The Threshold (22 page)

Although these young ladies were from modest backgrounds, they had a flair for independence and self-support with which Mildred could identify. They’d heard so much of the “wild west,” the “Rocky Mountain Majesty,” and the lore of the mining camps that her job had practically been done for her. They couldn’t believe that an entire town wanted them. And that someday when they did decide to give up their independence to marry (which all young ladies except Mildred planned to do eventually), Telluride overflowed with strong young men from which to choose.

“Will we see Indians in Telluride?” Audrey asked her now.

“It’s possible. Races are held along the railroad track on the July Fourth holiday and many Indians and Mexicans come to race their horses. There may still be some lounging around the depot.” Mildred was confident she’d found the perfect employment as she gazed with fond good humor at her enthusiastic charges. She’d warned them of the vicious storms of winter, the rudimentary services and shopping available in a mining camp. But they were on a pioneering adventure and Mildred felt a glow at having helped others find their dreams. And all she need do was to stay in fine hotels, dine out, visit museums and department stores, dress in the latest fashions, and read. On this trip she’d limited her interviews to three hours in the afternoons and had the rest of the day to do as she pleased. Mildred wondered at other women’s desire to marry and had noted long ago how quickly all but the rich wearied and faded once they began the inevitable childbearing.

Charlene Rassmussen sat beside Mildred and gave her an impetuous hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s all so beautiful and I’m so happy.”

“You haven’t even seen Telluride yet.” Mildred noticed these women did not shutter her out with their eyes but regarded her with respect and something akin to awe. Charlene had worked on a telephone switchboard for a year and had confided to Mildred that her parents insisted she marry a neighbor man with bad teeth, bad skin, bad breath, and thinning hair. Rather than do so, Charlene had left home to come to Telluride.

Mildred and her companions had attracted a good deal of attention on their trip and particularly the farther west they traveled. One gentleman pointed out an eagle to them now. Charlene smiled at him. He did not have bad teeth or skin or thin hair but was rather handsome in a ruddy sort of way. His speech was educated but his clothes those of a rough workman and his mustache needed trimming. His eyes seemed busy catching every detail both inside and outside.

Mildred forgot about him as the train crossed a high mountain valley with vast herds of cattle, stopping at each little settlement along the way, and her new friends exclaimed at the number of young cowboys hanging about the depots. But she noticed the ruddy man again as they all stretched their legs on the station platform at Ridgway before boarding the narrow-gauge train that would take them into the even loftier San Juans.

“Do ya live in these parts, miss?” He appeared beside her and now his speech matched his clothing.

“I live in Telluride … for the moment.” The fact was she had no permanent address and the idea that she might like to invest some of her earnings in a house came to her just then. It was suspect for a woman not to have a home. But then, almost everything but marriage was. “And you?”

“Oh, I’ve come to work the mines.” He watched her like he seemed to everyone and everything. “Hear a man can make his fortune in the San Juans.”

When they reached Telluride he tipped his hat to them and swung off down the tracks with a bedroll over his shoulder. No Indians were there to meet them but Audrey seemed not to notice, just swirled her skirts in an effort to take in all the peaks at once, and a piece of her unruly hair loosened from her coiled braid. “I know I’m going to like it here.”

An agent from Lawyer Barada introduced himself and guided them to a livery surrey. But Mildred feared the hanging dust from the streets and mule droppings from a loading packtrain along the way might dispel the good intentions of the town’s greeting. The agent deposited her at the New Sheridan, explaining that central lodgings had been provided for her charges at the Victoria Hotel until they were settled in employment. Lawyer Barada was not in his office at the Sheridan Office Building next to the hotel, so she left the list of the young ladies’ qualifications with his clerk. Though weary, Mildred felt good about her trip as she shook out and hung the new clothes she’d bought in Kansas City. The next trip would be to Chicago, with Lawyer Barada’s approval.

Callie witnessed her ex-teacher’s grand entrance but Miss Heisinger looked right at and through her like the other guests of the hotel. The lieutenant governor of the state of Colorado had arranged a truce between the management of the Smuggler-Union Mine and Miners’ Union No. 63, Western Federation of Miners. Now the stiffs at the Smuggler received a straight three dollars for an eight hour day like those who worked the other mines around, and the town returned to a wary peace. The mine owners were less than happy with the arrangement. Callie heard much mention of “damned rednecks” and the injustices of a pro-labor government in Denver as gentlemen passed her in the halls or lobby.

