And Condors Danced (14 page)

O
N THE VERY
next day Carly began work on a plan for a Sherlock Holmes-type investigation of Henry Babcock and his role in the bombing of the Presbyterian float. However, problems began to arise almost immediately.

She was forced to abandon her first version of the investigation because it did, in fact, depend on the use of disguises, just as she’d told Matt that it would. Carly loved the idea of disguises, of passing entirely unrecognized among friends and acquaintances—as well as suspected criminals. The difficulty was that most really good disguises, as described by Arthur Conan Doyle, seemed to require the use of a false beard.

After an attempt to make one out of mule-tail hair, Carly decided she’d have to buy one, but that proved to be impossible, too, since neither the Emporium nor Sears, Roebuck, carried false beards. And after trying the mule-tail beard with several different costumes, she finally had to admit that even a good beard probably wouldn’t be very convincing on either Matt or herself.

And then it turned out that all the time Carly was working on plans and disguises for the investigation, there was another even more serious problem. One that she didn’t even know about until she went up to Grizzly Flats to see Matt.

It was about a week after the Fourth when Carly managed to talk Nellie into letting her use Venus and the road can to go up to Grizzly Flats to visit the Kellys. The trip itself wasn’t easy. No trip with Venus ever was.

Venus, sometimes known as Broomstick, was an ugly old lop-eared jenny mule that the Hartwicks had had as long as Carly could remember. Besides being a biter and a balker, Venus was a stall-squasher, and that’s where she’d gotten her nickname—Broomstick.

For years anyone who went into Venus’s stall risked being squashed as she stepped quickly over to pin the intruder between the wall and her barrel-shaped rib cage. But then Arthur had invented a cure for stall-squashing—a broomstick. Arthur had sharpened a foot-long piece of broomstick and put it on a shelf just outside Venus’s stall so it could be carried by anyone who went in. The broomstick solved the problem because after the first time Venus leaned on that sharpened point she gave up stall-squashing. But she was still a balker, and even when she was moving it was about as fast as molasses in January. Usually Carly didn’t mind, because she really liked ornery old Venus. But that particular day was hot and dusty, and Carly was in a hurry to talk to Matt.

Tiger had insisted on coming along and he turned out to be a nuisance, too. He kept begging to ride in the cart, but as soon as Carly stopped to boost him up, he’d see something he wanted to chase and jump down again. And a minute later he’d be whining for another boost. Then, as likely as not, with Tiger back in the wagon, Venus would decide to balk.

By the time they arrived in Grizzly Flats, Carly was hot and tired and not in a very good mood. And the first thing Matt said to her as she climbed down from the road cart was “Don’t reckon we’ll be doing much of that spying stuff this summer. Leastways not on old Henry. Huh?”

Halfway out of the cart, Carly glared at Matt over her shoulder. “What do you mean?” she said. “Why won’t we?”

“Reckon you haven’t heard,” Matt said, grinning his orneriest grin. “Old Henry’s in Philadelphia.”

At first Carly was sure Matt was just saying that to make her angry—and it did, all right. In fact she climbed right back into the cart and would have started for home, except that Venus balked, and by the time Carly got her started Matt had convinced her that he was telling the truth.

Henry had been sent away for the whole summer. Right after the Fourth of July picnic he’d been sent away quickly—suspiciously quickly, Carly thought—to visit his father’s relatives in Philadelphia.

So that was the end of the Babcock investigation, at least for the summer. Carly was terribly disappointed, but by the time she’d had some cookies and lemonade in the Kellys’ kitchen, she’d cooled off and had begun to have a good time. For a while she and Matt had fun sliding down haystacks, and later they went back into the kitchen and listened to Dan tell about grizzly bears and mountain lions and, most of all, condors. Hearing about how Dan Kelly had once spent a long time far up in the Sespe Canyon, studying a pair of condors, was so fascinating that Carly almost decided to give up being a detective in favor of condor watching. When she left Grizzly Flats that day, she promised Matt she’d let him know as soon as she could get away for another trip to Condor Spring.

As it turned out, Carly didn’t get away from home much at all the rest of that summer, except of course to Greenwood, and not even there as much as usual. She didn’t get to Condor Spring even once, and there wasn’t much time for Sherlock Holmes either. The difference that summer was—work.

