In other words, I was irrevocably finding out for myself the drawback of the age of twelve, the awkward stage of not yet old enough to master such things but past the simple arithmetic of being just a child. The one certainty was that those two trains of thought, for and against a total newcomer in the family, put me in a real fix. Pop’s familiar commandment not to get myself in an uproar or hydrophobic or some other upset state of mind was not helping at all. Opposite as were the outcomes I could imagine ahead, either one scared me to my eyeteeth to think about, and I never did know any way to shut off thinking.
The silence that had settled on the van lasted only as long as Del judged was respectful. “Ah, excuse my asking, but why is the husband missing in this?”
“He met with an accident,” Pop replied reluctantly, “right before I left Fort Peck. Drowned in the river.”
—
“MAYBE SHE DID IT.” Zoe had a ready theory when I told her about the bare-naked couple found in the truck. “Sneaked up on them and let them have it somehow.”
“That’s what I thought, too. But when I tried Pop on that, he said huh-uh there was no way she could have, she was in the Eagle with him and about a hundred other people when it happened.”
“That lets her off the hook, then.” Zoe couldn’t help sounding disappointed.
“Yeah. That one, anyway.”
—
GLANCING AT POP as much as at the road, Del waited for more, although I could tell it would have to come from me later on. Unfazed, he pursued in another direction. “That’s an odd name, if I heard it right. Darius was a Persian king.”
Pop laughed, the reflex kind when something is more bizarre than funny. “He was a strange bird in a lot of ways. Bony kind of guy who always looked like he could use a good meal—the Duffs were all built like hungry cats.” That description cleared my mind a little. I would have been told I was jumping the gun again, but a family characteristic like that ought to settle the whose-daughter-is-she issue in a hurry, hadn’t it? Look at the Zanes, senior and junior, you could tell at first glance they were the same make of fool. And while Pop and I didn’t take after each other all that much except for build and our hair black as shoe polish, the likeness was unmistakable. Even Zoe had her mother’s eyes. Resemblance didn’t lie, right?
“Sometimes I thought Proxy married the ess of a bee”—Pop was still on Darius—“just to have somebody to fight with. He was a bright enough guy, knew his stuff about history and so on, but he’d argue politics until your ears would fall off.”
Del was quick to pick up on the implication of that. “Against Roosevelt?”
“Can you imagine?” Pop sounded as indignant, as if this had all happened yesterday. “FDR was way too tame for him. ‘Capitalism and soda water,’ he called the New Deal. All the while he’s drawing good wages on the dam like ten thousand other guys who would have been bums on the street without the government doing something. See what I mean? When it came to politics, he needed his bolts tightened.” With a shake of his head, he delivered the final verdict: “Not the best customer there ever was.”
Del absorbed all that for a few moments, then wondered, “Was Mrs. Duff—”
“Do me a real big favor and use her other name, okay?”
“Sorry. Was Proxy politically inclined then, too?”
Pop snorted. “Hardly. Her inclinations ran in other directions.” He dug for a cigarette, but halted before striking a match and turned to me. “How many is this today?”
“Four, on your second pack,” I said crossly.
“I’m surprised it’s not more.” He lit up and took a lung-filling drag. “Damn, what a day,” came the exhalation. “Anyway, that’s Proxy for you. I have to admit, she’s still a looker, isn’t she.” His tone of voice toyed with that. “Still a handful, too, when she puts her mind to something.” He leaned back reflectively, his cigarette a glowing dot in the dark of the van. “Back there in the Blue Eagle she was a catamount, for sure.”
“What’s that?” I asked immediately, with Del looking glad I had.
“Pretty much the same as a wildcat, only multiplied by about ten.” The bartender of the ages shook his head, as if still trying to believe her behavior. “There was the time she got into a big argument with another taxi dancer who’d tried to swipe a customer from her. I was busy behind the bar, I told them to knock it off and wasn’t paying any more attention. The next thing I knew, Proxy is up on the bandstand, taking a running start. She sails off there and catches the other dancer around the waist with her legs and her arms locked around the head. They hit the floor like a ton of bricks, Proxy of course on top. She was just starting to bang the other dancer’s head on the floor when I managed to pull her off.”
I listened as openmouthed as I’d been about the making of mud until it piled up into the greatest dam in the world, and the all-night hammering that laid the floor of the Blue Eagle, and other wonders emanating from the front seat. The Gab Lab certainly was living up to its name on this round trip.
Still thinking back across the years, Pop sounded more than a little rueful now. “Proxy was quite an attraction for the joint, in more ways than one. And we got along together just fine when she wasn’t trying to massacre somebody. The thing is, she was hellish good company when business got slow in the Eagle. Always had something to say, some tale to tell.”
“She sounds almost, ah, institutional in her own right,” Del ventured with a sideways glance at him.
“Yeah, well, that’s a pretty good description.” Pop in turn studied Del in the dim glow of the dashboard for a moment. “So, Delano. At least you got your Missing Voices. You’ll be pulling out now, I expect?”
“Hmm? Oh, I was going to bring that up. Actually, I’d like to stay on while I transcribe the interviews, if that would be all right. Put the Gab Lab to further use.”
