The Empire of Shadows (16 page)

The fire roared like a beast. It was an oddly silent crowd that watched. They were helpless, all of them.

In small groups, or one by one, the milling crowd started drifting back to their beds. Eventually the sturdy beams gave way and crashed down. Sparks whirled and spun, flying high into the night.

“They look like little stars,” Rebecca said, pointing. Tom noticed that there were men with buckets on the roof, ready to douse any sparks that might take hold. Mary and Rebecca turned away. Tom and Mike followed. There were few left behind except hotel employees and Frederick Durant. Tom noticed him standing alone, his eyes fixed on the flames. Tom thought to go to him, to say something by way of comfort or consolation. He realized, after a brief pause, that he had none of either to offer.

Van Duzer had always been an early riser. Despite his age and weight, both of which were higher than he liked to admit, he was still a vigorous man. He bustled out his front door that opened on Gramercy Park and turned right toward Park Avenue. He cast an appreciative eye at the elegant private park. Its high iron fence preserved the verdant little spot, keeping out the drunks and riffraff.

Van Duzer appreciated a good fence, especially the iron kind with the little spears on top. He glanced across the park at the new Players Club.

Van Duzer huffed to himself as he thought about it. He always figured that Edwin Booth had overextended himself when he built the tall brownstone mansion years before. He'd been flush then, high on his Shakespearean successes. But Booth's success, at least the financial kind, had been fleeting. His theatre failed, and he'd been forced to go to friends a couple of years before.

He and William Tecumseh Sherman, Samuel Clemens, and many other men of high standing in the city's social and artistic circles, had formed the Players, a club for actors and others involved in the theater and arts. They hired the great Stanford White to alter Booth's mansion, making it more suitable for the club.

Edwin Booth still lived in the place, but now he occupied a single, small apartment on the third floor overlooking the park, where he'd retire after the evening's revels. There were always men ready to toast the great actor.

“Actors,” Van Duzer mumbled with a shake of his head.

A while later van Duzer got out of a cab in front of his office building. He could well afford a carriage and driver to take him wherever he needed to go, but he was a frugal old Dutchman, and paying a driver full time when he only needed a ride two or three times a day was an extravagance he could not justify.

Van Duzer was in early, but his law clerks were already there. None of them dared be in later than the old man. They greeted him in polite but muted tones as they scurried about the hallways. They all had plenty to do or made it their business to appear to. Most of the partners weren't in yet he noticed as he walked past their dark, paneled doors. There weren't but a handful of them that seemed to know the value of a full day's work. Still, they billed enough hours. He knew how many. He kept a report on each of them, a list of golden hours. Time was money in the law business. No partner wanted to be on the bottom of that list.

Van Duzer hadn't settled in to his office for more than twenty minutes before a telegram came, much as the last one had, on tentative clerk's feet with hushed announcement.

“Tomorrow's paper,” was all it said.

“Humph,” Van Duzer grunted as he read it a second time. “Man of few words.”

He rather liked that. He burned the telegram like he had the last one, tossing the ash into his wastebasket on top of the latest letter from Ella. She was getting cold feet already, just as he'd thought. He watched as the last of the embers died. Ella was out of her depth, had been all along. Her brother had stolen from her and her lawyer was using her. Van Duzer shook his head. “She'll never see a dime,” he muttered.

 

Everyone slept late the next day. The Prospect House was quiet even at 10
A.M
. By the time Tom, Mary, Mike, and Rebecca got down to breakfast the big dining room was only part full. Tom picked up a newspaper in the reading room on the way to breakfast and leafed through it before realizing that it was yesterday's edition. He was used to reading his paper in the morning at home. He put it down with a disappointed shrug, but once they'd ordered breakfast he picked it up again.

There wasn't one article about anything outside of the Adirondacks, as far as he could see. Shoehorned between a column about proposed train service to Warrensburg and a story about a wedding in Glens Falls was an article titled,
INDIAN LAKE MAN BURNED IN TERRIBLE ACCIDENT
,
OVERCOME BY SMOKE HE FALLS INTO FIRE
.

