Domino. Part 9

Ahead, over the shoulder of the mountain, the trees opened and the ground grew more rocky and barren, partly because of the mines and the debris they always left behind. In this high place we could see forever, and I reined Baby Doe to a halt. This was what I loved best-to find a high place where I could be above the world. Beyond Old Desolate the snow peaks of the Divide were visible, and mountain ranges seemed to move away endlessly against every horizon. Closer in I could look back toward the ranch, where Persis Morgan's stern-visaged house stood high and proud. Beyond it the cl.u.s.ter of buildings that was Jasper stood out, with mountain summits leaning o er them. But up here I could forget a closed room of cobwebs and terror. For a little while I could forget.

Gail called back to us. "A little higher up you can see the Gore range. Do you want to go up?"

I hesitated, drawn as always to the heights. But now there was another pull that was greater.

"Not today," I said. All I wanted now was to reach Dornioo.

As we came into the open, rounding the mountain, the rains of the old mine became visible-a few tumbled buildings rotting away, an overturned ore car, rusting tracks. Perhaps the "gallows frame" that marked the top of a mine shaft and provided the hoist had once stood up there. My father had told me its nickname.

My father. Again memory had stirred. But how could I remember?

I prodded Baby Doe with my heels and rode up beside Gail, words tumbling out in sudden urgency. "You said my father died in Morgan House. Has anyone told you when he died? Do you know how old I was when it happened?"

She turned in her saddle and looted at me coolly from eyes that held no sympathy. I would never have expected this woman's vocation to be nursing.

"I believe that you were eight when he died," she said sweetly.

"Then it must have happened just before my mother and I left Jasper. Not when I was a baby, as I've been told. How did he die? If you know, please tell me."

"I thought you didn't want to know. In any case Mrs. Morgan has asked us not to talk to you about any of this. So you'll have to let it go until she's ready to tell you. But at least I can tell you -where he died. It was in the gloomy rear parlor of Morgan House. That's probably why the room upset you so much this morning. Because you remember his dying there."

Hillary had caught up with us, and he rode between Gail and me, putting a stop to her words. "That's enough for now. We didn't come out here to talk about Persis Morgan and her house. Let's forget it!" He reached out and touched my arm. "Over there must be the Old Desolate mine that belonged to your great-grandfathers. So now let's go down and look at Domino."

Gail turned away, clearly piqued, and I could only be grateful to Hillary for thwarting her. She had wanted to hurt me. I had felt this in her all along, and I thought again of the funeral wreath that had been hung on my door. Leaving it for me would seem entirely in character for Gail Cullen. But why? Was I only imagining, as I could do so easily, or was she being prompted to this malice? Did someone else stand behind her?

Ill I.

I tried to shake off such disturbing thoughts as we rode on until we came fully over the mountain. Below us lay Dominothe remains of what was left of it straggling through a gulch between steep mountainsides. At the sight a flood of arm, unexpected emotion flowed through me.

This time I didn't want to be led, but pressed Baby Doe's flanks and urged her ahead to where I had a clear view of what remained down there-bones picked almost clean by dusty winds. How utterly lonely and abandoned the little mining camp seemed, its few ancient wooden buildings left to weather into dry and tumbled sticks. Long ago someone had built here hopefully, raising a town out of a dream. A dream that had died when the last man moved away. All through the mountains of the West such ghostly remnants of mining camps had crumbled into dust-lost history, never to be recovered.

Among the broken remnants one structure seemed to have been built with a certain arrogance and pride that had stood against the years and the gales. It boasted two floors, with a gable centered over long front windows where panes of gla.s.s shone in the sun. Surely the only gla.s.s remaining in Domino! Indeed, the only window frames. I had seen this house before, I knew, and it held no terror for me, but only happy promise.

"There'll be a watchman down there," Gail said. "But he knows me by now."

"A watchman in this empty place?"

"You'd be surprised at the way these old sticks of towns have been carried away. What the storms and the deep snows haven't destroyed the tourists pick up. Mr. Ingram is trying to save what's left. Not that we're exactly on the beaten path for tourists, but they can stray into the v ilds. Mr. Ingram owns most of it now-except for that house built by Malcolm Tremayne."

