Chapter Three

Four years later

June, 1872

Charity picked up the first of Sam’s heavy work boots, its dark brown leather deeply engrained with black coal-dust, and passed it to Joe. Joe handed the boot to Sam, and without looking at Charity, held out his empty hand towards her again. Giggling, she put the second of the boots into his hand, and he passed that one, too, to Sam.

When he’d pulled his boots on, Sam sat back in his chair, stretched out his legs, ran his hand over his chin, and stared thoughtfully at Joe.

Sam’s face, Joe suddenly noticed, was ageing beyond his years.

‘You know, Joe,’ Sam said. ‘Instead of doin’ whatever it is you do all day, you’re old enough now to be out workin’. After all, you’re eleven now. You could be earnin’ fifty or sixty cents a day, and Ma could use the money. With a second mine openin’, they’ll need lads to work in the breakers. All you’d have to do is pick out pieces of slate from the coal that goes by you on the chute, and at the end of your shift, they’d pay you.’

‘Oh, yeah – bein’ under the ground all day would be grand. What could be better than bein’ in the dark for ten hours, with coal dust all around, listenin’ to loud machinery and the sound of blastin’? And never seein’ the sun? I’m not gonna do it and you can’t make me.’ Joe’s mouth set in a stubborn line.

Sam shrugged. ‘You’d get used to it. Me, I wouldn’t wanna work out in the sun all day. At least down the mine, you’re workin’ in your own room, you and your partner, and you’re with a group of men you know. And you can bend an elbow with the boys at night. It’s a good life for a man.’

‘And how good would my life be if I cut my hands on the slate so bad that I couldn’t hold the reins of my horse?’

‘You haven’t got a horse.’

‘When I have one.’

‘You wouldn’t have to stay in the breakers for long. In a year or so, you’ll be old enough to be one of the boys who control the air in the mines. Every right-thinkin’ lad in Carter wants to be a door tender. Or a trap boy. You’d just have to open the doors for the mules. If you were already workin’ in the mines, you’d be top of the heap when those plum jobs came up.’

‘Right-thinkin’!’ Joe laughed scornfully. ‘You think it’s right-thinkin’ to wanna go even further down the stinkin’ mines than the breakers go? To be alone in a dark passage for maybe fourteen hours, with no one around for company ’cept rats? To stand in muddy water, hour after hour, waitin’ for the mules and their loaded cars, openin’ and shuttin’ the door for them, and then standin’ and waitin’ again? I’ve talked to some of the other miners, and I know what the work is, and you ain’t gettin’ me down there.’

‘Too good for the work, are you?’ Sam sneered. ‘So what you gonna do then? ’Cos you gotta do somethin’ at your age. I did, didn’t I? And no brother of mine’s gonna sit around a coffee pot all day and do nothin’.’

‘And I won’t – I’ll get work. I dunno what yet, but whatever it is, it’ll be on the ground, not under it. I want fresh air and green grass all around me, and I wanna hear birds sing, and not blastin’.’

‘You seen much grass around here, Joe?’ Sam asked, standing up, ‘’Cos I ain’t. There’s bits here and there, but the sun dries it all up, and even if it starts out green, it sure ain’t green when it finishes. As for fresh air, there’ll not be much of that when the second mine opens. We live on top of coal and we’ve gotta get it outa the ground if we want money for food and fuel for the trains to run on. And that means dirt, steam and smoke. And I reckon it’s time you accepted it.’

‘Mornin’, boys,’ Hiram said, coming from the corridor into the room.

Sam glanced at him. ‘Mornin’, Pa. I’ve just bin tellin’ Joe there’s work to be had in the mines.’

‘There is today, son, but there may not be for much longer,’ Hiram said flatly, going across to Martha, who was dividing cake between two metal lunch buckets.

Sam stared at his father, alarm on his face. ‘What’re you sayin’?’

Hiram picked up one of the bucket lids, and glanced at him. ‘Just that the Union Pacific seems to have got the taste for what it did last year when they cut the price of coal and the men went on strike.’

‘You mean firin’ the strikers and bringin’ in the Swedes and Irish?’

‘Yup. that’s it.’

‘But like you said, that was last year.’ Sam’s brow furrowed. ‘What’s it gotta do with now?’

‘Just that havin’ done it once, they can do it again. Now the railroad’s built, they no longer need the Chinamen for that. But it seems they’re good at blastin’, and the company’s started puttin’ them in mines hereabouts. Carter’s could easily be the next. They pay Chinamen less than the whites, and there’s talk of them takin’ jobs from the whites. If that happens, we’ll soon be the ones who look out of place, not Charity.’

