Unlike some, I have always found cemeteries to be restful places.

—Galen’s Anatomy

Chapter 23

“Therefore we commit her body to its resting place, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, with the fervent hope that we shall meet in the hereafter.”

There are many men suited to giving a funeral service; a banker with aches in his wisdom teeth is not one of them. In the past three days, Mr. Polk’s gums had swollen to the size of berries. Jenny could have cheerfully punctured them.

It had been a ghastly interval between the bar fight and the burial ground. Her father had been slow to forget his worry over their time away, and Pandora had gone into a frozen trance where Jenny was unable to reach her. Our heroine had spent most of the hours apologizing to Hapless for her thoughtlessness and cleaning out Mrs. Quinn’s flat.

Even worse, Jenny felt no better for her bruises. Sure, the brawl at the saloon had given her a chance to air her grievances, but it didn’t change her circumstances. Men were still narrow, life was still cruel, and death was a given. Nothing had been resolved by barbarity.

“Your turn, Miss Quinn,” prodded the banker.

Pandora stepped up to the grave with a clod of dirt clenched tight in her fist. Jenny raised her head to the hills. Eden’s cemetery was filled with memories like this. Raw wood crosses and black wool dresses and the thud of the world on an eternity box.

“Now what?” asked Pandora, brushing the earth from her hands.

“Now we will bury her,” mumbled Mr. Polk, shoving his handkerchief in his mouth.

The “we” in this instance was the Lum brothers. Kam had volunteered for the duty, and Lok had agreed without protest.

“Would you like to sit down, Pandora?” asked Gentle Annie. Her penciled eyebrows were sketched in two peaks of sorrow. “There’s a bench under the firs for the purpose.”

“Sure,” said Pandora. “These shoes pinch awful.”

Quiet as a clock that has stopped, the three sat down in the shade of the Sleeping Girl. The cold of the morning had left a spatter of frost on the curled iron armrest. Jenny brushed it off with her sleeve.

Death is seldom easy to put into words. You grieve for the body, and ache for the heart, and find yourself saying silly things like: “It’s a darn shame.”

Jenny wanted to tell Pandora that you don’t really lose someone, that life was bound to get better, but she worried her speech would sound hollow as tin. Pandora was alone, and Mrs. Quinn had been a phantom long before she died. It would be a lie to pretend otherwise.

“Dad says he’s sorry not to be here today,” Jenny said instead. “He had to load some goods to take toward the coast. He won’t be back for a while.”

“He’s earning extra money for your move,” said Pandora.

“Yes.”

When you have lost the hope of your life, the future is seldom a prospect worth contemplating. Jenny knew she was going to a place without mountains, and Pandora was headed for an orphanage. No one had the money to stop it. They were being stripped of everything that made them who they were.

Gentle Annie took her hat off and patted her crimson hair.

“Oh, Lottie, how I’ll miss you.”

Pandora looked up. “What will you miss?”

“Pardon?” asked Annie.

“People always say that when someone dies,” insisted Pandora. “But what part in particular will you miss about Mum?”

The slick of Annie’s lipstick fissured into a smile. “You know, I think I’m going to miss the way she knotted a line.”

“Come again?” asked Jenny.

“When she first arrived, Lottie was so particular about her professional skills. She wanted to stitch up animals without leaving a scar, so Doc Magee taught her a few tricks. See this?” Gentle Annie peeled off a glove and held out her palm. “Sewed together my knife gash like it was nothing. And she did it quick.”

Jenny examined the skin on Gentle Annie’s hand. The braids of her folds ran in rivers and streams, but there was no trace of a wound.

“She was pretty good.”

“That she was. But life got the better of her,” sighed Annie, tracing the line around her thumb, “as it gets the better of most of us.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” countered Pandora. “My mum wasn’t fighting against life. She fought for it every day. If she hadn’t gotten poor and sick, she’d be pulling foals out of mares right now.”

“I’m sorry, Pandora, you’re quite right,” said Annie, shaking the sentiment from her shoulders. “And as you say, she was particularly skilled at birthing.”

Gentle Annie’s glance toward the wooden cross on the hill was lightning-fast, but Jenny caught it.

“Did you and Mrs. Quinn know my mum?”

“For a brief time,” answered Annie. “Didn’t your dad tell you?”

Jenny shook her head. According to her understanding, her mum had lived in hiding with Hapless.

“Lottie helped with your delivery.” Annie smiled again. “Lord, Jenny, your mother was one tough lady. She came across the mountains with eight months of belly and a child pointed feet-first toward the world. You were roaming the hills long before you were born.”

This was news to Jenny. Hapless had always said she had been born on a ship. She tried to conjure up the scene of her mother’s arrival. New snow, hard ground, and a scant welcome at the door.

“We sent a message to your dad, but Hapless was up a river and couldn’t be reached. The trip from the coast must have been a trial, because she went into labor a couple of days after.”

