Poems of Love

by Camy Sorbello

 

"You're dumb as a box of rocks, Jimmy Dee!"

That was a new one. Usually I was dumb as a post.

"Gee, Tom. I was only wondering."

"Yeah. Only wondering if Frank's head would bust like a melon if a rock hit it."

I shut up then, and watched as Frank walked slowly towards me, smiling like always.

"Come on, Frank. Run!" I said.

But he didn't even speed up a little. Just as he reached the shade of the mesquite tree where we were standing, it blew. The dynamite blasted chunks of rock big as cabbages out of the mine. They landed and rolled a bit, making little clouds of dust that floated away in the wind.

"Jimmy Dee, you know I never run," said Frank. "I'm too darned old. Besides, I leave a long enough fuse on the load to give me time to get out."

"Yeah," said Tom. "Mr. Donovan don't pay ol' Frank extra fer nothing. He knows how to get to them silver veins right quick. But you know, Frank, I think every time you set a blast, you get a few more gray hairs. That beard of yours is getting to be more salt than pepper every day."

Tom headed for the water wagon, but I stayed with Frank. We set down together under the tree to watch and wait for the dust to settle so we could head into the mine and dig out the ore. Frank started in whistling. He never sang or hummed, just whistled, and only one song, "Lorena". It had a sad sound to it, and ol' Jack said that in the War both the Rebs and the Yanks cried when they heard it.

Frank reached into the left pocket of his shirt and pulled out his little green book and opened it. His eyes went up and down a bit, then he turned to the next page and did the same thing. He stared at one page for quite a while before turning to the next. He sure loved that book.

It had belonged to his dead wife Lydia, and was her favorite, he said.  Her sister in Boston had sent it to her when they were farming in Kansas before  the War. It was a pretty green, like spring wheat, Frank said, when it was new.  Now it was more like old hay, gray green and faded. But the gold letters on the front were still shiny bright. Frank told me it said "Poems of Love and Inspiration" at the top. And the little letters near the bottom were his dead wife"s name: Lydia Carlyle Thornton. He said she read from it when she was sad and times were rough and the crops were failing, and the little green book made her feel better.

I'd nodded like I understood how that could be, even though I really didn't. But I liked being with Frank. Of all the miners in Jingles Creek he was the only one that didn't treat me like a dumb kid. He knew I'd been bounced around ranches and mining camps since the end of the War, and lost track of any kin I'd ever had. So when Mr. Donovan, the boss of the silver mine, made Frank the powder monkey that sets the dynamite, Frank said he wanted me to be his mudder. He taught me how to pack the mud around the dynamite after he slid it into the hole, and I got paid a little extra too.

The next day was mail day. Reverend Richardson fetched it once a week from Tombstone along with food and supplies. The Rev had his church in a tent near a grove of cottonwoods by the creek. We weren't any of us much for praying but the Rev helped us out anyway.

I went with Frank to the Reverend's tent to see if there was a letter for him from Boston. We went every week that whole year, me and Frank, but there was never any mail for him. His daughter lived in Boston with her aunt, his dead wife Lydia"s sister. His daughter's name was Lorena, after that sad song he whistled. She was almost my age, twenty-one, Frank said. He hadn't seen her in fifteen years since Lydia had died. Like me, he'd moved from ranch to ranch and mine to mine.

But every week he gave most of his pay money to Reverend Richardson to send to her. She was going to some fancy girls' school for ladies and it cost a lot. That's why he became the powder monkey, so he could send more money back to Lorena. Frank hoped she"d send him a letter or maybe even a picture, but she never did. He wondered if she was as pretty as his dead wife Lydia who he said was the most beautiful girl in the world with long dark brown hair and blue eyes the color of the Arizona sky. I tried to imagine her in my head but I couldn't, and Frank didn't have a picture of her. So I asked him if she was better looking even than Flossie and Belle that danced at the Jingles Creek Saloon and always smiled at me and called me Sugar. Frank just laughed and said, "Yeah, lots prettier."

