Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  Mary watched her husband’s face as he stepped down from the company Ford, saw his expression harden like granite. “Is this a joke?” he asked.

  Charlie Parker, the driver, looked down at his feet.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Mary ventured.

  “You do?” Lucas replied dryly. “I suppose that’s to be expected. Although I had hoped,” he paused for emphasis, “you would outgrow your taste for the gaudy and pretentious.”

  Mary blushed and twirled her parasol nervously.

  “Good God!” continued Lucas. “What was Selby thinking of?” He shook his head. “I guess we’d better see the rest of it.” He walked briskly ahead, leaving Charlie to hand Mary down from the motorcar.

  He’s just in one of his moods, Mary told herself as she followed Lucas inside.

  Lucas walked restlessly through the house, finding fault with everything. Mary knew he was impatient to get back to the mine, resenting any time spent away from it.

  The drawing room was spacious with tall windows. Mary exclaimed with pleasure, “Oh, Lucas! It’s beautiful. We can entertain in here.”

  “Entertain?” Lucas replied. “Entertain who?”

  “Why, the heads of the other companies, of course. Their wives, the—”

  “Perhaps you could put on a show for them,” Lucas said, his voice like ice.

  Mary’s face went white. They had never discussed her background in front of another soul. She shot a glance at Charlie Parker, who was standing, hat in hand, by the front door. Lucas had spoken softly, in measured anger. She doubted Charlie had heard. Still, embarrassed, she lowered her head and walked to the door. Mumbling an apology to the driver, Mary pushed past him into the bright sunlight. The sun burned her back through the hot material of her dress and pinpricks of light danced in front of her eyes. Not knowing or caring where she was going, she found herself on the path to the duck pond. There was a bench at the water. Mary sat down and let the tears come.

  For a half hour she sat there, her hands grimly holding on to her reticule as if she were afraid she’d lose that, too. Her long skirt stirred the dust.

  How could she have thought that the son of an affluent, socially prominent family would be happy married to a showgirl? How could she have believed him—a boy in the first blush of love, a naive, sheltered college boy . . .

  Across the pond, a movement caught Mary’s eye.

  The hot air wavered before her eyes, shimmering where the leaves of a dusty cottonwood tree trailed along the water.

  A woman stood in the shadow of the cottonwood tree. She wore riding trousers, and her hair was caught up in a scarf. She was looking across the pond, her expression . . . sympathetic? Yes. She appeared sad, her brow furrowed. She held up a hand, as if in supplication.

  Where did she come from?

  Mary stared at the woman, who stared impassively back. Time seemed suspended, the oppressive heat holding them in a cocoon of silence, a spell that couldn’t be broken. Mary had the funny feeling that they were the only two people in the world—the only two people who mattered, anyway.

  The heat shimmered in wavy lines.

  Help me. The voice, young and feminine, might or might not have come from Mary’s own mind. Surely there had been no real sound, except for the rustling of the cottonwood leaves.

  Help you? Mary thought. How can I help you when my life is falling apart before my eyes? But of course Mary’s visitor hadn’t said a word.

  The young woman stood immobile, like a statue. Mary’s eyes wandered down to the pond between them. Still and brown, the pond mirrored the drooping leaves . . .

  The woman left no reflection!

  Mary’s eyes darted up to where her visitor had been standing, but saw nothing but the cottonwood tree and tall golden grass. The dark-haired girl was gone.

  Had she imagined the whole thing? The heat waves bounced across the pond. For a moment Mary had been linked to the strangely dressed young woman, a link so strong that she had forgotten about the new house, about Lucas . . . everything.

  Perhaps she was a local girl out for a walk. Mary didn’t even question the wisdom of a person taking a walk in the midday heat of July nor wonder at the strange trousers and riding boots. She had other things to think about.

  She closed her eyes, thoughts turning inward. Lucas, his face cold with rage. How could he have embarrassed her so?

  A shadow fell across her face. It would be Lucas, coming to apologize for his brusqueness, ready to embrace her tenderly the way he used to—

  “Ma’am?”

  It was Charlie Parker.

