Chapter 45

L

Owen had purchased tickets on the D&RGW for Colorado when they stopped in Salt Lake on the way home. After Della’s letter that he read over and over in his hotel room in Lethbridge, he made sure they were Pullman tickets. No pregnant wife of his needed the discomfort of sitting in a parlor car for such a distance. He remembered how tired Gwyna had been in those first few months. Better to let Della stretch out, for all that she protested how good she felt, barring an early-morning heave.

When she heard the news about the baby, the job, and the trip, Mabli had clapped her hands, hugged them, and said she would be happy to let Angharad stay with her while they traipsed off to Colorado. She packed a prodigious box lunch and handed it over when they dropped off Angharad the next evening and caught the night train to Grand Junction and points east.

A man of obvious efficiency, the porter had already made up the bed in the sleeping car. “My goodness, we have our own compartment,” Della said after he left. “I was just hoping for partitioned curtains.”

“You’re worth a compartment,” he said.

“And you’re an overly protective man I adore,” she said. “I am quite fine.”

She could protest all she wanted. By the time he had helped her into her nightgown, bracing her against the motion of the moving car, she was drooping noticeably and yawning. “I’ll just rest my eyes,” she told him as she lay down close to the window and patted the space beside her. Before he could unbutton his shirt, she was asleep.

Della barely made a sound when they pulled into Grand Junction, patting Owen’s shoulder before she returned to sleep. In the light from the depot, he watched her, touched by how her hands already cupped her belly even though she wasn’t showing yet. Gwyna had done the same thing. How kind of the Lord Almighty to bless him with two wives who loved their little ones, no matter how small. Maybe all mothers did that. How would he know?

By the time they changed trains and headed south on a track reminiscent of Utah’s winding canyon routes, she was wide awake and nervous. To distract her from the great drop-off to the river far below, he told her all over again about his new job, and the wide-open prairie that was the District of Alberta.

“There are mountains in the distance, and at this moment, that’s probably close enough for you, eh? I’ve never seen anything quite like the Alberta District,” he said. “One of the local leaders told us that a dog could run away in Alberta, and you’d be able to see him for three days.”

She laughed. “Owen, with no mountains close, are there any mines?”

“Cross my heart I didn’t ask,” he said. She could find out for herself later that there was a town by Lethbridge called Coaldale.

“Fences, more ditches, and houses come first. Then comes the sugar factory, which is already contracted for its first load of beets in 1903,” he said. He tucked her close, because he knew from experience in Scofield how trains in canyons terrified her. “If you came right now or even in May when school is out, you’d be living in a tent, and I won’t have it.”

Tears welled in her eyes, which made him doubt his own resolve. The last thing he wanted was to leave her in Provo while he worked in Canada, but a coming baby had changed things. “I’ll build you the first house,” he promised. “Uncle Jesse and Ray will be advertising across Canada’s southern district and Utah for settlers. There’s space and room to grow.” He peered closer. “Are you unhappy with me?”

“Not precisely,” she said, which made him smile.

“Do you at least like me?” They had traveled this road before.

“Quite a lot. Could we perhaps consider a tent for the summer? I’m healthy and I’m strong, and Angharad is already such a help.” Her words came out in a rush then. “My heart will break if I am not with you.”

He sighed and kissed her hair. “We’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask,” she told him quietly before she drifted to sleep. He could tell her later that she was probably going to win this argument. His lonely time in Knightville was not something he wanted to repeat, not ever.

By mid-morning they reached La Perla, where the next step was to find a way to Hastings, which proved to be simple enough. Someone was always going to Hastings, only ten miles away. It was a simple matter of finding the freight yard and asking around.

“Does any of this look familiar to you yet?” he asked her.

Della nodded, her face solemn.

The freighter providing the ride looked at her with interest. “You lived here, Mrs. Davis?”

“My father mined in the Molly Bee.”

“It’s been closed for years,” he told her, and then he looked over his shoulder to Owen. “Give your lady a hand up and we’ll be going.”

“What do people do around here now?” she asked after the driver clucked to his team and they started up the graded incline.

“Ranching, mostly.” He pointed to the southeast with his whip. “The Wilson ranch that way. Bob Wilson’s been here the longest and he has quite a spread. I think he runs three thousand cattle.”

Hastings was much what he expected: a modest town with some abandoned buildings, two churches, more saloons than churches, and a schoolhouse smaller than the one where Della taught in Winter Quarters Canyon.

She pointed due south toward a steeper road looking overgrown and neglected now. “That’s the way to the Molly Bee.” Della shivered, but Owen didn’t think she was cold, since the sun shone.

