Wild Wind Westward Read online

  Before he had a chance to pull the plank back into position, Eric had also made his decision. He dropped down into the opening, too, a cold dark hole that smelled of musk and earth, and of the alcohol on Mick’s breath. “Jesus Christ,” groaned the mustachioed roughneck, “what the hell?” But he slid the plank into place just before the police tromped into the kitchen.

  Eric held his breath, and waited. He felt Mick’s presence close beside him, felt beneath his feet round objects that shifted and rolled away. He bent down and picked up one of them, felt its rough yet not unyielding exterior. A potato. They were in a storage space, a root cellar. Above them the police prowled the kitchen, to be joined by more men from the taproom. Then they heard Joan’s voice, sweet and calm.

  “Certainly, you may search,” she was telling them. “And while you’re here, would you care for a cup of soup? Or a whiskey?”

  “If we get it free like you get it free,” returned the gruff voice of one of the police.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Joan said.

  There was rough laughter. “We can’t prove it yet, but we will, we will. Anyway, I have a warrant here for the arrest of Michael Leeds. You seen him?”

  “Who?” asked Joan.

  Beside him Eric felt Mick struggle and succeed in stifling a laugh.

  “Your brother, that’s who! And, long as we’re here, we’re looking for a man who jumped ship, hour or so ago. Big blond guy. Speaks broken English. His captain reported him missing.”

  Eric felt the fine hairs on the back of his cold neck stiffen and quiver. But Joan Leeds, after a pause, said no, no, she hadn’t seen anyone fitting that description, but she would certainly let them know if she did.

  “You must have been sayin’ your prayers,” hissed Mick. “But don’t you go gettin’ any big ideas about her, hey?”

  Then the police shuffled out, and slammed the door. Mick waited for five minutes, ten. Eric used the time to jam several potatoes into his coat pockets. Bananas and potatoes. A meager diet, but better than none. If the police were already looking for him, New York would be an even harsher world than he had anticipated.

  Finally, a tap on the wood above them. “They’re gone,” Joan said, “you can come out now.”

  Mick climbed out of the root cellar first, and embraced his sister warmly. They both watched Eric as he, too, struggled out of the hole.

  “Look, the bastard stole some potatoes,” Mick denounced. “A ship-jumping thief.”

  “I’ll pay you for them when I can.”

  “Sure you will. Just get out of here. You’re probably the reason they came in here anyway. I knew you were trouble first time I laid eyes on you.”

  Eric and Mick faced each other, tension palpable between them. Yet, in some way Eric could not decipher, it was a strange, unusual tension, touched and colored by a force perverse and unfamiliar.

  The pressure was broken by Joan, who said: “Mick, it is just as mother always says. You are far too hasty and you don’t use your head. Mister,” she added, turning to Eric, “go out and sit down at a table by the fire. I’ll bring you some hot food and—”

  “You’ll do no such thing…” Mick began.

  “Be quiet,” she snapped back. “Sometimes I think Liz is right when she says you wouldn’t recognize a gift horse if it kicked you in the teeth.”

  Liz? Gift horse? Eric went out to a table in the now deserted barroom and sat down by the stove. He did not yet know what to think. The police were after Mick Leeds, and that was not good. He ought to get out of here. And yet Joan was about to bring him a hot meal. Who knew when he might get another? And perhaps she might tell him where he could find work, and how to go about looking for a job. She seemed friendly, and intelligent, not to mention being beautiful. She had handled the police splendidly. Perhaps it was all a mistake.

  Mick sauntered out of the kitchen after a few moments, flushed, smiling a slight, private smile of satisfaction. Joan seemed to have calmed him down. He drew himself a mug of ale, then, almost as an afterthought, drew another, and carried them over to the table at which Eric sat.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked, sliding one of the mugs across the table to Eric, sitting down without invitation. He took a long swallow of the ale. So did Eric.

  “So you’re off a ship, eh? Didn’t like it?”

  “The captain would not pay me my wages.”

  “Is that the truth? Norwegian ship?”

  “American.”

  “It figures. Why did you leave your country?”

  Too many questions. Eric felt alarm. Perhaps, while Mick pumped him for information, kept him occupied, Joan had stolen out into the night to call the police back.

