What You Said to Me Read online

  He did love this mountain town with its quintessential main street only half an hour from the state capital. Nolan could stick his head into virtually any shop in town, and either the owner, customers, or both would greet him by name and ask how his daughter was doing as well. The town pulled together the way every town should. It was a fortunate day, all those years ago, when Bella told him she’d found the perfect old house for them to raise their daughter in—and the perfect town. As she was about so many things, Bella was right about the house and the town. Nolan never once thought about uprooting Jillian and moving back to the city when Bella passed away. This was home.

  With his red leather-bound legal pad tucked under one arm, Nolan ducked into Digger’s Delight to inspect the confectionaries on offer. Carolyn handed her customer a box of chocolates and a receipt before catching Nolan’s eye.

  “Have you come in search of chocolate-covered cherries?” Carolyn moved down the candy case.

  “Please tell me you made some today.”

  “Dark.”

  “Perfect! I’ll have six. And three dark chocolate marshmallow crèmes for you-know-who.”

  Carolyn reached into the case with tissue paper and began filling a small box. “Everything all set for the big day?”

  “You’re prepared for your part?”

  “But of course. I’m not the part I’m worried about.”

  “O ye of little faith.”

  Carolyn handed Nolan the box and took the bill he offered. “Don’t eat all of these on the way home.”

  “No promises.” Nolan contemplated stepping to the other side of the building, which Carolyn shared with Kris Bryant’s Ore the Mountain ice cream parlor, for a quick dish, but he had just come from a breakfast meeting and had a box of candy in his hands. Ice cream might be a bit much, and Kris looked too busy with a line of customers on a warm summer day for chitchat. He waved at Kris behind her counter and exited the shop to continue strolling Main Street toward home.

  Next door, Luke O’Reilly was pulling down the Fourth of July sale banner from above the Victorium Emporium display window. Nolan paused to rap his knuckles on Luke’s ladder.

  “Don’t play with me, dude.” Luke scowled downward.

  “I know Veronica doesn’t like any out-of-date signs.”

  “She’s not the boss of me.” Luke gave the banner a final tug.

  “Tell Not-the-Boss to be sure she’s ready. You too.”

  Luke saluted.

  Nolan moved on to Motherlode Books. Now that was a store he could get lost in if he didn’t have three mediation files to read that afternoon. Maybe Saturday.

  Kitty-corner from the bookstore, outside the Canary Cage coffee shop, Tisha Crowder boarded her green bike and leaned into one pedal to put it into motion, steering with a single hand while balancing a beverage on the handlebars with the other. Riding a bicycle in flip-flops and solidly managing the front end one-handed seemed precarious to Nolan, but Tisha’s mastery kicked in within a few seconds, and she wheeled down Placer Street. In a few blocks, she would have to choose one direction or the other to either Westbridge or Eastbridge to get across Cutter Creek to her own neighborhood—assuming she was going home. It wasn’t even noon, and what was waiting for her at home? Nolan didn’t know where she might be headed.

  Nolan crossed Main Street and entered the coffee shop, where clusters of patrons milled.

  “Hey there,” he said to the young woman behind the counter. “Where’s your uncle?”

  “In the kitchen,” Joanna Maddon said, “making a batch of burritos for the lunch rush. Are you going to stay and have one?”

  “Not today. A girl was just here. Tisha Crowder. Do you know her?”

  “Large raspberry Italian cream soda. Extra syrup.”

  “Does she come in with friends?”

  “Are you buying anything other than information?”

  “Are you the mafia?” Nolan cocked his head. “Your uncle operates with more favorable terms.”

  Joanna raised baleful eyes. “He reminds me every day we’re not just a free hangout joint.”

  “Blueberry muffin to go,” Nolan said.

  “No friends.” Joanna reached into the case for a muffin. “A woman sometimes. Kind of young to be her mom, but sure sounds like she is.”

  “How so?”

  “You know. In the naggy way that mothers can be.”

