Authors: Marcus Sedgwick
Revolver (8 page)
66 LATITUDE NORTH
The Rim of the World
F
or the newborn population of Nome there was a little joke they liked to quote at each other all the time. They would say, “There are only two seasons in Nome, Winter and the Fourth of July.” Einar and Maria shared the joke, though they knew the reality that lay behind the casual words.
or the newborn population of Nome there was a little joke they liked to quote at each other all the time. They would say, “There are only two seasons in Nome, Winter and the Fourth of July.” Einar and Maria shared the joke, though they knew the reality that lay behind the casual words.
But by the time the Fourth of July came around, things were good for Einar and his family. Maria's illness and the horrors of the long grim winter of almost perpetual night had been forgotten. Einar had put the Colt back in its box and hid it out of sight of the children, as Maria wished.
Maria would stay at home with her son and daughter during the day, gradually turning the shack into a place fit to live in, getting them to help with a little simple cooking and cleaning, or she'd go shopping and nod a greeting to the other few respectable ladies who'd arrived now.
The town itself was improving. A pipe was built to run from the creek in the hills right down Front Street, so everyone there could get clean fresh water with ease. The saloon was finishedâthe first two-story building in town, with twelve rooms upstairs and none of them for whores.
There was a rustle of gossip around the town one day, as news leaked out that there was a new co-owner of the saloon, no less than the infamous gunslinger Wyatt Earp, who'd bought a stake in the bar and would soon be arriving by ship.
And Einar was working, bringing in if not a fortune, then certainly enough money to clothe and feed his family, with some to spare if they were careful.
He'd been working at the Assay Office for a few months and was doing well. Mr. Salisbury made a visit every now and again to see how he was getting on, and each time said he was very pleased with Einar's work.
“You've had no trouble learning the chemistry, Einar?” Mr. Salisbury asked.
Einar shook his head.
“No, sir,” he said truthfully. “I've always had the kind of mind that likes to know things. Things about the world, about how things work. Do you know what I mean, sir?”
Mr. Salisbury laughed.
“Yes, I do. But there's not many people who do, it seems to me. Good for you, Einar. Keep learning and there'll always be work for a man like you.”
He leaned in close so that no one else in the Assay Office could hear.
“The truth of it? You want to know the truth? None of these miners, the prospectors, are ever going to be rich. Most of them will keep finding just enough gold dust to make them think their dreams are around the corner, but they will never come. Some will even find a strike, and be rich for a few days till they blow it all. And the only people who are actually going to get rich are you and me, the people in the town running businesses. Like Mr. Earp with his saloon, when he gets here.
“So don't fall for the lure of gold again, Einar. That's the truth of it.”
Mr. Salisbury left, and at the end of the day, Einar was closing up the office.
He shuffled out through the door, turning to lock it, and when he turned again he bumped straight into someone.
“Excuse me,” he said, and then realized it was the bear-man. His name was Wolff, he'd learned, and he'd also learned that he was trouble.
“Got some to test,” Wolff muttered.
“I'm very sorry, you'll have to come back in the morning,” Einar said. “The office has closed for the day.”
Einar tried to go on his way.
“So open it,” Wolff said, not moving.
“I can't do that.”
“Yes, you can. You have the key. You just locked it, you can open it again.”
Einar felt his throat go dry.
“I'm very sorry. Mr. Salisbury is strict about things like that. I'd open it for you, but I'd be in a lot of trouble, you see. We don't want trouble.”
Suddenly Einar found himself pressed against the glass of the door.
“No,” Wolff said. “We don't want trouble. So open the door and test my gold.”
“First thing in the morning, I promise.”
“Can't do that. Have to get back to my claim tonight, in case someone jumps it. So I need it tested now.”
Einar thought the chances of anyone trying to steal Wolff's claim from him were pretty slim, but he didn't say that. Still, he refused to be bullied by the man.
“I'm very sorry,” he said slowly.
“You will be.”
Einar saw the glint of a blade coming out of Wolff's pocket.
“You okay there, Einar?”
A voice called from the street.
Einar peered over Wolff's shoulder to see four of the regulars from the saloon watching the altercation.
“You okay? Need any help?”
