Dungeness

by Polinsky, Karen;

  In the dim pantry, darkly aromatic, I squinted at the one-liner:

  “At 4 o’clock meet me Alexander’s castle.”

  Unsigned.

  There was no need. I knew who it was from; one rub of the paper told me.

  An Episcopal cleric, John B. Alexander, erected a castle up on a bluff for his bonnie bride-to-be from the highlands. When Alexander went to fetch his betrothed he discovered that she had married another. Alexander traded his Romantic ideals and his castle for a reliable government post in Tacoma. Ever since, the red-brick tower endured as a monument to thwarted love.

  I leaned against the jars of pickled peppers, pondering. My clever playmate never lacked a plan.

  His current gambit?

  And, what about Edith? Should I tell her? Or lie to her, and shoulder the responsibility for whatever happened next?

  A moment later, I was kneeling beside her.

  I confessed all. For once, Edith attended to me. For a long while after she looked into the fire. Finally, she said simply, “You must get ready.”

  “But you’re not well, and I may not be back for hours. If Christopher finds out—”

  My objections were far from genuine. Perhaps she noticed. Edith tossed down the letter. Her face was pale, her blue eyes bright. “Changeling. I often think of that night when you materialized out of the mist. You were greener than springtime. You needed to be taught how to set the table, shine the silver, and de-grease a linen tablecloth. You were either too innocent—or too rude—to exist. I made it my mission to improve you.”

  She went on. “Stupid me. From the first moment, it was I who learned from you. Ever since that day, the gap between us has only increased. You’ve read every book in father’s library. By assisting Swan you’ve learned about people and places that I never knew existed. Once a week when the Judge dines with us, after our meal, rather than clearing away the dishes, you converse with the men. During his last visit, you put up your boot heels, just like a man. When you lit father’s cigar, I half-expected you to take a draw.”

  Edith continued. “When I was a little girl I spent happy hours in the garden. Adele—not for want of trying—could not keep me indoors. Then, she died. It was as if she were testing me. Before she died, I flitted like a fairy, after dull as lead. I stayed in my room.

  “Then you came. Suddenly, I recalled, the windswept town beneath my iron balcony is only steps away. I want to open my wings, to receive the sea air; at times to strive against it. But I know I never shall, because each night the fever returns. Each morning I am roused by a killing cough. My life is over. Yours has just begun. Pluck the day. Step outside. Go now.”

  There were tears in my eyes. “What if—you need me?”

  “Don’t be a ninny. You’ll be back before nightfall.”

  She added, “Do it for me, Millie.”

  A fit of coughing stopped her. When she could speak again, she said, “Now, hurry upstairs. Out of my things we’ll dress you up, like we did that first day.”

  We were halfway up the stairs when I stopped and turned round to face her. “What about Chris?”

  She replied, “Millie, you are my sister. Nothing you can ever do or say can ever alter that fact. Marry—whomever you want—or don’t.”

  Downstairs, the Waterbury clock struck twice.

  With her arm around my shoulder for support, we climbed the stairs together.

  Edith, propped on the pillows, acted as my wardrobe consultant. Over a pair of bright bloomers I wore her purple dress. With Edith’s toilet set, I combed my hair and fixed it with her tortoise-shell comb. I borrowed her straw hat with the wide brim, too summery for the season. Over my shoulders I flung her mustard-yellow cloak and fastened it with Adele’s heirloom broach. I scrambled for the pair of kid gloves she had tossed on top of her dressing table. In my haste, without being aware, I had appropriated all of her favorite things.

  Edith drowsed. Now and then, she hacked.

  At last, when I found that I was ready to go, I could not. Instead, I went to her. I removed one glove. With my fingertips I smoothed her brow, perspiring yet cold. What if her fever returned?

  If I stayed, I might never see George again. It seemed an awful choice: my adopted sister, feverish and real, or a cherished figure from my past? Tenderly, I covered her. Her last words echoed.

  “Go,” Edith said. “Do it for me.”

  I went.

