Once Upon a Time in the North (4 page)

"Well . . . thanks."

Lee's attitude to fathers was that he preferred to keep them at a distance. Fathers did not want their daughters doing what Lee had in mind. But before he could think of an excuse, he found himself in the front row, where all the seats were reserved.

"Oh, I can't sit here," he protested. "These seats are for important guests—"

"But you
are
an important guest!" said the poet roguishly, and the girl said, "Oh, do stay, Mr. Scoresby!"

"Damn fool," muttered Hester, but only Lee heard her, as she intended.

They had hardly sat down when a stout official came out onto the stage and announced that they were closing the doors because the great desire of the people to hear the candidate speak meant that the hall was already full beyond its legal capacity, and they couldn't let anyone else in. Lee looked around and saw people standing three deep at the back and around the sides of the auditorium.

"He's a popular man, your father, no doubt about that," he said to Miss Poliakova. "What's his main policy? What's he going to do when he gets into office?"

"Bears," she said with a delicate shudder, and made a face expressive of polite horror.

"Oh, bears, eh," said Lee. "He doesn't like bears?"

"I'm scared of bears," she said.

"Well, that's understandable. They're—uh—they're pretty big, after all. I ain't never dealt with your special Arctic bears, but I was chased by a grizzly once over in the Yukon."

"Oh, how frightful! Did he catch you?"

And once again Lee felt as if he'd missed the bottom step in the dark: could she really be this stupid? Was she doing it on purpose?

"Well, he did," he said, "but it turned out the old feller only wanted to borrow a griddle to cook up a salmon he'd caught. I was agreeable to that, and we sat around yarning over supper. He drank my whisky and smoked my cigars, and we promised to keep in touch. But I lost his address."

"Oh, that's a pity," she said. "But, you know . . ."

Lee scratched his head, but he didn't have to think of anything else to say because at that point a group of three men came onto the stage and the whole audience stood to applaud and cheer. Lee had to stand as well, or seem conspicuously rude, and he looked around for his boardinghouse acquaintance, but among all the faces bright with fervor, the eyes ablaze with enthusiasm, he couldn't spot him anywhere.

As they sat down again Sigurdsson said, "Wonderful response! Promises very well, wouldn't you say?"

"Never seen anything like it," said Lee.

He settled back to listen to the speeches.

And very shortly afterwards, it seemed, he was woken up by a roar from the crowd. Cheers, clapping, shouts of acclamation echoed around the big wooden hall as Lee sat blinking and clapping with the rest.

On the platform stood Poliakov, black-coated, heavy-bearded, red-cheeked, with one fist on the lectern and the other clenched at his heart. His eyes glared out across the hall, and his daemon, a kind of hawk that Lee didn't recognize, sat on the lectern and raised her wings till they were outspread.

Lee murmured to Hester, tucked into his coat, "How long have I been asleep?"

"Ain't been counting."

"Well, damnit, what's this diplomat been saying?"

"Ain't been listening."

He stole a glance at Olga, and saw her settled, placid, adoring gaze rest on her father's face without any change of expression, even when the candidate suddenly banged the lectern with his fist and startled his own daemon into taking to the air and wheeling around his head before settling on his shoulder—a fine effect, Lee thought, but Hester muttered, "How long'd they spend practicing that in front of a mirror?"

"Friends," Poliakov cried. "Friends and citizens, friends and human beings, I don't need to warn you about this insidious invasion. I don't
need
to warn you, because every drop of human blood in your human veins already warns you instinctively that there can be no friendship between humans and bears. And you know precisely what I mean by that, and you know why I have to speak in these terms. There
can
be no friendship, there
should
be no friendship, and under my administration I promise you with my hand on my heart there
will
be no friendship with these inhuman and intolerable . . ."

The rest of the sentence was lost, as he intended it should be, in the clamor, the shouts and the whistles and the stamping that broke over it like a great wave.

The poet was on his feet, waving his hands above his head with excitement, and shouting, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!"

On Lee's other side, the candidate's daughter was clapping her hands like a little girl, stiff fingers all pointing in the same direction as she brought her palms together.

It seemed that the end of the speech had arrived, because Poliakov and his men were leaving the platform, and others were beginning to make their way along the rows of chairs, soliciting donations.

"Don't give that bastard a cent," said Hester.

"Ain't got a cent to give," muttered Lee.

"Wasn't that magnificent?" said Sigurdsson.

"Finest piece of oratorical flamboyancy I ever heard," said Lee. "A lot of it went over my head, on account of I don't know the local situation, but he knows how to preach, and that's a fact."

