Copper Sky

1895

The White Dog

On the edge of his last dust-filled breath, an old-time miner says that he can forget he has a body attached to the earth. He can drop it somewhere safe and let his spirit soar, like an eagle or an escaped parakeet, flapping away from the poisonous gases, above the Copper Camp. He can look down on the town from the rock outcropping of the East Ridge. The hill is littered with dozens of black metal head frames. Within walking distance, rows of meager houses tuck into each other like honeycomb. They are houses where pasties, polenta, povetica, calzones, and spring rolls bake.

The houses line up next to the Best Brothel in Town and the Polly May Home for Kids. Two fighters rush through the snow for the big match. An armless, toeless man wobbles toward a gin house. In a tiny hovel, a group of Slavs corner up in front of a warm coal stove and pray for a church, the onion-domed type, with an iconostas and a parish hall. At night, under the sweet oppression of smoke residue and smelting dust, the lights of Butte sparkle and shine, more beautiful than the parade's last glitter.

When morning arrives, a vagrant white dog rises for his usual haunts in the sanguine dawn. He wanders through the crimson town, past pawnshops and dress stores, down a snow covered hill, toward the Polly May, where the woman washes the ghostly wet sleep from her cheeks. She wakes early often and he always stops here first. He rubs his head into her palm and licks the dried salt from the back of her hands.

They start their days together this way, before the children return from their fairy dreams and the morning lights blink on. The woman carves a biscuit and spreads it in a pan. The white dog sits still as skinned fur while she drizzles bacon grease onto the slices.

When the children arrive in the kitchen the dog licks their hands, nuzzles his nose into their nightshirts, and carefully leans his weight against theirs. Two little girls come to him before breakfast. They look just like each other, except that one has dark black hair and the other light brown and, under the same light, their eyes shine differently, and one, the dark haired girl, looks off in an odd direction. The look-alike girls are not tall yet and their heads barely reach above his own. The dark girl ruffs up his fur; the light one hugs him.

Kaly, Anne Marie, wash up for breakfast, the woman tells the girls.

Mornings at the big house are quiet, after the woman's bad dreams, before the sun glares and the noise begins. It is the town's safest hour.

Later, the white dog trots to the Copper Tavern and the Goldmine Cafe for steak bones and stale muffins. Throughout the day he roams, sniffing the men and women who pass him with outstretched hands, or licking the children who paw his ears with colorful mittens. They smell like popcorn or dirt or dried whiskey. Many ignore him, striding quickly with their heads down.

It isn't until darkness slides over this winter day in the Copper Camp of Butte, Montana, that the white dog recedes into the shadows. Late in the night, he hears hissing and crackling near the warehouses on East Platinum Street. Flames blaze the icy streets and snow reflects red like the dawn. Soon the wail of sirens cuts into the dog's ears, and fire wagons and teams of horses charge past him. Men and women run toward the fire. The dog haunches backward, away from the displaced night, a wild lonely sound escaping his throat.

The dog doesn't get far when the woman's hand touches his neck. A line of children, attached to her other hand, snake up the road toward the fire's glow. A tall copper-haired boy, at the snake's head, pulls them closer and closer to the flame. The look-alike girls move nearer the white dog and, as though roped by their delighted cries, the dog follows.

People push toward the burning warehouse like a theater crowd. The wind blows the fire into a nearby hardware building, a building where several boxes of dynamite hide. Something pops and explodes. The dog backs away from the fire. When the woman and children don't move, he wags himself over to them. He grabs the mitten of the little girl with the dark hair and pulls. The snake of children and the woman hold fast, their gazes lashed to the flames.

The fire expands abruptly and another explosion jolts the crowd. It tears at the dog's ears. He tugs harder on the girl's mitten. The woman shrieks like the fire wagons and slips backward into the soot-covered snow. The dog lets go of the girl, runs to the woman, and sinks his teeth into her coat sleeve, trying to pull her up from the frozen ground. The sleeve comes apart in his mouth and falls like dried leaves. He sinks his teeth into the sleeve a second time, near her shoulder. When the tall copper-haired boy swings a stick at the dog, the stick drives the dog back again and again, until he can't reach the woman or the girls.

