The Hosanna Shout

by R. R. Irvine

  And what the hell was he going to say to the Tempest family anyway? I’m here about my son, who isn’t really mine, but who’s named after me. The son Claire Bennion sold to you.

  If indeed there had been a sale, the Tempests were party to a crime. Then again, maybe no money changed hands, maybe there wasn’t a child either, just another of Claire’s games. In that case, nothing would be lost but Traveler’s pride.

  He shook his head. Pride had nothing to do with it. The boy came first. Assuming his existence, the Tempests would be the only family he’d ever known. To disturb that relationship would only compound Claire’s madness.

  Martin’s parting words, shouted as Traveler was pulling out of the driveway, echoed inside Traveler’s head. Don’t forget. I want a snapshot of my grandson.

  I’ll make sure he’s happy and well taken care of, Traveler answered now, but only if I can manage it without causing trouble.

  To give himself more time to think, he decided to forgo interviewing the priest or looking for a room and walk to Copperfield. When he reached the narrow, single-lane tunnel leading to Copperfield, the signal light was green, meaning traffic was free to pass through the underpass from this side. Signs posted on the tunnel facing said, PEDESTRIANS NOT ALLOWED ON ROADWAY, MUST USE SIDEWALK and ONE-WAY TRAFFIC, DRIVERS MUST OBEY LIGHT SIGNALS. Also posted was a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit by order of S. Grant Young, Sheriff.

  The arched tunnel mouth itself was just a hole in the mountain surrounded by concrete, ugly and utilitarian, like a patch slapped against the soil to keep it in check. As soon as Traveler stepped into the opening, with seven thousand feet of narrow pedestrian walkway stretching ahead of him, he began moving quickly. There were no sound except for that of his own footsteps.

  Looking for the Tempests was one thing, he told himself; asking questions about them to determine their suitability as parents quite another. Any kind of in-depth background check would be sure to trigger small-town gossip. The best approach, then, was a direct confrontation once he located the family.

  When he emerged from the tunnel fifteen minutes later, the day seemed much hotter. Ninety degrees at least, he guessed, hot enough for heat waves to make the shanties seem to hover precariously on the hillside. No more than half a dozen cars were parked on the street. The only sign of life was an old dog sunning itself in front of an abandoned house. The animal’s tail wagged once at Traveler’s passing.

  The Rex Hotel, its weather-blackened clapboard siding on the verge of disintegration, was boarded up, as was the Copperfield Theater. Dirty plywood had been nailed over the windows of the Lendaris Market. The Miner’s Merc was nothing but a shell. As far as Traveler could see, Copperfield was a ghost town in the making.

  He was about to turn back when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Until that moment, the two men sitting on the shaded porch of the U.S. Hotel had been as still as wooden Indians. Setting their rockers in motion, he felt certain, had been a deliberate way of attracting his attention.

  Traveler joined them, sitting on the lip of the porch to make himself less threatening, though judging from the winks they exchanged he needn’t have bothered. Another city slicker, their expressions said, to be dealt with and sent on his way.

  Both men had deeply wrinkled, sun-scorched faces; both looked to be in their seventies; both wore bib overalls, grimy-looking flannel shirts, and hightop boots. Their baseball caps set them apart, one a blue Los Angeles Dodger, the other a Cincinnati Red.

  “If you’re looking for a story,” the Dodger fan said, “we started charging a long time ago. Stories about the old days, that’s what they all want to hear. Stories about the strike and the company thugs.”

  “I was looking to get out of the sun,” Traveler said.

  “They say it causes cancer.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “They ought to try breathing in the mines,” the Dodger said.

  His companion adjusted his red cap. “He’s right, young man. You spend time underground and you learn to appreciate the sun. It’s open-pit mining now, of course, but not when we started out. Then you tunneled like a goddamn gopher.”

  “I’m not a reporter,” Traveler said.

  The two exchanged confirming nods.

  “We didn’t think you were,” the Cincinnati man said, “but it will still cost you.”

  “How much?”

  “On a hot day like this, there’s nothing like an ice-cold soda.”

