Читать книгу Long Storm - Ernest Haycox - Страница 4

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THE raw southwester—bearing up the spongy odors of spring—came hard against Lily Barnes when she stepped from the house, plucking at the falls of her dark hair and winding her coat about her in sudden twists. The night's violent rain had stopped but sullen clouds rolled overhead like great sea breakers, whipped into ragged valleys and peaks by the upper air's storm. At middle afternoon there was little light in the day; house lamps were shining down Pine as she walked toward Front, and the town crouched in semidarkness and mist packed the timbered hills westward.

Front was a yellow muddy creek from the bend of A Street southward to Jefferson, bordered by shops and countinghouses and saloons and hotels crouched side by side, brick and wood and false front and board awnings tightly crowded together. Along Front at this hour was a crowded commerce of men and pack rigs and weary-bowed riders and great freight drays sallowly illumined by the street's gas lamps. It was spring once more; it was the beginning of another season of mining fever and on this day the steamer Brother Jonathan, seventy hours out of San Francisco, had arrived with its cargo and its thousand prospectors—and each week until fall came, another thousand people would arrive, by the Brother Jonathan or the Panama. Already there was a queue in front of the Steam Navigation Company's office, the arrived gold seekers anxious to book passage upriver to the Eastern Oregon and Idaho mines by way of the Carrie or the Julia. This day Portland town woke from its winter quiet and Marshal Lappeus would once again well earn his pay even though he, the possessor of one of the town's fifty-five saloons, had a tolerant eye.

Lily made her way across the uneasy intersection plank, noticing men step into her father's store, they being attracted by the sign he had put up:—

WEBLEY BARNES

Hardware — Tin Goods — Miners' Supplies

Agent for the DAISY McGOVERN Fastest boat upriver—and onlyindependent boat TICKETS HERE

She moved along the west side of Front, on through the little pools of odors thrown out by the adjacent shops, liquor, leather and bread, Dekum's confectioneries, the dry faint fragrance of Julius Kohn's cotton goods. At Oak there was a dense jam of drays locked hub to hub and the usual brawling of teamsters. Mr. Gorman, wearing his habitually cool expression, saluted her with his stovepipe as he passed by; at the corner of Stark she turned half a block up to read that the Willamette Theater offered Mr. and Mrs. Pope's Troupe in The Lady of Lyons; with Professor Sedlick's local pupils furnishing the orchestra. She turned the corner of the Pioneer Hotel and stepped into Burgduffs for a steelhead.

Mrs. Burgduff, a bulky woman made bulkier by various layers of sweaters, cleaned and wrapped the fish. Mrs. Burgduff had a pink, smooth face pressed square by her unchangeable, acquisitive thoughts.

"How many boarders you got now, Lily?"

"One."

"You could squeeze six into that house somehow."

"Six would be uncomfortable,"

"Think of comfort later. Get the money now. When the gold rush has gone, Portland will be dead. The fish is twelve pounds—dollar twenty."

Lily continued her round of shopping, crossing the intersection plank again to the City Bakery, to the Empire Market, to Failing's. She stopped a moment at the Oregonian office to read the latest announcements, by wire to San Francisco and by boat to Portland, and retraced her homeward route without haste, rather glad to see so many people livening Portland. A boat whistled for landing, the tone of the whistle identifying the Claire in from Oregon City. At Washington she paused in front of Dennison's Opera House: "Minstrelsy, Burlesque, Extravaganzas, Ethiopian Eccentricities. Nothing done to offend the most sensitive taste. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Parquette 50 cents. Orchestra Chairs $I. Private Boxes $3." John Green, coming by, found her thus interested.

"Lily," he said and plunged his hands into his front pockets, "you show a wicked curiosity."

"Very lively music comes from this place. What's an Ethiopian Eccentricity?"

"Something for miners, male citizens and assorted characters. It would be more proper of you to see Mrs. Pope."

"I don't like lavender sentiment," said Lily. The wind ruffled the edges of her hair and a smile made its small break along her lips. Mr. Green's glance remained on those lips. "Dennison's music is so brisk," she added. "I shouldn't mind being an assorted character for one evening."

"Well," said Mr. Green, "too bad—you can't see it." Then he added with a wry humor, "I enjoyed the show myself," and passed on.

