The Other Nineteenth Century (27 page)

Read The Other Nineteenth Century Online

Authors: Avram Davidson

BOOK: The Other Nineteenth Century
4.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
And now the very old-timer says, “Plenny pinen cedar on th’ P’
nin
-s’la.”
Ah,
they all say,
On the Peninsula … .
Ah … .
As always in the office, Mary cannot keep her eyes off the cofounders. “Oh what a pair of robber-barons!” she says.
“Oh, no, Miss Blennerhassett. They were just competent businessmen. According to the standards of the day.” Says Victor (“Vic”) B. Olauson.
“Oh? And wouldn’t you say the same is true of Borski?”
Well, no, he wouldn’t. Not “just.” It may have been competent of Borski to go secretly to Japan for business instead of waiting for the Japanese buyers to come over here. But it was in violation of the gentlemen’s agreement between Borski and O-B not to cut each other’s throat. Vic Olauson, you would at first be taking him for thirty. Then fifty. Or maybe vice versa. He was actually forty. Borski, he said, was willing to do anything, promise anything, so long as it would unbalance an adversary. Then he’d
push
—They had to watch out for Borski.
Borski (Mary was thinking as she got gasoline early one morning), Borski held proxies, was trying to hold more. Borski held O—B’s paper. And was trying to hold more. Borski—
“Borski,” said a voice. It was no thought-voice, it was a real, live,
voice
-voice. Someone had come up alongside her. The woman who owned the gas station. Her name? Forgotten.
“What about him,” the name came suddenly, “Laurella?”
“None a my business,” said Laurella, a weather-beaten person who had certainly slaughtered, gutted, scalded home-farm hogs before ever she had ten candles to her cake; well, if it’s
none of your business
why mention it, shrilled Mary’s voice. Though it was only a thought-voice. “But I hear Borski’s goen to th’ P’
nin
’s’la. And I seen fr myself that Prue Jensen rollin drunk over by the bar; early
start
what
I
mean. Tell Vic, ‘f you like.”
Mary, puzzled, thought best to say nought but, “Thanks, Laur’.”
“You bet.”
In the office. “Who’s Prue Jensen?”
“Pruett Jensen?” Victor had his faults. But asking,
Why?
instead
of first answering, this wasn’t one of them. “He’s the caretaker, the guard, at the Peninsula.” Having said this,
then
he asked, “Why?” Was told Why.
Nothing
flickered on that long flat face, dark secret-keeping face with its odd blue eyes. “‘Going to the Peninsula,’ hey. Well, maybe a good place for him to go. Guess I’ll go, too.”
“And me.” His eyes looked at her. “I’m a stockholder,” she said. “And a partner. And, oh, damn it! I’m a grand
child,
even if not a grand
son
!”
And he said, “Yes.”
But they said nothing to anyone as they got into his car and drove off. It was beautiful going there, and beautiful when gotten there. Now and then Vic pointed out where a narrow-gauge railroad line had been, and where oxen had once skidded vasty logs. The rocks and rills, the woods and templed hills, she could see for herself: they were beautiful.
“Jensen wasn’t due to get drunk for another two weeks, at which time we would have relieved him. If he’s drunk this early and if Borski’s going to the Peninsula this early, then Jensen’s drunk because Borski got him drunk. Him. Or his men. Or his women.—I’ll have to get out and open the lock. Be a minute.” The lock was on a chain and the chain was on the gate of a tall chain-mesh fence which came from the woods on one side of the road and entered the woods again on the other. There was a faint smell of balsam. She asked about the lock? About Borski’s getting in?
Victor clicked his tongue. “Fence has mostly a moral effect. Pirate loggers know that Breaking and Entry’s a more serious charge. Fence keeps out bikers and it keeps out poachers who want to jacklight deer and picnickers in cars who won’t put out fires … like that. But this is a peninsula, you know, and it’s surrounded on the other three sides by the lake and we never attempted to fence off the whole lakeshore or shoreline. Anybody can land in a boat and it’s the caretaker’s job to keep ‘em off or send’em back. Guess his job is now vacant.” No curse. No anger.
Guess his job is now vacant.
And, oh it was beautiful on the Peninsula!
Huge
pine.
