by Denise Dietz
Bridgida fell from her pony and landed on the blade’s tip, impaling herself.
*****
Cat and Ruthie caught up with Dick Stanley’s Wild West Show in Arizona.
Stanley thought the young man standing before him was a kid, no more than eighteen, but staring into John Chinook’s steely green eyes, Stanley decided he’d been mistaken. Chinook’s eyes looked old. And when the kid who wasn’t a kid smiled, his eyes didn’t follow suit.
Since he had no fear of death, Stanley hired him.
Chinook said his father was Cherokee, which was another puzzlement. Although Chinook had tar-black hair, his skin sometimes turned white, as if he had a memory jogger he couldn’t forget.
Stanley hired Chinook’s woman to collect tickets and sell Coca-Cola. She said how she was superstitious and wouldn’t hawk peanuts during a show. She cussed like a sailor, drank like a Saturday-night cowhand and giggled a lot.
Chinook said he’d never rode through a hoop of fire before but he didn’t mind trying. Said he’d been taught to dog bulls with his teeth. Stanley only hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble with the woman if Chinook caught fire or got gored by a bull.
John Chinook’s eyes looked like they hid a sorrowful secret, but Stanley didn’t care to learn what that secret was.
In truth, he didn’t want to rile anyone who courted death like some damned moth drawn to some damned flame.
Twenty
Denver, 1913
Katherine Johanna Lytton had a secret. She was madly in love with Richard Reed. Oh, she realized that “Uncle Richard” was old enough to be her father. He was, in fact, her father’s friend. But that didn’t stop her eighteen-year-old heart from fluttering every time Richard shot the breeze. She had never kissed a man with a mustache. Would it tickle?
Her sister Dorothy, who at this very moment lay in bed with the whooping cough, said Kate was “romantically inclined.”
True. Kate had been madly in love often, but she had never said “I love you” to a man. Grandfather Edward was fond of the words “American initiative.” Grandfather said if you wanted something badly enough, you had to reach out and grab it. That hadn’t worked very well when it came to his wife, the long dead Dolly, yet Kate thought it was worth a try. So she’d used every bit of her initiative lately, determining how she’d “grab” Richard Reed.
Should she play the coy maiden or the brazen hussy?
Eventually he’d kiss her. After all, Kate had been told over and over how beautiful she was — the image of her father when he was eighteen. Her eyes were a lighter blue, but she had Ned’s coal-black hair and cleft chin. She was tall and slender, with a tiny waist and breasts that looked small. Nude, her breasts were surprisingly full.
She had never bared her breasts to Richard, or any other man, but she’d reveal every inch of her body if it meant a declaration of love.
Richard would arrive in Denver tomorrow. Tonight Kate had to suffer through a tedious party at Rosalind Tassler’s house.
“Katie? Is that you? C’mere an’ give your daddy some sugar.”
Framed by the music room’s doorway, she twirled.
“Hee-haw.” Thrusting his thumbs inside his ears, Ned waggled his fingers. “You look lovely, darlin’.”
“Do you really think so? Mummy was peppery when I bought another gown, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
She twirled three more times, like a ballerina, flaunting her princess dress of periwinkle-blue Liberty silk, embroidered with dark-blue flowers at the hemline and sleeves. Her hat was natty blue straw with a poof of five small egret feathers.
“Of course I don’t mind.” Ned reached for his cigar smoldering in an ashtray. “Damn Johanna’s impertinence! Buy yourself a dozen new dresses. Where’s my sugar?” He thrust his chin forward and pursed his mouth.
Daddy’s drunk again, thought Kate, kissing the air close to his jowly cheeks with her freshly glossed lips.
Satisfied, Ned studied his daughter through the haze of cigar smoke. Once, a long time ago, he’d been upset because she was a female. Over the years, his displeasure had turned to pure bliss. Katie was smart as a whip, and her beauty swelled his heart with pride.
