by D. J. Butler
The cat skedaddled.
Hiram went back to his truck and walked with Michael as he parked it in a scraggly patch of weeds. Hiram lifted an apple box of food, as did Michael. They followed Medea into her house.
Without her spear, Callista folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Hiram. With dark eyes and dark hair, and the look of defiance in her face, she reminded Hiram of how Michael had looked, six or seven years earlier.
Around the time, say, that Elmina had died.
Callista’s brothers stood with her, but their eyes went to the tins of beans, the long green stalks of root vegetables, and the sacks of flour. The little one drooled down his chin.
Inside, the only light came from a single window in the back of the room. A man lay on a stuffed mattress on the corner of the floor; pillows and blankets were stacked under him, propping his head up. His eyes were closed and his leg was wrapped in bandages. Two other mattresses leaned against the walls.
A stove in the opposite corner radiated heat. Shelves made of long slats of wood nailed into one wall held dishes, eating utensils, pots, pans, and other necessaries. A table and a cluster of chairs were pushed against the wall between the door and the stove.
Hiram set the food down and took off his hat again. Michael set down a sack with more food in it; Hiram smiled at his son. The woman backed up against the homemade cabinetry. Leaning against the shelves were an ancient rifle and a curved sword.
The man on the bed coughed.
“Pap,” Michael said, “it’s the…guy…”
Hiram recognized the man’s widow’s peak and Fuller brush moustache. The man’s thigh turned at an unnatural angle.
Medea moved to stand beside Widow’s Peak. “My Basil. He hurt his leg.”
“Yeah.” Hiram’s heart was heavy. “Basil needs to see a doctor. If his leg heals like that, he’ll be lame for life.”
Medea’s eyes flashed pride and anger. “This is none of your business.”
Hiram nodded slowly. “Have a good day, ma’am.”
“Nice meeting you,” Michael mumbled.
Medea nodded once.
They returned to the truck. The kids poured into the house. Those beans weren’t going to last long against those hungry mouths. Callista stood last in the open doorway, watching them.
Michael drove them away. Hiram sat with his hand covering his mouth. A heavy feeling hung in his stomach.
“And they can’t pay for a doctor, right?” Michael said. “Because the mine is closed?”
Hiram nodded. “Maybe the mine won’t stay closed. And at least they’re eating today.”
“Gee, that’s just great,” Michael said. “Until the food runs out. We have to get that mine back open. Or…something. This isn’t right.”
“Even though they tried to rob us?”
“They were hungry, Pap. You said it yourself. And did you see those kids? They weren’t just playing with that cat, Pap. They were going to eat it.”
Hiram looked out the window and they drove on through the camp.
Men in denim stared at them. Children played.
But no chickens, no goats, no pigs.
Hiram lifted two fingers in a greeting at a knot of men.
They spat on the ground.
“This place is making me feel lucky to be a farmer.” Michael licked the mouth of the now-empty Coke bottle.
“You’re not a farmer. You’re a future geologist.”
“Or spaceman.”
“Turn left there,” Hiram said, and they left the main track. He was looking for the biggest houses in the camp itself, trying to find Vilhelm Sorenson.
They trundled down a slope, across the bridge, and up the other side. Laundry, streaked and mottled gray with soot, flapped on lines around the hastily-made single room clapboard houses. The houses had tar-paper roofs and siding but very few had windows. They did, however, have gardens, limp and yellow with weeds and winter. As the track became narrow and Michael’s driving slowed, Hiram could smell the wafting reek of the outhouses.
They made a turn, following the road as it twisted up through houses that seemed abandoned. Michael and Hiram fell silent. Even the Double-A seemed to putter a bit more quietly.
Three men walked up the road, blocking it. Michael was forced to stop. All of the men wore dusty overalls and long-sleeved shirts. The fedoras on their heads were black with coal-soot. Each of the newcomers had a shock of blond hair on his head; one wore a red waistcoat and had a thick goiter on his neck. They were solid working men, driving their heels into the mud of the road at each step. In their hands they held ax handles.
Everyone in this camp seemed prepared to fight.
Hiram stepped out of the truck, kept the door open, and tried to stay calm. “I’m looking for Vilhelm Sorenson.”
