The Siren's Tale (34 page)

With a chunk of investments
, I funded in perpetuity the continuation of Nick's night school for Indian girls in Alta. I wanted it to be expanded exactly as he had envisioned.

Over the years, a
ll this and more was accomplished, thanks to others. For instance, the funds I put into the Samuel Brighton Charter School were matched by the generosity of the Scattergoods and then in turn by Nicholas Samuel Drake.

I insisted on only one condition for my donations and gifts, that they must remain anonymous. On the
first Christmas after handing over the Grange to the Scattergoods, I received a loving letter from Clare, one I cherished to the end of my days. She thanked me and begged me to come home for a visit. I longed to see the Scattergoods, but I had to decline because of the native faction that still feared and abhorred me.

When, some years later, ground was broken for the charter school’s expansion, it included a new fine arts wing and a performance auditorium, the first in the district. Th
e Scattergoods insisted it should be named the Cassandra Vye Theater of the Performing Arts.

I decline
d the honor. With my tongue firmly lodged in my cheek, I suggested they name the theater after Zelda Brighton, “who,” I wrote in my letter to Clare, “may have been the greatest actress of her time and place.”

I was delighted when
my request was honored. I knew Nicholas would have been proud of me.

“Far out,” says Marlena. 

Her cerulean eyes are wide open,
staring at Chloe, whose head is on her chest. The epic storyteller has nodded off. The audience feels the tug of history as she is transported back into the present, where she will never be the same person.

“
My brain feels like a balloon,” says Marlena aloud. “Who knew there was so much history in our family? What a trip!”

She glances
past her sleeping cousin to the fireplace, then to the window, outside of which the wind is howling like a captive Indian as the sun struggles to rise.

“
Dawn breaks, but no one gets the joke,” she mutters. “I could swear a redheaded woman in a white robe is sitting on the window sill, playing on a zither. I must be dreaming.”

Then she shifts the blankets and calls
out to her cousin, “Chloe, wake up.”

“
What? Oh, sorry, Lena. I drifted off for a minute.” 

“
You know, Chloe, that second act in Cassandra’s story is inspirational. It makes me want to get off my ass and do something solid. Like, I mean, I should be out there saving the planet or demonstrating against the B.I.A. and the C.I.A.”

Chloe
smiles drowsily. “Am I born yet?”

“
Nope, just some advance PR.”  

Chloe yawns
. “The best is yet to come: my close-up in Act III.”

Marlena
asks, with a new seriousness in her voice, “Chloe, do you think there is hope for the human race? How do we sirens tackle the evil-minded Hawkers and Browns of the world?”

“Well, it is unfortunate, but bigotry and superstition continue. We take one step forward, two steps back. When Horowitz was growing up in Russia, they thought he was possessed by the devil because of his precocious talents on the violin. On the other hand, humans have managed to legislate an end to slavery and back street abortions.”

“
Do you suppose they will ever pull it all together? Put an end to war, for instance?”

As Chloe yawns again, she sprays
a mist of particles into the air. They both laugh.

There is
a knock on the door, followed by Annie in her chenille bathrobe, bearing a tray of coffee and rolls. She retreats, grumbling about “the of two of yous missing an entire night of sleep…what nonsense.”

“
Interesting you mentioned war,” said Chloe. “You have created the perfect transition into the third act of Cassandra's life. Or perhaps you want me to finish another time?” 

“
Not on your life. In for a dime, in for a dollar. That's the siren way.”

“
Good.” 

Chloe
sits up straighter, adjusts her gown, and takes a preachy tone.

“
To understand the enduring appeal of war, we need to look at the way men relate with one another. From a psychological perspective, the jealousy old men have for young men is institutionalized in war. Ten million men died in the so-called Great War—needlessly, from the perspective of some socio-historians. What did it solve?” 

Marlena
drains the last drop of coffee from her cup. Her eyelids are red-lined and drooping, but she flashes a smile of encouragement at Chloe, who has paused, as she is lost in thought.

“
Do go on with your story,” insists Marlena. “I am wide awake now.”

She is curious about the role that war played in Cassandra’s amazing life. Certainly war
played a central role in her parents’ lives and by extension her own generation's thoughts. The glories of WWII and the Allied victory over a real-life monster made it difficult for the two generations to communicate on the Vietnam conflict, a topic she and her parents were not able to discuss without getting angry. Austin said he owed everything to joining the service, meaning his wife and daughter. Faith was unapologetically jingoistic, believing all good men and women should consider it their duty to join in the extermination of evil. 

