Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  She had decided to come early and spend the summer. That would give her time to concentrate without distractions. For the first time she would be able to concentrate on her art. Not Jason’s, nor her students’, but her own.

  Jason’s face swam before her eyes. What makes you think you can make it as an artist? You can’t even hold on to a first-year instructorship. Go ahead. Do your best. You won’t get anywhere.

  “What do you know?” Chelsea spoke aloud.

  You’ll be back. You'll fail.

  Chelsea tried to think about something else. Anything to keep Jason’s taunting face from poisoning her mind. Tying her running shoes, she thought about her drive to Bisbee.

  After first-session summer school let out, she had closed her apartment, rented a U-Haul trailer (a small one—her restored ‘57 Thunderbird didn’t have much pulling power), and driven to Arizona.

  The journey had been remarkable only in the changing scenery, the heat, and the constant complaining of her companion, Mr. Chips, a nine-year-old tabby of questionable ancestry.

  Drenching her flushed face and arms with water at a rest area outside Yuma, Chelsea questioned the wisdom of moving to Arizona in the summer. The temperature was over a hundred degrees. All the way across the flat, agricultural stretches of California’s Imperial Valley and the dry Arizona desert, she had wondered what Bisbee would be like. Would it be barren, like the land she had already driven through? She had been to the town only once before, at the tender age of three—not the best age for remembering. Uncle Bob said Bisbee was in the mountains, but the photos Chelsea remembered didn’t look like any mountains she had seen. According to Uncle Bob, those pictures were taken at a time when most of the trees had been cut down for lumber. He said it was quite different now.

  She had stayed overnight at Uncle Bob’s house in Tucson. The next day he led the way south in his own car through the lush farmland along the San Pedro River, then through the Mule Mountains to Bisbee.

  Chelsea’s first impression of the town was one of contrast. Huge mountains, shadowed by twilight, dwarfing toy-like houses. As she followed Uncle Bob’s car along the hillside above the town, Chelsea saw the Copper Queen Hotel for the first time. A mustard-colored building trimmed with forest-green windowsills and porticos, the Copper Queen Hotel was a fine example of popular architecture from the turn of the century. Its many red-tiled roofs thrust into the sky like sails on a clipper ship. The Queen had once been the most celebrated hotel between San Francisco and New Orleans. Just looking at it raised Chelsea’s spirits.

  Now, as she picked up her room key and headed for the door, Chelsea experienced a similar emotion. “Who knows?” she asked Chips, who stared balefully from the comparative safety of his cat carrier under the bed. “This could be just what the doctor ordered.”

  His only answer was a melancholy yowl.

  After her run, Chelsea climbed the carpeted hotel stairs and paused outside Uncle Bob’s door. No sound came from within; he probably wasn’t awake yet. She continued up the stairs to the third-floor balcony.

  Across from the hotel, the mountains soared into the sky, defined so clearly in the sharp air that they resembled a carefully painted stage flat. Waste rock—brought up from the bowels of the earth and then discarded by the copper miners—had become part of the mountain face, held in place by variegated patches of juniper, manzanita, and rabbitbrush. Masses of rock angled down toward the highway, racing the morning shadows. In an act that defied nature, a lone cottonwood tree grew out of the red talus slope like a bright-green flag.

  Chelsea glanced down, enchanted by Main Street’s turn-of-the-century brick buildings. Their flat, silver-coated rooftops glared back at the sun. Directly opposite her, Italian cypress jostled for room with magnolia trees in the tiny park between the mining museum and the old nurses’ quarters. The scene before her could easily be Bisbee, circa 1900.

  Bisbee, Queen of the Copper Camps.

  She leaned against the railing and flexed her legs several times, letting them loosen up slowly.

  “Some people say it’s like a Swiss alpine village, but I don’t see the resemblance myself.” Uncle Bob’s voice, deep and resonant, came from behind her. A chair scraped as he pulled it up to the rail and sat down. “What do you think? It must be quite a shock after San Diego.”

