knew it was Mamma’s lovely face, her smile, her laugh that brought her good fortune.

  Carina frowned. That was not always the case. Of the two DiGratia daughters, she most resembled Mamma in all those things, but it was Divina whose fortune had been won. Not won! Stolen. Divina had stolen her good fortune.

  She kicked a stone and traipsed back to Mae’s kitchen. There, she gathered the empty crates outside her door. They smelled a little of salt pork, but the waxed paper linings had kept them free of grease. With the linings gone, they would do nicely for the job.

  She returned to the office and set about organizing the papers into the crates. She tried filing them by type of complaint, then found that almost all dealt with claim disputes and filed them by date instead. Her own claim she found no trace of, but she had only sorted through a small portion by the time her stomach wanted food. Had the elevation turned her into a voracious wolf?

  Mr. Beck had been out most of the morning, but he returned now, slightly breathless but with a jaunty step. “May I buy you lunch?”

  Recalling Mae’s assumptions, Carina filed the paper in her hand, then met his hopeful countenance. “I think it best if we keep to business, Mr. Beck.”

  He raised his brows, surprised. “I see.”

  His expression remained pleasant, and she hoped he did see. She had left everyone she cared about—left them with one thought, one hope in her mind. And no one, not Berkley Beck or anyone else, could replace them. She dropped her chin. “Thank you for understanding, Mr. Beck.”

  The color rose slightly in his cheeks, but he smiled, though without showing his teeth this time. “Of course, Miss DiGratia.” He turned on his heel and left.

  Propped up by his crutch on the street corner, Cain Bradley shook his head. The look on Berkley Beck’s face could sour milk, no two ways about it. He felt a cackle seize his throat and indulged himself. Oh, how the mighty have fallen…. Perhaps it weren’t right to delight in another’s misfortune, but something had stuck in Beck’s craw, and Cain hoped it choked him.

  Cain glanced heavenward. No offense, Lord, but even you had your moments with the scribes and Pharisees, callin’ them whited sepulchers, all clean and tidy on the outside but inside full of dead men’s bones and all corruption. Well, I’m a-lookin’ at corruption right here and now.

  He leaned forward on his leg stump, encased in the leather cup above the wooden peg, and watched Berkley Beck advance. Beck ignored his presence. As he passed, Cain raised his crutch in mock salute and mumbled, “Whited sepulcher.” y

  Carina went back to Mae’s for lunch. The fare was stewed beef and potatoes, bread with no butter, and strong coffee to wash it down. Only a handful of men came in for it, and after they were served, Carina joined Mae at the kitchen table to eat.

  Mae dunked a chunk of bread in her gravy. “So how was it working for Mr. Beck?”

  Carina toyed with the stewed beef, tough and flavorless, though it had cooked long enough to cure leather. “He’s kind, but not very tidy.”

  Mae smiled. “He needs a woman for that.”

  Carina ignored her obvious intent. “A man who takes pride in his work is capable of his own orderliness.”

  Mae snorted. “Show me that man, and I’ll show you a fool. Why, Mr. Dixon couldn’t wipe his own shoes. But that made me more valuable, you see. I liked doing for him.”

  “So now you do for other men?”

  Mae shrugged. “A body needs a purpose.” She stood and took the plates from the table. Carina followed her outside the back door. Mae slid the dishes into the massive wooden washtub, then plunged her arms in to the elbow. The water was slimy with grease and soap, one hardly better than the other, and Mae didn’t seem overly concerned with the task.

  She swiped a plate with a nubby cloth. “There are plenty here who need doing for. It’s a regular city to be sure, bursting its seams with dreamers, though the amenities are a little slow in coming.”

  A little slow? It was the most backward place Carina had been.

  Mae sloshed the plate into the rinse tub. “Where other cities have gas lights and all such folderol, Crystal residents are hauling water and burning coal oil, kerosene, and candles. My stove burns wood and most of the food, too, as the regulator door’s unpredictable. But it could be worse. The tent dwellers cook on open fire pits.”

  “Why don’t they build? Bring in gas and water lines?”

  “It’ll happen. Just now the miners are trying to prove Crystal’s here to stay. Though folks have been scratching around here nearly a decade, it’s only been this last two years they’ve had real success. The water runs too close beneath the surface, and until they brought in the new hydraulic equipment, the mines flooded and made the deeper ores unreachable.”

