Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Something contrary was happening in me. Something that made me compare Hillary with Jon to Hillary’s disadvantage. If this was disloyalty, it was also a clearer viewing than I’d ever had before. And if this must come, better that it should happen now, before our commitment to each other had gone too far. For Hillary as well as for me.

  When we’d mounted, Jon came with us, leading the way. “Do you want to see what’s left of the mine?” he asked, looking back at me. “From the outside, that is?”

  “I’d like that,” I told him. I might never come here again, and I was eager to see everything I could.

  Gail and Hillary seemed uninterested, and rode on alone.

  A switchback trail brought Jon and me to the top, where pieces of rusting machinery were strewn about, along with a few tumbledown sheds. The rusted wheels and frame of the ore car I’d noticed earlier lay on its side among twisted cables, while an equally rusted track ran into the mountain. Bare mounds of tailings fell away below us.

  “Was there a smelter here?” I asked Jon.

  “No. Smelters were mostly down on the plains. The ore was taken out by mule team to Jasper, where the railroad picked it up. Down there on your left is what they used to call the Glory Hole, where there was a big strike. There was a cave-in later, where a dozen men were buried under tons of earth. What’s left of them is still down there.”

  I shivered as we rode on, and the narrowed way seemed even more precarious. That was what mining had always been—the threat of sudden, cruel death—yet there had always been men willing to be miners.

  “Is the entrance to the mine still open?” I asked.

  “I can show you where it is, but it’s not open. It was boarded shut long ago and a door put in that could be locked.”

  Sundance picked his way delicately along the hillside, and Baby Doe followed docilely. Both were mountain horses, used to uncertain footing.

  “There you are.” Jon reined in, pointing. “The opening is right over there.”

  Timbering formed a door into the mountain, holding back its weight with strong overhead beams, framing the stout door that had been locked with a hasp and big padlock.

  “Mostly old mines are nailed shut, or the openings filled in with concrete,” Jon said. “But Mrs. Morgan never quite gave up on the Old Desolate. When there’s silver in your blood, you don’t get over it easily. She wants to hold onto it and keep access, but still bar the foolish from going in.”

  “She can’t get many tourists back here.”

  “Mark Ingram means to change all that. Besides, there are old trails that lead into Domino, and sometimes backpackers find their way in even now. There’s nothing more dangerous than an old mine. Tunnels are full of broken slabbing and piles of rock where there have been cave-ins. There can be shafts that go down a hundred feet or more. Most likely with deep water at the bottom. Plenty of people have been drowned in mine shafts, when they weren’t killed by the fall. To say nothing of the gases that can collect inside, and the lack of oxygen. There are no snakes up this high, but there’s plenty else that’s not to be tampered with by the curious and ignorant.”

  “Are there many such mines left that people can get into?”

  “Sure. Hundreds of them are scattered through these mountains, and not all of them marked. Some are just dangerous holes in the ground, overgrown and hidden, so it’s impossible to locate them all. Kids and unwary backpackers fall into them and are sometimes killed.”

  There was nothing more to see here where my great-grandfather had found his fortune. The town itself meant more to me, and I turned Baby Doe’s head. Behind me, Jon spoke.

  “When you ran away on your pony that time and I found you, you kept wailing that you had to get to the mine. I’ve always wondered what drove you to all that urgency when you were so terrified.”

  Wind blew in my face, and now and then gusts howled down the gulch that held Domino far below us. I felt suddenly cold with an eerie remembrance. Terror had existed for me close to the mine, as well as back in my grandmother’s house. If I went near those boards of a door set into the mountain, would I feel another wind on my face surging through the cracks of the planking—a wind rising from the depths of the earth? A dark wind that would carry with it the odor of death?

  “Hey!” Jon said, and rode up beside me. “Don’t go getting dizzy while you’re in the saddle. This is rough ground for a fall, and you could tumble down the mountain.”

