Searching for Silverheels (19 page)

After tending Buck, Sefa visited the other sick miners. Wilbur beckoned her to his bedside.

“I ran away,” he croaked in a dried-out voice. “And now I'm gonna die!”

He clutched at her hand, the fear of death turning his grip to iron.

“You gotta write my momma and sister. Send them my gold. I been saving it for them. It's in my trunk. Promise you'll send it. Tell them what happened to me.”

“Send it where?” Sefa said.

His hand loosened on her arm, the strength running out of him like water. “There's a Bible in the trunk. Their names and address are there. Promise me, Sefa.”

“I promise,” she said, stepping away now that he had released her.

He smiled a little and closed his eyes.

Sefa returned to her cabin as darkness settled in over Buckskin Joe, bringing the coldest night in the town's history. A blizzard screamed and raged around the cabins, cutting the town off from the rest of the world.

Morning came and the storm slackened. Sefa brewed more tea and set out to visit the invalids. Buck was sprawled across his bed in his long johns and a filthy undershirt soaked with sweat. A tangle of blankets lay in a heap on the floor beside him.

Sefa gathered the blankets and covered him. “Buck. Buck, wake up. You should eat something to keep up your strength.”

“No use,” he muttered. “I'm dying. Sefa, bring Silverheels. I must have her here.”

The tears froze on Sefa's cheeks as she made her way through the drifted snow to Silverheels's cabin, but she did as she was told. At first, Silverheels was reluctant to leave the comfort of her snug cabin. But when Sefa told her Buck was dying, she agreed to go.

Back in his cabin, Buck was drifting in and out of sleep. Silverheels bent over him and spoke sweetly. “Buck, darling. It's me, your Gerta. Buck, can you hear me?”

Buck opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Lie here with me a moment, won't you, Gerta dear?”

Silverheels would have preferred to lie in a bed of eels rather than with this sweaty, filthy, fevered man, but she remembered his hidden gold and, kneeling beside the bed, bent her head to rest on his shoulder.

“You mustn't worry about claim jumpers or thieves,” she said. “Tell me where your gold is, and I'll keep it safe for you until you're better.”

Buck gave a dry laugh that wrenched a cough from him. “It will cost you, honey.”

Silverheels bolted up and glared at him. He gave her a faint smile. “Kiss me, Gerta,” he said. “A big kiss and your everlasting love. That will be the price if you want to know my secrets.”

She stared, horrified. He laughed again. “We're both gamblers, you and I. Well, Silverheels, the chips are down. I'm calling your bluff. What's my claim worth to you?”

Ever naive, Sefa blundered to the bedside with a cup of her horrid tea just then. “We must get him to drink this. It will save his life,” she said.

“I'll do that. Why don't you bring in more firewood,” Silverheels replied. “We mustn't let him get cold.” She and Buck had not let go of each other's gaze. Sefa mistook the look for true love, so she gave the cup to Silverheels and did as she was told.

When they were alone, Silverheels gave Buck a cold smile. “I don't think all the chips are down just yet, Buck. The real question is, what is
life
worth to you.” And while he watched, she raised the cup to her lips and drank the tea that could save him.

When Sefa came in with the wood, Silverheels hurried her back outside. “He's resting. We shouldn't disturb him,” she
whispered. They went together to visit Wilbur and Stephen. Both men were dead, so Silverheels went to Wilbur's trunk and threw it open.

“What are you doing?” Sefa asked.

“He's dead. His gold's no use to him now,” Silverheels said.

“I already took it, and the Bible,” Sefa said.

Silverheels stared at her. “The Bible?”

“It had the address.”

“What address?”

“For his mother and sister. I promised him I'd send them his gold.”

Silverheels smiled. “Of course you did,” she said. “Good, sweet, Sefa. What would we do without you?”

Silverheels crossed to the trunk at the foot of Stephen's bed and opened it, too. “We might as well do it for both of them, right? Ah, here we are.” She straightened up, a bag of gold dust in one hand and a packet of letters in the other. “We can send this home for him, too, once the mail is running. I'll just keep them safe till then.”

