Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  As we began to climb, my ears popped with the rising elevation, and the vegetation turned into varieties of pine. The miles flowed by, mostly in silence. Once Rick inquired politely about my work, and I told him that everything was in the hands of my partner and would be fine. Then, quite suddenly, he stopped being polite.

  “Why did you come?” he asked. “Why did you really come?”

  The letter was folded in my handbag and I had debated with myself as to whether I should show it to Rick immediately, or wait a while. Each time I had decided that it was better to wait until the reason that brought me here became clear. The letter concerned Sybil in a possibly ugly way, and there-was no point in showing it to Rick, if in the long run it proved to be no more than a hoax, or perhaps an act of spite. My sister had always had a gift for making enemies.

  I decided to evade the real reason. “Everything’s been going stale for me in New York. I’m tired, and perhaps a change will really help.”

  “But not Europe this time?”

  I shrugged. “Europe, for me, is necessarily one fashion show after another. It wouldn’t be much of a change right now.”

  “All right. I’ll accept that. Marilla is excited about your coming.”

  “And I’m eager to see her.”

  After that we were silent again, and I knew my specious explanation had not convinced him. Oh, Rick, I said silently, be my friend. I need a friend.

  Prescott was a high, sprawling town, with houses whose roofs were built with steep peaks to shed the heavy snows. Beyond, we drove past strange rock formations, and as we went on, the mountains grew higher, more formidable. We climbed through stands of white pine, through cedar and piñon and juniper, and I drank in the high, clear air as though it would nourish me, turn me into someone new.

  Above Jerome, we came at last to an escarpment that looked out over the edge of the world, and Rick stopped the car and pulled over. “There!” he said. “Your first view.”

  I gazed across a wide stretch of the Verde Valley to the dramatic sight that marked the far horizon. A jagged line of red rocks cut into the sky. Strange mountains of bare sandstone that had been thrust up to stand alone in contrast to the more subdued coloring of the lower country. A strong response surged through me, as though that far line of burning rocks promised something; as though they involved me in their very being—perhaps threatening, perhaps delighting. For the moment, I had no idea which. I knew only that something in me lifted and responded.

  “That’s where we’re going,” Rick said. “The red rock country.”

  We went over Mingus Mountain and down through the ghost town of Jerome, which was a name out of history. I could remember my father telling me about it with excitement in his voice—the place of the great copper mines. The town had been built on the side of a mountain, with narrow streets running one almost on top of the other. Today the main street was lined with little shops intended to attract tourists, and two cars could barely pass. Traffic was heavy both ways, and Rick said it was always like that.

  In recent years the houses had been taken over by artists and others who loved the locality. Many had been rebuilt at some expense, and repainted, so that pastels and splashes of white mingled with the gray. Near the mine structures, huge mounds of dull-gray tailings fell down the mountainside, scarring it forever.

  The highway ran through the town, and as we followed, it down steep switchback turns till we reached the valley, I had no sense of fatality about this place. No faintest suspicion that I would return under strange and frightening circumstances.

  “It’s about thirty miles from here to Sedona,” Rick said. “To Oak Creek Canyon and the red rocks. You either love the rocks, or they scare the wits out of you and you move on. Your father loved them.”

  Clearly, Rick did too, for he had stayed. But would I? That burning red was a new color for me, and so strong that I wasn’t sure I could deal with it, however exciting it seemed. I must wait to find out.

  I was still waiting, still uncertain, as I stood on the narrow deck of the guesthouse, where Rick had brought me when we arrived. I hadn’t seen Sybil at all. She was out for the afternoon on a speaking engagement, he’d said. Something to do with ecology. The picture of Sybil on a platform espousing a cause bemused me, but I still dreaded our first meeting. I would know at once whether she had really changed, and what our relationship would be.

  Marilla was not around either when we arrived, so there had been no family welcome. Rick saw me to my rooms, set down my bags, and indicated a bell I could ring for anything I wanted. It was necessary for him to get out to the shop before it closed. He would see me at dinner. I’d found no way to break through this new guard he had raised against me.

  At least I couldn’t have been made more comfortable, as far as my surroundings went. The little guesthouse had a generous living room furnished in soothing greens and buffs, a bedroom with twin beds, an easy chair, good lamps, and a row of books between carved bookends.

  Since I could never live without reading, I ran through the titles. An effort had been made to provide guests with books about the Southwest. There was a popular history that began with the Conquistadores, a volume of beautiful color photographs of Indians of the area, one called Book of the Hopi, and several suspense novels by Southwestern writers. Perhaps I would dip into them all, but now I wanted to see the rest of the house.

  The bedroom closet was built in and spacious. Even the bathroom was perfectly appointed, with tiles of pale green, and a huge tub. A dining and kitchen arrangement showed me a refrigerator stocked with eggs, cheese, bacon, and a carton of milk. Flowers and fruit on a table welcomed me, yet I felt uneasy and anything but welcome. I was here on a pretext, and whatever face I looked into from now on I would question because of the letter in my handbag. More than that, Rick’s behavior disturbed me. And there was still Sybil to be faced.

