The Singing of the Dead (25 page)

“Don't think I've had the pleasure.”

“We went to school together.”

“At UAF?”

“Yeah. Anne wasn't there. She was going to nursing school Outside somewhere, I think. But Darlene was there, and she was running elections even then.”

Dinah was mystified. “And this concerns you how?”

“The student government elections. She was behind one of the candidates for student body president. What the hell was his name?” She shrugged. “I can't remember, and it doesn't matter now. What does matter is that I was curled up in a chair in the Student Union Building late the night of election day, kind of in a corner back where no one could see me, and I saw Darlene go into the student-union office. That was where the ballot box was being kept until the official count the next morning. I got curious—”

“Always your problem.”

“—and I followed her, and I watched through a crack in the blinds, and I saw her fill out a bunch of ballots and stuff the ballot box.”

Dinah's eyes were round. “You're kidding me!”

“No. Darlene's been stealing elections for a long time.”

“You think she's stealing this one?”

Kate thought it over. “Not stealing, no. A student election at a small college, sure, if she thought she could get away with it. But a statewide election, with all the lights on? No.”

“What, then? Why are you telling me this story?”

“She told me after I hired on to Anne Gordaoff's campaign that there wasn't anything she wouldn't say or do to get Anne elected to office.”

“But Anne's ahead,” Dinah said.

“Yeah. And Darlene would do anything and say anything to keep it that way.”

“But why would this matter?” Dinah picked up the disk. “Who could possibly care? It was seventy-five years and three generations ago, Kate. No one gives a damn about that stuff nowadays.”

“You said it yourself, Dinah. It's hard to find a descendent of one of those girls who will admit to it today.”

“You ready to hit the road, Kate?”

They looked up to see Ethan. “It's getting late, and Johnny has to go to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Kate said, getting to her feet and shooting Dinah a warning look. “Yeah, I'm ready.”

“Kate,” Dinah said.

“I'll talk to her tomorrow,” Kate said. “Don't worry, Dinah.”

“Yeah, right,” Dinah said, walking them to the door. Johnny, whose face showed evidence of massive chocolate consumption, with reluctance gave Katya up to her mother and followed them out the door.

“Kate?” Dinah said.

“Go ahead,” Kate told the guys, “I'll catch up. What, Dinah?”

“Did Darlene see you watching her stuff that box?”

Kate grinned. “What do you think?”

“Kate?”

“You going into town for the game tomorrow?”

“Kate!”

“Fine, I'll see you there.” She waved a hand in farewell.

“You're in a good mood,” Ethan said.

Johnny had fallen asleep in five minutes, his head heavy against Kate's shoulder.

When she made no response to his remark, he said, “What's this I hear about you being tossed out with the trash?”

“Where'd you hear that?”

He shrugged, and downshifted through a series of potholes. “Word about you gets around, Shugak. I heard it from your Auntie Vi.”

“Oh great,” she said before she thought.

His teeth flashed white in the dark cab. “Yeah, she wasn't best pleased.”

Johnny muttered something and burrowed his face deeper into her shoulder. She shifted so he'd be more comfortable.

“Listen, Kate.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry about that crack I made a while back.”

“What crack?”

“The one about how long you were going to do without.”

A brief silence. “I hardly remember, Ethan. Forget it.”

“It's just—” He took a breath.

“What?” she said, against her better judgment.

“Hell, I don't know.” He sounded annoyed. “I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess it's partly the unfinished business between us. We never got to see where we could go together. Dad made sure of that.”

“The only place we were going was the sack.”

Ethan's grin was unrepentant. “True.” The grin faded. “But only at first. I liked you a lot.”

“You didn't even know I existed until that summer, Ethan.”

“Yeah, but you have to admit, when I noticed, I noticed.”

She had to smile. “That you did.”

“It wasn't all one-sided.”

“No.”

“You noticed, too.”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “And then I screwed up.”

