The Bully of Order (43 page)

He followed her inside. Spread on the table was a map. Holding down each corner were small, smooth black stones.

“When did he say he'd be back?”

“He didn't. I told him you'd be home this evening, and he said he couldn't wait. Did you know he was coming?”

“Not so soon, I didn't.”

The noise from the couplers slamming to in the train yard behind their house was enough to rattle the glass in the frames. Burnside was only quiet on Sunday mornings for an hour or so. Noise has different colors, and a person can grow accustomed to anything. What before had kept them up nights now lulled them into a deeper sleep. Mary had used a powdered soap to scrub the floor, and there was a picture of flowers on the box, but it smelled of ammonia. Years later he'd think of his young wife sitting like this almost daily, a small, beautiful girl waiting for him alone, and the ammonia would be thick in his mind and he'd go dizzy. He was nineteen and she was a year younger, added, mathematically prime. Pregnant but not showing, didn't show much even two months from when the child was born; she didn't look pregnant, only plump.

“Swallowed a crookneck,” Matius had said, after he arrived unannounced and was told of the pregnancy. “Bodes poorly for both child and mother if she don't show.”

“Doesn't mean that,” Jonas said.

“Does.”

“Not every time.”

“I know a thing or two.”

“So you have to say it.”

Matius would be back, and there'd be more talking and lying and cajoling. Mary believed him. There was talk in the streets too, and stories in the paper. Who wasn't rich already? Who wasn't going? Jonas blamed his father. They couldn't leave yet. They'd spent their savings getting settled, and now that he'd found work in the mill and they had a house, he wasn't ready to leave it behind. And the quiet word at the mill was that Alaska wasn't so nice or golden as they said. True, the managers could've spread these rumors, but the mill was stable and could be counted on. Jonas didn't look out on great hillsides of gold, or even gold mines. It was trees, and if there was an end to them, he couldn't see it.

“I hate that we spend our days apart,” Mary said.

“I have to work.” He felt stupid for having to say it out loud.

“I'm so alone here. There's no one to talk to or visit, no women my age. I want an adventure, Jonas, not this dull place.”

“It won't be any different up north. It'll be worse, I assure you.”

“But we'll be together. We'll work together and build a place and make a fortune together. It'll just be us.”

“That's all I want, Mary.”

“So why don't we leave?”

“I told you.”

“Your father agrees with me. We should make our way before the fall, or we'll be wintering here.”

“I want it to be safe when we travel. I worry about the child.”

“There's no more safety here than on the road.”

“You don't know that.”

“I know, Jonas. I know I don't. But I feel in my heart that we need to get on our way. If we stay here, it feels like we might not get another chance to leave.”

He listened to her breathing while she slept and felt that he was destined to fail her. Portland wasn't so bad a place, if she could get used to it. He thought they could someday build a house on the other side of the river.

“Jonas, no.”

“Purdy is selling lots. He told me. He said he'd let me make payments.”

“I don't want to live here.”

“Fine.”

“Can we go?”

“I'll think about it.”

“Talk to your father. He has it all planned out.”

“Don't listen to him. He has nothing planned out. He'll lean until he's standing on us.”

“Jonas.”

“I'm serious.”

“He's your father.”

“That's why I said what I did. I know him. I know how he is.”

“I hate it when you're not here.”

“I know.”

He thought: Maybe the old man and me, after the baby's born, we'll make a trip up there and get a place built, sink some holes and see what we can find. He imagined digging a hole, a deep, black hole, so deep he could stand up and see dirt ten maybe twenty feet above his head and a ragged piece of sky, a rent in the dirt fabric. Would there be gold there? One foot deeper? Two? Two hundred? How much gold? A fleck? A train load. Bags of it, enough to bar a flood. To be done, that's how much. He would be done working forever. Imagine that. Now, he thought, you're falling for his bullshit.

“We could go right now,” Mary said. “I don't have to wait.”