“Hmph. This is odd,” Tom said over the top of the paper. “Says here, ah…” He paused as he skimmed through the first paragraphs, “Says here some fella in Indian Lake, a charcoal burner, fell headfirst into his own fire.”

“How horrible!” Mary said.

Tom grunted as he read on. “Found him with his feet sticking out. Damn!”

“Just his feet?” Mike asked, a piece of pancake poised midway between plate and mouth. “I don't even want to think about that.” What he did think about was Lettie. Mike hadn't seen her last night. In all the confusion he hadn't given her more than a passing thought, and by the time the fire was out and they were back to their rooms he'd been too exhausted to sneak out and look for her. He thought about her now, though, and there was worry in it.

The empty breakfast dishes were taken away as the family talked about what to do that day. They had planned to climb Blue and, even though they were getting a late start they decided to go ahead with it if they could locate Busher. They found him sitting, back against the wall of the boathouse, talking with another guide. He perked up when he saw them coming.

He got to his feet and brushed the grass from his pants while he exchanged a word with the other guide, a handsome fellow with deep-set eyes. The man was dressed in a well-cut vest with a gold watch chain dangling across his middle and a white shirt with a floppy bow tie. His pants were tucked into high boots that were supple and polished.

Busher greeted the family and asked, “What's your pleasure this fine morning?” looking from one to the other.

“Decided not to go fishing today, Chauncey. Thought we'd climb the mountain instead,” Tom said, looking up at Blue. They got into a discussion of how long it would take and the kind of footwear and clothes they'd need.

“Can be chilly on top, so you'd be smart to bring something extra,” Chauncey said, adding that he'd arrange a carriage to take them up to the trailhead.

“Save a couple miles,” he explained. “Might be easier on the little missy here,” he said with a pat on Rebecca's head.

“Oh, darn my manners! This here's Mister Exeter Owens,” Chauncey said, turning to the man still leaning against the wall. “He's not so good a guide as me, but that still makes him pretty darn good,” he said with a straight face, but with a twinkle in his eye.

“Mornin', sir,” Owens said to Tom.

Turning to Mary he tipped the brim of his hat, saying, “A pleasure, ma'am,” with a rakish grin. “Climbing Blue, eh?” Owens went on with a nod to Mike and Rebecca. “Pretty day for it,” he said, looking up at the puffy clouds.

“Got a feeling we might get some weather. Won't be till this evening, though. Still, I wouldn't tarry on the mountain too long.” He elbowed Busher. “And don't let Busher get you lost. I'd hate having to go save him.”

They had a good laugh at that before the talk turned to the fire. Both of the guides had aided in the effort to put out the blaze. Busher had run through the barn, opening stalls as he went. Owens had been near the head of the bucket line.

“Damn shame,” Owens said. “Don't know how it got started. Nobody seems to know.”

“Yeah,” Busher said. “Got a fishy smell to it. Hell, I'm thinkin' somebody set 'er. Fixed it so's there'd be no puttin' it out.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. He'd had some experience with arson investigations, but he was no expert.

“Fire spread quicker than I'd have thought,” he agreed.

“Nobody's said so,” Owens said with a nod toward the Prospect House, “but something was wrong about that fire.”

Tom didn't comment. He stayed silent waiting for more. Silence was a void that talkers liked to fill.

These two seemed like talkers.

“But what the hell do I know?” Owens added.

“Not too damn much, Ex, you ask me,” Chauncey replied.

The climb up Blue was harder than they'd imagined. Though Busher hauled a large packbasket slung from his shoulders with leather straps, he surged ahead. He had to stop and wait often while Rebecca caught up. Mary walked with her, happy for the excuse to go slow. Her ankle-length cotton dress, wide-brimmed hat, and too-tight leather boots made for a hot, painful hike. Her feet were aching long before they reached the top. Busher had warned her about the boots before they started, saying, “Them boots're more for the bowlin' alley than the mountain.”

