IT WAS two weeks before Amanda went up to call on Calise Cunningham in the ghost town, and there made a discovery which profoundly affected her life. Amanda had been interested in Dart’s suggestion that she go see Calise, but she caught a stuffy head cold and the resultant lethargy left her no energy for anything but chores.
On the morning of February second, Hugh dropped in, as she was pumping water onto the breakfast dishes.
“How are the snuffles now?” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Want some more nose drops? And have you got a cup of coffee left in that funeral urn?” He pointed at the large old-fashioned percolator the Dartlands had found in the shack.
She nodded and poured him a cup. “Snuffles about gone,” she said. “But I don’t seem to have much pep.” She wiped a plate and put it on the shelf.
Hugh looked at her keenly. She was thinner than she had been when she arrived, and pale, though of course without make-up most women looked pallid. “You ought to get out more,” he said. “Bustle around. This climate’s supposed to be quite healthy, you know.”
“Well, I am going to the post office, pretty soon,” she said with a faint smile. “Might be letters from home. There isn’t much else to do, and at least Tessie Rubrick throws me a kind word now and then.”
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.
The audience consisted of two young cowpunchers who had been hunting cattle strayed down from the range to the north, a welder and a mechanic from the mine, and Old Larky back again from the mountains to collect his monthly remittance. Susan lay with her pups in a basket under his feet.
Amanda knew none of them, and she sipped her coke and listened abstractedly to Roy’s baritone drawl, while she wondered if there’d be any letters from home.
There was a party of tourists had driven over the cliff in Gila Canyon just north of Winkelman, said Roy. He’d stopped to investigate but they was all mashed flatter than pancakes, and the bodies could wait until the deputy came along. The car had a California license.
“Them prune pickers had ought to stay to home where they belong,” said one of the cowpunchers. “Or leastways stick to them fancy-pants resorts that’ll wet-nurse the dudes so they don’t get hurt.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
Another jail break from the state pen at Florence, said Roy, they’d caught two of them right off heading for the border, but the other one was an Apache boy and they figured he’d make for the reservation, like the Indians always did. Those Apaches knew every foot of this mountain country and could melt into the chaparral like they was made of bark themselves.
Everybody nodded. Old Larky wheezed and screwed up his rheumy eyes. “I trust he doesn’t come fidgeting around me and Susan up on the mountain. Perhaps I’d better buy me some extra shells.”
Amanda looked up startled. An educated English voice out of that filthy old man. Another character apparently. The men all laughed.
“D’you find your lost mine yet, Larky?” asked Roy, winking at the others.
“Any day now. Any day,” returned Larky with dignity. “I think I misread my map. I’m working on a new theory now.”
The mine welder who had been silently smoking his pipe suddenly leaned forward. “Hear anything more about what’s going on at Ray?”
Old Larky and the mechanic leaned forward, too. The mail carrier’s face sobered. “I reckon they’ll shut down purty soon,” he said. “There’s plenty of rumors. That’ll mean the smelter, too.”
“Jeez...” said the welder. “Where’ll we send our ore? If we keep agoing ourselves, that is.”
“Freight it to El Paso, I reckon,” said the mechanic.
“Haulage costs...” said the welder, shaking his head.
All this meant as little to Amanda as it apparently did to the two young cowpunchers who had drawn off to a corner and were conferring with each other. It was obvious from the other men’s silence and expressions that their thoughts were disturbing. More mine troubles, she thought with impatience. There’s no end to them. I wish the Shamrock would shut down. Then Dart could get a decent job somewhere. This thought which flashed suddenly through her head startled her into a lively guilt. Dart loved the mine, he loved his job here, plenty of bitter realizations had taught her that. She slid off her stool and walked over to the window.
Tessie’s friendly little face beamed up at her. “Ye got one!” she cried triumphantly. “From New York too!—though I doubt ’tis from your mother by the writing.”
Amanda laughed. The bright squirrel eyes were so sympathetic that it was impossible to resent Tessie’s delighted scrutiny of every piece of mail. And Tessie was without malice. Though she read every postcard, and speculated about all sealed matter, she had never been known to use the extensive knowledge thus gained to anyone’s disadvantage. Amanda glanced at her letter, and saw that it was from Tim Merrill.
Her heart gave a sideways lurch. The large sprawling handwriting which had once been so familiar, and associated with the promise of gaiety and excitement, now produced a dull sense of shock, mostly, though not quite, unpleasant.
“’Tis not a welcome letter?” asked Tessie anxiously.
“Oh—oh, yes, I guess so.” Amanda smiled and put Tim’s letter in her pocketbook. “I was hoping to hear from my mother or sister, though.”
Tessie nodded. “I mind how ’twas when we first come over from Cornwall. Seems I couldna ’a lived without the post. Ye’ll get over the worst of it.”
“Yes,” said Amanda, and she lingered by the window, warmed by Tessie’s friendliness, reluctant to go outside and open Tim’s letter.
Old Larky came shuffling up for his remittance with Susan wheezing at his heels. The welder and the mechanic both got letters from home. Others came trickling in to the post office, got mail, leafed through the two-day-old Phoenix Republican. Amanda glanced over a shoulder at the front page. Somebody called Hitler had just been made Chancellor of Germany. President-elect Roosevelt was in Florida. But most of the news was local. Another lay-off of miners at the Copper Queen in Bisbee. A man in Prescott had shot himself and his starving family.
Why are papers always so depressing, thought Amanda, and turned back toward Tessie.
Bobby Pottner came tearing in on his way from school. “Got anything for us?” he yelled, giving Amanda a shy nod.
