One Step Enough Read online

  “Aye, miss,” he said, tipping his hat to her.

  She thought she could walk briskly to the Wasatch Store, eyes in front, but that proved impossible. Every single home on the narrow road had at least one coffin in the front yard, and she knew those homes.

  In them were her children, the whole lower grade she had last seen trailing after their mothers on that horrible day of the explosion. Here they were, smiling at her shyly, which meant she had to stop at each house for tears and a hug.

  “Will we go back to school next week, Miss Anders?” Will Thomas asked her, as they stood among the coffins in his yard, the setting so cruel but duplicated everywhere she looked.

  “Miss Clayson had me determine your final grade from your last test scores,” she said. “No more school until autumn.”

  “Not for me then. Mam is taking us to Springville. She has a sister there. Aw, miss, we’ll be all right. Don’t cry.”

  “Springville is a lovely town,” she said as she held Will’s hand, not wanting to let go because she was losing all of her students, as sure as their mothers had lost their husbands.

  On she walked, her heart breaking, staring at the ground because suddenly it was too hard to see one more coffin. If only she could blot out the occasional shriek, the low moan. She stared down at her own shoes.

  She stopped when she bumped into someone. “Beg pardon,” she murmured, and she would have stepped sideways, but familiar hands grasped her and pulled her close.

  “Taking your time getting to the Wasatch Store, miss?” she heard, as Owen Davis held her so tight that even Sister Parmley would probably tsk a bit. “By the way, what are you doing here? Don’t you listen to sound advice?”

  “When I hear it,” she said. “Leaving you yesterday wasn’t sound advice.”

  He held her close. Her hat fell off, or he pulled it off because the stupid, floppy thing was getting in his eyes.

  When Owen let go, Della saw the exhaustion in his eyes and gray in his hair that hadn’t been there even yesterday. She touched his hair then ran her fingers in it, as if trying to wipe off the gray.

  “I got two telegrams this morning, and both of them commanded me to return here,” she said. “Don’t ever make me leave you again, because I won’t.”

  He pulled her to him again, this time to talk into her hair. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t sing, I’m barely breathing.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t waste a moment getting here,” she replied, wishing for serenity, even as her voice shook and her nose ran.

  He gave her his handkerchief, the one that always smelled of laundry soap and traitor coal. She blew vigorously on one corner and wiped her eyes with the other. The third corner went back to its owner, who did the same.

  “I hope Bishop makes this brief,” he said, steering her toward the outside stairs at the Wasatch Store. “I’m loading my friends into coffins and trying to comfort people who cannot be comforted.”

  You are one of those, she thought.

  After telling two more of her students that she would see them after a meeting with the bishop—most canyon children understood a summons from the bishop—they walked up the outside stairs.

  “In here,” Bishop Parmley said as they came to the landing and the open door that led into the library—her library, where she had presided all year.

  My lovely library, she thought, wondering who would manage it after she left. For one terrible moment, she thought she saw Remy Ducotel, Nicola Anselmo, and Levi Jones in their usual places by the newspapers, with David Evans running his fingers through the D books, because he loved Dickens. She turned her face into Owen’s shoulder.

  He seemed to know what caused her distress, and tightened his grip. “There’ll be others here, m cara,” he whispered. “Give it time.”

  She patted his chest, took a deep breath, and saw who else stood in the library. She smiled to see Dr. Isgreen, who had taken her to dinner on Saturday nights for months. The last time she saw him, they had struggled together to get Mari Luoma off the railroad tracks, where she had waited for the coal train to strike her dead.

  Next to him was a man holding a sheaf of papers. “What is going on?” she whispered to Owen.

  “Whatever it is, I hope it’s fast. There is so much to do.”

  Bishop Parmley grasped her hand and held it, as though he expected her to bolt. To her surprise, he put her hand in Owen’s.

  “Perfect,” he said, a busy man with his mind made up, apparently.

