The Great Alone (92 page)

“Blackmail you? Now what kind of daughter would try to blackmail her own father? You are my father.”

“No. It can’t be.”

“But it is. Don’t you remember telling me how familiar I looked to you? Isn’t it possible I remind you of my mother?”

“No.”

“You can deny it all you want, Gabe, but it’s a fact. I am your daughter and I can prove it. My mother is dead, but my Aunt Eva is still alive. And there are a lot of people in Sitka who would remember me—poor little Marisha Blackwood. I’ve only been away three years.” He was staring at her as if looking at a ghost. She stopped in front of him and ran her finger along the rounded lapel of his suit jacket. “What’s the matter, Papa? You don’t look happy to meet me.”

He knocked her hand away. “Don’t touch me! Stay away from me, I say!” He half turned from her, a wild panic racing over his features.

“What do you suppose Mackenzie will think when I tell him you’re my father? I doubt it will bother him—unlike you—that I have some Indian blood. But for the future governor of Alaska to have as his daughter one of the most famous—or should I say infamous—scarlet ladies in the whole of Alaska, somehow I have the feeling he’ll have second thoughts about making you governor.”

“You wouldn’t tell him?”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” She strolled away from him. “Newspapers love scandal. Can you imagine the headlines? ‘Notorious Soiled Dove—Daughter of Man Seeking Appointment as Alaskan Governor.’ ” Glory paused and tipped her head back to laugh. “You’ll never be governor, Gabe Blackwood. I wanted it within your reach. But you’ll never have it.” She swung back to face him. “I’ll see to that. You’ll never be appointed governor, judge, or garbage collector. Nothing—that’s what you are and that’s what you’ll stay.”

“You deceived me. All this time, you deceived me.” He vibrated with anger. “Just the way she did. You’re all alike. Nothing but a bunch of lying scum!” He took a threatening step toward her, but Glory stood her ground, unflinching. He would not intimidate her as he had her mother. “I let her destroy my chances once. But I’m not going to stand by and let you ruin them for me this time. I’ve waited too many years for this. Too many years.”

“And you’ll still be waiting on your deathbed,” she taunted.

His hand seemed to come out of nowhere. Glory caught a brief flash of it before it struck her face. Pain exploded alongside her head. She wasn’t even aware of the brief cry that came from her as she staggered backwards under the force of the blow, dropping the cup and saucer. As he struck her again and again, she raised her arms trying to fend him off. She kept retreating, suddenly realizing how frightened and helpless her mother must have felt under his battering assault.

She bumped against an object that blocked her retreat. He hit her again and she fell onto the bed. Feeling the soft feather mattress under her, Glory tried to scramble to the safety of the other side. But he caught at her tea gown. She heard the tearing of the fragile fabric as she frantically tried to pull free. Before she could succeed, he was on the bed and his hands were circling her throat.

Glory screamed as loud as she could, doubting that she would be heard above the growing fury of the storm raging outside. Too quickly he choked off her cries. Kicking and struggling, she clawed at his face, ripping his skin with her fingernails and trying to gouge out his eyes. Her efforts succeeded in preventing him from tightening the stranglehold of his hands and choking off all her breath, but her lungs already felt like they were going to burst. Glory knew she couldn’t hold him off much longer. If only she had a weapon—something—anything to hit him with, but there was nothing at hand.

Her strength was rapidly waning. She felt herself slipping into the blackening mists of unconsciousness and tried to fight it. Suddenly she was free of his hands. With the first gulp of air, she started coughing. She grabbed hold of her throat and dragged herself over to the nightstand by the bed, intent on getting the pistol she kept in the drawer. She looked to see where Gabe was, but it was Deacon she saw standing by the bed. Gabe was just pushing away from the side wall, his left hand rubbing his jaw.

“Are you all right, Glory?” Deacon turned to her just as she saw Gabe reach inside his jacket and pull out a revolver.

“Look out! He’s got a gun.”

