by Sarah Dreher
Okay. We go.
As she looked up from locking the car she noticed, on a slight rise of ground, an object she hadn’t been aware of before.
It looked like a sign. An old, weather-beaten, decaying sign.
Hey, what’s to be particular? A sign is a sign. Signs generally mean there is something around. Something to put up a sign about. Information. Information is the essence of signs. And, at this moment, information is just what we need.
As is dinner, preferably with a good Manhattan beforehand. But, things being how they are, information will do.
She waded through the grain stubble and tried not to think too explicitly about what else might be wading, scurrying, or slithering unseen beside her at that very moment.
Colorado played its cute western trick of telescoping distance so that things were farther away than they were perceived to be. She should have brought the car’s side-view mirror, in which objects were closer and larger than they appeared to be. Maybe that would compensate for...
It really was terribly cold.
By the time she reached the sign, it was almost too dark to read:
TABOR
Well, that was a friendly thing. Tabor. A town called Tabor? People named Tabor? A wild beast, perhaps, indigenous to the area and called a Tabor?
Whatever it was, it was four miles away and down a dirt track. She glanced back toward the car. Already darkness had puddled up on the road. She knew the car was there, but couldn’t see it. Nor could she see the friendly little lights of other cars barreling down the Interstate. Not even an axe murderer.
At the end of the dirt track, a deceptive distance away, no doubt—four deceptive western miles as opposed to sensible, predictable eastern miles—she thought she could make out a light. Maybe a building. Maybe two buildings. If she were closer, she might even find hundreds of buildings. Cafes, neon lights, video arcades, shopping malls, telephones.
If she started walking now, by the time it got completely dark she would be able to see the street lights, which would give her some hint as to the size and nature of the place.
She didn’t know what else to do.
Chapter Two
The wagon appeared out of nowhere, pulled by an aging mule and driven by a young boy. In the fading light, he looked about fifteen. He stopped the wagon beside her and waited.
“Hi,” Stoner said. “Nice evening.”
The boy nodded.
“I’ve had some car trouble, out on the Interstate. Do you know where I can find a garage?”
He stared at her, not seeming to understand.
“A garage,” she said again, patiently. “I need to find a garage.”
The boy just went on staring.
“Do you speak English?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said in a voice that hadn’t begun to change yet. “I ain’t ignorant.”
“Then can you tell me how to find a garage? For my car?”
The boy only shrugged. “Don’t know about that.”
She was beginning to grow impatient. “Well, is that a town down there?”
He looked where she was pointing. “Tabor.”
“Yes, Tabor. That’s what I’m looking for. Is it a large town?”
“Biggest around. You the Marshall?”
“What Marshall?”
“U.S. Marshall. The one they sent for on account of the fires.”
“Sorry. No.”
He seemed pleased about that. “Then you must be the one Blue Mary wants picked up.”
Stoner shook her head. “I don’t know anyone named Blue Mary.”
The boy stood up in the wagon and studied the rolling prairie. He looked back at her. “Nobody else around.”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Stoner agreed.
“You must be it, then. Name’s Billy. Git in.”
Stoner climbed up onto the rough seat. “I appreciate the ride, but I’m afraid I’m not the person you want.”
“Blue Mary don’t make mistakes,” the boy muttered. “Said you’d be here. You ain’t the Marshall, and you’re here.”
≈ ≈ ≈
From far out, topping a slight rise, she could see the town. Yellow-gold lights glowing in windows, like candles or kerosene lamps. Stars were winking on overhead in a cobalt sky.
The wagon rattled past a burned-down house. “Is that the fire you mentioned?” she asked.
Billy nodded. “One of ’em.”
“Have there been a lot?”
“Some.”
She could see too well. Even in the near-dark she could make out shadows and the edges of things. Could see them by moonlight, even though the moon was past full.
She realized what it was. Tabor didn’t have street lights. No oily, orange-yellow, sick-looking smear hovering over the town, making the sky look like something out of a futuristic Doomsday movie.
Budget crunch, no doubt.
What Tabor did have was a single, deeply rutted dirt street lined with unpainted rough wood structures. Warped plank sidewalks. Tree branches nailed to rotting wooden posts for hitching rails. A livery stable at one end, the town well at the other, and between them on the east a saloon named “Dot’s Gulch” (conjuring up images of dry river beds, bleached bones, and hulking buzzards), a Saddler’s—separated by an alley that wandered off into the prairie and got lost—a Land Office, stage depot, and several broken-looking buildings of unknown function. About a quarter mile away, on slightly higher ground than the rest, stood a whitewashed church.
On the west side of the street lay an “Emporium”, a Chinese laundry and tailor, post office and bank, barber shop, one-room jail, and what seemed to be warehouses or storage sheds. Oil lamps burned in the second floor window above the Emporium. She could just make out, hand-painted on the glass, “J. Gustafson, M.D. Folks and livestock. Painless dentist. Haircuts and loans.” Tabor’s version of a medical arts building. Light poured through the doors of the saloon. There was a disturbing absence of people.
