Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes (29 page)

Perhaps no project was more important—or secretive—than the Park Street water-evacuation effort. Seven steam- and ore-powered pumps worked night and day to remove water from the flooded streets in the northernmost part of downtown. What was not widely known was that rather than be diverted downriver, the water was pumped directly into the primary festival blocks to ensure the area remained flooded. The festival organizers did not want a repeat of last year’s “puddle festival,” which had resulted in terrible congestion, a muddy and disgusted citizenry, and hundreds of lost shoes.

Mayor Gates had signed off on the project despite warnings from advisers that intentionally prolonging a flood might hurt his reelection efforts. He was convinced that another secret project would make or break the festival, one about which he’d just received some very good news.

*   *   *

The mayor ducked his head as he passed beneath a string of navigational charts showing the relative depths and dangers beneath the waves at the mouth of the Columbia River. He ducked again under a low-hanging dictionary and once more below a still-dripping line of
Portland Post
periodicals.

A web of laundry lines crisscrossed most of the available head space in the Wyldes’ storeroom, only it wasn’t clothes or sheets but rather the store’s overstock that was hung out to dry. Nearly everything in the storeroom was wet. Even the floor, which had remained dry throughout the downtown flood, was now covered by an inch of water. Only a small area at the base of the storm totem was dry, kept so by a circular barricade of sandbags.

The mayor ducked once more and popped up next to the totem, which itself was bone dry. He placed a hand on the snout of the sea-bear carving.

“So it works,” he said.

“Very well,” Joseph said from the top of a nearby ladder. He finished tying off another line and then climbed down to join the mayor. “We’ll be drying out our inventory for weeks.”

Joseph had directed the comment at Kick, who was on bucket duty at the back of the storeroom. Kick emptied another pail of water into the ally and then couldn’t resist pointing a finger at his sister, who was hand drying some of the less-waterlogged volumes.

“It was Maddie’s idea.”

Maddie eyed her brother. “I told you not to use so much!”

Kick made a series of hand gestures directed at his sister, finishing with a wide arcing windmill of his left arm.

Maddie stared at her brother in disbelief. What he’d just said—what he’d called her—went beyond the pale. She made a simple, almost muted gesture that ended with a synchronized wiggle of both pinkies.

Kick shook his head, but the damage was done. She’d understood exactly what he’d said and she was going to make him sorry for it.

Joseph took in as much of the conversation as he could, which was enough to know that Kick was in trouble. The boy needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut when Wylde women were involved.

Oblivious to the family pantomime, the mayor continued to examine the totem up close. While circling the pole, he accidently bumped the levy built up around its base, splashing a small amount of water into the danger zone.

“Careful,” Joseph said. “It doesn’t take much to get it raining again.”

The mayor glanced about the room. “Terribly sorry about the inconvenience, Joseph. I’m sure we can find a little extra in the festival budget to cover your losses.” The mayor nodded to his assistant, who was waiting at the entrance to the storeroom.

Avery perked up. “Just give us a number, Mr. Wylde. I’ll take care of everything.”

Joseph smiled. “That’s very generous, thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do,” said the mayor. “Now, tell me, will this thing work as well out of doors as it has in-?”

Joseph dried has hands on a towel tucked into his belt. “I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure how it works at all.”

“Well, as you said, it seems to work quite well.”

“True, but this is a small space. As wet as it is in here, the same amount of water outside would be barely measurable. Hardly even a sprinkle, I’m afraid.”

The mayor soured. “I see.”

Joseph didn’t like lying to the mayor, but he felt the truth might lead to bigger problems. He had no idea what the totem would do if it got wet outside, and that scared him. Once the sky opened up and started to pour down on the thing, would it ever stop? He’d managed to slow the downpour only after throwing a tarp over the top of it, and even then it hadn’t stopped drizzling until all the channels carved into the totem had run dry. It was hours before the humidity in the room had returned to normal.

“It’s possible that its job was to make it rain only in a very small area,” Joseph said, trying out a theory he hoped would appeal to the mayor. “It would be good for a ceremony, some kind of Native ritual, but I doubt it would do much for the crops.”