A group of young men paused near her, seedy and callow Eastern city boys off the Brother Jonathan, and their remarks became audible to her. She moved on over the Intersection of Oak and looked out upon the river to observe the steam ferry bring spray above its bow. Dekum's confectionery again blew its sweet breath on her and she halted with some indecision in her, and at that moment Edith Thorpe came out of Dekum's with Helen Bidwell.

Edith stopped and by the pressure of her hand drew in Helen Bidwell who meant to go on. "Why, Lily," said Edith in a voice which ran lightly up and down the scale of correct surprise. "I do believe it's been a month since I've seen you. Have you been away?"

Lily Barnes thought: Her manners were more natural ten years ago in Mr. Doane's school. She's been reading Peterson's Magazine lately. But she said aloud: "No—nowhere. The house keeps me close."

Edith said: "You weren't at Bishop's party,"

"No," said Lily. (She knew that without asking. Now she will mention what a nice time she had.)

"It was amusing," said Edith Thorpe, her voice pitched to casual drama. "Tyler Stone brought a bottle of rye and the boys went outside to do their drinking. Tyler always does that. Then a quarrel started and Adam had to stop it. I don't believe anybody wanted to stop, but they were all afraid of Adam. Then we drank too much coffee and it was three o'clock before we got home. Will you be going to the Willamette tonight?"

"No," said Lily.

Edith was smiling, Helen Bidwell was distantly calm.

Both were watching her with their clever attention. Edith said: "You should go. I've cried at every performance."

"If I wanted to cry," said Lily, "I'd find a cheaper kind of tears."

Edith said: "I forgot. You don't cry, do you? The other day I was thinking when we were girls at Mr. Doane's school, Mott liked to tease you. But you never cried."

"No," said Lily, "I never did. I fought back. Finally Mott grew afraid of me. It never took much to make Mott afraid."

The slightest flaw showed in Edith's pleasantness; the remark had touched her. "We had nice times. The town was such a nice place, but now there's five thousand people and I really don't think I like it."

Helen Bidwell spoke in her indifferent way: "We've got to go, Edith."

A sudden bright charm came to Edith. "We must do something together, Lily. When summer comes—"

"That will be nice to think about," said Lily. But she knew as she watched them go that such a summer would never come; they had grown up and they had grown away, and there was a difference between them which would never be less. She kept her eyes on the two as they moved so gracefully along the street. Edith's head dropped near Helen's and something was said between them and then Edith laughed and the two turned the corner at Oak. A final gust of rain came along Front Street, pushed forward by the hard wind. Lily looked down at her basket and shifted the weight, and again glanced toward the corner of Oak. Her face settled, becoming slightly puzzled and slightly sad as she turned homeward.

From the window of his office directly across the street, Webley Barnes had observed the meeting. He had a group of prospective passengers for the Daisy McGovern in the office at the moment, but he ceased to be interested in them and he watched the three girls as long as they were together, Edith and Helen Bidwell arm in arm, Lily standing opposite them. He knew what was happening; he had long watched it come—this break between youngsters who, starting in a rough settlement together, at last found their own levels and moved apart. Portland grew up and the old cruel story repeated itself. The bitterest of feelings came to him, for he realized the scene across the street was largely of his own making; he had started with the rest of the crowd in this new town but he couldn't keep the pace. Other men, more aggressive, were going beyond him, taking their families to a secure place and position; he fell behind and his place was his daughter's place. There was no hurt like the hurt which he brought upon his daughter, and he ground his teeth together and cried out in silence: "Damn 'em for their shabby pretensions and their cold hearts!"

He shook this out of his head with effort and turned to the nearest prospector. "The ticket is five dollars to The Dalles. You'll ride the Daisy McGovern to the Cascades, walk around the portage and catch the White Swan to The Dalles. You will book separate passage on the Spray at The Dalles for Lewiston."

"The Dalles?" asked the miner. "What's that?"

"A town at the foot of a bad spot in the river. You get off there and take horse railway fifteen miles around the bad spot, and get on another boat."

The miner said: "The Navigation Company will sell a ticket straight through to Lewiston. Why can't you?"

