Part 28 (2/2)
Their crawl down the rock-rolling embankment seemed desperately slow.
”Wait here,” bade Milt, at the bottom.
She looked away from the grotesque car. She had seen that one side of it was crumpled like paper in an impatient hand.
Milt was stooping, looking under; seemed to be saying something. When he came back, he did not speak. He wiped his forehead. ”Come. We'll climb back up. Nothing to do, now. Guess you better not try to help, anyway.
You might not sleep well.”
He gave her his hand up the embankment, drove to the nearest house, telephoned to Dr. Beach. Later she waited while Milt and the doctor, with two other men, were raising the car. As she waited she thought of the Teal bug as a human thing--as her old friend, to which she had often turned in need.
Milt returned to her. ”There is one thing for you to do. Before he died, Pinky asked me to go get his wife--Dolores, I think it is. She's up in a side canyon, few miles away. She may want a woman around. Beach will take care of--of him. Can you come?”
”Of course. Oh, Milt, I didn't----”
”I didn't----”
”--mean you were a caveman! You're my big brother!”
”--mean you were a sn.o.b!”
They drove five miles along the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss, rain-gutted ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly quiet, with fern and lily and green-lit s.p.a.ces. They came out in a clearing, before dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook, with a crude cradle--sign of a not very successful gold miner. Before a log cabin, in a sway-sided rocker, creaked a tall, white, flabby woman, once nearly beautiful, now rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper about her bosom, as they drove into the clearing and picked their way through stumps and briars.
”Where you folks think you're going?” she whimpered.
”Why, why just----”
”I cer'nly am glad to see somebody! I been 'most scared to death. Been here alone two weeks now. Got a shotgun, but if anybody come, I guess they'd take it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough-house or---- Say, did you folks come to see the gold-mine?”
”M-mine?” babbled Milt.
”Course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm so sore on that low-life hound now, I swear I won't even take the trouble and lie about it. No more gold in that crick than there is in my eye. Or than there's flour or pork in the house!”
The woman's voice was rising. Her gestures were furious. Claire and Milt stood close, their hands slipping together.
”What d' you think of a man that'd go off and leave a lady without half enough to eat, while he gallivanted around, trying to raise money by gambling, when he was offered a good job up here? He's a gambler--told me he was a rich mine-owner, but never touched a mine in his life. Lying hound--worst talker in ten counties! Got a gambler's hand on him, too--I ought to seen it! Oh, wait till I get hold of him; just wait!”
Claire thought of the still hand--so still--that she had seen under the edge of the upturned car. She tried to speak, while the woman raved on, wrath feeding wrath:
”Thank G.o.d, I ain't really his wife! My husband is a fine man--Mr.
Kloh--Dlorus Kloh, my name is. Mr. Kloh's got a fine job with the mill, at North Yakima. Oh, I was a fool! This gambler Pinky Parrott, he comes along with his elegant ways, and he hands me out a swell line of gab, and I ups and leaves poor Kloh, and the kid, and the nicest kid---- Say, please, could you folks take me wherever you're going? Maybe I could get a job again--used to was a good waitress, and I ain't going to wait here any longer for that lying, cheating, mean-talking----”
”Oh, Mrs. Kloh, please don't! He's dead!” wailed Claire.
”Dead? Pinky? Oh--my--G.o.d! And I won't ever see him, and he was so funny and----”
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