The mayor perked. “Put on a show, eh?”

“Something like that. Any chief or shaman who could make it rain on command, especially indoors, would be seen as powerful, even godlike.”

The mayor had been in politics long enough to recognize when someone was appealing to his ego.

“You’re suggesting that if I were to bring the rain indoors, say for the opening-night ball, I’d be seen as a god?”

Joseph laughed. “Well, perhaps deification is too much to hope for, but I suspect a great many voters would be impressed.”

“And very, very wet. I love it. I’ll send the men around to pick it up this evening.”

“Tell them to bring plenty of canvas and rope to wrap it up. You don’t want this thing getting wet before the show.”

The mayor pointed to his assistant, who immediately wrote another note in his ledger. The mayor then stepped carefully around the storm totem to stand next to Joseph.

“It’s going to be a fabulous festival—and it’s going to rain, I can feel it in my bones!”

Joseph didn’t disagree. “Your weatherman certainly thinks so, all local evidence to the contrary.”

“Yes, he’s quite certain. Speaking of recent events, what do you make of the violence on the coast?”

Joseph sensed both kids stop what they were doing at the mayor’s question. No doubt they’d been listening all along, but this piqued their interest.

“Sorry?”

The mayor’s eyes lit up. “You’ve not seen this morning’s paper?”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Joseph said, motioning to the mess around him.

“Tillamook, several nights ago,” said the mayor. “A group of men shot up a circus, burned part of it to the ground.”

“A circus?”

The mayor nodded, a little too enthusiastically. “Horrible, horrible spectacle, dozens injured. We dispatched a group from the medical college to assist with the wounded, of course. Least we could do.”

“What of the assailants?”

“Three were captured, one a man wanted by the Oregon Mining Company named Mason, I believe.”

Joseph shook his head.

“A minor outlaw, I’m told, and not a very good one at that. Barely survived the robbery.” Perhaps picking up that young ears might be listening, the mayor leaned in and whispered, “In truth, he may have been shot by his own man, and—this is where it gets interesting—it was the Hanged Man.”

Joseph blinked. “That’s not possible.”

The mayor smiled. “Well, of course not, but this was a very clever ruse. There was a body on display, the Hanged Man’s corpse—”

“They burned it.”

“Yes, yes, but not everyone knows that. Anyway, at some point the dead man was to rise from the grave—part of the show, of course—and terrify the locals. The carnival folk then would pretend to put the dead man down and the next day their ticket sales would go through the roof. Brilliant bit of marketing; very theatrical.”

Joseph thought it rather ghoulish but bit his tongue. “What happened?”

“It was a setup—an inside job. Mr. Mason used the chaos of the show to stage a robbery, only the criminal corpse wanted a bigger piece of the pie—all of it, apparently. Shot his partners and everyone else, by most accounts.”

The twins had drifted closer to the conversation, no longer pretending to hide their interest. Joseph searched for something to tone down the decidedly downbeat story.

“But only one man died?”

“Yes,” the mayor said. “Twice.”

“What?”

“Apparently, the corpse rose up and attacked someone before they could put it in the ground. Ghastly.”

“He must not have been dead.”

“My inclination as well, but then I heard the news out of Astoria this morning. You know about the grave disturbances of recent weeks, of course?”

Joseph nodded, not sure if the mayor was being polite or had simply forgotten who had been first to break sacred ground. The kids certainly remembered.

“Well, it may not have been robbers trying to break in,” the mayor said. “It may have been the dead trying to get out.”

Maddie gasped, unable to stop herself. She was pleased to find her brother’s hand so close to her own.

The memory of a dark dream crept onto the stage in Joseph’s mind. He couldn’t see it, yet, but he could feel it, waiting, breathing life into itself. Only the truth would keep it at bay.

“Tell me everything.”

*   *   *

“That’s ridiculous,” Kate said.

