“I’ll be staying for the opening, ready to plug holes,” he said. “Then I’m off to Philipsburg and Missoula. I have a simple task: making sure that it all goes right. Philipsburg has no electricity but a nice new opera house. Not well equipped. So I make sure we’ve got lamps, footlights, and all that gear, and the oils we need. You never know. Our hotel may be far from the theater, and we need means to get our people back and forth. A sleigh, a buggy, a wagon. I have to find bed and board for twenty-some people. Sometimes I can get a bulk rate. Sometimes I have to pay in advance. Sometimes something goes haywire, and there are no rooms, or an eatery closes, or the owner decides to charge more for a breakfast because show people are supposed to have lots of money. Or a printer didn’t print our tickets, and we need some, and fast. Or they didn’t paste up the playbills and no one knows we’re coming. That’s what I do. I make it all work, and there’s no room for error.”
“You don’t decide what’s in the show,” she said.
“That’s my partner’s job, and he’s got the judgment for it.”
“And everything’s going to be all right in Butte?”
He hesitated. “On my end, yes. But not on the other end.”
“Trouble with the show?”
He smiled. “Nothing for you to worry your head about. And nothing to start you dreaming. Show people all have that fantasy. You hope you’ll fill in, be discovered, do better than the act you’re subbing, and then you’re on your way, audiences worshiping you, stage-door Johnnies waiting to escort you, all that. It’s the dream.”
“All I dream about is making my own life,” she said.
He’d heard that, too. From runaways like this girl, escaping something unbearable, risking everything just to flee their homes. Usually with good reason, if not good sense. More often boys, escaping fathers. He watched her sip and eat, always dainty, always trusting. She trusted him, foolish girl. She brimmed with quiet strength, and the more he sat across from her, the prettier she became. And it wasn’t the bourbon speaking. She was uncommonly lovely.
There was an impenetrable wall about her. Whatever he had garnered through a dinner had been gotten from intuition. She was Dresden china.
“There’s nothing I can do for you,” he said.
She smiled. The Chequamegon was noisy. Butte was noisy. Every shift change amounted to a racket, with shouts, chuffing steam engines, bells, whistles. The city never slept.
“What comes next?” she said.
He wasn’t quite sure what she meant. She was gazing, unblinking, at him.
He arched a brow, and stared at the mustachioed barman.
“This part I know nothing about. Except what I’ve read in trashy novels,” she said.
“How old did you say?”
“Old enough.”
“You are reckless, and it will get you nowhere.”
“I am unaware of it. No one has instructed me.”
“And you want to be taught.”
“When I left my home I left everything behind.”
“And you suppose you can discover a way to become an entertainer. No, my little canary, you cannot do it. You must have an act.”
She laughed suddenly. “I don’t even have stage fright,” she said.
He thought for a moment about the delight of being her instructor, opening the curtains, awakening her to a new world, the limelight where it had never shone. She was waiting, and he had only to pay the tab, collect her on his arm, and escort her a short distance, and close the door behind them. For her, there would be mysteries upon mysteries, revelations and maybe moments of fear, but no regrets. Not just then, anyway.
He could not fathom what was inhibiting him. Not scruple. He had none. But then he knew. She was too innocent. She was too sheltered and utterly unaware of traps, of cliffs, of slippery slides into hopelessness. She might fall crazily in love with a man who could not return it. More likely, she would pack up in the morning and head back to wherever she came from. And for once in his life, he would harbor regrets.
“Sing for me,” he said.
“Here?”
He saw the flash of fear upon her. “Where else? An audience you must capture. They’re eating. They’re with friends. They’re drinking.”
The restaurant hummed. People conversed. Dishes clattered.
It amused him. She stood, gathering courage, and faced him. “It is called ‘Cielito Lindo,’” she said.
“De la Sierra Morena,
cielito lindo, vienen bajando,
Un par de ojitos negros,
cielito lindo, de contrabando.”