"Ah," said Webley Barnes, "the Navigation Company is a monopoly that has made its connections. We're independent and do the best we can. But you're not likely to get on the monopoly boat tomorrow. It's full up, and will be for a week. You want this ticket or do you want to cool your heels in Portland until the monopoly is charitable enough to find room for you?"

"I don't see," said the miner, "how one outfit can tie up a river as big as this."

"The old story, my friend—the story of the strong and the weak."

Four days of miserable travel from The Dalles—along the drowned thickets of the river's edge, across rock cliffs, and through the everlasting jungle of fir—brought Floyd Ringrose at last to the edge of the Sandy at a point which seemed to be a ford. By river boat this journey was only a matter of a day's comfortable riding; but by boat it was also a matter of five dollars' fare, which Floyd Ringrose did not possess; moreover, he had left The Dalles in some haste, standing not upon his dignity. All his luck there had been bad; in Portland he hoped to find money waiting for him via Wells- Fargo draft from the East, and in Portland he hoped to get at his major business.

The day was gray and weeping, the sullen clouds pressed down, the roundabout timber exhaled a clammy dismal fog, the river lay dimpled by fat rain; and as he studied the additional discomfort before him, his face displayed a very raw temper. It was a bold face with heavy cheekbones and nose, accented by restless eyes and a full fleshy mouth above which a straw-yellow mustache—which was also the color of his hair—lay carefully trimmed. A great overcoat thickened him, and this he removed and tied to his saddle cantle to reveal a round muscular body, big wrists, big hips and heavy thighs. Having given the ford the shortest of studies, he issued a sudden grunt, raked the horse with both spurs and sent it immediately into the river.

The horse dipped under at the first plunge and came up struggling. Ringrose sat jockey style, prepared to leave the saddle, but a short effort of the horse brought it to a gravel bar in the stream's middle. Afterwards man and beast made the passage of the slack water beyond the gravel bar and came ashore in the midst of a gloomy grove of trees. Slightly ahead of him on this obscure trail Ringrose saw a fire burning. He moved directly toward it.

A single man crouched over the blaze, drinking his noon coffee as he warmed himself. His face, when it lifted to Ringrose, was young and seasoned behind a full beard, Ringrose said, "I don't suppose you object to my sharing your fire?" and stepped to the ground at once, water spurting from the tops of his boots. He crouched across the fire from the young man, spreading a pair of broad smooth hands. The young man stared at those hands; he looked up to Ringrose's face and caught the latter's sharp- cracked smile. "I have not been warm since leaving The Dalles," said Ringrose. "When does the sun shine in this country?"

"Don't know," said the young man. "Just coming in myself."

"From the mines?" asked Ringrose.

The young man was of a secretive disposition. He finished the coffee in his cup and handed the cup to Ringrose, pointing to the black pot bedded on the fire's coals. A puff of harder wind brought down sheets of rain from the overhanging skies, the water singing in the fire and drenching both men. The young man took no notice of the additional discomfort but Ringrose, wanting some target for his temper, suddenly kicked at the fire.

The young man silently observed this.

Ringrose sucked at the hot coffee and held the cup between his hands, soaking in its warmth. The young man, he realized, had not answered his question and did not propose to. He finished the coffee, put down the empty cup and smiled in a way that displayed the whitest and heaviest of teeth. This smile also brought his lids together until nothing much could be seen of the actual quality of his glance.

"How far to Portland?" he asked.

"About fifteen miles."

Ringrose stood up to stamp life into his legs. Water continued to run from his soaked clothes. "Well," he said, "it will be a bad ride. Much obliged for the coffee." He turned to his horse and took his overcoat from the cantle thongs and slid into it. He buttoned it and brought the collar up about his neck, standing with his back to the miner; and he remained that way a moment with his close thoughts, then swung rapidly on his heels. The young man had risen from the fire and had stepped over to his horse; he was on the far side of the horse, watching Ringrose across the saddle. He had his guard lifted and he did not intend to be surprised.

Ringrose showed his smile again. He said, "Good luck," and swung to his saddle, at once moving westward through the timber.

