Seven Miners and a Girl

Over the past weekend I spent some time at the farm by the river where my Great Great Great Great Grandmama Lola has a cottage. Over a glass of wine we watched the afternoon rain and she told me a story.

“This was when we all first arrived in California, during the Gold Rush. Your brother Max was a toddler, and your mother had just given birth to your brother Andrew, so it was before your time.

The story isn’t that interesting, but it has been played out over the centuries by thousands of women, and even men. The woman I am going to tell you about now was named Mary. Like most of them she was in a bad place without a better place to go, so she went to a different place in hopes of something different, or at least not as bad. She wanted a place where she might have a little bit of say in what she did and who she did it with.

Mary was the tenth child of her father. She was the second child of her mother. Her father’s third wife had a brother Caleb who wasn’t much older than Mary. 

Caleb showered Mary with attention. The third wife was fed up with it and married Mary off to a man named Mr. Martin, who was a friend of Mary’s father. Martin, who was almost 20 years Mary’s senior mistreated her so badly that one day she ran away. Martin posted a reward for her return. When she was found, Mr. Martin continued to treat her badly. So, Mary ran away again.

Fortunately, she was able to take enough money with her that she’d be able to get ship fare to California. This was 1850. Mary was known to be a timid soul, but they underestimated her. Nobody would imagine she would travel that far.

When the ship landed in San Francisco Mary disembarked from the ship with the dog of a man who’d died during the voyage, and two of cats who were living on the ship. She made up a story that she was meeting her father and brother in the gold fields. Her story was even more convincing because she’d purchased several daguerreotypes of a couple of men who were now dead. She would ask people if they recognized the faces of her brother and father, knowing nobody would recognize them, as these two men were both dead and buried in Philadelphia.

Mary convinced a miner to take her to his camp, where he and half a dozen of his friends had set up a successful camp. She told him that maybe her brother and father had headed in that direction.

Once she arrived at the camp, with her protective dog, and two cats, she made herself invaluable to the gold miners. They found it comforting to have a woman there, as most of them had not seen a woman in months. They missed the company of their wives and, well, any women. Soon Mary was cooking for them, taking care of their injuries, singing to them in the evenings, and whoring. None of this was free for the miners. Mary had her own tent and kept busy, and her dog guarded her gold.

Mary was an albino, so she worried her unique looks would attract anyone who husband might have sent to find her. She’d already changed her name to Catherine Jones and colored her hair red with something called henna she’d purchased from a shop in San Francisco. The men called her Cathy Red.

One day when the men were at the mine, two men came to camp looking for a pale woman named Mary. When they realized the whore with the orange hair and white roots called Cathy Red was the woman they were looking for they attempted to take her. The dog and the two cats attacked them men. They shot off their guns and accidently shot Cathy Red.

When the miners came back, they found their woman mortally wounded and in a death like state. They put her in her bed and waited for her to die. But she didn’t die, and a week went by. The miners put wet rags to her mouth and watched her night and day to see if she’d wake.

One day, as the sun came up in the April sky, a man rode into came on a brown horse, with a mule traveling along side behind him. Cathy’s dog, whose name was Flip, ran to greet the man, not with his usually protective imposing bark, but with a wagging tail and yips of welcome.

The miners noticed the stranger was dressed in unusually fine and obviously expensive traveling clothes. His brown hair was slightly long, almost touching his shoulders, but his face was clean shaven. At first, he looked to be in his 20’s with but his blue eyes looked as old as time itself.

“My name is Jones,” he told the miners as he dismounted from his horse. “I was wondering if you’d mind if I stayed here a night.”

The miner called Hank, a large man who was sort of the leader and father figure at the camp spoke up. “Are you any relation to Cathy Jones?”

“No. I don’t know anyone named Cathy Jones, or Catherine, if that is her name.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was visiting a friend in Mokelumne Hill. He is a daguerreotype artist. When I was headed home I took a detour to do some sketching and do a bit of exploring. Maybe some writing.”

“You’re not a miner then?”

“No. Just as none of you were miners when you arrived in California.”

Mr. Jones walked over to a younger man with a puffy inflamed eye. “What happened here?”

“I fell. Tripped and hit a rock with my eye. I think I’m blinded.”

“What is your name.”

“Mark Ketterling.”

“What did you do before you came to California?”

“I was going to school at Harvard. A few of us thought it would be an adventure coming out to California as Argonauts.”

“Sit down somewhere so I can take a look at your eye. When you get back to your studies and your life, you’ll want to be able to see again.”

Mark Ketterling sat on a log, while Mr. Jones took off his black leather glove. Putting his pale hand, not the hand of someone who did manual labor, on the eye of the young man. Jones closed his eyes and took a deep breath in then exhaled slowly. After about five minutes he took his hand away. Mark Ketterling’s eye was almost back to normal, without the puffiness, and only a bit of redness.

“I can see,” said Mark Ketterling. “How did you do that?”

“I’m a healer. Do not ask how or why I can do this. It is what I do, and I am glad to do it.”

The miners looked on in amazement, then they led Mr. Jones over to Cathy Red’s tent.

Inside the roomy tent Jones saw a pale young woman with orange braids and white roots lying on a narrow bed. A worn lace collar adorned her gown. She was covered in a quilt made of strips of what looked like old work shirts. On the floor, neatly folded Jones saw oil cloth sheets. He knew women who worked to pleasure men would put the oilcloths on their beds to keep from getting the bedding dirty during busy work nights. Dark glasses, often worn by albinos, were on a crude table next to the bed. A hairbrush, a couple of books, and a small mirror were neatly arranged on top of a small trunk. A pair of small worn boots were neatly set at the foot of the bed.

“She was shot,” said Hank. Then he told Jones her story. Then he pulled the bullet that had gone through Cathy Red out of his pocked.

Jones looked concerned. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on Cathy Red’s forehead. She was cold, but not yet as cold and quiet as death. Then, much to the surprise of the miners who watched, Jones bent over and kissed Cathy on the lips.

Her eyes fluttered then opened. Her hand came out from under the covers, and she grasped Jone’s arm.

“Who are you?” Cathy Red asked the stranger.

“Constantine Jones, at your service.”

“I feel like death,” she said to him.

“I will make you well, and you will never feel bad again Cathy.”

Jones spent the night with Cathy in her tent. The men instinctively trusted that the well-dressed traveler would not take advantage of their girl.

In the morning Cathy Red was dressed, wearing her dark glasses, and up walking. Around her neck was a silk scarf, no doubt from the fashionable Jones. She kept touching the scarf, but nobody thought anything of it.

Jones left the mining camp for San Francisco, taking Cathy and her animals with him. He set her up with a home and a comfortable life as the owner of a book shop. They were never romantically involved, and to this day they are still friends.” Lola smiled and said, “That is the story. Constantine, or should I say Connie, will be here later today. We can all watch the sunset together over the river. It should be spectacular.”

“Wait,” I said. “This is the story of Snow White.”

“That story has been lived out in so many versions over the centuries. Only this time instead of the princess marrying a prince, she was saved by a kindly stranger by being turned into a Vampire. Cathy is now a well-known rare book dealer. I’ll introduce you sometime. By the way, Mark went back to Harvard and had a long and happy life.”

I guess this goes to show that you don’t need a prince to live a happily ever after. Of course, sometimes having a Vampire, like Connie, Lola, or I around can make things a little bit easier.

Have a good week everyone,

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman