But, this time around, they’d held on almost too long.
“Still, that doesn’t put gravy on the biscuit,” said Widow Parsons, but I’d missed what she was referring to. Lucy Parsons ran a little poultry business on the west side of town. “Sure, we’re scraping along. But you know as well as I do that bringing more people into town helps all of us—that is, as long as Lyle Vincent over at the IGA and the town’s three restaurant owners keep buying my eggs and the Harkreaders’ produce and pork.”
“There’s the rub, Mrs. P,” responded Vincent. “You know we’re trying to keep things local. But, the tin can distributors are offering some pretty sweet deals if we’ll buy in bulk.”
“The rub, Mr. Vincent, is that there aren’t enough people in Boulder Creek River to justify buying in bulk.” The Widow Parsons nodded her head once for emphasis.
“There will be if we get more people to move in.”
Harkreader said, “You’ll drive out us farmers with that kind of thinkin’.”
“I see where you’re coming from,” said Vincent. After a brief pause, he went on. “Now, here’s an idea. You ranchers and farmers could put on a chuckwagon show! When I was back east last week for the Independent Grocers Convention, a store owner from New York City talked about taking his family to one. He said they had a whale of time.
“It’s like this.” He stood and faced the group, then continued. “You give city folk the opportunity to ride on a hay wagon, eat chuckwagon beans, let their children ride ponies, and listen to some lively music. Harkreader, you and some of the other fellas play music, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Your wives could do the cooking, you could do the entertaining, and you’ll make a profit off them watching what you do every day anyway.”
“Sounds swell.” Harkreader didn’t even try to sift the sarcasm from his voice. “Get up at five in the morning, work our fingers to the bone all day, then stand on our feet all night pickin’ and grinnin’ while city folk look at us like we’re monkeys in a cage. No, sir.”
Someone near the front said, “Well, nothing against the farmers, but what if we move the town closer to the highway?”
“Won’t work,” said Vincent. “The folks in West Packersville tried that and the place was dead and gone before your boots hit the floor that night.”
Things quieted down as that sunk in.
After a moment, a young woman broke the silence. “We can’t let this town die.”
Her quiet plea was more like a cry, and Mayor Whitney’s response had a kind tone to it the like of which no one knew he had in him. “Go on, Mary.”
“I…I didn’t want to bring this up before, but—” Mary’s husband put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She gulped air, then blurted, “My baby is buried out at the cemetery, and I simply cannot leave him here alone in that tiny grave.”
The place was so quiet, you could hear the clock ticking from across the hall.
Aurora stared at the young woman, realizing for the first time that she wasn’t the only mother who’d lost a child. Out of habit, she reached in the pocket of her threadbare sweater and rubbed her fingers over the little case that held the photograph.
“Mary’s right,” said the husband. “We’ve got to think of something to save the town. I don’t care what it is.”
“How does it work when a town dies?” This came from a young woman standing in the back with a toddler propped on her hip. “I mean, do we just up jump the devil and drive? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t have any place else to go.”
It had been a long time since any of the community’s young people had showed an interest in saving the town, and the town took it like a booster shot. The gathering livened up a bit.
“We’ll come up with something,” said John Larkin, proprietor of the Gold Nugget Hotel. “I’m sure of it.” He’d been doodling in a notebook, ready to come up with new business names to consider as soon as the town settled on its next scheme. Larkin had been first in line at Tinley’s Signs to commission the change of his shingle for the throngs of rodeo folks expected. That’s when Larkin Inn became Lariat Inn. Then, for the pony express stop, he had it repainted to read The Mail Bag Hotel. For the Lucky Lady Mine? The Gold Nugget Hotel. (After the cave in, Larkin tacked a length of tent canvas over the words “Gold Nugget” and everyone knew he was itching to have another crack at that sign.)