The coldness and misery of his body increased and he gave the horse a prompting with his spurs and went along the darkening trail at a faster gait. Occasionally the timber broke away to give him sight of a near-by farmhouse, and once he passed over a natural meadow and had some difficulty finding an entrance into another stand of timber where the rain fog lay so thick that he traveled as though a gray cloak were flung about him; the wet and rank odors of the forest were heavy around him and the sound of the wind was a steady humming above him. Late of that afternoon he broke out of the timber to corne upon the junction of the trail with a road. Following the road downward he arrived at a broad river—the Willamette—puckered into whitecaps by the strengthening southwester. A ferry waited at the road's planked end; across the river Portland lay cramped within the hard semicircle of a forest, the lights of the town freckling the day's deepening gloom.

He rode upon the ferry at once and, since there seemed to be no other traffic the ferry put out upon the river lifting and dipping to the choppy water. A lone man tended the engine within the deckhouse; half across the water this man appeared for his fare. "Fifty cents for you and fifty cents for your horse."

Ringrose stood at the head of his horse, watching the town take shape in the misty gloom. He seemed caught by his thoughts, for the ferryman had to repeat the question. Ringrose turned and presented the ferryman with his smile.

"I shall have to ask you to trust me until tomorrow. I am stone-busted."

The ferryman was immediately aggressive. "Why didn't you mention that before you came on?"

"You might not have taken me," said Ringrose.

"I can still turn around and put you ashore."

"You could," agreed Ringrose, "but that would be a waste of time, wouldn't it?"

The ferryman said, "What have you got for security?" He stared at Ringrose, his glance finally touching the man's right hand. "That will do."

Ringrose gave out a short laugh. "It's worth more than your damned ferry."

The ferryman walked toward the wheel and gave it a spin. "You think I won't take you back? We'll see."

"My friend," said Ringrose, "don't do it."

The ferryman looked across his shoulder and saw his passenger with one hand plunged into an overcoat pocket and with his smile gone. Ringrose's lids were half shut and his face had a stillness upon it. "I don't want to get in trouble with you," he said, "but I intend to cross this river. You shall get your money tomorrow." Then he let some of his temper slip out. "Keep going, you hear?"

The ferryman was angered at the situation and not unwilling to carry his share of the quarrel; yet, as in the case of the young miner, he saw something on Ringrose's face which appeared to warn him for he presently eased the wheel and sent the ferry on its proper course. A few minutes later the boat grated into the maws of a slip at the foot of one of Portland's streets and the ferryman walked forward to make the boat fast. Ringrose mounted and rode off the craft without a word.

Beyond the wharf the muddy street began moving westward up a slight grade between low buildings squatted beneath the slanted rain. Eight or nine blocks in that direction the houses faded into a kind of rough and stumpy land which in turn broke against the black wall of a forest. Ringrose crossed three streets before overtaking a lone man plodding through the weather. "Where would Fourth be—where would Yamhill be?"

The man said, "Up two and five to your right," and kept going.

Ringrose rode the prescribed distance and slowly cruised the block until he discovered a narrow two-story house flanked by a cabinet shop and an empty building. He continued along the street and found a livery. There he left his horse and returned to the narrow house; he gave a quick glance around him and rapped briskly on the door.

The door was opened by a woman of about his own age, which was twenty-five. The moment he saw her he lifted his hat, summoned his gallantry and made his bow. Her hair was a kind of brass yellow, a shade odd but striking, and lay extraordinarily thick on her head. She had a shapely, heavy body and her eyes were blue and looked upon him with something between reserve and doubt. They were the eyes of a woman, his well-experienced mind told him, who certainly had no fear of men.

"My name is Ringrose and I have just arrived from The Dalles."

"This is not a boarding house," she said.

"You are Emily von Gratz? I knew Jack Logan in The Dalles."

"Well," she said, "come in," and closed the door behind him. She faced him and gave him a going-over with her glance. "Did he tell you to come here?"

"If I needed to," he said.

"Well, you look as if you had need enough." Then she added a casual afterthought: "His arm ever heal?"

He was impressed by her. She was a handsomer woman than he had expected to find and he did not hesitate to show her his admiration. The effect of that was to soften her expression.

"Didn't know anything was wrong with his arm," he said.

"Just wanted to find out if you really know him," she said. "He had any luck, or is he still in trouble?"

"He's all right. You know Jack."

"I do," she said dryly. "What do you want?"

"I'm going to set up a table in some high-class saloon," he said. "I need some advice about these people here and a loan of fifty dollars."

