She’d just finished a scene where her character was dragged away from a burning train car by a horse. Now she was seated on a prop barrel stenciled with BLACK POWDER XXX, catching her breath and massaging her hyperextended ankles. The sweat poured down her neck and was absorbed by the bosom-shaped pillows sewn into the bodice of her farmer’s wife costume. She watched the crew reposition the equipment so they could shoot the rail tracks from another angle. Not too far away, the carpenter was finishing work on the Opera House façade, transforming it from a mission to a casino. Otherwise Centenary was a ruined place, littered with the ragged cement foundations of once-grand buildings. Mollina was especially intrigued by the disintegrating schoolhouse. Its second story window casements framed a backdrop of vacant blue skies where there should have been rooms of desks and chalkboards.
The Mayor’s wife brought Mollina a tin cup of cool water. Mollina said, “Thank you,” and drank so fast that she could feel hiccups coming on. The Mayor’s wife sold sandwiches and told fortunes, too. She was pretty enough to be in the pictures herself, with deep red hair and a great shape. The director had been talking to her earlier, and Mollina remembered the way the woman just smiled him away, as if he were a fool. The director played cards at night with her husband, so she could treat him any way she wanted, apparently.
The Mayor’s wife asked, “How do you do that?”
Mollina was startled by the question. “The bit? There’s no trick to it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Really?”
Mollina nodded. When you’re not a looker, you develop skills. Mollina’s main talents were bloody mindedness and a high tolerance for pain. Sometimes, to be a success, all you had to do was show up.
“But you’re just a girl.”
“I’m twenty ma’am. Old enough.”
The Mayor’s wife smiled. “Well said.”
Mollina could tell the woman was thinking about her own youth and what she may or may not have accomplished by the age of twenty. “You’re Mrs. Skinner, right? You own this town. I’m Moll.” She held out her hand.
Rebekah Skinner flushed a little. “We don’t own the town, but my husband is the Mayor.”
“But you live here, in a ghost town.”
“Don’t let the Mayor hear you say that. He’ll write a letter. Centenary isn’t much older than you are, you know. It just looks ancient and empty. It’s still our home,” said Mrs. Skinner. “We weren’t tied to the mine the way others were. He was an attorney.”
“And now he’s the Mayor.”
“Yes,” Becky sighed. “That’s what it says above the door of his office.”
The women watched the carpenter pry away S-A-L-O-O-N from above the arched doorway of the Opera House. The chipped gilt letters were growing shabbier with each film. He tossed them into his wheelbarrow, and then sorted through a selection of crucifixes and statuettes painted with high contrast colors.
Mollina asked, “Doesn’t it get lonesome, ma’am? Out here all alone?”
“Not at all,” said Becky. “The Valley is full of spirits.”
The girl actor knew what the lady meant. It seemed like everybody was talking with the dead lately. She made her apologies and hopped off the barrel, explaining that she had another scene coming up, ironically as the farmer’s wife’s ghost. The director wanted a spectacular finale in which the ghost would visit the villain while he prayed in church. Mollina would be strung up so it looked like she was floating in air, but that wasn’t the dangerous part. The dangerous part was that the hems of her skirt and petticoat would be on fire.
Mrs. Skinner asked, “Don’t they ever let you wear anything pretty?”
Mollina Grease laughed out loud. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”
* * *
Over the next three days, young Mollina was dragged, shot, and beaten. She was also conveyed by every means of transport plausible within the historical margin of the film, provided that margin allowed for thirty years on either side of the Spanish American War. She drove a car, a tractor, and a German motorbike. She also rode several horses, a drunk cow, and a burro. Then for good measure, she was subjected to the elements—drowned, dangled, burned, and buried alive. It would seem that the farmer’s wife was the most unfortunate woman in the Old West. Sometime during the last day of filming, the director decided he was making a comedy, so he ordered up a dancing dress for Mollina to wear. The farmer’s wife was to succumb to temptation; she would become a sporting gal.
Becky Skinner found Mollina inside the converted Opera House, standing amongst cables and planks and arc lights while another woman measured her boyish dimensions and shook her head with dismay every time she jotted down a number. Mollina was in her underwear for everyone to see, but no one seemed to care. Becky had heard this was common among show folk, that the conditions under which they worked did not allow for modesty of any kind. Still, the girl actor looked very vulnerable in her dingy pantalets and camisole.
The inside of the Opera House had been partially stripped of its furnishings before Marcus saved it from further vandalism, but when the motion picture crews arrived they removed the rest of its interior fixtures, leaving only the stage intact. Two men from the crew rolled in a monstrous piece of furniture that made the floor vibrate; it was a kind of sideboard with golden feathers and leaves painted along the sides. When they situated it in front of an equally long mirror, Becky understood that it was supposed to be the saloon bar. Ridiculous. It looked more like the Pope’s coffin.
She approached Mollina. The girl was almost naked in front of people who didn’t care. Mollina crossed her arms over her chest, and the seamstress pulled them back down again. She made the girl step inside a corset and pull it up for size. It could have wrapped around her twice. The seamstress clucked.