  “Ma’am?” he repeated, hesitant. “Mr. McCord had to get back to the mine. He asked me if I would see to it you got back to the hotel all right.”

  Lucas hadn’t come after all.

  “In a minute,” she said, trying to stem the sobs that came right up from her depths. “Just give me a minute.”

  Charlie Parker looked away, trying not to see the lovely, well-dressed wife of his boss in her despair.

  Nine

  The camera worked after all. Chelsea pushed the lever down, heard an almost inaudible click. The ruined cottage was immortalized forever on film.

  The sky grew brighter. The cicadas’ buzzing filled her ears, grating across her brain. Chelsea closed her eyes, feeling dizzy. Could she be suffering from heatstroke?

  As Chelsea packed up to head for home, bile climbed into her throat. The heat became a live thing. It crushed her neck like a searing anvil, thrust needles of agony deep behind her eyes. She was vaguely aware of driving back to town, vaguely aware that, instead of parking in front of her house, she drove on to Brewery Gulch. But that was okay, because she was feeling better. And she had something important to do.

  She needed to take some pictures of Old Bisbee. For the book, yes. She must get all the right pictures for her book.

  Sunlight glinted off chrome bumpers and car mirrors, shimmering like satin on the road. Slashes of darkness shadowed alleys and doorways, deeper than infinity. Molten light glistened, sticky, and ran like slow sap along the sidewalks. Chinks of shade etched in old, chalky brick looked like dozens of watchful eyes. Green trees on rusted earth. Reflected light from the silver roofs so bright it hurt the eyes.

  Heat. In her brain. Behind her eyes.

  Her thoughts ran like rats in a maze. Disconnected, random thoughts.

  She didn’t have to think. Logic had mapped out her route beforehand, the buildings to be photographed. For her book.

  The camera . . . she had figured out what it smelled like, the peculiar odor that had eluded her for so long. There hadn’t been any dead animal in that field. There hadn’t been, because the odor came from the box camera; it had been there all along. The overlying dust of ages had masked the smell for a time, but it had been there, like body odor under perfume. It didn’t matter now. The camera worked, that was all that mattered.

  The Brownie, smelling like the grave, hung from her fingers by the worn leather strap.

  Chelsea paused in front of the Copper Queen Hotel, which vaguely resembled a yellow, green, and red pagoda. She aimed the camera. Snap, click.

  Sunshine obligingly posed in front of the Sacred Cow Cafe housed in the old Western Union Building. Snap, click.

  The first stirrings in the viewfinder came at the Phelps Dodge Mercantile. Built in 1939 by Del Webb. Coral Red. Art Deco.

  Superimposed over the sleek, economical lines, a higher building—a tall façade of towering brick. It trembled like a hologram in the viewfinder, shivering in the heat waves as the flames chewed a path from window to window. Fire, smoke. All shifting and crawling and possibly not there at all, like transparent cloth superimposed over reality. A wall looming, crumbling, caving in, bricks falling like rain.

  Snap, click.

  Lurking under the Pythian Castle, a brownish shape in a derby tipped his hat to ladies in long, plum-black dresses, their movements blurred as if they were caught in a freeze frame.

  Snap
. Click.

  But the worst thing—the shocking thing—happened at the Stock Exchange Bar in the old Muheim Brewery.

  Imposing brick, dark-green trim. Narrow windows and elliptical brick lintels. A copper-sheathed facade. Shade from a copal tree dappled the entrance.

  Quaint, charming. A tourist’s photographic opportunity.

  Except for the black bear hanging from the roof by a chain pulled tight around its neck. Like a pelt, it swayed back and forth in the viewfinder.

  The smell was so bad that Chelsea gagged.

  She breathed through her mouth. But didn’t let go of the camera, oh no.

  Snap, click.

  Bob McCord didn’t like the way his great-niece sounded on the phone.

  “I’ve just got a low-grade fever,” Chelsea assured him. “Body aches, that kind of thing. It’s probably the flu.”

  “I just wanted to tell you I’ve sent for those photo albums. You might want to go to the mining museum. They’ve got a file full of clippings on the family.”

  “Great.”

  “I won’t keep you. But do me a favor and stay out of the midday sun. You might have gotten heatstroke.”

