The Great Alone (93 page)

As for Deacon, Gabe’s bullet hadn’t shattered the elbow joint as Glory had feared, but it had chipped the bone and damaged a main trunk nerve. The latter was the cause of his excruciating pain that only regular dosages of morphine could dull. The doctor wouldn’t speculate on how much the nerve would heal.

Like thousands of others in Nome, they were homeless. Roughly fifteen thousand people left Alaska for the states that autumn, many of them penniless. But Glory, Deacon, and Matty stayed on, and Glory started rebuilding the Palace, but this time not on the beachfront.

On the fifteenth of October, two deputy marshals from California arrested Alexander Mackenzie on felony charges and transported him on the last ship leaving Nome to San Francisco for trial. Glory almost wished Gabe was alive to see his grand dream dissolve.

CHAPTER L

That winter, Glory discovered she was pregnant. Within minutes after the doctor had confirmed her suspicion, she knew exactly what she was going to do. She would have the child and raise it herself, regardless of the complications he—or she—might create in her life. She had grown up knowing her father hadn’t wanted her, that he would have gotten rid of her if the choice had been his to make. Her mother had loved her, but that had never fully compensated for the feeling of rejection she had known. Now a life was inside her, and she wasn’t going to reject it.

When Deacon learned of her decision, he insisted they be married. His wound had healed, but the damaged nerve hadn’t. He had the full use of his hand and arm, but he’d lost most of the sensation. The sharp, tingling pain stayed with him. More and more he had come to rely on morphine to help him make it through the day.

But he cared for her. Of that, Glory had no doubt. And she had grown to care very much for him. It was love—of a kind—perhaps stronger than the romantic kind she had once dreamed about. His days as a professional gambler were over. While he could still play cards and deal hands, he couldn’t handle the holdouts, slip in the cold decks, or recognize the strippers any more—because of the accident, because of her. Glory felt responsible for that, but she also felt she owed him so much more.

On February 11, 1901, the same day that Alexander Mackenzie was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison in California, Glory married Robert “Deacon” Cole. When the spring thaw came, they built a small house with gingerbread trim a few blocks from the new Palace. In her condition, Glory could do no more than supervise, and she left much of the running of the business to Deacon and Matty.

Summer didn’t bring a horde of gold seekers to the beaches of Nome. The sand had played out. More than two million dollars in gold had been taken from it. Now it was gone. And the city’s economy had to rely on the inland mines, which was no great hardship, since they were rich and productive. The first ship to arrive that summer brought the news that President McKinley had pardoned Mackenzie on the grounds that his health was “too feeble” for him to serve the remainder of his prison term. The reports also added that the supposedly ailing Mackenzie had been seen sprinting to catch the train out of Oakland. It seemed to Glory that Gabe had been right, after all, about Mackenzie’s connections in high places.

In July, Glory gave birth to a seven-pound boy. Deacon stood beside her bed, the red-faced infant lying in the cradle of his good right arm. Propped up by a half dozen pillows, Glory watched him gaze at the sleeping baby.

“Glory,” Deacon murmured, “I do believe that we’ve been dealt an ace.”

That’s what they named him—Ace Matthew Cole—the Matthew after Matty, the other person who was dearest to her. Between the three of them, they managed to spoil him outrageously, but Ace was the happy kind of baby who was easy to spoil. Glory was so content with her new family and new life that it didn’t seem to matter at all when she heard that the widow Mrs. Sarah Porter who ran a popular boardinghouse in Nome had married Justin Sinclair.

That summer the city council outlawed both gambling and prostitution, but both enterprises flourished openly. The vast majority of the townspeople were not ready to give up their vices. That same summer the streets of Nome were planked with boards three inches thick and a foot wide. Glory and Deacon were able to take Ace out in his baby carriage without getting the wheels mired in the mud.

