by Indiana Wake
21
Her lodgings were just about the sparsest place she’d ever seen. So far in her short life, the only boarding house she’d ever been inside was Connie Langdon’s, and the place she now found herself in was a very far cry from that glorious establishment.
Her disquiet had begun the moment she had walked in through the door and come face-to-face with a most unusual looking landlady. There was none of the warm welcome that she had seen Connie give her boarders time and time again. Instead, the thin, angular woman with the lined face simply looked as if Janet had intruded upon her day.
“Well?” Had been her only welcome.
“I’m looking for a room, ma’am,” Janet said and felt instantly uncomfortable.
“Well, it is a boarding house.” The older woman eyed her with suspicion. “And is it just for one?”
“Yes, I’m alone.”
“I haven’t seen you here in town before.” The woman continued her interrogation which Janet thought a little rich given the inhospitable surroundings.
“No, I’m new in town. I’ve come for a few days to find a friend and it’s urgent.” Janet felt aggrieved at having to part with her own private business, but she immediately gathered that it was necessary if she was to secure a place to lay her head and leave her things.
“It is, is it?” the woman said as if waiting for further details.”
“Yes, it is,” Janet said and did her best to hold the steely gaze. The truth of the matter was that she had never encountered anybody like that in her life back home. Perhaps there was not so much to be said for big towns after all, especially if this was the way people spoke to one another. “Do you have a room, or would I be better to look elsewhere?”
“You can look elsewhere if you like, but you won’t find anywhere cheaper.” There really was no pleasing this woman, no way to soften her at all.
“Right, well…” Janet felt awkward, like a child in front of a schoolmistress. “Can I see one of your rooms then?” She tried to appear confident, but it was falling flat.
It was the first time she’d felt alone, despite the fact this was the first time she’d had company since she’d quietly ridden away that morning. She felt out of place, and distinctly unwelcome. And Janet Lacey had never felt like that in all her life.
“Follow me.” The woman turned sharply on her heel and immediately set off.
Janet followed her up two narrow flights of stairs, struggling with her bag all the way, before reaching a little attic room. There was nothing more in it than a small bed and a rail for hanging clothes. That was it, no table, no furniture of any kind.
It certainly was nothing like Connie Langdon’s place. Even the bed linen looked plain and drab, no pretty fabrics or any of the little touches which kept Connie’s boarders in situ for weeks, months, even years at a time. This old crow certainly had a lot to learn about a warm welcome, Janet was sure of it.
By the time she was settled, Janet could see that the day was already coming to a close. It had taken so long to travel there and almost equally long to find her bearings.
Even though she knew she wouldn’t sleep, Janet also knew that there would be little sense in starting her search now. Instead, she would get up as soon as it was light, even before that, and find directions to every mine in the area.
Having been told by the landlady that she would be provided with nothing more to eat in the boarding house than her breakfast, Janet opened what was left of the food parcel she’d put together that morning.
She’d already eaten most of the bread-and-butter, and all that was left was an end piece, already hard, the butter dry and cracked. But beyond an apple, that was all she had, and she knew she would have no hope of sleep if she climbed into bed hungry.
By the time she’d eaten her meager meal, Janet undressed and got into bed. She was exhausted right down to her very bones, and yet she knew she wouldn’t sleep. All she could do in the end was lay in the darkness and stare at the pale moonlight as it came through the thin drapes.
* * *
It was the end of Jimmy’s second day in the mine and he could hardly believe that he had only been in Culver Ridge such a short time. It was as if the sprawling town had seeped in through his skin and he was now an unwilling part of it.
The second day had gone no faster than the first, if anything, it had seemed longer because there was nothing new to see, no anxieties or expectations. Everything there was to know about the job he was now doing had been learned the day before. And it was nothing more than using brute strength hour upon hour to smash coal free from earth and rock which held it so fiercely.
And even though he had Olsen working at his side, Jimmy felt alone. Already their conversation had been exhausted by the little details of their lives they had shared the day before.
On the ranch, even when sent off on some lonely endeavor like checking the perimeter fencing for damage, there was the promise of crossing paths with the other ranch hands and sharing some amusing tale from the town, or the sort of banter that ordinarily passed between men.
But that didn’t seem to exist where he was now, and Jimmy realized very quickly that it was because there was so little to see. He was working with people who spent their day in darkness and went home in darkness. Perhaps they didn’t see the little points of interest, the day-to-day lives of others that made for interesting conversation.
And now he knew exactly what it was that Janet had felt all that time, trapped doing something that left her entirely uninspired and untested. It didn’t really matter what it was, it was the feeling which counted.
Jimmy knew, of course, that he would have given his right arm to swap with Janet now. He’d pour coffee, cut pie, and have the same old conversations for nothing more than the promise of a blue sky outside the window. But in the end, it was all the same. He’d mocked Janet for her boredom, as if it was nothing more than an amusing part of her character.
