and again there were full crews and by now the house was finished, which meant it had a large staff for a proper large house. Things went along well enough—Doyle was still hard, but he paid on time and the miners also got their little quota of silver, which is the way it’s always been done around here—miners expected the partido. But it was around the time Mr. Doyle married again that things started to turn sour.”
She recalled the wedding portrait of Doyle’s second wife: 1895. Alice, who looked like Agnes. Alice, the little sister. Now that she considered it, it was odd that Agnes had been immortalized with a stone statue, while Alice received no such treatment. Yet Howard Doyle had said he hardly knew her. It was his second wife who had lived with him for many years, who birthed him children. Did Howard Doyle like her even less than his first wife? Or was the statue insignificant, a memorial created on a whim? She tried to remember if there had been a plaque near the statue discussing Agnes. She didn’t think so, but there could be. She hadn’t looked closely.
“There was another wave of sickness. Lord, it hit them worse than before. They were dropping like flies. Fevers and chills and quickly to their deathbeds they went.”
“Is that when they buried them in mass graves?” Noemí asked, remembering what Dr. Camarillo had told her.
The old woman frowned. “Mass graves? No. The locals, their families took them to the cemetery in town. But there were many people without kin working the mines. When someone didn’t have family in town, they buried them in the English cemetery. The Mexicans didn’t get a headstone, though, not even a cross, which I guess is why people talked about mass graves. A hole in the ground with no wreath nor proper service might as well be a mass grave.”
Now that was a depressing thought. All those nameless workers, buried in haste, and no one to ever know where and how their lives had ended. Noemí set her pewter cup down and scratched her wrist.
“Anyway, that was not the only problem at the mine. Doyle had decided to end the custom of letting the workers have a bit of silver along with their wages. There was a man and his name was Aurelio. Aurelio was one of the miners who didn’t like the change none, but unlike others who would grumble to themselves, Aurelio grumbled to the others.”
“What did he say?”
“Told them what was obvious. That the camp where they worked was shit. That the doctor the Englishman brought with him had never cured anyone and they needed a good doctor. That they were leaving behind widows and orphans and hardly any money for them, and on top of that Doyle wanted to fatten up his pockets more so he’d taken away their partido and was hoarding all the silver. Then he asked the miners to go on strike.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, they did. Of course, Doyle thought he could bully them back to work real easy. Doyle’s brother and Doyle’s trusted men, they went over to the mining camp with rifles and threats, but Aurelio and the others fought back. They threw stones at them. Doyle’s brother got away by the skin of his teeth. Soon after that, Aurelio was found dead. They said it was a natural death, but no one really believed that. The strike leader dies one morning? It didn’t sound right.”
“There was an epidemic, though,” Noemí pointed out.
“Sure. But people who saw the body said his face looked awful. You’ve heard about people dying of fright? Well, they said he died of fright. That his eyes were bulging and his mouth was open and he looked like a man who’s seen the devil. It scared everyone good, and it also ended the strike.”
Francis had mentioned strikes and the closure of the mine, but Noemí had not thought to ask him more about them. Perhaps she should remedy that, but for now she focused her attention on Marta.
“You said that Aurelio was connected to Benito, though. Who was that?”
“Patience, girl, you’ll make me lose my train of thought. At my age, it’s no easy thing to try and remember what was when and how it happened.” Marta took several long sips of her coffee before speaking. “Where was I? Oh, yes. The mine went on. Doyle had remarried and eventually his new wife gave birth to a girl, Miss