The Steel Mirror

by Donald Hamilton

  The bus pulled away, leaving them standing beside Emmett’s piled luggage. Pete Mack spat out the dust it had kicked into his face and grabbed the bags; Emmett followed him with camera and fishing-rod case, feeling awkward and a little lost. He could feel the mountains all around him in the darkness, and his lungs were aware of the altitude.

  “Still digging up that creek, I see,” he said in a conscious attempt to establish himself as an old-timer, as the station wagon bounced across the wooden bridge.

  Pete Mack spat through the window beside him. “Young fellow just started it up again. Veteran. Expected to make a fortune by Christmas.” After a moment he added, “Last Christmas.”

  Emmett glanced back at the great futile mounds of bluish clay illuminated by the lights of the shovel in the ravaged stream-bed bordered by cottonwoods. It seemed to him they were so obviously symbolical as to be merely silly. Then it occurred to him that he had no very strong position from which to criticize the other man; his own reasons for coming up here were not exactly brilliant. He held onto the door handle as the station wagon, in low, started up a dirt track that went up the mountainside at an angle that seemed to approach close to forty-five degrees.

  “Is Johnny Parsons still around?” he asked. “Tall, redheaded guy… He taught my brother Dave how to use a rope.”

  “Johnny lost a leg in the war,” the man behind the wheel said. “He’s got a job in a garage in Colorado Springs.”

  “Dave got killed,” Emmett said. “In North Africa.”

  “That’s tough,” Pete Mack said.

  Mrs. Pruitt was on the porch when they arrived; a bulky woman in a clean print dress with a wide brimmed Stetson squashed down over her short gray hair.

  “Leave his duffle in the car, Pete,” she said “… come on in here, young feller,” she said to Emmett.

  Emmett was aware that the compact figure of the driver followed them onto the porch. Glancing back he saw the man waiting idly against a porch pillar, lighting a cigarette. He followed the woman into the house. It was getting close to midnight and all the guests had, apparently, retired to their cabins; the large rustic living room was empty, illuminated by the glow of the fireplace and by one small table lamp with a figured paper shade. Mrs. Pruitt turned on the ceiling fixture and threw her hat on the piano. She walked to the fireplace and studied the well-preserved snarling bear’s head above the mantel. Presently she reached up and patted the long-dead animal on the nose, turning to face Emmett.

  “How are the other boys?” she asked.

  “Dead,” he said.

  She glanced at him sharply, but her voice was easy when she spoke. “Well, that’s the way it goes, I reckon. In the war, eh?” Her voice did not require an answer. She walked to the sideboard and brought out a bottle of whisky and two shot glasses which she filled carefully, to the brim; then after corking the bottle with a sharp blow from the heel of her hand, she gave Emmett one of the small glasses and took up the other. “They were good boys,” she said. “When you wrote me, I remembered the three of you kids and that pile of junk you called a car. Gave you a cabin for old times’ sake, Mister Emmett. There were six on the list ahead of you. That’s the kind of business we’re doing these days.” She held up her glass, looked through it at the light, and emptied it in a single swallow. Emmett managed to imitate her without choking. The woman’s pale blue eyes regarded him narrowly. “You’re a hell of a bridegroom, Sonny.”

  Emmett did not say anything.

  Mrs. Pruitt said, “When she came driving in here all breathless in her nice new suit with a brand new suitcase and a shiny wedding ring I didn’t need for anybody to draw me a picture. I was glad to help out; I believe in young folks getting married. She was of an age to know her own mind. I didn’t see where her old man had any business messing with it; that’s why I lied to him… But leaving a nice young lady like that waiting for you a night and a day! And then standing chewing the fat with an old character like myself, like you had all the time in the world!” She turned and picked a jangling key ring off the mantelpiece, selected a key, and held it out. “Cabin eight, Mister Emmett. You can let yourself in easy and surprise her.”

  Emmett took the keys and started for the door. He was aware when the woman moved behind him.

  “Who the hell do you think you’re kidding, Sonny?”

