She looked again at the grave. Wolf would not desert Rose. He had stayed with her even to his death. Such was the capacity to love that Quillan carried inside him. Why, why did he refuse it? Was she not beautiful? Not desirable? Was she not willing to make him a home, not able to satisfy him?
Feelings of betrayal rose up, strong and deadly. She had felt it before. She had known Flavio’s betrayal and came to Crystal, one thousand miles, to punish him. She knew she couldn’t let these feelings take hold. But how could she stop them? Prayer. Signore, per piacere, give me strength.
She heard a boot crunch on gravel and spun. Father Antoine Charboneau stood behind her, eyes the same startling blue as the sky. He had grayed these last months, and the lines deepened in his face. But he still had the vigor of a younger man. He smiled, showing yellowed teeth, and she returned it with her own scrupulously white ones.
“I saw your horse and guessed where I’d find you.”
Carina waved her arm. “I’m conversing with God. I thought if I meant to discuss my husband, it would be only fair to do it here, where his parents could defend him.”
Father Antoine laughed. “Very fair.” The one brow lowered. “I trust you’ve not excoriated him.”
“Not yet. But I was working up to it.”
“Ah, Carina,” he said around a chuckle and came to sit beside her. “It won’t do you any good. You’d only have to repent of it.”
“I know. But in here . . .” She pressed a fist to her breast. “I’m willing to face the consequences if just once I could kick him.”
Father Antoine laced his fingers and dangled his hands between his knees. His face took on a puckish look. “I feel guiltily inclined to see that.”
“Maybe between us we could make a deal with God.”
The priest rubbed his chin. “What would you propose?”
Carina raised a finger. “One kick, hard to his shin. And for my part any penance you name.”
Father Antoine dropped his head back and studied the sky. “And then what? After you maimed your husband, what then?”
“Then I would heal him. Didn’t I work beside Papa when I was small, and in the infirmary here after the flood?” She waved her arm over the expanse below them. “The men were thankful for my aid.”
“So I heard. Do you really think that would heal your marriage?”
Carina cringed. She hadn’t meant to let him know how it was with her and Quillan. But then, he would know. He saw inside her like no one else. She sighed. “No. But it would feel better than this helplessness.”
“ ‘Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.’ ”
Carina locked her knees in her arms. “So God would have me meek and helpless?”
“Blessed are the meek.”
“But I’ve tried!” She sprang to her feet. “I’ve held my tongue. I’ve obeyed him. I’ve been willing in every way.” She stalked along the grave. “And all he can say is I should leave him, annul the marriage, dissolve our flawed union.”
Father Antoine refolded his hands. “And what’s kept him from doing it himself?”
She stopped pacing. “How should I know? Responsibility.”
“It could be worse.”
“Oh sì. He could be a drunk and beat me. Or gamble everything away and leave me starving. He could be base and animalistic. He could be blind and deaf and dumb, malformed and simpleminded. I’ve thought of it all, consoled myself with such thoughts when I lie alone night after night.” She drew a breath, thinking she shouldn’t speak so to a priest, nor mention intimate things like sleeping with her husband. But Father Antoine only listened.
She threw up her hands. “What chance do I have if he won’t even stay?”
“What do you think keeps him away?” Father Antoine asked softly.
She dropped her hands limply to her sides. “He doesn’t trust me.”
The priest stood. “Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Because he saw the worst of me.”
“No.” Father Antoine turned and sent his gaze over the mountainside, down the slope and across the gulch. “He was trained not to trust by all of us who failed him. The mother who gave him away, the woman who raised him, the priest who wouldn’t.” He turned back to her. “I hoped by reading Rose’s diary you would see more of Quillan than he’d show you himself. Not that there was much of him in the words, his being an infant only. But that knowing Rose and even Wolf, you would see Quillan’s potential.”
She nodded. Hadn’t she thought the same? Hadn’t it been just so?
He drew a slow breath. “I wrote once to the Shepards. A simple inquiry as to his welfare. The letter I received in return showed me just how wrong I’d been to put Quillan into that woman’s hands. Even so, I left him there. With regret, but no more. I shook my head and thought it a shame for the boy. Then I went my way and put him from my thoughts.”
He pressed his hands to his face, then slid them down to nestle beneath his chin. “When Quillan came to Crystal a man, I knew he had suffered from my neglect. Oh, he was strong, mind you. Too strong. And solitary. Driven. He’d learned to ignore adversity and make his own way. Did I approach him? Did I tell him I’d known his parents, that his mother had trusted me even so far as to give me her son if I would have him?”
Carina’s heart ached for the priest, for Rose, for Quillan.
He shook his head. “My first words with your husband were to marry you.”
She took a step toward him. “Do you know that wasn’t God’s will? How can you say it wasn’t ordained to happen exactly as it did?”
His flesh formed a deep line between his brows as he eyed her. He glanced at the gravestone, then at the rocky mound where he’d buried the diary until giving it to her. She watched him puzzle her words. Where had they come from? Did she believe it?
He looked back to the sky. “Could that be why I wasn’t driven to interfere? That I heard right, thinking I only wanted my own way?”
