Nightmare Country (20 page)

She almost split her skirt climbing up into the cab of Russ's pickup. He wore clean jeans, cowboy boots and hat, and a leather jacket with fringe hanging from the sleeves. She felt overdressed.

As they pulled off the limestone road onto the asphalt and began up the curving hill, another pickup passed them with blaring horn. “Augie Mapes and Deloris,” Russ said. “Going the same place we are.”

“Why didn't we all go together, then? Save on gas.”

“Four in a pickup's kind of crowded.”

“We could have taken my Toyota.”

Russ stared at her until he had to look to his steering, as if he expected her to laugh at her own joke. When she didn't, he rolled down the window and spit into the wind. “Jeez.”

They were to dine in Horse Creek, and she was anxious to see it. Horse Creek, Iron Mountain, and Cheyenne seemed to be the whole world to these people. But all she saw was a rambling knotty-pine building on the outskirts with flashing beer signs and a trout dangling from a neon line. The parking lot was full of shiny pickup trucks. “I … uh, suppose the Toyota might have been just a little out-of-place here, huh?”

Russ looked at her as if she was an alien, and helped her down from his truck much as cowboys in movies used to help ladies off horses. The distance to the ground was similar.

There was no lobby or entryway. One entered the main room directly from the parking lot. The strong smell of beer mixed deliciously with that of hot charcoal. Rows of booths, three aisles deep, ringed all but one side of an enormous dance floor with a jukebox discharging twangy music. The open end of the room held a bar that must have been forty feet long, complete with foot rail and spittoons.

Dim smoky light, blended conversations, laughter, silverware clanking against thick plates, and the mournful lady in the jukebox complaining of an errant lover. “All this place needs is a couple of drunken cowboys swinging at each other over a girl.”

“More like a truck driver and a doped-out hippie.” Russ led her up one aisle and down another until he found a vacant booth.

Catsup, A-1, and Worcestershire bottles and a plastic-covered menu already graced the table. Paper place mats showed the shape, major highways, and points of interest of the state of Wyoming. The menu offered steaks. In every size imaginable, as long as one liked them large. And hamburgers.

Tamara wondered why not a neon bull on the roof instead of a trout, and when a waitress in a short black dress and a tall blond hairdo appeared, she ordered the smallest T-bone offered. Russ delighted her by ordering a whiskey with a beer chaser. She hoped booze would loosen this taciturn man's tongue, and she asked after what might be available in a glass of wine.

“Comes in red, white, and pink,” the waitress declared with a straight face, and stared at the open rafters.

“Uh … red, please.”

“Dago juice,” Russ pronounced when it came in a giant goblet that would have done justice to Henry VIII. After the first few sips, Tamara grew used to the vinegar and her eyes stopped watering.

More people filled the dance floor now, and the music switched from a slow clincher to a hopping slide. Tamara picked out three distinct groups, those who dressed cowboy fashion, in the nonfashions of the old counterculture, or like businessmen. All with their counterparts among the women, who wore everything from sequined blue jeans to one outfit that looked like a nightgown made of flour sacks.

The small T-bone was enormous and the best she'd ever eaten. She managed half of it and planned to take the rest home for Adrian.

Russ drank whiskey with his dinner too and worried aloud about a new limestone strip mine B & H had opened up. “What'll the people in Iron Mountain do when the company closes it down?”

“Have you been notified of the closing?” She'd be out of a job.

“No, but word's bound to come through soon. It's in the air.”

“That's not all that's in the air at Iron Mountain, is it? I mean, Fred Hanley's ghosts and everything.”

Russ had speared a stack of at least eight french-fried potatoes on the prongs of his fork and had the whole business halfway to his mouth while his eyes ran appreciatively over the extra-tight-fitting Levi's of a young thing walking in the other direction. When his attention reverted to Tamara, he repeated “Fred Hanley's ghosts” in the manner of one not listening to a conversation but hearing a key phrase anyway.

“Fred worried that Adrian's sleepwalking might upset the ghosts.”

