Norton, Andre - Novel 32 (2 page)

Ten Mile Station

cars
what are always
breakin
' down or
runnin
'
outta
gas or
somethin
'."

Christie thought he looked at the station wa
gon as if he did not like it at
all.

"Not the stage company," Father answered.
"But the station itself—we
hope to put that to
work again. The new
highway's going through
near here, you
know—"

"Sure it is," Mr. Odell interrupted.
"
Bustin
'
right through the country proper, that they are.
You can hear their big diggers or
such clink-
clankin
' all day long if the wind's in the
right
direction.
Don't need '
em
here, never did,
never will. What you mean—the
station's going
to
work again? How can it be if the company
ain't
goin
'
to run stages?"

"It will be a stop for tourists—we hope. As soon as
the highway's open, there will be a lot of travel through to the park and
people going
to stay
at the new inn on the reservation, the
one
the Navajo Council has agreed to. We have
a
license to run this as a motel."

"Station without a stage
line—that don't
seem
right somehow."
Mr. Odell shook his
head. "Place is in pretty good shape though.
Never was let just go back to the
wild like Dar-
ringer—"

"
Darringer
?"
Mother asked as Mr. Odell
paused to squirt a stream of tobacco juice, mak
ing a black spot in the dust.
"Ghost town, ma'am—leastwise that's what
they call it now." Mr. Odell waved a
hand in the general direction of up canyon. "
Minin
'
town, it was. Pretty much just a heap
of boards
and some '
dobe
walls now, I guess. Older than
my time and I've been around a sight longer
than most people would guess. Now I can re
member when I was a size to them two"—he
jerked a thumb at the twins—"how the stage
was still
runnin
' through
here.
M'pa
, he was
the stationmaster—the last one.
Kept on here
when they closed 'cause he had a
diggin
' that was still
showin
'
color enough to grubstake us
regular.
Then the company, they gave him a bit
to keep
things up—had
somethin
' to do with
their
holdin
' claim to
the land as long as some
agent of
theirs stayed on.

"I did some
ridin
' for the
Bar Six,
learned
me the
smithin
' trade, did a bit
of
prospectin
',
and then thought as how I'd take up the old station.
Ain't
heard
nothin
' from the company
for
years now.
But I've kept things
goin
'—no
body bothers me and I don't go
huntin
' around
for anybody to bother." He stopped short and
looked at Father as if he
suddenly thought of
something
unpleasant. "But if you're the top
man now, then—"

"Then you stay right on—if it suits you, Mr.
Odell. It would be a help we need,
since you
know more
about the place than we certainly
do," Father said quickly.

"Well, now, that I probably do. No need to
stand here
gabbin
' neither—like
nothin
'
needs
gettin
' done. I don't bunk down in the main
house—my quarters are back yonder." He
waved
the hammer toward the smaller building
from
which he had come. "Only I do give it a
sweep out now and then. Maybe it
ain't
clean
enough to suit a lady, ma'am. But you just say
what
you want done, and if it can be did, it will
be.
Sure good to see the old Ten Mile come to life again—so it is!"

The next hours were busy. Lay ton Odell
showed them proudly around. Inside
the big building was first a long room with a fireplace at one end and at the
other a sink, with a pump attached, beside an old-fashioned iron stove.
Three doors along the wall,
facing the front
door,
opened into two smaller rooms that had
bunks
built in and one much larger one with six
bunks.

"Drivers' quarters—" Mr. Odell said of one of
the smaller rooms.
"The others for passen
gers.
This—" he opened the door of the second
small room wider—"was for ladies. Didn't get
many womenfolk traveling most times, I guess.
Gents—they bedded down in the big room. Ten
Mile
was an overnight stop most times."

There were washstands, too, in the rooms—
each with a big china bowl and pitcher standing
on top.

Parky
pulled at Christie's arm.
"Where's the
bathroom,
Chris?"

"I don't think there is one," she whispered
back uncertainly. She had put
Shan down and
he was
tugging at his leash, sniffing at corners
as
if something of interest must have been there
recently.
Mice?
Christie, just looking around,
could well believe in mice.

"But you
do
have to have bathrooms in the
house!" protested
Parky
. "It must be some
where—"

"You don't have them in camps." Neal had
come up behind them. "This
is like a camp—
in a
way—" But his sentence trailed off as if
he were beginning to have some doubts of his
own.