  I’d unpacked, bathed, changed to a dress of meadow-green suede with a touch of gold—my own design—and had come out here to the deck, where I could stare at the stupendous view and await developments.

  The quiet and the sense of isolation seemed somehow oppressive. This guesthouse, set at a distance from the main structure, was like a high island, occupying a mound of rock that went steeply down on all sides. It was connected with the main house area by a private bridge across a gully. If I wanted privacy, this was it, and I wasn’t altogether sure I liked it.

  On my left, the main house spread across a larger outcropping of rock, with a half moon of tiled terrace, where one could sit and look out at all those everlasting red mountains of rock. The low house was built of reddish-brown redwood, with wide overhangs on all sides and a great deal of glass. There were a few trees, oak and pine, but no grass. Instead, small cactus plantings bedded in chips of red rock substituted for patches of lawn. There could be floods in Arizona, but most of the time this was dry country and water would be at a premium.

  “Hi!” A light, inquiring voice addressed me from the direction of the bridge and I turned to see a little girl dressed in jeans and plaid shirt, thumbs tucked into her silver-studded belt, as she stood watching me. This was the daughter Rick had been concerned about at our last meeting in New York. I warmed to her at once.

  “Hello, Marilla,” I said. “I’m your mother’s sister. Will you come and join me? It’s time we got acquainted.”

  “I know who you are,” she assured me, and stayed where she was. If, as Rick had said, she was pleased about my coming, she wasn’t showing it. “And you’re not my mother’s sister. You’re her half sister,” she corrected.

  So Sybil had once more emphasized the distinction—this time to her daughter. As she’d done so often to me when we were growing up. I waited expectantly, and after a moment the child came the rest of the way across the bridge and approached my deck. Her hair was as fair as Sybil’s, and she wore it in short curls like a cap about her head—curls that were ruffled now by a wind that swept up the canyon. When she reached the end of t
he deck, she stopped to study me with enormous brown eyes in a small, piquant face.

  I sat down in a deck chair and waved her toward its companion. Under such solemn scrutiny, it was hard to find the right thing to say. Marilla could be as disconcerting as her father.

  Instead of taking the chair, she climbed astride the open rail, hooking her feet together underneath. The rocky cliff plunged off steeply beyond, and I put out my hand to steady her. She ignored it, her silent interest in me continuing.

  “It’s all so beautiful,” I said, nodding toward the red pinnacles. “But—a little scary too.”

  She turned her head to look over one shoulder, as though checking my words. “There’re lots of rocks more scary than those. Wait till you see the Fire People. They’re the ones who’re really spooky.”

  “Fire People?”

  “Didn’t Grandpa Jed tell you about them?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She nodded in odd satisfaction, as though pleased to have shared something with my father that I had not. I could understand how she felt. When Jed’s attention was on you, no one else existed for him. He’d had a talent for giving himself completely—for however short a time. But this was a faculty that could arouse jealousy in those he seemed to forget all too quickly. I had seen such jealousy surface violently in Sybil, and I’d felt it in myself, too. Now it was evident even in this child. You scored in the game when Jed Phillips made you feel special.

  Marilla was running on. “It was Grandpa Jed who showed me the Fire People. I was only little when he drove me out in the back country one time in a jeep. That’s when he first took me inside the secret place where they live.”

  “He could make everything seem exciting,” I said, remembering all too well.

  Sunset caught a glint of tears in her eyes, but she brushed them away. “Did you know that Clara Hale is upset about your coming here? She used to be Clara Robins before she got married.”

  The sudden segue from my father to Rick’s partner in his shops seemed strange, and I didn’t understand it until the next day. At the moment her words were merely puzzling.

  “Why should she be upset?” I asked. “What have I to do with her?”

  “I expect you’ll find out.” Then, perhaps because she had said too much, she made another quick switch of subjects. “My mother’s a real good speaker. She can stand up in front of hundreds of people and make them think just what she wants. Today she’s in Flagstaff at the ecology meeting, and I’ll bet she’s really wowed them. Brian drove her up there in her car. I expect they’ll be home soon.”

  Marilla was going too fast for me. This new facet of my sister continued to surprise me.

  “Who is Brian?” I asked.

  “Brian Montgomery. He knows more about animals and plants and rocks than anybody. Right now he works for his mother a couple of afternoons taking tourists around in a jeep. So he can earn money and still have time to write his book. Brian is nonviolent—that’s what he says. He’s seen the Fire People too.”

  “What are the Fire People?”

  “Maybe I’ll show you sometime. You aren’t much like your father, are you? I mean, you look kind of like Grandpa Jed, but you don’t seem like him.”

  I hoped that was true. “You aren’t like your father either.”

  “Mom says I have a temper like his. Mom never gets excited mad the way we do.”

  I understood very well, and felt uncomfortable, remembering. As a child she’d been dangerously excitable, but as she grew up Sybil had acquired an icy control over her emotions that could seem more devastating than hot anger. I had seen her behave cruelly at times, while she remained coldly calm—and those around her fell apart. I remembered one occasion when she had thrown her pair of pointed scissors at me, and had done it without the slightest passion, though with full intent to injure. Either my friend Vermilion, or some inner instinct, had caused me to move just in time for her aim to miss my throat.

