Miracle Jones (22 page)

“Just how close are you to these Danners?” Uncle Horace wanted to know as Tillie and Gray lurched the wagon to the center four-corners of Rock Springs.
Uncle Horace pulled up in front of Garrett Mercantile.

“I’ve met most of them.” Miracle climbed down from the seat.
A fat raindrop slid down her neck, and she gasped.
“Oh, that’s cold!” Glancing upward, she saw a heavy black cloud approaching from the east.
Summer was truly over.
A rainstorm was about to hit, and the wind was rising.

Uncle Horace unlatched the side of the wagon and hooked it up so that it provided a sheltered awning for anyone who cared to see their wares.
Besides elixirs, they sold other products – cooking ware, blankets, trinkets, books – but health remedies were certainly the most popular, and lucrative, items.

Miracle climbed over the seat to the back of the wagon and began stacking bottles on the shelf behind the open window.
She peered out through the gathering gloom and saw Rock Springs residents scurrying down the boardwalks, seeking shelter.
She didn’t blame them.
The rumble of thunder promised a healthy shower.

“Come on over, folks!” Uncle Horace boomed out.
“The rain’s a-comin’, so you’d better stock up.
We’ve got lotsa items that you won’t be able to live without!
Come on over!”

His voice was nearly drowned out by the sudden tattoo of raindrops beating into the dusty ground.
Within seconds he was soaked and forced to stand under the awning while the dirt roads darkened beneath the torrent.

Miracle leaned an elbow on the shelf, cupping her chin in her hand.
Her heart wasn’t in Uncle Horace’s performance.
Though his sales techniques sometimes amused her, she’d gotten over the fascination with his circus sideshow tactics years before.
In truth, Miracle could have done without all the balderdash and settled for honest, herbalist treatment.
But so much of Uncle Horace’s makeup was acting that she couldn’t bring herself to criticize him.

Within ten minutes the streets were clear of people and filled with rising mud and deep puddles of water.
Uncle Horace climbed in the back of the wagon and slammed the doors.

“And then the sky opened up and God poured a bucket of water down on His children,” Miracle declared in her orator’s voice.
“It was a warning.
God said, ‘No, my children.
Do not buy any of Uncle Horace’s Tinctures and Elixirs for Uncommonly Good Health.’”

“That is not funny, Miracle, my girl, while we are facin’ abject poverty.
And no, before you offer, I’m not askin’ for your money.
You should know that by now.”

Miracle sighed.
“I don’t have my money anymore.
It was stolen by the men who kidnapped me.”

Uncle Horace’s expression turned as dark as the clouds overhead.
“What?” he thundered.

Miracle explained about the missing tin box, adding gently, “We have to sell something fast.
We need to order more herbs, and we need to pay Harrison back.”

“How long does he plan to foot the bill at the hotel?”

“He didn’t say.” She sat on the end of a wooden crate, not meeting Uncle Horace’s eyes.

“Hmmm.
Well, as long as this weather has sent the good citizens of Rock Springs to their homes, we might as well use the time to buy more inventory.
We’d better post some letters and orders some special herbs and tonics from my man in Minnesota.”

Uncle Horace’s man in Minnesota was a Chippewa Indian who had learned the advantages of selling special mixtures to the white man long ago.
Uncle Horace was a regular mail-order customer.

“How long do you think we should stay in Rock Springs?” Miracle asked

“well, now, you want to find your father, don’tcha?”

Miracle was silent.
For years she’d burned to know who her father was, but if her quest meant staying in Rock Springs, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to find him.
How could she stand it, to be in Rock Springs when Harrison and Kelsey decided to wed again?
The whole town would turn out.
It would be the event of the season.

She couldn’t bear the thought of living through that awful day.
Yet she couldn’t bear the thought of packing up and never seeing him again, either!

“What if I said I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay?”

Uncle Horace set down the bottle he’d pulled off the upper shelf and sat down heavily on the end of the cot, directly across from Miracle.
“I’d sure want to know why.
And I’d be thinkin’ it probably had somethin’ to do with that blond horse doctor you’re so all-fired worked up over.”

“I
stabbed
that blond horse doctor,” reminded Miracle tightly.
“I’m lucky he didn’t turn me into the sheriff!”

“And you gave him some of my elixir.”

“Yes?” Miracle challenged, bristling for a fight.

“I was just thinkin’ that was a mighty dangerous move.”

Miracle snorted.
“I can take care of myself.
Honestly, you’re as nosy and suspicious as an old woman!”

“What happened those nights you spent with Dr.
Danner?” Uncle Horace asked, unrepentant.
“You didn’t go and fall in love with him, did you?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Then what are we arguin’ about?” He smiled with Uncle Horace charm and added, “Miracle, we both escaped a terrible fate.
In fact, the wonder of that has turned me near religious.
I think it’s time to make a change, settle down a bit.”

Miracle, who was still getting over the way he seemed to know exactly what had happened to her and with whom, asked suspiciously, “What do you mean?”

“We need some respectability, Miracle, my girl.
I believe we should set up shop here.
That way you can look for your father, and I can take care of business in one place while I wait for my order to come through.
Now, is your heart really so set on leavin’?”

Miracle stared at him.
What could she say?
The thought of setting up shop in Rock Springs was singularly appealing, but not because it might help her find her father.

“I think I’ll go over to Garrett Mercantile for a while,” Miracle answered, sidestepping the issue.
“Maybe someone there will know something about my father.”

