The Threshold

by Marlys Millhiser

  “Thank you, sir.” Callie hurried on in the direction he’d pointed. Her heart pounded in expectation of some catastrophic retribution that would fall from the sky. Guilt made her hands sweat and her mouth dry up. But she couldn’t see what was forbidden about this place. It simply looked run-down and crowded.

  The air was heavy with beer and refuse and she welcomed the cool, sweet breeze that came down off the mountainside. Most of the big buildings had names written on their windows and appeared to be saloons. The Pick and Gad had a small sign over the open door. Curtains hung out of two windows upstairs like white lacy flags. Callie knocked on the door molding and waited, finally entered a dark passageway and continued along it to the back of the house and the light at its end, surprising a woman mopping a kitchen floor. “What are you doing here, child?” She was short and round and untidy. “Are you one of Mrs. Stollsteimer’s girls?”

  “I’m looking for my Aunt Lil. I was told she lives here.”

  “Lil? An aunt?” She scratched her face. It wasn’t painted. “Oh, I don’t think so … well … wait here.” She slapped the mop back into the bucket and went to a door at the side of the kitchen. “Leona, there’s a little girl here. Says Lil’s her aunt.”

  All Callie heard of the answer was a throaty chuckle. A lady sat at a dining table when the scrubwoman motioned Callie into the room. She wore a robe over her nightdress and had droopy streaks of color on her face. She was eating from an egg cup. A ledger book lay in front of her on the table.

  “I don’t know what you’re about, my girl, but Lil has no kin.” Sunlight from the window behind Leona glistened on the flyaways of her hair, made them look like broken spiderwebs. She was apparently one of them, and they certainly were unlike any ladies Callie knew.

  “I’m looking for my Aunt Lilly Midden Ostrander.”

  Leona smiled so big all her teeth and gums showed, and one tooth had a darkness to it. But when she turned her head to the scrubwoman it caught the light like a jewel. “Do you think she means Floradora? She was a Lillian, wasn’t she?”

  “My aunt’s not Floradora, she’s—”

  “Names change here, and fast. But I think it’s Floradora you want. Too independent to work for me, that one. You remember, Sarah, that’s the one thought she’d make it alone in a crib like the scragglies, keep all her money, and get rich. She’ll be back. But by then I may not want her.” She rose and closed her robe around her with a hand that had rings that glittered like her tooth, then led Callie out a back door and between two of those tiny houses to a street. Callie had never known a grown woman to step outside in her nightdress if her house wasn’t on fire. “That’s the Silver Bell on the corner there. You want the crib but one behind it. Best knock on the back door. Who’d have thought to see one of Mrs. Stollsteimer’s girls on Pacific Avenue?” She laughed, patted Callie on the top of the head. “Tell your aunt you was sent by Diamond Tooth Leona. And then get the hell out of this part of town.”

  Callie ran. The likelihood of her absence at the hotel going undiscovered grew ever thinner, but she still had hopes. By the time her Aunt Lilly answered her knock on the back door of the tiny house, Callie was near tears. But Aunt Lilly let hers fall, as she hugged and kissed her. “Callie darling, oh … you shouldn’t be here. How’s Bram? I’ve been so worried. How’d you get to Telluride?” Aunt Lilly smelled strange.

  That night up in Alta, John O’Connell poked in the dirt beneath the house where once he’d lived with his family intact. He was grateful for the pounding of the mill and hoped the night would hide his legs sticking out for all to see as he lay flat on his stomach and tried to explore the ground by feel. He could hear footsteps on the boards above him as the new mistress prepared her kitchen for the morrow.

  He’d left a hunk of highgrade here, thinking it to be the safest place because it had always been, and where had he to hide it at the boardinghouse? John was back for it now because he’d received word from Luella that she and Bram would soon start home. That Bram would live but his health had broken. The doctors cautioned he’d be best suited for the life of a sedentary scholar. The thought of that strong young body wasted brought a pain to John’s throat that wouldn’t swallow. He’d settle them in Telluride, where there was a high school. It seemed that Ma’am was to get her way after all. John would hire out to one of the big mines close to town so he could see them often.

