The Threshold (39 page)

Luella put a hand to her chest and knotted it to a fist as if her heart hurt. “I need my medicine. Callie, could you—”

“No, she can’t leave to get it now.” Mrs. Pakka gave Callie a look that said she didn’t expect Callie could ever do anything useful and poured tea into Luella’s cup.

“I’ll fetch it when they’ve gone.” Callie took her mother’s hand and pondered Mrs. Pakka’s look.

“It’s me they’re after, isn’t it?” Luella peered up at the corners of the ceiling as if she expected members of Troop A to be poised there ready to leap at her. “I’d best hide.” Callie’s mother crawled under the dining table, leaving Callie and the Pakkas staring at each other openmouthed.

“That medicine is affecting her head,” Mrs. Pakka said, “just like spirits do when a man can’t stop the drinking. I can’t get her to eat. Blood’s so thin it makes her nose bleed. You and Bram ought to make her see a doctor. See what he thinks of this medicine she can’t be without.”

“Ma’am, come out from under there now.” The thought of children “making” a mother do anything seemed fanciful to Callie. But she softened her voice as she would for Lowri Kesti or a kitten. “They’re not looking for you, they’re looking for guns.” Still her mother didn’t move. “I wish Bram were here.”

“Not with his temper, you don’t.” The landlady winced as the searchers tipped over something upstairs. “And speaking of whom, he’s not come up with the week’s board money and I’ve given him more time. Now you’re an extra mouth to feed on the poor boy’s wage. You can work some of it off around here, miss. Must have taught you something up at that hotel besides swishing your skirts.”

And so Callie found herself cleaning things again and tied down to the boardinghouse, keeping an eye on the increasingly erratic behavior of her mother. There was no hope of starting school until the fall term anyway. But one afternoon she saw Luella to her room for her nap, put on her coat, and made her way up to Colorado Avenue. There were surprisingly few people on the street and she noticed the closed doors on the saloons. She stepped into the boot shop, waved at the bootmaker, and slipped into the alley in back. Callie hoped her Aunt Lilly wasn’t entertaining a gentleman. They needed money for the boardinghouse. She’d tell Bram and Mrs. Pakka the money came from her back wages at the hotel, although Mrs. Stollsteimer had made it clear there’d be none. Sly. Secretive.

“Oh Callie, I’m glad you’ve come.” Aunt Lilly had two lady friends at her table. “I have something for you.” She shook out her hair and disappeared into her front room. The other ladies had their hair down too, and damp, as if they’d just washed it. Their faces were scrubbed of paint. “Here, honey, have some coffee,” one of the ladies said, “and see what Floradora has for you.”

Aunt Lilly brought out a lovely dress—red-black-and-green plaid with lace at the collar. “It’s almost new. And I know how you hate that black hotel thing.”

The dress was a tad large but Callie was glad to take off Mrs. Stollsteimer’s uniform. “I’ll tell everyone it’s a hand-me-down from Olina’s sister.”

She sat to coffee with the relaxed ladies and related the new troubles of the O’Connell family and her dismissal from the hotel. Once Aunt Lilly assured her she would help, Callie enjoyed the afternoon. They talked clothes and hairstyles. Callie drank too much coffee. Her nerves hummed in her ears. One of the ladies brushed her hair and tied a ribbon bow in it. Callie felt pretty.

She sensed that the washing off of a private part was not all that Aunt Lilly and her friends did to entertain gentlemen. And what they did do caused these women to be shunned by all others. There were certain matters Callie’s normal curiosity shied away from knowing. And although the atmosphere was friendly, there was a certain line that instinct told her not to cross. She’d never mentioned Uncle Henry here. These women spoke carefully around her too. But she saw no harm in bringing up the fact of closed saloons.

“Captain Bulkeley and our own Troop A have closed down all the business.”

“The bootsmith was open,” Callie said. This drew laughter and winking.

“Well, then, certain kinds of business.” Aunt Lilly turned to her friends. “I hear the Senate and some other places are serving early suppers today for … uh … ladies of the neighborhood so the food they’d already bought don’t spoil. Promises to be cheap, and a working girl just has to knock discreetly at the back door.”

