by John Straley
“We better go find her,” Annabelle said, with the heft of certainty in her voice.
The Shepherd was disappearing down the channel and two gulls wheeled above its stern. Whatever was in Slip’s heart to be hard against Ellie for his troubles, or against God for that matter, had dissolved into steam.
“We’ll find her then,” he said.
“Where are we going to sleep tonight?” she said, her eyes glittering with tears.
Sip stopped rowing and looked at the girl, her braids hanging down on her shoulders and her glasses tilted on the bridge of her nose. “I’ll think of something,” he said.
They found a rocky beach on the north side of the wharf and they pulled the dory above the high-tide mark. Slip lifted the girl out of the boat and sat her on a rock. He stowed their gear in the bottom of the boat and covered it as best he could with a tarp to keep it dry. Then he took her hand and they walked up the steep bank and into the woods.
They walked toward the sound of a truck and ended up going down a steep ravine. Clouds moved past the sun and pools of light appeared on the forest floor, illuminating sometimes a single tree or the broad leaf of a devil’s club plant. Among old hemlock stumps fallen trees lay in a chaotic pattern. Soon they couldn’t hear a truck or the rumble of town. All they heard was the running water of a creek.
Soon they were disoriented and their bearing swirled around them so they couldn’t be sure where the boat or the beach was. They walked downhill until they met the creek and then followed the direction the water was flowing. They clambered down some steep pitches but soon enough they came to a footbridge. Just under the bridge a black bear was digging around the roots of some skunk cabbage plants, its red tongue curling around its teeth. It grunted and snuffled down the creek bed when it heard their footsteps on the rocks. They could look uphill and see houses with flagpoles and kids playing in the street.
“Let’s go back in the woods,” Annabelle said.
“Come on, don’t you want to get something to eat downtown?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s just go back into the woods.” Her jaw was quivering again and she began to cry.
They walked back into the woods and sat down on a dry log near the stream. They sat there until the sun moved down toward the mountains across the channel and the sky opened up with rain.
The rain was soaking through their clothes when he talked her into walking out of the woods. At first he tried holding her hand but she tugged away so he let her go. He walked a few paces ahead of her and she lagged behind, trudging down the wooden steps of the steep trails into town.
Slip went into the new union hiring hall. It was crowded with men nervously standing around. They shifted from foot to foot as they waited, without looking anyone in the eye. A man with a broken arm sitting behind a desk gave Slip an application form and asked him if he could read. Slip nodded and walked out the door. He turned the corner where he had left the girl, and there was Annabelle talking to two men in dark suits. One was a young man showing the girl a badge.
“Mr. Wilson,” George Hanson said, and reached out to shake the logger’s hand. “I was just telling the girl how sorry I was to hear that her bird flew off.” Then he knelt down so that his eyes were at Annabelle’s level and he spoke to her as he would to an adult. “I’m going to ask Officer Tillman here to take you over to the drugstore fountain for some ice cream. Would that be all right with you?”
“I don’t want ice cream,” she said solemnly.
“What would you like?” George knelt close to her.
“Hot chocolate,” she said, and then added, “if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” George stood up and gestured to Tillman to take the girl.
“Will Slip come too?” the girl asked.
“Yes. After we have a talk, we’ll both come in for a cup.”
“I don’t have money,” the girl said.
“Officer Tillman will pay for it,” George said firmly, then nodded once again to the young policeman.
The girl walked around the corner with Walter Tillman. He put his hand out for her to take but she jammed her hands into her pants pockets. Slip watched her until she was around the corner and out of sight.
“Ellie Hobbes says you killed Ben Avery. What about it, Slip?”
Slip felt something collapse inside himself. He was tired and wanted to lie down.
“You have Ellie?” he asked the man in the blue suit.
“Ellie’s here in Juneau. She’s working for Floodwater. Did you know that?”
“Like fun she is.”
“No. It’s true, Slip.”
“They almost killed us at the hobo jungle,” Slip’s voice had gone up an octave.
“I didn’t say they were good people to work for,” George said without a smile.
Slip fell back against the wall of the Union Hall and rubbed his eyes as if he were trying to shake off a particularly disturbing hallucination. “Are you going to arrest me now?”
“I don’t think so. You’ve got no place to go. You’re not going to get back in that skiff and take off with the girl. Where would you go?”
“All I wanted was to buy a little place and raise a cow or two,” Slip said, still rubbing his eyes and starting to slide down the wall. George stepped over and held him up by the elbow.
“That’s not a bad thing to want.” George helped him to his feet.
“You think there’s any chance it could still happen?” His voice sounded thin to his own ears.
“Not if you’re hanged for killing a Floodwater op in Seattle.” George’s voice was growing harder.
“Why don’t you just arrest me?” Slip blustered.
“Because I don’t see why you would kill Ben Avery.”
“You ever meet him?” Slip’s eyes glazed with the effects of a bad memory.
“Yeah, and I’m not saying he wasn’t worth killing. I’m just saying that between the two of you, Ellie had the motive.”
“You say Ellie was working for Floodwater?”