“Just a postcard from Pearline,” said Tessie, handing it to him. “She says it’s been real cold in Globe lately, and she’s got a new music pupil.”
“Aw, nuts to Pearline—didn’t I get my Buck Rogers pistol?”
“’Tisn’t here yet. ’Twill come Wednesday no doubt—Bobby, I see Roy brought your ma a package from the wholesaler in Phoenix. Tell her to save me some sage, will ye? I need it for me pasties.”
And still Amanda lingered until suddenly the door opened and Lydia Mablett, hatted and gloved as usual, swept in.
Oh Lord, thought Amanda, who had managed to avoid her since the disastrous supper party. She rather expected that Mrs. Mablett would cut her dead, but she had reckoned without that lady’s firm grasp on mine politics. For as long as young Dartland managed to wheedle occasional backing from Mr. Tyson, open warfare would be inexpedient, particularly as poor Luther was apt to be so headlong and tactless.
So Lydia flashed her spectacles at Amanda and said, “Why, how do you do, isn’t it a lovely day...” in her high voice.
Hemmed in by Lydia’s short solid bulk, Amanda agreed that it was.
“All settled now in your comfy little home?”
Amanda said Yes, thank you. And wondered what the purpose of this was.
“Have you seen Mr. Tyson lately?” asked Lydia with a playful smile which puzzled Amanda, for there was an edge of anxiety not quite masked by the smile.
“Why, no. I haven’t, not since—since your party.”
Lydia quite obviously relaxed, the smile became mechanical, and she turned the tail end of it on Tessie who was waiting with the Mablett letters in her hand. That young Dartland had had two unprecedented and unexplained interviews with Tyson, at his home—Lydia knew, because Luther had been fuming about them. So Lydia had just now laid a horrid suspicion that this bold young woman might also have been trying to worm her way into the general manager’s good graces. But apparently she had not. Years of social work had made Lydia a good judge of character. She knew that Amanda had told the truth. Lydia turned now to the more congenial occupation of clucking with Tessie over the morals and filth of the twenty Mexican families who lived at the east end of town beyond the bridge.
Amanda escaped outside to the street. She relegated the incident to a steadily enlarging pigeonhole which she thought of resentfully as “The Mine Mess,” and forgot it.
She walked rapidly back along the street past the Miner’s Union Hall and the saloon called “The Laundry” and Pottner’s General Store, and the Mine Supplies Store, and finally past the overcrowded two-room schoolhouse, where Miss Arden of the warts, and a trembling little whey-faced teacher just arrived from Iowa, endeavored to stuff primary education into Lodestone’s children.
A hundred yards beyond the school where Creek Street climbed up to the mine road and Bosses’ Row, there was a paloverde tree which gave some shade. Amanda sat down beneath it on a rock to read her letter from Tim. It began—
“My still dearest Andy—I continue to miss you like hell in case you’ve wondered, which alack, I doubt, for your amiable mama has read me parts of your letters from which I gather that the little gray home in the West vibrates with marital bliss, and that you’re happy as a clam or whatever simile is appropriate to the Arizona desert. Gila monster, maybe. I’m sure they lead happy, unfrustrated lives. Me, however, I am frustrated. I wave the torch for you in all the old familiar places. I wave it at Tony’s and I wave it at Twenty-One. I wave it at the Plaza and under the Biltmore Clock. I waved particularly hard at the opening of Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce (I assure you I mean no particularly snide allusions by hauling in this title) but you would have loved it, Andy. A swell piece of theater—and that song, “Night and Day.” Listen to it on the radio. Fitted my sentiments.
“I’m thinking of running down to the family’s place at Palm Beach in a week or so, seeing as the estimable firm of Renn and Matthews have decided to dispense with my services. My dear mother says vulgarly that as we still seem to be well-heeled it’s downright wicked for me to rustle around after another job, when I don’t need it, and plenty do. I’m charmed to agree. Playboy Merrill it shall be. I’ll flirt with the sun-tanned lassies, fish for the wily tarpon, and exercise the stink pot up and down the Inland Waterway. Do you remember a certain night on deck last March? I refer to the incident of the champagne.
“Do you laugh like that now, Andy? I miss your laughter. If I get sated with Florida, I’m wondering about the delights of Arizona. Somebody sent me a brochure about a new resort near Tucson called El Castillo. “Castle in Spain on the desert,” it says. Complete with houris in bathing suits, judging from the photo, and blooded Arabian steeds, and private bootlegger piped in. Tennis, golf, ping-pong and usual amenities on the side. What do you think, Andy? If I came out, would you—and Dart, of course—run down there for week-ends? We could be gay, and I promise to conceal my breaking heart. Write to me. Tim.”
There was an enclosure. A Peter Arno cartoon cut from the New Yorker. It represented two men in evening dress. One saying, “Gad, but my wife looks terrible tonight,” and the other man drawing himself up stiffly, replying, “Sir, you are speaking of the woman I love.”
“Oh, Tim, you idiot,” Amanda whispered. She stared unseeing at a clump of prickly pear beside her, and it materialized into Tim’s narrow laughing face. She saw the cleft in his chin, the sheen of his straight blond hair, the crazy Sulka ties he affected, and she saw the bewilderment in his eyes on the last time she had seen him, the night of Dart’s phone call to New York. Tim had not come to the wedding. But that was mostly because he had been spending Christmas on a South Carolina plantation at a huge houseparty. Tim was not one to mourn in solitude.