“It's not safe. We can't.” It was easier to make the change in his mind and not tell her. In the end, it felt more up to him instead of what it was, a surrender.

He quit the mill, and their house went to another family. But by then he'd already rented Mary a room in a boarding house. She was on the third floor, with two windows that looked out over the river. The widow that ran the house had three young children and promised to keep an eye on Mary and help once the baby came. The corrals were nearby, but you couldn't smell them. Before he left they'd stood together at the window and watched the cattle mill in their pens. He promised to be back soon.

They'd only made it as far as Seattle when he got word about the child. At first he wanted to go back, but he couldn't make himself do it. He let his father's will drive him farther and farther north until he didn't want to go back, couldn't imagine facing her if he did.

They crossed the channel in a hired canoe. There was a small amount of water in the bottom and it sloshed around and rinsed the mud from their boots. Matius and the Indian that spoke some English were in the bow while Jonas and the other Indian, so far silent, rode in the stern. A quiet trip, but nervous. Three Tlingits had been killed, two hung, one shot, for the murder of a saloonkeeper at Gold Creek, and the Ellstroms were hesitant to get in the boat with the quiet men, perhaps father and son just like them. Not much of a choice, though, if they didn't want to wait for the scow to go over and have twenty men beside them asking for the same jobs.

When they first arrived, there'd been a gallows on the beach. They'd hung an Indian and left him there. It was an ugly sight, and the others on the steamer thought it barbaric. The Northwest Trading Company had a committee, and they passed the laws and judgment and hung Indians while keeping the majority, minus those necessary to maintain the ferry service, out of the town proper. The steamer only came once a month, so no one at the trading company cared what a bunch of tourists thought. The Indians were from Hoonah mostly, and they'd been getting fleeced and murdered by different brands of whites for a hundred years. If they wanted someone to hear their grievances, they wouldn't find him in Juneau. Formerly they'd been a warlike tribe, and the warriors among them were still amazed at the ferocity of the whites. A sense of humor was not something apparent in them, not without cruelty, without viciousness. They'd laugh at you bleeding, but not at you laughing.

Their light packs soaked up the water from the floor. The rest of their gear was stowed in a cabin rented from a blacksmith on the waterfront in Juneau proper. If the mill on the island hired them, they'd be going back for another trip to bring their outfits over. If not, men were dying in the Treadwell mine every day. Matius's back was humped against the rain, and he had a tick, shiny and crimson, buried in his neck, like it was the first pebble that would mark him turning into stone.

Like he knew Jonas was staring at him, his father turned, spoke: “You better at least act sober when we get there.”

“I already told you I was sorry.”

“I didn't say act sorry. I said act sober.” His father spit a cottony dot onto the black water and turned to look into his son's face. “It's shameful.”

“Then ignore it. Turn a blind fuckin eye.”

“You don't even remember, do you?”

“I remember some.”

“You'd be embarrassed if you could.”

“I'm embarrassed, and I can't. I hardly see the difference.” Jonas felt inside his jacket for his leather satchel, and it wasn't there. “You take something from my coat last night?”

“I did.”

“Pass it over.”

“I don't know what English these gentlemen understand, but I know that I don't want you talking about what we have in our pockets right now. You're lucky you weren't robbed.”

“Apparently I fucking was.”

The Indian in the bow smiled over his shoulder, and Jonas smiled back.

His father was silent. The Indians kept a steady rhythm with their paddles. Matius stared at the water defiantly.

The Indian in the bow said something.

“What'd you say?” Matius demanded.

“Nothing.”

“I heard you say something.”

“I said, he got out-white-manned.”

The water was black and green. They were out in the middle of it now. They'd drown for sure if they went over. Bald eagles sat on trees on the shoreline and gulls turned effortlessly overhead. When the sound of the paddle behind him went quiet, Jonas looked back and the Indian nodded his head toward the shore. The mill was visible first by its rising steam and smoke and then by its black and shining shingle roof.

