Nathan's Nurse Read online

  “I hope that’s all.”

  Dahlia turned to face Jenny. “My sisters both claimed most of the jewelry, china, and silver that was my mother’s, but I’ll be taking what they left for me. I already packed the china creamer and sugar bowl, the two china cups and saucers, and the silver spoon set in my trunk. I also plan to take Papa’s clock he kept in his room, the daguerreotype of him in his uniform, and his pen set. I’ll leave his two pipes and tobacco, in case Elm decides to take up the habit. All the big equipment, the animals, and the farm stay with you.”

  “What am I going to do with the big equipment and the animals?”

  Dahlia stared at Jenny and gnawed on the side of her tongue to keep from blurting the first words that came to her mind. “You’ll also have most of the cookware and everyday dishes so you can take care of your family.” Dahlia twisted to face forward once more as she pushed down a wave of anger. She could not get away from Jenny soon enough. She planned to take a few other small things of her father’s but felt no compulsion to give Jenny any additional accounting.

  Dahlia stiffened her body as, out of the corner of her eye, she watched her brother turn and stare at her. When he said nothing, she slowly relaxed.

  Nathan Price had admitted in one of his letters that his brother could sometimes be a handful to deal with. Dahlia certainly hoped living close to Herbert Price did not test her patience the same way dealing with her sister-in-law did. She hoped Nathan represented himself accurately and was as upright as he seemed to be in his letters. She knew leaving behind everything she had known all her life to marry a man she had yet to meet in person represented a step of faith into the unknown.

  Upon hearing once more Jenny’s whiny voice, Dahlia cringed. “Animals—I suppose that means I’ll need to milk the cow and take care of the chickens by myself. I don’t know who is going to help me once you are gone, especially when the new baby comes. I don’t know why you couldn’t have waited until Mrs. Wright passes and married Mr. Wright. If you had, you would have been close enough to take the children a day or two each week so I could get something done.”

  Dahlia turned in her seat once more and, wearing a forced smile, kept her response calm. “I suppose that would have worked out if that had been my choice. In exchange, you could have taken his three boys, plus any additional children that came along, a day or two a week so I could work on my tasks.” As she watched Jenny’s face noticeably blanch, Dahlia’s lips twitched. “However, I decided to marry someone out of the state. At least, we are fortunate that the rail line is fairly direct. Perhaps our families can visit each other every few years. In the meantime, you will have your kitchen all to yourself.”

  “True…but you could have waited until spring. Then you would have been here to help with the children when the baby comes. I won’t feel up to spending much time in the kitchen then.”

  As Dahlia watched Jenny rub her rounded tummy, she clenched her teeth to keep from saying something she might later regret. “You can’t have it both ways, Jenny. I know it will be a challenge, but we all need to accept the hand we were dealt and make the best of it.”

  Dahlia turned once more to stare at the road in front of her. She did her best to ignore Elm’s penetrating gaze now focused on her.

  “Been awhile since I heard that one.”

  Dahlia realized the saying not only applied to Jenny, but to her, also. That was why she needed to leave the area to find a husband since life had dealt her the hand of caring for her father during the years it would have been easier to find a mate. And it applied to Elm. He had married pretty, pouty Jenny without much consideration regarding her work ethic.

  She kept her words quiet, intended for his ears only. “Perhaps her mother can come and help you for a few days when the baby comes. As your children grow older, you and Jenny can train them to help both of you more.”

  I can hardly wait to leave and get on with my life. Anything has to be better than staying here.

  .

  .

  .

  .

  Chapter 5

  ~o0o~

  Jubilee Springs, Colorado – Tuesday, December 13, 1881

  I n spite of having a full, ten-hour workday ahead of him, Nathan Price grinned wide as he walked through the adit—the ground-level entry to the mine. He had written more letters in the past ten or so months than he had in the rest of his life put together. It finally paid off. This week had finally arrived, and at the end of it, so would Dahlia Greenleaf.

