The Clocksmith of Her Dreams, page 20
Oliver turned to her and Robert and thanked them. “I’ll see you both tomorrow morning?” Oliver asked.
“It’s Sunday tomorrow,” Milly said, starting to feel cold under her jacket from how wet she was.
“So?” Oliver asked.
Milly looked to Robert and then back to Oliver. “I suppose we could skip church.”
Oliver nodded. “We’ll start early. Wear walking shoes,” he said to Milly and put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for everything.”
She beamed and placed her hand on his. Something passed between them, a feeling of love and concern that almost made her throw herself into his arms. But Robert was watching, and so they kept their distance as was proper.
After saying good night to Oliver, they went to the boarding house, where Milly thanked Robert for the ride.
“Are you heading home?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve got to fetch Cookie,” he said. “She was still busy at the hospital tent. I hope she’s done now. I could sleep for a week.”
She smiled. “Well, good night.”
“Good night.”
She turned and walked up the steps before he called her back.
“Milly!”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t that Leonard’s toolbelt in the back of my cart?” Robert asked.
“Oh, yes, it is,” Milly said, realizing she’d completely forgotten about it.
Robert reached into the back and picked it up. Then he handed it to her.
“Here, you can give it to Oliver in the morning,” he said.
She thanked him, took it, and went up the stairs and in through the door.
With the belt over her shoulder, she stepped inside. Although the lanterns were still lit, the house was oddly silent. Perhaps no one else had come back yet. Looking around briefly, she saw no sign of Arnold, but then she didn’t want to go looking for him either. Better though their relationship may be, she didn’t feel up to his company now.
Instead, she went up the stairs with a candle from reception and straight to her room. Unlocking the door, she went inside and lit her lamp extinguishing the candle. She had left her room in a terrible mess. Her lovely dress was hanging over the door of her closet, and the undergarments that had made the dress look so lovely were strewn on the floor. She kicked them out of the way and flopped on her bed.
What a night.
As she undressed and pulled her nightdress on, she thought about everything that had happened. But the thing that most occupied her mind was the thing that had almost happened. Oliver had almost kissed her.
It seemed too far away, like a dream hardly remembered, and yet he’d been so close. There had hardly been a hair between them. She could still feel his strong arms around her. Although phantom now, they made her skin erupt in gooseflesh. So close… they had been so close. His lips had hovered a moment above hers, and she’d almost…
She ran a finger over her lips and smiled. “Almost…” she said and sighed.
At least they’d had that moment before the whole evening went up in smoke, literally. Thankfully with the rain still falling gently, that fire was bound to be old news by morning.
She sighed again, thinking of what the morning would bring. Leonard. Where was he? What could possibly have happened to him? She stared at his belt and shook her head. Her hair was still wet, but she didn’t have the energy now to dry it. If she were an inventor and scientist like Oliver and Leonard, she’d make herself a machine to dry her hair quickly. But as she stared at the belt, she realized that beyond the hammer and screwdrivers, she had no idea what some of the things were, let alone what they were used for. What help could she possibly be in finding him?
She didn’t know, but she would never make Oliver search alone, and so she forced herself to dry off her hair a little with a towel. And then, after saying a prayer that Leonard was safe and they’d find him in the morning, she fell asleep.
***
Morning came and with it a gray and dull day. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the clouds seemed to have settled in and were staying a while. This weather reminded her of home, and she wondered if her letter had reached her family yet. Would they be happy to hear how things had worked out? She didn’t know. They probably would be. Her little sister Annie would think it was funny.
“Just like in a novel,” she’d say.
Well, unlike those romances, both sisters had been partial to reading, this was real life, and Leonard was really missing. Oliver would be eager to get out there and start looking, so Milly got dressed in her spare riding skirt and a blouse. Then considering the look of the day, she pulled a jacket on too. Her hair was a mess, so she tied it in pigtail braids down her back and chose her sturdy boots to slip her feet into. She had a blister on her left heel, and it hurt, but there was nothing to do but grin and bear it. After all, who knew what horrors Leonard had endured for the night?
Grabbing a hat and a bag, she was ready to head downstairs. As she was about to leave her room, she spotted Leonard’s toolbelt and grabbed it hastily. Then she went to the kitchen.