Joseph had just finished retelling the mayor’s story to Kate and her father. All three were seated around the Wyldes’ kitchen table, empty save for cups of coffee and the late edition of the
Portlandian
. Perched on the first and third steps of the stairwell just off the kitchen were Maddie and Kick.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Joseph said. “And I’m sure there’s some exaggeration, but you read the story.”

“About a shootout,” Kate said, sliding the newspaper across the table to her husband. A single column below the fold followed the headline,
CARNIVAL SHOOTING CLAIMS ONE
, before continuing eight pages later. “There isn’t a single word about walking corpses. And there’s no mention of
him
.”

Joseph was surprised to find that the newspaper had failed to include what seemed a fairly significant part of the story. It was a ruse—it had to be—but it was also sensational, which was fertile ground for selling papers.

“I don’t know why he’s not mentioned,” Joseph said, running his fingers across the paper. “It does say there were others involved who avoided capture.”

“Men, Joseph,
live
men with guns.” Kate didn’t intend to look at her father as she said this, but she did. He was staring straight ahead, not paying attention to the conversation.

“Do you think the mayor is lying?”

Kate stood up from the table and walked to a window on the side of the kitchen. Much of the city was already dark, but Mount Hood remained clearly visible in the distance, bathed in pink light.

“I think Jim Gates likes a good story.”

“True,” Joseph said. “But something happened in Tillamook—more so than what it says in the paper—and that something is very likely related to the violence in Astoria.”

“Maybe so, but isn’t it most likely another con? Who needs the circus when you’ve got a gang dressed up like long-dead relatives to scare the locals? Did anyone bother to check if any of the banks had been robbed?”

“I don’t know. This just happened, so the news is…”

“Unreliable,” Kate finished.

There was more, which Joseph would have shared had the marshal not spoken up.

“Where’d they get the body?”

“What’s that, Dad?”

“The body,” said the marshal, continuing to stare straight ahead. “Said it was at a circus?”

“He wasn’t dead,” said Joseph. “It was a trick, an actor dressed up like the Hanged Man, to sell tickets.”

The marshal turned to Joseph. “You sure?”

It was the first time since they’d returned to Portland that the old man had really looked at him, and Joseph was surprised by the weight of the marshal’s gaze.

“I don’t know all the details,” Joseph said. “But it makes sense. Even if they did use an actual corpse and then made a switch between shows, it certainly wasn’t the real thing. You made sure of that.”

“Did I?”

Kate returned to the table and took a seat next to her father. “Years ago, Dad.”

The marshal looked at his daughter. In her eyes he saw the good faith he very much wanted to feel, but couldn’t because …

“I don’t remember,” he said.
And you never will.

“There was a fire,” Joseph said, picking his words carefully, for both the marshal and the young ears seated on the steps behind him. “There wouldn’t be anything left to put on display, especially not after so many years.”

“I don’t remember a fire,” said the marshal.

“We know, Dad,” Kate said, putting a hand on her father’s elbow. “It’s been a long time.”

“No,” said the marshal, a little agitated. “No, what I mean is I remember there
weren’t
no fire.”

In an instant, the marshal saw a dead man and a grave. He saw himself with a shovel. He saw a gun. And then it was gone, as if it had been plucked directly from his mind … stolen.

“I buried him,” he said, immediately doubting his own words. The marshal blinked and looked away, once more staring at nothing.

The weight of his gaze lifted, Joseph heard the marshal’s breathing even out and his heartbeat slow. The spark was gone.

“Marshal?”

The marshal didn’t respond.

“Dad?”

The marshal looked at his daughter. “What?”

“Are you all right?”

The old man frowned. “Course I am,” he said, then glanced at Joseph. “Gonna finish your story?”

Kate sat back in her chair. A dozen questions bounced around in her head, all of them difficult. She knew which one Joseph wanted to ask.

“Dad, why were you digging on the hill?”

The marshal raised an eyebrow. “I ain’t been digging.”

“Not here, in Astoria, two weeks ago.”

The marshal pushed back on the wall in his head, but it didn’t budge. He didn’t remember. He couldn’t. Rather than repeat what he’d surely said a dozen times already, the marshal pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

“I’m tired. Think I’ll have a rest ’fore supper.”