by Rob DeBorde
“Thanks, Gran’pa,” Kick said, and darted back up the stairs.
The marshal turned his attention back to the box. He opened the lid and ran a hand along the cloth until he felt it give a little. There he pushed down, releasing the hidden latch that held the false bottom in place. The second lid lifted slightly, revealing a dark compartment. The marshal knew what lay inside. He hadn’t forgotten.
The marshal pressed the bottom back into place and closed the lid. He then unspooled the belt from his waist and wrapped it around the box, securing it tightly. It would come with him to Portland and he would never open it again.
* * *
Charlie arrived just before one o’clock with a horse-drawn cart and a basket of biscuits from which everyone sampled, but no one returned for seconds. They loaded up a half-dozen boxes and the saddle the marshal had refused to leave behind despite Joseph’s protests. The Wyldes didn’t have a horse, but the marshal felt that was a poor argument against owning a quality saddle.
A few neighbors stopped by to wish the marshal well, none of whom mentioned the business in the graveyard. Walter Peterson even returned the shovel and ax, which Joseph placed in the shed without comment.
An hour later, the marshal stood at the rail of the Alberta, watching Astoria fade in the distance. As the last hillside home vanished from sight, he felt a weight lift from his heart. It was as if the top button of his shirt had loosened, his belt unbuckled, and his boots kicked off—all at the same time. He felt good, relaxed, happy.
Joseph leaned on the rail next to his father-in-law.
“You’ll be back.”
The marshal shook his head. “No, I don’t think I will. But it’s all right. I should have done this a long time ago.”
Joseph smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“So am I.”
The two men stood silently at the rail for a time, enjoying the sun on their faces, the brisk air, and the sound of the river churning in the wake of the boat.
* * *
Were you to ask any resident of Astoria about May 17, 1887, he or she would have told you it was lovely. The sun shone brightly, hinting at the drier-than-usual summer to come. The fishing was excellent, the best it’d been in weeks. The Second Bank of Astoria opened for business, founded largely on “amber” gold. In short, it was a good day to be in Astoria.
It was a good day for all but one longtime resident who suddenly felt a huge weight fall upon him without warning. This man, a fellow of barely seventeen years, had never known such a feeling, had never felt such anxiety. With it came a memory of a day long since buried in the deep recesses of his mind.
And he remembered everything.
2
The Port of Portland was the busiest in the Pacific Northwest, second only to San Francisco in overall West Coast water traffic. For a time, it seemed Seattle with its expansive sound and natural shipping lanes would become the region’s capital of commerce, but the discovery of vast firestone deposits in western and central Oregon had changed everything. The city’s inland location and ready access to the deep waters of the Columbia River assured the amber rush would run through Portland.
Most of Portland’s waterfront property was not on the great river proper but rather on the banks of a prime tributary, the Willamette. A tri-city vote in 1861 had folded East Portland and Albina into the city, stretching it across the Willamette and south to the Tualatin River. The friendly annexation, coupled with the surge of immigrants and fortune seekers, helped Portland quadruple its population in less than twenty years. By 1887, nearly sixty thousand souls claimed the title “Portlandian,” many of whom saw their new home for the first time from the water.
In the 1870s, the arrival of a large steamship would have been an event most residents turned out to see, but by the end of the next decade, dozens of the big steamers were arriving every week. Smaller, passenger stern- and paddlewheel steamers coming from all points on the Columbia docked at the waterfront by the hour. The metropolitan harbor could accommodate a dozen riverboats and on many days its berths were filled to capacity with eager souls searching for a new life in the Northwest.
The irony was that passengers usually found it drier while on the water. The downtown streets regularly flooded during the spring thaw and when not swamped offered only muddy passage around the larger puddles. The steam-powered streetcars that were supposed to alleviate the public’s transportation woes ground to a halt when the water reached its normal April levels and sometimes stayed stuck in the mud until June. Newer construction—of which there was plenty—required raised sidewalks by city ordinance, although whether a few feet of dry would be helpful was hotly debated among longtime residents. In truth, the locals liked it wet. Most owned small dories or canoes for the wettest days and had little trouble navigating the raised scaffolding and planks that stretched across the streets like so many makeshift bridges. It was said that all one needed to survive the spring in Portland was a raincoat and a good sense of balance.
Kate Wylde was more than capable of traversing the slender downtown walkways, though on this morning her feet had actually touched ground on more than one occasion. Three days of sunshine and moderate temperatures had forced the floodwaters to recede slightly, which was not welcome news to those counting on the rain to keep the city floating through the annual Portland Rain Festival. Muddy roads and sunny skies were not welcome on a schedule of events that included cloud spotting and canoe races. For her part, Kate was not displeased by the appearance of the sun, but a strong sense of civic pride meant she hoped to see the rain return, perhaps tomorrow or the day after that.
The ten years that Kate had lived in Portland had been the happiest of her life. She’d raised her family here, and thus the twins had never known life outside the city. That was fine with Kate. She’d lived through the harsh winters of the back country and seen her mother make do without so much as a whisper of complaint, but it was not for her. Kate was a city girl, had been since the moment she and Joseph had arrived in Portland and discovered its public schools, electrified streetlights, and local sewer lines.
