Dungeness

by Polinsky, Karen;

  We turned to go.

  “Stop. A word.”

  He leaped down off his box.

  To my astonishment, his long pale fingers—well-groomed but without gloves—seized my own. He showed me his empty hat. “I’m Thomas Astor. If you refuse to help me, I’ll be shanghaied by pirates. Or worse, the military.” He straightened up. A black lock dripped over one eye. “Kidnapped by sailors, and then bled to death in the hold. You don’t want that to happen to me, do you?”

  I didn’t see the profit in capturing boys with no other aim than to slaughter them underneath the deck, yet, there was so much that I didn’t know. Tugging on my father’s sleeve, I averred, “Father, we must help him.”

  “I’d rather kick him to the next corner.” Carl growled. “Oh fine. I’ll sponsor him for a hot meal, but that’s all.”

  A dirty wind from the north blustered. We hurried on to the Blue Light. Through the lavender cigar smoke we managed to find Swan. On this special day the proprietor, a lady wearing a square felt hat with one tall black feather, had reserved his usual corner table for him. We discovered him sipping “the usual,” a glass of clam nectar, “with a kick.”

  “It’s a great day,” he extolled, “for Washington State, the last stop on the transcontinental rail.”

  Using his walking stick with the coiled snake, he pried himself out of the booth. He clapped Carl on the shoulder and pressed his ermine whiskers to my forehead. He didn’t have to bend down, as I was now nearly the same height. The poet Thomas Astor curtsied. Swan, one eyebrow cocked, offered him a drink. Astor without hesitation, accepted.

  Inside the booth, I pressed against the paneled wall. My father pulled in next to me. Thomas Astor sat across from me and next to Swan. We ordered the special: soup. Lifting their beer mugs to toast, my father and Judge Swan celebrated the economic opportunities that statehood would usher in. This topic, so lively for them, was of little interest to me, and even less to Astor, who devoted himself to his plate of chowder.

  The tavern was named after the blue light on the street end of the wharf. Whenever the double doors opened, a winter breeze made the kerosene flames flicker. Other than that the place was airless; we were like mussels steaming in seaweed. The floor was black with grime; covered with a layer of dirty sawdust. The cigar smoke, body odor, and scent of drying wool made me feel seasick, a sensation curiously absent in the canoe.

  The piano plashed out “The Old Settler’s Song.” All around mugs clacked. Identical twin sisters, hatless and sweating, in twin frocks thrust out their hips and moved their matching pleated skirts this way and that. A woman in purple satin leaned over to wipe something that looked like melted tar off the ruddy beard of a man who laughed so loud that he howled. With a shot glass Swan toasted, “Health, success, and good fortune—to me.” Those near enough to hear laughed, and also promised themselves the best of everything. Astor, who had polished off the last of his fish stew from his crusty pot, and mine as well, stood up suddenly, and almost passed out. He steadied himself, and for the pleasure of all, belted out a then-popular tune, “Malarkey.”

  The public house applauded. Astor bowed and collapsed onto the bench. He reached across the table and touched the wound on my cheek. With lifted eyebrow he inquired, “What happened? Girl fight?”

  I resorted to the fib that had failed me before. “Cat scratch.”

  “Minx.” He studied me. “Hm. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twelve,” I announced bravely.

  “Hm. Despite your girlish appearance, something tells me you’re more than ready to experience the world. There are things I could teach you. After all, one good deed deserves another; one misdeed deserves two.”

  He drank. He brushed crumbs from the elbow of his jacket. In a more serious tone he advised, “Trust me, if you ensconce yourself up on the bluff, jamming scones for the mistress, you’ll die of ennui; either that, or consumption, though I wager that the boredom will do you in first. If you’re seeking an education, stick to the waterfront.”

  Words of wisdom: the last thing I can recall. The previous night I had not slept at all. The canoe journey—though not hard work, at least not for me, though Jake and George might hold the opposing view—had fatigued me. Thirsty from the salted breeze and sun, I had been stealing sips of black beer from one glass, and then another. My lids creaked shut, as if weighted down with silver dollars. If that had been the case, I’m sure that the poet-actor would have palmed them. The last thing I noticed before nodding off was Astor siphoning the barmaid’s tip into his coat pocket off the corner of the table.