“Even if it isn’t so, God will bring good from it.” Carina spoke ardently.
He smiled. “How often you console me.”
She smiled back. “I no longer want to kick him.”
The priest laughed. “Then we’ve both gained something.”
She nodded. There was peace inside her and hope. She would reach Quillan. Somehow she would reach him.
EIGHT
One must be careful of dreams; they can become more than imagined.
—Carina
QUILLAN REINED IN THE TEAM and brought his wagon to a stop in front of the Matchless Mine, the new investment of the man whose name was linked with luck, Leadville, and silver: Horace A. Tabor. The man’s luck was legendary already, and Quillan knew enough to hitch his wagon to a star.
Not only did Tabor seem to know where to be and when, he was a generous and congenial man. Quillan honestly liked him, liked being part of his success. And he was. Without the freighters to carry supplies, the mines would be inoperable, even when the rails of the iron horse came through. And Quillan knew at least three railroads were vying for the privilege.
Freighting as he knew it would not benefit from the advance of the rails. But one thing was already established; the trains would not carry the giant powder needed to blast the shafts and drifts of the hard-rock mines. That’s where Quillan’s fortune lay. And he and Mr. Tabor had already established a relationship through the Tabors’ store. Carrying giant powder to Horace Tabor, Quillan could double what he earned freighting to Crystal. Crystal might be booming, but it was nothing to Leadville.
He jumped down from the box and opened the back hatch of the wagon. Sam pranced around his heels until Quillan ordered him to sit. Then Quillan climbed up and bent close to inspect his load. With extreme care, he peeled open the red paper of a stick of giant powder. All over the normally pasty substance he saw delicate white crystals. The temperature overnig
ht had dropped well below fifty-two degrees, and he wasn’t surprised to see that the nitroglycerin in the giant powder stick had separated and frozen.
With extreme care, he laid the stick back with the others in the crate. In its frozen crystalline form, the explosive was as sensitive as the liquid. When Tabor’s workers came to take what he handed down, Quillan gingerly lifted the crate and bent close to one miner’s upraised hands. “It’s frozen.”
The rough, scarred miner took it into his arms like a new baby. “At least we don’t have to thaw it on a stove.”
Quillan nodded. Horace Tabor’s Matchless, like most of the big operations, had a heated powder house. His men didn’t have to hand-thaw the powder, which couldn’t be used frozen because the first tamp would set it off. Other miners weren’t so lucky and many had lost flesh, limbs, and lives thawing frozen powder in their ovens or on their stoves. The point at which the crystals liquefied was the least stable of all.
Quillan reached for the next case and handed it carefully to the Cornish miner, who stood ready. He had no intention of blowing his wagon, team, and himself into oblivion. But for now, the pay was unbeatable, and he could work as many hours as he could stand.
The muscles in his back flexed and stretched with the motion and tension. He was thankful for the strain. Crate after crate he handed down until his bed was empty. Then he jumped down himself and started around the wagon to unharness the horses.
“Quillan.”
Quillan turned to meet Horace Tabor’s mustached face. Quillan’s own winter beard couldn’t match the man’s bulging whiskers. The eyes smiled and probably the mouth, but you’d never know it.
“Mr. Tabor.” Quillan held out his hand and they grasped hold like two old friends.
“Thank you for bringing my powder.” Tabor always made it personal, his gratitude sincere.
“You’re welcome. It’s not in the best condition just now.”
“Well, it’ll thaw. Just let it roost a bit in my storehouse.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tabor huddled Quillan’s shoulder companionably. “Would you like to have lunch with me?”
Quillan raised his brows. This was even beyond the normal courtesy he received. He nodded.
“Good. We’ll have it over at the hotel.” He motioned Quillan into his buggy.
Quillan ordered Sam to stay, waited until the dog had settled at Jock’s hooves, then climbed into Tabor’s buggy. As they rode, Quillan eyed the city around them. For a city that had sprung out of nothing, Leadville was truly magic. They passed the gas works, which fueled the gaslights on the main streets and the more affluent homes. It made Crystal seem arcane, and Quillan thought briefly of Carina’s small shelter with the wood stove to warm her. Frowning, he looked over at the new reservoir.
Tabor caught his gaze and laughed. “Where else than Leadville will you find a city water system with pipes soldered with silver bullion?”
It was true. Quillan had already heard how the city had used silver, which was more plentiful than any other soft solder. Even the streets were paved with the slag from the mines and shone with hints of silver.
Tabor pointed his crop to the cold, shimmering water. “The reservoir itself was excavated from land with promising color, Quillan. Indications of good mineral now lie beneath that water. Why, there’s more money under the waterworks than in it.” He laughed again.
“But people can’t drink mineral.”
“No.” Tabor sobered. “More’s the pity. So, voilà, the waterworks.”
As they neared the center of town, Quillan saw a tall pole with wires strung from it. Leadville was serviced by a Western Union Telegraph, running lines over Mosquito Pass, but this was something new.
“There she is.” Pointing to the pole, Tabor looked ready to pass out cigars.
“What is it?”