The following year, Glory went back to work at the Palace full time and left Matty to look after Ace. The times were good those first few years after Ace was born. While the profits they made never did come close to equaling what they had earned during the wild years of the gold rush, they were enough for Glory to hire a Chinese cook, Chou Ling, to fix their meals at home; and to install a piano in the parlor and import crystal and china for their dinner table. If Deacon disappeared more frequently now into the back office at the Palace where he kept his supply of morphine, Glory tried not to notice. After all, how much pain could she expect him to tolerate without seeking some relief?

On the night of September 12, 1905, exactly five years to the day of the disastrous storm, Deacon staged a prizefight at the Palace—illegally, since prizefighting, like gambling and prostitution, was outlawed. People forked over the gate fee just the same and jammed inside to see the sixteen-round fight between the Waco Kid and Bruiser McGee. Every available inch of space was taken as the men crowded around the makeshift ring erected in the center of the Palace and bet their money on their favorite.

Once the bell rang to start the opening round, the shouting never stopped. The excitement was contagious, yet Glory didn’t find much pleasure in watching the two bare-chested men in short boxing trunks beat each other to a pulp. Admittedly, she didn’t know an uppercut from a kidney blow, but the blood-splattered spectacle of the two men was enough to convince her of the utter brutality of the sport. She was glad she’d insisted on having the Persian carpet taken up when she saw the blood-smeared floor of the ring. Actually she had more fun watching Oliver on the sidelines, punching and jabbing, bobbing and weaving, as if he was in some imaginary fight himself.

The favorite, Bruiser McGee, was knocked out in the fourteenth round, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind as they bellied up to the bar. They seemed satisfied that they’d seen a good fight, even though most of them suspected it had been fixed. Actually it had been, but Glory didn’t admit that to any of the customers as she circulated and encouraged them to drink.

Fights were a drawing card to bring in business. Tonight the crowd stayed until well after midnight, drinking and gambling and generally having a good time. Sometime after three in the morning, it started to quiet down. Glory wandered over to the bar.

“What’ll ya have?” Paddy smiled at her while continuing to polish dry the glass in his hand.

“Coffee, if there is any.” She leaned tiredly on the counter. A little smile stole over her mouth as she thought of her sandy-haired blue-eyed boy, picturing him asleep in his bed, innocent and beautiful as only a child can be.

Deacon came up and stood beside her. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” She carefully didn’t ask where he’d been the last hour or so. “It’s been a good night.”

“A very good night.” He sounded so fresh and chipper.

Glory suddenly noticed the changes in him, changes that had come about so slowly. He’d lost weight, she knew, but she hadn’t realized how thin he was until now. His skin looked pale. His eyes weren’t the same. They didn’t have that sharpness, as if they were permanently dulled by pain or drugs. She remembered the old Deacon and wanted to cry.

Suddenly, from the street came the clang of a fire bell, followed by shouts of alarm. For an instant she stood staring at the door. Those closest to it went outside to take a look.

One of them came running back in. “Fire!” he shouted. “Fire in the Stockade.” The news that the fire was so close started a stampede to the door.

“Stay here.” Deacon headed for the exit.

But Glory had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She dashed into the back office and retrieved the fur parka Matty had made her. She threw it around her shoulders and hurried to the door. She pushed her way into the crowd on the board sidewalk and wood-paved street outside, gawking at the billowing smoke and faint glow coming from behind the saloons down the street.

Glory darted onto the narrow street for a better view, but it was difficult to see anything. The two- and three-story wooden buildings, some with protruding second-story bay windows, flanked both sides of the street, creating a narrow canyon. Men gravitated toward the blaze, some to help the firemen, others simply to watch.

“Has anyone heard how bad it is?” Glory asked the man next to her, aware that the close-set cabins in the Stockade were little more than tinderboxes.

The man shook his head. “That glow don’t look good, though. It’s gettin’ brighter.”

Within seconds a man came running down the street shouting, “The Alaska Saloon’s on fire!”