His heart didn’t embrace many people. He had felt affection for the little crib girl, Blueberry. He had a reverential admiration for Richard Reed. But he truly loved his eldest daughter. Because of Kate, he planned to limit his involvement with Klan activities and learn more about his father’s vast business holdings. To that end, he had successfully requested that Edward let him handle the Lytton coal mining interests, including the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Ned had even joined the Mine Owners Association, along with his friend Randolph Tassler.
“Buy a dozen new dresses,” Ned mumbled to nobody in particular.
Kate had left the music room.
* * * * *
Rosalind Tassler lived on Emerson Street. Her house bristled with rusticated stone corseting, pinnacle roofs and a columnar porch.
Inside, the Tasslers’ parlor clock had struck seven, but evenfall’s light permeated the stained-glass windows, garishly illuminating several young men and women who played a kissing game. Kate had been chosen three times and Rosalind, a willowy blonde with sea-green eyes, had been chosen twice. Other girls glared with barely concealed envy, so Kate continued playing even though she was bored.
The parlor doors opened, a new guest entered, and Richard Reed’s image crumbled into dust. How could she have believed herself in love? Uncle Richard was ancient, while this man was in his late twenties, perhaps early thirties. Rosalind’s guest had captured the sun and streaked his brown hair with its rays. His eyes were a smoky-gray. His long legs were clad in corduroy. His chest strained the seams of a shabby suit jacket.
“Who’s that man, Rosalind?”
“Hell and damnation! Father will be fussed. My brother probably invited him to get Father’s goat.”
“Who is he? If you don’t tell, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live.”
“He’s a distant relative. My grandfather visited Greece and fell in love with a peasant woman. The family soon brought him to his senses, but the result of Grandfather’s indiscretion was born, you might say, on the wrong side of the blanket. Grandfather’s bastard Greek daughter married another Greek and gave birth to him. His name is Mike Loutra and he works for the United Mine Workers of America.”
“Introduce me.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to find Alan. If Mike’s not invited, we must call the police. He’s trouble, Kate, big trouble.”
Even though his mind was occupied with more important matters, Mike Loutra caught the admiring glances from the beautiful girl who wore a blue dress. The price of that dress would feed a family of miners for six months. What the hell was he doing on Emerson Street?
He had met his cousin Alan inside a Denver bookstore. Alan had laughingly issued the party invitation. Mike had impulsively accepted. He knew Alan and his father didn’t get along. He knew his attendance would be an irritant. But he wanted to fill his belly with food and forget his recent setbacks.
Mike had reached the United States in 1903, and found his way to the steel mills of Steubenville, Ohio. There he loaded pig iron and scrap, but was fired for not contributing money to the straw boss. Picking up another job at a rolling mill, he stayed three years while educating himself in English and in American politics. He was a voracious reader and had the unique ability to memorize everything from statistical facts to folk tales. Securing a union card, he headed for Denver, shuddered at the underlying decadence, and turned south toward the coal mines. By 1912 he was employed by the Mine Workers of America as an organizer. The pay was three and a half dollars a day, plus expenses.
Then and only then had resolute Randolph Tassler sought him out and offered him a job. Mike refused.
He had met Alan several times in coffeehouses and bookstores. Despite, or possibly because of his father’s hostility, Alan had become a labor sympathizer, and M
ike planned to exploit that interest.
The beautiful girl still stared at him, boring holes through the frayed collar of his blue work shirt.
Two hours later he knew her name, and his belly was bursting. He had avidly consumed crabmeat canapés and baked ham with piccalilli sauce. His head buzzed pleasantly from the Tasslers’ supply of undiluted, bottled whiskey.
Alan’s companions were treating him like a curious circus attraction, but he didn’t mind. At the end of his performance he’d extract payment, a donation for the miners who planned to strike. Mike would cloak his request in the guise of a charitable contribution. After all, John D. Rockefeller was known for his benevolence, even as he was known for his indifference to suffering.
Mike had heard that John Rockefeller, Jr., recipient of his wealthy father’s interests in CF&I, believed that if children perished because their parents had insufficient nourishment, then one must concede that their deaths were a blessing. After all, unskilled labor was merely animated machinery, adding little value to the finished product.