  Nathan guessed there was more to Dahlia’s story than what she included in her letters. Driven by the desire for a home of her own, she decided to use a bridal agency to seek a husband who would not mind her advanced age.

  Advanced age? Nathan laughed at the thought.

  After exchanging letters for over two months, Nathan decided he not only did not mind her “advanced age,” he looked forward to a lifetime of them being together. Knowing about the concerns she expressed, Nathan could offer her a relationship free of unrequited love on his part, a previous wife he still mourned over, or stepchildren who might or might not easily accept her. He did warn her he had a brother who could be rude and difficult at times. She assured him she realized no family was perfect. She had her own difficult brother. She also wished to have a home separate from her sister-in-law. Most importantly, she agreed to marry him.

  As for Herbert, his brother knew Nathan had a bride coming, and there was no competition from another man who could snag her away. In spite of Herbert’s heckling, which was almost rivaled Charlie’s, Nathan had shared very few details about his prospective bride. He hoped, considering the difficulties in her family Dahlia mentioned, she would accept Herbert as a factor in their lives she would need to tolerate.

  “What you grinning like a fool for, Nathan? You’re going to choke on a mouthful of dust before you ever get to your worksite.”

  Upon hearing Herbert’s words, Nathan cringed. Wearing a puzzled expression, he turned toward him. “Why are you in the mine on first shift, Herbert? I thought Mr. Bainbridge still had you working as a mucker on second shift.” Nathan knew it irked his brother to no end that he had been kept on second shift as one of the lower-paid employees in the less-skilled job of shoveling and loading out all the loose rock and ore that the first shift miners had drilled and blasted loose. Although he never said anything, Nathan anticipated with apprehension the day Herbert began working as a single driller to create the holes where the explosives would be placed. He knew his brother did not stay focused on tasks as well as the job required. Yet, here Herbert walked next to him, a smug expression on his face.

  “Didn’t think I could do it, did you? Well, Declan was short-handed due to some of his men taking a month off to go home over Christmas, so he said he’d give me a try. Bad thing is, this time of year, I go to work in the dark and leave the mine in the dark. Never see sunlight. Lousy way to live.”

  Trust his brother to put a damper on his happiness. No, Nathan decided, he refused to let his brother ruin his day. He turned and clapped his hand on Herbert’s shoulder. “It’s a fine day, Herb. Cheer up and enjoy it. At least, we aren’t out working in the snowstorm.” As his brother responded with a grumble, Nathan rolled his eyes.

  “We get enough snow out there, probably collapse the mine on us. We already wade through water too much of the time.”

  Nathan laughed out loud. “Come on, Herbert. This mountain is strong enough to handle a little snow. Quit being so negative.”

  “Says you. This being the thirteenth, I wouldn’t put nothing past something bad happening. Ma always warned me thirteen’s an unlucky number. We would walk lightly and keep an eye out for trouble on the thirteenth.”

  Nathan jostled his brother’s shoulder with his. “That’s superstition, Herbert. Usually, people worry about the thirteenth when it falls on a Friday. Today is a Tuesday. This coming Friday, with Miss Greenleaf will be arriving on the train, it’s going to be my lucky day, for sure.”

  �
��Ma said thirteen is one of the devil’s numbers.”

  In the dimness cast by their helmet lights, Nathan grew serious as he studied his brother. “There might be some truth to that. I was fortunate to be old enough when my mother died that I remember a few things she taught me. She felt seven was a holy number because God created the world and then rested on the seventh day, giving us the week. Also, she said twelve is a good number because there were twelve apostles. She also said, for any evil out there, we should pray and attend church, and then God would help us deal with anything the devil throws in our path. I guess that’s why I don’t worry about the number thirteen, or black cats crossing my path, or broken mirrors, or anything else some people worry over.”

  Herbert snorted in disgust. “You know I can’t stomach going to church. I don’t know how you stand listening to Pastor Alwin drone on like he does. All going to church does for me is give me a headache and put me to sleep. I get more out of staying in bed Sunday mornings.”

