Читать книгу Spawn of the North - Barrett Willoughby - Страница 13

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Dian, who had been upstairs bathing and dressing after her early morning cruise, came down to the kitchen to find the enraptured Sockeye standing before her guest in the attitude of a pouter pigeon. Eve, with one dainty pointed finger a foot distant from his broad chest, was admiringly tracing the outline of a spouting whale vividly tattooed there.

'Yes, my dear young lady,' he was explaining, 'I got that in good old 'Frisco. Was the year of the big run at Karluk. Woke up on Kearny Street the morning after the Star brought us back, and there she was spouting on my bosom natural as life. But you should see what I got on my back. Just a minute, and I'll——'

'Sockeye!' Dian came into the room laughing, her hands outstretched. There was a friendly gayety about her, something as refreshing as a clean blowing wind. Her blondeness, enhanced by a slim frock of ivorine flannel, was in marked contrast to the dark prettiness of exotic little Eve; her sea-grey eyes were shining under the amused upward quirk of fine-drawn brows. 'I'm so happy to see you again, Sockeye!' She shook his hands affectionately. 'Tell me, how is Sunny Cove?'

It was some time later when they were sitting by themselves at Eagle Turlon's desk in an alcove off the living-room that Sockeye finished telling of his morning's accomplishment.

'But you simply can't hire a Kemerlee to run our cannery!' the girl protested indignantly. 'You know how unjust those boys have always been to Dad—blaming him because their father went broke and lost the plant! What will Dad say when he comes back from Siberia and finds a Kemerlee in charge of Sunny Cove?'

Sockeye twirled his little hat on one finger, winked, and patted her hand. 'Canning fish ain't a business, Dian. It's a ding-busted guessing contest. Eagle wouldn't care if we hired Judas Iscariot so long as we got the pack. And as for Jimmy Kemerlee—didn't I tell you he holds the record for a one-line cannery? Your dad knows that. Look in those files alongside his desk and you'll find the packing record of every superintendent on the coast. Instead of hopping all over me, Dian, you should be pinning medals on me for being able to talk him into taking over the plant!'

'But I was going over there with Eve to spend a couple of weeks. Now—it's impossible!'

'Oh, you girls don't want to go over to the cannery,' Sockeye put in deprecatingly. 'No fun for you over there. You just stay right here in Ketchikan, Dian. Ivor's here and——'

'I want to ask you about Ivor. Suey Woo told me when I arrived last night that he——'

'I'm right here in person to do my own talking, Sis!' cried a gay, boyish voice. And the next instant a tall blond youth entered with a football rush, and caught her up in his arms.

After Sockeye had departed, brother and sister again hugged each other like two cub bears, swaying back and forth laughing in the joy of their reunion. Then Dian held Ivor off to look at him.

She loved this good-looking young brother—his slender, loose-hung body in V-necked white sweater and ivory cords, his fine-skinned eager face, grey eyes under narrow dark brows, tawny hair streaked pale gold from going bareheaded in the sun.

He was regarding her with affectionate commendation.

'Doggoned—little—tow-headed—Swede!' he chuckled, suddenly hoisting her into the air and letting her down again to nuzzle his face against her neck. 'I'm the old prodigal sneaking home for a husk of sympathy.... I suppose you heard how the Eagle kicked me out of the nest, Dian?' He grinned at her, but there was a wistfulness in his eyes that caught at her heart.

'Oh, Ivor, you mustn't take Dad seriously. You know he never means anything he says when he's angry.'

'Well, he meant what he said this time. You see, Sis, I made a grand flunk of ichthyology this semester. Simply can't stick the stuff. Besides, I was studying harmony with the dough Dad gave me for a new roadster. When I came home a month ago, I told him just how it was and asked him to let me go on with my music. He said I'd either have to finish that darned fish course or shift for myself. We had a few words and—well, he told me to get the hell out and see how easy it was to trade a bunch of discords for something to eat. So I did. The day he left for Siberia I got a job playing the piano at the Floating Trap.'

Dian felt his eyes on her, those protean grey Turlon eyes that could be so full of dreams, or so full of the devil. She concealed her dismay at the news while her thoughts flew to her father. She could imagine his rage and humiliation when he heard this.

'You ought to hear me tickle the ivories for the fishermen and their girls, Sis!' Ivor was saying. 'I give them all the old hoe-down tunes with jazzy improvisings of my own that would set a mummy to dancing. Honest, Dian, Briny had to reënforce the braces under the dance-floor to keep it from caving in! But you come down tonight to hear me. Big doings. It's the last night before the fish people go off to the canneries for the season. All the e-light, as Briny calls them, will be there as well as the roughnecks.' He slid over to the piano and seated himself on the bench. His long, tanned hands moved lightly across the keys.

Dian, watching him, was at a loss how to handle the situation. Her sympathy with Ivor's musical ambitions warred with her appreciation of her father's plans for his only son. She asked herself: Did Ivor really have it in him to be a musician, or was this idea youthful rebellion against Eagle Turlon's dictatorial management?

'Gee, Sis, it's certainly good to get back to mother's old piano again. The feel of it just suits me, somehow.' He was touching the keys tentatively, looking up at her with eyes that saw beyond her to some vision of his own. 'You listen, now, Dian: Alaskan spring. Mine.'