My own history seemed to be waiting for me, and I pressed Baby Doe with my knees, urging her dow n the hillside.

VIII.

Gail rode down with me, and Hillary came just behind.

"Mrs. Morgan sees to it that her house is kept in repair," she said. "Though it seems silly to bother."

"It doesn't sound practical to keep up anything around here," Hillary agreed.

I descended the steep stony trail, not wanting to listen to either of them. Never in my life had I been able to sense anything of family ties. My mother and her sister had been orphaned and raised by an elderly second cousin, who had also lacked ties. Of my mother's family only Aunt Ruth was left. But now these lonely, decaying remnants of a town so long forgotten reached out to speak to me. My great-grandmother had come here as a bride with her handsome young Englishman, Malcolm Tremayne. A man who had once shot an enemy with a silver-mounted deringer-perhaps in the streets of this very town.

Even such deeds had a glamorous ring when once removed into the pages of history, and I was already excusing Malcolm for whatever he might have done-because he belonged to me. The book I had read last night had told me how beautiful they both were-my great-grandparents-and suddenly I wanted to see pictures of them. Because of those two I existed, and I wanted to reach back into the past and touch them. Vith a deep new longing I wanted to know my father's face. What pictures my mother had kept were only snapshots, and mostly she had hidden them from me because they were a part of the silence she kept. But surely Grandmother Persis would have photographs. She would have pictures of him when he was a little boy, and then as a young man, before he married my mother. All this I must see before I went away and the- were lost to me forever.

Strangely, the thought of such an exploration into the past no longer alarmed me. Perhaps because it moved into a safer, more distant time than when I was eight years old and my father died in the rear parlor of my grandmother's house. Domino drew me. I had a kinship with its very dust. Besides, I wanted to know why Caleb Hawes and Persis Morgan had not wanted me here.

As Baby Doe picked her way downward around the slabs of gray rock and past piles of mine tailings that tumbled down the hillside, I studied the ruins below. Only a handful of wreckage straggled along the single street. Here and there, with siding flapping in the wind, could be seen the remains of a brave false front. Mostly siding was splintered, shingles gone, roofs caved in. A lopsided sign that announced SALOON led nowhere, and in some places only a debris-filled indentation in the ground showed where a house had stood. Perhaps even this much would not have been left if there had not been some effort over the years to keep it from blowing away entirely. Now, however, the abandonment was clear, except fcr the house where my great-grandparents had lived.

Just then something moved in my line of vision-something down there among the desiccated bones. I tried to focus more sharply, but it was gone at once, whatever it had been. Some animal, perhaps, foraging in the empty place. Or the watchman Gail had mentioned.

We were silent as our horses carried us down the trail, to come out at last at the end of the street farthest from the Tremayne house. A steep hill guarded Domino on one side, while on the other rose the lower flank of Old Desolate. When we halted, the silence seemed intense. The wracked mountainside above had once been denuded of trees, and new growth had sprung up spa.r.s.ely. Weeds and gra.s.s and wild flowers had taken over where they could, burying ruins under a more kindly mantling. There had never been any paving here.

Then, as one of our horses whinnied, a furious barking began and a large police dog rushed to stand in the weed-stubbled road, his bared teeth threatening us. At once a man emerged from a small shack and stood in our path.

"Good morning, Tully," Gail said. "This is Miss Morgan and Mr. Lange from New York. Do you want to call off your dog?"

The watchman had long been baked by mountain winds and sun, and he was far from young. His hair and beard were grizzled, the blue of his eyes faded, but he was capable of a lively interest, and it seemed to be directed at me. He called the dog to him and snapped on a chain. Then, holding back the animal in its attempts to leap toward us, he addressed me quizzically.

"I know your gran'maw. Knew her when she was a tyke, living right here in Domino. You don't look like you're the same stock. Not tough enough."

"I'm a city girl," I said, and smiled at him.

He shook his head. "Times're changin'. It's no good for n.o.body." He touched a finger to his temple and disappeared into his shack, taking the dog with him.

"I shouldn't think he'd make much of a watchman," Hillary commented.