Mrs. Isaiah Carson, who didn’t keep secret her belief that the practice of renaming one’s business was a waste of time and good sense, said, “Carson’s General holds steadfast to the notion that a good product, backed by solid business sense, will speak for itself.”
Larkin scoffed. “It’s thinking like yours that put Tinley out of business.”
What had happened regarding the Tinley family was no secret. After all the sign painting for Scheme No. 1, Ike Tinley put back enough money to buy his sixteen-year-old daughter a new Mustang (the automobile, not the horse).
Scheme No. 2 found people a bit more skittish, and put Tinley up against a passel of haggling over price quotes for repainting.
Third time around, the handful who changed the names of their businesses tried their own hand with a brush (exceptin’ Larkin). Tinley gave up and moved his family to California.
“Speaking of signs,” said Mrs. Carson, “I must again point out that our highway sign, ‘EAT GAS’ is not an appealing invitation to prospective tourists.”
Mayor Whitney shrugged. “It was all we could afford, after paying out so much to Tinley.”
Folks apparently had run out of steam, because no one countered.
At length, the mayor called for a motion to table the issue of tourism, and to hold a special meeting the next Tuesday to field new ideas.
“I’ll make that motion,” said Harkreader.
“Second,” said Larkin.
“Those in favor, say ‘aye.’”
A halfhearted “aye” came from an unquestionable two-thirds majority.
Mayor Whitney stood. “Tuesday at seven, then. Meanwhile, put your thinking caps on.” He dropped the gavel.
The meeting broke up the way most meetings do. Several attendees milled about and made small talk, a handful kept controversies going, and the few who wouldn’t speak up during the meeting buttonholed others in order to give their two-cents’ worth. Aurora took one more look around, then slipped unnoticed out the door, and into the night.
It was raining harder, and she drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Head bowed against the pelting rain, she made her way several blocks toward the portal to Downtown.
She entered the alley between the abandoned blacksmith building and the dilapidated clapboard hotel, and shuffled carefully along the cobblestones toward the dead end. When Aurora reached the weathered and worn fence that covered the portal, she counted over to the sixth board, then began maneuvering the maze of sliding planks. It wasn’t necessary; simply a ritual she’d performed upon every return to the underground town for a hundred years. Or, was it a hundred ten? She was beginning to lose track.
Board after board, she worked the puzzle, sidestepping through slender openings, closing—without conscious thought—each piece behind her, until at last she was on the other side. She slowly made her way down the dark stairway, steadying herself with her hand against the dank stone wall.
The street lanterns flickered, reaching for scarce oxygen in the confines of the underground town.
All seven saloons were packed. Aurora knew the crowds: gunfighters looking for a moment’s reprieve, thirsty cowboys fresh off the trail, cardsharps facing wary marks, hard-hearted madams looking to make a buck, and scant-clad soiled doves looking to make a nickel.
Jesse James walked her direction from across the muddy street, toting a Bible and wearing a sign that read “justice.” Two prostitutes trailed him, offering their wares. He ignored them.
Aurora detoured, preferring the quiet of the alley that would lead her over to the next street a
nd beyond to her destination.
Here, in the darkest regions of the underground town, the old woman stepped inside the opium den. Kim Wong looked up lazily from the divan upon which he reclined and nodded solemnly to her before passing the pipe to his sister. Aurora returned the gesture—exactly as she had every night for sixty years—then went out through the back door.
Morgan Earp was on the boardwalk up ahead, checking that the lock was secure on the mercantile’s door. He tipped his hat in greeting.
“Wyatt have a game going tonight?” She asked.
“Down at your boy’s place, same as always.”
“Doc there, too?”
“Nobody’s seen him. Must have got the go-ahead to move on.”
This gave her pause. Presently, she nodded, resumed her pace.
Upon entering the saloon, she glanced around to determine whether anyone else besides Doc Holliday was missing. In the far corner sat Hickok, playing poker with his back against the wall. Jack McCall stood on tiptoe nearby, twirling aimlessly in circles and tripping occasionally on the frayed length of cut rope dangling from the noose around his neck.
