“It isn’t just the old buildings—there are plenty of those all over,” Ben continued. “I think it has something to do with the minerals, a magnetic quality in the earth. Something that makes tempers rise . . . a force.”
I’ve felt it,” Chelsea said.
“One of the largest acts of civil disobedience happened here, and what’s more, it succeeded. A handful of powerful men defied the law when they deported those miners—and yet they were never held accountable for their actions. They had the President of the United States himself running scared. I can’t help feeling that something strange predisposes this town to violence. I can’t explain it better than that.”
Chelsea nodded. “I know what you mean, though. Sometimes I think the hills are breathing.”
“Maybe the nature of the town makes the ground fertile for real ghosts. I wouldn’t be surprised to go out to Warren one moonlit night and see a thousand disembodied souls creeping along the railroad tracks on their way to the boxcars.” He looked at Chelsea. “You asked me earlier if I thought Kathy was still alive. I don’t think so. There’s no reason for me to think one way or the other, but I have this feeling.”
Chelsea shuddered.
A young man sat down at the upright piano against the wall and began playing “Rhapsody in Blue.” The cigarette smoke wound up to the ceiling. Chelsea watched the shapes of people at the tables in the dim light. Almost everyone was dressed casually. Tourists in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts. A number of local women wore shapeless flowered dresses or jeans. One lady in the corner wore a black, velveteen dress and matching beaded headband over long braids; her face, devoid of makeup, looked sallow against the unrelieved black. It was almost as if there was a jump in time again, only to a more recent decade, the sixties. The smoke grew thicker.
A sense of well-being filled Chelsea. She was enjoying this conversation with Ben. He had made her feel that she wasn’t alone.
The music flowed over her. She had always associated “Rhapsody in Blue” with the minting of a brash, new city—the dissonant chords and brilliant sparkle of Gershwin in a time when New York skyscrapers were going up everywhere, and the stock exchange was almost running to greet the Crash . . .
The Crash—
The lady in the corner still wore a headband, but her hair was bobbed, spit curls at her ears, and her dress dropped straight to her waist and ended in a flare—
A flapper. Oh no, not again—
Smoke burned Chelsea’s eyes, blurring her vision. Shapes moved in the bar, many more than had been there just a moment before. A band had joined the piano player.
A woman walked by, wearing a sleeveless dress, a peacock feather rising jauntily from her hat. Her lips were drawn into a dark bow, her eyes bruised with heavy eyeshadow and ringed with kohl under thinly arched eyebrows. The woman smiled at Chelsea, revealing rotting lipstick-stained teeth.
Chelsea wasn’t frightened. It had happened too many times before. She would just sit here and wait for this other world to disappear. I just have to control myself; that’s all I have to do. It will go away, but I can’t let it get to me—
Outside, Model A’s were lined up along rain-shiny Howell Street.
Raucous laughter. Milling people. A young man, darkly handsome, was showing some friends a box camera; it looked a lot like Chelsea’s own and he was saying, “My father sent it to me, the bastard. As if this makes up for anything.”
Concentrate. I’m in 1986. There’s a lot of talk about the deficit. The Cosby Show is the biggest hit on television. Andrew Wyeth was secretly obsessed with painting a woman named Helga. Not too long ago, some guy put pink plastic skirts around a bunch of islands and called it art, and just last night, I saw a movie called Witness, and it was nominated for an Academy Award, but the movie that won was—
The chorus girl, in a dark-gold dress with fringes of beads and an enormous cloth flower at her waist, elbowed her way out onto the floor and started doing the Charleston.
The movie that won was—
The music was louder, faster, a whirl of colorful chords and clashing dissonance, a frenzy—
Concentrate! The movie that won was Out! Something with “out” in it. Down and Out in Beverly Hills? No, that wasn’t it.
Louder. Faster. Manic laughter. Now Chelsea was frightened. The music flooded her senses, exploded like shells around her. A woman shrieked with laughter. Someone bumped her elbow.