Inebriated, oozing with good cheer, Alan circled Mike’s shoulders with his arm. “My friends would enjoy hearing one of your folk stories, cousin.” He turned toward the other guests. “Mike’s been all over the country an’ has learned lots of good tales. Wait till you hear the one ’bout people wantin’ to change the name of Arkansas after the Civil War.”
Mike grinned. “I can’t tell that story in front of the ladies, cousin.”
“We’ll go outside on the porch.”
“That’s not fair!” Rosalind stamped her foot.
“I’ll tell you later, sis.”
Kate noted the exchange and frowned with annoyance. She wouldn’t be around later to hear Alan’s rendition of Mike’s folk story, and even if the story was a fable, she wanted to hear Mike tell it. The whole evening had been exasperating and was rapidly becoming worse. Fat Timmy Kettle, who rarely bathed, had sweetly pinched her tender skin until she was black and blue—
And she hadn’t met Mike Loutra!
She had never been so obviously ignored. Even Richard, on his rare visits, petted her and made a fuss. She strolled down the hallway and entered the water closet. Its claw-foot tub was large enough to hold a small battleship. On the walls were framed displays of butterflies pinned to white cardboard. Near the sun-window were several pots filled with high-stemmed geraniums.
Kate looked into the mirror above a blue Dutch tile table. Had her appearance altered? Was that the reason for Mike Loutra’s indifference? Had her complexion suddenly accumulated blemishes? Did her new dress fail to reveal her assets? She should have bought one with a lower décolletage. Hellfire! She should have worn a gown with no bodice at all.
“—a speech made in the Arkansas state legislature by a member when some unspeakable creature proposed that the name of the state be changed.”
Confused, Kate whirled about, then realized that the voice she heard, Mike’s voice, drifted through the open window, carried on the breath of a breeze.
“Cite the speech for us, cousin,” said Alan.
“Mistah Speaker, for more than thirty minutes I’ve been tryin’ to get your attention, but every time I’ve caught your eye you’ve squirmed like a damned dog with a flea up its ass.”
Pressing a handkerchief against her mouth, Kate stifled her laughter. Furtively, she pulled the window’s curtains aside and leaned forward.
“My name is Cassius Johnson from Jackson County, Arkansas, where a man can’t stick his ass out the window and shit without it gettin’ riddled with bullets.”
Mike, Alan, and the others huddled on the porch beneath a suspended glass lantern. Alan will never tell Rosalind this story, Kate thought, as Mike continued.
“I’m out of order? How can I be out of order when I can piss clear across the Mississippi River?”
“What’d he say?” Leaning against the porch railing, Timmy Kettle cupped his ear with his sausage fingers.
“He said piss across the Mississippi.” Alan scowled. “Shut up and let him finish. Go on, Mike.”
“Where was Andrew Jackson when the Battle of New Orleans was fit? He was right thar, suh, up to his ass in blood! And you propose to change the name of Arkansas? Never, when I can defend her!”
The porch lamp highlighted Mike’s features. Kate gazed at his face, mesmerized. He had nicked himself while shaving.
“You may shit on the grave of George Washington,” Mike continued, “and piss on the monument of Thomas Jefferson. You may desecrate the remains of the immortal General Robert E. Lee. You may rape the Goddess of Liberty and wipe your ass on the Stars and Stripes, and your crime, suh, will no more compare to this hellish design than the glare of a lightning bug’s ass to the noonday sun. And you propose to change the name of Arkansas? Never, by God, suh, never!”
Though her stomach hurt from the effort, Kate held her laughter in check.
“You may compare the lily of the valley to the glorious sunflower. Or the sun-kissed peaks of the highest mountain to the smokin’ turd of a dung hill. Or the classic strains of Mozart to the fart of a Mexican burro. You may compare the puny penis of a Peruvian prince to the ponderous bullocks of the Roman gladiators. But change the name of Arkansas? Never, by God, suh, never!”
The handkerchief didn’t quite capture all of Kate’s pent-up laughter. Releasing the curtains, she stepped away from the window.
“What the hell!” Alan’s voice. “The water closet! Shit, the window’s wide open!”