She read the letter again, and found there natural balm for her female vanity. He hadn’t then got over her as fast as she had thought he might. She had never loved him, of course, there had never been any of the whole-souled and whole-bodied love which she felt for Dart. But there was a bond between them, and for a moment while she reread the letter picturing them as they had so often been together she felt a sick yearning. Dancing to the “Bye-Bye Blues” at the Biltmore, Baked Alaska at Tony’s, and Tim toasting her with that divine brandy. The glorious evening of an opening she had seen with him. Of Thee I sing. And the party later for the cast where she had met Gershwin.
Tim lived in that sort of world, as she had once.
Amanda moved on the rock, which tipped a little. She flung out her hand to right herself and grasped a clump of cholla. A dozen of the sharp murderous spines embedded themselves in her palm. She pulled the spines out with sudden fury which extended itself to Tim. So rich, and smug. So utterly ignorant of this kind of life, or anything but social New York and Florida and summers de luxe in Europe.
Listen to “Night and Day” on the radio. There were two radios in Lodestone and ninety percent of the time all you could get on them was static, because of the distance, because of the mountains.
Run down to this El Castillo for week-ends. Tucson was seven hours away when the washes were dry, and what about Dart, who seldom even took Sundays off? And who would pay for a week-end at a place like El Castillo? Do you think for a moment Dart would let us be your guests? Do you know what it is to have two dollars and sixty-five cents—no, fifty-five now after the coke—in your pocket to last till pay night, Friday?
She folded the letter and cartoon and put them back in her pocketbook. She’d show them to Dart later. He probably wouldn’t be jealous, and anyway it wouldn’t hurt him if he were a little. Give him something to think about besides his beloved stopes and drifts or whatever.
Two o’clock. The sun was getting very hot as usual. When she reached home, she was strongly tempted to forego the trip up to the Cunningham mansion. Lie down and read for a while. The inspection of Dart’s suit could certainly wait a little longer.
But once inside the shack she was restless, visited too by a compunction. Dart asked so little of her. He accepted amateurish meals, delayed laundry, and forgotten mending without complaint. The least she could do was to fulfill her postponed promise.
So she set out again up the mine road walking doggedly, thinking in spite of herself about Tim’s letter and blind to the changing landscape around her.
The appearance of the ghost town jolted her out of her absorption. It lay below the present road to the mine, down in a cup between the mountains on either side of the dry creek bed. The roofless frame buildings and half-crumbled adobe walls had weathered alike to a tawny monochrome that melted into the rocks and the desert floor. She walked down what had once been the main street, a dusty clearing now, with no life but tiny darting lizards, and she was awed by the brooding, listening silence. The place had been big once, much bigger than the present Lodestone. It was easy to follow the outline of many streets not yet obliterated by the encroaching desert. As she came to the remains of the opera house with its great fallen sign, a small wild burro darted out from the cavernous doorway, stared at her, then galloped pell-mell down the trail away from her. She stared at the dim red-and-gold Opera House sign, and the curved flaunting staircase which had once led to the boxes, and now ended in the thin blue air. She saw the fragments of the mosaic paving with which Red Bill had furbished the sidewalk before his opera house.
“...the lion and the lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep,” she thought, and the pathos of the deserted town, the romance of long-past things moved her with a soft esthetic thrill. The first esthetic thrill she had as yet felt in this country of spines and rocks and harshness. The thrill deepened, when she reached the avenue of vanished palms and saw high against the mountainside the huge unwieldy mansion. It did not appear to her ridiculous with its pretentiousness, its cupolas and gingerbread fretwork. It was to her like an illustration from a Victorian fairy tale, a figment of romance and thus subtly reassuring.
She walked up the trail, and the broken steps with a sudden childish excitement, and as she banged the silver shamrock knocker her heart beat fast. A princess or a witch? she thought, and when Calise opened the door she very nearly laughed. For, standing tall and thin in the dark hallway in her black dress, her serene white face shimmering beneath the crystal chandelier, Calise seemed to fit both categories.
“How do you do, my dear,” Calise said in her low bell tones with the French rhythm. “You are Amanda and you seem happy. Something amuses you?”
“A fairy tale,” said Amanda, taking the cool slim hand. “The enchanted castle, and you are the witch princess.” It occurred to her then that this was an extraordinarily silly speech. She was later to learn that with Calise one usually spoke one’s thoughts, or if one did not, that she saw them anyway with her cool compassionate eyes that looked deep into the secret heart.
Calise smiled. “You are always searching for the fairy tale, I think,” she said gently. “Come into my rooms. We shall visit together a little.”
“Just for a moment—” said Amanda. “I don’t want to bother you, and I’ve got to go through Dart’s trunk—wherever that is?”
“I will show you after we have some tea.”
Amanda smiled and followed Calise into her sanctuary, unconscious of what a concession this invitation was, or of how jealously Calise guarded the quality of thoughts or emotion which she allowed near her.
Amanda was at first disappointed by the simplicity of the two large rooms, when she had expected a Victorian opulence to match the house, but then as she sat and waited for Calise to make the tea in the little kitchenette behind the bedroom, she saw, as Dart had not, that simple as the furnishings were, they all had rich beauty of line. The bookcases, chairs, table, and the narrow bed which she glimpsed through the door were all handmade of native pine, amber-brown and glossy from years of beeswax polishing. Only the piano and the carved oak prie-dieu which stood by the bedroom window struck heavier notes in an atmosphere of light and sparkling cleanliness. There was one flash of color. The terra-cotta red Indian bowl which stood on the bookcase was today filled with a froth of misty rose. A lacework of elfin gray flowerets on delicate rosy stems. This Amanda discovered as she walked over to examine them, and from them came a faint pungent perfume.
