The Great Alone (76 page)

Just like that, she went from being a dishwasher to a waitress. She not only caught on to the new job quickly, but she also learned to handle the customers, who were almost exclusively male. After a week of being surrounded by men, Marisha couldn’t figure out why her aunt had regarded them as crude, objectionable brutes, ready to pounce on the first female they saw. A smile or a kind word was all most of her customers wanted. Some seemed lonely and wanted to talk.

Still all the attention she received from the men was a new and heady experience for her. Now she walked with her head held high, at last taking pride in her looks. “Glory Girl,” they called her. It all started shortly after she started working in the front. A customer—an old sourdough—who’d been there in the morning came back that noon with a friend and pointed to Marisha, declaring, “There she is. Ain’t she a glory to behold?” The tag stuck. Truthfully, Marisha liked it.

She wrapped a rag around the handle of the coffeepot to shield her hand from the metal’s heat, then picked up the pot and began making the rounds of the tables, refilling cups. She paused beside the preacher’s chair.

“More coffee, Mr. Cole?” She smiled with practiced ease. Although he’d only been in the restaurant twice since she’d been working there, he wasn’t the sort of man a person could forget.

He nodded affirmatively and slid his cup over so she could fill it. As usual he was dressed in his somber black coat and starched white shirt. She’d never seen him wear any other clothes, yet he always looked neat and clean. She especially noticed his hands. They were smooth and pale, not imbedded with grime and roughened by calluses like the hands of most of her customers. There wasn’t even a speck of dirt under his blunt fingernails.

“Hey, Glory Girl, bring that pot over here! We need some more coffee.” The request was bellowed across the room. Marisha didn’t have to turn around and look to recognize the voice of a leather-skinned wrangler with one of the pack outfits in town.

“Be right there, Curly,” she called back, then inquired of the preacher, “Need anything else?”

“This’ll do.” He picked up the coffee cup and rocked the chair back onto its rear legs as Marisha started across the room.

The preacher always sat at the same corner table in the chair facing the door, and he always sat alone.

When she reached Curly’s table, he held out his cup for her to fill. A flop-eared cap covered his head and hid his thin crop of hair. Marisha doubted that Curly was much past thirty, but he was already going bald. She glanced at the two men with him, not recognizing either of them.

“Got a smile to sweeten this coffee for me?” Curly asked.

She smiled at him as she turned to pour coffee into his companions’ cups. Although she was conscious of their ogling stares, she was almost used to that.

“You work too hard in this place,” Curly declared.

“A girl has to eat.”

“If eatin’s the only thing keepin’ you here, we can solve that, can’t we, boys?” Curly grinned at his friends.

“You bet,” replied the scraggly-bearded man sitting in the chair closest to Marisha. “You can move into the shack with us. Why, that way you’d have a place to sleep and plenty to eat, too. An’ you wouldn’t get lonely ’cause we’d be there t’ keep you company.”

“I already have those things. Sorry.” Such suggestions had been made to her countless times already, too many for her to regard them as offensive.

“A purty gal like you needs someone t’ look after her and protect her an’ keep her safe from harm,” he insisted. “Someone like us.”

“Sorry, fellas, but I’m already spoken for.” Marisha smiled as she went about filling the second man’s cup with coffee.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Curly said. “She’s already got herself a man friend.”

The third man held out his cup. As she reached across the table with the coffeepot, the bearded man hooked an arm around her waist and hauled her against him, nearly causing her to miss the man’s cup and pour the coffee onto the table.

“He cain’t be much of a man if ya gotta work in this place,” he declared.

Somehow Marisha managed to keep her balance. “You’d better be careful. This coffee is hot.” She reached back to pry his hand from her waist, but he tightened his hold.

“If’n you was to move in with us, you could quit this dump.” He smiled suggestively. “Do you know you’re even purtier up close?”

“I’m glad you think so. Now will you let me go?” She continued to tug at his hand, firm yet patient, having learned from experience that it was the best way of dealing with this kind of harmless advance. Anger invariably provoked a man into persisting.

