Real clouds formed above western ridges in a real sky. The actual but distant sound of thunder from that direction. A high resonant snapping of cicadas … a normal summer sound. The Maddon twins carried glasses of beer to May Bell’s group. Their sandy mustaches were identical. Odd to observe one’s own grandfather in his twenties … and in duplicate.
The briny scent of horse. A clatter of utensils against dishes. No paper plates or beer cans or plastic cups to be left to litter the meadow. Corbin stood in the beer line now with a glass of root beer, his back looking very broad. Thora K. tossed her head and laughed as she talked to a friend near the corral. Shay was suddenly in shadow.
The Maddon twin with the vest stood over her, a fried drumstick in one hand, his hat in the other.
Shay brought Brandy to her feet before she realized she was preparing them for flight.
“May Bell wondered if you would like this.” He held out the drumstick. There was no gap between his teeth.
She reached to accept it, her eyes imprisoned by his pale hair, so like her own had been before … “Tell her … thank you.”
Shay swallowed against the lump moving up Brandy’s esophagus. The sound of cicadas dimmed in her ears.
He inspected her blankly, his head tilted back, as if he were experiencing her rather than looking at her.
Brandy’s face grew hot and Shay said, “I … don’t suppose I can go over there … and thank her myself.”
“I don’t suppose you can.” A suggestion of laughter touched amber eyes. “I’ll give her your message.”
Shay was still watching her grandfather or his twin walk away when Corbin stuck a glass under her nose. He did not look happy.
“What was that about?”
“He gave me a piece of chicken.” She sat down, almost spilling the root beer. People were looking at them.
“What did Hutch Maddon want with you?”
“Nothing.” And that was true. His interest had not been admiration or particularly friendly. It was more a curious dissection. “Hutch is a funny name.”
“It’s shortened from Hutchison, his mother’s maiden name.”
“Thora K. said his mother was a prostitute.”
“There are gentler words for that profession, Brandy. Mrs. Maddon fell upon hard times.”
The chicken tasted so good, Shay forgot the root beer. Then, with a crunchy piece still between her teeth, she stopped chewing and stared at the enormous meadow with people dotting one end of it, but saw instead a memory …
… Memorial Day in Columbia Cemetery in Boulder … Shay watching her mother place a vase of cut flowers against a pink headstone … it wasn’t the first time Shay’d been there, but probably the last … she could remember little of the inscription and no dates … but the name chiseled in pink granite had been Hutchison Maddon … her memory saw it clearly … Rachael’d always spoken of him as Dad … and the grave next to his … Sophie Euler McCabe … whom Rachael’d always referred to as Grandma … Shay’d been junior-high age that Memorial Day …
“Brandy?”
Shay Garrett came back to the salty taste of chicken and the man beside her. Where was Corbin buried? Hard to think of him as dead. He was so big and masculine and now looked so sincere.
“Brandy, you’ve not been listening to me.”
“I’m sorry, my mind was a million miles away.”
He looked worried, as he always did when reminded she was crazy.
“Oh, come on, Corbin, give me a chance. Haven’t you ever had a knotty problem that wouldn’t leave you alone until your mind turned out everything else and just struggled with it?”
“I’ve never thought of it in such words but … yes, yes I have. Though what problem a woman could have that’s of such weight … She’s taken care of, fed, housed. Problems of weight fall on the men.”
“You, Corbin Strock, are a first-rate MCP. Do you know that? Well-meaning, but –”
“MCP?”
“Male chauvinist pi … uh, never mind. What were you talking about while I struggled with my unimportant problem?”
“I was pointing out that you must be careful, Brandy. Nederland’s a small place and you mustn’t go about discussing … fallen women and –”
“Is May Bell a pros … fallen woman? And her friends over there?”
His answer was an expression of acute embarrassment.
“Corbin, if I’m to live here, I have to know something about this small place of yours. And if I can’t discuss it with you, then who? Someone else’s husband?”
“How do you know of May Bell?”
“This is her chicken.”