When they returned outside, Mr. Herndon was shoveling the snow away from the door of the dance hall. Sefa and Silverheels went to him and told him of the deaths.

Herndon nodded grimly. “They won't be the only ones. We're going to need a hospital, and I won't be doing any business until this is all over. We'll treat the sick ones here.”

By the end of that day, two feverish men were already
sleeping in the dance hall. The next day they were joined by four more. Buck, however, was not brought in. Silverheels insisted that she alone care for her true love, and sent Sefa to help Herndon. So many sick men needed Sefa at the dance hall that she could not return even once to Buck's cabin. So it was that Sefa got no chance to say good-bye to the man she loved more than life itself.

After three days, Silverheels finally came into the dance hall. She announced Buck was dead, gave a theatrical sob, and ran to her cabin, where she locked herself in. Sefa wished the fever would take her, too, but it would not. So she worked on, through exhaustion and grief, administering her curing tea to any who would drink it.

She was mopping the brow of a young boy a week later when he said, “I'm going to die, aren't I?”

“Hush. Save your strength to get better,” Sefa said, coaxing a little tea into him.

“I want to see Silverheels before I die. Will you get her? I want to tell her that I love her.”

“I've got other men to tend to,” Sefa said. But Herndon was nearby and overheard.

“I'll keep watch here, Sefa. You fetch her. Maybe it'd help all these boys to have their sweetheart here with them. Lift their spirits to see a pretty face.”

Sefa went to retrieve Silverheels. In the dancer's cabin, several bags of gold dust sat on the table, along with the letters from Stephen's trunk. Silverheels glanced at them, then
agreed to Sefa's request. She put on her prettiest dress and pinned silk roses into her golden hair, and Sefa knew how it would be. Her beauty would lift the men's spirits, while Sefa's tea saved their lives. And it would be Silverheels they would remember. But what could she do, the lump of mud in the wake of the goddess?

Days dragged by. Sefa gave out medicine, mopped brows, spooned broth into the living, closed the eyes of the dead. Silverheels, glowing and beautiful, sang and spoke to the men, listened to their secrets, and piled their gold ever higher in her cabin.

It took a month for the epidemic to run its course, a month that left nearly half the men dead and stacked frozen in the graveyard, where the bitter weather kept the bodies until the graves could be dug. At last, however, the day came when no new men arrived sick and none died, and those in the makeshift hospital had the fever behind them and the slow but hopeful days of recovery ahead.

“I think we're through the worst of it,” Herndon announced one night as Sefa and Silverheels headed off to bed.

But Herndon had been wrong. Silverheels showed up the next day, her whole face flushed with fever.

“I feel so tired,” she announced, as she stumbled in and collapsed against the piano, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

“No,” a man sobbed from a bed nearby. “Not Silverheels!”

Jack Herndon went to her side, full of concern. When he
was near enough, she swooned gracefully into his arms. He swept her up right away.

“Sefa, help me get her home. Bring some of that brew of yours,” Herndon called. He carried Silverheels all the way to her cabin and laid her on the bed. Sefa mopped her brow and cheeks with a damp cloth and was surprised when pink rouge came away. It surprised her too, when Silverheels was suddenly alert, slapping the cloth away.

“Just let me rest,” Silverheels said. “I'm sure that's all I need.” She batted her lashes at Herndon and he did as she said, taking Sefa with him.

Sefa returned that evening with supper, and Silverheels reluctantly opened the door. In the dim light of the fire Sefa could see Silverheels was more flushed than before, with bright red spots appearing on her cheeks. She also saw Silverheels's fancy kit of stage makeup open on the table, alongside all that gold.

“It's the pox for sure,” Silverheels said, pointing to her face, but staying in the dim light and not letting Sefa get too close. “I'll be scarred! My beauty will be ruined!”

“It doesn't look like the pox,” Sefa said, suspicious. She glanced again at the gold.

“Of course it's the pox,” Silverheels snapped, “and it will make me ugly! I don't want to be seen if I'm ugly. Get out!”

Sefa wondered if she should tell anyone of her suspicions, but who in town would believe her? They were all blinded by
love for Silverheels. Besides, Sefa was a good girl and didn't like to speak ill of anyone.