Becky said, “You do not need to do this. They are making you a whore.”
The term was no longer popular. The girl’s eyes widened, and the seamstress was moderately amused. “Take her easy, Mrs. Mayor.”
Becky lowered her tone. “What I mean to say is, some forms of play are dangerous.”
Mollina stepped out of the corset, awaiting further instructions from the seamstress, but the woman was already packing up her pins and tapes. Construction of the garment would begin immediately. When the woman left, Mollina said, “This trick is nothing, Mrs. Skinner, though I thank you for your concern. If my Poppa was still alive I’d have second thoughts. ‘Course if Poppa was alive I’d still be sweeping stalls in the rodeo show.”
Becky wanted to tell the girl it wasn’t the trick that worried her, but if she explained her dread it would cast a pall over the whole production. Motion picture people were a hardy lot, but they were credulous and highly superstitious. She’d made a tidy sum selling food by day and reading palms and cards by candlelight every night after supper, but Marcus cautioned her not to go too far with her entertainments. He didn’t want her spooking the crew into leaving Centenary prematurely. An uneasy feeling expressed as portent carried weight in this company.
* * *
The smell of smoke woke Marcus, and he was alone in the bed. It was dawn, but only barely. He wore a sleeping shirt that hung to his knees. When he arrived in the main room he saw that the front door was left open, and beyond it was the shape of his wife in her dressing gown, her back to him as she stood on the edge of the bluff that overlooked Centenary. A breeze stirred her red hair away from her neck.
A black ribbon of smoke seemed to curl right out of the top of Rebekah’s head, and it took the sound of panicked voices from across the basin before Marcus deciphered the optical illusion.
“What burns?” he asked.
“The Opera House,” she replied. She moved and now he could see not one but two thin blades of smoke rising from the cupola at the south end of the roof.
When he reached Rebekah, he placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to assess the damage long distance. He decided it was minor. Marcus was
past the age where he would scramble down the stony path to offer assistance, and it was hardly a conflagration.
“It appears to be a small fire,” he said. “A very, very small one.”
GHOSTS
Chapter 8
March 24, 2005: Death Valley, CA
In the days since Dexon’s death, tourism in the Valley doubled, and the restaurant at the Alkali was slammed. The skinny, white manager worked the bar, getting around on a cane, and when he needed more speed, he scooted around in an old battered wheelchair with a big number 5 spray painted on the back. Even injured he was more skilled than his floor workers, who were sloppy and inexperienced. A blonde server had just dropped a tray of six tumblers of orange soda, and now she was coming through with a mop. As this was her second spill in less than a half hour, the diners’ shock was muted.
Nene and Baron ate salads at a two-top against the wall. The server rolled through with the big yellow bucket on wheels, and the Glatters continued to eat while they lifted their feet from the floor so she could work beneath them. It was obvious that the young woman was miserable, but still she managed to ask them, “You all enjoying your stay?”
Baron nodded. “It has been a once in a lifetime experience. We’re due to leave camp Sunday.”
The bucket foam went flat as the water turned brown, and the server wiped her face with the back of her forearm. “You’ll miss the Indigo bush blooms. They’re just about to pop.”
A man at the next table made a fussy noise as a stray trickle of soda threatened his pristine track shoes.
“Anyway,” the young woman said, as she pushed her bucket over to the next table, “If I don’t see you again, happy trails.”
“You too, sweetheart.”
Nene’s deliberateness made Baron nervous, but they agreed that hitting the road before their check-out day would draw unnecessary attention.
Baron asked, “Are you serious about going out to Goler Wash today?”
“We’re treasure hunters, Baron. We need to hunt treasure.” She sipped her tea. “Besides, I want to see you swinging that two hundred-dollar metal detector.”
“I’d rather go to Vegas.” He speared a grape tomato with his fork. It was softer than he liked. All the vegetables were growing dull now that they were past Wednesday. “I’m feeling lucky.”
Nene chuckled and leaned back in her seat. She and Baron were tired and happy, as if they’d been making love all night. Talking about The Juliet had kept them awake. She pushed her salad to the edge of the table and wished she could light up. She liked to follow every virtue with a vice, just to keep things in balance. It was a rhythm she’d learned from some discount Maharishi back in the days when she was still Kimber Logue.
Then her face dimmed. Baron asked, “What is it?”
“Just a pang. It’s nothing.”
“A pang.”
“Do you think they found him already?”
“Could be. The desert’s as bad as a small town. One doctor, one church, one drug dealer, etcetera, etcetera. Maybe his services were missed.”
“The girl who dropped the soda. She worked for Carter. Funny that, her in the middle of everything.”
“My point exactly. Out here, everyone is in the middle of everything. That girl better hope the cops have no imagination or else she’ll wind up in jail.”
Terry brought the check and dropped it on their table, and Baron signed it. The food at the Alkali was good, but he was getting sick of it.