She looked down at the books below the flowers, and was startled into uneasiness by the titles. Many of them she did not recognize, like New Model of the Universe by Ouspensky, An Experiment in Time by Dunne, Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, but of the rest some awakened echoes of a college course in philosophy. The Baghavadghita, the writings of Lao-Tse, Confucius, Jacob Boehme, Santa Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, the Religio Medici, and there were many in French including the works of Renan and Bergson. There were also two much-worn Bibles, a Douai and a King James.
Heavens! thought Amanda, and as her hostess came in bearing a shining copper tray, she stared at her with astonishment and blurted out, “Golly, Mrs. Cunningham, have you read all those books? I’m stunned.”
Calise put the tray on the table and smiled at the girl. “I used to—” she said sitting down at the table and pouring an aromatic greenish fluid into cream porcelain cups. “I have had a long time to read in, you know. But now my search is much clearer. I no longer need books so much.”
Amanda sat down and accepted the cup in silence. She was conscious of a strange quality in the room and the composed woman across the table. An intimation of light that was not actually there, of a serenity or peace that was not static, but in some subtle way dynamic and full of unseen motion.
“Forgive me—” said Amanda slowly, “but exactly what were you searching for?”
The wide dark eyes rested on the girl’s face with a certain tender amusement. “One might call it God,” she said. “It has been called many things.”
“Oh, I see, of course.” Amanda could not prevent an embarrassed recoil. She had been taught indifferent tolerance for all religions, she had been sent to the Episcopalian Sunday School as a matter of course, she had had a few vague spiritual yearnings during adolescence, later satisfactorily explained away by the newer psychology as having been the sublimated sex drive. And at college she had joined with the majority in a comfortable agnosticism, in which soul-scrapings and serious mention of the deity were left to the unsophisticated.
Calise saw the recoil and understood. She had expected it. “Do you like my tea?” she asked in a light social tone she had not used in years. “I make it from a bush that grows outside. The Mormon tea it is called. The Indians use it. It has great tonic properties.”
“Why, it’s queer but it’s good,” smiled Amanda, relieved at the change of subject. “Imagine making it yourself!”
“I live very simply. I like to use the growing things that are nurtured in this so beautiful country.”
Amanda made a slight face and Calise laughed. “You have not yet opened your eyes to the beauty. There is purity and strength in the mountains. There is much joy in the lonely places.”
“I’m afraid I just don’t see beauty or joy here,” said the girl. “It’s all so violent, and full of prickles, and I hate being alone. At least, I don’t like not having any friends. I hate being so poor too, it—it frightens me.” She had intended to say none of these things, and as they burst from her in unconsidered jets, a portion of her mind drew back in shocked bewilderment. What things to say to a stranger, what ill-bred laments. But she could not stop.
“I love Dart so dearly, and he’s with me so little. There’s things I don’t understand about him. The Indian part, maybe—I thought it wouldn’t make any difference, but it does, I think. I feel so unprotected, sort of vulnerable here.” She gave a little nervous laugh. “I’m sorry to whine so.”
Calise shut her eyes, drawing to her all the wisdom she had painfully gained. Turning to the clear light, seeking to become an instrument through which the light might focus to clarify the whirlpool of conflicting emotions in the girl’s heart. She saw the groping child reaching blindly back to a remembered security, yearning at once for escape and for the fatherimage of protection which had once been for it the symbol of ease and pleasure, demanding of no reciprocal effort. She saw deeper than that to a core of hidden strength, dormant as yet, awaiting germination like a seed buried deep beneath the storms and droughts. Nothing could hasten this germination. It would come when God willed.
“Something special has upset you today, I think,” she said quietly. “Do you wish to tell me?”
Amanda felt no surprise, the dream quality and the sensation of peaceful force had strengthened during the moment of silence. “Nothing really,” she said. “A letter from a man I used to know. It’s all so silly. I didn’t care for him.”
“You care for the things he could give you?” said Calise laughing a little. “C’est peut-être ignoble, mais c’est quand même naturel.”
“Oh, no!” said Amanda, after a moment of translation. “I’m not really that ignoble, at least I hope not. It’s just that...”
“Why did you marry Dart, my dear?” asked Calise, continuing to smile with amused tenderness.
“Because I loved him. Because he was everything I wanted in a man. Big, strong, very male, different.”
Calise nodded. “But then you must not at the same time resent the qualities you love.”
Amanda looked up startled, uncomprehending. “That’s a funny thing to say. Of course I don’t.”
“No. I should not say funny things.” Calise got up with her own fluid grace, she rested her hand for a second on the girl’s bright hair. “Now shall I show you where is Dart’s trunk?” Amanda rose too. “Yes, please,” she said, a trifle flattened, hurt that the interview had ended so abruptly, embarrassed that she had talked so much to this cool, calm lady, who was a stranger.
“You were admiring my flowers before, I think,” said Calise, gesturing towards the cloud of grayish-pink filigree in the Indian vase.
“Oh, yes,” said the girl, puzzled. “They’re very delicate and beautiful. Where did they come from?”
“From here. They grow all over. They are desert weeds. They grow amongst what you call the ‘prickles and the violence.’” Calise paused, waiting to see if there were any answer in the blue eyes, then she moved to the door and opened it. “This way, Amanda, we’ll go up the great staircase, and then back to Dart’s room.”
One cannot force, one must not preach. Each soul receives only that which it asks for and is ready to receive. God grant that this child may learn without tragedy, as I did not.