Dark things beat at her, like bats. The music pounded, faster.
Faster. And faster. Chelsea was on a merry-go-round, speeding around and around, the garish lights prying into her eyeballs and searching with poking, filthy fingers for her soul.
The crowd pressed in.
Think!
Dark things at the edge of the brightness. The rude fingers groping, groping at her mind, trying to pull her backward. Everything’s going back, back to the twenties—
Resist it! Think! It’s 1986!
Raucous screaming. Who was screaming?
Chelsea squeezed her eyes shut. Had to concentrate, had to believe it was 1986. If I can just remember what that movie was if I can just remember if I can just—
Out of Africa out of Africa . . . “OUT OF AFRICA!” Chelsea's voice broke the spell. The headache receded and she was back in 1986 and people were looking at her.
"It happened again, didn't it?" Ben asked. He looked frightened.
Chelsea nodded weakly.
An old fellow on the stool next to hers turned to regard her. "Good movie," he agreed. "I kinda liked King Solomon's Mines myself."
"For the hundredth time, I believe you," Ben said, turning onto Main. The rain had stopped; the water had left the streets as quickly as it had filled them. "Why?"
"Because," Ben said, "I saw it myself."
"You didn't see the little girl?" Ben stretched his legs. They were sitting on Chelsea's porch.
"What little girl?"
"The one pressing her nose against the window of the Copper Queen. She looked frightened."
Chelsea excused herself and went inside. She returned with the photographs. "This little girl?" she asked, showing him the picture of the children in front of the pharmacy. "Or was she younger?"
Ben leafed through them, putting the one of the girl and older boy standing in front of the Model T on top. "It might have been that same year. Kathy as a little girl," he mused.
"What was she doing there—at the hotel, I mean?"
"Looking for someone," Ben said.
"How do you know?"
Ben hesitated. The fresh smell of the rain-washed desert lingered in his nostrils. Mr. Chips rubbed against his ankles. A bat boomeranged past the porch. The night was real, breathing coolness. Nothing unusual about tonight at all. Yet he finally believed Chelsea.
He remembered how smug he had been earlier tonight. Reasonable, judicious. Intellectually discussing the pros and cons.
But experience was a great teacher. Ben wasn't anywhere near as objective as he had been before. Not now that he'd been back in another era himself.
The little girl had frightened him more than any of the others.
He could see her when he closed his eyes. The shapeless, yellowed dress, the scuffed boots, the sad eyes. She had mouthed the words over and over until he got them.
"How do you know she was looking for someone?" Chelsea repeated.
Ben's throat was dry, but his words finally found purchase. "She was looking for her brother," he said.
Twenty-three
They sat on the porch until two in the morning and discussed theories: from Kathy's possible murder, to suicide, to her desire to reveal something about John's death. Perhaps John had fathered Kathy's stillborn child. If the child had lived, she might have become a McCord heir. But the child didn't live, which made Kathy's motive in that case puzzling.
Whatever had happened, they were determined to discover the truth.
Ben had prospective buyers coming out to the ranch this weekend, so whatever plan they
would eventually implement would have to wait a few days.
With Ben busy, Chelsea would have to face the phenomenon on her own. Except this time it was easier to bear. She had an ally now.
After Ben left, Chelsea sat for a long time in the dark, hugging the realization to her. She felt vindicated, as if a huge load had been lifted from her shoulders. She wasn't alone anymore.
Saturday, Uncle Bob came down from Tucson, bringing Chelsea a portrait of her mother. He watched as she hung it above the dresser in her bedroom. “Your mother was a beauty,” he said.
They lunched at the courtyard down the street from Chelsea’s house, talking mostly about Bob’s gubernatorial campaign.