It looked like a movie set, or a ghost town after the tourist season.
She glanced over at the boy beside her. Boy he might be, but he was male, and here she was, accepting a ride from a stranger. Even if she escaped without being raped or robbed, she’d never be able to show her face again in her Post-Feminist Feminism rap (formerly CR) group at the Cambridge Women’s Center.
“This is fine,” she said in a cheerful and (she hoped) forceful voice. “I’ll get down here.”
“You don’t wanta go to Blue Mary’s?”
She decided to pretend she knew what she was doing. “There are some things I have to do in town first.”
He hesitated, then shrugged.
Stoner jumped down from the wagon onto the dusty street. “Thanks for the ride.”
Without answering, the boy clucked to the mule and disappeared into the shadows.
She looked around. Every building needed paint. Some looked as if inertia alone were holding them up. There was glass in a few of the windows, mostly those of the few active businesses. The rest were boarded up. A pitiful place. Even the dirt seemed poverty-stricken.
Again she found herself missing Gwen, who would probably love this town, and quote a few lines of Shirley Jackson in honor of the occasion, something pithy like “I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf...” Or even, “I wonder if I could eat a child.”
Not that there was a child around to eat. Or an adult, or a dog or cat or any living thing.
Particularly unsettling was the lack of telephone poles, or wires of any kind. Nor was there any evidence of a mechanic, not even a car dealer, not even—and this made her even more anxious—a railroad track or grain silo.
What do people do in this town?
What people?
A gust of cold wind blew dust into her face and rattled off down the street.
She thought of calling, shouting. But calling and shouting always made her feel foolish. Gwen thought nothing of shouting.
Especially in grocery and discount stores. On more than one occasion, Stoner had been humiliated to hear her name soaring above the aisles of canned tomatoes or Glad Wrap. Once, in an Ames in— she couldn’t remember where, not that it mattered, they were all alike, anyway, and they were on a trip and stopped to stretch their legs and Stoner had gotten side-tracked by a rack of bottom-of-the- line, dirt-cheap irregular plaid flannel shirts while Gwen checked out the ladies’ room—she had actually had her paged. Paged! Along with this week’s special, price-checks, and security codes.
“Stoner McTavish, please report to the Customer Courtesy booth.”
She’d ducked behind a display of plastic beach toys until all the other shoppers stopped looking around, then skulked to the front of the store.
“Why did you do that?” she asked Gwen later, back on the road, after a less-than-indifferent dinner at Papa Gino’s.
“I couldn’t find you,” Gwen said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Stoner slouched down in the seat. “I was so embarrassed.”
“My goodness,” Gwen said, glancing over. “People do that all the time.”
“When they lose their children.”
“Well, as far as anyone knew, you could have been my child. They weren’t watching you.”
“I suppose,” Stoner mumbled. She made a point of never getting sidetracked in a discount store again.
No, shouting wouldn’t do. Not here in Tabor. Tabor didn’t strike her as a shouting kind of town. The logical move was to go and look for someone—Dot’s Gulch offered possibilities, being better lighted and more friendly-looking than the average Tabor offering.
She started toward it, then hesitated.
If there’s nobody there, I won’t shout. But I will scream.
Which, out here in the middle of the Great Lonesome Uninhabited, would be an exercise in futility.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Her heart leapt to her throat.
She looked more closely. A torn sheet of newspaper, brittle and rained-on-looking.
Stoner forced herself to laugh. If this keeps up, she thought as, out of habit, she grabbed the litter and stuffed it in her pocket, I’ll spook myself before anyone lays a hand on me.
She took a deep breath and pressed on Gulch-ward.
Deep shadows lay across the street, hard-lined and impenetrable. What had looked like alleys from a distance, now resembled black, mysterious tunnels. If she peered deep into one, she thought, she would probably see the Gates of Hell.
She stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets and made a mental note to tell Gwen they had to stop watching late-night horror shows.
She paused outside the saloon. It was a two-story building. Heavy burlap drapes covered the downstairs windows. The windows on the second floor were outlined in lace and led out onto wooden balconies. The building itself was weathered planking that looked as if it had never been painted. No sounds from within, only the odor of spilled bourbon and old tobacco. But the light was bright, and welcoming. She pushed through the swinging doors.
It was an old-fashioned western bar, with green-felt-covered poker tables and wagon wheel chandeliers holding oil lamps. A stairway led to upstairs rooms, and rows of dusty liquor bottles flanked an old, silvery, gilt-edged mirror. A closed door, probably to another room or outside, was nestled under the balcony. Behind the bar stood a tall, husky, broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman in a low-cut, floor-length, frilly green dress of dusty velveteen. Her graying hair was piled high on top of her head, a few unruly wisps escaping at the nape of her long neck. She was drying glasses with a cotton rag.
The woman stopped drying and stared.
Stoner strode to the bar. “Hi.”
The woman turned, put her glass down, placed her hands on her hips, and slowly looked her up and down. “Jee-sus!” she said under her breath.
