Bittersweet

Imogene bumped the big suitcase along the floor and dropped it in front of a wooden bench. She sat down stiffly with the smaller bag on her lap and rested her forehead against the back of her hands, listening to the somber tick of the station clock as its pendulum paced out the minutes. The clock had just struck four when the doors at the end of the station opened a crack and a man shouted through the narrow opening: “Now boarding, three-twenty-eight to Harrisburg. All aboard.”

Imogene hauled herself to her feet and hefted the bags. As she stepped out onto the platform she handed the heavier of the two to a boy in a scarlet uniform. “The train is ru

The boy looked blank.

“Calliope, Pe

“You’re meaning Cally-ope?”

“Yes. Yes. I expect. Calliope.” Imogene mispronounced the word carefully.

“Yes’m. Train’s considered to be on time today.” He thrust out his lower lip and nodded smartly as if it were his doing. She pressed a nickel into his hand and climbed the steps into the car.

The floor was slippery with tobacco juice and the air thick with the stink of the rancid animal fat used to grease the axles. Imogene pulled her skirts as high as she dared and trod carefully down the narrow aisle. At the far end an iron stove roared; its door was red-hot, and fire flickered behind the grille in its round belly. She settled herself into one of the hard wooden seats near a window in the middle of the car-far enough from the stove to be comfortable but near enough to keep warm-and set her duffel bag next to her to discourage company.

The peanut butcher, a grimy boy of indeterminate age and race, waded down the aisle hawking his wares. He tossed an apple and a dog-eared novel into her lap. The man across from her was already reading, so the boy expertly lobbed a pouch of tobacco between the newspaper and his chest. Imogene set the book and the apple on the edge of the seat, where the boy could get them on his return trip, and turned her face to the window. Outside, people were laughing and crying, taking leave of friends and family. She leaned her head on the cold glass and put her hands over her ears.

When the train lurched forward, Imogene opened her eyes and wiped a space clear on the pane with her handkerchief. A light rain had started to fall, mixing with the cinders that poured from the engine’s stack. The fog had lifted, drawn up into the storm. Her breath began to steam up the window again. As she turned away, a spot of bright red caught her attention. A girl of about sixteen, bundled up against the damp in a worn red cloak, stood at the summit of a treeless knoll near the tracks. Her pinched, childish face peeked out of a film of brown hair blowing forward in the wind. The girl held her cloak around her with one hand and waved to the train with the other.

In desperate haste, Imogene wrenched at the window; it was stuck fast. She pulled her gloves off with her teeth and banged her fists against the frame. The window came open all at once. Imogene twisted in her seat to put her head out. The wind snatched off her hat and tore her hair loose from its pins. “Mary Beth!”

The clatter of the wheels drowned out her voice, and the girl went on waving to each car as it passed.

Imogene closed the window. She had ski

2

A WILLOWY GIRL IN A THIN DRESS DARTED OUT OF THE HOUSE, ACROSS the yard, and through the open door of the cowshed. She dragged the shed door shut behind her and threw herself up onto the hay piled in an empty stall. The stall next to it was occupied by a brown and white milk cow. The cow rolled one dark eye toward the source of the disturbance and lowed softly.

“Moo your ownself, Myrtle.” She poked her hand between the slats and stroked a ragged ear. Myrtle went back to her cud and musings.

The girl rolled onto her back and scooped handfuls of straw over her for warmth, piling it up until there was nothing of her showing but her face and straw-colored hair. The shed smelled of Myrtle and leather and apples. She ran her hands up her bodice until they rested over her small breasts. Then, with a shiver, she snatched them away and covered her face. She peeked at Myrtle, but the cow was chewing contentedly and hadn’t been watching. Digging in the pocket of her housedress, the girl drew out of stub of charcoal wrapped carefully in brown paper. With sure, light strokes she sketched the cow’s profile on the time-bleached wood of the stall. A few lines, and the soft curve of Myrtle’s jaw and liquid eye emerged.

The shed door slammed open and shut. The girl ducked and lay still, hidden in the straw.

“Damn him to hell! Goddamn him!”

An ox yoke smashed into the wall above her head and fell into the straw.

“David?” She sat up quickly before he could lay his hands on anything else. Startled, he yelped.

“Sarah, you could scare a body to death, creeping around the way you do!”

“I wasn’t creeping. I was hiding from you and Pa’s bellowing.”

David, scarcely twenty, stood six foot two, a wild red beard and a slightly receding hairline belying his age. “Damn!” he exploded again, slamming the flat of his hand against the beam that ran the length of the roof. The shed shook and Sarah shrank down into the hay. He spat then and wiped his mouth on his upraised arm. “I’m getting out.”

“David?”

He looked over at his sister, half-buried in the straw, watching him from round, frightened eyes. The muscles of his jaw relaxed and he dropped his hand from the beam. “What, Sare?” he asked gently.

“Pa whup you, Davie?”

David laughed shortly. “I’ve been bigger than Pa since I was sixteen.” He looked past her, his eyes darkening. “I’d like to see him try.”

“What were you fighting about this time?”

“The mine-that bung hole!” He burst out. “If Pa thinks I’m breaking myself in that mine for the rest of my life so he can buy hay for a horse nobody rides, and then break my back for asking for a couple of dollars of my own pay-my own pay for Christ’s sake, I wasn’t asking him for nothing I didn’t earn-he’s got another think coming.”

“Is that what set him off? You’ll be twenty-one next September, and Mr. Gumpert’ll have to give the money to you ’stead of Pa. ”

“Jamie Locke’s pa told him me and Jamie were drinking last Saturday night.”

“David!” Sarah sat bolt upright, her mouth agape. “That’s not so, is it?”

“What the hell else is there to do in this black backwater of a town? A man would go crazy looking at the same rundown shacks, crawling in a hole in the ground every time the sun comes up, breathing everybody’s stink.” He paced the small space between the stalls and the door. “It’s so.”

“Don’t all the time swear. You didn’t used to swear.”

“You’re begi

“I’m sorry, Sare, Pa ’s making me crazy. This town’s making me crazy; I feel I could tear it down with my bare hands.” He struck the side of the stall with his fist, and Myrtle kicked out at him.

“Stop, David. You’re scaring Myrtle and me.” Suddenly he roared and hurled himself into the straw. Squealing, Sarah rolled out of the way and scrambled for the floor. David caught her easily, tickling her until she begged him to stop and they lay side by side in the straw, panting. David picked up the heavy yoke with one hand and turned it above him; sunlight, broken into stripes by the shed wall, flickered across his hands.

“Jamie’s brother, Matthew, went west after the war,” he said. “He told Jamie after leaving this place you can’t come back, least not for long. He says they’re mining silver out of Nevada Territory till hell won’t have it. He says a couple of boys like me and Jamie could make a fortune. They’re always needing men that know mining. Matthew says they’re even hiring Mexicans.