  “I think it’s beautiful. You know I wanted to come back here someday.” Chelsea inhaled the clean air. “What does it mean . . . Bisbee?”

  “The town was named for a stockholder: Judge DeWitt Bisbee of the Phelps Dodge Company. You look disappointed.”

  Chelsea grinned ruefully. “I am. I thought it might be an Indian word. Something . . . mysterious and evocative.”

  “Mysterious? You’ve got some imagination.” Bob straightened his feet on the floor and plucked at the trouser creases above his knees. “I've been thinking about the house,” he said. “You might not like it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s small for one thing. And I have no idea what shape it’s in. Should have held on to the old place in Warren, but how was I to know anyone would ever want to live here? God knows, Edward certainly didn’t”

  No, Chelsea thought, her father had never been comfortable with his role in the company. He had fled that life as soon as he could, taking his young family to La Jolla where he studied at the oceanography institute. A strange choice for the heir to a mining company.

  Uncle Bob shifted in his chair, bringing up one loafer-clad foot to rest across his knee. “We’ll both be in for a surprise. I haven’t seen the place in years. It’s a nice area though, Higgins Hill.”

  “If we already owned a house in Warren, why the house on Higgins Hill?”

  Bob explained that Chelsea’s great-grandfather bought up several houses on the hill in the forties, thinking he might use the land for a community center. But his plans came to nothing—the town didn’t expand the way he thought it would—and a few years ago Bob sold the houses when the property prices finally came up. “Now that people are thinking of Bisbee as a tourist town and a place to retire, the houses sell like hotcakes.”

  “All except the one I’ll be living in.”

  “All except that one,” Bob agreed.

  He studied his great-niece. She was the last of the line, if you didn’t count Sydney, Chelsea’s older half-sister, who really wasn’t a McCord at all. He had always liked Chelsea’s spirit, her independent streak. Looking at the elegant features, honey-blond hair, and stately carriage (so unusual in this day and age), Bob felt a choking pride. He wished he could have had a daughter, a daughter just like her, but it was too late for that. He regretted letting Chelsea’s married sister take her when their parents died. Sydney and her husband David were decent enough people, but Bob knew they had seen Chelsea as a burden.

  Of course, that was before Sydney got religion.

  Chelsea was an adult now. Twenty-six years old. Bob had to keep reminding himself of that feat.

  He stifled a momentary twinge of nervousness. Maybe he shouldn’t have encouraged Chelsea to come here. He couldn’t put his finger on anything specific, but the feeling persisted that this whole idea had been a mistake.

  You shouldn’t help her run away. It won’t do her any good.

  But was she running? God knows, he wouldn’t blame her if she was. After that last stunt of Jason’s . . . “Has Jason been bothering you?” he asked.

  Chelsea shook her head. “Not a word. I don’t even know if he got my lawyer’s letter.”

  He did. You better believe he did. And he’s probably planning how to get as much money out of this marriage as he can. But Chelsea could take care of herself. She always had.

  Chelsea watched a stream of cars crawl along Main Street. The sounds of their engines reverberated off the brick canyons. Other sounds, amplified by the hills, pierced the morning air: someone banging on wood with a hammer, the crack of a cabin door slamming shut far down the canyon, a rooster crowing. “I did hear he was in a fight.
Someone insulted his work at the reception for his showing in San Francisco. He threatened the guy with a knife. Jason’s agent paid him off.”

  “I thought Jason was broke,” Bob said.

  “He is. He spends it as soon as he gets it.” She shaded her eyes with a hand and watched as a flock of pigeons burst from the eaves of the mining museum and soared against the mountainous backdrop.

  Bob said, “I read an article about him the other day. Art critic in The New Yorker. Said Jason’s paintings are overpriced for the market, that his earlier paintings are the ones that are making the money.”

  Chelsea nodded. “Most of his best paintings went for peanuts—before anyone knew who he was. Oh, somebody’s getting rich all right. It just isn’t Jason.”

  He’s doing well enough with a wife worth over a million dollars, Bob thought uncharitably. “They ought to lock him up for a few days. It might cool him down.”

