by R. R. Irvine
He recited another of his mother’s favorites. “ ‘And the servants of God shall go forth, saying with a loud voice: “Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.” ’ ”
Nodding, the priest laid a hand on Traveler’s shoulder. “I want you all to let this man be. We have enough trouble in this town already, what with everyone taking sides. If it’s Garth Tempest you’re looking for, he runs the Copper Keepsake souvenir shop up the street. Come on, I’ll show you where to find him myself.”
Father Balic took Traveler’s arm. “Does anyone object?”
“Garth’s not open,” Kuharic said, “what with business being so bad.”
“Humor me,” Balic said.
The miners parted, Serbs on one side, Croats on the other, to let Traveler and the priest pass. As soon as they were outside on the sidewalk, the priest sighed deeply. “It’s not Garth you seek, is it? Otherwise, you would have come right out with his name.”
Traveler said nothing.
“If I find out you’re causing trouble, I won’t hold them back next time.”
No more Sunday lessons came to mind, so Traveler settled for a nod.
“Each year there are fewer and fewer of us here. Each year we die a little more. If Kennecott wins, their open-pit mine will eat away the mountains and there will be nothing left to show that we ever existed.”
He pulled Traveler out into the middle of the empty two-lane street. “There was a time when traffic backed all the way to the tunnel, and parking was a nightmare, especially around 520 Main.”
Balic looked up and down the street and shook his head. “Listen to me, an old man fit for nothing but the boneyard. Only that’ll be gone too, won’t it, shoveled up and thrown into the smelters along with everything else. Even consecrated ground counts for nothing when the ore’s rich enough.”
“I’m sorry I can’t vote,” Traveler said.
“It wouldn’t do any good anyway. Take my advice now and go about your business before my friends inside decide to take their grievances out on you. If Garth’s not at the shop, you’ll find the Tempest place down on Hagland Alley. Theirs is the only house with a wire fence out front.”
The priest turned away to point down Main Street. “Keep going past the Royal Laundry and Christ Apostles Grocery until you reach Freeman Gulch. Turn left there and Hagland will be the first street on your right. If Garth’s not home, you be sure to talk to Hannah out front where the neighbors can see you.”
19
HAGLAND ALLEY was more like a tunnel than a road, wide enough only for one car and lined with unpainted wooden shacks built up against the crumbling curb. Near the end of the block, a few shacks, smaller than the rest, looking no more substantial than outhouses, had sacrificed square footage for front yards five feet deep. The fence that Father Balic had mentioned was two feet of sagging chicken wire strung between a line of flimsy wooden sticks. Behind the wire three young children, two boys and a girl, played on bare dirt. They stopped to gawk when Traveler arrived. The oldest boy looked to be six or seven, but the other one was the right age, about three. The towheaded girl seemed younger.
Traveler glanced at the houses on either side, saw no signs of life, and knelt down on his side of the fence to ask, “Is your mother home?”
The two youngest ones hung their heads, while the older boy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the open doorway. “Hannah!”
“What is it?” a woman called from inside. The doorway was in shadow and offered no glimpse of her or the house’s interior.
“A man’s here.”
“Coming.”
The woman who appeared in the doorway wore the same kind of loose-fitting flowered housedress that Traveler’s mother had favored during house-cleaning chores. She looked too old to be the children’s mother, Traveler thought at first glance, but when she stepped outside, what he’d taken to be gray hair turned blond in the sunlight.
The moment he stood up, revealing his size, she held out her hands toward the children, who immediately clustered around her.
“Mrs. Tempest?” he said.
Her confirming nod was barely perceptible.
He forced himself to look at her and not the boy. When she couldn’t meet his gaze, he had the feeling that she knew who he was. Perhaps Claire had prepared her for his coming, describing Traveler or maybe even providing a photograph of him. If so, now was not the time to pretend his name was Martin.
“I’m Moroni Traveler,” he said.
She sighed, her shoulders sagged. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time.”
“Claire must have told you about me, then.”
“She said you’d never be able to resist, that in the end you’d have to come looking. She said it wouldn’t do me any good to hide.”
Traveler allowed himself a glance at the youngest boy.
“There are cookies inside,” Hannah told the children. “You can watch TV while you eat them.” When they hesitated, she herded them gently across the threshold and closed the door after them.
“Does the rest of your family know about Claire?” Traveler said.
“I can see she didn’t tell you everything.”
“Claire never told anyone everything.”
“I kept my promise to her. I want you to know that. I kept the name Moroni Traveler. Moroni Traveler Tempest.”
“There’s a resemblance,” he said, surprised that he hadn’t seen it immediately. The boy had Claire’s slender frame, the same dark eyes and hair.
“Claire said you’d want the child for your own.” Hannah blinked rapidly, raising tears.
“You’re more of a mother than Claire ever was.”
She stepped past Traveler to look down Hagland Alley toward Main Street. “My husband should be here any minute. What with business the way it is, he usually closes up shop and comes home for lunch. It used to be tourists flocked here on weekends, but these days nobody comes to Bingham to buy souvenirs.”
