The Threshold

by Marlys Millhiser

  Everyone, even hired killers, knew of her. “My name is Miss Mildred Heisinger.”

  “You sit too stiff for the horse, Millie. You need to relax into her gait so’s you don’t jar your delicate little ass so bad.”

  On the shady side of town where Mildred lived, crude language and rude manners were common. She’d refused to acknowledge such behavior. Hired killer or no, Mildred hadn’t the least intention of changing that stance now. With a hissing disapproval on the intake of her breath and a determined rise to her chin, Mildred jerked at the mare’s reins to turn back toward town. The mare turned but then reared, almost dislodging her rider from the awkward sidesaddle. And when the horse came down on four feet, she refused to move. Instead she spread her hind legs and with a rumbling that began in mid-stomach she expelled blasts of foul wind and great plops of excrement onto the road.

  Mildred was so embarrassed she forgot herself and looked up into the face of the dangerous man next to her. When he caught her expression he began to laugh in loud reverberating rounds. It was late November, with somber skies and little snow, chilly, bleak. A stand of aspen lined each side of the road, and the raw barren branches reared above his head like the antlers of a gigantic stag. After a siege of coughing he was able to control his mirth and it left his eyes almost instantly, the wintry emptiness of the killer returning. “Maybe I’ll just have to teach you a few things about horseflesh, Millie. Teach you to ride like Mrs. Bulkeley Wells herself.”

  “Mrs. Bulkeley Wells herself,” Mildred mumbled.

  “Well, I’m going to go call the clinic about that IV. Surely they can’t refuse the oldest living resident of Telluride.” The doctor left the room.

  “Look, I don’t think I should stay in town too long,” Aletha said. “Maybe I should go back to your place, Renata. Have Mrs. Lowell call if she needs me. Something might happen.”

  “I can’t wait for something to happen. And I want to be right here with you if it does.”

  “She’s talking again, Aletha. She might be coming out of it.” Doris Lowell tucked the covers under Mildred’s chin. “She might ask for you again soon.”

  But Mildred was watching Mrs. Bulkeley Wells ride by the train window as she came into town from yet another trip. Grace Livermore Wells rode with such ease in her dashing riding costume. She and the horse flowed together at a terrifying speed that left the train and the other mounted ladies behind. A picture in motion Mildred would never forget. That was before Bob Meldrum taught Mildred to ride almost as well. Before she acquired her first mare. Leona, the madam at the Pick and Gad, had helped her buy that first horse.

  Leona pushed her way past a protesting Letty right into the parlor. “We’re going to have us a talk, Miss Nose-in-the-air. One businesswoman to another, and right now.” Her hair was about the shade of the skin of an orange. “Overheard you telling the stableman at Anderson’s the other day you wanted your own horse.” The creature settled herself on Mildred’s nicest settee. She didn’t seem to notice the fact that Mildred remained standing, an obvious indication of lack of welcome to most people. “Now, you could do better for yourself, and I happen to know how far you’re in to that old bastard Barada. What you need is some advice on the type of girl needed here. The kind that’ll pay and that’ll stay.”

  Mildred had had no recourse but to listen. The advice had been profitable.

  Aletha stood alone at Mildred’s bedside. Doris Lowell had stepped into the bathroom and Renata into the parlor to talk to Cree and Tracy. The doctor had driven to the clinic for the IV unit. Aletha still watched the corners nervously and didn’t realize Mildred’s eyes were open until she had the feeling of being watched.

  “Hi, Miss Heisinger. It’s me, snoop. How you feeling?”

  “Callie O’Connell,” Mildred said distinctly.

  “Oh great, now you’re going to tell me about Callie when I’m a lot more worried about Aletha Kingman.”

  “They put her on the train and sent her away. Herded the women and children into boxcars like cattle. Bulkeley Wells and the Alliance and the militia. Found skeletons in the mountains for years afterward when the snow melted.”

  “Oh, surely they didn’t send women and children out in cattle cars in winter.” Aletha looked to Doris Lowell standing in the bathroom doorway. “Sounds like Dr. Zhivago.”