Immense
cedar. The smell of balsam stronger. Place even had its own rivers! Time vanished. Suddenly—“Well, there’s the caretaker’s house. We have to get out of the car now. This is as far as the road goes. It’s a good house, too, and rent and utilities free. Well. His choice.”
The foot path wound on and on through the forest as though in a fairy tale; and Mary, reflecting, remembered that not everything which took place in those old Teutonic tales was merry and bright; and that an awful lot of Grimm was … well …
grim.
“What does Borski want here. Hm?”
Path skirted giant roots. “To spy out the land. Of course he’s been over it by plane and helicopter and he’s got mosaic photographs and he probably knows by expert analysis how many board feet of how many kinds of wood down to the last tooth-pick inch. But oh, there’s nothing like seeing for yourself, is there, you forest-destroying, family-breaking, union-busting creep, Borski.” Then they saw him.
At least she guessed it was. Who else?
The forest path went straight and it led straight up to a great rock and there was a man standing on top of the great rock. She said that it looked dangerous. Victor said that it
was
dangerous.
… and as they got quite close, he said in a low voice that they were not to make any noise. In her own mind Mary marveled at Vic’s concern for the enemy’s safety (the enemy had his back to them). But then—
no!
From somewhere Vic got a stick, a tree-branch it was, was it for a cudgel? Was he going to sneak up and bludgeon—? The man on the big rock never moved, as Vic began to walk around the rock to his right, dragging the branch after him. It was a long time, or so it seemed, before he returned. Still dragging it. He’d changed his mind, then. Well.
But how had Borski not noticed Vic circling the vast stone? Well, if Vic had stuck close to it, and it
was, vast … .
Vic began to sing;
Vic
began to
sing!
What was it, the song? Not a single word could she make out, and it seemed awfully off-tune. He didn’t even seem to want to face her and sort of bent down a bit with his damned stick and began to scratch the soil; was he
printing something? Awfully odd letters; were the letters, was the song, even in English? Borski moved.
Borski of course turned around and looked down at them. Borski—there wasn’t really another word for it—Borski snorted. He smiled, but only on one side of his face.
He
wasn’t one of nature’s noblemen. And then he moved to the far side of the rock and vanished from sight. Maybe he had a folding ladder. Maybe there were steps in the rock. What happened next? Next they heard his feet on gravel. He came into sight. Suddenly turned around and peered back behind him. As though he’d heard something. Not the singing. Something else.
It was inexplicable but yet it was funny: the way Borski suddenly began acting like a spooked old maid in an old movie: the way Borski put his hands straight up at right angles to his arms which he’d put straight out in front of him: the way Borski began to say, “Oooo oooo oooo.” The way Borski’s eyes began to bulge: all that was funny. It was funny for just a second or two, then Borski began to scream and that was not funny, and next Borski started to turn and run away on tottery rubbery legs: not funny. Then Borski, still screaming and moving in slow motion, was heard to lose control of his bowels. What came around the rock was about four or five times the size of a naked man; and the head and mouth were anyway disproportionately huge, and it came on in a sort of shambling lope, and it took hold of Borski and shoved Borski into its mouth head first and got him in up to the waist and began to bite and chew, and it kept on shambling and loping and biting and chewing, and it kept on shoving Borski into its mouth, and it vanished around the other side of the rock.
Olauson watched calmly. She fell against him and he got a hold of her and she said, “Save me. Save me.” Again, just like in an old movie. “Don’t let it get me; don’t let it get me,” she said.
“Oh it won’t get
us
. Why I drew the circle and then those runes. My grandfather said—”
She sort of melted into him. “What was it? What is it?”
“Well, Miss Blennerhassett. The Indians call it the wendigo, but
my grandfather said it was a troll. My grandfather was a very competent businessman and he had this
method,
you know, from the old country, and—”
She had control of herself. “Can we just get out of here, real quick, right now, right now?” She was pressing, pressing against him.
He nodded. “Yes. But it’s gone, you know. That’s all it ever wants, and it gets it and it goes. So just let me rub out the circle and the runes.”
They walked away, and it was she who set the pace—pretty fast—did the Peninsula woods seem less safe now? Safer? Was this the real reason why their grandfathers hadn’t wanted them cut and why their fathers hadn’t even wanted them to pass out of family hands? The breeze was clean and the odor of the balsam was very strong. But she began to tremble; she hadn’t trembled, really, before; but she was trembling now. “There’s the house,” Vic Olauson said. “And the car.” What was he made of? Was he made of
ice?
