“Oh, that’s Nealie Bent,” the older man replied, a look of bemused tolerance on his face. “You’re not the first to ask. Did you come in for something or just to stare at the ladies?”
Without answering, Will turned away from the door and looked at the shop keeper. He removed a list from his pocket, laying it on the counter and smoothing it with his hand. “I’m working up at the Rose of Sharon, and I’ll be needing these things.” He turned the list so that Mr. Kaiser could read it.
“We take cash,” Mr. Kaiser said, which wasn’t exactly true. He extended credit to those in town who needed it, as well as to good customers such as Nealie’s employer, but he did not extend the courtesy to strangers.
“I’ll pay it.” Will’s voice sounded as if he was not used to his credit being questioned. The older man moved his finger down the list, tapping a broken nail beside each item as he pronounced it out loud: “Three pair work pants, three work shirts, cap, boots, jacket, gloves, candlesticks, candles.” He droned on, and when he was finished, he said, “Yep, you work at a mine, all right. You a trammer?”
“Engineer. For the summer.”
The young man’s voice carried the slightest bit of authority as he corrected the misimpression, and Mr. Kaiser looked up and squinted at him, taking in the cut of his clothes, which made it obvious that Will was too fashionably dressed to be an ordinary miner. “You somebody’s son?” he asked.
Will appeared taken aback at the impertinence, but he replied pleasantly enough, “Grandson. I’m William Spaulding. My grandfather’s Theodore Spaulding. He owns half of the Sharon.”
“Owns mines up in Leadville and Summit County, too,” Mr. Kaiser added. Like everyone in the mountain towns, the shopkeeper was caught up in the mining fever and was as sure of the names of prominent investors as he was of those of his own customers. And well he might be, because outside capital was the lifeblood of the mining industry. Without development money, the gold and silver deposits were all but useless. Theodore Spaulding was not only a man of wealth but one respected in mining circles for his understanding of ore bodies and extraction methods. That did not make his grandson anything more than a trifler, however. “So you thought you’d see what goes on underground, did you?”
“I’ve already seen what’s underground. I have an engineering degree so I know about mining, you see, at least theoretically. The old man thought I ought to get some practical experience for the summer. I’ve only just arrived.”
“You’ll get it.” Now that he seemed satisfied about his customer’s identity, Mr. Kaiser returned to the list. “I reckon we got everything you need.” He moved around behind the counter, taking down boxes and holding out shirts and pants for sizes. He told Will to try on the heavy leather cap, then nodded, because the fit was right. Then he handed the young man two pairs of boots and told him to see which ones suited. Will sat down on a kitchen chair propped against the cold potbellied stove and removed his fine shoes. He clumped about on the floor in the stiff boots, and settled on one pair. Then he set his shoes on the counter and said that with all the mud on the streets, he might as well keep the boots on.
“Socks. You’ll need plenty of them, because the Sharon floods, and you don’t want to get your feet wet. Worst thing there is, wet feet in a mine. If the water doesn’t rot your feet, it’ll give you pneumonia.” Mr. Kaiser placed four pairs on top of the pile of clothing. He checked the list again, then pulled a dark blue bandana from a drawer and set it on top. “Present,” he said.
“Splendid! It will look grand.”
“It’s not for looks, Mr. Spaulding. You’ll need the handkerchief to wipe your face when it’s slashed with muck and cover your mouth and nose after a dynamite blast so’s you won’t get the miner’s puff.”
“Then I thank you, sir.”
Mr. Kaiser licked the tip of the lead pencil he kept behind his ear and wrote the charge next to each item on the list, totaled the amount, and turned the paper toward Will, who pulled the money out of his pocket.
“There’s one other thing I’m needing,” the young man said, as he watched Mr. Kaiser wrap the purchases in brown paper and tie the bundle with string. “A boardinghouse. I’m staying at the Hotel de Paris until my cottage is ready. Once I move in, I’ll need a place to eat, because I don’t fancy cooking for myself. Nor do I want to dress up every night for supper at the hotel.”
“Georgetown’s got a plenty of eateries.”
“Somewhere clean where the food is good.”