"You get run out of The Dalles?"

She immediately noticed the roughing of his temper, and she had some direct advice for him. "If you intend to gamble with the fashionable trade you'll have to hold yourself in. You can't pick trouble with the leading people. They're an odd sort. You can do business with them, but it's got to be genteel." Then she added, "Pretty broad of Jack to use me as an underground station for his shifty friends."

His smile grew thinner. He looked down at hill wet and shabby clothes. "I'm not as bad as I look," he said. "I am better than I now appear to be, What hotel should I put up at?"

"The Pioneer. Tomorrow get yourself a plainer waistcoat. These people here like a tame display." She left the room a moment, and returned with a stack of gold half-eagles in her palm. He took these from her casually.

"Tame people?"

"No," she said. "They're tough enough to skin you clean in business."

He turned to the door and paused there. "I'm obliged for the advice," and as he stared at her he noticed the soft shadow of uncertainty come to her. When he saw it he was satisfied and left the house. Returning to Front, he followed it to Washington and stepped into the Pioneer. He signed for his room, crossed the lobby to the barbershop and made arrangements with a colored boy to take care of his clothes while he was in the bathhouse.

He had his bath, lying in it long enough to bake the day's chill from his bones, with a cigar between his heavy teeth and with a copy of the town's paper to pass the time; he got into his clothes when the boy returned them and he spent another half hour in the barbershop; Appearance meant much to this man and thus when he left the barbershop once more groomed, although his boots were still wet, he found himself in excellent spirits. He crossed the hotel's lobby, entered the saloon and pushed his way through the crowd to the bar. He had to wait for a drink and this made him restive, as any kind of delay did. Later, with a glass of rye in his hand and the smoke of a cigar making its screen around his face, he achieved the appearance of a man of thorough leisure.

He saw that he was in the town's best saloon, for he recognized the quality of the men around him, the sureness which was printed on them and the smell of money about them. He recognized also the accurateness of Emily von Gratz's description of them. They were sociable as they moved around to exchange news or to push their business ventures, but they were smooth, they were sharp and in their restrained way they were entirely certain of what they were after. They drank a good deal of liquor, which they bore well. In all this crowd he saw but one man he thought to be drunk: that man sat alone at a table with a bottle and seemed deliberately to be going about the business of drinking himself out. Presently he caught the man's name when a townsman stopped at the table and dropped his advice:

"You ought to go home, Webley. Lily's probably got supper on the table."

Smoke and talk and ease filled the room. The talk was of business and politics and war. Ringrose heard the rebellion mentioned. "Grant," said somebody, "is the only general worth his salt. Lincoln had better recognize that pretty soon."

Ringrose gave the speaker a pointed stare and afterwards he looked around the room to see how the sentiment was taken by others. Apparently it was the prevailing opinion, yet he did observe one man who stood aside and made no contribution to the talk. This one had some faint mark of the Southerner on him and Ringrose, having finished his rye, strolled over the room and paused near the man. He made a show of lighting his cigar. Over the tip of the match he said: "Damned foul weather."

"Usual spring rain," said the man.

His talk had a Southern swing to it, not pronounced but still noticeable. Ringrose drew a long draft of smoke from the cigar and breathed it out. He looked directly into the man's eyes. "Any stars in the sky?"

The man stared at him. "Stars?" he said. "For the love of God, that's a bad joke on a day like this."

Ringrose gave the man an agreeable nod and returned to the bar for his second drink, continuing his survey of the crowd by means of the back bar mirror. A boy—an under-sized boy with a solemn and sharp face—came through the crowd in a ducking, turning way and squeezed a place for himself beside Ringrose. The boy caught a barkeep's eye and said: "A bottle of brandy, two lemons, and a cup of loaf sugar."

"That game still going on in Number Nine, Billy?"

"Yes," said the boy.

Ringrose stared down at this Billy and found nothing on the lad's face he liked. "You're damned young to be in here," he commented.

The boy had the liquor, the lemons and the sugar in his hands. He gave back to Ringrose a stare which was as pointed and cool as the one Ringrose gave him, and slipped through the crowd. The barkeep observed this small scene with amusement. "You got a match there, friend. That kid's the best businessman in town."

"Brash," said Ringrose.

