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Guardian of the Hills

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS OF THE train, the unfamiliar woodland rushed past. The trees were bare, the ground muffled under a brown shroud of fallen leaves. Here and there houses appeared briefly between the trunks, bringing swift impressions of slatted walls, blank windows, empty yards.

Pamela sat with her cheek against the glass, numb with change and lack of sleep. She felt as if she had passed right out of the known world during the long night. More than twenty-four hours ago they had left the familiar Connecticut landscape behind, moving south, then turning west in Virginia to begin the long trek across the inland states. Night fell in Richmond. Morning brought Memphis: a brief stopover and a hasty meal. A new train took them through the outskirts of the city, past a vast hobo camp, across the great expanse of the Mississippi. The train was moving into Arkansas now, on the last leg of the journey. In a little more than two hours they would reach their destination.

Pamela looked to her mother, dozing in the seat opposite. A crease came and went between Elizabeth's penciled brows; there were marks like bruises beneath her eyes. Yet not even travel and exhaustion could mar her beauty. Her skin was a warm brown, her eyes long and tilted and nearly black, her nose slightly flattened over the nostrils, her cheekbones high and broad. Her heavy hair was jet black; it would not hold a permanent wave, and she wore it unfashionably, coiled into a bun at the back of her neck. It was difficult to believe she was no more than half-Indian. Her European ancestry showed only in the chiseling of her lips and a creaminess beneath her dark complexion. Pamela often wished she looked like her mother. Yet it had always been a source of pride to Elizabeth that Pamela looked so un-Indian, with her reddish brown hair, regular features, hazel eyes, and pale skin as fair and fine as her father's.

Pamela turned her attention back to the alien landscape, thinking about what lay ahead: an Arkansas town called Flat Hills, a house where her mother had grown up, and her grandfather. Pamela knew that her grandfather was a lawyer, that his wife had been a full-blooded Quapaw Indian who had died when Pamela's mother was still a child, and that he lived in the big house that had belonged to his family since pioneer days. But that was all. In her entire life Pamela had never met her grandfather.

Pamela had wondered about this occasionally when she was young, about the source of the deep division between her mother and grandfather. All Elizabeth ever said, when pushed, was that Arkansas was much too far away to visit. Only the formal greeting cards, which never failed to arrive at Christmas and on Elizabeth's birthday, broke the enduring silence between father and daughter.

But then the Great Depression came, like a cold wind across the country. Banks closed, businesses collapsed, jobs failed. Pamela's closest friend and her family lost their house to foreclosure. Hoboes drifted through town, sleeping in the rail yard; long lines formed every day at the soup kitchen. Every night the radio brought news of unemployment, hunger, and despair.

Pamela's father had died some years before, leaving them well provided for; Elizabeth had supplemented the income from his wise investments with a successful flower-arranging business. But the Depression swallowed the investments and left little demand for luxuries such as flowers. Piece by piece, Elizabeth began to sell off the property Pamela's father had purchased over the years. It brought in money, enough to live on if they were careful. But one day Pamela returned home from school to find Elizabeth sitting by the window, staring blankly out at the winter landscape. Her shoulders were slumped and her hands lay limp in her lap. She turned her face to her daughter.

"The land's gone," she said. "I sold the last of it today. There's nothing left now, except the house."

Pamela stared at her mother. She had never seen Elizabeth look so defeated.

"I don't know what to do, Pamela," Elizabeth said, and the hopelessness in her voice was the most terrible thing Pamela had ever heard. "I just don't know what we're going to do."

That night after supper, Elizabeth sat Pamela down in the front room and took both her daughter's hands in hers. Her face was determined: Pamela knew a decision had been made.

"Pamela," Elizabeth said. "You know how hard things have been for us. My flower business is barely surviving, and there aren't any jobs to be had—once the money from this last land sale is gone, there won't be enough coming in to live on. We're two months behind on the mortgage as it is, and the bank is threatening to foreclose. I've thought and thought about what to do, and there's only one thing I can see." She took a deep breath. "We have to go to my father in Arkansas."

Pamela stared at her mother, speechless. It was as if Elizabeth had told her they were going to the moon. Elizabeth tightened her grip on her daughter's hands.

"I know this is sudden, darling. I know it'll be hard for you to leave your school and your friends. But I just can't see any other way for us. Your grandfather is a rich man. He can give you opportunities I can't possibly provide. It's for the best, really it is. Can you understand that? Can you try?"

"I ... I guess so," Pamela managed through dry lips.

"It won't be so bad, you'll see. Flat Hills is ... it's actually quite a nice town. There's a movie theater, and an ice-cream parlor. The house is big—you'll have your own room, just the way you do here. You'll make friends in school. You'll come to like it. I'm sure you will."