It was around the middle of July when Father called a family conference to explain how little money had been left over after the lawyer had been paid for fighting the Quigley lawsuit. Everyone, Father said, was going to have to make sacrifices. After the pitting season was over, Arthur was going to have to find a job in town, instead of going away to college as he had planned. Charles was going to have to work twice as hard during the apricot and walnut harvest so fewer hired hands would be needed. And Nellie and Lila would have to go on doing without Carmen.

“And now that you are eleven years old, Carly,” Father said, “you’ll be expected to do your part.”

Carly’s part turned out to be an awful lot of sweeping and dusting and mopping and helping with the washing and ironing. Of course she’d helped out with housework before, but only now and then. That summer of 1907 the now-and-then ended, and the everyday and almost-all-day began. And besides the housework she spent three weeks pitting apricots, standing beside endless wooden trays in the hot, dusty pitting shed, trying to keep from being bored by imagining she was somewhere else, and cutting her own thumbs almost as often as she cut the apricots.

July went by very slowly. When she wasn’t working, Carly read books from Aunt M.’s library, wrote in her journal, and taught Tiger to play Sherlock Holmes.

In the game Tiger was usually Sherlock Holmes and Carly was a dangerous escaped criminal. She would make him go in the doghouse and lie down and then she would run and hide. Tiger learned very quickly to stay in the doghouse until she called, and then he would come and find her. Except that he sometimes tried to peek while she was hiding, he was an excellent and extremely enthusiastic Sherlock, but he never quite got the hang of being a criminal. He did learn to run away and hide when Carly told him to, but he always hid in the same place behind the barn, which got a little boring after a while. At least it became boring for Carly, but Tiger never stopped getting terribly excited every time she came around the corner of the barn and found him.

In August Mama had one of her bad spells, and for quite a while Doctor Dodge came to the house almost every day. Nellie seemed to be awfully worried, but when Carly asked, she only said that the doctor didn’t think it was consumption. Consumption was what Mama had always thought she might die of, ever since she’d had so much trouble with her lungs when she was a young girl back in Maine. But now, even though Mama wasn’t coughing like she used to, she was weak and feverish, and dizzy when she tried to walk.

For a long time everyone went around the house on tiptoe so Mama wouldn’t be disturbed, and for most of August she didn’t feel like talking to anyone except Nellie and Father and, of course, Doctor Dodge. But toward the end of the month Carly sometimes was allowed to carry up her dinner tray and stay awhile to talk. She always said she was “a little better,” but sometimes she said she didn’t feel up to talking and would Carly just read to her—usually Wordsworth or Longfellow or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Carly didn’t mind reading but she missed all the stories about Mama’s childhood in the state of Maine.

All of August was hot and dry and the days seemed to last forever, but at last it was over; September started and it was time for school to begin.

“W
ELL, I NEVER
,” Mavis said. “You really mean that, Carly Hartwick?”

Carly and her two closest friends—not best, necessarily, but closest geographically, since they both lived out in the country east of town—were sitting on the school steps. It was the first day of school. Mavis and Emma had arrived early in hopes of getting their pick of the desk assignments. Carly always arrived early, since Lila had to drop her off and then reach Santa Luisa High School by eight-thirty. While they waited for Mr. Alderson to open the classroom door, they were playing jacks.

“Course I do. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. I’m just real glad summer’s over, that’s all. I couldn’t wait for school to start.”

Carly couldn’t help grinning, enjoying her friends’ stares of shocked disbelief. She kind of liked shocking them, particularly Emma. But the fact of the matter was that she was only telling the truth. Summer had never been her favorite time, and once the Fourth of July was over, the summer of 1907 had turned out to be even worse than usual. So even though she might have said it anyway just to see the look on Emma Hawkins’s face, Carly really meant it when she said she was glad that school had started.

After Emma stared at Carly with her mouth open for at least half a minute, she shut it again, blinked her eyes hard, and said, “I hate school. I purely hate it. And my pa says it’s a plumb shame to waste time and money on schooling for females once they’ve learned to read and figure up the grocery bill. He says the county’s got no business telling families how much schooling their children’s got to have.”

“It’s so much work,” Mavis said. “How can you like doing long division and memorizing rivers and mountains and all those dates? Oh, fudge! You made me miss, talking so much. Whose turn is it?”

