Miner's Daughter

by Duncan, Alice

  Peering down at herself and beginning to test her limbs, Mari said, “I’m not sure I’m unscathed, but at least I’m alive.”

  George broke out of the circle, almost jumping at Mari, and grabbed her hands. “God, Mari, I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry. If it’s anything that I designed wrong, I . . .I . . .” Again, he ran out of words.

  Following George’s precedent, Martin also came up to the couple. Glumly, Tony decided his aura must not be all that powerful. If he had his way, the crowd would disperse, leaving the two of them all alone in Mojave Wells. Then he and Mari would discuss the matter, dress her wounds, if any, rest up, and come to some kind of conclusion about the cause of the accident. No such luck.

  “I can’t believe the wall didn’t crush you, Mari,” Martin told her. Tony could tell how shaken he was because he’d gone white as a sheet and his hands were trembling when he wiped his brow with his handkerchief. As soon as he’d stuffed it back into his pocket, he started pulling on a tuft of hair.

  Taking a clean handkerchief from Tony, who’d finally thought to hand her one, Mari pondered the near catastrophic accident. “I didn’t know what was going on at first. I heard someone holler at me—”

  “That was me,” Tony said gruffly, unaccountably miffed that she didn’t already know.

  She shot him a small smile. “Oh, yes, I remember now I remember it was your voice, and I wondered what I’d done wrong this time.”

  How embarrassing. Did she really think of him as some kind of mean-tempered disciplinarian? Tony guessed he’d better work on that aspect of their relationship.

  What relationship? Good God, he was so confused at the moment, he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.

  “When you yelled again—I don’t remember what you said—I realized the set was collapsing and dived under the table.”

  “The table,” Tony whispered. “Of course.”

  “The table,” said Martin, sounding relieved.

  “The table,” George muttered. “Thank God we used that old metal thing. If we’d used a wooden one, chances are it would have been crushed under the weight of the wall, and you with it.

  Mari shuddered, and Tony decided he didn’t give a rap if people started talking. He put an arm around her. In order to give the impression of a brother rather than a lover, he said, “Here, Mari, let me help you back to the inn. You ought to wash up and see if you need medical care.”

  “Right.” Martin snapped to attention. “I’ll call that doctor who came when Gilman was taken sick.”

  Gilman? Oh, yeah, the first director. Tony frowned. Something was definitely wrong with this production. “Thanks, Martin. I’ll get her inside.”

  “If it’s all right with you,” George said, speaking to Martin and Tony, “I’ll take a look and try to see what happened to that set. It shouldn’t have collapsed like that.”

  “Good idea,” Martin said.

  A suspicion touched Tony, and he asked Martin, “Say, are those insurance fellows still here?”

  Martin and Tony shared a glance, and Tony saw that Martin understood his unasked question. To George, he added, “You might want to get the sheriff to look at it with you.”

  George, too, caught on. “My God, you don’t think it was sabotage, do you?”

  Mari gasped. As well she might, thought Tony grimly. She might have been killed. “I don’t know,” Tony said. “But I really want to. If the insurance fellows have gone, at least make sure the sheriff inspects the wall thoroughly. If it is sabotage, whoever did it almost committed murder today.”

  This time the entire crowd, which included everyone who lived in Mojave Wells, unless Tony was completely deluded, gasped. George looked stricken.

  “Right,” he said. “Sure. I’ll get the sheriff first. He might want to post men at the scene of the accident so nothing is disturbed.”

  “Good.” Although Tony wasn’t ready to give George a pardon yet, he did give him a smile. “That’s a good thought, George.” In his heart of hearts, Tony didn’t think George was at fault here. But the lad was young, and he might have been careless. Tony wasn’t sure if he’d rather they find the accident had been caused by George’s mistake or by a saboteur. If it was George, they could probably consider the episode ended, and it was a certainty that George would never make the same mistake again.

  If it turned out to be vandals or saboteurs, the good Lord alone knew when or where they’d strike next.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Too shaken by her recent brush with injury or death to protest, Mari allowed herself to be led upstairs by Tony to his room. There were too many people around for such a maneuver to be improper anyway. Darn it.