Marlena
believes war to be as brutish as slavery and back-lot abortions. Perhaps, she thinks, when women take over, they will do away with the last barbarism. She pats her tummy, a gesture which is not lost on the narrator. 

Chloe again picks up Cassandra's story, jumping to April of 1917 for the last act of the play…

When the United States entered World War I, war fever and patriotism ran hot in masculine veins, despite mounting death tolls overseas. Movie stars, including Nevada Carson, toured the country selling war bonds, and small-town veterans hawked the virtues of war in building the characters of untested young men.

Through the spring of 1917, in Casper, Wyoming, Homer Lathrop's Private Hospital was holding drills in preparation for invasion. I
n the northeast district of Wyoming, the general attitude of the elder native sons was expressed this way: “It’s about damn time our youngsters got off their soft arses and became men, like we did.” 

In April, a
few of the younger men drove over to Rapid City to watch the troops assemble. It was thrilling to watch them march and hear the cadence.

You had a good home and you LEFT, you’re RIGHT

You had a good home and you LEFT, you
’re RIGHT

SOUND OFF
one two

SOUND OFF three four

One two three four sound off, SOUND OFF!

No one could say exactly what the war was about, except it had something to do with an archduke who got himself assassinated in Sarajevo in June of 1914. The last war in memory had been the Spanish-American War of 1898. There was a plaque on the wall of the church vestibule commemorating the native sons who had died in Havana harbor, along with the famous slogan “Remember the Maine!”

Former Mayor Ted Hawker had been too old to serve in the Spanish-American War, but he had served on the Union side in the Civil War a
nd fought in the Indian-white wars. Now a man of seventy-some years and no longer able to walk far on his own, he still functioned with vigor as an unofficial military conscription arm for Uncle Sam.

By
the Fourth of July, Hawker was in top form, holding court at the Plush Horse and buying drinks for the young bucks. His son Thomas—who never married but had sired a brawling, beady-eyed bastard—deposited the Mayor in his wheeled chair.

Thomas
sat quietly nearby, waiting to cart the old man home after he concluded his patriotic duty. Between pitchers of beer poured by proprietor Jeannette Thomas, Hawker made sure to speak seriously with every able-bodied man in the bar. He was selling personal honor and one’s duty to country. As he was bitterly aware, there was no chance of recruiting his coward of a son, but he had his eye on a few likely prospects.

F
ew are better suited to arouse the machismo necessary for young males to enlist in armed services than a bushy-browed, colorful old soldier holding court in a saloon decorated with American flags. Despite the tearful pleadings of mothers, wives, and sweethearts, under such circumstances boys will be drawn to war in droves. By the time Hawker had worked himself hoarse, Fairwell’s oldest son Turk, Sam the gunsmith, and “Dode” Nelson were fairly itching to get overseas and kick some Kaiser butt.

The following day,
Caleb Scattergood was listening skeptically to Horatio’s impassioned description of the glorious future in store for him overseas. At the end, he shook his head.

“
You have a talented brain, Admiral,” said Caleb. “I would hate to see it splattered all over a cornfield in France because some old coot sold you on a fairy tale.”

“
What do you mean, a fairy tale?”

Caleb had to look up to him, because Horatio had sprouted up i
nto a very tall, handsome man. He was nearly thirty and still unmarried.   

“
Speaking plainly, son, war is hell. It is sheer hell, not a glorious adventure. And when it is not hell, it is boring, which can feel even worse. When you’re not in danger of losing life and limb, you’re marching in black water up to your knees, picking off leeches, and fending off crotch rot. The pay is bad, the food is worse, and when it’s all over, no one even knows what it was about. All goes back to the way things were, minus the young men who died, until the next war breaks out. It is a vicious cycle.”

“
The way you talk, maybe there shouldn’t be any wars at all.”

“
Well, Admiral, there must be a better way to go about resolving the serious problems in the world. I am what they call a conscientious objector. My mother was a Quaker. She said war is as barbaric as slavery, but so long as it is sanctioned by good men, it will go on. Why we keep on doing it is anyone’s guess, but then it took us pretty near up till now to get rid of slavery. See my point?”

