Carla Kelly (61 page)

The door to her room was open, the smell of death everywhere. Aghast, she stared at the rows of cloth-covered men in the lower grades classroom. The bare feet of the taller ones were uncovered, looking oddly vulnerable. She walked down the rows. Some of the corpses’ faces were uncovered. These were the men caught in the deadly gases that spilled from Number Four into Number One, killing quietly. They looked as though they slept.

She looked on the faces of her boardinghouse miners, thinking how they teased her, escorted her to and from the library, and shoveled snow from Mabli's door all winter. She stopped in front of Nicola Anselmo. A woman in Italy was waiting for him to send her the fare to America. “Nicola, strong man,” she whispered. “I wish you had been stronger.”

When she came to the end of the row, she noticed the box of paper flowers, still waiting for someone to take them to the Odd Fellows Hall for tonight's party. She took an armful of flowers from the box and walked down the rows again, placing a flower on each miner's shrouded chest. She left two for Nicola and two for her German.

As she gazed down at Herr Muller, she noticed soot dripping from his nose. She knelt and wiped his nostrils with the edge of her apron, dabbing lightly. “There now, there now,” she whispered. “Thank you for being my escort.”

She couldn't go any farther than the door into Israel Bowman's classroom. These must have been some of the men of Number Four. They were covered in brattice cloth, the odor of charred flesh still strong. Some of the cloth had slipped and she saw black forms underneath that used to be miners. Maybe Owen lay there. How could she tell? She turned away, tapping into her never-ending day's prayer to add, “Please God, I hope they did not suffer long.”

But they deserved flowers. Resolute, she went back into her classroom and grabbed another handful of paper flowers for Israel's room. She walked the rows of carbonized men and left a flower on each man's chest. She did the same in Miss Clayson's classroom. When she finished, Miss Clayson stood in the doorway.

“I'm not that brave,” the principal told her.

“Yes, you are. You're still here, aren't you?”

Miss Clayson gave her a faint smile. “I am, indeed. What will you do now?”

“I will take Angharad home.”

She walked to the Parmleys’ house, where all the downstairs lights were on, even though it was after midnight. On the sofa, Angharad leaned against her friend Mary, her eyes closed. Sister Parmley kissed Della's cheek. “She wouldn't let me take her upstairs to bed.” She leaned closer. “My sister-in-law is here too and her children. William hasn't been found yet.” Tears welled in her eyes, which looked as swollen as Della's.

Della looked away, giving her grief privacy. She knelt beside Angharad. “Wake up, my dear. Let's go home.”

Owen Davis's house was dark. Della knew it would be, but it was still a jolt to know that he wasn't there and never would be again.
It's going to be the small things that hurt, too
, she told herself.
Dark houses, empty chairs, empty beds, empty lives
,
until we can rebuild elsewhere
. She thought of poor Clarence Nix, given the worst job in Winter Quarters, worried because he had robbed the US Postal Service of four cents. So irrational. So had she been irrational, trying to attack Eeva Koski because Kari was still alive.

While Angharad prepared for bed, Della lit the lamp in the kitchen and started a fire in the stove. She wanted warm water to wash the mine from her, even though she already knew she could scrub forever and never be free of it. There was enough warmth remaining from the morning, when Owen lit the fire, so she wiped Angharad's face with a washcloth.

“Will you stay with me until I go to sleep?” Angharad said.

“Certainly. Let's kneel and say our prayers.”

They knelt; neither could speak. Della decided the Lord could rely on His particular powers to hear the prayers they could not say tonight. “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen,” she said finally and helped Angharad into bed.

“I don't think I can sing,” Angharad said, her voice small.

“Let's hum, because I can't sing either.” Della made her comfortable against her breast. “Words can wait.”

She hummed, faltering when Angharad started to weep. “ ‘Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,’ ” Della managed to say. She was silent as Angharad cried, thinking her way through the rest of song. She paused longest on “my loving vigil keeping,” because she knew it would give her life the purpose it craved, from this horrible day forward, now that Owen was gone. She had no intention of becoming Lavinia Clayson, sleeping tonight in a morgue.

Worn out with grief and tears, Angharad finally slept. Della got up, wishing she had a nightgown but not willing to return to Mabli's. She went into the kitchen and took off her apron and dress, paring down to her camisole and petticoat, relishing the feel of warm water on her skin as she washed. She sat a long time in the kitchen, too weary to move, her mind racing like a mouse on a wheel, unable to hop off.

She dreaded what she had to do next, but there was nowhere else to sleep. She went into Owen's room, vulnerable to the flood of feeling that washed over her.
Just do it,
Della
, she told herself and climbed into Owen's bed. She wept again, knowing she would never share it with the man she loved. After a while, his scent would be gone too. She wondered if anyone had ever taken a picture of him. It seemed unlikely. In the greater scheme of things, coal miners were not photogenic.

She opened her eyes hours later, or maybe fifteen minutes later. She couldn't tell because the room was dark and there was no clock.
Della, go to sleep
, she told herself and rolled over, Owen's pillow close to her side. She yawned and put both hands under her cheek.

There it was again. Someone was definitely in the kitchen. She sat up, heart pounding, fearing for her reason as she distinctly heard someone shoveling coal into the kitchen range. Someone was building up the fire she had banked.

Della got out of bed quietly, groping for her shirtwaist, but not bothering with her skirt. She wore a petticoat and was probably hearing things anyway. She tiptoed from Owen's bedroom into the front room and stood there until her eyes adjusted to the gloom. When she was more sure of herself, she sidled along the wall and peered into the kitchen.

Backlit against the moon, a man bent over the firebox. She watched, curious, as he blew on the coals and waited for them to catch. As she watched, it began to slowly dawn on her tired brain that it was Owen Davis, risen from the dead or sent from the spirit world for one last visit.

