The Floor of Heaven (14 page)

It was the ad’s concluding words that Soapy had struggled with the most. Finally, he decided: “Admissions 10 cents.”

This was less than he had charged in Creede or any of the other towns, but Soapy felt it was essential to all his future plans that the exhibition be a success. He wanted a crowd. He wanted his arrival into Denver to be triumphant.

People came in droves.

SOAPY REJOICED. His instincts had been proved correct. Returning to Denver had been the right course of action. And even as people continued to flock to the exhibition on Seventeenth Street, he received what he felt was further confirmation of his wisdom: Creede burned to the ground. A fire had broken out in John Kinneavy’s saloon and then spread through the business district. His Orleans Club, as well as the town’s other saloons and dance halls and gambling parlors, had been consumed by this inferno.

Right away there was talk in Creede of rebuilding. But Soapy knew he no longer had the heart to stay in that high, lonely valley. He’d sign over control of the Orleans and his other properties to some of his gang and hope they’d be too afraid to skim too much from the earnings. But he wouldn’t go back. Soapy had come home, and now that he had finally returned he was resolute. In the morning he’d send a telegram to Mary, in St. Louis, and tell her it was time to come back, too. They’d never have to leave Denver again.

TEN

eorge Carmack was back home, too. Only unlike Soapy Smith in Denver, his return brought him no peace. George had settled in at his sister’s ranch in California, but he couldn’t get out of his mind how he had jumped ship and run off from the marines. It had been a spur-of-the moment decision, a rash, angry act provoked by Commander Pearson’s refusal to demonstrate an iota of Christian kindheartedness. The commander should’ve sympathized. A brother, after all, had a right to a visit the ailing sister who raised him. But even as he built the argument in his mind, George knew his justifications amounted to only so much sand. They’d be blown away in an instant by the stern winds of military retribution. The navy wouldn’t bother to sort through the circumstances. He was a deserter. They would come looking for him; and when they found him, he’d be led off in chains and then court-martialed. His sentence: four years in the brig, followed by two more at sea. He’d never get back to Alaska.

Alaska! If he was going to desert, he would’ve done well to have gone through the gate to the Tlingits’ camp and not come back. The Indians would’ve helped, traded him the provisions to make a go of it. They would’ve guided him over the wall of steep snowcapped mountains and into the wilderness of the high north country. Not even the marines could find him out there, or would they likely have dared. By now he’d have been far up the Yukon River. Hell, he’d probably would’ve panned his first golden nuggets. He rued the day he had left Sitka.

George’s surly mood, however, was softened by the continued improvement to his sister’s health. With each passing week, Rose’s lungs began to clear, her breathing grew less labored, and her strength returned. It wasn’t long before Rose was well enough to get out of bed. She’d lock her arm through his and, as in the old days, they would take a slow walk together down the dirt road to the creek.

Adoring, more a mother than a sister, Rose offered up a constant litany of advice. She urged George to surrender to the authorities. There would be a punishment, to be sure, but the navy, she predicted, would not be vindictive. It would all be resolved, and then he could return to the ranch without the burden of fears and concerns that, she perceived, were now troubling him. “I wish you would hurry and sow your wild oats and settle down with me, for I am proud of my big brother when he is good,” she told him. “You don’t know how earnestly I pray that you will not walk in forbidden paths.”

When Rose wasn’t giving George advice, she talked about the ranch. “James has got a good deal of grains in this year and it is looking very well. He is fencing our place with barb wire and he has a good deal of it up. I thought I would have an organ before this time but the fencing took so much money,” she confided.

George listened. It was not his way to talk too much; he didn’t see the point. In the barracks, everyone would be jabbering, but no one cared what anyone else said. George reckoned Rose would listen to him, but he knew she wouldn’t like what he had to say. He didn’t want to get into an argument with her. Anyway, how could he explain something he knew she would never understand? So he kept his peace. He didn’t share his plan. George just made Rose a promise: After he earned his fortune, he’d buy her an organ.