The dog withdraws into the shadows, away from the blows. He runs his tongue across his mouth where the stick crashed against his teeth and shrinks away from the sweltering heat of the burning buildings. The boy helps the woman and the children cross the street, away from the fire.

When the fire reaches the bulk of the dynamite the final explosion rips a hole in the night. Much of the crowd disappears and for a brief moment the sky rains blood, speckling the snow and the dog's white paws with flesh. Several fingers and a foot drop beside him, silent as the mountain or a tree rustling in a brief wind.

Across the street, the look-alike girls stand with their heads tilted in his direction. The two girls stand between the woman and the boy with the stick. The light-haired girl puts her hand up, palm out, and rocks it back and forth, waving at him. The dark girl stands like stone, one hand clasping her mouth, the other hand holding her head, as if to stop a pain. Beside her in the snow lies a disembodied arm. Smoke soon fills the gap of street between the dog and the girls. The look-alike girls, the woman, and the tall copper-haired boy disappear into the fragmented night, like the wild ghostly crowd.

Winter 1917

1

The Old House

Kaly Shane stood across the street from the Polly May, holding the hem of her red satin dress above the snow, and watched the old house where Miss Anderson cared for orphaned children. God knew Butte had enough of them. Constant mine disasters snatched fathers, and tuberculosis or rampant flus took young mothers down the glory road every day. Miss Anderson harnessed the motherless children, every last one that the house would hold, and tried to keep them safe.

Kaly knew. She grew up in the Polly May. Grew up. Grew scared. Grew wild. Joined the working girls in the red light district and fostered bad luck. As every working girl had a bad habit, Kaly had hers. She ran from love, and it had been no easy feat since finding herself pregnant. On this cold winter day she rehearsed the words she'd say to Miss Anderson: Will you raise this child? A child born where luck rises up out of the ground in shimmering copper will need one good parent. Will you be hers?

Across the street, two wide-eyed windows looked out from the second floor dormer of the Polly May. The roof of the dormer peaked between two chimneys on either side of the house. Decorative ironwork tiptoed across the roof, from one stack of bricks to the other. The porch below separated two bay windows. An open slat fence, turning gray in the falling snow, protected the house like an old friend.

Beth, Kaly's best friend, said that the houses in Butte were filled with ghosts. The wise ones chose a house with plenty of rooms and windows that opened. A good ghost could feel nearly alive on a moonless night, with the wind blowing curtains through an open window. A good ghost could move freely on that wind from room to room, lodging among the more substantial boarders.

Kaly had her own ghosts and she thought of them as she crossed the street to the Polly May. Tommy, Bert Brown, her lovely sister, Anne Marie, a cold winter day when they were ten. Icy flakes landed in her eyelashes. She melted them by breathing deeply, warming the air in her aching lungs, like she had done as a child, and blowing the warmed air up one side of her face and then the other, toward her brown curls. The old rhythm calmed her.

Brick surrounded the carved wooden door of her old home. Past the building and further up the northern slope, she saw the neighborhood houses. Beyond their roofs the head frames of the Speculator and Granite Mountain mines loomed over the city. The mine whistles blew, announcing the noon hour. A stray dog howled. The snowstorm had already layered the porch with a full foot of white fluff and Kaly turned toward the Flats and sat down in the cushion of it. She pulled the warm wool coat under her like a blanket.

She'd spent her life tripping from one trouble to the next and now, with her belly swelling toward the inevitable, and her lungs buzzing with fever, she counted her hours in time to the siren sound of the mining whistles. The burrowed tunnels produced a robust supply of copper for bullets for the war. When she was young, Kaly memorized the names of several of the copper mines as a chant to calm herself.

Wake Up Jim, Neversweat, Mountain Con, Orphan Girl.

She knew men who worked and died in all of them. They were her best customers, mostly drunk on whiskey, tired from a shift, occasionally jovial or kind. Kaly managed them all with a professional distance. Lately, though, something like love or anger, a sense of betrayal or grief, burst through without warning and she'd find herself crying in some John's arms. Later she'd be bitter or sullen, feeling like someone had slipped her a mickey.

