As the months grew into a year, then two, Katherine waited for each of Alex’s letters as silently as she waited for his love. She did not share her feelings with anyone, not even Fanny Bright, whom she knew had her own suspicions about where Katherine’s heart lay.
Fanny had dropped by two days after the first packet from the brothers arrived. “Come on in, Fanny, and rest your coat,” Katherine said and held the door open for her.
“It’s mighty nice weather we’re having for November, don’t you think?”
“It is, and not coming a minute too soon, if you ask me. Especially after that cold spell last week.”
“Ain’t it the truth. A real stove hugger, that was.” She laughed at something and seeing Katherine’s questioning look, said, “You remember that mean old bull that belongs to Festus Freemeyer?”
Katherine nodded. Festus’s bull was almost as famous in these parts as Clovis the mule.
“Well, I hear tell he got what was coming to him. The story in town is that he got his tail froze in the watering trough and old Festus had to lop it off.”
“That’ll lower the value of that bull,” said Katherine.
“Law! I hadn’t thought of that! That’ll kill old Festus, sure enough. He’s so tight he crawls under the gate to save the hinges.”
“Maybe he’s got the right idea. At least he isn’t as broke as a busted trace chain.”
“Well, sugar is low in the barrel for pert-near everybody in these parts now, but things will pick up. They always do. This is a fine country, and like a good man, you can’t keep it down for long.” Fanny settled herself back in the chair. “So, what’s been happening around the Simon place since I saw you last?”
“We received letters from Alex and Adrian, just two days ago.”
Fanny began asking so many questions that Katherine was tempted to get the letters and let Fanny read them for herself. After a few more rounds of questions, she did just that. Fanny looked at Adrian’s letter and laid it in her lap. Then she looked at the letter Alex wrote. She handed Alex’s letter back to Katherine. “Those words are so small they look like they were written to a midget. You’ll have to read this one to me.”
December 23, 1849
Dear Karin and Katherine,
The trip out took longer than we expected, but we’re in California and are now set up in camp and panning for gold. The journey was long and difficult, but not as difficult as the poor fools going around the Horn had it, and those who chose to sail to Panama and then go overland to the Pacific had it even worse, I hear.
We’ve tried our luck in a few camps. They all have such fitting names—Dry Diggings, Hell’s Delight, and Git-up-and-Git. It didn’t take us long to face the realities of grubbing for gold. There isn’t much glamour separating gold dust from rock with a shovel and a washpan, or in getting wet in the streams during the day and sleeping on the ground in wet clothes at night. What I thought would be striking it rich should be called misery and high prices. Some weeks we make over a hundred dollars, but that is soon gone because of the high prices for necessities. Molasses sells for a dollar a bottle, vinegar too. Flour is forty cents a pound, pork five dollars.
The life of a miner is different from what I expected. The camps are crowded and overrun with men, the workday is long, backbreaking, and more often than not, unyielding. Our tents, when we have them, are small, drafty. If you’re lucky enough to have beds, they are lumpy, hard, and uncomfortable. Luxuries are scarce and lice are plentiful. There isn’t much to do in the diggings (that’s what we call the mining camps) except work. On Sunday each man has a little time to pursue his own interests, but there isn’t much to choose from—having fights, horse races, drinking contests, laundry, Bible reading, or a weekly bath. Our evenings are spent repairing equipment, or on good days, weighing gold. We talk about old times and home a lot, the Simon sisters always a big part of both. We take turns cooking but Adrian, I have to admit, is a better hand at it than I am, but that doesn’t make him do it any more often. Our supplies come into camp from Stockton, usually by six-mule teams, but none of the mules I’ve seen are as ornery as Clovis.
This letter will have to draw to a close. A wagon is about to leave for Stockton, and if I don’t send this now, I don’t know when I’ll have another chance. Adrian and I talked last night. Everything around here has been heavily worked for some time. We are thinking about going farther north and will probably be pulling out soon, so it might be a while before we have a chance to write again.
My regards to Katherine.
Regards
. Katherine laid the letter in her lap and felt her eyes burn. After months and months of waiting, all she got was regards.
“What’s the matter?” Fanny asked.