  “I know.” Chelsea closed her eyes against the sun. She really didn’t want to think about Jason right now. Not on her first day in a new place.

  “What does Sydney think?” Bob asked. “About the divorce?”

  “What do you think she thinks?”

  “It shouldn’t come as a shock to her. After all, you’ve been separated for a year.”

  For a while, things had been okay. Not great maybe, but okay. Chelsea had moved down to La Jolla to teach at the University of San Diego; Jason had remained in Los Angeles. It had been a good temporary arrangement—especially for Jason. He’d run up the charge cards. She’d tried to lose herself in her work.

  Until she’d lost her job.

  Her work . . . The familiar void returned.

  “You look like you could cheerfully kill someone right now,” Bob observed.

  Chelsea laughed. Why be upset on today of all days? She glanced at Uncle Bob, warmth spreading through her. He was so good to her. Always had been.

  Ever since Chelsea was a little girl. Uncle Bob had played a very important part in her life. His visits had always been adventures—trips to amusement parks, the zoo, the beach. More than that, he’d been a lifeline after her parents died. It was little wonder she reserved a special fondness for this warm, bigger-than-life man who sat beside her now. She studied his kind eyes, the smooth gray hair, the constantly moving hands. He wore a ring shaped into a pair of rearing lions, their front paws holding a green malachite stone between them. She remembered the ring from her childhood. The stone came from Bisbee.

  Bob stood up and checked his watch. “I have to be back in Tucson by two thirty. I have an announcement to make.”

  “So it’s official?”

  He grinned broadly. “You’d better be nice to me, young lady. You might be looking at the future governor of our fair state.”

  “Lucky Arizona.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere. Why don’t we meet in the lobby in half an hour, get some breakfast?”

  Bob paused at the door and winked. “Let me know when you want to smuggle Mr. Chips down. I’ll create a diversion at the front desk.”

  She stayed on the porch for a few more minutes. Her gaze followed the cars coming down the hillside opposite.

  Unbidden, Jason’s face loomed before her eyes.

  One of the last times Chelsea had seen Jason was at a gallery where a mutual friend was exhibiting his work. There was a commotion outside, then Jason had pushed through the milling crowd, flanked by a couple of his friends, his arm around one of the latest in a string of young art groupies. He’d been falling-down drunk.

  The shock had been staggering when she saw him, followed by an unbelievable yearning.

  “Get me some punch, Punkin,” Jason had said, pushing the young girl aside. (He always called them Punkin). “How you doin’, Chelsea? Still teaching the college kids how to fingerpaint?”

  Chelsea closed her eyes on the memory. Even then, when he’d insulted her and acted like a fool, she had wanted him. She still longed for the good times.

  Even though those were few and far between.

  Three

  Uncle Bob stopped his car in front of a white frame house topped by a green roof. Chelsea parked behind him.

  They had driven west from the Copper Queen Hotel, following Main Street as it snaked through Tombstone Canyon. Bob had turned between the courthouse and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, bearing right along a terrace cut into the hillside.

  Chelsea’s house resembled the others lining the street; a simple, one-story, Victorian dwelling, rather plain. She noticed signs of neglect right away. Chipped paint, crumbling front steps. An Arizona Cypress tree jostled the porch, one branch lodged against the rain gutter, creaking mournfully with each breeze. Last year’s needles drifted in a rust-colored tide down the asphalt roof. The yard was a riot of wildflowers and tall grass.

  “I had no idea it would be this bad.” Uncle Bob ducked under a low-hanging spruce branch and almost ran into the hanging gate. “You can stay at the Copper Queen until we can clear this mess.” He glanced ruefully at the tangles of electric wires drifting up against the screened porch.

  The Victorian columns were weathered, but neatly wrought. Beside them, knotholed timber beams supported the makeshift screen, at odds with the rest of the building. Someone had taken great pains to destroy the cottage’s original character, but Chelsea could see possibilities underneath the shoddy veneer,

  “I have a man working on the place. Maybe the inside looks better,” Uncle Bob said.