  He stopped. He heard her footsteps come up behind him. Her hand took the keys away from him. He saw that Pete Mack had come into the side door. There was a large caliber Colt revolver thrust into the waistband of the small man’s jeans. “Come on,” Mrs. Pruitt said, giving Emmett a little push. “Now that you’re here I’m going to find out if it’s you that’s scaring that child to death. Do you think I can’t tell the difference between a nervous bride and a young girl that’s frightened near to wetting her underpants?”

  He could see the lake to the left as they came out, cold and metallic in the dark. There was a soft cushion of dust and pine needles over the hard clay of the yard. There were small pine trees all around. Pete Mack lounged along beside them, smoking his cigarette leisurely, his hand never straying near the gun at his waist. It seemed to Emmett that he had seen too many unfired guns in one day. If he saw another one, he thought, he might find himself doing something reckless just to learn if it would go off.

  “Here we are, number eight,” the woman beside him said, stopping. He saw the outlines of the fawn-colored convertible parked beside the dark cottage. Mrs. Pruitt climbed the steps and looked down at him, saying, “I’ve been leaving the child alone since she seemed to want it, but it’s time she got some food in her belly, anyway.”

  Something clattered to the floor beyond the door; the key had been in the lock, Emmett realized. Mrs. Pruitt had forced it out with her own key. The woman hesitated, then knocked.

  “Mrs. Emmett,” she said. “Mrs. Emmett…”

  “Her name is Nicholson,” Emmett said.

  Mrs. Pruitt glanced at him testily. She did not knock again, but after a moment turned the key in the lock and tried the door. It started open; she held it, beckoning to Emmett.

  “All right, Sonny,” she said. “I want to see what she does when she sees you. The light switch is to the right as you go in.”

  Emmett mounted to the stoop beside her, pushed the door open, and went inside. It seemed to him that he had been through all this before, in the hotel in Boyne. There was no light at all in the room; apparently she had the shades drawn at all the windows. The cabin smelled of pine logs, of fear, and of death. He knew what he was going to find, and he did not want to find it. There was not a sound of movement and the beating of his own heart filled the darkness. He groped for the light switch, found it before he had expected to, and the burst of light was like an explosion.

  She was crouched on the bed like an animal, her weight on her knees and hands. She was wearing slacks and a brightly checkered wool shirt; one tail of it had pulled out in front and one sleeve was rolled higher than the other. Her face showed little furrows from the pillow as if she had been sleeping on top of the bed in her clothes, waking to hear the key in the lock. Behind the tousled veil of her hair her eyes caught the light queerly, looking quite mad.

  “Hello, Mr. Emmett,” she whispered.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She pushed herself off the bed to stand up, facing him. The tail of her red and white shirt hung down over her stomach. Her slacks were damply creased and wrinkled from being slept in, so that the neat knife-edged crease sewn into the brown gabardine looked unreal and fraudulent.

  “I tried Sheepshead Lake…” She pushed the wild hair back from her face. “… and Dogleg Lake, and Hogshead Lake. I had a simply dreadful time trying to remember—”

  Her eyes pleaded with him to help her talk. He caught the glint of the cheap wedding ring on her hand, and said, “Hello, Mrs. Emmett.”

  “I hope you don’t mind.” She glanced down and slipped off the ring and dropped it. She watched it helplessly as it rolled away acros
s the floor. “I couldn’t think of… I knew it would look like… I didn’t want people to think… I…”

  Her mouth was still talking, but she had used up all the rational sounds inside her; there was nothing left but fear and madness. Her lips moved but nothing came except a mindless little whimper. He caught her as she swayed, and she clung to him, her fingers digging fiercely into his biceps.

  “He…”

  “What?” Emmett asked, holding her.

  “He said… he said, take this, it’ll make you sleep. It was just one pill. He said, t-take it like a good girl, you’ll feel better in the morning, Miss Nicholson…”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. K-Kauf—” She pressed her face against him. He could feel her tremble with the effort of retaining the shred of control that still remained to her. “Kaufman,” she gasped.

