by M Dressler
A low mutter of water runs somewhere past the square, under the shadow of the mountains. A soft sound, like steel chimes, fills the air. No other sound stirs under the covered porches, and nothing moves, not the trees, nor the empty cars parked along the high granite curbs.
There’s something familiar here, I think.
There’s no sound of the sea, nor a tang of salt in the air, and the shadows of the mountains crowd close, like shoulders touching. But though I’ve never seen this place, I know the world better than I used to and am growing accustomed to its samenesses and its differences. All at once, this makes me happy, this knowing what it means to travel. We Finnises, we’re Irish immigrants, wanderers. I was born to see the world, not doomed to haunt one corner of it. Yet how many souls, I wonder, believe they have no other home than where they’ve lived and died and have been told they must keep to? Or is that only a story a body tells itself because it’s afraid to be free?
I see shapes flickering between gingham curtains that brighten a brick building at one corner of the square. I move toward them, wondering if I’m far enough from the coast now that no one will see in me the freak the ghost hunter has begun talking about.
A chorus of little bells jingles atop the door as I push it open. Inside the café, four faces turn to stare at me. They look pleasant enough, and not at all surprised; as though they’re used to strangers coming in at any hour. Two of them perch on stools at a polished red counter. One, a white-faced man, wipes his hands on a smudged apron. In a booth near the gingham curtains, an elderly couple stares and stirs their coffees. All the other seats in the café are empty. The man in the apron stands. Not quickly, not slowly. His face is smooth and looks younger than the wiry gray hair on his arms.
“Well, hello,” he says, “and welcome to White Bar! Didn’t hear you pull up.”
“Thank you,” I say, and smile and keep my face smooth in return. “Are you still open?”
The aproned man turns toward a woman still seated at the counter. She’s short and sturdy, with hair the color of salt and steel, and she wears a quilted, puffed vest, like a pillow.
He asks her, “Are we open, Mayor?”
“We certainly are, Bill.” She slides off her stool. She nods at me. “Booth okay?”
“Please.”
“Pick any one you like. Menu’s on the stand.”
The elderly couple sitting quietly side by side go on stirring and tinkling their spoons in their cups in front of them, their faces full of wrinkles, their hair white as snow. They’re living long lives, I think, and maybe lucky ones, too. They wear warm, braided sweaters with high necks that prop up their chins.
“Coffee?” the mayor asks as I take a booth across from them. “It’s cold out, and that thin jacket can’t be doing you much good.”
“That’d be lovely,” I say. It’s always best that I seem to eat and drink. I shiver to pretend I’m chilled.
“Bill?” She turns to the man. “Hit all of us again with the hot stuff, would you?”
“Coming right up.”
So delicious the coffee smells, like life itself. I stir the blackness and must remember: it’s too hot yet to pretend to drink. When I look up from my cup, the mayor is sitting down with the white-haired couple and the man named Bill is standing beside them, holding the coffee pot in one hand. They’re all smiling at me, in a measured sort of way. As though I’m a pot, I think, and they’re not yet sure what I hold.
“So what brings you to us?” the mayor asks, and the elderly couple across from her nod. “On your way to Reno? Thought you’d make a little side trip?”
“Yes,” I say, silky as cream. “Someone told me this town was very beautiful and quiet, and I had to stop. Are you all so lucky as to live here?”
“We are.” The old woman crinkles her eyes at me, delighted with the compliment.
“This is Mary and John Berringer,” the steely-haired mayor says, lifting her mug toward them in a toast. “We’re lucky to have them. They run the Berringer Inn, right next door.”
“And Martha, here,” the old woman says quickly, “we’re fortunate enough to call our mayor. This is Mayor Hayley.”
The old man named John shouts, as if a little deaf, “Mayor Hayley’s the owner of this hoppin’ place!”
She laughs and bows to him, then turns and points her cup toward the counter. “I might be the owner, but Bill over there does all the work, keeps it going. My place across the way keeps me busy. The White Bar Hotel—if you’re looking for a place to stay the night.”