She sang it sweetly, but with voice enough to catch the restaurant. Heads turned.
“Ay, ay, ay ay,
canta y no llores,
porque cantando se alegran,
cielito lindo, los corazones.”
A strange quiet settled now. What was all this? Charles Pomerantz confessed to being surprised, which was, for him, a major concession. His vocation was to prevent surprises. Her French horn voice caught his ear. It was not the sweet and virginal voice he had expected.
“Ese lunar que tienes,
cielito lindo, junto a la boca,
No se lo des a nadie,
cielito lindo, que a mí me toca…”
A dark youth busing dishes quietly joined the chorus. “Ay, ay, ay, ay…”
So did several patrons. They were swaying in their seats. Was this one of those songs that drew people into it?
And they clapped when she was done. She smiled serenely at them and rejoined Pomerantz. Patrons turned away. The evening’s amusement had passed.
“There are many verses,” she said. “And people create their own. It’s much enjoyed by mariachi bands.”
He hadn’t the faintest idea what such a band was, and wasn’t about to confess it, but he would find out sooner or later. She was somehow annoying him. She was exuding superiority. She was better bred and letting him know it.
“If you have an act, you’ll need your own music. Not someone else’s. Not a folk song,” he said, gently.
She looked bleak. “I have none of my own. I know almost every ballad that’s been caught on paper. I know Stephen Foster. Lullabies that came across the sea. Songs my grandmother sang, and songs I learned from music teachers. Songs they got from their home countries across the sea. The songs have come together, and we learn Irish lullabies and English sea shanties. I have all those, but nothing that would suit your show.”
“Put them into an act, and try out somewhere,” he said.
She stared, smiled, and nodded. The crowd was thinning.
“I’ll walk you to your hotel, wherever that is.”
“The Butte. And I can manage.”
He ignored her, paid the tab, helped her throw a shawl over her shoulders, and walked beside her, filled with odd thoughts. He wished she would pack up and go home, stop being Ginger and start using all her real names. She was too sheltered to be out in the hurly-burly world, especially show business. People didn’t just get hurt; they nosedived, they sank, they made bad choices. They tried powders and pills. They trusted the wrong people. She had no idea. She’d been raised in a garden, high walls around her, kept that way by protective parents who didn’t want their little girl to grow up. And they no doubt congratulated themselves.
“So, Ginger, I enjoyed the dinner. And I wish you success,” he said as they paused at the door. Inside the door, and up two flights, was her room, rented for one night.
She was hoping for more, but he made no commitment. He would introduce her to no one. She should get the hell out of Butte, and out of her dreaming.
“Thank you. I’ve never done that before,” she said. “Singing for my supper.”
“No, I was just curious. Not for your supper. Just curious.”
She eyed him, sudden mischief in her eyes. “Odd how evenings end,” she said.
He thought maybe she was a lot more experienced than he had supposed.
She entered,
digging for her room key, and that was the last he saw of her.
The show would arrive in Butte around eleven, barely in time for an advertised matinee, and the telegram from Beausoleil indicated there was trouble.
12
MARY MABEL Markey was enthralled. Butte lay before her, stretching up a long grade, its stacks churning smoke into blue skies, the busy city glittering and shimmering. She loved the thought of all those people, people who might show up soon at the opera house. Butte was Irish. Her own.
She had spent hours traveling through wilderness. There was hardly human habitation between Helena and Butte, and the view from the coach window was monotonous forest and anonymous emptiness. Give her a bright city anytime, especially a brawling, sprawling one like the copper mining city with all its miners and millionaires.
Butte was high, hugging the continental divide, and an island of purpose in a lifeless land with nothing but mountains and forest. At the crest of the city were scores of headframes, the mines that tore copper and silver and a little gold out of the earth. The place deserved an opera house and deserved a great variety show like the Beausoleil Brothers.