They were the closest thing she had to something sturdy, though, so she didn't have much choice. Mary wasn't a woman to let something like shoes get in the way of what she set her mind to.

About two thirds of the way up, the hike went from a steep walk to a rocky climb. Mike ranged ahead with Busher. He and Chauncey went up from rock to rock, matching each other. Busher wasn't about to let his forty-five pound pack make him give up the lead. At a call from Tom, who hung back with Mary and Rebecca, Busher and Mike halted. They'd gotten so far ahead they could hardly be seen between the trees. Rebecca was complaining and almost in tears.

“I'm thiirrrsty,” she moaned. “My feet huuurt!”

Chauncey fished out a canteen of water for her once he'd shrugged off the pack.

“When are we going to get there?” and “I want to go hooome,” tumbled out of her between gulps at the canteen. Like stones in her pockets, her complaints dragged at her. As they finally got going again, her little feet shuffled and stumbled. Mike couldn't blame her. It was a hard climb for a little girl. He had no doubt she could do it though. She just didn't know it yet. As if reading his thoughts, Busher said.

“Your sister's got spunk. She'll make it sure enough.”

A short while later as Mary and Rebecca started to fall behind again, Mike watched as Tom helped Mary up a particularly rough section, then handed Rebecca up to her. Something about the way Tom did that reminded Mike of his father. I was only six years before that his da had been murdered. Looking at Tom, he realized he could hardly remember his father's face. It was almost as if he could not tell where his real father ended and Tom began. It was as if they had blended over the years, becoming one person.

That person was mostly Tom now. It was only now and again that Mike found his da creeping back to his waking thoughts. Mike saw the way Tom picked Rebecca up, how he steadied her. Though she was their own flesh and blood, Mike knew that Tom and Mary had shown him no less love than they had her. He'd always known that, though there'd been times when it had been hard to remember. It was odd that here, on the side of a mountain, he'd feel it more than he had in years.

As he followed Busher, Mike returned in his mind to the grove of pines by Eagle Lake. He thought of Lettie. Thought was too weak a word. He
felt
her, and as he climbed a warm flood of feelings washed over him, some emotional, but mostly physical. She was an ache between his legs and a longing in his heart. She was the rock he didn't see in front of him as he went sprawling into the dirt. Busher looked over his shoulder, hardly slowing.

“You break anything, boy?” he asked with an amused frown. Busher didn't like getting any of his clients hurt, but most of all he didn't want to lug Mike down the mountain, a thing he'd be obliged to do as the guide. Mike picked himself up, dusting the black Adirondack earth from his pants and hands.

“I'm okay,” he said. Lettie and the ache of her was replaced by a brighter pain in his knee. Busher stopped and waited. Rebecca scrambled up behind Mike and he held out a hand to help her over a boulder.

“You made it 'Becca,” he said, encouraging her with a pat on the head. “See, it's not so bad, right? Mister Busher says we're almost to the top.”

“That's right, little missy. Just a spit and a holler left,” Busher said. “We'll just catch our wind here, then it's straight on to the top.” He looked at Rebecca, who was alternately huffing and moaning. “Here, sit right down on that rock and I'll recite a little ditty I know. Ought a get yer mind off this hill while you rest up.” Busher straightened up, putting his hands behind his back and throwing his chest out.

“Once a company of beavers, in their engineering fury,”
he began in a tone he seemed to think appropriate to poetry:

Rebecca, who had been hanging her head in tired self-pity, started to perk up, a small smile creeping across her lips. Busher didn't stop.

Rebecca, who had stopped huffing and moaning altogether, clapped as Busher finished, they all did.

“Say it again, Mister Busher. Say it again. I like the part about the timber topplers,” she said. “That was my favorite.”

Busher beamed at her, then glanced up at the sky. A cloud had veiled the sun.