  He’d planted the highgrade four hands from a support post and thought sure he could find it even in the dark. And he’d not buried it deep. Perhaps he remembered the wrong post? He crawled farther in, cursing the rocks and stones that jabbed through his clothing. Luella had long ago torn the weather protection off the base of the house so no cat would ever be tempted to live there again, and moonlight appeared suddenly on the ground outside. It glowed on broken crockery in the refuse dump. But something else glowed closer to hand, under the house with him. A piece of white cloth partially buried. As he pulled it free he dislodged earth and felt something smooth beneath it. It wasn’t highgrade but it wasn’t anything that belonged there, either.

  After much digging in the disturbed earth with his hands, John uncovered a round bowl-shaped thing about as large as a dishpan and covered tightly by a lid. It had a smoothness to it he couldn’t describe, almost the feel of a rain slicker or glass that had been softened somehow. Beneath that was a package wrapped in a paper-thin oilskinlike material.

  He pulled both objects out into the open and slipped over to the mill to inspect his find under one of the outdoor light bulbs on the side of the building. The package contained stacks of paper money, the bills too small to be real and too intensely colored. The bowl was a milky white and had “T-u-p-p-e-r-w-a-r-e” embossed on the lid. At first he thought it was filled with sugar that had a strange opalescent sparkle in the artificial light, but it had a bitter taste and began to numb his tongue as he slipped the fake currency back under the house and kept the bowl in exchange for his highgrade. It wouldn’t bring as much, but if it was what he thought it was, perhaps he could convince an apothecary to pay something for it at least.

  27

  Charles prowled Mildred Heisinger’s kitchen looking for either chopped liver or mice, Aletha supposed. The ancient lady had called her “snoop” again but let her in. Aletha had stopped at the Chocolate Moose for calorie-laden pastry first and Mildred condescended to put in her teeth and make some of her weak coffee. Mildred offered Charles a bite of eclair. He sniffed it and walked off with one of his more disdainful wails. “Had so many cats in my time, can’t remember all their names.”

  “Can you remember Callie?”

  “Didn’t have one named that.”

  “Can’t you remember anything about what became of Callie and her brother?”

  “I remember the Depression. Hard times they were.” Her head trembled constantly as if she was always shaking it to answer “no.”

  “You must remember something before that.” Mildred would have been middle-aged by the time of the Depression, Aletha realized, already middle-aged when Aletha’s mother was born. “Were you here when the miners went on strike and Bulkeley Wells—”

  “He shot himself in the head out in California. I been to California and I don’t blame him.” Mildred sat quiet with her thoughts for a few minutes and then sighed. “Pictures in the paper when he died showed him going bald. He was a patrician,” she said with a smirk and a bitterness that surprised Aletha, who’d decided the old gal didn’t really care about anything anymore. “Been dead longer than you been alive. Had eyes on him so big he could hypnotize whole crowds. They’d do whatever he wanted. Even persuaded the governor to send in the militia. Bunch of boys with rifles—didn’t know one end from the other. Threw those union men and anybody else Captain Bulkeley Wells didn’t like onto the train and hauled ’em away like cattle. Ruling classes had it all their own way then too.”

  “Why did Callie O’Connell come to Telluride?”

  “Pinkerton detectives in town, pretendi
ng to be miners, spying for the Owners’ Association and the Alliance.”

  “Did Callie ever work at the Senate or the Pick and Gad or any place like that?”

  “Bob Meldrum, he wasn’t afraid of old Buck Wells. He wasn’t afraid of anyone. He’d shoot men and kill ’em after he’d picked a fight, just to get a reputation. But he worked for the owners too. Deafer than I am now he was.”

  “I mean if you lived in this house then you must have known something about what went on in this side of town. Did Callie become a prostitute?”

  “Had myself a grand big house on the sunny side of town till the Depression. Used to go out horseback riding with Mrs. Bulkeley Wells and her rich friends from Denver.”

  “Then why did I see you in the Pick and Gad about to take a bath in a body younger than mine is now?” But she couldn’t bring herself to say that loud enough for Mildred to hear. “Do you ever have the feeling that the past is still happening?”

