The Town That Worked Below the Street

Chapter 1: The Town That Worked Below the Street

Before sunrise, Ada Price woke to a man coughing through the wall.

A bed creaked below. A boot scraped the floor.

Bodie was already moving.

Ada dressed in the cold and went downstairs. The boardinghouse kitchen was narrow and crowded with sacks, pans, and three men who had no business standing in it. One was a teamster waiting for coffee. The other two were miners waiting for breakfast before returning to the claims.

— Morning, said the teamster.

— It is if you brought wood, Ada said.

— I brought flour yesterday.

— Flour does not burn.

— It burns if you are angry enough.

Ada pointed at the door. “Then be angry outside.”

He laughed, but he went.

The woodpile was low. A delivery had been expected the day before, but freight came when roads, weather, horses, and drivers allowed it. Ada broke the last dry pieces smaller and mixed them with crate splinters. The fire caught badly, then held.

A cold kitchen meant poor coffee, thin porridge, and boarders who remembered every shortcoming when rent was due.

The town’s hunger for wood reached far beyond her stove. Mines and mills needed fuel. Homes, hotels, and businesses needed it too. Wagons and mule trains brought it over land already changed by mining camps, logging, grazing, and settlement. Bodie stood on Northern Paiute homeland, though few of the men demanding heat or profit spoke of what had been taken from the land to keep this town alive.

Ada set coffee to boil. Soon the kitchen filled with steam.

At this height, the air stayed sharp after sunrise. Bodie had grown quickly over rough, exposed ground as the mines prospered. Wooden buildings stood unevenly along streets that seemed made to turn an ankle.

The town had grown faster than its rooms, roads, and patience.

People argued about the number of residents. Some said five thousand, others more. Ada knew only that there were too many boots at breakfast and never enough beds when travelers came in looking for work.

She carried plates until her arms ached. Miners ate quickly. Teamsters ate as if meals were contests. A young man she had never seen asked whether the mine was hiring.

— There is work somewhere, Ada said.

— That is not what I asked.

— It is the answer you will get until you have eaten.

He stared at her, then took the plate.

By midmorning, Tom came through the back door. He was twenty-four, broad-shouldered, and gray with dust. Hard-rock mining showed in the black around his nails and the tired drag of his feet.

Ada looked at his hand. “You are bleeding.”

— It is a scratch.

— It is on your hand.

— That is where scratches happen.

— You are a mine of useful information.

He grinned, then saw the empty wood rack. “No delivery?”

— No.

— I can split some.

— You can wash first. The kitchen does not need more mine in it.

Tom washed at the pump and returned in a clean shirt. He ate stew near the stove while Ada stood over him.

— You have been paid?

— Ada.

— You have been paid?

— Yes.

— Put the money away.

— I have.

— Not in your boot.

He sighed and pulled a folded packet from his coat. Coins clicked inside it. Ada knew their weight because she knew the cost of beds, food, gloves, soap, and a doctor when a man needed one.

— You owe for your room, she said. And you need new gloves.

— I need one evening in town.

— You need to keep working.

— I am keeping working.

— Men say that just before they spend their wages.

Tom pushed away his bowl. “I am not a child.”

— No. Children listen more often.

He hated being reminded that he depended on her. He had come west for mining wages, not for his sister to count his coins. Ada understood that. She also knew how quickly a good week underground became a bad month. A man could lose money, a job, or the use of a hand. Pride did not pay for lodging.

— I will spend a little, he said. Then I will go back to the boardinghouse.

— Where?

— Into town.

— That is not a place.

— It is for tonight.

He tucked the packet of wages back inside his coat.

At the door, he turned. “You worry like an old woman.”

Ada picked up his unfinished bowl. “And you spend like a young one.”

Tom left laughing, taking his coins with him and leaving half his stew on the table.

The day carried Ada through much of Bodie. She delivered linens to a hotel, collected payment from an eating house, and confronted a store clerk who claimed he had already paid.

— You paid for last week, she told him.

— Then this week has begun badly.

— It began with your breakfast.

He paid.

