Colorado Dawn (55 page)

“No, I do. And I wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Mackenzie after he’s been so generous. I’ll be fine as long as you’re with me.”

Jesse stepped out onto the porch of a wooden building, spied them, and jumped down without bothering to use the steps. “You made it. Great. We just finished the shift change, so the bucket’s free.”

They followed him to an open-sided shed. Willow whispered to Silas. “The bucket?”

He winked. “They lower us into the mine via a big bucket. That’s how they get the ore up, too. Then they load it into carts, and it travels on these tracks over to the stamp mill.” He pointed to the rails and ties leading away toward a tall building built into the side of the mountain from which pounding, grinding, crushing sounds rumbled and rolled. “They crush the rock there and use chemicals to extract the silver and lead and whatever other metals or minerals they are looking for.”

Jesse motioned to a worker who pulled a lever, starting a clanking donkey engine and bringing an enormous metal container to the surface. “Here you go.” He held out a hand to help Willow over the side.

Her heart lodged in her throat, and her mouth went paper dry. She tried not to think of all the empty space beneath her feet nor the darkness. What had come over her to say yes to this venture?

Silas swung his long legs over the rim of the bucket, setting it to swaying and making her stomach lurch. Jesse joined them, bringing a lantern along, and they began their descent. Yellow light bounced off jagged rock, and the chain rattled as it unwrapped from the winch overhead. Several pipes ran down the shaft.

Jesse pointed. “For pumping in clean air and pumping out water. Always a problem trying to keep a mine dry. There’s talk of building a communal tunnel through the mountain someday to drain the mines above it.”

Down, down, down. The farther they descended, the higher her heart rose in her throat.

Silas found her hand and slipped his arm around her waist. “You’re freezing. Are you all right?”

She nodded. “It’s rather…thrilling, isn’t it?”

Jesse raised the lantern. “We’ll go down about six hundred feet today. This shaft goes deeper, but we’ll stop there and head into a side stope. My son David is the mine engineer, and he’s got a nose for silver that puts every other engineer in the Rockies to shame. This stope is the richest we’ve ever brought in.”

The bucket lurched to a stop beside a tunnel on Willow’s right.

Jesse clambered out, holding the lantern high and reaching to help her. “Here we go. Watch your head, Silas.”

Rock gritted under her shoes, and the whole place smelled like damp earth and dust. A trickle of water ran down the wall toward the vertical shaft and disappeared over the edge. At periodic intervals in the tunnel they walked, iron rings had been driven into the side walls at about head-high and held tallow candles that dripped onto the rocks below. The clink of metal on metal came to them, the sound magnified by ricocheting off the walls.

“Here we are.” Jesse stopped beside two miners with pickaxes and metal hats. “We’ve cleared this tunnel after the last blast, and these men are drilling new holes for more explosives.”

The miners straightened, their faces gleaming with sweat and streaked with dirt. They removed their gloves, and the taller one took a kerchief from his pocket and swiped his face. “Boss.” He nodded. “It’s pretty slow going through here, but we’re making progress. Should be ready to blast tomorrow if everything goes well.”

“Sounds good.” Jesse blew out one of the candles, removed it from the holder, and hung the lantern in its place. “Boys, you know Pastor Hamilton? And this is Miss Starr. You might’ve heard of her, too. She’s one of the actresses putting on the play at the new theater.”

“Preacher.” They nodded, but they didn’t look at Silas. Their eyes were on her. Dirty, hardworking, smelling of earth and sweat and smoke. Hard-rock miners. “Miss, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” The spokesman of the pair removed his hat to reveal a balding head, and the one who had yet to speak nearly tripped over his feet to shake her hand.

Francine would have a fit if she knew Willow was socializing with common laborers, but Willow didn’t care. These men were the salt of the earth, as good as anybody and better than many of the people Francine sought approval from. She took his grimy hand, smiling. “I’m pleased to meet you. You’ve very brave working so far underground like this. Please, tell me what it is you’re doing here. I’ve never been in a mine before, and I’m eager to learn.”

Silas hid his smile, but he couldn’t quell the satisfaction and pride he had in Willow. Her kind reception of a class of men she’d most likely not come into contact with before pleased him greatly. There she stood between two rough miners, listening avidly, accepting them for who they were and not worrying if she got her dress dirty.

The miners responded to her friendliness, telling her everything they could about what it was like to dig for precious metals in the bowels of the earth.

“The engineer tells us how deep to make the holes and in what pattern. When we’ve got it just right, the powder man sets the charges.” The taller miner pointed and made twisting motions with his hands as if connecting fuses. “Then we clear the mine, and”—he made a plunging motion with his hands—“kaboom!”

The shorter miner, not to be outdone, elbowed closer. “After the dust settles, we come back in and start clearing the rock. Out it goes to the shaft and up to the stamp mill, and there you go. In the end, they have lovely silver pigs.”

“Pigs?”

He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Yep, when they’re done extracting the metal at the stamp mill, they pour it into bars called pigs. Then they ship them out by rail to places where they refine it and turn it into teaspoons and sugar tongs and the like.”

Jesse tugged on Silas’s sleeve and pulled him aside. “She’s great with them. I wondered how she’d take to the workers, but you’d think she’d been with them all her life.”

“She’s interested in people. Just like she was with the Sunday school boys. Treats everyone the same.”

“She’ll make you a fine little wife if you can get Mrs. Drabble off your back. She hasn’t let up about you courting an actress. I’ve tried, and Matilda has tried to get her to see reason, even to go to the play and see for herself there’s nothing objectionable in it, but she won’t budge. She truly believes the theater is wicked and so is everyone associated with it.”

