“The game last night,” he says. “Remember, it’s every man for himself out there. Same as in the mines.” Then he lets go of my arm and I stuff the pickle in my mouth.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” Pop says when he catches me grinning.
It wasn’t even a real smile. How could it be? Not today.
Pop doesn’t bother to shave much anymore. He’s due at the mine before it gets light out. I know they like their shift bosses clean-shaven, but they ease up the rule for Pop.
Except for his big hands and gut, Pop’s pretty thin, especially in the face. He never took on any muscle, even after all those years of mining, and his nose hasn’t looked like a nose in a while. There are little round things sprouting out from the sides like on those saguaros that grow down in Phoenix we saw in that Kodachrome film.
Pop’s nose turned purplish-red once they started blasting open the pit. Every time a miner got killed on his shift, you couldn’t find Pop for days. Then he’d come home and throw one of his rocks at the mountain. When Bobby died, there weren’t any rocks left to throw, so Pop hurled a chair at me instead.
He puts the empty pickle jar in the Frigidaire without the lid and gets the newspaper I left on the back porch.
“It’ll never happen,” Pop sniffs, wiping his mouth with his hand and pointing to the part about the miners wanting a raise. “The E.C. don’t need us like they used to,” he says, sitting back down at the table, “or we’d have ’em again by the balls.”
“Ever think it’ll shift back,” I ask, “or isn’t there enough ore down there to keep the mine going?”
“There’s ore, and enough of it. Gold, too,” Pop says. “But I don’t make those kinds of decisions.” He scratches his belly and looks up like he’s seeing me for the first time. Then he goes to the sink and gets the last pickle. “It’s still good,” he says, handing it to me. “There may be no future for you here, Red. And the mine—it’s no life for you. Once football’s over, you best be tinking about what comes next ’cause there might not be anything left for you in Hatley.”
Chapter 7
FOUR O’CLOCK WIND
THURSDAY, AUGUST 31
AFTER PRACTICE
COACH LET US OFF PRACTICE early after grinding hard all week. He says he wants us to be fresh for our second game tomorrow night in Prescott so we should head home.
People are always calling four walls a home. But ours doesn’t feel like one. To me, this field is home, so I showered and came back.
The train’s almost loaded at the depot when I see Angie heading down the hill for the Barrio.
“Hey, Angie!” I call out. “How’d you like to go for that swim?”
She turns and puts her hands on her hips. “We’re not anywhere near the Verde,” she says, coming over.
“We can be.” I point to the train getting loaded up in front of the tunnel.
“Red, you’re crazy.”
“No I’m not. You jump on before the train gets going.” I jog over to the tracks and hop onto the last freight car, then reach for Angie’s hand. Her eyes go wide and she starts biting her lip, so I know she’s doubting it already. “Come on, Angie. I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“From up there?”
I dangle a foot in the air, out toward the Barrio, and jump off. “Here. I’ll even make you a doorstep.” I get on all fours and wait until I feel her foot push against my tailbone.
“And why would I hitch a train ride with you?” Angie says, looking down at me from the doorway, her red lips smirking and both arms splayed across the opening of the car.
“ ’Cause you want to.”
“How would you know?”
“You’re up there, aren’t you?”
The train lurches forward, shaking Angie’s stance, and she’s startled.
“Red, get up here. Don’t leave me!” she cries, gripping the rattling steel.
“Not until you tell me you don’t hate me.”
“I’m not going on this thing by myself.”
I know I’ve got about thirty seconds before Dell makes the switch. So I grab my letterman’s jacket and break into an easy jog. “Well, then …,” I say to her.
“I don’t hate you. You’re a nice gringo, okay?”
“And you want to hitch a train ride with me.”
Angie hesitates, so I stop running and let the car get ahead of me.
“And I want to hitch a train ride with you!” she shouts.