Einar said nothing, but watched as Wolff's knife slid back into his pocket.
Wolff turned.
“He's fine,” he said, and slunk away down the street.
“Okay, Einar?” called his friends. “Coming for a drink?”
“No. Thanks. No, I think I'd better get home. Supper on the table, you know how it is!”
“Sure do, you lucky man!”
His friends left, and Einar hurried the other way up the street, heading for home, while his friends congratulated Einar on having such a beautiful wife, even if she did quote the Bible too often for their comfort.
Standing on a porch two buildings away, Wolff watched him go.
The Book of Job
E
ven the dead tell stories. Einar had inherited the saying not from his Swedish father, but from his mother. It was a proverb that meant, as far as the young Anna could work out, nothing is ever truly finished; the past is always with us.
ven the dead tell stories. Einar had inherited the saying not from his Swedish father, but from his mother. It was a proverb that meant, as far as the young Anna could work out, nothing is ever truly finished; the past is always with us.
She worked it out for herself, as she worked out many things for herself that summer while Einar toiled in the Assay Office and Maria tried to turn a hut into a home.
There was a saying of Maria's, too, which Anna learned quickly, because her mother said it often: “Let's not speak of the snow that fell last year.” Anna noticed her mother said it when people were arguing over something that had happened a while ago.
Mr. Salisbury heard her say it one day and decided to teach her the English version.
“Let bygones be bygones,” he said carefully, playing the
schoolmaster, but Maria had laughed when she tried the words herself.
schoolmaster, but Maria had laughed when she tried the words herself.
“I'll stick with what my mother said.
âTala inte om den snö som föll i fjol.'
It sounds better.”
âTala inte om den snö som föll i fjol.'
It sounds better.”
It was around then Anna noticed something else about her mother. She noticed Maria quoted the Bible constantly, at every waking moment there would be something to learn from the Bible that Maria kept, stored preciously in a box, the same way Einar kept his Colt 44-40. The only difference was that one was out all the time, the other hidden. But waiting for its moment.
When Sig argued with Anna, which was rarely, Maria would admonish them both with “turn the other cheek.” And if Sig was naughty or cross, she would tell him gently “turn from evil and do good.”
The inhabitants of Nome had no church as yet, and the joke started to spread that Maria
was
the church. You only had to spend half an hour in her company to get a year's worth of preachingâthat was what they said. And though Einar was a God-fearing man, Anna more than once heard her father question Maria's faith, though it was little Sig who really said something bad.
was
the church. You only had to spend half an hour in her company to get a year's worth of preachingâthat was what they said. And though Einar was a God-fearing man, Anna more than once heard her father question Maria's faith, though it was little Sig who really said something bad.
“If God loves us so much,” he said, “why are we hungry so much?”
It was true that they were doing better than through
the dark winter when Maria was ill, but there were many days when they would go short of food. It was the way of Nome.
the dark winter when Maria was ill, but there were many days when they would go short of food. It was the way of Nome.
Maria sat down with Sig and explained it all to him. He sat on her lap and looked at the red flowers embroidered on her blue dress while she told him a story, from the Bible about a man called Job. It was a long and confusing story, and Anna, hanging around to listen, didn't follow it all that well.
Job was a good man who loved God, and who, no matter what bad things happened to him, refused to curse God's name and kept worshiping him. He lost his house and his servants and his family and all his sons and daughters, and still he kept believing in God's love.
Sig listened thoughtfully till his mother had finished speaking, and then said, “But why are we hungry all the time?”
Just then, Einar had walked in the door, home from the office. His hair was slicked back as usual, but before even going to wash out the oil, he swooped Sig up in his arms and made him a promise.
“We won't be hungry ever again, I promise. Not once we leave this town.”
“Are we leaving, Einar?” Maria said, hope rising in her voice.
“We'll leave in the autumn. On the last boat. I'm going
to work the summer. But I promise we'll never spend another winter here.”
to work the summer. But I promise we'll never spend another winter here.”
And in their different ways, none of them would.
The Water That Burns
T
hough Einar had expected trouble from Wolff the day after he'd refused to reopen the office, the trouble never came.
hough Einar had expected trouble from Wolff the day after he'd refused to reopen the office, the trouble never came.