  Though button blossoms dotted the salt grass, a winter breeze buffeted the bluff. I descended the wooden staircase and headed down to the beach, which served as a pedestrian highway from Port Townsend to Point Wilson. I arrived there in less than five minutes. From there, Alexander’s Castle was two miles west, about forty-five or fifty minutes at a brisk pace.

  Along the beach wound a line of dugout canoes, as various folk wandered the mudflat with its tide pools and filmy grasses. Higher up, a scattered village of tents propped up on sticks and tied down with ropes. Itinerant Indians, mostly S’Klallam. As I traversed this lively scene, no one took any particular notice of me—a lanky red head in unaccustomed finery, holding up her purple satin skirts as she scrambled over drift logs. Stepping on top of the round rocks, I became hobbled after only two to three steps. I removed my boots and stockings and tied them to my waist. In the sand the hem of Edith’s mustard cloak now trailed after me.

  I walked on. After a while I noticed an old woman. Behind her the Point Wilson lighthouse, which signaled every thirty seconds. In her fist, a curved canoe paddle, blunted at one end. She wielded it like a walking stick. Strapped to her back, a basket of firewood.

  In Port Townsend, at night and in broad daylight, destitute Indians like sad ghosts wandered the streets and beaches, begging for a coin or a crust of bread. On an isolated stretch of beach, the last thing I wanted was to find myself face-to-face with a beggar. But what could I do? There was no way to go around her, and I was not about to turn back.

  As the distance fell away, I noticed her cloak made of doggy wool, the bundle of kindling strapped onto her shoulders with a hemp rope. When we were near enough to grasp hand, she peered at me through her wrinkled lids, offering up a gap-toothed grin.

  I nodded once, lowered my chin, and pressed on.

  All of a sudden I recalled the old adage by Seya: “Never pass by an old woman without offering to carry her bundle.” Not so very long ago, one glimpse of the spirited crone might have evoked a homesick tear. After just two years in the city, I hurried by, loathe to greet her, unwilling to even look at her, lest she pick my pocket. How practical, how fearful, how far from home.

  A gull scoffed.

  I stopped, turned around, and stood there for a full minute. Meanwhile the crone picked her way over the slick rocks. I thought about calling out to her, but what would I say? Shout out a greeting, offer to assist her? That would only startle or frighten her. Besides, I had places to be. By now the spry beggar woman had all but disappeared. With daylight waning and no option that I could see, I trudged on.

  Before long I reached the winding trail that climbed the steep cliff to Alexander’s castle. I put on my boots and laced them up tight.

  At the top the wiry shrubbery opened up onto a field teeming with elk. A male with wide shoulders lifted up his heavy head. He rolled his round eyes. His black nostrils twitched. This bull was so stately I might have passed underneath. After a minute he lowered his muzzle to nibble the salty yellow grass.

  Just beyond the herd, a square brick tower lost in English ivy. I noticed that the arched windows of the bridal suite at the very top overlooked the pasture and the stick trees, but with no view of the Strait. Perhaps John B. Alexander feared that the dismal sky and grey water might inspire his bride to take the plunge. If so, his anxiety was, excuse the pun, ungrounded, because she’d refused to come. Married to the familiar, solid and dependable, she preferred to stay at home. Or perhaps she was like me; someone who had traveled far, but could go no farther.

  Underneath the roof of the little sid
e porch, a tiny door esconced in greenery. Recently forced, the door opened easily. The floor plan was modest but with an airy ceilings. In between the kitchen and parlor, a wooden stair, steep as a ladder. I reached the top and paused there to rest.

  The chamber door leaped.

  George doffed his hat. “Dzunak’wa.” Crazy forest creature.

  Not the reaction I craved. Like a prim partridge, I strutted, assessing the accoutrements of the empty room. Ludicrously, as there were none; the bridal suite had no furniture, no decoration of any kind. On the north wall, two tall windows and open sky. The floorboards, fir, stroked by the fading sun. The cedar panels on the ceiling were painted milky white.

  There was nowhere to look, except at him.

  Though tempted, I was afraid. I turned away to face the sunset window. Sick at heart, I asked myself: Why had I come?

  After more than two years, would he like me?

  Did I care?

  Answer: Yes.

