The Mirror (12 page)

A
group of women crossing the meadow made an unnecessarily wide circle around May Bell and her friends. There
was
something different about the women on the blanket. Their way of dress was fussier, their faces less washed-out looking . . . makeup. Shay detected now the color added lightly to lips and cheeks and around the eyes.

The population had swelled with ranchers, farmers and miners from the countryside and summer visitors who'd come for vacation or health reasons. Shay studied the other women on the meadow.

A great many straight dark skirts and white blouses, summer-thin dresses with high collars like the one Shay wore, the subdued colors of tiny flowers or plaids. The summer visitors tended to congregate and their younger women wore all white and carried parasols, their hair more cleverly and smoothly coiled. They made Shay feel like a dowdy hick. She sat straighter, her hand automatically moving to Brandy's hair.

Even with the sense of displacement, the feeling she was outside of time--a mere observer of a parody of life--Shay was affected subtly by these people, drawn in by the age-old forces of vanity and fashion-consciousness. Would she become so submerged as to forget who she really was? Thora K. and Corbin were already moving from the unreal to the real.

Shay removed a piece of pasty from the hole in Brandy's mouth.

Her dress, the new one Sophie'd sent instead of a mirror, fit too tightly without a corset.

Real clouds formed above western ridges in a real sky. The actual but distant sound of thunder from that direction. A high resonant snapping of cicadas ... a normal summer sound. The Maddon twins carried glasses of beer to May Bell's group. Their sandy mustaches were identical. Odd to observe one's own grandfather in his twenties . . . and in duplicate.

The briny scent of horse. A clatter of utensils against dishes. No paper plates or beer cans or plastic cups to be left to litter the meadow. Corbin stood in the beer line now with a glass of root beer, his back looking very broad. Thora K. tossed her head and laughed as she talked to a friend near the corral. Shay was suddenly in shadow.

The Maddon twin with the vest stood over her, a fried drumstick in one hand, his hat in the other.

Shay brought Brandy to her feet before she realized she was preparing them for flight.

"May Bell wondered if you would like this." He held out the drumstick. There was no gap between his teeth.

She reached to accept it, her eyes imprisoned by his pale hair, so like her own had been before . . . "Tell her . . . thank you."

Shay swallowed against the lump moving up Brandy's esophagus. The sound of cicadas dimmed in her ears.

He inspected her blankly, his head tilted back, as if he were experiencing her rather than looking at her.

Brandy's face grew hot and Shay said, "I . . . don't suppose I can go over there . . . and thank her myself."

"I don't suppose you can." A suggestion of laughter touched amber eyes. "I'll give her your message."

Shay was still watching her grandfather or his twin walk away when Corbin stuck a glass under her nose. He did not look happy.

"What was that about?"

"He gave me a piece of chicken." She sat down, almost spilling the root beer. People were looking at them.

"What did Hutch Maddon want with you?"

"Nothing." And that was true. His interest had not been admiration or particularly friendly. It was more a curious dissection. "Hutch is a funny name."

"It's shortened from Hutchison, his mother's maiden name."

"Thora K. said his mother was a prostitute."

"There are gentler words for that profession, Brandy. Mrs. Maddon fell upon hard times."

The chicken tasted so good, Shay forgot the root beer. Then, with a crunchy piece still between her teeth, she stopped chewing and stared at the enormous meadow with people dotting one end of it, but saw instead a memory . . . Memorial Day in Columbia Cemetery in Boulder . . . Shay watching her mother place a vase of cut flowers against a pink headstone ... it wasn't the first time Shay'd been there, but probably the last . . . she could remember little of the inscription and no dates . . . but the name chiseled in pink granite had been Hutchison Maddon . . . her memory saw it clearly . . . Rachael'd always spoken of him as Dad . . . and the grave next to his . . . Sophie Euler McCabe . . . whom Rachael'd always referred to as Grandma . . . Shay'd been junior-high age that Memorial Day . . .

"Brandy?"

Shay Garrett came back to the salty taste of chicken and the man beside her. Where was Corbin buried? Hard to think of him as dead. He was so big and masculine and now looked so sincere.

"Brandy, you've not been listening to me."

"I'm sorry, my mind was a million miles away."

He looked worried, as he always did when reminded she was crazy.

"Oh, come on, Corbin, give me a chance. Haven't you ever had a knotty problem that wouldn't leave you alone until your mind turned out everything else and just struggled with it?"

"I've never thought of it in such words but. . . yes, yes I have. Though what problem a woman could have that's of such weight . . . She's taken care of, fed, housed. Problems of weight fall on the men."

"You, Corbin Strock, are a first-rate MCP. Do you know that? Well-meaning, but--"

"MCP?"

"Male chauvinist pi . . . uh, never mind. What were you talking about ,, while I struggled with my unimportant problem?"

"I was pointing out that you must be careful, Brandy. Nederland's a small place and you musn't go about discussing . . . fallen women and-"

"Is May Bell a pros . . . fallen woman? And her friends over there?"

His answer was an expression of acute embarrassment.

"Corbin, if I'm to live here, I have to know something about this small place of yours. And if I can't discuss it with you, then who? Someone else's husband?"

"How do you know of May Bell?"

"This is her chicken."

"You accepted that from a--"

"I like chicken. And you haven't answered my question."

"Women discuss these things amongst themselves I suppose. My mother--"

"Would Thora K. discuss fallen women with me?"

Corbin laughed and drew curious looks from the meadow. "Sometimes you seem such a child and at other times I wonder if it isn't too bad the Young Men's Debating Society doesn't include women. From now on, I'll buy your chicken for you. And yes, May Bell is--"

"Like Marie on Water Street?"

"Yes, and you're to have nothing to do with May Bell or her friends."

