Hallie turned over, cradling her head on one bent arm. She watched her sister. The same concern and fear she heard in Dagny’s voice furrowed her sister’s face. It was like looking in an emotional mirror, for whenever Hallie thought of their father she felt the same way. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully.
“He’s never been gone this long before. You don’t think something awful’s happened, do you?”
There it was. The unspoken question that lurked around those who waited for the return of an overdue whaler. The clawing thoughts of what might have happened flashed through Hallie’s mind, then she knew she had to reassure her sister. “Da’s been at this for too many years to make any mistakes now. He knows we need him, and he’ll be careful. Let’s not go expecting trouble. He’s probably found one of those famed whale-filled inlets we’re always hearing tales about. I’d bet he’s so busy flensing all those whales that he doesn’t realize how long he’s been gone. Remember, Duggie. He made those arrangements at the bank, so he must have known this might be a longer voyage. Everything will be fine, you’ll see. Da will bring theSea Havenin before you know it. Just go to sleep. Everything will be fine,” Hallie repeated, also trying to convince herself.
“You’re right about the bank. I guess I’m being silly.” Dagny turned away from Hallie and pulled the covers high over her narrow shoulder. “G’night, Hallie.”
Within minutes Dagny was safely back to sleep. And Hallie, who had been intimidated, angered, embarrassed, kissed, spanked, discouraged, humiliated, and now frightened right down to her supposedly strong, Nordic bones, closed her eyes to lessen the stinging burn of her sudden tears.
Crammed along the slopingstreets, the flat-roofed buildings sat choking one another. Identical in silhouette, like the planks along a clapboard fence, each structure melted into the next, with only their hastily scribbled signs giving an inkling as to what lay inside. To try to read those signs at night was almost impossible.
As Abner passed each hitching post, he squinted, searching and trying to read the letters in the faint flicker of an occasional oil lantern. He rounded the corner and was relieved to see that at least this section was better lit. The drifting sounds of laughter against the tinny twang of a piano filled the air. He must be getting closer. He crossed the street and made his way down a narrow alley.
It was like walking from a cemetery into a circus. Activity teemed from every square foot, and clusters of men blocked the walks and doorways of each building. From the low-slung eaves, lights hung every few feet and he could hear the distant sizzle of whale oil dripping from the swaying lanterns onto the fog-soaked ground. His nose tingled from the native smells. The strong stench of sweat and whiskey fought for supremacy with that of horse dung and the briny odor of the nearby wharf.
For Abner Brown, the decadence of the city’s seedy side was foreign—and stimulating. He found an empty stoop and leaned in its corner. His breath came in exhilarated pants, sending his blood coursing to his galloping heart. His hands shook. The pain in his head and gut was gone, all but forgotten in the drug-supplanted confidence that replaced it. In the past, fear bred from his father’s downfall had forced him to avoid anything that remotely resembled a gambling hell. But now he was here, and he would win.
A nearby door splintered as a huge, red-shirted body catapulted through it. The miner hit the walk, tumbled under the hitching rail and onto the mucky, horse-filled street. Another man suddenly loomed in the broken jamb.
“You dirty, cheating son of a bitch! Stand up so’s I can knock that shit-filled mouth of yours clean out to the privy!”
With a meaty paw, he shoved Abner aside and dove after the other man.
“Fight!Fight!” The call echoed through the tight stoop, and a sudden swarm of men poured outside from the buildings and shanties nearby, elbowing and pushing until Abner had to squeeze inside to escape. The gambling saloon was still packed. Makeshift tables were thrown together out of splintered crates and old pine doors. Every size barrel, from nail to pickle, served as stools, and the noise was deafening.
At the sound of more shattering glass and louder voices, Abner edged his way around the perimeter of the room to a broken crate sitting forgotten in a dank corner. He sat down, now as unnoticed as the damaged crate, and he watched the betting and the card games still going on inside, absorbing each move of the players, learning the only skill he thought might bail him out of his financial bind. While the table nearest him shuffled a new deck, Abner had seen enough.His mind flashed with the cynical thought that he could catch on to the game fast. After all, the techniques were surely inbred. They were a gift from his father—a genetic shortcoming of the Brown bloodline.
Dagny awoke to a cold,empty bed. Sitting up sleep-startled, she eyed the dark room. Liv was asleep but Hallie was not in sight, so she listened quietly to try to hear if her older sister was downstairs.
Probably went out to the privy, silly!
So she waited.
Finally she gave up and slid from the bed onto the chilly floor. She shrugged on her dressing gown while her foot scooted softly under the bed ruffle looking for her warm, knitted slippers. Finding them near the foot of the bed, she wedged them onto her half-frozen feet. She tiptoed to the door and pushed her free hand down on the swollen doorjamb to prevent it from creaking when she opened it.
The hall was black, so she felt her way toward a narrow lamp table, picked up the tinder, and lit the oil lamp. She waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. The sound of muted voices drifted up from below.
She walked down the first few stairs, ducking her head past the floor extension to where she had a clear view of the foyer. She could see Hallie’s back as she whispered to a man who stood in the shadow of the open door.
Chilling fog slunk into the house, but its draft was not what caused the pop of gooseflesh on her skin. It was the man. He had a light-colored sea cap crushed in his nervous hands and he wore the heavy, woolen coat of a whaleman. The top of his graying head barely reached her sister’s chin.
Hallie stumbled back. “Oh, my God... no... pl-please, God... noooooo,” Hallie wailed, grabbing the newel post for support.
Dagny continued down the stairs, and as she reached the bottom, the man spoke. “I’m sorry, miss.” He backed out the door, and before it closed she heard him repeat, “So sorry.”
Hallie sagged backward, sobbing. “Da’s dead... Da’s dead...”
6
“That looks fine, sir.” Hallie turned to her sister. “What do you think, Duggie?”
Her somber sister stared at the epitaph suggested by the stonemason. She swallowed hard before replying in a dull whisper. “That looks fine,” she said quietly, then she drifted through the aisles of the dockside warehouse, seemingly oblivious to anything around her. Dagny wove her way through the stacks of fresh-cut lumber and slabs of granite and marble. The bright morning sun caught the sheen of her bonnet, casting her face in shadow as she wandered out onto the loading dock.
Watching her was difficult.Hallie was terribly worried over Dagny’s reaction...or non-reaction to Da’s death. Hours of tears helped Hallie, thought she could still cry at the drop of a hat.But not Duggie—she shed not a single tear.
As Hallie watched her sister sit on a barrel just outside the stonemason’s warehouse, despondency encircling Dagny like a shroud, she wondered if her young sister had the strength to deal with all that had happened to their family in recent years. Losing both parents, especially when the family had been so close-knit, was terribly difficult, and Hallie understood how much that kind of loss could change someone, especially someone who was wrestling with all those mad emotions and intense feelings that could overcome a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Life turned abysmal so quickly. The will to go on could become lost.
The responsibility of the children had kept Da afloat after Mama’s death, just as her own role of substitute mother had filled the hollowness she felt when her mother died. For as long as she could remember, she had been told by everyone who knew them that she inherited her father’s stubborn Nordic determination. And she believed that her destiny was up to her, and to God.
