The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  Nome buzzed with the news. Mackenzie had not only evicted the miners and taken possession of the mining equipment, gold dust, and nuggets, but he also intended to work the claims. Some claimed Mackenzie hadn’t even posted the required bond. Most believed the five-thousand-dollar bond was a farce anyway. Miners had been taking fifteen thousand dollars in gold a day out of the Discovery claim.

  That night, it was practically the only subject discussed at the Palace. While many had wanted the claims of the so-called foreigners thrown out, most thought the judge had given Mackenzie a license to steal. They doubted there would be any gold left by the time the ownership issue was decided. Everywhere Glory went, the talk was the same. She stopped to watch a high-stakes poker game with a large pot of chips in the middle of the table.

  “I heard Jafet’s lawyers never got a chance to argue their side,” one of the men said. “After they found out he’d lost control of his claims, they tried to see the judge, but he wasn’t available.” The man tossed in a stack of chips and added an almost disinterested “I’ll see your raise.”

  “Yeah, and you know why the judge wasn’t available?” The next player flipped over his cards, indicating he was folding, then supplied the answer to his own question. “The judge conveniently left for St. Michael. Word is he won’t be back for two weeks or more.”

  Raised voices came from the doorway. Glory glanced toward the entrance to determine the problem. She smiled faintly when she saw Justin at the door, his entry barred by the dark-suited man stationed there to collect the admission fee. As she started toward the entrance, she noticed that Oliver was already on his way to quell the disturbance.

  “Oliver.” Justin recognized him with a mixture of relief and exasperation. “Will you please tell this man who I am? I’ve tried to explain that I’m one of Glory’s friends, but he just won’t listen. He keeps insisting I have to pay him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sinclair—” Oliver began.

  “It’s all right, Oliver,” Glory said as she crossed the last few feet to the doorway. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Yes, Miss Glory.” Oliver stepped back, but he didn’t leave.

  “I’m glad you showed up.” Justin tried his smile on her. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to fight my way in to see you. This guy didn’t believe I was your friend.”

  “I don’t think it’s Hawkins’ fault,” she replied smoothly. “After all, he’s been working for us nearly three weeks now. And in all that time, you’ve never been here once.”

  “I know.” He seemed to realize the smile wasn’t working. “I’m sorry it’s been so long, but I’ve been kind of busy lately. The time just sorta got away from me.” He started to take a step in, but the new man intervened to stop him again. Impatient and puzzled, Justin frowned at her. “Will you tell this guy to let me pass?”

  “Have you already paid him?” Glory smiled.

  “Of course not.” His frown deepened.

  “I’m sorry, Justin. Those are the new house rules.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I decided that’s the way it would be.” She kept her voice level, enjoying this moment. “You pay for your raisin pies. Why shouldn’t you pay to get in here?”

  “Is that it?” He glared at her. “I never made you any promises.”

  “I never made you any promises, Justin.” Glory took pleasure in pointing that out to him. “As an old friend, you’re more than welcome at the Palace any time. But from now on, you’ll have to pay your way. There won’t be any more free rides—if you get my meaning.”

  For a long moment Justin didn’t move. Not even an eyelash flickered. Then abruptly he swung away and charged out the door, slamming it behind him. Glory lingered an instant, gazing at the door, then turned back to the room. From across the way, Deacon watched her. She thought she detected a smile of approval from him. She smiled back.

  In the morning hours, after most of the customers had left, Deacon came to her room. Glory discovered that the old magic they’d once shared was still there. But more important, she was at ease with him. There never seemed to be any need for explanations. Deacon understood the difference between business and pleasure.

  August brought rain that turned Nome’s sandy streets into a quagmire and seemed to add to the slough of the city’s inhabitants. The quantities of gold found on the beach became steadily smaller, no matter how ingenious or expensive the contraptions used to mine it. The “golden sands of Nome” were golden no more.