  “He came to the hotel?”

  She nodded mutely without raising her head.

  He pushed the damp hair back from her temple. “When?”

  “About three hours…”

  “After I left?”

  She nodded again. “And… and in the m-morning I’d tried to kill my—” She swallowed. “—myself again!”

  “Why didn’t you tell somebody?”

  The gray eyes were looking up at him with a dreadful emptiness. “Would you… have believed me? You d-don’t even quite believe me now.”

  “Your father?”

  “He thinks I’m a m-m—” Her teeth were beginning to chatter as if with cold. “Murderess,” she whispered; and then she was clinging to him again, shivering violently. He led her to the bed and wrapped a blanket around her; she clutched it to her. Her face looked up to him. “This is perfectly silly!” she gasped, and her voice was suddenly quite sane, but her whole body was trembling.

  He sat beside her and held her against him. A shadow fell over them. He looked up to see Mrs. Pruitt with a small filled glass in her hand.

  “Give her this,” the older woman said. “Pete’s heating up some grub and coffee.”

  Emmett looked at her and saw himself accepted. He said, “Have him put gas in the car, will you? You have a pump?”

  Mrs. Pruitt studied him for a moment before nodding. “Yes, we’ve got a pump. But might be it would be better if Pete brought it over in a five-gallon can. Pump’s right over by the stable where anybody can see.”

  “That’s fine,” Emmett said. “Use the pump and turn on the lights.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Sonny.”

  “You,” said Emmett, “and me both, Mom. And don’t let anybody use your phone, Mom.”

  The woman’s eyes smiled slowly. “Okay, Sonny. Okay.”

  When she had left he sat holding the girl, who had begun to cry softly. He waited for her to stop crying and wondered, as he had before, how he had ever got into this.

  Half an hour later they came into the kitchen to find the small man busy at the coal range; when he turned to wave them to seats at the oilcloth-covered table, Emmett saw that the double-action revolver was missing from his belt. Ann Nicholson sat down in the chair he held for her. He heard her laugh uncertainly.

  “I’m quite, quite drunk,” she breathed. “Everything is wonderfully hazy.” Her eyes were still not quite normal, but it was a good effort nevertheless.

  “It’ll do that on an empty stomach. You’ll be all right as soon as you get some food,” Mrs. Pruitt said.

  The girl smiled at her, her hands buttering a roll with hungry haste. Emmett studied the small drawn face across the corner of the table. He saw the smile and the words she had been about to speak die on her lips; he realized that he was not looking very happy. He straightened up in his chair and reached for the coffee pot. Pete Mack put steaming plates in front of them.

  “At this time of night,” the small man said, “you take ham and eggs, and I don’t give a damn who you are.”

  Presently Emmett rose and caught Mrs. Pruitt’s eye and walked into the living room. The woman came in behind him, walked past him, and stood regarding the snarling dead bear.

  “I call him Amos,” she said. “He looks kind of like him, doesn’t he?”

  They were in a dead world peopled by ghosts that had lived before the war. Emmett did not speak. She tapped the animal on the nose and turned to face him.

  “Your car’s all ready, Mr. Emmett. Gas and tires O.K. Your duffle’s in the trunk.”

  “How many calls did you get about her?” Emmett asked.

  “Two,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “Her father and a doctor Einsinger, who claimed she was an escaped patient from Young’s Valley. Is she?”

  Emmett said, “They were going to put her in, but she got away from them.”

  “Is she crazy?”

  Emmett said, “Why ask me?”

  “Do you know what you’re doing, Sonny?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want a gun?”

  Emmett shook his head. “How did you know where to call me?” he asked.

  “You said in your letter you’d be stopping at the Harvester, Sonny.”

  “Did I?”

  For the first time her direct glance wavered.

  Emmett said, “You never got a call from a Denver number: Arapahoe six two six two.”

  Mrs. Pruitt asked, “How would I know the number that was calling?”