  “Not like hip uncles?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Nolan added the boxed muffin to his collection of items to juggle on the way home. “So she’s a loner?”

  Joanna shrugged and rinsed out a milk pitcher. “She comes in by herself, but she’s on her phone a lot. Who knows who she’s texting?”

  Indeed.

  “Oh, there’s Clark,” Nolan said.

  The Cage’s owner came from the kitchen with a tray of lunch offerings and made room for it in the case.

  “Uncle Clark, I need to scoot for just a few minutes.” Joanna tossed her apron on the counter and left without making eye contact.

  “Something is going on with her.” Clark’s gaze followed Joanna out the door.

  “What do you mean?” The aroma of freshly made burritos tantalized, and Nolan debated whether to take one to go after all.

  “What you just saw,” Clark said. “She’s been doing that the last few days. Ever since she moved into one of the apartments above the bookstore.”

  “Her own place! That’s progress. Wasn’t that the goal when she moved out here from Chicago to work for you?”

  “Of course. But she keeps shooting out of here on these long breaks. I see her running across the street toward her apartment. Why does she have to go home so many times during the day? What’s she doing?”

  “Valid question. But she’s over eighteen. What were you doing when you were her age?”

  “That’s what worries me. If she’s up to no good, how will I explain it to my sister, who thinks I’m looking out for her?”

  “That is a conundrum,” Nolan said. “I’d better get home and check in with Jillian before I succumb to the smell of what you’ve made for lunch.”

  “Jillian is at Nia’s,” Clark said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. Trust me.” Clark opened a paper sack with sturdy handles. “Here, give me the evidence of your morning on Main Street. I’ll throw in a burrito on the house and make it easy for you to transport since you have a detour.”

  “How do you know I’m going to detour?” Nolan surrendered his load.

  “You are not nearly as whimsical as you imagine.” Clark handed the filled bag to Nolan. “Questions about Tisha. Checking with Jillian. Not even staying to eat. You’re up to something.”

  “Thank you, my good man.”

  Nolan carried his goodies bag in one hand and his legal pad in the other as he walked the short blocks along Main to Double Jack and turned north toward the Inn at Hidden Run. The rambling Victorian dominating the second block up was one of the most noteworthy structures in Canyon Mines. Nia and Leo Dunston had done a spectacular job of renovating it into a bed-and-breakfast that was busy even in the middle of the week at this time of year. Canyon Mines was a popular getaway spot for a few days of summer mountain recreation.

  Nia and Jillian sat on the roomy front stretch of the porch that cloaked nearly the entire house. Jillian was on the swing and Nia in a rocker beside her.

  Nolan approached.

  “She doesn’t want to do this, Dad,” Jillian said.

  “Was it that bad?” He leaned against the railing and set down the sack. “It was the first day.”

  “She has an attitude, and we didn’t get much done. She didn’t stay three hours, either.”

  He’d noticed Tisha had cut short her time. “Well, she has to do it. I’ll talk to her.”

  Jillian pushed the swing a little harder. “I’m not the one who shoplifted. Why am I sentenced to community service?”

  Nia laughed. “Grumpy a bit?”
<
br />   Jillian glared.

  “You called me over there because you wanted help,” Nia said, “not because you wanted out.”

  “Maybe I changed my mind.”

  “Jilly called you?” Nolan said. “You met Tisha?”

  “Very briefly. It’s possible my presence may have contributed to her early departure.”

  “Based on how often her phone was buzzing,” Jillian said, “I doubt that.”

  “Valid point.”

  “I’d love to hear your professional opinion,” Nolan said, “if you don’t mind putting on your guidance counselor hat.”

  Nia shrugged. “I saw a lot of kids like her when I worked in Denver. Jillian’s right. She doesn’t want to do this. And you’re right too. She has to. So she knows she’s cornered and has to put in the time, but nobody can force her to do things to standard. The question is, why did she shoplift to begin with?”

  “And your answer?”

  “It wasn’t her first time,” Nia said.