“Nothing. I was just remembering a story Adrian told about a funeral he and Alex attended. A hole had been dug to bury a deceased miner, and while the preacher went on and on, the miners kneeling beside the grave were getting bored. They began sifting dirt through their fingers. Someone found some traces of gold and yelled, ‘Color!’ The deceased was tossed out of the hole and everyone started digging—including the preacher.” Fanny’s laughter joined Katherine’s, but she wasn’t about to be sidetracked. “Is that the end of the letter?”
“No, but the next part reads, ‘Karin, this is for you.’”
“Well? Go on! Read it!”
“Oh, Fanny, it’s just a few words about how much he misses her, how he hopes she has forgiven him for leaving, and how he thinks of her all the time.”
“Thinking of her at all would be more than she thinks of him,” said Fanny.
“Honestly, Fanny, how can you say that?”
“It’s easy. I just open my mouth and the truth flows out.”
“That’s not the truth. Karin misses Alex. I know she does.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed how much she misses him every time I see her being squired around in Hiram Garrison’s new rig.”
* * * * *
Alex and Adrian were deep in the Sierras at a place called Grass Valley by the time their second letters arrived. As they had before, Katherine and Karin sat in the parlor while Katherine read Adrian’s letter, then Karin read the letter from Alex.
August 4, 1850
Dear Karin and Katherine,
We’re settled in at our new diggings and things look promising. We’ve built a sluice and that helps us process more gold-bearing dirt than using a pan. It’s also easier on our backs. We’ve been digging more and more dirt out of crevices and rocks and our luck is getting better each day. We weighed seventeen ounces the first day, twenty-five the second, thirty-one the next. At sixteen dollars an ounce, we’ll be rich men if our luck holds. And it has been, for our take has been increasing slowly, and both Adrian and I feel this digging may hold up for a while. We’re keeping our find to ourselves, in hopes that this will keep other miners away. But we know the news will leak out somehow. It always does.
The weather is turning cooler now, and we’ve got to think building a cabin, but we both hate to take time away from the diggings. If things sound good, they aren’t. We are both suffering from terrible bouts of homesickness. What we wouldn’t give for a good home-cooked meal, a real bed, and a look at two lovely lasses we left behind.
My regards to Katherine. Karin, this next part is for you.
Karin’s eyes skimmed over the words. Her face crumpled, tears coming into her eyes. Then, as if she had given herself a good mental shaking, her entire countenance changed. “Enough of that,” she said, and stood, wiping the tears from her face. She refolded the letter and placed it in the envelope. She tossed he envelope on the table, her hoop popping against the table as she swept past on her way to the door.
“Aren’t you going to keep it?” Katherine asked.
“No.”
“Aren’t you going to write him back?”
“No.”
“Karin! How can you be so cruel.”
“I’m not cruel, Katherine. I’m practical.” She leveled her eyes on Katherine. “Show me where it says it’s wrong to be practical. Just because you lead with your heart doesn’t mean I’m always in the wrong to lead with my head. Sometimes, you can have the most absurd values that get you absolutely nothing, or nowhere. As the saying goes, ‘Admire a little ship, but put your cargo in a big one.’”
“If we’re going to get down to platitudes, why not settle for an ass that carries you, instead of a horse that throws you?”
Karin smiled. “Because I, sweet Katherine, plan on having the horse that carries me. So, tell me again why I should write Alex?”
“Because he wrote you,” Katherine said flatly.
“I didn’t ask him to. In fact, I specifically remember telling him the night he left
not
to write me. As far as I’m concerned it’s over.” Seeing the way Katherine was looking at her, she said, “I know you think I’m heartless, but I have other fish to fry, and Alex Mackinnon isn’t one of them. I told him I wouldn’t wait when he left here.”
“Alex will come back. I know he will. He said they were getting richer every day.”
