“Women do die of it though.”
“Because the operator was no good. Maybe one in ten thousand. Of course there are no records. It’s because I—”
“It’s all right. It’s not because the price was too low, nor because you are afraid. That’s all I wanted to know. You dont have to. Nobody can make you. Kiss me. We cant even kiss inside, let alone—”
The four of them (Charlotte now slept in the woollen underwear like the others) slept in the one room, not in beds but on mattresses on the floor (“It’s warmer that way,” Buckner explained. “Cold comes from underneath.”) and the gasoline stove burned constantly. They had opposite corners but even at that the two mattresses were not fifteen feet apart, so Wilbourne and Charlotte could not even talk, whisper. It meant less to the Buckners though, even though they seemed to have little enough of preliminary talking and whispering to do; at times and with the lamp not five minutes dark Wilbourne and Charlotte would hear the abrupt stallion-like surge from the other bed, the violent blanket-muffled motion ceasing into the woman’s panting moans and at times a series of pure screams tumbling over one another, though such was not for them.
Then one day the thermometer reversed itself from fourteen below to forty-one below and they moved the two mattresses together and slept as a unit, the two women in the middle, and still sometimes before the light was scarcely out (or perhaps they would be wakened by it) there would come the ruthless stallion crash with no word spoken, as if they had been drawn violently and savagely to one another out of pure slumber like steel and magnet, the fierce breathing, the panting and shuddering woman-moans, and Charlotte saying, “Cant you all do that without pulling the covers loose?” and still it was not for them.
They had been there a month, it was almost March now and the spring for which Charlotte waited that much nearer, when one afternoon Wilbourne returned from the mine where the dirty and unsleeping Poles still labored in that fierce deluded frenzy and the blind birdlike incomprehensible voices still flew back and forth among the dusty extravagant electric bulbs, and found Charlotte and Mrs. Buckner watching the cabin door as he entered. And he knew what was coming and perhaps even that he was already done for. “Listen, Harry,” she said. “They are going to leave. They’ve got to. It’s all up here and they have only three hundred dollars, to get where they are going and to live on until he can find work. So they’ve got to do something before it’s too late.”
“So have we,” he said. “And we haven’t got three hundred dollars.”
“We haven’t got a baby either. We haven’t had bad luck. You said it’s simple, that only one in ten thousand die, that you know how to do it, that you are not afraid. And they want to take the risk.”
“Do you want a hundred dollars that bad?”
“Have I ever? Ever talked about money, except the hundred and twenty-five of mine you wouldn’t take? You know that. Just as I know you wouldn’t take their money.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s because I—”
“It’s because they are in trouble. Suppose it was us. I know you will have to throw away something. But we have thrown away a lot, threw it away for love and we’re not sorry.”
“No,” he said. “Not sorry. Never.”
“This is for love too. Not ours maybe. But love.” She went to the shelf on which they kept their personal effects and took down the meager case of instruments with which he had been equipped before he left Chicago, along with the two railroad tickets. “This would be good for him to know, if he could know it: that the only time you ever used them was to amputate his manager from the mine. What else do you need?”
Buckner came up beside Wilbourne. “All right?” he said. “I’m not afraid and she aint. Because you’re all right. I aint watched you for a month for nothing. Maybe if you had agreed quick, right off, that first day, I wouldn’t let you, I’d be afraid. But not now. I’ll take all the risk and I’ll remember my promise: I’ll see you are clear. And it aint a hundred, it’s still a hundred and fifty.”
He tried to say No, he tried hard. Yes, he thought quietly, I have thrown away lots, but apparently not this. Honesty about money, security, degree, and then for a terrible moment he thought, Maybe I would have thrown away love first too but he stopped this in time; he said, “You haven’t got enough money, even if your name were Callaghan. I’ll just take all the risk instead.”
Three days later they who had not been met walked with the Buckners across the canyon to the waiting ore train. Wilbourne had steadily refused even the hundred dollars, accepting at last and instead of it a hundred dollar assignment on Buckner’s back pay which they both knew would never be paid, this to be expended against its equivalent in food from the commissary, whose key Buckner had surrendered to him. “It sounds damn foolish to me,” Buckner said. “The commissary is yours anyway.”
“It will keep the books balanced,” Wilbourne said. They followed the path which was no path, to the train, the engine with neither head nor tail, the three ore cars, the toy caboose. Buckner looked up at the mine, the gaping orifice, the refuse dump scarring the pristine snow. It was clear now, the sun low and thin above the serrated rosy peaks in a sky of incredible blue. “What will they think when they find you are gone?”
“Maybe they will think I have gone after the money myself. I hope they do, for your sake.” Then he said, “They are better off here. No worries about rent and such and getting drunk and then getting sober again, enough food to keep you all until spring. And they have something to do, keep the days filled, and nights to lie in bed and count up that overtime. A man can go a long way on what he thinks he’s going to get. And he may send some money yet.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No,” Buckner said. “Dont you believe it either.”
“I dont think I ever have,” Wilbourne said. “Not even that day in his office. Maybe even less then than at any time.” They were standing a little aside from the two women. “Look, when you get out and find a chance, have her see a doctor. A good one. Tell him the truth.”
“What for?” Buckner said.
“I’d rather you would. I’d feel easier.”
“Nah,” the other said. “She’s all right. Because you’re all right. If I hadn’t known that, do you think I’d a let you do it?” Now it was time; the locomotive blew a shrill peanut-whistle blast, the Buckners got into the caboose and it began to move. Charlotte and Wilbourne looked after it for only a moment, then Charlotte turned, already running. The sun was almost down, the peaks ineffable and tender, the sky amber and azure; for an instant Wilbourne heard the voices from the mine, wild faint and incomprehensible.
“Oh, God,” Charlotte said. “Let’s dont even eat tonight. Hurry. Run.” She ran on, then she stopped and turned, the broad blunt face rosy in the reflected pink, the eyes now green with it above the shapeless sheep collar of the shapeless coat. “No,” she said. “You run in front, so I can be undressing us both in the snow. But run.” But he did not go ahead, he did not even run, he walked so he could watch her diminishing ahead of him along the path which was no path, then mounting the other wall toward the cabin, who, save for the fact that she wore them with the same abrupt obliviousness with which she wore dresses, should never have worn pants at all, and entered the cabin and found her now stripping off even the woollen underwear. “Hurry,” she said. “Hurry. Six weeks. I have almost forgotten how. No,” she said, “I’ll never forget that. You never forget that, thank you sweet God.” Then she said, holding him, the hard arms and thighs: “I guess I am a sissy about love. I never could, even with just one other person in the bed with us.”
They didn’t get up to prepare or eat supper. After a time they slept; Wilbourne waked somewhere in the rigid night to find the stove had gone out and the room freezing cold. He thought of Charlotte’s undergarment where she had flung it away onto the floor; she would need it, she should have it on now. But it too would be like iron ice and he thought for a while about getting up and fetching it into the bed and thawing it, warming it beneath his body until she could put it on and at last he found will power to begin to move but at once she clutched him. “Where you going?” He told her. She clutched him, hard. “When I get cold, you can always cover me.”
Each day he would visit the mine, where the frenzied and unabated work continued. On the first visit the men looked at him not with curiosity or surprise but merely with interrogation, obviously looking for Buckner too. But nothing else happened and he realised that they did not even know probably that
