Foxfire Read online

  “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 we
lder. “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 l
ove.”

  “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.