Ivor began to play. The first crystalline notes stilled the questions in Dian's mind. They sent her thoughts back to Northern springs of her childhood: Clean winds, April sun, and the seep of melting snows ... sticky little alder buds opening ... the high, thin call of returning geese ... the mew of mating sea-birds. And always the undertone of running water, pure from the mountain snows, from the glaciers; silvery glissading drops, tinkling trickle of creeks, rush and roar of streams over boulders, the deep, quiet flow of rivers joining the sea.

And Ivor's playing brought back something else—a memory of their mother, lovely, golden-haired, sitting at the piano in the evening playing for her children. Dian could see the tow-headed youngsters they used to be, both sitting on hassocks, chins in palms, looking up rapt, entranced. Especially Ivor. Before his chubby hands could span half an octave he could play. Dian remembered how her mother used to pause in her teaching to look over the little boy's head and smile at Eagle Turlon sitting at his desk figuring on trapsites and fishing-gear.... Her mother would know how to handle this situation between Ivor and his father. But—for nearly a decade Elna Turlon had lain in the little cemetery overlooking the waters of Tongass Narrows.

As Dian listened to Ivor, absorbed now in his playing, a strange mental clarity came upon her. She was aware of him in a new way—his wide shoulders, the way he used his arms, his blond head heavy with thick straight hair. Somehow, he made her think of a tawny young moose. She felt the strength of him, his youth, his capacity for music, for ecstasy, all this latent power undirected now. She felt his love of earthy things too: eating, drinking. Everything Ivor did would have tremendous force behind it. And suddenly she feared for him. Something fiercely protective stirred in her, keying her to fight—she didn't know what—for him. And at the same time she felt herself helpless to aid him. Again she was swept with a poignant longing for her mother, for some woman older than herself. A woman clean and kind and wise, who might direct Ivor's power to high, fine things.

She would have to get Ivor away from the Floating Trap. But how? She knew how stubborn he was once he set his mind on anything.

He ceased playing abruptly and turned to her. 'Oh, gosh, Sis,' he said wistfully. 'If the Eagle would just give me a chance, I'd show him that something besides fish can come out of Alaska. I've got it in me, Dian.' His young face was alight with an inner vision. 'I could—why, I could put the soul of Alaska into music—powerful, crashing, sweeping music of the seas. Fine, silvery music of white peaks against the sun. Rich, deep music of the land, of the slumberous Alaskan valleys, beautiful and lonely now, waiting to cradle a new race in the years to come! I could——'

He broke off, his eyes focusing on something back of Dian. His exalted look changed to one of curious interest.

Eve Galliard was slowly coming down the broad stairway. One hand held her pyjama jacket tight about her slim hips. Her wide vermilion trousers flapped about her white ankles. Smoke ascended from the cigarette in her other hand. When she was a dozen steps from the bottom, one of her satin mules fell off and came bumping down into the living-room.

Ivor sprang to recover it. Holding it, he knelt while the smiling Eve thrust into it a tiny bare foot that would fit into the palm of a man's hand.

Ivor came to his feet.

'So this is the little brother I've been hearing about,' Eve murmured, stepping back a pace. As she looked him up and down, her eyes grew very blue under her sleek ebon hair. 'You never told me he was like this, Dian. So biiiig! So blond and tall.' She placed her small perfumed body close to him and measured her height against his chest, leaving her leveled hand there while she looked up into his face. 'See, I'm just as high as your heart.'

Ivor gazed down at her with a half-bashful, half-amused expression of interest a mastiff pup bestows on a Pomeranian.

They both laughed.

Watching them, Dian recalled, with ironic humor, how Eve Galliard happened to be present. Nothing had been farther from Dian's mind than bringing a guest North on this trip—especially Eve. Despite the fact that they had attended the same university—Eve being in her last year when Dian entered—and they moved in the same circle down South, Eve had never been a close friend. Yet the morning Dian was packing to leave California, the older girl had rushed into the house half-hysterical over the outcome of her latest love affair, which happened to be with a man already married. Declaring that her heart was broken and that she must get away from everything that reminded her of him, Eve had thrown herself into Dian's arms and begged to be taken to Alaska where she might forget. She was so little, so pitifully tearful and clinging in her anguish, that Dian hadn't the heart to refuse her.

Despite Eve's youthful appearance, she was nearly thirty years old, and it suddenly occurred to Dian that now, since she was here, her advice in the matter of Ivor might prove valuable. Perhaps between them they might induce the boy to give up his playing at the Floating Trap.

Her thoughts flew to the approaching evening. All the fish people in the vicinity would be at the roadhouse, many of them maliciously interested to see Ivor Turlon, son of a fish king, playing the piano for hire at the Floating Trap. Dian made up her mind that she, together with Eve and Sockeye, would attend the gathering and form a family background for Ivor. And they would make it appear the most natural thing in the world that Eagle Turlon's son should be master of ceremonies for Briny and Blossom Dow.

Ivor was, without a doubt, delighted with the guest. He was sitting with her now on the piano bench, and Eve in her most charming manner was asking him to play for her. Dian, relieved, went out to the kitchen to give Suey Woo instructions about dinner.

The first thing her gaze fell upon was the tray with two glasses and a half-empty bottle. Her brows contracted. 'Clear those away, Woo,' she said with a sweep of her hand.

As the old cook complied, a prelude of rich, sonorous chords sounded through the house. The half of Dian's mind that was not engaged with culinary details waited for something brilliant and classical to follow. But the music ceased abruptly. When it began again, two voices rose in a duet of burlesqued bibulous longing.

Eve and Ivor were singing 'How Dry I Am.'