The Empire of Shadows (7 page)

The elevator operator closed the gate and moved the large brass lever at his right hand to the down arrow. The steam elevator sank fast and Rebecca smiled and clapped. This was about the sixth time she'd ridden the elevator this afternoon, but the novelty hadn't come near to wearing off yet. With a deft flick of his lever, the big box, which had its own electric light, came to a billowy halt. It bounced twice, settling at last on a level with the floor. The operator winked at Rebecca as he opened the gate to the parlor level of the Prospect House.

“It stopped raining! It stopped raining,” Rebecca cried, looking out at the dying sun sparkling off the lake. The last of the storm was just a gray smudge over the mountaintops. “We can see it now, right Mommy? We can see the deers?”

“I don't know, 'Becca, might be the only deer you'll see today are on the walls,” Tom said, pointing to the mounted heads in the hotel office.

“No, Dad. She's right,” Mike said, supporting his sister, a rarity to be sure. “They told us before that they have a deer in a pen down by the lake, a white deer.”

“A white deer?” Mary said.

“Down by the lake? In a pen?” Tom said with a grin. “Lead on Michael. This we have to see.”

Walking out on the wide verandah that the hotel termed a “piazza,” they had a spectacular view of Blue Mountain Lake and the mountains that hemmed it in for miles around. Blue Mountain shouldered everything else aside. Rising almost from the water's edge, it thrust its massive scar-faced head over two thousand feet above the lake. Forest covered everything except the tiny town.

The other hotels, Merwin's and Holland's, which nestled against the mountain's feet, were visible, set amidst broad areas of cleared land spotted with stumps. A large windmill stood close by the shoreline, the only scar on the sparkling blue and green landscape. The air was fresh and cooled just a touch by the storm.

Balsam and spruce scented the breeze, and it seemed to Tom that he breathed deeper there. He didn't know if that could really be, but it seemed that way. He supposed it was the years of breathing city air—coal smoke, manure, garbage, fish markets, abattoirs, breweries, stock-yards, and fat-rendering plants—that had constricted his lungs. It was not the kind of air a man wanted to drink deep, especially not in summer, when the smell of death could crawl through the streets like a fog in some quarters.

Mary must have been thinking the same. She sighed. “Isn't that wonderful? I love the smell of the pines.” Rebecca, less impressed with the country air, pointed, and pulled at Mary's hand.

“It's down there. The man in the elevator told us. It's in the pen by the windmill.” A fence surrounded the windmill creating a corral maybe a hundred feet across. The earth within, bare, black and muddy was studded with small boulders. Not much grew there except tufts of struggling weeds, cropped close. There was no deer in sight.

“They said it was out here,” Mike said, scanning the pen with a frown.

“Maybe it's around the other side,” Mary suggested, hoping Rebecca wouldn't be disappointed. She could be a handful when she got in a mood. Just then a small steamboat rounded a point of land off to the west. It was creamy white with a gay, stripped fringe of canvas awning hanging from its flat roof. Two small boats were stowed upside down on either side of its tall, black funnel, which rose from the center of the single-decked craft. A group of passengers lined the rails. With a puff of steam, a whistle tooted twice, the sound echoing off the mountains in fading multiplication. It was at once a friendly, human sort of sound, but profoundly out of place as well.

It left Tom with an odd feeling as the whistle was absorbed by the forest. It was a fleeting thought, pushed out of his head by the appearance of the white deer. Like a ghost, it materialized from behind the windmill and charged from one end of the enclosure to the other, wide-eyed and agitated.

“See! See! I told you there was a white deer!” Rebecca cried in triumph.

“The whistle must have spooked him,” Tom said as he watched the deer bound about the pen in the mud. “Damned if I ever saw a white deer before,” he said with a raised eyebrow. He'd seen too much fakery at the freak shows on the Bowery and Coney Island to take much of anything at face value.

It was a buck, about four years old judging by his antlers. He was a creamy, yellowish white, though his legs and belly were black with mud.

“I want to pet him. Can I pet him, Mommy?”

“I'm not sure, sweetheart,” Mary said. “Is it safe with him being so agitated?” she said, turning to Tom, who shrugged and shook his head.

“Make him come to us, Daddy,” Rebecca pleaded, as if Tom had magical power to command white deer.

