Wishmakers

by Dorothy Garlock

  Gloria giggled happily. “You'd better teach me how to clean the rooms first.”

  “We'll start on that in the morning, just as soon as the guests leave. The truckers are up and gone early, the salesman a little later. I keep a pot of coffee, rolls, and cookies in the office, and they come in and help themselves before they go. Everyone who isn't staying over is usually out by ten o'clock. Gary rents number ten by the week and I make the bed when he's used it and change his bedding and clean the room on Friday, if it needs it.”

  “Do you wash everything here, or do you send it out?”

  “We have a big washer and dryer in the room behind the kitchen. George got disgusted with the laundry service and went to town one day and ordered them. It took a hunk out of our savings, but now I'm glad we have them; they've already paid for themselves. Of course, when something goes wrong it costs an arm and a leg to have it fixed. But Gary's pretty good at fixin' things.”

  “Who stays here when you go to town? You must have a lot of grocery shopping to do.”

  “Gary is usually here on Saturday. He looks after things while I'm gone. He was here when George died; I don't know what I'd have done without him.”

  “Then he's the one you were telling me about on the phone? His wife died, and his little girl lives with his mother-in-law in Great Falls, right?”

  “Yes. He lives in his truck when he's on the road. He dotes on that child, but knows she's better off with her grandma.”

  Gloria looked thoughtful.

  “Aunt Ethel, do you know what I notice the most about this place? It's the quiet and the darkness. I stood on the porch for a few minutes before I came in, and there isn't a light anywhere except here at the motel. It's the strangest feeling to look out into all that black void.”

  “I guess I don't even notice it anymore…” Ethel's head was resting against the back of the rocker, and her eyes were closed.

  “Aunt Ethel, it's past ten o'clock. Do you want me to turn off the vacancy sign?”

  Ethel didn't answer. Gloria got up from the couch just as her aunt opened her eyes, looked up at her, and shook her head as if to clear it.

  “I must of dozed off.” She put the half-finished afghan back in the bucket and got slowly to her feet, holding onto the chair.

  “Are you all right?” Gloria asked anxiously. Her aunt didn't say anything. “Aunt Ethel, are you all right?”

  “Just a little dizzy. Nothin' that hasn't happened a hundred times before. Too much excitement for an old lady, I guess.” She straightened up. “See…it passed. I'm as good as new. You run along to bed and I'll turn off the vacancy light. Good heavens! It's later than I thought it was.”

  “I can turn off the lights, Aunt Ethel. What time do you get up?”

  “Anywhere from 5:30 to 6:30, but you don't have to get up that early.”

  “I'll set my alarm for 5:30.” Gloria put her arms around the small woman and hugged her. “Good night, Aunt Ethel. I…love you.”

  “Ah…go on with ya!” Ethel smiled embarrassedly. “Check the door and turn out the lights as you go through the office.”

  On her way out, Gloria looked back over her shoulder at her aunt, who was still standing beside the chair. A little, nagging fear possessed Gloria's heart. Had she imagined the white spots on each side of her aunt's mouth and the almost vacant look in her eyes when she first opened them? Had her words been slurred the slightest bit? She thought about it as she washed her face and pulled a nightgown over her head. Tomorrow, she decided firmly, I'm going to insist that she make an appointment with her doctor for a checkup.

  Jack Evans sipped at the soft drink he had taken out of the refrigerator, and then wondered why he had taken it. He didn't want it; it was simply something to do. He considered building a fire in the potbellied stove in the center of the room, decided against it, and put on a jacket instead. He was restless tonight. It had been damned cold coming up that mountain road on the motorcycle; there'd been only a few times he'd let night catch him away from home unless he was in the Jeep. The town seemed more forlorn than ever tonight. There had been no light in the saloon at the end of the dusty street when he came into town; old Cliff Rice, his sole neighbor, had either gone to bed, or had been too drunk to light the lamp.