Kate had watched the city grow right along with her family, its buildings multiplying each year, always getting bigger and taller. Eighteen eighty-seven had seen the opening of the Morrison Bridge, the first to cross the Willamette River, and work had already begun on a second crossing, this one made of steel. The medical college had opened the preceding fall, and that summer a public zoo would open in Washington Park, just up the hill from the house the Wyldes called home. At last count, the city had fifteen theaters, two opera houses, three department stores, a dozen hotels, and a baseball team.
Kate paused at the corner of Alder Street and Third Avenue. This close to the river, the road remained completely under water, but the expansion of the docks had brought one of the wooden piers two blocks into downtown, where it split and connected with two larger raised walkways that ran the length of Second Avenue. More than a dozen small skiffs were tied to the posts nearest the ramp, as was a single horse who seemed none too happy to be standing in three feet of water. Kate made her way across the last plank and onto the extended pier.
The waterfront was crowded with travelers, merchants, locals collecting visitors, and a few of the yellow-eyed men who hung around the docks day and night. They were prospectors, or had been before they’d become too sick to dig. It wasn’t the ore but the black dust that collected around it that made the men cough and their whites turn the color of yolks. Most hung around the water, hoping to catch on with a boat heading south to warmer, drier climes, but few crews would have them. Kate had never heard of the condition spreading, but few people were willing to chance sharing close quarters with the diseased.
Kate drifted among the people, letting the ebb and flow of the foot traffic give her direction. She’d made the forty-five-minute walk and wade from the house without testing herself, but now she was ready. It took only a moment and then she was gone, hidden from view, not
a face in the crowd but lost in it.
Kate had vanished.
She was there, of course, invisible not to the eye but rather to the mind. Kate thought of it as stepping into a communal blind spot. The harder someone searched, the easier it was for her to stay out of sight.
Kate had developed this trick after years of teasing the one man whose eyes didn’t get in the way of his vision. Joseph had always been able to find her, no matter where or how she hid, until she’d discovered that sight wasn’t the only way of seeing. Just as Joseph had honed his other senses to replace his eyes, Kate had learned to minimize the nonvisual clues that gave her away.
The result was that Joseph had a hard time finding his wife when she didn’t want to be found. Any observer who happened to catch the show would think Kate had simply disappeared. The city, of course, offered the best of backdrops, but Kate had practiced in the wild as well. She was every bit as good hiding among the trees as she was the telegraph poles. The crowded pier made it easy.
A group of twenty people had gathered on the dock allotted to the Alberta, which was due to arrive at the top of the hour. Standing among the family and friends was Jim Gates, mayor of Portland, and a pair of advisers, one of whom Kate recognized as the deputy mayor. She liked the mayor, had supported him, but was less than eager to make herself available to his approach.
That didn’t stop her from being curious.
* * *
“You’re sure it’s this boat?” the mayor said, not bothering to look at either of the men standing next to him.
“Yes, sir,” said Avery Harris, the younger man to his left. “It’s this one, the Alberta.”
“Good, good. And both men are onboard?”
Avery hesitated, glancing at the man standing on the mayor’s right. Deputy Mayor Bart Hildebrandt frowned at his colleague.
“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” said Bart. “I personally confirmed that both Mr. Wylde and his father-in-law are onboard.”
The mayor nodded. “Excellent.”
Jim Gates considered himself a good businessman and an even better politician, but he was not a patient man. He’d won his first election by running a campaign that never slowed down long enough to give the press (or the opposition) time to find fault with his politics. He talked fast and promised a lot, which made it very hard for most listeners to recall anything but the last words out of his mouth. That’s why he always ended speeches with a joke.
Upriver, the Alberta came into view as it made the turn just north of downtown.
“Here it comes, sir.”
“Right on schedule,” said the mayor, loudly enough for the people around him to hear. He then leaned to his right and spoke so that no one but the deputy could hear. “We’ll make a show of it with the old man, but I’ll be speaking to Mr. Wylde alone.”
“Actually, Mr. Mayor,” said a woman’s voice, “I’d like to say hello to my husband first—if that’s all right with you.”
The mayor blinked twice before realizing the disembodied voice was coming from a slender red-haired woman standing directly in front of him.
“Mrs. Wylde!” he said, effortlessly slipping into his public persona. “A pleasure to see you again. Here to greet the family, I assume.”
“As are you, it appears.”
“Er, yes,” said the mayor, only slightly disarmed. “I’ve got a bit of business to discuss with Joseph. I hope that’s all right.”
Kate smiled. “Of course,” she said, failing to add that she knew all about the mayor’s business and had spent nearly as much time as her husband coming up with a solution to the politician’s problem.
“My father made the trip, as well,” she added. “He’s going to be living with us here in Portland.”
“That’s wonderful. A man of his stature will no doubt become a respected resident of the city. I’ll make it my mission to get his endorsement.”
“I’m sure he’ll look forward to that.”
The mayor’s smile faltered slightly.