The burden of her innocence, her trust that he or Mary could bend the world to their will was still hers to bestow. Tom looked around and saw a bucket of oats outside the pen, placed there for the tourists. It took a couple of minutes of calling and coaxing for the deer to settle down and show some interest. Rebecca cooed to the deer, which finally stood quite still, studying them with large, brown eyes and twitching ears. It drew closer, until its muzzle was inches from their outstretched hands.

Rebecca stopped her cooing. The animal was a good foot taller than her and was intimidating despite the fence. Rebecca's hand pulled back, spilling some feed. Mike kept his out though, and the buck nuzzled it, nibbling the offering. Mike's success encouraged Rebecca. She pushed her hand out for the buck to feed. “His tongue is so wet,” she laughed. “I'm all slobbery.” She beamed as the white buck ate like a contented housecat.

Mike offered up another handful as the steamer neared the Prospect House dock. Tom noticed the name
Utowana
on the bow and wondered if it meant anything, or was just someone's idea of a quaint Indian name. He watched it dock. His eye was caught by the boats resting on the steamer's low, flat roof. They were elegant little craft, high and knife-edged at bow and stern, curving out wide and low in the middle. They weren't canoes, at least not like any he'd seen. They actually looked more like little yachts or sailing boats, though they had no sails he could see.

The
Utowana
cut her engines and bumped to a halt while a deckhand jumped out and tied off to cleats at the bow and stern. The captain gave a final toot of his steam whistle.

“Ow!” Mike yelled. “Damn, he bit me!”

Tom looked back to see Mike holding a bloody hand. Rebecca stared at the blood, which had started dripping on the bare ground in bright little splatters. The buck was going mad again, running about the enclosure. Rebecca's lip started to tremble as tears welled in her eyes.

“Let me see that, Mike,” Tom said, pulling out a handkerchief. Mike held out a hand that was so bloody it was hard to tell where the wound was. Rebecca turned and clutched Mary's waist, burying her head in her skirts. Her tears fell almost as fast as Mike's blood, and she started to sob.

“Here,” Mike pointed. “Got my thumb pretty good.”

Tom took a quick look at the wound. It was deep, but Mike made no complaint. Tom watched his face from the corner of his eye.

“He get ya?” a voice asked over Rebecca's crying. Tom turned to see a man ambling up behind them. The ankle-length boots, woolen trousers with leather suspenders, flannel shirt, and sweat-stained green felt hat marked him as a local as much as the sound of the mountains in his voice.

“He all right?” the man asked with a nod toward Mike's hand.

“I suppose,” Tom said.

“I've seen worse,” Mike volunteered. “Saw a horse take two fingers off a kid on Delancey Street once. Ain't as bad as that.” Mike held the hand with whitened fingers as the kerchief turned red.

“Don't know what's got into that buck,” the local said. “Been caught since he was a fawn. Never know'd anything but this here pen or the barn.” He hooked his thumbs behind his suspenders and watched as the buck started to settle down. “Funny thing is,” he finally went on, “the longer he's been here the ornrier he gets.”

“You'd think he'd be tame by now,” Tom ventured. “What with all the hand-feeding and petting he probably gets.”

“You'd think,” the man agreed. “Most times he's gentle as a kitten, but then there's times…” He looked out over the lake and the forested mountains beyond. “Some things just don't tame I guess. Name's Busher, by the way. Chauncey's my given name. I do some guidin' here.” He shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the hotel. Tom stuck out a bloody hand. Busher took it with no visible concern.

“Braddock, Tom Braddock. This is my wife Mary, my boy Mike, and the little one's Rebecca. There a doctor at the hotel, Chauncey? I think my boy should get this looked at.” Tom could see that Mike was a little pale.

“Sure is. Go down to the pharmacy on the first floor, west end of the building,” he said, pointing back at the hotel. “Ask for Doc Whelen. He'll fix yer boy up in two shakes.”

“Thanks, Chauncey,” Tom said, turning toward the hotel.

“Sure thing, Mister Braddock,” Busher replied, then doffed his hat to Mary. “Pleased to meet you, ma'am. And don't you worry,” he patted Rebecca's head as she went by. “Your brother'll be all right, Missy,” he said with a warm smile. “Don't you cry neither. This here's your vacation.”