  Next thing I knew, my father had tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of meal. The mud of Adams Street sucked on his boots—one of several parallel streets named for the American presidents, and, coincidentally, corrupted by filth. We began climbing the tumbled-down stairway; a seeming ladder of opportunity, oblivious to class, creed, and color. The wooden stair swayed. The night whispered, “Fly. Fly away.” Nothing—not a wing or a prayer—could rescue me now from the next step up: scullery girl.

  As we gained the full height of the bluff, a hundred feet, a gull shrieked. In the dim light of evening, I noticed Carl’s quavering jawline. I knew then, the Blue Light had never been part of the plan.

  Miserable, he exclaimed, “Go in. Now. Without me. I don’t want the Reverend to see me like this. It’s not decent.”

  I yoked my arm around his neck. “Papa, don’t go. I’ll be good, I promise. I can help you fish Please, please, please. Don’t leave me here. How will I ever find my spirit power?”

  He held me in his woeful gaze. “You’re a wonder. What you lack is spit and shine. Here, you have a chance to improve yourself. In church, a front row seat with a leather-bound bible with your name on it. Understand?”

  No, no, not a word. “Papa, when will you come back for me?”

  His spirit was drowning in a sea of regret. “When the time is right. I’ll come, or send word. Somehow, by crook or by hook.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “As well as I am able, I do.”

  Inside a lamp brightened. The lace curtain lifted and fell. The back door creaked and spilled out a pail full of warm light.

  “Hello? Who’s out there?” The melodious voice of a bell-shaped silhouette called out in a voice, low but insistent. “Millie Langlie, is that you?”

  I peered at her through the black boughs of an apple tree. When I turned back, Carl had disappeared.

  City of Dreams

  1851-1902

  Port Townsend, aka the City of Dreams, for the visions it inspired in the first pioneers of this northeastern-most outpost of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and those today who keep that dream alive.

  Originally, it was the placid harbor and fertile valley capped by the castle bluff that attracted the new settlers. West of the cliffs, shimmering lagoons and brilliant meadows were dotted with elk. The first settlers used chalked strings and the nubs of pencils to calculate the exact value that the lumber, fish, and farmland on this corner of the Olympic Peninsula would yield. When one scheme failed, the collective imagination of the town, arriving in a canoe, a sloop, an ox-cart, or a train, replaced it with a new one.

  On May 8, 1792, Vancouver’s ship—not The Discovery, under repair in an adjacent harbor, but one of his smaller vessels—exited the Strait for the headwaters of Admiralty Inlet. At that moment, Vancouver became the first European captain to enter Puget Sound. As he rounded the point, he noticed a sheltered harbor topped by a bluff with sparse trees. He noted the cove as an ideal location for a settlement and named it after his friend and patron, the Marquis of Townshend. The Marquis, a commander of the British forces, never set foot in the town.

  In 1851, Port Townsend was declared a city, a full six months before Seattle. By that May, Port Townsend boasted fifteen bachelors and three complete families, a demographic breakdown typical for frontier towns in the Washington Territory. East coast pioneers established the first private and public
institutions: Plummer, Pettygrove, Fowler, Clinger, Hastings, to name a few. Decades later, at the end of the century, a stiff photo captures four men, original pioneers, posing in front of a trade blanket. Perhaps it’s fitting that this symbol of the coercion and corruption of the Indians should serve as a backdrop for a portrait of the venerated founding fathers.

  Whiskey sapped what strength the Natives who’d survived the epidemics had left to rebel against the new social order. Three decades before, in order to harvest beaver and sea otter pelts to sell to European haberdashers and overcoat manufacturers, the Hudson’s Bay Company established forts throughout the region. HBC Chief Factor John McLoughlin strictly forbade the trade or sale of liquor to the Indians. However, when American settlers arrived in the region, these restrictions could not be enforced. Over the years, as the northern-most outpost on Puget Sound, Port Townsend was an international gateway, with its gambling dens and brothels drew eager sailors in droves. In the gold rush epoch, and in the decades after, hard liquor was the easiest commodity to come by. Rumor has it that even the great writer Jack London spent a night in jail here.

