Muckers (9 page)

Soon the glow over Hatley begins to fade as the town goes to sleep, like candles getting blown out on a birthday cake.

And in a few hours it’ll be Bobby’s birthday. He would have been twenty-six.

I hand Maw his letter. It’s all I can give her. Someday it might be something more. They say the Yavapai Cup weighs twenty pounds and that it bestows great things on anyone who wins it. If we do, they’ll be cheering so loud in this part of the state Maw won’t have a choice but to come around and see what all the fuss is about. Then I can finally bring her home.

WEEKEND EDITION

MUCKERS WIN PIGSKIN OPENER, 14–7. RECAP, P.2

Miners Request Raise

Hoping to secure the raise they’ve been trying to put through since April 1945, the Brotherhood of Hatley-Cottonville Miners & Smelter Workers has petitioned for a pay increase of 40 cents a day for all workers at the Eureka Copper mine and smelter.

When asked about the threat of a strike if the request was not met, Dell Bruzzi, spokesman for the Brotherhood, said that as of yet there is no plan to do so. He said the facts show the inflation of prices in this locality after every past raise was greater than the increase in wages. If the trend continues, Bruzzi said, the Brotherhood may find no other alternative than to take constructive action.

SOCIAL NEWS & ARRESTS

—Mrs. Faye Cosgrove
(nee Miller) and her little son are houseguests of Faye’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Miller. Faye is back from Grasshopper Flats to manage her father’s furniture store since he took ill last month.

—Mrs. Reginald Hollingworth
entertained the Women’s Garden Club with a bridge party at her Magnolia Street home on Company Ridge. Bouquets of white asters decorated the tables, and glace cupcakes were enjoyed by all. High was won by Eulene Vance,
second high by Hilda Booth, and low, Wanda Menary.

—Featured guest speaker at the Elks fund-raiser will be Hatley High English teacher
Luther B. Sims Jr.
, who has prepared a speech entitled “Creeping Communism in Your Community.”

Draft Registration for All 18-Year-Olds Monday at Cottonville High. Draft Call Still Set at 19
.

POP
’
S SURPRISED WHEN I WALK
into the kitchen this early in the morning the day after a game. He’s got on his red unions—he always has them under the white shirt every shift boss wears—and should be using a fork instead of those fingers when he starts fishing for a pickle out of the jar. But I’m glad he’s aiming for something to eat. Pop never does when he’s drunk, so I know I’m in the clear.

“Dammit!” he hollers. I can see his fingers dangling inside the jar. “I’m stuck,” he says, his face burning red.

I get out the lard Maggie Juniper keeps in the cupboard and bring it over to the sink, trying not to smile or laugh or anything. I can see his wrist is bleeding since he keeps trying to yank it out when it just won’t go.

“Stop thrashing it around,” I say. “It’ll only make it worse.”

Pop sighs and watches me spread the lard around the rim, then onto his swollen wrist.

“If you say I’m in a pickle you’ll be sorry,” he mumbles. But I can’t stop myself from smiling.

When the wrist wriggles free, he dumps the pickles into the sink and grabs the first one that slides out, looking at me in between chewing.

“So you’re the king of happiness, eh?” he says.

I don’t say anything. I never know what to say to Pop anyhow. I wonder if he’ll let me take a pickle, though. There’s only three. I lean into the sink to get one, but Pop latches on to my arm. He’s quick for fifty-four, at least before he gets to coughing, but his hearing’s definitely shot from all that blasting down in the mine.

“The game last night,” he says. “Remember, it’s every man for himself out there. Same as in the mines.” Then he lets go of my arm and I stuff the pickle in my mouth.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” Pop says when he catches me grinning.

It wasn’t even a real smile. How could it be? Not today.

Pop doesn’t bother to shave much anymore. He’s due at the mine before it gets light out. I know they like their shift bosses clean-shaven, but they ease up the rule for Pop.

Except for his big hands and gut, Pop’s pretty thin, especially in the face. He never took on any muscle, even after all those years of mining, and his nose hasn’t looked like a nose in a while. There are little round things sprouting out from the sides like on those saguaros that grow down in Phoenix we saw in that Kodachrome film.

Pop’s nose turned purplish-red once they started blasting open the pit. Every time a miner got killed on his shift, you couldn’t find Pop for days. Then he’d come home and throw one of his rocks at the mountain. When Bobby died, there weren’t any rocks left to throw, so Pop hurled a chair at me instead.

He puts the empty pickle jar in the Frigidaire without the lid and gets the newspaper I left on the back porch.

“It’ll never happen,” Pop sniffs, wiping his mouth with his hand and pointing to the part about the miners wanting a raise. “The E.C. don’t need us like they used to,” he says, sitting back down at the table, “or we’d have ’em again by the balls.”

“Ever think it’ll shift back,” I ask, “or isn’t there enough ore down there to keep the mine going?”

“There’s ore, and enough of it. Gold, too,” Pop says. “But I don’t make those kinds of decisions.” He scratches his belly and looks up like he’s seeing me for the first time. Then he goes to the sink and gets the last pickle. “It’s still good,” he says, handing it to me. “There may be no future for you here, Red. And the mine—it’s no life for you. Once football’s over, you best be tinking about what comes next ’cause there might not be anything left for you in Hatley.”

COACH LET US OFF PRACTICE
early after grinding hard all week. He says he wants us to be fresh for our second game tomorrow night in Prescott so we should head home.

People are always calling four walls a home. But ours doesn’t feel like one. To me, this field is home, so I showered and came back.

The train’s almost loaded at the depot when I see Angie heading down the hill for the Barrio.

“Hey, Angie!” I call out. “How’d you like to go for that swim?”

She turns and puts her hands on her hips. “We’re not anywhere near the Verde,” she says, coming over.