GEORGE LIKED to be alone and think things out. And he needed money if he was to return to Alaska. When a rancher in Modesto offered him a chance to do some shepherding, George put aside all his old qualms about living with a herd of bleating, shitting sheep and took the job.

The salary turned out to be better than he’d expected. After George’s first weeks with the herd, the rancher, satisfied with the new shepherd’s way with the sheep, gave him a raise. He was now earning $25 a month—nearly $8 more than the marines had paid him. At that rate, George figured, it wouldn’t take him long to put together a stake.

In the meantime, the soft, green roll of the hill country, the fresh spring smells, the sharp colors of dogwood blossoms and rosebushes, and the chatter of birdsong became his companions. The solitude was a comfort; he enjoyed his private worlds. George kept a diary, and in its pages he wrote the log of the sentimental journeys he, alone but not lonely, traveled.

MY THOUGHTS

On Tulare plains amongst alkaline weeds

Or rich wet grass where the wild goose feeds,

My mind far o’er the hills does roam.

In his resolute mind, a compass of desire always pointed north, steady and true.

THEN GEORGE’S will faltered. He met Becky. She was the Modesto rancher’s blond-haired daughter, and she made him feel keen in a way he had never felt before. He could even talk to her. They would go walking up into the hills, and being with her, having her next to him, brought George a comfort that left him blissful. He felt it was no longer necessary to put everything down in his diary. He could share the vivid expeditions he was taking in his mind with another person. He could confide in her.

George told Becky about Alaska. He spoke with a conviction that was religious in its intensity. He said it was his intention to go out into the wilderness and discover gold. There would be days of hardship, the challenges of a vast, cold land, a country bigger than Becky, than anyone in Modesto, could imagine. But he was firm. He would go out there—and return a millionaire.

In her wisdom, Becky did not try to argue. Perhaps she understood that there was little point in admonishing someone when they already knew that what they were saying made little sense. Of course George had to realize that finding gold in Alaska was a pipe dream, a pursuit as feckless as the proverbial hunt for the needle in the haystack. Yet if she were to point this out, her carping would only make him stubborn. Or maybe she felt that her presence was argument enough: I am offering you this. Another life.

Whatever her reasoning, it was an effective strategy. For the first time, George began to imagine another way of living. He’d never expected to find anyone he would want to be with. Truth was, he seldom spoke to anyone but his sister, and he didn’t have all that much to say to Rose. Yet what only weeks ago had been unimaginable now grew increasingly real in his mind: A shared life. A life with Becky.

GEORGE CALLED them “my chest of memories.” The trove included his recollections of his father, a beaten man, telling him about the days of ’49. Or his dad going on about how things would have been different for the whole family if he’d struck it rich. Another was his memory of the heft of the shiny gold nuggets his brother-in-law had allowed him to hold in his hand on his twelfth birthday and the excitement, the animal desire, that had coursed through him. And still another: in Sitka, a young marine staring off beyond the rim of mountains into an unknown world, a realm of adventure.

In the end, the pull of these memories proved too strong. They were as demanding as destiny itself. He could not stay.

WHEN THE sting of winter had passed, and before the dogwoods could bloom and a new California spring could work on his resolve, George decided it was time to leave. He’d already saved what he hoped would be a sufficient amount. Besides, he feared that if he delayed any longer, the navy would be bound to find him. On March 29, he said good-bye to Rose and James. He told his sister he’d return soon enough to buy her the organ she wanted so much. As for Becky, he wrote her a note, but then ripped it into pieces. There was nothing he found himself able to say, nothing he could explain. It would always be something that might have been, a life that died before it could be born, a future that never had a chance to unfold. He hoped she would understand that at least; and if she didn’t, no words in a letter would be any solace.

He took a train to San Francisco, and there he booked a steerage ticket on the Queen of the Pacific. The Queen was a new ship, its brass shiny and its mahogany well polished. George made sure he was standing on deck as she glided through the Golden Gate and into the waters of the North Pacific, and the experience left him thrilled. Yet at the same time he found that he couldn’t help thinking about the choice he’d made. He was confident that he had done the right thing. Still, he missed Becky more than he’d expected to. Though he was glad to be going, he also felt regret; he’d left something precious behind.