  “There was no…no chance for me in my country to make a success.”

  Mick gulped some more ale, snickered. “And you think this is the place to do that, eh? The new world and everything?”

  “I must try.”

  “You got a lot of surprises in store for you, if you think we live in a land of milk and honey over here.” Mick laughed at his own wit. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from. Hell, I don’t even know where Norway is. But I can tell you this: It’s tough times here, tough times. I only know of one sure way you can make money. Maybe.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s going to be a war, I think. Everybody’s yammering about it.”

  Eric was confused. A war? How did one contrive to make money in a war?

  “North and South are fixing to fight,” Mick was explaining. “Over the nigger issue. That new president, who’s going to be sworn in come March, Lincoln’s his name, he’s a fanatic about the nigger issue. If there’s a war and men are called up to fight, you can go to the army as a substitute.”

  “A substitute?”

  “Sure, see. Some rich guy gets drafted and he doesn’t want to go get a cannonball through his private parts. So he gives you some money and you go in his place, hoping to avoid that cannonball.”

  “That is unfair.”

  Mick laughed. “I said you got a lot of surprises coming. All you foreigners get off the boat thinking this is some ideal kind of place. Fair. Unfair. Either you want the money or you don’t. Fair don’t have nothing to do with it. It’s all just as anonymous as the cannonball. But Joan, she was thinking…”

  Mick let his voice trail off, as if he did not altogether agree with whatever his sister had been thinking.

  “Yes?” Eric prompted.

  Then Joan came in from the kitchen, carrying a large plate heaped with steaming boiled potatoes, and a thick, juicy chunk of broiled beef. She set it in front of Eric.

  “Eat up,” she said, sitting down next to her brother. “Have you mentioned it to him yet?” she asked Mick.

  “Just broaching the subject,” he grinned. “I’m not sure he’ll be interested.”

  “Let’s let him be the judge of that, shall we?” she interrupted, patting his shoulder lovingly.

  Mick fell silent, as Joan explained what they had been discussing in the kitchen.

  “It’s up to Liz, of course,” she began, “but I think she’ll approve of a man like you. We need someone who’s strong”—she eyed him appreciatively—“honest, and, above all, discreet.”

  “I am those things,” Eric admitted, “but who is Liz?”

  “That’s our mother,” Mick answered. “She owns this tavern, and the boardinghouse on the next block.”

  “That’s where we live,” said Joan.

  “Assuming that your mother agrees to let me work for her,” Eric wondered, “exactly what would I be doing?”

  “You know how to drive a team of horses? You know how to lift heavy objects?” Mick demanded.

  Eric nodded. This job, whatever it was, did not seem especially promising. But he had to start somewhere.

  “You’ll be hauling cargo, essentially,” Joan said. “Here in New York and farther out on Long Island. It’s a bad time of year, but…” She seemed on
the verge of saying something, then changed her mind. “Mick, let’s close up and take this foreigner to meet Liz. What is your name?”

  “Gunnarson. Eric Gunnarson.”

  “I like that,” she said, smiling at him in a way that was promissory and insinuating, yet totally innocent. “Eric. I like that very much.”

  “Well, let’s not moon on about it now,” snapped Mick, his temper flaring.

  “Oh, come,” Joan soothed him, patting his cheek gently. She kissed him quickly, as one would an angry child, and, again, he quieted under her influence. Buttoning his coat in preparation for the foray out into the cold, Eric reflected that it would be wonderful to have a family as warm and affectionate as that reflected by the behavior of Mick and Joan Leeds. Truly, Liz, their mother, had a sound influence upon them. It was fortuitous that he should, so quickly, have made this connection, which might in turn lead to a job. He did not know too much about it yet, but he would be a fool not to explore the possibility further. Perhaps he might work out an arrangement allowing him to stay the night in their house. Surely he could cut firewood, or perform some other task, to make recompense.

  Collars pulled up against the cold, heads bent into the icy wind, the three rushed up the street toward Liz Leed’s boardinghouse. On the way Joan told Eric a little about their family.