“Miss?” the preacher called to her. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to order some breakfast.”

“I’ll be right there,” she promised, then glanced pointedly at the man holding her. “Do you mind? I have a customer waiting.”

“Ya see, now if you was livin’ with us, you wouldn’t be jumpin’ to every man’s biddin’. Why, lookin’ after the needs of three of us wouldn’t be near as hard as workin’ in this place—an’ a hell of a lot more fun. We’d see to that, wouldn’t we, boys?”

“Yeah, we’d keep ya entertained.” The third man snickered.

“I’ll bet you would,” Marisha retorted, guessing exactly what kind of entertainment they had in mind. “But I’d rather keep my job. Now, will you remove your hand or do I have to scald you with this hot coffee?”

“Now that ain’t very friendly,” he scolded.

Across the room, a chair came down on all four legs with a resounding slam. Deacon Cole rose to his feet in a smooth, fluid motion and walked slowly toward them. He halted short of the table.

“Mister, I’ll ask you just once to let her go,” he stated.

“I don’t recall anybody invitin’ you over here.” The bearded man tightened his grip on Marisha. “Why don’t you just go back t’ your chair in the corner an’ mind your own business.”

“This is my business,” the preacher replied. “I’m hungry. I want something to eat. And I won’t get it until this lady takes my order. You’ve got your coffee. Now why don’t you drink it and let her get back to work.”

“It so happens that I’m gettin’ kinda attached to her.” He gave Marisha a little squeeze as if reasserting his claim on her.

Marisha felt this had dragged on long enough. “Curly, tell your friend to let me go. I have work to do.”

“I suggest you do as the lady says.” The preacher smiled pleasantly. At least, it seemed pleasant until Marisha noticed the small derringer that had appeared almost magically in his hand. “I tend to become irritable when I’m hungry.”

“There’s no need of gettin’ testy about it,” the man grumbled uncomfortably and immediately turned her loose.

Marisha quickly moved away from his chair while staring at the snub-nosed gun, shocked to see such a thing in a minister’s hand. As he turned from the table, she saw him tuck the deadly little weapon up inside his sleeve. She couldn’t help thinking that it was a strange place to keep a gun as she followed him to his corner chair.

Seated again, he smiled faintly. “After that, I expect I’d better order something. I wouldn’t want to be called a liar. I’ll take a stack of hotcakes.” Marisha frowned at his inference that it had all been a pretext. Noting her expression, he cocked his head to the side. “Did I make a mistake just now?” He spoke in a low voice that didn’t carry beyond her hearing. “I had the impression that you didn’t welcome his attentions.”

“I didn’t, but he didn’t mean any harm. Most of the fellas here will only go as far as a girl will let them.”

He studied her with quiet speculation. “Could be you aren’t as innocent as I thought.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t know, but I’m learning fast. Men like to talk. That’s one of the first things I found out. But they don’t mean half of what they say. It was kind of you to step in, but it wasn’t really necessary.”

She wanted to make it clear that she was happy here and didn’t care to have any Good Samaritan intervening, however well-intentioned. She liked the men who came in and talked and joked with her. She had never been offended by anything they said or did, nor had she considered their behavior to be out of line.

She walked away from the table still wondering about this preacher who had such peculiar ideas about right and wrong. Obviously he believed that he had rescued her from an unfortunate situation on two occasions—yet he carried a hidden gun and frequented saloons.

“I need a stack, Mabe,” Marisha told the cook and owner, then lingered in the overheated kitchen. “Do you know a preacher named Deacon Cole?”

“Preacher?” He snorted and turned away from the range, mopping his face with an already damp rag. “I’d venture to say the only gospel Deacon Cole knows is the one according to Soapy Smith.”

Marisha frowned. Soapy Smith was a name she had heard bandied about by the local townspeople in conjunction with the band of swindlers and con artists who preyed on those passing through with money in their pockets on their way to the Klondike.

