by Треваньян
Matthew stood at the edge of the cliff between Ruth Lillian and B. J., the outlines of the westward mountains just visible through the falling snow. Grunting with the effort, B. J. flung the shotgun out into the swirling void.
Matthew hung his head and let go, just… let go and slipped deep into the delicious calm of the Other Place, where he remained forever after.
Holding his hand, Ruth Lillian led him upstream against the flow of jostling, laughing miners, bringing him through the snow to the Mercantile, where her father awaited them.
February, 1998
St. Etienne de Baпgorry
WHEN I FINISHED READING Mr. Pedersen's manuscript of recollections of Twenty-Mile, I thanked him and, after another cup of coffee, I pushed on west, putting what I already called the "Twenty-Mile Tale" on the back burner, where it would simmer for much longer than I anticipated.
But I returned to Wyoming now and again to sip Mr. Pedersen's rye and listen to his stories, stories that I would amplify with research in the "living heritage" section of the archives of Cheyenne's Historical Society, where I found memoirs of train engineers, bank clerks, miners, prison guards, frontier journalists… all sorts of people, many of them written by widows eager to give significance to the lives of departed husbands. I emptied filing boxes and pored over those shards and orts of the living past that can animate a writer's fancy: newspaper accounts, legal documents, municipal registers, memoirs, bills and records from stores, banks, railroad ticket offices.
I also went to see what is left of Tie Siding: a few foundation stones barely visible in the red earth, the roofless ruin of the old stone jail, a grave surrounded by a weathered, frequently vandalized fence. And several times I made the hard climb up to Twenty-Mile, where I would sit near the edge of the cliff, looking out toward the westward hills as I let the characters of my someday novel play out their encounters in my imagination.
During my last visit I was saddened to see how much Mr. Pedersen had faded and diminished. But then, he was nearly ninety. After we finished breakfast, he gave me his manuscript tied up in brown wrapping paper.
"Here, take this with you."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He died that winter.
Years passed as other work occupied my time and mind; then, not long ago, it occurred to me that the centenary of the incidents at Twenty-Mile was approaching, so I decided the time had come to write my only book in the Western genre, giving a new twist to the Western's conventional characters: the "kid," the tubercular gambler, the heart-o'-gold dance-hall gals, the philosophic shopkeeper, the frontier preacher, the "prairie rose" heroine, the embittered outsider, the outlaw who descends on the town like a biblical plague.
While the rudimentary narrative architecture and the psychological simplifications of the Western left ample room for those story/message shell games expected by Trevanian readers, I found the genre's insistence upon a quick wrap-up constricting because I yearned to answer such questions as: Why was the ore train backing up the track to Twenty-Mile while Ruth Lillian was leading Matthew home against the flow of the fun-seeking miners? And why did Twenty-Mile become a ghost town within two days of that event? And what became of Ruth Lillian, B. J. Stone, Kersti, Frenchy, Mr. Kane, Reverend Hibbard, and the rest?
Take the case of the ore train. You will recall how it came backing up the hill into town, the excited scream of its whistle ignored by the miners pressing down the street in pursuit of hot baths, rotgut, and poontang. The train had traveled about three miles down the line from Twenty-Mile when the driver's eyes suddenly widened in alarm. He snatched down the break lever that locked the wheels in a skidding, spark-spraying stop that left the cow-catcher hanging over an abyss created when a huge plate of rock fell into the ravine during the storm. (Remember that strange splitting sound from lower down on the mountain that interrupted Matthew's account of his pa's constant bad luck, and made Coots's neck muscles flinch as he pressed against the wall beneath the kitchen window of the Traveller's Welcome?) Through the swirling snowflakes, the train's feeble kerosene headlamp had picked out some twenty yards of twisted track suspended over the gap, its wooden ties no longer supporting the steel rails, but dangling from them. His trembling hand on the steam cock, the engineer backed off as slowly as he could, but the vibration caused the threads of steel to torque and fall into the ravine as the train backed up to Twenty-Mile, where it arrived with its whistle shrieking to alert everyone to the fact that the track was cut. Only a few miners delayed their pleasure long enough to find out what the hell all the ruckus was about, but the news spread quickly, and both miners and townsfolk assembled in the Traveller's Welcome to decide what to do, while outside the falling snow thickened to plump flakes that fluttered down so densely that Ruth Lillian, staring dully out her window, had the sensation that she was rising into the heavens.
