The Affair at Alkali by Virginia Coffman

Author:Virginia Coffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: virginia, coffman
Publisher: Candlewood Books

Chapter 9

Dwarfed in one of his tall father’s winter coats and wearing Howard’s storm boots, stuffed in the toes because they were too long, Padge slogged through the blowing snowdrifts and into the kitchen where Mamacita and Tabucé were cleaning up the dishes. With his own carpenter’s zeal and the assistance of Slim Pritchert and three stable hands, Padge had managed to patch up most of the shattered exterior of the house that Christmas Eve. After five days in bed under Lucinda’s iron hand, he wasn’t helping his recovery by his freezing work, but his bitter and vengeful spirit, like Lucinda’s, was eased by the hard, useful employment of his hands. At the same time, it gave him a chance to scheme and make plans. A casual observer, watching him tease Mamacita, might have supposed he had entirely forgotten his murdered father, buried less than five days before. Only the older face and the guarded eyes revealed any consciousness of his loss.

Lucinda was carrying an enamel bowl and pitcher to the commode in his bedroom as he entered. She said sternly:

“Wash up before you touch the bed.”

He grinned and made a face at her.

“But, Ma, I took a bath in the big tub before supper.”

Before she could reply, he was at her side, taking the bowl and pecking her on the nearest cheek. She tried not to show her secret joy and pride that he had returned when she needed him most. She said, “Hush up and wash. You’re not in the Yosemite wilds now.”

“Mighty glad I’m not, honey. It was always cold and wet and icy—and lonesome, too. There wasn’t a single one of our folks in the valley. All Yanks.”

He plunged his hands into the bowl, sloshing water all over himself and Lucinda. She jumped back, and he laughed, swiped his hands over the towel on her arm, and stopped suddenly, looking at her. He read in her still beautiful face and smooth black hair something that shocked him. He exclaimed in a wondering voice, “Ma, honey! What is it? You’re getting grey. I had a lot of time to think when I was in bed. And your face—” His fingers, still damp and icy, went out to her, gently tracing the new lines, moving over the firm skin that grew just a little drier each year, because no creams could entirely obliterate the traces of alkali. It was a moment of complete understanding between them.

“You ain’t worried, are you, honey? Slim says after what they did to us Regans, the town’s got to let me stay, to save their own necks.”

“There are a hundred problems, Padge. That’s only one more added to the rest. There are—”

As if all her problems were centered on one vital subject, he cut in quickly, almost breathlessly, “We’ll get ’em all, every cussed one that was in on it. But it’ll take a little time. Just give me time.”

“When did you hear about your father’s death?”

“Night after he was killed, when I camped by that dead yellow lake over the border near Bodie.

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