  The rich placer deposits of the treeless inland mountains continued to yield their nuggets and grains of gold, but most of the claims were controlled by Mackenzie. Nearly everyone was convinced the gold was going into his pockets and not into receivership for the rightful owners. Judge Noyes returned from St. Michael, but refused to hear the protests of the original claimants and summarily denied their motions for appeal to the circuit court in San Francisco. In defiance of his rulings, the attorneys left for San Francisco at the end of the month to directly petition the court of appeals to review their cases.

  By the end of the summer, mining in the inland mountains had virtually come to a halt. Any prospector in the hills who unearthed pay dirt inevitably covered it up again, fearing that if the discovery was known the claim would be challenged and wind up—through legal shenanigans—in Mackenzie’s hands.

  Nome was rife with tension. The crime rate soared. The end of August brought the cover of darkness for the criminal element to commit their robberies, burglaries, and assaults. In early September, Wyatt Earp was arrested a second time for assaulting a policeman, and a grand jury concluded that the presence of women in the city’s gambling halls and saloons was the major cause of the lawlessness. An order banning all women from such places with the exception of those engaged to sing or otherwise perform for the customers was passed. At the Palace that night, the piano player accompanied Glory’s girls as they sang a collection of songs ranging from “Just As the Sun Went Down” to “Because I Love You,” and other popular ballads.

  Meanwhile, Nome hovered on the edge of violence. The threat was always there that if the courts failed them, the miners would take the law in their own hands. The result would be open warfare between the miners and Mackenzie’s band of toughs.

  At midday on the twelfth of September, Glory sat on the chaise longue in the small sitting area off her bedroom. Clad in a loose-fitting tea gown, she idly puffed on the cigarette in her holder and listened to Gabe expound, as he endlessly did, on the vast power and influence held by Alexander Mackenzie. Outside a storm raged, threatening to blow up a gale.

  “My stock in the Alaska Gold Mining Company is going to be worth a small fortune,” he declared. “More, once the judge invalidates the previous claims to the mines and gives legal title to the corporation.”

  “You sound so confident that will happen.”

  “Those foreigners have no right to stake claims on American soil. Everyone knows that,” he replied with the patience of a parent speaking to a child.

  “Perhaps.” She rolled the ash off the tip of her cigarette into a brass ashtray. “But it’s my understanding of the law that the government is the only entity that can question the citizenship of a miner. Another miner doesn’t have the right to use a person’s citizenship as an excuse to jump his claim. How can you be so sure the judge will rule in favor of the Alaska Gold Mining Company?”

  “Because Mackenzie’s got the judge in his pocket. The judge will do whatever he tells him. I tell you, Glory, it’s going to be a great day when he finally issues his decision. That stock will not only make me a rich man, but with Mackenzie behind me I will be appointed governor of Alaska. You wait and see.”

  “Aren’t you a little bit concerned about what might be happening in San Francisco, Gabe? The lawyers for both Lindeberg’s Pioneer Mining Company and the Wild Goose Mining Company are there petitioning the federal appeals court to overturn Judge Noyes’s ruling.”

  “Nothing will come
of it. When has anyone from the outside given a damn about what happens in Alaska? Never. And that isn’t about to change now. And don’t forget”—he leaned forward in his chair, assuming a confidential attitude—”Mackenzie has important friends. That man has personally known every United States President from Cleveland to McKinley. His base of power is unparalleled.” He paused to chuckle. “They don’t call him ‘Alexander the Great’ for nothing.”

  So far, Glory had to concede, Mackenzie appeared to be untouchable. It wasn’t that he was beyond the reach of the law, but rather that he controlled it. She didn’t care about Mackenzie, but what fascinated her was the corrupting influence he’d had on Gabe. Her mother had frequently mentioned his high ideals and his dream of becoming governor. He’d never lost the dream. Now he’d found a man with the power to make his dream come true. Every day he was getting older, and time was running out. Knowing that, he was letting the ends justify the means. And his lifelong prejudice allowed him to do it with a free conscience.