With the hindsight of going on two decades, Kate said, “Yeah, you did. But what the hell, we were both kids, and what does anybody know at that age? All you are then is one big itch wanting to scratch.” She looked at him in the dim light. “I'm past it, Ethan. It's all right.”

“Is it too late to say I'm sorry?”

“No.”

“Then I'm sorry. I'm sorry as hell I hurt you that way.”

She smiled. “I accept your apology.”

The rest of the drive was accomplished in amiable silence. Ethan stopped at the pullout next to the red Ford. Johnny woke up, yawning. “What's wrong?” He snapped awake. “Is it my mom? Did she come back?”

“No, she's not here, she hasn't come back,” Ethan told him, and then said over his head, “I feel like we're taking up three of the FBI's top-ten-wanted spots.”

Johnny laughed, as Ethan had meant him to.

Kate got out. “Thanks for the ride, Ethan.”

“See you tomorrow at the game?”

“I'll be there working.”

“How much longer you got on this job?”

“Until November seventh, when the polls close.”

His grin flashed. “I'm looking forward to it.”

Niniltna

1915

She reread her latest letter from Percy, smiling. He was doing well in school, and girls' names were beginning to creep into his prose. Lily's accompanying note said that Percy was growing a foot a day and turning into a very handsome young man. She missed him so much. She wondered if she ought to take some time off, turn the house over to Eleanor, and go north for a month.

She thought of Matt, and her smile faded. No. Best to stay away from Matt. She should never have married him, never have yielded to his importunings, never have weakened in her determination to provide for herself and her son.

But she had. From that first moment in Fairbanks when she'd looked up and seen him staring at her through the window, she had abandoned all the good sense she had beaten into herself from Dawson to Denver. He'd been her only customer for a week, day and night, and at the end of that week he took her to Livengood, and then Circle City, and then Dawson, where they visited the ruins of the Double Eagle Saloon, burned down in 1903, and laughed over that day so long ago. In their hotel room that night, he produced a length of chiffon and wrapped her in it from neck to ankle, and produced shoes with very high heels. She minced across the floor, smiling at him. He snatched her up and smothered her face with kisses. The pins fell from her hair. It cascaded over his arm in a rich, red fall.

He raised his head and stared down at her. “This is what I should have done that night,” he said, his face tense. “I knew it then.”

She smiled back at him. “I'm here now.”

Her flesh gleamed through the sheer fabric. “Yes, you are. Yes, by god, you are.” He stood her back on her feet and took one end of the material, pulling at it, so that she rotated slowly before him, her arms raised over her head, revealing herself to him, surrendering to him. He pulled her to the bed and took her at once. He was rough and demanding, and to her great astonishment she felt the beginnings of physical pleasure, something she had not experienced in years, perhaps not since Arthur had used her so shamefully the winter of Sam's death.

He bought her a whole new wardrobe of silk and lace, poured her the finest of champagnes, kept all other men at arms' length. There were so many younger, prettier women upon whom he could bestow his attentions that she couldn't help but be flattered and, in the end, her good sense was overwhelmed.

They married upon their return to Fairbanks, and almost at once things began to go sour. Matt didn't like Percy, Percy being a reminder of another man in another time and thus a remembrance of all the other men. He would not take her out in company for fear she would meet men who had been customers and be tempted. He forbade her to go into town, where she might meet with insult. When she went to visit Lily, he returned home, discovered her absence, and came to fetch her back. He wanted to send Percy Outside to a boarding school. He said it was to further the boy's education, but she knew it was so Matt could have her to himself in the big new house he'd had built on the river.

After a year, she'd had enough and left him. He came to Lily's to fetch her back. This time, when he got her home, he hit her, and then he raped her. He was horrified the next morning and apologized, again and again. He kept her in bed for three days, carrying delicacies to her on trays he had prepared himself, bathing her, brushing her hair, lying with her in spite of her protests of pain. He hung diamonds from her ears and draped pearls around her neck, and he begged her over and over to forgive him. He loved her so much; he would never do anything to hurt her when he was in his right mind, but she had to understand, she was driving him crazy; he couldn't be responsible for his actions. They were married, weren't they? Shouldn't she stay home like a good wife and wait for him? He knew she knew he was right. The next morning he kissed her with great tenderness, took all her clothes, locked her bedroom door from the outside, and went off to work.

