Incident at Twenty-Mile Read online

  "Good luck in your game, Mr. Delanny," Matthew said brightly as he left.

  The gambler nodded without looking up from his layout. "You too, boy."

  BY THE TIME HE had scrubbed the bath barrels until the wood was furry, it was past noon, and Matthew was damp with soapy water and sweat. After washing up and putting his shirt back on, he went into the barbershop to tell Professor Murphy, who was dozing in a shaft of sunlight, that he'd be back to sweep out later that afternoon. "Meantime, sir, would you mind taking a gander at the tubs- when you find the time, that is? Tell me if they're done to your liking."

  When he came down to reopen the Mercantile after dinner, Mr. Kane found Matthew sitting on the porch.

  "Afternoon, sir."

  Mr. Kane produced a hybrid between a hum and a grunt.

  "Tell me, sir. Does Mr. Delanny have a slate with you?"

  "He does. He settles up monthly."

  "That's good, 'cause I want to put some flour on his account. And some baking powder. Oh, and do you keep honey?"

  "No."

  "How about molasses?"

  "I have corn syrup."

  "And butter?"

  "No one uses butter up here in the summer. Everything comes up from Destiny, and butter would melt on the way."

  "Oh, I see. Well then, I'll just have the flour and the baking powder and the corn syrup."

  Mr. Kane was up a ladder fetching down a quart tin of corn syrup when Ruth Lillian came down from their kitchen. "I thought I heard voices and-Pa, you know you shouldn't climb ladders! How things going, Matthew?"

  "Just fine, thank you, Ruth Lillian."

  "You sleep good last night?"

  "Never better. But you know something funny? I think you and Mr. Kane showed up in my dreams."

  "You think? You ain't sure?"

  "Not rightly. When I first woke up, the dream was clear as clear, but as soon as I tried to think about it, it started to crumble away, and the harder I tried to remember, the faster it crumbled. Do dreams ever do you that way? But I remember that in my dream Mr. Kane was kind and friendly, telling me interesting things about how to run a store and all. And you were sweet and smiling, and you had your hair up, like it is now." He chuckled. "Funny how the good dreams slip away before you can get a grip on them, while bad dreams… hoo-birds! Once they sink their fangs into you, they never let go. Oh, Mr. Kane? Speaking about dreams and sleeping and all, you know those deserted buildings between here and the railroad? Do they belong to somebody? Or could a body just move into one of them?"

  "I don't see why not," Ruth Lillian said. "That's what Reverend Hibbard did when he came to town. He took over the abandoned railroad depot."

  "Reverend? I haven't met anyone that looked like a- Oh yes! I remember B. J. Stone saying something about a Reverend Somebody-or-other."

  "No, you wouldn't have met him. Sundays he sleeps over up at the Lode. He won't get back until this evening."

  Mr. Kane put the tin of corn syrup, the sack of flour, and the box of Calumet baking powder on the counter. "The only place fit to live in is the old marshal's office. The roof is still good, and the miners haven't shot out the windows."

  "Which one's the marshal's office?"

  "This side of the street, down from the big burned-down building across from the hotel."

  "Well, I'll be darned! That's the very one I sort of picked out for myself when I was out early this morning. It's got an old stove that looks like it might still work. And I saw some sticks of furniture left in some of the other places. Do they belong to anybody?"

  "I guess they belong to you, if you want them," Ruth Lillian said.

  "It's going to be fun, making a little nest for myself."

  That thought had occurred to Ruth Lillian at the same instant. Like playing house.

  "You know what I'm going to do? Soon as I get my place fixed up, I'm going to ask you two over to dinner to repay your kindness."

  "We'd be honored to come," the girl said with a firmness that dared her father to say otherwise. "People in Twenty-Mile never do anything social like having people over to their houses. They're all so… small. I think it's a good thing to invite people to dinner."

  "No, I couldn't, Ruth Lillian. Thanks, but I really couldn't. The only way I could take my meals with you folks would be if you let me pay board money. 'Course, I suppose you could take my meals out of what you pay me for the jobs I do around the place. That way you'd be saving money, and I'd be having the pleasure of your company. But it'd only be two meals a day. Noon and evening. 'Cause I'll be having breakfasts over to the hotel, after I feed those folks."

