Foxfire (16 page)

Lonely and homesick, he thought, but she doesn't make much effort, either. “You might take an interest in the life of the town,” he suggested, “it's colorful enough, plenty of quaint characters. Some of them quite nice.”

She shrugged, picking at a hangnail on her index finger. “You're a fine one to talk. I can't see you do much mingling with the local color.—Gosh, I wish I could get—or afford—a decent manicure again.”

“Dishpan hands?” said Hugh. “How sad.”

“Oh, shut up.” She gave an unwilling laugh. “How's business at Medical Center today?”

“Booming. One miner with a carbuncle, another one with a broken toe, and one of the mill crew with a belly-ache which I trust is not appendicitis, because there won't be time to send him to Globe or Ray.”

“Can't you operate yourself?”

“Certainly. On the kitchen table. Maria makes a simply splendid anesthetist. It happens that I'm rather short of equipment like retractors and clamps, but then I suppose I might use paper clips.”

She looked at him frowning. “Hugh, don't you ever regret—I mean, I know you came from the East—were trained there, this seems so——”

She stopped, confused by the cynical amusement with which he watched her flounderings.

“No regrets at all,” he said. “I was kicked out of the East for unethical practices, and here I can be as unethical as I damn please. I can also get drunk when I feel like it, and sleep with Maria.”

“Oh,” she said. She sighed, for at moments she liked him, and the romantic mold in which she had first tried to fit him seemed appropriate. His deliberate crudities did not shock her, but the sadistic streak which she had seen without understanding in his treatment of Maria did. That and the indistinct recognition of his ambivalence, “two men within my breast.” One might be trusted and the other not.

So different from Dart, she thought, and a warm feeling came into her heart. “Hugh, have you ever been in love?” she asked on impulse.

“Repeatedly.” Nothing in his square freckled face changed; the little mustache, the green eyes under slightly swollen lids, the thick sensual mouth, all confronted her unchanged, and yet she felt that a warning had flickered far beneath.

She persisted nevertheless. “No, I mean really. With one woman and stuck to her, for quite a while anyway.”

And now the warning flickered up into his eyes, which grew hard as emeralds. “This sort of sentimental questioning, my dear, usually means that the questioning lady has hopes herself. Have you? I'd be most flattered.”

She felt herself flush, but a rush of annoyance was at once tempered by surprise. For perhaps there was really someone. “Oh, don't be idiotic,” she said. “I love Dart, and you don't attract me in the least. But I can't help being curious about your love life.”

He got up abruptly, and his eyes still were hard and green. The look, if Amanda had known it, which he had turned on Maria the day she questioned him about the photograph in his shirts.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “I've got to get back to the hospital.” He left Amanda to astonishment. For a moment he had shown none of his characteristic cynicism or detachment. He had shown straight, uncomplicated anger at being questioned. But the doctor's peculiar reactions did not interest her for long. Lassitude descended upon her again. She moved languidly about the shack, tidying a little. She looked with loathing at the basket full of dirty clothes. They could wait until tomorrow. She glanced at the window. That was one thing about this place anyway: no need to take advantage of a sunny day. They were all sunny—and dry. In the corner of the bedroom on the floor there was a little package of recent books Jean had sent her.
Mary's Neck
by Booth Tarkington,
The Fountain
by Charles Morgan,
What We Live By
by Ernest Dimnet.

She had read part of
The Fountain
in the afternoons or evenings waiting for Dart. But she had not finished it. Reading wasn't as much fun as it used to be. She looked at her wrist watch. The mail stage from Hayden Junction never got in until noon, and then you had to allow time for Tessie to sort the letters. But she might as well walk over early. Buy myself a nice cold coke, she thought. That'll be exciting. She looked in her purse. Two dollars and sixty-five cents to last until pay night. Damn, I thought there was more than that.

She put on her heather tweed suit and fixed her face by the little wall mirror in the kitchen, and was about to leave when she remembered Dart's renewed suggestion that morning. About going up to the Cunningham mansion. He had left a trunk of his up there in the room he had occupied. “I think there's an old blue suit in it that I had at college. I wish you'd look at it and see if I couldn't use it for work clothes, anyway.”