“
I guess so,” said Horatio. “Just the same, I will enlist tomorrow.”

Caleb sighed.
“What about the other lads?”

“
There are two will be signing up for sure. We’ll take the train together for the west coast. I’ll be shipping out from San Francisco. We leave in two weeks.”

“
That soon. Well, I’m sorry to hear it. But I wish the best of luck to you. You always have a friend here, and a place to work if you want it.”

“
You mean you would hire me again, if I come back?”

“
You bet.” He turned away so the young man could not see the tears in his eyes.  

Caleb’s pacifism gave pause to Horatio, who admired the ice man above all other
men in town. He had also been schooled by Nicholas Brighton, when he was still alive, to be open to all angles on an issue. Caleb’s was an unusual perspective that went against the grain of what the men in town were saying.

Horatio
wanted to do the right thing. In a situation like a country’s call to war, where  emotions ran high and patriotism was the prevailing force, what should a red-blooded American male do? If President Wilson called forth the nation to defeat an axis of evil, shouldn’t every able-bodied American heed the call? He had thought of being a teacher like Brighton or a businessman like Scattergood, but now, in all the excitement of men going to war, those careers seemed a tepid choice.

Working first in Caleb’s i
ce business and then in his farm operations had allowed Horatio to live fairly well. He had been able to care for his parents until their deaths. Now he lived alone in a cabin in Corinthus.

Ther
e was nothing to prevent Horatio from going to war. His mother was gone, and there was no sweetheart tugging tearfully at his sleeve. His only misgiving was exactly what Caleb articulated, a suspicion that enlisting in a war was not the right thing to do, despite the cultural pressure. Because the multitude was all for it, Horatio wondered if he shouldn't be against it, on principle.

A
t Mill’s Creek, having dinner with Captain Vye, Horatio sought one more opinion.

“
Well,” said the Captain, “I guess it is what I would do if I were your age. I always say it’s good to be part of the military while you are young and foolish enough to have a chance of living through it.”

“
They say it will be over in a few weeks.”

“
Yes, they always say that. I myself have never seen a war that didn’t drag on for years longer than anyone wanted.”

“
Well, thank you for the evening, sir. I better be going on home now.”

As Horatio got up to leave, Captain
Vye sensed he wanted something else. It turned out Horatio was thinking of looking up Cassandra when he was in San Francisco. Horatio blushed crimson red as he mentioned his plan, and the Captain repressed a smile. It was plain the strapping man standing in front of him was still in love with Cassandra, who was now a woman of almost forty.
How about that?
he thought. When it comes to a beautiful woman, there is a damn fool born every minute.

Horatio twisted his hat in his hands.
“Do you think Miss Cassandra would remember me?” He didn't say that not a day passed without his thinking of her, that he still wore her locket around his neck.

“
Remember you? Of course she would! And be right glad to see you, too. She don’t have any friends around her who are worth anything; only a bunch of girly men and show people. But don't tell her I said that.”

“
Have you been to visit her, sir?”

“
Oh, gosh no. San Francisco is not a place for me, Dode. I have no more desire to travel. Too old to bother any more, I guess.” 

What
the Captain did not say, but everyone in town knew, was that his days and nights were now well occupied by a slow-brewing relationship with Jeannette Thomas. He was no longer the lonely widower he had been when his granddaughter fled. The romance between Captain Vye and the female proprietor of the Plush Horse was an established part of the ongoing gossip on at Bottomly's, where amusing speculation flourished as to exactly what the pair might be doing and whether they weren’t too damned old to be doing it. In fact, the old rascal was bedding the inn's proprietor often and well.

While Horatio was getting on his horse, the Captain ran out and ga
ve him a scrap of paper with Cassandra’s Nob Hill address scrawled on it.

“
I have never given this to anyone before, but I'm sure she won't mind my making an exception in your case, son. Tell her I miss her, will you? And that I’m not getting any younger, so she needs to come and see me. Her old grandfather is proud of her, no matter what anyone around here has to say!” 

T
he Captain forgot to mention to the lovelorn Horatio that his granddaughter went by a stage name.

Alas, when Horatio arrived in San Francisco, the
piece of paper with the address was no longer with him. He had stashed it in a small duffel bag that was stolen while he slept on the train.

The locket he wore on his neck was of no use in locating her
either, nor was the name by which he was attempting to find her:
Mrs. Cassandra Brighton
.