  “I’m afraid it was Telluride. And much of it is still hidden. For years history decided that Bulkeley Wells and the militia were right. They did speak for the majority.”

  Mildred was still watching Aletha, and Aletha leaned closer, hoping Mildred could read her lips. “Isn’t that Callie buried out in Lone Tree Cemetery?”

  “All gone now. Leona and Bob Meldrum and Bulkeley Wells. Even Audrey.”

  Charles slid in through the door Renata had left ajar. He jumped up on the bed and stuck his nose in Mildred’s neck. “Waaaaaa.”

  “Cad? That you?”

  “Leave him be,” Doris said when Aletha made a grab for him. “Until a few years ago there were always a couple of cats around here. And one of them was always named Cad.”

  “Snoop?” Mildred called but then lapsed into her own world. Mildred stood naked but for a towel beside a lovely porcelain bathtub she would someday come to own. It was filled with steamy water and sat in the bordello known as the Pick and Gad. Mildred’s skin crawled with the drafts rising behind her. No patient Letty there to hold a towel or robe up to block them. Sounds of revelry ascended from the floor below and the street outside. It had dinned on since the lifting of the curfew.

  “Millie, you gotta have more fun,” Bob had told her. “More friends.”

  “I have you and Leona and Letty. And my books, my riding. Cad.”

  “You can’t hide in this little house all the time you’re in Telluride. Come out to the party tonight at the Pick and Gad. Leona promises none of the girls will bother you. I’ll be there to see they don’t.”

  Mildred would rather have gone to the ball on Colorado Avenue or to see the Shakespearean players performing Othello. But Mildred would not be welcome there. Bob Meldrum could be very crude and very sensitive. But since she’d come under his protection she could venture out on these streets with no harassment. She’d come to the party, against her better judgment, just to see what it was like. And just for a short time. Bob had promised to stay at her side. But she met some of the players here who reenacted lines from Othello after their performance on Colorado Avenue, and some of the gentlemen who’d returned their ladies home after the ball.

  Somewhere in the evening she’d lost track of Mr. Meldrum. And she’d drunk too much champagne, had apparently consented to be the prize in some wager she could not remember now, had insisted upon a bath first, hoping to go home to Letty and go back on her promise, and had found herself in this room instead. She wondered what Mrs. Bulkeley Wells would do in such a situation—Mrs. Bulkeley Wells would never find herself in such a situation.

  Bob Meldrum had never touched Mildred. Nothing beyond taking her arm to guide her across the street. He would visit her, have dinner, watch her play the piano, have her read poetry to him. Often he would just sit and look at her. Then he’d visit the Pick and Gad.

  Leona said he was horrible to the girls here. But although no gentleman himself, he treated Mildred like a lady, which was more than she could say for Mr. Bulkeley Wells. Perhaps Bob had not really disappeared from the party. Perhaps tonight she was to see the other side of him. She could not remember if he had anything to do with the wager for which she was prize. He could be “calling in his debts” as he often claimed to do. Then again, he could have merely stepped outside to kill someone. Killers … prostitutes … and a big white cat sitting in a hole in the wall. As if the wall had burned through from the next room in that one spot only. But there was no smoke, no flame, no scorching, just small fizzes of light popping around the hole’s edges like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

  The cat’s eyes widened. Its back arched and the hairs on its tail spread a
part to puff it out of proportion. Behind the cat was a table with an enormous lamp, and part of a square chair that had upholstery cloth hanging to the floor. In a corner two people stood in a doorway. A girl and a very tall man. The girl that a young militia captain had brought to her door during the curfew. She wore trousers, a baggy overshirt, and something that looked like a pink rock for a necklace.

  “Mildred?” the girl said as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Mildred Heisinger?”

  “That’s the snoop,” Mildred announced to the faces ringing her bed, and tried to sit up, but found hands pressing her back to the pillow. “The snoop!”

  42

  Callie saw the troop train come into Telluride. She’d walked to Mrs. Pakka’s boardinghouse and rushed out onto the porch when the citizens marched past to the railroad station. Mr. Duffer and Mr. Bellamy had just returned from work and they followed the crowd. Callie slipped in behind them. “What do you suppose these crazies are up to now?” Mr. Bellamy said.

