The Rose Legacy (6 page)

Carina woke when Mae slid the book from her chest. The lamps were lit, and the window was dark. She sat up. “Have I slept the whole day?”

Mae chuckled. “You have. And I’ve brought food. Nothing fancy yet, just good solid bread and broth.”

“You’re too kind.”

Mae handed her the bowl. “Kindness has a way of coming around again.”

Carina sipped the broth. “It’s good. I’m hungry.”

“And you have color in your cheeks. Tomorrow you’ll feel like your old self again. Just takes a while to build up the blood. After that the climate’s right healthful. At least that’s what they tell the tuberculars.” Mae reached for the chair to settle in but stopped at the knock on the door. She heaved a sigh and went out.

Carina heard her outside the door. “No, Berkley Beck, you can’t see her.”

“Now, Mae …”

Carina could just picture his expansive teeth and “butter won’t melt” expression. He wouldn’t get past Mae, though. Carina would bet on it.

“You can see her tomorrow.”

“I only have a small thing or two to say—”

“Save your small things for the mornin’.”

“You’re cruel, Mae Dixon. Can’t you see I’m sick with worry?”

“Worry? Hah. It’s lovesick you are, and that’ll keep. Good night, Berkley Beck.”

Carina cringed. She must put an end to that talk immediately. The door opened, and Carina caught just a glimpse of Mr. Beck’s face before Mae closed the door behind her.

“There now. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, he’ll be right fond in the mornin’.”

“It’s not fondness between us. It’s business. Maybe legal business. Maybe my house next door—”

Mae waved her hand. “Honey, you aren’t gettin’ that house back. You may as well put it out of your mind.”

Carina sat up. “It belongs to me. I paid for it. I have the deed.”

“You have
a
deed.”

“What do you mean?”

Mae laughed. “Half the deeds in town are forgeries. Claim jumping is a sport up here. The only way to have your property is to keep possession. And that ain’t easy.”

“You have yours.”

“I’m a landmark. Anyone comes in here raisin’ Cain, I pull the pistol. Besides, the men won’t give me trouble. They like too well the way I run things, leavin’ the door open all night and fillin’ their bellies at my table.”

Mae cracked the knuckles of both hands, tapered hands that seemed too small for her. “Still, if I don’t stay on my toes … Why, there have been people who built all day, went to sleep, and woke to find their work pulled down and someone else’s building in its place.”

“But how can they—”

“Because they do.”

Carina sank back into the cushions. “Mr. Beck would have told me.”

Mae raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “Well, maybe. He’s given you a job, you say?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what brought you here?”

No. But what would Mae think of her true reasons?

Mae shook her head. “I guess you know what you’re doing, but Crystal’s not exactly abounding with opportunities for women. Though that’s not to say that those of us with a mind to it can’t make it happen.”

“I intend to.” Crystal may be far from what she expected—worse than she could have dreamed—but she was here now, and she would make the best of it.

Mae nodded. “Well, put on the feed, then, so you won’t be passing out on the porch.”

Carina bit into the bread, coarse and brown and heavy. Not at all the crusty white loaves the size of her thigh that Mamma had sliced and drizzled with thick green olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Carina sighed. If the Carruthers had not taken her house, she might even now be baking a loaf … but the olive oil and vinegar were gone with the tomatoes and wheels of crumbly black-rind cheese.

She had lost all of the things she would have used to make a home. How would she replace them? Work. By earning enough to buy again what she needed. “I hope Mr. Beck won’t change his mind.”

“I’m sure he won’t. He had a daisy in his lapel.”

Carina frowned, but Mae laughed, a thick mezzo laugh that shook the rolls at her neck and squeezed the pouches almost shut around her eyes. It was a contagious laugh like Mamma’s, a laugh that wrapped around and squeezed you. In that moment, Carina wanted to hug her, to grab Mae’s arms and dance, throw back her head and laugh as she had with Mamma when she was very small. But that was the Italian, not American, way.

“I remember when Herb Dixon came courtin’ the first time. He was so nervous I thought he’d faint same as you did right out on my floor.” Mae laughed again.