Silas loosened his jaw muscles. “Thanks for trying. I’ll confess I’m at a loss to know how to continue. I’ve tried to apologize and let her know I have no ill feelings toward her, but she is adamant that she is right, and nothing short of total capitulation on my part will satisfy her.”

“That kind of narrow thinking tends to sow discord in a congregation. I’ve seen things like this cause such a rift between folks that a church fractures. I don’t want that sort of thing to happen in this church. They’re a fine group of folks, but having Mrs. Drabble dripping her unhappiness into everyone’s ears is bound to have an effect.”

“What do you think we should do about it? I can’t give up Willow just to make Mrs. Drabble happy, but what if the church comes apart? What if the district supervisor is of the same mind as Mrs. Drabble and forces me to choose between Willow and the church?” The very thought had kept him awake for hours each night, praying, searching his heart and the scriptures.

Jesse leaned his shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms, the lantern light flickering across his face and making shadows. “I’d hate to have to make this a matter of church discipline, but the truth is she’s gossiping and spreading ill feelings, and she’s not respecting the authority of the pastor. If I thought for a moment she had a real issue, if you were doing something contrary to scripture or detrimental to the church, I’d be the first to come to you with it. But you’re not doing anything wrong by courting Willow. She’s a believer, right?”

“Yes. I made sure before I asked to call on her.”

“And she’s a good girl—anyone who has spent five minutes with her can see that. She’s kind and generous and sweet. A woman a man could be proud to call his wife. Matilda likes her, and I’d back my wife’s judgment anytime. Mrs. Drabble needs to stop what she’s doing and leave you two alone, or there’s going to be real trouble.”

As they rode the bucket back to the surface, Silas tried to ignore the heavy, churning feeling in his gut. Real trouble in his church. How could he avoid it and keep Willow? He was sure she was the one God wanted him to marry, but how could he if it meant dividing his church? He’d been called to be a pastor. He couldn’t fail his parishioners, not even Mrs. Drabble.

When they stood in the bright sunshine again, Willow breathed deeply, turning her face to the warm rays. “I’m so glad to be out of there. I could never work in a mine. I’d suffocate.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed, the way you were talking to those miners. Thank you for being so nice to them. They’ll be talking about it for a long time.”

Jesse blew out the lantern and returned it to a shelf in the shed. “Before I forget, I wanted to thank you for the tickets for the men.”

“Tickets?” Silas’s eyebrows rose.

“Yep, she’s giving tickets to all the Mackenzie miners over the next week or so.” Jesse grinned. “A block of ten front-row seats every night this week.”

Silas reached for her hand. “That’s very generous of you.”

Her cheeks went a little pink, and she shrugged. “I wanted to show my appreciation to Jesse and to the workers for letting me tour the mine. Jesse, they can call for the tickets at the window. I’ll let them know in the office.”

“And I’ll deliver the tickets to Mrs. Drabble like you want, but don’t get your hopes up.”

Silas took Willow’s hand. “What’s this?”

She shrugged. “I thought if only she would come to the theater and see for herself what the play was like, and maybe come to the reception afterward, she could see we’re not evil people bent on dragging God-fearing folks to destruction. It’s worth a try, anyway.”

W
illow took Silas’s helping hand and climbed out of the buggy behind the rear stage door. She smiled at the guard posted there and stepped into the familiar area of the theater away from the stage, breathing in the scents of fabric, dust, makeup, and kerosene lamps. Everything known and familiar.

Silas closed the side door behind them and put his hand to the small of her back to guide her through the hallway. “We aren’t late, are we?”

Willow edged around an open trunk frothing with costumes and props and stepped over a rolled-up canvas backdrop. “Someone needs to organize these things better. We’re constantly tripping over equipment. And no, we’re not late.” Glancing through the open door of her dressing room, she spied Clement and Francine deep in conversation.

Not wanting to intrude, she tugged Silas’s hand, drawing him toward the wings of stage left. The indigo velvet drapes surrounded them. “I used to watch my mother every night from the wings when I was a little girl. The feel of velvet always brings back those memories.” In the low light of the performance theater, she studied his face.

“I wish I had known you as a little girl. You must’ve been adorable, all big eyes and ringlets. Did you always want to act? Did you dream of taking the stage?” He took her hands and drew her toward him.

“No, not really, but it was all I knew. For Francine it is a burning passion, and one she and my mother shared. I think Mother never really knew what to do with me. Francine says I was a homely child, awkward and clumsy. Francine was ten when I was born, and I guess I was a bit of a surprise to my parents. They thought they were done having children. Then my father passed away, and my mother had two girls to support with her acting. When she died, it was just Francine and me. Francine lives for the stage and the fame and the starring roles. And I…” She swallowed. “I feel like I have just been existing, putting in time, until now.”

He brushed the hair away from her temple, his touch as soft as mist. “So you might be happy away from the stage? You could be content in another way of life?”

“It would depend on what that other way of life was, but yes, I could be very happy away from the stage.” Willow breathed deeply, inhaling his scent—soap and sunshine and Silas.

“Hmmm.” His voice rumbled deep in his throat, and he eased his arms around her waist. “What if that life was with me?”

Her hands went up his lapels and twined around his neck. “Then I think I could be very happy indeed.”

He bent his head, brushing her lips with his, sending a shock through her. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and his embrace tightened. Again his lips caressed hers, and then more forcefully as if he wanted to consume her. She poured all the love in her heart into that kiss where it met his love like the crashing of a wave on a rocky shore.

Never had she expected to find something like this, so powerful, so precious, so perfect.

When the kiss ended, he continued to hold her close, his breath harsh against her cheek.

“Willow Starr, I love you as I’ve never loved anyone. Please say you’ll marry me. Say you love me and you’ll share my life forever.”