The Reverend looked at every single letter twice, just to make sure there weren't any for Frank. Then he shook his head and said, "Sorry, Frank. Nothing today. Maybe next week. It's a long way from Boston to Arizona Territory."  Frank nodded and pulled his hat down close to his eyes, to shade them from the sun, I suppose.

"Thanks, Rev," was all he said. Then he walked to the edge of Jingles Creek, which was almost dry because it was August, and he looked at the trickle of water passing by and threw a few pebbles in. He was whistling "Lorena" real soft and slow. Then he sat down on a rock and took out the little green book, and opened it and stared at the same page for a long time. He closed the book, put it carefully in his left shirt pocket, patted down the flap to make sure it was safe, and got up and walked toward camp, still whistling his song. I wanted to go with him, but I didn't. Instead I sat on the rock and threw pebbles into the creek.

Things went along pretty much the same for the next month. Mr. Donovan yeIled and hollered a lot, saying he was losing money every day, and the silver veins we were finding weren't near as big as the ones up to Tombstone. He said if we didn't start mining more ore right quick we'd be flat outta work. We didn't pay him much mind though. I figured I could just follow Frank to the next camp and he could be the powder monkey there and I could be the mudder and we'd do fine.

We were a swell team. Bob Jolson had a cattle ranch nearby and a wife and three kids to go home to by spring calving time. He was just mining silver to earn some extra pay money for a team of mules, and was planning to quit soon anyhow.

Jack Lane was crippled up from the Battle of Shiloh and gimped around from town to town. He coughed a lot and wasn't much good for heavy work. I think people only hired him on 'cause he'd been in the War. And Tom Mccarthy, he wasn't but my age, but he thought he was something special, and better than everybody else, and smarter. Of course, Tom and Jack and Bob had to do the drilling in the rocks so me and Frank could set the charge. That drilling was mighty tough, and hard on the back. But it was a lot safer than messing with dynamite for sure.

It was a Thursday morning, the last week in September. We'd been hoping for rain, but no luck. Jingles Creek was Jingles Dry Gulch, at least that's what Belle and Flossie were calling it on account of the dust. Frank and me were getting ready to go in and set the load. He slid the cap into the bore hole, then hooked the fuse to the cap.

"Are ya sure the fuse is long enough?" I asked.

"Jimmy Dee!" Frank laughed. "When are you ever gonna stop asking me that? It's the same length it always is, and I ain't blowed myself up yet, have I?"

I stirred the mud in my bucket one more time, then me and Frank headed into the mine. The boys had drilled the holes into the rock wall just a foot up from the ground, hoping maybe this time we'd blast through to the mother lode, if there was one. So we had to work bent over or squatting down. I hunkered down Injun style with my bucket of mud but Frank said his knees was too old for that. If he squatted down, he'd never be able to stand straight again, so he bent over close to the drill hole to slide the load in.

"Okay, Jimmy Dee. Pack her in."

I reached into the bucket and scooped out a handful of the cool mud and packed it good and hard around the dynamite. When Frank said, "Okay, that's plenty," I stood up and hustled out into the sunlight right quick. I never much cared to hang around that load for long. I could hear Frank chuckle as he struck the match and lit the fuse.

Tom give me hell for raising up so much dust running from the mine to the mesquite.

"What you trying to do. Jimmy Dee? Kill poor ol' Jack?"

He was right. Jack was choking so bad he near to coughed his guts out.

"I'll git him some water, Tom," I said.

Frank was whistling "Lorena" as he walked steadily toward us. Suddenly the song stopped. There he stood, halfway between me and the mine, his hand on his left shirt pocket, and panic on his face. The book was gone. He must have dropped it when he bent over to set the charge.

Before any of us could say a word, Frank turned and ran quicker than a jackrabbit and disappeared into the dark. It seemed like a whole day went by before he ran back out again, a smile on his face and the book in his right hand.

"Faster, Frank! Run! Run! Run!" I screamed so loud and got so scared I dropped the water on the ground.

He almost made it.

When the dynamite blew, one of those cabbage rocks come out low and straight, probably "cause we set the charge near the ground. It didn't bust his head like a melon. Instead it hit him right square in the back and knocked him flat. He was dead by the time we got to him.

