Tisha Read online

  Cab didn’t breeze in until about nine, stomping in with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and gin in the other. I asked him to please take them out again because besides its being against the law, I didn’t think it was right to have drinking going on in the schoolroom. There were still plenty of people who you could tell were nipping from flasks on the sly, but at least they didn’t come out in the open with it.

  Cab laughed and took the bottles out, but he must have hidden them outside somewhere and wrapped them up in furs so they wouldn’t freeze, because as the night wore on half the men in the place, and Angela Barrett too, kept making jokes about how they didn’t know why, but they just seemed to have to go to the outhouse more than usual that night. The whole bunch of them smelled like a brewery after a while and started reeling all over the place when they danced, hardly listening to the calls.

  Cab was the worst, bragging and carrying on about his dog team without a stop. He went over to Joe Temple and said he’d heard Joe had a good team of dogs and he challenged Joe to a race. But Joe saw right away how drunk he was and said he’d heard about Cab’s team and wouldn’t go a two-mile heat with him even if Cab gave him a mile-and-a-half lead.

  “Good thing you wouldn’t,” Cab said. “That bunch you got wouldn’t be no more match for my dogs then a string of asthmatic poodles.”

  After a while I didn’t even want to dance with him, he was getting so wild.

  The square dancing ended about ten o’clock, a little earlier than usual because it had been a long day. Everybody was hungry again, though, so we were still going to have midnight supper over at the roadhouse. I should have known something was going to happen when Uncle Arthur and a few other men started talking with Cab about how fast Fred’s team was. Everybody knew Fred’s dogs were not only good, but the best-trained of anybody’s around here, so I didn’t realize that they were trying to start something. Cab buttonholed Fred and was all for having a race with him right then and there. “I just mushed ’em fifty miles to here and I’ll put ’em up against yours right now.”

  Fred said no, he’d heard that Cab had come in second in the Annual Dog Derby at Fairbanks last year and he wasn’t in that class. That should have settled it, but it didn’t. Later on I found out from Nancy that Uncle Arthur and a few others had kept bending Cab’s ear about Fred’s dogs, leading Cab on and getting him steamed up. She said she thought they were telling him things about Fred and me as well, but she didn’t know for sure. Whatever they said to him, Cab cornered Fred again just before the dance was over, but Fred wasn’t having any of it.

  “I’ll make it over any distance you want,” Cab said, “over any country you want.”

  “Thanks, Cab, but I’m not a racing man.”

  Cab had that stubborn look that said there was just one thing in his mind and he wasn’t going to be talked out of it. “If you’re scared you’ll look too bad we can make it a fifty-mile mush and I’ll give you an hour head start.”

  “Cab, I just don’t want to race you.”

  “Hell, I hear them’s all Indian dogs you got anyway. Ain’t worth the fish ya feed’m.”

  Fred walked away from him, but Cab was back to the same song again right after Fred and I danced a fox-trot. By this time his eyes were all bloodshot and he was getting mean. I was hoping that even if I didn’t end up with Fred when the Home Sweet Home waltz went on, at least I wouldn’t end up with Cab. He was willful when he was sober, drunk he was impossible. But when the Home Sweet Home waltz did go on I was flabbergasted: for the first time Fred was right beside me.

  That was the loveliest waltz I’d ever danced with anyone. For the first time in my life I really felt beautiful. Just having Fred look at me the way he did made me whirl around that floor as if we weren’t in a dinky little schoolroom somewhere out in the wilds, but in the grand ballroom of a palace.

  Before the waltz was over a whole bunch of people had already left so that they could get to the roadhouse and be served before the crowd. Nancy had ended up with Cab and as the rest of us were leaving they came over to Fred and me. “You’re pretty lucky there, boy,” Cab said. “How about tradin’ off partners? No offense, Nancy.”

  “No thanks, Cab.”

  Cab wasn’t too happy about it.