  “I promise.”

  Bob hung up the phone. He stared out at the patio of his Tucson home, watching the quail scratch for food among the pale-green clumps of prickly pear. He’d started worrying about Chelsea during the day. He could even pinpoint the moment. At exactly 12:15 in the afternoon, it had seemed like a door had swung open in the darkest recess of his mind. A very old door, sealed shut from disuse. It had creaked as it opened . . . and he had been scared.

  He’d been attending a luncheon to benefit abused children when the urge to call Chelsea had become overwhelming. Bob had experienced the sinking feeling that she’d been hurt—maybe she’d been in an accident. She hadn’t been home. He’d been calling off and on ever since.

  So Chelsea had the flu. Although a case of the flu wasn’t exactly a picnic, his imagination had conjured up something much more serious. No, he thought, the flu wasn’t really so bad after all.

  Ten

  Chelsea sat up against the pillows, looking through the mail Gary had brought her from the post office. She opened the package first. Fishing through streamers of tissue paper, Chelsea was unaware that she held her breath. It was the first time in her memory that Sydney had given her a gift.

  She withdrew a framed plaque. The plaque said: “Live Every Day as if Jesus Died Yesterday, Rose Today, and is Coming Tomorrow.” Chelsea showed him the book on Christian marriage and the card. The card’s soft-focus photograph showed two candles joining flames under the silver-scrolled legend, “Two Become One.” Inside, Sydney had scrawled, I’m praying for you and Jason to get back together. I hope God can work in your life and show you the truth about your marriage. You don’t need a career, you just need Jesus Christ. Don’t throw happiness away because of pride.”

  “I take it your sister—”

  “Half-sister.”

  “Your half-sister doesn’t approve of the divorce.”

  “She thinks I let Jason down.” In Sydney’s world, you could not follow your own star and still offer support and encouragement to your husband. The two were mutually exclusive. “Could you please hand me the aspirin?”

  “Which reminds me.” Gary lifted a covered styrofoam cup out of a paper bag. “Hot chicken noodle soup. This ought to fix you up.”

  “I hate chicken noodle soup.”

  “They have data on this stuff. It really does help you get well. Besides, you don’t know what I had to go through to get it. The only place open was the Sacred Cow, and I had to listen to Sunshine talk for half an hour. So please make it worth my time.”

  Chelsea giggled, picturing Gary backing out the door of the Sacred Cow, saying "yes” and “I agree” and “no kidding” under the steam-rolling onslaught of Sunshine’s words.

  “She was talking to the wall when I left,” Gary added.

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “Sorry. I’m afraid I let it slip that you were planning a book on Bisbee.”

  “And she wants to collaborate on it. Oh no!” Chelsea slumped against the headboard and pulled the covers over her head.

  “I told her you were dying.”

  Chelsea poked her head out. “You didn’t.”

  “Seriously, how did you get so sick?”

  Chelsea shrugged. “I can remember walking around in the sun feeling lousy, and when I got home I barely made it into the bathroom before I upchucked—”

  Gary interrupted playfully, “Please. A little decorum. Say vomit.”

  “—all over the place,” Chelsea finished stubbornly. “I must have been completely out of it. Delirious.”

  “Sounds like the bug all right.” He stood up. “I’ve got to go, but I can come by tonight if you’re up to it.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “In the meantime, get some sleep, drink plenty of . . .” Gary’s gaze fell on the box camera on the dresser. “That’s a neat old camera. Looks like it came from the same era as the house. Whew!” He stepped back, pinching his nose. “Smells funny.”

  “Just look at it as a little bit of history.”

  “Have you thought of fumigating this little bit of history?”

  Chelsea stared at Gary. It seemed there was something she should do . . . “Oh! Do you think you could take in some film for me? I got some pretty good pictures of downtown.”

  “Sure.”

  “I think I left the roll on the kitchen counter.”

  “Let me put the soup in the refrigerator.” Gary headed for the door, then turned around. “Almost forgot. Here are the books on Bisbee you wanted from the library.”

