by Ashna Graves
***
It was late afternoon when Jeneva came down from the ridge, exhilarated by hard walking and wide-open spaces. As she approached the creek upstream from her cooler, she heard a low moo and found herself face to face with a black and white calf. Darla Steadman, it appeared, had failed to round up her wandering stock.
The calf fled in panic, tearing through the shallow water as though it had met a cougar. Two cows and another calf blundered after it.
“Dumb shits,” a voice said close by, and there was Skipper Dooley sitting on a rock with one boot off and his foot in the creek. “I never did like cows. Any animal that eats and shits at the same time ought to be shot.” He raised his pale, dripping foot and stared dolefully at it. “I stepped on a nail. Probably have lockjaw by morning. Hand me that towel there.”
He had gone over the top of Billie Mountain to Rattlesnake Gorge to look at some old Chinese mining cabins, he said as they returned to the camper, Skipper limping with the help of a stick and Neva carrying the towel. He had heard about the Chinese cabins from a logger when he stopped at the Angus Café on his way to Billie Creek the first day.
“He said the place was in pretty good shape when he was over there cruising timber a few weeks ago. I found it all right, but somebody must have got there ahead of me. It was torn up pretty bad, boards scattered everywhere. They took anything that was worth carrying away. All they left me was the nails.” Skipper hopped one-legged onto the metal step to the camper door and paused with his hand on the latch. “You better have a drink. My ice maker quit on me but I’ve got club soda and plain old water.”
A drink with Skipper Dooley in his camper? Neva glanced around at the late afternoon light slanting through the pines. It was much nicer out here than it was likely to be in a camper, but she could think of no good reason to say no, and when she stepped in she was pleasantly surprised. The camper was as fresh and tidy as though it had just come off the sales lot, the white counters and tabletop bare except for a pile of books on the table. If she’d speculated at all about whether Skipper Dooley was a reader she would have guessed his taste ran to Westerns and crime novels, but the two titles she could make out at a glance were Cod: The Biography of a Fish That Changed the World, and Pancho Villa, the Man and the Myth.
Skipper turned away to retrieve a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet over the little refrigerator. Observing him with new interest, Neva slid onto a bench seat upholstered in dark green corduroy. Skipper set two glasses and a pitcher of water on the table, settled across from her with his leg up, then poured a shot for himself and Scotch and water for her.
“You’re a serious reader,” she said.
“I never was serious about anything in my life. Except drinking.” He raised his glass in a salute. “You’ll have to drink fast. I got a head start on you. Whiskey’s the best painkiller there is, and I don’t mean to say I poured it on my foot. Have you read this book about codfish? No? Well, it’s damned good, not a boring word in it. As it happens, I have a little story of my own to tell, a sort of mystery you might say.”
Because of his hurt foot, he said, he had ridden the quad with extra care coming back over the ridge. As usual, he stopped to enjoy the view before starting down. “I saw something big moving around down there on the slope so I pulled out the glasses. It was that rancher woman, that Darla Steadman, the one that owns half the Dry River Valley. She was riding along real slow and careful, looking at the ground, and all of a sudden she swung off her horse, walked a few feet, and disappeared. Just like that, she was gone. I waited about half an hour, never taking my eyes off where she was last, but my eyes got tired and I rubbed them. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, but wouldn’t you know it, when I looked up there she was on her horse again. Well, I was pretty curious as you can figure, and I came down off the mountain a sight faster than I’d planned, hurt foot or no hurt foot. But when I got down there I couldn’t find the place. I thought I had it marked exactly in my mind, I’d looked at everything so close, but down on the slope nothing looked the same. And with my foot swelling up I couldn’t scramble around good. It’s steeper than a cow’s face in there.”
Skipper reached for the bottle and poured himself another shot without a break in his talk. “Know what I think? I think there’s a mine tunnel up there and she went in it. They say these hills are riddled with them from back in the days when they had the Chinese to do the digging. Some are hundreds of feet long. I came across one over at Mormon Valley once, but it stunk of packrat so bad I couldn’t get far into it.”