 

Arizona Territory in September was not the place for a long wake. We had to bury Frank the same day. Mr. Donovan bought the lumber and Tom and Bob made the coffin. Flossie and Belle picked some weeds and looked real sad even though Frank never had given 'em any business.

And I had the book. I had picked it up where it had fallen in the dust when Frank was hit. It felt real smooth, except for the gold part, where the names were. That was bumpier. I turned the pages and looked up and down like Frank had done, and wished I could read the words so I'd know what it was in that book that made him and his dead wife Lydia feel better in hard times.

Reverend Richardson was gonna say the funeral at three in his church tent. I got there early.

"Hello, Jimmy Dee."

"Hello, Reverend."

Then I saw Frank lying in his coffin. I wanted to talk to him, to thank him for making me his mudder and for teaching me about dynamite. I wanted to tell him he was my best friend in the whole world, and I was sorry that his wife Lydia was dead and his daughter Lorena far away in Boston. But I never spoke a word. I lust looked down at him. with his shaggy beard that was more salt than pepper, and the shirt with the empty pocket.

"Reverend, I brung his book. The one he liked to read after setting the charge.  The green one with the poems in it."

"Well, Jimmy Dee. That's real nice of you. But Frank couldn't read."

"Sure he could, Reverend. He read it every day. I saw him."

"You saw him look at the pages. He couldn't read a word, or write either. Not even his name. I wrote the letters he sent to Boston. And if he'd ever had an answer, I'd have read it to him."

I'd never known the Rev to lie, so I had to suppose he was telling the truth.

But it didn"t make sense.

"Why would he look at a book he couldn't read? There ain't no pictures."

"Well, Jimmy Dee. Holding onto that book was like holding onto his wife in a way. When he looked at the poems that had brought her peace it made him peaceful too and brought him closer to her."

Before I could think of what to say the boys and Mr. Donovan and Flossie and Belle come in, so I didn't say nothing. We stood around real quiet and sad staring at Frank and the Rev said some prayers over him and Flossie and Belle sniffled a little into their lace hankies.

"Would anyone care to say anything else before we send Frank to his eternal rest?" asked the Rev.

Well. I did, even if Tom would say I was dumb as a post or a box of rocks.

"Yeah. I just want to give ol' Frank back his book of "Poems of Love and Inspiration" that was his dead wife Lydia"s," I said it all in one breath, real serious, like the Rev talked. Then I slipped that little green book into Frank"s left shirt pocket and patted it down nice and neat the way he always did. Everybody was real quiet.

"There ya go, Frank. I know how much pleasure it give ya reading this, so now ya'll have it with ya to read forever." I said the word 'read' real loud and clear so everybody could hear it.

I stepped back from the coffin and figgered I'd be cursed for lying, but the Rev smiled at me and nodded his head. Tom and Bob closed the lid down over Frank and were fixing to nail it shut when ol' Jack coughed a bit and cleared his throat, and started in singing! His voice was kinda weak and rattling at first, 'til he got himself going good. He was singing "Lorena", and it was a mighty sorrowful song. By the time he got to the end Flossie and Belle were crying their eyes out.  

" 'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod!
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart."  

Every week after that I asked the Rev if there was a letter from Boston. He had written to Frank's daughter to tell her her father was dead, killed by a rock in a mine blast. But she never wrote back. I hoped she'd come on out to Jingles Creek to pay her last respects at Frank"s  grave and then I could see her. I tried to keep the cemetery looking neat (there weren't but six people buried in it) so a lady like Lorena wouldn't be ashamed to be seen there. But nobody ever showed to visit Frank's last resting place.

Three months after Frank died, Jingles Creek Mine was played out. Mr. Donovan closed up and left for Tombstone. Flossie and Belle were tired of the dust and dirt and lit out for San Francisco. I missed them calling me Sugar. In December me and Tom and ol' Jack left Jingles Creek to try our luck in Colorado. I had become the powder monkey and Tom was my mudder. He never called me dumb anymore.

We were a swell team.

 

The End