“Did she say anything about her family?” demanded Jenny. “Or the place where she was born? Or her home?”

“No. I reckon she was in a lot of pain. If it’s any consolation, I know she was anxious to get your dad away from the Rush,” added Annie. “She said she had come to save him from himself.”

“Dad lied to me. He said she holed up with him in the mountains. He said she died in his arms after catching influenza.”

“He was probably trying to spare his own feelings,” said Annie. “He got back from the goldfields a week after she died and found you screaming and scrawling and punching the sides of your cradle. One look and Hapless gave up on gold right there and then.”

In tales about family, I’ve found that writers like to tie the final chapter in a tight little bow. But Jenny was discovering what the oldest of us know—most of life is spent getting used to loose ends.

She glanced at Mrs. Quinn’s grave. Lok was yawning and stretching and shaking the dirt from his shovel. He would have been a screeching bundle of joy at around the same time. Two hopeless fathers in charge of two helpless babies. It’s a wonder anyone survived.

“I recollect the day you first started to run,” said Annie, chuckling at the memory. “You were barreling down the banks of the Arrow and Pandora was playing in the sand. And you picked her right up and carried her off. After that, Lottie would have needed oxen to pull you apart. You were lost in your own world, speaking in secret languages.”

“Cathedral,” prompted Jenny.

“Poison oak,” said Pandora.

Sudden as sundown, Gentle Annie began to cry.

“I’m sorry, I must seem a contradiction,” snuffled Annie, dabbing at her good eye and wiping dark streaks down her cheeks, “but it’s the way the pair of you talk to each other. Long ago, I used to chat with Lottie like that.”

“If you were such a good friend, why didn’t you come and visit her when she was dying? Or give her a loan to buy vegetables?” demanded Pandora. “You could have made her cheerful.”

“I tried to,” said Annie through her tears, “truly I did. But she told me to save my tainted money and keep away. After she got sick, Lottie wanted nothing to do with the Rush.”

It took a few minutes for Annie to finish crying. When she was through, the two young women began to escort her toward the gap in the cemetery wall. Behind them rose the ridge of the Sleeping Girl. Pandora tugged at her plait.

“I don’t understand how I’m supposed to feel now.”

“How so?” asked Annie.

“Mr. Polk said folks should be sad and sob and tear their clothes off at funerals. Like you did.” Pandora tugged harder. “I don’t want to tear my clothes off. And I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel anything.”

“It’s like your foot being numb,” explained Jenny.

“Yes,” said Pandora eagerly. “Is that wrong? Is it because I’m odd?”

“No.” Jenny smiled. “Everyone feels like that when someone you love dies. I think it’s to stop you from hurting so bad.”

Watching the Lum brothers tamp the final mound of dirt on the grave, Jenny remembered what Pandora had said to her in the Gorge about being afraid. Maybe the hurt of loving was why she kept running away. Maybe she wasn’t afraid of caring for Kam in particular. She was just plain scared of caring.

“We’re finished,” said Kam, walking along with his shovel cocked at a respectful angle. “And I like the carving and epitaph you put on the headstone, Miss Annie. I’m sure the words will be a comfort.”

“Little acts of kindness are the best sort of physic,” added Lok.

“You’ve been reading too much philosophy, Lok,” teased Annie. “Be sure to work the rest of your muscles.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lok’s tug on his hat reminded Jenny that her father had probably forgotten to protect his scalp on his trip to the coast. For some no-account reason, in the plumb of her soul, she felt an unusual urge to run after his wagon and shower him in shade.

From the first pull of her breath, Hapless had been a mess of a parent. A trudge and a trial and a tribulation. But he had always loved his daughter for who she was—for the thorns and the bloom. It’s not often you find a man like that in the mountains. And it’s not often that other men are wise enough to recognize his worth.

Taken together, Jenny was experiencing a fine piece of growth that day. Which was all the more reason for her to resent the appearance of an interloper. On a fast-moving horse.

“Jenny Burns! I want the whole of the story!” King Louis slipped off his mount. His spurs were shining and his boots rich as blood.

Jenny nipped behind the stone wall. Louis didn’t appear to be carrying a firearm, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

“Look, Louis, you deserved what you got.”

“I could have you up for assault.” Louis rubbed his broken chin. “And I’m using those silver dollars you won to pay for my mirror. But that’s not why I’m after talking to you.”

Spying the dust cloud, Mr. Polk pocketed his laudanum and came over to see what was happening.

“Something wrong?” crunched the banker of Eden’s molars.

“Have any of you seen Mr. Grimsby today?” asked Louis.

“We’ve been a bit preoccupied this morning, Louis,” said Annie, tilting her head toward the gravestones.

“Oh,” said King Louis, yanking his top hat off his brilliantined head. “Yes. Very sorry for your loss, Miss Quinn.” The sight of Gentle Annie in black linen seemed to be having a sobering effect on his temper.

“You’ve got more curls than a merino,” noted Pandora.