“Are you asking me to leave?” Traveler said.
“Garth doesn’t know about Claire or the money I paid to her.”
The doorknob rattled. Before Hannah could reach it, the door opened and the little boy appeared, sucking his thumb and staring wide-eyed at Traveler.
“Say hello to the man, Marty.”
Traveler smiled. Another Moroni renamed. His father would appreciate it, though Claire probably would have objected.
Marty flung himself against Hannah and clung there. When Traveler went down on his knees, the boy hid his face in the folds of his mother’s housedress.
“I talked with Claire for a long time that day she gave me the child,” Hannah said. “I never understood your relationship with her.”
“Did she tell you I was the father?”
“It was never clear. She said you weren’t your father’s son, whatever that means.”
The boy showed his face long enough to say, “Don’t cry, Hannah.”
“I’d better come back another time,” Traveler said.
“The damage is done. Someone will have seen you talking to me by now.” She wiped her eyes. “Please, I need to know about you and Claire. Your relationship.”
Even as Traveler wondered if lies wouldn’t be best for everyone he found himself saying, “We’d broken up long before she got pregnant. More than a year.”
“Then the child isn’t yours?”
He shook his head.
“Why did you come here, then?”
“My father wants a grandchild and there are times when I think Claire was as close as he’s ever going to get.”
“I know why you came,” Hannah said. “You wanted to see Claire again. She told me you were one of those old-fashioned Mormons with half a dozen wives. She said she ran off because she refused to share you with the others. She said you wanted to take the baby away from her to be raised by one of the other wives.”
“I’m not married.”
Hannah nodded. “I can s
ee that. Even at the time, I didn’t really believe the story about your wives. I was separated from my own husband then, and living with my sister Mattie in Sugarhouse. The other two children are hers.”
“Mattie,” Marty picked up. “Mattie’s coming to the picnic.”
“You go back inside, dear, and watch TV with the others,” Hannah said.
“I want to stay with you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute. If you’re good, you can help me make the potato salad for the picnic. Shoo, now.”
As soon as the boy was safely inside, Hannah said, “You may as well know all of it. I stayed with my sister nine months before coming back to my husband. That way I could tell him the child was his. God knows what he’ll think when he hears your name is Moroni Traveler.”
“I’ve been calling myself Martin ever since I got into town. You’re the only one who knows who I am.”
Fresh tears rolled from her eyes.
“I’ll leave.”
“Won’t your father be disappointed?”
“He only wanted to make certain that his grandchild was happy. That’s all I wanted, too.”
“We don’t have much money. You can see that for yourself. But I love my angel. I guess you could take us to court and win because I gave Claire money. It was only a dollar, but she said that made it legal, though I know better now.”
“I think my father would be happy if he could just visit one of these days.”
“He wouldn’t talk to my husband, would he?”
“I’ll make sure of that.”
She looked toward Main Street again, then back at the house. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. Why don’t you and your father come to the picnic tomorrow? The whole town is getting together at the high school around noon. It will be a celebration or a farewell depending on how the vote goes. Just don’t tell my husband who you are.”
Traveler nodded. “We’ll be there.”
20
TRAVELER DECIDED to rent a room for the night as a base of operations if nothing else. Emma Dugan’s boardinghouse, two-stories of bleak clapboard the color of tarpaper, looked as if it were sagging between the derelict buildings on either side. Emma, too, seemed to sag as she greeted him at the door, until Traveler realized that the floor itself was out of plumb.
“You’re Mr. Martin, aren’t you,” she said. She would have looked like a Norman Rockwell grandmother—gray hair in a bun, wire-rim glasses, a pigeon-shaped body wearing a hand-embroidered apron over her housedress—except for her shrewd, assessing eyes. “The mayor’s wife told me to expect you. Let’s get everything out front first, though, young man. I charge twenty-five dollars a day, in advance, breakfast and dinner included.”
He counted out the money, which she tucked into an apron pocket before ushering him into a small living room filled with Victorian furniture and the aroma of lemon-oil polish. The door to a gleaming oak breakfront stood open. She reached in among the knickknacks, took out a Depression glass bowl filled with keys, and rooted among them until she found one with an attached label.
“I go to bed early,” she said, “so you’ll need this to get in the front door if you stay out past eight.”
“I’ll try not to disturb you.”
“I’m putting you upstairs, so I’d appreciate it if you took off your shoes after eight o’clock.”
He nodded.
“Since you got here too late for breakfast, I could fix you lunch.”
“I’d like to make a phone call first.”
A whistle sounded, distant but loud enough to be heard up and down Bingham Canyon.
“It’s three o’clock,” Emma said. “Hold on to something.”
She closed the breakfront door and stretched herself against its curved glass like a mother protecting a child. When Traveler didn’t move, she pointed at a tallboy on the other side of the room. The house started shaking before he reached it.