  Traveler took out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it over.

  “Joe boy,” they both called together. “Come out here.”

  A young boy appeared from around the side of the ramshackle hotel. Traveler guessed his age at about ten, though his fancy sneakers looked big enough for a teenager.

  “If you give Joe boy here three dollars,” Cincinnati said, “he’ll run home and get us some colas.”

  Traveler eyed the pocket into which the twenty had disappeared, then counted four singles into the boy’s outstretched hand. “Get one for yourself, too, Joe.”

  The boy ran off, raising dust and attracting the dog from down the block. Both disappeared into a narrow alley.

  “Kids are like dogs,” the Dodger said. “They grow into their feet.” He pointed at Traveler. “I’m betting Joe boy will be as big as you are someday, Mr. . . .”

  “Martin,” Traveler said.

  “Well, Mr. Martin, you look like a company man to us.” He stamped his foot on the porch’s warped wooden slats. “The fact is, this used to be a company boardinghouse. They’d pay you spit for digging their copper, then take it away from you for living here. What they didn’t get went to the girls down at 520 Main.” He smiled at the memory. “They were worth every damn penny of it, though.”

  “I wish they were back in business,” his cohort said. “I’d go down there and die happy.” He touched the bill of his red cap like a base coach sending signals.

  The Dodger acknowledged by tipping his head. “Now what is it we can do for you?”

  “How many people are still living here in Copperfield?” Traveler said.

  “Maybe a dozen.”

  “Not that many,” his friend said. “There’s no reason to stay. The electricity’s still on, but the phones are long gone.”

  “They say the company’s cutting off the electricity next week,” the Dodger said.

  The boy returned at a dead run, the dog trotting beside him, tongue lolling. The cans of cola were well shaken by the time he handed them out. The boy immediately stepped back, out of splash range.

  Traveler angled his can at the road and pulled the tab, sending a spray of soda halfway across the narrow street.

  “How many times have we told you not to run with the sodas?” the Dodger said.

  The boy shrugged and disappeared around the side of the Rex, shaking his cola can as he went. The dog stared after him for a moment, then went back to where it had come from, lying in the sun down the block.

  Both men set their sodas aside and stared at Traveler while he drank what was left of his.

  “Your twenty’s running out of time,” the Cincinnati man said finally.

  “I’m looking for the Tempest family,” Traveler admitted.

  “Everybody but fools like us have moved back down to Bingham, though how long they’ll be staying on there is anybody’s guess.”

  “Are you saying the Tempests moved down the canyon?” Traveler said.

  “Who said they ever lived up here?”

  Traveler shrugged. “Do you know where I can find them?”

  The Dodger fingered the bill of his cap, while the Cincinnati Red removed his and wiped its stained sweatband.

  “These days,” Cincinnati said, “I don’t know where to find anybody but myself. After the election, God knows where we’ll end up, probably lost in some old-folks’ home down in the valley.”

  “It’s a hell of a thing,” the Dodger added, “old miners like us having to relocate to la-di-da places lik
e Magna or Bacchus.”

  Both men spit to show their disgust at such a prospect.

  “What about the Tempests?” Traveler said again.

  “Keep asking,” Cincinnati said. “You never know. Someone might take pity on you.”

  Traveler resisted the temptation to ask for his twenty back, thanked them, and started back toward the tunnel. By the time he reached the mouth, he glanced back to see the boy, Joe, following him.

  When Traveler emerged from the tunnel, the boy had closed the gap between them until he was only a few yards behind.

  “You can come up here and walk with me,” Traveler called over his shoulder, but the boy shook his head.

  Traveler walked slowly, looking for someone to talk to. But everything was closed, abandoned judging by their looks: Wells Grocery, Cho Cho’s Chocolate Shop, Bingham Meat, Berg’s Furniture, the Utah Copper Hospital. Even the Bingham Bulletin had a sign on the door saying, CLOSED FOR THE DURATION.