There was the car, there was the house, there—
“I want you, I want you,” she said.
He had bent over to open the car door. He turned. “What?”
“You and I. There—there—in the house. Together. In bed—”
He straightened, pulled the car door open. Gestured to her. “No, no, Miss Blennerhassett,” he said. “I am a married man.”
During his last years, Avram lived in the Pacific Northwest, much of the time in and around Bremerton, Washington. This tale grew out of his stay in those heavily wooded hills and waterways, and out of his always perceptive ear for regional dialects. It was my very great pleasure to use this story in
Amazing Stories
during my editorship of that venerable magazine.
—
George
H.
Scithers
If you want to see New York as New York used to look, there is no point in looking around Manhattan, the only place which practices autocannibalism as a matter of policy. The few—the very few—blocks of old buildings which survive on Minuit’s island have, for the most part, become slums. Old New York, however, does survive, but in the sister borough.
Upshurr Street in Brooklyn is not very long, and the legend that it is easy to get lost in Brooklyn is, unfortunately, all too true. Perhaps that is why so much that is old and good still survives in Brooklyn—perhaps the wreckers have merely been unable to find their way, and, finally baffled, have given up and retreated to destroy yet more areas across the East River.
The two men who arrived at the house at the corner of Upshurr and Huyk Streets one winter afternoon surveyed it with interest, despite the cold. It was a well-kept building in the Georgian style, three stories high, and surrounded by garden. The smaller trees and bushes were carefully muffled in burlap. The two men mounted the steps.
“Where’s the bell?” one of them asked, after fumbling with his gloved hand.
The other man shifted a camera he was carrying, bent over, and
looked. He straightened up and shrugged. “Ain’t none. Try that doojigger there,” he said.
The knocker—in the form of a lion’s head with a long tongue—was banged a few times. The two men waited, stamped their feet, blew out vapor, rubbed their noses. Then the door was opened by a short heavy old woman with long gray ringlets clustering around her broad pink face. “Come in,” she urged. “Come in.”
“Miss Vanderhooft?” the first man asked. The old woman nodded vigorously, setting the ringlets to bouncing like springs. “My name is—”
“Your name will still be the same if you come inside,” she said crisply. They entered, she shut the door. The house was warm, and well furnished in the style of the early nineteenth century.
“My name—” the man began again.
“My
name is Sapphira Vanderhooft,” the old woman said. “My sister, being elder, ought properly to be addressed only as ‘Miss Vanderhooft,’ but since this fact seems to have passed out of all common knowledge, you may address her as Miss Isabella—come along, come along,” she urged, gesturing them to precede her; “and me, as Miss Sapphira.”
They found themselves in the living room, or parlor. A coal fire burned in the high basket grate. A few candles shed a soft light which melted into the ruddy glow from the fireplace. Seated in an upright chair was a second old woman, tall and spare, with her white hair parted in the center and drawn back.
“You will excuse me if I do not rise,” she said, nodding to them and making a slight gesture with an ivory-headed cane. Embroidery work, hooped and needled, lay in her lap.
“This is my sister,” said Miss Sapphira. “Isabella, these gentlemen are from the newspaper. That is, I
hope
that they are gentlemen,” she added.
“And I hope that they are from the press,” Miss Isabella said. “Have you seen identification, sister? If you are on another errand—soliciting contributions, for example—you won’t get any,” she went on, as the younger of the two men fumbled in his pocket. “Mr.
Caldwell, at the Trust Company, takes care of all that for us. Hmm. What is this?” She examined the card offered her. “It has last year’s date on it; how is that?”
The man said that the card’s validity ran from April to April, and—as Miss Isabella nodded, and handed it back to him—he at last managed to get out the information that his name was Dandridge and that his photographer-companion was called Goltz.
“Let me have your greatcoats,” Miss Sapphira said. “There’s no need for you to stand, we aren’t royalty. Have whatever chairs you like, but the settle is mine.”
Mr. Dandridge, who was thirtyish and thin, and Mr. Goltz, who was fortyish and squat, looked around the cozy, quaintly furnished room.
Miss Isabella broke the momentary silence. “If you’ve come to do a sensational article for the penny press, young man, the point cannot be too strongly emphasized that we are
not
recluses,” she said.