“We’re all competitors!” the old man shouts toward me.
His wife, Mary, shakes her head, a bit embarrassed. “John is joking. We’re nothing like! Besides, we’re already closed for the season, and Martha’s still open. If you’re needing a room, Miss . . . ?”
I smile, watching all of them. So they know nothing yet about a ghost, a freak wearing borrowed skin. Or, if they’ve heard of it, they don’t see her in me. For though I wear the skin of a dead woman, it’s the light of my eyes that shines from her face, and the shadow of my cleft, my father’s jaw, that lies across this chin.
“I’m Rose,” I say. “If you do have any rooms—?”
“Plenty!” Mayor Hayley says. “Spring and summer are our big seasons here, but fall tapers off big-time. Lots of room tonight. Though you’re lucky, we’re about to shut down for the year. I go on a bit longer than most, holding out for a few more latecomers like you. Folks looking for some quiet and not the bright lights and big action—since we don’t have any slot machines or a ski lift. You do know that about us, I mean about White Bar, right?”
“Not that we didn’t try, Martha!” Bill calls from the kitchen.
“Yeah, well,” she calls back. “Failure is only reaching for the wrong spoon.”
“We tried,” the old woman leans over and whispers toward me, “this past summer, to have a view-tram built, you see. To bring more people in.”
“But it all went to hell in a handbasket!” the old man barks. “That’s what happens when you try to fix what ain’t broken!”
“Anyway,” the mayor says. “What do you do, Rose, that you can get away in the middle of a week, if you don’t mind my asking? Or are you visiting from abroad? Is that a bit of an Irish lilt I hear in your voice?”
“Irish American, yes,” I congratulate her. “I’m between places at the moment. Looking for a place to stay for a while. I’m traveling. Hunting for a bit of relaxation. Off the beaten path, you know.”
“We certainly do. Didn’t see your car out there, though.” She peers through the curtains. “How’d you get here?”
“Someone dropped me at the top of the road. Before the bridge.”
Now they study me oddly. Me with no luggage to my name, and only this thin blue coat on, and these flat, workaday shoes. I ought to have thought of such details before. But then, I’ve never before asked for a place to stay. Besides, how many lives and deaths would a soul have to number before she never made a single mistake?
“The truth is,” I say quickly, for the trick always is to be swift when you’ve taken a wrong turn, “I wasn’t planning to come to White Bar, Mayor Hayley. But I saw your sign, and all at once I felt . . . drawn down this pretty little road. As though my spirit were called to this place, somehow. As though I knew it. I know that must sound odd to you. Only, I trust it when I feel something, and especially when the something is so pretty and seems . . . so welcoming.”
Their faces relax.
Flattery. It isn’t so much a trick as it is remembering what it’s like to be loved.
“That’s really nice!” Bill calls from the kitchen.
“It sure is. And”—the mayor sets her coffee mug down, pleased—“I tell you what, you are absolutely right, Rose. We might not have any slots or runs here, and we don’t pan for gold, not anymore, and we don’t have any fancy shows like the big casino towns have, and we sure don’t have all the crowds and the excitement. But what we do have is the be
auty of this little valley, and serenity, and yes, a welcoming way. We’re kind to each other, here.”
“And to others, too”—old Mrs. Berringer smiles at me—“who are kind.”
“And who are quiet!” Mr. Berringer shouts. “We don’t like disturbances of any kind! Nothing banging the furniture!”
“He means the dead, the departed,” his wife sighs. “Because of course everybody worries about that in an old town like this—we were established in 1852. But we’re not like that. We promise you. We did have some trouble, back in the day, didn’t we, Martha? But we’ve been quiet for years and years and years now.”
“No ghosts, then?” I say, and pretend to be relieved. Though with a rush a dark mood comes over me. I’m saddened to think of all those now vanished, and admit to myself: it’s been lonely, all these weeks, traveling with no company. I’ve yet to find a single, solitary soul like mine. Hiding somewhere. Hiding her rage, to keep herself safe.
