Searching for Silverheels (3 page)

I set the book down, an idea forming in my mind. A woman
in trouble, on the run, would not reveal her true name, would she? A woman fleeing a cruel home or a dark past?

My thoughts were interrupted by my mother calling me back downstairs. I found her in the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up and beads of sweat on her brow as she sliced loaves of bread for the dozens of sandwiches we would be serving the lunch crowd. Behind her, heat radiated off the stove, where a ham sat cooling, freshly out of the oven, and a pot of stew simmered.

“Sorry, Pearl, but someone just came into the café, and I need to get these sandwiches made. Can you see to whoever it is?”

I stepped through from the kitchen to the café and stopped short.

“It's about time!” Josie barked at once from a stool at the counter. “Where have you been, girl? Off mooning over some boy?” She grabbed a cup from the tray I'd brought in earlier and set it pointedly on the counter in front of her. I plastered a polite smile onto my face and picked up the coffeepot.

“Has that been sitting there since breakfast?” she said, narrowing her eyes at the pot. Of course it had, since I hadn't yet come down to brew a fresh pot for lunch.

“I'm not paying my hard-earned money for the stale slop you couldn't foist off on someone else.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. I turned away from her to go dump the pot and refill it, but stopped when she clanged her cup against the counter.

“Well, don't waste it, girl. I'll take what you've got there while I wait for the fresh pot to perk. But I expect it on the house.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I shouldn't. She was a customer and my elder, and talking back to her would only get me in trouble. I poured her a cup of coffee, making sure the sugar bowl was on hand, and I turned again to take the pot into the kitchen to make fresh.

“Aren't you going to take my order? How long do you mean to make me wait, girl?”

“My name is Pearl,” I said, my smile now gone.

Her eyes sparked with challenge. “It is, is it?”

“What would you like to eat, Mrs. Gilbert?” I asked.

“Apple pie. And make sure it's hot. And melt some cheese over it.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Maybe I could find a slice with worms in the apples.

“And don't forget the coffee. Fresh!”

Ignoring this last, I retreated to the kitchen.

Mother had slices of bread laid out across the big work table and was slicing the ham, so I refilled the coffeepot and set it on the stove. Then I took down the first of the apple pies from the baking rack near the open back door, and I cut into it. The sweet smell of apples and cinnamon floated to my nose as I lifted the first fat wedge out onto a plate. I smiled. Josie might complain about everything else, but she
wouldn't complain about this pie. No one complained about my mother's apple pie.

“Who is it?” Mother asked, not looking up from her work.

“Jo—Mrs. Gilbert,” I said, remembering my manners just in time.

“And she wants pie? Before lunch?”

“With a slice of cheese. And fresh coffee,” I said. I was glad she hadn't ordered a full lunch. The less she ordered the sooner she'd be gone, and I wanted her out of the café before the lunch rush. It was hard enough serving the crowd off the train without Josie underfoot, ranting about her cause. The train only stopped for an hour, so our customers demanded quick service.

My mother's brow wrinkled. “She probably doesn't have enough money for lunch.” Mother had been laying slabs of ham on top of the rows of bread slices. Now she pressed another slice of bread on top of one and put the finished sandwich on a plate. She held the plate out to me.

“Here, Pearl. Take her this and tell her it's on the house.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Hmm,” Mother said. “You're right. It will hurt her pride if she thinks it's charity.” She glanced at the pie and smiled. “I know. Tell her we're out of cheese, and we hope the free sandwich makes up for it.”

“But we're not out of cheese,” I said, pointing to the big gold wheel under a cloth on the shelf.

“Never mind, Pearl. I'll not have that poor old woman
going without a decent lunch just because she doesn't have money and is too proud to ask for help. Neighbors do for neighbors. You know that.”

I sighed, taking the pie in one hand and the sandwich in the other and returned to the front, where Josie was sitting at the counter, drumming her fingers impatiently and watching for my return. At once her eyes landed on the naked pie.

“Where's my cheese, girl? Did you listen to a thing I said?”