I'll bet you do, though, don't you?

"Now, don't embarrass me any longer with this chatter. I've some people I'd like you to meet. Be careful what you say."

Shay happened to catch May Bell's eye as she turned to deposit the chicken bone in the picnic hamper, and gave her a surreptitious smile of thanks. May Bell, without moving another muscle in her face, lowered one eyelid slowly.

The Maddon twins were off to another part of the meadow, but there was still a good-sized male crowd hanging around that blanket. Those women were outcasts only to a degree.

Maybe it was the holiday mood, but Shay felt less of an outcast herself as she talked to Corbin's friends. The women appeared kindly if guarded, the men respectful if curious. They seemed more like people than relics of the past when she talked to them. She did her best to act normally because she wanted to please Corbin.

She overheard a Mrs. Schiller whisper to her husband as they moved away, "She don't look very uppity for a McCabe. Don't look crazy either."

"Well, Strock ain't changed his bachelor ways none, if you know what I mean," her husband answered. "Something's unnatural up at that house."

Shay's holiday mood vanished.
What do you care for anyway? He's Brandy's problem.
Would Shay have Brandy's problems to contend with the rest of her life?

Suddenly she was thinking of Hutch Maddon and his pink tombstone again.

13

Shay and Corbin sat on a raised bleacher next to the corral fence on the meadow.

The corral had been turned over to a Fourth of July rodeo. It was much like those she'd grown up with at the yearly Boulder Pow Wow, the same cruelty to animals to show off the macho of men. The difference was in apparel and the skill of the cowboys, who obviously got their practice on the job.

Dr. Seaton was everywhere, minding wounded horses as well as men. He was also a judge and by far the busiest man at the rodeo.

Across the corral from the bleachers, May Bell watched from a buggy seat. "Corbin's told me all about you," May Bell'd said.

"He ain't changed his bachelor ways none," Mr. Schiller had whispered.

But Brandy mustn't have anything to do with fallen women or the Maddons. Talk about double standards.

Hutch Maddon and a screaming black horse exploded into the oval ring. Shay knew it was Hutch because of the vest.

The horse bucked violently, his hooves seeming never to touch the ground and Hutch's seat never to hit the saddle. Clutching the saddle with his knees, he raised his hat above his head and let out a whoop.

Then he flew over the corral fence and landed with a sickening plop at her feet.

Hutch Maddon lay on his back, eyes closed, chest pumping breath, lips drawn back from his teeth as Corbin's had during the double-hand. But this grimace was one of pain rather than exertion.

Corbin knelt beside the fallen cowboy.

The black horse still reared and screamed behind the fence as Dr. Seaton sprinted toward them. Shouldering Corbin aside, he ran his hands over Hutch's body. "If you can hear me, boy, tell me where it hurts."

"Leg . . ." Hutch Maddon opened his eyes to stare back at Shay.

Doc Seaton slit a pants leg with a borrowed knife. There was no blood but there was something wrong with the angle of the leg.

"Strock, get my buggy. Somebody find a straight board and some rope."

Shay could stand it no longer. Grandfather or no . . . the way that man had landed . . .

She slid to her knees beside the doctor. Hutch hadn't taken his eyes off her since he'd opened them.

"Can you move your fingers and toes?" she asked him. "Can you feel everywhere?"
You've got to stick around to sire my whole family.

Hutch blinked, flexed his hands and the other foot. Again that bare hint of a smile in his eyes. "Yes, ma'am," he answered meekly.

"Who's the doctor around here, Mrs. Strock?" the doctor asked.

"You are. But he landed--or it seemed he landed--on his back. I . . . thought he might have broken it."

"Now, Hutch, you wouldn't do that to me on the Fourth of July, would you?" Doc Seaton handed her a brown bottle. "Here, Dr. Strock, pour some of this down his gullet, long as you're so handy."

Shay hesitated, then moved her hand under her grandfather's head to raise it. It felt strange even touching him, and he didn't seem like a grandfather. He was younger than Corbin.

The bittersweet stench of raw whiskey rose from the bottle she tipped to his lips.

"Hutch, you gotta quit drinking so much." Lon squatted across his brother's body from Shay. "I keep telling ya."

Hutch choked and spit whiskey. He pushed the bottle away. "She's drowning me!"

Laughter from the crowd. Shay looked up to see Thora K. staring at her. Thora K. wasn't laughing.

Embarrassed, Shay slid Brandy's hand from beneath his head. It came out sticky and red. "Doctor, he's hurt his head. It's bleeding."

"Well, I'm not surprised. Probably landed on something."

"But he's lying in the dirt."

Doc Seaton poured whiskey all over his handkerchief. "Here, put this under him then. You lady doctors sure are finicky."

Shay slipped the handkerchief under the wound and held it there. She supposed alcohol was alcohol.

"Now, Hutch, you know what I got to do," the doctor said quietly.

"Yeah." Hutch's eyes watered, either from the raw whiskey she'd dumped down his throat or from the sting of it against the open wound.

"Lon, pin his arms." The Doc handed her the long knife he'd used to slit the pants leg. "Mrs. Strock, put the handle between his teeth."

"What are you going to do?" She was afraid she knew.

"I'm going to set his leg, of course."

"Here?"

"Yes, here. He's swelling already. Now, do as I say."

Shay put the leather-wrapped handle lengthwise between her grandfather's teeth. Drops of sweat pocked his face. His Adam's apple moved up and then slowly down to his shirt collar.

Lon lay across his twin's chest.

Hutch drew in his breath and closed his eyes. So did Shay.

She heard the sickening snap, heard a moan cut off sharply and felt the convulsive jerk in his body that sent Lon's head crashing into her side . . . felt her own senses snap as if a bullet had entered her head.