  “Looks like they’re marching off to war,” Mr. Duffer answered.

  Tents were set up all around the station. Bales of hay were stacked everywhere. Men in uniforms with musical instruments formed along the tracks and began playing parade music as the train approached, strangely silent, without blowing its whistle. The engine pushed a flatcar piled with more hay. Rifle barrels stuck out of the hay at all angles, making Callie think of a confused porcupine. A group of horsemen rode up, the leader carrying an American flag. The horses danced and shied at the band music and the chugging and steam from the train.

  This was the most excitement that had happened around Callie since Elsie Biggs went alone into a room with a gentleman present. The engine shrieked and then whumped to a stop. A head appeared over the hay-porcupine car in front of it. The lead horseman handed his flag to the rider next to him and saluted. “Captain Bulkeley Wells at your service, sir.”

  The head in the hay swiveled this way and that. Another rose behind it and then another. The faces on the heads looked terrified and Callie laughed in spite of the grand parade atmosphere. The bodies under the heads began to stand up. A strange device rose with them. It appeared to be many overlong gun barrels fastened together in a circle with metal bands. It pointed right at Captain Bulkeley Wells but he just saluted each new head as it rose from the hay. Down the track another train pulled in behind this one. Doors screeched open on both and horses jumped out of boxcars, men rushed to mount them. Commanding voices shouted orders all down the line and soldiers leapt out to lower rifles at the cheering citizens and the Telluride Cornet Band.

  Somebody set off black powder high on the hillside and the soldiers fell to one knee, balancing their rifles on the other. The cavalry horses broke ranks and ran down some of the tents. And the crowd cheered louder. Callie didn’t know what all this was about but she cheered too. Jubilation filled the air. And a great smell of horse.

  A new figure rose up in the porcupine car. This man had a cape on his coat and wore a sword at his waist. Even the cheering subsided in his presence, and during a lull in the horse noise he saluted Captain Bulkeley Wells back and asked quietly, “Where, Captain, are the strikers?”

  “Oh, they’re all over, sir.” The captain gestured so widely he set his mount to backing. “But not here.”

  “The strikers are all over, but they are not here?”

  “Not right here … at the moment … there might be a few. But this is largely a welcoming committee, sir. I don’t think it will be necessary to shoot anyone.”

  And as if in support of this, Senja Kesti’s littlest brother, Lowri, waddled out from somewhere and threaded his way through the welcoming committee’s horses to wave hello to the men in the porcupine car. The Kestis lived practically next door to the depot and Callie would often drop by on her way back to the hotel from Mrs. Pakka’s to see if Mrs. Kesti had anything she wanted taken to Senja.

  Little Lowri was something over two years, bundled against the chill, and fairly rotund anyway. His waving caused him to tip over and sit hard in the snow, which in turn caused him great anger. His screams brought several women on the run with Callie in the lead, when Captain Bulkeley Wells sprang from his horse and swept the child up in his arms. This brought applause from the audience but did nothing for Lowri, whose outrage escalated. The captain’s horse took off down the tracks and his eyes settled on Callie. “Here, and watch your little brother more carefully. He could well have been trampled.”

  The captain turned away before Callie could explain that Lowri was Senja’s brother but not before she recognized the gleam of fever in his large eyes. Certain kinds of excitement did that to men. She’d seen it in Bram when he was told he could go back to the mine and quit school, and in Pa when he’d dropped in to the hotel after not seeing her for months but could stay only a few minutes because the stiffs were marching and it needed doing. Callie put little Lowri down, took his hand, and led him home.

  Soldiers walked the sidewalks now. Cavalry detachments rode the streets day and night. The militia guarded the roads to the mines and mills and a man needed a signed pass to get by them. One afternoon Senja’s mother came to the back door of the hotel demanding to see Callie instead of Senja. “It’s your father, Callie. They’re sending him off on the train and your mother’s too weak to control Bram.”

  “Who’s sending him?”

