Tisha (9 page)

“I didn’t see any restaurant signs coming in.”

“Right down the street—Maggie’s roadhouse. She’s the best cook in town.”

“Maybe after I get settled.”

“Settled or not you’re going to have to eat dinner. How about tomorrow night? I won’t bite you.”

“All right, you’re on.”

He whacked his crop against his boot again. “See you around six,” he said, going out. “I’ll go over and tell Maggie now.”

Wow, I thought, things really happen fast around here. I haven’t been in Chicken more than a few hours and already I have a date.

Maggie Carew came by a little before dark and sent the children home. “Place looks a lot better,” she said.

“Thanks to you. I appreciate your helping me.”

“Don’t mention it. Joe Temple tells me you’re comin’ over the roadhouse with him tomorrow night. Fast worker, that one,” she said admiringly.

“What does he do?”

“Mines, like everyone else. Damn good miner too. Got a college education to boot. Do ’im good to go out with a white woman for a change. You hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Come on over the roadhouse when you’re ready and I’ll fix you some supper. On the house.”

“Thanks, but Mr. Strong said he’ll be coming back with some food and I was to wait for him.”

She went to the back of the room and opened the door that led into a small storage room—the cache. Her high-buttoned shoes made a lot of noise on the plank floors. “You’ll have plenty of room for your outfit,” she said.

“Outfit?”

“Your grub for the winter, flour, sugar, all a that.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Didn’t they tell you to have an outfit shipped in when you were hired?”

“No.”

Now that she’d mentioned it, I realized I didn’t have even a bit of food.

“That makes sense. Well, don’t worry, you won’t starve. When the freeze-up comes Walter Strong’ll bring one in for you. It’ll cost you a little more, but not that much. We’ll help you out in the meantime. Well, I got supper to make. Drop by the roadhouse later if you like.”

Just then I remembered her daughter. Her face lit up when I told her what Jeannette had said. “Thinks she’s gonna have a girl, eh? Well, I hope so. If she’s anything like Jennie that’ll be two good things I got outta this life.”

As she went out I asked her what all the nails in the doors were for.

“Bear,” she answered. “Last teacher here threw a fit when one came sniffin’ at the door one day. I’d have’m hammered down if I was you. Kids might hurt themselves.”

Alone, I sat down on the bed and looked the room over. It needed a lot of work. The floor was as bad in here as it was in the schoolroom. In some places it had dropped below the walls and I could see the ground outside. The walls were in bad shape, too. They were just rough planks with canvas stretched over them like wallpaper, and the canvas was peeling in places. But I didn’t care. This was the first place I’d ever had to myself. Right now, with everything piled all over, it looked like a secondhand store, but when I fixed it up it would look nice, nicer even than Cathy Winters’ place.

It was getting chilly, drafts coming in from the spaces around the molding. I went over to check the potbellied stove. Maggie Carew’s son Jimmy had built a fire in it to get the dampness out, but I’d forgotten to keep it up. Opening the door, I saw that the wood he’d put in was just embers now. I tried to start it up again, but I didn’t have any kindling. There was no water left either, so I took a pail and went outside.

In the Vaughn cabin, next door, pots and dishes were rattling as the girls prepared supper. A couple of them were talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Standing there outside, the darkness falling fast, I felt lonely all of a sudden. Except for the sounds from a few cabins, everything was quiet. There weren’t as many people here as I thought there’d be. Out of all the buildings on each side of me there were maybe only six that had people living in them—the Vaughns’ next door, the Carews’ roadhouse, Angela Barrett’s cabin and a couple of cabins way down at the far end.

The only other cabin that was occupied was on the other side of the creek. The unoccupied ones were shells, most of them—the windows taken out, the doors gone. The rest were outbuildings, privies, stables,
tool sheds and the like. Most of the people who’d been waiting at the post office lived on the outlying creeks.

It was a little like being in a ghost town. Twenty and thirty years ago this had been a thriving settlement, men had streamed in here looking for gold, built these cabins and dreamed about making a big strike. Most of them were gone now. Almost everyone here now had come after the rush was over, like me.