  “Whiskey built a great city.” These are the words of J. Ross Browne, a government inspector. In 1857, in two accounts in a San Francisco newspaper, Browne’s witty descriptions of Port Townsend made him an enemy of the civic-minded. Browne wrote: “With very few exceptions, it would be difficult to find a worse class of population in any part of the world. No less than six murders have occurred there during the past year. It is notorious as a resort for beachcombers and outlaws of every description.” Browne called those who objected ungrateful. When news of the Frazier Gold Rush hit, it was Browne’s colorful pieces that attracted prospectors in need of supplies . . . and in want of the high and low entertainment that he’d advertised. As Browne himself predicted, his reputation eventually transformed from detractor to benefactor. A few years later, when Browne landed on the wharf, he was greeted by a delegation of prominent citizens and a brass band.

  In the 1860s, as diplomats from the United States and Great Britain clashed over possession of the San Juan Islands, loyal American citizens dropped the “h” in “Port Townshend.” This period of tension with England, which lasted twelve years, is sometimes called The Pig War. On San Juan Island, a Berkshire boar, property of the Hudson’s Bay Company, triggered an international crisis when it trespassed into the garden of an America farmer. After the pig was shot, diplomacy prevented further bloodshed. On October 21 of 1872, Emperor William I of Germany, acting as arbiter, appointed a commission in Geneva. One year later, declaring the boundary with England to be the Strait of Haro, they awarded the islands to the United States.

  In the next several decades, as the city continued to thrive and grow, so did its notoriety. The Key City’s seamy reputation may have played a role in the decision to move the customs house to Port Angeles in 1862. One year later, the righteous might of God, made manifest by a melting glacier, washed the new building into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. President Lincoln took time out from the Civil War to authorize the return of bureaucratic functions to Port Townsend, where the customs house remained a bastion of corruption for decades to come. Trade in opium, the smuggling of illegal workers after the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, and routine murders of every description added to its scurrilous reputation.

  Citizens hoped and lobbied for the Northern Pacific Railroad would name Port Townsend, as an emerging national and international center of trade, the last stop on the trans-continental railroad. This scheme, like so many others, inspired and ultimately disappointed.

  The citizens of Port Townsend: committed to the dream, even if they knew it couldn’t last. “The Old Settler’s Song” by Francis Henry captures a popular conviction: in the long run, it’s better to be contented than rich. In the 1902 semi-centennial celebration, original pioneer B.S. Pettygrove led the crowd through to the final verse:

  . . . no longer the slave of ambition,

  I laugh at the world and its shams,

  as I think of my pleasant condition

  surrounded by acres of clams.

  26

  Up on the Bluff

  c. 1889

  “Quiet. You’ll wake father.”

  This from a young man with a beakish aspect like a hawk, or a preacher, and penetrating dark eyes. His large head looked larger thanks to his curly brown hair. He attempted to comb the wiry locks down on his forehead . . . unsuccessfully.

  Over his shoulder, a girl, slight and fair, in a dress with pink piping, so diaphanous it looked white. Later I learned it was her nightgown. I could not see her feet but this didn’t surprise me; I expected a beautiful ghost like her to float.

  “Millie Langlie, at last.” She knelt down beside me. “How eager I am to at last meet my companion. Another girl to talk to! So, why are you crying?”

  “Edith, for pity’s sake. She’s entirely undone. Filthy and exhausted. In the morning you can ply her with questions. For now, wipe off the mud and put her to bed.” Bitterly he added, “So the rest of us can get some sleep.”

  As the petulant lad scolded, the girl’s colorless lashes fluttered. The back of her hand covered her mouth as she coughed. Feathery curls fell down on her delicate collarbones, as fragile as a bird’s. She wavered, as if too frail to stand. I ached to place her in a chair.

  But the young gent was not finished with her. “Fetch a blanket, a good thick one. She can stretch out here, next to the stove.”

  “She’ll fry, or freeze. She had better sleep with me.”