  Marilla was regarding me curiously. “Did you bring her with you?” she asked.

  For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about, and merely stared.

  “You know—the make-believe one. Grandpa told me how you made her up together, and what fun you had with her. What was her name—Vermilion? Did you bring her with you?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, and quickly shut all the doors in my mind.

  “Grandpa Jed said he’d help me make up a sister too, but I didn’t want one, and Mom wouldn’t like it.”

  That was certainly true, I thought wryly.

  “Anyway,” Marilla said, “I like unicorns better.”

  “A very sensible choice,” I agreed, but I wished Jed hadn’t told his granddaughter about Vermilion. Somehow, it seemed a betrayal. Yet I had to be amused at myself, too. He could still make everyone jealous.

  Marilla tipped her head, listening, and I heard the distant sound of a car coming up the hill from town. When it came nearer and stopped close by, Marilla hopped down from the rail.

  “That’s Mom’s car. Brian’s brought her home. Let’s go meet them.”

  I had no wish to hurry toward a meeting with my sister, but it must be faced, and Marilla was already tugging me along. She was an appealing child, though at the same time disquieting. Some tantalizing quality in her eluded me. We crossed the redwood bridge together, and at the end she stopped.

  “I have a present for you,” she whispered, her eyes very bright. “One you’ll like. Maybe I’ll bring it to you tonight. So wait up for me.”

  Then she was running ahead toward the house, pushing open a glass door, beckoning. When I’d first arrived, Rick had brought me to the guesthouse by way of the outer walk, so this was the first time I’d been inside the main house. I followed Marilla into an enormous living room that stretched the width of the terrace and ran back in a narrower extension toward the street. A beamed cathedral ceiling arched overhead, and great glass panels looked out upon the rocks. It was a room filled with fascinating treasures, but I had no time to study it just then. I heard voices from the front door. My sister was coming toward me, and I stiffened anxiously.

  She had indeed changed, matured—no longer the thin, beautiful young model but a handsome, self-assured woman. Her blond hair was elegantly coiled on top of her head, and she wore a lightweight suit in a gold as pale as ripening wheat. A good deal of fine turquoise jewelry was in evidence—a mark of the Southwest, as I’d already noticed at the airport. The front of her suit was spattered now with a darker yellow stain that spilled from breast to lower pocket.

  The younger man who followed her into the room was as tall as Sybil, broad-shouldered and muscular, with sunbleached hair, a curly golden beard, and a manner that seemed protective of her and affectionately concerned.

  Marilla rushed toward her mother but stopped cautiously just short of touching her. “Mom! What happened to your suit? What did you spill on it?”

  Sybil brushed past her daughter without answering, and I recognized that she was being consumed by one of her cold and dangerous angers. The chill seemed directed toward me, yet her control was superb as she embraced me quickly, dutifully.

  “Lindsay, you do look marvelous!”

  The words were right, even the tone of her voice, but I knew from all those long years in the same house with my sister that something had made her furious. I managed to return her greeting pleasantly and stepped back from the embrace.

  “Don’t worry about the stain, Marilla,” she went on. “It’s dry by this time. Can you imagine—someone threw an egg at me. Never in my life has that happened before.”

  Marilla squealed with excitement. “Mom! Why would anyone throw an egg on you? What did you do?”

  “It was nothing. I went right on, and the audience was with me all the more. But don’t carry on, Marilla. Lindsay, I’d like you to meet Brian Montgomery, who’s been a wonderful help to me in this entire ecology project.”

  The young man took my hand and held it for a moment, h
is look rather searching. So this was the “nonviolent” one, I thought, and at once my mind began its questioning—as I was to question everyone silently from now on. Had he written that letter to me—the summons that had brought me here?

  “I’m happy to meet Sybil’s sister,” he said. “I know how much she’s looked forward to your visit.” Was there something a little dry about the words, as though he didn’t entirely believe them?

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to meet you,” Sybil continued. “I’d expected to be home a lot sooner, but there was quite a commotion after the egg throwing. Though once they quieted down, they listened to me. Whoever it was got away without being noticed, and I’m relieved, really. We don’t need that sort of publicity.”

  “Just the same, that note left under your windshield wiper was serious,” Brian said. “I couldn’t help wondering if it was connected. I still think you should’ve given it to the police.”

  “Nonsense!” The word dripped scorn, and Brian winced. “Everyone who speaks out on a controversial subject becomes a target now and then. There are always fanatics in opposition to any good cause. Brian,” her tone softened, “I’m planning a little dinner while Lindsay is here. Just a few people who’ll want to meet my sister. You’ll come, of course, and bring your mother? Clara and Parker Hale will be here, and I’ll see if I can get Parker to cook us one of his terrific dinners. He was trained by a Swiss chef, you know.”

  She was talking more than I remembered, and I wondered if she was uneasy too. Or perhaps she was just filling time, until we could be alone and she could show me her real face.

  Now she turned to me in explanation. “Clara and Parker were married only a few months ago. He used to be a professional chef and a very fine one. So sometimes he does special dinners locally.”