  He looked into Della’s eyes. “Sister Anders, you are planning to be sealed to Owen in Manti Temple by the end of next week?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, mystified. “You know that.” He had written a recommend for a temple wedding only two days ago. “It’s our temple district and not so far.”

  “Della. Owen. I prayed about what I am going to ask of you,” he said, and she had never seen his expression more serious. “I’m not taking this lightly. Sister Anders, will you let me marry you civilly right now to Owen Davis?”

  Owen’s head went up in surprise, but he only tightened his grip on her, as though she had suddenly become a lifeline.

  “But next week …” she said, and then she turned for a good look at the man who held her hand. One look was enough.

  Her free arm went around his waist, as she realized she was holding him together, and not the other way around. She found strength from somewhere because Owen’s was gone, and she needed to share hers. She had one question only.

  “Bishop, this doesn’t mean we have to wait an entire year to be sealed in Manti, does it?”

  “Not at all,” Bishop Parmley assured her. “If you or this man clutching you as though his life depended on it hadn’t been church members for a year, you would have to wait. That’s not the case.”

  He put his arms around both of them. Della breathed in the coal, the sweat, and the exhaustion. Bishop and mine superintendent, Thomas Parmley was a man with far too much to do, who had taken the time for a small kindness.

  “I don’t want either of you separated by one more night in this canyon,” he said in firm tones. “This is no place to be alone, no matter how excellent your intentions are to wait a week to marry. Too many hearts are broken. Is it yes then?”

  Della turned in Owen’s grip to face him. “Yes. Owen?”

  He nodded. Captains on ships far out at sea could have heard his sigh of relief.

  “Well then,” Bishop Parmley said. “Let’s deal with the paperwork first. Abraham?”

  “You don’t have to do this, Della,” Owen said, maybe wanting to give her a moment to reconsider. “It’s only a week’s wait.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said calmly, all fear gone.

  “Very well, you two,” the man she didn’t know said. “Owen, you know me.” He turned to Della. “Miss Anders, I am Abraham Ketchum, Justice of the Peace and Scofield butcher,” he announced proudly, leaving Della to wonder whether he was prouder about the title or the occupation. “Let’s do the paperwork so dear to the state of Utah, and then Mr. Parmley can marry you.”

  Bishop Parmley touched Della’s arm. “Della, I wish I could turn Owen over to you for the rest of the day, but he’s still my elders quorum president, and I need him to help me in the homes.”

  “Bishop, it’s your lucky day. You’ll be getting two for the price of one,” she said. “Once we’re married, I’ll help him, if you don’t mind.”

  “I won’t turn you down.”

  Della leaned away from Owen and kissed Bishop Parmley’s cheek. “Thank you. I always wanted to be married in a work dress with my hair in a knot. It was my life’s dream.”

  “Any time, my dear, any time.”

  Della smiled when Dr. Isgreen chuckled.

  Ketchum sat down at Della’s library desk. “Your bishop already filled in the information from his church records,” he said, indicating the forms. “Owen, he showed me a copy of the death certificate for your late wife, and I have noted that
here.” He looked at Della next. “Any impediments I should know about, Miss Anders?”

  “None, sir. I’ve never been married, and I am twenty-four.”

  He indicated where they should sign. Owen picked up the fountain pen and signed with no hesitation. He handed it to Della, a question in his dark eyes.

  “I’m unemployed, I have about forty dollars to my name, I turned my bed into a coffin for my best friend, and I’m going to hurt for a long, long time,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You can withdraw and feel no reproach from me.”

  “Withdraw? I suppose I could, but why would I?”

  Della took the pen. She thought about the school year, the choir where she served as secretary, her friends—many of them gone now. She stepped closer, wishing they were alone, but speaking to him as if they were. “I have this vast and fierce love for you, Owen Davis.”

  The simplicity of her words brought tears to his eyes. “Oh, now,” she said, and dabbed at them. “You Welsh think you’re the only people with a gift for language. We Greeks were writing poetry when you were probably worshipping trees and painting yourselves blue.”