“Alex always did know just what to say to keep me hanging on. I’m through with waiting. I’ve almost got enough money saved. It won’t be much longer until I can be on my way. Even now, I’m putting my feelers out for work. Mr. Dunlap down at the newspaper is saving his newspapers from Houston and Dallas for me. Whenever the right job turns up, I’m gone. I can’t…I
won’t
wait around forever for a man to waste his health shoveling dirt in California. I’ve heard stories in town, Katherine. I know what that kind of life can do to a man. I heard about a woman in Waco whose husband came back after he’d lost everything, including his mind. Now he just sits in a rocking chair talking to himself.” She whirled, her skirts swirling around her as she began to pace the floor. “How do I know he’ll ever come back? The odds are against it for either one of them. Fools! That’s what they are, thinking they’ll ever come back rich. I’ve heard about what’s going on out there. Misfits from every continent have poured into California. For every miner who’s working to strike it rich, there are two reprobates waiting to take what he’s found. The place is crawling with men there who do something besides earn an honest living. Crime and bloodshed are everywhere, and those who don’t get killed drink themselves to death, or starve to death. There’re disease and murderers and thieves of all sorts out there mingling with the miners. More than one man has struck it rich and turned up missing. I won’t waste the best years of my life waiting for a man who might never come back, or one who’ll come back a babbling fool!”
“What are you going to do?”
“Exactly what I’ve been doing,” said Karin, her perfectly trimmed nails fluttering about her exquisitely coiffed hair. “I said a long time ago I was going to marry a rich man and I haven’t changed my mind one iota.”
“There aren’t many rich men available, not even in the big cities. By the time they get rich, they’re married. You should know that.”
“There are always a few prospects who aren’t married. And don’t forget the widowers,” Karin said.
“You’re going to count the ones who are old enough to be your father? Is that what you want? Some old man with one foot in the grave? A man who can’t give you children?”
“I don’t care how old he is, or how many feet he has in the grave—just as long as he lives long enough to put a ring on my finger.
That’s
the important thing. As for children, you know I’ve never been as fond of them as you are.” A smile of delight crossed her face. “I’ll be your children’s rich aunt. I’ll come to visit at Christmas and bring a carriageful of presents and invite them to Europe with me in the summer.”
“Now, who’s being impractical?”
Karin’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll see! I’ll show you! I’ll show all of you!”
Katherine watched in silence as her sister swept from the room with a swish of her colorful plaid taffeta skirt. She thought about Karin, wondering why she couldn’t have been born such an exquisite looking creature as Karin. Karin, so small and built on voluptuous yet controlled lines, with eyes and hair and skin as fair as an angel’s, not to mention her beautiful soft hands and small, dainty feet. Her voice was as musical as the coo of a dove, her movement as graceful as a swan.
While you
, Katherine thought, giving herself a critical eye,
are as plain as a peahen, with a voice about as musical as the squawk of a chicken hawk
.
Any suppositions she had about Alex Mackinnon and herself withered. Katherine wasn’t a whiner, but she knew when to quit. The illusions she had long harbored about growing up to marry Alex Mackinnon had died of starvation a long time ago. She just hadn’t laid it out for burial. The weight of dragging that dead carcass around behind her was suddenly unbearably heavy. It was time to reconcile herself to the fact that nothing was going to change things between herself and Alex, irregardless of her whimsical dreams. She might as well get on with her struggle to exist—a straight and narrow path that led directly to the grave.
By the next morning, all thoughts and remembrances of Alex’s letter firmly put out of her mind, Katherine saw Karin off to the seamstress shop and set about making something out of nothing, for truly, nothing was what she had to work with.
The past summer had been unbearably long, hot, and dry. The creek was down to a mean little trickle, the fish having long ago been fished out of the little pools that had been so neatly dammed by beavers. And now the pools themselves were no more than muddy hog wallows—if she’d had any hogs to wallow, that is, for in truth, the Simons were about out of livestock.
Katherine had been forced to sell off the last of the pigs, having only one old sow left who was getting too old to breed, a few scrawny chickens, one cow, and of course, Clovis. A late freeze had killed all hopes of fruit on the fruit trees and the garden that had looked so promising in May was withered brown sticks by the end of July. Things didn’t look like they were going to get any better, as she pointed out to Fanny one afternoon. Fanny had stopped by, and after listening to Katherine’s woes, had asked, “What about pancakes? You’ve got flour, and chickens and a cow for eggs and milk.”