The three men stopped and glowered. Two of them turned to their comrade Goiter, likely the one who spoke the best English. “Ja,” he said, “up the hill. Einundfünfzig. One and fifty.”
Hiram nodded. “Thank you…danke.”
“You a friend of Sorenson’s?” the German asked.
“I try to be everyone’s friend. I brought food for the camp.” He gave them a final nod and retreated to the truck.
He slid in and Michael got the truck going again. The boy muttered under his breath, chanting through the steps of starting the vehicle. They took another turn, drove past a school and a company store. Worried women in dresses talked, ragged children played, and lean men sat in groups. Hiram saw Serbs, Croats, more Greeks, more Germans, and a few Orientals.
The house numbered 51 had a pig-shaped piece of wood nailed to the door.
Chapter Five
A huge man burst from the house. He tromped heavily, stooped, left shoulder lowered, swatting at unseen enemies with a rolled-up newspaper in one fist. His thin hair showed a forehead like a limestone cliff; the tangle of eyebrows rose as high as a full inch and his smashed nose dangled slightly sideways. “Hey, dere, mister. You want to see me? If you’re from de railroad, you turn around, or else I bloody your nose.”
“We got everyone’s attention,” Michael said. “Perhaps you should run for local office, Pap.”
Hiram eased out of the truck and raised his hands. “I’m looking for Vilhelm Sorenson.”
“And who sent you?” The giant’s left hand was missing its last two fingers.
“I have groceries for the camp,” Hiram said. “It’s got some beets on account I’m a beet farmer, in from Lehi.” He must be nervous; he felt his grammar slipping. “But some bishops in Utah Valley let me into their storehouses, so I have other groceries, too. Ham. Flour. Beans. About two days’ worth, maybe.” The camp was bigger than Hiram had expected.
“Bishops? Catholic bishops?”
“Mormon bishops,” Hiram said.
The man-cliff lowered the newspaper. “I’m Sorenson. I’m de foreman here. And you are what, Mr. Mormon? A do-gooder?”
Hiram knew that he stood in the least Mormon part of the State of Utah, and do-gooder sounded a lot like meddler and maybe hypocrite.
“I’m a man with a truck full of food,” Hiram said. “Do you want to help pass it out? Or shall I just leave it at your door?”
The Dane lumped his way forward to the edge of the porch. “A Mormon beet-farmer, on my doorstep. Gud, what a world.”
Even stooped, the Dane stood eye to eye with Hiram. Hiram smelled pomade in the giant’s hair and smoke on his clothes.
Sorenson softened further. “Maybe you should come inside. We can talk a bit. I’ll tell de men to come for de food. We’ll take it. Gratefully. Your boy can park de truck dere.” He waved to men across the track, then pointed to a space in front of the house.
“That’s Michael, my son,” Hiram said.
Michael flicked some fingers at the Dane, then clutched and shifted. He eased the Double-A into the offered spot.
“I hear the mine is closed.” Hiram said, and immediately regretted it. His words would only make him sound lik
e a meddler.
“You a friend of de Kimballs?” Sorenson smacked the newspaper into his left hand.
Hiram repeated what he’d said to the men. “Never met them, but I’d like to think I’m everyone’s friend. Do-gooder, remember?”
Sorenson smiled, revealing a big cracked front tooth, blackened where it wasn’t yellow. “Ja, funny guy. I like guys dat make me laugh. Like Charlie Chaplin, he’s always funny.”
“Michael’s the funny one.” Hiram motioned for Michael to join them and he followed Sorenson inside. Despite his limp, the Dane moved with a quick step.
Hiram gave the pig-shaped design nailed to the door a long look.
Sorenson noticed. “De Germans, dey think de pig and de numbers bring luck. Something about de three kings. We need de luck now, dat’s for sure, and my wife believes.”
Memories of Elmina’s smile and the way she looked at him while he washed the dishes flooded over Hiram, wiping the smile from his face. Bitter, gut-punching echoes of her final screams, as she lay dying of some hidden sickness on their marriage bed, followed. Six years. Had six years passed, since her death and the Crash?
He took off his hat and finger-combed his hair.