  Nathan looked away and walked in silence. He refrained from expressing his opinion Pastor Alwin almost always gave an interesting and well-planned sermon. Nathan knew the most logical reason Herbert developed a headache and preferred to sleep on Sunday mornings was because he spent his Saturday evenings drinking. Nathan chose not to dwell too much on what else his brother did with his pay and his free time on Saturdays, when they had half the day off work.

  “Besides, God lets too many bad things happen. I count more on my lucky nickel than I do prayers. Brought me good luck in plenty a poker game after I won it off some teamster. He said it saved him from a bullet getting him.”

  Shaking his head, Nathan turned to his brother. “Doesn’t sound like it was too lucky for that teamster if he lost it to you in a poker game.”

  “It’s done all right by me. Even brought it with me, this being the thirteenth, and all.”

  Nathan watched as Herbert dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a misshaped nickel. Twisting front to back, Herbert waved it in front of Nathan’s face.

  “You better hide that thing, Herbert. You know you aren’t supposed to bring anything personal like that in the mine.”

  Nathan gritted his teeth in an effort to tamp down his impatience as he watched the scowl, so typical of Herbert when someone pointed out his misbehavior to him, appear. At least, his brother shoved the nickel back into his pocket.

  “It’s not like I’m stealing silver and taking it out of the mine. It’s just a good day to keep my lucky nickel with me.”

  Nathan shook his head but decided to let the matter rest. He knew many miners, particularly the ones from Cornwall, were superstitious. However, the lucky nickel business belonged to Herbert alone. If he kept flashing his talisman around inside the mine, Nathan would let Herbert’s crew foreman, Declan McNeill, deal with him.

  As for Nathan, he refused to allow his brother to ruin his mood that day—or during the rest of the week, for that matter. The prospect of Miss Greenleaf’s scheduled arrival filled Nathan with joy and anticipation. Determined to foster these optimistic feelings, no matter the weather, the work, or his grumpy brother, he disregarded Herbert’s warnings.

  The pair reached a fork in the drift. Nathan knew, if Herbert was assigned to Declan’s crew, he would be working the stope—the big cavern blasted out in the center of the drift—several yards off to the right on level two.

  On the other hand, Nathan would follow the left-hand drift to the elevator at the raise that would take him down to work in level one. It had spent several weeks traveling up and down the yawning, dark, vertical passageway of the raise—a perpendicular shaft that did not open on the surface—before he could do so without knots forming in his gut.

  “Work safe, Herbert. Don’t worry about that snow coming down outside. We both will be warmer in here and there will be less water on the floor than when it’s raining. Maybe I’ll see you back at the warm shack.”

  Reaching his worksite on level one, Nathan found his shovel where he left it the day before. He began his task of shoving clear the rubble the muckers on second shift had missed so he could start drilling his holes.

  He knew at that point, it mattered little if the rock held silver or was nothing but slag. Once the muckers shoveled it into the lift buckets, only after everything reached better light would others sort through it and separate the rocks containing silver from those which contained predominantly lead, iron, or coal. Although he understood little about smelting, he knew different processes involving melting points separated out the various ores from each other. Since silver was the primary element sought by the mine owners, it was veins of that metal the miners looked for and tossed in the ore cars to be shipped by rail.

  Hours after the noon break, Nathan felt his dinner begin to wear off. He set aside his four-pound hammer and steel drill and began the process of stretching fuse line for the blasters who would attach it to the dynamite being set off that day. Earlier, he, as a single driller, had finished the spiral of drill holes he had started the day before. After he moved over several feet and began a new spiral, a pair of double drillers from Cornwall, men who had been teamed up since they were teenagers, moved to finish his spiral. They worked together—one held the drill spike and the other the nine-pound hammer—deepening the hole to the proper depth for the dynamite. The men handling the explosives then filled the holes finished by the double drillers.

  At the faint sound of a dynamite exploding in level two, the men working in the same area as Nathan turned their attention toward the direction from where the blast came. To Nathan, it sounded like it must have gone off directly over their heads.