  Unsure what to do next, I unpinned my hat. To be more precise, Edith’s. A straw hat with black ribbon and a pale yellow songbird wired to the brim. Flat as a dinner platter, unwieldy as a breakfast tray, I tried to rest it on the sill. It teetered and fell. My gloved hand reached out. Inside my clenched fist, the little bird’s crushed skull.

  George looked concerned. And then laughed.

  I did not.

  Despite his too-familiar manner, it was undeniable that both of us had changed.

  George, no longer a boy, or even boyish. He was taller, broader. His lips and cheeks, ruddy. The scar on his chin from a boyhood mishap had faded to the merest trace. In other respects he had not changed. He was still ruggedly handsome and supremely self-confident. In fact, he seemed more intensely determined than ever.

  In Edith’s attire, I felt a fraud. Why not a plain jumper with a clean apron, or better yet, Chris’ old coveralls for splitting wood? I nearly apologized. Almost. My pride would not allow it, and if it did, what would I say?

  If I looked fancy, George was even finer. His neckline looked as if it had been traced in white chalk; apparently he had just paid a visit to the Port Townsend barber. He wore a tweed coat with a brown vest on top of dark trousers. A white shirt with a club collar, with a black tie. All this topped off by a brown derby. In a word, George looked smart.

  That afternoon I committed a series of missteps, not one of them serious, but taken together, irretrievable. In dreary days and weeks that followed, I could not help but ask: What if? What if Edith had been reading Machiavelli, instead of Romantic verse? What if I had worn my own attire? What if I remained at the side of my mistress? What if I had carried the basket for the crone? Maybe the one act of contribution would have somehow freed me to vibrate to the heartbeat of my old friend.

  What if?

  Instead, I coldly offered him the fingertips of one glove.

  Not mine. Edith’s.

  For an instant, he cradled my hand inside his palm, like an injured bird. Weighing it. Testing its warmth and its grip.

  Then, he dropped it.

  And looked away.

  Clearly, George was not attracted. That seemed, well, unfair. We were both well-dressed; in fact he was gadded up even more than I. The difference was this: while I appeared every inch the fine young miss in the city, even in his best clothes, George could not pass for a white gentleman. Instead, he looked like a well-tailored Indian. Unlike me, his past became him.

  Stiffly, I remarked, “How pleased I am to see you. Tell me, what is your business here in Port Townsend?”

  “I’m here to outfit myself for a job. Judge Swan got me a low-level post with the Geological Survey. I’ll be toting the heavy equipment until I learn how to use it. We’ll map the major and minor tributaries, from Spokane to Missoula.”

  “How fortunate for you. Where are you off to now?”

  “East of the mountains. Tomorrow I’m traveling by oxcart. This waistcoat cost me everything. I have just enough for my transport and a few meals along the way.”

  Proudly he added, “Water turns the wheel of industry, irrigates crops, and nourishes livestock. Potable water settles whole townships. Those with the legal rights to water will rule the land. I want to be one of those men.”

  “You’re ambitious,” I said. I didn’t add the words, “for an Indian.” I didn’t have to. Both of us knew that George would have to surmount the bias against him to achieve his goals. All at once I recalled the tale of the rotting fish, the spirit power that George had rejected. What did George desire most in life? Respect. A chance to use his talents. To defy the odds.

  I replied, “I’m sure you will succeed—”

  With or without me?

  What was George to me? A paid babysitter, as I was to Edith? Friend? Lover? What did he want from me?

  What did I want from him?

  If he asked me, would I drop everything and go? Toss up my satchel onto the oxcart, and clamber up after it? Cross the mountain passes in a blizzard, to suffer the bitter winds of the Northwest’s high-desert plains? His boss, and the other roughnecks who came from all parts, what would they say about George the engineer with his bookish, freckled, redhead wife?

  A doomed scheme.

  I prayed, a little, and waited for him to ask.

  In silence.

  More silence.

  He did not.

  Instead, he observed, “You seem different.”

  He rubbed his smooth chin and gazed out the window. He made as if to go, and then turned. His calloused thumb scratched my cheek as he reached for the silver fish. “At least you still have these.”