  “What did you say your name was, snoop?”

  “Aletha. Aletha Kingman.”

  “There’s a book of drawings upstairs with a name like that on it.” The fragile skin on her forehead rumpled as if she was trying to remember something. “Haven’t looked at it in years.”

  “Did Callie give it to you?”

  “I took it from her. Little sneak.”

  Aletha must have spent two hours searching through stacks of books and antique magazines before she found it. It was old and dirty and crumbly in places and someone had written Aleetha on the front of it. How could Aletha have come to Telluride less than a month ago and sketched those pictures while they’d already been moldering in this attic for decades? Like her sandals up in the museum. How could objects not yet manufactured, let alone conceived of, be deteriorating with age at the same time? They couldn’t unless the two times were happening at once. Even then they couldn’t.

  Mildred Heisinger slept in front of her flashing television when Aletha came downstairs, so she took the sketchbook and Charles and headed back to the crib.

  Tracy just rolled her eyes and shook her head when Aletha claimed the sketches were ones she’d done upon first coming to Telluride. “Your stories are so confusing I can’t understand them, and I even lived one of them.” She was painting her nails a sick purple. “Listen, Renata called. She’s got you a job at the Floradora over the dinner hour, and here, Cree left a note for you.”

  “Oh, good, Renata’s got me scared to death for him and he told me not to try to contact him.”

  “He just stuck it in the screen door. Don’t know why he didn’t come in. I’ve been here all morning.”

  “Says, ‘Aletha, please meet me in Alta by the old boardinghouse. I’m desperate, Cree.’”

  “Sounds fishy. Is it his handwriting?”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing his handwriting.”

  “It stinks.” Tracy flailed purple-tipped hands about in the air. “I wouldn’t go if I were you. You said he was involved with some dangerous creeps. And I didn’t actually see who left the note.”

  “What would you do, leave him up there alone? Desperate? He doesn’t even have a car.”

  “Then how’d he get up there? I mean he was just here putting the note in the door, right? Why go all the way to Alta to talk to you?”

  “Maybe he thinks no one will see us meeting up there, where here they would … You’re right, it stinks. Go with me? You don’t have to be to work till four.”

  “Oh, so we can both get in trouble if there’s some to get into? Nice the way you include a social leper such as myself in your dangerous plans.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  But Tracy went along—on the condition that they stop the car down the road and walk up through the trees to see if this was trouble or not. Once they were away from the road, all the trees looked alike. Aletha just kept them headed uphill until they came to a wooden tower black with age, its top falling over, thick rusting cable hanging from one side and a pine tree trying to grow up its middle. “This must be a tram tower, so if we follow the cable we should get there.”

  The cable disappeared but a swath of stumps and newer, shorter growth pointed the way. They stayed in the trees to the side, puffing thin air on the up slope. The way Tracy broke twigs climbing over deadfalls and swore when her thin shoes caught between branches, Aletha wondered how much of a sneak operation this would turn out to be. “Hey, I appreciate your coming along. I mean, it’s not your problem.”

  Tracy gave her a crooked grin. “You really got it for this Cree?”

  “I’m attracted but leery. Of the two men I trusted most in my life—my dad deserted and a boss got me put in prison.” Another falling tower and the view opened onto Alta. A black-and-silver Bronco was parked near the commissary. A man sat inside reading a newspaper. Another man, a long one in blue jeans, lay stretched out facedown on the slope between the mine entrance and the boardinghouse.

  “Oh, Aletha, he doesn’t look desperate,” Tracy whispered. “He looks dead.”

  Aletha handed her the car keys. “You go back the way we came. Bring help.”

  “You’re not going out there? That’s just what they want. Cree’s a decoy.”