The sun was gone, a faint orange glow in the purple sky.

I filled the pail with water and started lugging it back, stopped halfway to rest. I could even see inside my quarters it was so dark. I felt a little scared. Maybe it was because everything looked so rough and bare, I didn’t know. Suddenly it didn’t seem so friendly. Back in Oregon, where I’d taught up until last June, the nights were made for a nice walk or a soda at the drugstore. Here it was all wilderness. At night everything went into hiding. I picked up the pail and hurried back into my quarters.

Inside, it was almost too dark to see. I thought about going next door to the Vaughns and asking if I could wait there for Mr. Strong, but I didn’t want to bother them. Besides, if I was going to get used to being on my own I might as well start now.

I thought I remembered seeing a couple of stubs of candles somewhere. I was lucky. I found them right away, along with a box of matches, in one of the fruit boxes nailed above the counter. Lighting the candles, I put one on the counter and the other on my table. Then I sat down to wait.

The candles didn’t give too much light and they made shadows go jumping all over.

After a while I began to get cold, so I got up and walked around, stopping to listen for the sound of Mr. Strong returning. But it stayed quiet outside. Too quiet, I thought. I couldn’t hear a sound.

A slight wind shook the door and for some reason I thought right away of the grizzly that had pounced on the caribou calf. I caught myself listening for the soft pad of an animal outside.

The door to the schoolroom was open and it looked
like a big dark hole, so I closed it. My footsteps sounded hollow on the plank floors and I realized suddenly that I had no protection here at all. All I had between me and the wilderness outside was a few walls. I didn’t even have locks on the doors. Anyone who wanted to could walk right in through the schoolroom or my front door. They could even come in through the cache, since it had a door that led outside. I tried lodging a chair in front of the doors, but the knobs were too high.

My nickel-plated revolver, still holstered, lay in a box beside the bed. Tying it around my waist, I felt a little better.

A half hour later Mr. Strong still hadn’t come back. One of the candle stubs was flickering out and the other had only two inches to go. Once it was gone I’d be left in complete darkness. There was a gas lantern hanging from the ceiling, but there was no gasoline for it. Even if there had been, I wouldn’t have known how to work it.

Then I heard footsteps outside.

I knew they didn’t belong to Mr. Strong. He’d gone to make some deliveries on some outlying creeks and I’d have heard his horses. The footsteps couldn’t belong to a neighbor either, because they were coming from the brush back near the outhouse. They padded closer, moving around the side of the house. I waited, hoping they’d pass by, and yet something told me that whoever they belonged to was coming after me.

I was right. They stopped in front of the porch. I got to my feet, wondering if maybe I ought to slip out through the cache and run next door. Before I could make up my mind the footsteps came up on the porch and I was too scared to move. A second later I almost jumped as the ghostly outline of a face appeared at the window, then ducked away. Then there was a soft knock at the door.

Taking the revolver out, I stayed still as a rabbit, hoping whoever it was would go away. When the knock came a second time, I decided that whoever was out there could get in just by turning the doorknob anyway. He’d be less antagonized if I invited him in than
if I didn’t. The revolver was too heavy for me to hold in one hand, so using both I pointed it at the door. “Come in,” I said, “but be careful.”

The chair I’d left in front of the door slid forward and I could just make out a dark man with thick black hair staring at me from the porch. As soon as he saw the gun he raised his hands. He was nervous, but he smiled. He was darker than a Spaniard, and his teeth looked deadly white.

“You better be careful,” I said. “I shot a bear with this once.” I was so scared I didn’t know what I was saying.

He stopped smiling. “I can believe that,” he answered.

“Did you come to see me?” I asked him.

I was hoping he’d say he got the wrong cabin by mistake, but he didn’t. He said, “Yes.”

“Well, you can come in if you want, but I’d much rather you didn’t.” That sounded silly, I realized.

He stayed at the threshold and kept his hands up. “I just came to talk to you,” he said.

“What about?”

“My mother sent me over to see if you’d like to have supper with us.”

As soon as he said that I realized how silly I was being. He wasn’t even much older than I was, I could see now, and he was embarrassed. So was I. “Oh.”