The miners' first reaction to learning that they were cut off from the world was a raucous cheer at the prospect of an enforced holiday, but there were anxious mutterings from those townsfolk who feared an interruption in their profits, should the Surprise Lode be obliged to close down for any time. The meeting began in an unruly fashion with laughter and catcalls and hoots, but this ochlocratic chaos gave way to more-serious discussion after Doc was unanimously chosen to represent the interests of the miners and B. J. Stone was grudgingly selected to represent those of the townsfolk, leaving the rest of the assemblage to return to the business of consuming and providing fun.
B. J. and Doc decided that the train should go back up to the Lode to pick up the maintenance crew, and on its return it should bring back all remaining stocks of food. Doc suggested that everyone should then sit tight in Twenty-Mile while a couple of the hardiest miners tried to work their way down to Destiny, using the steep, dangerous old trail that had been opened during the blasting of the railroad cut. But B. J. couldn't see the logic in that. The people down in Destiny already knew something was wrong when the train didn't come in, but what could they do? The difference in gauge between the main line and their mountain spur prevented any engine from coming to their rescue. And anyway, how could it cross the gap caused by the infall of the rock face? No, the plain fact was that everyone, townsfolk and miners alike, would have to make it down the old trail, which was at this minute filling with snow. Doc asked how long B. J. thought it would take them to get down, and B. J. shrugged. If the trail hadn't suffered too much decay and erosion over the years, and if the snow wasn't too thick, the strongest of the miners could make it in… oh, maybe a day and a half? They'd have to bivouac at nightfall, because trying to work their way down in the dark would be suicidal. "And what about those who ain't all that hardy?" Doc asked. "What about the women and the…"
"The old turds?" B. J. asked, saving Doc the embarrassment. "Well, the women are probably tougher than most of the men. And we old turds will just have to do the best we can."
They decided that the next day, Sunday, should be spent organizing the descent, which would start with first light on Monday, the strongest men going first to break a path through the snow.
Some miners chose to return to the Surprise Lode to pick up their possessions, but most entrusted their bindles to friends while they stayed down in town to continue their hell-raising.
Up at the Lode, everything useful (and much that was not) was crammed into gondolas or loaded onto flatbeds, and the entire work force left, all believing they would return as soon as the Boston owners arranged to have the cut blasted out and the track relaid. In fact, save for some bits and pieces that have been taken by trophy-hunters, the tools and machinery remain there to this day, looking as though work came mysteriously to a stop in mid-pick-swing. Those treacherous, crumbling mine shafts are still relatively rich in silver ore, and over the years dozens of enterprises for getting it have been proposed, but no one has found a way to bring the ore down without incurring expenses greater than the value of the silver.
The gathering of so many hungry
miners, was a boon to Bjorkvist's boardinghouse, which put them up two to a bed. Meals were the usual "steaks," biscuits (until the flour ran out), and tinned peaches (until they too ran out). Because there was no other place where they could eat and bed down, Mrs. Bjorkvist felt obliged to charge the miners three dollars for half a bed and an additional dollar for each meal.
Surprisingly-perhaps not all that surprisingly, considering the aphrodisiac effect of death as manifest in soaring birthrates during times of war and disaster- Frenchy's girls did land-office business that first night and all of Sunday, working right up to the morning, when the miners had to start their descent. The clients chose among Queeny, Chinky, and Goldy, this last being the most popular. Perhaps it was the novelty.
