by Ed Ifkovic
“Sonia, working on a sequel?”
Her pencil pressed against the page, the lead tip snapped. “Noah just left.”
“In a huff,” Clint added. “Them two”—he flicked his head toward Sonia—“squabbling like two muskrats pecking at each other over a caribou bone.”
“Poor Noah.” She locked eyes with mine. “He’ll never understand me.”
“No one can,” Clint quipped and she chuckled, reaching over to tap his arm with the pencil she still held.
“I’m doing a follow-up article, Edna. ‘The Legend of Sam Pilot.’ The mystery of that man. The Athabascan from Fort Yukon who died in a cold corner of Fairbanks.”
Clint was frowning. “Sonia, the man is already dead.”
“But it’s an intriguing story.” Then she paused, thought a second. “Maybe Noah is right. Maybe Sam didn’t kill Jack.”
“What?” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “After all your pronouncements. Your…your article.”
She flashed her eyes. “I’m a journalist. The story goes on. Maybe Noah is right. Maybe there’s someone in town who killed both men.” Her eyes got wide. “Now that’s the story I need to pursue. The sins of the North become the murders of the present.”
“Be careful.”
“I’ve learned that something else happened here yesterday. Teddy told me about it. May Tighe, too. Day and night staff. Sam walked in here and sat in back, up against the wall, legs stretched out, quiet, unmoving, eyes half closed. And he sat still for most of the afternoon and into the early evening. Teddy said it creeped out the guests. After the supper hour no one dared walk into the lounge, so threatening was Sam’s posture.”
“Why?” I wondered.
Clint answered. “It’s true, Edna. I stopped in early evening. He was there. Scary as all get out. Like a sphinx or something. A statue. The hotel manager, Silas Taylor, was buzzing with Teddy, telling him to get him out. Teddy told me—‘Ain’t my job.’ And he hid in the back room.”
Sonia was anxious to talk. “But Teddy did tell me something interesting. When Ty Gilley came downstairs, headed out, he spotted Sam sitting like a mummified corpse. Hesitating, he walked up to him, and he actually talked to Sam.”
“What about?”
She shrugged. “I cornered Ty a little while back. He was antsy but said he asked Sam that same question he asked me. ‘Did you ever know Clay Fowler?’ His father. His quest for answers about the missing father.”
“And what did Sam tell him?”
“He never answered,” Sonia said. “Refused to answer. Ty said he felt foolish, standing there, the old Indian barely looking at him.”
I was thinking out loud. “You know, I always feel Ty isn’t telling us something. Maybe not the whole story.”
That piqued Sonia’s curiosity. “Me, too, Edna. Half-truths. I kept pushing at him, but he wanted to get away from me.”
Clint scoffed. “Maybe your next article, Sonia. ‘The Legend of Ty Gilley.’”
She pursed her lips. “That isn’t as crazy as it seems. His father—another mystery of the Arctic. A whiter shade of silence.” She gathered her coat and gloves. “I need to check in at the office.”
“It’s late, Sonia,” I said.
“It’s never too late to write a story.”
When she was gone, Clint stood up, stretched. “Gonna amble home.” But he flicked his head toward me. “Edna, walk with me.”
Surprised, I agreed, putting on my parka, mukluks, and fur hat.
“Edna, we’re not going caribou hunting. I live feet away.”
Walking there, I said, “What is it you want to tell me, Clint?”
But he didn’t answer.
Clint lived in a log cabin in the shadow of one of the new white-cement skyscrapers in Fairbanks, a drab monolith that boasted an elevator—a novelty in town, just ask the Indian boys who doggedly rode it up and down. Clint had built the two-room cabin decades before, living in it since then, its beams sagging, its Arctic porch tilting to one side, surrounded by a vast tract of open terrain. A line of such cabins peppered the street. Single men, sheltered inside. Sven the Swede’s cabin. Hatless Manny’s. One-Armed Joe’s sinking cabin, half disappeared into the permafrost.