She tried to speak, but her lips weren't working. She must have made a sound, because the man at the stove turned around.

“Butterbean?” he asked, as startled as she was. “I thought you two were with Mabli. I couldn't go there dirty.”

Della's eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted for the first time in her life.

Angharad's washrag on her face brought her around a few minutes later. She blinked. Owen was holding her. She reached up and felt his face. He was filthy, but he was real.

“What a fright you gave me,” he said.

“
You?
” she gasped. She touched touch his face again, stunned. “You're dead.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Everyone else is.” He sat her up, then helped her into a chair, getting to his feet to light the kerosene lamp. When it flared, she saw his face and put out her hand to touch him again.

“I found your blue-and-white shirt on the pile outside the boardinghouse,” she told him, some part of her tired brain still not convinced.

“Aye, you did. After mucking around on my hands and knees after we got into Number Four, I had to throw it on the pile.” He shuddered. “Everything I touched …” He tightened his grip on her fingers. “I was in that first group of rescuers to go into Number Four. We spent an hour pulling out timbers and moving machinery. You must not have gone to the Four portal. You might have seen me before we went in.”

She shook her head. “Just the Number One. I was with the children, and then I helped some women and went to Finn Town. Angharad stayed with the Parmleys until I returned for her. Owen!
How
are you alive?”

He was still no more than a vague outline, but she didn't need to see his face to know embarrassment when she heard it. “Della, you're looking at a stupid man. I'm so stupid I don't know why the Ellis Island inspectors didn't send me back to Wales.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake!” she declared, exasperated. She moved over and he crowded onto the same chair.

“Since I proposed and we argued, I've been fasting and praying for the Lord to make you see things my way. I'm a miner. I'm a good one. Why should I leave the mines?” He let out a breath of air. “I owe my life to Richard.” He stopped, unable to continue.

Della put her hand on his neck, caressing him. “I'm so in the dark.”

“I spent so long on my knees Sunday and Monday nights, pleading with the Lord for you to come around to
my
way of thinking. I was complaining about that to Richard this morning—yesterday morning—as we rode the mantrip to the Number Four.” He sobbed out loud, and she understood from the depths of her heart what this explanation cost him. “I can tell this only once.”

“Once is enough. If anyone else needs to tell it, I will,” she assured him.

“He shook his finger at me and told me, ‘All you're doing is wishing Della would change her mind. Is that any way to supplicate the Lord? Owen, I'm ashamed of you.’ I need a handkerchief.”

She held up her petticoat. “Go ahead. We've all used it today.”

He blew his nose on her petticoat. She shuddered to see it all black.

“Della, we were on the mantrip! I closed my eyes and finally prayed for the Lord's will instead of mine. I didn't even say Dear Heavenly Father, or anything polite. I didn't even ask Him the time of day! I just said, ‘Thy will, Lord.’ ”

Della kissed his cheek, dirty as it was, and smelling of death as he did.

“I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, ‘Quit now.’ He doesn't waste words, Della. When we got to the portal, I told Richard I'd see him at the dance and rode the mantrip back down.”

They both cried then, hanging tight to each other. “There's a washrag somewhere,” he muttered. “I can't keep blowing my nose on your petticoat. It isn't mannerly. My mam would be so disappointed in me.”

She thought of all the things she had heard yesterday that made no logical sense, considering the chaos and destruction all around them. “You found Bishop Parmley?”

“He was in his office. I told him I was quitting as of right then. He tried to talk me out of it and reminded me of the navy contract. I told him what the Spirit had told me.” He chuckled. “It bothered the superintendent in him, I know, but the bishop in him couldn't disagree. He shook my hand and said I'd have five days to vacate my house. He wished me well, and I came back here.” He squeezed her hand until she wanted to cry out. “Della, I was twenty feet from walking into Number Four!” He loosened his grip and pulled her closer. “You and I … we are the luckiest two people in the world.”

“Angharad too.”

“Aye. I was going to tell you at the dance.”

Della ran her hand across his face again, exploring the contours she never thought to see again, much less touch. She told him about Edwin Aldridge and the Rialto Mine. “Miss Clayson didn't want me to make her mistake.
I
prayed, but the Lord told me to marry you anyway. I was going to tell you at the dance.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, then Della asked, “I have to know. Who is left of the tenors and basses?”

“You're looking at him.”

She cried out. He swallowed audibly a few times, then leaped up and ran for the kitchen door, flinging it open. He went to his knees in the backyard, vomiting. She ran after him, standing by him to steady his head.

She looked down when he finished, horrified. “It's black!”

“I'll be vomiting up mine for days, I fear,” he said, sitting back and leaning against her, exhausted. “We all will. It's terrible there. Butterbean, the explosion was so hot it coked the coal on the mine face! Men were thrown against the ribs and even the roof. I can't …”

“Then don't,” she said, putting her hand over his eyes. She hesitated but had to know. “What … what caused it?”

“The only ones who can tell us are dead,” he said, taking her hand off his eyes and kissing her fingers. “We keep black powder and giant powder in the mines. I don't know. Maybe someone was setting a charge and a headlamp flared or dripped. Maybe there was too much coal dust. I doubt we will ever know.”

He shook his head. “So many lovely men gone—my friends. Farishes, Hunters, Pughs, Gatherums, all those Luomas, Victor Aho, Padfields, Pittmans, Koskis, Evanses. Oh, Della … Two hundred men may have died in Utah's safest mine. The only man who knows for sure what happened is our foreman William Parmley, and he's still in there somewhere.” He didn't try to mask his bitterness.

“Stop now,” she murmured, pulling him close to her breast as she leaned against the house. “Stop. Stop.”