The canoe banked in the mud of low tide, and they stumbled out with their packs and slogged up the hill to ask for a job. Matius went first.

No drinking was allowed on the mill property, so Jonas was soon sober and alert, running an edger like he'd done in Portland.

The long hours allowed Jonas brief seconds of relief from a flood of memories. Green chain rolled off, and the dogs brought more and more. He didn't blame Mary, but he did.

At dusk he stood on the edge of the channel in the pouring rain, looking at the smattering of lights in Juneau. There was a canoe there, and he could take it. Nobody was awake to stop him. He went as far as to untie it from the stump, where it bobbed on the flood tide, but he didn't get in, and after a few minutes he clove-hitched it back to the stump, with two half hitches roughly put on to finish it. He wasn't a bad man, and he didn't see why he'd been cursed. Water cascaded down the cliff face across the channel. His father was suddenly beside him. He had a scab in the corner of his mouth, and it was oozing yellow pus.

“You can't keep dwelling on what's done,” his father said.

“Let me be.”

“She was weak-hipped.”

“If you speak to me about her again, I'll beat your brains in.”

“She wasn't built for it. It's the way—”

And Jonas struck him in the jaw as hard as he could, and it was lucky Matius was knocked unconscious and couldn't fight back, because Jonas hated him to his bones and would've killed him.

An Indian from Yakitat the mill workers called Sannup saw what had happened, and after Jonas went back to the bunkhouse, the Indian stayed with Matius until he woke up and then helped him to his bunk.

Jonas and his father didn't speak for days.

A month later the millwork suddenly ended when the owners decided to hire Chinese, and it got rough with the Indians and the strikers both. Jonas and his father left Douglas for Juneau and rented the same cabin over again and found work in the woods until the rain got too bad. It was just too much; it wouldn't stop. Treadwell still wanted men in the glory hole, but Jonas hadn't come this far to die, no matter what he told himself. They watched as the Chinese were run out of town. The whole of the population, no less than fifty of the large Indian war boats, carried them away. The channel was calm, and they went without looking back. It was said that a schooner met them later and took them to Puget Sound. Some thought it was a benefit, but most missed them once they were gone.

They hired the same Indians to take them north. The tide was against them, so they made camp in a narrow cove and slept on the rocks, but it was summer so the sun only played at quitting. Jonas slept with his face buried in the crook of his arm and woke up cramped. As they set out the next day, the wind and tide were in their favor. Still, it took two more days to arrive at the Haines Mission, and they had to wait there for the tide to make their way up Dixon Straits. While they were in camp, a group of officers from a gunship paid them a visit and asked about their progress. Jonas said it was fine, but he needed a rifle. Go ask the captain, they said. The ship was moored two miles away, and Jonas went by himself and left his father playing cards with the crew. The captain was amicable and invited him aboard.

“You have a tough time ahead of you,” he said.

“I know. My father's with me. We'll give it a go. Can you sell me a rifle?”

“I'll loan you one. Send it to Brady's Store in Juneau when you're finished, or head south yourself.” He gave Jonas fifty rounds of ammunition. The rifle was a 45.90. The ship was called the
Pinto
. The captain's kindness made him uneasy, and several times on his walk back to camp he looked over his shoulder, thinking he'd been followed, but no one was there.

Recall, one golden evening. Mary set Jonas's plate in front of him on the table. “Should we wait for your father?” She rested an arm on her distended stomach.

“No. He can find his own dinner if he doesn't want to be on time.”

“I'll keep his plate on the stove.”

“Sit with me.”

Mary sat down, and since she'd already eaten, she watched, smiling, while Jonas shoveled in his food. “The doctor was by.”

“What'd he say?”

“All's fine. I told him about the pain I've been having, and he said it was normal and would pass.”

“It's not so bad, then?”

“Not so bad.”

He set down his fork and smiled at his wife. She remained optimistic, even with all the troubles they had. She trusted him, and he prayed he had the strength to keep her.