And it was in the lobby she loved to be, especially when the sun shone in to warm her. The day after Miss Heisinger arrived, Callie was sent to dust the moldings, tables, Mr. Root’s cage front, and the top strip of wood on the wainscoting. Callie was hoping to chance upon a daydream to help her through the day when the housekeeper swept in from the hall to the ballroom and caught her gazing out the window, feather duster stilled in midair.

“What am I to do with her, Mr. Root? She’s not worth the money to feed.”

Mr. Root just shook his head and polished his spectacles with a handkerchief. When the spectacles were off, one of his eyes wandered off by itself.

“Callie, Opal Mae is sick with a bad tooth and can barely raise her head. You’ll have to hurry and finish here and help Cora on second.”

Callie climbed to her room before going to help Cora and reread Bram’s letter. Her brother had wanted to die but Ma’am wouldn’t let him. Now he wanted to leave the hospital and Denver. “I’m lonesome for you, Callie girl, and still so weak. Please write. Ma’am wonders why you don’t write also.”

Callie took off her shoes and rubbed the sores on her toes. She had highgraded some writing materials from the hotel but she was afraid to highgrade coins for postage. Callie buttoned on the torturesome shoes again, slipped into the hall and down the staircase to Miss Heisinger’s suite. Just as she put her knuckles to the door, her teacher opened it.

Miss Heisinger was dressed for dinner, a summer dress of lace and bows. The ruffles were wrinkled some but her hair and skin shone. Her long gloves and reticule matched perfectly. She smelled of soap and powder and she walked directly into Callie. The girl fell backward onto the carpet runner.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see … Callie? Callie O’Connell?” A gloved hand reached down to help Callie to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sent out to work.” Callie looked away in embarrassment at the memory of her brother carrying a kicking, disheveled teacher through the heart of the camp. How could she ask her for money to send a letter to that very brother?

“Why are you sent out to work so young? You are such a fine student.”

“My family has troubles just now, ma’am. My brother—”

“Oh yes, your brother.” Miss Heisinger’s voice lowered and Callie winced. “I heard of the accident. I’m sorry.”

“Callie, there you are.” Cora peeked out the door next to Miss Heisinger’s. “Hurry, we must finish this suite before the evening train arrives. A very important guest is coming.”

Callie turned back to Miss Heisinger, only to find her gliding away down the hall.

Where was she to get the postage money? Callie swiped at dresser tops and windowsills as Cora fussed about with a carpet sweeper. It wasn’t as if she needed a great fortune. As the train whistle signaled the imminent arrival of their important guest, Callie paused to look out the window. The buildings across Colorado Avenue were lower than the hotel and she could see over them to the dark side of town. Daylight seemed always to linger longer here. There buildings were well lit and through the glass she could hear already the low murmur that hummed on those streets at night.

Her Aunt Lilly lived. And she lived over there. And she loved Bram as much as anyone. If Callie could find her, Aunt Lilly would surely see Bram’s letter sent off to Denver.

25

Charles lay on his back on Tracy’s bed, his feet in the air, his tail up over his lower stomach concealing his nether regions in a modesty suitable to a Victorian cat. The pink lining of his ears, the pink slant of his closed eyelids, the pink outline of his nose and mouth were the only color on him. The rest was snowy fluff. The soft life was making Charles fat. And clean.

Two daybeds, two dressers, and a TV set shoved up against the outside door about filled the crib’s front room. The back room was a kitchen except for a small section walled off for a bathroom. The place was even smaller than Callie’s cabin in Alta.

Tracy lay on her daybed next to Charles and watched television. She’d hung her
Dr. Miles’s Number One Hundred and Fifty Gonorrhea and Gleet
poster over a bad patch on the wall and a sketch that Aletha had drawn over another.