“Aces and eights again?” bellowed Wyatt Earp. “When did you get so damned lucky?”
Hickok smiled and raked in the winnings.
“Aurora,” I called, motioning her over to the bar where I’d poured her favorite.
She hoisted herself onto a barstool, sipped the brandy. “The dry creek bed will be a creek by morning, and if those rains continue like they did back in 1846, it’ll be a river by end of week.”
“Won’t make no never mind to us.” I pulled the tap and drew a beer for myself. “You been up there again, ain’t you?” I knew she had, of course, but she didn’t know I’d been there too.
“Don’t matter if I have. They never listen anyhow.”
I smiled. Most of the beings here in Downtown accept the fact that they are between worlds. Once every sixty or seventy years, though, a soul like Aurora comes along—one who can’t let go in order to move on.
“This place would save them.” She sipped more brandy. “People would come from all over the country to see it. It’s perfectly preserved, exactly like it was before the big flood pushed them to regrade and build a new town on top of the original. This one recovered, like it had always done before, but they’d had enough. They buried it once and for all.”
I said, “I’ll admit that after the dam was built, it changed everything. We don’t have to worry about flooding down here anymore.”
“Downtown’s twice the size of Uptown. Their solution is right under their feet.”
“Maybe so,” I said, “but there’s no way of lettin’ them know that.”
“I’m going to keep trying. I can get them out of their fix.”
Poor Aurora. She won’t accept the plain fact that the folks Uptown can’t see or hear her. Her rantings reach them as gusts of wind that rattle the windows or slam the doors. When it happens, those who are scared by it tell themselves, there’s no such thing as ghosts, there’s no such thing as ghosts, there’s no such thing as ghosts. Believe me, I know. I’ve heard them.
Edward Knowles, a banker whose claim to fame is delivering telegrams as a boy in Deadwood to Teddy Roosevelt and Seth Bullock, slammed back a rye whiskey and said, “Don’t you see, Aurora? They don’t want a solution. They think they do, but if they had a bona fide solution to this problem, they’d have to come up with another problem.” Knowles tapped the bar twice—his signal for more rye—and continued. “If it weren’t for those town meetings, Harkreader would have the dreary task of sitting at home and watching his wife cut up potatoes for planting. In turn, she would have to watch him do something or other that she’d once found endearing only now to find that it irritates her to distraction. Will they say anything to remedy their domestic plight? No. They’ve all stopped listening to one another at home, and yet there’s still enough regard in public to maintain a semblance of listening at those meetings.”
“Ha,” said Aurora. “They don’t listen to me.”
Knowles waved her off, his expression clearly showing that he was giving up on her. He rose, drank the rye I’d poured, and started toward the batwings. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look again for Misters Roosevelt and Bullock.”
I shook my head. He wasn’t going to find those two in Downtown. I had watched this replay every night since the banker arrived after driving his new Cadillac off a bridge. He claims it was an accident, but I happen to know he’d just got news of the stock market crash in twenty-nine.
Aurora finished her drink, then fished in the pocket of her tattered sweater and retrieved the tintype. The red velvet that covered the case was worn to a sheen, the rounded corners rubbed through to the metal frame. She untied a silk ribbon as pale and worn as she was, and the case fell open. No one in the crowded bar heard the faint jingle of the broken clasp, but Aurora had heard it enough times to know its sound, like the tinkle of a little bell for her little angel.
She stared at the image inside, and searched the depths of her audio memory for the girl’s voice. It too had grown fainter with time.
I leaned over and gazed at the photograph. “Happy birthday, little sister.”
Aurora looked up, wide-eyed. “It is today, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Fair Emily was born on the eighth of September, 1842.”