Sam shook his head. ‘I can’t see that happenin’. No, sir; I can’t.’

Hiram started pressing the lid down on the bucket. ‘I sure hope you’re right, Sam.’

Martha tapped Hiram on the back of the hand. ‘Here, I’ll do that.’

‘I’ll do the cups, then,’ he said, and he picked up one of two metal teacups next to the buckets and started tying it to one of the handles. He looked across at Joe. ‘So you thinkin’ of askin’ at the mine office for work, Joe?’

‘You leave Joe be, Hiram,’ Martha interrupted. ‘He’s like me. He liked it on the ranch, and he’ll look for ranch work one day. Aren’t I right, Joe?’

‘You’re too soft on Joe, Ma,’ Sam said sharply. ‘I don’t hear you tellin’ him how hard it is to make ends meet, but you sure tell me often enough. Well, I’m doin’ my bit, and it’s time he helped out, too. There’s work goin’, and he’s old enough to get a job.’

‘Maybe I’ll be a cowboy,’ Joe mused. ‘I’d get to see a fair few places if I was a cowboy. Or maybe I’ll get me a homestead. Truth is, I don’t yet know what I wanna do most of all, but whatever it is, it won’t be minin’.’

‘Sam’s right about there bein’ work in the mines, Joe,’ Hiram said, glancing at him.

A bolt of alarm shot through Joe. ‘I—’

‘Charity’s four now,’ his father cut in, ‘and she’s an extra mouth to feed. But she ain’t yet big enough to help your ma and pay her way. You wanted us to take her in, so it’s only right you help us pay for her keep, so go and get yourself a job. By the time you’re old enough to do whatever it is you decide to do, Charity will be old enough to help your ma in the house and bring in some money.’

Joe glanced at Charity, who was staring up at them, her thumb in her mouth, her gaze moving from him to Hiram, and back to him again. ‘I can’t go down the mines – I’ve gotta help Ma,’ he said, a note of pleading creeping into his voice. ‘I promised I would.’

‘Now Charity’s grown I don’t need as much help in the house, Joe, so you can go for that job,’ Martha said, going across to Sam, a lunch bucket in each hand. ‘That’s your lunch, Sam, and here’s yours, Hiram.’ She handed them each a bucket.

‘Thanks, Ma,’ Sam said.

Turning away, Sam gave Joe a sly grin, and then he and Hiram reached up and took their wide brimmed hard-leather hats from the hooks on the back wall. They crossed to the front door and Hiram pulled it open and went out. A triumphant smile on his face, Sam followed his father. The door clicked shut behind them.

Martha turned to Joe. ‘I know you don’t want to, Joe, but you’re gonna have to take a job in the mines. Not the full ten hour shift, but for a few hours each day. With both your pa and Sam workin’ for the company, I reckon they’d give you a couple of hours after school, and a few more hours on the days when you’re not in school. The mine doesn’t have to be forever – I want you to get away from here almost as much as you do – but you promised to help out, and a promise is a promise.’

‘I’m tired,’ Charity said. She stopped walking and raised her arms to Joe. ‘Carry me, Joe.’

He smiled sympathetically, leaned down, put his hands under her armpits and lifted her up. ‘I guess it’s a long way for little legs,’ he said, hoisting her on to his hip, and he continued up the narrow track that led to the top of the rocky outcrop on the opposite side of the river from the town.

‘Phew, you’re gettin’ heavy,’ he said as they neared the top. ‘Ma must be feedin’ you too much.’

She giggled.

They reached the crest of the rock, and he let her slip down to the ground. Standing side by side, they stared down at the river while he gathered his breath. Then he gently turned her by the shoulders to face the plain that lay to the left of the town, stretching back to the far horizon.

‘Look at that,’ he said, taking her hand in his.

Together they stared across an endless flatland of violet-grey stone, broken in places by sandy white patches and grey-white pebbles. Here and there, clumps of short grass, seared yellow by the summer sun, broke through the hard ground, and with the intermittent clusters of yellow and green sagebrush, brought colour to the seemingly barren desert.

‘And now look this way,’ he said, after they’d stared at the plain for a few minutes, and he turned her slightly to the right to look towards the town. ‘You can see how much bigger Carter’s gotten now, with all those new shacks the company’s put up, and the shops. It sure is lookin’ ugly. And sounding noisy. The pumps never seem to stop. It was bad enough with one mine, but now there’s gonna be another.’ He shook his head. ‘Yup, it’s an ugly place to live.’