  The howling wind rattled the windows, its fury underscored by the roar of the wickedly pounding surf just yards away from the rear of the Palace. The storm’s tumult almost drowned out the knock at her door.

  “Come in,” Glory called.

  Matty opened her door and walked in carrying a tray laden with a silver coffee service. “Bring it over here, Matty.” Glory swung her feet off the chaise longue, crushing out her cigarette in the ashtray, then removing the butt from the holder, as Matty crossed the room and set the tray on a low table by the chaise.

  “The storm is getting very bad,” Matty told her. “The waves are coming higher and higher. The sea is angry. Soon, I think, it will come ashore.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Matty. All those people living in tents on the beach …” She shook her head, not wanting to think about that.

  Storms out of the south struck the coast of the Seward Peninsula every spring and fall. In its highly exposed location, Nome invariably took the brunt of these southeasters, properly called equinoctial storms. Many sourdoughs claimed they were called that because they were “unequaled” and “obnoxious.”

  “When storms like this come, my people always leave the coast and go inland where it is safer.” Matty darted an anxious glance at the ominous gray beyond the rain- and wind-lashed window. “The signs are bad. Maybe we should go, too.”

  “We’ve been through storms like this before,” Glory said. “This one may be worse than some of the others, but I don’t think we’ll have to take such drastic measures.”

  “Deacon says maybe we will,” Matty stated, then moved toward the door.

  As Glory poured coffee from the silver pot into the two cups, she thought about Matty’s last remark. Deacon was not the kind to become unnecessarily alarmed. She passed a cup and saucer to Gabe, then carried hers to the window, vaguely conscious of the sound of the door closing behind Matty. She peered out the water-spattered windowpane and noticed the way the building shuddered under the force of the powerful wind. Faintly she could hear the crash and clatter of debris being blown around outside.

  Behind her, Gabe snorted in contempt. “ ‘The signs are bad.’ That’s a lot of stupid native superstition.”

  Below she could just barely make out the towering sea waves as they came crashing down to splash against the rear foundation of the Palace. She hadn’t realized the water was that close. “The waves are already at the back door.”

  “What does that mean?” he scoffed. “These storms have licked at the city’s toes before. Don’t be taken in by all that nonsense. I wish to God you’d listen to me and get rid of that … woman … once and for all. Her kind are no good.”

  “We’ve been over that before.” She turned away from the window.

  “I grant you, she’s cheap labor. But you can’t trust her. Those people lie and steal. It’s their nature. You simply don’t need her kind around here. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve had experience handling Indians. You’ve gotta keep them in line and teach them their place.”

  The longer she listened to his lecture, the angrier she became. She knew just how he had kept her mother in line.

  “Just what is their place?” she demanded coldly, but he didn’t seem to notice the chill in her voice.

  “It isn’t living among decent white people. The best thing for you to do is get rid of her.” He jabbed his finger at her to drive home the message. “Trying to civilize those people the way you’re doing with her is a waste of time. They’re like a leopard; you can tame them but you can’t change their spots. They’re always going to be treacherous and deceitful. Let her go back and live in an igloo and eat blubber. It’s wrong for you to associate with her kind.”

  “What if I told you I am ‘her kind’?” She was sick to death of his prejudice. This time he’d gone too far.

  He stared at her for a stunned moment, then laughed shortly to conceal his confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “What if I said I am her people? Or maybe I should put it another way. She is my people. We’re related. Matty and I are cousins.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. What’s the matter, Gabe? Don’t I look like an Indian princess to you?”

  “Hardly.”

  After going this far, something goaded her into going the rest of the way. “What about a Russian princess?”

  Taken aback by the question, he appeared suddenly nervous and wary. “Russian? Why would you say that?”

  “I’m known professionally as Glory St. Clair. Would you like to know what my real name is?”

  “What?”