  Hangtown, Montana, population two: one old drunk and one worthless hippie, Jack mused. He sat down in a chair, tilted it back against the wall, and propped his feet on the table. Critical green eyes swept the neat but primitive home, surveying it as if through other eyes than his own. The bed on a headboardless frame, a three-burner stove for summer, a cookstove for winter, a table, a bookcase, a reading chair, and a gas-powered refrigeratorfreezer made up the furnishings, along with a couple of standing TV trays. Every month he made a trip to Lewistown to get bottled gas to keep the lamp and refrigerator running.

  Jack had a strong suspicion that the building he lived in had been a funeral parlor back in the 1870s. He had found a chest of moldy ribbons upstairs and a halffinished coffin in the shed out back. He had chosen the building because it had survived the ravages of time better than any of the other eleven buildings that made up the town, regardless of what it had been used for during the town's heyday.

  Eight years ago he had founded the town, completely abandoned by all businesses and permanent residents, and bought it, not dreaming that, four years later, he would come back to the ghost town and call it home. Almost everyone thought he was a squatter, a hippie, or whatever they called bums these days. It didn't matter to him what anyone thought of him…that is, not until today. Hell, it still doesn't matter, he told himself, and the front legs of the chair he had tilted back against the wall came crashing down with a bang.

  Dammit! What the hell is the matter with you, Evans? You acted like a love-sick kid today; you couldn't keep your eyes off the woman. The questions that had nagged at him all the way up the mountain continued to nag at him now. Why in the hell did it irritate me when she looked at me as if I was something that had just crawled out of the sewer? I even enjoyed breaking that punk's arm when I found him harassing her and the kid, and God knows, I hate violence. And why did I have the urge to smash someone when the kid started to cry because I said I wasn't coming back to see him? Dammit, Evans. Stay away from that woman and that kid or you're letting yourself in for some sleepless nights.

  He placed his folded arms on the table and rested his forehead on them. He sat that way for a long time thinking, and trying not to think. Being with the boy had brought forth a flood of memories that he had managed to keep at bay for a long while. There had been a time when he was sure he would lose his sanity; now, he was more able to cope with his feelings. And yet he was hearing, once again, the voice of his small, green-eyed, goldenhaired daughter: I love you, Daddy…. I want to stay with you…. You'll come get me? Promise me, Daddy—

  “If only I'd've done things differently,” he groaned aloud. “If only I'd fought harder, dirtier, instead of trying to be Mr. Nice Guy. Why in hell didn't I go against the damn courts and just take her? I'd be in prison now, but she'd be alive!”

  The Chicago traffic was heavy the morning his attorney had called for him to come to his office. He had filed a lawsuit against the FBI months ago, trying to force them to tell him where they had secreted his daughter, his exwife, and her new husband after the man had testified and caused the conviction of the head of a gigantic drug operation. He contended it was a violation of his visitation rights that he was no longer able to have Wendy with him every other weekend.

  He resisted every attempt of the FBI to force him to drop the litigation. Naively he thought the courts would give him custody of Wendy, at least for part of each year. But he had underestimated the power of the FBI. It had been almost a year since he filed the suit, and he had yet to have his day in court.

  On the way to George's office he firmly believed the case was coming to trial, that George had good news. The moment he stepped into the office he knew that he was wrong. George Fisher, his attorne
y and friend, stood with his back to the door gazing out the window. A bald, overweight man with a cigar between his fingers pushed himself up out of one of the chairs and held out his hand.

  “Mr. Evans, I'm Paul Blake of the FBI.”

  George turned from the window and came to stand before his desk. His face was gray and still.

  “What's happened, George?” A feeling of dread began to overtake him; he felt the queer tension that hovered over the room. His first thought was: Oh, my God! The judge has refused to hear the case.

  “Mr. Blake has something to tell you, Jack.” There was anger in George's trembling voice.

  The rotund man took a drag from his cigar, walked a few paces, and turned. “They found them. In spite of all we could do to ensure their safety, they found them.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack whispered hoarsely.

  “I'm sorry, Evans. They planted a bomb in the car.”

  “Wendy?” Her name came out in a spasm of agony.

  “All of them.” The words were spoken quietly and with a finality that rocked his very soul.