“Mother said to tell you we are out of cheese, so she wants you to have this sandwich on the house.”

“It all should be on the house if you can't even get my order right. What kind of café runs out of cheese?”

I bit the inside of my cheek again, even harder than before, and turned back to the kitchen to retrieve the coffeepot. It wasn't ready, so I offered to help my mother, hoping to stay in the kitchen. She sent me to the front to lay out napkins and silverware on the tables in preparation for lunch. I refused to even look in Josie's direction, but it didn't matter. She swallowed her mouthful of ham and bread and said, “So, this boy you were mooning over, do you figure he knows your name?”

“No, ma'am,” I said, then paused in my work. “I mean, I wasn't mooning over a boy.”

“No? Not even the handsome George Crawford?”

“No, ma'am,” I said again, though I could feel the prickle of a blush starting in the tips of my ears as the image of George holding me in his arms came back into my mind.

“Well then,” she said, sounding satisfied, “maybe you aren't as big a fool as I thought you were.”

I gritted my teeth, clanging the silverware down on the tables as I made my way around the room. I might have held my tongue until I could escape, if Josie hadn't given a gloating little chuckle. That was too much. She had complained about the food and service, and then complained again when my mother had found a gracious way to feed her. Now, on top of all that, she was heaping insults on me, for no reason at all. I still might have ignored it, if her insults had been directed at me alone, but I wasn't going to hear a word against George.

“George Crawford is a nice boy and a gentleman,” I said. I didn't add handsome, charming, and the best catch in Park County. At least not out loud.

She snorted. “George Crawford is a slick-talking charmer, like every other male that thinks too much of himself. If it had been him back in 1861 it wouldn't have mattered whether or not he knew Silverheels's name. He's the sort who'd only see fit to name a mountain after himself anyway. Where's that fresh coffee?”

I retrieved the coffeepot and poured her a fresh cup, all the while trying to screw up my courage. At last, I just blurted out what I wanted to say without looking at her. I knew I'd never keep up my nerve if our eyes met.

“I think the miners didn't know Silverheels's real name because she couldn't tell anyone. Because she had run away.”

There was a moment of silence before Josie spoke. “On the lam, huh? What did she do, rob the stage to Denver?”

“Of course not!” I snapped, offended both by the suggestion and the tone of mockery in her voice. I rushed on with my idea before she could say something else ridiculous. I had come up with an explanation that was such a perfect solution, I was sure it had to be right.

“She probably had a cruel father who sold her in marriage to a horrible old man she didn't love. She wanted to be a dancer—a ballet dancer—on the finest stages in Paris. But her father wouldn't hear of it, so he found a rich old miser for her to marry.” I was warming to my story now as it unfolded in all its tragic beauty in my mind.

“She told her father she would rather die than marry the brute, but her father locked her in her room, vowing to keep her there until the wedding day. Just when she was giving up hope, a kindly maid took pity on her, and when her father was asleep, the girl let Gerta out of her room.”

“Gerta?” Josie said.

I shrugged. I liked the name. “She snuck quietly out of the house and hurried to the train station, where she got a ticket to come west.” As if helping me tell my tale, the train whistle blew, and across the street the lunch train came into the station, its wheels screeching on the rails as it braked. I continued, speaking quickly. I didn't have much time to finish before the lunch crowd arrived.

“She bought a ticket as far from home as she could get,
but she could never use her real name again. She knew her father was looking for her and would stop at nothing to get her back!” I felt triumphant as I finished my tale. I liked how the story sounded, tragic and beautiful. I was proud of the details I had created—an old rich suitor and a kindly maid. It was a perfect beginning for the legend I had known all my life. I felt so good about the story that I ventured a glance up into Josie's wrinkled old face and saw a strange expression there.

Could it be that my story had touched her bitter old heart? Had I reminded her of the joy and beauty of life and the tragic fragility of a young girl's dreams?

Her lips contorted and for a moment I thought she was about to cry. Instead, she burst out laughing.