The funny thing was that her business thrived. The men seemed to enjoy comforting her as much as having sex, sometimes more. They brushed the hair out of her face and apologized. One man left two dollars on the nightstand and he hadn't even loosened his pants. He'd simply wet his palms on her tears, brushing the tiny droplets aside, a deep sigh pressing out from his lips. She'd felt her stomach twist and lurch into her throat that day, and the dreaded heat had sauntered up her belly, and her lungs hurt. She found herself running toward the Flats just to be alone, her gaze fixed on the beautiful snow-filled peaks of the Highland Mountains.

Kaly stood up and turned toward the door of the old house. Heat swept up her back and played at her stomach, causing it to twist and turn. The heat spread a bitter taste up her throat and into her mouth, the pure wave of it heightening the heaviness in her breasts. She climbed the stairs, expending a mountainous effort to reach the metal knob at the grand entrance. She picked the metal knob up and dropped it down, knocking on the wooden door of her youth.

The winter that she and Anne Marie turned ten, five years after the warehouse fire, the Rocky Mountains brought twenty inches of snow in four hours. The two girls emptied their dresser drawers, piling on leggings, undershirts, blouses and sweaters, making it impossible to bend their arms.

Kay, will you help me? Anne Marie moaned from under the deluge of clothes, swiping the air beyond her chest. I can't reach my buttons.

Kaly pushed her arms straight in front of her, pressed them together like scissors and fastened Anne Marie's coat. Now me, my turn, she said.

Anne Marie smiled and waddled a few steps away. First, she said, say the magic word.

Kaly thought about it. Mother?

Anne Marie squished up her nose. No. Try again.

Blanket?

Not that one.

Food.

More magic than that.

Come on, Annie. Button my coat for me. I feel like a winter whale.

Winter. That's it. Winter. Anne Marie clapped and scissored her arms in the same way that Kaly had.

Together they walked past Bert Brown, lurking in the hallway, and stepped outside into the burning cold. Icicles formed on their upper lips. Kaly felt her heart beat fast. Her face tingled with frozen warmth and her arms felt strong. Tree branches lifted up, sharp and bright, cradling the welcomed snow, offering passage to the secret world behind their trunks. Kaly and Anne Marie walked into that secret world. They stepped off of a frazzled edge, crisp white innocents, and disappeared into the frail deep snow.

Kaly shoved the memory off. Right now she needed to decide what to do about the baby. The door opened and Coral Anderson stood in its abandoned frame. Her hazel eyes widened. Her dark hair had turned perfectly white. The white curls hung in neat terraces away from her face. Her ruddy face drooped tiredly, as if it had gathered a certain unwelcome wisdom.

The voiceless girl has returned to her queendom, Miss Anderson said.

Kaly shuddered. You're angry still.

What would I have to be mad about? I spent years asking you about that day. All I got was crumbs. And only when you wanted something.

Kaly looked at the sky and then at her feet. I was ten years old. I had no say in what happened then. I'm hoping to make peace between us.

Was it too much to ask for a brief visit, or a letter even? No one expected you to stand in and fill Annie's place. We expected you to cry, ask questions. But you didn't cry. You said nothing. And then you left without a goodbye.

I need your help now, Kaly said.

Of course. Miss Anderson looked beyond Kaly, toward the flats. I did what I could in those years and you shunned me like a consumptive on his last breath. I hear from others you chatter up a storm all over town.

A burst of giggles trickled down the hall. Go wash up for a snack, Miss Anderson said to a small group of children just beyond the entryway. I don't know how I could possibly help you. Nor what good it would do. You're living a dangerous life. A dangerous life is a short life.

Kaly looked at the room in front of her. A red Oriental carpet covered the dark mahogany floor. A wrought iron bench sat across from a closet lined with small coats and tiny snow boots. Photos of young children hung on the wall above the bench. Roughly one third of the photos had tiny golden crosses painted in the lower left-hand corners, indicating the child's death. Miss Anderson always said she did the best she could and some children were just luckier than others. Beth would say that the unlucky ones crowded the second floor dormer.

