She looked at him appreciatively. “I’m Goldie. What’s your name?”
“Gerome!” a man’s voice called. “What do you think you’re doin’?”
They were interrupted by a paunchy white man in his late forties. He had a swoosh of blondish hair that came from the back of his head and was combed in a circular style to cover the top and sides of his balding head. He wore slacks and a sports jacket, with a white shirt and a blue bow tie. He seemed very unhappy that the maintenance man was sitting.
“Is this boy bothering you, ma’am?” he asked Goldie.
She was immediately taken aback that the man had referred to her caregiver as “boy,” but then remembered it was 1942.
“No,” she said, as Gerome closed the first aid kit and silently rose, “I-I cut myself on some glass, and this man was sweet enough to tend my wound.”
The man in the bow tie looked down and saw the glass on the floor.
“Oh… I’m terribly sorry, ma’am. You shouldn’t have to deal with sharp objects like that in my terminal. I’m Bradley Hammersville, the manager here.” Then he turned and spoke curtly to the black man.
“Gerome, get that glass cleaned up right now. Then get into the men’s room. A soldier got sick in there.”
“Yes, Mr. Hammersville,” the other man said contritely. He started to walk away. As he did, Goldie called out to him.
“Hey, Gerome. Thank you. For the first aidandthe kind words.”
Gerome half-smiled, then turned and went on his way.
“Once again, ma’am, I’m deeply sorry,” the manager said.
“Fuhgeddaboudit,” she replied with her Bronx accent. “But tell me, when’s the next bus for Sparkledove?”
“Oh, that won’t be until later this afternoon. Doesn’t depart until 3:30 p.m.”
She looked at a clock over the front door. It was a few minutes before 10:00 a.m. She had five and a half hours to kill.
“Okay. Point me in the direction of the library,” she requested.
It was a seventy-cent cab ride to the Denver Library, but the journey was worth the effort. Goldie decided to take Gerome’s advice and adapt to her surroundings. She read several articles about Sparkledove, Colorado, and she also looked at back issues ofAdventure Escape Magazine,which, oddly enough, had numerous articles written by her. The magazine came out every other month, six times a year, and was dedicated to finding unexpected and delightful places in the country. She assumed since it was on the verge of Christmas, the town of 1,002 residents must be a special place for the holidays. She read that the Old-West-style main street was actually called River Street, and there were over ninety Victorian-style homes situated on side streets. Most of these had been carefully preserved under the auspices of the Sparkledove Historical Society and its President, Charles Banyan, who also happened to be the mayor as well as owner of the city’s only real estate company.
Back in the 1860s, just after the Civil War, silver was discovered in the mountains that lay to the east and west of where the town now stood. Since there was a natural flat piece of land with a river in between these mountains, Sparkledove became a booming mining town. Within ten years, it had a population of over four thousand people and mines that ranged from a major operator to several one and two-man claims. The city got its unique name from a combination of the silver that came out of the mines and the cooing Eurasian Collared Doves that favored the tall, scraggly pines so prominent on the surrounding mountains. By the early 1880s, however, a series of events began that all but destroyed the town. In 1881, a mining explosion killed thirty-one men. In 1882, large deposits of both silver and gold were discovered in more accessible areas closer to Denver, and people lost interest in Sparkledove’s remote location. In 1884, a dam collapsed upstate, sending a wall of surging water to dramatically flood the river running through town, and over the course of one terrible night, nearly half the city’s houses were either seriously damaged or destroyed, and eight souls lost their lives. By 1900, Sparkledove’s population had diminished to less than four hundred residents.
Goldie continued her studies of both the city andAdventure Escape Magazineuntil 2:30 p.m. Then she went to a department store across the street, used the bathroom, got some chewing gum and a candy bar, and made a haberdashery purchase. She caught a cab back to the bus station, where she arrived at 3:12. The crowds from earlier that morning had diminished, and only a dozen or so people were sitting on the benches or standing and smoking. When she entered the station, Gerome, the maintenance man, was mopping the linoleum floor around the scaffolding where the painters were working to get any drippings that might’ve fallen. He smiled at her when she entered.
“Ay, Gerome,” she greeted. “How’s it goin’?”
“Be a little careful,” he advised. “The floor’s wet over here.”
“I will.”
“Back again, eh?”
“Yeah. The bus I want doesn’t leave until 3:30.”
“How’s the hand?”
“Throbs a little. But I’ll survive.” She stepped over to him and handed him a small blue paper bag from the department store.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A set of three new white handkerchiefs.”
“Oh, now—you shouldn’t have done that.”
