Page 53 of The Harvey Girls

Forty

The sun had risen high enough now for its rays to sweep against them on the trail, and Billie unbuttoned the neck of her white cotton blouse to invite the air.

She gazed out at the verdant valley far below tucked between the massive walls of canyon.

Robert was explaining something about the Bright Angel Fault and how it was the place where the something-something met the something-something.

Billie had fallen into the hypnotic rhythm of motion, listening mostly to the mesmerizing drumbeat of her boot heels hitting the stony path.

Her thoughts wandered, but they always returned to one thing: she would tell Robert her age and ask his forgiveness for misleading him when they stopped for lunch. It was only right.

After several hours the trail leveled out and was lined not by rock but by grasses and low bushes. The dry air seemed to moisten, and soon she could hear the tinkling of a stream.

“We’re almost there,” said Robert. “Indian Garden. I know it’s only nine in the morning, but for us it’s lunchtime!”

Amid the greenery, the place was scattered with low, mostly decrepit buildings and tent frames.

“Ralph Cameron’s campground,” explained Robert.

“He’s been fighting the Park Service for decades for control of this place, and the last few years he’s barely put a dime into upkeep.

Apparently they even found a still for making hooch in one of the abandoned buildings!

But we finally got him, and we’ll come in and clean up his mess soon enough.

I hear Fred Harvey has plans to build a hotel down here. The possibilities are endless.”

“Why do they call it Indian Garden if it’s Mr. Cameron’s?”

“Oh, well, I suppose before him this used to be Indian land. They had their farms down here with all kinds of vegetables and fruit. With the springs here, it’s one of the best places to grow things in the whole canyon.

The place was crawling with red men. Cameron let a few of them stay, but we’ll clear them out as soon as it’s legally ours. ”

Billie’s thoughts swung to the conversation she’d had with Charlotte about missionaries trying to turn the Indians into Christians. Clear them out , Robert had said. But to where? And why couldn’t they just stay here on their own land?

They found some rocks to sit on by the spring-fed creek and took off their boots and socks to cool their feet in the water.

Robert refilled his canteen and began to set out the lunch he’d brought: cream cheese and olive sandwiches, apples, biscuits, and even a couple of Oh Henry!

bars. Billie was surprisingly hungry and felt she’d be better prepared to make the admission about her age once she had some food in her stomach.

“I’m glad my girl likes to eat,” said Robert admiringly. “Those delicate flowers who just pick at their dinner—I don’t understand that at all.”

As soon as they’d finished the last of the chocolate bars, he started to pack up and put his boots back on. “The hike back will take five or six hours, and we want to do as much of it as we can before the hottest part of the afternoon. It’s a cool day for July, but it’s still July.”

“Yes, but can’t we take an extra minute to—”

“You want to do a little exploring before we head out?”

“Oh. Sure.”

As they walked farther down the trail, he took her hand in his and gave her a grin. He looked so happy…

“Robert?” she began.

He stopped suddenly, and Billie thought he was turning to answer her, but his gaze went past her.

Then she saw the man. He was bent over, working at the ground with a sturdy stick.

His black hair was shoulder-length with a thick row of bangs across his forehead.

He wore an old button-down shirt and a pair of canvas pants.

There was a bandanna knotted around his head, just like Billie’s da sometimes wore to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

In fact the whole messy getup reminded her of her da’s when he was trying to make some semblance of order out of the yard.

Under a nearby tree sat a woman of about her maw’s age.

Similar to the man, she had thick bangs across her forehead, though the rest of her dark hair trailed down over her upper arms. She had a long dress and a shawl over her shoulders pinned in front, both a bit dusty.

She was working on something in her lap.

At first Billie thought it might be a sewing project, but then she realized it looked to be the beginnings of a basket.

As Billie studied her, the woman’s eyes came up from her work and met Billie’s. She gave a little smile and a nod. Billie smiled back, and she was about to go toward the woman and ask if she could look at the basket, when Robert muttered, “Filthy heathens.”

“Robert, they’re just—”

“You there!” Robert called out, and the man suddenly stood up from his work. The woman was no longer smiling. “You won’t be here long, you know!”

The man dropped his stick and moved cautiously toward his wife. Neither looked at Robert and Billie, only gazed mildly at the ground. They did not cower, but they went still as if to prepare themselves for whatever this large white man might do. Billie herself wasn’t sure what he might do.

“Robert, let’s go.”