  Mae pulled the plate from the scalding water and laid it on the board to dry. “Now it looks like they’ll make a city of it yet. It’s rough, but it has the makings of something more. You’ve seen the crowds, and it’s not just miners. Folks are bringing culture. The Selman Theatre has acting troupes and opera stars, though the best show last year was when Fred Little strung a rope from the weather vane on the Crystal Hotel to the ridgepole of the livery, then walked it. Dead sober.” She laughed.

  Carina tried to imagine it and failed, her head spinning with the thought. What sort of fool would tempt fate so when it was bad enough havin
g to face normal heights?

  Mae rocked back on her heels. “Maybe it’s my lack of sophistication that keeps me in a place like Crystal. But frankly, the world’s changing too fast. I like it simple. Fry and serve the hot cakes, scrub the dishes. Wash the linen off the bed of the man who gives it up; spread it for the next one.”

  Carina frowned. It sounded dreary to her. “You don’t get tired of it?”

  “Not really. There’s always new faces. New stories. I learn the men’s names because I have a head for it. I hear their stories. Some I believe because I’ve been there myself. Some, I know, are no truer than their dreams. Though one man in fifty does make his dream happen.”

  “One in fifty?” Carina’s heart sank. One in fifty was not good odds for her own dream.

  “That might be generous. See, it takes more than luck. It takes know-how and perseverance. The ones who come thinking there’s gold lying on the ground just waiting to be picked up—well, they scratch around a little, then give up.”

  She had a neat row of dishes drying now, catching the sun and breeze. “But the ones who find good ore and either sell out or have the wherewithal to make the mine pay, they’re the lucky ones.” She pointed a finger. “Still, they rub shoulders with the down-and-out and remember where they came from. It’s the wives they bring up who are less inclined to recall.”

  Mae rocked back on her heels. “I have no time for them—would-be society gals with ridgepole noses. They think their husbands’ sudden wealth makes them somehow different from the rest of us.”

  Carina thought of her own family, generations of titled wealth. Papa’s own fame and his daring move to the Americas. Did Mae consider hers a ridgepole nose?

  “Give me good honest work, bellies to feed, and dishes to wash. I want no part of their causes and complaints.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  Mae eyed her slowly, the sun catching in her gray-streaked hair pulled into a knot behind her head and lightening the violet of her eyes to a pale amethyst. Carina thought for a moment she had offended her with the question. But then Mae sighed.

  “Well, sometimes I long for a listening ear and someone to laugh with. But I learned long ago not to trust in human companionship. People die. Plain and simple.”

  Pressed tighter than a can of smoked oysters that afternoon in the crowd at Fisher’s General Merchandise, Carina vowed to avoid Monday mailings. Due to the arrival of the weekly post delivery, she had waited more than an hour already. And why? She did not expect a letter yet; she only had one to send. Its message was simple and optimistic, penned on paper purchased at an extravagant price from Fletcher’s Stationery.

  Dear Papa,

  I promised I would write when I was settled. It is very beautiful here in Crystal. The mountains are majestic. I am assistant to an Attorney at Law. There is a misunderstanding regarding my house, but he will soon have it taken care of. I board with a woman named Mae. Everything is fine, so tell Mamma not to worry. My love and prayers to both of you.

  Your devoted,

  Carina

  “Five dollars to anyone in the front who’ll swap places.” The man waved a paper bill over his head.

  “Make it twenty,” another yelled back.

  Carina smiled, understanding their sentiment. The man in front of her returned her grin. He was missing a front tooth, and she wondered if the dentist on the street had extracted it.

  He pulled the slouch hat from his head. “I’d offer you my spot, but it’s only one closer.”

  The man in front of him half turned. “She can have mine. That’s two better.”

  Carina shook her head, but a third man called, “I’ll swap you, ma’am.” He was halfway to the window, and the temptation was too great. Carina left her place and pressed forward, her letter home clutched to her breast.

  “Thank you.” She took his place in line, and he received the rib nudges of the men all the way back to hers. There were decent men in Crystal, hardworking and mindful of their manners. None of these men carried guns. They wore patched and faded shirts and trousers. The grime of real work lined their fingernails.

  Their faces were homely, their hair ill-kempt. Some wore the look of greed, others desperation, and some a forlorn helplessness. Were they hoping for letters from home? Did they have wives and children? Would they sit in their tents or their rooms tonight and pore over each word their loved ones left behind?

  Carina reached the front. Seventy-five cents for her letter to be carried. Shaking her head, Carina paid it and hustled away from the post office. When she reached the downstairs rooms at the boardinghouse they were deserted, but she found Mae upstairs changing the linen in one of the canvas-walled guest rooms. From its condition, the boarder had little care for clean linens.