“You mean Cole isn’t a preacher,” Marisha concluded.

“Hardly. He’s a cardsharp—a professional gambler. Anybody who’s fool enough to sit in a game of poker or faro with him deserves to lose their money. Folks call him Deacon ’cause of the way he dresses, but gambling is his only religion.”

“What’s his real name then?”

“Who knows?” He shrugged. “Nobody uses their right name up here—or damned few, if any.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause here it don’t matter much who or what they were ‘Below,’ ” he said, using a local term for the United States. “Here a man can put distance between himself and the past and make a fresh start.”

The comment started Marisha thinking. She had begun a new life but kept the same old name. Marisha Blackwood was the girl who had worn headscarfs and dowdy clothes, who hadn’t been allowed to talk to men or look them in the eye, who had seldom smiled or laughed. What she really needed in this new life was a new name. She had changed, and it was time she changed her name, too. But, to what?

That night she sat cross-legged on the bed and unwrapped the meat scraps that she’d filched from the restaurant and hidden in the large pockets of her old brown skirt along with half a loaf of bread. She spread the paper on the mattress so Justin could help himself. The bed creaked noisily as she shifted to watch him tear the bread in half again.

“I’m going to change my name.” She was barely able to contain the excitement she felt over her recent decision. “I haven’t come up with a new one yet. But it’s not going to be anything that sounds Russian. I want a name that’s unique. Don’t you think?” She picked up a bread crumb that had fallen on the paper and chewed thoughtfully on it, too absorbed by the task of choosing a name to notice his silence. “Do you have any ideas, Justin?” When no answer was forthcoming, she frowned at him. “Justin, did you hear me?”

He sat staring at the bread in his hands, not touching it or the meat scraps. Her second question finally roused him from his brooding silence. “What’d you say?” he grunted, but it was a poor attempt at feigning interest.

“You haven’t been listening, have you?” The last two days he’d been extremely moody and depressed over his failure to find a good-paying job. She was getting tired of his silence and inattention that only ended when the lights were out and they were in bed. He dropped the bread onto the paper with the meat and pushed off the bed, then wandered to the window by the washstand. “After all I went through to get this, aren’t you going to eat it?”

“I’m not hungry.” He faced the night-darkened window-panes, his hands thrust deeply into his trouser pockets.

Marisha sighed. “What’s wrong now?”

“Have you noticed the leaves are starting to turn on the trees in the mountains?”

“No. It’s dark when I go to work and dark when I get off.” Truthfully she couldn’t care less whether the leaves were changing colors or not.

Justin turned to look at her. “Don’t you know what that means?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” She folded her arms in front of her in a gesture that was both tolerant and challenging.

“I’m running out of time. If we don’t leave for the Klondike soon, it’s going to be too late in the season to make the trip. I could be stuck here in Skaguay for the winter.” He faced the window again and stared at the dark panes. “A whole damned winter wasted.” He slammed the flat of his hand against the window frame. “I’ve gotta get the money I need! Somehow I’ve gotta figure out a way to get there.”

“How much more money do we still need?”

“I could get by with ten more dollars, but at the rate we’re going it might as well be a hundred.”

“Maybe I could get another job.”

“Doing what? And when? You work from dawn to dusk as it is,” he reminded her.

“I could work a few hours at night, cleaning or scrubbing floors some place.”

He swung away from the window to face the bed where she sat. “Let’s face it, Marisha. There’s only one kind of night work a woman could do that would raise the kind of money we need!” He strode toward the door and grabbed his coat from the wall hook as he passed it. “I’m going out for some air.” He yanked open the door, then paused. “I won’t be long.”

Sitting alone in the dreary room, Marisha drew her knees up under her chin and tucked her long skirt over her stockinged feet. She knew what kind of night work Justin meant. She knew prostitutes made their living by charging money for their favors. If she hadn’t been too certain about what that entailed before, she knew now.