  A desolate silence followed while the enormity of the words sank into Jack's mind. Grief, then anger so black and great that it seemed to explode in his head, brought a roar of rage from his throat. He leapt to his feet and grabbed the fat man about the neck.

  “You bastard! You goddamned bastard! You protected a goddamn criminal and let him kill my little girl! I'll kill you…I'll kill you—”

  He came to much later on the floor. George was bending over him, holding a wet cloth to the large lump on the side of his head; he had been hit by the man's partner, who had burst into the room thinking that Jack was about to kill the man. Jack looked at George with dazed eyes, then rolled over, hid his face in his arms, and cried endless tears of despair.

  A week later, after he had buried his daughter, he locked his house, mailed the key to George, and drove out of the city.

  Even after four years there were still times when grief and frustration almost tore him apart. This was one of those times.

  “Goddamn the law! Goddamn the courts, the FBI, and the whole stinkin', rotten system!” He lifted his head, shouted into the emptiness, and banged his fist down hard on the table, scattering papers and pencils.

  Jack lowered his head miserably. His eyes flooded with tears as the memories came rushing back: silky blond hair in braids, sad green eyes, small arms about his neck, wet, sticky kisses on his face. After a while he turned out the light and felt his way in the dark to the bed, threw himself down on it, and prayed for the sleep that he knew wouldn't come.

  He lay staring into the black night, the room silent except for the groaning of the floorboards when he shifted his weight on the bed. Out of the blackness came a woman's face, a perfect oval with a small fine nose and full soft lips, honey-gold hair, clear, tawny-gold eyes filled with fear and uncertainty. He felt a deep hunger for the companionship and sweetness of a woman to share his life. The lonely years stretched ahead—

  “Get out of my mind,” he whispered, almost savagely. “I don't need anyone and I don't want anyone.”

  By nine A.M. the motel and campgrounds were empty except for Gloria, Peter, and Ethel. Gary left on a run that would take at least five days. Before he left he promised that on his return he would fix Gloria's car, and he attached the U-Haul to the pickup so she could take it to Lewistown and turn it in.

  Gary was a cheerful, easygoing man in his mid-thirties. There was almost a mother-son affection between himself and Ethel; he teased her, and she scolded him. He appeared to be genuinely glad Gloria and Peter had come to live with Ethel.

  “The old girl needs someone with her,” he confided to Gloria just before he climbed up into the cab of his big eighteen-wheeler. He handed her a card with the address and phone number of a freight center in Kansas City. “I'll be there most of the time. If you should need me, and I'm on the road, send word out on the CB; the truckers will pass it along.”

  Gloria felt a tingle of apprehension and looked over her shoulder to be sure they were alone before she spoke. “Do you think Aunt Ethel is…unwell?”

  “She's slowed down a lot the last few weeks.” He glanced over at where Ethel and Peter were putting a rope on the clothesline for the puppy. “She put on a good show last night for your benefit, but she's not up to running this place alone. I've tried to get her to see a doctor, but the old girl's got a mind of her own.”

  “Thank you for telling me. It confirms my suspicions. Do you know if she's had a checkup lately?”

  “Not that I know of. She used to take the pickup to town on Saturday. But lately she's been giving me a list to fill when I go to Great Falls to see my little girl. I don't think she trusts herself to drive the pickup anymore.” He climbed up into the cab and grinned at her. “I'm glad you're here. See ya on Friday.”

  Gloria went to stand beside Ethel and Peter, and waved to Gary as he pulled the big rig out onto the highway. The two long, powerful blasts of the horn delighted Peter, scared the puppy, and jarred Gloria's eardrums. She slipped the card he had given her into the pocket of her jeans and turned to look at her aunt. She was still looking at the truck, and she continued watching it until it went over the hill and out of sight.

  The morning passed quickly. By lunchtime the rooms had been cleaned and the soiled linen piled in the laundry room. Gloria had done the majority of the work, over the protest of her aunt.

  “I'll learn faster by doing than by watching, Aunt Ethel. Sit down and tell me what to do.”

  It wasn't until the middle of the afternoon, while Peter was napping and they were sitting at the kitchen table planning the evening meal, that Gloria had the opportunity to bring up the subject that had been on her mind all morning.