AnnMarie sat in the room with her head in her hands. She had a mug of coffee in front of her, but she looked like she had no intention of touching it.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
“Morning,” Milly said quietly.
“Ugh,” AnnMarie said again, groaning. “What hit me?”
“The punch,” Milly said. “You should have taken your own advice and stuck to the wine. It was much better than whatever was in that bowl.” She recalled the oddly orange-colored liquid she’d had only half a glass of the night before.
“You don’t say?” AnnMarie said. “Where are you off to?” she asked, taking in Milly’s attire.
“Leonard is missing,” Milly said. “Oliver, Robert, and I are going to try and find him.”
AnnMarie tried to nod, groaned, and waved her on. “All the luck of the Irish to you,” she said.
Milly helped herself to toast and made AnnMarie a slice too, although she didn’t expect her to eat it. Then she had a mug of coffee and began to make sandwiches for herself and the boys. She also filled a skin with water and packed it all into her bag.
Dressed and ready, she went out the back door and picked up a stout walking stick from the few Ben kept leaning against the house. He was terribly afraid of snakes and liked taking a walking stick if he was asked to go anywhere where the grass grew tall.
She set off down the street.
It was pleasant this early and the town was still mostly asleep, especially after such a late night. However, some folks were making their way to the church, which hadn’t yet begun to ring its bells.
Robert was outside Oliver’s when she arrived. The cart had all sorts of things piled in the back, including rope and what looked like camping gear.
“Are we going away for a while?” Milly asked after greeting Robert.
Robert shrugged. “Better be prepared,” he said.
Just then, Oliver came down from the apartment. He was dressed in work clothes and wore an anxious expression. It lifted a little when he saw her.
“Are you sure you want to come with?” he asked her.
“What kind of question is that?” Milly asked, frowning.
“I’m just asking,” Oliver said.
“Well, I’m just telling you I’m coming,” she said.
The two men exchange looks, and Robert held up his hands. “I’m not getting involved,” he said. “Let her come. Women have sharp eyes. Maybe she’ll spot something.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful,” Oliver insisted.
Milly promised, and she climbed into the back of the cart. Oliver sat upfront with Robert, and they were soon heading through town.
The road up to the mine took them right through the burnt section of forest. It was like nothing Milly had seen before. Not this close at any rate. Despite the rain, some of the tree stumps still smoked and sizzled, and the air there smelled like something singed and burnt to a crisp.
Milly’s heart broke. All those lovely trees now nothing but smoldering hunks of charred wood. It was destruction on a huge scale that seemed utterly pointless.
“What’s that?” Oliver asked.
Milly turned and saw him pointing to the side of a hill. It looked almost scoured as though something had cleared the forest from that area by scraping the ground.
“I don’t know,” Robert said. “I’ve never seen it before. Do you think the fire did it?”
Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look burnt from here, but I might be wrong.”
Milly had no idea what it was. Only there were no trees there either. They rode on, and the trees that were left covered the hill from view, and soon they were back in the pine forest with its lovely earthy, fresh smells overpowering the smell of smoke and destruction.
It took quite some time for them to reach the mine. In that time, Milly had become utterly bored, and she had begun to think up new tweaks to old recipes revamping them into something delicious and new.
She had just decided to experiment with making melted chocolate run from the center of a chocolate cake when they reached the mine. The camp was empty. All the miners had been in town last night and were no doubt sleeping at the saloon or some other place. So, none of the tents were occupied as they usually were.
It was nice of Mr. Sylvester to let all the men have the day off. As the thought came to her, Milly realized that being nice probably had nothing to do with it. Someone had probably made him do it.
“Okay, let’s start at the experiment,” Oliver said.
He slid down from the driver’s seat and helped Milly out of the back. She slung her bag across her body and followed him while Robert tied the horses up under a tree.
The mine was not a pretty place. The ground was rough and barren with the passage of many feet and vehicles. Tools were stacked in piles that leaned against logs or protruded from mine carts and were slung in the crooks of the few stunted trees that clung to life there. There were signs of cook fires and all the evidence of people living their lives with very little in the way of comfort.
Oliver disregarded all this and lead Milly through the camp to where several contraptions dominated the space.
The first was a large structure with a complicated sequence of metal and stone surfaces that moved and clanged together. It emitted a low grumbling sound between the bangs and clangs as the stream that flowed at a pace turned its wheel.