Still, he’d come such a long way and set himself deep in the earth so that he might forget her, and Jimmy knew that rolling over old ground was going to make his efforts pointless. And so, once again, he forced himself to think of nothing. He forced himself to just concentrate on the task at hand, beating the very core of the earth into giving up its bounty.
By the time the day was done, and he broke free of the earth to stand on its surface once again, Jimmy was surprised to see the last dying embers of the sun in the sky. Perhaps it only seemed light to him now because his eyes had grown used to the darkness below, but he was grateful for those few moments before the sun disappeared altogether and his soul was plunged into darkness once more.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jimmy said and smiled vaguely at Olsen before the two men parted company.
“Dalton?” Came the now familiar tone of the pit manager. “Wait behind, will you. I need to speak to you,” he said, barely looking at Jimmy before continuing to give instruction to two men who were still working hard, making repairs to the wooden frame which shored up the pit entrance.
Jimmy stood to one side and watched as the rest of the miners filed slowly past him, each of them heading home to do what they could to wash off the filth of the day.
And he knew already what an arduous task that was, for he’d spent a good deal of the previous evening in his lodgings trying to get himself clean with nothing more than one jug full of water and a cloth. To arrive at his work the next morning almost as filthy as he’d left the night before had done nothing for his spirits but make them lower than ever.
He thought of the old barrel out the back of his father’s house, the one which collected the rain from the roof. He remembered how he would walk past and dunk his head in it, enjoying the shock of the cold water that would take the dusty plains off his scalp for the day. Even that old barrel, as large as it was, would hardly get anywhere in getting him clean now. And he knew that, as the weeks passed, it would only get worse, the coal dust burying itself deep in his skin, changing his a
ppearance.
“Where was it you said you came from, Dalton?” The manager, having finished with the two men at the pit entrance, was striding towards Jimmy with the ever-present look of displeasure on his face.
“I’ve come over from…”
“Because it looks like somebody’s followed you here. Unless you’ve already met yourself a pretty little girl in one of the saloon bars already.” The manager spoke over him as if he’d never expected an answer in the first place.
“What?” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “I spent so much of last night trying to get clean that there wouldn’t have been time to find a saloon bar, never mind a girl.”
“Well, just so that you know, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to deal with every tearful little girl that comes looking for you, do you hear me?”
“I hear you, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“About this high,” he said abruptly, holding his hand out to indicate a woman a few inches shorter than himself. “Wild blonde hair, all curls all over the place.” He shrugged. “And big teary eyes as she tried to find Jimmy Dalton.”
“Where is she now?” Jimmy said, feeling a sudden sense of urgency.
It was Janet, without a doubt. But what earth was she doing there? Why had she come to the mine of all places?
“How should I know where she is now?” The pit manager’s eyes narrowed into slits and he began to look agitated.
“Well, is she coming back?”
“What for?”
“To speak to me. I mean, that’s what she came here for, isn’t it?”
“And what did you think I would do, Dalton? Did you think that I would come running down into the mine to find you? Scamper my way down four sets of ladders to tell you that your girl was waiting for you up on the surface? And then what, I get to scamper back up again when I’ve got so much else to do with my day? I don’t know what it was like for you working out on the plains, but this is a coal mine. You’re not sloping along on horseback enjoying the sunshine and chattering to every pretty girl who goes by. This is real, Dalton, and if you don’t like it, there’s many a man who would be willing to take your place, you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” Jimmy said but knew he couldn’t simply leave it at that. “I’ll tell her not to come back.”
“She won’t be coming back, I’ve already done your job for you.” The manager clicked his tongue loudly and turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute.” Jimmy was beginning to grow exasperated and agitated himself now. “What do you mean she won’t be coming back?”
“I told her to get lost.” The manager barely broke his stride, just looking over his shoulder to shout back at him before resuming.
“What? But she knows I work here, right?” Jimmy couldn’t think about him and Janet, about what her sudden appearance in Culver Ridge might signify.
There wasn’t time for that and he knew he certainly wasn’t ready. But she was still his friend and he still loved her, and she was out there on her own somewhere, wandering about from mine to mine trying to find him.
Jimmy knew that the pit manager would have treated Janet as poorly as he was admitting to and he wanted to throw him down into the mine for his behavior. But that wouldn’t help Janet. He knew he would have to find her before she came up against someone even worse than his new boss.
If she’d come here thinking folk were all the same, Janet was likely to have already been deeply surprised by the strained humanity of Culver Ridge.
“No, I told her I’d never heard of you,” the manager said with a sneer. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I don’t go encouraging girls turning up here and disrupting the working day and that’s the end of it.”
“When did she come?”
“This morning.”
“And where did she go?”
“How the hell should I know that?”
“Look, I need to find her. She’s not used to a place like this and she could end up in trouble.”