Carina turned to the picture on the wall, a small, square, unremarkable man with thinning hair and round, guileless eyes. “Is that Mr. Dixon?”

“We were married only a year. He took a fever and died on me.” Mae wiped her eye. “Twenty-nine years, and I still miss him. He hardly ever spoke, but he listened. A warmer-hearted man I never knew.”

Carina quaked suddenly. Twenty-nine years! Eight more than her full age. Could the hurt last so long? “He brought you up here?”

“My nephew did. Mr. Dixon left me with a handsome sum, and my sister’s son had a use for it. So we moved up to Placerville and staked a claim.”

“Placerville?”

“The remains west of town are Lower Placer. We lived in Upper Placer, farther up the gulch. It was hardly more than a gulch camp at its best, forty-niners who staked out here instead of haulin’ all the way to California, fifty-oners who’d failed in the sunny gold fields of their dreams, slogging homeward and snagging on the Rockies with enough dream left to dig in once again. Then others trailing in for one reason or another.”

“Did you find gold?”

“Sure. Dug the riverbed all day long, sluicing gravel for a handful of dust. Then Matthew had enough of it and went his way, but I had the mountain in my blood. A new rush of folks were startin’ to work other gulches. Let’s see, that would’ve been ’59. They weren’t just lookin’ for gold in the creeks. They were surveying other metals and coming in with machinery and real know-how. I had a head for business. Where there were men, there’d be a need for a roof and food for their bellies.”

She chuckled. “I was never in much romantic demand, not after Mr. Dixon. And not a one ever suggested such. They knew better.”

Mae patted her belly. “But I kept a good house for them that wanted such. The first was a tent in which twelve men slept in six cots taking shifts. They had regular meals same as I give them now, though the accommodations have improved.”

Not tremendously
, Carina thought. She handed Mae the finished dish tray. “Will you stay here always?”

Mae shrugged. “I have nowhere else to go. And I’ve come to know it here. Leastwise, it knows me.”

It was good to be known, respected, Carina thought. Mae had dug into the mountain and found her place. It was possible. But was it what she intended for herself?

S
IX

How can one change a moment passed? Even a moment that should never have come.

—Rose

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Carina felt stronger than she had in days, having slept through the din without waking. Maybe she had grown used to it. Maybe Mae’s care had fortified her. She rose from the couch, washed, and dressed, then with a deep breath left the haven of Mae’s rooms.

Mae was serving breakfast on the long tables in the dining room, hot cakes and pork sliced thick and fried. Sweat beaded Mae’s forehead, and her cheeks were flushed and red. There was a greasy sheen to her hands as she plopped a plate down where Carina sat awkwardly between two men who had made room for her.

Carina eyed the crisp, blackened bacon and spongy hot cakes with thoughts of Mamma’s sausage and peppers, fresh bread and milk. She picked up a charred stick of bacon. With a sigh, she said a silent blessing, then, like the men around her, she devoured it.

After eating, she took the box of silver and made her way down Drake to Central Street. As she reached Berkley Beck’s office, the door opened and a gruff, sour-faced man pushed out. He neither looked nor spoke to her but grumbled under his breath. At least he didn’t spit. She went inside.

Berkley Beck stood immediately. “Miss DiGratia. I’m overcome at seeing you so hale. I was terribly concerned.” His hair was smoothed back and parted, his suit uncreased, but he wore no daisy in his lapel.

She breathed her relief. “Thank you, I’m quite recovered and ready to work. But could you recommend a safe storage for this?” She held up Nonna’s silver. “My walls are canvas.”

He eyed the box. “Certainly. I have a small safe; though if you don’t mind, I’ll keep its location to myself.”

She handed him the wooden box. Whatever place he had would be more secure than a room with a door that locked but walls that could be cut with a knife. She hadn’t risked the steep slope only to have some ruffian steal the silver from under her bed.

