Incident at Twenty-Mile Read online

  Matthew was both dumbfounded and fascinated by her talk. He'd heard older boys at school talking dirty and explaining things to younger boys-mostly wrong, as any farm boy with livestock would know-but he'd never dreamt that girls thought about such things, much less talked about them. Or did them. He admired Kersti's frankness. Too bad about her looks… and the sweat.

  "How do you know that your brother… does himself?" he asked.

  "I watch him sometimes. You should see the stupid glazed look in his eyes, and the way his mouth hangs open when he gets close to squirting."

  "He lets you watch him?"

  "Sure. When I was fourteen-fifteen and he was only ten-eleven, I used to sneak into his room late at night and have him do me-well, as best he could with his squiggly little thing. But I made him stop when he got old enough to start squirting, 'cause I don't want no baby with two heads like you get if you do your own brother. Did you know about that? About babies with two heads?"

  "Ah… no. I didn't."

  "Well, it's true. And some pretty scary things can come from men doing cows and sheep, believe you me!"

  This expression brought Ruth Lillian to mind, and he felt just rotten to be lying here with another girl.

  "Have you done that uppity Ruth Lillian yet?" she asked, almost as though she had penetrated his thoughts.

  "No, of course not! She ain't the sort of girl to do-" He stopped short, hoping he hadn't hurt her feelings. Lordy, my arm is going to rot off!

  "Oh, she'd do it. Any girl will do it, if the time and the man is right. Everyone wants to do it, even if uppity people pretend they don't. I've seen you two sitting out on her porch at night, and I know what you're both thinking about behind all your talk. But you're wasting your time, what with her fancy airs and her hair piled up on top of her head, like she was somebody. Boy-o-boy, my brother really hates your guts! He's always saying how he'd like to cut you, and stuff like that? Partly it's because of the jobs you snatched up and the way our ma bad-mouths him and slaps him around for not grabbing them first. But mostly it's because of that Ruth Lillian. He wants her real bad. He always thinks about her whilst he's doing himself out in the woodshed."

  This notion disgusted Matthew. And angered him. "How do you know that?"

  "He told me. He gets so mad about you that sometimes he cries. Just puts his face into his arm and blubs. And sometimes I feel so sorry about the way he hankers so hard for that Ruth Lillian that I do him with my hand, just as a favor. But my regular is old Murphy."

  "The barber?"

  "Sure. I sneak out once a week and we do it. He gives me four-bits. He says he's afraid to do the girls at the hotel because they might have the clap, but I think he does me because the girls charge two bucks and he's a cheapskate. Did you know that he's bald as a coot under that wig? Well, he is. It makes me laugh sometimes, when he's pumping away on top, trying to hold his wig on with one hand! Lordy, my ma would pee bob-wire if she knew I was messing with old Murphy, considering that he got caught doing young girls back East. Real young girls. Used to give them penny licorice twists. He was stingy even then, I guess. A bunch of men was going to tie him to a tree and cut off his hose, but he ran away. If you ask me, he picked Twenty-Mile because there's still people wanting to cut it off, and this is the last place anyone would think of looking for him."

  "Gee. Do you do other men in town?"

  "Who, for crying out loud? You think I'd want old peg-leg Calder on top of me? A gal could get splinters!"

  "Well, what about Mr. Delanny?"

  "Naw, he's too sickly to do anybody."

  "Not even his own girls?"

  "No, I'm pretty sure not. He seems to like that. Frenchy the best-the niggra with the cut face? — but I'm pretty sure he don't do her. I'd of heard about it if he did. Everybody knows everything about everybody in a little hole like Twenty-Mile."

  An icy thought chilled Matthew's stomach and wilted his penis, which had begun to respond to Kersti's idle handling. Did that mean Ruth Lillian would find out about tonight?

  "And you don't think I'd do Reverend Hibbard, do you? Please! I wouldn't want him staring down at me with those sunk-in eyes of his! And just imagine how he'd go staggering down the street afterward, sobbing and bawling about sinning with me! And if my ma heard, she'd flay me alive!"