“She was trying to beat them at their own game. She lost, but I guess that’s pretty obvious now. She’ll sell you out, Slip. You can come with me now and it’ll be her in jail and you can start finding that piece of land.”
A breeze blew some damp grit down the street, flopping the pages of a discarded newspaper over and over like a dying fish.
“I want you to think about it overnight.” George stood close to him and nudged Slip’s chest with his index finger. “Think about how Ben died … exactly how he died. Then tomorrow I’m going to ask you what happened. You understand me?”
Slip nodded. He was too tired to run. His legs felt rubbery and his hands were shaking. George dug into his pocket and took some cash out of his billfold.
“There’s a place up the hill. The lady rents out rooms. It’s a nice spot and she’ll look after the girl. Get her off the street, Slip. You may be the only family she’s got.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tomorrow Ellie is going to break the strike deadlock. She’s going to lead the scabs up the hill.”
“What’s that to me?” Slip asked.
“I thought maybe you’d want to talk to her one more time before I came to lock you up.” Then George slapped Slip on the shoulder and turned him toward the corner. “Let’s get some hot cocoa.”
As they turned, two men shouldered past them on the sidewalk. One of the men was a thin man with steel-rimmed glasses and the other was Tom Delaney. The tall Floodwater chief didn’t acknowledge George as the front of his coat brushed up against the policeman’s chest. Delaney put his hand out to fend off the policeman, and as he did his tight Masonic ring glinted in the sunlight. Slip turned around and watched the men’s backs as they walked away.
“You know him?” George asked.
“The tall man. I saw him down in Washington before I got in the dory.”
“Where’d you see him, Mr. Wilson?” George asked.
“We made a st
op.”
“You and Ellie?”
“That’s right.” Slippery was stopped now, staring at the shoulders of the tall man lumbering up the hill.
“At a farmhouse near Everett and that man was there?” George stood close, his voice excited now.
“The tall one with the big ring. He was there. He took some papers from her.” Slip said softly, digging into his memory.
“That’s good, Mr. Wilson. Let me buy you something hot to drink,” George said, and he slapped him once more on the back.
Slip didn’t accept the policeman’s generosity. He waited for the girl to come outside, and then he left the cops standing on the corner without saying good-bye. Annabelle started to thank the policemen but Slip took her hand and walked away before she could get the words out. They walked through town and over to the dory, which was still tied to the stump where they had left it. The little boat seemed as patient as an old horse standing in her stall. Slip thought of getting in and pushing away from the beach. He thought of rowing down the channel and putting the sail up for whatever wind would push them the farthest. He looked down the channel where the wind riffled on the surface. The tide was fair for them and there was enough daylight to get well away before all hell broke loose tomorrow.
“What about Ellie?” Annabelle asked. The sweet taste of chocolate was still in her mouth. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “What about Ellie? Shouldn’t we go get her?”
Slip looked at her. Her pants were ripped and the tail of her shirt hung halfway out her pants. Her braids were loose and fraying. She seemed smaller than she actually was.
“Yes,” Slip said, knowing that if he disappeared from Juneau now he would be convicted for the murder of Ben Avery. “We better find Ellie.” And he started back toward town with the girl.
That evening Slip went back to the dory and got his bindle and a suitcase of clothes for the girl. He had no idea how long they would be in Juneau. A light rain fell on him as he walked back to the boardinghouse. Rain ran down the windows as he got Annabelle settled on the folding cot in the room. The girl didn’t want to read the Oz book Slip had found in the house for her. She didn’t want to play with any of the kids who were swinging from a rope swing behind the house. She lay on the cot with her glasses on and her eyes open as if she were afraid to go to sleep.
Slip took a shower down the hall. He put on a different wrinkled shirt and combed his hair. When he came back, the girl was asleep. He reached down and took off her glasses.
Slip was bone tired. He tried to think of a way he could leave this town and his troubles behind him. He didn’t want to go to jail. All he wanted was to wake up in his own bed on a cool morning of a warm day. But that wasn’t going to happen. He sat down on the edge of his bed and watched the girl sleep until the sky flared silver and settled into its long summer twilight.
Downstairs George Hanson withstood the silence of the young police officer from Ketchikan. The landlady had poured them each a glass of iced tea and had excused herself to go back to her room to read. All that passed between the two men was the clicking of ice.
Finally George said, “After we finish this, one of us should take a chair and sit out by the back door. You can see the window to his room from there. One of us can stay here at the front.”
Walter nodded his head as if he understood. The young policeman reached into the bag at his feet and lifted out a revolver in a burnished leather holster.
“Brought you a weapon. My captain told me you would need one,” the young man said.
George took the weapon and pulled the gun from its case. “Thank you,” he said, “though I doubt it will be of much use. Once the shooting starts, I don’t think a pistol will do much good.”
Walter Tillman leaned closer to the older officer. “Why is Ellie Hobbes going to lead the scabs up the hill to the mine?”
“She’s got no choice. The strike’s at a deadlock. People are losing money. Management can’t just force them to cross the line at gunpoint. They need it to seem like it’s the workers’ idea.”