  Black grime caked the floor from the door to the foot of the bed, as though the man had dragged through the opening each night and flopped to the bed without ever turning to the side to dress or undress or wash. In fact, the washbasin stood dry and unsullied.

  Mae tossed her a skimpy pillow while she stripped the bed. “Through for the day?”

  “Mr. Beck had meetings to conduct in the office. Has this man moved out?”

  “You might say. Fell down a shaft and broke his neck. That’s why I take rent in advance.”

  Carina’s mouth parted in surprise. It seemed unlike Mae to be so callous when she had shown such kindness to her. “Has someone taken the room?”

  Mae wrenched the mattress up and shook it once, then let it fall. “Why? You lookin’ to move?” She spoke in short-breathed sentences.

  “No.” Carina shook her head. “I just expected the room would be taken quickly.”

  “It is taken. By the man who had a deposit on yours.” At Carina’s flush, Mae gave her chesty laugh. “Don’t you think I gave in to Berkley Beck’s swindling. It was for your sake I let that room go. I told Mr. Turner he’d have the next vacancy.” Mae huffed as she scooped up the linens from the floor. The blood just under her florid skin rushed to her cheeks like a flood.

  “Let me take those for you,” Carina said automatically. Mae’s forehead was dappled with drops of sweat, and her chest rose and fell with the exertion of changing only one bed. She was an older woman and not well. It was natural to help her. When Mae dumped the load of soiled linens and foul smelling blankets into her arms, Carina gathered it staunchly against her. “Where do you want them?”

  “Out back to scrub.” Mae pressed a hand to her lower back.

  Carina caught a look, almost puzzled, in Mae’s features. Had it been so long since anyone had lifted a hand for Mae? A pang of fear seized her. Could she, too, spend her life alone, forging her place on the mountain without family or friends?

  The thought was too foreign to consider. There had always been an overflow of close relations, distant relations, friends of relations. Always people to scold and instruct her, to berate and encourage, to argue and to rush to her defense. Here on the mountains she had none of them, no one.

  “Have you grown roots on the floor there?”

  The smell of sweat and rotten wool stung her nose as Carina hauled the bedding down the stairs and out the back door. Seeing the washtub, she dropped the linens in a heap beside it. Not for anything could she offer to scrub them. She looked down the street to the corner where a crowd was gathering.

  “What is that, Mae?”

  “Someone stumpin’ for something.” Mae poured a steaming kettle of water into the tub. “Go on before your curiosity burns a hole in you.”

  Carina sent a smile back over her shoulder, then headed for the street. Was it only three days since she first fought her way through the crowds and the din and the smell of Crystal’s streets? Now she knew to carry no more than a few coins at a time and to shove back if she was shoved.

  She was small enough to insinuate herself through the burly, lanky, and broad-backed men on the street. A scattering of color revealed a painted woman here and there, along with a few serious-face
d wives. When she pushed her way to the front, she saw a man literally standing on a stump in the street, the tallest and stoutest of those he had to choose from.

  One hand waved as he spoke, the other hung by a thumb in his silk vest. “I tell you the boom is on, and Leadville’s the place. Silver by the barrel in the magic city, just waitin’ to be dug.”

  Carina glanced at the old peg-legged man beside her. “Who is that?”

  “Horace Tabor along from Leadville. The city in the clouds, he says. He’s stealin’ our thunder, don’t ya know.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Grubstakin’ miners to hop with him over to Leadville.”

  She didn’t understand a word, but Carina looked at the sharply dressed man on the stump, his charismatic presence drawing the circle of men in like the throat of a whirlpool. His largely protruding mustache danced up and down on his lip as he spun the pied piper’s tune with words.

  “The railroad’s comin’ through. General Palmer’s narrow gauge. It’s the real thing, boys. Leadville’s got it all.”

  Carina looked around her at the men’s faces, some skeptical, some aglow. Would they go? Would these men leave their diggings here in Crystal and rush for the silver this Horace Tabor claimed was lying there in Leadville for the taking?

  “Gentlemen!”

  Carina turned as Berkley Beck’s voice rose over the din. He had taken a stump beside Tabor that, with his own height, raised him a head taller. “Leadville is a veritable metropolis. What’s there has been taken. Why, by last count there were ten thousand men. Would you work for someone else like common laborers?”

  He swung his arm to include all the landscape. “Here in Crystal you can be your own man. Stake your own claim. This is your future.”

  “Sure,” the old man at Carina’s side muttered with a wry twist of his mouth. “Crystal’s the promised land, don’t ya know.” He cackled softly.