  "Well, what about B. J. Stone and Coots?" Matthew asked. "They ain't sickly, nor one-legged, nor bald, nor drunkards."

  Kersti convulsed with wheezing laughter that made her squeeze his penis hard enough to hurt. But her movement gave him a chance to slip his arm out. "Stone and Coots! You're joshing! Don't you know about them?"

  "Know what?"

  "They don't want women! They do each other!" Kersti went on to say that they were what her mother called Sodomites, and the wrath of God was upon them. That was why they stayed in this godforsaken town, where nobody cared who you were, or what you did… or who you did. "But you better not hang around them so much, if you don't want people to think you're one of them Sodomites too."

  Matthew couldn't believe that B. J. Stone and Coots… I mean… how?

  "… and that's everybody. Except for old man Kane, and he ain't been interested in doing anybody since his wife run off with the marshal and left him with little Miss Stuck-up, with her fancy dresses and her hair piled up on top of her head, like she was somebody." The flow of talk stopped as her thoughts turned inward. After a while she said softly, "So you see, there ain't nothing or nobody for me in Twenty-Mile."

  "Well then maybe you shouldn't stay in Twenty-Mile, Kersti." He was thinking that if she left town, maybe Ruth Lillian wouldn't find out about tonight.

  "Oh, don't you think for one minute that I'm staying in this stinking little town! Not on your life! No-sir-ee! I been saving up my two-bit pieces from old Murphy, and one of these days I'm going to up and leave! Get myself a job of work in some big city, and buy nice clothes, and have somebody do up my hair real pretty…. But not on top of my head, like a stuck-up."

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "I ain't waiting! Don't say I'm waiting, when I ain't! Any day now, this town's going to look around and see nothing but dust settling where I used to be standing!" She took a breath, and her voice went hollow. "… It's just that…"

  "It's just what?"

  "Well… I don't know nothing but cooking and serving. What would I do down in the flatland, all alone? How'd I keep myself? I'd sure hate to end up like Mr. Delanny's girls. Done by anybody who wants you. Ugly old men, or men with disease, or just… anybody. I want to get out of here more'n anything in the world, but…"

  Matthew felt her shrug, and suddenly he knew that Kersti would never leave Twenty-Mile and take his guilt away with her. In fact, she'd probably…

  "Hey! You're getting hard again," she said with a conspiratorial giggle. "Let me ride you this time."

  THAT NEXT FRIDAY, MR. Kane was feeling better than he had for weeks. All through supper he entertained them, telling about pranks the kids used to get up to in the New York tenement where he'd grown up, pranks like hiding in dark hallways and scaring old women who believed in ghosts and golems. Matthew laughed until tears stood in his eyes, and Ruth Lillian accused her father of "telling whoppers," which he denied categorically, totally, emphatically, and… "All right, so maybe I polish the truth a little."

  "That's a kind of lying."

  "Small-minded people might call it lying. But I say it's just decorating the truth so as to make it more interesting."

  Matthew knew exactly what he meant.

  Mr. Kane joined them out on the porch for a breath of fresh air before bed, and the three of them looked in silence at the stars above the foothills, bright and brittle in the chill mountain air. After a while he sighed and scratched his stomach and said that if they weren't going to have one of their mind-stretching talks about infinity and mirrors and such, he might as well get some sleep, because the miners would be coming tomorrow and they'd have to keep the Mercantile open all night. Ruth Lilli
an said she'd be up in a few minutes.

  Matthew and Ruth Lillian sat in silence on the top step, their backs against opposite porch pillars, his long legs splayed out down the stairs, hers hugged to her chest.

  "In just two years," she said over her knees, "we will be in the Twentieth Century. The Twentieth Century. Sometimes I try saying those dates out loud: Nineteen ought-five. Nineteen twenty-four. Nineteen ninety-eight. That nineteen just doesn't… doesn't fit in the mouth, somehow. The Twentieth Century! Lord, I don't belong in any Twentieth Century, but I'm being dragged into it, willy-nilly!"