  Mari shook herself, knowing that if she allowed her present state of agitation to dictate her actions, she’d be in Tony’s bed in no time at all. That would be a worse calamity than having a wall fall on her, albeit not as unpleasant.

  “Really,” she said, “I’m all right. I don’t need to lie down.”

  Tony, with help from Judy Nelson, had led her into the hotel, where she’d had brandy forced upon her and been made to sit still while Judy and Mrs. Nelson palpated every exposed surface on her body as Tony watched, eagle-eyed. It had been very embarrassing.

  “Don’t be silly” Mrs. Nelson had snapped when she’d said as much. “You might have been killed out there, Mari Pottersby, and I don’t take it kindly when people are injured on my property.”

  “I’m not injured,” Mari had muttered to no avail.

  It didn’t seem fair to her that she, the one upon whom the wall had almost fallen, should be ignored while everyone else ordered her about. If her wits hadn’t been so rattled, she’d not have permitted it. Her wits were rattled, though, and she couldn’t drum up a coherent protest to save her life.

  At least Tiny wasn’t bullying her. He’d trotted along with her wherever people led her, sat next to her wherever she sat, and laid his huge head on her lap whenever possible. She’d petted him at every opportunity and would have told him how much she appreciated his unequivocal and undemanding, love except that she didn’t want to hurt anybody else’s feelings.

  “I wish this place had an elevator,” Tony grumbled as they walked, with excruciating deliberation, up the staircase.

  “Your room’s only on the second floor, for Pete’s sake.” Mari hadn’t meant to sound peeved, but she was getting sick of people treating her like an invalid. The blasted wall had fallen at least an hour ago, and thanks to George’s metal table, she was totally unscathed. Almost totally. She admitted to a few bumps, bruises, and scrapes, but they were nothing. She was fine now. “If you’d only let go of me, I could get there in a couple of seconds.”

  Not that she wanted him to let go, but the circumstances aggravated her. She’d be happy to have him hold her if he were, say, wildly in love with her or something, not because she’d had an accident.

  As if. Mari told herself to stop dreaming immediately, because, she reminded herself as she’d been doing forever, daydreams only led to disappointment, as she already knew too well.

  “Quit complaining,” Tony grumped. “You’ve endured a bad accident, and it’s time you left off moaning and groaning just because we want to make sure you’re not seriously injured.”

  “If I were seriously injured,” Mari ground out between her teeth, “I’d hurt somewhere.”

  “Not necessarily.” Tony sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. “You might have . . . internal injuries. Or something.”

  “Right.” The truth of the matter was that Mari was exhausted. There was something about stark terror, even if it only lasted five minutes or so, that wore a body out. What she really wanted was to take a bath and get all the makeup and dust off her, wrap herself in something clean, loose, and comfortable, and sit on Tony’s lap while he petted her. After a few hours—or years—of that, she might feel good enough to finish the picture. Maybe not.

  She didn’t tell Tony any of that.

>   “Here we are,” Tony said, fumbling for his key. “As soon as the doctor arrives, we’ll know better what’s going on.”

  “Fiddle.” This was insane.

  Insane or not, Mari couldn’t help but have an unsettled feeling about the wall incident, and it wasn’t only because it had nearly flattened her. All these episodes weren’t natural. Oh, sure, accidents happened. But not so many, so often, and every one having to do with one subject. It seemed to her that a malign force was at work here. Somebody had it in for the Peerless Studio, or at least for this production of Lucky Strike.

  But she was too tired and wobbly to think about evil beings at the moment. Meekly, she allowed Tony to help her into his room, and she didn’t even balk when he told her to sit on the bed.

  “I’ll take off your shoes and stockings,” he told her, clearly making his voice tough to forestall any argument from her.

  She was too bushed to argue. When he knelt in front of her and reached for her foot, she lifted it obligingly. He set it on his bent knee and unlaced her shoe, and Mari’s eyes filled with tears. She brushed them away, angry with herself for succumbing yet again to a fit of emotion.