“It’s mine,” Carly said. “I’m on my threezies.” She scattered the jacks, studied them for groups of three, and tossed up the ball. “School,” she said between scooping grabs, “is easy. At least it’s a lot easier than washing and ironing and sweeping and beating rugs. And more fun too.”

“Do you have to do things like that?” Emma asked. “Why don’t you have Carmen do it? Doesn’t she work for you anymore?”

Carly missed the last scattered group of three and passed the ball and jacks to Emma. “She didn’t work for us at all this summer. Father said we couldn’t afford it. So Nellie and Lila and I had to do everything. But now Carmen is coming back again, but just on Mondays and Tuesdays to help Nellie with the washing and ironing.”

Emma pricked up her ears and stopped playing. Nellie said that the Hawkins women were all natural-born gossips. Just like her mother, Emma loved to hear news about people, particularly bad news. “Your pa still having bad luck with Miz Carlton’s land?” she said with unconvincing concern. “I heard my pa say that a couple more dry years would just about ruin you folks.”

“No,” Carly said. “Not bad luck. Just not enough water. And Carmen’s not coming back because things are any better. It’s just that Nellie can’t possibly take care of Mama and do everything else while Lila and I are in school. So we’re having Carmen back, but just for two days a week.”

Emma sighed deeply. “It’s a plumb shame that Mr. Quigley won’t let your papa join the water company. My papa’s a charter member. Why won’t Mr. Quigley let your aunt and papa join, Carly?”

“I don’t know,” Carly said. “Just because my Aunt Mehitabel wouldn’t sell him her land after my uncle died, I guess. Go on, Emma, play. Aren’t you going to take your turn?”

“My papa says”—Emma face had the weasely expression it always got when she was going to say something spiteful—“that Alfred—my papa calls Mr. Quigley
Alfred
—that Alfred would have asked your pa to join a long time ago if he wasn’t so cussed.”

It wasn’t the first time Carly had heard talk of that sort, but this time it made her angrier than usual. She could feel her cheeks and eyes getting a burny feeling. Making her burny eyes stare right into Emma’s slightly bulgy ones, she said, “That sounds like something your pa would say, all right. Cussed is kind of a hill-billy word, isn’t it?”

Emma’s eyes glittered and her face became even more pinched and weasely. “My pa’s not the only one who says that, Carly Hartwick. Everybody says your pa’s the orneriest man in Santa Luisa. And that what ails your ma is mostly in her head, and—and—” Emma’s voice was getting higher and squeakier and her eyes had gotten even bulgier, as if they were about ready to pop right out. For a moment Carly got so interested in Emma’s condition, wondering what it felt like to be so beside yourself, that she almost forgot how angry she was herself. “—and—and—” Emma caught her breath in a rasping gasp, as if she had almost suffocated, and went on, “and all of you Hartwicks think you’re so high and mighty, and—and—”

While Emma was strangling over her next insult Carly got up off the steps and said to Mavis, “I think I’ll go over and watch the boys play andy over. Want to come along?”

Mavis looked from Carly to Emma’s quivering red face and then she stood up, too. “I—I guess so,” she said. “Yes, I guess I do.”

As they rounded the corner of the schoolhouse, Mavis glanced back over her shoulder and said, “That Emma. I don’t know what gets into her sometimes. Telling all those lies about your folks.”

Carly shrugged and made a face. She tried to make it a who-cares kind of face, but it didn’t feel right, so she covered it quickly with a grin and said, “Come on. Race you to the stump.”

It was still early and only three or four boys had arrived on the school grounds, but the andy over ball was already being thrown back and forth over the top of the new outhouse. The new outhouse, or lavatory, as Miss Pruitt insisted it should be called, had been built just last year, and it was nice and modern with flush toilets and handbasins with running water. The toilets had shiny oak water-tanks up near the ceiling and a matching oak hand-grip hanging down on the end of a long chain. There were two toilets and two handbasins on the girls’ side and probably two of each on the boys’ side, although Carly had never seen them, of course. The new outhouse was just wide and high enough to be perfect for andy over, but when the teachers arrived the boys would have to scoot back to the tool shed, where they used to play. Mr. Alderson and Miss Pruitt thought it was indecent to play andy over, over an outhouse—even a nice new one that wasn’t supposed to be called an outhouse anymore.