I can hear two low-pitched barks and they’re bounding closer. I know they’re Father Pierre’s angry dogs, but I focus on the opening in the car and lunge forward, hurtling through it and onto the train floor, sliding a few feet on my stomach.
“You scared me,” Angie says, pummeling my back with her fists. They don’t hurt. No more than a flood of piñon nuts falling off the pines by the Verde, shaken loose by the four o’clock wind.
“Didn’t mean to.” I roll over and smile. “Guess you never caught a train like this before.”
“What if somebody saw us?” Angie says.
“Like who? Dell Bruzzi’s the only one driving this train. He’d never tell. And Father Pierre’s dogs can’t speak human.”
“Don’t be so sure. Father tells them everything in French. And they always chime in at the best parts.”
“That’s right … you’re good at languages, aren’t you?”
“I just know three,” Angie says. “So far. It’s how I got the job at the telephone company.” She won’t let our eyes meet and peers through the gap in the freight car instead. “Would you care?” she asks, looking into the rushing scenery.
“You mean, if somebody saw us?”
She nods. “Would you?”
“Why would I?”
“I don’t know. You’re a gringo and I’m—”
“Hey, doesn’t gringo mean ‘green’ in Spanish? I’m Red, you know. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Verde means ‘green,’ silly.” Angie messes up the top of my hair and laughs. “It’s really beautiful,” she says.
“And I didn’t even get a haircut yet.”
“I meant, the view.”
“See. Aren’t you glad you jumped on? Though you don’t look like a girl who gets into nature much.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. The skinny skirt. That pearl necklace.”
“These? They’re not real. They’re fake. I got them at Penney’s. We could never afford real pearls like the ones at Robinson’s. And I was hiking down the hill when you caught me, remember?”
“But you’d like real ones.”
“Oh no.” Angie blushes. “They cost nearly forty-nine dollars! You know how much real ones could buy? There’s ten of us. New shoes would be nice.” Angie looks down at her black-and-white ones. “I can’t keep polishing these saddle shoes forever. It just makes the cracks deeper.”
I come closer and touch one of those pearls. “Bet they’d match your teeth,” I say. “Real pearls.”
Angie looks down at my fingernails. “You work a lot at Ernie’s, don’t you?”
“Enough, I guess,” I mumble, pulling away. Doesn’t matter how much I wash them, the thumbnails still keep in the grease.
I wish Angie hadn’t seen them. Not this way. When I’m throwing out on the field, all you notice is how smooth they hug the ball, buried deep in the pigskin. Not how filthy they are, but how well they listen. Then the precision of the quick release, so all you can do is follow the direction of the toss.
“I don’t mind,” Angie says. “Papá’s grimy like that all over when he gets home. You know, from down in the mine. He makes Mamá take a banana yucca and scrape the black off, even if it cuts into the skin.” Angie takes a loose nugget of churned-up ore that’s found its way into the car. Then she starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about the stone the train’s carrying,” she says. “And how half of it’s probably from my father. Or my brother M
anny.”
“Yeah. And I bet my pop made them shovel it in there.”
Angie’s expression turns cold, so I know I said something wrong.
“I mean … I didn’t mean it like that,” I tell her. That was stupid. Talking to Angie like she was Rabbit or Cruz.
“I know. It’s true,” she murmurs.
The train rounds a sharp corner before heading into the tunnel and she leans into me when the darkness covers us. Her body’s firm and warm. She steadies herself when we get back into the daylight, then inches backward until she’s against the closed side of the car. “Papá would kill me if he saw us right now.”
“Us? Or me?”
“Anyone who’s not my brother. I’m only fifteen!”
“Yeah, well, he’d have to take a number because Cruz would slit my throat before your father even got to me.”
“You think so? But you’re Cruz’s best friend.”
“Exactly.”
The train grazes past a shaggy juniper as it picks up speed, and I know that it’s time. “Get ready to jump,” I say.
“Are you joking?” she says. “Can’t we wait until the train slows down?”