“Telephone. I’ve organized the Colorado Edison Telephone Company. Much of the city can now converse over those wires without ever leaving their doors.”
Quillan stared. He’d seen telephone wires in Denver, but to think of them here in Leadville seemed . . . impossible.
“I tell you, my boy, Leadville is second to none, legendary and almost mythical.” He spoke as though it were his private kingdom, and so it nearly was.
Quillan looked around. He wasn’t oblivious to the wonder of it, but neither was he inured to the undesirable aspects of the rapid and disorderly manner in which the city grew and flourished. The niceties did little to establish respectability. The place was as much a den of corruption as Crystal and more when you considered the numbers.
But there was a contagion in Leadville, an undaunted spirit—the promise that one hundred dollars could set up a miner to make his fortune. It was true, though the hundred-dollar miner stood little chance against the consolidated interests that were quickly making any real competition impossible. One man, or even a handful of men with hand steels and a wheelbarrow, could hardly compete with an adjacent consolidated interest that could be underground already laying claim to his mineral.
And then there were the tangled claims, counterclaims, and jumped claims, and sometimes only three feet of stone separated men with steels from men with rifles ready to keep one outfit out of territory they considered their own. No wonder the place swarmed with lawyers, many as crooked as Berkley Beck or worse.
But Quillan didn’t care about the community aspects. He’d been burned in Crystal by caring. Let the roughs in Leadville have their way. Let the crooked lawyers connive and the saloons and fancy houses rule. He was there only to get rich and get out. And even getting rich was only because he needed something to do.
They stopped at the hotel and Quillan stepped down, suddenly not very hungry at all. “What did you want to see me about, Mr. Tabor?”
Tabor crooked a brow. “See you about? Quillan, I just want to express my gratitude for the job you do. There’s little enough appreciation for your work, and I want you to know I’m aware of the danger and hardship you suffer for me and my operation.”
Quillan wasn’t certain how to take that. If the man was anything but sincere, it would take a keener wit than his to discern it. But why would Tabor feel the need to express such gratitude for his work? Work was the elixir that took away the pain.
At least it kept his mind from brooding on his loss. Maybe it was inordinate for him to grieve Cain so deeply. But he’d had so few people to really love, and he hadn’t loved Cain as well as he should have. He’d resisted Cain’s efforts to bring him to God. For the old man’s sake he should have made a show of it.
But then, Cain would have seen that it wasn’t real. And that would have hurt him more than Quillan’s honest refusal. At any rate that question was settled. Without Cain, Quillan had no need for God. He could live his life by his own compass and conscience. It was better than most men’s, and even some who claimed to revere God.
Quillan nodded to Mr. Tabor, and they went in together to eat.
Joe Turner was the first to seek a table, and though she wouldn’t earn a penny from him, Carina was thrilled to see him at the door they had fitted into the hall between Mae’s kitchen and her own room. The hall kept people from parading through her private space to the dining room behind.
She smiled broadly and led Joe Turner and his two Cornish mine managers to a table directly before the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze warmed the room against the cold October chill. As they seated themselves in the newly wrought pine chairs, Carina was thankful she hadn’t considered benches. Hers was not a feedlot where men could press in and shovel food into their bellies.
The fare for this opening night was a favorite of Papa’s, gnocchi con salsa di fegatini, potato dumplings with liver sauce. But to start the meal, she had antipasto di peperoni e pomodori, pimento and tomato antipasto, which she was forced to make from canned tomatoes, though the pickled pimentos had been a grand find.
By the time she brought this first course to Joe Turner and his companions, men were l
ined up outside the door. Èmie brought them in until the six tables were full, and still others waited outside for someone to leave. Carina stared out the window of the new door. “Goodness,” she muttered under her breath. Where had they all come from?
In the kitchen she threw up her hands. “What will I do? I’ll never have enough to feed them all.”
Mae snorted. “Raise your prices.”
“I’m already charging four dollars a plate. It’s indecent.” Carina crossed the room and back.
“Make it five and send the rest away when you run out.”
Carina squeezed her hands together. “I don’t want to disappoint them.”
Mae laughed. “They’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Let them sign a list.” Èmie took four plates of antipasto from the board and started back toward the dining room. “That’s what I did when the hot springs filled up. Then they’ll be assured seating for the next night.” Èmie walked straight and unwavering through the door with two plates on each arm.
“I need trays. There’s so much I didn’t think of.” Carina threw up her hands again.
“You’ll learn. Fill the need as you see it,” Mae said.
“I thought I was ready. How could I overlook so much?”
Mae only laughed and poured a serving pot full of stewed beef. “You’ll learn to keep it simple.”
No. Not simple, not plain, not monotonous. Even if every night showed some oversight, she would not compromise her vision. The Piedmont House would be a place of refinement, a distinguished restaurant in which she could make her fortune and her name, in true Crystal fashion. Hadn’t she ordered the room finished with ornate moldings and painted the walls a rich mulberry?
Her own room might be scarcely more than a shack, but she had made the dining room something special. The food would be no less. It was how it should be. She must learn to do it well; that was all. She hurried into the dining room with three plates of gnocchi for Joe Turner and his men.
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