Amanda silently followed her hostess up the great mahogany staircase. Scant light knifed through the chinks of the boardedup windows, but there was enough to show the fraying and moth holes of the stair carpeting, and the fine desert dust on the carved bannister. Here there was none of the immaculate cleanliness of Calise’s own apartment. Nor in the long echoing halls, where gilt-framed pictures hung askew from tattered cords, the glass begrimed with dust and specks. They passed half-open doors with tarnished silver knobs dull in the gloom, and inside there were tantalizing glimpses of massive Victorian furniture.
Calise walked fast, never turning, her slender black figure and luminous hair seeming to float down the dark halls. And it took courage for the girl to break into that preoccupation.
“Please, Mrs. Cunningham,” she cried at last, “couldn’t I just look into one of these rooms, the house is so fascinating.”
Calise turned and stopped. She frowned a little, but she answered with indulgence. “Certainly, if you wish.... These were guest rooms.”
“So many.” Amanda peered hurriedly through open doors, conscious of her hostess’ reluctance. “Did you fill them all? You must have had terrific parties.”
“Sometimes,” said Calise. Yes, for some years the rooms had been filled with Red Bill’s friends: miners, gamblers, politicians from Phoenix, once the territorial governor, but not his wife. Yet Red Bill had had social aspirations, he had tried to bribe and bluster his way to acceptance by people he always referred to as “real gents ’n ladies,” but he had not succeeded. Nor did I ever try to help him, thought Calise. In no way had she tried to help him. She had accepted his lavishness and his lovemaking alike with a freezing and subtle contempt, long prelude to that night of climax, the still unblunted instrument of her punishment.
“Why, look, there’s still flowers, or at least stalks in that vase!” cried Amanda, pointing to a gilt urn on a rosewood table in the center of a bedroom. And there were dried, crumbling petals on the purple scarf beneath the urn.
“Nothing has been touched since a certain night in 1898,” said Calise with reluctance. “Those were once roses, American Beauties, packed in ice and brought by train and mule train from California.”
Always Bill had kept the house filled with extravagant imported flowers. She had received them as her due, scarcely noticing. On the day that these had arrived, she had left their arrangement to the Chinese servants. Her own mind had been full of other arrangements. The secret plans for Raoul’s coming that night. Bill had left for Globe the day before on business to do with the newly completed branch-line railroad there. He said he would be gone four days, and so low was her estimation of his intelligence that she never dreamed of doubting him, or dreamed that he suspected the meetings with Raoul in the deserted mountain cabin.
“What a fascinating life you’ve led!” cried Amanda. “I can picture this palace in the wilderness filled with flowers and lights and people.”
Calise smiled faintly and started walking again.
It must be painful for her, Amanda thought, to tread amongst the vanished glories, but it was all so long ago, and Mrs. Cunningham was so old, she must be used to it, and surely everyone responded to genuine interest. So she called Calise again, emboldened by the sight of a magnificent shut door at the end of the hall. The door was of walnut, paneled and inlaid with a fine line of ivory. On the center of the top panel there was a silver shamrock knocker, smaller replica of the one on the front door.
“Mrs. Cunningham—” said Amanda softly. “What was in here? Could I see it? Another bedroom?”
“Yes,” said Calise, not turning. “My bedroom. I’m sorry, but you may not go in.” She walked on.
Death and the stench of blood still imprisoned in that bedroom waiting for her enforced participation. The jewels, the lace negligee, the rumpled bed, the smell of her perfume and the roses, the hideous words that Bill shouted as he burst in, the sound of shots, and her own high scream as the blood poured from Raoul’s mouth, the bubbling gasps as he died, the dull shaking thud of Bill’s fall to the floor, and the glare of his upturned eyes on her face, his eyes the only movement in that great paralyzed body.
This horror came now only in memory, softened by long pity, diluted by agonizing repentance. But the night would return, soon perhaps, when there would be no softening, and no memory. A night when the Now dissolved, and that other night became the Now, and her sick and trembling soul be sucked back once again into the lurid vortex of guilt and terror and murder.
Someday she would be freed, when Universal Law had exacted the just meed of punishment. The Law that neither prayer nor God could set aside, for the Law was part of God. This with increasing clarity she knew, in moments of communication when the blissful light thrilled through her veins, when for the space of a heart beat the Quest was ended, and the glimpse of Peace which may not be retained yet gave her strength to endure the relentless revolutions of the wheel.
She reached the baize door that led to the old servants’ quarters, and opened it, and at once, through an unshuttered window, the afternoon sun came streaming. She turned back to the silent girl, and spoke with soft apology. “I did not mean to be so brusque with you, my dear. It’s natural that you should be curious. But you must forgive a recluse her caprices, yes?”
“Of course,” said Amanda, mollified at once, for Calise’s smile was warm with kindly charm. “I didn’t mean to pry. You’ve been awfully good to me, listening to all my little fusses. I see why Dart’s so fond of you.”
Calise leaned over and kissed the girl lightly on the forehead. “I return the compliment.... Now here is his room, and there is the trunk. I will leave you to go through it at your leisure. When you go you may use the back staircase and door.”
“I won’t see you again?” cried Amanda, surprised to discover how much she longed to return to that simple room downstairs and to talk again to this lady who, despite the two small rebuffs and certain puzzling remarks, had yet given out a radiance and a feeling of quiet wisdom.
Calise hesitated. She was touched by the girl’s appeal, but she longed for the privacy of her sanctum, and wished no interruption of the daily twilit hours of meditation and prayer. Nor did there seem anything further she could do for Amanda. As Calise thought this, a faint thrill ran along her nerves, an impression and a warning. Her eyes seemed drawn as though by a magnet to Dart’s old steamer trunk. Evil for Amanda in the trunk? she thought, c’est ridicule. And yet her highly sensitized perceptions had telegraphed a message. Not any form of physical danger, not perhaps danger at all, but a center of confusion, a focus of discordant vibration.