  The Rexall Drugs looked abandoned, so did Royal Candy Number 1, the Gem Theater, and Bert Thaxton’s barber shop. The brothel at 520 Main was boarded up. Only the Copper Keepsake showed signs of life, with a window full of metal-plated souvenirs, arrowheads, miniature tea sets, and picture postcards with shiny copper nuggets pasted to them. He tried the door, found it locked, and wondered how long the BACK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES sign had been hanging in the window.

  With a sigh, Traveler stepped off the sidewalk to get a better look at 520 Main. The second-floor windows, as murky now as sightless eyes, had been filled with light on graduation night, with waving girls perched on every sill, shouting down encouragement.

  “The one on the end’s for me,” Willis Tanner had said.

  Even from a distance she looked old enough to be his mother, or Traveler’s mother, which made her all the more exciting.

  “How much?” Tanner called to her.

  “I give a discount to virgins,” she answered back. “Just ask for Angel Mary.”

  “You’re going to lose money on these two, then,” Tanner said, pushing Walt Kilbourn and Gordy Christensen ahead of him toward the door.

  A force field of perfume surrounded the madam who greeted them. She was a middle-aged, bone-thin woman with bright hennaed hair and a low-cut gown to match. Blue veins showed beneath the milky skin of her corseted, upthrust breasts. Her welcoming smile killed Traveler’s hope that they’d be thrown out because of their age.

  “We have a parade every fifteen minutes,” she said. “You pay your money and take your choice.”

  “Angel Mary,” Willis said.

  The madam winked and sang out:

  “Angel Mary heist your leg,

  Take that Mormon down a peg,

  While I roll your sister Meg,

  Upon the parlor floor.”

  The tune went with ditties Traveler had heard his father sing.

  “You pay me, honey,” she said, “but if you tip Angel Mary enough, she’ll show you the wonders of the world.”

  Tanner paid.

  “What about the rest of you?” the woman said once she’d tucked away the money.

  Christensen and Kilbourn fled, but Tanner had Traveler by the arm.

  “He’s bashful,” Tanner said.

  Her eyes changed momentarily, showing something almost motherly. “Come on,” she had said, taking Traveler’s hand while signaling another woman to take over door duty, “I’ll show you the wonders myself.”

  Traveler turned away from 520 Main, away from the memory of that sad woman, to ask the boy, “Is the Copper Keepsake still in business?”

  The boy nodded. Traveler looked up and down the street, saw no sign of a shopkeeper, and decided to head for the Bingham Merc rather than wait.

  18

  ALL EYES turned toward Traveler when he entered the Bingham Mercantile. The tall man wearing a black Eastern Orthodox robe paused in midgesture, one hand raised above his gray head as if pointing toward heaven. His audience of two, miners obviously, with grit ground into their hands and arms, stared at Traveler with open mouths. Both were muscled, wiry men, tanned to the point of desiccation by hard outdoor work, and seemingly ageless because of it; they could have been forty or sixty.

  The priest had the wrinkled face of a seventy-year-old to go along with the dark, shining eyes of a Rasputin. One side of his mouth turned up when he greeted Traveler; the other side of his face remained slack, probably the result of the long nasty scar that ran down the length of one cheek.

  “You must be Mr. Martin,” the priest said. “Miz Odegaard told us to expect you. You’ve arrived just in time for noon services. I hold them here because my church is boarded up.”

  “It hasn’t been your church for years,” one of the miners said. “Kennecott owns it lock, stock, and pew.”

  “God is not for sale, not even to Kennecott Copper.” The priest offered his hand. “I’m Joe Balic. Everybody calls me Papa Joe. My critic here is Milo Popovich. His brother dissenter is Saso Marovich. They were all the congregation I had until you arrived.”

  “Nobody goes to church anymore,” Popovich said and nodded at Marovich who immediately added, “That’s why God gave us television.”

  Their grins said this was a ritual litany, a way of priming the priest.

  “We’ve lost our fear of God,” Balic responded. “It used to be, a man got old he started looking over his shoulder, feeling God breathing down his neck, getting ready to call him to account.” As he spoke he walked back and forth in front of the Merc’s glass display cases, following a path that had been worn into the pine floor over the years.