Clint begrudgingly watched the city grow up around him. Tall buildings haunted him, like the Polaris or even the eight-story Northward Building. His own curse was the seven-story bleached-white atrocity that looked down on his cabin. Tenants, should they desire, could watch the hunched-over prospector hobbling to his outhouse or dumping his honey bucket down in back.
Cars buzzed in and out of the parking lot that bordered his yard, and now and then some foolish soul parked a Chevy or Ford in his dirt-packed yard. Once only: a tongue-lashing from the spunky Clint could go on for an hour or so. Locals were familiar with Clint chopping winter wood that he hauled from outside of town, or pumping water from his well, even moseying back to his makeshift clothesline, Clint scratching himself in his yellowed long johns. With his messy, grizzly beard, his floppy hat and his suspenders and denims, he found himself being asked by tourists to pose for snapshots, some believing he was an actor in the pay of the Chamber of Commerce. Another tongue-lashing, to be sure. And deserved, in fact.
I sat in his small, dark front room, the Yukon stove blazing, the room toasty. It was surprisingly neat, I noticed, with odd amenities: a vase of dried flowers on a table, a Gone with the Wind lamp, even a store-bought rocking chair. For the rest it was frontier land: a mounted caribou head, a brown bearskin rug, an Indian mask hooked to a rafter, a knotty-pine table that wobbled. In a back room, behind a heavy fur-pelt barrier, were his sleeping quarters. The stifling room smelled of burnt wood, turpentine, old yeast.
He brewed the spruce-root tea served in a chipped but spotless mug. I sipped it slowly—it was hot and biting, almost medicinal to the taste. “Got the recipe from an old Athabascan woman in Circle City. Cures what ails you.”
I caught his eye. “What do you want to tell me, Clint?”
“For one, Sonia and Noah, Edna.”
“You’re bothered?”
“The cat-and-mouse game they play. Love me, love me not. I think it’s a game with Sonia. A little thrilling, no? She likes the excitement of…”
“Skirmishes? Maybe. But Noah…”
“Noah is too serious a guy, Edna. You could see the love—and the hurt—in his eyes. The scene at the Nordale was…ugly. You know, Sonia is the only person able to rile Noah. He’s calm, peaceful, slow to anger. Sonia makes him into a different person.”
“What will happen to them, Clint?”
“Everybody hopes they gonna get married and have kids.”
I sat back. “No, that’s not going to happen.”
“Then that’s the biggest sadness Noah will ever have in his life.”
“But that’s not the only thing you want to tell me, is it, Clint? Something you couldn’t say in the Nordale?”
“Smart lady.” He poured me more tea.
I waited. “Sam?”
He nodded. “Noah whispered to me that Sam was murdered. Not just an old drunk freezing to death. Murdered.”
I caught my breath. “But why?”
“Noah heard they found wood splinters matted in his scalp. The chief, he says Sam fell against some wood piling, old wood, splintered, and shavings got mixed in with the blood. Froze.”
“But Noah doesn’t believe it?”
“Nope.” He shook his head emphatically. “Noah says somebody clobbered Sam with a club—just like they done to Jack Mabie.”
Lying in bed, unable to sleep, watching the hour hand strike eleven on my desk clock, I closed the novel I was reading. Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar. It made no sense to me. The phone rang, its jangle loud in the late-night quiet room.
“Edna, I know it’s late. I apologize.” The waverin
g voice hesitated. “I really have no business…”
“Irina,” I said into the phone, “it’s all right. Tell me. What?”
Her voice sounded far away, as though she’d regretted dialing and now held the phone away from her mouth. “It’s just that…”
“Irina, tell me.”
“Sonia told me she had a bruising fight with Noah in the Nordale. In a public place. I don’t like that.”
“But I gather they like to do battle. Irina. They’ll kiss and…” I stopped. A tiresome cliché at the tip of my tongue. Horrified at myself, I said to her, “You have me talking like a character out of an Elinor Glyn purple romance.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know about that, but Edna, it’s more than that.” I could hear her swallow nervously. “She caused quite a row at the house tonight. Words with her father, who fought her. She snapped at Paul. She ignored my pleas that she calm down.”