  Dr. Isgreen laughed out loud. “I guess she told you, Owen.”

  “I guess she did.”

  Della signed the paper with a sure hand and dated it where Abraham Ketchum indicated. Ketchum asked Dr. Isgreen to sign as a witness, and he signed as the other witness.

  Their bishop stood in front of them, cleared his throat, and married them. When he finished and the state of Utah was satisfied, he nodded to Owen. “Have you a ring, lad?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “I’ll loan you this one.”

  Della looked in surprise at Dr. Isgreen, that self-assured man who suddenly didn’t look so confident.

  Maybe it was the moment for truth telling. “I would still prefer to give this to you myself, but your … your husband beat me fair and square.” He nodded to Owen. “I expect this back when you get your own ring for this good lady.” He took a simple gold band from his vest pocket. “Yea or nay?”

  Owen nodded. “Give me six months.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Owen took the ring from Dr. Isgreen and slipped it onto Della’s finger. “Six months,” he told the doctor and kissed Della.

  The doctor picked up his hat and kissed Della’s cheek. He shook Owen’s hand. “Treat her right or I’ll thrash you and not stitch you up afterward, no matter what Hippocrates thinks I should do.” He winked at Della. “And do what she says.”

  Abraham Ketchum left after telling Owen that he always gave advice to a new couple. He shook his finger at Owen. “No more coal mines,” he said. “That’s an order.”

  Bishop Parmley put his hands on their shoulders. He kissed them each on the forehead. “I have no doubt this will be a good marriage.”

  Finally it was just the two of them standing in the library. Without a word, they wrapped their arms around each other. After a moment’s hesitation, he moved his hands a little lower and patted her hip.

  “I don’t know how or if I will ever measure up to Gwyna, my love, but I will try,” she said into his chest.

  Owen held her off from him and gazed deep into her eyes. “Let’s clear this now. There will be no measuring on my end of this marriage. Gwyna was Gwyna and you are my Della. I have a big heart.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Wife, Richard would become my own bwca and haunt me if he knew he saved my life just to have me ruin yours with pettiness.”

  “Thank you, Owen. I needed to know that. I hope Gwyna doesn’t mind that I already think of her daughter as mine.”

  “Mind? I have no doubt that she is pleased and relieved,” he said.

  They stood at the window, looking down at coffins and women in black. She wished they could get some blankets and bed down here tonight, above the tears and tumult.

  “Wish we could stay here,” Della said.

  “So do I. Sister Davis, you’re now the wife of the ward elders quorum president. Both my counselors are dead, so …”

  He stopped speaking and she tightened her grip on him. “We have work to do, my love,” she finished and bumped his hip with hers. “We’re not always going to be sad.”

  Chapter 4

  L

  After eating a hurried sandwich with Angharad at the Parmley house, Owen and Della worked until the stars came out, going from house to house, comforting, listening, taking notes on what, by now, the widows were beginning to realize they needed. They mourned with those that mourned.

  To say it was difficult would have been to understate the matter. The one bright spot, besides Della’s presence, that held Owen firm was Angharad’s smile of delight when they told her Bishop Parmley had married them. Blushing with shyness, Della held out her ring hand to Angharad.

  That ring. How soon could he come up with enough cash to replace it? The irony was not lost on Owen.

  He dismissed any further contemplation of the matter because there was enough to worry about. He left Della and Angharad standing close together long enough to go into the kitchen and thank Sister Parmley for her help.

  “No difficulty there, Owen,” she said. “Your Angharad and my girls are all distracting each other and helping with William’s wee ones.” She touched his hand. “Thank you for letting my Thomas marry you two. I know you wanted to wait until Manti next week.”

  “I thought I did. I need her right now, don’t I?”

  “We all see it. You need to sleep tonight. Having Della close by will help.” Her face flushed. “Too many widows are sleeping alone tonight and hereafter. I imagine they are cuddling their children close, but it’s not the same.”