  This miffed him. “She’s here to care for you, not the reverse. If you coddle her, she’ll follow you like a pull toy, with about as much practical use. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the Reverend had in mind when he sent for her. For tonight, do what you want. In the morning, he and I will teach you how to manage the household staff.”

  Household staff of one: me.

  The battle won if not the war, Edith turned to go. “Goodnight, brother.”

  Not husband, but brother. That made sense. Only a few years older than me, she seemed too frail, too kind and good, to be married to a husband, least of all to this scoundrel. I noted his white skin and slender figure. There, the resemblance ended. They two were as similar as a lamb and a timber wolf.

  She guided me past the formal dining table next to the glowing brick hearth and up the stairs. I peeked into the stately parlor with its creamy walls and its green-gold drapery, which covered the front windows from the ceiling to the floor. It was a good room, the best I had ever seen. Our lit taper passed by standing lamps causing heavy maple chairs and carved end tables to cast intricate shadows.

  As I followed her up the narrow stair, she remarked, “You mustn’t think my brother harsh or cruel. Quite the opposite. If anything, Chris is too sensitive. Ever since mother died, I’ve been ill. My father dedicates all of his energy to the parish. So you see, it all falls on Chris. It burdens him because he cares.”

  The first door in a little hallway opened up to a bedroom, with a pink aura, like the mist at sunrise. Perhaps it was the wallpaper, with its swirly floral pattern that, in the candlelight, created this impression. The room, not large, was dominated by a huge bed on a wooden frame, covered by a gauzy pink canopy and a ruffled valance all around it. Pink pillows, trimmed in green, floated on a sea foam quilt, lavender with green trim. A lamp hung on the wall on either side of the bed, each an upside-down glass jar. Next to the enormous bed, a tiny table made of a shiny black wood with a white marble top. The legs of the table were bowed, as if they could hardly withstand the weight. The left-hand wall featured a wardrobe with two wide doors and a full-length mirror built into the center panel. There were three small Persian rugs with opulent blues and greens, swirling pink, and black.

  On the wall opposite the wardrobe, a large window, with side-by-side doors and glass panes, stepped out to a tiny balcony, the only view of the town and the harbor, the coastal range, and the peaks of Mount Baker. In the center sat a
little wooden bench behind an iron rail. From this seat a girl could track the street life below, the slow glide of a brig, or the illumination of the stars. A girl could dream.

  However, as I would soon discover, life lived small—regarded from the compressed end of the telescope—can satisfy for only so long.

  Above the bed, next to a slender crucifix, there was a large charcoal sketch of a determined woman with a piercing stare, not unlike her sons. Without really wanting to, I continued to study it as Edith removed my wrap and untied my soggy boots. I kept my little satchel, with everything I owned, pressed up against me. Finally, I put it down in order to peel off my damp bodice, which clung.

  “Quick,” Edith cried. She lifted up the stitched coverlet. She threw it over me, and nestled into the bedclothes from the opposite side.

  I began to cry.

  Edith asked, “Do you miss your mother?”

  “Yes,” I cried.

  Edith nodded. “I miss her, too. I mean, Adele . . . my mother. That’s her in that drawing you’ve been admiring.”

  “How did she die?”

  Her eyes burned, in the pale light of the moon coming through the window. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes, please.”

  With a sigh, she commenced her tale.

  A final act of generosity did my mother in. As the Reverend’s wife, she devoted herself to good deeds. She volunteered at the Marine Hospital. Once in a while an entire ship’s registry falls ill. That’s what happened when a passenger, an Irish servant girl named Mallory O’Quinn, with an infant on her breast, attracted Adele’s special pity. Mallory had traveled by ship from Ireland to New York. Her prospective employer had turned her away; they’d not advertised for a maid with a baby. In compensation (and to get rid of her, fast) the mistress offered her a train ticket. Mallory, to take fullest advantage of the opportunity, booked passage as far west as one can go by rail. From San Francisco, she took a schooner to Port Townsend. By the time she arrived, she, along with most of the other passengers and crew, was delirious with fever. She was carried from the dock to the nearby Marine Hospital.