“Hi, my name’s Stoner McTavish and I’ve had car trouble out on the Interstate. I wonder if...”
She realized she was looking down the barrel of a shiny, pearl-handled pistol. “Excuse me?” she stammered.
“What say we slow things down a bit?” the woman said. “And put your hands where I can see them.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She rested her hands on top of the bar. “I didn’t mean... I mean...”
The woman gestured for her knapsack. Stoner slipped it off and handed it over. Without looking, the woman tossed it under the bar.
“All right, let’s begin at the beginning. What’s your name again?”
“Stoner McTavish.”
The woman seemed to be running that through a mental file. Her brown eyes were alert, the skin on her hands and forearms weathered.
“You certain about that?”
“I think so,” Stoner said, bewildered.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t try and put one over on me, would you, Belle?”
Stoner looked at her blankly. “Belle?”
The woman nodded slowly.
“I don’t know anyone named Belle,” Stoner said, “but if I look like her...” She tilted her head toward the pistol. “Hey, you’re the boss.”
“Around here I am,” the woman said evenly.
“Yes,” Stoner said. “Is...uh... Belle a personal friend?”
“Friend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not damn likely.”
A long and silent minute passed.
“Well,” the woman said at last, “I know you aren’t Martha Jane Cannaray, despite your peculiar manner of dress. Not unless you’ve put on a few extra years since we last met.”
“No.” Stoner’s attention was torn between the nasty-looking silver pistol and the woman’s kindly eyes. “Definitely not any Martha Jane.”
“You’re a long way from Texas.”
“I’ve never been to Texas.”
“That a fact?”
Stoner nodded eagerly. “Do I sound as if I were from Texas?”
That one really made the woman think. “Nope. But you could be real clever.”
“I’m not,” Stoner said. “Honest. Ask anyone.”
“No one around to ask, far as I can see.”
Stoner sighed. “Isn’t that how it always is?”
“That’s the God-given truth.” The woman seemed to relax a little. “Guess you can’t be Miss Belle, then. Too bad. I’m hoping to meet up with her one day, if the law doesn’t catch her first.”
“You mean Belle Starr?” Stoner asked.
“That’s the one. You know her?”
“I’m afraid not.” She smiled in a friendly kind of way.
The woman smiled back, a little. “Where from?”
“Boston. Massachusetts.” She wished the woman would put the gun away. “This is a movie set, right?”
“Nope.”
“Tourist town?”
“Nope.”
Conversation ground to a halt. Now what? “Well,” she said hesitantly, “you have a nice little place here.”
“It’ll do. Boston, you say? Long way from home, aren’t you?”
“It seems like it,” Stoner admitted. “I flew out to Denver yesterday, and I’ve been driving all day today…”
The woman cocked the gun with a sharp click. “Let’s take that one over, friend.”
Stoner laughed. “You have a great routine. I’ll bet kids love it.”
The bullet shot past her ear and embedded itself in the opposite wall. “Don’t make me do that again,” the woman said. “Pine boards aren’t easy to come by.”
Whoa! Looney-Tunes Time. “Right. Sorry.”
“Wanted?” the woman asked.
“Wanted?”
“Just ‘cause you’re not Belle Starr, that don’t make you honest. You wanted by the law?”
Stoner shook her head. “I don’t think so.” The situation was turning kind of anxiety-producing, in a mildly terrifying sort of way. “Look, if you need identification or something, check my knapsack. My driver’s licens
e is in there.”
“Licenses for this, licenses for that,” the woman snorted as she managed to dump the contents of Stoner’s knapsack onto the bar without once breaking her hold on Stoner’s eyes, “That’s the trouble with you city types, too much law ’n order.”
“Agreed,” Stoner said. “But what are you going to do? As long as Congress is afraid to stand up to the NRA, every nut in the country can buy a gun.”
She looked at the pistol in the woman’s hand and was immediately sorry she had brought up the subject. “Assault rifle. I meant assault rifle. Nothing against guns. Fine in their place. Collecting. Nice, harmless hobby. History. Constitutional Rights and all. Self-defense. Hey, what with the gangs and drug dealings swarming through the streets, a woman needs all the protection she can get. I mean, ‘just say no’ is one thing for Nancy Reagan. She has lifetime Secret Service protection. But the rest of us...”
“Gal, you don’t make any sense at all,” the woman said. “You just bust out of somewhere?”
“No. Really. I mean, look...” Carefully, moving in what she hoped was a non-threatening way, she reached for her wallet and flipped it open to her driver’s license. “There’s my license. That’s me. It’s not a very good picture, but they never are.”
The woman peered down at the license. “Yep, that is one God-awful picture. Should have gotten your money back.”
“Yes,” Stoner said. “I’ll tell them that next time.”
“Mr. Brady offered to do my portrait once,” the woman said. She laughed. “Least, he said he was Mr. Brady. Naturally I had to go and fall for it. Story was as phony as pyrite.” She shrugged. “What the heck? I was young and innocent. No harm done.” She pulled out Stoner’s Bank of New England ATM card. “What’s this stuff?”