Prayers for Sale (37 page)

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 have 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.

“I was all right early on, but by the time I came home, the street wasn’t froze anymore, and the mud was deep enough to swallow me up,” Nealie explained. “Charlie told me a story about a man in the street in mud up to his neck.”

“And he was sitting on a horse.” Mrs. Travers waved her hand dismissively. “They tell it every year during runoff. It’s 1881, and Georgetown’s been here for twenty years. You’d think we’d have decent streets by now.” She paused. “So you waited on the corner until Charlie Dumas came along. Am I right?”

“You are.” Nealie didn’t look up, although she knew Mrs. Travers was staring at her. The widow had taken a personal interest in Charlie’s courtship and had told Nealie she’d best make up her mind soon or Charlie would find himself a girl who was not so particular. “I’d be real sorry to lose you, but I have to admit he’s a good man. He treats you like the Queen of Turkey,” she’d said.

“Then marry him yourself,” Nealie had retorted.

“I would, but he’s not partial to a woman old enough to be his mother. Besides, he means to marry
you
if he has to tear the stars out of heaven.”

Nealie had laughed, since she was good-natured and fond of the woman who was almost a mother to her.

Nealie wouldn’t have left home if her real mother had been alive. They had protected each other. But her mother had died, and after a year, Nealie had fled the farm in Missouri. She could have gone up the river to Fort Madison, Iowa, or even Galena, Illinois, but her pa likely would have found her and fetched her home—dragged her back was more like it, because she wouldn’t have gone willingly. So instead of running off to one of the neighboring towns, Nealie had saved up the coins she’d earned sewing for neighbors and working as a hired hand during harvest, supplemented them by stealing the money her father had put away for next year’s seed, and one day when she’d been sent into Hannibal for supplies, she’d purchased a train ticket to the place everyone was talking about—Denver. And then because she was afraid her father would follow her even there, she’d bought a ticket to go forty miles farther to Georgetown. She’d never heard of the place, but she’d always been partial to the name George. She’d thought it was a sign.

When she reached Georgetown, Nealie was bewildered. The depot was crowded with bearded men in muddy boots, talking and gesturing, noisy as schoolboys. Here and there stood frightened women, their hair covered by dirty squares of cotton, clutches of crying children clinging to their skirts. Those women babbled in languages Nealie didn’t understand. She saw men in tailored suits and starched shirts, soft felt hats on their heads, and she turned her face from them, because she had seen such in the gambling halls in Hannibal. And she knew to stay away from the women who were dressed in flashy clothes cut low in the front, their hair arranged in fanciful swirls. One of them looked over the girl and smiled through lips that were tinted an unnatural red, but Nealie didn’t smile back. She knew well enough about prostitutes, because her father had prophesied that if he didn’t beat the devil out of her, Nealie would become one of their sisterhood someday.

And then there was Lidie Travers. Nealie hadn’t noticed her, although the woman had seen Nealie as she climbed aboard the train in Denver, probably taken by the young woman’s odd looks. The woman had watched the girl, who looked like someone’s daughter or perhaps a bride. She saw Nealie step off the train in Georgetown and look around, lost, because until that moment, Nealie had not considered what she would do once she reached her destination. Her plan had been just to get away. The girl wondered if she could afford a room for the night, and she removed from her pocket the little string bag that served as a purse and began to count her money.

Just then, a man who’d been looking over the crowd spotted Nealie and moved toward her, all but hidden from her behind a fat woman who was shoving her way through the throng. As the man reached Nealie, his long fingers grabbed her purse, and he slid away through the disembarking passengers. Nealie was too startled to cry out, and the crook was nearly gone when a strong hand grasped his arm and wrenched it behind his back. “Thief!” Mrs. Travers called in a loud voice. “He stole this woman’s purse.” She held him, because Mrs. Travers was a strong woman; lifting iron pans and carrying trays of food had toughened her arms as much as if she’d worked with a hammer and drill. Within seconds, the purse snatcher was surrounded by a crowd of men, because even in that rough town, a robber was despised, especially one who preyed on women.

Two of the men hustled the thief off to jail, and Mrs. Travers returned the purse to Nealie. “It’s best not to be so public with your money,” she warned. “A place like this attracts the worst men there is.” Then when the girl looked alarmed, Mrs. Travers added, “The best men, too, but sometimes you can’t always tell the difference.”

Nealie thanked her. “Georgetown sounded so nice, the name and all.”

“You’re here because you like the name?”

“I was always partial to ‘George.’”

Mrs. Travers laughed. “Some are here whose reasons for it aren’t any better. You don’t have kin in Georgetown? Friends?”

Nealie shrugged, watching the woman, who was not pretty. She wasn’t even handsome and never had been. But she had a strong face.

“Are you running away?”

“I’m seventeen. I can do as I please.” Nealie wasn’t seventeen, but she would be in six months.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’m not for sending you back if you don’t want to go. I’m just asking. Do you have a place to stay?” Before Nealie could answer, Mrs. Travers said, “I didn’t think so. Well, I’ve got a room off the kitchen. You could sleep there a night or two till you get your bearings.”

“I’ll pay,” Nealie said. “I’ve got a little money left.”

“Save it. But if you’re of a mind to, you might help me cook supper.”

“For your family?”

“I run a boardinghouse.” She looked Nealie up and down. “I don’t suppose you came here to cook for a bunch of miners, but if it suits, I could give you room and board and something besides. You could help me until you figure out why it is you’re here.” It was doubtful that until that moment, Mrs. Travers had ever considered hiring a girl, but Nealie appeared strong and good-natured, and Mrs. Travers was a capable judge of character. She was practical, as well, and undoubtedly, she knew that a young girl waiting on the table would attract business. It was possible that Mrs. Travers also believed the girl might be good company for her. The woman was a widow with no children, and Georgetown was a lonely place, with few females and those who were there too overworked to sit down for a chat.