Ivan Doig by Work Song (v5)

Author:Work Song (v5)
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical - General, Butte (Mont.), Historical fiction, Montana - History - 20th century, Miners, Fiction, Literary, General, Single men, Historical, American Historical Fiction, Mine rescue work, Fiction - Historical
ISBN: 9781594487620
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Published: 2010-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

WHATEVER LUNAR POWER Miners Day possessed that the year’s other three hundred and sixty-four did not, things settled down ahead of it. Work actions ceased and the Hill pulsed day and night with the excavation of rich copper ore. The coveted dollar a day, as Jared had said, was added back in to the wages of ten thousand temporarily soothed union men. Without the morning tide of miners, library life quieted to its usual seashell tone of whispers. Miraculously, I nearly caught up with the chores Sandison pushed my way. He himself, of course, constituted a sizable task as often as not.

This day I came back into the office after some errand to find him pacing from his desk to the window and back, his bootsteps sharp as a march beat. Barely acknowledging me with a glance, he delivered: “That robber Gardiner in New York I deal with has a fine copy of The Bride of Lammermoor. What do you think?”

Quick as a fingersnap, I calculated what a transaction of that sort would do to the delicate balance I had achieved in the library’s ledger. “Sir Walter Scott himself regarded that as one of his lesser works,” I responded breezily. “Rather like Ivanhoe, but done with a trowel.”

He grunted. “All right, I’ll think it over.” The boots retraced their route as if following dance steps imprinted on the floor. I grew uneasy as he prowled the room, more often than not a signal that something was on his mind. I could only hope no one had blabbed to him that I was staying late after the Jabberwockians and other evening groups packed up and went home, and immersing myself suspiciously deep in the mineralogy section.

Just then Miss Mitchell from the cataloguing section, young and rather pretty and somewhat of a flirt, came in with a question. I dealt with it in no time and she pranced out.

Sandison watched the back of her until she shimmied out of sight, then turned to me with a frown. “Morgan, I don’t see you making eyes at young things like that even when they’re asking for it. What are you, some kind of buck nun?”

This turn of topic took me off guard. Good grief, did my social situation look that dusty to someone whose own idea of mating in life was the grandee and grandora sort? Trying not to show how much that smarted, I stiffly assured my white-bearded interrogator: “I enjoy female companionship when it presents itself, never fear.”

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