“You accepted that from a –”
“I like chicken. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“Women discuss these things amongst themselves I suppose. My mother –”
“Would Thora K. discuss fallen women with me?”
Corbin laughed and drew curious looks from the meadow. “Sometimes you seem such a child and at other times I wonder if it isn’t too bad the Young Men’s Debating Society doesn’t include women. From now on, I’ll buy your chicken for you. And yes, May Bell is –”
“Like Marie on Water Street?”
“Yes, and you’re to have nothing to do with May Bell or her friends.”
I’ll bet you do, though, don’t you?
“Now, don’t embarrass me any longer with this chatter. I’ve some people I’d like you to meet. Be careful what you say.”
Shay happened to catch May Bell’s eye as she turned to deposit the chicken bone in the picnic hamper, and gave her a surreptitious smile of thanks. May Bell, without moving another muscle in her face, lowered one eyelid slowly.
The Maddon twins were off to another part of the meadow, but there was still a good-sized male crowd hanging around that blanket. Those women were outcasts only to a degree.
Maybe it was the holiday mood, but Shay felt less of an outcast herself as she talked to Corbin’s friends. The women appeared kindly if guarded, the men respectful if curious. They seemed more like people than relics of the past when she talked to them. She did her best to act normally because she wanted to please Corbin.
She overheard a Mrs. Schiller whisper to her husband as they moved away, “She don’t look very uppity for a McCabe. Don’t look crazy either.”
“Well, Strock ain’t changed his bachelor ways none, if you know what I mean,” her husband answered. “Something’s unnatural up at that house.”
Shay’s holiday mood vanished. What do you care for anyway? He’s Brandy’s problem. Would Shay have Brandy’s problems to contend with the rest of her life?
Suddenly she was thinking of Hutch Maddon and his pink tombstone again.
13
Shay and Corbin sat on a raised bleacher next to the corral fence on the meadow.
The corral had been turned over to a Fourth of July rodeo. It was much like those she’d grown up with at the yearly Boulder Pow Wow, the same cruelty to animals to show off the macho of men. The difference was in apparel and the skill of the cowboys, who obviously got their practice on the job.
Dr. Seaton was everywhere, minding wounded horses as well as men. He was also a judge and by far the busiest man at the rodeo.
Across the corral from the bleachers, May Bell watched from a buggy seat. “Corbin’s told me all about you,” May Bell’d said.
“He ain’t changed his bachelor ways none,” Mr. Schiller had whispered.
But Brandy mustn’t have anything to do with fallen women or the Maddons. Talk about double standards.
Hutch Maddon and a screaming black horse exploded into the oval ring. Shay knew it was Hutch because of the vest.
The horse bucked violently, his hooves seeming never to touch the ground and Hutch’s seat never to hit the saddle. Clutching the saddle with his knees, he raised his hat above his head and let out a whoop.
Then he flew over the corral fence and landed with a sickening plop at her feet.
H
utch Maddon lay on his back, eyes closed, chest pumping breath, lips drawn back from his teeth as Corbin’s had during the double-hand. But this grimace was one of pain rather than exertion.
Corbin knelt beside the fallen cowboy.
The black horse still reared and screamed behind the fence as Dr. Seaton sprinted toward them. Shouldering Corbin aside, he ran his hands over Hutch’s body. “If you can hear me, boy, tell me where it hurts.”
“Leg …” Hutch Maddon opened his eyes to stare back at Shay.
Doc Seaton slit a pants leg with a borrowed knife. There was no blood but there was something wrong with the angle of the leg.
“Strock, get my buggy. Somebody find a straight board and some rope.”
Shay could stand it no longer. Grandfather or no … the way that man had landed …
She slid to her knees beside the doctor. Hutch hadn’t taken his eyes off her since he’d opened them.
“Can you move your fingers and toes?” she asked him. “Can you feel everywhere?” You’ve got to stick around to sire my whole family.
Hutch blinked, flexed his hands and the other foot. Again that bare hint of a smile in his eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered meekly.
“Who’s the doctor around here, Mrs. Strock?” the doctor asked.
“You are. But he landed – or it seemed he landed – on his back. I … thought he might have broken it.”