Kaly located Anne Marie's picture on the wall. She saw the small curves in her cheeks, the soft line of her nose, her deep brown eyes, bangs clipped perfectly across her eyebrows, a white stone cross at her neck, the tiny sparkle of gold in the photo's corner. Next to Anne Marie's picture was her own. She had soft green eyes, brown curly hair, a matching white cross hanging from her neck. She looked like a simpler, lighter version of Anne Marie.

Two photos down from Kaly's, Bert Brown's red hair had faded to tan. Further yet, he sat in Miss Anderson's lap, younger but no happier. Next to Bert's young picture, Tommy Monroe stared out at her, his dark hair combed off of his forehead, a shadow falling across one half of his face.

Kaly's skin burned. She felt a tingling in her cheeks and her eyes watered. She ran her fingers through her hair, messing the curls. She had no business being here, asking Miss Anderson for help. The time for help was gone and she should go too. Being here wouldn't bring her lovely sister back, wouldn't tell Tommy he'd be a father soon, would not wash the black out of Bert's icy smile.

I shouldn't have bothered you, she said.

You've been more bother than any other child that came through these doors. Others acted worse. But I didn't expect anything from them. Miss Anderson's voice softened. Give me your coat. We'll try this again.

She hung Kaly's coat on a hook in the hallway closet. She paused briefly, then turned and hurried into the kitchen, her gray skirt flying up and behind her as if caught in its own windstorm.

Kaly lowered herself slowly onto the wrought iron bench. From the entryway she heard the familiar moan of the bathroom pipes and the wood in the kitchen stove cracking. She heard the creaking stairs where some child sat drawing. The muffled cry of another child came from one of the lower rooms. Kaly had learned to pay attention in these rooms, learned to distinguish a cry of anger from a cry of fear, learned the baleful sounds of loneliness and that of bad company. She unlaced her boots and placed them in line where they towered over the tiny snow boots.

Julian, fix some cheese and bread. The Polly May has a guest. And we do our best to treat guests, even the most unexpected ones, with manners.

Kaly laughed, thinking Miss Anderson must have just downed a glass of gin. She heard the age in Miss Anderson's voice and realized that she must've been very young when she first took Kaly and her sister in as infants.

Miss Anderson had named the Old House after the aunt who raised her and who, on her death-bed, left both the house and a small inheritance to her. Kaly asked one time why her own mother didn't raise her. Miss Anderson sent Kaly out to collect dropped coal from train cars. It was a long walk and the coal heavy and Kaly never asked about Miss Anderson's mother again.

I need to speak with you alone, Kaly said from the hallway.

Wonderful. Come back in another ten years. Julian. Let George help. George. Stop being bossy. Miss Anderson's voice sprung out from the kitchen, where the two boys fought over who would slice the cheese and bread.

Kaly arrived in the kitchen as the larger boy leered at the smaller one. Dirty dishes filled the sink. A hearty bottle of gin stood alone on the counter.

Stop looking so smug, Julian, Miss Anderson said. The leer quickly transferred to George's face. Contain yourself, George. You didn't win the World Series.

George flushed red. He turned and glared at Kaly. Dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he reminded her of Tommy Monroe. A girl, about six years old, huddled in the kitchen corner. Kaly had sat huddled in that very corner watching Tommy and Bert Brown fight over a meat cleaver.

Julian waved the knife in front of George who immediately lunged into Julian, grabbing for the knife. Miss Anderson dove between the boys and restrained George in a bear hug.

Enough, Miss Anderson said. George flailed in her grip. She twisted him and pasted his back to her front. He kicked at her and she pulled him to the floor. He flung his head back, nearly cracking his skull on her dentures. She dropped her shoulder into the back of his head and pinned his chin to his chest. As if on some secret cue, George went limp in her arms. The girl in the corner made a break for the hallway.

I wondered how long it would take you. At first Kaly thought that Miss Anderson spoke to George. To come asking questions. It's the nightmares. You still have them, don't you?