“I know what you mean. They got into a shed by the cabin and it’s no good for anything now except burning down. Actually, I think Darla was looking for cows. I met her up on the road this morning.”
“Well, I didn’t see that she had any cows, and I never heard of a cow yet that would go in a tunnel, not with the stink of coyotes or bear or what have you in there along with the packrat. Not that I know much about cows, but I can tell you one thing. I wouldn’t be a rancher for a truckload of the hottest artifacts going, not these days. You can hardly give away a cow, from what I hear. I’d be a miner before I’d be a rancher, and that’s saying a lot.”
“She warned me about mining tunnels, that they can be more dangerous than they look.”
“Did she now? That’s very interesting considering she went into one herself.”
“Do you know her?” Neva watched him curiously, remembering their first meeting when he claimed never to have seen a woman in the canyon before.
Skipper shook his head. “I’ve never run across her before, but her picture used to be on the wall down there at the Angus Café, some news clipping from way back, can’t remember just what. Have you run into Gene Holland yet? He’s got the Sufferin’ Smith Mine down at the bottom of the creek. Now there’s a smart man. He can tell you anything you ever want to know about this country, or mining, or just about anything that comes up. You should get along. He’s college educated, not a dumb brick longshoreman like me.”
Neva raised an eyebrow. People who call themselves dumb generally are a long way from it. The truly dumb of this world are too dumb to know it, mercifully. Her first impressions of Skipper were undergoing rapid revision and not just because of the books. Sure he was tough, but he was also shrewd, observant, and funny. “Where is the Sufferin’ Smith Mine? All I saw driving in was a pair of plywood shacks on the road. There was no sign of actual mining, no pit or equipment.”
“The mine’s up on top of the ridge. That’s just his cabin you see there, and his laboratory. I don’t know what he does in there, only that it’s complicated. Gene Holland never did anything the easy way if he could help it.” He eyed her glass, which was empty. “And now that you washed the trail dust down, you can have a real drink.”
Neva let him pour an inch of whiskey, then covered the glass with her hand. “I should have had some water first, after the walk. I might fall down a mine shaft trying to get back to the cabin.”
“Some people think that’s what happened to your uncle, but I never did buy it. He knew this country too well. I wasn’t around here at the time, but Orson told me about it after. He said he went into Elkhorn to sell their week’s gold, and ended up staying the night. He came back to the mine next day and your uncle was gone, no sign of him anywhere. He hadn’t taken anything but his hunting rifle.”
Skipper was quiet for a moment, his expression somber. “If you’ll excuse me saying so, for a time I felt kind of funny wandering around here. To tell you the truth, I kept expecting to find his remains, not that much would be left after the coyotes and buzzards got through. That’s a funny thing about these old mines, too. Some you walk around and they feel fine, and others give you the creeps, you don’t know why. I’ve had to pack up and move on a time or two when I just couldn’t stand to be in a place. Call it bad vibes or whatever. I’ve never been bothered around here except for that stretch after your uncle disappeared, and it didn’t last or I wouldn’t be her
e today.”
“Why was Orson so sure my uncle had given up the mine and gone away? That’s what he told my mother.”
“Well, would you tell anybody that their only brother most likely fell down a mine shaft or was supper for a cougar?”
“You knew my uncle pretty well, then?”
“Just to say howdy. I’d only been out here a time or two before he was gone.”
“How did you know he was my mother’s only brother?”
Skipper had raised his glass to his lips but paused and looked at her over the rim without sipping. “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”
“Was that a trick?”
“Whoa, lady, let’s not get too serious here. Orson talked to me a lot right after Burtie died, or disappeared, or whatever. I guess he was kind of lonely after having a partner all those years. Like being married, come to think of it. No wonder the old boy couldn’t hack it and went as crazy as a wind-up duck.”