  “He’d have you call back. He’d have you look up the number, or ask the operator to give you the number, and call him back, so you wouldn’t take his word for whom you were talking to.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Kirkpatrick,” Emmett said. “That’s the one I talked to. There’s another one in the office named Long. You never talked to either of them?”

  “No,” Mrs. Pruitt said. After a pause, she went deliberately on, “We don’t have much truck with federal men up here, except the Forest Service… You’re sure you don’t want a gun? I’ve got an old one nobody’d ever trace; Amos took it off a drunk in a bar once.”

  “No,” Emmett said. “The hell with guns. I might shoot somebody, and then where would I be?”

  Walking back into the kitchen behind her, he reflected on the unpublicized side of adventure; you got tired, you got sleepy, and you could not keep from worrying how what you were doing now would affect what you would like to be doing a year from now. Or ten years from now, he thought. He lit his pipe and watched the girl cleaning the second, or maybe the third, helping from her plate. The food had put a little color in her face. She looked up and saw him.

  “Let’s get going,” he said.

  “Let the child finish eating,” Mrs. Pruitt said.

  Ann Nicholson got up quickly, wiping her mouth on the napkin. “I’m all through,” she said, and turned to the small man by the stove. “Thanks ever so much, Mr. Mack. It tasted wonderful.”

  Mrs. Pruitt said, “Don’t let it go to your head, Pete. After starving herself for two days, she’d think a horse was tenderloin.”

  Emmett watched the girl begin to laugh, glance at him, stop, and go out through the door; in the slacks and shirt she seemed smaller and still, in a way, more human and durable, than he remembered her. He walked slowly to the door and turned to look at Mrs. Pruitt.

  Mrs. Pruitt said, “I’m betting that girl’s all right.”

  He was a little tired of Mrs. Pruitt’s carefully rough-hewn picturesqueness; and he reflected that it was very easy to be magnanimous and kindly about a girl you weren’t ever going to see again.

  “You are?” He asked, “What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

  She laughed at his irritability. “So long,” she said. “And watch your step, Sonny.”

  “So long. And thanks a lot,” he said. “Mom.”

  Ann was waiting for him at the car. He opened the door for her, and closed it behind her, and walked around to get in beside her. He felt curiously breathless. The feeling had nothing to do with the girl; it was as far removed from sex and love as any emotion could be. He glanced at an object i
n his hand, and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

  “What was that, Mr. Emmett?” Ann asked. He remembered her naive way of asking questions.

  “A nail,” he said. “A ten-penny nail. It was on the steps. Mrs. Pruitt must have been doing some carpentering.” He glanced at her as he turned on the lights and started the car. “Turn around so you can look behind,” he said. “I want to know if anybody is following us.”

  chapter SIXTEEN

  The road climbed up to the ridge above Hogback Lake and followed it for a mile, the lake gleaming black in the darkness below and behind them; then plunged down into the canyon on the far side. Emmett let the convertible down the grade in second gear, dragging the engine. The headlights showed alternately raw earth cutbanks, to the left; and to the right, the tops of small pine trees rising out of the darkness.

  “I can’t see anything yet,” Ann said, kneeling on the seat to look behind.

  Emmett said, “He’s going to kill himself on this road, running without lights.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably a guy named Plaice who works for your father; although I thought your old man had convinced himself you weren’t up here. Maybe he just sent somebody to follow me and make sure. Anyway, there was somebody trailing the bus up the Summit, and I thought I caught a glimpse of him behind us, coming out to the Lodge.”

  She crouched on the seat beside him. “It’s just as if the war had never stopped,” she whispered. “And it’s even worse in a way because you feel like such a dreadful fool all the time; as if you were playing a sort of silly drunken game. At least, during the war, everybody else was doing the same thing.”

  He glanced at her, a little startled by the accuracy with which she had described his own feeling of embarrassment and isolation at having to think and act like a character in a cheap melodrama. He had a guilty sense of having underestimated her. She returned his look briefly.