  They entered through the porch. To the right of the short hallway, sunlight streamed in through the kitchen windows. As she walked through the house, Chelsea was surprised by the quality of the work done so far. The living room, opening onto the hallway at the back of the house, had been cleared. The oak floor had been beautifully restored, the walls prepared for paint. The room looked spacious and light. A large bay window opened out on a yard of tall grass and owl’s clover; beyond the yard, the rooftops of Higgins Hill sloped away to Tombstone Canyon far below.

  Chelsea stood at the window, entranced by the purple flowers, heads bowing in the sunshine. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a movement at the edge of the yard.

  A flick of a skirt, a glimpse of shiny, black hair, and the young woman was gone, down the steps to the houses below. She had been wearing something on her hair, a white crocheted net. Was she a neighbor?

  Chelsea turned from the window and followed Uncle Bob into the hallway again.

  This was actually the better section of town before the turn of the century,” Bob was saying. “I think a company boss lived here at one time. You can tell by the fireplace and some of the detailing.” He motioned to the molding around the doors and along the walls.

  The bedroom facing the street was a catch-all for used furniture. Chartreuse carpet vied with yellow curtains for domination of the color scheme.

  “A legacy from the miner’s family,” Uncle Bob commented.

  “Miner’s family?”

  “Oh, we’ve rented this place several times over the years. The last family moved out in ’74 when the mines closed. They probably decided a lot of this stuff wasn’t worth carting away.”

  “I doubt they’ll miss this.” Chelsea patted a sway-backed couch, imitation Early American. She made a mental note: replace furniture, pull up carpet, buy new drapes.

  Uncle Bob led the way down the hall again, past the kitchen to the northeast corner of the house. “I thought you would want this for your bedroom,” he said. “Hope you like it. I had my man fix it up. Paint, temporary curtains, that sort of thing. Had your grandmother’s bed sent down.”

  Chelsea couldn’t believe her eyes.

  The upper walls and ceiling had been freshly painted, white. Strips of mahogany molding ran all the way around the room, three-quarters of the way up. Wallpaper stretched from floor to molding, vertical stripes of brown-and-gold flowers on a field of blue. Grandmother McCord’s four-poster bed stood by a tall, lace-curtained window. A picture of simple ele
gance, the room’s few furnishings were carefully orchestrated to enhance its natural airiness. The bedroom jutted out from the rest of the house. Three walls were exposed to the outside; tall windows faced west and north, affording a lovely view of the backyard.

  “It’s beautiful!” Chelsea hugged her great-uncle.

  Uncle Bob looked as surprised as Chelsea herself. He walked over to the dresser and ran his fingers along the wood. “Son of a gun,” he breathed. “I had no idea he would do all this.”

  “Who? Who would do all this?”

  “Phillips. I told you—the man I hired last week.” He sat down on the bed, puzzled. “I told him to clean up the interior a little, make it livable. Turn the gas and electric on. That sort of thing. Nothing like this.”

  “My favorite color,” Chelsea mused.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking that this blue is my favorite color.” She nodded to the wallpaper. “Cornflower blue, kind of, but darker.”

  “That’s good. It would be a real job taking this stuff down if you didn’t like it. Quite a gamble.” He stood up. “Must be some kind of sales pitch.”

  Chelsea grinned. “Well, it worked.”

  They went down and unloaded Chelsea’s car and the U-Haul. Mr. Chips complained mightily as Chelsea brought the cat carrier in.

  “It’s all right,” Chelsea told him as she let him out in her bedroom. “This is your new home. No more traveling.”

  Chips wasn’t impressed. He slunk around the perimeter of the room, tail between his legs, belly brushing the ground, crying plaintively. Finally he jumped up onto the windowsill, tail twitching, and relaxed enough to clean himself.

  “I guess you’ll want to get acquainted with your surroundings,” Bob said, bringing in the last box. “So I’ll be going. You have my number in Tucson. I’ll tell Gary to keep up the good work, if it’s all right with you.” He paused at the door. “Oh, by the way, Sydney told me she’s sending you a housewarming present.”