Time was gettin’ on as I walked into the store on this fall afternoon. Mam was lickin’ her pencil lead and figurin’ up on a brown paper poke how much ole Doc Moses owed her. Doc Moses wasn’t really a doctor, but he came in every month and stocked up on doctorin’ supplies for the people that lived up on the mountain near him. We don’t really have a doctor, leastwise not one with proper education — the real doctor down Rocktown way only comes through when he’s sent for, and that’s only as a last resort. Anyways I noticed ole Doc Moses was gettin’ some castor oil, some paragoric (some of the babes must have colic up that way), some croup medicine, some Epsom salts, and and some camphor — some opium and some snakeroot, too. I shouldn’t oughta be so nosy, but I’m kinda interested in doctorin’ myself.
But what I started tellin’ you all this for is because just as Mam was finishin’ totalin’ up, in comes a stranger. Now we don’t get too many strangers comin’ to these here parts, ‘specially seein’ as how times are gettin’ so hard up. And this stranger was a whooo-whee. It was a woman, and she was dressed in skintight leather britches and a red vest lined with some kinda fur. She was tall, mebbe six feet, and she had a knapsack flung over her shoulder, and let me tell you, she was a fine figger of a woman. None of us had heard her ride up, and didn’t rightly know where she came from even.
She stood just inside the door, and looked around, and let me tell you, you coulda heard a pin drop as all eyes fixed on her. She just looked at us, kinda cool-like, and walked over to the post office counter, and stood there waitin’ until finally Grandpap Ed gets himself together enough to scurry over and asks if he can help her. We were all just shamelessly listenin’ since we don’t get this kinda excitement every day. She just gives Grandpap Ed a slow smile, and asks him does he have any mail for a Suze Campbell. Grandpap, he gives her a kinda silly grin, and I hear Mam snort “Ole fool,” under her breath before she goes back to figurin’ and announcin’ loudly to Doc Moses, “You owe me $4.27.” He don’t pay her no mind, just chews his straw and looks on at Grandpap and the woman.
Grandpap collects hisself enough to say no, he doesn’t, and she asks him to be on the lookout for some, that she’s expectin’ an important letter and she’ll be back. Before any of us could get ourselves together enough to introduce ourselves, or at least say howdy, she up and leaves, walkin’ down the road at quite a clip, in the direction of the mines, I notice.
And oh, the buzz of conversation when she was gone. Some disapproval from the women there and a lotta curiosity from everyone. But since nobody knew nothin’, it didn’t go very far, and folks got back to their own concerns.
It’s pretty crowded, and altho’ folks seem like they want to stand around and gossip on who the stranger is, there’s some need to get their buyin’ done and get on home against the chill of an early autumn evening. People are pretty superstitious around these parts, and a lot of ’em don’t like to be out after dark. Too many men have died in those mines, and there’s a lot of talk about how the roads hereabouts are spooked.
I follow the Miller brothers out onto the porch, and smile as they punch each other and do some off-color joshin’ about the stranger. But as they move off, and their laughter drifts away on the evening air, my smile fades as I look off towards the mines. I have one of my feelins’ about this here stranger, and it ain’t a good one.