Bucking the Sun, page 45
It gets to be a lot, Kate thought. The waitressing hours she could handle, Jackie as a wildcat three-year-old she could more or less handle, the complicated raft of Duff in-laws she could handle, even Bruce in his less sterling husbandly moments—well, handle was too strong a word there; put up with was the better expression, for now. But anyway, handling them all together would test Houdini, she was beginning to believe. She felt guilty for feeling so, but take right now, when she had just rounded up Jackie from Meg and was trying to keep an eye on him and listen to him chatter about his day with Mum Mum while at the same time supper had to be figured out and an educated guess be made on Bruce, whose hours were more unpredictable than ever now that he was on idle time.
“—an’ it scared me poopy, Mommy.”
That nailed her attention. “Jackie, honey, let’s don’t be saying that, all right?” With his particular grandfather, two uncles and great-uncle added onto his father, not to mention the general run of mouths in Wheeler, Kate considered it a wonder that Jackie’s language wasn’t saltier than it was. “If you say that around Mum Mum, Mum Mum will have kit—Mum Mum will not be very happy.” She snared the boy to her, then knelt down on one knee to be at his level. “Now then, Jackerado, what came along and scared you?”
“My nap.”
The boy watched the tip of his mother’s tongue peek out between her lips, and then she was making a frown at him.
“How—what scared you about that?” Kate asked, doing the best she could with her voice. Normally Jackie slept in the style of his father, like a petrified log.
“There was—there was a, a, a swimmy thing.”
The tightness in her throat now threatened to shut off words there entirely. Instead they flooded to her mind. Dreams aren’t—I can’t have passed it on to—She worked her dry mouth and throat, the boy looking in her face reproachfully. “Tell Mommy”—she knew what she had to say, although not what to do if Jackie started telling her about being tied to the thing in the river—“tell Mommy all about it.”
The boy lifted his shoulders nearly to his ears. “Nighthorse!”
“Night—?” Meg is going to have him talking in Pig Latin, if I don’t watch out. “Yes, honey, everybody gets those. But in yours, what did the swimmy thing look like?”
The boy pouted tragically. “Like a washclaw.”
Kate nearly fell forward in relief. Jackie resisted baths. She and Meg long since had enlisted Bruce to do tub combat with him, and even so it took all of Bruce’s persuasive and other powers before the boy would let himself be subject to soapy water and washcloth.
“Mum Mum says don’t let the old nighthorse get me. I too big to, Mum Mum says.”
“That’s right, Jackie. Be big.” That’s what we all have to try to be, against the nightmares.
It was tricky, finding ways to meet, be alone together. The two knew that carelessness, even once, would do them in. All it would take was some other member of the family noticing the least little thing, odd coincidence of her and him. Or picking up a bit of gossip: I thought I just spotted your better half on (her) (his) way into . . . Reading it back into the behavior they both tried to keep so pussyfoot. Then word would be dropped, well-intentioned and devastating: They’re not going off together to learn to play the zither, are they.
They’d managed to meet three times before, this way, and if the third time was a charm, did the count grow better or worse from here on?
They did not absolutely have to, but they made love in whispers.
Afterward, other whispers:
“They’re going to catch us yet.”
“Not if we quit this now.”
“If.”
With so much of Fort Peck done, there was a general expectation that the last of the damwork would fly into place. Veteran and expert as they were at it by now, and with only the topping-off and the riprap left to do, virtually anybody on the workforce would brag that the dam could practically finish itself now.
Darius, however, had noticed something to the contrary.
A hiccup in the system always attracted him, and this one had locomotive proportions. What had been the regular rhythm of the gravel trains, laying the way for the riprap work, seemed to have a skip in it now. Keeping track day by day from his vantage spot in the bullgang, he found that the interruption sometimes stretched to half an hour or more, before a train would come backing onto the crest of the dam from the east—opposite of the usual rail flow—and hurriedly dump its gravel cars. The third time this happened, he also caught sight of Owen in an armwaving argument with the train dispatcher.