“We can be.” I point to the train getting loaded up in front of the tunnel.

“Red, you’re crazy.”

“No I’m not. You jump on before the train gets going.” I jog over to the tracks and hop onto the last freight car, then
reach for Angie’s hand. Her eyes go wide and she starts biting her lip, so I know she’s doubting it already. “Come on, Angie. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

“From up there?”

I dangle a foot in the air, out toward the Barrio, and jump off. “Here. I’ll even make you a doorstep.” I get on all fours and wait until I feel her foot push against my tailbone.

“And why would I hitch a train ride with you?” Angie says, looking down at me from the doorway, her red lips smirking and both arms splayed across the opening of the car.

“ ’Cause you want to.”

“How would you know?”

“You’re up there, aren’t you?”

The train lurches forward, shaking Angie’s stance, and she’s startled.

“Red, get up here. Don’t leave me!” she cries, gripping the rattling steel.

“Not until you tell me you don’t hate me.”

“I’m not going on this thing by myself.”

I know I’ve got about thirty seconds before Dell makes the switch. So I grab my letterman’s jacket and break into an easy jog. “Well, then …,” I say to her.

“I don’t hate you. You’re a nice gringo, okay?”

“And you want to hitch a train ride with me.”

Angie hesitates, so I stop running and let the car get ahead of me.

“And I want to hitch a train ride with you!” she shouts.

I can hear two low-pitched barks and they’re bounding closer. I know they’re Father Pierre’s angry dogs, but I focus on the opening in the car and lunge forward, hurtling through it and onto the train floor, sliding a few feet on my stomach.

“You scared me,” Angie says, pummeling my back with her fists. They don’t hurt. No more than a flood of piñon nuts falling off the pines by the Verde, shaken loose by the four o’clock wind.

“Didn’t mean to.” I roll over and smile. “Guess you never caught a train like this before.”

“What if somebody saw us?” Angie says.

“Like who? Dell Bruzzi’s the only one driving this train. He’d never tell. And Father Pierre’s dogs can’t speak human.”

“Don’t be so sure. Father tells them everything in French. And they always chime in at the best parts.”

“That’s right … you’re good at languages, aren’t you?”

“I just know three,” Angie says. “So far. It’s how I got the job at the telephone company.” She won’t let our eyes meet and peers through the gap in the freight car instead. “Would you care?” she asks, looking into the rushing scenery.

“You mean, if somebody saw us?”

She nods. “Would you?”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know. You’re a gringo and I’m—”

“Hey, doesn’t
gringo
mean ‘green’ in Spanish? I’m Red, you know. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“
Verde
means ‘green,’ silly.” Angie messes up the top of my hair and laughs. “It’s really beautiful,” she says.

“And I didn’t even get a haircut yet.”

“I meant,
the view
.”

“See. Aren’t you glad you jumped on? Though you don’t look like a girl who gets into nature much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. The skinny skirt. That pearl necklace.”

“These? They’re not real. They’re fake. I got them at Penney’s. We could never afford real pearls like the ones
at Robinson’s. And I was hiking down the hill when you caught me, remember?”

“But you’d like real ones.”

“Oh no.” Angie blushes. “They cost nearly forty-nine dollars! You know how much real ones could buy? There’s ten of us. New shoes would be nice.” Angie looks down at her black-and-white ones. “I can’t keep polishing these saddle shoes forever. It just makes the cracks deeper.”

I come closer and touch one of those pearls. “Bet they’d match your teeth,” I say. “
Real
pearls.”

Angie looks down at my fingernails. “You work a lot at Ernie’s, don’t you?”

“Enough, I guess,” I mumble, pulling away. Doesn’t matter how much I wash them, the thumbnails still keep in the grease.

I wish Angie hadn’t seen them. Not this way. When I’m throwing out on the field, all you notice is how smooth they hug the ball, buried deep in the pigskin. Not how filthy they are, but how well they listen. Then the precision of the quick release, so all you can do is follow the direction of the toss.

“I don’t mind,” Angie says. “Papá’s grimy like that all over when he gets home. You know, from down in the mine. He makes Mamá take a banana yucca and scrape the black off, even if it cuts into the skin.” Angie takes a loose nugget of churned-up ore that’s found its way into the car. Then she starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking about the stone the train’s carrying,” she says. “And how half of it’s probably from my father. Or my brother Manny.”

“Yeah. And I bet my pop made them shovel it in there.”

Angie’s expression turns cold, so I know I said something wrong.

“I mean … I didn’t mean it like that,” I tell her. That was stupid. Talking to Angie like she was Rabbit or Cruz.

“I know. It’s true,” she murmurs.

The train rounds a sharp corner before heading into the tunnel and she leans into me when the darkness covers us. Her body’s firm and warm. She steadies herself when we get back into the daylight, then inches backward until she’s against the closed side of the car. “Papá would kill me if he saw us right now.”

“Us? Or
me
?”

“Anyone who’s not my brother. I’m only fifteen!”

“Yeah, well, he’d have to take a number because Cruz would slit my throat before your father even got to me.”

“You think so? But you’re Cruz’s best friend.”

“Exactly.”

The train grazes past a shaggy juniper as it picks up speed, and I know that it’s time. “Get ready to jump,” I say.

“Are you joking?” she says. “Can’t we wait until the train slows down?”

“It’ll be in Cottonville by then. Nothing but sidewalks with people gawking at us. And the sheriff’s office. We’d be found out for sure.”

“But it’s going so fast.”

I take Angie’s hand without waiting for an answer and pull her up quickly. “There’s a sandy pocket ahead,” I tell her. “When I yell ‘gringo,’ we jump, okay? One. Two. Three.
Grin-go!
”