“There will be hell to pay.”
“That’s true, but management won’t be paying. Violence gives them an excuse to break up the strike.”
“What about Ellie Hobbes?” Walter rattled the ice in his glass.
“They’re throwing Ellie out with the trash. Besides a battle right now works to everybody’s advantage, even the strikers. Some of them are starting to have second thoughts. Head cracking will radicalize a few of them.”
“Why don’t we take Wilson and Hobbes into custody right now, tonight?”
George Hanson stretched and settled into his chair. He sighted down the barrel of the pistol. “I don’t have enough to hold either of them, even if we could get someone here to authorize an arrest. We need one of the two to come running into our arms.”
“One of them is going to be killed,” the young man said, staring at the floor.
“I think it’s probably worse than that,” George said as he spun the cylinder of the gun. “If we don’t do things just right tomorrow, lots of us may be killed.”
TWENTY-ONE
The two policemen traded shifts during the night so that by the time Slip and the girl clambered out the bedroom window, Walter Tillman was sleeping lightly on a straight-back chair just off the porch. He woke up when Slip threw a bundle of clothes down into the bushes below his window.
It was early morning and the sunlight had a syrupy warmth to it as Slip and the girl wound their way through lanes, empty lots, and interconnecting trails. Twice Annabelle fell behind and he turned to take her hand, and twice he saw the policeman duck out of sight.
All through town men were waking up and leaving their houses early. The city attorney, who was also the lawyer for the mine, had drafted a police protection act. People could not gather in groups larger than five without being subject to arrest. That morning men tapped on windows and whispered to their friends. Miners were spreading the word about the scabs marching on the mine. Businessmen were reporting to the Arctic Brotherhood Hall to work as deputies. Kids climbed trees to get a good view of the street. Police were unlocking the trunks where they kept the tear gas, and firemen checked the hydrants for water pressure and made sure their hoses were ready.
Slip and the girl passed two men in an alley smoking cigarettes and speaking intently to each other. The men caught sight of them and ducked into a doorway. Through another open window Annabelle heard a man arguing with his wife. The sound of breaking crockery rained down on their shoulders as they walked past.
Slip took Annabelle to the dory. He pulled back the tarp and moist air billowed out of the hull. He made a nest in the bow and tucked the girl down where she could pull the canvas over her head if she needed to hide.
“I’m going to go uptown,” Slip said. “I’ll try and find Ellie.”
“I want to come,” Annabelle said with ambivalence.
“You wait here. No matter what. You say it back to me now.”
“I’ll just stay here,” the girl said and she sat still in the boat.
Slip looked down at her and she seemed so still that the world could have stopped moving. The clouds could have been hung from hooks and turned to ice. He reached down and touched her cheek. “That’s fine. You stay here,” he said. He stuck the handle of the axe down his pants leg so the axe head hooked into his belt. He walked a little stiff-legged but that was okay, because he didn’t feel like sprinting anyway.
Men were beginning to gather in front of the New Miners Association Hall. Everyone wore their hats. Some even had ties on under their work coats. They were going for jobs but few expected to dig rock that afternoon. Floodwater operatives in their long wool coats and newly deputized store owners walked the perimeter of the block, waving anybody through who said they wanted to go to work. They checked their names against lists of the striking miners. They had no need to enforce the police protection act here. This gathering was sanctioned, and the deputies were walking t
he sidewalks like barkers trying to get more workers to join the crusade.
“You going to let them radical bastards tell you to go hungry?” one called out to a skinny old man with tobacco stains down the front of his shirt. The old man shifted from foot to foot and mumbled some excuses for why he needed to leave. But dozens of men pushed past the men with the lists and once inside the block the deputies would not let them leave. There were a few men who looked like they were ready for work, but there were far more who weren’t. They had on slick-soled shoes and hunting jackets.
“I’m just here to take a look. I’ve got to run back to the house in a second,” one man in a grey fedora said.
Over by the hall someone was passing a flask, and someone brayed to his friends, “What right they got to say that I can’t work?” Some men nodded and some walked away. Up a side street they heard a slurry of swearing and baton blows thudding down on someone’s ribs. Three more men drifted away. Two more men showed up.
Ellie Hobbes sat in the front window of the miners association office. The doctor had changed her dressings and given her some sulfa tablets. Ellie had on a new skirt and a clean white blouse. She had dark rings under her eyes and when she smiled her mouth couldn’t quite stretch over her teeth. Even in the fresh clothes she had the sad countenance of a beaten mule.
A kid ran out from the back room and brought her a glass of brandy. Ellie gave him a nickel tip and watched him jam it into his pants pocket with a grin. As the kid started back Ellie called him over and gave him another dime.
“Thanks, lady!” the kid said. He flipped the dime end over end and caught it as if he were James Cagney or a big city swell.
“That’s okay,” Ellie said. “You got a hole to hide in back there?”
“Are you crazy?” The kid stood flat-footed with his face screwed up.
“I used to work in a bar when I was a kid, and I always had a hiding place for when fights broke out. I had a little spot beside the cooler where nobody could get to me. You got a place like that?”