  “You hate them. I remember you said so, the last time we were together.” If I stirred up the past, maybe I could rekindle a connection between us. More likely, after the sun went down behind Protection Island and Mount Olympus, he would disappear forever from my life.

  “That night on the spit, I sensed you were holding back—” (the affection I craved. Since I could not say this, I went on.) “—information. What do you know about the silver fish? How did Annie get them? Tell me about the Aia’nl? Who carved it, and how did it end up in my satchel?”

  He frowned and then grinned. “That’s more like it. The girl I used to know, with so many questions, no one has time for an answer.” He glanced at the tinted window panes. “It’s getting dark. You should go. Besides, I’m not the one to ask—”

  “Jake?”

  He nodded and put out his hand. “Goodbye.”

  The demands of daily life pluck away at the past. Long after the moment becomes ancient history, we discover we have allowed what is most precious to disappear into the sucking sand. As the sun sets, in a flash of lustrous brightness on a window pane, we recall what we have lost. That evening, in the tower, side by side but without touching, gazing out the window of the virgin bridal suite, we watched the gilded edges of the clouds turn black.

  Whatever had happened between us was over. George bent over to retrieve Edith’s hat, discarded on the floorboards. When I reached out to receive it he took my wrist. He grinned. “You’re a stupid kid, but I still admire you, and here’s why: you’re curious. You don’t stop asking until you find out. That’s brave.”

  His hand moved down my wrist. He played with my fingers.

  George continued. “Cowardice, or courage? Sometimes it’s not so clear. You escaped a ravening bear; I ran away from a talking fish. Not every moment is a great one. Forgive others for what they can’t do. You can start off by forgiving yourself.”

  He didn’t kiss me.

  It took me years to forgive him for that.

  One day, his words would save me.

  The Murder Trial of Xwelas

  c. 1878

  For half a century, liaisons between mature white men and Native girls were run-of-the-mill. In addition to the basic human need for companionship, white settlers partnered with Native women for practical and political reasons. Pioneers relied on local tribes to survive and to do business.

&
nbsp; Like their white counterparts, often Native girls had little or no say.

  Suddenly, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the landscape changed. Mail-order brides of Europe descent began arriving daily by ship or rail. Suddenly pious whites argued that liaisons between Natives and whites, in fact, had never worked. Just like that unions between white men and Native women were seen as dangerous and ungodly.

  Wifely Revenge

  As a cautionary tale, local folk might cite the true story of Xwelas. Also known as Mary Fitzhugh Phillips, in 1878 the S’Klallam mother of five was charged with the murder of her white husband.

  Xwelas was part of the last generation who grew up on the Strait somewhat sequestered from white influence. As a girl, she imagined that one day her marriage to a warrior would create an advantageous connection for her band. By 1850 the marriage of her sixteen-year-old niece, E-yow-alth, proved that times had changed.

  Though the partnership was proposed to achieve the traditional aim of creating an alliance, E-yow-alth, the highly eligible daughter of a S’Klallam noble and an elite Samish family, was offered to a white soldier, business man, and Indian agent named Edmund Clare Fitzhugh. E-yow-alth’s father, a respected Indian leader who later gave his name to the town of Sehome, initially opposed the marriage. At last, he relented and allowed his sixteen-year-old daughter to wed Fitzhugh, more than twenty years her senior.

  The match was a respectable one. In the town on Bellingham Bay, Edmund Fitzhugh served as the superintendent of a coal company. With no legal training, he also acted as a territorial Supreme Court justice. Once, while gambling, he shot a man to death; afterward, he tried and acquitted himself. Fitzhugh, if not widely admired, at least had money. True to S’Klallam custom, after the wedding Xwelas paid a call on her niece in Bellingham Bay. Fitzhugh took her in as a second wife. Later, he abandoned both women to become a Confederate commander. After that, he disappeared. Two decades later on November 24, 1883, he was found dead in a San Francisco hotel.

  After that, E-yow-alth and Xwelas both remarried white men. Really, they had few options. Both had children to support, and no viable means. Any hope for a Native husband was compromised by their first failed marriage to Fitzhugh.