  Mr. Kane had been blinking, trying to catch up. Now he cleared his throat sharply. "We're not in the boardinghouse business."

  "Of course you're not, sir. What was I thinking about? There's nothing in the world more natural than a father and daughter wanting to be alone at mealtimes, so's they can talk and such."

  "Shoot!" Ruth Lillian said. "We eat a whole meal without saying more than 'pass the salt.' "

  "But last night we talked and talked and talked."

  "You mean Pa talked and talked and talked."

  "All I know is that it was real interesting and I learned a lot. Well look, I really got to get to getting." Matthew collected his purchases and went to the door. "I'll ask Mr. Murphy to pay me for my day's work so's I can drop by this evening and buy vittles for my supper."

  "THAT WAS FINE, SIR. Mighty fine." Matthew pushed his chair back from the table and pressed his hand to his stomach with mock tenderness, as if too much pressure would make it burst. "You could of knocked me over with a feather when you said you'd decided to take me on as a boarder. Even if it is for just a few days. To see how things work out."

  "It was more Ruth Lillian's doing than mine," Mr. Kane said pointedly.

  "Well then, let me thank you, too, Ruth Lillian. How come you're so good a cook, Mr. Kane?"

  Mr. Kane waved the compliment away. "I'm not a good cook. I only know how to make four or five things, and we have them one after the other. Nothing fancy."

  "Well, it's fancy enough for this ol' boy, believe you me! Don't you ever give a hand with the cooking, Ruth Lillian?"

  "Only when Pa's sick. And he always tries to get well quick, so he won't have to eat my cooking any longer than he has to."

  "I don't believe one word of that," Matthew said.

  "Ah, but it's true," Mr. Kane affirmed. "My daughter has never shown any interest in the domestic virtues, other than making herself dresses from pictures in catalogues. She doesn't like to clean up either. But she'd rather clean up than cook, so I do the cooking, and she does the cleaning up."

  This might have been the time to ask about Mrs. Kane, but something warned Matthew to avoid that subject. Instead, he said that it must take buckets of know-how to make a dress from a picture in a catalogue, and Ruth Lillian said it wasn't all that hard, once you got the hang of it, and Matthew said shoot, nothing was hard once you got the hang of it, the hard part was getting the hang of it; then he turned to Mr. Kane and asked how he got started in business, but Mr. Kane shook his head, saying it wasn't all that interesting, but Matthew just sat, smiling, his expression open and eager, until Mr. Kane shrugged and said reluctantly that he had been born in Germany-in the old ghetto section of a city-but the only memories he had of it were smells of rich cooking-oh, and a curiously carved wooden clock that looked like a bird with a multicolored tail that swung back and forth to the rhythm of its ticking. He was five years old the very day their ship arrived at New York Harbor, and he grew up playing on the floor of the two-room basement apartment where his father and mother toiled from early morning until late into the night, doing "out work" on garments they delivered to the great, barn-like sweatshops of the Lower East Side. His father's most treasured possession was the pair of fine tailor's scissors he had brought from Westphalia-none of this cheap-jack American stuff. You want to do good work? Use good tools. The only time his father ever hit him was when he caug
ht him cutting paper with the precious scissors, and that was only a cuff on the side of his head. His mother never completely got over feeling homesick. She often wondered if they had done the right thing in leaving the safety and comfort of Germany for a chance at success in the New World. She sometimes sighed and envied those who had stayed behind. But, after years of hard work and careful scrimping, they managed to save enough to launch themselves into the business of supplying buttons, thread, and imitation lace to garment-making enterprises owned by immigrants who had arrived a few years before the Kanes.

  "That's the way it was. When you arrived, you were exploited by those who had come before you. Then, if you were clever and hard-working-and lucky! Don't forget lucky-you could become exploiters in your turn. That was the Great American Promise!" Mr. Kane poured himself another mug of coffee.

  … the Great American Promise, Matthew repeated to himself, savoring the words.