“Can I put my hands down?”

I nodded yes.

“I won’t come in,” he said, “so could you point that gun away?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m sorry. You can come in if you want.” I meant it this time.

“That’s all right. I’m sorry I scared you. My father said you came in with the pack train today, and my mother thought this being your first night, you wouldn’t be set up to cook. She thought maybe you’d like to eat with us.”

“Oh,” I said again. “That’s awfully nice of her, but I better not. Mr. Strong is coming back soon and he’ll be bringing dinner with him.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Well, my mother said to
tell you that if you need any help at all you just let us know.”

He looked the room over, not able to think of anything else to say.

“Do you live here in the settlement?” I asked him finally.

“No, a little further up Chicken Creek,” he said.

I tried to think of something else to say, but for the life of me I couldn’t.

“I guess I better be going,” he said.

I was disappointed. Now that I wasn’t afraid of him I wished he could keep me company until Mr. Strong came back. But he said good-bye and closed the door before I could even think to ask him his name.

“That was young Fred Purdy,” Mr. Strong said when he finally came back. He seemed pleased that I hadn’t accepted the invitation. Later, as we were finishing the cold chicken he had brought, he smiled when I mentioned how I’d held the gun on Fred.

“You’d have been more than safe with him. Fred undoubtedly will never amount to anything, but he is a fine young fellow …”

“Why won’t he ever amount to anything?”

Mr. Strong nibbled the last piece of meat from the chicken bone he was chewing and laid it on the plate, satisfied.

“Couldn’t you see? He’s a half-breed,” he said, wiping his hands. “Mother’s Eskimo, father’s white.”

“He seemed very nice.”

“He is. Smart too. Smarter than most breeds. The whole family is as good as they come.”

“Then why won’t he ever amount to anything?”

He got up and began to collect the plates. “I told you,” he said patiently, “he’s a breed—a product of race mixture. That’s what happens when you mix the races. I’ve seen it all my life—seen it in the South, see it here. It’s always the same—the offspring have to suffer.”

He made it sound as if anybody who wasn’t all white had some kind of a disease. It kind of disappointed me in him a little. I wondered what he’d think of me if he knew my grandmother had been Indian.

“What
is Chuck’s father like?” I asked him, changing the subject.

“Joe? Good miner, good trapper. You can bet your bottom dollar he regrets ever having involved himself with a native woman.”

“Joe Temple is Chuck’s father?”

“Why do you look surprised?”

“He’s supposed to take me to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Well, it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. Mr. Temple is a gentleman and he will treat you like a lady.”

“But he’s married.”

“No, he is not and I’m sure he thanks God for it.” Married or not, I still felt funny about going out with him.

Before Mr. Strong left I knew just about everything there was to know about everyone here. As far as the Purdys were concerned, he respected Mr. Purdy even though he felt he’d lowered himself by marrying an Eskimo woman. He advised me to act towards them the way he did himself—“the way you’d act towards anybody who abides by the law no matter what their color is … You know what I mean, just about the same way you’d act towards niggers.”

After Mr. Strong left I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Leaving the gas lantern on, I lay down on the bare mattress with my clothes on, and pulled a couple of blankets over me. But I couldn’t sleep. It was so quiet outside that the creek sounded as though it was right in the room. The slightest draft
made the doors rattle. It was cold out too. I could feel it slipping in through the cracks in the floor and walls. Then a small animal began moving around the side of the house, and every time I closed my eyes I imagined that something was going to charge into the room and pounce on me.

Finally I got up, pumped up the light in the lantern and got my Bible. But I couldn’t concentrate on it. My ears perked up every time one of the horses snuffled in the stable across the way or kicked the side of the stall. I wished I was in Blossom’s place. At least he had a bar across his door and plenty of company.

I started to think about the next few days. Besides having to get these quarters into shape, I had a lot of work to do in the schoolroom before school started. There were hardly any supplies, no blackboard, no paper that I could find, and not many books. When I had mentioned the shortages to Maggie Carew, she didn’t seem to think anything of it. “You’ll make out,” she said.