The house had three rooms: a parlor; a bedroom on the left, bed just visible through the cracked door; and a kitchen on the right. Needlepoint images of boys and girls playing hung on the parlor walls and a little side table was covered with a lacy doily. Heat radiated into the parlor from a cast-iron wood-burning stove in the kitchen. A hissing kerosene lamp hung from a hook. The camp had electricity, and the Sorensons didn’t seem poor. Did Bill Sorenson prefer not to have electricity in his home?
Hiram and Michael followed Sorenson into the kitchen. Below the kitchen counter, which was little more than a shelf fixed to the wall, stood a wooden keg. On the counter lay a bowl of yellowing milk and a crust of white bread. Sorenson drew out two chairs from a small table. Both Michael and Hiram sat.
Hiram motioned to the bowl and the crust of bread. “Is that for Robin Goodfellow?”
Sorenson raised an eyebrow, a feat of strength that would have crushed a lesser man. “What? De wife again. But we are not here to talk about bogeymen and spirits. We have problems. You bring food? Fine. But dat won’t fix us for long. De men need jobs, or dey need to leave. Maybe I tell you, and you tell de bishop, and he talks to Ammon Kimball. And we fix dis for good.”
Sorenson gripped his newspaper roll with both hands. “You want beer, boy? Or are you Mormon, too?”
“Officially, I suppose I am,” Michael said. “Really, I’m unaffiliated. However, I’m not one to touch intoxicating liquors.”
“Water would be fine,” Hiram said. “And I agree with you. It’s not good for men to be idle. Food only solves the problem for a couple of days.”
Sorenson rose and went to a bucket next to the stove. “Ammon runs de mine. No, he doesn’t run anything, he sits over dere in de big red house, scratching his boils. De mine is closed while de Kimballs claw each udder’s eyes out. Teancum disappeared two years now, him and his new wife. My wife says he is dead. I say he had wife number four, who was younger dan his daughters, what man wouldn’t want to run away with her? But she dreamed he was dead, but den she dreamed about de ghosts of de eastern seam. Dreams.” He snorted.
Hiram listened closely. Without meaning to, he found himself fingering his Saturn ring. “Is that what Robin Goodfellow does? Does he bring your wife dreams?”
“Gud help me if I know. I thought he killed mice.” Sorenson took the bucket and poured water into three tin cups. “My men always talk of de haunts, too. Some of de men say dey heard whispers in de eastern seam, and of course, dere are shadows and laughing. It sounds like a bad movie, no? Not a funny movie, with Charlie Chaplin. And den dere are stories of strange animal things running around on top of de mesa. If dat weren’t bad enough, robbers are on de roads. Nothing is good. Nowhere is safe.”
Hiram thought of Basil and Medea Markopoulos and their hungry children.
Sorenson splashed the bucket down on the counter. “Robbers are real enough. Ghosts? I think not. Before de mine closed, I had to pay Chinamen extra to go down dere. We got it done. I always get de work done, when dere is work.”
Hiram closed his eyes. A haunted mine was probably just overactive imaginations, gossip, idleness, and liquor.
But if not…Wells had told him to keep his eyes open.
“If the mine is closed, what are the men still doing here?” Michael asked. “I’d have figured they’d take off for greener pastures.”
“What green pastures?” Sorenson stood with his arms crossed. “Farmers come up from de fields to mine in de winter. Dey wait. Might as well wait here, radder dan wait at home in dead fields. Dey’re okay, dey gotta go plant soon, anyway. But de real miners? Dey’re in deep to de company store. We pay rent here, and dat works as long as we’re getting paid. But when we don’t get paid, we still owe rent. We owe, and we can’t leave, not until we’re paid off. No paychecks, dough. And every week, more rent.”
Hiram sighed.
Michael jumped from his seat. “Come on! How is that fair?”
Sorenson laughed. “Boy, maybe somebody promised you life will be fair. Instead…rich men drink cream and eat beef, arguing with each other, while we get poorer.”
“It’s Michael, not boy.” If Michael’s mind was sharp, his tongue was sharper. “But…at some point, you have to cut loose and take off, and try to find work somewhere else. It’s not like the Kimballs could come after you.”
The big Dane turned to Hiram and rumbled out more laughter. “Oh, your boy is quite a talker.”