Interesting. Here they have this piece of work by the throat and it slips away on them that little while, every day.
Owen would tell him in a trice, what the problem was. For the sake of tactics, of course, the one person Darius was not going to ask was Owen.
• • •
That night he said to Proxy, “Dust off your in-law manners, love. I want to have Hugh and Meg over for supper one night quite soon.”
“My ears must be playing out,” Proxy told him. “It sounded like you said have people over. Here.”
“The last I knew, here is where we live,” he said with what she thought was undue reasonableness.
“But look at this place!” She seemed genuinely scandalized by the muss of the houseboat, as if heaps of this and stacks of that had crept in on them during the night. “There’s stuff everyfriggingwhere!”
“Paint it all gold,” Darius said airily.
Proxy looked at him narrowly, but knew there was no seeing it yet. What he had up his sleeve.
Lima beans of extraordinary hardness and a meat loaf dry as Melba toast and an unfortunate brown gravy and mashed potatoes with the gravity of dumplings—Meg could not have been more pleased with the meal Proxy produced, believing as she did that food was a direct index of morals. Hugh, too, appeared to take the philosophical approach. Nothing like these tastes, he thought, since those shots of goop at the Carteret Institute.
Munching gamely, Darius kept up the conversation through the meal while the other three made pretenses with their forks. At the predictable point where Proxy scraped the leftovers into the slop pail and Meg insisted she would like to help with the dishes and Proxy sharply said never mind, they’d just put the plates outside to poison the gophers, Darius cleared his throat a trifle.
“Umm, Meg,” Proxy issued. “Want to see the view from out on deck?”
Actually Meg felt quite at home in the clutter of the houseboat and had been daydreaming a bit again of Inverley and when she and Hugh and Darius were green in judgment and trying to make up for it in kisses and flirtation. But Proxy sounded as if she had something on her mind. Such a novelty is not to be missed, the Milne attitude toward battle formed up in Meg, and the two women went out.
“You’re a man of exalted position now,” Darius said genially, meaning Hugh’s hopping route atop the riprap and the burrows of snakes. “You’d know this. What’s the bind with that gravel crew every infernal day? We’re racing past them with the rockwork.”
“I do my best to be on hand up there,” Hugh said like a regular at the opera, “just to hear Owen cuss a blue streak when he’s short that train.”
“Whyever are they running fewer gravel trains? I thought a big push was on to—”
“They’re not. What they’re trying to do is squeeze in an extra train, on our shift. That’s their headache.”
“Pull my other one, Hugh. How can they be carring in more gravel and ending up with less?”
“It takes some doing, I admit. But figuring out when to squeeze that train in, get it backed down onto the dam and so on, that’s what’s giving them fits. Owen no doubt can cite you chapter and verse as to how soon now they’ll have it worked out and the extra train will be one more feather in—”
“No, no, I wouldn’t want to take up Owen’s time with such a small matter.”
• • •
“An exceptional meal, Proxy,” Meg was saying.
“Sure, you bet. Dessert is going to be a stomach pump.”
“No, now, don’t go hard on yourself,” Meg said as if glad to do it for her.
Evening brings all home. From the deck of the houseboat, riding the swell of ridge above the long dam and the waterglassed valley it now stopped the way of, the two women could see the lit curving streets of Fort Peck, the dashes and dots of lantern-yellow windows in the shacks of Wheeler and Delano Heights and Park Grove and the other thrown-together towns, nocturne of the Missouri. They watched the car lights streaming out of the harbor lot as the last of the day shift went off work.
“Quite a picture, huh?” Proxy said at last.
“Quite,” said Meg.
“Had an offer once from a guy to come in with him on a photo studio up near Lake of the Woods,” Proxy spoke as though this tale was being spelled out to her in the lights of the night. “I could be his darkroom assistant, he said. It all seemed kind of phony, though. I mean, here he was, lining up honeymoon couples under cardboard trees in that studio of his, and right outside there was this real woods.” Proxy shook her head like an auctiongoer. “So how could I trust him on that darkroom stuff either, right?” When Meg chose not to comment, Proxy mused on. “Real picture shooting, that’d be something else. That fancypants photographer who was here, I asked her what kind of a deal she had. She said her wages were just okay, but the way that magazine paid her expenses was a dream. ‘Here, hire an airplane.’ I could go for that. But I’ve never had any too much luck, taking pictures. Not sure I’ve got the eye for it.”
