Golden Colorado (2 page)

“I know,” her friend nodded. She gestured toward the paper. “Keep reading, Minnie.”

“
Love animals. Currently a miner, but want a beautiful wife for whom I can build a wonderful home in the mountains. I would like to have three boys
…”

Minnie glanced up at Flo, her eyes wide with surprise.

“You want three boys too, don’t you, Minnie?”

Could it be a coincidence? Or was this a sign from God? Her heart gave a little leap of excitement, the first since the tragedy had befallen. Did she dare? Should she take the chance? Was it possible? Did she have the strength and fortitude to leave her beloved Boston and travel thousands of miles west to the wilderness of Colorado’s mountains just to find a man who also liked chocolates and wanted three boys?

Flo nudged her with her elbow. “What have you got to lose, Minnie?”

What indeed?

Minnie had decided. Flo was more than excited, her parents encouraging, and Minnie put a good face on her decision. She gave an outward appearance of calm while inside her stomach churned with indecision. She lay awake for the next several nights after she replied to James Thorton’s ad, staring up at the ceiling, thoughts of her upcoming so-called adventure invoking a strange combination of terror and excitement. For the first time since the fire, she didn’t have a nightmare about it, although her dreams were far from settled or peaceful.

After visiting the local library, the day after Flo showed her the ad and she had impetuously responded to it and given the letter to her friend to mail before she changed her mind, she had engaged in a little research about the far west territory of Colorado. She looked for information about the growing town called the “Denver on the banks of the South Platte,” close to the foothills of the Rockies. Actually, it sounded pretty bleak to Minnie. It was an area rife with Indians, hundreds of mining towns, and associated with gambling, nefarious activities, and gunfights.

Still, she had little choice.

A month later Minnie had received a reply and invitation of marriage by James. Following her letter of acceptance, she had boarded the first of many trains that would take her to Colorado, nearly two thousand miles from everything she had ever known.

The town of Golden was approximately fifteen miles west of Denver, nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and known as a place to stock up for supplies and rest before heading further into the mountains or overland to westward destinations in Idaho, Oregon, and California.

The journey took over a week. By the time she arrived at the purportedly new train depot at 40th and Gilpin Street in Denver (or so James informed her in his quickly penned letter along with train fare and enough money left over for incidentals along the way), she felt exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She had been fortunate. Not long ago, the Denver Pacific Railroad had linked to Denver from Kansas City. If it hadn’t been for that, she likely would have had to endure yet more stagecoach rides and that jarred her to the very bone.

She stepped out of the train car, her heart thumping in nervous excitement. Her stomach was upset, and she had no doubt that upon very little provocation she might very well lose the half sandwich she had nibbled on several hours ago. Everything here was different. It smelled different. It looked different. It
felt
different.

In a moment of weakness, she wanted to cry. She wanted to go home, back to Boston. She wanted to go back to the way things used to be. Unfortunately though, that would never be. Her home, her family— it was all gone and never coming back. She prayed to God for strength and courage and tried to hold onto her faith.

She spent several moments around the outdoor platform looking for her future husband, but had no idea what he looked like. She tried to focus on gentlemen standing alone, but there weren’t that many, and none of them looked in her direction. Though it was midday, the early summer temperatures were mild. She inhaled deeply, not just relishing the fresh air, but trying to restore her soul with the same breath.

“Are you Miss Minnie Andrews?”

Minnie spun around and found herself staring at a man’s chest. She glanced up toward his face and saw a somber looking gentleman eyeing her closely. He was quite handsome, in a rugged kind of way. Deep set eyes, heavy eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw. Whisker stubble darkened his cheeks.

“Y—yes,” she replied. “Might you be Mister James Thorton?”

He nodded, but said nothing. He was tall, but to someone of her slight stature most everyone seemed tall. Heart pounding in her chest, she offered a tentative smile. He didn’t return it and her stomach did a flip flop.