Callie left as the ladies decided to put up their hair and go out for supper. She left with a nice collection of coins in her pocket but she’d overstayed her time and found the back door to the boot shop locked. She started down the alley toward the livery stable and met a lady who smiled warmly as she passed. Callie walked on a few steps and stopped. She knew that face. In fact, she knew the whole body. Callie turned in time to see the lady enter the alley door of the Senate. What would it be like to go out for supper? Aunt Lilly was going to the Idle Hour. Did the lady Callie had just met suspect her picture sometimes hung on the second-floor landing of the New Sheridan Hotel?

When Callie knocked discreetly at the Senate’s back door a sweating man in an apron ushered her through the kitchen into a room with tables set up like those at the hotel dining room. The lady of the painting was the only other patron so far, and she sat at a communal table. Callie sat beside her. “Might as well have some fun, with everything closed, huh?” the lady offered by way of conversation. “Awful young, aren’t ya? No scruples in this town. My name’s Audrey.”

“I’m Callie O’Connell.”

“That your real name? You use your real name, you don’t want to use the whole thing. If I was you I’d stick to Callie. What brought you to the shady side of town? Not the Heisinger bitch, I hope.”

“You know Miss Heisinger? She was my teacher.”

“Your teacher!” Audrey put her hand over her mouth as if she thought she’d be sick or had said an evil word. “And you not even with your hair up.”

The sweating man brought them each a bowl of soup and stomped back to the kitchen as if he wished they hadn’t come.

“Do you stay often at the New Sheridan Hotel?”

Audrey laughed. “You’re a funny kid, Callie. Wonder if anybody else is coming tonight.” She blew on a spoonful of soup. “My God, what’s that?”

Callie looked up from her own soup to see the hole with the frying edges opening in front of them. It’d been so long, practically two years now, Callie’d hoped she’d outgrown these ominous experiences, as one outgrew earaches and bad dreams. But there stood Aletha, and this time not in pants. She wore a skirt so short it almost revealed her knees, and what appeared to be a piece of rough quartz around her neck on a chain. She carried a tray of stacked dishes. Another lady stepped out from behind her, her skirt even shorter, and she too carried a loaded tray. Audrey dropped her spoon, and soup splattered everywhere.

“Aletha? Miss Heisinger took your book,” Callie said all in a rush before Aletha could pronounce some terrible warning Callie didn’t want to hear. “How is Charles? Do you still have him?”

The lady beside Aletha made a funny sound and dropped her tray. Dishes broke and clattered. “Callie,” Aletha said, “what are you doing
here?
”

But the hole closed up over Aletha before Callie could answer. Audrey pressed back in her chair and held both hands to her bosom. “Where’d they go?”

“That was Aletha,” Callie said, the enjoyment gone from her evening. “I hope I never see her again.” But Callie saw Aletha and her clumsy friend the very next day at John O’Connell’s hearing in the San Miguel County Courthouse on Colorado Avenue.

45

Aletha sat with Cree, Renata and Tracy at the back of the courtroom. The seats were long hard benches like church pews. The flag next to the judge’s desk hung in folds, so Aletha couldn’t count the stars. The jailer had fed them fried potatoes and tough beef last night but no breakfast this morning. No one had slept much. Gunshots sounded throughout the night and horses’ hooves pounded by on Spruce Street. The women had been escorted to an outhouse behind the Senate before they’d all been marched up here.

Aletha stood automatically when the judge entered the room. That’s when she noticed Callie O’Connell across the aisle. Callie was older again, wearing the same dress and hairstyle as when Aletha had seen her for the second time at the Senate and Tracy had dropped her tray. Callie leaned around a tall man to stare back. The tall man was watching Cree. He was the boy, Bram. His hair looked bleached.

Judge Wardlaw cautioned those present that this was a hearing preliminary to nothing and the court would make suitable decisions on all matters brought before it. A Mr. Murphy and a Mr. Richardson had come from Denver to represent the union men and a Mr. Barada spoke for the Citizens’ Alliance. Men were interrogated as to their means of support, hours of gainful employment, and summarily judged vagrants. Barada was small and elderly but he spoke with the strength and diction of a Shakespearean actor and made the union lawyers seem graceless, dull, and dumb just by the way he combined words, intonations, gestures, and expressions.

One by one the vagrants were led out of the courtroom and the crowd thinned. The elderly Barada announced a special case, that of John O’Connell, and across the aisle Callie and Bram sat straighter and Aletha could see the profile of the woman on the other side of Callie. It was the woman with Callie in August in Alta when this all began. Then her hair had been the same rich chestnut as Callie’s; now it bore swaths of gray. Her husband was forced to stand at the front of the room with his hands cuffed behind him. Bob Meldrum stood guard next to him.