“Help yourself,” I was secretly glad to hear Pop say, “there’s plenty of room to park in the driveway behind the Packard.” He let out the same kind of big sigh as he’d done earlier. “Cripes, the Packard.”
“What about the Packard?” I probably beat Del to it by a half a second.
Pop didn’t say anything for about a minute. Then, “That’s where it happened.” His tone left no mistake what “it” was.
“In the car?”
“Kiddo,” he said tiredly, “you have to realize, a sizable number of the population gets its start in a back seat, that’s just life.”
He turned around to me and I waited apprehensively for what else this endless day would bring. But he only said, “Better grab some shut-eye. We got a lot ahead of us when we get home.”
7
WE THOUGHT SHE looked like a beatnik, when the Cadillac pulled up to the house that Sunday and, ready or not, here Proxy and her were. That’s because we didn’t know yet what a hippie was.
There in the driveway beside her mother—at least there did not seem to be any outstanding question about that—the young woman appeared frayed and tousled, maybe from the plane flight from Nevada, maybe habitually. She was in blue jeans on their last legs and a threadbare pinkish shirt, not a blouse, and beaded moccasins, and some other kind of decorated leather thing on one wrist.
Peer at her as hard as I could through the kitchen window, with Pop’s description of Darius Duff to go by, the “hungry cat” part might have been more a matter of what she was wearing and how she wore it. This Francine person wasn’t particularly bony anyplace I could see. On the other side of the resemblance question, certainly she was better-looking than either of us, in a sulky kind of way. Mainly, if this newcomer resembled anyone within a hundred miles, disregarding the way she was dressed, it had to be Proxy. Similar, very womanly figure, but not nearly so round, so firm, so fully packed, as the male clientele of the Medicine Lodge would have said. I still was unsure what to think. Because, p
lain as day, any other comparison—light complexion, facial features, characteristic tilt of the head—literally paled beside the matter of hair. Hers, in a kind of shaggy cut that did not come from any beauty shop, was the identical indelible hue as mine and Pop’s where his had not silvered, as if the three of us had been dipped in black ink together.
Watching over my shoulder, Pop scrutinized the new arrival as intently as I did. “Cripes,” he said mechanically about that family hair. With that and the pearly skin, if you closed one eye and concentrated, she did look like she was out of the same hatch as us, particularly him. He startled me by rubbing his hand on the crown of my head, as if for luck. “I don’t know what we’re in for, kiddo. But let’s see how this pans out.”
Out we went, to where Proxy was fixing her face in the side mirror of the Cadillac and Francine was eyeing the old Packard and Del’s VW van curiously.
The usual breeze along English Creek rustled through Igdrasil’s leafy branches overhead, sprinkling cottonwood fluff ahead of us as we approached. The four of us variously uttered “hey” and “hi” and “hello,” and then it was up to Pop.
“I don’t know any rule book for this kind of situation,” he addressed Francine straight off, his voice tight. I had the impression he and I were being studied as fully by her as she was by us. “Proxy kept me in the dark about you.”
“Same here,” came the surprising reply. “She ought to start a mushroom farm.” Francine swept her hair away from a hazel eye, the color of her mother’s, further proof, if wanted, that these sudden arrivals into our life were two of a kind. Up close, she looked a lot like the movie actress Natalie Wood, but after a hard night. The line of her mouth was set in a pinchy way that seemed to say, the rebellious streak starts here. I began to wonder what I was in for with her for a sister, if that was going to be the case.
“Don’t pour it on, you two,” Proxy protested lightly. “I had my reasons. There wasn’t any sense in upsetting things when there was nothing to be gained by it, and now there is, all around.” She smiled sharply at Pop, as though he needed reminding why we were all standing across the alley from the Select Pleasure Establishment of the Year. “What could be better? You get a working partner, missy here learns the tricks of the trade from you, the joint gets a new lease on life—give me credit, Tom, I couldn’t deliver more if I was Santa Claus.”
Francine gave her the kind of look that came from long habit. “Mom, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.” Depending on how you wanted to hear it, that was either teasing or sarcastic.
“Kids these days,” Proxy said imperturbably, with a glance that included me. “Right, Russ?”
Sticking close to Pop against the onset of these women, I was not actually tottering from one foot to the other, but the inside of me felt that way. Perhaps it came up through the shoe soles from the giant roots of Igdrasil, watered by the fates of past, present, and future. Which one would prevail was the decision Pop was struggling with mightily, as I could tell by the record number of wrinkles in his forehead. If he nixed this Francine—twenty-one or not, she did look a lot like a stray kid in those beat-up clothes and with that barely tamed hair—and turned her and Proxy down on the whole matter of paternity and responsibility, then that was that, the Medicine Lodge was a thing of the past for us. If he did the supposedly honorable thing and gave her a chance behind the bar, he could look ahead to endless explaining to the Two Medicine country who she was and why she was there.
“Let’s sort this out a little more,” he backed off the tightrope of fates for the moment. “I’m not doubting you might have what it takes, understand,” he told Francine none too convincingly, “but are you sure you savvy what jumping into something like this would be like? You’d have a hell of a lot to learn. And bartending is long hours and short rest.”
