luck.'
'Ain't that the truth?'
A squabble broke out at the table over in the corner, and suddenly two men were on their feet, facing off. For a second, Matthew wondered if the marshal should step in and calm things down. He pushed back his chair to rise. Well… maybe not. After all, they're just a couple of young'uns letting off steam. And indeed, the marshal's instinct proved correct, because the peaches arrived just then, and the young men immediately set their differences aside to devote their energy to the serious business of slurping down peaches and syrup.
Following Doc's example, Matthew broke three biscuits into his plate before the arrival of the peaches, which Kersti ladled out with plenty of syrup that soaked into the biscuits to make what Doc described as 'top-grade, high-assay eatin' food.' And he didn't miss his chance to tease Matthew about how Kersti had pressed her hip against his shoulder while she was serving the dessert, or how she'd given him more peaches than anybody else.
'I do believe that girl's coming on heat for you, Ringo. Better watch yourself! Them big Swede gals have got needs that stretch from here to Wednesday! They can drain the juices out of a man and leave nothing behind but a dry husk!'
'Oh Lord!' cried the wrinkled old comedian across the table, affecting the trembling voice of a revivalist preacher in full salvation ecstasy. 'Lord, let me be the one to suffer that draining! Let me become that dry old husk! I ask it in His name!' And everyone hooted, though a couple of the younger boys looked nervous, as though they expected the ceiling to come down.
Before long, the men started pushing themselves up from the table with satisfied grunts and complimentary belches. They drifted out into the street, some going across to Kane's Mercantile to make their weekly purchases, others up to the Traveller's Welcome to begin serious drinking and whoring.
But Doc sat back in his chair and drew a short-stemmed pipe and a tobacco pouch from his pocket. 'No need to rush. Those gals won't be wore smooth before we get to them.' He snapped a lucifer with his thumbnail and sucked the flame down into his pipe. 'A body's got to learn to take life easy. After all, we all end up in the boneyard, and there ain't no prizes for getting there first. You want to borrow some tobacco?'
'No, I… I quit.'
'You don't say! How come?'
'Well, smoking dims a man's vision. And in my profession…'
'Where'd you hear that smoking dims a man's vision?'
'I read it in a book by Mr. Anthony Bradford Chumms. You ever read him?'
'Can't say I have, Ringo. Writes about smoking, eh?'
'Yes, well… and other things. Like how a real man ought to act. And what's right, and what ain't. And how to get respect from people.'
'All I ever read is operation manuals.'
'About mining?'
'Sort of. I ain't a miner, really. I'm in charge of the crushing and dressing works.'
'In charge? Well, now.' And here Matthew had been eating and joking and smoking with a man who was in charge of something. And it was gratifying the way Doc called him Ringo, having accepted their introductory exchange of names without question.
Doc went on to say how the crushing and dressing were done at the mine because transporting bulk ore down to Destiny would be too expensive. The dressed ore was nearly twenty percent silver. But while the quality of the ore was high enough, the quantity was steadily diminishing. 'The works still make a profit, but not much. I reckon if those Boston bankers had known the ore was going to run skinny so soon, they'd never of laid out so much for the railroad line and the machinery. Just between you and me, I'd bet anything that if they ever find themselves facing a big investment to keep things going, that'll be the end of the Surprise Lode.'
'What'd happen to the folks in Twenty-Mile?' Matthew wondered.
'Oh, I suppose most of them would move on. The girls, anyway. There's always a market for cheap poontang. The younger miners would probably drift up towards the Klondike, though I doubt any of them have saved enough money to put a kit together. As for us old-timers? Well, we got to face the fact that the boom days are all through booming. Prospectors, frontiersmen, pioneers, homesteaders — they belong to what you call your vanishing race. It's all merchants and bankers and brokers and salesmen now, and this country's become- Shoot, I don't know what it's become. Used to be that if you were poor or ambitious or just itchy-footed, you could always push on West. But there ain't no West anymore. We've used it all up. Maybe that's why we grabbed off Hawaii and the Philippines. I don't know what's become of this country, but it sure as hell ain't as much fun as it was back when I first paid my nickel and got on the ride.' He stood up. 'And speaking of cheap rides, you're certain-sure you don't want to go up to the hotel for a quick hunk of poontang?'
'No thanks, Doc. I'll just make my rounds then get back to my office.'
'Well, been nice meeting you, Ringo. Don't work too late.'
MATTHEW FOUND RUTH LILLIAN alone in the Mercantile, reading by a kerosene lamp. She explained that her father had gone up to take a nap.
'It's pretty late for a nap, isn't it? Or pretty early?'
'He calls it a nap because he won't admit that he can't work hard anymore. His 'nap' will last until morning.'
'I've noticed how your pa has to stop to catch his breath all the time.'
'It's his heart. It ain't much good.'
'I'm awful sorry to hear that, Ruth Lillian.'
She made a tight, resigned shrug; and her profile in the lamplight tugged at Matthew's heart. 'He hides it,' she said. 'He's ashamed not to be healthy, like he thinks a man ought to be. That's why he didn't want to take you on to help with the heavy work. He thinks that being grumpy will hide the fact that he's sick. But everyone in town knows. And they're out there, circling like vultures.'
'Circling? What for?'
'They want the Mercantile! Except for the weekly beef, everything passes through this store. Food, clothes, lamp oil, coal, tobacco-everything. The Bjorkvists would love to get their hands on it. And Professor Murphy, too. Sometimes I can almost feel them out there in the dark, hoping, and plotting, all greedy and mean and… small! But they're never, ever going to get this store. Pa's taught me everything about running it. How to order things and how to keep records and all that, so I'll be able to fend for myself as long as the mine holds out. If I have to, that is. I mean, if pa's heart…' She shook her head to banish the possibility.
A moth tapped plumply against the lamp chimney and circled over its updraft: intrigued, infatuated, baffled… then suddenly incinerated. Ruth Lillian curled her hand over the top of the lamp and blew into her palm to put it out. She pushed open the squeaking screen door and went out onto the porch, where she stood resting her cheek against a pillar, looking out past the cliff edge to stars hanging in the matte-black sky.
Matthew followed her out, softly closing the screen door behind him. 'But if you had the store, you'd need help with the heavy work. Lugging supplies up from the train on Sundays, and bagging the coal, and things like that.'
'Oh, I'd find help.'
'Where?'
She shrugged. Then her eyes took on a teasing glint. 'Maybe I'd offer Professor Murphy a job as my shop assistant. Wouldn't that burn his tail feathers!'
'It'd burn mine, too.'
'How come?'
'Why wouldn't you ask me to help you, instead of old Murphy?'
'You?' A sudden chill caused her to rub her upper arms, and she left her hands on her arms, as though hugging herself. Her voice slipped to a minor key. 'You won't be around, Matthew.'
'What makes you think that?'
'By the time my pa… By that time you'll be out in the world somewhere. Chasing after life.'
Matthew nodded thoughtfully. Yes, that was probably true. He'd be out chasing after life. A loner. A drifter who went his own way and did what had to be done, like the Ringo-But, no. No, he couldn't leave Twenty-Mile. Not for a long time. Maybe never.