  “Marisha. Marisha Blackwood, daughter of Nadia Levyena Blackwood—maiden name Tarakanov.” Her announcement shocked him out of his chair.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Nadia Levyena Tarakanov of mixed Aleut, Tlingit, and Russian extraction was married to American lawyer Gabe Blackwood at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Sitka, Alaska. Surely you remember that day.” She walked toward him, watching the shock and disbelief on his face. “Or maybe your memory is clearer about the day you left—the day Nadia’s grandfather, Wolf Tarakanov, suffered a heart attack after he tried to stop you from beating her and killing the unborn child she carried—the same day that you stole all the silver from his house and fled on the mail boat.”

  “How—how did you learn that? Where did you find it out?” He backed away from her, involuntarily moving his head from side to side in disbelief.

  “Most of it from my mother’s sister, my aunt Eva. Mother talked about you, too, about how you wanted to be governor.”

  “I don’t know who told you all this, but it’s a lie,” he blustered. “Not a word of it is true. You’re wrong if you think you can blackmail me with this. I won’t stand for it.”

  “Blackmail you? Now what kind of daughter would try to blackmail her own father? You are my father.”

  “No. It can’t be.”

  “But it is. Don’t you remember telling me how familiar I looked to you? Isn’t it possible I remind you of my mother?”

  “No.”

  “You can deny it all you want, Gabe, but it’s a fact. I am your daughter and I can prove it. My mother is dead, but my Aunt Eva is still alive. And there are a lot of people in Sitka who would remember me—poor little Marisha Blackwood. I’ve only been away three years.” He was staring at her as if looking at a ghost. She stopped in front of him and ran her finger along the rounded lapel of his suit jacket. “What’s the matter, Papa? You don’t look happy to meet me.”

  He knocked her hand away. “Don’t touch me! Stay away from me, I say!” He half turned from her, a wild panic racing over his features.

  “What do you suppose Mackenzie will think when I tell him you’re my father? I doubt it will bother him—unlike you—that I have some Indian blood. But for the future governor of Alaska to have as his daughter one of the most famous—or should I say infamous—scarlet ladies in the whole of Alaska,
somehow I have the feeling he’ll have second thoughts about making you governor.”

  “You wouldn’t tell him?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t I?” She strolled away from him. “Newspapers love scandal. Can you imagine the headlines? ‘Notorious Soiled Dove—Daughter of Man Seeking Appointment as Alaskan Governor.’ ” Glory paused and tipped her head back to laugh. “You’ll never be governor, Gabe Blackwood. I wanted it within your reach. But you’ll never have it.” She swung back to face him. “I’ll see to that. You’ll never be appointed governor, judge, or garbage collector. Nothing—that’s what you are and that’s what you’ll stay.”

  “You deceived me. All this time, you deceived me.” He vibrated with anger. “Just the way she did. You’re all alike. Nothing but a bunch of lying scum!” He took a threatening step toward her, but Glory stood her ground, unflinching. He would not intimidate her as he had her mother. “I let her destroy my chances once. But I’m not going to stand by and let you ruin them for me this time. I’ve waited too many years for this. Too many years.”

  “And you’ll still be waiting on your deathbed,” she taunted.

  His hand seemed to come out of nowhere. Glory caught a brief flash of it before it struck her face. Pain exploded alongside her head. She wasn’t even aware of the brief cry that came from her as she staggered backwards under the force of the blow, dropping the cup and saucer. As he struck her again and again, she raised her arms trying to fend him off. She kept retreating, suddenly realizing how frightened and helpless her mother must have felt under his battering assault.

  She bumped against an object that blocked her retreat. He hit her again and she fell onto the bed. Feeling the soft feather mattress under her, Glory tried to scramble to the safety of the other side. But he caught at her tea gown. She heard the tearing of the fragile fabric as she frantically tried to pull free. Before she could succeed, he was on the bed and his hands were circling her throat.