“Follow me and we’ll head over to the church.”

Minnie barely swallowed her gasp of surprise. “But my luggage! Shouldn’t I freshen up first—?”

“No need for that,” he said, gesturing. “Come along, the preacher’s waiting.”

Not knowing what else to do, Minnie stared at his back, wondering why he was so impatient. Did he think she would change her mind? Should she? She stood rooted to the spot for several moments, knowing that the second she took that first step to follow him there was no turning back. Besides, he didn’t seem overly friendly, did he?

He turned, saw that she was not following, and frowned. He gestured again, not unkindly. “Come along, Miss Minnie,” he urged. “We can get to know each other after the ceremony.”

Minnie was torn between running back toward the train, where she would probably get kicked off rather promptly because she had no ticket, and following the strange, taciturn, and quite inpatient man to whatever church he headed toward, to be joined in holy matrimony forever.

Indecision tore at her, and her eyes swept almost wildly over the people standing on the platform. She was alone, with no one to save her from herself or from anyone else. Stealing her nerves, straightening her spine, and taking a deep breath, Minnie took that step, praying that she was not making the biggest mistake of her life.

As the days and weeks passed, Minnie gradually got to know her husband – but it was by bits at a time. He was of a quiet nature, and though he had intimidated her fiercely at first, she realized that he was also gentle, though he had a stubborn streak that would try the patience of a saint. Gradually he told her about his past as a miner who had come out west to seek his fortune in gold or silver like thousands before him during the height of the Gold Rush years.

He confided that he had managed to amass a good amount of money from his hard labors, which he then turned around and spent on the purchase of land tracts just outside the growing town of Golden. It was a beautiful area, she had to admit. The cool, crisp mountain air invigorated her senses, even as the early months of summer waned into late summer. As summer ended and fall came to the mountains, Minnie delighted in the gorgeous gold and yellow leaves of the aspen trees, trembling and quaking in the slightest breeze.

In addition to two draft horses, James had also managed to purchase a couple hundred head of cattle. While he didn’t have a proper house built yet— they lived in a small dugout or soddy built into one of the hillsides— he had finished a small barn not long before she had arrived. She stayed well away from the horses, the milk cow, and several barn cats though, even though the second morning after she’d arrived he’d asked her to milk the cow.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Oh, you’ve never milked a cow?” he replied. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you how.”

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “You see James… I’m… I’m afraid of animals.”

He’d stared at her for several moments, trying to imagine that.

“Horses?”

She nodded.

“Cows?”

Another nod.

He made a face. “Even the cats?”

“Especially the cats!”

He couldn’t understand it and she couldn’t either, but there it was. He had shrugged then and continued to deal with all the chores concerning the animals, as he had done before she arrived.

Living in a soddy was certainly a change in lifestyle for Minnie. It was small, with dirt walls and a dirt floor and only a few pieces of furniture. She washed the dishes outside in a bucket and did the same for washing clothes. She even cooked over an open campfire. She asked him what they would do in the wintertime if the house wasn’t finished, and he had merely mumbled that he was hoping to have at least part of the house finished by then.

She didn’t see how, as only the frame had been completed by the end of summer. One thing she had learned about James was that he only wanted to do things his way. She had gathered that much just from watching him interact with other people. A man from church had offered to come help him work on the house one day, but James turned him down. Minnie recalled the conversation as if it had happened yesterday.

“Why did you turn down his offer to help?” she asked. “The work might go faster if you didn’t have to do it alone.”

He shook his head. “Everybody has different ideas and methods to building a house,” he had replied, guiding the wagon back to the ranch following church services. “I’ve helped enough build other people’s homes to know that everyone has an opinion on the way things should be done.” He shrugged. “I prefer to do it my way and avoid disagreements, even if it will take me longer.”

She had thought him foolish for turning down help, especially with fall coming on. Would they have to spend winter in the soddy? She was learning to stiffen her spine, so she brought that up too.