  His words braced me. “I’m all right.” I urged Baby Doe on along the hillside, forcing myself to sit steady in the saddle. Hillary and Gail were well ahead by now, and the moment of dizziness passed as we rode on. I was in control again. But why had I thought of death in the mountain?

  When the trail leveled, I reined in to look back—perhaps for the last time. Not at the mine, but down past it, past the tailing dumps, to the bare bones of Domino, impressing on my memory the appearance of the handful of straggling timbers that had once been a busy camp. In particular I looked for the house that had belonged to Sissy and Malcolm Tremayne, its gabled roof still raised in defiance of the years, resisting the laws of decay because it was still lovingly tended.

  Jon waited for me. “You’ll come back. That house down there should belong to you—not to anyone else. You can’t go away and never see Domino and the Old Desolate again.”

  “I thought you said I should live in the present. All that is the past.”

  “It’s the present for Persis Morgan—and for you, too.” His look seemed to soften as he watched me. “You’ll find a way to help her. Otherwise you can’t live with yourself.”

  “I can live with myself,” I said in quick irritation.

  He turned Sundance along the trail after the others, and I followed in silence.

  Ahead of us a horse blew and stamped, and Jon pulled in. As I rode up beside him, a rider on a big bay emerged from the stand of pines that had concealed him. In dismay I saw that he was Mark Ingram. Apparently the loss of a right leg did not keep him from riding. His smile was amiable, and I didn’t trust it at all.

  “Good morning, Miss Morgan, Jon,” he said. “You been down saying good-bye to the old place?”

  That was exactly what I had been doing, but I couldn’t accept the assumption from him. Ever since I’d come to Jasper, I’d felt about me an atmosphere of disapproval and rejection. Of more than rejection. That wreath had been a threat. And where else could threat originate except from this man?

  With sudden resolve I rode over to where he sat as though he, too, had grown in a saddle. I looked straight into cold eyes that didn’t match his easy smile, and knew I had to resist.

  “Why should I say good-bye?” I asked.

  His laughter was as easy as his smile. “Oh, come on now, little lady—you know Domino’s going out of Morgan hands. All of it. And soon. I’ve some pretty fine plans I want to work out down there, and I expect to start building before long.”

  I could feel an anger rising in me that was stronger than any I’d ever experienced. It was hard to keep my voice steady.

  “I don’t think you’ll build anything down there until you have access to the valley, Mr. Ingram.”

  “Getting that’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”

  “I hope a very long time. I didn’t go down there just now to say good-bye,” I told him, making the words up as I went along, driven only by an unfamiliar inner rage. “I went down to see what needs to be done to the property my grandmother still owns. She has some plans she wants to carry out.”

  Sundance stamped, and I was intensely aware of Jon sitting him a little way off, deliberately leaving all this to me.

  Mark Ingram’s eyes, almost a pewter color like his hair, blinked at my words. “We both know you’re bluffing, young lady. But we can talk more about this at dinner tonight. I’ll see you then.”

  He turned his bay onto the trail and rode down into Domino. I found I was shaking with reaction. I had done something I could never have conceived of ahead
of time, and now that it was over I felt thoroughly shocked.

  Jon came up beside me, grinning. “Good for you. I felt like cheering.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t. He was right—I was bluffing. I just got mad and had to speak up.”

  Jon reached out to touch my hand on the reins. “Maybe Mrs. Morgan’s found herself a fighter, after all.”

  “No!” I told him. “That’s not true. That man frightens me. Did you see the way he looked at me?”

  “Sure, I saw. From now on you aren’t going to be his favorite girl. I can tell that well enough, and you’re right to be afraid of him. That will make you cautious. But you can’t back down now. You’re in the fight.”

  I wanted to answer him heatedly, denying his words in order to save myself, but at that moment Hillary came galloping back along the trail, to rein in beside us dramatically, like a movie cowboy. Gail trotted more decorously along behind.