Less surprisingly, the Mercantile quickly sold out of blankets, warm clothes, tinned food, and anything else that might be of use during the arduous descent.* Throughout the day-and-night press of eager, sometimes belligerent buyers, Matthew helped out behind the counter, fetching goods, making change, tying up bundles, always smiling, his eyes gentle and distant.
* Remarkably, during the two-day mass descent through drifting snow and unstable footing, only one miner was lost; and he was literally lost. According to the account in the Destiny Sentinel, after taunting the men he was descending with for dawdling, one young miner pushed on ahead. But he never showed up in Destiny and was never heard of again.
It is characteristic of Mr. Kane that he gave credit to those who didn't have the cash to pay for what they needed, and it is characteristic of the now-vanished Yankee ethos that a fair percentage of the miners paid Ruth Lillian what they owed when they got to their savings down in Destiny.
Doc took upon himself the melancholy duty of shooting the pair of ailing donkeys that Coots had brought down for rest and attention, and by noon on Monday the last miners had passed through the donkey meadow and disappeared down the steep trail, the falling snow patiently filling their footprints. The girls, under Frenchy's direction, were the first of the townsfolk to undertake the descent, waddling across the meadow in bizarre accretions of blankets, cloaks, and makeshift hoods, beneath which they wore layers of fancy dresses, because Frenchy wouldn't let them carry anything but food. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise that Lieder had burned all their shoes in Murphy's boiler, for the hardy (and not a bit too roomy) boots that Queeny borrowed from a miner served her better on the trail than her own flimsy ones would have done. Frenchy wore the boots B. J. had given her, and Chinky, whose little feet would have been lost in miner's boots, had a stout pair of Ruth Lillian's shoes to see her through.
It was afternoon before the band consisting of the Bjorkvists, Jeff Calder, and Professor Murphy was ready to start down. The night before, they had gathered in the kitchen of the boardinghouse, where Murphy proposed that they take as much as they could carry of the silver ore that the train had been unable to deliver to Destiny. This crushed and dressed ore was almost 20 percent silver. Five pounds of ore was a pound of silver! When you subtracted the cost of smelting and refining, it would be worth maybe half of that. That would work out to a pound of silver for every ten pounds of ore! They scrounged up every sack they could find and waited until the miners had gone (why let everybody in on it?) before filling them with double handfuls of ore. Painful choices had to be made between extra clothes and ore, between food and ore. In the end they brought only the absolute minimum to see them through the two-day descent.
The snow-laden sky was thickening ominously by the time the four men and the woman crossed the donkey meadow, their feet dragging furrows through the snow, their bodies bent beneath the weight of their ore.
Their greed was to make them endure famine, fatigue, falls, and frostbite-and that's just the F's, as Coots would have said. By the middle of the second day, Jeff Calder's wooden stump made him fall behind, and when he realized that the others had no intention of risking their lives and silver by slowing down for him, he abandoned his sacks of loot. When he caught up, Mrs. Bjorkvist could not believe that he had left his ore! Profligacy is a sin! She browbeat her son and husband into going back to get it. While she and Professor Murphy awaited their return, huddled together for warmth, Jeff Calder continued on ahead, unencumbered. And that's how it came to pass that, despite having only one leg, he was the first of them to get to Destiny, where he basked in the attention of a young reporter of the Destiny Tribune, as we shall see in a moment.
The others continued to stagger down, their legs wobbly beneath their burdens, frequently dropping to their knees and panting, drool melting holes in the snow beneath their chins. Eventually, they were forced to choose between the ore and their lives. With tears of rage and frustration, Mrs. Bjorkvist clenched her fist at the sky and cursed the cruel God who was ripping her just reward from her grasp, after all she had suffered! All right! All right, she would leave the ore behind! But she insisted that it be thrown over the cliff. If they couldn't have it, no one would! When the four of them finally stumbled into Destiny, they were in such bad condition that they had to spend more than a week in bed in a boardinghouse that cruelly overcharged them. It is said that Mrs. Bjorkvist was never the same, and that can only have been a blessing for those who had to deal with her.