I
t's not funny!” I snapped. Then the bell on the door clattered and hungry travelers burst into the café. Within minutes every chair was taken, and I was in a scramble serving up sandwiches and stew and cups of coffee. Josie, in the meantime, sauntered around the café, handing out leaflets and extolling the virtues of her cause to anyone who would listen. It didn't make my job any easier. She was in the way, and she was putting folks in a bad mood that they took out on me. I ignored her as best I could and tried to soothe the customers with smiles and quick service, but inside I was seething.

At last the stationmaster, Mr. Orenbach, came into the café, clanging his handbell to announce the train would depart soon. There was a flurry of last-minute orders. Josie hurried out the door and across the street to the platform to catch any travelers who hadn't come into the café. The whistle blew its five-minute warning and the café emptied as quickly as it had filled, piles of dirty dishes and more than a few wadded-up
Votes for Women!
handbills left behind.

Across the street at the station, the train began to puff
more eagerly, preparing for the climb over the pass to Breckenridge. On the platform, only two battered trunks had been unloaded. That meant no tourists to take my tours. Luggage in that condition always belonged to miners or ranch hands, not tourists.

My mother came out of the kitchen, smiling, though her face gleamed with sweat. She helped me carry dishes to the kitchen and pile them on the counter, then wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve.

“Let's eat something before we wash these,” she said. She carried the leftover sandwiches to a table. She turned the sign on the door to read CLOSED, but she didn't lock it. Town folks often wandered by after the lunch rush to see if we had any sandwiches left over. If we did, mother would give them out free to old miners or ranchers who were down on their luck.

The door opened and Mr. Orenbach came in. “Anything left for a fellow's been worked off his feet the last two hours?”

My mother slid back a chair for him at our table, and I pushed the plate of sandwiches toward him. In exchange, he handed my mother a copy of the
Rocky Mountain News
, fresh off the train. He offered me a slightly battered dime novel that someone had left behind in the station.

“So, Pearl, what have you been saying to Sufferin' Josie?” he asked as he selected a sandwich. “She came by the station with her confounded handbills, and she was smiling. I'd never seen her lips curl up like that before—I thought she was having a spasm. I asked her what was the matter, and she said,
‘It's that Pearl over at the café,' and then she actually laughed. I didn't think that woman knew how to laugh.”

Both Mr. Orenbach and Mother were looking at me, expecting a response, but I wasn't going to tell them what I had told Josie. What if they laughed too?

I looked down at my plate and muttered, “I just told her a story.”

“It must have been a real humdinger of a yarn to get her laughing,” Mr. Orenbach said. “I'd sure like to hear it.”

“It wasn't supposed to be funny at all!” I jumped to my feet and rushed off to the kitchen, stinging with humiliation. My mother let me be, at least until Mr. Orenbach left. Then she came back to the kitchen where I was scrubbing furiously at plates and cups.

“What was that about, Pearl?” she asked.

“Josie wasn't laughing at the story. She was laughing at me,” I said.

“Why would a grown woman laugh at you?”

“Because she's mean to the core! I wish she wouldn't come in here!”

“Pearl,” my mother said reproachfully.

“Well she is! Why do I have to be polite to her when she's so rude to me?”

“Because she's part of this town, and you, Perline Rose Barnell, are expected to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I know Mrs. Gilbert is prickly and unpleasant at times. She's old, and I imagine she's had a
hard life. She may well have her reasons for being as she is.”

“She didn't have any reason to laugh at me.”

My mother considered me for a long moment. “Maybe she laughed because your story gave her joy.”

I scowled and kept washing plates. My mother took up a dish towel and began drying and stacking them.

“You give me joy, Perline. Every single day,” she said. We continued to work in silence until everything was clean. Then I was free for three full hours, until supper time.

I left the café by the back door so I could avoid seeing anyone. I wanted to be alone in the fresh air and sunshine. That always made me feel better. I had planned to circle around, past the edge of our small town, across the railroad tracks, and down the short hill to the river, but I never made it. As I rounded the last house and turned toward the train tracks, I saw the last person I wanted to see. I tried to retreat back around the corner before she caught sight of me, but I was too late.