Storm's Thunder (16 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ten minutes past Coolidge, the Santa Fe uncorks her whistle and begins the grand pageant of her arrival at the Harvey House. I join Ballentine and the others on the observation platform as the low, widespread building comes into view. Modeled after one of the great Spanish missions, the Harvey House sits protected by a pair of rolling hills at the mouth of a green valley and carries all the stateliness of a centuries-old casita—the kind that might anchor some venerable ranch or homestead—but the fresh-laid stonework, still unsullied by the elements, betrays a construction newer than the railroad itself. The train commands all the attention she can muster as she brakes and steams and wails—sending Owens's children into dizzy circles of excitement until the young boy, overwhelmed by the noise, bursts into tears and flies upward into his father's arms. The little girl clutches her mother's hand.

“Can I have another chocolate, mother?”

“Of course you may not.” Owens's wife wipes a smudge of chocolate from the little girl's mouth. “I shall look forward to a proper supper,” she says, turning to her husband, “before our children completely forget what it's like to sit at table.”

“They sat at table last night,” Owens says. “If that weren't proper, I got a bill from the 'Dorado says otherwise.”

“Please don't confuse a lack of alternatives as justification for overpriced pig slop. I am not entirely unfamiliar with economics.”

“That you are not, my dear.”

“A pitiful excuse for pheasant. I've a good mind to pen a stiff note to the odious Mister Rawlings and let him know I shall be warning the Presbyterian Sisters to steer clear—”

“All right, Clara May, don't get yourself all twisted up.” Owens slips his arm around her waist and pulls her close—the move settling her anger in an instant. She gazes up at him, doe-eyed, her mouth softening. Owens shakes his head, a smile forming, and all at once they wear the easy love of teenagers. Then the little girl tugs at Clara May's dress, delighted by the sight of uniformed young women assembled into formation at the main entrance of the Harvey House.

Skip elbows George. “Holy cow, it's true,” jamming a finger toward the women. “The Harvey Girls. I thought they was just a story.”

“Oh, the Harvey Girls are most real,” Spooner says, “but I have read that the young ingénues reside under heavily chaperoned stewardship that leaves little room for dalliances.”

“What's that mean?” Skip asks.

“What it means, son,” Owens chomping his cigar, “is that them cubs don't take a step sideways without mamma bear slapping them back in line.”

“I'm up for the sport of it,” George says, flat-voiced. His eyes comb the women with the coldness of a circling hawk.

“Now don't go getting some young lass in trouble,” Spooner says. “One infraction can get a girl sent back home.”

“Yeah, and since Spooner's the one splashing out, you boys keep your peckers in your pants.”

“James Owens!” Clara May driving a soft fist to his bicep. “Please forgive my husband, gentlemen. The West has turned him into a pirate.”

* * *

I bend Ballentine's ear and let him know I'll join the party in the dining room directly, after a brief check on the stallion. I slip under the guard rail and jump onto the landing while the train is still moving, aiming to reach the stock car before hungry third-class passengers impede my progress. The afternoon sun burns hot on my neck and the heat bakes upward from the dark, unfaded boards of the new platform. I make it to the stock ahead of Charlie, and find Storm bedded down in his stall on a mountain of fresh hay. His tail swats idly as a lazy dog's, and I can tell he has been well-fed, but he feigns near starvation at the sight of me.

“You ain't fooling me, chump.” I fish out the sugar cubes I bought from the butcher boy and press them flat-palmed up to the space between the slats. He blows hard and lolls his head over as he manages to suck up every cube, despite the weakened state of his obvious neglect. “I'd track down Charlie and see about giving you a stretch, but I'd say you're too fat and happy to think about moving. I'll check back on you.”

* * *

By the time I double back across the platform, a line of people winnows from the side entrance of the Harvey House all the way down the platform to the train and then curls back on itself and is still growing by the minute from those dawdlers who couldn't get off the train in time. I spy Burke directing traffic up ahead through a cloud of greasy smoke that wafts down from the kitchen chimney.

