Work Song - Ivan Doig [55]
“Then this is a kind of truce,” I wanted to make sure of what I was hearing, “of the moment?”
“That’s not a bad way of putting it,” he commended in his best sergeant manner. “The one thing sure about dealing with Anaconda is that the war is never over.”
WHATEVER LUNAR POWER Miners Day possessed that the year’s other three hundred and sixty-four did not, things settled down ahead of it. Work actions ceased and the Hill pulsed day and night with the excavation of rich copper ore. The coveted dollar a day, as Jared had said, was added back in to the wages of ten thousand temporarily soothed union men. Without the morning tide of miners, library life quieted to its usual seashell tone of whispers. Miraculously, I nearly caught up with the chores Sandison pushed my way. He himself, of course, constituted a sizable task as often as not.
This day I came back into the office after some errand to find him pacing from his desk to the window and back, his bootsteps sharp as a march beat. Barely acknowledging me with a glance, he delivered: “That robber Gardiner in New York I deal with has a fine copy of The Bride of Lammermoor. What do you think?”
Quick as a fingersnap, I calculated what a transaction of that sort would do to the delicate balance I had achieved in the library’s ledger. “Sir Walter Scott himself regarded that as one of his lesser works,” I responded breezily. “Rather like Ivanhoe, but done with a trowel.”
He grunted. “All right, I’ll think it over.” The boots retraced their route as if following dance steps imprinted on the floor. I grew uneasy as he prowled the room, more often than not a signal that something was on his mind. I could only hope no one had blabbed to him that I was staying late after the Jabberwockians and other evening groups packed up and went home, and immersing myself suspiciously deep in the mineralogy section.
Just then Miss Mitchell from the cataloguing section, young and rather pretty and somewhat of a flirt, came in with a question. I dealt with it in no time and she pranced out.
Sandison watched the back of her until she shimmied out of sight, then turned to me with a frown. “Morgan, I don’t see you making eyes at young things like that even when they’re asking for it. What are you, some kind of buck nun?”
This turn of topic took me off guard. Good grief, did my social situation look that dusty to someone whose own idea of mating in life was the grandee and grandora sort? Trying not to show how much that smarted, I stiffly assured my white-bearded interrogator: “I enjoy female companionship when it presents itself, never fear.”
“THIS DAY GOT AWAY FROM ME.” Grace guiltily bustled past me, trying to tie her apron and control her braid at the same time, when I came in at the end of my own hectic day. “How do you feel about cold turkey for supper?”
“Rather tepid. Let me see what can be done.” Following her to the kitchen, I scrounged the cupboard, coming up with cheese that was mostly rind, some shelled walnuts, and macaroni. Yielding the culinary arena gracefully, so to speak, Grace stood aside while I whacked chunks of the turkey into smaller pieces and set those to simmering in cream and flour in a baking pan.
“Such talent.” She watched with folded arms as I did my imitation of Escoffier. “If all else fails, you can get on as a cook at the Purity,” she ventured.
Up until then, I had not offered any explanation of Rab mysteriously summoning me to the cafeteria, nor, for that matter, of Rab herself. “Yes, well, Miss Rellis you heard mentioned by our fleet young friend the other day,” I fussed with the meal makings some more while coming up with a judicious version of the past, “and to make a long story short,” by which time a pot of water was boiling merrily and I dumped in the macaroni for what was going to approximate turkey tetrazzini, “someone I knew when she was just a girl ends up