Carla Kelly (34 page)

“Remy would have wanted you to have it. He never talked much about his wife—she died in Alsace—but she was his treasure. I put her wedding ring on his little finger.”

“I'll wear it and think of him,” Della said simply. “Mr. Muller, isn't it strange where in the world people end up? He's so far from Alsace.”

After Owen came to get Angharad, she put the wheat sheaf pin in her carved box. She stared at it a long time before she closed the lid, missing her Frenchman, so far from home but so kind to escort her each night from the library. Before she prepared for bed, she stood outside as dusk turned to dark, looking toward Finn Town, her mind and heart on fatherless Pekka Aho, her student.

“We are all far from home, dear Father,” she whispered, her heart full of Matti Aho and a wooded Finnish glade carved in pine, with his own Welsh dragon.

ella wrote a long letter to Mr. Auerbach that night, telling him about the cave-in and Pekka and
Black Beauty
and magic cards. Wishing she had some skill, she sketched a poor drawing of Matti Aho's name on the coffin lid and a tiny red dragon.
I've learned that babies are born in saunas,
she wrote in conclusion,
and people are laid out for burial in saunas too. Beginnings and endings, Mr. Auerbach. I am learning so much in this canyon. Yours sincerely, Della Anders
.

The little house seemed so quiet when she finished the letter. She got up, restless, ready to go next door and help Mabli with the everlasting bread dough, when Owen knocked. She knew it was him: two knocks, a pause, and then a third one.

“Come in.”

He stood a long moment in the doorway, and he looked so tired. He shook his head. “It's just this: the ward choir is going to sing at the funerals tomorrow morning. You too of course.”

She knew better than to argue. “What are we singing?”

“That's the right question,” he said with a faint smile. “ ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ the miner's song. Richard wants to sing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ as well. He's in the pit tomorrow morning, so I'm conducting.”

“A practice?”

“No time. I'll practice with you right now.”

They sang “Lead Kindly Light,” together, then he handed her the hymnbook for “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” When they finished, he nodded to her and said, “It's a good voice you have, miss.”

“What's wrong, Owen?” she asked quietly, but she thought she knew. “It's Angharad, isn't it?”

He nodded and went to the door again. “Things like this happen, and she clings.” His hand was on the door-knob. He faced the door as if he could see through it. “She knows too much about death.”

He left, closing the door quietly behind him. She stood there and listened, but he did not sing as he walked away, which meant her letter to Mr. Auerbach had a lengthy postscript.

Della was prepared for the walk to Scofield's cemetery, but the next morning as she joined others of the Winter Quarters community heading to the canyon mouth, she saw wagons there, two with coffins, and others for the mourners. She walked past the wagon where Pekka sat, so close to his father's coffin. She held out her hand and Pekka grasped it for a moment, his face stern, almost. As she glanced around, she saw that same look on other children, as though they controlled emotions they already knew too well.

“Pekka, you come back to your class when you feel like it,” she said gently. “And it had better be soon!”

He grinned; to her relief, she saw the little boy still there. He gave her hand an answering squeeze.

She sat in the wagon with the choir, pleased to see the Welsh women wearing their distinctive red skirts, aprons, shawls, and curious stovepipe hats. She sat next to Tamris Powell, who had bundled her infant in her voluminous shawl. Maryone's alert face peered out through the fringe.

“That's clever,” Della said. “You have her bound in there really tight.”

Tamris leaned toward her, her eyes lively. “Practical, more like. I can nurse her and no one's the wiser. You marry a Welshman, I guarantee someone will give you a shawl too, as a bride present.”

“Not a chance, Tamris. After this school year, I've decided to find a teaching job in Arizona, because I think we're going to have a cold winter here.”

“Oh, you think that?”

“What?” Della countered, amused. “The cold winter, Arizona, or the need for a shawl?”

Tamris just shrugged and moved closer to her to accommodate Annie Jones and Martha Evans. Owen helped Angharad into the wagon and took a hand up from one of the basses.

A wind-scoured place of rocks and weeds, the cemetery dominated a small ridge north and east of Scofield. Della stared at it and turned to Tamris, not sure how to phrase her question.

Tamris knew. “If the miner is from the United States, his body is shipped home by the company. If from Wales, he stays here. Or Finland, or France. This is the last stop before the resurrection, courtesy of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, unless that miner has relatives on the other side of the mountains.”

“My father is buried in Colorado.”

“Then you know,” Tamris said, her voice soft.

Remy Ducotel's burial came first. He had no mourners beyond the cluster of miners from Mr. Edwards's boardinghouse, chief among them the German, who stood with head bowed by the grave. Bishop Parmley read from the book of John, reminding everyone of many mansions in a place far away from the shacks of Winter Quarters, a place where winds blew warm and miners didn't die in cave-ins.