He set the box on the desk. “As you see, I’m prepared for you.” He motioned to the crude desk he had placed opposite his own. “It’s not pretty, but it’ll have to do, I’m afraid. I regret we haven’t more room. Unfortunately, my living quarters take up the balance of the space behind the office. At some point I hope to move, but until then …” He spread his hands.

“This is fine, Mr. Beck. Only show me what you need me to do.”

“Yes, of course. Well, for a start I thought maybe you could bring some order to these papers.” He looked sheepishly over the piles.

Carina eyed the mountainous range of stacks along the wall. Mr. Beck’s office was not as meticulous as his dress and demeanor. He obviously paid better heed to his person than his work. She thought of Papa’s clinic, spotless and orderly, everything in its place—though sometimes Papa’s thick, shiny hair stood in graying blond spikes and his collar protruded at odd angles. Still, Mr. Beck seemed earnest enough.

She returned her gaze to him. “Will you excuse me?” “I beg your pardon?” He rested his hand on his vest.

“I have a thought for filing your papers, but I need to get something.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Come and go as you please. You’ll find I’m frequently out myself, so here is a key to the front door.” He held it out.

Carina’s eyes widened involuntarily. Mr. Garibaldi had watched her like a hawk. Never would he have trusted her with a key. Yet Mr. Beck handed her his now, and they had only met two days before. She tucked it safely into her pocket.

As she went outside again, Carina half smiled to think how Mr. Garibaldi had hollered when Papa told him she was leaving. He was Papa’s cousin, and she had done his books as a favor to Papa, since the cousin’s eyes were so crossed he saw double. All she had heard from him were complaints until she was leaving, and suddenly she was invaluable! Irreplaceable! How could Papa think of letting her go? What sort of father was he to send a daughter so far?

But Papa did not holler back. He was a man of mild temper, above displaying emotions even when his parental judgment was questioned. His voice stayed low, his countenance unruffled. “
My daughter is twenty-one years old. She may choose her path
.” And that, even though it made his heart ache to be losing her. Mr. Garibaldi blustered and swore. Papa never did either.

Only Mamma hollered and slapped. She had married above her class because of her beauty. Now Carina did smile, recalling the story told again and again as the women sat together, baskets of mending beside them. How Papa had come to treat Nonna’s illness, laid eyes on Mamma, and fallen in love.

He could have married higher, but the little dark-eyed beauty was all he could think of. Nonna’s own reputation had soared with the catch made by her daughter. The other widows came to her for advice. How can we marry our daughters well?

“She is too lazy,” Nonna would say, or “her mind wanders,” or “she eats too much
dolci
.” So they would think it was her training that had made the match for Mamma. But Nonna knew it was Mamma’s lovely face, her smile, her laugh that brought her good fortune.

Carina frowned. That was not always the case. Of the two DiGratia daughters, she most resembled Mamma in all those things, but it was Divina whose fortune had been won. Not won! Stolen. Divina had stolen her good fortune.

She kicked a stone and traipsed back to Mae’s kitchen. There, she gathered the empty crates outside her door. They smelled a little of salt pork, but the waxed paper linings had kept them free of grease. With the linings gone, they would do nicely for the job.

She returned to the office and set about organizing the papers into the crates. She tried filing them by type of complaint, then found that almost all dealt with claim disputes and filed them by date instead. Her own claim she found no trace of, but she had only sorted through a small portion by the time her stomach wanted food. Had the elevation turned her into a voracious wolf?

Mr. Beck had been out most of the morning, but he returned now, slightly breathless but with a jaunty step. “May I buy you lunch?”

Recalling Mae’s assumptions, Carina filed the paper in her hand, then met his hopeful countenance. “I think it best if we keep to business, Mr. Beck.”

He raised his brows, surprised. “I see.”

His expression remained pleasant, and she hoped he did see. She had left everyone she cared about—left them with one thought, one hope in her mind. And no one, not Berkley Beck or anyone else, could replace them. She dropped her chin. “Thank you for understanding, Mr. Beck.”

The color rose slightly in his cheeks, but he smiled, though without showing his teeth this time. “Of course, Miss DiGratia.” He turned on his heel and left.