“This here's the line for the counter, Mister Harlan,” Burke removing a handkerchief to dab the sweat beading his upper lip. “Your people's on up in the dining room.” He points toward the main entrance, where the squadron of uniformed women has broken up—their duties now calling them inside. Only a lone matron remains at the doorway, and next to her a stick-and-bones girl of indeterminate youth. Both wear black, ankle-length dresses and white aprons. Although hardly flattering under any circumstances, the get-up has a way of accentuating the older woman's fatness and, in equal measure, the unfortunate lack of curves on her beak-nosed apprentice. I figure George's leering has been all for naught, as the famous Harvey Girls turn infamous upon close inspection.

“May I help you?” the matron's cruel lips twisting the words out.

“I'm with the party, name of Ballentine.”

“Ballentine,” her eyes furrowing and she draws a sausage finger down a list of names. “And your name?”

“Harlan.”

“Harlan?” the name falling on her ears like a foreign tongue. I look past her into the dining room, where Spooner's laugh draws my eye to a round table in the back corner. “Would Mister Ballentine be expecting you?”

“I don't reckon he's got that empty chair next to him for his hat.”

The woman's mouth tightens, the fat in her neck shuddering with disapproval. The beak-nose girl goes wide-eyed, a wave of terror flickering behind them. Then I am certain she bites a ribbon of lip to keep from smiling.

“Agnes, if you would show this man to table six. He's already missed the soup course.”

“Right this way, sir,” the beak-girl composing herself as she steps forward. I am about to follow when I stop and turn back to the matron.

“What kind of soup I miss out on?”

“Barley porridge,” the matron says, in a tone meant to sting. But the words have the opposite effect, thickening in the back of my throat as the thought of porridge—barley or otherwise—produces a reflex of revulsion.

“Well, more for you then, ma'am.” I nod to Agnes and she leads me into the pink dining room as I add, “I reckon there ain't a speck goes unattended in her soup bowl.” A sound comes out of Agnes like a cat sneeze, flushing her skin plum red. She weaves through a row of white-clothed tables on buckled knees, burying her face in her hand to stifle a laugh that would surely plant her on the first train home, but the din of conversation and tinkling silverware provides suitable cover. Harvey Girls whisk about in all directions, trucking in covered silver dishes and clearing half-filled bowls before the steam has left the barley.

“Ah, Harlan,” Spooner jabbing a fork toward the empty chair next to him. I remove my hat and fix to plop it on the table, but the beak-girl takes it from me and heads for the wall rack, not yet fully recovered from our episode.

“Sorry I'm late,” sliding into my chair. All at once the three whiskeys and the heat rear up together in a wave of tiredness. An empty coffee cup, crying out to be filled, reminds me that I have not eaten since the ham biscuit that seems a lifetime ago. The Nebraska boys sit to my left, napkins tucked into collars. Owen's family occupies the seats across, the boy plunked into a tall chair with its own little table that he can fuss about with. Clara May spoon-feeds him porridge, which he mostly spits out, causing her to frown and wipe his mouth with a napkin that never comes to rest.

“We were discussing the weather,” Spooner says. “I was telling the boys how the dryness of the Western air wreaks havoc on my digestion. A little humidity helps lubricate the system.”

“So does whiskey,” Owens downing the last of his and raising the empty to the nearest serving girl.

“I think Mister Ballentine's point,” Clara May grimacing, “is that the Eastern climate is more suitable to one's health. I must say I agree.”

“Oh, I remember as a boy,” Spooner launching in, “we'd take supper on the porch well into October. Daddy had the field hands working till nine, sometimes ten o'clock. We'd watch them haul their bales from the fields over a slice of Tituba's strawberry pie. Of course things are different now. Your man Sherman made sure of that.”

“Must be nice,” Skip says, “the way you Rebs have it. Waiters like this every meal, smoking a pipe of tobacker what got picked right off your own land. Hell, who wouldn't want to fish all day if the chores is getting done by someone else?” A rare silence falls over the table. Even George looks embarrassed. “What? What'd I say?”

Spooner's eyes, weighted with gentle pity, land on Skip.

“You are aware, son, that the South did not emerge victorious from the conflagration?”

“Sure,” his voice uncertain. “I'm just saying, is all.”

A plain-looking girl approaches with a bottle of whiskey and fills Owens's glass. I catch George as he tilts his head to view the entirety of her figure. He makes an unenthused appraisal and goes back to his soup, which he scrapes the last of onto his spoon and slurps up.