“A person can’t have equal talent in all directions,” Meg stated.
That got under Proxy’s skin, as Proxy knew it was intended to. She turned her head enough to size up her adversary there in the dusk. Meg’s composed profile, with that aggravating knack of staring off as steadily as a figurehead. On down, she was better than okay in the entire figure department, too. Meg was a beckoning woman, still. Not that there were as many years between them as Proxy wished. Try this on for size, though, old sister—one of us used our time better on Darius, didn’t I.
“Speaking of talent,” Proxy returned the needle, “you’re happy putting yours into being grandma these days, hm?”
Meg now turned her head and studied Proxy a moment, then seemed to go back to counting the lights of the dam and its towns. “I am attached to Jack.”
“Attachments are tough,” Proxy could agree.
• • •
“I know these dammers are always pulling things out of hats,” Darius was saying. “But wherever do they hide an extra train?”
Hugh, sudden dam expert, was only too glad to hold forth. “What, can’t you guess? Someplace where they can tuck twenty gravel cars, then yard them down by gravity when there’s a little time between other trains?”
Darius’s head stayed cocked quizzically, which seemed to please Hugh. As though Clydesiders were not the only ones who knew the ins and outs of equipment, Hugh now provided:
“The spur line, up at the spillway.”
“Ah,” said Darius.
• • •
Mouthfilling kisses led to this. Always had, always would. He hoped.
Honey and milk. Under the tongue. Solomon knew whereof he sung. She granted.
Almost there, both, crashing at each other, their crazy pockets of passion about to spill, she under the tent of his elbows, he on her and in, straining together in sounds that threatened the shack and could tighten throats and make lips lick among the rest of the populace of Wheeler for all they cared right then.
Duet under the covers done, she caught her breath. “That was spirited.”
“Margaret, you always let your praise run away with you,” Hugh said through gasps.
Meg knew she was never going to be proficient in the afterpart of this as, say, old campaigner Proxy, but she determinedly pecked a kiss onto Hugh’s sharp cheekbone and let spring: “I wonder if they know what ingredients they put in at that Carteret establishment.”
“Fruits of love, Miss Milne,” he surprised her right back.
Combatants on the field of marriage so many years, they lay there a familiar number of inches apart, waiting for each other’s speculations on houseboat matters to come to the surface.
“That brother of mine,” Hugh finally mulled out loud. “He must have his eye on a foreman’s job.”
“Darius as a gold-watch gaffer?” Meg could picture a lot about him, but not that. “What do you read that from?”
“He’s keen on the dam doings, all of a sudden. Wants to know how to twitch every switch, when it comes to Owen’s fancy train set.”
When it comes to many things, Darius has his wants. She shifted a little on the bed. In my experience, though, such as it is—I will spare you the details, Hugh—the pronouncements that count with him are of the all too private sort. Her fresh furrow of wondering about Darius kept carefully within the lines of conversation, she said now: “Too true, you never quite know with him, do you. I know one job I’d see him have. Yours. Lord High Executioner of snakes. Hugh, I do worry—”
“There’ve been times when I’d gladly have sicced them onto him,” Hugh announced in the dark beside her. “Just to nibble on him around the edges, mind you. Teach him some manners.”
There’s ever the question, isn’t it, Meg held in private. How teachable any of us are.
September had come chilly, with mean early frosts and a sharpness to the air, and Charlene drove to work these mornings. Why she had let herself in for this she wasn’t sure, but she swung by to give Kate a lift to work each morning now, too. Two lifts, as Charlene saw it: to Meg’s to leave off Jackie and then on to the Rondola. Regular bus service. The Charlene Stage Line.