“Crazy? I thought he had a stroke.”
“Oh? Well, that must be it, then, I don’t really know. Cheers.” He drained the glass, set it precisely before him, and said, “Now let’s have a little whiskey truth. What’s your real excuse for being at Billie Creek Mine?”
“Two reasons,” she said, this time without hesitation. “Number one, I’m trying to decide whether to bury my mother’s ashes at the mine as a sort of reconciliation with her brother. They didn’t talk for years before he disappeared, I don’t know why, but she was very sad about it when she died. Number two, I’m trying to get my health back again after an operation. As you may have noticed, I had a little visit not too long ago from Acme Breast Removal. Both sides. See? Flat.” Neva swiped her open hand down the front of her shirt. “I tried a breast cancer support group, but I’m just not the groupy type. My idea of therapy is to run around the hills until I get my body back. I think it’s beginning to work.”
“Well, Jesus. That leaves an old coot kind of speechless. You sure you couldn’t eat a stuffed pepper? I’ve got two ready to go in the oven.”
***
It was full dark when Neva walked back to the cabin. Stumbling a bit, feeling the whiskey, she laughed up at the stars. Skipper had said he would be around for a few days yet, but she no longer minded. In fact, she rather liked the idea of having such a colorful neighbor as long as he didn’t stay too long.
The screen door to the kitchen stuck but scraped open with the usual shove. She stepped into darkness that was slightly warmer than outdoors, the afternoon heat still lingering full of comfortable smells, the breakfast fire, split pine, the bouquet of grasses in a tall green bottle. She hesitated inside the door. There was something else in the air, a smell she didn’t know.
The kitchen, dimly illuminated by moonlight, looked as she had left it. She crossed to the door of the big room where her two oil lamps sat on a table with a box of matches. The smell was stronger in this room. Perfumey like hand lotion or aftershave, it made her pause in the doorway to scan the shadows, but she saw nothing unexpected.
Edging sideways to the table, she felt for the matches, lit the nearest lamp, and looked around the room. Everything was as it should be, her books and papers stacked on the little desk, the clothes folded in a basket, her straw hat hanging by the door to the porch. Her gaze settled on the small box containing her mother’s ashes, which sat on the sewing machine table by the bed. Hadn’t she left it in the middle of the table? It was positioned now to the left of center and not quite square with the rectangular surface. She must have moved it, maybe when she reached for her cup of water during the night.
Neva bent forward to smell the brown paper in which the box of ashes was wrapped, the same paper provided by the funeral home. Unnerved that such a small box could weigh so much—shouldn’t ashes be as light as snowflakes?—she had not known what to do with it, and had put it in the hall cupboard while she considered a permanent spot. For two years the box had sat among candles, lamp oil, household polishing agents, and bath supplies received as presents and never used. Now the brown paper gave off a faint floral smell. It must have absorbed the various fragrances concentrated in the cupboard, and in the hot cabin the scents were vaporizing, although the smell of the paper did not seem quite the same as the scent that lingered in the air.
Gently moving the box so that it again was square with the top of the sewing machine, Neva addressed it in a tone of wistful affection “Looks like you’ve been wandering a bit, Mom. I should take you on a tour of the mine.”
Sudden sorrow swept through her again. Why had she and her mother never come here together? She could so easily picture Frances sitting on the porch as evening settled over the canyon, not lighting a lamp until full dark. Even in town her mother would often sit late in a room with no lights on, savoring the transition from day to night. To anyone who came in she would say gaily, “Draw up a rafter and join the bats.”
That Jeneva still had the ashes was a matter of failure rather than sentiment. Raised without religion, lacking brothers or sisters to help with the decision, she had found herself unable to dispose of the ashes in a way that was loving but without ritual. Her mother would not have wanted anything other than practical disposal. When Neva’s father died, Frances had done just as her husband requested—she had added him to the garden compost while singing the sassy theme song from a public television recycling ad: “…and when I die, yes when I die, please recycle these old bones of mine.”