The train screeched to a halt, huffing steam and pouring ash upon the platform, as brakemen opened doors and set steel stools on the gravel. They all must hurry: it was eleven thirty and they had a matinee at two. She spotted Charles Pomerantz waiting with several open carriages and two wagons, ready to speed the company to the opera house. He was a fine advance man, knew what was needed and got it there at the right time. The acts and props would go straight to Maguire’s Opera House. The bags and trunks would go straight to the hotel, where performers would find them in their rooms, later.
She spotted August Beausoleil, first off the car, in earnest conversation with his colleague, no doubt about her. She was the problem, and enjoyed it. August had persuaded her to abandon the narcotics, especially the cough syrup with opiates, and that had restored her voice—a little. Enough to permit her to do the opening act of the final show in Helena. But she was dizzy, reeling, her heart flip-flopping, her chest hurting, her left arm aching, and she barely reeled off the stage after one song. The audience clapped only politely and thought she’d imbibed. Little did they know she could barely stand up, much less dish out a lively song.
Let the two of them worry out there in the smoke. She was the top-billed act, and she’d sing or they’d carry her out. They were frowning, earnest in their exchange, occasionally glancing back at the enameled green coach that was, even then, discharging a steady stream of the show people.
Beausoleil had settled quietly beside her on the trip to Butte.
“I think it’s time for you to get some bed rest,” he said. “Skip Butte. There’s a hot springs near here, chance for you to soak and get better. Fairmont, it’s called. Hot water, right out of the ground. Just sit in hot water and get strong.”
“Over my dead body,” she said, and meant it.
“That’s nearly the way it worked last eve,” he said. He had helped her off the stage when it appeared she would keel over at the end of her first song. She had suddenly lost breath and balance, and he caught her just before she tumbled.
“I’m singing. Every performance. I wouldn’t miss Butte for anything. This is my city. These are my people. Right here, buster.”
“Mary Mabel, Butte’s higher than Denver. Up against the continental divide. You’ll not get enough air in your lungs to sing. I’d prefer to see you strong and with bellows pumping down the road. Sing for us on the coast, at sea level.”
“I’m top billed. They buy tickets to see me.”
He had hit a wall of granite.
That had ended the exchange, but it wasn’t over. The two owners were talking earnestly in the cold wind on the platform, while carriages were wheeling the acts up the hill.
She stepped down to the platform, the brakeman offering a hand to steady her, and headed straight toward the owners.
Charles Pomerantz lifted his derby and nodded.
“Miss Markey, how good to see you,” he said. “Your admirers are awaiting you, and in Butte, they’re legion.” He smiled. “And I’m at the top of the list.”
“Someone around here wants to cheat them out of the price of a ticket,” she said. “And it won’t be me. I’ll be on that stage. The first performance is what gets reviewed in the dailies, and they’re going to review me.”
“You’re an admirable lady,” Pomerantz said. “And you’re ready, of course, and fit to sing?”
She eyed him. “I’ll be on that stage, singing.” She was going to add, even if it kills me, but decided that would not be politic.
“Air’s smokey here,” he said. He glanced at August. “We’re prepared to give you paid leave, Miss Markey. We want you full of zip when we reach the West Coast.”
“If you reach the coast without me.”
She had played her ace. They couldn’t survive without her. This second-rate company would fold, the acts wouldn’t get paid, and there’d be a lot of talent trying to hitch a ride back to civilization. And they knew it.
They didn’t like it. But she had them. There was no way they could push their top-billed act out of town and let some little songbird pretend to put on a performance.
August smiled suddenly. “Take the carriage,” he said. “You’ll be dropped at the opera house. Rest before the show.”
She eyed the carriage, ebony and open to the November chill. The hack driver was eyeing her as if she were a piece of hanging beef. She entered and settled, drawing a robe over her, and the hack driver slapped his nag into motion.