“Now, Hutch, you wouldn’t do that to me on the Fourth of July, would you?” Doc Seaton handed her a brown bottle. “Here, Dr. Strock, pour some of this down his gullet, long as you’re so handy.”
Shay hesitated, then moved her hand under her grandfather’s head to raise it. It felt strange even touching him, and he didn’t seem like a grandfather. He was younger than Corbin.
The bittersweet stench of raw whiskey rose from the bottle she tipped to his lips.
“Hutch, you gotta quit drinking so much.” Lon squatted across his brother’s body from Shay. “I keep telling ya.”
Hutch choked and spit whiskey. He pushed the bottle away. “She’s drowning me!”
Laughter from the crowd. Shay looked up to see Thora K. staring at her. Thora K. wasn’t laughing.
Embarrassed, Shay slid Brandy’s hand from beneath his head. It came out sticky and red. “Doctor, he’s hurt his head. It’s bleeding.”
“Well, I’m not surprised. Probably landed on something.”
“But he’s lying in the dirt.”
Doc Seaton poured whiskey all over his handkerchief. “Here, put this under him then. You lady doctors sure are finicky.”
Shay slipped the handkerchief under the wound and held it there. She supposed alcohol was alcohol.
“Now, Hutch, you know what I got to do,” the doctor said quietly.
“Yeah.” Hutch’s eyes watered, either from the raw whiskey she’d dumped down his throat or from the sting of it against the open wound.
“Lon, pin his arms.” The Doc handed her the long knife he’d used to slit the pants leg. “Mrs. Strock, put the handle between his teeth.”
“What are you going to do?” She was afraid she knew.
“I’m going to set his leg, of course.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here. He’s swelling already. Now, do as I say.”
Shay put the leather-wrapped handle lengthwise between her grandfather’s teeth. Drops of sweat pocked his face. His Adam’s apple moved up and then slowly down to his shirt collar.
Lon lay across his twin’s chest.
Hutch drew in his breath and closed his eyes. So did Shay.
She heard the sickening snap, heard a moan cut off sharply and felt the convulsive jerk in his body that sent Lon’s head crashing into her side … felt her own senses snap as if a bullet had entered her head.
Her picnic lunch struggled to return. The muscles in Hutch’s neck relaxed onto the whiskey hanky. He went limp against her knees. The knife came loose in her hand.
“You can open your eyes now, Dr. Strock.” Doc Seaton was tying the straightened leg to a board that looked suspiciously like a piece of the corral fence. “Our patient won’t give us any trouble for a while.”
Hutch Maddon looked dead. His lips had parted slightly to reveal the lack of a gap between his teeth. His face had drained of life and color.
But his chest moved with slow rhythm.
The crowd made way for Corbin with the doctor’s horse and buggy. If Shay could have felt anything more, she knew she wouldn’t have been comfortable with the look Corbin gave her.
“I apologize, Mrs. Strock, if I was overly brusque with you. But we had to hurry,” Doc Seaton said too loudly, as if he’d also noticed Corbin’s expression. “For a town-bred girl, you’d make a fine nurse.”
Shay watched as they loaded her limp grandfather into the buggy. The spreading stain on the back of his head looked almost black against the pale hair. Lon and the doctor held him as Corbin drove them off.
Thora K. dragged her across the meadow to the creek like an errant child and sponged dirt and a blood smear from her skirt. “S’pose it can’t be ’elped, ’ee being there when it ’appened and all. There, might be this’ll keep it from settin’ till us gets back to the ’ouse.”
“I’ve seen things like that in the movies but I didn’t think they really happened,” Shay said as they collected the picnic things. Booze for anesthetic, knife between the teeth …
“Moving wot?”
“Moving pictures.”
“Might be ’ee know things I don’t, you.” Thora K. pushed her face close, and one eye wandered. “But I do know pictures don’t move. Edden possible.”
As they walked up the road to the cabin, Shay kept staring at the hand that still had a dark streak across the palm. Someday this will be part of my blood. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five. My grandfather will be dead before I’m born, and I’ll never know him.