“Perhaps you should leave the trunk for another day?” she said to Amanda. “Come down again with me now.”
“Oh, no thanks,” said the girl. “I’ve got to get that suit out now I’m here, and see if there’s anything else useful.”
Ainsi-soit-il, thought Calise. It is not for me to interfere. “Then come later, chérie,” she said. “If you still wish to speak with me....I will help you,” she added with a certain grave emphasis, “in any way I can.”
“Oh, yes,” said Amanda gratefully. But she did not go back to Calise that day.
When her hostess had gone, Amanda glanced without interest around the room; a typical servant’s bedroom of the eighties, oilcloth and varnished wood, an iron cot, washstand and straight chairs. It must have suited Dart’s scanty needs very well, she thought, smiling. She pulled the uncovered pillow off the cot, knelt on it, and opened the low trunk.
Inside there was a pile of jumbled clothes, the accumulation of any young man’s life: a pair of moth-eaten Tuxedo pants, a turtle-necked sweater marked Phillips Andover Academy, a tennis racquet with broken strings, an arsenic-green knitted muffler with a note still pinned on it, “For dear little Jonathan from his Aunt Martha, Christmas 1919.” Dart had had an Aunt Martha in Boston, just as she still had an Aunt Amanda, nor had Aunt Martha been any more lavish with useful presents than Aunt Amanda, judging from the ghastly green muffler, thought Amanda, amused, and comforted, too, as reminder of Dart’s Yankee half was always comforting.
She rummaged tenderly amongst the clothing and abstracted the blue suit. She held it up to the light. Not too bad, at least it looked as though it would still fit. Dart hadn’t changed a pound since his college days. Then she discovered a fuzzy spot under one sleeve, she picked at it and it fell apart into a large moth hole. “Oh damn,” she said. Her knowledge of tailoring was sketchy, but she turned the coat over hunting for an extra bit of material which might be used as a patch. And as she stared down at the suit wondering how to salvage it, she had a sudden memory of her father’s closet, crammed full of London-made suits.
How did it happen that the salvaging of a few yards of serge could have become so important? Amanda threw the blue suit on the bed, and continued a desultory search through the trunk.
There wasn’t much else; a few dog-eared textbooks on mining, a pair of sneakers, some class pictures, a University of Arizona pennant, and in the corner of the trunk stuffed partly in a stiffened old raincoat there was a round brownish basket. An Indian basket of some sort, quite small and open at the top. It was a rather dirty fawn color with a zigzag blackish design woven through it. The kind of basket, it seemed to her, that you saw in all the Southwest souvenir shops, and which looked awful when you got them home.
There were several objects in the little basket, and she dumped them into her lap. There was a skin pouch with a drawstring, and inside it some yellow powder, there were four gray feathers, a piece of horn, a sinew on which were strung shells and beads, and a thin coppery disk. Some child’s playthings, she thought. There were tiny pictures and tracings scratched on the disk. She studied them a moment without enlightenment, then turned the disk over, to see a paper pasted on the back and a note in Dart’s hand, the writing less formed than it was now but still recognizable as his.
It said, “Map to the Lost Pueblo Encantado Mine. Given me by Tanosay 1921. But never search.”
Puzzled, she examined again the copper disk, then let it fall to her lap. She investigated the basket once more and found that there were several sheets of thin yellowed paper wedged on the bottom. These proved to be covered with writing in a different hand, and she read some sentences before she realized that they must have been written by Dart’s father, Professor Dartland.
“Notes on the Pueblo Encantado” said the heading, and next to it in penciled parenthesis “(might work up for magazine article some day).” Then the small sharp handwriting continued in ink. “There exists here in this Southwestern land an inordinate amount of myths and legends referring to so-called ‘Lost Mines’ and buried treasure. I believe the majority of these lost mines to be as illusory and illusive as the various forms of ignis fatuus—(will-o’-the wisp, Jack o’lights, foxfire, etc.) which are popularly supposed to guide the gold seeker to the exact location.
“None the less, during years of enfeebled health and partial confinement to a desert home in Arizona, the study of these legends has furnished me with an agreeable hobby.
“The mass of fact, fancy, rumor and perennial hope which has attached itself to the more famous of the Lost Mines such as ‘Lost Dutchman,’ ‘Tayopa,’ ‘Lost Adams Diggings,’ etc., is already so ponderous that one is restrained from adding to it any additional weight.
“There has, however, come to my notice under rather unusual circumstances the tale of still another and quite unknown lost mine which I venture to believe may present features of general interest. It is in a sense a prototype for the genre, including as it does the traditional trimmings, i.e., Early Spanish discovery, Apache hostility, complete inaccessibility, the reputed existence of a map, and, of course, a gold-bearing vein of incredible richness. These, it must be admitted, are standard ingredients, but others compounded in this legend are not. If, indeed, it be only a legend, I must confess to moments of credulity.
“The mine to which I refer is called ‘El Pueblo Encantado’ (The Enchanted City) and was so named by a Franciscan friar circa 1798. He, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was the only white man ever to find it and survive. The Apaches, particularly the Coyotero tribe, have apparent knowledge of the mine, as we shall see later.
“Through the kindness of a colleague at the University of Mexico, I have been able to procure from their archives a copy of the Franciscan missionary’s report, also that of his superior at the mission church of San Xavier del Bac near Tucson. The Ms. is in poor condition and some of the Spanish undecipherable, but the following is an approximate paraphrase.”