Deacon spun around. The spring-action derringer jumped into his hand from its hidden sleeve holster. Before he could aim, Glory saw yellow flame leap from the muzzle of Gabe’s gun and a deafening explosion rent the air. Deacon jerked and grabbed at his right arm. The derringer went off, the bullet going harmlessly through the ceiling.

“No!” Glory scrambled off the bed.

She grabbed the pearl-handled pistol out of the drawer and used both hands to point it at Gabe. She squeezed the trigger, shutting her eyes at the thunderous report as the gun bucked in her hand. The shot went wild, striking the wall several feet from him. Shock was in his expression as Glory struggled to cock the hammer. He bolted from the room.

Deacon was on his knees near the bed, his left hand gripping his right arm near the elbow. His face was twisted in pain as he sucked in air through his teeth. Glory hurried to his side, forgetting for the moment the fleeing Gabe and her own aches and bruises. She took one look at the crimson blood seeping through his fingers and streaming down the back of his left hand, and ran to the door.

“Matty!” She shouted. “Come here! Quick!” She went back to Deacon. Her hands were shaking as she tore a strip of material from the hem of her gown. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.” She tied the cloth around his upper arm above the wound and retrieved a coffee spoon from the service tray to twist the cloth tighter, fashioning a tourniquet.

“Your face,” Deacon murmured.

His remark made her conscious of her swollen lip and the blood that trickled from the cut—and half a hundred other throbbing places. “I’m all right,” she assured him. Her injuries seemed extremely minor compared to his.

“I came upstairs to tell you the storm’s getting worse.” His voice was husky with pain. “Feel the building rock? That’s the waves hitting it. Others along the street are trying to anchor theirs down. We need to do the same. In the meantime, we better get everybody out and save what we can. Glory”—he paused and she could hear the roughness of his breath—“what happened up here? Blackwood looked like a madman.”

“Sssh, don’t talk.” The pallor in his face frightened her. “I’ll tell you later.” She heard Matty’s footsteps in the hallway outside and glanced at the open door as the woman appeared. “Deacon’s been shot. We’ve got to get him to a doctor.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Deacon said.

She couldn’t bring herself to answer him. It wasn’t a fatal wound by any means. She doubted that he was in any danger of bleeding to death. But she’d noticed the little bone chips when she’d bandaged it. She was afraid the bullet had shattered the elbow. If it had, his right arm might be permanently crippled. And Deacon was a professional gambler.

Glory donned a long raincoat and a pair of galoshes while Matty fashioned a sling for Deacon’s arm and helped him into one sleeve of his rain slicker. As they started to leave the room, Glory picked up the gun she’d dropped on the floor and stuffed it in her coat pocket, rather than take the time to return it to the drawer.

The minute they stepped outside the front door of the Palace, the gale-force winds slammed into them. Debris was flying everywhere. Water flooded the street as the storm lashed the shallow Bering Sea into a fury and drove it ashore. There was hardly a tent anywhere still standing. Some of the flimsier wooden structures on the beach side of Front Street were collapsing, unable to withstand the powerful battering by the sea. A larger, stronger building had been moved off its foundation. Several men were frantically at work trying to anchor it down.

As they attempted to cross the flooded street, fighting the gale winds that tried to flatten them, Glory realized this was no ordinary equinoctial storm. Its destructive force was beyond anything the city of Nome had seen before. Before leaving the Palace, she had passed on Deacon’s recommendation to Oliver to evacuate everyone and save what he could. Now she was glad she had.

Anything that wasn’t securely nailed down was either flying or floating. As they climbed onto the planked boardwalk on the other side of the street, a large barrel nearly rolled them down. Deacon’s features showed the pain that not even his iron command of expression could conceal. Glory realized how far they had to go to reach the doctor’s office. In this storm, it would be an ordeal for him.

“The hospital!” she shouted to make herself heard above the roar of the wind and the sea. It was closer, only a couple blocks. Matty nodded her understanding, and they changed directions, the two of them flanking Deacon.