“What are you talking about, Irina?”
Again the long pause, the heavy sighing. “Those articles she published in The Gold. The one about Sam Pilot. It’s caused all sorts of nasty comment. Fury, threats. She said she had a call from Preston Strange—”
I interrupted her. “Him? Why?”
“Well, you read it. She mentioned him by name again. Part of Jack’s history. He wasn’t happy, she said. He threatened a lawsuit. Against her. Against the paper. Against Hank. And his nephew, that Jeremy Nunne, even he called, but she laughed at that. She said he sputtered and hemmed and hawed, and ended up apologizing for something he had done—but she had no idea what he was talking about.”
“He’s sort of a nebbish, Irina.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. Irina, Sonia loves to fan flames. That’s how she sees her journalism.”
“She said something about that dead Indian. Sam Pilot. Sitting in the lounge at the Nordale. Just sitting there. She said it told her something. It answered something. She said the pieces might be coming together. Maybe.”
I sat up. “What?”
Irina ignored me. “Hank was furious, Edna. He stormed out of the room. They never do battle, the two of them. But he told her she was turning his paper into a cheap rag.”
“But they’ve had that disagreement before. Two different editorial viewpoints. He should be used to it, no?”
Her mouth close to the receiver, her voice trembling. “I’m not explaining myself well. Edna. Not that. Noah. What she said about Noah.”
I sucked in my breath. “I’m not following you, Irina.”
I looked at the clock: late. I should be sleeping. Tomorrow a long day. Obligations.
“In her fury Sonia said she’d talked to you about her—her career. Career. I hate that word. So…clinical, no? For a girl? Her life. Your life. Your success. Her admiration. Well, we all admire you, but…”
“But what?”
“She told us that she told Noah at the Nordale that they should not be together.”
I counted a second. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“That’s what she said. ‘I love you to death, Noah,’ she said she told him, ‘but I can only hurt you. Talking with Edna made me see it. Maybe some distance.’ What in the world did the two of you talk about? Did she misunderstand you? Hank went crazy. He’d been drinking and he raged. Paul tried to calm him down.”
I spoke to myself. “I hadn’t heard that, Irina,” I repeated. “I’m surprised.” But then, the words tripping out of my mouth, I realized I wasn’t surprised: Sonia, fiercely independent, her hunger for a meaningful life. Her words on the page. Her love for Noah got in the way of it. Sadly. Horribly.
“She said Noah didn’t take it well. He stormed out of the Nordale, bumping into folks. That—that quiet man. She drove him…” She stopped. “Edna, I don’t know why I’m calling you.” A pause. “Except that this house is echoey with bitterness and anger. Sonia’s gone to her apartment. Paul went upstairs, glowering. Hank passed out in our bedroom.” A slight chuckle. “And me on the phone bothering you at this late hour.”
“It’s all right, Irina.”
“Is it? I don’t know what’s right anymore.” An abruptness to her voice. “Tomorrow will be better, Edna. Yes, it will. Good night.”
I started to say good night but I heard a dial tone. Irina had already hung up the phone.
Midnight. The hotel quiet. The street outside dead. Still awake, shuffling in my bed, a wisp of cold air seeping through the old windowsills, I abandoned hopes of sleep. Eight hours a night, I demanded of myself. A routine. Rigorous. Eight hours, unbroken sleep, a brisk morning walk, up and down Manhattan streets, though I’d forgo that cherished routine in frigid Alaska. Restless, I got dressed and wandered down into the lobby.
Deserted, the cleaning crew’s pails and mops bunched together by the front door. As I moved past the reception desk, I could hear wispy snoring from the small room behind the desk, and smiled: doubtless Teddy taking advantage of the empty lounge to drift off into sleep.
I picked up a copy of a newspaper from the counter, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, a rival to Hank’s The Gold, tucked it under my arm, and walked into the lounge. I was surprised to see Noah sitting in one of the chairs, half-asleep, his head dipped into his lap.