I watched her as she studied the image, and thought about our history together. I was ten when Aurora, my mother, took her own life. I always felt she blamed me for my little sister’s passing, and I forgave her for the blamin’ because I somehow knew it was her way of handling the grief. There’s no explaining how the mind works after such a loss, when the hole in your heart is too big.
At thirty, I lost my life to a stray bullet during a fight while bartending in this very spot. But Aurora knew me instantly when I arrived here, and that eased some of the childhood pain.
Aurora said, “I’m fading, Josh. I can feel it.”
I didn’t want to tell her I knew that, or how. “Bringing the living down here won’t keep it from happening, though. What’s worse, it’ll push us out, force us to some unknown place.”
Irony is a fascinating thing, and I’ve seen more than my share of it as a fixture down here. Aurora took her own life in order to join her little girl, and has been suspended for what seems to her like forever in this transitory world. Is it because she left me as a child to fend for myself? Is it because she performed an unacceptable act? Is that why all of them are stuck here, waiting for approval to move on?
I’ve witnessed more times than I care to count the range of emotions: fury to the brink of insanity, followed by aggravation when they realize they’re powerless in the face of a force they can’t fight—or even see, for that matter—then withdrawal to examine their inner hell and, finally, surrender to their fate.
I polished a glass, then turned and lined it up on the shelf with the others. When I glanced in the mirror at Aurora, the reflection was so faint I could barely see her.
“Let go of the past, Aurora, so you can go on up and see Emily.”
“But what about you?”
Her reflection flared, as if some fire inside her had been fanned. I said, “What do you mean?”
“I left you behind once. I don’t want to again. What’s holding you here?”
My mouth dropped. After a time, I clamped it shut.
She smirked, raised a brow. “We all have our demons, don’t we, son?”
What’s she talking about? I wondered. I wanted to say, I’m here to help you, don’t you know that? But, I didn’t. I looked around. I’m here to help all of them.
I shook my head to clear it. She was leaving soon, that was obvious. This nonsense must be her way of trying to hold on.
“No skeletons in my closet, Aurora.” Then I distracted her with the obvious. “What demons do you have, other than those folk Uptown who ignore you? Admit it, I’m the only one who doesn’t ignore you.”
<
br /> “You have to give people credit, though, Josh. The town just won’t quit.”
I smiled. “Which one?”
Now We Are Seven
Loren D. Estleman
“Well, Syke, it appears to me you can’t stay away from bars of any kind.”
It was the first friendly voice I’d heard since before the bottles broke. I sprang up from my cot—hang the hoofbeats pounding in my skull—and leaned against the door of my cage. “Roper, you’re a beautiful sight. Come to bust me out?”
“Why do it the hard way? Gold’s cheap.” He grinned at me in the light leaking from a lamp outside the door to the cells. Same old Roper, gaunter than the last time we rode together and kind of pale, but maybe he’d been locked up too. There was lather on his range clothes and his old hat and worn boots looked as if they’d take skin with them when he pulled them off. He’d been riding hard.
“If gold was cheap, I wouldn’t be in this tight,” I said. “I got into a disagreement with a local punk shell a couple hours ago, and now I’m in here till I pay for smashing up a saloon. I drunk up all the cash I had. I should of just went on riding through.”
He sent a look over his shoulder, then pushed his smudgy-whiskered face close to the bars and lowered his voice. His breath was foul with something worse than whiskey, like the way a buzzard stinks when it’s hot. “I’ll stake you, if you’ll come in with me on a thing. There’s money in it and some risk.”
“Stagecoach or bank? I quit trains. They’re getting faster all the time and horses ain’t.”
“Bank, and a fat one. Look.” He glanced around again, then drew a leather poke from a pocket and spilled gold coins into his other palm. They caught the light like a gambler’s front teeth just before he pushed them back out of sight.
“Damn, you hit it already.”
“I scooped ’em out of a sack they was using for a doorstop. They’ve got careless. It’s been years since anyone tried to stick up the place.”
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