  “Doubtful,” Nolan said. “She just found out what happens when you get caught.”

  “Most kids steal because they don’t know what to do with their feelings.” Nia spread the fingers of one hand and ticked them off with the index finger of the other. “Anger. Loss. Disempowerment. Entitlement. Depression. Pick one.”

  “More than one,” Nolan murmured.

  “Well, there you have it,” Nia said. “She wouldn’t admit it, but she’s asking for help.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you two have this all figured out,” Jillian said, “but you want me to spend the time answering her cry for help.”

  “She needs the work,” Nolan said. “The purpose. And you do need the help.”

  “I have to agree with your dad there,” Nia said. “I’ve seen your dining room. Your papers are multiplying like rabbits. What happened to living in the digital age?”

  Jillian stopped her swaying swing. “The lost children in those files never knew anything about the internet. Maybe I’m just trying to understand them better by remembering what life was like. How confusing it must have been for them.”

  “Good,” Nolan said. “We’re on the same page. I’m just asking for help to understand one lost girl in front of us.”

  “When you put it like that.”

  Jillian looked at him with green eyes that matched his own. She reached up now with both hands and corralled the mass of dark curls she’d gotten from her mother, pressing it back away from her face.

  “I’m really not trying to make things hard for you,” Nolan said.

  Jillian pointed at his paper sack. “What’s in there? Didn’t you meet someone at the café inside the art gallery? Why do you have a bag from the Cage?”

  “Do you accept bribes?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Let’s go home, and you can have a freshly made steak-and-cheese burrito followed by a dark chocolate marshmallow crème.”

  “And you’ll call Tisha?”

  “And I’ll call Tisha.”

  “Fine. But I’m eating the marshmallow crème first.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Denver, Colorado

  Friday, July 7, 1893

  Clifford wandered through downtown Denver. In the weeks since the price of silver collapsed below what it cost to produce silver from any mine in the state, with no hope that the price would rise soon, he wandered often. He couldn’t simply sit at home. What could he do there?

  Listen to Georgina give instructions to Graciela, who came in two days a week to help with the more consuming cleaning tasks? The truth was they couldn’t afford Graciela much longer.

  Listen to Decorah or Fidelity dreaming about when the new fall fabrics would arrive at McNamara Dry Goods and about the illustrations in the magazines and catalogs they would ask the dressmaker to imitate? His daughters would have no new dresses this year unless Georgina brought her old sewing machine down from the attic and they settled for making over last year’s prints. That was hardly likely. Georgina had evolved past sewing her own clothes years ago, once Clifford was making a steady income in the employ of Horace Tabor, one of the wealthiest men in Colorado.

  He no longer had an office to go to. Tabor wouldn’t even come to the door of his mansion when Clifford tried to call on him and inquire whether he might be able to pay any portion of back wages—for the men if not for Clifford. From the looks of the place, the Tabors shuttered themselves in and avoided everyone. There was no telling how many people they owed money.

  So Clifford wandered.

  Today he’d been to a large meeting of men in the silver industry. A week ago President Cleveland called for repealing within a few weeks the Sherman Silver Purchase Act that obligated the nation’s government to buy vast quantities of Colorado’s silver every month. The president was determined to accomplish this goal with a special summer session of Congress. The nation had been watching for months. The silver men of Colorado were just as determined to mount an opposition, sending delegations to meetings in St. Louis, Chicago, and Washington, DC. The government owed the western states the economic support of buying their resources rather than throwing them deeper into turmoil.

  Clifford believed the delegation would lose the confrontation and had abstained from voting in the tidal wave of support. Instead, he slipped out to wander before the meeting adjourned.

  Past the cars of ore sitting ghostlike in Denver with no markets waiting for them.

  Past the straggling, idle men with nowhere to go.