  “Is your doctor in Lewistown or Great Falls, Aunt Ethel? I brought along Peter's medical records, and I should get a doctor lined up for him. He'll need booster shots soon.”

  “I don't doctor much. But there's one in Lewistown, and it's closer. Is there something wrong with Peter?”

  “No. But in case there is, I want a doctor who is acquainted with his medical history.”

  “Pshaw! What good'll that do? One's as good as 'nother when you're sick. They mostly guess, anyway.” Ethel avoided Gloria's eyes and shuffled through a notebook of handwritten recipes.

  “Aunt Ethel.” Gloria uttered her aunt's name in a way that compelled the older woman to look at her. “When did you last see a doctor?”

  “About a year after me'n George came here,” Ethel answered staunchly. “We both went. George made me go.”

  “You haven't been back since?”

  “I haven't been sick. Doctors don't know everything, by a long shot! Sometimes I think all they're good for is to set broken bones and sew up holes. They said George was fit as a fiddle, and a few months later he was dead. What'll happen'll happen, and there ain't no sense in worryin' about it.”

  “Will you go with me when I go to take Peter's records? I want to be sure you're all right, Aunt Ethel. You're…very dear to me.”

  “We'll see. Anyway, we have to wait until Gary's here before we both can leave,” Ethel said with a perky smile, and Gloria knew her aunt's “we'll see” meant no, she wouldn't go.

  Ethel continued to chatter. “Now, what do you think about having Swiss steak for dinner? I'm looking for Harry and Neil tonight; they're truckers who make a run up to Kalispell every week. Bill Woler is due too; he's an auto supply salesman out of Bozeman. They'll call me on the CB when they get within calling distance, which in these mountains is about twenty miles out. And, you can't tell, we may have a tourist or two stop for the night. The weather is still nice. Although after school starts the bottom falls out of the tourist season.”

  Gloria knew her aunt was talking because the subject of going to the doctor had made her nervous. She said nothing more, deciding to wait until Gary was back to help in persuading her aunt to have the checkup.

  Several days went by, and the pi
ckup with the U-Haul attached still sat in the parking area. Gloria and Peter adjusted to life at the motel far more easily than she had imagined they would. She had no desire to go to town, and kept putting off the trip to return the trailer. In a couple of days the work pattern was established. Gloria insisted on doing all the cleaning, and Ethel filled the big washing machine and folded the clean laundry. Together they planned the evening meal and cooked it, Gloria maneuvering her aunt into the “sit-down” portion of the work. The time always passed very quickly.

  Gloria had set boundaries for Peter, and he played happily with the puppy or rode his Big Wheel up and down the walk in front of the motel. The first few evenings found her exhausted, but it was a tiredness she welcomed. At night they watched a few hours of television, and then went to bed as soon as the VACANCY light was turned off.

  Most of the people who stopped for the night had been guests of the motel before. The occasional new tourists who came by were usually those caught between towns late in the evening. Most of them were delighted with the home-cooked evening meal; it saved them from having to rely on snacks from the machines. Of course, there were exceptions.

  The first night Gloria had charge of the desk, an older couple in a new Cadillac drove in and wanted to inspect the room before they signed the register. She understood their concern and cheerfully led them to the room, waiting patiently while they lifted the covers to see the condition of the mattress. They rejected two of the towels because of some small rust spots, and wanted paper to cover the toilet seat although Gloria assured them it had been washed that morning with disinfectant. They haughtily refused the offer of the evening meal, and when they turned in their key the next morning they just as haughtily refused the offer of coffee and fresh rolls. Gloria was glad to see the last of them, and secretly hoped they would get a flat tire before they reached Great Falls.

  “Don't let 'em bother you,” Ethel said. “For every one like them there are dozens of really nice people.”

  Peter asked Gloria several times when Jack was coming back. Whenever he heard the sound of a motorcycle coming down the highway, which wasn't often, he ran out to watch it pass, then turned away with a disappointed look. Gloria had to admit to a quickening of her own pulse when she heard the sound, and was sure that what she felt was relief when the cycle kept going instead of turning in to the drive.