It was some hours later when Tom stopped in the hotel bar. The doctor had done an efficient job with Mike's hand, though it required a couple of stitches. Mary had taken him and 'Becca up to their rooms to rest, but Tom felt the need for a beer.

There was a group of men leaning against the polished mahogany when Tom entered the bar, One was holding court while the others listened in rapt attention.

“Not a sound from his paddle,” the man said, a prosperous-looking sport with an expanding middle. “Just feet away, and I couldn't hear so much as a swish. Took us in amongst the lily pads where he said the deer come down to drink.”

Tom ordered a stout and asked the bartender who it was doing the storytelling.

“Chittendon's his name. Lawyer from Vermont, I think,” the bartender said. Tom sipped his beer and listened.

“Heard a little splash by the shore and Sabattis told me to uncover the jacklight. Sure enough, there was the most splendid buck you ever laid eyes on, caught in the light. I fired, but I regret to say I was a bit off the mark, for he bounded off. So I said to Mitchell how I was sorry to lose such a noble animal.

“‘We can't lose what we never had,' says he, ‘but we'll have him before daylight. He's hit hard and will not run far.' Needless to say, I was skeptical, but Mitchell said, ‘He did not snort or whistle, as unwounded deer always do when startled, and one of his forelegs appears to be crippled, by the sound of it.'”

“He could tell that from the sound of a running deer—at night?” one of the men in his audience said with a decided note of skepticism. A couple of the others shook their heads.

“Oh, I was as skeptical as you gentlemen, I assure you,” Chittendon said. “But Sabattis showed me the blood, though he had to practically put it under my nose for me to see. He saw it plainly though, and actually said it was as bloody as a butcher's shop, though I swear to you that in the dark I could not make it out amongst the leaves, not even with the jacklight right on it.”

Chittendon took a sip of his brandy. “‘I'm going for him,' Sabattis said,
‘stay with the boat and wait for my shot. Then you fire a pistol, which will give me my bearings.'
Then, off he went into the forest, the lantern in one hand and the gun in the other.

“I can tell you, gentlemen, it seemed like hours that I waited there by that boat, and I suppose it was hours, though I didn't check my watch. Then, up on the mountainside, I heard a faint report. I signaled back with my revolver and waited again until I heard something thrashing down the hill.”

“You mean to say this Sabattis fellow tracked a wounded deer through the forest at night, ran it down and killed it?” Tom said. “And then he dragged it out of the forest single-handed?”

“Indeed, sir,” Chittendon said. “But I can assure you it was as I say. Told me he held the lamp in one hand and shot it with the rifle in the other. Tracked the animal over a mile, following the blood,” Chittendon said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I tell you, gentlemen, if you have an opportunity to hunt with Mitchell Sabattis, take it. The best damn guide I ever had, and a truly uncanny man in the forest. Good cook as well, I might add.”

Tom shook hands with Chittendon and thanked him for the story before he put his empty glass on the bar. “Quite a tale,” he said as he left.

The band was quite good. They had set up on the wide verandah of the Prospect House once dinner was finished in the main dining room. Tom and Mary could hear them from the far side of the lake. After dinner they had boarded the
Utowana
for a night cruise. The steamer was gaily lit, glowing in a halo of reflected light from the still water. The boat had boarded over thirty guests. Ripples of laughter mixed with the distant strains of a waltz. The Prospect House burned with electric brilliance, casting its own rippling reflection across the lake and throwing up a starlike glow against the vault of the blue-black sky.

“I hope this was the right thing—for Mike, I mean,” Mary said as she and Tom leaned against the port rail.

“Had my doubts,” Tom admitted. “He did seem better once we got here, at least until that damn buck bit him.”

“I think it bothered 'Becca more than him,” Mary said.

Tom nodded. Rebecca had always been the sensitive one. “Yeah, he took it pretty well, especially when he saw that girl in the pharmacy.”

“Pretty little thing,” Mary ventured. “They had eyes for each other right away.” She was a maid apparently and her long blonde hair, tied back in a bun, had framed a fresh face, with startling green eyes over a pouting mouth. She had been there when they went to find the doctor. The chemistry had been instant.