  “Father was a businessman,” she said. “He owned four ships. Sailing ships. He imported sugar and molasses from the West Indies. But one year, when Mick and I were real little, he borrowed a lot of money to buy two of the new steamships, because the sailing vessels were getting old. He had bad luck, though. One of the new ships blew up, right here in New York Harbor, and the other sank in a typhoon.”

  “In the same year,” Mick said. “And he didn’t have insurance. He figured, what could happen to a steel ship?”

  “He couldn’t bear the thought of failure,” Joan went on, a touch of pride in her voice, her father’s demise notwithstanding, “and he took to beating Liz.”

  “He also took to drink,” Mick said. “It’s a tendency we in the family have to watch out for.”

  “He died of drink,” said Liz. “They found him on a streetcorner one February, almost frozen. Took him to the hospital. But it was too late.”

  She seemed to shudder, affected more by the memory than the icy night.

  “Luckily, Liz carried on. She’s a very strong lady.”

  And, indeed, Liz Leeds did seem quite formidable. She sat knitting before the fireplace, a broad-shouldered, big-bosomed woman, with streaks of gray in thick dark hair. Eric noted that Mick resembled her more than did Joan. Liz seemed as steady and secure as the house, which, in the firelit darkness, Eric had judged to be a dusky yellow. Inside, the rooms were not large, but neatly arranged.

  “What is this?” she asked her children, looking at Eric as she did so.

  Quickly, Joan explained how Eric had come into the tavern, what had transpired with the police, and how they had discussed the possibility of a job.

  Liz nodded, thinking it over. She bade them take off their coats, went out into the kitchen, and returned with four cups and a pot of tea. “Tell me about yourself?” she asked Eric, in the too casual tone that reveals suspicion.

  Guardedly, Eric complied. He did not mention the man he had killed in Norway, but, since Mick and Joan already knew he’d jumped ship, he had to tell that part.

  Oddly, Liz Leeds seemed not overly disturbed by this fact. In the weeks to come Eric would learn why this was so. Liz Leeds knew an advantage when she saw one. “You can start work tomorrow morning?” she asked abruptly, after Eric had finished speaking.

  “I would be very eager to do just that.”

  Liz thought it over for a few minutes, as Mick, Joan and Eric waited.

  “It would be a good idea, really,” Joan implored her mother quietly. “Mr. Gunnarson has everything we’ve been looking for.”

  This seemed to convince the older woman. She looked Eric in the eye. “Yes, I think he does at that” she said slowly, with what private thoughts Eric could not guess.

  They finished the tea, and Liz told Joan to give Eric bedding and show him to one of the upstairs rooms. “It’s empty at the moment. We had a boarder who skipped out on us. Couldn’t pay the rent.” She shrugged. “It happens. But if it’s all right with you, board and room will be part of your wages.”

  The arrangement at the moment seemed a necessity to Eric, who had no money. He agreed. If he did not like the situation, he reasoned, a different procedure could be determined after he had some coins in his pocket.

  Joan led him up the stairs, holding a whale-oil lamp that lighted a flickering way down a gloomy upstairs corridor. There were at least six doors, behind which unknown, transient people slept. Joan handed Eric the lamp, opened a closet door, and withdrew blankets, sheets, and a rumpled pillow. Smiling, she motioned him toward one of the doors. Behind it was a small, rude room, but there was a bed, one chair, and a washstand.

  “We’ll get you water in the morning,” she said, expertly putting the sheets on the bed. “It would freeze here overnight.”

  “Thank you,” said Eric, when Joan had finished making the bed.

  She came to him, as if to take the lamp, which he had been holding. Her beautiful green eyes shone brilliantly in the light and Eric saw on her mouth that soft vexing, indecipherable smile.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “I like to please.” And, saying this, she slipped close to him, moved her body once, twice, three times against his, moved her body in the way a woman moves for a man. Then, with one hand, she took the lamp from him, and with the other touched softly but lingeringly the staff of his manhood which she had stirred into throbbing life.

  Then she was gone from the room, which was dark. But Eric was on fire in the night.