  Past the People’s Tabernacle at Blake and Nineteenth, where some men did go when they heard there might be aid. The Tabernacle, under the leadership of the Reverend Thomas Uzzell, had always been a church quick to offer relief when possible through various programs for the poor. Their work was in the newspapers frequently. Clifford ought to know more about them. He just hadn’t needed to know. It wasn’t where the Brandts worshipped regularly. The more traditional First Methodist was where he and Georgina were comfortable. The Congregational Church, with the Reverend Myron Reed, likewise organized alms for the needy. Clifford was certain, though, that both were houses of worship and not shelters for miners used to living rough in the mountains or in towns still fighting to be more than glorified camps. Canyon Mines was further along than many. With some resolve and ingenuity, it might survive the silence of surrounding mines that had thundered with the promise of prosperity, at least for a season.

  Every day more men came. This might be as far as they could afford to travel without the back pay owed them. They might be hoping for work in the larger city for a few weeks or months until the mining industry righted itself. They might be hoping at least to earn train fare. They might have nothing waiting for them anywhere else, so Denver would do as well as any city.

  Every day as he wandered, sometimes having a discouraging conversation about his own prospects, Clifford looked at the faces of the men. For the faces of his own men. If he told himself the truth, that was what dragged his feet around the city—not knowing what had become of them. And knowing that some of them, or all of them, could be among the growing throng of thousands snaking out of the hills like dark, incriminating evidence of injustice.

  Sending delegations to St. Louis or Chicago or Washington, DC, over the weeks of the summer would do little for the men out of work now because the mines shut down. It wouldn’t help the shopkeepers whose businesses were imperiled because fewer and fewer people had cash to spend. Nor would it help the domestics, like Graciela, whose livelihoods would be the next wave when families like the Brandts were among those who could no longer keep up. Even Missouri had already been given notice from her work as a tutor for the children of one of the other more prosperous mine owners. It was difficult to see how anyone in Denver would remain untouched by the mine closings.

  Clifford’s feet, out of habit, turned toward the office, now abandoned, where he had happily gone to work for so many years. Overseeing the records of some of Tabor’s mines, under T
abor’s tutelage, had taught him well and inspired his confidence to make his own investments.

  And for what?

  Yes, he had—at the moment—more money than the men he’d had to let go last week. But he also had his own debts to bear.

  Clifford had worked for Mr. Tabor long enough to have a reasonable grasp of the scope of silver mining in Colorado—both the number of men employed by heavy investors like Mr. Tabor and men who had staked out their own claims in hope of striking it rich and had perhaps finally begun to mill ore and send it to market before prices began creeping downward, chipping away at their meager success.

  He knew what the People’s Tabernacle and Congregational Church did not, perhaps even what officials of the city of Denver did not—the sheer potential numbers of men who would keep descending the mountains west of Denver but also come from other parts of the state, everywhere that silver mining had been active. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act contracted the government to buy four and a half million ounces of silver each month, and that required a great deal of men to produce. But the price had plummeted, and the government didn’t care whether they got the silver no matter the price. Now the supply of men was greater than the demand for silver would ever support again. In only the last week, each day was worse than the day before.

  And this was only the beginning. Denver couldn’t possibly be prepared for what was coming. Whatever the city had been doing for the poor before this would be inconsequential compared to the need that lay ahead.

  Haggard with dejection, Clifford opted to drag in through the back door at home.

  In the kitchen Georgina looked up from the stove. Her gaze teased. “Why haven’t you come in through the front door? You’re not a delivery boy.”

  Clifford shrugged and kissed her cheek. “It’s just a door. Dinner smells wonderful.”

  Georgina beamed and opened the ornate cast-iron oven. The stove had come from profits of the Decorah Runner, the mine named for their second daughter. Corah’s name came from the city in Iowa where Clifford had discovered his lovely bride when he wandered out of Missouri after the War between the States had taken what little family he had. She was winsome and in love and would have followed him to the ends of the earth in those days. So with little Missouri and Decorah squirming in the wagon, they ended up in the Colorado Territory just in time to witness the transformation into statehood and welcome Lity to the family. Fidelity, their pledge to make a loyal life together in this wild new place. They’d come a long way. Life had been good.