  "I don't see what we can do about it. I think a body should save his worrying for things he can do something about."

  "What do you worry about, then?"

  "I don't know." He shrugged. "Well, God and sin and hell, of course. But I suppose everybody worries about that."

  "Not me."

  "You don't?"

  "No. I'm not even sure there is a hell. And even if there is, it can't be for little things like stealing cookies, or sassing your pa, or daydreaming about… you know, about loving and kissing and all. I mean, God just can't be that small."

  Matthew wondered if she had mentioned loving and kissing because she'd heard about Kersti and him. Maybe somebody had seen her slipping out of the marshal's office. He had been worrying about that all day, unable to get his mind off it because he was still a little sore from their doing it three times. He had gone back to wash up for a second time before going to dinner at the Mercantile because he was afraid they might smell Kersti on him. And after dinner, he had gone back and lain down on his bed to think things over and figure out how he could explain to Kersti that they mustn't never, ever do one another again. He'd tell her that it was wrong, considering how he felt about Ruth Lillian and all. While he was working out the words he'd use to tell her, he fell asleep, probably because he'd been awake most of the night, either doing it or listening to her prattle on and on, like she'd been saving up her talk for years. He woke up too late to do his chores at the Livery, and maybe that was just as well because he needed time to mull over what Kersti had told him about B. J. Stone and Coots. He wasn't sure how he should act toward them.

  "Penny for your thoughts?" Ruth Lillian said.

  "Hm-m? Oh… I was just… wondering about things."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, you said you daydreamed about loving and hugging and… all."

  "Doesn't everybody? Well, young people anyway. I don't suppose old Mrs. Bjorkvist daydreams much about kissing and cuddling. But now Kersti-"

  "What about Kersti?"

  "Well, everybody knows about her and old man Murphy. Everybody except her folks, that is. I don't blame her."

  "You don't?"

  "No. The thought of old Murphy touching me makes my flesh crawl, but I can see how maybe Kersti needs a little attention and affection sometimes, and the good Lord knows she doesn't get much of that from her folks. So she gets it where she can. You know what makes me sad about Kersti?"

  "What?"

  "The way she's sure to get cheated. She'll go with men to get some affection. To have someone to talk to. But the men take their pleasure, then they don't want anything to do with her. And that's small of them."

  "You're right there! I don't know how a man could… Well, I just don't know."

  "My pa says men are a lot closer to wild animals than women are."

  "Ain't that the truth. Say, Ruth Lillian? About your dreaming about loving and kissing and all? Do you have daydreams about… you know."

  "Don't you?"

  "Well… sure. But I'm a man, and men are closer to animals, like your pa says. But a nice girl like you…"

  "Girls have feelings too. It's just that we keep them to ourselves."

  "I've had daydreams about…. " Matthew glanced over to see how she would react. "… about you."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "Hm-m. I'm not surprised."

  "You're not?"

  "Well, after all, I'm the only girl in Twenty-Mile-other than poor Kersti-so it would be sort of funny if you didn't think of me that way."

  "And you? Do you ever daydream about me?… That way, I mean? Cuddling, and all?"

  She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes narrowed speculatively. "Well… yes, sometimes. It's only natural to wonder about things. But, of course, I'd never do anything more than wonder."

  "No, no, of course not. No, me neither. No. But it's nice to know that you think about me sometimes… like that. And maybe even at the same time that I'm thinking about you… like that."

  "Well!" Ruth Lillian stood up and flattened her skirts behind with her palms. "I'd better be going up."

  He stood up quickly. "I didn't mean anything wrong."

  "No, there's nothing wrong. I just think it's time to say good night." She turned back at the door. "And, Matthew? I don't think we should talk about this again. I'm not saying there's harm in it. But it's… it's sort of on the road to harm, if you know what I mean."

  "I know exactly what you mean. Ruth Lillian. And I respect you for it."