It was a long journey, but the seas were pleasant. The Queen’s first stop was Astoria, Oregon. Next, it sailed to Victoria, British Columbia, where the cargo it had picked up in San Francisco was unloaded from its hold: 3,000 pounds of opium, an equal amount of tobacco, 12,500 pounds of gunpowder, as well as 54,000 pounds of sugar. Lighter, the ship made swift time to Port Townsend, in Washington Territory. George disembarked and boarded the Idaho. It was a steamer, a small, old boat that had none of the Queen’s polish. But George hardly noticed. He was too excited. The wind blew in his face. Gray-and-white herring gulls screeched overhead. Seals glided slickly in the ship’s wake. Dark herds of walruses pounded through the water like a freight train. And beyond the horizon, coming closer each day, straight ahead up the dark, icy Inland Passage, was the gold town of Juneau, Alaska.

ELEVEN

he blast hurled a sleeping George Pelling, the co-owner of the rich Tuscarora silver mine, through the roof. Wrapped in his quilt and blankets, Pelling, along with his mattress, landed in the middle of the Nevada street. He was in shock and both his legs were badly broken, but he was the lucky one. Across town, another explosion had left his partner, C. W. Prinz, in a bad way. Without a mattress to cushion the force of the dynamite, Prinz had been slammed pretty hard. The doctor was certain Prinz was going to die. But somehow he, too, pulled through.

When the men were strong enough, they resettled in the safety of San Francisco, leaving a foreman to supervise the Nevada mine. Yet even before they had fully recovered, they made up their minds to bring whoever had attempted to kill them to justice. They offered a sizable reward for evidence that would lead to the arrest and conviction of “our desperate enemies.” When this failed to produce any results, they hired a San Francisco detective agency to track down the bombers. Two operatives went to Tuscarora, but after working undercover for several months, they were unable to produce a single pertinent clue. Dismissing the San Francisco firm, a frustrated and very anxious Pelling went to Denver to hire the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

It will be a ticklish operation, Superintendent James McParland told Charlie when he assigned him to the case. A stranger poking around Tuscarora is bound to attract scrutiny from some tough characters. You must take care not to give yourself away. Remember, McParland warned, there has already been an attempt to murder two men. They won’t hesitate to target a third.

Before heading to Nevada, Charlie was instructed to go to San Francisco to consult with the two partners. A ticket had been booked in his name on the Union Pacific, and a room was waiting for him at the Palace Hotel. Pelling and Prinz had thought $250 in expense money should be adequate.

Normally, Charlie would’ve been elated. A challenging case, and the chance to go carousing around Frisco at somebody else’s expense. It was the prospect of opportunities like this one that had persuaded him to become a detective. But Charlie couldn’t bring himself to find enjoyment in either new work or the anticipation of travel. Mamie’s pleurisy had progressed, and her suffering—each new cough shot through her with a sharp, swift pain—had brought him to the point of despair. He had always been resourceful, but now for the first time in his life he felt truly powerless, unable to take control of the situation.

The tissue surrounding her lungs had become so inflamed, and her breathing had become such a struggle, that the doctors in Denver had determined that only an operation would save her life. Mamie’s father begged that it be performed in Springfield, Missouri, where he was living with his new wife. Mamie thought that was a good idea, too; that way there’d be someone to care for little Viola while she recovered. Meanwhile, Charlie could get back to work. Her illness had already built up a mountain of doctors’ bills; the expense of an operation would only add to the daunting pile. You can’t afford to give up your job, she admonished her husband.

The thought of his child bride undergoing a difficult operation without his being around to comfort her left Charlie at a loss. It did not seem the way things should be done. Charlie did not want to let Mamie leave. But he also understood that Mamie’s argument made good sense. Viola needed to be looked after, and money certainly had to be earned. Still, as he put Mamie and Viola on an eastbound train, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed in himself, as if he’d betrayed some unwritten code. That same morning, raw with guilt about his decision, Charlie boarded a flyer heading west.