"How many men do you think would be willing to camp here?" Gail asked. "He's an old-timer, so he's willing to stay on. Maybe he even does a little prospecting out of (Did habit or searches for lost mines. I've heard Mr. Ingram say he'll do well enough for now." She urged Silver King along what had once been a street, speaking over her shoulder. "Mr. Ingram says that Domino will make an ideal spot for a ski lodge."

I rode after her. "I hope he never builds it."

"We won't let him!" Hillary said with sudden heal, and 1 gave him a grateful look.

Somewhere ahead a horse neighed, and Gail looked around sharply. "There's someone here."

So I hadn't imagined that movement I'd seen.

She trotted toward the one house that stood out intact among all the ruins, and as she reached it and dismounted, Hillary and I joined her. A big gray stood tethered to a post at the side of the house.

"That's Sundance," Gail said indignantly. "I might have known Mrs. Morgan would do this!"

As Hillary and I dismounted and tethered our horses, a man came out the door and stood on the narrow porch, looking down at us, thumbs hooked in his worn leather belt, his battered hat set jauntily on black curls. It was Jon Maddocks, and with no volition on my part my spirits lifted at the sight of him.

"Good morning," he said. "I suppose I'm the welcoming committee. Mrs. Morgan thought you might be riding over this way today."

Standing above us, he looked brown and fit, taller than Hillary, and obviously at ease, belonging to this place.

Gail barely acknowledged his greeting, and spoke to me. "Mrs. Morgan always hates to have anyone set foot in all this dead history. Though I can't understand why. If you want to 12O.

go inside, I'll stay out here and smoke a cigarette. I don't care much for dust and mice and heaven knows what."

Hillary shrugged. "Go ahead/' he said to me.

I stood looking up at the house, caught by its forlorn and lonely dignity. "Perhaps there are only ghosts in there." I spoke softly, knowing very well that I must go inside. I climbed the four wooden steps to the porch, finding the boards firm under my feet and in good repair.

"Wait for me, Hillary," I said, wanting to explore alone.

Jon gestured me in. "It's open. I've already unlocked the door."

"What skeletons is she hiding?" Gail asked lightly. "If someone wanted to break in, it would be easy enough."

Whoever had set the front door in place had carved its outer panel lovingly in an effort to decorate. What seemed to be primroses grew in relief around each panel. My great-grandfather's handiwork? A memory of England? The doork.n.o.b was of cracked china, and it turned easily in my fingers. I pushed the door open upon a small dim entryway, with other doors opening off it. I chose one and stepped into what must have been the parlor. A small room compared to the one in Jasper, but with a bay window to let in light as long as it might last, deep in this slot in the mountains.

There was no furniture, and here the bare boards of the floor showed traces of the years. There were none of the fine hardwoods of Persis' house, no moldings or plaster cornices. Yet the loving touches of a builder who meant to live in his house were evident here and there. Where stairs went up at the side of the hall, the newel post also bore hand carving and the banister had a graceful curve. The ceilings were not high as they were in Jasper, but in this small place a young couple had made an effort to beautify in their own personal ways, and the result seemed less austere than their later, far grander house. I liked the young couple who had first lived here better than I did the 121.

affluent citizens they became. Here they had tried to please themselves rather than choosing an imposing frame for the sake of others.

I walked over to put my hand on the can ed post at the foot of the stairs.

"Don't go up there," Jon said from the parlor door. "Some of the floors have started to rot through upstairs. Mrs Morgan aid you could look in the door-if you felt you had to-but hat was all. I come over sometimes to take care of thingsceep the house swept out and the roof from leaking But she msn't wanted to put in new floors."

"Why was she so bent on keeping me out of this house?' I isked. "Are there skeletons, as Gail says?"

"I've never found any." He sounded laconic again. "Though sometimes I've wondered if they might exist. Maybe she just felt you hadn't earned the right to come here and poke around."

I bristled a little. "She can't keep that right from me I've had it since the day I was born her granddaughter. So I think I'll go to the top of the stairs, at least."

He made no effort to stop me as I went up How curious it seemed to put my feet on these steps, my hand on the worn banister, knowing that the feet of Sissy and Malcolm had climbed these very stairs, that their hands had touched this same rail.

Jon left the other two on the porch and came up behind me. At the top was a short hallway, with three open doors leading off it, the light dim because of shuttered windows in the bedrooms. The flooring at the top of the stairs seemed solid enough, and I crossed the tiny hall to a bedroom and stood in the doorway. "You don't listen, do you?" Jon said behind me.