  “What’s kept you, Laurie?” Hillary demanded. “We thought you’d catch up. What was all that about with Ingram just now?”

  I explained what had happened, and Hillary looked pleased. “Fine! Don’t let that man walk all over you. Maybe we’ll give him his money’s worth at dinner tonight.”

  I had no answer for that, and when we started toward the ranch, I managed to drop behind them all again, weary of being praised for what I was not, and for what I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to do. Becoming angry with Mark Ingram for a few moments was one thing. Keeping such anger going was another, and I didn’t think I had that in me. I wasn’t like Persis Morgan. Now I wanted only to let it all go and be aware of nothing but the mountains around me. More than anything else I wanted peace.

  When we went over the shoulder of Old Desolate, I could see down through pines to the wide, beautiful valley that led to the ranch and Morgan House. An unaccountable mist touched my eyes at the sight of it. Perhaps I knew why. Not because of that old woman down there, who was really a stranger to me, but because something in me wept for the long-ago child who had ridden these trails and whom I had lost for all these years. It was not the terrible day when I’d fled to the mountain that stirred me now. It was not only a young boy’s arms holding and soothing me that I remembered. It was something else.

  A memory I had almost lost rode again beside me. The memory of a tall, fair man who was my father. I couldn’t see him or recall his face, but I could remember him—just a little. I could remember kindness and humor—the way he had laughed. I could remember his love for me, my adoration for him. These were feelings I must hold to, recover. I would ask Persis to give me a picture of him, so that I could take it home with me when I left. I would do that now.

  I touched my heels to Baby Doe’s flanks, wanting only to hurry through the flowering meadow and reach the house. Wanting to leave that angry encounter behind me so that it couldn’t force me into doing anything I didn’t want to do.

  IX

  At the ranch we left the horses in Jon’s care and walked back to the house, with Red once more loping along at my side. On the porch Caleb waited for the three of us, looking severe and remote. He had never wanted anything since I’d arrived except to have me gone, and I wished I could understand what lay behind so strong an antipathy.

  “Mrs. Morgan is awake, and she wishes to see you right away,” he told me. “She wants to see you and the dog and the man. Those are the words she used. So you’d better go up.”

  Hillary laughed. “I’ve been wanting to meet the fabulous lady who is opposing Mark Ingram.”

  When we started upstairs, Caleb stopped Gail curtly. “Not you. You’ve been away all morning, and she doesn’t need you now.”

  Gail lost none of her surface sweetness. “That’s all right with me. I’ll get back to work on those accounts I’ve been doing for Mrs. Morgan. Sometimes I think I’m more secretary than nurse around here. See you later at midday dinner. Around twelve-thirty?”

  Accounts? I wondered. Somehow I didn’t care for the idea of Gail Cullen delving so deeply into Persis Morgan’s affairs.

  At least I was relieved to know that the sedative had worn off. The emotion stirred by my visit to Domino was still upon me, and I could look at my grandmother with new eyes. But I must be careful now. My explosion toward Mark Ingram had made me a little distrustful of my own reactions. If I weren’t careful I might find myself promising what I couldn’t possibly fulfill. The brief urge to be helpful was fading.

  Nevertheless, I felt a sense of uneasy anticipation. No encounter with my grandmother was likely to be static. The seeds of conflict between us were there, and eventually they would grow. Even though she meant to hold back the truth from me, the dam would not stand forever. And when it broke …

  More than anything else I needed to control my own feelings, to resist and be strong.

  She awaited us propped high on her pillows, her eyes snapping brightly, and I noted that she did not look as though she were dying.

  Caleb introduced Hillary, and Red promptly placed his forepaws on the bed and gazed with limpid brown eyes into the face on the pillow. For the first time I saw my grandmother smile, and when her eyes and lips quirked up at the corners, her look was unexpectedly roguish.

  She put out her own hand, permitted it to be sniffed, and then stroked his plumy coat. He accepted the caress with joy and gave her his most melting look, accompanied by little whines of happiness.