“That narrows it some.” Mr. Kaiser thought a minute. “You might try the Grubstake up on the hill. The bosses prefer it, since it’s a good bit tonier than the others. Ma Judson’s place is up on Main. She sets a good table. Then there’s Lydia Travers’s house on Rose Street. If I was you’d, I’d board with Mrs. Travers—Lidie, she’s called.”
“She’s the best cook?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Will waited.
“Fact is, when it comes to cooking, Mrs. Travers’s second to Ma Judson and not much better than the Grubstake.”
“Cleaner, then?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“Then why should I take my meals there?”
Mr. Kaiser studied the young man a minute and chuckled. “That’s where Nealie Bent works.”
Will reddened, and the shopkeeper added, “You wouldn’t be the first to pick Mrs. Travers’s place because of Nealie. But I ought to tell you she’s all but spoke for by Charlie Dumas. He’d marry her in a minute if she’d have him.”
Will took his bundle and started for the door, ignoring Mr. Kaiser’s last words.
“Best you take no notice of her, Mr. Spaulding,” Mr. Kaiser called after him. “It’s certain she took none of you.”
The young man grinned and turned back to the counter, where Mr. Kaiser stood fingering the canned goods, glancing surreptiously at the girl.
But in fact, Nealie Bent had taken considerable notice of young Will Spaulding. She had caught sight of him as she ran her hands through the bin of potatoes to find ones that were firm, with no rotten spots. She had glanced up and observed him through her pale lashes, taken in the young man’s face, which was strong with no soft places, a little like a good potato. He was clean shaven, a nice thing, because Nealie was not partial to whiskers. Will’s eyes were a deep brown with flecks of gold the color of aspen leaves in the fall, and his brown hair fell across his face in waves. He might have been the handsomest man she had ever seen, and certainly, he was the best dressed in a town where few wore anything but faded work shirts and rusty overalls.
She admired Will’s jacket, a thick corduroy the color of a mountain sheep, that was handsomely tailored to fit his shape, not store bought at a place like the Kaiser Mercantile. He wore tight-fitting trousers that were better suited to a big city than a mining camp, and his shoes—Nealie had to keep herself from smiling—were of leather as fine as a glove and wouldn’t last a day in the muck of the Georgetown streets.
The man was a stranger and a well-fixed one. And not for the likes of you, Nealie told herself as she pushed so hard at a soft spot in a potato that she broke the peel. She hastily placed the spoiled potato back in the bin, hoping Mr. Kaiser wasn’t watching her. He was a bad one to tease and she would die of mortification if he remarked on the way she had appraised the new fellow.
Such a man wasn’t likely to notice her, she told herself. Nealie was not aware of the effect that she had on men, and if she had been, she would have been bewildered. Still, she wondered, as the young man came up to stand beside her at the counter while Mr. Kaiser wrote down her purchases on a piece of brown wrapping paper, what it would be like to be courted by such. Her mind wandered to thoughts of carriages and roses in the winter and diamond rings. But not for long. She could more easily find a gold mine than attract a man like this stranger, and so she turned her attention to Mr. Kaiser, double-checking his addition in her mind, because she was smart with numbers. Nealie considered questi
oning one of the figures so the young man would turn and look at her and maybe wish her a good morning, but she blushed at the thought, and without a word, she signed beside the amount entered in the ledger on the page that bore Mrs. Travers’s name.
Then wishing that instead of her soundless cotton shift, she owned a satin petticoat with a ruffle to wear, a garment that would create a soft whish as she moved, Nealie turned to the door, shifting the basket from hand to arm to free her other hand for the handle. She went out then, forcing herself not to turn around for another look at the young man, and walked past the big window without so much as a backward glance. She would think about him later, for what was the harm in dreaming about matched horses and diamonds as thick as stars?
