THE
By
Robin Flinchum ©2002
Wallie Flanders wouldn’t have noticed the girl at all if the
train hadn’t been late that morning. The railroad might change its schedule
with the weather, but the borax mill, where Wallie was
employed to resuscitate machinery choked by the white borax powder, operated
strictly by the clock. At
It was only a glimpse
really. The girl moved swiftly and with purpose, her skirts swinging. A large
hat hid most of her face but for a brief moment, when she stood still on the
threshold of that passenger car and looked out at the awful, desolate country
around her, he had seen her eyes. From then on his life would be different–he
knew that as he sat there, covered in white dust like a pie baker, his lunch
forgotten. He knew it because in her eyes he had seen not disappointment at the
bleak and barren landscape, not despair at the rudeness of the young mining
town, not disgust for the barefoot gang of boys hanging around the platform,
waiting for a chance to sneak into the ice car, nor even revulsion for the
Indian women who sat patiently on the hard ground waiting for someone to buy
the delicate baskets they made.
No, in her eyes he had
seen a kindling of her vitality, a spark of her courage, a hint of her smile.
She looked like she had come to this place on purpose, daring it to try, just
try and get her down. In the few short moments it took her to move from the
train into the station her red and white checked traveling suit brightened the
landscape, stirred up the air, and Wallie could see
he wasn’t the only one who noticed it for the train conductor followed after
her, staring as if fascinated.
And it wasn’t just that
she was a woman in a camp of so very many men, for there were women here
already–both the back door and the front door kind. Respectable girls with
their mamas came in on the train from larger stations all along the line for
the monthly company dance, but he had seen so many of them picking their way
across the harsh ground of the new town with disappointment and disgust writ
large across their pinched up faces.
When the girl re-emerged
from the depot, still followed by the conductor who now seemed distressed about
something, she turned her steps in the direction of the ramshackle parlor house
that had perched on the other side of the railroad tracks the day the town was
born. She marched forward with determination and the conductor stopped,
throwing his hands in the air, and watched her go with a shake of his head.
Slapping the white
powder from his hair, Wallie ran toward her, heedless
of how ridiculous he might seem.
"Miss!" he
called out. "Miss!"
She stopped and turned,
fixing her wonderful eyes on him.
"Yes?" her
smile was polite but not encouraging.
He stopped beside her feeling foolish, his arms dangling, white dust
billowing up from his coverall. "Pardon me," he said, somewhat
breathlessly, "but I thought you might be lost. Have you come to see Mrs. Gonigal, the superintendent’s wife?"
"No," she
answered firmly. "I’ve come to see Mrs. Rafferty at the hotel."
He blanched at this
mention of the proprietress of the town’s ‘hotel’ but would not be defeated.
"You know Mrs. Rafferty?" he asked.
"No," the girl
answered. "She wrote to
"Professional
training?" He was stunned. Her coat was
neatly buttoned, her hat set just so, her white gloves only slightly smudged
from her travels. Managing to nod while keeping her chin tilted slightly
upward, she seemed entirely unlike the women at Mrs. Rafferty’s, whose clothing and whose temperaments always appeared to
be slightly askew.
Wallie found himself suddenly wrapped in feeling, as if someone
had thrown a bucket of emotion over him and soaked him with it. Regardless of
where this girl might have been or what she might have done in the past, it
seemed fatally important that she not proceed to Mrs. Rafferty’s now.
Her smile was beginning
to fray around the edges as she looked at him.
"Don’t do it," he said
urgently. "Don’t got to work for Mrs. Rafferty!
That kind of life will wear the spark right out of you in no time at all."
"But I need this job," she
said, her eyes narrowing.
"I’ve got a good job," he said,
unexpectedly. "I’m the head mechanic at the mill. You could marry me and
you won’t have to work."
Her eyes opened wide and her eyebrows
arched up under the fringe of her thick brown hair. "Marry you?"
"Yes," he answered, so stirred
up by his feelings that more of the borax powder shook loose as he spoke,
lending a slight haze to the atmosphere. "I know you don’t know me at all
but the minute I saw you I felt like I’d known you forever. I’d take good care
of you. You could give up this awful job."
"Mister," the girl was planting
her balled up fists on her hips, "just what do you and everyone else in
this town have against a girl making an honest living teaching school?"
Her eyes narrowed down again as she stared at him, waiting for an answer.
"Teaching school?" he repeated.
"What else?"
"Well, Mrs
Rafferty is... that is she... I mean her place... there are a lot of girls
working there." He was avoiding her eyes now.
"Mrs. Rafferty has five children,
though I suppose you hadn’t noticed them. She wrote to the county school
board asking that a teacher be assigned to your town. And here I am."
"Oh," he smiled, ducking his
head.
The mill whistle shrieked out again,
warning that the dinner break was at an end. Anxious to redeem himself Wallie spoke one last time, controlling the urge to run his
hands through his hair or make any movement that would contribute to the dust
cloud around him. "Well, there’s a social tonight in the company meeting
hall–just a piano, you know, Mrs. Gonigal plays. They
hold it outdoors when the weather’s fine. Maybe you’ll save me a dance? You
won’t know me when I’m cleaned up." He looked into her face.
"Maybe I will," she said,
relenting with a bit of a smile.
And he headed back to the clanging,
banging mill to take his place in the engine room just as if this were any
other day, while in his heart he knew that it most certainly was not. Let the
dust fly where it would, tonight the girl with the spark in her eyes would
dance with him under the stars in a clear desert sky.