Foxfire (17 page)

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.