  Marovich clicked his tongue. “The last time someone breathed down my neck it was one of the girls up at 520.”

  “It used to be a man paid for his sins,” the priest continued. “I’m not talking about the likes of you, Saso, but rich men, important men, men who spent their lives stealing from the poor.”

  “Like Kennecott, you mean?”

  Balic gestured impatiently. “Rich men hear footsteps behind them just like the rest of us. In our case, though, all we can do is pray and ask forgiveness. But men like Carnegie and Rockefeller, what do they do? They hear God sneaking up on them and they build libraries and set up foundations, trying to buy their way into heaven before it’s too late. Now we’ve got people calling themselves born-again Christians who think making money proves that God loves them, and they don’t share it with anybody.”

  “Do any of them make it to heaven?” Marovich said.

  The priest smiled with the working side of his face. “Like Matthew said, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ ”

  “Maybe having your name on a library is all the immortality a man can get.”

  “That’s a possibility, of course,” the priest said. “If you can live with it.”

  The door opened and two men entered, followed by the young boy, Joe. The coppery smelter smell came with them, temporarily overriding the Bingham Merc’s pine-resin, dry-goods atmosphere.

  “Serbs,” Popovich murmured under his breath.

  Balic used the pretext of introducing Traveler to place himself between his two-man congregation and the new arrivals. “Mr. Martin, this is Sam Kuharic and Jake Selimovski.”

  They too looked like miners, fit, lanky men, but were at least a generation younger than Popovich and Marovich. Kuharic, the bigger of the two, pointed at Traveler and said, “Only a Croat would help an outsider.”

  “The mayor’s wife sent him to us,” Balic said.

  Kuharic shook his head. “Ten minutes ago he poked his nose around up in Copperfield, looking for friends of ours, the Tempests.”

  “He looks like a cop to me,” Selimovski added. “Maybe even a company cop.”

  “Bullshit,” Popovich replied. “If anyone’s spying for the company, it has to be a Serb.”

  Balic spread his arms like a referee, one hand against Selimovski’s chest, the other holding back
Popovich, and said, “Maybe you’d better explain your intentions, Mr. Martin.”

  “I’m here on personal business. It has nothing to do with Kennecott or the election.”

  “He looks like trouble,” Kuharic said.

  Balic nodded. “He’s got a point.”

  “All I want to do is talk to the Tempests,” Traveler said. “A few minutes will do.”

  “Garth Tempest worked with me at the mine before he hurt his leg,” Kuharic said.

  “We heard the stories about that accident,” Popovich responded. “Self-inflicted, they say, but still he got workers’ comp.”

  “Whatever you think about him, he’s more of a friend than this guy,” Kuharic said, indicating Traveler.

  Father Balic elbowed some working room between the Serbs and Croats. “Garth Tempest still limps, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone into clerking. Not that he’s any better off than any of the rest of us now. The fact is, I’d say he’s in worse shape, because the mine will still be here when all the stores are gone.”

  “I say we send this guy on his way,” Kuharic said.

  “Let him explain first,” Balic answered.

  Traveler knew better than to go with the truth—that he was there looking for a child named after him but who wasn’t his. Looking from face to face, he saw no leeway, only men who’d been holding grudges forever, fighting the same battles their European ancestors had started centuries ago. If he fought them, no matter what the outcome, he’d have to leave town.

  His best bet was to get the priest on his side. “You’re right about God, Father Balic.” Traveler dredged up a Sunday lesson memorized under his mother’s watchful eye. “ ‘For thus saith the Lord, “I am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me.” ’ ”

  “Your good book is not mine,” Balic said, “but fear’s the key sure enough. Without it, I’m afraid, there is no faith.”

  “He’s nothing but a white-head Mormon,” Kuharic said.

  The expected response was black-head, Traveler knew, sometimes nigger-head if it was a fight you wanted. He responded with a chuckle instead, to let them know he understood their joke, that for more than a century the men of Bingham Canyon had been calling Mormons white-heads, because Mormons left the dirty work to immigrant Gentiles rather than get their own hands and faces soiled in the mines.