At the corner, she confronted the mud, slick as treacle, that was the street. The runoff from the snow had turned the dirt streets into a wet mass as thick as fudge. Although it was May, spring—or what passed for spring—had not quite reached the high country. Houses bore bare spots where the wind had scoured off the paint, and yards were covered with patches of late snow. But the drifts high up on the peaks were melting, and water cascaded down the gullies and through the streets. Although Nealie wore serviceable boots instead of slippers, she did not care to dirty them. It was an unpleasant chore to scrape off the mud that clung to them like glue, and to oil the leather. She looked for dry spots in the muck or a board placed across the street for pedestrians, but such was not available. Nealie sighed and was just about to step into the brown stew when a man grabbed her arm.
“I’ll carry you across, Miss Nealie,” he said.
Remembering the man in the store, Nealie felt a wave of disappointment at the voice. Yes, Charlie Dumas could carry her as easily as if she was a feather. Charlie was a giant of a man, with the strength of a mule, and he could have picked up her and Mr. Kaiser and the stranger all at the same time and transported them across the street. But Nealie didn’t want Charlie, who stood there with the neck buttons of his union shirt unbuttoned and his baggy pant legs tied to his boots with fuse cord. He snatched off his wide-brimmed hat, which had been rubbed with linseed oil to make it hard, and grinned at her. Charlie was altogether too familiar, and for reasons she didn’t quite understand, she did not care to see the stranger come out of the store and find her in Charlie’s arms. But it was that or muddy her boots and maybe her skirts, too. Besides, if the stranger had not noticed her in the store, he surely would pay no attention to her on the street. So Nealie said she was obliged and let Charlie lift her as easily as she did her basket and ferry her through the muck.
He walked slowly, furrowing his brow as if thinking of a way to prolong the trip through the mud. Then his face lit up, and he stopped in the middle of the street. “Did I tell you I saw a man down by Taos Street in mud up to his neck? I told him that was deep muck.” He grinned at Nealie to make sure he had her attention. “That man told me, ‘Stranger, it wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t sitting on a horse.’” Charlie guffawed as he watched Nealie hopefully, to see if she found the joke funny, and she laughed politely, although she’d heard the tale two or three times already.
On the other side of the street, she escaped from Charlie’s hold and struggled to stand up, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the big man.
“I’m grateful to you, Mr. Dumas,” she said formally.
“Aw, won’t you call me Charlie?” he asked. “You did last week. Do you remember?”
Nealie remembered all too well, because it had been a magical time, and she was beside herself with joy. The two of them had sat together on chairs in the balcony of the opera house, watching a traveling troupe of performers. Charlie hadn’t exactly thought to invite her, but Nealie had hinted so obviously that she wanted to go that he finally understood and bought the tickets. He sat restlessly on a chair that was too small for him, but Nealie was captivated by the performance and especially the star, an actress from Denver, who pranced about the stage, her satin dress and paste diamonds shimmering in the glow of the gaslights. Nealie grabbed her companion’s arm and said, “Oh, Charlie, I never saw anyone so lovely.” She smiled at him as if he were an actor himself, not a miner whose fingernails were black with grime and who smelled sour in his ill-fitting black suit.
“I don’t remember that I did,” Nealie told him now as she stood on the street corner, straightening her skirts.
“Well, I do. Besides—”
Nealie didn’t want to hear the “besides,” because she knew it meant “Besides, you know how I feel about you.” “No besides,” she said brusquely. “Thank you for the escort, Mr. Dumas. I’ll see you at the supper table,” She pulled away.
“I could carry your basket.”
“It’s not heavy,” she said, not thanking him.
“No bother. I’m going that way.”
“No,” Nealie said forcefully, and walked away. She did not look back but knew that he did not follow her, because she no longer felt the stifling presence of the big man.
Charlie Dumas was a nice enough fellow, probably the nicest she had met in Georgetown—in her life, even—and she could do worse than marry such a one as he. After all, Charlie worked hard setting charges in the Bobcat Mine, and he didn’t drink or gamble away his wages. Instead of spending his spare time in the pool halls, he prospected a little, and there was talk that he had a bit of money put away from a silver strike he’d made in Leadville. In fact, it was said that Charlie had discovered the Black Mountain Mine and sold it to H.A.W. Tabor, the silver king, but Nealie paid no attention to the gossip. Similar was told about everyone in Georgetown. Besides, a man who was well fixed wouldn’t work underground if he didn’t have to, would he?