  "I remember the day my father put the sign in our window. Fancy lettering in red, white, and blue. The American High-Class Finishing Materials Company (Reliable Service at Competitive Prices). He was very proud of that sign, my father. Well, after all, he had paid two dollars for it. In cash!" He chuckled to himself and for a time looked into the lamp flame in silence. "But then… " he continued in the soft voice of a man fingering old memories, "… then, just when my parents could see a little daylight at the end of the tunnel, cholera swept through our neighborhood and my father… " He shrugged. "He died early one sunny morning-it's not right, somehow, to die on a sunny morning. People ought to die at night. Like my mother did, the very next night. And the morning after she died, while neighbors were dealing with the bodies, I… " He looked into his mug, and his jaw muscles worked with the effort of reliving painful things. "… I went out and delivered their last order. Four boxes of buttons-imitation shell, four-hole, recessed. Funny that I remember those details after all these years. The order had been promised for that morning, you see, and my father prided himself on being reliable. 'Reliable service at competitive prices.' That was us."

  Ruth Lillian, who had been staring into the lamp, looked up and searched her father's face, trying to see past the dark spot that the lamp flame had printed on her vision. He had never before mentioned delivering the four boxes of buttons while his parents were lying at home, dead.

  "Well!" Mr. Kane said gruffly, passing over the painful memories. "When that autumn came, I was traveling with an old Yankee drummer who made the rounds of farms, selling needles, thimbles, pots and pans, ribbons, rush brooms, almanacs, pain remedies-whatever. He sold goods out of the back of his wagon. But mostly he sold himself: his gossip, his cheerfulness, his stories. These stories came in two flavors. Sweet for the women, salty for the men. People would buy things they didn't really need, just to have his company. 'There's thousands of drummers out there,' he told me. 'And they're all trying to figure out how to sell more. But it isn't how you sell, it's what you sell. If you try to sell a woman thread, you only make your sale if she happens to need thread at that moment. But if you sell her the dream of a fine new dress… ah! Or better yet, the image of her daughter wearing that dress at her wedding… a-ah! She'll buy your thread because it's all tangled in dreams of new dresses and weddings.' He told me how he started off by running a sausage stall at county fairs back in Vermont, but he didn't do very well until he learned that you don't sell the sausage, you sell the sizzle! 'You got to be a dream merchant,' he told me."

  A dream merchant. Matthew liked that. The Ringo Kid: Dream Merchant.

  "The old peddler died of pneumonia after a downpour caught us on the road. And me? Well, I was about your age, young man. So naturally I went west to make my fortune. My fortune! Look around you."

  "Well, you have the treasure of Ruth Lillian."

  "True, true. Such a docile, obedient child! And what a cook!"

  Ruth Lillian made a face across the table to Matthew, who smiled.

  "Yes, I decided to go west and make my fortune in the gold rushes and silver bonanzas, but not by prospecting. The old Yankee peddler had once described how oceans of men were flowing towards the West, picks and shovels over their shoulders, and dreams of gold and silver in their heads. 'Out west! There's where a man can make his packet, boy,' he told me. 'Prospecting for gold?' I asked. 'Hell, no! Selling picks and shovels!' And he went on to explain that for every prospector who struck it rich, a hundred thousand ended up with nothing but blisters, chilblains, and a handful of stories to bore their grandchildren with. But every single one of them needed a pick and a shovel, and trousers, and beans, and tobacco. 'Yes,' he said, 'if I were younger, I'd be heading west myself.'

  'With your wagon loaded up with picks and shovels,' I said. He was silent for a time, then he said, 'No. No, I'd probably be prospecting for gold along with all the others. Like everyone else, I'd be fool enough to imagine that I'd be that one in a hundred thousand to strike it rich. No, I'm afraid I'd be out there chasing the dream, because it really ain't the sausage that matters in this life. It's the sizzle.' "

  Matthew's eyes narrowed as he nodded slowly to himself. That's what it is, all right. The sizzle.

  After they finished the dishes, Matthew said goodnight to Mr. Kane, and Ruth Lillian lit a candle to accompany him down into the darkened store, where he picked up the food, soap, lamp, and lamp oil he had bought on credit.

  "Just think, tonight I'll sleep in my new home. The marshal's office! Say! That sort of makes me marshal of Twenty-Mile." He pushed out a laugh, to show that he was only joking.