“You should ask him to take part in the festival,” Kate said, offering an olive branch.
“Oh? You think he’d be interested?”
“I’m sure he would. He’s a show-off,” she lied. “And he’s got plenty of stories to tell. He might even offer a demonstration of some of those old marshaling skills of his. He does like to shoot things.”
The mayor beamed. “Mrs. Wylde, you’ve made my day.”
The Alberta began the wide turn into port at that moment, announcing its arrival with the clanging of a bell and great release of steam.
“Welcome!” exclaimed the mayor, making a broad swipe of the air with his left arm. “Welcome to Portlandtown!”
Avery waved enthusiastically at no one in particular. The deputy mayor offered a weak salute, and then remembered Mrs. Wylde. He turned, ready to explain away his halfhearted gesture, only to find the woman gone. He scanned the crowd but could not see her, even though she’d been standing at his side only a moment before.
* * *
Maddie leaned forward, squinting at the crowded pier below. Kick climbed onto the rail next to her and stretched even farther out.
“Do you see her?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
They’d played this game with their mother on numerous occasions, usually downtown, where the crowds made for more of a challenge. They were good at finding her, or thought they were. Kate would never admit that most of the twins’ successes were the result of her deliberate mistakes, but when she’d wanted to win, she had. Joseph was the only person who could find her at the top of her game, and even then he wasn’t always on target.
Joseph stepped up to the rail next to the twins.
“See her yet?”
“No,” said Kick. “She’s dug in good.”
Maddie nodded.
Joseph turned to the city and opened his senses. Portland poured over him, offering a wave of sensory input. Joseph filtered out the noise—the voices, the laughter, the working city, and water flowing in a hundred different directions in and around the flooded streets. Gradually, he focused on the people closest to the Alberta. There were nineteen, maybe twenty souls waiting to greet family, friends, and neighbors. Joseph recognized a few of those present and noted that Kate wasn’t the only person waiting for him. The mayor was among the crowd, no doubt looking for an update on the matter he’d asked Joseph to look into a week earlier. He had an assistant with him and the deputy mayor.
That was interesting.
Joseph delved further, letting the sounds of downtown drop away. The air, usually a fragrant mixture of rain, mud, and beer, was surprisingly dry. A few days of sun had given the floodwaters a funk that would turn rancid if they didn’t recede soon.
It was there among the local fragrances that Joseph found her—lilac.
Kate was very fond of lilacs and kept a box of dried flowers in the bedroom. To maintain the natural perfume, she opened it only when in a certain mood. Joseph was quite fond of these moods and as such had developed a hair-trigger sensory response to lilac. He could smell flowers in bloom more than a mile away.
Kate must have been crushing a few petals in her hand, letting the flower’s scent mingle with the local aroma. She was teasing Joseph and he loved it.
“Come on,” he said, turning away from the rail. “Let’s go find your grandfather.”
“You found her?” Kick said, closing his eyes and sniffing the air, trying desperately to follow his father’s lead.
“You’re not going to find her, Kick,” said Joseph. “Not today.”
Kick jumped off the rail and made for the stairwell ahead of Joseph. Maddie followed, lingering for a moment at the top of the steps.
“Lilacs,” she said and bounced down the stairs after her brother.
* * *
The marshal was already jawing at a porter by the time the kids and Joseph caught up to him on the pier.
“Son, I don’t want to have to tell you twice. The goods with the saddle,
there’s a small box…”
“Don’t worry, Marshal,” Joseph said, releasing the porter with a nod. “I’ve taken care of everything.”
The marshal frowned. After a pleasant start to the voyage, the marshal’s mood had soured, and he’d spent most of the journey upriver sitting alone. Twice he’d demanded to inspect his things, and was talked out of a third only after Joseph told him to leave it be. Joseph wanted very much to avoid further confrontation and was glad to feel Kate’s presence behind her father.
“Hello, Dad.”
The marshal turned to his daughter, who gave him a hug before he could say a word.
“How was the journey?”
“Too sunny,” the marshal said. “Spent most of the trip looking for shade.”
“I’m sure it’ll start raining again soon. It always does.”
Kate slipped around the marshal to her husband. “And how was your trip?” Before Joseph could answer, Kate kissed him on the cheek, her lips lingering next to his before she pulled away. The scent of lilacs was overpowering.
“Fine,” Joseph said.
Kate knew every practiced expression at Joseph’s disposal and was pleased to see a look of genuine befuddlement on his face. She’d managed to greet her father without starting an argument and to remind her husband of exactly how much he loved her. That left only the twins.
“Hello, Kick,” she said, as the boy materialized by her side.
“I almost found you.”
“Really?”
“I was very close,” Kick said, grasping his mother’s left hand. “I think the sun got in my eyes.”
“The sun set ten minutes ago,” said Maddie, taking her mother’s other hand.
“That’s true,” said Kate. “But I believe it was still visible above the hill when the boat came in.”
“It was!” said Kick. “Ha!”
Kate gave Maddie a smile, which she returned.
Joseph would have liked to let the moment linger, but the mayor was practically coughing up a lung, trying to make his presence known.