"He's stropped his wits on some mighty hard stones," said the barkeep.

Ringrose laid down his glass, paid for the service and swung about with the notion of leaving these quarters which were becoming increasingly cramped as the night came on. Rain drummed the building wall insistently, raw air poured into the saloon each time an additional discomforted Portlander entered. Men's wet woolen clothes began to send up their steamy rankness in the room's warmth, and smoke got thicker and voices made a kind of foolish babble. This place was for the town's leading characters, Ringrose decided. They, having property to protect, would naturally be Union men. Eventually he would become acquainted with them and play his part among them, but meanwhile he wished to locate the quarters of the rougher sort. Therefore he pressed his way toward the door.

Near the door, and having some difficulty in securing a passage through the crowd, his turning glance touched a face in the smoky background of the saloon—a square, stubbornly built face with a full curly covering of beard, out of which stood a massive nose, a fleshy set of lips, and a pair of bright, black eyes. It was the face of just one more man in the crowd, yet some kind of memory jogged Ringrose's attention and he stared at the face with a moment's complete interest. The man gave him a most casual return glance, raised a glowing cigar to his mouth and swung his head as if to observe something else. The pressure of the crowd shoved Ringrose through the saloon's door into a wet and darkening night.

Billy Gattis never walked; he was always a boy on an errand, a boy in a hurry, and his habitual way was to travel the town's streets at a shuffling run, his body bent, his head down and his face turning from side to side in a manner to see whatever was around him. It was not only a sharp face but a face drawn to the point of being pinched, an unsmiling face on the dangerous edge of furtiveness. He was fourteen, and small, and as quick of mind as any man in town; he did any kind of chore that any man might ask of him for whatever rewards men might choose to give him, and he had been doing this since he was eight. He fetched lunches for late playing gamblers in their hotel rooms, he sold papers and lugged baggage and carried notes—sometimes with instructions to be secretive in his manner of delivering them; he was in and out of saloons and he knew the town's back rooms and he could find any of the town's characters on sudden notice. By consequence he knew more than he should have known, and all of this he kept to himself; he had early learned to think for himself and keep his mouth closed.

With one more night done, he moved uptown at his usual half run until he came to Emily von Gratz's house, made a circle of it and went in through the back door with a small knock to announce himself. Emily lay on the couch, reading some late magazine from Driscoll's bookstore; she wore a Chinese silk wrapper and had her hair done up and, thus released from the confinement of her day clothes, she looked like a placid and fat and self-indulgent housewife.

"Milk's on the kitchen table, Billy. Those sandwiches are blackberry jelly."

He ate his late supper and poured himself extra milk from the quart can with the bill on it and returned to the front room.

Emily said: "You're tired."

"No," he said, "I'll spell."

"All right," she said, and began to pick words from the magazine she was reading. Billy stood by the room's center table, spelling the words she gave him. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes. Then she said: "Your eyes are half shut," and put the magazine away. "Anything happen in town today?"

"No," he said. "Maybe we don't have to spell any more. Maybe I'm good enough."

She sat up on the couch. "Tired of it?"

"No," he said, "not if you say not."

"People who grew ignorant," she said, "are like people who have no arms or legs. Look at Ben Crowley."

"Ah, he's lazy," said Billy.

"You watch the smart ones. They never step learning things. Look at Mr. Gorman. He's always learning. Look at Adam Musick. You like him?"

"Yes," said Billy, "I like him."

"Be like him then."

"I like Ben Crowley, too," said Billy.

Emily von Gratz nodded her soft, unthoughtful face.

"That's fine. Like everybody, It don't do any good to hate anybody. You go to bed now. You're not getting enough sleep."

He went through the kitchen and left the house. He threaded the narrow between-building spaces of the block, once more at a trot, heading south through the wet and black night toward Harrison Street. There was a block here covered with scrub brush and fir timber, through which a muddy trail led to a shack long since abandoned. He let himself into the dark room, found his way to his bed, and undressed. He fell back on the bed, thinking of the town and Emily von Gratz, and spelling, and the white-haired gambler in Room Nine of the Pioneer, and the Oregonians to be picked up at five o'clock in the morning; and these things formed a series of moving images before his eyes and gradually dissolved into blankness as he fell asleep.