“Certainly not,” agreed Miss Sapphira. “The fact that we receive
you
is—or should be—proof of
that.
”
Dandridge said, “Well—”
“After that unfortunate affair of the Collier brothers,” Miss Isabella swept on, “there was a reporter here from the Brooklyn
Eagle,
and he at once conceded that there was no similarity at all.”
“None whatsoever,” said Miss Sapphira. “We knew Homer and Langley when they were very young. The trouble with them was simply that they were spoiled. Aren’t you going to say anything for yourself?” she demanded of Mr. Dandridge.
He smiled. Goltz looked bored. “I might begin by saying that my paper isn’t a sensational one—and that it’s been many years since any newspaper sold for a penny.”
The older Miss Vanderhooft sniffed. “Well, it has been many years since we have cared to purchase one,” she said. “So your information is of no particular use.”
“Also,” Goltz growled, “the
Eagle
is outa business.”
For a moment the sisters were startled. Then they regained their
aplomb. “Ah, well,” said Miss Isabella, “it doesn’t signify.”
Dandridge looked down from a portrait labeled “General J. Abram Garfield.” “Our editor thought it would be of interest to the readers to see how the calm and gracious life of another day is still being kept up amid the hustle and—and—” he stumbled, hesitated.
The sisters smiled. “We are, I suppose, old-fashioned, to be sure,” said Miss Isabella, “but we will not be shocked if you say the word ‘bustle.’ Silly fashion, we always thought. And our dear papa used always to say that the garments Mrs. Amelia Bloomer was condemned for wearing were not so very much sillier than the ones she was condemned for
not
wearing.”
Miss Sapphira said that she had put the kettle on. “It will sing, presently, and then we shall have tea. Would you like tea? Capital.”
Her sister picked up the hoop and took the needle in her fingers. She looked at the reporter, nodded to him encouragingly. Miss Sapphira, on the settle, slid her hand into her pocket, slipped out a tiny silver box, and—when she thought no one was looking—hurriedly took a pinch of snuff.
“Well, now that we are agreed that you are not recluses,” Dandridge said, “may I ask if it is true that you have no radio, telephone, or television?”
The younger sister said that it was true. Such devices, she explained, as she might to a child, exuded a malign magnetical influence. Indeed, if it were not for their dear brother’s insistence, they would never have allowed the electrical incandescent lamps to be installed. He was dead, poor Cornelius, and they now lived quite alone.
No servants? Ah, that
was
a problem, wasn’t it? Well, Emma came in thrice a week to clean—not today, being Monday, but on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. She did the shopping. The sisters would endorse the bills and send them to Mr. Caldwell at the Trust Company, who mailed checks to the merchants. In clement weather the two sisters often walked to the end of the block and back; no farther.
To church? No, no longer, but of course they always had evening
prayers, and on Sundays they took turns reading sermons—one of Dr. Talmage’s or, sometimes, one of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher’s. They did not, they assured Dandridge, believe a
word
of that dreadful scandal.
“Was there a scandal about him?” asked Mr. Dandridge. “I didn’t know that.”
The sisters exchanged gratified glances. “You see, Sapphira,” Miss Isabella said. “I
told
you it would die down in time!”
“And have you no fears about living alone like this?”
Certainly not. Why should they have? It was a respectable neighborhood. The police always tried the doors at night—not that it was really necessary.
Dandridge cleared his throat. “Now—I don’t mean to ask personal questions—but there seems to be a sort of, ah, legend, to the effect that a large treasure is hidden on the premises … .” He tapered off with a chuckle.
“Treasure?” asked Miss Isabella, looking at Miss Sapphira.
“Treasure?” asked Miss Sapphira, looking at Miss Isabella.
“No,” they said simultaneously. Then, “Do you suppose, sister, that the young man could be referring to the gold”—the photographer, for the first time, looked interested—“which dear papa brought here following the panic of’seventy-three?” suggested Miss Isabella.
“Are you?” asked Miss Sapphira. The reporter nodded.
Miss Sapphira said, “Well, well. It isn’t here any longer. No. We have
long
since turned it over to the government. Now, when was it? Nineteen twenty-three? Nineteen thirty-three?”