“The soddy has been fine for the last few months, but winter’s coming on. I don’t know how cold your winters are out here but I can imagine you get a lot of snow and freezing weather like we do in Boston.” He said nothing, and she pulled up her courage and forged ahead. She had to learn to speak up for herself. “James, what we do for heat and cooking? With no stove in the soddy and no fireplace or smokestack, it wasn’t designed for winter use—”

“You let me worry about it,” he had commented.

She clamped her mouth shut, biting back a sharp retort. Why did he have to be so doggone stubborn? She had been striving for months to be patient with him. After all, patience was a virtue, wasn’t it?

And so, things continued pretty much the way they were. Despite suggestions and offering ideas, he always shook his head and decreed that he knew what he was doing and that his way was best.

Minnie wasn’t happy. She missed her old life. She missed her family. She missed her dreams, even if they were the dreams of a child and not a grown woman; her dreams of a literal knight in shining armor swooping her away to a castle glistening in the sunlight.

She and James had a polite relationship, and she performed her wifely duties as expected, but they had yet to really begin communicating. Is this what God planned for her and the remainder of her life? As far as she was concerned they were still strangers sharing a space. More often than not in the evenings after he came in from the fields or from working on the foundation of the house he sat outside the soddy at a small table, scribbling notes on paper and tinkering with bits and pieces of equipment.

“Where are you doing?” she asked him one day.

“Working on something,” he said.

“I can see that, James,” she replied. “But what
is
it?”

He looked up and saw that she was genuinely interested. He pointed to the gadget he was working on, similar to an oil lamp but with a metal cage-like device fastened to it. “I’m trying to design a safety lamp so that miners don’t have to worry about open flames or candlesticks down in the mines. So many of them are filled with gaseous fumes.”

Minnie was impressed. While James didn’t do much active mining anymore, it was nice that he continued to think about the safety of his fellow miners.

“It might also be used to test for mine gases,” he continued. “You see, the fire boss could use the lamp and determine air safety by watching the flame characteristics.” He glanced up at her. “You’re more familiar with coal mines back east, but out here things like methane gas can also be dangerous for the boys.”

She studied the contraption more carefully. “How does it work?”

“The basic principle is this wire gauze screen here, see it?” He looked at her and she nodded. “It has a cooling effect on the flame. If there’s flammable gas inside the mine on one side, and it passes through the gauze screen, the screen will cool it down so that it won’t ignite.”

She smiled down at him, truly impressed. “How long have you been working on this… invention?”

He shrugged. “These kind of lamps have been around for a while, but there’s no harm in trying to improve them. As soon as I’m finished I’m going to send a set of my drawings along with a prototype to the US Patent Office.” He offered her a lop-sided grin. “You never know, we might just be rich someday.”

On an impulse, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. It was the first time that she had initiated affectionate contact with him since she arrived.

He stiffened in surprise a moment, and then relaxed. Moments later he was once again focused on his work and Minnie kept herself busy close by, preparing supper.

Winter was fast approaching, but it wasn’t the colder weather that troubled Minnie. No, it was something
much
more serious, at least as far as she was concerned, and would probably have an effect on James as well.

In all the months that she and James had been married, she had failed to conceive. She knew how much did James wanted children, and she…well, she knew how much she wanted exactly three boys. Maybe it was not
quite
as realistic as she had imagined in her dreams, but still, with every month that passed she began to grow increasingly concerned that she was… no, she wouldn’t even think of the word.

Then, as the winter winds swept the russet, gold, and yellow leaves from the tree limbs, the nights grew colder, and frost covered the ground every morning, Minnie knew that it was time to bring up the topic with James. Thanksgiving was just around the corner, and he planned to go hunting the following week, boasting how he was going to find the fattest turkey he could. She had enough supplies stored in the soddy to prepare a nice meal, although she wasn’t sure how she was going to roast a turkey over an open fire. James had told her not to worry, and that he would fashion a spit.