The next weeks were a whirlwind of activity. Elizabeth arranged for their home to be put on the market, and for its contents to be sold for cash. They would be taking with them only what could fit into their trunks and suitcases. Daily the house became emptier. Pamela felt as if her life were being wiped away. Questions struggled within her; why Arkansas, after all these years of silence? Was there really no alternative but to leave their entire life behind, no option but to go live with someone Pamela had never met, someone with whom Elizabeth had barely communicated for longer than Pamela could remember? But Elizabeth's frenetic activity was like a barrier. Behind it she seemed to have grown very distant.

And so Pamela did not ask questions. She did not shout, as she sometimes wished she could, that it was unfair, that she did not want to go, that she knew she would hate strange, faraway Arkansas, where she had no friends and nothing would be familiar. Instead she watched silently as the underpinnings of her world disappeared. The floor seemed to tremble beneath her feet sometimes, as if she stood at the edge of an abyss. At its bottom waited a blank called Flat Hills, a shadow called her grandfather, and a new life she did not want and could not even imagine.

Pamela woke to a hand on her arm. "Sit up, Pamela," her mother said. "We're almost there."

Pamela obeyed. Uneasy dreams had flashed through her sleep, dark and tangled like the passing forests. Her legs and back ached from the hardness of the seats.

Elizabeth began to prepare herself. First she took down and combed her hair, coiling it neatly away again. Tucking a handkerchief inside the collar of her blouse, she dusted pale powder over her face and neck, pausing to let it settle, repeating the process. Rouge came next, disguising the broad cheekbones. She carefully lined and shaded her eyes to minimize their slant and, lastly, lipsticked her lips a dark red. It was an invariable ritual: She performed it quickly, deft despite the jolting of the train. Complete, she looked no less beautiful, but much less Indian. The cosmetics gave her face a slightly masklike quality, a porcelain artificiality that her bare features did not possess.

"Tidy your hair, Pamela," she said, holding out the comb. "You look like a little savage with it tangled up like that."

Pamela obeyed. Why must Elizabeth speak to her sometimes as if she were still a child of ten? She stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from her wool jumper, pulled up her socks, checked the knots on her plain brown oxfords, and adjusted her blouse. Stiffly she sat down once more.

The countryside had changed. The woods were now interspersed with fields and farms. Soon it became apparent that they were on the outskirts of a town. The buildings were shabby and unpainted, roofed with corrugated tin or wooden shingles. The train slowed, running parallel to a paved road lined with houses and stores. At last, the wheels squealing, the train pulled into the station, halting with a final jolt and a great hissing of steam.

Elizabeth was on her feet, adjusting her hat and buttoning her coat. She wrestled their luggage down from the overhead rack, tottering slightly on her high heels. They had brought with them only two suitcases; the trunks would follow later, by freight. The stationmaster, an aged man in a neat blue uniform, took the cases, extending a hand to assist Elizabeth down the steps. Almost as their feet touched the platform the train rocked, shot up jets of steam, and groaned slowly out of the station, picking up speed as it disappeared round the bend of the tracks. The clacking of its wheels faded, lost in distance.

The stationmaster placed their cases on the platform and vanished inside the station house. Pamela looked at her mother; Elizabeth's face was calm, but she was tugging and smoothing her elegant gloves, a sign that she was nervous. There was no one else on the platform. Pamela hugged herself against the raw chill of the air.

There was the sound of footsteps: A man mounted the platform steps and approached them. Beside her, Pamela felt her mother's immobility.

"Well, Elizabeth," said the man, reaching them. His voice was soft and slightly hoarse.

"Well, Father."

Elizabeth moved forward, rested one hand lightly on his shoulder, and touched her lips briefly to his cheek. She stepped back and put an arm around Pamela's shoulders.

"This is Pamela."

Pamela looked up at him. Her grandfather, she thought. He was tall and very slightly stooped; silver hair showed beneath his hat. His deep-set eyes were overhung by bushy brows. His features were large and well defined, his skin weathered, as if he spent a good deal of time outdoors. Despite the lines on his face, he gave an impression of strength and fitness.

"Hello, Pamela," he said gravely. He glanced at Elizabeth. "She favors her father."

Pamela felt a momentary tightening of her mother's fingers. "Yes," Elizabeth answered.

He bent and lifted their suitcases and led the way across the platform to a large sleek black car parked in the street. It was a recent-model Packard, with sweeping rounded contours and polished chrome. It seemed utterly out of place on the shabby street.