  In the roadhouse Fred and I sat at the end of one of the long tables. I wished we could have had the table for two, but I didn’t care. Just having midnight supper with Fred was enough. We could hear Cab yelling all the way over on the other side of the room, still challenging anybody in the house to a dog race. Then I heard somebody say something about Fred and a few men laughed.

  I didn’t pay any attention to what was going on after that because Fred and I were talking, but when we were almost finished eating Nancy came over. She leaned down close to me. “Anne,” she whispered, “if I were you and Fred I’d dog it outta here fast. Somethin’s goin’ on.”

  “What is it?”

  “Trouble. You better go as soon as you can.”

  I told Fred what she’d said. We looked over at the other table. Angela Barrett was just about as drunk as Cab and she was staring over at Fred and me with hate in her eyes. There wasn’t too much talk coming from where Cab was, just some murmuring, but there was something in the air, all right. Fred and I got up and he went to pay for our supper.

  “Hey now, Teacher, you ain’t leavin’ so early, are ya?” Cab yelled out.

  “Sure am, Cab. I’m dead tired.”

  He got up from the table and made his way towards us. “Hell, you don’t have to go yet,” he said. I said I did, but he had something in his mind and didn’t even listen to me, just asked me the same thing over again. Fred brought my coat over and Cab tried to take it from him. “You just give that coat to me and I’ll take care of ’er. She can’t go home yet. It’s too early.”

  “Cab, I do want to go home,” I said.

  He understood, but he didn’t care. Fred hadn’t let go of my coat, and Cab tried to take it from him again. “Lemme have that,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Cab,” Fred told him. “I’ll take her home.”

  “You will like hell,” Cab said. “Let it go.” Fred looked at me, but before he could decide what to do Cab shoved him. Fred let my coat go and fell against the counter. “I said I’ll take ’er home, goddammit, ’n’ I mean what I say!”

  I was scared now. The whole place had gotten quiet, and everybody was watching to see what was going to happen. They weren’t only watching, either. They were waiting, waiting like a pack of wolves for Cab to do their dirty work. They’d been wanting it to happen, planning for it to happen, and now they were licking their chops. Now I knew why Uncle Arthur had finally put the Home Sweet Home waltz on when Fred and I were close. Anything to get Cab riled up more. And Fred knew it. I could see by the way he was looking at everybody. He was cornered, being forced into a fight with Cab.

  “Now you hightail it outta here, half-breed,” Cab said to him. He was wound up like a spring. He wanted to fight bad, you could see it in the way his shoulders moved, as if he was going to shake himself apart any second if he didn’t start lashing out. I felt sick to my stomach.

  “I don’t want any fightin’ in here,” Maggie Carew said. “The two of you want to settle it, go on outside.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Cab said.

  “Cab, I don’t want to fight with you,” Fred told him.

  “Thought so,” Mr. Vaughn said. “He’s going to crawfish.”

  “Sure is,” Angela said. “Even an Arkansas Jew’d be fighting by now.”

  Cab wasn’t listening to anybody anymore. He had blood in his eye and he kept moving his shoulders the way a kid does when he’s excited about something and wants to get to it.

  Fred moved away from the counter. He’d gone dead white around his mouth and he was all tightened up, so I was surprised he could walk so easily. He went over to get his parka where it was hanging on a hook, and took it down. Cab rushed over to him and gave him another shove tha
t sent him flying into a whole bunch of men. They pushed him right back and he went bang up against Cab. Cab must have thought Fred was coming after him because his fist went out and he hit Fred in the mouth. It was just a glancing punch, but Fred’s lip started to bleed and it kind of stunned him. That did it for everybody. Mr. Carew and another man grabbed Cab, two others grabbed Fred, and they hustled them both out the door. I kept trying to get them to stop, and I yelled out to Cab that if he wanted to he could take me home, but nobody was listening to me.

  So there Fred was, out in the middle of the snow, his parka still hanging over his arm and Cab staring at him wild-eyed, going into a slight crouch, telling Fred to get ready. And everybody was really having a good time now. “Slam’im in the mush, Cab.” “Chew’im up!” “Paste ’im under the tab!” Not one of them was rooting for Fred.