The thick-glassed wine goblet she'd thought held enough to last the weekend was mysteriously empty, and he signaled the waitress to bring another, and a whiskey for him. “Lonely job … night … people see things … superstitious.” He finally noticed the fork full of french fries and stuffed them into his mouth.

“That won't work, Russ. I saw a couple of them myself that night, and it was my little … it was my daughter sleepwalking up there.”

Augie danced by their booth, wrapped around Deloris Hope. She was about half his size. He winked at Tamara.

“You saw the ghosts?” Russ said when he'd chewed and swallowed enough of the potatoes to talk through what remained.

“I saw two. How many are there? One had a red shirt, tan baggy trousers, and a tan bowler. He—”

“Walks like a lumberjack. Must have a five-foot stride, that guy.”

“You've seen him too?”

“Out by the old ice barn.”

“Well, who is he? Why's he there? It's not all that common a thing to have happen. You're the supervisor.”

“What am I supposed to do?” He pushed his plate away and fished a toothpick from his pocket. “Sprinkle holy water on a bunch of dead boards? I'm a mine manager.”

“Have you seen the naked one too?” She gave him a rather complete description of Backra that made Russ redden and fidget.

“He's a new one on me. Doesn't fit in with most of the old-timers floating around.”

“Old-timers … miners?”

“Yeah, there's stories come down through the years of a man just disappearing now and then, never found. Probably got drunk and fell down an old exploratory shaft. Or lost out in a fight and got dumped down one in the night.”

“Tell me some of the stories.”

“Oh, just crazy stuff. People seeing things. Those drunks were seeing things on Larimer Street long before the company ever got ahold of them.”

“How can you say it's all crazy stuff when you've seen things too?”

“I don't have to believe what I see, do I?” Russ stood and held out his hand. “Let's dance.”

“Not until you tell me how Miriam Kopecky died.”

“Suicide.” He pulled her out of the booth none too gently. “Now, are you happy?”

20

“Went to bed for a week and never got up.” Russel Burnham shook his head sadly. Things were getting serious all around at the Stage Stop Inn—that was the name printed on the paper napkins. Lights dimmer, music slower, voices mellower. Dancers melted into one another.

Augie Mapes stood in the classic cowboy pose with his back to the bar, beer in hand, elbows resting on the bar top and one boot heel hooked over the foot rail. Lazy eyes explored the cornucopia of shapes on the dance floor.

“Dehydration and starvation, the doctor said. And a refrigerator full of food in the next room. But she wouldn't get up and go get it. Wasn't even cold yet. Damnedest thing I ever shaw.”

Tamara had finally gotten Russ to start talking, and now she couldn't get him to stop. “Told everybody she was going to relatives over spring break. Home in bed the whole time.”

“I know, damnedest thing you ever shaw.”

“I heard of skin and bones before, but you never seen anything till you seen someone's just gone to bed for a week and don't get up to eat.”

Augie floated over to lead her onto the dance floor, and Russ went on mumbling and shaking his head. “Sad drunk, ain't he? Gets this way every Friday night. Nobody sees him till Monday morning.”

“I saw him last Saturday, and you don't look so sober yourself.”

“I get this way every night. Not such a shock to the system.”

“On taxpayers' money.”

“You wait till the winter wind blows across the prairie all day and all night and howls like a murdered banshee, Miss Schoolteacher. You wait till all them coyotes start howling along with it, and maybe right under your bedroom window, and you'll want a few spirits in you to ward off the spirits of the night that roam the mountain and—”

“Have you seen the ghosts too, Augie?”

“No. They don't like television.”

She did not feel like running the next day.

“Do you know what Jerusha does when she goes away on her trips?” Tamara asked Adrian later, when the girl returned from a visit to the next apartment. It was becoming impossible to keep her away from there.

Adrian was helping to fold clothes still warm from the dryer, and she paused but didn't look up. “Sure. She does research.”

“What kind of research?”

Adrian shrugged. “How should I know?”

“What were you doing over there all morning?”

“Watching cartoons on TV.”

“Don't you think you're a little old to be watching the Saturday-morning cartoons?”

As their hands met in the middle of the clothes basket, Adrian met her eyes. “I'm always either having thoughts too old for me or too young. You don't know what you want, do you?”