  What in the world was wrong with her? She’d lived a tough life; she ought to be tough, too. But she wasn’t, and when she saw Tony there in front of her, in a pose now considered a classical one for proposals of a romantic nature, she gave up pretending.

  It was all too much for her. The tears continued to fall, and she kept wiping them away, all the time hoping Tony wouldn’t look up and notice. Blast it, this wasn’t fair.

  “Other foot.” He didn’t glance at her face, thank heaven, and Mari lifted her other foot.

  He unlaced the shoe on that one, too. Mari saw him lick his lips.

  “All right. Now for the stockings.”

  It was too much. Tears be damned. Mari snapped, “I’ll do them.” She wasn’t going to allow any man, and particularly not this one, to whom she felt an almost violent physical attraction, roll her stockings down. She might be poor, and she might have no knowledge of how society snobs acted, but she knew proper behavior from improper. “Turn around.”

  “For God’s sake.” He was peeved now.

  Too bad. “Darn it, Tony, turn around.”

  He did. Mari lifted her skirt, untied her garter, and rolled down first one stocking and then the other. Her legs, she noticed, sported a variety of colorful bruises. Swell. Just what she needed. It wasn’t bad enough that she had to slave away in a worthless mine eleven months out of the year. Now, during the one month when she might expect at least some respite from her toils, she got battered by the scenery.

  “All right,” she growled when she was through. “Now what?” She plumped herself back on the bed and scowled. She expected she now bore muddy tracks down her face from tears slogging through dust and makeup, and she didn’t even care. Much.

  Tony turned around—at least when he’d complied with her command, he’d not cheated and peeked—and scowled down at her. She saw his frown vanish and an expression of concern replace it. “Why are you crying? Where do you hurt?”

  She lifted her chin and glowered up at him. “I don’t hurt anywhere.” Except her feelings. They hurt like fire. “I’m just tired of everything.”

  Comprehensive. But comparatively true. At the moment, Mari longed for peace. Tranquility. Respite. All of those delicious things she, being who she was, couldn’t expect from life. Ever.

  Tony surprised her by sitting next to her on the bed and encircling her shoulders with a strong arm. “Here, Mari, I know you’ve been through it today. If you need to cry, go ahead. It’s all right. Hell, women cry all the time.”

  Oh, they did, did they? Mari Pottersby didn’t. Mari was tough. She was rugged. She was strong and independent and steadfast. She was . . .

  Who was she trying to kid? She was a puddle of slush inside. Balling her hands into fists, she concentrated on not crying. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Never again.

  “Oh!” she blurted out, suddenly forgetting all about tears. “Where’s Tiny?”

  “Tiny?”

  “Tiny. He was with us downstairs. Did he stay there? Why didn’t he come up with us?” He’d been dogging, so to speak, her footsteps ever since she’d crawled out from underneath that blasted wall.

  A scratch came at the door, accompanied by a rumbling whine. Mari, her relief so sudden and intense she became lightheaded, whispered, “Thank God.”

  Tony didn’t. Rather, he rose from the bed in what looked like a huff and stomped to the door. When he opened it, Tiny bounded in and made a flying leap at Mari and the bed, sending her over backward.

  “Damn it! Why don’t you train that beast?”

  Although she couldn’t see him, since she was being joyously greeted by her monumental dog, Mari knew Tony was furious.

  “Don’t blame him,” she said. “He’s only glad to be with us again. I think you probably shut the door on him.”

  “I’m not blaming him. I’m blaming you. Anybody with a dog that big owes it to the rest of humanity to train it.”

  It was a struggle, but Mari managed to get herself upright again. Tiny lay on Tony’s bed, grinning up at Tony, and whipping his tail back and forth so hard he dislodged the pillows.

  Feeling much better now that her dog had returned to her side, or her back, Mari said, “Nuts. You’re just jealous because you don’t have a nice dog like Tiny.” She didn’t resent it when Tony grimaced with disgust, because she’d expected him to do something of the sort.

  Before hostilities could build into something explosive, Martin arrived with the doctor, a kindly old soul named Crabtree who’d been treating the ills of Mojave Wells’s citizens for as long as most of them could remember.