“Always has been,” Hiram admitted. Maybe he should have taught Michael to curb his tongue more, but he’d never had the heart for that fight. Especially after Hettie and Elmina had died.
Sorenson nodded. “My boy, Anders, he says we should go to de lawyers. He works in de big city now, over in Price. All my udder children moved off. Michael, my friend, we live in bad times, and dere is little work. Udder mines are busy, and dey have problems of deir own. You get a reputation as a trouble-starter, or a debt-dodger, you won’t find anyone to hire you.” He turned to Hiram. “You don’t talk much. Not de funny guy I thought. But now you see, a few groceries won’t do a thing. Can you fix dis, do-gooder?”
Could Hiram fix it? Was the mine closed because some people thought it was haunted? Maybe he could consecrate the mine, or perform an exorcism. Or if it was a matter of setting the men’s minds at ease, maybe he could invite a Catholic priest in to do it. How did the Chinese do exorcisms? “My son’s the funny one.”
“True,” Michael said.
“Funny don’t open de mine.”
Hiram let out a long breath. “You said the Kimballs are fighting. What are they fighting about?”
Sorenson rose and tried to pace the kitchen, but it was too small a space. He wound up leaning against the back wall. “Dat’s not so simple. Ammon is an okay joe. He’s a mean boss, but dat’s okay, I understand dat a mean boss gets de work done.”
“Hold on there, old-timer,” Michael said. “All the names are running together for me. So Ammon is Teancum’s son. Is he the oldest?”
“No, Eliza, de sister, she’s de oldest. She was born when Teancum ran cattle here, before de mine. The Kimballs are Mormon, and dey used to have all de wives around here. First wife, first child, Eliza. But old Teancum liked ’em young.” He raised his eyebrows at Hiram.
“I only had the one wife,” Hiram said. “Don’t know what I’d do with two.”
He tried not to think about the dark day when he’d learned two things at the same time. One, that the reason he saw his father so rarely was that Abner Woolley was a polygamist, and spent most of his time with other wives and children. And two, via a letter postmarked from Phoenix, that Abner was leaving for Mexico and wouldn’t come back.
That day, Hiram had staggered to the edge of Grandma Hettie’s farm and stared southward across the lake until well
after midnight.
He shook off the memory.
Sorenson laughed some more. “Agreed. Second wife, and out came Ammon. One child per wife, or one living child, anyway. Lots of babies born dead. Dat’s how it goes, sometimes. Third wife died giving birth to Samuel, but by dat time, Teancum’s wives weren’t so happy. So dey all leave, and Eliza, she leaves too. Ammon and Samuel stay, but only for a time. Samuel was always de strange one, an artist. Soft in de head. He leaves too and it’s just Teancum and Ammon.”
“How long ago was that?” Michael asked.
“During de Great War,” Sorenson said. “Dat’s what? Seventeen years now?”
Hiram felt the years. He felt the war, too. That was where he’d met Michael’s father, in the trenches of Verdun.
“And Teancum got a fourth wife?” he asked.
“She was pregnant when dey ran off.” Sorenson nodded. “Two years ago, it was. And Ammon took over when Teancum went.” Sorenson drew a thumb across his throat and made a quacking sound. “We work through de change, no problem. Den Samuel comes back, and he says Ammon is doing everything wrong. Den Eliza comes back, and she fights, too. For what? I don’t know. Ammon comes to me and he says de mine must close. He gets de Germans on his side, some of de Croats, de Serbs, and den Samuel gets de Greeks, de Chinamen, de Japs, to go for him, and everything stops.”
Hiram furrowed his brow and squinted. “There’s still coal in the mine?”
“Ja. But Ammon says we got to dig in one place, and Samuel says he wants a new shaft entirely, and each of dem got a gang. So we don’t dig nowhere. We stopped and can’t start again until de family decides what to do, since dey all own it togedder. Your bishop wants to fix things, maybe he can get de family to stop fighting.”
“Or at least get two of them to agree,” Hiram said.
“And every damned day, you owe the company more rent.” Michael shook his head.
“That’s not much better than cripes,” Hiram murmured.
“Yes, cursing is fitting in dis case,” Sorenson shot back. “You know what I think?”
Hiram said nothing.