Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

with leather purses, wallets, and pairs of moccasins arranged behind the glass. Scattered around on top of the case were Indian bead necklaces and bracelets and pieces of petrified wood. He moved over to the horseshoe-shaped counter and took a stool. Two men sitting a few stools down stopped talking and turned their heads to look at him. They were hunters, and their red hats and coats lay on an empty table behind them. Mr. Harrold waited and pulled at his fingers.
    "How long you been here?" the girl asked, frowning. She'd come on him soundlessly, from the kitchen. She put down a glass of water in front of him.
    "Not long," Mr. Harrold said.
    "You should've rung the bell," she said. Her braces glittered as she opened and closed her mouth.
    "I'm supposed to have a cabin," he said. "I wrote you a card and made a reservation a week or so ago."
    Til have to get Mrs. Maye," the girl said. "She's cooking. She's the one who looks after the cabins. She didn't say anything to me about it. We don't usually keep them open in the winter, you know."
    "I wrote you a card," he said. "You check with Mrs. Maye. You ask her about it." The two men had turned on their stools to look at him again.
    Til get Mrs. Maye," the girl said.
    Flushed, he closed his hands together on the counter in front of him. A big Frederic Remington reproduction hung on the wall at the far end of the room. He watched the lurching, frightened buffalo, and the Indians with the drawn bows fixed at their shoulders.
    "Mr. Harrold!" the old woman called, hobbling toward him. She was a small gray-haired woman with heavy breasts and a fat throat The straps to her underwear showed through her white uniform. She undid her apron and held out her hand.
    "Glad to see you, Mrs. Maye," he said as he got up off the stool.
    "I hardly recognized you/' the old woman said. "I don't know what's the matter with the girl sometimes...Edith...she's my granddaughter. My daughter and her husband are looking after the place now." She took her glasses off and began wiping away the steam from the lenses.
    He looked down at the polished counter. He smoothed his fingers over the grainy wood.
    "Where's the Missus?" she asked.
    "She didn't feel too well this week," Mr. Harrold said. He started to say something else, but there was nothing else to say.
    "I'm sorry to hear that! I had the cabin fixed up nice for the two of you," Mrs. Maye said. She took off the apron and put it behind the cash register. "Edith! I'm taking Mr. Harrold to his cabin! I'll have to get my coat, Mr. Harrold." The girl didn't answer. But she came to the kitchen door with a coffee pot in her hand and stared at them.
    Outside the sun had come out and the glare hurt his eyes. He held onto the banister and went slowly down the stairs, following Mrs. Maye, who limped.
    "Sun's bad, isn't it?' she said, moving carefully over the packed snow. He felt she ought to be using a cane. "The first time it's been out all week," she said. She waved at some people going by in a car.
    They went past a gasoline pump, locked and covered with snow, and past a little shed with a TIRES sign hung over the door. He looked through the broken windows at the heaps of burlap sacks inside, the old tires, and the barrels. The room was damp and cold-looking. Snow had drifted inside and lay sprinkled on the sill around the broken glass.
    "Kids have done that," Mrs. Maye said, stopping for a minute and putting her hand up to the broken window. "They don't miss a chance to do us dirt. A whole pack of them are all the time running wild from down at the construction camp." She shook her head. "Poor little devils. Sorry home life for kids anyway, always on
    the move like that. Their daddies are building on that dam." She unlocked the cabin door and pushed on it. "I laid a little fire this morning so it would be nice for you/' she said.
    "I appreciate that, Mrs. Maye," he said.
    There was a big double bed covered with a plain bedspread, a bureau, and a desk in the front room which was divided from the kitchen by a little plywood partition. There was also a sink, wood stove, woodbox, an old ice-box, an oilcloth covered table and two wooden chairs. A door opened to a bathroom. He saw a little porch to one side where he could hang his clothes.
    "Looks fine/' he said.
    "I tried to make it as nice as I could/' she said. "Do you need anything now, Mr. Harroldr
    "Not now anyway, thanks," he said.
    Til let you rest then. You're probably tired, driving all that way,"