  "Twenty-Mile ain't had any call for a marshal for donkey's years, so…" She opened a drawer and felt around for something. "If there's any spooks in the marshal's office, you can just arrest them and- Where is the darned thi-Oh, here it is." She drew out a six-pointed star. Matthew took it and hefted it in his palm. It was heavier than he would have guessed, and each point of the ball-tipped star reflected a minute candle flame.

  "I don't think it'd do much good to throw spooks in jail," he said. "They'd just ooze out through the bars."

  "We never had a jail in Twenty-Mile. When a miner got drunk and nasty, they'd lock him up in our storeroom until he sobered up."

  "So your pa used to be the marshal, eh?"

  "Marshal? Can you imagine my pa with a gun hanging on his hip? No. But he was Twenty-Mile's mayor. Well-sort of. He wasn't voted in or anything. A bunch of men just got together at the Pair o' Dice Social Club and decided that the town needed a mayor, and that old Kane would do well enough."

  "The Pair o' Dice Social Club?"

  "That burned-out building across from the Traveller's Welcome? That used to be the Pair o' Dice, where Mr. Delanny worked his table. There wasn't any competition between the two places, though. The one did gambling and the other did women. So the miners-and there were a couple hundred of them back then-they'd stagger out of one place and across the street into the other and shake hands as they was passing."

  "Who burned it down?"

  "God."

  "… God?"

  "It was struck by lightning during the worst rip-snorter that ever hit us. I won't forget that night if I live to be ninety-eight in the shade. The lightning came crashing down, four or five bolts, one right after the other! And the thunder shook the whole mountain! Mrs. Bjorkvist ran around in the rain screaming that the fury of God was descending on Sodom and Gomorrah! Pa was afraid the roof was going to be torn off the Mercantile so he was bundling me up in a blanket (I was just little) when there was this terrific crack! and next thing you know the Pair o' Dice was burning like sixty, and the wind was snatching sparks out of the flames, but they didn't set anything afire because the rain was pouring off roofs in sheets and running down the sides of the buildings. Pa carried me out onto the porch with blankets wrapped around me, and we watched the Pair o' Dice burn down. It was the most wonderful thing I ever saw. And scary! The walls finally caved in, but we couldn't hear a thing, what with the wind screaming and the rain drilling down on the porch
roof, and you know how they say lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Well, that's a lie, because while we were watching, there was this crack! and lightning struck right in the midst of the flames, and sent sparks and tongues of fire flying in every direction! It was beautiful. Truly beautiful."

  "I can just see it from the way you describe it, Ruth Lillian. You describe it as good as in a book."

  "You think?"

  "Hoo-birds! It sure sounds like God had it in for the Pair o' Dice, hitting it with lightning twice like that."

  "Guess so."

  "And they didn't bother to rebuild it?"

  "No. Mr. Delanny just installed himself across the street. The boom was already beginning to peter out and most of the prospectors had gone west. Pretty soon there was nothing left but the weekly gang of miners from the Surprise Lode. And anyway," she frowned heavily, and her voice dropped to an ominous note, "it's not wise to try to rebuild something that God has reached down and destroyed."

  Matthew nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess you're- Hey, are you funning me?"

  "Of course I'm funning! Jeez!"

  He was silent for a moment. Then he spoke energetically to cover his embarrassment. "So your pa was the mayor, was he? Well, look at me, everybody! Here I am, talking to the mayor's daughter."

  "Like I said, it wasn't legal or formal or anything. The only mayoring he ever did was to marry folks every once in a while, and he always worried about it because he didn't think he had the authority to marry people. Then when the men at the Pair o' Dice decided the town needed a marshal to keep the Saturday-night mayhem down to size, it was Pa who had to pin the badge on the man they chose. And later on, when…" She stopped and lowered her eyes. "Later on, when this marshal left town, he gave the badge back to Pa. He did it as a sort of slap in the face."

  "Slap in the face?"

  She looked at him long and levelly, deciding whether or not to share this with him, and he could see miniature candle flames in each of her eyes, like those on the ball points of the badge. "I guess you better be getting to your new home," she said.