“Get everybody inside, cousin, before other ladies decide to eavesdrop.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“No. I’ll stay here and admire the view.” Mike waited until the men had stumbled through the front entrance. “Are you laughing at me or with me?”
“With you.” Kate poked her head out the window. “In my whole life I’ve never heard a performance like the one you just gave, Mr. Loutra.”
“I apologize if I’ve offended you, but it’s your own fault.”
“Really! Is it my fault that the architect decided to build a water closet at the front of the house? Help me out, please.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Help me climb through the window.” She flung one gartered leg over the sill. “What’s the matter? Have I offended you, Mr. Loutra?”
He lifted her out. Shivering at his touch, she saw his lips twitch with the semblance of a smile.
“Are you cold, Miss Lytton?”
“You know my name,” she said, walking toward the porch steps.
“Of course. Your father is Ned Lytton, the not-so-humble servant of John D. Rockefeller, and a member of the Mine Owners Association.”
“And you are a member of the United Mine Workers Union, along with John Lawson and Mother Jones.”
“Where’d you hear about Lawson and Mother Jones?”
“I’m not stupid, Mr. Loutra, and I read the newspapers. My father swears it’s all a pack of lies, what Lawson and the others say about the mines. Father has copies of the Colorado Fuel and Iron magazine, Camp and Plant. Its photographs show neat houses and recreation rooms with billiard tables.”
“Billiard tables?”
“Do you know what billiards are, Mr. Loutra?”
“Sure. I’m not stupid and I read the newspapers.”
“Father’s magazines describe the mining town of Sopris as a Rocky Mountain gem with lace curtains fluttering in the windows and pianos or sewing machines in the parlors.”
“Bullshit, Miss Lytton. That magazine ceased publication in nineteen-oh-three and never did write about ‘Wop Town,’ where Italians patched together their own community out of dry-goods boxes and barrel staves. Privies were a few boards laid out across a pit with gunnysacks for doors. Before she came to Colorado, Mother Jones read that a reporter from a Pittsburgh paper asked a CF&I manager why his mines weren’t correctly timbered. The manager said, ‘Oh damn it, dagos are cheaper than props.’ ”
Mike could see that sh
e struggled to assimilate his words. “Has your father ever seen a mining town?” he continued, wondering why he bothered. “Endless strings of coal cars wind among the piles of rock, climbing toward the company store, the mine offices, the identical company houses. Has your father ever been inside a company house? Little cubes of clapboard with cardboard partitions nailed over studs. Those rows of neat houses have no sidewalk, no decent street, no trees.”
“No trees? That’s intolerable.”
“Shall I describe the mines, Miss Lytton? The echo-less air smothers the sounds of picks or boots while the beam of a pit lamp catches the sweating sheen of a wall. Tiny particles of coal dust fill your lungs. The air is infinitely fine and infinitely combustible. Between nineteen ten and nineteen thirteen, six hundred and eighteen Colorado coal miners lost their lives in mine accidents. By nineteen ten, the cost of mining coal in terms of men came out to a life given for every thirty-eight thousand tons. The men are paid only for the coal they mine, not for the coal they couldn’t get to or the rails they lifted or the rooms they timbered.”
Young as she was, shallow as she appeared, Mike could see that a shrewd intelligence darkened her eyes until they gleamed like a wall of blue coal. But she merely said, “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because that dress you wear cost the life of a miner.”
“That’s so unfair. I’m not responsible for my family’s wealth or who I am. Would it make any difference if I stopped buying party dresses?”
“No. I must apologize, Miss Lytton. I’ve had too much pure whiskey, and you happened to be handy. Let’s return to the parlor. It’s cold.”
“Your rhetoric heats the yard. Rosalind says you come from Greece. I’d never guess. You speak English without the trace of an accent, and your words paint pictures.”
Mike sat on the steps. “The miners come from everywhere in the world, Miss Lytton, lured here by the promise of instant prosperity. Did Cousin Rosalind tell you I can also speak Italian fluently?”
“Please call me Kate. I do believe I feel a bit chilled. You may stand up and put your arms around me.”