Propped up by his crutch on the street corner, Cain Bradley shook his head. The look on Berkley Beck’s face could sour milk, no two ways about it. He felt a cackle seize his throat and indulged himself. Oh, how the mighty have fallen…. Perhaps it weren’t right to delight in another’s misfortune, but something had stuck in Beck’s craw, and Cain hoped it choked him.

Cain glanced heavenward.
No offense, Lord, but even you had your moments with the scribes and Pharisees, callin’ them whited sepulchers, all clean and tidy on the outside but inside full of dead men’s bones and all corruption. Well, I’m a-lookin’ at corruption right here and now
.

He leaned forward on his leg stump, encased in the leather cup above the wooden peg, and watched Berkley Beck advance. Beck ignored his presence. As he passed, Cain raised his crutch in mock salute and mumbled, “Whited sepulcher.” y

Carina went back to Mae’s for lunch. The fare was stewed beef and potatoes, bread with no butter, and strong coffee to wash it down. Only a handful of men came in for it, and after they were served, Carina joined Mae at the kitchen table to eat.

Mae dunked a chunk of bread in her gravy. “So how was it working for Mr. Beck?”

Carina toyed with the stewed beef, tough and flavorless, though it had cooked long enough to cure leather. “He’s kind, but not very tidy.”

Mae smiled. “He needs a woman for that.”

Carina ignored her obvious intent. “A man who takes pride in his work is capable of his own orderliness.”

Mae snorted. “Show me that man, and I’ll show you a fool. Why, Mr. Dixon couldn’t wipe his own shoes. But that made me more valuable, you see. I liked doing for him.”

“So now you do for other men?”

Mae shrugged. “A body needs a purpose.” She stood and took the plates from the table. Carina followed her outside the back door. Mae slid the dishes into the massive wooden washtub, then plunged her arms in to the elbow. The water was slimy with grease and soap, one hardly better than the other, and Mae didn’t seem overly concerned with the task.

She swiped a plate with a nubby cloth. “There are plenty here who need doing for. It’s a regular city to be sure, bursting its seams with dreamers, though the amenities are a little slow in coming.”

A little slow? It was the most backward place Carina had been.

Mae sloshed the plate into the rinse tub. “Where other cities have gas lights and all such folderol, Crystal residents are hauling water and burning coal oil, kerosene, and candles. My stove burns wood and most of the food, too, as the regulator door’s unpredictable. But it could be worse. The tent dwellers cook on open fire pits.”

“Why don’t they build? Bring in gas and water lines?”

“It’ll happen. Just now the miners are trying to prove Crystal’s here to stay. Though folks have been scratching around here nearly a decade, it’s only been this last two years they’ve had real success. The water runs too close beneath the surface, and until they brought in the new hydraulic equipment, the mines flooded and made the deeper ores unreachable.”

Mae pulled the plate from the scalding water and laid it on the board to dry. “Now it looks like they’ll make a city of it yet. It’s rough, but it has the makings of something more. You’ve seen the crowds, and it’s not just miners. Folks are bringing culture. The Selman Theatre has acting troupes and opera stars, though the best show last year was when Fred Little strung a rope from the weather vane on the Crystal Hotel to the ridgepole of the livery, then walked it. Dead sober.” She laughed.

Carina tried to imagine it and failed, her head spinning with the thought. What sort of fool would tempt fate so when it was bad enough having to face normal heights?

Mae rocked back on her heels. “Maybe it’s my lack of sophistication that keeps me in a place like Crystal. But frankly, the world’s changing too fast. I like it simple. Fry and serve the hot cakes, scrub the dishes. Wash the linen off the bed of the man who gives it up; spread it for the next one.”

Carina frowned. It sounded dreary to her. “You don’t get tired of it?”

“Not really. There’s always new faces. New stories. I learn the men’s names because I have a head for it. I hear their stories. Some I believe because I’ve been there myself. Some, I know, are no truer than their dreams. Though one man in fifty does make his dream happen.”

“One in fifty?” Carina’s heart sank. One in fifty was not good odds for her own dream.