“Or about that handsome horse doctor.”

She refused even to answer him as she grabbed a rather sorry-looking bonnet with a drooping quail feather and smashed it on her head.

¤   ¤   ¤

The rain lasted for two days.
Miracle, who had intended to check out of Garrett’s Hotel once and for all, found herself unable to take such drastic measures, especially with the rain sneaking through the wooden ceiling of the wagon and dripping into little pools on the floor.
She already owed Harrison money for one night, she reasoned.
What difference did it make if she had to pay him back for a few more?

Her spirits sank with the dismal weather.
She told herself Harrison’s promise of seeing her again had been merely his way of saying good-bye.
He’d expected to see her around town when he came through Rock Springs again.
He hadn’t meant that he would actually look for her.

Still, it was depressing.
And with Uncle Horace’s comments about having a “passel of young’uns” still ringing in her ears, Miracle had plenty to worry about.
She tried not to.
She couldn’t bear to think she was following the same wretched path of doom as her mother had.
With the force of her considerable will, she pushed those thoughts out of her head and, like Uncle Horace, concentrated on plying her trade of herbs and folk medicine.
Her success with the wary residents of Rock Springs was fairly limited, however.

“They’re happy with Dr.
Tremaine Danner,” she said to Uncle Horace on the afternoon of her third day in Rock Springs.
“We don’t have a lot to offer them.”

“If we opened our own store we would,” he answered back, undeterred.

Miracle wondered.
“Drugstore doctors” weren’t the rage they’d once been.
People wanted physicians with credentials, like Tremaine.
Uncle Horace’s circus sideshow techniques didn’t impress like they used to, and unless he and Miracle could get people to try their products and realized how truly effective they were, Uncle Horace’s Tinctures and Elixirs for Uncommonly Good Health would remain on the shelves forever.

“I’ve been checkin’ around,” Uncle Horace went on.
“With what little money we’ve taken in, we still have enough to rent that empty store around the corner for a week.
By that time, we’ll have enough for another week, and there’re a couple of rooms up above for us to stay in.”

“What about paying back Dr.
Danner?”

“We’ll manage.
He said it was a loan, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Miracle wasn’t certain she liked this idea, but she had no wish to remain at Garrett’s Hotel indefinitely.
“Are you sure we can afford the shop?”

“Absolutely certain, Miracle, my girl.
You go on over to the mercantile and see what else you can scare up about your father, and I’ll make all the arrangements.”

Miracle lifted a skeptical brow; she was in no mood to argue.
If Uncle Horace could find a way for them to have nice, clean rooms, she wasn’t going to ask too many questions.

She sloshed through the rain to Garrett Mercantile.
Maybe today Harrison would come to town, and she could at least make arrangements to pay him back.
However, she had the terrible feeling he wouldn’t show again.
Was he deliberately avoiding her?
Why should he?
Unless he’d remembered…

Shaking off that disturbing thought, she pushed open the door of the mercantile.
At the back of the room stood a pot-bellied stove, several barrels with checkerboards, and a crowd of old-timers who knew all the happenings in Rock Springs from its creation until now.
Miracle had become accustomed to them, and they to her.
She told them she was looking for her father and had related what she knew of him.
So far, her questions about whether someone from Rock Springs had taken regular trips to Clatsop County twenty years ago had met with blank stares and frowns.
If her father were the wealthy upstanding citizen she’d come to believe him to be, he was a well-kept secret.

“The only people ‘round hereabouts with enough money to be makin’ long trips would be the Garretts or the Danners,” one bearded man told her, never looking up from his checker game.
“But none of them does.”

“They all goes to Portland, though,” another grizzle-bearded man put in helpfully.
“They allus has.”

Miracle had thanked them.
She’d begun to realize that if her father were heading out to meet his Indian mistress, he would hardly advertise the fact.
He probably would have gone to Portland first, and if that were the case, he could be anybody.
There were lots of Rock Springs townspeople who’d made trips back and forth to Portland – not just the Garretts and the Danners.

“Hello, Miracle,” one of the men greeted her.
“Lookin’ for more information, or do you have something special to sell?”

“You’ll have to talk to Uncle Horace about that,” she answered with a smile.
There weren’t many people hanging around the checkerboards this afternoon, she noticed.
In fact, the mercantile was unusually bare.
“Where’s Mr.
Pennington?” she asked, looking around for the storekeeper.

“Sad business,” the man answered, shaking his head dolefully.
“Pennington’s at a funeral this afternoon, miss.”

“Funeral?” Miracle stared at him, premonition a cold chill down her spine.

“Eliza Danner, ma’am,” the man warming his hands at the pot-bellied stove said quietly.
“One of Rock Springs’ most influential women.
We’re gonna miss her.”

¤   ¤   ¤

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” the reverend intoned soberly as the first shovelful of dirt fell on the oak casket.
His nose was a huge beak, his black coat whipping in the October wind.
The reverend’s resemblance to a flapping crow was noted by more than one mourner.

He glanced over the silent family standing around the open grave.
No emotion was visible, but their united guilt hovered around them like a dreary cloud, binding them together, holding close to their hearts this deepest of all sorrows.

“Rest in peace, Eliza Danner,” the reverend said softly.

His words broke the spell that had surrounded Harrison.
Lifting his head, Harrison stared dry-eyed as his mother’s remains were entombed in the earth.