  II

  Kristin found Oslo both exciting and depressing. The great port city, jewel of Norway, teemed with life and bustle unknown to her mountain youth, and she enjoyed the constant movement of people, horses, drays and carriages. She exulted, as with a sense of adventure, to the sight of mighty ships in the harbor, along the quay. The tutors Gustav Rolfson had engaged to give her a knowledge of English and French offered refined, intellectual companionship. Madame Lonnerdahl, who taught her dance, was a source of constant encouragement, with her praise of Kristin’s natural grace and ability. And Herr Borcher, who was to teach her the ways of society, echoed Gustav himself: “Your husband was right, if I may say so, madame. Properly trained in the rituals of society, and in the arts of genteel discourse, you will be able to charm serpents down from the trees. If that is, indeed, where they reside.”

  I know one such serpent very well, thought Kristin, smiling the while, and he resides in my bed.

  It was her personal life with Gustav, her family life with the Rolfsons, that left her irritated and depressed. Even on the road from Lesja to Oslo, after her wedding to Gustav, Kristin had been planning some trick, some ruse, some feint which would allow her to escape. She would wait until her leg had healed, find Eric somehow, and the two of them would run away. But Rolfson senior had scotched such a wild notion. He spoke to her bluntly, in private, several days after they had arrived at the tall, walled, luxurious Rolfson manor.

  “My son is quite smitten with you, young lady,” he barked, “but I can tell you do not fully reciprocate his ardor. Have no ideas of leaving, however. If you do, remember that we can do terrible things to your family in Lesja. We can also leave them in peace and a relative prosperity. The choice is entirely yours.”

  So, even now, perhaps forever, the Rolfsons would hold over her the specter of her family, homeless and starving. And, if they were, it would have been her own fault. These Rolfsons were vicious; they always plotted things so that in the end they held a devious, wicked advantage, a black ace, a glittering sword suspended by a hair.

  Kristin thought long and hard, faying to find some way by which her family might writhe free of the Rolfson yoke, and by which she he
rself might approach independence. In the end, when Gustav decided she had learned enough to manage the household and servants, Kristin began each week to withhold and secrete a small part of the household allowance, and send it by post to her family. She placed neither her name nor address on the envelope, lest the money fall into the wrong hands. Her family might guess—but would never know for certain—the identity of their benefactor. She would have liked to do more for them, but, for the time being, further aid was impossible. And she had other matters with which to deal.

  “Now that you are fully in charge of my house,” Gustav said to her one morning while he was dressing for the day, “I want you to arrange a formal dinner.”

  He adjusted his tie with a flourish, pulled on his morning coat, and stood arrogantly before the full-length bedroom mirror that showed all too clearly the deep, liver-colored scar across his face. His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he turned to Kristin, who lay abed. She was thinking of Eric. She always thought of Eric when she saw her husband inspect that scar. She was certain that ha knew her thoughts, but she didn’t care.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked, with just a trace of harshness in his voice. He came over and sat down next to her on the bed. “I said I want you to organize a formal dinner. Saturday evening, a fortnight hence. The minerals and mountains of Lesja have given us massive collateral, which father and I intend to use in the attainment of major capital loans. Lord Anthony Soames, the British banker, will be here in Oslo, and if we show him a great time, let him see what we are worth, perhaps he will authorize the loan.”

  “Yes, husband,” Kristin replied, without expression. This was the method she had adopted in all her dealings with him. She showed no emotion whatever. She showed no passion, or resentment, or even disapproval. She showed neither delight in the gifts he gave—rings, gowns, furs, necklaces—nor disappointment when, suddenly vexed at her lack of response to him, he withdrew some favor he had promised. Her coolness, which yet was always totally proper and sedate, drove him wild. Gustav could do nothing, it seemed, to stir his wife to life, much less to passion. When he took her at night in their marriage bed, he had at first done so with intensity, feeling, hot desire, his whole body shuddering in anticipation as he poised to enter her. She had let him take her, opened herself to him, but never had she returned his embrace, or moved her body for him in the way of a woman making love. They had been married now for half a year, and already he took her less and less, angered and puzzled and, yes, even though he was a hard man, hurt at what he had come to call her “incapacity.” It would, he felt, cure itself in time, perhaps with a child. He very much wanted a child and was sure he had good seed. Perhaps if his wife warmed somewhat toward him, her body would in its turn grow receptive to his seed.