  I went over to Joe Temple. “Joe, get them to stop, please.”

  “And get myself slugged? No thanks.”

  Fred was still trying to get out of it, not raising his hands or doing anything but watching Cab. “Come on, boy,” Cab said, “get ’em up.”

  “I told you, Cab. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  Then Cab started to move in, all crouched up like an animal, his fists going as if he was winding up yarn, his eyes all wild. I was scared, really scared. I thought Fred would be too and I wouldn’t have blamed him, but he wasn’t. I almost didn’t recognize him for the expression on his face. It was the strangest expression I’d ever seen on anyone, the look he might have had on trail when he was all alone and in trouble and it was only him against an enemy. At that moment I didn’t know him at all.

  I tried to go over to him, but Angela Barrett grabbed me. She was as strong as a wrestler.

  “Let me go, Mrs. Barrett.”

  “You just settle down,” she said thickly, “or he won’t be the only one to get the shit knocked out of ’im.”

  What happened next made everybody jump. There was a big explosion and I caught a flash of flame out of the corner of my eye and smelled the sharp odor of burnt powder. It was Rebekah’s husband, Jake Harrington, standing there holding Mr. Carew’s thirty-aught-six over’n’under. Everybody froze and my ears were ringing so I could hardly hear what he was saying. He’d fired into the air, but now he was pointing that shotgun straight at Cab. “Go on back inside, Cab,” he told him quietly.

  Cab was drunk, but he wasn’t so drunk that those two barrels staring him in the face didn’t sober him a little.

  “This is none a your business,” he said to Jake.

  “Only tryin’ to do you a favor, Cab,” Jake said.

  “It’s not him you’re doing any favors,” Mr. Vaughn said. “It’s the breed.” He was standing in back of Cab.

  “It’s him,” Jake said. “’cause if he tries to hit that boy I’m gonna kill ’im. So maybe you better move outta the way.”

  You can bet Mr. Vaughn moved, all right. And he wasn’t the only one. Everybody standing near Cab moved away too.

  “What do you say, Cab? It’s cold out here.”

  Cab said something he ordinarily wouldn’t have said with ladies present, but he could be excused for it. Then he slouched back into the roadhouse and everybody else started moving back in too. I pulled away from Angela.

  “C’mon, Fred.” I took his arm.

  “Anne,” Nancy called after me, “I’ll stay here a while.”

  All the way back to my quarters Fred was trembling so hard I thought he was going to fall down. Inside, he slumped into a chair. I built up the fire.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. I’m trying to hold my supper down.”

  After a little while he picked his head up. “I could use an aspirin.”

  I gave it to him along with some water. His chin was smeared with blood and his lip was a little puffy. I got a wet cloth and gave it to him. He went over to the mirror and dabbed the cut. I felt it was partly my fault. If he’d been badly hurt I’d never have forgiven myself. The thing that bothered me the most, though, was how everybody had really wanted to see him beat up.

  “I’m glad you’re not hurt too bad.”

  He almost smiled. “Me too. I just wish there was some way I could keep my mother from finding out about it.”

  “All she has to do is take one look at you.”

  “Well, at least she won’t have to know what it was all about.”

  “What’ll you tell her?”

  “Oh, that Cab just got drunk and took a poke at me. This is a mess,” he said. “Anne …” He started to say something else, but just then Nancy came in carrying my coat.

  I went outside with him when he was ready to leave.

  “I’m sorry, Fred.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I kind of feel it is.”

  I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked him.

  “No reason.”

  “Fred …”

  “What?”

  I wanted to say, I love you. Instead I said, “Can you kiss me good night or does your mouth hurt too much?”

  He leaned down and his lips just barely touched mine. Then he hugged me so tightly it took the breath out of me. Before he walked off the porch, he stared at me in a way that gave me the most awful feeling, as if he’d pushed me away or shut me out. I wanted to call him back, ask him to stay a little longer. But I didn’t. I just stood there, looking at all the cabins strung along the snow.