She knotted a dress together from a sheet, broke the window, climbed down the drainpipe, and walked the mile to Lily's house.

“You need a lawyer,” Lily said.

“What lawyer is going to represent me?”

Lily smiled. “My lawyer.”

And he had. Matt, made to see how ridiculous he would look in contesting a divorce action from the Dawson Darling, offered up a substantial bribe. He wouldn't give her a divorce, she was told, but providing she moved out of town and didn't use his name, he would not pursue her or harass her in any way. Since she had no wish to marry again, and since Percy, back now with Lily, had been upset enough already, she agreed.

She took the money to Niniltna, where a copper mine and a railroad to haul the copper out had come into production and where the miners were looking for a little relaxation after a hard day's work. She bought a house with Matt's money, taking a perverse pleasure in seeing to it that the mortgage was from his bank, hired four other girls, and opened for business.

Business had been very good, so good that now, in the year 1915, she was thinking of selling out. She was forty, and while she had kept her looks and could afford to pick and choose her customers these days, she was tired of enduring the sweat of faceless men, of the tears they wept into her shoulder when they came, of the seed they left on her thighs. She was tired of being called by the name of every sweetheart who had been left behind when her lover had felt the pull of the north country.

She was tired.

She looked down at Percy's letter. A small house, just outside of town, with enough room for a garden. She sat down at once and wrote to Lily, requesting her to find such a place. She stamped the envelope and had one of the girls take it to the post office before she could change her mind.

When a long-time customer appeared on the doorstep that evening, she turned him away with a regretful smile and a few words of explanation, and the word went out that the Dawson Darling was moving on.

That had been March. Now it was April; the snow turned to slush and men were tracking up the floors with mud. She moved through the days with a sense of lightness and well-being that she didn't remember ever having before in her life. She sang in her bath. She mediated difficulties between the girls of her house with tolerance for their foibles. She paid all her bills, and accepted an offer for the house. She began sleeping through uninterrupted nights for the first time since she had been a child in her parents' house. One day Lily wrote, saying she had found exactly what was wanted, and she began to pack.

In the late afternoon of April ninth, she heard a knock at the back door. The girls had gone on to other jobs in other houses, and she was alone in the house. If it was the milkman, he was early, and if he was early, he wasn't here just to deliver the milk.

Instead, when she opened the door, her husband stood there.

Her hand went to her breast.

“Hello, Angel.”

“Matt,” she whispered.

“I came to see you, I—I heard you were moving back to Fairbanks.”

“Yes.”

They had moved into the parlor. She had yet to light the lamps— while there was electricity at the mine there was none in Niniltna— and they sat facing each other in the dim light that filtered in through the vines. “What are you doing here, Matt?”

“I came—I wanted to tell you—”

“Tell me what?”

He traced the brim of his hat. “I just wanted to see you again.”

“It's over, Matt,” she said. She was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of sympathy for this man who had followed her from Dawson to Nome to Fairbanks to Niniltna. If he hadn't truly loved her, he had cared for her as much as any one man ever had.

“I know. I—did you like the oranges?”

“It was you who sent them?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, I liked them. I hadn't had an orange in a long time.”

“A shipment came into Fairbanks, and I bought them and had them sent down.”

“Thank you.” She saw his expression and added, “They were delicious. Thank you very much for sending them, Matt.”

They sat for a few moments in silence.

“I ruined it, didn't I, Angel?”

“Yes,” she said. “You did.”

A spark of anger lit his eyes. “I had help.”

She didn't answer.

He rose and held out a hand. “And now I've made things worse. I'm sorry, Angel. I'm sorry for everything.”

She found herself taking his hand and rising to her feet. They stood very close together, and she could feel the need radiating from him like heat. It stirred her. She didn't want it to, but it stirred her.