  “The Alliance and the militia. To Montrose. Deporting, they’re calling it. Hurry, your brother’s lost his wits with it all.”

  Callie was still confused but she raced after Mrs. Kesti. There weren’t as many tents around the depot as before but there were nearly as many people. Most of the troops had been billeted in the town and the large boardinghouses up at the mines. But that funny gun was still there and it sat on wheels like a cannon. It aimed at the train, which was all steamed up and ready to go. The crowd didn’t cheer this time and some ladies wept.

  A line of men chained together were being herded into a boxcar, the chains clanking and thunking as each sat down. Captain Bulkeley Wells stood to the side, with two soldiers behind him holding on to Bram. They held Bram’s arms behind his back. It struck Callie how straight her brother stood now, how much wider his shoulders looked than those of the men holding him. His face was still strange and bony but the rest of him no longer seemed like a sickly scholar.

  Callie walked right up to Captain Wells. “Please, sir, may I have my brother?”

  He glanced down as if she were a summer fly to be swatted, and back to the chain line. Then he glanced down again. “How many brothers do you have, girl?”

  “Just that one, sir.” She pointed to Bram but didn’t meet his eyes. He looked murderous. Callie had come away without her coat and she shivered. Captain Wells leaned over her.

  “You’re one of Mrs. Stollsteimer’s girls, aren’t you? And your father’s on that train?” He removed his coat and put it around her shoulders. It hung to the ground and the lining held his warmth. As the last prisoners entered the boxcar, the many-barreled gun was tipped upward and an officer “harumphed” unintelligible orders.

  “They’re going to shoot Pa!” Bram struggled with his guards.

  “No, son, they’ll merely fire a warning,” Captain Wells said, not unkindly, and patted Callie’s shoulder. “To warn them not to come back.”

  One soldier turned a crank, two braced themselves each against a wheel, and a fourth held steady a rack of cartridges. The gun revolved, fire and smoke spit from all its barrels, sounding like the roar of a hundred rifles firing at once but not in unison. Dirt and snow exploded on the mountainside above the boxcar and across the river. Stumps splintered and blew apart. A few fledgling pine trees were cut in half. Every dog in Telluride went into a barking frenzy and horses at the hitching posts by the depot reared trying to pull away. The engine steamed out of the station. Captain Wells stared across at the damaged landscape on the mountain and trembled. “Magnificent.”

  Callie decided he was cold and returned his coat.
“Thank you, sir. Now I’d like my brother if you please.”

  He laughed. “They certainly teach you girls pluck up at that hotel.” He nodded for the soldiers to release Bram. “Go home, boy, and behave yourself. See you don’t get in the same trouble as your father.”

  Soon a train arrived filled with scabs from Missouri and militiamen guarded their passage to the mines and mills. The stamps thundered once more, bringing back the normal heartbeat of the valley. A judge in Montrose released the deportees and termed their expulsion unlawful. Governor Peabody disagreed and the militia was ordered to check the incoming trains. The union men filtered back into town anyway, but Callie didn’t see John O’Connell until he’d been locked up in the bull pen on Colorado Avenue.

  The bull pen was constructed of heavy timbers connected with rope and had a thick metal door. It sat in front of the bank on the sidewalk, its announced purpose to detain vagrants. The mining companies refused to hire known union men so a great many were “vagged” and the small jail could not hold them all.

  Callie was on an errand for the hotel and a quick visit to Aunt Lilly’s via the boot shop when she saw the men in the bull pen. She’d turned thirteen the previous summer and still hated cleaning things. She’d learned to twist her bottom out of the way of any gentleman’s grope and how to walk like Olina and Floradora. Not yet “grown,” she still wore her hair down but she brushed it shiny every night.

  Callie had to step into the street to pass the protuberance of the bull pen. It looked something like an animal stockade. Pieces of men showed through the holes between wood and rope. All Callie could see over the top were hats. She’d started to cross the street at the intersection when she heard her father calling her name. It was embarrassing to see grown men caged that way, and doubly so her own father. “How’s your poor Ma’am, Callie darling?”