Although Neva had understood her parents’ rejection of the funeral business, she could not be so playful with her mother’s remains.
“Is the mine the right place to leave you?” she murmured, resting her hand on the warm box. “I just don’t know yet, I really don’t know.”
Chapter Six
Bernice Pangle leaned big arms on the counter of the Angus post office window and looked Neva up and down.
“General delivery?” she said, as though it were a new concept.
“For Jeneva Leopold. I’m spending the summer out at Billie Creek Mine.”
“So I heard.” Bernice glanced around her cubicle, lifted papers, sighed, and slowly scratched a spot on her left side by reaching her right arm around her considerable bulk. “A package, you said?”
“No, just letters.” Reveling in solitude, Neva had not visited the post office during her first two weeks, and now she was so eager for news from Ethan that she watched the postmistress’ hands, willing them to find what must be there. “Mainly I’m hoping to hear from my son.”
“You have children?”
“A boy, more or less grown up. Do you have kids?”
“Does a pig have pork?” Bernice’s chuckle sent waves of movement through the flesh under her flowered dress. “There were seven at last count, of my own that is.” Again the full-body laugh. “Three boys, and four girls. Six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and a great-great on the way. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Nobody ever believes it. But God’s been good to me, I’ve had a good life, and that keeps you young.” As she talked her hands had located two envelopes, which she held loosely.
Raising her eyes in an effort not to stare greedily at the letters, Neva said, “How many still live with you?”
“More than enough. So you’re all alone up there?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t feel lonely. I like the quiet.”
“I know what you mean.” Bernice leaned closer and dropped her voice. “Me, I lock myself in the toilet when it gets too much. I have a tape deck in there and I just turn it up so I can’t hear ’em pounding on the door.” She handed Neva the letters with an air of having concluded a successful transaction.
“You grew up in Angus?”
“Bet your boots I did, and never wanted to be anywhere else.”
“Then you must have known my uncle, Matthew Burt.”
Bernice Pangle’s mouth dropped open cartoon fashion, then snapped shut. She looked hard at Neva for the first time. “Burtie never mentioned any family.”
“H
e was my mother’s brother.”
“I never saw any letters from any sister.”
“They weren’t on very good terms toward the end, I don’t know why. You ran the post office that long ago?”
“Missy, I been at this window a sight more years than I care to count. Just don’t expect me to tell tales. I work for the government, don’t forget.” The postmistress stood with crossed arms and stern face.
Neva smiled, thanked her and went out. To walk away from someone who had known her uncle for years, even in the routine role of letter sorter, did not come naturally, but Bernice Pangle clearly treasured her role and her knowledge of the territory. Best to let her get used to the idea that Matthew Burt had a family before angling for information. She was clearly a talker, and given time, was likely to volunteer whatever tidbits she had stashed away.
Standing on the little post office porch Neva could see all of Angus, including the café, the boarded-up school, and half a dozen wood frame houses. Driving eight miles along the narrow Dry River Highway from the bottom of Billie Creek Road she had steered around two rattlesnakes, counted nine ground squirrels standing next to their roadside burrows, stopped to watch sandhill cranes in an irrigated field, but she had not met a single car.
Only two pickups were parked in front of the café. This was promising. The café would be as empty as she was ever likely to find it, and if she went in for a cold drink she would not have to face a roomful of strangers who all knew each other. Squinting against the glare, she crossed the parking lot, hesitated at the prospect of two doors, then chose the one marked “Bar.” On it was a sign: No One Under 21 Allowed Inside These Premises. This wouldn’t have struck her except that the first person she saw on stepping inside was a small boy sitting at the near end of the counter drinking from a tall glass. A man at the other end of the bar was watching TV while the squat proprietor thumbed through a magazine.