Within minutes, Glory was soaked to the skin, her clothes plastered to her body, water running into her boots. All her attention was centered on staying upright in the seventy-five-mile-an-hour wind and dodging the flying scraps of wooden crates and pieces of roofs.

A block from their destination, Glory saw a man emerge from a small office and start toward them, hugging the walls of the buildings for support. He had some sort of satchel clutched to his chest as he staggered forward, hunched over to battle the wind. A split second later, Glory recognized Gabe, even though she couldn’t see his face clearly. Suddenly, she could feel the sensation of his hands on her throat. The rage and terror she’d felt resurfaced. He would pay for what he’d done.

As she moved away from Deacon, Matty started to pause. “Go!” Glory motioned for her to continue. Deacon said something, but the storm carried away his words. Glory knew she wouldn’t have heeded them anyway.

When Gabe recognized her, he stopped and looked wildly around. She remembered the gun in her pocket and searched the opening in the wet cloth, never taking her gaze off Gabe as she continued forward, constantly buffeted by the wind. At last her fingers located the wet, slick metal, and she pulled it free of the material. She had no conscious intention of killing him. She just wanted to make him pay and it wasn’t really clear in her mind what that meant.

Something smashed into a window a few feet in front of her. She lifted her arms to protect her face from the flying glass revealing the gun in her hand. He started to retreat, then abruptly charged into the mud- and water-logged street, awash with floating debris. Glory waded into the street after him, angling on a course to intercept him, but it was hard going with her wet skirts constantly tangling around her legs. She was conscious that he was laboring too, handicapped by his age and the strain of all his recent exertion.

In the middle of the street, he halted and dropped the satchel, then fumbled for something inside his coat. He pulled out the revolver. Glory hesitated, then saw a sheet of tin come flying through the air and striking his arm. It knocked the gun from his hand into the muddy soup near his feet. He started to search for it, then apparently thought better of it, and began running, staggering and stumbling through the muck. Lifting her skirts, Glory hurried after him.

The buildings on the opposite side of the street offered partial shelter from the howling wind. Glory scrambled onto the sidewalk’s slippery boards and chased after Gabe. He ducked between two buildings just ahead of her. Afraid of losing him, she sprinted to close the distance.

When she rounded the corner, he had just turned back, the inrushing sea blocking that avenue of escape. There was no place left for him to run. He was trapped. He stood facing her. Slowly, brokenly, he shook his head in some silent denial.

“I’m not my mother.” The wind whipped away her words. She raised the pistol and stared at the sodden, bedraggled, pathetic-looking old man.

Something distracted her, a roar that seemed louder. Her gaze lifted. In shock, she stared at the monstrous breaker rising above him. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak. She watched in horror as the towering wave smashed into the rear of the buildings on either side and came crashing down on Gabe, swallowing him up.

A second later, the flood wave was sweeping into her. She tried to reach the relative protection of the building, then grabbed hold of the corner, clawing frantically to keep the sucking water from dragging her out to sea. The force of the wave lifted the building up and pushed it forward. Glory nearly lost her grip, but she managed to hang on. As soon as she regained her footing, she staggered into the street to escape the next breaker.

Someone saw her and rushed to help her to safety. Glory looked back once. There was nothing but debris and surging water in the place where she’d last seen Gabe.

The storm raged on, not reaching its peak until that night. Tents by the thousands were ripped apart and blown away. All mining equipment on the beach was demolished and carried out to sea. Four ships, including the mammoth barge
Skookum,
broke apart in the savage surf. Nearly half of Nome’s business district, virtually every building on the beach side of Front Street, was destroyed, including Ryan Colby’s Double Eagle saloon. Colby himself was missing and presumed drowned. Many lives were lost, but there was no accurate estimate of the number. Soldiers and looters were out in force.

Nothing was left of the Palace except kindling wood. An eyewitness told Glory that the waves had picked it up and smashed it into the building across the street. The girls had thoughtfully grabbed some of her clothes, and Oliver had rescued a few of the more valuable items before they’d fled the storm. Everything else was gone.