Louis chose to keep his cool and ignore this comparison. “No one has seen Mr. Grimsby today?” he demanded.

“Why?” asked Kam.

“I’ve just come from my back room. Someone has been at my safe.”

Jenny’s fingertips began to tingle with pins and needles. “You said there wasn’t anything in the safe!”

King Louis had the decency to look sheepish. “Well, with respect to a nugget, that was absolutely true.”

“In other respects?” asked Kam.

“There might have been a piece of paper,” conceded Louis.

Spit, luck, and polish! thought Jenny. Was there anyone left to tell the truth in this territory?

“Did someone steal the paper?” asked Lok.

“No,” said Louis. “But I stepped out for a few minutes this morning, and when I returned, the door to the room was ajar. I’ve seen many a sight in my career, but this is the first time I’ve seen a page that can pick itself up and walk five inches.”

“And since you knew the four kids would be busy with me and the funeral . . . ,” said Annie.

“I reckoned there was one person left in their posse who had an interest in my back room,” completed Louis.

“Oh, for the love of money!” yelled Jenny. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I’m a gambler, Miss Burns. I hold my cards until they’re needed. Besides, I thought it was another of Mike’s jokes.” King Louis frowned. “Only thing being I can’t determine how in the good green earth Mr. Grimsby was able to crack the padlock. Magee and myself were the sole men who knew the combination.”

Lok raised his head.

“Forty-two, fifteen, twenty-five, eleven.”

King Louis lost his color. “Say that again.”

“Forty-two, fifteen, twenty-five, eleven,” repeated Lok.

“Oh, lordy, lordy,” exclaimed Jenny. “We’ve all got rocks for brains.”

Pandora’s tongue had been stuck out farther than a ledge for the past five minutes. “You keep talking about the wrong things!” she yelled.

The crowd around her fell silent and stared.

“The schoolmaster has been to the hut and he’s seen the clues and he’s chasing the nugget,” rattled off Pandora, “so now we need to know what he knows! What did the paper say?”

“Can you remember, Louis?” asked Annie.

“It was pretty simple. A children’s rhyme.” Louis grasped his forehead and hummed to himself. “Went like this:

“Priceless riches

Housed in stone.

Vault unopened,

Key unknown.

“What with Mr. Grimsby’s actions,” Louis continued, “I’m beginning to think that your dream of a nugget might actually be real.”

“Oh, no,” said Kam.

“What is it?” asked Jenny.

“The card game,” prompted Kam. “The fight in the bar.”

“It was the first time we didn’t have a watch on the schoolmaster,” finished Jenny. She turned to Pandora. “How much do you want to bet your skeleton map is now sitting in his pocket?”

“This is absolutely the worst day of my life!” shouted Pandora, ripping open the collar of her dress and sending her buttons flying.

“See?” said Mr. Polk. “What did I tell you about mourning women? No control.”

“Oh, stuff a doily in it, Mr. Polk,” said Gentle Annie, watching Pandora beginning to keen. “She’s suffering.”

Of all the mourners present, it was Jenny who found revelation that day. She suddenly saw, with the sharpness of a blade, what a fortune really meant to her. It meant a home for Pandora, and a garden for Kam, and a country for every living creature—butterflies and all. It wasn’t enough to be part of the mountains, Jenny realized; she needed to protect them, too.

Our high-country girl was finally cured of her fever. And she wasn’t about to let the schoolmaster win.

“Pandora! Pandora!” Jenny grabbed her friend and held her close. “It doesn’t matter. Listen to me! It doesn’t matter.” The harder Pandora flailed, the closer Jenny hugged her. “We’re even with Mr. Grimsby. We’ve both seen the skeleton map and we both know the riddle. We can beat him to it. The solution is right there in front of us. But I can’t do it without your smarts.” Jenny whispered into Pandora’s ear. “You’ve got to make sense of things.”

Jenny took a deep breath, willing Pandora to breathe with her. She took another and another and another. Finally, her best friend’s heartbeat quieted.

“Give her some pacing room,” commanded Jenny.

The crowd retreated, and Pandora began her ritual: two steps forward, two steps back. Jenny watched with a tender kind of pride. She was certain that Pandora would solve the puzzle. Her friend was the least ordinary person in the world.

In the middle of her third march, Pandora stopped. “I know where the nugget is.”

Jenny let out a wild yodel of celebration.

“But we’ve got to get to Magee’s office,” she continued.

“Can’t. Emptied,” interrupted Mr. Polk. “Contents being shipped to a hospital overseas.”

“What?” yelled Jenny.

“Order to the bank came through yesterday. Your father’s delivering the goods now,” said Mr. Polk.

“Jiminy crickets!” Jenny turned to her friend and lowered her voice. “Pandora, don’t worry. My dad only left for the coast road this morning, I’m sure we can catch him. But what are we looking for? Where’s the gold?”

And for the fifth time in her life, Pandora smiled.

“In the skull.”