Frozen Page 14

  “Why are you telling me this?” I wanted to cry. It was all too much to take in. And who was Caveman but a crazy war veteran who lived in a hole he’d carved out of the earth. As far as I knew, he could be making everything up, just to upset me. The air was thick and damp, and I desperately needed to step outside to breathe.

  “I have to go. Please.” I lifted his walking stick away from the door and allowed myself to pass. Whether he said so or not, I worried that Caveman had figured out who I was. Strange as he was, he had a way of being, of knowing things. I stepped outside to the sound of cricket song, frogs croaking, and mosquitoes whining.

  But Caveman’s voice followed me through the screen.

  “I know about running,” he said under his breath. “It kills you.”

  When I reached my cabin, though Meg and Juju were already under their covers, I withdrew the photographs of Mama and studied them under the lamp. I thought of Victor’s words the first time I’d met him. He’d said, “Everyone has a last name.” He’d offered to help me find mine, but I’d found it on my own. Bella Rose was Mama’s name, but I had always sensed it was her working name—not her full or real name.

  Ladovitch.

  That was a real last name.

  And there in the photograph was Mama, smiling, bare feet dangling, her dress halfway up to her thighs, perched on the rock ledge by Kettle Falls Dam. She had been here. I’d been here, too. And sometime before that, my father, Frank Ladovitch, had been a photographer who died before I was born.

  “Sadie Rose Ladovitch,” I whispered, staring at the image.

  “What was that?” mumbled Meg, one arm hanging over the edge of her bunk. “Get to bed, will ya? Cut the light!”

  I put the photographs away, changed into my nightdress, and climbed up to my bunk. Even though Darla had managed to find a mattress for my bunk, I tossed and turned. The night was still and mosquitoes found their way in through poorly sealed door and window frames. “Meg, are you awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s this cabin going to keep out the cold this winter if it can’t keep out mosquitoes?”

  “A few people stay on at the hotel, but the cabins are only for summer staff. I’ll be gone by late September. So will you, I’m sure.”

  I’d felt so smug about landing a job that I had never considered that it might come to an end so soon. I thought I’d be able to settle in, and my biggest worry would be that I’d be discovered. “Oh,” I said. “Where will you go?”

  “Back to Ranier to waitress at the Empire Club.”

  I knew the two-story building on the corner of River Street and Main. It kept a steady stream of customers. I’d asked Hans earlier that year about how the Prohibition would change things in Ranier. I’d written my question on my slate board, and taking me just as seriously as an adult, he said that nothing in Ranier would change. Only difference was that places like the Empire Club might officially serve only soda pop, until you gave the right password. Then they’d “open up the gates of heaven” to whatever anyone wanted. I would miss Hans.

  “Well, there’s no way I’m returning to Ranier to work,” I said.

  “You’re above that, eh?” Meg laughed. “Never say never.”

  I didn’t answer. I wished I could speak freely with her, but as much as I wanted—needed—a friend, I couldn’t trust her with my secrets. Even Darla, who could be a valuable ally, made me feel skittish. After all, she made money from her ladies’ customers. Men like E. W. Ennis. For all I knew, he’d financed the Kettle Falls Hotel, too.

  I mulled over my options in silence.

  I needed to find a way to work outside the area. Darla hadn’t paid me anything yet, but I hoped that before long I would earn enough for train fare to somewhere far beyond Ranier. I had few skills, with one exception. I could play the piano. Quite possibly, if I settled long enough in an affluent area, I could give piano lessons to children. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

  By the time dawn broke and seagulls began calling on the bay, I had fallen soundly asleep, only to be woken sternly by Juju. “Agnes sent me to wake you,” she said. She yanked on my bare foot. “C’mon, lazy bones. Time to start chopping. Agnes is fretting cuz we have a whole gang of fishermen coming in for a late-morning breakfast.” Then she ambled back out the cabin door, her hips nearly reaching the frame. As far as Juju was concerned, I never spoke. She always slept hard during my late-night whisperings with Meg.