  “I know,” he said. “I remember.” He thought of days that stretched into years without Gwyna as near as his fingertips, his refuge from unrelenting hard work and worry and struggling to make ends meet. “We can be sealed next week all the same, Bishop says.”

  “He’s right.” She gave him a little push. “Go out there and slay some dragons, you Welshman!”

  Bless Sister Parmley’s English heart. He would have to explain y draigh och of Wales to her sometime.

  “We don’t slay them, dear sister,” he said, congenitally unable to leave his beloved dragons undefended. “They protect us.”

  A shadow crossed her face, as if she wondered where the dragons had been sleeping when so many miners died. He couldn’t say anything, because he had the same thought.

  As dusk neared, Owen wondered how it was that even in a coal camp preoccupied with death and sorrow, word of their decidedly impromptu wedding preceded them. Where they had no right to expect even a kind look from distracted people, there were smiles. Tamris Powell even managed a theatrical hand to her forehead and a heartfelt, “Thank the Lord,” before she fell into Della’s arms in tears over the loss of her dear Nahum and her older brother, William Jones, and his two sons.

  When a thoroughly shaken Della let him pull her from the Powell house, they had to sit in the wood shed until she gathered herself together. She shivered beyond any possibility of his warming her, outside of getting her in bed and wrapping himself about her, which he longed to do as the day wore on.

  “Married men’s mines,” she managed to say. Her voice shook with anger. “Over and over everyone told me these mines were safe for families because they weren’t gassy mines, prone to explode over nothing. You know, like the Castle Gate in April, where you had to shore up the timber. The Winter Quarters Mines are family mines!” She practically spit out the words.

  “I have no answers,” he said simply. “Not one.”

  She began to droop as sorrow replaced outrage. “Now Tamris’s lovely Winifred will never know her fine father.” She made a visible effort to control herself. “I wish I had known my father longer. Twelve years is never long enough. Where now?”

  He listened to Della’s disjointed words as she jumbled this disaster with her father’s death in Colorado years ago and with April’s Castle Gate, all of it tumbling ou
t fresh and raw, as if they happened yesterday. She didn’t seem aware of it.

  Home to bed, if I had a bed, he thought. You’ve had enough. “To Martha’s.”

  They walked up the canyon as dusk settled, smoothing away the harsh white of the coffins outside everyone’s homes, and inside them too.

  She stopped him, and he tensed. Despite the low light, he saw the affection on her face.

  “Owen, my first night here, all I saw were shacks. Gradually they turned into houses, and then into homes.” She turned to him, her face suddenly bleak. “Will they become homes again?”

  “They will, m cara,” he told her as he pulled her close. “And we’ll do the same thing in Provo with our home.”

  Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he heard her. “I needed to know.”

  He led her up the steps to the Evanses’ house, stopping this side of the door, wanting to brace her against the sight of Richard’s coffin. He whispered to her what lay within, and she nodded.

  He knocked. Martha opened the door and smiled to see them. She was dressed in black, as were all the other women in the canyon. Owen had lived around mines and death all his life, and it still mystified him that a normally colorful coal town could suddenly plunge into mourning. Where did all those black dresses come from?

  “Martha, I’m all out of words,” Della said.

  “Then let us be silent together.”

  With remarkable poise, the two women sat in the chairs next to Richard’s beautiful coffin. Heads together, arms around each other, they sat in silence until Martha called Owen’s name.

  “Owen dear, Mary Evans and I have a favor to ask of you,” Martha said.

  “Anything.”

  “You heard that, Della,” Martha said, and visibly gathered herself together. “We have our own family plots.”

  “I know,” Owen said, remembering other sad days when little ones were placed there so tenderly from both Richard’s and David’s families.

  “Our lovely men will be buried in our plots on Saturday. We want you to sing ‘Lead Kindly Light’ for them.”