  After Gary left, Chelsea leafed through the books. There were several pictures of Bisbee at the turn of the century. She paused at the picture of a long, tall building on the Copper Queen Plaza near the old railroad tracks. It looked vaguely familiar.

  She read the blurb below the plate. The old Phelps Dodge Mercantile building and warehouse, circa 1915. The Mercantile burned to the ground in 1938. A new building of more modern design was erected on that site in 1939.”

  Burned. Chelsea closed her eyes. She’d known it had burned, but how?

  An image bumped the edge of her mind: glowing red bricks, raining down fire.

  The following weekend, fully recovered, Chelsea accompanied Gary on a day trip to Tombstone, about twenty-five miles north of Bisbee.

  Once a silver mining town, Tombstone catered to the tourist trade. "The Town too Tough to Die” had obviously made concessions in order to live. The town’s greatest claim to fame was the gunfight between the Earps and the Clantons at the OK Corral. The false-fronted buildings on Allen Street opened onto a long, covered boardwalk. A stagecoach carrying tourists rattled past, pulled draft horses.

  Gary parked the van and they followed the boardwalk past store windows displaying silver-and-turquoise jewelry, scorpions in plastic bolo ties, wanted posters, and cactus fruit jelly. They walked through the Bird Cage Theatre, where ladies in feathered costumes once hung in cages over the casino tables. At the Tombstone Territorial Courthouse, Chelsea came face-to-face with her great-grandfather, Lucas McCord. He was in the section marked MINING PIONEERS OF COCHISE COUNTY. He wore a stern expression, his eyes fixed like marbles in his head.

  “He looks like he could shoe a horse with his teeth,” Gary said.

  “That’s my illustrious ancestor you’re talking about.”

  Gary stood back and squinted at Chelsea, parodying an artist holding a thumb up to judge his painting. “The line’s certainly improved since then.”

  “Better be careful,” Chelsea laughed. “Maybe he can hear you.”

  “I sure hope not. He looks about as friendly as Attila the Hun.”

  “He wasn’t so bad. I remember when I was little, he used to tell me stories about Bisbee. I heard him tell my dad once that I was the best of the bunch, but it was too bad all those smarts w
ere wasted on a girl.”

  “Not exactly an enlightened point of view.” Gary leaned against the partition. “My aching feet. Can’t we find someplace to sit down?”

  Over a drink at the Crystal Palace, Gary told her about his stint in the Army. Chelsea, at Gary’s coaxing, told him about Jason, about why she had come here, and how she had lost her job.

  She told him about Jason’s breaking into her apartment, months after they were separated.

  “He sounds dangerous.” Gary’s voice was quiet.

  “Most likely only to himself.”

  “I mean it. He doesn’t sound like anyone to fool around with. I hope you lock your doors at night.”

  Chelsea nodded, suddenly feeling ill.

  “I’ll help you put in deadbolts.” Gary spun his empty glass on the table and looked at Chelsea, his expression serious. “You know how money affects people.”

  After a brief walk among the rocky graves of Boot Hill Cemetery (“Lester Moore—Four Slugs from a Forty-four. No Les, no More”), they headed back toward Bisbee. Chelsea tried not to give much credence to Gary’s opinion that Jason might be dangerous. She knew Jason, and she didn’t think he was capable of really hurting her. But why had he broken into her apartment that night? Just to look at her while she slept?

  Chelsea looked out the window at the silvery-green hills undulating to blue mountains, taking comfort in the beauty of her surroundings. Clouds raced over the land, making a patchwork quilt of sun and shadow. The desert colors changed constantly with the time of day. By the time they reached the Mule Mountains, the cumulus clouds, which had resembled pure white cauliflower tops in the distance, had darkened to a nasty glower.

  Gary stayed for a beer. They tossed around ideas for the book on Bisbee. As he was leaving, Gary leaned down and kissed Chelsea on the lips.

  For a moment, Chelsea was flabbergasted. Then she felt herself responding. It would be so good to hold on to someone as strong and good as Gary. To make all the bad memories go away. But she knew that wouldn’t be fair to her newfound friend. She still hadn’t sorted out her feelings, and she needed time. She drew away, feeling sad and elated in the same instant. “Gary, I don’t think we should do this,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing here.”