I need your help, Kaly said again. The reluctant words climbed up over the cliffs in her throat. She remembered how she favored her silence, how good it was to stone up her mouth and turn her voice inward and downward, so that only she could feel its soft quiver.

Go to Tommy. He might console you. He'll help, Miss Anderson said when she set George free. He's the one who can answer questions about that day. He may not remember everything, but enough to put your dreams to rest.

Tommy? She sat down at the kitchen table. He went to The Montana State Reform School because of Annie.

Yes, as I recall because you blamed him for Annie's death.

He won't like me bringing it up.

He won't mind. He didn't fair that badly. Talk to him. You can't run forever. Look at your life. Entertaining men for what, a few dollars.

Will you help me or not?

The woman tossed her head impatiently. How convenient for you to just forget it all. No sister, no death, no pain. So long as you realize you're dying too. Just a slower death.

Kaly narrowed her eyes. If you would've been watching us that day instead of drinking, Annie would be here now.

First you blame Tommy and now me. Who is really to blame? You should look into your own heart. Do you think keeping it all locked up inside helps?

I need help with something else, Kaly murmured. She knew Miss Anderson was right. It wasn't Miss Anderson's fault that Annie died. A sudden pain flared in her head. Her left eye twitched. It wasn't Miss Anderson's fault. It was Kaly's. She should've protected her sister.

Her head was spinning from the boys' fight and the smoky room. The smell reminded her of that day when they returned from the warehouse fire, when she and Anne Marie were five. Before Tommy came to live with them. Before things changed.

When they got home from the fire, Anne Marie had a distant look in her eyes. Miss Anderson had put her to bed, explaining that Anne Marie had been pelted by splintered wood from the explosion. But Kaly knew that it wasn't wood that had hit her sister. She'd seen what had flown into Anne Marie, and she'd looked away, into the crowd, where people ran in every direction. When Kaly looked back, she saw the woman's arm on the ground, still covered by a lacey sleeve, a silver bracelet circling the wrist, the index finger pointing toward the fire.

Now, all these years later, Kaly sat gazing out the kitchen window at the snowy back yard. Once more she felt the old urge to walk into that blue wave of snow, to bury herself under feathered flakes, to lie as still as a fallen bird, to be pulled into a silky white world where the crocus bloom and Anne Marie lives, where a baby crawls to her mother's arms, and a happy Kaly picks up her child and carefully wipes the dirt from her mouth.

A wave of sadness washed over Kaly. She wanted a mother, if only for a moment. She wanted someone to hold her, to wash her face and braid her hair. She loosened her fists and dropped her shoulders. It was no good. Why hope? Why should she remember the fire, or even her sister's fatal day five years later? Miss Anderson wouldn't be there to catch her when she fell. No one had ever been there when she needed them.

But self-pity hadn't exactly been a friend either.

Kaly fixed her green eyes on the door and pressed her red dress against her thighs. Her brown curls had straightened with the snow and she felt the moist hairs on her cheeks. The sweltering heat of the Polly May did nothing to soften the confused desire in her heart: She could raise the child.

No. She was a whore and—half the town would agree on this—she had no business raising a child. She had to ask Miss Anderson to do it.

I have a secret, she told the matron.

Pray tell then. I'm all ears.

I'm pregnant. I'd like you to take the baby when she's born.

Ninety thousand people in town and you choose me. Miss Anderson sipped her tea. Why me?

It was a mistake coming here today.

The father?

Kaly shook her head, her brown hair brushing her ears. Her stomach turned again and she bit her lip to control the sick feeling. She glanced toward the pictures that hid in the hallway, as if able to see them through the wall. As if she could see Tommy's grin. Tommy's earnest eyes. She could have told Miss Anderson that it was his child, but not here, not now—she suddenly understood—not before she told Tommy.

He'd moved into the big house the day after the warehouse fire. Both of his parents had been killed in the explosions. He was nine and had immediately zeroed in on Anne Marie, gluing himself to her side as if he were her twin instead of Kaly. That first day, with strangers in the halls and the bitter stench of burned flesh still wafting down from the hill, Tommy had lured five-year-old Anne Marie into his room with card games and magic tricks.

Kaly heard their laughter behind the door and knocked hard.