Taking a deep breath, Della walked to the grave and stood beside Mr. Muller. She fingered Remy's little wheat sheaf pin as the men took turns shoveling dirt on the coffin. She looked down, touched to see
Ducotel
carved beautifully on the lid, with French fleur-de-lis surrounding it. She glanced back at Owen Davis, who was looking at her, and put her hand to her heart. No wonder he looked so tired. He must have carved late into the night after his shift.

After the German shoveled some dirt, he handed the shovel to Della, a question in his eyes. She took the shovel. “He was my faithful escort,” she whispered and added her portion to the growing mound on the coffin. When she finished, she rejoined the choir, as they sang “Lead, Kindly Light.”

It was Matti Aho's turn next. This time Bishop Parmley read from the book of Job of man born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, with the comforting promise of seeing God someday. He stood at the head of the grave, a short man surrounded by the much-taller Finns. There was a sudden flurry of motion as Mrs. Aho fainted, but the other women supported her.

Della stood next to Owen, shoulder to shoulder as the choir crowded together to make room for all the Finns. In a moment, she felt his hand reach for hers, then twine his fingers through hers. She leaned toward him. “There are too many of these, aren't there?”

“One is too many.”

“Thank you for carving Remy's name on his coffin.”

“He was your escort.”

Matti's brother, Victor, read from his Finnish Bible next, when Bishop Parmley finished. His words were lost because the wind had picked up, driving in from the northwest. Her heart heavy, Della looked down on Scofield and across the broad meadow, buttoned up for winter. The rail-road's steel ribbon of track stretched straight across the valley. She watched as a train came out of Winter Quarters canyon to the south, laden with coal for Salt Lake City's homes and smelters, mined at great cost this week.
And no one knows except us
, she thought.
Would it make a difference if anyone knew?

Della wore the wheat sheaf brooch on Monday. The wind that had blown without reprieve since Saturday's funeral relented, although the air was chill. The sunshine cheered her. It was the kind of morning where children would leave their homes bundled up and forget their jackets by afternoon's closing school bell. She would have to remind them not to leave their coats behind.

To her delight, Pekka Aho was sitting in his usual place in her classroom. Della knelt by his desk. “We missed you.”

“Mama said I could stay home longer, but I told her that you needed your paper monitor.”

“I do,” Della replied, understanding as never before the resiliency of children. “Would you please hand back the papers on my desk?”

He nodded, ready for his assignment.
All anyone wants is something to do
, she thought.

At midmorning, while her older students took turns reading softly to each other on one side of the room and she sat with the six-year-olds, sounding out simple words, Miss Clayson came to her door and gestured. Della told her charges to copy the words and went into the hall, feeling that familiar lump in her stomach.

“Yes, ma'am?”

Miss Clayson looked at her for a long moment with an expression Della couldn't interpret. It seemed to contain equal parts of exasperation and bewilderment, with a dash of surprise in the background.

“I want you in my classroom as soon as school is out and the building is empty,” she said, turning on her heel as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Della stood there, suddenly limp, wondering if the principal had found a replacement for her early grades teacher. “Arizona, here I come,” she muttered under her breath as she went back into her classroom.

The day dragged, as though capricious time had decided to toy with her and draw out all the dread in the universe. When the building was empty after three o'clock, Della wiped off the blackboard and returned Owen's wonderful wooden letters to their compartments. She touched the letters and wondered if this was her last official duty as the early grades teacher. She straightened her skirt, tucked some stray curls into place, and squared her shoulders for the tumbrel ride to the guillotine.

“Come in,” Miss Clayson said, her voice perfectly neutral.

Della did, her eyes going immediately to the thick white envelope in Miss Clayson's hands. Her eyesight was good enough to see the stamp of the school district in the upper left corner.
I had so much to teach here
, she thought, saddened and trying not to show it.
And who will run the library?

Miss Clayson held out the envelope. “Read it.”

Della willed her hand not to shake as she took the envelope. With a deep breath, she lifted the flap on the envelope and pulled out the folded sheet of paper.

Sure enough, it was from the superintendent of schools. Della stared at the words, thinking of Billy Evans's difficulty in making sense of letters. Now she would never have the chance to see if she had taught him anything.

The letter was written to the attention of Miss Clayson. Della looked up, puzzled.

“Read it.”

She did, dread in every bone of her body. Her eyes opened wide as she scanned the typewritten page. She sucked in her breath and sat down in the first student desk. “My word,” she said finally, without looking up. Following the instructions on the superintendent's letter, she turned next to an envelope still inside the larger envelope and took it out, barely able to contain her excitement as she recognized the distinctive Auerbach's Department Store logo.

“Read it out loud, Miss Anders.”

Della opened the letter addressed to the superintendent from Samuel Auerbach himself, telling of his delight in receiving pictures from Miss Della Anders's early grades class at Winter Quarters School. “ ‘We were all amused last summer when Miss Anders carefully saved the extra pieces of cardboard from our shirts,’ ” she read. “ ‘Imagine my surprise to see them returned to us, with wonderful drawings of life in the canyon. Miss Anders also made us laugh last summer when she spent her entire first week's paycheck on crayons from our stationery department.’ ”