He glared at them a moment longer, then turned back up the trail.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Billie’s heart pounding with anger.

Why had he felt the need to yell at them like that?

They weren’t hurting anyone, only going about their chores as her own parents were probably doing this very minute a thousand miles away.

And soon people like Robert would come and “clear them out,” just as her own ancestors had been forced to leave their native land.

“These cottonwoods were planted by Cameron to increase the shade,” said Robert, recommencing what Billie now knew would be five to six hours of lecturing.

“The stupid Indians keep cutting the branches of the willows to make their baskets, so he took matters into his own hands and planted trees they couldn’t use.

You have to admire the man for that, at least.”

I don’t admire him , thought Billie, and I don’t admire you.

Robert’s canteen had run dry a mile below the rim, and Billie felt as limp as a week-old bouquet.

She wanted nothing more than to leave this man behind and head straight for her dorm, gulp gallons from the kitchen faucet, and then sink into the claw-foot tub to wash away the dust and the disgust she felt.

He was unkind. And she was foolish.

“Robert,” she said as they reached the trailhead, “thank you for taking me.”

“It was my pleasure!”

“I don’t want to be your girl anymore.”

Pride slid down his face and melted into alarm. “What?”

“I don’t want to go steady anymore.”

“But we just—” He threw his long arm out toward the canyon. “We had such a nice…”

As limp as she felt, Billie pulled herself to her full height. “I don’t like how you treated those Indians. You scared them, and you scared me.”

His mouth went slack with surprise. Then he clamped it shut again and put his fists on his hips. “The Indians ? You’re breaking up with me over the way I spoke to a couple of dirty—”

Billie didn’t want to listen anymore. And in fact, she didn’t have to listen to him ever again. She turned on her heel and left him standing there.

Charlotte and Will held each other far longer than a friendly, consoling hug between an unrelated man and a woman would ever—should ever—go on.

Billie had accused her of becoming “a hugger.” Wouldn’t her brother, Oliver, have a good laugh over that. As children they hadn’t been cuddled or taken onto laps, and Charlotte wasn’t the type to fawn around hanging an arm over the shoulders of her girlfriends.

She and Simeon had embraced quite often—in the beginning, anyway, and secretly, of course. It had made her feel tingly and daring and special. It had been an act of defiance, a symbol that she’d gained her freedom from the straitjacket of polite society. That she’d won.

Perhaps she’d won the battle, but she had most assuredly lost the war.

Now, with Will in her arms and she in his, Charlotte didn’t feel tingly or brave. She felt safe and comforted and right. And yes, a bit flushed in the places a woman flushes, craving his hands and his mouth.

Finally they slowly, gently pulled apart, both aware that they’d arrived at a point beyond which neither was quite yet prepared to trespass.

No longer touching, eyes averted in sudden shyness, Charlotte felt bereft and unsteady, as if the very thing she’d needed all this time to hold her up had been suddenly removed.

Silence filled the cabin for several long moments until Will asked, “Have you filed for divorce?”

Her gaze came up to find his. His cheeks were pink and his breathing shallow. He, too, looked unsteady.

The question, though reasonable, felt pointed to her, as if there was some judgment in it.

If he was so terrible, Charlotte, why haven’t you legally excised him from your life?

It wasn’t his question, she realized, but the question she’d been asking herself.

Her answer had an edge of defensiveness to it. “If I do, he’ll find me.”

“I can protect you.”

“You can’t be with me every minute of the day and night, Will.”

“You could use a lawyer who won’t disclose your whereabouts.”

“He’s a brilliant bloodhound, and sleuthing is his favorite game. It’s what makes him such a good newspaperman.”

“He’s a reporter?”

“Yes, and he’ll track me down like the story of the century. Believe me, I know my own husband.”

The words my own husband seemed to hit him like a slap.

“Charlotte,” he breathed, “I want so much to… but you’re a married woman.”

It hadn’t really occurred to her, she realized, that after all that she’d gone through—the cascading heartbreaks of losing her family, the man she loved turning on her so viciously, being reduced to squirreling away her tips like acorns for the looming winter—that there was anything left of her heart to break.

Will was a good and honorable man. And he was right; whatever they wanted and however much they wanted it, a romantic entanglement was ill-advised for them both.

“Yes, I am,” she said simply. “And I won’t be here for long.”

The next morning, Charlotte asked to speak to Mr. Patrillo.

“What can I do for you?” he said without looking up from the papers on his enormous desk.

“I’m ready to relocate.”