She had to admit that Charlie was generous, buying tickets to that opera house performance when he didn’t want to go himself, and she had been flattered when he began to court her. Except for his nose, which had been smashed in a mining accident, he was not such a bad-looking fellow, either, with his thick blond hair and deep-set blue eyes. Charlie was easygoing, too, slow to anger, and he was liked by the other boarders.
But Nealie had grown tired of his presumptions, the way he followed her on her walks, pretending to come across her by accident. When there was an amusement in town, such as a boxing match or a band concert, he’d announce to the table at the boardinghouse that he was escorting Nealie, discouraging the other men from asking her out, not that there was anyone else among the boarders with whom she’d care to associate.
Charlie’s table manners were against him, and Nealie couldn’t imagine eating in a fine restaurant such as the dining room of the Hotel de Paris with him. He drank his coffee from a saucer and stirred everything on his plate into a mess before shoveling it into his mouth with a spoon. He was kind in his way, bringing her specimens of ore that he found in his wanderings in the mountains or presenting her with a special oil to waterproof her boots, but he knew nothing about presents that appealed to a young girl’s heart—hothouse flowers, books of poetry, kid gloves as smooth as custard. Not that anybody had ever presented her with such gifts, Nealie thought, smiling to herself. And what would she do with a book of poetry anyway?
Nealie wondered then if Charlie could read. She herself had worked so hard to get a little schooling that she couldn’t abide a man who wouldn’t ready. But he must, because in Georgetown, Charlie Dumas was not considered stupid. In fact, men had a way of seeking him out and asking his advice on mining.
Nealie mulled over the big man as she made her way back to Mrs. Travers’s boardinghouse. She’d given Charlie a good deal of thought already, but now she pondered whether she ought to encourage him, not that he needed it. She didn’t love him, and at times, she came close to detesting his ways. Although she had no right to expect anything more than Charlie, she did dream of better, and in an odd manner, she thought she deserved it. She couldn’t have said why, because she didn’t even know she thought that way. If Charlie were the best she could find, then she might just as well h
ave married one of her pa’s friends in Hannibal, Missouri. She hadn’t run away just to hook up with a miner and live in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. She wasn’t going to wear herself out scrubbing clothes and butchering hogs and caring for a bunch of squalling babies, an old woman at thirty. There had to be something else for her, although she wasn’t sure just what it was.
Nealie had a vague sense that life had more to offer her than work as a serving girl in a boardinghouse. It was not a thought fully formed, however, and if it had been, Nealie would have been surprised at it, for she was of humble and penurious origins and had no cause to think so highly of herself. Had she been more conscious of the effect she had on men, she might have used her freshness and unusual good looks to advantage. But she was not aware that men turned to stare at her and wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told her. After all, her father had said savagely that she was as ugly as a pig’s foot and had proclaimed her curious pale red hair to be the mark of the devil, and he’d whipped her for it. Whipped her and worse. No, Nealie Bent considered herself no better than plain. And although youth and innocence were marketable commodities, she did not consider that she possessed them and could use them to her benefit.
The girl paused then, her hand on the fencepost of Mrs. Travers’s boardinghouse, and looked back over her shoulder to see if Charlie was trailing her, but he was gone. And of course, there was no sign of the stranger. Nealie doubted that she would see him a second time, and she put him out of her mind.
“You’re dawdling again,” Mrs. Travers called out from the back porch, and Nealie straightened up and hurried into the house through the back door.
“It was muddy,” Nealie explained, setting down her basket on a table whose wooden top had been scrubbed until it was smooth and almost white. The kitchen was neater than the yards outside that were stacked with piles of lumber and cordwood. A black cookstove occupied one wall of the kitchen, a kindling bucket beside it. Across from it was a dry sink painted bright orange and a walnut pie safe whose tin panels were punched with hearts and the initials ET. A wooden icebox stood next to a door that led into a tiny pantry that was filled with dishes and platters and foodstuffs—sacks of dried beans, tins of flour, cones of sugar wrapped in blue paper, a bag of coffee beans.
Prayers for Sale Page 27