As Nene and Baron made their way into the foyer, they could see that the bar was almost as full as the dining room. A huge framed poster had been recently hung on the north wall. It was for Gallows River, Rigg Dexon’s last big-budget film. The poster depicted the actor in front of a burning mansion, wearing a long duster coat and Stetson, with a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. Gallows River was a notorious seventies mess with a Great White Hero to make it all okay.
The innkeeper leaned on his cane and asked a sweating customer to repeat his order. The conversations were loud and so was the music, some station playing thumpers from the 80s and 90s and calling them “oldies.” Scottie looked feverish, unaware that the cowboy’s boots were planted just over his shoulders.
Nene said, “Looks like Dexon’s about to take a leak on Mr. Nash’s head.”
Baron found her meanness delightful when it was directed at someone else. “Hey, I have an idea. Instead of crawling around the desert looking for buffalo nickels and shotgun casings, how about we return to the scene of the crime?”
“Christ, Baron.”
He smiled as he led Nene out of the restaurant into the sunshine. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” The highway that divided the restaurant and motel from the campground was empty. Oblivion in both directions. Nene and Baron crossed without looking.
“The hippies are back, Darling. I saw it on the Death Valley message boards. The locals are complaining that all these filthy Burning Man types are showing up in Centenary, camping out in the pretty flowers.”
As they neared their trailer, they heard Missy barking from inside. It shuddered as she ran the circuit from window to window.
“Your people, Nene. They’re coming because of Dexon’s death. They’re looking for The Mystery House and singing your song.”
“You’re shitting me,” she said.
“Not at all.” Baron went into the trailer ahead of her and did the obligatory hello dance with Missy.
Nene paused on the metal step and considered the possible implications of reconstituted fame for the legend of Kimber Logue.
“Too bad I’m dead,” she muttered, before lighting a cigarette and going inside.
* * *
Tony was restless. He was supposed to be at a tournament, but with Scottie off the main floor he needed to stick close, not that he was any good at managing. By the time the lunch rush died down, the dining room was a mini disaster zone: tables were stacked with dirty dishes, diners were complaining as they walked out, and Willie dragged her bucket around like a dog on a leash. In the doorway to the kitchen, Raymond the cook leaned on the frame, surveying the damage. He was dripping in sweat in his red-grease-smeared apron. A handful of customers remained, chomping away at their meals as if they were shackled to their tables and waiting for the end times.
Tony said, “Looks like you have everything under control here, Raymond.”
Raymond smiled gently. “Burn it down.”
Tony wanted nothing more than to take a fast drive through an empty desert, but that would have to wait until the season was over. Wherever the wildflowers bloomed in a batch bigger than a kiddie pool, petal peepers acted like the rules didn’t apply. Their land yachts drifted over lanes without signaling, and sometimes they even stopped dead in the middle of the road to set up their tripods and easels, often dragging their oxygen tanks with them just like they did in the casinos. Tony did not begrudge them their simple pleasures, but tourists sure did get in the way.
The restaurant door chimed, and Tony closed his eyes, wishing the customers away.
“Hey Daddy.”
Dawn. There was a pink streak in her hair, and she had put on a couple of pounds since he’d seen her last. That was good news. They embraced, but instead of hello, Tony said, “Why aren’t you at work?”
“No one’s at work, Daddy. It’s D Day. D for Dexon. All the kids are out partying at Centenary. I got the message this morning.”
“You should be off the high school stoner network by now.”
Dawn ignored him. “I’m going out there. Thought you might want to come with me.” Dawn had Larissa’s bones, Tony’s coloring, and the milkman’s blue eyes. She was so pretty it was hard for him to remember all the times she’d screwed up in her young life. And slinging fudge at the Sunoco was not a career starter.
Tony said, “You a history buff all of a sudden?”
“Maybe I’m sentimental.” She rummaged
through her purse. “Tell me again how I was conceived on the grave of Lily Joy.”
“That’s one of your mother’s tales.”
They moved into the bar where Scottie was juggling himself and his customers. His forehead was creased with the permanent concentration of a pour master, but he brightened when he saw the girl. “Dawn,” he called out, almost forgetting that he could not pull a pint and wave in his current state.
“Hey, Mr. Nash. You be careful now.”
They’d been telling everyone who asked that Scottie’d hurt himself training for the big run.
Dawn and her father hopped up onto stools at the end of the bar that turned out to be unoccupied because they were unsteady. At the other end sat two men in bike leathers speaking German and drinking Coronas. They were with a dramatic-looking blonde woman in leopard print everything. Scottie hadn’t been pretty in a thousand years, but every once in a while he attracted a shark, the kind of woman he’d have to study before taking her on. After he finished serving a flushed golfer, Scottie returned to the woman and spoke a few quiet words to her, as if they’d left an important conversation hanging in mid-air.
Tony was about to interrupt his partner again, but Dawn touched his forearm and signaled him off. She looked meaningfully at the woman in leopard skins and whispered, “Don’t cock block.”
“You got it all wrong, sweetie. He’s probably talking about Willie.”
Dawn frowned. Apparently her mother had gotten her up to speed on that situation. Then she spotted the Dexon poster. “Holy crap, when’d that go up? You’re supposed to care about this shit, Daddy.”
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