There was no conversation as they drove away from the station. Pamela's grandfather stared straight ahead; Elizabeth looked out the window, her face weary. The silence felt oppressive. The town rolled past the windows of the car: The dilapidated houses gave way to a downtown area of shops and businesses, which gave way in turn to streets of well-kept dwellings with substantial lawns. The car turned at last into a driveway, and Pamela looked up at the place that was to be her home.

IT WAS A LARGE HOUSE, BUILT OF white-painted boards, with gingerbread trim around the eaves and the long porch, and wide green shutters on the French windows of the ground floor. The lawn, bordered by a tall hedge, was meticulously landscaped, with shrubs done up in sacking for the winter. Curtains were drawn across all the windows; the house seemed to be asleep.

The front door opened onto a wide hallway lined with bookshelves, with big double doors opening off both sides and a staircase at the back. Pamela's grandfather led the way to the upstairs hall, identical to the one below. He set the cases down.

"You'll have your old room, Elizabeth," he said. "Pamela may have the room next door."

"Thank you, Father," said Elizabeth.

"Well, I will leave you to rest. Dinner is at seven promptly."

He turned and went down the stairs. His back had a dismissive quality; it was as if he had already forgotten them.

Pamela looked at her mother, feeling dazed.

"The bathroom is at the end of the hall," Elizabeth said. "Why don't you have a bath. But be quick, because I want one too."

Pamela's room was a pleasant surprise. It was large, the walls papered in a pretty sprigged pattern of blue flowers. The bed had a dark wooden headboard and was covered with a white flocked spread. There was a sit-down dressing table with a marble top, an oval mirror, and many small drawers with oddly shaped pulls like little tassels. A big wardrobe stood beside it. Opposite the bed was a fireplace; a coal fire winked in the grate.

There were windows on either side of the bed, their blue curtains half-drawn. The windows faced the backyard, which was large and less manicured than the front. A great leafless mass of trees came right up to its rear edge. Pamela thought of the lost Connecticut woods, of the white snow-carpet that hid the browns and blacks and bronzes and transformed the winter world. Did it ever snow here? She stared out at the gray landscape dimming with the approach of evening. The floor seemed to sway slightly, as if she were still on the train.

A wash and a change of clothes made her feel somewhat better. She busied herself for a while unpacking, until sounds in the next room announced that Elizabeth had finished her own bath. She knocked at Elizabeth's door and heard her mother's soft "Come in."

Having removed her makeup in the bath, Elizabeth was now going through the entire ritual again. She had washed her hair; black and glossy, it hung over her shoulders to dry. Pamela sat down on the bed, glancing around. This was the room in which Elizabeth had spent her childhood. It was very much like Pamela's, with similar furniture and wallpaper. There were no photographs or knickknacks, no books or mementos of Elizabeth's youth, only Elizabeth's current possessions: the dress laid out on a chair, the array of cosmetics and face creams spread across the dressing table, the open suitcase.

"Mother," said Pamela at last, tentatively.

"Yes, Pamela?" Elizabeth was carefully applying lipstick and spoke through stretched lips.

"Does Grandfather not want us here?"

Elizabeth's hand stopped moving; after a second she turned around. "Of course he wants us here."

Pamela looked down at the white bedspread. "He didn't seem very glad to see us."

"It's not that, Pam. It's just ... well, it's been a long time, for both of us. We have to get used to each other again."

Her makeup finished, Elizabeth pinned up her still-damp hair and stepped into the dress she had selected for tonight. It was a fine burgundy wool challis, cut to flatter her slim figure, with lace at the collar and cuffs. No one looking at it would guess that it had been bought years ago, when times were still good, and altered since then to keep up with changing fashion. Pamela loved and envied her mother's clothing. She longed to wear the kinds of grown-up things many of her friends at home did, but Elizabeth still chose for Pamela the same jumpers, jerseys, and pleated skirts Pamela had worn when she was ten years old. It was, Pamela sometimes thought, as if her mother wished her to remain a child forever.

"Button me up, will you, Pam?" Pamela obeyed. When she was finished, Elizabeth turned. She placed her hand against her daughter's cheek. "I know you're feeling lost and lonely just now, darling. But it'll pass, I promise. Everything will be all right. This time next year, you'll hardly even remember Connecticut. All right, darling?"

Pamela felt her eyes filling with tears. She went into her mother's arms. But after only a moment, firmly, Elizabeth pulled away.

"Look at you, you're all mussed again," she said gently.

Deftly she smoothed Pamela's hair and clothing. She adjusted her own dress, straightened the seams of her stockings, and stooped to peer in the mirror one last time. Then, taking a deep breath as if to prepare herself, she led the way into the hall.

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Excerpted from Guardian of the Hills by Victoria Strauss. Copyright © 1995 Victoria Strauss. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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