  "Hm-m… well. Good night, Matthew."

  "Good night, Ruth Lillian. Sleep tight."

  As he walked up the street to the marshal's office, Matthew promised himself that he would never do Kersti again. Nor let her do him, which was more like what had happened. It wouldn't be fair to Ruth Lillian, who was always having loving daydreams about him.

  And later, as he lay on his bed looking up into the dark, he wondered what Ruth Lillian would think of him if she knew he had committed sin. Not just what he had done with Kersti, but… real sin.

  IT WAS SEVEN IN the morning, but it would be a couple of hours before the sun climbed high enough over the mountain behind Twenty-Mile to let the pale autumn sunlight work its way down the wooden faГ§ades of the buildings on the west side of the street. Matthew walked across to the Traveller's Welcome, his collar turned up and his fists plunged into the pockets of his canvas jacket. There was a snap in the air, but not the slightest breeze, so when his breath made ghost cones, he could walk through them, and they would brush his cheeks. His head and ears were cold because he had wet his hair and raked it down flat with his mother's genuine bone comb. October already, would you believe it? He'd been in Twenty-Mile seven whole weeks! He'd have to get himself a warmer jacket before the snow came.

  As usual on the day before the miners descended from the Surprise Lode, the girls slept late and came down to breakfast looking mottled and puffy-faced. As she dunked a biscuit into her coffee, Queeny admitted that she felt as though somebody had pulled her through a knot hole-and not a smooth one neither! "Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this business!" And she snorted a laugh before anyone could agree with her. "Maybe I should go back to the theater! At least the hours are better! Did I ever tell you I used to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils?"

  "Only about two hundred million times," Frenchy muttered into her coffee cup.

  Chinky raised her eyes to Matthew as he filled her cup, and she smiled one of her hesitant, almost wincing, smiles. When he smiled back, she quickly lowered her eyes, as she always did.

  Matthew approached Mr. Delanny's table to refill his mug from the big enamelled coffee pot, but the gambler waved him away irritably. He couldn't speak because his handkerchief was pressed to his mouth and he was wheezing and bubbling into it, and he hated to have anyone near him when his dignity was diminished in this way. His lungs had weakened so much in just the two months since Matthew's arrival that he now got through a dozen handkerchiefs a day, and consumed ever-greater quantities of Mother Grey's Patented Suppressant. Matthew occasionally sensed Mr. Delanny's eyes on him as he worked around the barroom. Their earlier one-con-man-to-another complicity had eroded, and now Matthew felt a blend of envy and dislike emanating from Mr. Delanny. Not for anything Matthew had done, or failed to do. Just for his being young and healthy.

  And Jeff Calder had made a quick recovery from any gratitude he may have felt towar
d Matthew for taking over most of his work while always deflecting to him any praise he received from the girls. Not only did Calder assume the boy's accomplishments were the consequence of his own virtues as a watchful and demanding boss, but he shared with his occasional late-night bottle-chum, Mr. Bjorkvist, his suspicion that Matthew was either up to something, or "didn't have both oars in the water." What normal boy would work harder than he had to? And what normal boy would go around with a smile and a cheerful hello all the time?

  Matthew was sweeping the barroom when Frenchy came down to pick up her usual bottle of whiskey to fortify herself against the night to come. She happened to glance over, and her eyes intersected his before he could conceal the disgust that whiskey always evoked in him. "What is the matter with you, boy?"

  "Nothing. It's just…" He had wanted to talk to Frenchy about this, and now seemed as good a time as any. "Frenchy, I like you. I really do. But I've got to tell you that I just hate liquor. I've seen what it can do to a person, and I hate to see you putting that stuff inside you. I just… Well, I just wanted to tell you that."

  She allowed her yellow eyes to lie wearily on his for a moment before asking, "That's all you got to tell me?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Uh-huh, well now let me tell you something, boy. As you don't know shit-all about life, you'd do better to keep your nose out of other people's business. You hear what I'm saying to you?"