“Usurpation!” cried Miss Isabella, thumping her stick on the floor. A faint pink suffused the pallor of her cheeks. “Usurpation and confiscation—though I suppose we could expect little better, with the Republicans in office.”
Miss Sapphira, for her part, brushed aside Dandridge’s comment that the Democrats were in office at the time privately owned gold was called in. Dear Grandpapa Vanderhooft, she told him, had said often enough that the nation’s fiscal policy had never been sound
since the Whigs went out of power. And the two old women nodded soberly at this sage, though melancholy advice.
Miss Isabella poured the tea, Miss Sapphira passed around the cake. Mr. Dandridge brushed his lips with a heavy monogrammed linen napkin. “Why do you call it ‘usurpation and confiscation,’ ma’am—the government’s calling in your gold, I mean? After all, you received—they didn’t just take it—you got money for it, didn’t you?”
Miss Isabella waved her cane. “Only bank notes!” she said angrily. “Shinplasters! And to think they took our good northern gold to Kentucky—a nest of rebels!”
But Mr. Dandridge was no longer concerned with the gold. “And what did you do with all those shinplasters?” he asked. Miss Isabella was drinking tea, so her younger sister replied.
“It is somewhere around, I suppose,” she said. “It doesn’t really signify.”
Mr. Dandridge got up. “It signifies to
us,
” he said. He pointed to Mr. Goltz, who had put his camera to one side and had something else in his hand. “Now, ladies, you are going to show us to your money and we are going to take it. Everything will be done quickly and quietly, and no one will be hurt. Up, please.”
The two old women looked from him to the revolver in Mr. Goltz’s fist.
“And you a photographer!” said Miss Sapphira, her pink cheeks very pink indeed. “Why, poor Mr. Brady would turn in his
grave
if he knew.”
“Led’m,” said Goltz, briefly. “C’mon, where’s the money, ladies? Where ya goddit stashed away?”
Miss Isabella sighed and started to rise upon her cane. Dandridge reached to assist her, but she drew back with such an expression of disdain that he let his hand fall. “I suppose the quicker you have it, the quicker you’ll leave. And’tis only greenbacks, after all—no better than the credit of the government, and if the government allows banditti such as you to roam the peaceful streets of Brooklyn it has very little credit indeed … . I think they may be in the cedar chest.”
The cedar chest proved, after prolonged searching, to contain four bolts of linen and approximately one hundred copies of
Godey’s Lady’s Book,
all in perfect condition. While Goltz glowered, Miss Sapphira picked up a magazine and let out a little cry of pleasure. “Look, Sister! A story by dear grandpapa’s friend whom he so often told us about, poor Mr. Poe. I’m
so
glad I’ve found it. I shall read it tonight.”
For the first time Dandridge’s control slipped its mooring. “Quit this fooling around!” he shouted. “I want that money located in ten minutes—or—”
Miss Sapphira said that she wondered if he fully realized what effect this episode would have on the
young
people of the country if it became known. A most deleterious one, she was afraid.
Her sister stood in a pose of deep thought. “It’s been so many years—” she said. “Now, could it be in the mahogany press? That is in the next room. I have the keys on my chain, here, but one of you will have to bring the candles.”
The afternoon had grown late and dark and the candles, held by Dandridge, shed a scanty light in the cold room while Miss Isabella fumbled for her keys. Goltz said, “I had enough of this. Them candles are too spooky, and I like ta see what I’m doing.” He reached up and tugged the cord of the dusty electrolier overhead. The cord snapped off in his hand, but the lights went on. Miss Isabella and her sister clicked their tongues. Dandridge blew out the candles.
“Open it up,” he ordered. Miss Isabella complied. Two large cloth bags tumbled out, and—as the two men exclaimed—quantities of paper money poured from them. Dandridge fell on his knees, grinning. Then, as he examined the money, his grin faded. He waved one of the bills toward the Misses Vanderhooft. “Is
this
what the government gave you for your gold?” he demanded incredulously. “The Planters and Merchants Bank of Boggs County, Missouri?”

Other books

Lab 6 by Peter Lerangis
Chances Are by Barbara Bretton
Harder We Fade by Kate Dawes
Rose In Scotland by Joan Overfield
Dead Like You by Peter James
Unholy Dying by Robert Barnard
Fletch Won by Gregory Mcdonald
Moonset by Scott Tracey