Her heart was tumbling again, and she didn’t like it, but she wouldn’t give in to it. It had all come down to stark options now: do or die. A few minutes later the hack turned onto Broadway and pulled up before a fancy-fronted opera house, all noble pretense, except that it would seat a thousand, and was as big as any, anywhere.
She wondered about paying the man, but he shook his head, helped her out, and pointed toward a side door. She found herself in a huge, dark auditorium, but there were incandescent lights on the stage, and people moving about. She grabbed a seat-back to steady herself. Her pulse was racketing around again.
She made her way to the bleak stage, where hands were putting the props in order. And there, watching, was a man whose reputation preceded him, John Maguire, dressed just as she had known he would, in a purple swallowtail.
“I believe I have the great honor of meeting one of the finest names in variety theater,” he said. “Miss Markey, Butte welcomes you.”
He not only clasped her cold hand, but reached down to plant a kiss on her cheek. She already liked Butte, and now she was filled with sublime delight. The most admired theater man in the West, kissing her cheek. Her heart skipped.
She peered out upon row after row of seats, a wide stage, majestic wings and flies, everything on a grand scale. It suited her. This was the great city of the Northwest, and these were her people, and here she was known and celebrated. She would sing to them, lullaby them, awaken them to love, stir ancient memories of a greener land, poke them with humor, smile and feel them smiling back. She had waited long for this, a Celtic celebration, a communion with all those lonely men, imported from across the sea by the copper king, Marcus Daly, and put to work in those terrible pits thousands of feet below the sunlight.
It made her heady, dizzy, and she retreated to the Green Room, passing people who were putting their act together. Mrs. McGivers had loosed her capuchin monkeys, and they were swinging about, looking for trouble. Harry the Juggler was unloading scimitars, and the Wildroot girls were opening a trunk, digging at costumes. There wasn’t much time. The matinee crowd would flood in soon.
Mary Mabel Markey careened to a dressing room, found it solitary, lit by a single incandescent light hanging on its cord. It was as quiet as a confessional, and she wished there would be time to find a real confessional, in this city teeming with Irish, and confess to the sin of pride, the sin of ha
ving an act, of being in variety theater, so she might assuage her pride. But there was no priest here, and no church anywhere near this opera house, and her yearnings would have to wait for a while. Maybe between the matinee and the evening show.
She tried her voice, just a bar or two, and didn’t like it much. But it would have to do, and what she lost in hoarseness she would make up in sweetness. She knew how to sweeten music, make it sugary and honeyed. Today she would slather honey on all those off-shift miners. She would give the most memorable performance of her life, there in Butte, there before the men from County Clare, or County Kilkenny and County Cork.
It was cold. The great barn of a theater carried a chill wrought by icy air flowing out of the mountains. It might warm with a packed house; it might not bother other acts, but it bothered her. She chose her sky-blue velvet dress because it was warm, and because she looked smashing in it, and she would woo her miners in it, and she would feel their longing, as they sat out in the dark, peering up at her, lit by incandescent spotlights.
She spotted John Maguire in the wing, and approached him.
“Miss Markey, what an honor. Rarely has this house seen the likes of a singer of your reputation,” he said, plucking up her cold hand again.
“It’s the Irish in me. I’m singing for an audience that’ll pick it up,” she said.
“They’ll let you know it,” he said. “But not loudly. You’ll bathe in it, my dear.”
“I’ve never bathed in anything but water,” she said. “This will be a novelty.”
August Beausoleil approached, looking stern.
“I’ve talked to the fiddlers, and they’ll cover for you, see you through if your voice cracks.”
“My voice is fine, and I’ll chase them off the stage.”
“Alone, then?”
“This is my town, and this is my hour, and this is my act.”
He didn’t like it. He was preparing for the worst, and fiddlers were good backup, carrying a song if a voice vanished. That was a veteran showman for you, anticipating trouble and dealing with it ahead of time.
But he annoyed her. She felt a great thump in her chest, and she meet his steely gaze with one of her own. Maguire watched intently, missing nothing.
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