  Far off to the northwest a flickering yellow glow appeared in the distance. Fred had told me it came from a peat fire that had been smoldering in the tundra ever since last summer. The snow had partly smothered it, but once in a while it burst into flame anew. It blazed up now, as if somebody had just lit a big collection of candles. Then it went out I started to feel chilly and went inside.

  Nancy was just slipping her nightie on.

  “Thanks for trying to warn us,” I said.

  She murmured something, then pulled back the blankets and got into bed with her socks on. A little later when I climbed in beside her, her head was underneath the blankets. She poked it out while I was still curled up in a ball, trying to get warm.

  “Anne?”

  “Mm …”

  “Jimmy told me that Mr. Vaughn told his father you’re gonna have a baby by Fred. He said that come spring you’ll be swoll’ up like a poisoned dog. I told him it was a damn lie.”

  I wondered why she was bringing it up now—then I realized she must have heard me ask Fred if he was able to kiss me goodnight. She’d probably been shocked. As good friends as she and I were, she still couldn’t see how I could like Fred so much. She was waiting for me to deny what Mr. Vaughn had said. All of a sudden a picture came into my mind that made me smile—a little quarter-Eskimo baby toddling around the room looking exactly like Fred. It was so vivid I had trouble keeping my voice even. I said, “If it’ll make you feel any better, Nancy—no, I’m not going to have a baby. I’ll tell you the truth, though. If I was I’d want it to be Fred’s.”

  Right after I said it I was sorry. I had no right to shock her like that on purpose. The silence was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

  “Nancy … try to understand. Will you?”

  Her answer was a long time coming.

  “I’m trying, Anne,” she said, her voice troubled. “I’m trying. But it sure is hard.”

  XIII

  “Fred went over to Steel Creek,” Isabelle told me Monday morning. As soon as she’d showed up for school I’d asked her about him. Every time I thought of the look on his face when he left Friday night, I’d had a sinking feeling. I had the same feeling now.

  “When did he leave?”

  “Early yesterday morning. Did you know he was in a fight?” she asked me, wide eyed.

  “Yes, I did. When is he coming back?”

  “As soon as he can, I guess.”

  I asked her what he’d gone for, bu
t she said she didn’t know. I asked Nancy if she had any idea why he might have gone to Steel Creek, but she said there was nothing she could think of.

  His father showed up for the mail when Mr. Strong came into the settlement a few days later.

  “How’s everybody in the family?” I asked him while we were standing on line outside the post office.

  “Fine,” he said. “They all say hello.”

  “What did Fred go to Steel Creek for?” I asked him.

  “See some people over there. He ought to be back in a few days.”

  I had the feeling he was holding something back and I wanted to ask him more about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to pry any more.

  There was a letter for me from Lester Henderson. He wrote me that he’d received the first monthly report I’d sent him at the beginning of October, and he was very satisfied with it. Then he went on to say that he’d received letters from a few people in Chicken.

  … The general tone of them is that you are a good teacher and have high moral standards. I’ve received two letters from parents, however, who object to your association with an Indian woman living there. One of them also mentioned that you have been teaching the children about the Indians and that you seem to be fond of a young man of mixed blood, Fred Purdy. (I’ve heard of the Purdys, by the way, and by all accounts they are a fine family.)

  I want you to know that I have the utmost faith in you and your abilities, and your personal life is your own. I do wish to advise you, however, to be as diplomatic as possible, especially if you wish to teach in Eagle next year …

  His letter was dated November 6th, three weeks before, and it sounded as if he’d heard from plenty of people. They must have started writing him around the end of September, just about the time Mr. Vaughn and the school board came down on me. I could imagine what they must have written him since then about Rebekah, and about Fred too.

  I wrote him back that I was going to do the best I could. More than anything else, I told him, I wanted to justify the faith he had in me. I told him all about Rebekah too, why I’d taken her into the school and what had happened because of it. If he felt she shouldn’t be sitting in, I said, I’d tell her she couldn’t come.