Aletha stretched out on her own daybed and attempted to read one of the books on Telluride Cree had lent her.
The names of the fabulous gold and silver mines of the region will live forever in the annals of man’s wealth and greed, fortitude and destructiveness. The great Sheridan Mine, the Tomboy, the Smuggler-Union, the Blackbear, the Nellie, and the Gold King
—
to name a few of the larger employers
—
hired hundreds of miners, millmen, engineers, and office workers. Their combined payrolls supported most of the business in town. So when strife emerged between management and union
—

“So when it comes to dishwashing detergent there’s no substitute for Subdue. Mrs. Callus’s spotless glassware demonstrates why.”

—
of the Smuggler-Union, an Englishman, Arthur Collins, was hired as manager. Familiar with the methods used in the copper mines of Cornwall and aware of the need for greater output and profit, Collins instituted the fathom system whereby a miner was paid by the fathoms of earth broken rather than by the regular eight-hour shift at the standard rate of three dollars. Men found themselves working longer hours for less pay. The union struck and Collins hired scab labor to continue operations and hired it at the regular three dollars for an eight-hour shift for which the union had struck to begin with. On July 3, two hundred and fifty striking miners attacked as the night shift of scabs came off work. Four men died in the battle and the offending scabs were forced to march over a rocky divide without shoes and told never to return. Peace was restored for a time through the efforts of the state government but
—

“Aletha, I got to tell you something.”

—
and the tragic fire at the Smuggler-Union Mine the next November when twenty-eight men lost their lives. A series of avalanches at the Liberty Bell
—

“And now, Mrs. Hannah, can you tell me for four
hundred
dollars what is the name of—”

—
the dashing Bulkeley Wells, Harvard graduate, son-in-law of Colonel Thomas Livermore of Boston. Livermore owned the New England Exploration Company which in turn owned the Smuggler-Union. Wells oversaw his father-in-law’s mining interests as well as the vast Whitney holdings from his offices in Denver and fully supported Arthur Collins’s antiunion stand
.

“Aletha, I lied to you about why Larry left.”

—
when Arthur Collins advertised that he would rehire the scab labor on a published list of—

“Will you listen to me? This is important.”

“Why did Larry leave you?”

“Because I gave him herpes.”

—
the bloodshed. Arthur Collins was murdered in his home in Pandora, a settlement with giant stamp mills in the valley below the Smuggler-Union tunnels, by a gunshot blast through the window as he
—“You gave him what?”

“You heard me. That was the only breakout I’ve had since I came to Telluride and I haven’t had one since. Honest.”

Charles rolled over onto his stomach. He watched Tracy cry. His slant eyes held no trace of sympathy.

They worked the Senate that night and were invited to go to a party at Renata’s afterward. Renata lived several miles out of Telluride on a narrow mountain road with nothing but mailboxes and driveways to suggest there might be houses hidden off in the trees. Aletha found it only because Tracy had been there.

Renata greeted them at the door of a multilevel wood-and-glass thing that climbed a hillside. Where did she find the time and the sun to maintain that tan? She wore a creamy-colored backless pants outfit. Why didn’t she have goosebumps? She drew Aletha into the room, leaving Tracy to fend for herself. “And where’s Cree, do you know? I haven’t been able to get hold of him.”

“I think he wants to be alone for a while.”

“Please tell me he is not writing a book. Writers ask a lot of questions and then want to be left alone for a while. And take it from me, they are the most insipid people you’ll ever meet.”

The first floor had a sunken living room and greenhouse with a frothy hot tub. A ledge and steps separated the two. The kitchen monopolized a mezzanine and the two levels above were given over to bedrooms. The front walls were all glass. Most of the people here were in their thirties, a fair number of them pregnant. Blue jeans and designer thighs were much in evidence, especially as one got out of the other to slip into the hot tub.

Aletha watched a woman cut piles of cocaine with a razor blade into lines on a glass tray in one of the bedrooms, watched the excitement of those around her with rolled bills already in hand. The coke reminded her of Cree, of the people who had cut down his partner and might now be after him.

Renata’s wall art was art—paintings, sketches, watercolors, prints, and rather surprisingly all Western. Aletha would have expected Renata to go for something more “in.” And on the wall along the staircase leading to the kitchen was an original signed by Jared Kingman. Aletha almost spilled her wine down her front. She’d had a running fantasy in prison that her father broke in and rescued her, took her to a hideout somewhere on the desert. And she lived happily ever after keeping house for him while he painted and she never saw another living soul as long as she lived.