The saloon was less than a block from the Palace. The fire had jumped the alleyway that separated the Stockade from the main business district of Nome. Suddenly, an explosion shot flames into the air, eerily backlighting the snaking electric wires strung on the staggered line of poles in the street.

“Holy Jeezus, a gasoline tank musta blew,” the man beside her declared.

Practically every building along the street had one. The fire was already out of control. Glory knew that if more gasoline tanks exploded it would spread even faster. The whole block might go up in flames. Maybe even the whole town. Down the street, she could see people carrying things out of the buildings that were closer to the fire, desperately trying to save what they could in case it spread, as it seemed bound to do. Glory ran back into the Palace.

Oliver, Paddy, and one of the dealers were taking down the expensive paintings from the walls. Glory sent the girls upstairs to pack their belongings.

“Where’s Deacon?” she asked.

“Mr. Cole is in the office,” Oliver told her. “Don’t worry, ma’am. This time we’ll be able to save most of the stuff.”

“I know you will.” She smiled, remembering how guilty he’d felt after the storm because so much had been lost.

Lifting her skirts, she ran to the back office. As she entered the room, Deacon glanced over his shoulder, then went back to removing the cash from the safe and stuffing it in a small satchel. She walked over to him as he put the last bag of coins inside. She had a quick glimpse of his morphine supply in the bottom of the satchel before he closed the bag.

“I want you to take this and go to the house.” Deacon pressed the satchel into her hands.

“But—” There was so much to be done here if they weren’t to lose it all.

“I know Matty will look after Ace, but I’ll feel better knowing that you’re with them and all of you are safe.”

The vibrations of another explosion, closer than the last, shook the building. The fire was spreading, and their house was only two blocks away. She suddenly understood that Deacon feared it was in jeopardy as well as the Palace.

“I’ll go.”

But watching the conflagration from the front window of their home as it lit the skies above Nome like daylight wasn’t easy for Glory. When she had arrived at the house, there hadn’t been any need to awaken anyone. They were all up—Matty, Chou Ling, and Ace, too. As a precaution, she had Matty and Chou Ling pack many of the valuables and the essential things like clothes and toiletries, as well as some sentimental irreplaceable items. She even put Ace to work packing his toys.

Once that was done, there was nothing to do but wait and watch the glow become brighter and spread over a wider area. Ace was fascinated by the fire and shrieked in delight each time he spied yellow flames leaping into the air. He wanted to go see it, too young to understand the massive destruction it was causing or why his mommy had tears in her eyes when the fire’s glow encompassed the Palace.

By the time the fire was finally put out, two blocks in the heart of town had been leveled, destroying some fifty businesses, ranging from saloons, restaurants, and hotels to grocery stores and a bowling alley, plus almost twenty cribs in the Stockade. Glory stood beside Deacon, facing the blackened area that spanned both sides of Front Street. The smell of smoke and charred ash was strong. Nothing remained but smoldering rubble, with some pieces of scorched corrugated iron here and there and a few partially burned safes. Matty stood behind them, holding on to Ace’s hand with a firm grip.

“We’ll have to rebuild again,” Glory murmured, aware that several people were already at work shoveling away the charred remains of their former businesses to clear the sites and start anew.

“No,” Deacon said.

“What?” She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

“It’s time to move on. They’re still taking gold out of these mountains, but the boom is over.” That was a gambler’s way—to skim the cream and leave, never staying in one town too long. “I’ve heard Fairbanks is growing fast.”

Just as she had trusted his judgment when he had decided they should leave Skagway for Nome, she trusted it now. If they were going to start over, it might as well be in a new place. “We packed practically everything last night,” she told him.

“I know.”

They sold the house, the lot on Front Street, and many of the items they didn’t choose to take with them, then loaded everything up and sailed to St. Michael—all five of them: Deacon, Glory, Ace, Matty, and Chou Ling. From there, they took one of the last riverboats going up the Yukon, bound for Fairbanks and points beyond.