“Every day it gets worse,” she said, “Kennecott blasting at the open-pit mine on the other side of the mountain. And every day this place sinks a little more, just like I do.”
She smiled and stepped away from the breakfront. “Gravity’s weighing us both down.”
“It’s a wonder the whole town hasn’t collapsed.”
“Don’t think we haven’t lost a few places over the years. Most just get so bad they have to be condemned and torn down. Would you like to see your room now?”
The room was small, no more than ten by ten, with a single window facing the mountainside out back. Towels had been set out on the Victorian bed which, despite its massive oak headboard, looked too short for a man Traveler’s size.
The bathroom was down the hall. Traveler relieved himself, washed the smelter grime from his face and hands, then left the house looking for a public phone.
Martin must have been waiting for the call, because he answered in the middle of the first ring. “Don’t keep me in suspense, for Christ’s sake. Do I have a grandson or not?”
“I found him, all right.”
“Claire’s Moroni?”
“Absolutely.”
“What’s he like?”
“You can see for yourself tomorrow. We’ve been invited to a town picnic. Moroni Traveler the Third will be there.”
“How did you handle it?”
“I’m calling myself Mr. Martin as you suggested.”
“What time?” Martin asked.
“Noon. Do you want me to drive into town and pick you up?”
“I’d rather you stay there and keep your eye on our future partner at Moroni Traveler and Sons. I’ll rent a car.”
“I’ve got a room at Emma Dugan’s boardinghouse, 454 Main Street. Meet me there and we’ll plan strategy.”
21
MARTIN ARRIVED early enough to have breakfast, for which Emma charged an additional two dollars and fifty cents, cheaper than Strums Cafe, she pointed out, which wasn’t open anyway because this was picnic day at the high school.
“You’re invited too,” she added, while refilling Martin’s coffee cup. “A widow woman like myself always appreciates company at her table. What about you, why didn’t you bring your wife along?”
“I’m a widower myself.”
“Now that you say it, I can see that for myself. Look at that button on your coat. It’s ready to drop right off. You give it to me this minute and I’ll take care of it.”
The moment she went for needle and thread Traveler said, “She reminds me of Kary.”
“Your mother couldn’t sew.”
“Why did you marry her?”
“Why did you take up with Claire?”
“You win.”
Martin winked. “Old age has to be good for something. Now, as soon as I get my coat back, let’s take a walk. Maybe we can pass by the boy’s house. With any luck, I can get a look at him before the picnic.”
“There are some problems. We’d better wait.”
Martin sighed. “Let’s hear it.”
“Not here.”
As soon as they were strolling up Main Street, with no other pedestrians in sight, Traveler explained the situation, that Garth Tempest thought the child was his and knew nothing of Claire.
“Christ,” Martin responded. “Why did Mrs. Tempest keep the name Moroni Traveler?”
“She promised Claire.”
“She sounds too good to be true.”
“The boy looks like Claire.”
“I hope that’s all he inherited from her.”
“You always said it was upbringing that counted, not genes.”
They passed the Golden Rule Store, the Royal Chocolate Shop, and the Knight Hotel, now boarded up. At 520 Main Martin stopped and looked up at the empty, decaying building and shook his head.
“What kind of man is this Garth Tempest?”
“I don’t know,” Traveler said.
“We’d better find out before we go to that picnic.”
“It’s Sunday morning,” Traveler pointed out.
“S
o let’s find ourselves a church or something.”
They found the Serbian Lodge, locked up, the abandoned LDS Ward House, and the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Carr Fork, showing no signs of life. At ten they heard distant church bells but couldn’t home in on them before the ringing stopped.
“I talked to a priest at the Bingham Merc yesterday,” Traveler said. “A Father Balic. We could try there.”
The Merc was closed, but Balic was sitting on the wooden steps out front with one of the Serbian miners Traveler had met before, Saso Marovich, who was now wearing what appeared to be a lodge cap.
“This is my father,” Traveler said, keeping names out of the introduction.
“Take a pew,” the priest said.
“We’d like to speak with you alone if we could,” Traveler said.
“I was on my way up to the high school anyway, to help set up picnic tables,” Marovich said.
“We only need a few minutes of the father’s time,” Traveler said.
“Don’t worry about it,” the priest said. “If I know Saso, you’ve done him a favor. Now he won’t have to listen to the rest of my sermon.”
Marovich tipped his cap. “A man sees enough fire and brimstone when he works for Kennecott.” He walked away whistling.
“Now,” Balic said as Martin settled on one side of him, Traveler the other, “which of my sermons would you like to hear?”
Because Martin was closer to the priest’s age, he took the initiative. “The subject we have in mind is Garth Tempest.”
Balic stared at Traveler and said, “I thought you spoke with him yesterday.”
“Only his wife.”
The priest sighed. “Garth’s not one of mine.”
“Even so,” Martin said, “maybe you can tell us what kind of man he is.”
“I’m not one to gossip without good reason.”
“We need to approach him on a personal matter,” Martin said.