‘Sure is, Joe,’ Charity said solemnly. Sucking her thumb, she leaned against his leg and stared towards the town.

His eyes followed the straggle of weathering miners’ houses lying on the outskirts of the town, set well back from the river.

‘That big house belongs to the mine superintendent,’ he said, pointing to the house closest to the outbuildings of the mine. He moved his hand slightly to the left. ‘And that’s our house,’ he said, pointing to one of the small wooden houses in the middle of the row.

She nodded.

He raised his gaze above the roofs of the miners’ houses and the stovepipes that jutted from them, to the backs of the wood-framed shops that lined the street that ran the length of the town until it came to a stop at the point where the narrow-gauge spur of the main railroad crossed from one side of the town to the other. A small railway depot stood on the opposite side of the track from the end of the main street. Behind the depot sprawled the mine and the outlying buildings and chimneys, from which a dense cloud of black smoke and steam arose.

He shook his head. ‘Nope, it’s not pretty.’

She nodded again.

His eyes fixed on the tapering frame that housed the twin shafts, the steam-run compressor that pumped air through a hose to the bottom of the shaft and the steel cable that hoisted the cages up and down. Then his gaze moved to the blackened chutes along which coal fell into the flat cars that were lined up beneath, waiting to be pulled by the train to the main railroad when full.

‘Whatever they say, I’m never gonna work in there,’ he repeated.

‘No, Joe,’ she echoed. Wriggling her hand free of his, she bent down and straightened her cotton dress over her black lace-up boots.

‘Like I told them today,’ he went on, his eyes still on the town, ‘I’m not stayin’ in Carter. Soon as I’m old enough, I’m leavin’. But I’ll see you’re all right, Charity,’ he added, and he smiled down at her. ‘I found you and I feel kind of responsible for you, so you’re not to worry about anythin’.’

She stopped fiddling with the hem of her petticoat and gazed up at him, her almond-shaped eyes shining with happiness. ‘Sure, Joe,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Just so’s you know.’ He turned again to face the view.

She straightened up, slipped her hand back into his and stared towards the town, hopping from one foot to the other.

‘But I reckon some things are gonna have to change right now,’ he went on after a few minutes, his voice full of regret.

She stared up at him, her forehead wrinkling in dismay.

‘I’m gonna take that job in Mr Culpepper’s livery stable. For a while now he’s been askin’ me to do a few hours a week, but I’ve always said no ’cos of helpin’ Ma. But Ma says she can manage now. I’ll like the work and I’ll learn a heap of things I’ll need to know for when I’m a cowboy or a ranch hand. And I’ll be able to give Ma and Pa some money.’

He saw that her eyes were filling with tears, and he knelt down and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re not to worry, Charity. I’ll still take you for walks when I can.’

‘I wanna be a cowboy, too,’ she said, a sob in her voice.

Laughing, he hugged her. ‘I’m sure you’d make a grand cowboy – or rather, cowgirl. But drivin’ cattle all the way up from Texas to the Kansas City railhead is a man’s job. It’s a long way to go, and it’s hard work. I know ’cos I’ve listened to the drovers talkin’ when they’re passin’ through Carter.’

She was silent for a moment, then her face suddenly brightened. ‘I work in livery stable, too.’

He laughed again, and shook his head. Her face fell. ‘Mr Culpepper wouldn’t like it. You can get hurt by horses. Nope, you’ll have to stay at home with Ma. Besides, you’re a big girl now and you’ll soon be able to help her around the house. She’ll like that, and you will, too. You’ll learn the sort of things a woman needs to know.’

‘Don’t wanna. Wanna go with you,’ she said stubbornly. She stuck her lower lip out.

‘I’m sorry, but that just ain’t possible. Tell you what, though, as soon as I get my first wages, I’ll buy you somethin’ nice. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Pursing her lips, she stared down at her boots. Then she suddenly looked into his face, anxiety in her eyes. ‘Will you still learn me my letters before I go to school?’

‘Sure, I will. I can tell you’re real smart for a gal, Charity. I won’t be workin’ at Culpepper’s every evenin’, so I’ll start teachin’ you soon. Just like I said I would. Nothin’s gonna stop that. Okay?’

‘Okay, Joe.’

He stood up and turned to look across the plain. ‘It’s Carter for me for a few more years, but not forever. Definitely not forever. That’s the way out of Carter, Charity,’ he said, pointing towards the white pebble-strewn plain, ‘and one day I’m gonna be takin’ it.’