"Come with me, and I shall introduce you. Mr. Poliakov will be delighted to make your acquaintance—"

"Oh, no, no," said Lee hastily. "It wouldn't be right to waste the man's time when I ain't got a vote to give him."

"Not at all! In fact I know he will be most gratified to meet you," said Sigurdsson, lowering his voice confidentially and seizing Lee's elbow in a tight grip. "There is a job he has in mind," he murmured.

At the same moment, Olga clutched Lee's other sleeve.

"Mr. Scoresby, do come and meet Papa!" she said, and her eyes were so wide and so candid, and her lips were so soft, and what with those eyes and those lips, and the delicate curls of hair, and that sweet heart- shaped face, Lee very nearly lost his presence of mind altogether and kissed her right there. What did it matter if she had the brain of a grape? It wasn't her brain Lee wanted to hold in his arms. Her body had its own kind of intelligence, just as his did, and their bodies had a great deal to say to each other. His head swam; he was fully persuaded.

"Lead me to him," he said.

In the parlor behind the platform, Poliakov was standing at the center of a group of men with glasses in their hands and cigars alight, and the little wood-paneled room was filled with laughter and the loud bray of congratulations.

As soon as Poliakov saw his daughter, he moved away from his companions and swept her into an embrace.

"Did you like your papa's speech, my little sweetmeat?" he said.

"It was wonderful, Papa! Everyone was thrilled!"

Lee looked around. On a table near the fireplace was a model of a strange-looking gun—a sort of mobile cannon on an armored truck—and Lee was curious to look at it more closely, but the nearest man saw his gaze and swiftly covered the model with a baize cloth. It must be the gun Vassiliev had spoken of, Lee thought, and wished he hadn't made his interest so plain, for then he could have taken a longer look. But then he felt the poet's hand on his sleeve again, and turned to hear Sigurdsson's words to the candidate:

"Ivan Dimitrovich," said the poet humbly, "I wonder if I might introduce Mr. Scoresby, from the nation of Texas?"

"Oh, yes, Papa," said Olga. "Mr. Scoresby was telling me about the horrid bears they have in his country . . ."

Poliakov patted his daughter's cheek, removed the cigar from his mouth, and shook Lee's hand in a bone- cracking grip. Lee saw it coming and responded in kind, and that contest ended even.

"Mr. Scoresby," said Poliakov, putting his arm around Lee's shoulder and drawing him aside, "glad to meet you, glad indeed. My good friend Sigurdsson has told me all about you. You're a man who can see an opening—I can tell that. You're a man of action—I can see that. You're a shrewd judge—I can sense that. And if I'm not wrong, right now you're free enough to consider a proposition. Am I right?"

"Right in every detail, sir," said Lee. "What kind of a proposition might this be?"

"A man such as me," the candidate explained, dropping his voice, "finds himself placed in considerable danger from time to time. This is an excitable town, Mr. Scoresby, a volatile and unpredictable environment for one who inspires the strong passions both of attraction and, I regret to say it, of resentment and dislike. Oh, yes—there are some who fear and hate my principled stand on the bear question, for example. I need say no more about that," he added, tapping his nose. "I'm sure you understand what I mean. I will not be moved, but there are those who would like to move me, by force if necessary. And I am not afraid to meet force with force. You carry a weapon, Mr. Scoresby. Are you willing to use it?"

'You mean you want to meet their force with my force?" said Lee. "Glad to know you're not afraid to do that, Mr. Poliakov. What's the job you have in mind?"

"There is a little situation at the harbor that needs resolving soon, and I think you are the man to do it. You understand, there are things that an official body of men can do, and other things that need specialist work of a less public kind. There is a man who is trying to make away with a . . . with a piece of disputed property, and I want someone to stand guard over it, and prevent him." "Whose property is it?"

"As I say, it's disputed. That need not concern you. All you need to do is make sure it stays in the warehouse till the lawyers have done their work." "I see. And what will you pay?" 'You come straight to the point, my friend. Let me suggest—"

But before Lee could hear what Poliakov was going to offer, Hester gave a convulsive kick in his breast and said, "Lee—"

Lee knew at once what she meant, and he looked where she was looking: past Poliakov, towards a tall lean man lounging beside the fireplace, arms folded, one leg bent with the foot resting on the wall behind him. He was smoking a corncob pipe, and his daemon, a rattlesnake, had draped herself around his neck and folded herself into a loose knot. His expression was unreadable, but his black eyes were staring straight at Lee.

"I see you already got yourself a gunfighter," Lee said.