B. J. watched the party of five cross his donkey meadow, each bent beneath a pair of sacks tied together behind the neck. He shook his head and gathered up a few possessions-just some clothes and his treasured Lucilius-then he went down to help the Kanes prepare for their descent. As it turned out, they didn't leave until the next morning.
Throughout the day and night that the Mercantile had been besieged by panicked buyers, Mr. Kane had repeatedly brushed off his daughter's pleas not to exert himself. "Matthew and me can do everything, Pa!" Now they were the last people left in Twenty-Mile, and he was bringing a small pasteboard box of memorabilia down the stairs for B. J. to put into one of the slim blanket rolls that were to be their only burdens on the descent. B. J. reached up to receive the box, but Mr. Kane grasped both his hands, letting the box drop. He sat heavily on the bottom step and looked up, bewildered. "I think… oh, Mr. Stone, I think…" And he died, holding the hands of the man who, if things had worked out differently, might have been a friend.
Later, when she was going through the box of memorabilia, Ruth Lillian discovered a lock of fine reddish baby hair… hers…, the fine German scissors that her grandfather had brought from the old country, and a yellowed photograph of her grandparents and their young son… her father… standing proudly before a sign announcing: The American High-Class Finishing Materials Company (Reliable Service at Competitive Prices).
Although she had been preparing herself for her father's death for years, she still had difficulty swallowing back her silent tears.
Using the same barrow that had carried Coots, they brought Mr. Kane to the burying ground. Matthew could only manage a shallow grave in the stiffening earth, and the best B. J. could do for a marker was to drive in a fence post onto which he had nailed a board with the scratched-on words: "David Kane… A good man."
At the last minute, Matthew returned to the marshal's office to roll up his possessions. He took only his Hudson Bay blanket, his broken-backed dictionary, a scarf and pair of gloves Ruth Lillian had laid aside for him before the miners emptied the Mercantile of stock, and the canvas bag containing his treasures: the little blue glass bottle that had been buried so mysteriously, the marble with a real American flag suspended in the middle, and the rock with gold flakes that someone had said was only fool's gold, but who knows? His other treasure, the ball-pointed marshal's badge, he always wore pinned to his jacket.
The three of them paused for a moment by the fence to look through the sifting snow to where Coots and Mr. Kane lay side by side. Then they started across the donkey meadow.
THIS IS THE PLACE to confess my debt to the Destiny Tribune, and particularly to its reporter-of-all-desks, C. R. Harriman. (I have no idea what the initials stood for.) Writing in the succulent, sesq
uipedalian journalese of the era, young Harriman chronicled the arrival of the refugees from Twenty-Mile; and it was he who, some thirty years later, wrote the account of his own last days in Destiny that I shall soon have cause to mention.
Combing through the yellowedged, friable pages of the Tribune in the Historical Society's archives, I learned of Reverend Hibbard's arrival in Destiny three days after Coots's lynching, and five days before the first miners came stumbling in. He was found wandering in the street, muddy, bruised, completely worn-out. It was through C. R. Harriman's interview with Hibbard that Destiny found out what had become of those three insane escapees from the state prison who had dropped out of sight after killing that retired schoolteacher in Tie Siding and doing those terrible things to that poor woman who happened to come visiting. Hibbard described their reign of terror in Twenty-Mile, and he told of the death of Mr. Delanny, owner of the hotel, and the lynching of a mixed-blood named Coots. The Reverend explained that after doing everything in his power to prevent the lynching but- alas-failing, he had volunteered to make the dangerous descent to alert Destiny of the dreadful events in Twenty-Mile. The reporter congratulated Reverend Hibbard for his courage and suggested that the mayor might want to demonstrate the community's gratitude in some more-material way, but the next morning Hibbard was not to be found, having withdrawn his savings from the Destiny Bank and Trust and taken the morning train west.