  In the kitchen, my eyes were tearing up from chopping onions when the delivery door opened. To my surprise, Owen Jensen pushed in a wooden dolly with crates of milk and blocks of cheese. “Dairy fresh! Good morn—” He stopped smiling when he saw me. “Sadie Rose?”

  I glared and lifted my forefinger to my lips. Then I returned to chopping, careful not to lose my fingers—now that I would need them to teach piano lessons somewhere. I watched Owen out of the edge of my vision, in shock to see him.

  Delighted to see him.

  Agnes didn’t turn from frying bacon and called to Owen over her shoulder. “Could ya put it away for us this time in the icehouse, dear? We’re mighty busy this morning and a little short-staffed. You know where it is?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I sure do,” Owen replied.

  I mouthed “I’ll meet you there.”

  I chopped faster, wiped my hands on my apron, and after a few eternal minutes blurted, “Sorry, but I have to run to the outhouse. Be right back.”

  “You better be,” Agnes replied, without turning. Since I’d stepped into the kitchen to work, the smells of bacon and sizzling French toast made my mouth water, but with Owen’s arrival, I lost my appetite.

  I slipped off in the direction of the outhouses, just in case Agnes had stepped outside for a little fresh air and to smoke. There were two three-holers, side by side. One marked “men” and the other marked “women.” But I veered off to the icehouse, which was uphill a few yards and cut into the slope. The wooden door was closed, and Owen’s empty dolly sat outside.

  Only yesterday I’d been asked to haul the last bottles of milk into the kitchen’s icebox. In the day’s heat, I’d found the icehouse wonderfully cool. Not only was it built into the rocky hillside, but it was filled with cedar shavings over giant ice blocks from the lake. Against the blocks stood crates of produce and foodstuffs. Already the morning sun beat down on the path and on my shoulders. I welcomed its cool shadows.

  I glanced both ways, then pulled on the handle and stepped into the hillside log structure.

  In complete darkness, hands went to my hips, pulling me close as someone leaned his head toward mine, his breath warm on my face and his lips suddenly brushing mine. Instinctively, my mind went to the man with the blond mustache.

  I grabbed his hands and flung them off of me and backed up toward the door. “No!” I shouted. I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of a second time. Just as quickly, I realized it was Owen. What was he thinking?

  “I didn’t come out here for that,” I said and pushed my rear against the heavy door, allowing a little light between us.

  Owen hung his head. “Heck, I thought when you said you’d meet me—”

  “You thought wrong,” I whispered. “I need your help.”

  “Oh,” he said, his eyes like a puppy’s looking for reassurance after a good kick. It wasn’t that I found him unattractive. “Sorry,” he said. “I just thought maybe—”

  I put my hand on his forearm. “I like you, I do. But I ran away. I’m using a different name here. Catherine, not Sadie.”

  “Last place I expected to see you. Thought you were long gone from the area. And working for Agnes? She’s a piece of tough steel.” Then his eyes teased, and he tilted his head. “Is there a reward out for you? You know, I could use the money.”

  “Not that I know of. Mr. Worthington’s probably relieved I’
m gone. But Owen, there’s so much I need to tell you.”

  And then, talking rapidly, I told him a bit of what I’d stitched together. How my father might have been silenced by Ennis for stirring up trouble with his photographs of clear-cut shorelines. Of how I remembered Ennis and Worthington talking that night my mother died.

  “What a pile of rotten fish,” he said.

  I nodded, relieved to tell someone, even though Owen could do little more than listen. “And I can’t stay here long. Just last night Mr. Ennis was here—might still be for all I know.” I thought of Linnea and how if she was doing her job, she would have danced with Ennis and then led him upstairs for paying pleasures. “It’s a matter of time before I’m found out. And I can’t exactly tell Darla to pay me early so I can catch a train. I don’t know what to do—and I better get back to the kitchen before Agnes takes her broom after me.” I turned to go.