Amanda looked up from the notes, vaguely amused by the Professor’s scholarly and cautious preamble. She thought of finishing them later sometime, but the sun was still high and there was no reason to start back yet, anyway. She settled more comfortably on the pillow, lit a cigarette, and continued.
“In the spring of 1798, two Franciscan missionaries, Fathers Gonzales and Rodriguez, set out North from San Xavier toward the Hopi country. They crossed the Salinas (Salt) River and thereafter lost their way in ‘very terrible mountains’ many days north of Los Cuatros Hermanos (which I can only suppose to be the Four Peaks Mountain in the Mazatzal Range). They wandered for days in a malpais of volcanic country, starving and desperate for water which finally gave out completely.
“The narrative here is very unclear, but in some way they went through a doorway (portal) in a cliffside, and found themselves in a completely hidden box-canyon.
“High on the opposite side of the canyon they saw a ‘little city in stone’ built in a cave, and near it a waterfall. The waterfall and a rabbit, which they shot, momentarily revived them. The next morning they investigated the cliff dwelling, which was, of course, deserted and seems to have inspired both men with a great and strange fear. They report that it glowed in the night ‘like an enchantment,’ Father Gonzales, the survivor, says in the narrative. They persisted, however, and holding their crucifixes in front of them, they explored the dead city and the depths of a cave behind it. Here there were corpses (probably mummies—Father Gonzales says ‘Los Muertos’), and here also at the back of the cave they were stunned to see a wall of glittering gold.”
Amanda sat up straight, frowning down at the notes. She reread the last paragraphs and her breathing quickened. She tamped out her unfinished cigarette and bent closer to the Professor’s increasingly cramped writing.
“The two padres thought at first that this golden wall was an evil hallucination, but they picked off some free gold with their fingernails and knives. They were then seized with a frenzy of jubilation (frenési alborozado) and sang a Te Deum in the cave, for the glory of the Church which would profit by these riches. One gathers that they had less sanctified emotions as well, for Father Gonzales finishes his account cryptically, ‘While we were in the cave by the wall of gold, the devil came and prompted us to violent thoughts of hideous attraction.’
“This is the end of the Gonzales narrative. The rest is added by his superior at the Mission. Father Gonzales was found alone in September four months later by friendly Pima Indians. He was wandering half crazed by the banks of the Salinas probably not far from the site of the present town of Mesa. They brought him back to the Mission where he dictated a coherent story as far as the above point, beyond which he could add little. His mind was obviously affected by his sufferings, and he died soon after. He did say in response to repeated questionings that Father Rodriguez, his companion, had been mysteriously killed near the ‘enchanted city’ and as they were crossing the box-canyon. Shot by ‘an arrow from the skies.’ And thereafter Gonzales had little recollection of how he got out of the mountains or down to the river, where the Pimas found him. But his pouch was filled with gold flakes and chunks of gold-bearing quartz richer than any yet discovered.
“Gonzales endeavored to make a map but it later proved to be of no use whatsoever, and two expeditions sent forth after his death never even found any of the markings which he said he had seen along the way, and both ended disastrously in the hands of hostile Indians.
“The Superior finished his own account by saying that were it not for the evidence of the gold brought back by the unfortunate missionary, one would think this tale of enchanted cities, glittering walls, and caves of the Dead was but the miserable phantasms of dementia, and that in fact even the evidence of the gold might have some more logical explanation.
“This cynicism from an eighteenth-century Spanish padre it would be well to emulate, and if I persist in the story of the Lost Pueblo Encantado, it is for the purpose of presenting further angles. These comprise archeology, geology, and the history of the Apache Indians and may therefore have a slightly more scientific turn.
“Perhaps I should first explain...”
That was all. The notes stopped. Amanda stood up, first dumping all the little objects back in the basket except the copper disk, this she held in one hand while she stood by the window and reread Professor Dartland’s notes from beginning to end in the waning light.
Her heart beat fast, and she was suffused by a warm, delicious excitement. Dart would know the rest of the story, this copper disk almost proved that, for when Professor Dartland had said “reputed existence of a map” he did not then know of this disk so carefully labeled in Dart’s firm boyish hand. Besides Professor Dartland had died in 1919, the disk was dated 1921. She examined the tracings on it again but they were nothing but a jumble of wavy lines, circles, and little triangles. She put the disk and notes carefully in the basket, flung the blue suit over her arm and ran down the hall to the back stairway. No thought now of calling again on Mrs. Cunningham, no thought of any delay. She was in a fever to see Dart and question him. She’d walk up to the mine, catch him as he came out, ride back home with him. She let herself out the back door and ran down the trail and through the ghost town, and up to the mine road. It was five o’clock and growing dusk; ordinarily the loneliness of the unfamiliar mountain road would have daunted her, but she climbed the mile at top speed, lugging the suit and the basket without noticing them, while her mind caressed with fascination the story of Father Gonzales’ discovery.
She had been to the mine office with Dart and had thought the group of dingy frame buildings very ugly, but she was glad to see their lights now, and intent only on finding Dart, she forgot mine etiquette and ran up the steps into the building.
She burst into the general office and was brought up short by the astonished faces of the two men inside. Luther Mablett sat at his desk smoking a cigar, and he had been talking to a sallow middle-aged man with a knobby head who was lounging on the corner of the desk. This was Tiger Burton, the day-shift boss, though Amanda did not know it, and Dart had been the subject of their conversation.