“May I ask—my wife tells me I’m nosy—what are you folks planning to do here?”

“My father died in a rock fall when I was a child. I haven’t been back since, and I wanted to visit his grave before we move to Canada,” Della said, adding, “… this summer,” with a pointed look at Owen. “Is there still only the one burying ground between the two churches?”

“The very same,” he said. “I can take you there now, or maybe you might want to have some lunch.”

“Lunch,” Owen said at the same time Della said, “Burying ground.”

They laughed. “I suppose we should eat,” Della conceded.

The teamster laughed at them. “No harm meant, Mrs. Davis, but your father will keep.” He pointed with his whip toward a two-story building needing paint like all the others. “How about I drop you there with your luggage? It’s not much, but I hear the sheets are clean with no bedbugs, and there’s a nice café.”

Owen doubted they would remain in Hastings much beyond a visit to Frederick Anders’s grave, but he agreed. Wife and luggage on the boarded walk now, he waved to the teamster who left them there. The man promised someone was always leaving Hastings in the morning and they would have no difficulty leaving too.

The hotel was much as described. Della looked around the room he rented and nodded her guarded approval. With a pang, Owen realized that even this shabby room looked far more promising than a tent in Raymond.

Della opened her suitcase and retrieved the Anders name he had carved for her last year. She held it up for a good look and then cradled it in her arms. Her eyes were bright when she smiled at him. “Let’s go. My father has waited years for this.”

No, you have, he thought.

“I have to tell you, Owen: the first time I saw the Scofield cemetery, it gave me quite a jolt,” she said as she led him toward the open ground between the churches. “Papa has a wooden marker just like those. Can we think about a regular headstone?”

“Your wish is my command, fair lady. Let’s make arrangements on the way back to the train. I can carry that for you.”

“I know you can,” she said, hugging the Anders carving closer. “It’s my job, though.”

There weren’t many graves in the Hastings Cemetery. Della scanned the burying ground and pointed toward the row of wooden markers. “Over there.” Her voice seemed to shrink. He waited, hoping she wouldn’t begin to use that eerie child’s voice, and she didn’t. A full-grown, confident woman walked beside him. He couldn’t have been more grateful. He would have to write to Saul Weisman and tell him Sigi was right.

She was in no hurry, stopping every few feet and looking around. She must have thought her slow pace deserved an explanation. “I doubt I will ever be here again. I want to remember this moment.”

He nodded, thinking that in a few days on their return trip he would probably do the same thing when they stopped in Scofield. Through the years, he had managed to save enough for a granite memorial for Gwyna. He planned to spend more than a moment by her again, explaining why he was moving so far away to the plains of Alberta District. He knew Gwyna would understand, but he needed to tell her.

They reached the row at the back with ten wooden markers and one granite headstone with flowers in front of it.

“That’s odd,” Della said. “I thought Papa’s was the one on the end, but I suppose there were more miners’ deaths.” She leaned against him. “Clumsy of me to say that, especially when I think of May 1. Certainly there were more deaths.”

“There will always be miners’ deaths,” he said, and he braced himself against the wave after wave of agony that broke over him that awful day when the Number Four blew, and which had troubled him for months. He waited; it didn’t happen.

Instead, he felt an odd sort of peace settle on him, followed by a shower of wonderful memories of friends gone, but friends still. He had come full circle in his own personal grief. This thing in May that was far bigger than he was had become at least an ally, if not a friend. He could live with that.

“Owen. Owen.”

He must have closed his eyes for his tender epiphany. When he opened them, Della stood before a granite marker, staring down. To his astonishment, she dropped the carving she carried and fell to her knees.

He was at her side in moment, looking where she pointed.

“Frederick Soiseth Anders,” he said out loud. “Eighteen Fifty-one to Eighteen Eighty-six. Della, who did this?”

She shook her head and held out her arm so he could help her stand. She leaned closer to touch the flowers, then pulled back her hand as though it burned.

“They’re fresh! Someone must have left these today, on his birthday. Who would do this?”

As surprised as she was, Owen shook his head. “Do you have any relatives here?”

“Not one.”

He saw the bewilderment on her face. She picked up his carving and leaned it against the headstone, staring down.

“You don’t … you don’t think your uncle did this, do you?” he asked her. “Surely he would have said something.”

“Aunt Caroline would never have allowed such a kindness. These are fresh flowers. We must have just missed whoever it was that left them.”

They stared at each other, and he held out his hand. “Do you know anyone in town?”

“Not a soul.” She took his hand and they started by silent agreement for the front of the cemetery, walking fast.