"Not right now," I told him.

In this room, too, the floors seemed intact and had been 122.

recently swept. Through the broken slats of a shutter a little more light filtered in and showed me the empty room. On the walls were traces of peeling wallpaper. Wallpaper in Domino! I went to touch the gold and lavender daisies with curious fingers. Mountain daisies, so faded now that only a hint of color remained. I seemed to remember-something-perhaps staying in this room on a visit?

"How old is this house?" I asked.

"Your grandmother was born here," Jon said. "So it must be well past eighty years. I don't know how long the Tremaynes lived here. This was her room when she was a little girl."

I looked around at him directly, into eyes of smoky gray. "How do you know?"

"Because she used to bring me here. I rode over with her a good many times when I was a young boy. And later too. She liked to keep in touch with Domino."

"Were you making that up-about the broken floors? Just to scare me off?"

"No. They're bad at the back of the hall and in one of the rooms. I have to get to work on them."

"Why didn't she want me to come up here?" I repeated.

"She didn't want you to come into the house at all, but she saw she couldn't stop you. So she told me last night to come over before you got here this morning. She told me to get you out as quickly as possible."

"But what difference can it make to her now if I visit Domino?"

"I expect that's for her to say."

Once more I wished there were some way to get past the p.r.i.c.kly guard he wore against me.

Through shutter slats I could look down on the street, where Hillary and Gail were walking about. Hillary, curious as always, had stopped to look through a broken doorway across the road.

123.

I should be down there, exploring with him. Perversely, I liked it better here.

"Last night I was reading a book about the Morgan mines,'' I told Jon. "It mentioned an old man they called Dominoes. Did he really exist?"

"I suppose so, though legends have a habit of growing. The story is that the old fellow you read about started i tunneling operation on his own around the side of Old Desolate before Tremayne struck the main lode. He put up the first cabin here and turned the place into a mining camp. The hint of gold or silver was always like flypaper to flies, so people camtr in. And it took his name. They say that's what he liked to playdominoes. I suppose he stood out among all the pol'er placers. Let's go down now. There's nothing to see up here.'

"There's this," I said, and touched the wallpaper again. "A child lived in this room and grew up to be my grandmother. I didn't ever expect to have any feeling about that, but I do." A patch of faded daisies hung from the wall near my hand and I tore off a strip. For a moment I stood staring at it. Jon was watching, and I smiled at him absently. "You have to allow me a sentimental souvenir."

"There's no time to be sentimental about wallpaper when a life is involved. She's not just a grandmother you've happened to inherit. She's a woman."

"But she never let me know her the wav she used to be. So now her life doesn't involve me. This is all I can take home with me from Colorado-this bit of paper. Persis Morgan is dying, and there's no possible way for her to recover a time that's gone."

His gray eyes could be cold as a mountain stream, "She doesn't have to die yet. She's giving up-and that's something she's never done before. Not ever in her life. Why don't you stop her?"

124.

"That's foolish! There's nothing I can do against Mark Ingram."

"She thinks there is."

I turned on him angrily. "Then tell me what it is-tell me!"

"I wish I could. But you'll never find out if you turn and run. That way the vultures move in."

"I thought you'd decided I was one of the vultures."

"Maybe you are. Maybe not. But you're the one she's asked to come here. You're the one she wants to trust. So you need to get back into the real world. It's okay to remember, but sometimes I think you want to live back there, making up stories about times and people that are gone. Just to comfort yourself. You don't deal with what's now."

His words came too close to the truth, and they made me angry. But they weren't altogether fair. I could tell him about reality if I wanted to.

"You talk so much about helping her/' I said. "What are you doing?"

The challenge didn't embarra.s.s him. "I'm trying. I have an idea or two, and I've been searching. There are missing pieces. You may be able to pick them up."

I didn't answer him, but stuffed the bit of paper into my jacket pocket and returned to the dimness of the hall. At the top of the stairs I paused.

"Today, just a little while ago, I went into the rear parlor at Grandmother Persis' house. Apparently that room has been shut up for years. As though something that happened there must have been so awful that she could never risk going into it again."