“It’ll be in Cottonville by then. Nothing but sidewalks with people gawking at us. And the sheriff’s office. We’d be found out for sure.”
“But it’s going so fast.”
I take Angie’s hand without waiting for an answer and pull her up quickly. “There’s a sandy pocket ahead,” I tell her. “When I yell ‘gringo,’ we jump, okay? One. Two. Three. Grin-go!”
Angie screams before we leap into the sky but she doesn’t let go. Then we land, tumbling down the valley together all entangled and heading for the river until a cottonwood breaks our fall. And she’s laughing. Just lying there with me, laughing.
“You all right?” I ask.
Angie looks down at her skirt, then feels around the back of it. “My seam split,” she whispers.
“Uh-oh. Is that bad?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she says. “Close your eyes, okay? And I’ll see just how far it ripped.”
I do what I’m told and after a while she says, “It’s not too torn. I’ll be able to fix it.”
So I open my eyes and Angie’s standing there at the edge of the river, the ends of her skirt flipped up above her knees. “How cold’s the water?” she asks, kicking off her shoes and stuffing her ankle socks inside their toes.
“Not too cold.” I roll up my jeans and untie my sneakers. “It’s had most of the summer to get warm, and the shade hasn’t hit yet,” I say. “Come on. There might even be some trout in there.”
Angie stands at the bank, one foot in the water, the other swirling around at the surface. “It’s warmer than the pool water,” she says, circling her foot wider and wider. “At least—our water. Is your water cold, too?”
“Pretty cold.” I turn away and make like I’m eyeing a fish. It’s such a stupid rule. “From what I hear. I don’t go in much. I’d rather swim here in the Verde.”
“It takes me three hours just to bleach it.”
“How’s that?”
“When we’re done with our days and it’s about to be your—their turn.” Angie stops circling and splashes her foot in the river. “We have to bleach it after it gets drained. I wear gloves but it’s just so strong. The solution they give us.”
She examines her hands and that’s when I notice they’re different. They’re covered with patchy stains that don’t match the rest of her skin.
“I’m becoming whiter. See? Isn’t that a laugh?” Angie says, holding up her hands. “I bleach the pool because I’m not a gringa, and then the bleach ends up making me one.” She’s smiling, but it looks pasted on. Her voice has gone all shaky, too, and her lip starts quivering. “I wonder if they bleach it after they’re through and it’s our turn. I mean, who checks?”
“Angie—”
“I never see the sheriff by the gate when they close, like he is when we do.”
“Angie, stop.” I wade over and cup her hands in mine. “It’s a stupid rule, okay?”
But she’s crying. “Maybe they just leave it dirty after white days. Dirty for the Mexicans. Filthy white water.”
I take her shoulders and she lets me bring her close, only I don’t know what else to do. Holding her doesn’t seem like enough. It can’t be enough. Would a kiss be all right? No, a kiss wouldn’t be right.
“¡Ay, Dios santo!” Angie screams. “A fish just swam right by me. I could feel it!” She lifts her face from my chest.
Some rainbow trout swarm by us, treating our legs like they’re bulrushes. “See that big speckled one?” I point out.
“Yeah.” Angie nods and follows my finger.
“I’m gonna catch it.”
“Oh sure. And I suppose you’ll do that with your bare hands.”
“You know it.” I’ve caught one before. I’m pretty quick. I can anticipate where they’ll go. I take off my jacket and aim it at the banks. It lands right where I wanted it to—on a ruddy manzanita branch.
Then I go find the fish. It stalls for a split second, barely an inch from the surface, and I pounce. But all I end up with is a face full of water.
“Nice going!” Angie says, and it’s good to hear her laughing. I don’t move, and scan the surface for bubbles. Then I see the fish in between the rocks to the left of me. Wedged between the banks. I know it’s only got one way to go and that if I dive for him, he’ll wriggle out from behind. So I reach for him with my toe and aim my body just behind his tail.
“Got it!” I shout, hoisting him up for Angie to see. “Here, catch!”