  “Wait. I have an idea,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I have one more delivery at this end of the lake, and then I’ll swing by and pick you up.”

  “But where? I can’t go to the main docks. Too many people come and go from there—including Mr. Ennis.”

  “Meet me just north of the point, north of the docks. There’s a natural harbor there—right beside a trapper’s cabin. I can get in and out of there without my boat hitting rocks.”

  “When?”

  “A half-hour from now.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I have a plan. Trust me.”

  I knew I had to. I was a sitting mouse waiting for a cat to put its paw on me. If I didn’t leave, I’d soon find myself delivered to the Worthingtons, who in turn would ship me off to who knew where. Thirty minutes wasn’t much time. But all I had to do was to gather my belongings from my cabin—precious few—and find an obscure path to the point.

  Grateful not to feel so alone, I stretched on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be there.”

  Chapter 22

  Owen left the icehouse first.

  Near my feet, a centipede crossed the dirt floor as I counted to sixty. A zillion legs scuttled across the thin shaft of light from the cracked door and then disappeared into the dank shadows. If Owen was true to his word, I could be away from Kettle Falls in a half-hour. I would have to wait and see what kind of plan he had in mind. Trust me, he’d said.

  I opened the door a few inches wider, hesitating. Out of duty, I felt I should return to the kitchen, but if I did, Agnes and Juju would press me into a morning of tasks, and I’d miss my chance. Still, I hated to leave them when they needed help. I was useful. I worked hard. I wished I didn’t have to leave a job I’d just started.

  Though the morning had launched sunny with a light breeze, now a green hue hung uneasily over the motionless air. A pileated woodpecker drummed on a nearby gray tree, riddling it with seeming bullet holes.

  Found floating in the middle of the lake. The photographer. My real father. That’s what Caveman had said.

  I swallowed hard and stepped outside.

  Somewhere beyond view, a boat motor hummed, an ax struck wood with a rhythmic thunk, and a push lawnmower whirred.

  I glanced up, praying that Mr. Ennis wasn’t at one of the upstairs bedroom windows, looking down at me. Beyond the roofline, a long ribbon of purplish gray marked the western sky. Bad weather usually came from the west, but storms hit in the afternoon more often than the mornings. I hoped that Owen and I wouldn’t get caught in foul weather, which could turn open water into deadly waves.

  Hurry.

  At my cabin, I shoved my books and knitting back in my satchel. Just as I grabbed my traveling coat and rolled it into a tight ball and tucked it under my arm to leave, someone entered the cabin and closed the door behind them.

  I panicked, feeling trapped again.

  Darla faced me, scowling, hands on her hips. “Franny told me, and now I see it plain as day. You’re Bella Rose’s girl, aren’t you?”

  I was dumbstruck.

  “Aren’t you?!” she shouted.

  I nodded.

  “What kind of game do you think you’re playing with me, coming in under a fake name, thinking I wouldn’t find out, huh? Are you trying to threaten my establishment in some way? Is that it?” She took a few long strides toward me and slapped me hard across the face.

  Reflexively, I crisscrossed my arms across my stinging face.

  “Who do you think you are? Coming around, asking questions, lying to me. Stirring up trouble about some of my customers. You’re a liability, and I won’t have it.”

  I waited for another assault, which didn’t come.

  “From the start, you were nothing but trouble for me,” she said.

  I lowered my arms. “Yes. I’m her daughter.” My voice shook, but I stood to my feet and forced myself to speak louder. “And no, I didn’t come to cause you trouble. I needed work, just enough money to catch a train away from here.”

  “Looks like you’re packed to leave—”

  I opened my mouth, thinking of some sort of excuse. “I was just—”

  But she stopped me with her outstretched hand. “No more lies.”

  “And I had to know,” I whispered, “more about my mother.”