Poor lamb, she thought, except for the one good suit he'd been married in, his clothes were certainly terribly shabby. “Stop in and see Mrs. Cunningham, won't you,” he had added. She was faintly amused at his insistence. Mrs. Cunningham was apparently another “character.” Arizona seemed to be full of characters, eccentrics of one kind or another of which the natives were proud.

She ran a comb through her hair, and walked outside into the brilliant sunlight. She blinked in the blinding glare, then began to walk slowly down the dusty road toward town. She passed the hospital but did not see Maria's face in an upstairs window.

Maria stared down avidly with sulky resentment masking her envy of the tall blonde girl in the beautiful suit, like Carole Lombard's in the movie Maria had seen last year in Tucson. Doc had been calling on that girl this morning, too. Maria had seen him come out of the Dartland cabin not so long ago. Bet that poor husband don't know what's going on, thought Maria. She had admired Dart from afar, and only recently heard that he had Indian blood, as she did. There was a real man for you, big and dark and quiet. He'd be good in bed, too, Maria knew from considerable experience in such appraisals. That dope she don't know her luck, she thought, continuing to stare angrily at Amanda's retreating figure.

Amanda was thinking about nothing at all. The air and the sunshine began to revive her a little. She reached the crossroads by the first saloon on this end of town, a small wooden building with a false front and portico. The windows were shuttered and it was euphemistically labeled “Cafe” for the benefit of possible prohibition agents. These, however, seldom bothered Lodestone and when they did there was always plenty of warning. Nobody worried about them.

From the backroom through open windows there came the usual sound of clinkings and men's voices, the click of billiard balls, the rattle of dice and the monotonous ping of the slot machines. Somebody laughed and a voice cried jovially, “God damn it to hell, you old cow poke, if I don't love you better'n a brother! Set 'em up, Joe!” And there was more laughter.

Well, they were enjoying themselves anyway, thought Amanda. I wish I could join them. She thought of the fun she had had in New York speakeasies with Tim, of the five hundred francs she had won at roulette in Monte Carlo. But here ladies didn't drink or gamble. Here you conformed to Mrs. Mablett's standards, or you were a bad woman. These were still the standards of the old frontier. They had seemed very romantic when you read about them.

Instead of continuing as usual down the mine road, past Bosses' Row where the Mabletts lived, and then veering left to Creek Street and the business block, she turned at once into the canyon behind the saloon and headed for the forbidden short cut, Back Lane, where the cribs were. Hugh told me to see the town, she thought.

Three of the four separate little dolls' houses were quiet with the blinds drawn, their occupants asleep. But Big Ruby was sitting on the steps in the sunlight in front of hers, drying her brassy hair which was rolled up in kid curlers. She wore a voluminous pink cotton kimona with green parasols printed on it and her fat white legs were bare above red felt bedroom slippers. She was reading a
True Confession
magazine and smoking. A bottle of home-brew frothed on the step beside her.

“Why, hello,” she said calmly, as Amanda, caught by a sudden paralyzing embarrassment, hesitated between answering and running by. The latter impulse she quickly vanquished. She stopped and tried for a casual smile.

“You wanted something?” asked Big Ruby, flipping over a page of the magazine. She had seen sight-seers before, plenty of them, staring at the cribs and snickering like the girls was a lot of wild monkeys.

Amanda was quite sensitive enough to realize this and she was ashamed to admit curiosity and defiance as her only motives for walking down Back Lane, so she seized on the lead little Bobby Pottner had given her her first day in Lodestone. “I thought maybe—I've only a tiny house, but the cleaning sometimes ... I didn't know if—if one of you would...”

She faltered to a stop before Ruby's pursed lips and air of judicial detachment. “I'm Mrs. Jonathan Dartland, my husband's foreman at the mine,” Amanda finished in a subdued voice.

“I know,” said Ruby. “I seen you downtown. I asked Doc Slater about you, too.”

“Oh, did you?” said Amanda faintly.