"Now you've got water here—mighty fine water."
Mr. Odell led the way to the sink and
was working the pump handle up and down vigorously. A
stream of water gushed out sud
denly, spraying even beyond the edges of the
sink basin to spatter onto the
floor.
"Holds even in dry spells.
Good and
cold—worth
more'n
a good strike in the long run—water is
in this country."

Mother looked at the pump with an odd
expression on her face. She put
her hand out
into
the stream and jerked it quickly back again,
her expression now one of surprise.

"It
is
cold,
Harvey
!
Almost as if
it had been
iced!"

"Whole place is cool, too—" Father stood
with his hands on his hips,
looking eagerly
about the big room. "These thick walls must
provide real insulation against the heat."

"Them walls
are
thick," Mr. Odell
agreed.
"Made to keep the heat out in summer, cold
in winter.
This place was built
good
, all right.
Best station, they always said, on the whole
danged run. Pa told me that plenty
times, and
he was
right. Now, I got me.
a
mare with a shoe
ready to be set on. I'll go and
finish that job off
and
then I'll be back to help with any
fetchin
',
ma'am, as you may want."

"That's kind of you—to want to help, Mr.
Odell—" Mother began, when he paused at the
outer door and shook his head at her.

"Ma'am, Mr. Odell—that don't sound right,
it really don't. Most folks call
me Pinto." He
took
off his hat for the first time and his white
hair fluffed up like a bushy wig. "Don't show
it anymore, but when
I was a
youngun
, I had
two-color hair—black with a big white patch
clean center, 'bout here—" He
poked a finger
up
from his forehead a little to the right. "Born
with it, I was. So they took to
callin
' me Pinto and it stuck. Sounds more like me than Mr.
Odell."

"Very well."
Mother smiled. "I'll remem
ber, Pinto. But it is kind of you
to offer to help."

"Mom, can we go to see the horse getting a
shoe put on? Please, Mom. We
never saw a horse getting shoes before."
Parky
and Perks
closed in from either side to tug at Mother's
slacks.

"Perhaps Mr.—Pinto doesn't want you to
bother him."

"Let '
em
come, if they want
to, ma'am.
Can't be
any more bother than them danged
burros, and I've had them a-
breathin
'
down my
neck many a
time. Say, girl, that's a mighty
strange-
lookin
' cat you got
there. I don't re
member
ever
seein
' his like before."

Shan had come into a patch of sunlight that
showed through the dusty window, and his rich
brown color was like that of a chocolate bar,
dark and thick. He turned his head to regard
Pinto with eyes that were
neither
green or
blue but a color Mother always called aquamarine.

"I'm Christie." She did not quite like being
called "girl."
"And he's Thai Shan—that means
Prince Shan. He's half Siamese—half Bur
mese."

Pinto had clapped his hat on again.
"Don't
never
remember
hearin
'
of such before. But
he's
sure a handsome critter,
ain't
he? Knows
it, too, I reckon, if I'm any
judge. Well, come
along,
all you who want to see Susie get a new
shoe—"

"Mother?"
Christie hesitated.

Mother was nodding. "Go ahead, Christie,
and you, too, Neal—just keep an
eye on the twins. We have to do some planning anyway
before we begin to unload the
car."

They all had their assigned unloading duties,
but if Mother said those could
be put off, Chris
tie
was as eager as the twins to go exploring. Picking up Shan, in spite of his protests,
she
hurried out to
try and catch up with Perks and
Parky
, who had burst out-of-doors with
yells
of pleasure.
Neal followed more slowly. He had
his notebook in one hand and his pen in the
other. Christie, catching a
glimpse of those,
slowed.
She had an idea of what might be in his
mind now, and it reminded her of what had
become—at least between the two
of them—
the Big
Plan.

Of course, they had heard enough before
they started west to make them
understand how
much
the success of the Ten Mile Station would
mean to all the
Kimballs
. Mother
and Father
had talked
about it a lot. Sometimes maybe
they even forgot Neal and Christie might be
doing homework at the desk in
the living room
and so be able to
overhear.
Because there could
be trouble.
Things never
went smoothly—
Christie knew that
herself. You could plan for
something and have it all spoiled by a
happen
ing you had not counted on at all. She
understood as well as Neal that Mother and Father were worried at times.