  Mari lifted a scraped hand in salute. “H’lo, Doc.”

  Dr. Crabtree shook his head. “You look like hell, Mari Pottersby. You already knew that, I suppose.”

  She grinned, feeling better already. “Yup. I had a peek in the mirror.”

  “To conduct a proper examination, I think it would behoove us if you’d get that makeup off your face and wash up a bit.” As he set his black bag down on the night table, he eyed her closely. “Unless you think you have injuries that ought to be attended to immediately.”

  Mari shook her head and rose from the bed. “No. I think I’m fine, actually. But I know the studio wants to make sure their goods haven’t been damaged, so I’ll retire to the bathroom for a few minutes.” She thought of something. “Um, what shall I wear, Doc? This dress?” She glanced down at the frock she wore. Because of the poverty of the character she played in the picture, the dress had been shabby to begin with, but it hadn’t started out this dirty.

  “No. You ought to have a robe of some kind.”

  “You can use one of mine, Mari.”

  Mari was glad she hadn’t washed up yet, because when Tony spoke, she blushed, but she figured the makeup and dirt would disguise her ruby cheeks. In an attempt to pretend she wasn’t embarrassed, she merely smiled and said, “Thank you,” when he handed her a silk dressing gown that probably cost more than Mari had spent on provender during her entire nineteen years.

  The bathroom was something. Mari had never bathed in anything but a wooden tub. This porcelain thing was a work of art. She filled it, wishing all the while she didn’t have to hurry. The water, warm from the tap, felt like heaven when she dipped her toe in it. When she submerged her body, she wished she could stay there forever.

  Such could not be, however. Grabbing the sweet-smelling soap lying in the dish and lathering her arms, Mari thought it was a good thing she’d committed to doing this one picture only, or she might become addicted to luxuries. And that, given her role in life, would never do.

  Her role in life. She scowled as she scrubbed makeup and dirt from her face. What was her role in life, anyhow? Was she doomed to struggle fruitlessly in that stupid mine for the rest of it? It sounded a dismal future to her. Yet she’d promised her father
as he lay dying that she’d keep his dream alive.

  “Pa’s dead,” she reminded herself as she splashed clean water on her face to remove the suds. “And he’ll never know.”

  But she’d know. If she turned her back on the Marigold Mine, Mari feared the guilt would haunt her forever, and she’d end up hating herself. She had enough to contend with, what with poverty, lack of family support, and unrequited love—damn Tony Ewing, anyhow—without adding self-loathing to the mix.

  It was all too much for her. She told herself to stop thinking and wash and almost succeeded in obeying herself. Probably her state of exhaustion helped. As she lathered her hair, which was dulled with dust, she allowed herself to suspend worry and merely feel for a few minutes.

  Tub baths were really quite delightful. She could hardly imagine the fabulous wealth that allowed people like, say, Tony Ewing, to take tub baths whenever they felt so inclined. Mari thought if she were ever to have access to a bathtub and hot and cold running water, she’d spend the rest of her life soaking in it.

  This wasn’t the day for that, however. As quickly as possible, she finished washing the makeup and filth away, then rose, dripping, from the water and looked around for a towel. Ah, there was one. She reached for it, noticed the initials A W embroidered in fancy script on it. “Anthony Ewing,” she whispered, and buried her face in the pillowy softness of Tony’s towel.

  She was drying her body with Tony Ewing’s own personal towel. She felt both decadent and fortunate in so doing, and she allowed a couple of fantasies to keep her company as she toweled herself dry. Then she brushed her hair with Tony Ewing’s very own hairbrush, and her fantasies multiplied.

  What, she wondered, would it be like to have enough money? To carry the question further, what would it be like to have lots of money?

  Mari’s imagination, always pretty good, stumbled as she tried to conceive of such a scenario. Her life had been so restricted that, for her, luxury would be indoor plumbing. Running water of any kind would be nice. Hot water was so outrageously off the scale of what the Mari Pottersbys of the world could expect that she couldn’t manage to expand her fantasy that far.