“Noah,” I said, startling him. “What?”
“Too cold to wander the streets.”
“So you come here?”
“I always come here. And tonight my home was too…close. The walls too forbidding.”
“Your home away from home.”
“My own private fiefdom.” He grinned. “Until you stepped in.” He pointed to the reception desk. “Teddy never knows I slip in here.”
“I heard about your kerfuffle with Sonia.”
He waved a hand at me. “A bad day.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dumbly I repeated Irina’s line to me. “Tomorrow will be better.”
A puzzled look on his face. “Did Shakespeare say that?” Still that infectious grin on his face. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”
“You okay?”
For a second his face closed up. “Of course.”
“Sonia.”
“Will be in my life tomorrow…and tomorrow.” He waved a hand in the air. “Romeo and Juliet?” He paused. “A midsummer night’s dream.”
“But it isn’t summer.” I watched his face. “She left you?”
“She’s always leaving me.”
“But Irina and Hank fear this time it’s serious.”
That bothered him. “Sonia scares her parents. Especially Hank.”
I raised my voice. “But she said goodbye.”
A wistful smile as he shuffled to his feet. “Time for bed. For both of us, Edna.”
“Wait, Noah. Earlier Clint told me you believe Sam was murdered, contrary to what Chief Rawlins believes. The splinters.”
He counted a beat. “Of course he was murdered.”
“And you know this how?”
“I know it.” A sheepish smile. “And now you do, too.”
As he walked by me, he leaned in, and surprising me, he gave me a quick hug. I hadn’t expected it. His warm breath on my neck: a hint of cedar, strong, appealing. Then he stepped back. “Sonia keeps making bad decisions. I hope this isn’t one of them.”
“Tomorrow,” I laughed.
“Maybe another bad day in all our lives.”
Chapter Ten
Friday morning I lingered in my room. I’d planned on spending the morning sifting through a stack of pamphlets I’d borrowed from the Fairbanks Public Library—“Take your time, dear,” the jittery old librarian told me, “but don’t crease them”—a gold mine of anecdote-packed accounts of Alaskan settlement, lawsuits, family sagas. But the task palled—instead, my mind wandering, I sat by the windo
w and stared blankly at the snow-tinted buildings and pavement. A land in which ice lay under the surface of everything.
At mid-morning, famished, I dressed and headed downstairs, only to be called to the reception desk by May Tighe. “Hey, Miss Ferber, here.”
She handed me a letter, the envelope bearing the logo of the Nordale.
“My bill?” I quipped.
But May grumbled and turned away. Facing away from me, she muttered, “What the hell does that mean?”
Smiling, I slipped into the lounge, took off my parka, and tore open the envelope. It was a typed note from Sonia:
She signed her note in ink and then, an afterthought, wrote beneath it:
Then, oddly, below that humorous addition, big block letters, smudged black ink:
Startled, I reread the note, baffled. Staring into the lounge, I noticed a few loiterers watching me. What did they see? Probably my confusion, my worried expression. I folded the note, slipped it back into the envelope, and got ready to walk out of the lounge.
I wandered into The Gold offices on Second Avenue, just up from the Nordale in the shadow of the Northward Building, that eight-storied ice castle. Spotting me in the doorway, Hank waved me in as he puffed on a cigar. Sitting behind a big oak desk cluttered with copy spilling over the edges, his sleeves rolled up and reading glasses loose on his nose, he gave me a big smile. “Edna, I was thinking about you.” He stopped when he saw the serious look on my face. “Now what happened?”
“Nothing. Or—I don’t know.”
He rolled his tongue into the corner of his cheek, his eyes darkening. “What?”
“Sonia left me a mysterious note at the hotel.”
“She flew out real early this morning for a visit to Tanacross, a small Native village, some ceremonial potlatch, an obligation to an old friend of hers. She was in a rush, as usual, late getting started.”
“Her note suggested urgency.”
He seemed unhappy. “Everything she does is urgent these days.”