  “I think the lady had a real good idea,” a low voice said behind them. “In fact, I think it’s so good you both ought to go on out there. Now.” He sounded like he should have been seven feet tall, bearded, and carrying a submachine gun. But he was a short man with a rifle, clean chin, and nasty eyes. Tracy’s eyes were full of accusation again. “Heard your car coming for miles, quiet day like this,” he chided, and poked the rifle barrel into Aletha’s spine. She’d toked up on adrenaline when she’d seen Cree on the ground. Now, walking out into the open with a gun in her back, Aletha had so much extra nerve juice it made her ears ring. A marmot sat in a boardinghouse window hole. Another whistled up on the mountainside. “Hey, Duffer. She got here. Brought a friend.”

  The man in the Bronco stepped out, folded his paper, and laid it on the car seat. He stuck a thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled twice. An answering two whistles came from down the road. Aletha knelt beside Cree and pulled him over on his back.

  “Careful,” the man with the rifle said. “I think he might have some broken things.”

  Cree had swollen lips and blood stringing down from his hairline. But he had a pulse.

  “There was some information he refused to share with us,” Duffer explained.

  “He doesn’t know where it is and neither do I.”

  “I expect he’ll be slightly more helpful if he sees that you will be hurt far worse than he is now if he doesn’t help. Perhaps we could persuade you to persuade him even.”

  “Why?” Aletha’s stomach cramped. “You’d just kill us all if you found it. You’d have to.”

  “I’d certainly have to if I didn’t,” Duffer said pleasantly. Tracy made a noise in her throat. A third man walked up the road from the direction of Callie’s house. He had a handgun, out and ready, and an expression of detached disinterest. Duffer didn’t look up from his examination of Cree Mackelwain’s bruised face. “Wake him. His girlfriend’s here.”

  The new man found an empty beer bottle in the weeds and held it down in the stream that flowed out of the mine’s entrance to let it fill with the milky-turquoise water. He poured it slowly on Cree’s upturned face, and clotting blood thinned to pinkish rivulets. Aletha reached up to push the bottle away and the man kicked her in the face with his boot before she had time to move or even think. Now Aletha lay on the ground, her mouth so alive with pain it made her nose run. When she wiped it away, blood mixed with mucus on her hand.

  “Amazing how easy it is to make a pretty girl ugly, isn’t it?” Duffer said, and when Cree moaned he ordered the other two to get him on his feet. “He can see better what we do to the girlfriend.”

  It was the total lack of emotion that deadened all hope around these men. They didn’t even seem to enjoy brutality that much. It was as casual as eating a sa
ndwich. And killing would be too. Aletha could tell from Tracy’s expression that this had occurred to her as well. The two gunmen held Cree swaying between them each with an arm through his, leaving them a spare hand for their weapons. He kept coughing and gasping with the pain it brought. He wasn’t aware of much else yet. Aletha felt terrible for him but mostly worried she was soon to die while incongruously feeling for loosened teeth with her tongue.

  “He thought it must be in the mine, but couldn’t find it there,” she heard herself saying as if a part of her imagined there was some use to even talking to these machines. And then she listened. Everyone but Cree listened. A car engine? Airplane?

  “Into the tunnel.” Duffer grabbed the handgun and his friends dragged Cree away while the gun motioned Aletha to her feet.

  “We told the sheriff we were coming up here,” Tracy offered as she squeezed through the opening between the metal door and the wall of the mine.

  “Stuff it, dyke,” Duffer told her, and followed Aletha through the opening. The only light in the place came from that crevice they’d entered by, and it didn’t come very far. Aletha wanted to bolt for that light, but it would make her such an easy target. Cree moaned and coughed out of the dark.

  “Put him down and those two with him. I’m going for the lantern.”

  Someone grabbed Aletha’s hair, yanked her backward until she fell, stuck cold metal behind her ear. “Not one sound. You don’t want I should get startled.”

  The pulled hair smarted and her nose ran again. The light blurred and wavered as her eyes watered, but shadowy objects appeared slowly. She blinked tears and a squarish thing sat in front of her on little wheels. The rock in her necklace lay warm and scratchy between her breasts and then grew almost prickly hot but she was afraid to reach for it with the gun at her head. Duffer returned with a light that hurt her eyes. “Just a pickup passing through to the lakes. Now, where were we?” The light came back to Aletha. “We were going to entertain the girlfriend. He conscious?”