“That’s the crusher,” Oliver said. “It crushes the rocks that the miners bring to the surface. Then the crushed rocks are brought here to the frother.” He pointed to a massive tub that had what looked like a metal arm sticking out of it. Three chutes also protruded from it, and Milly was at a loss as to what could possibly be going on in there. It looked like a huge mixing bowl to her.
“Leonard has been trying to get this to work properly,” Oliver said, pointing to the frother. “See, we mix chemicals in with the rocks, and then the bits we want come to the surface when it's stirred, and the bits we don’t want sink to the bottom.” He sighed. “At least that is the theory.”
“So you think Leonard was working here?” Milly asked.
“Mr. Hawthorn said they called Leonard in to come and fix something that went wrong on the frother. So, this is the frother,” Oliver said, walking around the tub and inspecting it. “Mr. Hawthorn saw Leonard here.”
“Okay,” Robert said. He had come over to join them. “We should start looking around here then.”
They spread out and began to look. Milly wasn’t certain what she was looking for. Although the day was overcast, it was humid, and soon, she took her jacket off and tied it around her waist. She walked over the uneven ground keeping her eyes peeled for anything that might help. But all she saw was dirt, rocks, and empty bean cans.
Sighing, she wiped her forehead and noticed she was sweating. Taking the water skin from her bag, she took a swig and wiped her mouth. That was better. Suddenly, something bright caught her eye. It was something wedged between two stones. Bending, she picked it up and found it was glass. It looked like…
“Oliver!” she called, holding it up.
“What? What did you find?” he asked, hurrying over.
Robert came running too, and she dropped the oddly shaped thing into Oliver’s palm.
“I think it’s Leonard’s,” she said. “It’s the right shape, isn’t it? Oval, like yours.”
Oliver’s hand went to his spectacles and touched their frame. “Yes,” he said. “But these lenses don’t just fall out.” He looked around, filled with a fire now. “See if you can find the frames or something.”
They began to search this area more thoroughly.
Chapter 20
July 1885
The sheriff’s office smelled like stale tobacco smoke, old coffee, and pine wood. It was a strange combination of smells, disjointed and incongruous, that made Oliver jittery. He shifted on the bench he was seated on in the waiting area where a deputy watched him with undisguised mistrust.
The deputy’s name was Harker Weir, and he had never liked Oliver. Not that Oliver had any idea what he had done to deserve the deputy’s dislike. And yet, there was no denying or escaping it. He’d been waiting for over two hours to see the sheriff, and still, the deputy had not said more than one sentence to him. That sentence had been, “You’ll have to wait.” Not Oliver’s most favorite four words, but he was desperate, and desperation leant him a kind of patience. And so, he’d sat and waited watching Deputy Weir playing with a knife cleaning his nails while staring at Oliver.
When the door finally opened, and Sheriff Baxter entered, Oliver almost whooped for joy. The sheriff was a large man with a full dark beard and piercing blue eyes. He took his hat off and hung it on a hook by the door. Then he rubbed his sweaty hair as though it had been itching for a while before turning to look in the room.
“Well, that was a colossal waste of my time,” he said, sounding tired and annoyed. “Those darn Ward boys were foolin’ with their father. None of the old man’s cattle are gone.” He stopped when he laid eyes on Oliver.
Sheriff Baxter looked from Deputy Wier to Oliver and back again. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothin’,” Deputy Wier said. “He’s been waiting, is all.”
“And you been friendly, Harker?” the sheriff asked.
“Yes, sir,” the deputy said.
The sheriff clearly knew his deputy well because his expression conveyed exactly how much stock he put in the man’s words. He hitched up his pants which seemed more of a nervous gesture than anything else. He gestured with his head for Oliver to accompany him into his office.
With the door firmly shut between him and his deputy, the sheriff turned to Oliver and offered him the seat in front of the desk. This office was full of papers and files. There were notes stuck up on the corkboard with drawing pins that helped it give off the air of a busy room where someone spent a lot of time. The dirty coffee mugs and plates of half-finished food told Oliver that the sheriff was spending a lot of time here. He recognized the remains of one of Milly’s pies and couldn’t help but smile.
The sheriff went around the desk and sat down. He had positioned his desk so that he could look out of a decent-sized window at the main street. As he watched Oliver take his seat, his eyes kept darting outside as though he was always on guard for something.