  “I advise you to forget about her. Lock everything you think you know or don’t know about her in a closet . . .” She pressed her lips into a stiff line, then spoke, her voice dropping to a rough whisper: “. . . and throw . . . away . . . the key. Because if I ever—and don’t underestimate me when I say this—if I ever find you putting your nose into my business again—mother or not—you’ll wish you hadn’t been born.”

  She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, wheezing with the intake, her bosom rising beneath her ruffled blouse. Then she exhaled heavily and adjusted a silver pin that held her curls high. Then she opened the door. “Now you get the hell out of here.” Then she strode off toward the hotel without glancing back.

  Rattled, I followed one of several paths behind my cabin. Had I told Darla the truth when I’d first arrived, maybe she would have thought differently of me. Perhaps she would have told me willingly about my mother. But I doubted it. More likely, being the businesswoman that she was, I would have been back on the steamer the day I’d arrived. Now that she knew my identity, would she report me to the Worthingtons? Or would she hope that I would simply disappear—pretend she’d never heard of me?

  “Catherine!” Juju hollered from a distance. “Catherine Willer! Get in here!”

  Though I was well beyond view and hidden by trees, I picked up my pace, careful not to trip over the gnarly and rocky terrain. I felt pin pricks of guilt, not answering Juju, but I had no choice. The path curved toward the lake, yet far enough from it for me to stay out of view.

  I passed several teepees, the temporary shelters used by traders. Outside one, a woman leaned over a fire, stirring the contents of a cast-iron pot. Three children played with long sticks and a tin can. They looked up.

  I waved and they waved back.

  Not a leaf of the nearby scrub oak or maple, the birch or aspen, rustled. The grove of cedars didn’t stir. In the absence of a breeze, gnats gathered in a speckled cloud around me. One crawled behind my ear, another into the corner of my eye. I brushed and batted them away as I walked.

  At a high point in the path, I tucked behind the trunk of an old white pine and surveyed the bay and docks below. The bay was never still: the dam forced water through at breakneck speed, sending droplets into the air that caught in the light, like jewels flung high. Below, water swirled in a constant pattern of circles, tight and forceful near the dam, then ebbing out into wider and wider arcs. The steamer had yet to arrive. It was only midmorning.

  At the docks, too, people came and went in perpetual motion. Most of the fishing boats were alr
eady gone, leaving more open dock space than later in the day.

  And then, my stomach dropped. A familiar cruiser rounded the bend and approached the harbor, slowing its motor until its wake became a thin white plume. It was the last boat in the world I wanted to see. I recognized the wooden boat with the red-and-white trim, the bright American flag flying from its stern. My stomach dropped. Walter Worthington was at the wheel in the bow.

  I suddenly felt torn. To be wanted—wanted in any way—pulled at me as strongly as the current beneath the dam. It felt so powerful that I wondered if I could resist. In that moment I felt I could do anything the Worthingtons asked, be anything to them, just to be wanted. I nearly waved my arms and shouted, “Here! Here I am!” Instead, I held myself in check and watched.

  His boat slowed and pulled up to an open slot at the dock, just behind the long, two-decker houseboat, complete with its wraparound screen porch. This was E. W. Ennis’s houseboat, which I’d seen in our bay and on the lake.

  A dock boy hustled from the gashouse near shore. Mr. Worthington tossed him a line, which fell short of the boy’s reach and disappeared like a snake in the water. The boy fished it out with a gaff hook, then pulled the boat close and secured it.

  From the houseboat, a tall man stepped off and greeted Mr. Worthington. At first I didn’t recognize him, though few people possessed the height of E. W. Ennis. That day, instead of his usual three-piece pinstriped suit, he wore brown pants and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He met Mr. Worthington with a handshake. Mr. Ennis pointed over his shoulder toward the wooden walkway that led to the hotel. I had to believe that he was telling Mr. Worthington right where to find me.

  My heart sped. I thought I’d left the tavern last night unseen, but perhaps I hadn’t been that lucky.