constant efforts to be biddable and cheerful was reinforced a week later when a slip of the tongue gave him reason to believe that not even Ruth Lillian really respected him. It was Sunday, and after the train offloaded supplies for Twenty-Mile and took the miners back up to the Lode, Matthew made his usual two trips from the depot to the Mercantile, pushing a handbarrow loaded with new stock. That done, he went to the barbershop to do his barrel- scrubbing. He was late getting to dinner because Professor Murphy had piled on extra chores, saying that, by God, if he was going to be blackmailed into paying somebody an extra six-bits of his hard-earned money then, by God, he meant to get an extra six-bits' worth of sweat out of him! So Matthew arrived at the Mercantile late, and Mr. Kane, worn out by an all-night vigil behind the counter, grumbled about Matthew's letting his food get cold, then he said he thought he'd go to his room and lie down… not that he was tired. No, he was just… well, his back was stiff, that was all!
After they did the dishes, Matthew and Ruth Lillian walked down the Sunday-silent street, then turned up into the donkey meadow. He was careful to guide her away from the soggy patch beneath the tree, where the Bjorkvists had slaughtered that week's beef. Lost in their own thoughts, they strolled across the meadow, the uneven ground causing their shoulders to brush occasionally, until they reached the fenced-in burying ground with its weathered wooden grave markers, some already slumping in toward the settled graves. Matthew thought the burying ground was awfully big, considering the small number of wooden markers clustered in one corner; and Ruth Lillian told him the space had been set aside when Twenty-Mile was still growing and everyone expected the Surprise Lode to last forever.
'How come all the grave markers are the same shape?'
'The mining company had a whole lot of them ran off at the sawmill down in Destiny. Most of them are still stored in Professor Murphy's shed. He's got the burying concession. He used to make a good profit, back before the bust, when lots of people got killed in fights and accidents. He still buries three or four a year, men killed by mine cave-ins, or by getting caught in the machinery.' She shuddered at the thought of that.
They wandered among the markers, most of which bore only a name and the year of death, but a few of the older ones had epitaphs burned into the wood, and some were intriguingly enigmatic like: Now it's her turn! And: Well, he'd tried just about everything else. A relatively conventional epitaph, Not Dead, Just Sleeping, made Matthew frown and shake his head. He told Ruth Lillian that he'd rather think of people buried in a cemetery as dead, good'n dead, and not just lying down there dozing. As they walked along, he read some of the names aloud, and asked who they'd been. She remembered nearly all of them, her parents having come to Twenty-Mile when she was seven and the town not yet a year old. Him? He was the assayer. Her? She was a whore who got shot by another girl… something about a red dress. Him? He used to pull teeth and tell fortunes. I don't know what he died of. Whatever it was, you'd think he'd of seen it coming, what with being a fortune-teller.'
A thought came to Matthew. 'Ruth Lillian, is… is your ma here?'
'No,' she said curtly. They walked on. He found a stick and used it to whip the heads off some weeds. After a time, she said dryly, 'My ma's in Cheyenne. At least, that's where she went when she left here. Of course, maybe she's moved on by now. I don't know.'
He didn't want to pry, but at the same time he didn't want her to think he didn't care. So he said a noncommittal, 'Cheyenne, eh?'
'Yes. She ran off with the town marshal.'
'The man who used to live in my place? The one who wore the star you gave me?'
'That's the one.'
'And she… ran off? Just like that?'
'Just like that. The marshal was a big, handsome man. And Pa? Well, Pa was a lot older than her. And he worked all the time, trying to build up the business, so he didn't have time to go to dances over to the Pair o' Dice Social Club, and things like that. When they argued, she'd complain about him not being any fun, and he'd snap back that he worked day and night to keep her in fancy clothes, and she'd shout back that there were plenty of men who'd give her nice things, believe you me! She used to say that a lot: believe you me. I never say it.'
Matthew nodded but remained silent, in case she wanted to tell him more. But after a time, he felt pretty sure she didn't, so he took the burden of the silence off her by reading aloud from another cross: 1889. Prospector. 60 years old-give or take.
'There used to be lots of prospectors wandering these mountains in the early days,' she said. 'They figured if there was one Surprise Lode there must be others. But the 'surprise' was that there wasn't but one vein of silver in the whole Medicine Bow Range.'
Matthew chuckled at this, then he turned his attention to battling a tall mean-tempered weed with his stick, finally winning with a parry and a deft slash.
'Matthew?' she asked in an offhand tone.
'Hm-m-m?'
'What's 'the Other Place'?'
He turned and stared at her. 'How do you know about that?'
'You told me.'
'I never!'
'Yes, you did. You were telling about your fight with the Benson boys, and you said you couldn't feel their punches because you were in this 'Other Place.' I didn't ask you about it then, 'cause you were all worked up. But I've been curious about it ever since.'
'Oh, it's just…' In a gesture that had something of embarrassment in it and something of irritation, he threw his stick as hard as he could, and it whop-whop-whop'd through the air, landing against the sagging fence that separated the burying ground from the donkey meadow.
'If you don't want to tell me, forget it. I just thought… Never mind.' She walked on.
'It's not that I don't want to tell you. But it's… it's hard to explain.'
She stopped and waited patiently.
'It's just… well, when I was a little kid and I was scared-scared because Pa was shouting at Ma, or because I was going to have to fight some kid during recess-I'd fix my eyes on a crack in the floor or a ripple in a pane of glass-on anything, it didn't matter what-and pretty soon I'd slip into this- this Other Place where everything was kind of hazy and echoey, and I was far away and safe. At first, I had to concentrate real hard to get to this safe place. But then, this one day a kid was picking on me, and just like that-without even trying-I was suddenly there, and I felt just as calm as calm, and not afraid of anything. I knew they were punching me, and I could hear the kids yelling names, but it didn't hurt and I didn't care, 'cause I was off in the Other Place. And after that, any time I was scared, or if I was facing something that was just too bad, I'd suddenly find myself there. Safe and peaceful.' He searched her eyes. 'Does that make any sense to you, Ruth Lillian?'
'Hm-m… sort of. It sounds kind of eerie.' And she added quickly, 'But really interesting!'
'I've never told anybody about it. Not even my ma. I was afraid to because… This'll sound funny, but I was afraid that if other people knew about the Other Place, it might heal up and go away, and I wouldn't be able to get there when I really needed to. Crazy, huh?'
'A little. But remember, I'm the gal who used to stare into her mirror, wondering who was inside her head, looking out through her eyes. So maybe I'm not the one to judge who's crazy and who ain't.'
'You know what worries me sometimes? This'll make you laugh.'
'What?'
'Well, like I told you, at first I had to work hard to get to the Other Place. Then it got so as I could slip into it without even trying, any time things got to be too much. What worries me is this: What if, someday, I go off to the Other Place, and I can't get back? What if I get stuck there? Wouldn't that be something!'
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and didn't respond.
'I'm glad I've told you, Ruth Lillian. You may think I'm crazier'n a hoo-bird, but I'm still glad I've told you.'
'What's a hoo-bird?'
'Something I made up. A crazy bird that doesn't say anything but hoo hoo.'
'Sort of like an owl?'
'Yeah, but taller. Hey, look there!' A name on a slumping wooden cross had snagged his attention: Mule. 1892. 'They buried a mule here? Alongside of folks?' he asked.
She laughed, relieved to be talking about something else. 'Mule was a man! That wasn't his real name, of