As they sat on the restaurant terrace, Chelsea experienced the creeping feeling that she was being watched. She looked up and down the street. Across from them, the courthouse sunned under a clear sky, Aleppo pines and cypress crowding around the art deco building like admiring aunts. The statue of a Bisbee miner stood at the center of four converging roads dividing Higgins Hill, Quality Hill, and Tombstone Canyon. It didn’t seem possible that anything could go wrong on a day like this. Everything seemed so. . . normal. But Chelsea knew that at any moment she could end up in another era again. This left her feeling completely helpless. Only in her own home did she have control. Only there could she be certain she wouldn’t come off looking like an escapee from a mental ward. In the last three days, she hadn’t ventured far from the house, only driving out for groceries at the Safeway in San Jose. Because the trip proved uneventful, Chelsea accepted Bob’s invitation to lunch—but not without a few qualms.
Bob leaned forward. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.
Chelsea pulled her mind back into the present. “No, no.”
“How’s that book of yours coming?”
Chelsea hesitated. What could she say? She hadn’t really worked on the book since the day she’d brought the photographs home. “I have a lot of sketches. It’s figuring out how to put them together that’s so hard.”
“You need a theme.”
But she had a theme. Lately, the few drawings she’d done had been of the young woman. Okay, not a few. She’d done at least twenty sketches of her. Several times she had tried to sketch the Copper Queen Hotel or the Brewery for her book, but had ended up either including the girl or scrapping the drawings altogether to draw portraits of Kathy instead.
Sometimes Chelsea felt as if a noose were slowly tightening around her throat, bringing her closer each day to unfathomable darkness. She wondered just how far Kathy was willing to go to control her. Could Chelsea herself be possessed, as the camera had been? All her life, she had been fighting to control her destiny. What if this . . . creature was waiting in the wings, plotting to take over her body? Chelsea smiled inwardly. Come on now. Did she really believe that?
In light of everything else that had happened, it really wasn’t all that funny, or farfetched. Abruptly she lost her appetite. Her mouth filled with the coppery taste of fear.
“. . . see the school?” Bob was talking to her.
“I’m sorry?”
“Have you been out to see the college?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I got a letter from them yesterday. They’re opening up two more classes, so it looks like I’ll be pretty busy. Almost a full load.”
They talked about Chiricahua Community College. School started in a little over two weeks.
As they waited for the check, Chelsea asked Uncle Bob if he’d ever met a girl named Kathleen Barrie back in the late 1930s.
“Kathleen Barrie . . .” Bob shook his head. “I can’t say it rings a bell. A friend of John’s, you say?”
More like lovers, Chelsea stopped short of saying; she knew that Uncle Bob was old-fashioned. He wouldn’t relish her hinting that his brother had kept a mistress.
“You have to realize, Chelsea, I was five years younger than John. I wasn’t in his circle of friends.” He stared at her. “What’s this all about?”
“I just saw a photograph with the two of them in it,” Chelsea lied. “I thought they might have been boyfriend and girlfriend . . . before Grandfather met Grandmother.”
“How did you know—”
Chelsea had anticipated the question. “Her name was on the photograph.” She was becoming an adept liar. “Her name and John’s. Are you sure you never heard of her?”
“I don’t think so.” Was it Chelsea’s imagination or did Bob’s voice sound brusque? Maybe it was a touchy subject.
Maybe her sainted grandfather had romanced a whole string of women. Who knew? Obviously, Bob didn't want to pursue it.
On the walk back to the house, Chelsea again felt as if eyes were boring into the back of her head. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder.
Bob declined Chelsea’s offer of coffee, saying he had to get back to Tucson. “I’m glad things are working out so well,” he said. “You haven’t heard from Jason?”
“Not personally. Just letters from his lawyer.”
“Stick by your guns. If there’s one thing we’ve got plenty of, it’s lawyers. Is Ken doing a good job?”
“Flawless. If Jason’s not careful, he’ll end up paying me.”
“Good.” Bob opened the car door. “And you tell those folks at Chiricahua College to treat you right.”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Well, if they don’t, call me. Chester Lovett is a good friend of mine.”
“The president of the college?”
Bob winked. “He knows just how much you mean to me.”
Chelsea felt her heart plummet as the realization sank in. “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me you had a hand in getting me the job?”