“Brandy …” Thora K. stopped beside the cabin. “Yer a strange ’un, but I’ve come to like ’ee, child.” She smiled so wide that Shay knew why the old woman chewed her food the way she did. Her front teeth were all that was left. “Tez possible ’ee ’ave the gift of healing as well as the sight.”
“I didn’t heal him. I just helped Dr. Seaton.”
“In the uld days in Cornwall” – she dropped her voice and looked over her shoulder – “them as would a burned ’ee with the fire and hunged ’ee from a tree. But us modern Cornish know things. ’Ee edden a black witch.”
On Thora K.’s next day off, she and Shay trudged up out of the valley to the north, their destination Caribou. It would be mildly famous in Shay’s time as a ghost town and for its cemetery.
She, Rachael and Jerrold Garrett had jeeped the road she now walked, to gather material for one of Rachael’s books.
The thought of her parents sent Shay’s mind racing over schemes to get back to the Gingerbread House, since the mirror apparently wasn’t coming to her. She’d considered running away to Boulder, but Brandy’s shoes wouldn’t permit it. There might be bears in the canyon. It’d be another instance of her behavior that could be labeled crazy. If the mirror wouldn’t cooperate, she could yet be “put away.”
“I didn’t realize Caribou was ever this large.” They stood on the main street. Empty storefronts on one side. Heaps of blackened boards on the other.
“’Twere bigger afore the fire last winter. Terrible it were. Wind ablowin’ flames and men with buckets doing no more good than if them was spittin’ tobacco juice. Miners be proper ones fer digging ’oles in the ground but not much fer taking time to lay pipes. So when there’s a fire …”
About half the town stood unburned on the high mountain meadow. The elements had erased all but a trace of the paint on ugly wooden buildings. It looked like an arsonist’s paradise still.
“Caribou were dying way back along. Now tez dead fer sure.” Her crackly epitaph moved hollowly on a wind that stirred dust from empty streets through glassless window holes, moved building she
lls to groan and creak in response, sent a forlorn tin can banging down a gray and rippled plank sidewalk.
Shay followed Thora K. down a side street. A cookstove with a hole in its underside lay on a pile of rusting cans behind an abandoned house.
“What do the people do who still live here?”
“Them be mostly caretakers fer they mines now,” Thora K. said sadly. “And them few as is too uld to give it all up.”
She stopped before a tiny one-room cabin with a caved-in roof and sighed like the wind that blew through it. “Me Harvey did build this ’ouse fer we. A mite crowded it were, but ’appy fer a time.”
The old woman straightened her shoulders and went on. That shack made the one in Nederland look like a palace.
It was a shock to come across a curtained window with glass, or yellowed long underwear strung on a clothesline among all the abandoned dwellings.
Caribou was a sad and dirty mutilation of the meadow. Nature would erase it almost totally, green over the scars, and leave only shapes of foundations, signs of earth unnaturally leveled for buildings, a few heaps of wood marking the collapse of a structure, hillocks that when dug into produced broken bottles and bedsprings. Only the rusty mining scars would remain on the ridges around.
On the outskirts Shay recognized, by its location, a large building still in fair repair. She and her mother would poke around the decaying pile it would become and wonder about it.
Shay stared at the building, remembering the future. On this spot Rachael would speak of a Thora K.… someone from her childhood … and in that book there’d be a Thora … an old woman with a frizzy white bun on top of her head … who was never without her bottle of tonic … what else? Shay’d helped proof the manuscript for that book, but she could bring no more to mind. Thora K. must live to be very old.
They walked up the hill toward the cemetery where Shay and her parents would be saddened at all the graves of children.
“Thora K., how old are you?”
“I be forty and five years. Gettin’ to be an uld ’unman.”
“Forty-five?” Rachael was in her fifties and looked decades younger than Thora K., who seemed elderly rather than middle-aged.
The cemetery was far larger than when Shay would visit it with her parents. Many of these gravesites would be erased by nature too. Trees would grow back in places. Now it had a tended look, with many weathered but upright wooden and stone markers.