Main Street crossed rough ground crowded with wagon ruts and stamping horses. Stores stood beside hotels, restaurants, offices, and drinking places. Banks handled money from the mines. The Miners’ Union Hall reminded Ada that working men did more than drink after their shifts. They met, argued, organized, and listened.

Beyond the business district, mine and mill work continued on its own schedule. Steam machinery groaned uphill. One crew went below while another came up. Teamsters hauled freight. Other workers carried food, washed clothes, cooked meals, or kept rooms ready for the next paying guest.

Bodie’s wealth came from underground, but the town lived on everything needed to bring it up: fuel, freight, food, lodging, tools, horses, and labor.

Near a store northwest of Main and King Streets, Ada saw Lin Wei unloading sacks from a handcart. He had brought household goods and foodstuffs for the storekeeper, who stood over him with both hands in his coat pockets.

— You said you would bring these yesterday, the man complained.

— I said I would try.

— You know what I meant.

Lin set down a sack. “I know what you said.”

The man glanced at Ada, hoping she would join him. She did not.

— You expect payment for every little service, he said.

— I expect payment for goods, Lin replied. The service is the part I have already given you.

The man muttered about foreigners and walked away.

Lin watched him go. “A generous man.”

— You should charge extra for generosity, Ada said.

— I do. He calls it an insult.

Lin did not work the mines. Chinese men were shut out of that employment, though mining money still passed through their hands in other ways. Lin knew which hotel needed rice, which restaurant lacked vegetables, which household wanted soap, and which customer intended to delay payment until someone made the delay unpleasant.

His trade linked homes, stores, boardinghouses, and the neighborhood northwest of Main and King Streets, where Chinese residents kept businesses and households of their own. Ada had passed through often enough to know it was not some separate world at Bodie’s edge. It was part of the town’s work.

Lin lifted another sack. “Your brother was asking about Ellis Ward’s place.”

— I know.

— Then do not look for him there with that face.

— What face?

— The face that says you are about to improve him.

— I am preventing damage.

— That is a longer word for the same thing.

She almost smiled.

By late afternoon, Ada had finished the work that could not wait. At the hotel dining room, Mabel Ross caught her near the back stairs. Mabel carried dirty cloths and looked like a woman interrupted three times while carrying something heavy.

— You are hunting Tom, Mabel said.

— I am walking.

— You walk like a woman hunting Tom.

Ada glanced into the dining room. Tables were filling with workers from different parts of town. Some still wore dust. Others had washed and changed.

— He says he is spending only a little, Ada said.

— Then he will spend a little several times.

— Not every man leaving work is bound for a saloon.

— I know. Some go to supper, some home, some to meetings. Some have wives waiting at the door.

— Tom has no wife.

— Then he has you.

Ada gave her a flat look.

Mabel softened. “This place is bigger than it was built to be. That means rooms, meals, work, arguments, and people trying to reach tomorrow. Not only drink.”

— And men losing today.

— That too.

Evening settled over Bodie. Warmth showed at windows and open doors while the streets grew dim. Machinery still sounded uphill. Wagons passed. People went toward meals, rooms, halls, homes, and saloons. A shift ending did not stop the town.

— You will go after him, Mabel said.

— I have one more delivery.

— You will make it, then go.

Ada hated when Mabel was right because Mabel was right so often.

She finished the delivery and returned to the boardinghouse. The evening meal had to be served. A teamster needed a blanket. Two miners argued over a bed neither had paid for. Ada gave the bed to the man who had paid and a floor mattress to the other.

Outside, a wagon rolled past. Somewhere uphill, machinery continued in heavy bursts through the cold.

Ada stood in the doorway after the last boarder took his plate. She could stay inside and tell herself Tom was a grown man who had chosen his evening.

But he had wages in his pocket, pride enough for three men, and an interest in Ellis Ward’s saloon.

She took her coat.

The street was rough under her boots. Occupied buildings gave off small patches of light, but darkness lay between them. Ada knew the route to Ellis Ward’s place. She also knew she could not drag Tom home without making him feel like a boy. A humiliated man was not always safer than a drinking one.

Ahead, an open doorway spilled light onto uneven ground. Voices gathered inside.

Tom’s voice was not among them yet.

Ada tightened her coat and went on.