Wolff had spent the night at the saloon and seemed perfectly civilized the next morning.
Nonetheless, he was first in the queue to have his gold tested and was waiting at the door of the office. Einar worked with two other men, also appointed by Mr. Salisbury, and who'd arrived on the first boat that summer. They were a frail old man called Wells, who worked as the clerk, and a man of Einar's age called Figges, who was a little slow but big. He seemed to be there to provide muscle in case of trouble.
The beauty of the relationship among the three of them, Einar soon realized, was that none of them trusted the other. Mr. Wells would scrutinize his record books, scratching away with a brass nib pen, but all the while
he'd keep one eye twisted toward Einar. Einar went about his work methodically, and all the while kept his eye on Figges, who looked like a murderer who just hadn't found anyone to murder yet.
he'd keep one eye twisted toward Einar. Einar went about his work methodically, and all the while kept his eye on Figges, who looked like a murderer who just hadn't found anyone to murder yet.
Figges sat at his desk, eating most of the day, his lazy eyes sloping from one of them to the other, and then back again.
But it was Einar who did all the testing and weighing. It was Mr. Salisbury himself who'd taught Einar how to use the fierce little crucible to smelt the gold, and the aqua fortis to remove impurities. Einar's table was a miniature laboratory, with a pair of balance scales, burners, and bottles of acid and other chemicals.
Wolff held out his tiny paper wrap containing some grains of gold to Einar.
“Test it.”
“Would you like to come back? It can take a littleâ”
“I'll wait,” Wolff said, and pulled over a chair to sit within a few feet of Einar.
Figges sat more upright in his chair, sensing trouble at last, and Wells kept scribbling and watching, all at once.
Unsettled, Einar set to work on Wolff's samples and prayed they were of high quality, not wanting to have to tell him his find was worthless.
His hands trembled as he got the burners going underneath the crucible, and Wolff saw.
“Cold?” he sneered. It was as hot a day outside as Nome had ever seen.
Einar ignored him and, dropping the small grains into the crucible, waited for the heat to do its work, running his hands nervously through his hair as he did, smoothing it till it was as sleek and black as a raven's wing.
While he waited, Einar began to prepare his acid, but his hands began to shake even worse as he saw Figges fingering a gun underneath his desk, eager for something to start.
Einar poured the aqua fortis and his hands betrayed him. He felt the nitric acid trickle onto his skin, and without thinking, he dropped the lot and ran to the sink.
“Thank God they built that pipe from the creek,” he said over his shoulder, washing the acid off his hand, and washing it again until he was sure it was all gone. He'd moved fast and the burn wasn't too deep. With luck he might get away with no scarring, in time.
Wells peered over his rickety desk, Figges sat down again, but Einar saw that Wolff had seen the gun in Figges's paw.
Well, that might help in a way. Let Figges get killed. Einar had no interest in dying.
Einar dried his hands and, returning to his desk, picked up the bottle of acid and the funnel and
cleaned everything twice. Fortunately his acid spill had missed the crucible, which was nearly done smelting the gold.
cleaned everything twice. Fortunately his acid spill had missed the crucible, which was nearly done smelting the gold.
Einar prepared the acid, taking extra care, and dropped the remains from the crucible into it.
After a short wait, he drained and washed the tiny button of gold, then placed it on the scales.
His heart sank, and his eyes raised to Wolff as he gave the verdict.
“I'm sorry to say your sample is of ten percent purity at best. No more. Probably not worth the effort of digging it up.”
He held Wolff's eyes, waiting for him to explode, but he didn't.
“Do you want cash for this?” Einar asked, proffering the tiny nugget toward Wolff.
“No,” Wolff said, taking the gold back. “Not if it's worth so little. I'll keep it as a reminder.”
Einar had no idea what he meant, but he breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.
Except it wasn't quite over.
Wolff stared at him for a long time, stared at him, absorbing every detail of his clothes and hair and face, his eyes burning through Einar's head like the acid had burned his hand.
He turned his gaze briefly towards Wells, then Figges for a little longer.
He took the chair he'd been sitting on, rested it against the wall, then sat down on it.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I find this whole business fascinating. You don't mind if I stay awhile. And watch.”
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