Джеймс Кейн - Rainbow’s End

“What are traps?”

“In a coal mine they control the air. A trapper boy sits alongside to open it when a train’s coming and close it when it goes through. But for Sid they control the smell, which is the main danger a moonshiner faces. Sid can valve it out through the old original drift, where nobody ever goes. On top of that, what deputy would look for a still in that mine? It would be all his life is worth. I mean he’d be terrified. They leave him strictly alone.”

“Well, I certainly would.”

“And on top of that, there’s his help — miners out of work, but before they mined coal, they moonshined. Dust to dust, mountain to mountain, shine to shine. They’re doing what comes naturally to them.”

“And he’s Mrs. Howell’s brother?”

“He’d visit her sometime. Like one time he stayed for a week, and I felt something went on, I didn’t know what. He came in a car, but going back she had to drive him.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“What went with his car?”

“Well? What did?”

“I don’t know. I never found out.”

“Why did the mine close down?”

“Seam feathered out. For 40 years they worked it at seven feet. It was a gold mine made of steam coal. Then it feathered down to four, so it couldn’t be worked. But then — how did you guess it? — it could be worked with a strip shovel. On the other side of the mountain, between the top and daylight, it’s only 20 feet, so it’s crying to be worked, and it is. They put a spur in from the railroad, seven miles up from Flint, called the station Boulder, and are shipping 10 cars a day.”

“They say strip mines are bad.”

“Not this one. They’re smoothing the dirt out again after taking the coal out, planting some in pasture with clover, and putting the rest in trees. To my eye, it looks still better.”

“Always the mountain boy.”

“OK, I’ll drive you over and you can have a look.”

“I can’t hardly wait.”

“Mouth.”

“OK.”

We sat for a long time holding close. Then, around 4:00, she pointed out the window. Another car was turning in from the highway to the lane. It was a Ford, one of the new compacts, and shiny black. It pulled up in front of the house, but when I saw who was getting out, I couldn’t help giving a yell. “Who is she?” Jill asked.

“Aunt Myra,” I told her.

“Dave, she’s beautiful!”

She was, all right, with her big black eyes, pale skin, and soft willowy figure. She had on a mink coat, one I’d never seen, over a dark red dress. Her straight, black hair was combed over her shoulders. She looked like the queen of England, and we stood there gaping at her. Then Jill gave me a push and I went piling out to greet her. I took her in my arms, kissed her, and held her close, and she clung to me. After she’d kissed me two or three times, I took her inside where Jill was waiting to be introduced. But Aunt Myra didn’t wait. “Oh I know who you are!” she burst out. “You’re the most famous girl in the whole United States. I’m so happy about it!”

At last Aunt Myra asked: “Dave, where’s your mother?”

Jill looked at me, and I closed my eyes to think what I wanted to say. Then I knew. “I think right here,” I told her.

I went over, knelt by her chair, and kissed her. She broke down and wept on my shoulder, then rubbed her face against mine, so her tears were smeared against me. Then I was crying with her.

“Then Little Myra told you?” she asked.

“Yes, she did.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”

She kept looking at me, wanting more details, but what was I going to say? I hadn’t even told Jill all of what had happened, especially that visit to my bed, and I certainly didn’t intend to spill it now. “Actually, she didn’t mention why, if she had some particular reason. Just that there was something she’d wanted to tell me, something I ought to know.”

“Where is she, by the way?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? She moved, is that what you mean? To the other house? Or what?”

“I mean, she left.”

“How, left?”

“Just took the car and blew.”

“There was a quarrel? Is that it?”

“You could call it that.”

“About what?”

I was getting pretty uncomfortable, not doing well at trying to make up stuff, and wanting to knock it off. But once more Jill got in it, with the same answer she’d given Sid. “About me,” she snapped.

“Oh — I see.”

“She didn’t like me much.”

Aunt Myra, my mother, sat looking at Jill a long time, and then at last remarked: “That I can well understand.” And then, to me: “Dave, Little Myra was getting ideas, or at least I felt she was, that made me very uneasy, ideas that may have accounted for the way she spoke out at last, about me, about herself, and the new relationship she wanted to have with you. Was that her reason? For breaking her pledge at last? Of silence she’d taken to me? In return for what your father did for her?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Then it was?”

She sat there, staring down at the floor. Then after a long time: “I should have come sooner. I’ve known it was in the wind, that something like this would come. What I didn’t know was that it would come this way, with a girl dropping out of the sky.”

She went over and touched Jill’s hair, and Jill patted her hand. Then she asked me: “What about the police? Or the sheriff’s deputies, whoever they are, who have charge of the case? The papers say they told you, and told her, and told Jill, to be available for questioning. What did they say about it? Did they give her permission to leave?”

“I didn’t tell them about it.”

“Has anyone?”

She turned to Jill who said: “I didn’t know it this morning when I called from my hospital room to tell them where I was going. They told me all right, come out here, but her name didn’t come up.”

“Then nobody’s told them about it?”

“No, but somebody’s going to.”

She aimed that at my mother as though expecting approval and maybe a kiss. If so, she got a surprise. My mother’s face turned stony and she sat there staring at Jill who suddenly seemed all crossed up. “Miss Howell,” she said, “perhaps I ought to explain something Dave hasn’t mentioned that’s pretty important to me. This woman who he thought until now was his mother has skipped with all my money, my hundred thousand dollars that Russell Morgan gave me, so I couldn’t be charged in any way — and as a reward for what I did. If I’m to get it back, she has to be caught. They can’t go after her; the police or the sheriff or anyone, until they’ve been told she’s gone. So that’s why I have to tell them.”

But all that got was more of the same from my mother, a stony stare and no answer at all. After a long time she turned to me, kissed me, and whispered: “I have to be going now.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“What did you call her?”

“Mom — I thought you knew.”

“David, call me Mother.”

“I’d love to. I want to. Mother.” And then, after holding her close: “Mother, who is my father?”

“He’ll tell you.”

“Yes, but when?”

“As soon as he’s free to speak. It won’t be long — but don’t ask me to say more, David. If I do, I may find myself hoping — and I mustn’t, mustn’t, ever.”

“You mean that someone would die?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“And when that happens, what?”

“Your father and I can be married.”

“And it’s going to be soon, you say?”

“I didn’t say! Don’t ask me.”