“Let’s just say we did lunch. That’s what they call it in Hollywood, am I right?”
How could he do such a thing? “Then I didn’t get that job on my own merit?”
Bob’s face fell. “No, Chelsea. I didn’t mean that at all. If you weren’t qualified, there was no way you’d get that job. But you know how it is. It’s not what you know, it’s—”
“Who you know.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?” Bob sounded defensive.
“No,” Chelsea said, looking at her great-uncle. “I guess not.” She knew how much he cared about her, knew he was only trying to help. “Really. Thanks.”
But as she watched him drive away, she felt as if the noose had closed in just a little bit more tightly around her neck.
That night, Sydney called, so distraught that it took a while for Chelsea to understand that her husband, David, had left her.
Chelsea drove up to Tucson the next morning, arranged for Mr. Chips to stay with Uncle Bob, and flew to Los Angeles. When it rained, it poured.
Twenty-four
1931
The upswing in Harry Bright's fortune started the night he had fled Bisbee, following his attempt on Lucas McCord's life.
After leaving Arizona, Harry had knocked around in San Francisco and Sacramento for a while, working odd jobs to support his drinking and gambling habits. He most certainly would have continued his downward spiral if it hadn’t been for a friend in San Francisco, a sportswriter, who was to cover a local prize fight.
The sportswriter had come down with the flu on the eve of the fight. He’d asked Harry to go instead and write down his impressions. Polishing could come later. Grumbling, Harry had gone.
That night had changed his life.
Harry had discovered that he liked the power of the printed word, liked it so much that he’d asked the sportswriter to teach him the finer points of journalism. Late in life, Harry Bright had finally found what he was meant to do. Beginning as a sportswriter for a local newspaper, he later started his own political column.
Eventually Harry had found his way back to Arizona and settled in Phoenix. He wrote for the Arizona Republic, covering the state's politics.
So when Harry Bright discovered that Lucas McCord was running for governor, he decided tha
t it must be fate. Here he was with the only instrument powerful enough to unseat the high and mighty Lucas McCord from his throne. He, Harry Bright, had been put on this earth for a purpose; he would dig and dig until he found Lucas's Achilles' heel. He would make damn sure that Lucas McCord never survived the Democratic primary.
Chelsea walked around her house, opening windows. The place was warm as an oven and smelled stale from being closed up.
It was a week to the day since Chelsea had left to visit her half-sister. A week of listening and trying to give comfort, a week of being unable to answer the question Sydney asked over and over: Why?
Chelsea drew herself a glass of water and watched Mr. Chips scout the house, sniffing at doors and walls, occasionally crying loudly.
Chelsea closed her eyes. She was tired. Sydney had dumped all her emotional baggage on her, demanding answers that Chelsea couldn't give. Why did David leave? Why? Maybe, she thought uncharitably, because David didn't belong to Sydney's church. Maybe he just got tired of hearing about being "unevenly yoked" and decided to do something about it.
Chelsea had tried to help, but there was little she could do, and Sydney's raw pain brought back memories Chelsea would just as soon have left buried. It brought back the times Jason had told her he didn't love her anymore, the times he'd left her.
Chelsea walked out into the back yard. The oleanders by the studio stirred in the hot breeze, their quilted, dark-green leaves catching the sun. After a few moments, the sun's rays made her uncomfortable, so she moved into the shade of an ash tree. The shade spread like a mantilla across the grass, shifting in lacy patterns.
It was great to be back. She hadn't expected to feel so relieved, especially considering the fact that in LA, she'd had a respite from anything remotely weird. Apparently, Kathleen’s ghost wasn't a frequent flyer. Despite the rest, Chelsea had actually yearned to come back to Bisbee. Figure that one out.
Later that afternoon, she walked to the post office and was surprised to find a package waiting for her. It was from Uncle Bob—one of the family albums he'd promised her. Only one. Birdie, who was Bob's housekeeper in New York, couldn't find any others.
Darkscope Page 14
