Page 52 of The Harvey Girls

Though the trail was in the shade as far down as she could see, it soon became clear that Robert was right.

Once they began, she could feel her body warm with exhilaration.

She was finally going into the canyon! The sun had just risen behind them as they headed west along the trail, casting a rosy glow against the rock walls ahead of them.

As she knew he would, Robert began telling her about the trail and surroundings. “It used to be called Cameron’s Trail, after the man who built it. He’s one of Arizona’s two US senators now.”

“Gosh, that must have been hard work, cutting into the canyon walls.”

“Oh, there was a path that the Indians used, but he improved it tremendously. He had some mining sites down in the canyon, and he wanted to be able to reach them easily.”

A little farther along he pointed up the cliffside to their left.

“The Mallery Grotto,” he said, and once she located it, she could see red markings under a shallow ledge in the canyon wall.

“It was named after Garrick Mallery, an expert in Indian pictographs. See the deer figures marching along? Those are several thousand years old!”

“Imagine people living here thousands of years ago,” Billie said with wonder, “heading down this trail where we are now, just like we are.”

“They weren’t really like us, though. They were primitives, not people the way we think of it. No industry, no advancements, not even written language, just scratchings on rock.”

As they proceeded down the interminable switchbacks, they had to flatten themselves against the canyon side of the trail several times to let the mule trains carrying tourists go by.

She was glad they were on foot, traveling like people had thousands of years ago.

She wondered what those long-ago humans thought about.

Did they marvel at the beauty, or were they mostly concerned with getting from one place to another?

Did they hope there was a good meal waiting for them?

Did they tell jokes, worry about their children, plan their futures?

As Robert expounded on flora, fauna, and geology, Billie found her mind wandering back to her family.

Angus had completed his apprenticeship at the brick factory, and Maw suspected he was sweet on Maybelle Watkins, “bewitched by that silly giggle she has.” Peigi would be fourteen in a month; however, she was still in school, thanks to the money Billie sent home.

Elspeth had lost her first tooth. “She wanted to send it to you, and I said I would, so your next letter home better make mention of it.” Billie chuckled to herself at the thought of a baby tooth traveling all this way.

She would say that she tossed it into the canyon so Elspeth could claim she was the first person in the family to go all the way to the bottom.

Robert pointed out the slow circling of hawks and the screeching of the blue-winged pinyon jay, the prickly pear cactus, and where the sandy yellow rock dust turned to red as they moved down on to another geologic striation.

As they descended, the temperature climbed, and soon Billie had stripped off the cardigan and tied it around her waist. They stopped occasionally to drink from Robert’s canteen.

He carried an entire day’s worth of food and water for the two of them in his rucksack, and Billie felt as if he’d attended to her every need.

He really was quite wonderful.

She, on the other hand, was a liar. The time had come to own up.

Charlotte yawned as she waited for her next tour on the steps of the El Tovar porch. Billie had gotten up so early for her canyon trip, and though she’d been quiet, Charlotte had woken. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from whispering into the darkness, “Please don’t fall in.”

“I plan to get to the bottom quickly, but not that quickly,” said Billie.

Charlotte hadn’t been able to go back to sleep after that.

Will pulled up in the Harvey Car and stepped out to wait with her as she stifled another yawn. “Hello, sleepyhead.”

“Billie’s in the abyss.”

“She’ll be fine. She’s with a park ranger, after all.”

“I just wish…” She wasn’t sure how to complete the thought; there were so many wishes to choose from. But she didn’t have a chance to consider any of them, because they were suddenly bombarded by three young women all talking at once.

“We’re here!—Sorry we’re late!—Oh dear, where’s my hat?—Are you the ones? The Harvey Car people?—Of course they are, you ninny! Look at them!”

They finally stopped prattling long enough for Charlotte and Will to introduce themselves. The women did the same and shared that they had just graduated from college.

“Radcliffe,” said the one with an unfortunate underbite. “Have you heard of it?”

“It’s near Harvard.” This one’s nose turned up, reminding Charlotte of the little pig in Winnie-the-Pooh . “You’ve heard of that , right?”

“I believe I have.” Charlotte surreptitiously pinched her thumb to keep herself in check.

“Well, of course they have, Lillian!” scoffed the third, pulling a monogrammed handkerchief out of her purse to swipe at nonexistent dust on the car seat. “Everyone’s heard of Harvard, for goodness’ sake.”

“This is the West, Mildred. Who even knows if they have regular mail out here?”

The women squeezed themselves into the middle seat and immediately began tittering to each other about one of their classmates “from Colorado, of all places!”

On the long trip to Cameron, Charlotte tried to do her job of providing commentary on the surroundings and the history, but the girls seemed more interested in gossiping about their classmates—who was getting married, and to whom, and where they planned to honeymoon, and whether each had made a good match or was doomed to “marry beneath her.”

When they walked into the trading post, suddenly they were stuck to Charlotte like glue.

“Tell us about the jewelry!”

But they didn’t want to know about how the lovely items were made or the significance of their forms or detailing; they were mostly interested in how to buy the biggest items for the lowest prices.

“Look at this!” Mildred pointed to one of the larger necklaces. “It’s huge!”

The chain of the necklace was laden with silver beads the size of peas, interspersed with beads that flared out at the ends like the petals of a flower. The pendant was a large silver horseshoe imbedded with smooth pieces of turquoise.