Francine’s mouth twitched in a funny way. “Sounds a lot like life, generally.”
“Smile, chile,” Proxy prompted with a terse laugh. “The man needs a working partner, not a wet blanket.”
Her daughter did not actually smile, but she stopped looking like a rain cloud. “Sorry,” she mustered, facing Pop. “Only trying to be honest.” She looked up at him, a head taller than she was, and wiped the hair away from her eyes again. Up close, it was apparent she’d had her dark eyebrows shaped the way women do, perfect as a picture. At the moment she was not exactly a composed portrait, however. “Listen, I’m still getting used to not having a dead Scotchman for a father. Makes me a little messy upstairs.” She fiddled with the leather bracelet on her wrist. “I don’t even know what to call you . . . ‘Pop,’ is it?”
“Tom,” he said firmly, which for some reason I was glad to hear.
“Oh-kay,” she responded, sounding like an echo of her mother. “So, anyhow, Tom, I’ll bust my tail to learn the job.” She spoke in a rush now. “Mom says you’re the greatest at tending bar. I’d have to be a total wacko to pass up this chance, wouldn’t I.”
Well, at least that showed some spirit. Pop continued to look Francine up and down. Having conscientiously told her the drawbacks of bartending, now he had to tell her yes or no about how she stacked up for the job. I still believe he had not made up his mind until that very moment. He glanced at Proxy, standing there a little akimbo in a milk-blond way that possibly suggested the old days in the Blue Eagle. I guessed what was coming when he rubbed the top of my head again as he spoke.
“All right, we’ll give this a try.” He cut off Proxy’s flash of smile and Francine’s relieved expression. “On my terms. There’s not going to be any working partner, so don’t get big ideas, Proxy. The Medicine Lodge stays in my hands, I’m the boss, period and end of punctuation.” He looked squarely at Francine to make sure this was sinking in. “I’ll hire you, which means I can fire you, got that?”
Her mouth twitched that funny way again, but she sounded fairly reasonable in saying: “That’s jake with me.” Automatically I filed that away to share with Zoe.
“See?” Proxy winked at me, or was it meant for Pop. “It all works out for the best, just like I—”
“One more thing.” He held up his hands, as if stopping traffic. His gruff tone had Francine fooling nervously with the gizmo on her wrist again. “I’m not gonna spend my time explaining to everybody who comes in the joint that you’re some daughter of mine who just happened to show up like Jesus in the manger.” His eyes met Proxy’s, although his words were still meant for Francine. “It’s not fair to you, either. You shouldn’t have to feed people’s curiosity about something that goes back before you were born.”
Drawing a deep breath, he acknowledged the hair problem and so on. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do when customers get nosy about any resemblance. We’ll say Francine is my niece.” He appeared uncomfortable with that white lie, if that’s what color it was, but I could tell he was set in rock about this. “My sister’s kid that I’m breaking in on the job out of the goodness of my heart. People can think what they want, but that’s gonna be our story. Everybody got that?”
Wow, I couldn’t help thinking, what a bit.
Mother and daughter glanced at each other. Whatever passed between them, it was Francine who turned to Pop with the hint of a sassy grin. “If that’s the way you want to play it, Unc.”
“Tom,” he warned her.
By now Proxy was eyeing me, and I was instantly on my guard. There was something in the way she looked at me, as if I was a cause for concern. “Some little man will need to watch his mouth real careful, won’t he.”
“Rusty knows what’s involved,” Pop stoutly took up for me, squeezing my shoulder as he spoke. “He won’t give the act away. Right, kiddo?”
I swallowed. “I’ll, uh, watch my mouth.”
That satisfied Proxy only so far. Now she was frowning in the direction of Del’s van. “Then what about Carrot Top? Where is he, playing with h
is machinery?”
Pop indicated to English Creek, which was making that pretty sound of water dancing over rocks. “I told him to go fishing while we worked this out. Don’t worry, I’ll fill him in as soon as he gets back. Delano won’t be a problem.”
That seemed to take care of Proxy’s concerns. “Then I can make myself scarce, can’t I”—she patted the fender of the Cadillac—“and go tend to my business interests. How about if I just slip by here”—she nodded toward the house—“once in a while to kind of check on things?”
Pop chewed his lip a little before conceding that might not hurt. “But steer clear of the joint when you do. There are people around here who were at Fort Peck and would recognize you at the drop of a hat. We don’t want the sight of you to give them funny ideas, do we.”
Solo parent again for the second time in one lifetime, he turned to look speculatively at Francine, busy plucking cottonwood fluffs out of her hair and dispatching them in the breeze. “I suppose we better get at this,” he said as much to himself as to her. “Rusty can show you the house, how about. Give her the bedroom next to yours, okay?” It wasn’t, but what else could I do but nod.
Pop turned to Proxy. “Hey, before you hit the road,” he frowned, checking his watch, “come over to the joint with me. I need you to help me with the guy who thinks he’s got a deal to buy it or I’ll never hear the end of it from him. You’re going to have to be Aunt Marge, whose darling daughter needs to learn bartending if she’s ever going to amount to anything.”