“Ruthie”—the mayor turns and checks with her neighbors, then turns back to me—“Ruthie would know the date of our last cleaning. Ruth Huellet. She’s not here tonight, she keeps our town museum, across the square. Back when the hunters first came on the scene—when was it, 2000, 2001?—we did have some poor strays we had to get rid of. John and Mary here even had one hiding in an armoire in their dining room.”
“The doors on it,” the old woman says, shaking her head, “were forever sticking, and oiling the hinges didn’t do the trick. We found out something didn’t want us opening the doors. So sad.”
“And Bill, you had something knocking over the wood in your woodshed, didn’t you? And stealing your boots?”
“Yep,” he calls. “They figured out that was a Donner ghost just trying to get warm.”
“Right,” the mayor says, nodding. “Some of them wandered this way, the poor, lost things. It was painful.” She faces me. “But when the cleaners came along, we did what we had to do—so don’t you worry about a thing. We don’t have disturbances here at all. Peace is what we have to offer in our inns and cabins and chalets. Peace and relaxation is what we all want, too. Even if you have to blast strays, when you find them. Rose, you look cold. Bill, turn up the heat, will you? Gal, you really don’t have the right clothes for this altitude, you know. You’re looking a little pale. Can we get you something to eat?”
I’m not cold. I’m feeling my rage, and wondering how long it will keep.
“I’m not hungry for my supper just now, thank you,” I manage to say.
“More coffee?”
Bill comes and bends to fill my cup. He notices it’s still full. He blinks, embarrassed. He’s worried his brew is no good. He thinks that’s where the trouble lies.
Old Mr. Berringer says, as if he’s been having a faraway conversation in his head all along, “Thing about life and death is, you can never be completely sure about it.”
“John, dear”—his wife pats his shoulder—“we’re talking about supper now.”
“Already had our suppers!” He turns, wide-eyed, toward me. “What I’m saying, is, you never know what’ll happen, when you pull on a door. What’s inside it. Or outside, even. Look at all of us, just sitting here, minding our own business—and you show up out of nowhere. Or look at you, coming in, out of nowhere, saying a friend dropped you off, just easy-breezing in. What I want to know is, what is it you were thinking you’d find up here at the Bar? What are you looking for? Or what is it outside, there, that chased you in to us?”
“I’m so sorry, Rose.” His wife blushes. “He gets like this, sometimes. John. Please! You’re not making any sense.”
Yet she’s watching me closely, too, from her booth.
And so is the mayor.
And Bill at the counter.
I’m the one being tested now, it seems.
I’ll have to calm my anger or be discovered. Anger gives the ghost away.
“It’s a good question, Mr. Berringer,” I say, this body smiling. So often a soul has to pretend and manage, as best she can. “I suppose I should tell you the truth. I do feel as though I’m being chased by something out there in the dark. Though it’s hard to say exactly what it is. Have you ever felt like you’re searching for company?” I ask them, for it’s best to keep close to the truth, when you want to deceive. “Or that you want to run, not really away, but to something? Even if you don’t know where that something might be? That’s how it is with me, you see. I’m running and searching, at the same time. But I don’t want to be any trouble to you.” I start to rise. It might be the prudent thing. “If I’ve come at a bad time, too late in the season, or if my coming seems strange to you, I could just take my coffee and go.”
Their faces fall in a flash, disappointed.
“No, no, stay!” Bill urges. He calls to the mayor. “We’re not ones to turn away someone who needs company, are we, Martha? And like you said, we’re still open.”
The mayor’s eyes check in with the old man and woman, who nod quickly.
“Rose, say no more.” She stands. “Plenty of room at my place, as I told you. We don’t pry here—but we sure can offer you rest from searching for one night. If that’s what you need. Would you like that, hon?”
“If you would be so kind, yes.” There may be no friends nor ghosts here, but there’s no Philip Pratt, either.
The mayor reaches for a row of hooks by the door and takes a heavy coat from it.