“Aun’ Charlene! Watch!! I being a pony!!!” Jackie thundered past her when she stepped in to collect Kate and him now. Charlene thought Jackie was as spoiled as they come, and equine behavior at 8 a.m. didn’t sway her opinion any.
“We’re having a time of it this morning,” reported Kate, still in her slip. She examined Charlene, dressed to a T, and wondered how she managed it at this hour of the day. Without a stampeding three-year-old, that’s how.
“Sorry, Charlene,” Kate said by rote. “We’ll get ourselves lined out here, in no time. Won’t we, ponyboy,” she captured the scampering Jackie.
“What can I do to be vaguely helpful?” Charlene offered, to encourage matters along.
“Mmm”—Kate glanced around from putting shoes on Jackie—“my uniform still needs pressing. That fancy iron of Bruce’s ran out of gas on me.” Charlene firmly tucked her tongue in her cheek. Must be the only thing about him that ever runs out of gas.
Kate was saying, “Better let it—Jackie, honey, you are such a wiggle-worm. Don’t you want to go see Mum Mum?”
“I can contribute a swipe or two of ironing,” Charlene offered, and unscrewed the spout cap on the gallon can of white gas.
“Jackie, you’re going to squirm us both to death,” Kate scolded. Then remembered: “That iron maybe needs another minute to cool before you—”
The WHOOSH of flame came then, over where Charlene had poured the first trickle of gas into the iron’s teacup-size tank. Fire flashed up the streamlet of gas into the can, then rivered across the floor as Charlene had to drop the can. “Wouldn’t you just know,” she said almost conversationally. Then over her shoulder, sternly, “Get out! Take Jackie out!” Still so calm she was amazed at herself, she scanned around for something to beat at the fire with.
“Fi’e,” Jackie said, sitting up and pointing at the flames.
Kate scooped him into her arms, but stood desperately hesitating, blocked by the spread of flaming gas across the floor. The dry wood of the shanty was burning like sixty.
Charlene tipped the blazing ironing board over, out of her way to get to the water bucket. She grabbed the bucket and sloshed Kate and Jackie, bringing a shriek from the boy. With the rag rug from beside the bed she whapped out a spot in the fire nearest the wall, momentarily. “Now!” she directed. “Go, along the wall!”
Kate hunched over Jackie, keeping herself between him and the flames, and twisted toward the door. Beating away with the rug, Charlene could hear her gasp at the heat, but then the door was open and the woman and child were outside.
Charlene saw that she and the rug were in a losing battle against the fire, and wished she had saved a douse from that water bucket to pour on herself. She backed across the room to the window, got it unlatched and yanked it up with all her strength. It rose six inches in the windowframe and then the catchpins zinged into the casement holes. Oh, fiddlesticks, still calm but needing to hurry. Another twelve inches above those holding holes was another set and if she could just get the window open that wide, she could climb out. But she needed three hands to simultaneously pull up the window and manipulate the catchpins on either side of the window. She instead let the window down and grabbed the water bucket one more time. Scars are better than burning to death, she told herself, clamped her eyes shut, and with both hands swung the empty bucket to shatter the windowglass. She had no time to knock out every last shard that stayed in the frame, and felt one get her across her shin, but then she was out, free of the licking fire.
• • •
It was all over but the embers by the time Bruce arrived. The Fort Peck fire department was parsimoniously hosing down the charred heap—not that much of a heap, either; the place had gone up like a wad of paper.
• • •
All right, so it’s bobbed. Maybe my customers will all want it, too—the latest style, the bobcut with a singe.
Charlene lay back in the easy chair, exhausted, although it was barely noon. Silence at last, after the doctor murmuringly patching her up where the broken glass raked her leg, and Hugh and Meg telling her over and over not to worry, they would see to Kate and Jackie until Bruce took hold, and Rosellen arriving breathless and pitching in to help her snip the fire-frizzed hair down to a presentable bob and making her comfortable here in the living room and insisting she and Neil would bring supper over tonight, and—Charlene thought there had probably been even other chapters of commotion so far today, but she was losing track.