Suddenly the room became very quiet.

She knocked again.

A giggle rose and was stifled.

Bert Brown sat on the steps shuffling a deck of cards into his large palms. He shook his head and smirked.

Kaly ignored him and focused on her sister and Tommy Monroe.

She pleaded with them to let her in. You're not allowed behind closed doors, she'd reminded them.

When no one answered, Kaly did the unthinkable. She told on her sister. Both of them got a whipping and Anne Marie spent the night in their room without dinner. Kaly snuck a muffin into her pocket and brought it to her sister before bedtime, but Anne Marie wouldn't look at her. In the morning the muffin sat untouched on the nightstand.

Miss Anderson followed Kaly's glance toward the photos. She lifted her eyebrows. A smile almost crossed her lips. Bert?

Kaly shook her head no.

Must be Tommy then. Are you sure you're expecting?

I know.

Does he know?

Kaly bit her lip hard and said nothing.

You need to see a doctor.

Exhaustion overcame her. She wanted to curl up in her old bed at the top of the stairs and just sleep. She wanted something, one thing, anything, to be easy.

As if to deny her, George darted from the sink and stabbed at Julian with the bread knife, catching him in the shoulder with the serrated edge. He pulled it back as if to stab again.

Miss Anderson, quick on her feet, blocked the thrust and pinned him in another hold. Blood drenched Julian's shirtsleeve. Something like surprise and satisfaction crossed his face just before he screamed and burst into sobs.

The heat rose in Kaly again, searing her belly and throat. She raced for the bathroom.

Memories flooded her. She and Anne Marie had gotten separated in the storm. Kaly had lost her way in the snow. When she finally made it back to the big house, Anne Marie lay motionless in the snow, her dark hair fanned across the drift, her blue hands clenched to her chest. Her eyes stared and looked nowhere at the same time. Tommy leaned over her, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his trousers frozen tunnels for his legs, an astonished look in his eyes.

Kaly had shaken Anne Marie to wake her up. She knew she had to get her sister into bed. Miss Anderson would warm some broth for her.

Come on, Annie, Kaly begged. Come on. Quit playing around! It's winter! Winter, she said, trying the magic word, trying to lift her sister, falling forward with the weight.

When she couldn't wake her, Kaly lunged into Tommy, flailing her padded useless arms at him, until he pinned her in a hold similar to the one that Coral Anderson had just used to restrain George.

You wait here, Tommy said when she'd calmed down. I'll get Miss Anderson.

Kaly had waited, willing Anne Marie to get up and walk inside. Willing her sister with all her might, to finish the dishes, or empty the garbage, or make one more yarn doll.

But Anne Marie didn't get up. Didn't blink or yawn or pull away. She didn't move.

Kaly'd felt herself falling into a dark endless pit. She searched the vast black chasm for her sister. The empty air crushed her chest, and she couldn't breathe. Fear singed her legs and arms, severed her head from her torso. Just before she disintegrated, she reached out for help and caught, not Miss Anderson's hand, but Tommy Monroe's, and for the first time, allowed herself to be hauled up into the arms of wrong company.

Wake Up Jim, Neversweat, Mountain Con, Orphan Girl, Orphan Girl.

Anne Marie wasn't the only dead one. Another girl had died at the Polly May. An older child—Kaly never knew who—wrestled the girl to the ground, smothering the child in cold daylight. Other youngsters had been stabbed by knives and sticks. Cheeks had been cut wide open by rocks flung hard from a four-year-old's hand.

No matter how Miss Anderson tried, she couldn't protect the children. They were too far gone, too wounded. There was too little of her to pass around, so the children learned to count only on themselves.

Kaly emerged from the bathroom.

Coral Anderson thrust George into her arms. In a motion Kaly fell with the boy to the floor and locked him in her grip, the resistance gone out of him. She looked at Julian. His chin was lax. The flat edge of his face betrayed nothing. His shirt was soaked in blood.

Stop feeling sorry for him. They're all liars and thieves, Miss Anderson said, as she disappeared into the bathroom with Julian.

Holding George, who was quiet now, was like