“This man, John Clarence O’Connell, stands accused of planning the bombing of the troop trains on their way to this camp, your Honor.”

“Mr. O’Connell”—Judge Wardlaw looked up from his hands spread palm-down on a desk clean of paper—“are you a member of the Telluride Miners’ Union, Local Sixty-three, of the Western Federation of Miners?”

“Aye, sir, and proud to be.” John O’Connell put his shoulders back.

“And did you conspire to bomb the trains bringing the National Guard troops into this district?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Your Honor, we were not informed of these charges,” Lawyer Murphy said. “We demand—”

“If it please the court,” Lawyer Barada interrupted, “we have a witness.”

“Your demands will be heard in good time, sir,” the judge told Mr. Murphy, and then muttered to himself and the room in general, “These Irishmen.” To Lawyer Barada he said, “Call your witness, Homer.” The witness entered from the judge’s chambers with Bulkeley Wells. Wells stood off to the side but in full view, and Aletha could feel the radiation clear at the back of the room. Beside her Renata breathed, “Magnificent.”

“Simon P. Doud,” the witness answered Lawyer Barada.

“Would you please describe the conversation you had with Mr. O’Connell concerning the bombing, Mr. Doud?”

“We were drinking beer at the Senate and Mr. O’Connell said that blowing up the tracks between here and the Dallas Divide would keep the militia out, sir.”

“It was you who suggested it,” John O’Connell broke in, “and it was just talk. Nothin’ come of it.” Bob Meldrum nudged John with his shoulder.

“And why was it you were drinking at the establishment known as the Senate with Mr. O’Connell? And what was it that brought you to Telluride, Mr. Doud?”

“I work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency out of Denver and was hired to infiltrate the group of miners affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners employed in this district. I worked alongside John O’Connell up at the Smuggler.”

“And who arranged this contract with the Pinkerton Agency, Mr. Doud?”

“Captain Wells and the Owners’ Association, sir.”

Captain Wells smiled pleasantly as the courtroom went still. Outside, snow drifted from a smudged sky and left splashes on the windows. Lawyer Barada raised spotted hands toward the ceiling in a gesture befitting a preacher. “You were hired as a spy, Mr. Doud, before the militia was even called up to pacify this district? As if some farsighted soul knew of the horrors to come?”

Let us now pay homage to the great god Wells, Aletha thought with disgust. But he surprised her. “If it please the court, I’d like to speak,” came the low mellow voice. “I should like to beg leniency for Mr. O’Connell and to remind the court of this man’s heroism in saving the lives of others during the unfortunate fire at the Smuggler-Union. He still bears the scars of these noble deeds. I happen to know he has a family and feel deportation enough punishment for his mistaken loyalties, with the provision of course that he never return to Telluride.”

“Done,” decreed Judge Wardlaw. “And, Mr. O’Connell, I hope you can see the charitable intentions here and will in future avoid any taint of conspiracy. Past heroics can only take a man so far.” Bob Meldrum led John O’Connell out, and Bram and Callie rose. Bram’s face was flushed, his jaw tight.

“Bram,” Cree said softly, “don’t do anything foolish now. They win.” Cree nodded toward Bulkeley Wells at the front of the room. “They win the whole shootin’ match. Damn your principles, son, you have to survive.”

Bram hurried to support his mother, who’d faltered in the aisle ahead of him.

“Still foretelling the future, are you, Mr. Mackelwain?” Sheriff Cal Rutan said when the O’Connells had left. “You sure learn slow, boy.”

Aletha was startled by a glimpse of what smoldered just under the studied blankness in Cree’s eyes. Unlike Bram, who appeared ready to detonate at the least provocation, Cree would walk ten miles out of his way to avoid a confrontation. But back him into a corner and keep goading him and there’d be violence. “Remember what you told Bram,” Aletha warned him. “Good advice for you too.”

“That is all of the union business, if you gentlemen care to go have something to eat,” Judge Wardlaw told the lawyers from Denver. “We’ll discuss your complaints and demands in my chambers at two o’clock.”

Sheriff Rutan walked to the low railing that separated the spectator pews from the lawyers’ tables and the judge while the courtroom emptied. “I was helping the marshals clean out the jail, Judge.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the rear pew. “Ah, this is what we have left over.” He motioned for Aletha and those with her to come forward. Bulkeley Wells took a seat in the jurors’ box.