Mablett’s bull face flushed vermilion up to his tight yellow-white curls, he rose clumsily to his feet. Burton got off the desk, he had little eyes like dull onyx, and they fixed themselves on Amanda’s face, unwinking as a lizard’s.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry!” Amanda cried. “I thought Dart’d be here, I could ride down with him.”
“Oh—sure,” said Mablett breathing hard, but recovering. “He’s still underground, far as I know. Er ... Mrs. Dartland, meet Mr. Burton—shift boss.”
“How do you do.” Amanda held out her hand and Burton shook it with alacrity, revealing a few tobacco-stained teeth and many black gaps in an ingratiating smile. “’S a pleasure,” he said.
Amanda like most people received from Tiger Burton an impression of nonentity. She perceived only a meager sweaty little man with nondescript features, a semi-bald head partially concealed by lank wisps of dark hair, and a colorless mouth compressed to an expression of nervous affability. Mablett’s toady, she thought, vaguely remembering something Dart had said, and she dismissed him in favor of propitiating the enemy she knew of.
“Mr. Mablett, would I be an awful nuisance....I mean could I wait someplace for Dart? You see, I was at Mrs. Cunningham’s going through Dart’s trunk for a suit—” she pointed to it apologetically, “and I was so near here, I thought I could get a ride down. I know women don’t come to the mine, please forgive me.” She instinctively concealed the basket under the edge of the suit but Burton’s hooded eyes had seen it, and at once recognized it for Apache. He effaced himself in the corner of the room and rolled himself a cigarette.
Amanda followed her breathless explanation with a widening of shining blue eyes and her most brilliant smile, to which Mablett was not unreceptive. Dartland was an insubordinate bastard and a hell of a nuisance, but there was no special quarrel with Mrs. Dartland.
His bulging eyes softened. “Sure. Sure. You can wait on the porch. There’s a bench. The men won’t bother you none. Day shift’s all gone home ... By the way did you say you’d seen that crazy old Cunningham dame?”
“Why, yes,” said Amanda, still smiling.
“What’s she like?” asked Mablett curiously. “I’ve never seen her but they say she’s batty as a March hare, sees ghosts and stuff. Weren’t you scared?”
“No....” Amanda was startled. She thought back to her visit with Calise. It seemed a very long time ago, the impression of it nearly effaced by the far stronger excitement which had followed. “She seemed very pleasant,” Amanda added uncertainly.
“Well, you want to watch out who you mix up with, a beautiful girl like you,” said Mablett with heavy gallantry. “Lots of queer characters in a place like this.” He winked and chuckled.
Amanda laughed. “I guess there are.” She gave him a small coquettish nod and went outside on the porch. He wasn’t so bad, she thought, once you got him away from Lydia. If Dart would only use a little tact, jolly him along. Or far better yet, get away from the whole stupid mess. Her fingers closed tight on the edge of the basket. She sat down on the bench, and after a cautious look around, she lit a cigarette. She gazed down the canyon towards the lights of the mill and waited impatiently.
Inside the office, Burton spoke from the corner. “Nice-looking little bit of tail.”
“Yeah,” said Mablett. “She ain’t so bad.” He frowned down at the chief engineer’s report on his desk. The samplings weren’t running any better.
“He seen Tyson again, Lute?” Burton spoke casually, his expressionless eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The superintendent hunched his shoulders in sudden irritation. “Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Whatever he wanted on them two visits don’t seem to’ve got him anything. But the old man won’t talk.”
Burton shifted his feet and took a drag on his cigarette. “Like we was saying, Lute, when she busted in—you ought to get rid of him. Sneaking around behind your back, making you look like a fool with the men...”
Mablett’s chair scraped back, he twisted his thick neck and glowered at his shift boss. “You know God-damn well I can’t get rid of him just like that. He ain’t done nothing out of the way lately, anyhow. Nothing to put your finger on.”
In Mablett’s slow brain, the familiar baffled anger which this subject caused him exploded in a new direction. He rocked his head from side to side—“You keep harping and harping. He don’t interfere with you none, you act like you was superintendent here. What’s the matter with you anyway, Tiger? You been drinking?”
Burton came out of his corner, he put his small hairy hand on his chief’s arm. “Why, no, Lute,” he said mildly. “I don’t mean for to bother you. I just don’t like Apaches, they’ll get you every time, if you don’t get ’em first.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Mablett shook off the hand. “That again. You’re nuts on that subject.”
Mablett’s reactions were simple and he had insensibly become accustomed to accepting the opinions and flattery of his shift boss, but he was not an utter fool. Much as he disliked Dart he could not picture him as a treacherous physical menace, moreover Tiger’s obsession was getting to be a bore. Dartland was only a quarter-breed after all, and they’d got rid of the other Indian boys.
“You stick to your own job, Tiger—” he said gruffly, “and let me do the worrying.”
“Sure, Lute.... That ventilating pipe on the seven hundred blew loose again, we’ll have to patch it ... like you said.”
Tiger knew when he had gone too far. He had plans, but they could wait, wait until everything worked just right. Nor did they need co-operation from this big stupid hulk. An accident, of course. Wipe out the Indian without mercy, like the Indians had wiped his mother out, but no fist fights, no sudden murderous rage like there’d been with that Cleve in the deserted stope. This Indian must be wiped out without anyone knowing how, because besides being an Indian he was mine foreman. And when that job was open, one of the shift bosses would be next in line. There’d be no trouble about which one, if the whole thing was handled just right. He smiled down in answer to a statement of Mablett’s.
“Sure, Lute. You got a great idea there. That’ll cut costs, all right.”