She returned in the morning but found the door was locked. She called, but got no answer. She tried again at supper time, but it was the same. When no response came the next morning, Sefa went to the dance hall and told the men of what Silverheels had said and how there was no sign of life at her cabin.

As one, the recovering men rose from their beds, dressed, and tramped through the bright, cold morning to Silverheels's cabin. As they walked, they vowed to give her all their gold if that's what it took to console her. At her cabin, they knocked and called out sweet sentiments, but she did not answer. At last, two burly men broke the latch and burst in. The whole crowd of besotted men rushed inside, with ugly, forgotten Sefa in their wake.

The cabin was snug and tidy as always. And empty. Silverheels was gone. And so too, Sefa noted silently, were the piles of gold from the table. In their place lay only a worn pair of dancing shoes with silver filigree on the heels.

I
sat staring at the pages long after I'd finished reading them. What had Josie meant by printing them up like this and giving them to me? And how many other copies had she made? Did she have the proof of what she was telling me—perhaps a relative of Jack Herndon or Sefa Weldon? No, I reminded myself that the wife and daughter of Eli Weldon were both inventions; Josie had made them up right in front of me. I found my list of names from the graves and looked at it again. There was no Wilbur or Stephen, so she had made them up too. So her whole story was a fabrication—characters and slander and all.

The problem was, it was convincing slander. If she had printed a whole stack of them and intended to sell or give them to tourists, it would ruin my chances of enticing them into an outing to Buckskin Joe. Who wanted to go visit a place where wretched things had happened to wretched people? The beauty and romance of it was all lost.

I vowed to find out what her plans were the next morning, but I didn't get the chance. Mrs. Crawford called another meeting, and it was once again in the café. Most of the
same ladies as before were there, with the exception of Mrs. Schmidt. Mrs. Crawford appeared to have recovered from the terrible headache the picnic had given her, and arrived at the café with a look on her face that meant business.

George came too, and gave me a big warm smile. He apparently felt better about our kiss than I did, because he sat down and invited me to sit beside him, as if everything between us was perfect. Under the table, he put his hand on my knee, and I let him.

When everyone was settled, Mrs. Crawford began the meeting. “Due to the unfortunate circumstances at yesterday's picnic, we were unable to tally up the pledges for the Liberty Bond drive. When I call your name, you can bring up your money, and George will record how far you are toward your fifty-dollar subscriptions.”

The ladies in the café glanced around at each other nervously, but none of them said anything.

The first name Mrs. Crawford called was Mrs. Engel. Mrs. Engel looked back at her in surprise. “Now, Phoebe, you know I don't have anything.”

“Nonsense. You raised eighteen dollars before the picnic, and raffle tickets were still selling.”

“But the hat was ruined,” Mrs. Engel said. “By the time the Larsen boys fished it out of the mud, it had been half eaten by a cow. I'll have to refund the money for all the tickets.”

Mrs. Crawford frowned at the idea. “That won't do. You
simply must replace the hat with another, Mrs. Engel, and move forward with the raffle.”

Mrs. Engel's mouth fell open. “I can't do that! That hat cost me twelve dollars, and it was as much as I could afford. To donate another—”

“Of course you can afford it. It's for the war effort. Remember the sacrifices our boys over there are making. Surely you will not shrink from making a sacrifice for their sakes. To see them home safely into the arms of their wives and mothers.”

“I'll see what I can manage,” Mrs. Engel muttered, her brow knitted.

Mrs. Crawford gave a satisfied nod and started down the list again. One by one, the ladies reported what they had made—two dollars from the bake sale, and four from the knitting, but once spread among all the ladies who had contributed, no one had even made their initial one-dollar commitment, and none knew how they would complete a fifty-dollar pledge.

Imogene and I had made $1.30 together, since Imogene had kissed a few boys at the dance and then made them pay up. It seemed Imogene had found a way to make money that suited her perfectly.

“And George still owes Pearl at least a dime,” she added loudly as she set our money on the table in front of Mrs. Crawford.