  Persis snapped her fingers at him. “Over here,” she said. “Come around the bed and guard me on this side.”

  Clearly Red was already on the same wave length. He understood gesture and command, and scampered around the bed, ears flopping, to seat himself with his chin on the coverlet. One hand on his head, she looked up at me. In spite of my resolutions I found myself warming to the tenacity for life that looked out of her eyes. There was a sympathy in me since seeing Domino that had been lacking before. A subtle bond had grown between us.

  “Caleb tells me you went riding up the valley. I suppose you went over the mountain to Domino after all, even though I asked you to stay away?”

  “You knew I would go,” I said. “You sent Jon Maddocks there ahead of us. Anyway, I couldn’t not go.”

  Caleb brought chairs for us, but I didn’t want to sit down. She flicked her fingers at him in dismissal, and he gave me a look of warning before he went away. I knew it meant not to tire her, not to wear her out, but it meant something more as well that I couldn’t fathom.

  There seemed to be more energy in her now, and she didn’t look in the least tired. “I expect it was foolish of me to try to keep you away,” she said.

  “Why should you want to?”

  Heavy lids drooped and her face lost its briefly quirky look. “Never mind that. It’s all ancient history by this time.” Then she opened her eyes and stared straight at Hillary. “So this is your young man?”

  It seemed to me that Hillary looked a little less at ease than was usual for him. As though he might be more impressed with Persis Morgan than he had meant to be. Or perhaps he found her an uncertain quantity in his range of experience.

  “You might put it that she’s my young lady,” he said.

  She shook her head at him. “Unsuitable. You’re an actor. You belong to the East. Laurie belongs here.”

  He was ready enough to humor her, and not take offense. “You can’t really know that, can you?” he asked cheerfully. “Maybe I do belong out here. Maybe I can even be on your side, if you give me a chance.”

  She neither accepted nor rejected. “While you’re here you can be useful, at least. If you want to be.”

  He turned all his lovely charm upon her as he smiled. “Persis Morgan has always been able to command,” he said with a slight flourish.

  She regarded him from beneath half-closed eyelids, and though the look was faintly coquettish, it was not incongruous, and I found myself watching delightedly as she displayed an ability to play the old games.

  “Yes, you can be useful,” she went on. “I want you to
stay on at the Timberline and watch him for me.”

  “You’re talking about Mark Ingram?”

  “Of course.” A faint flush had come into her cheeks, and her eyes were brighter than ever. “I could put you up here at my house easily enough, but you’re more useful to me over there.”

  “I would enjoy being useful to you,” he said, sounding as though he really meant it. “I’ve always liked people who don’t beat around the bush.”

  “I haven’t time left for bush-beating. Ingram has to be stopped. What he’s doing is despicable. Laurie is going to stop him, and you can help. You’re both having dinner with him tonight, aren’t you? So listen to him. Find out about his immediate plans, if you can. How does he propose to get me out of this house? That’s what I want to know.”

  I thought of my recent encounter, and was all the more doubtful that we could learn anything Mark Ingram chose not to tell us.

  “Why do you consider it despicable to rejuvenate Jasper?” Hillary asked. “Isn’t it a good idea to restore it to the way it used to be and bring in people who will enjoy it and draw it back into life?”

  “He wants more than that. He wants to spoil the valley and wipe out Domino.”

  “To get people to come, he must offer something. The valley slopes will make good skiing.”

  “The trees will go, the wilds will go. Old Desolate won’t be that anymore. And Domino—he’ll erase what’s left of it. Too many old mining camps have vanished.”

  “It’s already nearly gone,” Hillary said.

  “Are you siding with him?”

  “No!” His vehemence surprised me. “I’ve told you I can be on your side, but I can play Devil’s Advocate either way. There’s something else, isn’t there, Mrs. Morgan? Something you haven’t explained? If you want us to help, don’t you think you’d better give us more of what we ought to know?”