“Why don’t you come on over and check out my hotel, and see if it suits you for the night?”
“How nice. I’m sure it will. Thank you, truly.”
“Now Rose, dear,” old Mrs. Berringer says, still seated at her booth but reaching a spotted hand up toward me. “I’m positive you’ll feel safe and comfortable at Martha’s place. And I want you to know we do welcome you, and it’s good to have you here, dear, and—oh my goodness, your poor hand, it’s so cold! Martha, you be sure and give her some warm things for the evening, if she needs them!”
“I will.”
The old man stares at me. “No hard feelings, girl? Got to be careful, in a small town like ours. Hope you’ll enjoy hunkering down in that old saloon of Martha’s.”
Bill smiles as I pass him, a helpful, yearning look on his face. A bachelor, I imagine. He has a lonely man’s way about him. The dead know loneliness when we see it.
“Are you certain I can’t get you anything to eat, to go?” he asks.
“Come on, Rose,” the mayor says quickly. “Before Bill makes you think we never let a customer leave.”
3
The cold seems uncomfortable for Martha Hayley, even under her thick coat. She trembles. Her breath blows out in thin white smoke. No steam passes from my lips, so I keep behind her. The balconies around the square are dark as we cross. Against the tall curbs, the cars seem to lean.
“I’m just across the way,” she says, pointing. “This is our town square. We call that old bronze statue over there the Old Prospector. We were a gold rush boomtown called Eno Camp, back in the day. The Eno River—hear it?—that’s where the miners panned. We’ve still got a nice little waterfall just outside of town you might like to go and see in the morning. Watch your step now, okay, this is a high curb. Everything was elevated, even in mining times, for the snow and also for the mud.”
She unlocks a pine-wreathed door. Inside, a snug parlor awaits. She rubs her hands together before turning up a pink-hooded lamp. A fringed rug lies soft under the soles of my shoes. The walls are papered in a scrolled velvet. She goes to stand behind a burled desk with rows of heavy brass keys hanging behind it. Another parlor opens to my right, with a stone fireplace readied with logs and kindling. An archway beyond it leads to a dining room with empty tables and spindle-backed chairs, and a staircase rising.
The mayor takes off her coat and hangs it behind the desk. “Now! Let’s get you settled in. Welcome to the White Bar Hotel, formerly the Eno River Saloon. That’s what ol’ John Berringer was cackling about back there at the café, just so yo
u know. The Berringers are old-timers around here. Sometimes that makes them a bit . . . Anyway.” She turns to the glowing tablet in front of her. “What kind of room would make you feel cozy for the evening, Rose? A king bed? Queen? You’re such a small thing, I could pretty well tuck you in a cupboard.”
I’ve done it, in my time. “A room with a view?” I ask.
“My best room.” She taps the tablet. “For one night? Just put your name on the card here”—she slides a piece of paper toward me—“and your address if you want. You can pay me in the morning, after you make sure the experience lives up to your expectations.”
Since I have no money, that’s fortunate. “You’re so kind, Mayor Hayley,” I say and leave the address on the card blank. I had a home, once, but have none now.
“Call me Martha. Being mayor’s not all that big a deal around here, to be honest. Though of course it’s nice being elected. All right, now, let me show you around down here, then I’ll take you up to your room. Fair warning, there’s not much to do here at night except watch TV or sit by the fire and read. I can leave some things out for you, tea and coffee and cookies in the kitchen, in case you get hungry before breakfast. The kitchen is over here, see.”
She leads me through the shadowy dining parlor toward a pair of swinging saloon doors.
“Had these doors moved from the front over here to the kitchen entry. Antique.”
“Very nice.”
“We try our best to keep things original.”
The kitchen is a large white and blue one with black pots hanging overhead and gold-bordered china leaning inside cupboards. Knives with well-rubbed handles are sorted into a butcher’s block.
“Take anything you need from the fridge,” she tells me. “Our season is basically over, like I say, and I prefer things to get eaten up before they go bad. Breakfast is at eight. If you do breakfast?”