  Upon feeling the vibration from the aftershock, Nathan, along with the rest of the men on his crew, instinctively braced themselves. As a shower of fine dirt laced with pebbles rained down on them from the back—the mine ceiling—through the spaces between the stringers on the square-sets, several cursed.

  As the light dust drifted down into his eyes, Nathan’s mind scrambled to figure out what had happened even as he, like the others, surveyed the caps and posts of the thick, wooden square-sets surrounding them, which were built to support their stope. The call had not come to clear the mine so the dynamite charges laid that day could be set off by the powder monkeys, the young boys hired by the mine to fetch and carry lightweight equipment, including the sticks of dynamite. They also were the ones to light the fuses, since they could run and scramble up a rope faster than a grown man.

  One of the dynamite men shouted the question in all their minds. “Who’s the idjit that set off the blast already? Don’t they know there’s men still in here work…” The loud crack of an overhead timber immediately captured his attention and cut his words short.

  Nathan joined the others as they edged toward the exit of the stope. The entire time, they studied the beams and cross-pieces of the square-sets. Nathan guessed he was not the only one feeling uneasy about the loosened stone, large and small, that continued to clatter onto the tops of the boards.

  Alert to the cracking sound coming from the support beam next to him, Nathan turned his head to focus his headlamp so his eyes could search out the source. His gaze caught sight of the split in the thick timber just as a side post shifted in a twisting dance. As it began its downward spiral, a chunk of rock the size of a wagon bed followed the collapsing wood, both of them crashing to the ground.

  Nathan watched in horror as the two men to his left screamed in pain when the weight of the fallen support post knocked them off their feet and pinned their legs. The beam, secured in place by the boulder, held them trapped. Before he felt anything physically, his senses screamed of the approaching danger just before the weight of the cap beam bearing down on him glanced off the side of his head and struck his shoulder. A sickening cracking sound reverberated through his cranium, followed by an explosion of pain between his neck and his shoulder. The force of the blow shoved him to the ground, smashing his forehead, cheek, and nose into the jagged rock.

&n
bsp; Then, nothing.

  .

  .

  .

  .

  Chapter 6

  ~o0o~

  Denver, Colorado – Thursday, December 15, 1881

  N othing surprised Dahlia more than realizing the young woman who sat on the bench in front her—one of the seats closest to the coal heater in the center of the railroad passenger car—had also come to Denver through the Colorado Bridal Agency to be a bride. As she held her heavy wool cape lined with thick flannel more tightly to her to keep out the blustering wind, she felt guilty. She owned a warm wrap to wear on top of her wool travel suit. The other bride clutched the edges of what appeared to be a lighter-weight wool cloak over her cotton dress.

  A cotton skirt in winter—one that does not appear to have many petticoats underneath? How does she stay warm? Her chattering teeth revealed her lack of being warm enough once she moved away from the stove. Although the young woman possessed a pretty face, the dark circles around her eyes suggested she had been traveling for several days before Dahlia boarded the train.

  “My name is Dahlia Greenleaf. If I had known we were both headed for the same destination, I would have introduced myself sooner. We could have sat together.” And I could have shared my blanket with you—and some of my food, since it looks like the basket you’re carrying has been empty since last night.

  “It’s grand meeting you. My name’s Katherine Flanagan, but you can be calling me Kate.”

  As soon as Kate spoke, Dahlia realized she was Irish. Before she could respond, Lizett Millard joined them. She had completed instructing the driver regarding Dahlia’s two trunks to be picked up later. Her valise she would take with her in the two-bench buggy with its leather flaps pulled down to help block the wind. Mrs. Millard gestured for Dahlia and Kate to get inside.

  Dahlia followed Kate into the rear seat on which she saw two plaid wool blankets. She watched Kate snatch one and wrap it around her. The soles of Kate’s boots quickly found the heated bricks on the floorboard. The heavy canvas tow sack and empty basket, which seemed to be all Kate had brought with her, ended up on top of her feet.