“Red, you wouldn’t. Please don’t throw it!”
“What, you don’t like fish?” It’s nearly a two-pounder and slices into my fingers struggling to get free, but I’ve got a good grip on it.
“I do,” Angie says. “But not when they’re moving!”
It would make a good supper and I’d keep it if I were alone. Stuff it in my shirt once it stopped breathing. But not with Angie. She doesn’t know how hungry I get.
I catch a glimpse of the tail shimmering pink and green and blue before I give him back to the Verde and it scares her. His heavy splash into freedom catches her by surprise. Angie slips on a rock before I can get to her but hops back up faster than that trout.
“Hey, you’re quick. Those pearls didn’t even get wet.” I look down at Angie’s skirt and it’s the only part that’s soaked. Still, she’s shivering, and I can see her legs through the wet material as she walks to the bank. She’s wearing pink underwear. They’ve got flowers on them. Angie turns around and I notice that her shirt has splashes on it, in places I’m longing to see once we’ve grown closer.
“My jacket’s dry.” I walk up to shore and give Angie my letterman’s jacket, and we sit on the bank.
“Thanks. It’s really warm,” she says. “Hey, would you look at that cactus? It’s blooming right in the air.”
There’s an agave behind us and it’s loaded with yellow flowers on a spike going ten feet up.
“See. It’s coming back,” Angie says. “The mountain.”
I smile because she noticed, too, and watch as she lies down and gazes at it, the same way I do.
“Maybe it’s because the smelter only belches out half of what it used to,” I say.
“No.” Angie shakes her head. She leans on an elbow and fingers a clump of fuzzy white sage. “I think it’s because Nefertiti’s fighting it. She’s a tough mountain. And she’s still got plenty to give.”
I’m not sure about that. “You know they die right after they bloom, don’t you? Those agave plants. It takes so much out of them just to make it up that far.”
Angie jerks forward and stares at me, disappointed. But a part of me believes that the mountain gave all she had a long time ago, and even though things are blooming, it’s too late. For the mountain, anyway.
“My parents won’t sell the house, you know. Papá doesn’t think
the mine will close.”
“Neither does Cruz,” I say.
“What, so you think they will? That they’ll ship every last piece of the smelter to Ajo or Bisbee? Is that what the white folks think?”
“You mean, like me? You really believe I think differently than you?” I look down at my hand where the gill caught my finger and squeeze out some blood. “See this?” I say, showing her the cut. Then I break off a piece of agave. “Now give me your hand. This won’t hurt much—I promise. You can close your eyes if you want to.”
“No. I don’t need to,” she says.
I prick the fleshy part of her middle finger until there’s a tiny drop of blood. “See?” I put my cut-up finger beside hers. “They’re both the same color, aren’t they?”
Angie sucks her finger and looks up at me with those eyes. “I’m glad you kidnapped me.” She smiles.
“I didn’t kidnap you. And you sure don’t look like a kid to me. You’re already a sophomore.”
“It’ll be strange,” Angie says, “going to Cottonville next year.”
“Yeah, well, don’t plan on talking to any of those Wolves, all right?”
“Who’s gonna stop me?” she teases. “You won’t be here, will you? Not if the mine really does close.”
“There’s no way I’d ever work in the mine.”
Angie looks at me, surprised. “So, what will you do then?”
“Play football.”
“No, I mean after,” she says.
“I don’t think about after. That’s getting too far ahead. ‘After’ makes you forget about what happened before and forces you to lose sight of now. And right now I’ve got to win something.”
“Don’t worry,” Angie says, resting her hand on my arm. “You’ll beat those Wolves this year. That’ll make you happy.”
“No.” I shake my head and turn to face her. “I mean something really big, like going undefeated and taking the Northern Crown. Then the state championship.”
“Is that all you think about?” Angie sighs. “It’s the same with Cruz. And Manny before that.”
Muckers Page 7