“Honey, Miss Kopecky died here in this apartment in bed. She died of starvation, with all kinds of food in that refrigerator. Jerusha comes back from her trips looking half-starved. Which is not her natural condition, if you'll notice how quickly she's filling out now.”

“Are you trying to say Jerusha had something to do with Miss Kopecky's dying?”

“I don't know the connection, but I think there is one, and I don't like you spending so much time over there.”

“You just can't stand it that I've found a friend here, can you? That I like being with Jerusha. You want to own me all the time.”

“Can't I be your friend?”

“Just be my mom,” Adrian said with a hint of desperation, and buried her head in Tamara's lap.

“All them old stories.” Mrs. Hanley rolled her eyes behind the little cat-eye glasses. She was doing up her dinner dishes, having sent Fred to his night duties at the mine. “You heard about the strip mine opening? Don't know where we'll go. Not much call for a deaf miner, or watchman either. They'll have to give us six months' notice. Wouldn't be fair not to.” The fear in Agnes Hanley's voice sounded deeply ingrained, as if this woman had never known economic security. Was that fear to become a permanent part of Tamara's life?

“About those old stories of Iron Mountain …”

“Oh, we heard about them before we ever came here. ‘That sounds like the place for us, Agnes,' Fred says to me. ‘Man could work his way up to be something at a place where it's hard to get men to go. Maybe even mine manager.'” Agnes laughed. “You know how it is when you're young and don't know nothing. Anything's possible.”

“Yeah, I know.” Like her own daydream of becoming some kind of successful professional. She'd have had to start fifteen years ago. Tamara felt the approach of a heavy depression. “You don't believe there's anything strange about Iron Mountain?”

“Didn't say that.”

“Your husband told me there were ghosts up at the mine.”

“They don't hurt nobody. Just poor lost souls got stuck here somehow. Mostly the old-timers. Fred says he's seen Abner up there some nights.”

“Abner Fistler? Did he die of starvation like Miss Kopecky?”

“Just the opposite. Sick in bed and eatin' off a tray's what I heard. Choked on some food when he got a coughing spell. But them apartments never been lucky. That's why we built this. Figured if we ever left, company'd buy us out. Now, the Baggettes, they—”

“Mrs. Hanley, about the dreams everyone seems—”

“Ain't so bad here. They're worse closer in to the mountain where you are. Folks used to say when we first came that people slept better before they got electricity out here. Which wasn't till the thirties. My daughter claims she don't have half the dreams she used to when she was a kid here, and don't remember the ones she does. Could just be 'cause she's got a job and family now and more on her mind.” She poured coffee for them both and let a whining German shepherd in the back door. “Dumb dog doesn't want to go out at night anymore. If he does, he wants right back in again.”

“I don't understand you people. You see ghosts, dream, sleepwalk, and everybody pretends it's all normal.”

“Now, Mrs. Whelan, you're old enough to have noticed that people can get used to most anything if it comes on slow enough. Look at the cities, where they take murder, rape, stealing, like it was regular. Much rather live out here with a few ghosts and dreams. 'Course, if you ask me, things have speeded up some since Jerusha Fistler moved here. She don't belong to the place, neither. Maybe she's enough of an irritator she stirs things up.”

The wind was chilly when Tamara crossed the limestone road. As usual after a chat with Agnes, she felt frustrated and defeated. Perhaps Fred Hanley's hearing problem was a blessing.

Miriam Kopecky's golden sheers were pulled across the window, but Tamara saw the shadows of two people behind them as she stepped up onto the porch. Inside, Jerusha Fistler stood with a coat over one arm, both hands clutching the back of a chair. The air seemed charged.

With the plumping of face and figure, Jerusha was turning into a remarkably beautiful woman, and oddly made more so now by a look of fury that caused Tamara to flinch. All the laughter and mockery were gone.

“Deloris Hope tells me,” Jerusha said slowly and as if biting down on rage, “that Russel Burnham is planning to close the six-hundred-foot portal, block it up with cement like the three-hundred-foot portal.”