“Then at least she won’t come back here bothering me.”
Jimmy felt his anger surge and closed the distance between him and the manager in a heartbeat. He towered over the man, his blue eyes fierce and his hands balled into fists.
“Where did she go?” Jimmy’s voice was low and menacing.
“All right, just take it easy.” The manager looked perturbed and it was clear he was more used to bullying men than having them bully him right back.
“Where did she go?” Jimmy repeated, never taking his eyes from the man’s face for a moment.
“I don’t know. But just try the boarding houses, she’ll be in one of them for sure.” The manager looked most reluctant to help and yet Jimmy could see he was afraid of him.
His chances of remaining in that particular mine had likely dwindled to nothing and he knew it.
“How many are there?”
“Enough. But if she’s not got too much money, try the east side of town. That’s where the cheaper places are.”
“I know. I’m in one of them,” Jimmy said and slowly began to relax.
He wasn’t going to get anything more of use from the man and so turned to leave before he could be given his marching orders.
Hearing nothing but silence behind him, Jimmy reckoned he’d just turn up the next day and see if he still had a job. But he’d think about that later; for now, he had to find Janet.
22
Janet sat miserably on the bed in the empty little room, tears of frustration threatening to fall. There was nowhere else to sit and nothing else to do but perch there alone with her own thoughts.
Who would have thought that a big town could be so uninteresting?
But that was not the source of her upset. Janet had spent the entire day roaming from place to place, as tired as her horse, as she tried to find Jimmy.
But she had been turned away from every mine with either firm assertions that nobody by the name of Jimmy Dalton had been put to work there, or agitation and aggression.
Some of the men she’d met that day had done no more than tell her to go away in no uncertain terms. They didn’t care if she found Jimmy, and why should they? They had a hard day’s work to get through, and she was just a pointless diversion standing in the way of it all.
So, as she sat hopelessly staring across the empty little room, Janet realized finally that there was a very good chance her efforts had been in vain. Jimmy may or may not work in one of the mines she had already visited, and if he did, there was no way for her to discover it.
But he might not have even started work, either. After all, he’d only been in Culver Ridge for a few days. Perhaps he was taking longer to settle in than she’d imagined. Perhaps he had, even now, only just begun to look for the work that would go toward buying the land he needed for his ranch.
Or, worst of all, perhaps he had never come to Culver Ridge in the first place. He might very well have decided to go to another town altogether, to seek his employment there.
Janet knew that the most sensible thing to do would be to pack up her things the very next day and head for home. But she also knew that there were at least four more mines to check in the area and she couldn’t possibly leave until she’d been to them all, whatever reception she received when she got there.
To turn away now would be to give up on Jimmy and Janet knew she owed him more than that. And she owed it to herself to give the most thorough apology of her life.
Just when she thought she might just as well get into bed and go to sleep as sit there waiting for night to truly fall, Janet heard the sounds of heavy footsteps on the narrow staircase.
The knock, when it came, was so loud that it made her jump, even though she had been expecting it. Before she had a chance to say a word, the door opened and there stood the angular and deeply unpleasant landlady.
“Oh.” Janet said with some surprise, thinking that the woman would have had at least waited for her to invite her in.
�
�There is a man here to see you,” the landlady said in a tone that couldn’t possibly have been more accusing if it tried.
“I see. Who is it?” she asked anxiously, wondering if one of the mine owners had come after her to tell her to stop her pestering.
“And if he’s staying the night, he’ll need to be paid for.”
“I beg your pardon?” Janet said, with every ounce of dignity she could summon.
“I’ll be watching for him. If he doesn’t come down, you’ll be charged extra,” the woman went on, seemingly unperturbed by any offense she might have given.
“I can assure you…” Janet began, but the landlady had turned and marched from the room, leaving the door wide open in her wake.
Janet stood in the middle of the room, waiting for her visitor to appear and hoping against all hope that she wasn’t in some kind of danger. And so, when Jimmy himself appeared in the doorway, she could have fainted with relief.
“Jimmy? Jimmy, is that really you?” She took a couple of tentative steps in his direction and peered at him.
She knew it was him, of course, but he looked so changed already. The wonderful red lights in his hair had been extinguished altogether and replaced with a sort of dull black. In fact, everything about him was dull and dirty, his hands, his clothes, his handsome face.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said and remained standing where he was, not taking a single step into the room.
Janet felt her resolve evaporate and darted across the room, flinging her arms around his neck and holding onto him tightly. He stood still for a moment, not moving at all, until he finally relaxed just a little and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close to him.
Janet had never been more pleased to see anybody in her life and she knew there and then that she had only ever loved him.
She had so much to say to him, so much to explain, but right there in his arms she couldn’t think of a single word. She just cried with relief and held onto him tightly, the smell of coal dust rising up off his clothes and filling her nostrils.