“Well, I dunno.” Ruby smiled suddenly. She had just realized how young the girl was and Ruby had a fairly maternal spirit. “I used to take day work sometimes, up on Bosses' Row. But——”

Did you indeed? thought Amanda startled. This was one more anomaly in Western society. That the élite could employ Ruby while at the same time ignoring her usual profession.

“I ain't no chicken any more,” Ruby continued, taking a deep pull from the beer bottle. “Mebbe one of the other girls ... How much would you pay?”

Amanda flushed scarlet. But she had got herself into this ridiculous situation.

“Well,” she said hurriedly, “I don't know just now. I just thought I'd enquire.”

Ruby watched with understanding. Though Dart had never visited any of the cribs, she had a very fair idea of what his salary must be, for some of the mining staff were amongst her clientèle, and talked freely.

“Well, now—” she said soothingly. “Later on, if you need help we can talk about it again. Four bits an hour'd be fair, I think.”

“Oh, yes, certainly. Very fair.” Amanda nodded. We couldn't even afford a woman like this, a—a prostitute to scrub the floors, she thought. It's incredible.

“Good-bye,” she said slowly, and she smiled her lovely, friendly smile. “Thank you.”

Ruby put down her magazine and stood up. There'd been a lot of talk around town about this girl, how she was so stuck up and full of herself she wouldn't even give you the time of day. But she ain't so bad, thought Ruby. A real lady, you could say that for her, and awful young. They was a nice good-looking young couple, the Dartlands, and it wasn't all roses and honey being just married either. Who to know better than she. Older people ought to give young married couples a few breaks.

“Mrs. Dartland—” she said, as Amanda turned to go. “I dunno as I ought to tell you something. But a word to the wise, you know, and you might just put a flea in your hubby's ear. I wouldn't hurt.”

Amanda stared blankly at the round flabby face under the kid curlers.

“There's a guy at the mine's got it in for your husband. I won't mention no names.”

Amanda swallowed. This Mablett thing, even here. Though Dart said there'd been no trouble lately. “Yes,” she said sighing, “I know.”

Ruby shook her head. “I don't reckon you do. This guy don't talk to nobody but me, and only when he's dead drunk. He's a sly one.”

Could that be Mablett? Getting dead drunk with Big Ruby, airing his grievances? It didn't sound just right, and yet remembering Mrs. Mablett, maybe it did. And far better not to question, or attach too much importance. One didn't listen to backstairs, or in this case “Back Lane,” gossip. “Thank you,” she said. “It was kind of you to tell me.” She moved definitely away.

“Well, tell hubby to keep his eyes peeled, that's all. And you needn't tell who said so. Bye-bye now.” Ruby felt of her curlers, decided they were dry, gathered up her magazine, cigarettes and beer, and disappeared into her house.

Amanda continued on the canyon road, towards town. Go West, Young Man, Go West, she said to herself. “Where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.” Hurrah!

Creek Street provided its usual mild noon bustle. There were two cow ponies hitched to the rail by the portico, and Old Larky's burro stood beside them. The mail stage was in, standing in front of the post office. The mail stage was a Chevvie pickup truck, but it encountered enough adventures on its tri-weekly run from Hayden to justify the continuance of its pioneer title. It was still a lonely route, and depending on the condition of the roads and washes, it often took nearly as long to make the run as it had in the days of horses. And though there was no longer an Indian scare there were still plenty of lawless men with acquisitive interest in the contents of the mail stage. Roy Kellickman, the mail carrier, always kept a loaded .44 on the seat beside him, and packed a 30-30 in back with the mailbags. Roy was a stout and sociable young man, who enjoyed being a link with the outside world. When Amanda walked into Rubrick's which was half post office, half lunch counter and drugstore, Roy was regaling an appreciative audience with the tale of his morning's trip. Amanda glanced through the open window and saw that Tessie, amongst the canvas bags, had not yet finished sorting the mail so she went to the counter and ordered a coke from the twelve-year-old Rubrick daughter.

The mail carrier's audience and Roy, himself, paused a moment as Amanda settled herself on a stool in the corner. She smiled in vague embarrassment, never dreaming that they were waiting for her to greet them with a Howdy or a Hello. They turned their collective eyes back to Roy in a moment, and he continued his story.