“It’s a squash blossom necklace,” explained Charlotte. “Squash is one of the four sacred plants of the Navajo, along with corn, beans, and tobacco—”

“It looks heavy—those Navajo ladies must have strong necks!”

“Try it on, Mildred!” the other two urged.

Charlotte looked around for a clerk to help them and caught John Honanie’s eye. “Would you mind opening the case, John?” she asked him.

“Certainly.”

The young women gawked at John as he lifted the necklace from the display. He was a large man with brown skin. His straight dark hair was parted down the middle and fell to his broad shoulders. He wore a plain blue muslin shirt, slightly wrinkled but clean.

“You know him?” one of the women whispered to Charlotte as if he couldn’t hear her.

“Yes, I do tours to Cameron often, and John is one of the most knowledgeable clerks here.”

“Thank you, Miss Charlotte.” He called her this only when customers were near. As she’d grown more comfortable around him, no longer taking his bluntness for disrespect, she had asked that he call her simply by her first name alone.

He held the necklace out to her, knowing the women would be uncomfortable if he came too close. She took it and placed it over the young woman’s neck.

“Oh, Mildred, it’s smashing!” said Lillian. “You look like a squaw!”

Mildred made a hooting sound as she patted her hand over her mouth, and the other two convulsed with laughter.

John gave Charlotte a hard, blank look. Charlotte raised her eyes to the ceiling as if praying for patience. This made him smile, and she smiled back. Though they had been born worlds apart, they both knew a mean-spirited fool when they saw one.

By the time Will pulled up to the curb back at El Tovar, the car loaded with a variety of items including the three largest squash blossom necklaces to be had, Charlotte felt as if the trip had taken eight days, not eight hours.

“Let’s go back and sit on my porch, and I’ll make us some sandwiches,” Will said after the women had departed with their loot.

That was how it often began: “We’ll sit on the porch.

” But that was not how it often ended. He would go into the kitchen to prepare a snack or a meal, and she would wander in to slice the tomatoes or collect the dishes.

And then they would remain inside, sitting at the little oak table.

At the end of the day, they sometimes talked until well after the sun had set and the evening had cooled.

As he sliced bread and she tore lettuce, she glanced over at the ornate clock that seemed so out of place.

She had often wanted to ask how it had come into his possession, but decorum kept her from prying.

Now, though, with the heat and the lingering irritation of the three college girls, Charlotte asked quite bluntly, “Wherever did that clock come from?”

Will didn’t answer for a moment, and in the distance, the sound of the mules braying in the barn seemed to fill the room. “From my mother,” he said finally.

“It’s an heirloom?”

“Yes. Her father brought it from Wales. It had been his father’s and he refused to sell it, even when his family was near ruin.”

“It’s got a bit of a checkered past, then,” said Charlotte.

“You could say that.”

“I take it that, under similar circumstances, you would have sold it?”

Will began to assemble the sandwiches, swiping the bread with a thin puddle of French’s Cream Salad Mustard and arranging the tomato slices. “I did sell it.”

Charlotte shifted into his sight line and waited for him to lift his gaze from the lunch he was now preparing as if it might detonate if he didn’t pay close enough attention. He glanced up at her. She tipped her head.

“My wife…”

Charlotte felt a brief pain below her clavicle, as if someone had thrown a small but very sharp rock at her. “You’re married.”

“Not anymore.”

She let her fingertips graze a knot in the wood tabletop. “I would like to know about that, if you’d like to tell me.”

“She was from Phoenix.” He said this as if it explained half of what would come next.

They met in Flagstaff. Her family had a summer place there as a respite from the Phoenix heat. His farm was near Ash Fork, but he often went to Flagstaff for supplies or to see a show at the Orpheum. They fell hard and married quickly.

“What’s her name?”

“It was Cora.”

Was.

“Oh,” Charlotte said softly.

“Farm life wasn’t for her. She’d been so certain it would be. As much as I tried to be realistic about it, I think she got caught up in my enthusiasm. Maybe I made it sound romantic in some way. I don’t know.” He sighed. “She loved the lambs, but she hated the sheep.”

“She left?”

“Went back to Phoenix.”

“Her family took her back?”

“Happily. She’d finally come to her senses.”

Charlotte nodded. Lucky girl.

“But then she got sick. A lot of people go to Phoenix for the cure, you know. Tuberculosis. The heat and dry air are good for them. She must have picked it up somewhere.”

Her sister wrote to Will. He pawned the clock for the money to take care of her and headed straight for Phoenix.

Charlotte looked at the lovely ornate piece, so out of place in the rustic cabin. “But…”

“She didn’t need it,” he said simply.

“Her parents paid for her care?”

“They had been, but by the time I got there…”

“Oh, Will. I’m so sorry. Did you arrive in time?”

“She told me she wished she’d stayed on the farm.” His hands had stopped moving over the sandwiches. “The money paid for her funeral.”

Charlotte felt his sorrow reverberate against her body and had to bite at the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

He glanced over at the clock and then resumed his sandwich making.

“Ash Fork is a small town. When the owner of the pawnshop heard, he dropped it off on my porch. Wouldn’t take a nickel for it. ”

Charlotte stepped toward him, slid her arms around his waist, and held him. It felt a little like when they’d danced together that night at the community hall, except she was the one rescuing him this time.

After a moment, he pulled back to look at her. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

Charlotte nodded.

“To the man who…”

“Yes.”

“What did you do with your wedding ring?”

“I pawned it, and I never want it back.”