“Something to drink, sir?” A lilting voice flutters behind me. A different girl. I start my turn and feel the word “coffee” pass my lips before seeing to whom I have directed it.

“Right away, sir.” Her face shielded in mystery, a young woman turns from me. The silly, bat-winged bonnet obscures any view of skin, but an errant wisp of hair—straw-colored—pokes beneath the corner.

She glides off in the straight line of a cat, and with the same feline surprise, bolts sharply left, heading for a curtain. At the last moment, a pale hand emerges from her sleeve and tucks the stray hair into place, as if she could feel my eyes upon her—perhaps she can—and then she hits the curtain and is gone.

No amount of staring brings her back. “Your chicken's gettin' cold.” Spooner's voice turns me center. Plated before me is a small bird, sadly under-roasted, fighting for space beside a mountain of mashed yams and an admirable scoop of succotash. Harvey Girls of every shape and size attend presently to our table, shucking off covered dishes, revealing main courses, all of which—fish and fowl alike—are subjected to a ladle of gravy from a large pot handled by the matron herself. The heftiness of the urn, I gather, requires arm strength that she alone—and none of the young ladies—possesses.

“Gravy,” she announces, not waiting for an answer as she drowns Spooner's supper and moves down to me, bringing with her a scent entirely her own—a collective of sweat, liniment and bacon fat. I am presented with the quick dilemma of waving her off or holding my breath to avoid inhaling more of her. I make my decision and soon my plate is swimming like the others. A plain, but handsome, young woman reaches in front of George and uncovers his plate.

“You pull you up a chair, darling. There's enough for both.” George flashes a crocodile grin. “Hell, you can sit right on my lap.” The girl swallows a polite smile, but it gets no further before the matron has wedged herself between them, shutting George down with a withering scowl and a tightened grip on the ladle. I doubt his head would be the first to get a crack upside from her weapon of choice. And then as quick as the swarm had landed, the girls are gone and reconfigured elsewhere at another table.

“You know,” Spooner stabbing at his meat, “I believe Mister Harvey could not have chosen a more unattractive garment if he had wrapped his young ladies in burlap sacks he drug out of a barn.”

“Well, it ain't the Blue Duck,” I say. Spooner blasts out a laugh that he cuts short for decency, but it is too late. Clara May has a counter opinion.

“Perhaps, gentlemen, the intention is to minimize distraction. He has a business to run, not a bordello.”

“Bordello's a business, pet. Profitable one to boot.”

“You know what I mean, James.”

“I do, but if Harvey'd shorten them skirts a bit, he'd pull down a lot more coin that what he's getting slinging hash. No offense, Ballentine. This is swell.”

“None taken. I'm inclined to agree.”

“Lift those hemlines a single inch,” Clara May raising a finger, “and not one train would leave here with the headcount with which it came.”

“Some with more. Some less,” George says.

“A disaster either way.”

The silver spout of a coffee pot spears in from the left. Without thought I snatch up the empty cup with saucer and pivot from the waist to intercept the pourer. My attempt proves misguided, as cup and pitcher meet halfway in an awkward coupling that leaves neither party certain of the next move. Her bonnet brushes my shoulder, blocking my sight of the transaction and leaving to faith the steadiness of both our hands. Her face, still unseen, radiates furrowed concentration up through the starched wings of the infernal headdress. Feeling the weight of the liquid as it pours, all the assistance I can offer is to slow my quickening pulse and try to ensure that the thin little china cup stays level in my hand. The bonnet begins to move, clearing the line of sight to the cup and its rising contents.

Confident of her pour, the girl starts to straighten. Only then do I allow my eyes to move up her sleeve, past a gentle flare of breast and around the curved shoulder to the neckline—where skin the color of almond cream disappears beneath the starched collar and reemerges, descending into the divot of her neck and up to a sculpted chin. The coffee cup fills. All sense tells me to pull away, but I scroll upward. A band of freckles stretch above her cheekbones. I picture a belt of stars in the night sky. And then my eyes connect with hers and in a burst of light, a piece of something out of place corrects itself. I stare into puddles of pale, icy green—the winter water beneath a frozen mountain stream.